Hell's Jaw Pass

by Max O'Hara

  Stockburn eased the tension in his trigger finger. He lowered the Yellowboy’s barrel slightly, scowling, deeply puzzled. “Lordy be,” he said. “Don’t tell me—Romeo and . . . Juliet?”

  Neither one seemed to know what to say. They looked at each other in stunned silence. Lori wrung her hands together in front of her belly.

  Stockburn walked around to the front of the stoop, mounted the single step, and leaned his right shoulder against a splintering support post that wasn’t doing a very good job of holding the awning up anymore. The spindly roof sagged precariously to one side, threatening to fall to the ground.

  The pair on the stoop had followed the detective with their gazes and now turned to face him. The light from the window to their left washed over them, covering them in fragmented light and shadows.

  They looked as guilty as a pair of acolytes having been caught sampling the communion wine.

  “Now I see why your family wasn’t so happy to see you,” Wolf said, lowering the Winchester’s hammer, then lowering the rifle itself, letting it hang down against his right leg. “They aimed to make sure this forbidden love affair did not continue.”

  Again, Lori and Daniel shared an incredulous glance.

  Turning to Stockburn, Lori said, “The problem is . . .”

  “We love each other, Stockburn,” Daniel finished for her. “I didn’t realize it was mutual anymore.” He turned to Lori. “When you didn’t answer my letters, I thought they’d turned you against me.”

  To Stockburn, Lori said, “My mother—and maybe my father, too, but probably only my mother, the evil witch that she is—must have had the postmaster in Wild Horse intercept any correspondence between Daniel and me. Tonight, I went through a trunk in my mother’s closet, and found them.”

  She patted the pocket of the coat she wore. “My parents insisted on sending me away to school and arranging for me to work for an attorney in Poughkeepsie once I’d graduated, as a law assistant, which would have been at the end of this year.”

  “They were bound and determined to keep you apart for good,” Wolf observed.

  “Exactly,” Lori said. “They hoped that I’d find a life in the East . . . as well as a husband—probably one of the attorneys I would work for.” She shook her head slowly, obstinately. “They just didn’t see that it couldn’t be. How could I start another life without Daniel, without . . . ?”

  Lori glanced demurely up at her lover.

  He cleared his throat, drew a breath, looked at Stockburn gravely. “We had a baby together.”

  “Buster?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I noticed a family resemblance. And Grace didn’t seem too natural as a mother.”

  “Buster’s ours,” Lori said. “My parents were going to send him to an orphanage in Cheyenne, but the Stolebergs took him instead. They agreed to raise him . . . as long as I, their blood enemy’s daughter, was not involved.”

  Daniel leaned against the cabin wall, near the window, and hooked his thumb in the pocket of his black denims. He wore a blanket coat and a low-crowned Stetson with a curled brim. “I think my pa sort of saw it as getting back the son Lori’s father took from him when he hanged Sandy all those years ago.”

  Stockburn drew a breath. He was having trouble comprehending it all—all the misery, the heartbreak. The bittersweet love of two young people caught in a whipsaw between their families who were going at it like two wildcats locked in the same privy.

  He removed his hat, scrubbed a hand down his face, then set his hat back on his head and asked, “How in blazes did you two meet?”

  “In church,” they both said at the same time, chuckling.

  “Huh?”

  Lori and Daniel shared a smile. “It was just a few months after my accident,” Daniel said. “I was in a bad way. Lori saw it and wanted to help.”

  “You see, Wolf,” Lori said, “on Sundays our families once called a truce to attend services at the Wrath of Jehovah Lutheran Church on the Big Sandy River, established equal distance between our two ranches, on open range. Miners, prospectors, small ranchers, and the Stolebergs and McCraes as well as several pious hands from both outfits attended every Sunday.”

  “Everyone associated with either ranch sat on separate sides of the aisle,” Daniel said.

  “You two obviously, uh . . . mingled,” Wolf said with a smile.

  “In secret,” Daniel said. “Usually after church and during picnics. We’d steal away together, take a short walk along the river. We were like-minded. Whoever would have thought a McCrae and a Stoleberg would think alike? We both liked to read . . .”

  “And write.” Lori gave Daniel a playful nudge. “We used to write stories for each other and exchange them after church. In those stories, we said what we didn’t have time to say to each other on those stolen moments on Sunday.”

  “Some Sundays, when it didn’t seem safe, we didn’t try to get together, no matter how bad we wanted to and had looked forward to it,” Daniel said. “We didn’t take any chances. The closer we grew, the more careful we got. We knew it would all be over if anyone from either family grew savvy to our secret.”

  “Finally, we skipped our Sunday meetings altogether and started meeting out on the range somewhere, or . . . well,” Lori said, throwing up her hands and glancing at the cabin, “here. It was here that Daniel confessed his love for me . . . and I confessed mine for him.”

  Stockburn whistled his surprise and shook his head. He studied them both and said, “How did you arrange your meetings without either family finding out? Or . . . did they?” he added darkly, since both families obviously now knew.

  “We found people we trusted . . . mostly, outside of either family,” Daniel said, “to deliver notes. I had a friend in the bunkhouse at Tin Cup I swore to secrecy, and he knew . . . knows . . . a young man whose family cuts hay for us and sometimes wood for both the Tin Cup and the Triangle. They usually found a way to get my notes to Lori.”

  “I used a similar delivery system,” Lori said. “But we also had our tree.” She smiled at Daniel. “Our own special tree. Our ‘love tree,’ we called it.”

  Daniel flushed and chuckled. “A big cottonwood between the two ranches. There’s a hollow in it. We’d leave notes for each other there and check the tree regularly.”

  “Until we were found out,” Lori said. “My getting careless. . . and pregnant . . . managed to be the nail in our coffin. I thought our fathers would kill us both.”

  “It came close a time or two,” Daniel said with grave sincerity.

  And if my father didn’t kill me, I was sure my mother would. It’s not that she hates the Stolebergs so much, it was the defiance and the impropriety of what we did. She saw it as a betrayal. She’s a good Scot, my mother, and to her, betrayal is the eighth deadly sin.”

  Stockburn shook his head again. He was a tough man, not usually susceptible to sentiment. The story of these two young folks’ obvious burning love for each other—a love that had produced a child in one of the most impossible situations he could imagine outside of slavery—had tied a knot in his throat.

  He swallowed it down, drew a deep breath. “So . . . what now?”

  Lori turned to Daniel and took his hand in both of hers. “We’re going away together. The two of us. A long, long way. Daniel, me, and our child. Forever.”

  Daniel’s face acquired a pained expression.

  “Daniel, what is it?” Lori said. “Now you know about my letters. About my mother intercepting them . . .”

  “Yes, I understand that, Lori. It’s just that . . . well . . .”

  “Well, what?”

  “Lori, we . . .” Again, Daniel let his voice trail off. This time it wasn’t because he couldn’t find the words but because the thunder of galloping horses cut through the night’s intimate silence.

  Stockburn heard it, too. A good half-dozen riders, at least.

  Coming fast.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Who do you suppos
e that is?” Daniel said, staring down the dark canyon.

  The hooves thudded softly, sounding a good distance away. As they grew louder, it was obvious the riders were headed in this direction.

  “They’re coming from the direction of the Triangle,” Wolf said.

  Tightly but urgently, Lori said, “My mother probably checked my room and found me gone!”

  “She doesn’t know about the line shack, does she?” Daniel asked her.

  “Yes. At least, my father does. He guessed that this was where you and I probably met. Where . . . Buster was conceived. He told me he was going to burn it down. Obviously, he didn’t, but . . .”

  “He knows where it is,” Stockburn said. “And he’s guessing he’ll find you here.”

  Daniel drew the revolver from the holster on his hip and stepped stiffly up to the edge of the stoop. “I’ve had enough of this cat and mouse game.” Holding the gun straight down against his side, he clicked the hammer back.

  “Put it away,” Wolf said. “Don’t be a fool, kid. Get on your horse and hightail it back to Tin Cup. I’ll stay here with Lori and run interference for you.”

  Lori turned sharply to Stockburn. “I’m not going back there, Wolf!” Turning to her lover, she said, “Ride home, Daniel. Hurry. Wolf’s right—it would be suicide to stand against them.”

  Daniel stood staring stubbornly in the direction of the loudening hoof thuds. It sounded like the riders had entered the side canyon in which the line shack lay. “I may be a one-armed gimp, but I can hold my own in a lead swap.”

  “Daniel!” Lori said, sobbing, grabbing his wrist. “Please! I won’t watch you die! Don’t make me do that if you still love me even a little! Buster needs a father, and I need a husband!”

  Daniel turned toward her. “Yeah, well, I haven’t been Buster’s father since you left. I couldn’t. He only reminded me of you. Carlton and Grace have been raising him.”

  “We’ll be together soon, Daniel,” she said, squeezing his wrist with both of her hands, leaning toward him, pleading, tears streaming down her cheeks. “But for now, go!”

  Daniel stared toward the approaching riders. Wolf looked that way, as well. The riders were close. Too damn close. Wolf could feel the reverberations of the galloping mounts in the ground beneath his boots.

  “All right!” Daniel kissed Lori then turned to Stockburn. “Take her, will you? After tonight, I’m afraid what . . .”

  He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to. Both Stockburn and Lori knew exactly what he was worried about. Stockburn had seen how Lori’s family had treated her only the day before. Still, he had no business involving himself in the rift between these two families.

  At the moment, however, he didn’t see as how he had much choice in the matter.

  “Please, Wolf,” Lori urged, staring up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. “I won’t go back there. Not ever again!”

  Wolf took her hand. “Let’s go!” Leading her off the stoop and over to her horse, he turned to Daniel. “Head home, boy. Lori will be safe with me.”

  He swung up onto Smoke then took her hand and pulled her up behind him.

  “I love you, Daniel,” Lori said.

  Daniel had stepped into his own saddle. He stared back at Lori, feigned a smile, dipped his chin. “What a damn mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.” He snapped a look at Stockburn. “Get her out of here.”

  “You first.” Wolf reached down with his right hand and slid his Winchester from the saddle boot. Cocking it one-handed, he said, “I’m going to buy us both some time.”

  Daniel glanced once more at Lori then reined his horse away from the cabin. He crouched low and rammed his heels into the horse’s flanks. “Hee-yahh!”

  As Daniel’s Appaloosa shot up the trail in the opposite direction from the one in which the riders were coming hot and hard, Stockburn turned to Lori. “I hope you know a back door to this canyon, or our goose is cooked!”

  Lori was sobbing. In a pinched voice, she said, “Behind the shack. There’s a game trail up the canyon wall.”

  The hoof thuds of the approaching riders had risen to near thunder. Stockburn turned to see the first of the riders gallop around a bend in the canyon wall and head toward him, one throwing an arm out and shouting, “There!”

  Stockburn raised the Winchester, shouted, “It’s Stockburn! I have Lori. She’s safe. I’ll bring her home when you and the Stolebergs have agreed to end the war. Now turn around and go home!”

  He triggered three quick rounds into the dust several feet in front of the two lead riders. “Those were warning shots. The next ones won’t be!”

  Horses screamed as the riders jerked sharply back on their reins, checking the mounts down to skidding halts. The men barked at each other, cursing.

  Stockburn reined Smoke around, yelled, “Hold on tight, girl!” and rammed his boots against the mount’s ribs. The gray galloped around the side of the cabin and straight back behind it. Riding low in the saddle, feeling Lori’s arms wrapped around him, her head snugged against his back, Stockburn glanced back at the cabin.

  It was a dark box bleeding yellow light onto the ground around it from its two side windows. The back door was open, bleeding more light out through the rectangular opening.

  Wolf had been so distracted by Daniel and Lori’s story that he’d forgotten about the man in the cabin. That open door told him he’d likely cleared out.

  Wolf regretted not asking Daniel about him.

  Problems and mysteries swirling inside of the detective’s brain, he gave Smoke his head. The horse knew the terrain out here better than he did. The horse found the trail, revealed by the pearl moonlight behind a small stable and a wood pile, and climbed it fleetly.

  As the horse gained the top of the ridge, which was maybe a hundred feet high, Wolf glanced back into the canyon.

  The cabin was a small black box set in the darkness of the canyon bottom, lamplit windows and open back door flickering, showing tiny trapezoids of wan light on the ground beside or before them. Stockburn heard the McCrae men shouting angrily, their voices echoing distantly. He couldn’t see them on the other side of the cabin.

  He didn’t think they were coming after him; he didn’t hear the din of pursuing horses or men.

  He gigged the horse back away from the canyon rim, so the moonlit sky wouldn’t silhouette him against it. He turned the horse to face back toward the canyon though he could no longer see into it.

  The men’s angry voices grew quiet. Then the night, too, became very quiet.

  In the corner of his eye, Stockburn saw Lori look up at him from under his left shoulder. “I can’t hear them anymore. Can you?”

  “No.”

  He waited. He felt the warmth of Lori’s body pressed against him. The cool night air shifted against his face as the breeze switched directions.

  Small creatures rustled in the dead leaves and brush around him. The buckskin breathed heavily, a soft sawing sound, its ribs expanding and contracting, until it recovered from the fast, steep climb.

  Hooves thudded distantly. Wolf could feel Lori’s body stiffen a little behind him. But the thudding did not get louder; it got quieter.

  Finally, the distant rataplan fell away to silence.

  Stockburn stared out across the canyon, back in the direction he’d come from, following Lori. Presently, he spied movement on the canyon’s far side. The movement appeared a small silver worm climbing a black incline. That was the McCrae riders trotting their horses up a pass.

  “They’re going now,” Wolf said.

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Hold on.”

  Stockburn nudged the buckskin ahead with his heels. He followed the rim of the canyon to the west, until he was on the west side of the cabin still marked by the flickering lamplit windows below. He found another game trail and eased the horse down off the rim and onto the wooded slope declining toward the canyon floor.

  Lori didn’t say anything. She rode with her a
rms around his waist, her head canted forward resting against his back.

  Deep in thought, most likely. Tonight, everything had changed. She’d come to a watershed. Now she was wondering what was going to become of her, Daniel, and her child. He sensed the fear in her. But also the determination to live her life on her own terms, let all others go to hell.

  He found himself admiring the girl. She was as tough as she was pretty. She’d sacrificed much for love. He just hoped she hadn’t reignited the old land war. He knew Lori was hoping the same thing.

  * * *

  “Where will we go, Wolf?” Her voice was thin with anxiety. Maybe it was sinking in that she no longer had a home to go back to. Maybe she never would again. At least, not the Triangle.

  Stockburn stared up at her. “I was hoping you might have an idea.”

  She looked off, pensive. Then she turned back to him and gave a brief nod. “I do.”

  Wolf handed her the buckskin’s reins. “I’ll follow you, then.”

  * * *

  An hour after leaving the line shack, Stockburn and Lori reined up at the edge of a small meadow.

  A stream trickled beyond a thin fringe of autumn-naked trees to the right. Stockburn was a little turned around, for the unfamiliar mountains were a maze at night, but he thought the stream was the Big Sandy River south of where the rail crew had been massacred.

  Ahead, painted a ghostly pale by the angling moon, which cast as many shadows now as it did light, was a white-washed log church with a steeple poking out of the roof above the front door.

  Stockburn turned to Lori, frowning, half-smiling incredulously. “Let me guess—Wrath of Jehovah Lutheran Church.”

  Lori smiled, shrugged. “I doubt anyone will look for me here. At least, not soon.”

  She nudged her horse forward. Wolf followed suit, casting his gaze about, customarily wary about riding into an ambush. “No one lives on the premises, I take it?”

  Lori shook her head. “When it was still in operation, itinerant preachers took turns giving the sermons. Sometimes a lay minister from nearby. There’s a small living area in the back of the building, where the preachers would stay overnight.”