Vivelda nodded, and fresh tears streamed down from her eyes onto her cheeks. She grabbed the saddle horn with both hands, and Thor clucked to his horse and tapped his spurs into its flanks.
Brad waved to them as they rode off, back up the canyon, along the road that bordered the Poudre. Soon, the two were out of sight, and he let out a long breath of relief.
He led Ginger up behind the jumble of rocks and kept going until he found a small clearing that was concealed by some junipers, spruces, and several pines. He ground-tied his horse to a low sturdy young juniper. He dug into a saddlebag and grabbed a box of .30-caliber cartridges and a handful of double-ought shot shells. He pulled his rifle from its scabbard, walked around, and slipped the shotgun off his saddle horn. He walked back down the slope and climbed the backside of the rocks. He sat there on the top rock with a pine tree at his back. The rock was large enough so that he could lay the shotgun down. He leaned against the tree and jacked a cartridge into the firing chamber of the Winchester.
He looked down at the road, which was some distance away. Then he marked the place where he and Sorenson had stopped. If anyone was following them, that was where they would end up, at that spot where Vivelda had climbed up the slope and found her hiding place.
He wasn’t sure that Schneck and Wagner would follow Vivelda’s tracks, overlaid with his and Sorenson’s horseshoe impressions, but if they did come along, he was ready for them.
A gray squirrel skittered down from a tree and prowled the earth below him, searching for nuggets of food among the fallen pinecones. A chipmunk dashed across his line of vision, its nervous tail stiff and upright and twitching at every pause in its tiny journey down to the river. He heard it squeal just before it dove into a hole among the rocks along the shore.
Brad waited for what seemed a long time, but he knew was less than an hour. He was watching the clouds and knew the sun was on its descending arc. The clouds were finally thinning, and some of those he saw were ivory white and carried no hint of rain. Beyond these, he saw patches of blue sky and a snow-clad mountain peak rising like some majestic monument behind the shadowy ridges arrayed in dim phalanxes far beyond the canyon.
He stretched his legs and wiggled his toes inside his boots. He was about to get up and walk back to where Ginger was tethered when he heard the soft snort of a horse and the muffled sound of hooves striking the ground, rustling in the brush.
Brad scooted around and lay flat on the large rock. There, he could see without being seen. The tree at his back served to block his silhouette. He took off his hat and laid it next to the Greener, still in its case.
He hoped he would not need the shotgun.
Two men appeared atop horses. The one in front was studying the ground as he rode. The man behind him had his rifle resting across his lap. He held his reins with his left hand while his right hand rested on the receiver of the rifle.
Brad took the man in front to be the foreman, Jim Wagner. The man riding behind him had to be Otto Schneck.
Brad touched the pine with his boot and braced himself as he brought his rifle stock up against his cheek and nestled the butt against his shoulder.
Wagner stopped and held up a hand to Schneck.
“Stay there, while I look around,” Wagner said in a low voice. “Somethin’ ain’t right here.”
Schneck reined up and sat there, looking around him. He picked up his rifle and rested the butt on his leg while his fingers slipped inside the lever except for his thumb and index finger. His finger slid inside the trigger guard, and his thumb braced the stock.
Schneck stared up at the tower of rocks. He seemed to be staring straight at Brad.
Brad did not move and held his breath while his eyes moved in their sockets, and he stared at Wagner.
Wagner rode a few yards ahead and then walked his horse in a circle as he deciphered the maze of tracks.
Brad could almost hear what the man was thinking. He was thinking as Brad would if he were studying the tracks. Three horses, the small footprints of Vivelda, his own boot tracks. Tracks coming and going up to the pile of boulders.
Then, two horses leaving, heading for the road along the Poudre. Then, more boot tracks and one horse leaving its spoor alongside the walking man.
Wagner finished his assessment and interpretation of the tracks and looked up at the brazen cairn of rocks, like a small citadel in the forest. He studied them for several seconds.
Brad eased back the hammer of his rifle while holding the trigger and pulling it slightly so that the snick of the hammer was muffled. He cocked the rifle. There was a small sound, a slight metallic click as he brought the hammer back to full cock with his thumb.
Wagner seemed to twitch slightly at the sound, but instead of drawing his rifle from its boot or drawing his pistol, he turned his horse and rode back to where Schneck was waiting.
He said something to Schneck, but Brad could not hear it. Nor did Schneck betray the message by staring up at the rocks.
Instead, Schneck slipped out of his saddle on the right side. Wagner pulled his rifle from its scabbard and almost dove out of his saddle. He whopped his horse on the rump while Schneck took up a position behind an aspen tree. The snout of his barrel edged around the white trunk.
Wagner slapped the rump of Schneck’s horse and then jumped behind a stately pine.
Brad heard the cartridge set in the firing chamber as Wagner worked the lever of his rifle up and down.
Could they see him atop the rocks? Brad wondered.
In the sudden hush, Brad could hear his heart thump in measured beats. He took in a breath and held it, his finger on the rifle trigger.
Seconds of pure silence passed by, and the last white clouds floated past. Sunlight streamed down onto the river and painted its waters golden and crimson.
The first shot shattered the silence. White smoke billowed from Wagner’s rifle, and the air danced with motes of flame. The bullet whined a keening song as it sped straight toward the rock where Brad lay flat as a lizard hiding from a flying hawk.
The crack of the rifle echoed up and down the canyon.
The sound seemed to last an eternity, like the distant sound of an ocean in a seashell.
TWENTY-NINE
Brad’s hat took flight and sailed off like a thrown discus into the trees behind him. The bullet grazed the rock as it caught the brim, spewing a small shower of sparks as it caromed into the pine behind Brad with a resounding smack and splintered pine bark and wood pulp until it came to a stop in the shape of a leaden mushroom.
He had no clear shot at either man, but Brad knew he had to keep them pinned down or either one might shoot him off the rock. He fired a round at Schneck and saw the bullet rip off a chunk of tree bark just above the cattleman’s head. He swung his rifle to bear on Wagner, levered another cartridge into the firing chamber, and squeezed off a shot. The bullet thunked into the tree concealing Wagner, and Brad saw him pull the exposed part of his body to full concealment by standing sideways.
He scooted backward, sliding his boot off the tree behind the rock as both men fired at him. He saw the flame and heard the bullets smack into the rock, then ricochet off at an angle with a high-pitched whine. The two men kept firing at him so fast that he had to hold his head down and shove himself backward until his boots touched soft ground on the slope.
Brad fired off another round that he knew was too high, but he heard it strike the tree where Schneck stood.
Both Schneck and Wagner kept firing their rifles, levering so fast that their aim was poor. Their bullets struck the rock, showering Brad with stinging sparks and chipping large chunks of rock away as they sailed off into the timber like whirring hornets. They kept firing until their rifles were empty, and Brad heard them as they jammed fresh cartridges into their magazines.
He used the delay to back down even farther behind the pile of rocks until he was on solid ground. He worked his way around the rock pile, keeping his head down, until he had a clear view of bot
h trees and flashes of arms and legs. He fired off two quick shots from his rifle, one at each tree, and heard Wagner curse as his face or arm was stung by flying bark.
Brad jacked another cartridge into the firing chamber of his Winchester but did not shoot. Instead he hugged the ground and listened to bullets scream over his head or chip away at the rocks. The two men kept firing, and bullets whistled over Brad’s head like angry bees.
The firing stopped, and Brad heard Wagner call out to Schneck.
“I’m out of bullets, Otto. How about you?”
“About two or three shots left,” Schneck growled.
Brad snaked the barrel of his rifle forward and squeezed off a shot at Wagner’s tree. He quickly worked the lever and seated another bullet.
Schneck fired two more shots that sizzled over Brad’s head with a whirring sound. He heard the bullets plow into the ground far behind him.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Otto,” Wagner gruffed. “I’m plumb empty.”
“Me, too,” Schneck said.
A second later, both men darted from behind their trees and dashed to their horses a few yards away.
“Where to?” Wagner said as he climbed into the saddle and ducked low over the horn.
“LaPorte,” Schneck snapped back. “We can buy ammunition there.”
Schneck hauled himself into his saddle, and the two men wheeled their horses and scrambled toward the road.
Brad shot once more at the fleeing men, but he didn’t have a clear shot. Too many aspens between him and the two riders. His bullet smacked into a tree, and then the two men galloped down the road at full speed.
The hoofbeats got softer and softer until they faded like audience whispers when the first curtain opens. The silence welled up around Brad as he strained to hear anything else. He waited there for several moments to see if they might return. Finally, he stood up. He brushed the loose dirt from his buckskins, then walked around the tree to retrieve his hat. He picked it up and examined it. There was a small ragged hole near the edge of the brim. He put the hat back on his head and walked to the place where he had tied up Ginger. The horse pawed the ground with its right front hoof and nickered softly. Brad stuck the rifle in its boot and led the horse back down to the rocks. He stretched to reach the shotgun, grabbed its looped strap, and slung it over his saddle horn. He walked down to the flat, climbed into the saddle, then turned the horse down the road in pursuit of Schneck and Wagner.
He knew where they were going, and he knew it would be a long ride. He did not rule out the possibility that the two men might be waiting in ambush for him somewhere along the way. They might have been out of rifle cartridges, but they still had their pistols and he had seen cartridges on their gun belts.
So Brad rode with caution, his senses alert, in the glowing sunlight. The clouds were still drifting off to the east, and he expected there would be rain that evening.
He rode into the tiny settlement of LaPorte at the confluence of the Poudre and the South Platte just at dusk. The brilliant sunset was a flaming glow off to the west, streaming golden rays into a blue sky devoid of clouds. The darkness came swiftly, and the mercantile store was just closing. The merchant was locking the door when Brad rode up to the hitch rail.
The man turned the key in the lock and turned to face Brad. He stuck the key in his pocket and shifted the satchel he carried in one hand to the other.
“Did you see two men ride through here?” Brad asked. “I think they wanted to buy rifle ammunition.”
“Yep,” the man said. “Them two came into the store wan-tin’ to buy Winchester ca’tridges. I told them I was plumb out. Ain’t huntin’ season, and I ain’t reordered what I sold last fall. They was both plumb put out about it.”
“Did they say where they were headed?”
“Nope, not exactly.” The man walked down the steps and stood looking up at Brad. “But they wanted to know where they could buy some of them ca’tridges and I told them they might have to go to Fort Collins or Denver.”
“Why Denver?” Brad asked.
“ ’Cause they ain’t but one or two stores in Fort Collins that might have a box or two of Winchester ca’tridges and they’d likely be closed by the time they got there.”
“Where in Denver?” Brad asked.
“You sure are nosy, mister,” the man said. “But I told them they might go to Larimer Street. You can buy pretty much anything on Larimer at any time of day or night.”
“Thanks,” Brad said and turned Ginger away from the rail as if to ride out.
“Somethin’ else you might want to know, feller,” the man said. “Seein’ how nosy you be.”
“Those two men are criminals and I’m a private detective.”
“Well, then, that explains it,” the man said.
“So, what else can you tell me?”
“Whilst them two was in the store, another feller come in all covered with dust and sweatin’ like a plow horse, just a-jabberin’ away like a dadgummed magpie.”
“Who was he? What was he gabbing about?” Brad asked.
“Well, sir, I think he was trail boss of a herd of cattle. And one of them what come in might have been the owner of them cattle ’cause the trail boss feller said the herd he was drivin’ down from Cheyenne had stampeded a few miles north of here and run right on past LaPorte. He said they just kept a-runnin’ and they were tryin’ to get ’em all herded up again.”
“Did he say where the herd was?”
“Yep, sure did. He had rode on back where they had most of ’em bunched up. I know the place. It’s real spooky, you ask me.”
“What’s the place?”
“West of Denver they’s a jumble of great big old rocks that are as red as that sunset yonder. The cattle run in there and they’re havin’ one hell of a time getting ’em out.”
“So, what did the man you think was the owner say?”
“I think his name was Shank, or somethin’ like that. He called the other man with him ‘Jim’ and he says to Jim that they better get on down there to them red rocks and help get that herd collected and drive them up to Poudre Canyon.”
“So, then, the three of them rode out after that, I reckon,” Brad said.
“Sure did. I sold them some bear claws and some elk jerky, and they moseyed on acrost the bridge and headed down toward Denver.”
“Thanks, mister,” Brad said. “You’ve been a big help.”
“I ought to charge hard coin for such good information,” the man said, “but this evenin’ it’s on the house.”
Brad touched a finger to the brim of his hat and turned Ginger.
“Lots of luck, stranger,” the man called after Brad. “I hope you got you a slicker ’cause it’s goin’ to rain like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock down Denver way.”
Brad raised a hand and waved without looking back.
To the south and east, after he crossed the wooden bridge over the South Platte, he saw the lumbering leviathans of dark black thunder clouds. Below them, hanging like shrouds, were streaks of black that indicated it was already raining. And he would ride into it in a couple of hours. There was no wind, and the storm was stalled. He could not yet hear the thunder, but he saw silver streaks of lightning forking jagged latticework in the swollen hearts of the storm clouds.
He could barely read the tracks on the road, but just before dark, he noted the tracks of three horses heading south, and there was no wind to blow them away. He stopped after an hour, when he began to hear the rumble of thunder. He broke out his slicker and slipped it on, remounted, and patted Ginger softly on the neck.
“You’ll wish you had blinders on before this is over,” he said to the horse. Ginger bobbed his head and responded to the gentle poke of Brad’s spur in his left flank.
The road stretched out before Brad, empty, and disappeared in the darkness that crawled across the land like a giant shadow, engulfing the land in a sea of blackness.
THIRTY
Chester Loo
mis sagged in the saddle, red-eyed from lack of sleep, five days of beard stubble on his suntanned chin, his clothing soggy from sweat. Beside him rode Jim Wagner and Otto Schneck. They all wore yellow slickers as they headed toward the massive thunderstorm that was hurling down rain along the foothills, jabbing huge lances of lightning into the ground.
“The herd is strung out for a good twenty miles or so, Otto,” Chet said, his voice wavering up and down from the jogging of his equally weary horse, a saddle-sore sorrel cutting horse with clipped mane and tail. “We ought to be seein’ some of ’em any minute now.”
“It’s a good thing you got across the Platte first before the cows stampeded,” Wagner said.
“That’s about the only thing Chet did right,” Schneck snarled. “How in hell did you manage to stampede three thousand head of cattle?”
“Them cows was spooked the whole way down here,” Loomis said. “Like they was just waitin’ for that first crack of thunder.”
“You mean that’s what got ’em to runnin’?” Wagner said.
“Yeah, some of them black clouds broke away, and it was like watchin’ a big old monster rise up outen the mountains and come snarlin’ down on top of us,” Loomis said. “Hell, it moved fast as the D and RG packin’ freight cars on a downhill run. And then, there was that damned twister.”
“Twister?” Schneck rasped.
“Twister or big old dust devil, I don’t know what,” Loomis said. “Whilst we was a-tryin’ to turn the herd up front what had stampeded, a twister come a-boilin’ up out of nowhere and played hob with the main body of the herd and there was cows bawlin’ and runnin’ like hell.”
“And, you couldn’t stop ’em?” Wagner said, in disbelief.
“Like a damned river, they was,” Loomis said. “Thousands of cows a-bawlin’, scared half to death, just runnin’ like the devil was a-chasin ’em. They knocked down two of my outriders what was flankin’ ’em and just kept on a-runnin’ like their tails was on fire.”
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