“You stay on Lilly’s trail,” he told Two Buck. “I’m goin’ after Stoner. We still don’t know what those shots were about, and I’m afraid those two Creek policemen might be chasin’ him all over creation. I had hoped to catch up to Boot when he wasn’t on the run.”
“You be careful, John Ward,” Two Buck said in parting, then hurried off through the pines.
“You be careful yourself,” John called after him. “You don’t know what that girl might be thinkin’ right now. She might just take a shot at you.” He knew he should have told Two Buck what he had heard about Lilly’s attack on the saloon girl, but now there wasn’t time. She was running from Boot, but he didn’t know why. He hoped it was for the same reason Two Buck assumed. “If you find her, and she don’t give you any trouble, take her on back to her uncle’s place in Black Rock Creek. I’ll meet you back there. And, dammit, Two Buck, you be damn sure she wants to be rescued before you go stickin’ your neck out.”
“I will,” Two Buck called back over his shoulder, already about to disappear from sight in the thicket.
John shook his head in exasperation. I hope to hell the boy don’t end up with his heart broken, he thought. Holding his rifle in one hand, he scanned the trail ahead of him, watching for any sign of ambush. It was merely a natural precaution, since he expected to catch up to the Creek policemen before he encountered Boot Stoner. He also had it in his mind, however, that he didn’t want to get accidentally shot by the policemen. The trail led upward, to the top of one hill, and crossed over to a second, higher one. There was still no sign or sound that would indicate he was closing the distance between them.
Following the narrow game trail up the second hill, he suddenly stopped to listen. Off to his right, there was something moving in the brush. He quickly slid off his horse and knelt by the side of the path, his rifle ready to fire. Peering through the dense thicket of trees, straining to pick up some movement, there was nothing. And then he spotted it. Moving among the pines was a horse with no rider, but with a body tied across the saddle. What the hell? he thought, then immediately remembered that Jack Wildhorse had been killed. “That don’t look too good,” he muttered. To further concern him, another horse, with an empty saddle, pushed through a bramble of vines to join the first. The fact that they were running loose painted a picture that did not bode well in John’s mind.
Even more alert than before, he moved up the path on foot, leading his horse. A few dozen yards more, just past a sharp bend in the trail, he found Thomas Bluekill’s body. Kneeling beside the corpse, he first looked all around him to make sure no one was taking a bead on him. “Damn,” he swore softly when he saw the crude scalping Boot had done. “Looks like he’s turned completely wild.” He did not know Thomas Bluekill as well as he had Jack Wildhorse, but he had seen the man before. “Sorry I ain’t got time to give you a decent burial,” he said, and got to his feet. “Maybe I’ll get back this way before too long, and I’ll try to do for you then.” Having no time to collect the horses left riderless on the hillside below him, nor the inclination to bother with them, he continued up the game trail until he came to the spot where Boot had obviously ambushed the policeman.
Judging by the fresh horse droppings, the horse had stood there while Boot waited for the lawman to round the curve in the path. Looking down at his feet, John saw one spent cartridge. Back on the other side of the hills, he and Two Buck had heard two shots. Where, he wondered, was the other policeman? He decided it was possible there might be another body down the hill, probably near the spot where he saw the horses.
Lilly made her way around the south end of the line of hills, keeping in the trees and trying to disguise her trail wherever possible. She made an effort to cover her tracks out of a general fear of being followed. Had she known that Boot had arrived at her uncle’s house, and that he had tracked her from there, she might have been even more frightened. She knew in her heart that Boot was going to show up sooner or later. She feared that she was doomed to live out her life as his chattel. And she knew that she could not go back to the existence she had had with him. The thought of his evil stench upon her drove her to near panic. She would rather die than be taken by him again. The thought of death was not frightening to her at this point in her young life. Even if John Ward eventually caught Boot Stoner, her life was ruined, for who could possibly want her after Boot? The thought almost caused her to laugh at the irony, for she was convinced that Boot would kill her when he caught her this time. It was the pain she knew he would extract before killing her that sickened her. Thinking of it, she rested her hand on the pistol she carried. There were two bullets remaining in the cylinder. One she would use for protection; the other she had resolved to reserve for herself.
Coming out of the trees at last, she found herself facing a seemingly endless prairie of rolling grassland with hills that were almost treeless. She hesitated as she looked out across the exposed expanse. A person walking there could be seen for miles. Feeling suddenly exhausted, she decided to rest there for a while, in the shelter of the trees, before starting out across the prairie.
Startled, she sat up, realizing then that she had fallen asleep. Something had awakened her, some noise, or a stirring in the trees, she thought. But there was no sound now. She listened, but there was nothing but the sound of the wind in the pines. Admonishing herself for falling asleep, she got to her feet and started out across the grassy plain.
Walking as fast as she could, she set a pace that she felt she could maintain for a long period of time. One foot after the other, she walked with determination, for after covering a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, she saw the faint outline of distant hills. The sight brought a slim ray of hope. Perhaps she would find some refuge there. The thought was short-lived, however, for she suddenly heard a soft drumming of hooves far behind her. Instantly panicked, she looked around to discover a man on a horse bearing down upon her.
He had found her! Stunned, she could react only in fear, and, in fear, she started to run. Dropping everything but the pistol she clutched in her hand, she ran with frightened abandon, forcing her legs to drive for more speed. Over the low, rolling hills, through grassy ravines, she drove herself until her lungs were bursting from the exertion. The rider was rapidly and steadily gaining on her. Finally, when she feared she was at the end of her endurance, with her legs turning to heavy stones, she stumbled down a narrow ravine and fell.
“Lilly!” the man called out.
Determined to resist him, she raised the pistol and fired. The shot went wide of the mark. When she saw she had missed, she hesitated. The one remaining bullet was intended for herself. She had reached the moment of decision. Still, she hesitated as the horse drew near. It was not an easy decision. She raised the revolver to her head.
“Lilly! It’s Two Buck!”
In her state of panic, she heard the words, but she could not be certain that her mind was not playing tricks on her. Her head was swimming from fear and exhaustion, and with the sun at his back, she was not sure of the man’s identity. The thought suddenly struck her mind that it was Boot, playing his evil game upon her, and in one final act of defiance, she pulled the trigger.
Leaping from the saddle, Two Buck was horrified by the sight of the young Creek girl holding the pistol to her temple. Knowing he could not get to her in time to stop her, he was stunned moments later by the metallic click of the hammer on an empty cylinder. She had miscounted the number of bullets remaining, forgetting the extra shot she had taken to kill a rabbit on her trek from the Boston Mountains to Low Hawk.
Shattered by the failure of the pistol to fire, Lilly staggered to her feet and tried to run again. Two Buck caught her before she could take half a dozen steps. She fought against him until he pinned her arms in his embrace. “Lilly, it’s me, Two Buck,” he repeated over and over. “I’ve come to take you home.”
Finally, she was able to hear him and realize that she was not hallucinating. She stopped struggling and ga
zed into his face. “Two Buck?” she asked. “Two Buck.” This time she uttered his name in grateful relief. Suddenly, her eyelids fluttered slightly and her body went limp.
Horrified, Two Buck held the unconscious girl in his arms, afraid at first that she was dead. With no idea what he should do, he held her close to him, rocking her back and forth as if she were a baby. Holding a finger on her neck, he felt a faint heartbeat. Filled with hope again, he gently laid her on the ground, then ran to his horse to fetch a canteen. Cradling her head in his lap, he sprinkled water on her forehead. In a few minutes, she opened her eyes to stare up into his face. The face she saw was the smooth, bronzed face of the young Cherokee boy who worked for her father.
“Two Buck,” she uttered. “I thought you were dead. I saw Boot shoot you.”
Two Buck smiled, relieved. “He don’t kill me. I have to find you.”
He picked her up and carried her to his horse. As he lifted her up to sit behind the saddle, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”
“Back to your aunt,” he replied. “John Ward say to take you back there, and he’ll meet us there.”
She was at once alarmed. “I can’t go back there. Boot will look for me there. Besides, my uncle doesn’t want me there. I heard him tell Blue Woman I bring trouble.”
Two Buck stepped up in the saddle. “Boot already been there. Blue Woman don’t want you to leave. No matter, anyway. You don’t have to stay there if you don’t want to. I’ll take care of you.”
His declaration surprised her. She had no notion of Two Buck’s fondness for her. He had never given a clue during the time he worked around Wendell Stoner’s place. She had never thought to question the reason Two Buck rode with John Ward to track Boot. Now it occurred to her how unusual it was for John Ward to travel with a partner. Forgetting the specter of Boot Stoner for the moment, she considered the young man whose waist her arms now encircled, and allowed a glimpse of hope to penetrate her troubled mind. She immediately rejected it, telling herself that she had misinterpreted his remarks. She was ruined. No man would want her now, and Two Buck was merely being kind. What did he really know of her? When he had worked for Wendell Stoner, they had often exchanged pleasantries, but little more than that. For her part, she had never given Two Buck serious thought. Why would she even think it now?
Chapter 16
The farther Boot rode on the trail to Okmulgee, the angrier he became. With each mile traveled since killing the two Creek lawmen, his suspicions increased. It was getting along in the afternoon, and since leaving the hills and the end of the game trail he had followed, he had found not one track to indicate Lilly had passed this way. He thought back about Lilly’s aunt and uncle. They said she had slipped away in the middle of the night. Now that he pictured it again, Tom Talltree seemed more than a little helpful in pointing out the girl’s trail. The whole scene was becoming clear to him now. They figured he was too dumb to see it. They had sent him off toward the hills. Sure, he thought, Lilly had slipped out that way, but wasn’t it strange that she had doubled back, and he had found two lawmen on his tail? And now he had ridden half a day away from Low Hawk while she was no doubt back laughing at him with her aunt and uncle. He yanked back hard on the reins, certain at this point that they had figured to pull the wool over his eyes. “By God, they’ll all pay for this.” He promptly turned around and headed back the way he had come.
Descending the last low slope before the open grass prairie, John Ward followed the single set of hoofprints along the game trail. Then, unexpectedly, another set of prints appeared, but this second set was headed in the opposite direction, coming toward him before disappearing off to his right. An instant alarm went off in his brain, and he rolled off his horse just as a bullet snapped over his head, followed by the crack of a rifle. He had ridden into an ambush.
He reached up and pulled his Winchester from the saddle sling just as two more shots rang out. Cousin screamed out in pain when the slugs thudded into the horse’s flesh. There was no time to lead the horse to cover as Boot continued to crank shot after shot into the dying buckskin gelding. Finally Cousin gave up the fight and collapsed heavily on the path. Still Boot continued his assault upon the fallen horse, hoping to hit the man taking cover behind it.
Even in the midst of the hailstorm of lead flying above his head, John’s primary emotion was compassion for the buckskin horse. They had been a team for too many years for him not to feel grief for the loss of a friend and partner. His secondary emotion was anger, though not as much toward the murdering renegade who shot his horse as with himself, for blundering into the ambush. He had never expected Boot to turn around and meet him. He scolded himself for not being alert. It had cost him the best horse a man could have. He now directed his anger at the bushwhacker firing from the cover of a stand of oaks some fifty yards up the slope.
Flat on his belly, he crawled up behind Cousin, and raised his head just enough to watch the stand of oak trees. Detecting a slight movement of branches, he ducked moments before a fresh volley of shots erupted. As soon as it was quiet again, he quickly laid his rifle across his saddle and opened fire on the spot where he had seen movement. Cranking out shots as fast as he could, he peppered the bushes near the base of the trees.
Caught in the process of reloading, Boot had to dive for cover behind a sizable oak tree while the brush and branches around him rattled with a rain of lead. “Damn!” he bellowed, already angry over having missed his opportunity to kill the lawman. There was no way he could be sure, other than instinct, but he felt certain that the man he was shooting at was John Ward. There was no man’s scalp he wanted more.
Knowing the deputy marshal had his position pinpointed, Boot finished reloading. He fired two quick shots at the fallen horse, then scrambled away to find cover a dozen yards away. Taking a chance that Boot was retreating to a new position, John did the same, moving away from Cousin to take cover behind a dead tree farther up the hill. There was a brief lull while both men waited to size up the new situation. Boot was the first to break the silence. He rose on one knee and fired three shots before he realized that the lawman was no longer behind the carcass. It was almost a fatal mistake, for he barely got back behind a tree before lead from John’s Winchester shredded the leaves around him.
As the afternoon wore on, Boot was forced to realize that killing this particular lawman was not going to be so easy. Twice more he moved to new positions in an effort to get a better angle on John Ward. Each time, John countered to thwart the half-breed’s efforts to get a clear shot. Finally Boot had to concede that it was a standoff, and it was getting later and later in the day. His mind returned to the thought of Lilly sitting smugly back with her relatives, thinking that the law was taking care of him. She laughed at him while he was out here in the woods, wasting boxes of cartridges. The image was enough to push him to the boiling point. To hell with the damn lawman, he thought. He’s on foot now, and I ain’t gonna waste no more time on him. His mind made up, he did not leave before offering insults and threats. “Hey, John Ward!” he shouted out. “You was mighty damn lucky I didn’t kill you this time. Next time you ain’t gonna be so damn lucky. It’s a long walk back to Low Hawk. By the time you get there, the girl and her whole damn family will be dead.”
John didn’t bother to answer. He waited, listening until he heard the sound of Boot’s horse as it bolted up through the trees. Still keeping a sharp eye in case Boot was trying to trick him into coming out in the open, he moved cautiously back to his fallen horse. What Boot had said was true. It was a long walk back to Low Hawk, but there were other possibilities. If he had any luck going for him at all, the horses ridden by the Creek policemen Boot had killed might still be close to where he had seen them. By his estimate, that was probably three miles through the hills. “Best get started,” he said. He then spent a few moments trying to pull his saddle off Cousin, but the stirrup was pinned under the big horse. Must have caught on a root or something under his belly, he thought. Un
der different circumstances, he would have worked at it until he could pull the girth strap and stirrup out, but time was short. The saddle was well worn and needing some repairs, anyway. So, taking cartridge belts and his canteen, he took one last look at his late partner. “I’m sorry, Cousin. I shoulda been on the lookout for some kinda trick from that devil.” Then he headed up the game trail, still cautious and alert for another ambush.
He found the horses, all three of them, about a quarter of a mile from the hill where he had first seen them. They had wandered only until finding a stream, and were grazing upon the young grass on the banks. He counted it as a stroke of luck that he happened upon them, because there was not much daylight left in the dense forest by the time he reached them.
Speaking softly, so as not to spook them, he approached slowly. “Easy, easy now,” he repeated. All three stood watching him, none threatening to bolt. He walked up to them and collected the reins. Then he took a quick look at the late Jack Wildhorse. “Damn shame,” he muttered. “Jack was a good man.”
He hesitated for a moment, considering the prospect of taking the body and the three horses back with him. But he knew he didn’t have the time to be strapped with the extra burden. Instead, he looked the horses over to decide which one was the stoutest. There was no question. The big gray stallion bearing Jack’s body was the best of the lot. With apologies to the late captain of the Creek Lighthorse, he slid the body off the horse and pulled it over next to a dead log. Next, he pulled the saddles off the other two horses and laid them side by side over the body. “That’s about the best I can do for the time being, Jack. Maybe that’ll keep the buzzards off your face till I get back.” He considered hobbling the horses to keep them from wandering too far, but decided not to in case he didn’t make it back.
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