Arlen shrugged. “Where would I go?”
“If it’s anywhere other than where Rossy tells you to go, I’ll turn you over to Mitch and Ray.”
Arlen smiled faintly but made no reply.
“Take the manacles off him,” Buck told Rossy. “Let him help with the chores. He might as well earn his keep.”
“He won’t be any trouble,” Rossy said.
“Don’t let him slicker you,” Buck cautioned. “If he tries anything shady, shoot him. He ain’t worth getting hurt over.”
Buck reined around without addressing the women and rode back to the front of the column. He grew puzzled as he passed the teams standing alone in harness, but located their drivers a few minutes later alongside Peewee’s rig. Even from several outfits away. Buck could tell there was trouble brewing. His fingers strayed to Mase’s fancy bullwhip, fastened to his belt, then he deliberately forced the hand away. This was his train. He would handle whatever problems came up in his own way.
The teamsters fell silent as Buck reined to a halt. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“It ain’t what’s going on, Buck, it’s what ain’t going on, and that’s us,” Andy LeMay said, his jaw thrust stubbornly forward.
“They got a peek at what’s in front of us,” Peewee added sheepishly, as if it might somehow be his fault the road ahead looked so ominous.
Buck eyed the rugged terrain to the north, falling away in eggshell folds. The road they would follow wound through the lowering mountains like a thin white thread dropped from above, before it disappeared into the foggy distance. A solid gray blanket of clouds hung low over them, and a light snow continued to fall. “What’s the trouble?” he asked. “Everyone here’s hauled over worse roads than this.”
“Not if we didn’t have to,” Lou Kitledge countered. “And we don’t have to do this, Buck. We can sit this storm out right here.”
“Like hell we can,” Buck replied irritably. “Without graze, the mules’ll starve down to hide and bone in a couple of days.”
“They’ll die in harness if we keep pushing them like we have been,” Andy fired back.
“Our mules are in a bad way, Buck,” Lou added. “They’re cold and footsore, and they need rest.” His voice roughened with anger. “God damn, we all do!”
Buck’s breath thinned to a cold hiss as a rumble of discontent spread through the teamsters. Was this how it began for Jock, way down on the Chihuahua Trail so many years ago? The stories Buck had heard of that incident had always insisted the weather was crackling hot, worse than anyone could remember, and the water holes had been few and mostly dry. Those that did hold some little moisture had been almost jellied with mud and slime, undrinkable to all but the most desperate.
Cold could work on a man the same way as heat. Buck knew, and they’d been pushing hard this trip. Even more so since Bonner’s raid. Bad roads and breakdowns were an expected part of freighting; murder and sabotage weren’t.
But that was the hand they’d been dealt, and Buck straightened his shoulders, his eyes flat and hard. “We’re going on, and I ain’t asking. Milo says Crowley and Luce have slowed down, and that means we stand a chance of catching up. I won’t let an opportunity like that pass.”
“Catch up!” Lou echoed incredulously. “Buck, we ain’t gonna get off this mountain in one piece the way it is.” He scooped up a handful of snow and shook it over his head. “Christ, boy, what do you think this stuff is?”
“We’ve bulled through deeper snow than this,” Buck replied.
“It’s awfully wet and heavy, though,” Peewee said with that same sheepish look on his face. “I ain’t one to give up easy, but maybe the boys are right about this. We gave it a hell of a run, but.…” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s time we quit chasing what we likely ain’t never gonna catch.”
Buck kept his expression unchanged, but he felt as if he’d been sucker punched. He hadn’t expected this from Peewee. Suddenly he felt betrayed, unsure of himself.
“I ain’t goin’!” Lou Kitledge stated firmly. “The hell with catching up!”
“I ain’t killin’ my mules to satisfy Jock Kavanaugh’s greed!” Lyle Mead shouted.
“That’s what it’d amount to, too!” Garth Lang cried in response. “I’d lose everything I owned if I lost my outfit.”
“Nobody’s going to lose their outfits!” Nate hollered, but Lyle quickly retaliated. “What would it matter to a Box K driver if he did? It ain’t their money invested in stock and harness and wagons.”
“Easy, god dammit!” Ray yelled. “You independents shut up now. This is a Box K problem, not yours.”
“The hell it ain’t,” Lyle and Garth shot back in fiery unison, and Mead added: “Ease off your own god-damn’ self, Jones, before you get stomped.”
“I’d by God like to see you try,” Ray snarled, taking a threatening step forward.
“Jesus,” Buck breathed. He drew his Colt and pointed it uncertainly skyward but didn’t pull the trigger. Almost immediately the shouting tapered off. “God-dammit!” Buck roared. “God-dammit to hell, I ain’t gonna let this happen and I ain’t gonna argue about it.” He leveled his revolver on the crew. “We’re going on, and anyone who refuses.…” His words trailed off, and he wondered again: Was this how it had happened with Jock? The men of the Chihuahua train had mutinied—no one ever denied that—but Buck had always believed that, once the fighting had been quelled, the leaders of the revolt had been given a choice—keep driving or leave the train. It was Arlen Fleck who’d given him the rest of the story, bringing down everything Buck had believed in like a trip lever on a gallows.
“They weren’t given no choice a-tall is what I heard,” Arlen had told Buck. “They was kicked out. No food, no water, no guns, and they died hard in that Mexican desert. Two of ’em from thirst, but the third one was captured by Apaches and he must’ve died hardest of all.
“Only it wasn’t Jock Kavanaugh who turned ’em loose,” Arlen had added almost as an afterthought. “It was Mase Campbell.”
Buck had grabbed the smaller man’s lapels in a blinding rage, but Arlen had lost his fear with the Bonner gang and nothing Buck threatened fazed him.
“I wasn’t there, McCready,” Fleck had said when Buck let him go. He brushed his coat with his hands, straightening the lapels. “I couldn’t say what really happened. That’s just the story I heard that night in the International after Campbell walked in drunk. It was Campbell who turned them teamsters loose without any way of protecting themselves. Killed ’em same as if he’d hung ’em. Maybe he wasn’t that poison-hearted when you knew him, but he must’ve been a hell-roaring son-of-a-bitch when he was younger.”
Buck knew the story was true. For years he’d sensed that there was more to the tale than anyone had been willing to tell him. Now he knew why. It wasn’t Jock who turned them loose, it was Mase Campbell.
And now, thirty years later, Buck was facing the same hard choice. Could he kill a man just to keep the Box K rolling? Would he? Milo had said of Mase—Was never a train Mason Campbell didn’t get through, never a cargo he lost.—but Buck knew he wasn’t cut from the same bolt of cloth. He couldn’t go that far, not for a wagonload of mining machinery. Quietly he returned the pistol to its holster.
“Buck,” Peewee said gently.
“It’s all right.” Looking at the rest of the crew, he said: “If that’s the way everyone feels.…”
“Put runners on the wagons.”
Buck twisted in his saddle, surprised to find Rossy Evans tramping forward in snow past his knees.
“Runners?” Peewee repeated thoughtfully.
“Turning these wagons into sleds’d take us two days or more,” Ray said. “It’d be a fair idea in a different situation, Roscoe, but it won’t work here.”
“We wouldn’t have to put runners on all the wagons,” Rossy insisted. “Put them on one or two and let those wagons break trail for the rest.”
A short silence followed, then Ray said: “W
ell, I’ll be damned.”
“We could put ’em on my two wagons,” Peewee volunteered. “That’d be enough to pack the snow down for the rest of the column.”
“We could double hitch if we had to,” Buck added, warming to the idea. “Switch off teams so that no one bunch has to do all the work.”
There was a growing excitement among the men as Rossy’s suggestion began to take shape. Buck felt it himself—the thrill of the chase, a contest not yet lost. He straightened in his saddle. “Ray, take a couple of men and cut down four stout pines we can use for runners. Get ’em shucked and slicked down as quick as you can, then get ’em back here. Use a couple of Rossy’s mules to drag them in.
“Peewee, pick two men to help you pull the wheels off your wagons. I want both those rigs sitting on jacks when Ray gets back, Nate, take half a dozen men and split them into two groups to look after the mules. Feed ’em what grain we’ve got left, then let ’em bed down wherever they can. Look after every man’s team tonight as if it’s your own. This ain’t a time to stand on tradition.”
“I don’t want anyone but me taking care of my mules,” Lyle Mead said sullenly.
Buck shrugged indifferently. “All right, steer clear of Lyle’s hitch but take care of the others. Lou, Andy, rustle up some firewood. The women’ll do the cooking, but you two keep a fire burning for them. Keep it hot for the rest of us, too. It’s going to get cold when the sun goes down and we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
“Yeeeehaw!” Ray yelled, startling the men standing closest to him. He yanked his hat off and slapped it against his thigh, his shiny pate gleaming in the weak afternoon light. “By damn, the ol’ Box K’s gonna make history tomorrow, boys! They’s gonna be talkin’ about this when we’re all old and toothless and the only thing we’re skinnin’ is rockin’ chairs.”
Several of the men whooped loudly. Even Big Kona had a large grin plastered across his normally stoic face. Hardly able to believe the sudden turn of events, Buck shouted: “Let’s go! We’re running out of daylight, and I want those runners in place before the sun sets.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was a couple of hours after dark before they finished fitting the last adz-shaped trunk into place, but the delay wasn’t a concern for Buck. It was enough that, for the first time since leaving Corinne, the crew was working together as a real team.
They ate in shifts around a single, large fire rather than at separate messes, and slept that way, too, wrapping up in their bedrolls in the back of whatever wagon had room for them. It was bitterly cold and no one got much rest, but they managed the best they could and not a man or woman complained.
Only Buck shunned his blankets that night, pushing himself relentlessly as the hours slid past. No one mentioned Thad Collins, but Buck knew Dulce and Gwen were wondering about him. Dulce, in particular, was starting to look concerned, and Buck wondered if she had struck up a friendship with the bodyguard during the long trek north. He supposed it was inevitable that Dulce would be drawn to Gwen’s party, no matter what her personal feelings were toward the other woman. Dulce’s world had been centered at the rear of the train, the mud wagon its nucleus; Buck’s had been up front, a gap measured in more than just mules and wagons.
The snow stopped falling shortly after sundown, and in the west and northwest the clouds began to break apart. Stars appeared in the crevices, and the moon’s waxen light bathed the far-off hills. More than twenty inches of fresh powder had fallen that day, but that wasn’t going to be enough to stop them. Not with runners on the two lead wagons to pack down the worst of it.
It was after midnight when Peewee rose from his blankets to find Buck squatting on his heels beside the fire, a cup of cold coffee in his hand. “You gonna try to get some sleep tonight?” Peewee asked.
Staring into the lowering flames. Buck said: “You knew about Mase all along, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“That he was the one who turned out those men in Mexico.” Peewee sighed. “Who told you?”
“Arlen Fleck.”
“Fleck? What’s he know about it?”
“He didn’t have anything to gain by lying,” Buck pointed out.
“Aw, hell, nobody wanted to lie, Buck, but you just wouldn’t listen. Not the first little bit. Someone spoke ill of Mase and you’d jump in with both fists swingin’. Besides, Mase changed after he pulled you outta that Sioux camp. Taking you under his wing kinda mellowed him. He was a better man for it, too, you ask me.”
“Fleck said he was a hell-roaring son-of-a-bitch.”
“Well, he was that when he was younger.” Peewee chuckled in memory. “There won’t ever be another like him, that’s sure.”
“Sally Hayes said he was rough with women, that he liked to.…” Buck let the rest of what he was going to say die.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too,” Peewee said, lowering his eyes.
“I didn’t believe her when she told me. I never believed any of the bad things I heard about Mase over the years. Now I wonder how the hell I could’ve been so blind.”
“He took you in when you was a runt. Buck, and treated you good, too. I’d say that entitles you to a little blindness.”
Buck was silent, thinking. Peewee’s words seemed honest enough, but they didn’t put Mase back up on the pedestal that truth had toppled him from. Maybe nothing ever would. Mase had been a cold-blooded killer at one time in his life, and even at his death, among women at least, he’d been a brute of the worst sort. Buck couldn’t respect any man who would beat a woman, yet how could he turn his back on what Mase had meant to him before he died? The man who had saved his life, who had cared for him as staunchly as any working man ever could? How could he ever meld two such dissimilar personalities into a single, congruent human being?
Slowly Buck tipped his coffee over the flames, raising a cloud of steam that feathered up into the night. “I’m not sure what I think of Mase any more,” he admitted. “It’s like a part of him was a stranger I never met, yet I worked with him for most of my life.”
“Mase was Mase,” Peewee said kindly, “and Buck McCready is Buck McCready. You might’ve partnered with the man for a good many years, but that don’t mean you’ve got any business knowin’ everything there was to know about him. In my opinion, it speaks highly of Mase that he didn’t tell you everything, you being just a tadpole when the two of you hooked up. Far as what others say, that don’t matter, not as long as you remember the good things he done in his life … like goin’ after a scared little kid he didn’t even know who’d got hisself captured by the Sioux.”
Peewee’s tone softened. “I reckon it’ll take some time for you to sort it all out, but I ain’t sure that’s a bad thing. Leastways you don’t have to do it tonight. Stew on it for a spell. It’ll settle into harness soon enough.”
Buck smiled. “I reckon that’s good advice.”
“Sure it is. Why don’t you go burrow into your blankets and catch some shut-eye? Sun’s gonna be up before you know it.”
“We’re not going to wait for sunup.”
Peewee eyed him suspiciously. “Why not?”
“Because we’re going to pull out now.”
“Now! Shit, Buck, the men ain’t had much sleep and the mules ain’t, either. That’s gonna rankle some of the boys again.… Andy and Lyle, for sure.”
Buck looked to where the women were sleeping nearby. Milo was stretched out near them, encased in a heavy buffalo-hide coat and gloves of the same bulky skin, his blankets pulled tightly around him, a wool scarf tied under his chin to protect his ears. He’d come in at dusk looking near death but bringing the news that C&L was stopped less than thirty miles ahead, still in the snow and, as far as he could tell, still unaware that the Box K was closing in on them from the rear.
“I reckon Andy and Lyle will have to get over it,” Buck told Peewee. “We’re pulling out. Go call levee on the men, then help ’em bring in the mules. I want the outfit rolling insid
e the hour.”
Peewee stared morosely into the fire for another moment, then shook his head and with a quick, harsh bark of laughter, said: “Well, hell, if C and L’s that close, let’s go get the bastards.”
Buck called an hour’s halt at sunup to rest the stock and bring up Ray’s mules to hitch to Peewee’s wagons, sending Peewee’s team to the rear of the column to pull Ray’s outfit. They continued that way the rest of the day, switching teams regularly and taking more breaks than Buck would have preferred, but still making good time. By nightfall, they’d reached the spot where C&L had waited out the storm. Buck’s excitement grew large when he spotted the trail of the C&L outfit in the snow. Not only had the Box K gained significantly on them, but now it was C&L that was breaking trail and wearing out their stock.
“Let’s get those runners off,” Buck told the men that night. “We’ll put ’em in Nate’s wagon in case we need them again.” He glanced at Milo. “Take Thad Collins’s bay and ride after
Crowley and Luce. I want to know how far ahead they are, and your molly’s nearly wore out.”
Milo nodded dully. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, his lips and nose chapped, his face slimmed down to the point of gauntness, but he headed for the remuda without protest. He’d gone only a few steps when he stopped and turned with a puzzled expression. “Where the hell is Collins, anyway?”
Buck glanced at the rest of the crew and knew the cat was out of the bag. “Thad’s dead,” he replied.
There was a murmur of surprise from the men and a quick gasp from Dulce before she hurried away. Gwen remained beside the fire, her face ashen.
“Naw,” Peewee said in disbelief.
“What happened?” Charlie Bigelow asked, looking like a man who’d just walked into a wall he hadn’t seen.
Buck told them what he knew, including Rossy’s and Arlen’s participation in the cover-up. “Whoever cut the straps on Peewee’s load at Hampton’s Crossing, then tampered with his brakes coming over the Malads, is still with us.” Buck’s eyes shifted deliberately from man to man, but, if Thad’s killer was among them, he didn’t give himself away.
The Long Hitch Page 26
