With that Isaac pushed his horse into a run. For another two hours they rode north. The big man was sweating profusely when he finally drew rein where Durant’s tracks led into the river at a narrow section.
Luke said, “Went across here, Pa.”
“I can see that, boy. My eyes have been blessed by the Lord to see what they must. Durant is a capable man, but no more so than any of us. The blood of Isaac Madie is in your veins, and don’t ever forget it. Mark and Luke will go first.”
The two sons looked anxiously at the swift run of the river, then glanced at each other and gulped. But under the scathing look of Isaac they put their horses into the river. The water swirled about them, unseating Mark before he reached midstream. On the river bank, Isaac watched and cursed Satan under his breath as John sweated and went white. John knew he could not disobey his father, and he was certain that he would soon be dead. His heart fluttered as Isaac turned to him and said:
“In with me, boy, and keep high and to my right. Give me due warnin’ if there is any debris likely to rip my horse open.”
Isaac sent the stallion into the river and John entered the stream some twenty feet higher. The river soon pushed John’s weary-legged horse down onto the old man’s. Isaac swung wildly at his son. Ahead, Mark and Luke had reached the opposite bank, and now they squatted on the ground, watching Isaac and John cross.
Isaac, holding his Bible high in one hand, pushed John’s weight off him with the other. But the river kept the youth’s mare planted firmly against the old man’s stallion. Isaac knew if his horse went under, he would go down with him. He whipped his huge frame about and was about to deal his son a lusty blow for survival, when his horse floundered on the river bottom, found footing and then lunged forward. John was swept downstream, his horse floating rather than swimming. John dropped off its back and struck out for the bank fifty feet below Mark and Luke, who made no attempt to come to his aid.
The boy’s eyes were wide with fright, and all his strength gone when he finally was tumbled onto the bank, to lie there, gasping for breath. His horse came out of the river another twenty feet down.
When John could finally lift his head, his father stood tall before him, his Bible clasped to his huge chest. Mark and Luke, holding the three horses, were up on the edge of the bank. Isaac reached down, plucked his son from the mud and heaved him up the slope of the bank. Letting out terrified grunts, John crawled, slid and gouged his way to firm ground. Isaac came up behind him, pulled him to his knees and then, pushing Mark and Luke down onto their knees, he stood and looked at the starry sky above.
Isaac gave thanks for salvation with the river water running down his legs. His three sons bowed their heads, but once Mark and Luke looked at each other, and grim understanding of something passed between them.
Five – Nothing Meek
Blake Durant had crossed the river and let Sundown rest for ten minutes before he swung into the saddle again. He looked back across the river to the other bank to see if he was being followed, but the moonlight-soaked prairie was empty. Blake touched heels to Sundown’s ribs and the horse took a mighty lunge upwards. Then the black’s right leg buckled in a pothole and his shoulder went down. Blake, not yet fully settled, was thrown forward and out of the saddle. His head struck rock. Through a dark haze he saw Sundown struggling to his feet, then blackness claimed him.
Sundown’s cold lips were nuzzling him and the sounds of hoof beats matched the throbbing in his head as Blake Durant pushed himself off the wet, rank-smelling ground. He knelt, bowed over, as the wind whipped about him and Sundown nickered. Blake lifted a hand to his head and a heavy drive of pain lanced into his brain.
“When your head is clear, Durant, we’ll talk.”
Blake stirred himself to full alertness and looked up. John, Mark and Luke were standing beside their horses. Isaac Madie was seated on a deadfall, his Bible on his lap, his white shirt stained with muddy water, his wet clothes clinging to his big frame. His face was expressionless except for a glint of suspicion in his black eyes.
Blake lifted himself erect, went to Sundown and took his canteen from the pommel. He uncorked it, drank, then tipped water over his head. His fingers gingerly felt along his scalp until he found the gash, about an inch long and not very deep. He returned the canteen to the saddle, picked up his hat and palmed the mud off it. Only then did he return his attention to Isaac Madie.
“You might have helped me, done something for me, Madie,” he said.
“Might have, and I thought about it, Durant. I also thought about the help you gave me once. But when the devil gets his hooks into a man, he changes. He ain’t ever the same, is forever damned.”
“Keep that for your boys,” Blake said wearily.
Isaac shrugged his huge shoulders. “A man’s greed dictates the course of his life, Durant. I think you have the stench of gold in your nostrils.”
Blake snorted at him and wiped mud from his clothes. Then he walked down to the river, cleaned his face, washed and wrung out his gold bandanna and replaced it on his neck. After that he pulled Sundown down to the edge of the river and washed him down, bucketing hatfuls of water over him. Sundown, eager to be on the go, drew himself up the bank and eyed Isaac Madie and his three sons warily. Blake followed him and turned the horse so the early sun fell on the cradle of the saddle. Taking his water-proofed tobacco pouch from his pocket, Blake proceeded to make himself a cigarette. All this time Isaac Madie watched him.
Drawing in smoke, Blake said, “Now what the hell’s this all about, Madie?”
“About you lookin’ for bounty, Durant. I don’t want no lies about you bein’ worried about that sinner woman who’s gone off with a killer. There’s forty thousand dollars’ worth of gold bullion in this and I believe you have your black heart set on getting it.”
Blake grinned thinly at him. “That so, mister?”
Isaac nodded grimly and came to his feet. He kissed his Bible and put it in his coat pocket, then he swayed back and forth, his mouth set rigidly and his stare probing Blake’s eyes.
“It is so, Durant. One of my boys overhead you talking to Sheriff Lasting before you sneaked out of Glory Creek and got onto the trail of the man named Nyall.”
Blake’s eyebrows arched. “You know about him, eh?”
“As a disciple of the Lord, Durant, I have access to all kinds of information. Nyall is in fact the man my boys were huntin’, not Zeb Ragnall. So we can forget about callin’ that murderin’ swine by the name of Ragnall from now on, provided there is a ‘from now on’ for you, Durant.”
Blake drew again on the cigarette and let the smoke roll about in his mouth. His body was stiff from the time spent in the mud. And he was hungry. In addition, he was beginning to get impatient with Isaac Madie.
“Get to the point, Madie. You’re wasting my time.”
Isaac’s brows crowded his black eyes. He drew in a deep breath and eyed his sons fiercely as if daring them to interrupt. But they were content to just watch, so Isaac turned to Blake.
“We have time, Durant, and I intend to use it in the service of the Lord. Nyall robbed a Wells Fargo office with the help of my unfortunate son, Matthew. Now, Matthew was not a bad boy. Easily led perhaps, and susceptible to the lying overtures of a man spoken for by Satan. But he was a man who, deep down, loved the Lord, and under my guidance would have become an honorable man. He would have walked the country spreading the gospel as I do myself, and be proud to do it.”
Blake blew out smoke. Isaac’s eyes narrowed and went hard.
“His death will be avenged, Durant, take my word on that. I cannot let a sinner go unpunished. He will be scourged of his sins, I swear it!”
Blake pushed his hat to the back of his head and settled against Sundown. “We have to catch up with Nyall first, Madie, and all this talking is giving him more time to get away.”
“Patience is a Christian virtue, Durant, so I will not be hurried. I have had to live in a world of evil men and the Lord
knows I’ve done my best to help them mend their ways. I’ve given my life to the service of my Maker, and he has advised me what to do. The bullion my son stole and was murdered to be relieved of, is my property. I will revenge my boy’s death, then take that bullion and use it to further the Lord’s work.”
“What about Wells Fargo?” Blake asked.
Isaac Madie’s face went white. “Maggots! Sucking the life blood from poor, honest people. They sow not, neither do they reap. Parasites!” Isaac Madie, warming to the subject, stormed along the top of the bank, shouldering his sons aside and waving his Bible. “A sinister, sin-bloated, drink-crazed thievin’ bunch of misguided reprobates, cast off by the Lord and never meant to tread the path of righteousness. Scum!”
Blake shook his head at this and pulled Sundown closer. As he swung into the saddle, Isaac gave a nod and Mark and Luke drew their guns and held them on Blake Durant. Blake eyed them coldly for a moment before he leaned forward in the saddle, drawing the reins tight through his fingers.
“Madie, you’re pushing your boys into trouble they won’t be able to handle. I’m going on to find Miss Grant and get her away from a jasper who’s been feeding her lies. I don’t give a damn if you come along or not, but I’m setting my own pace. If you can keep up, well and good. Just don’t get any fool notions of delaying me in any way.”
Isaac Madie’s face darkened and his neck bulged. Mark and Luke stepped away from him, and John, picking at a sore on his wrist, looked fearfully at Durant.
“You’ll not get the Lord’s gold, Durant!” the big man cried.
“I don’t give an owl’s hoot about that bullion, Madie. But if I do happen to get my hands on it, I’ll see that Wells Fargo learns where to pick it up.”
Isaac Madie drew in a deep breath. “You dare to defy me, Durant!”
Blake gave him a thin smile. “Madie, you don’t worry me in any way, and neither do your boys. I’m pushing on. Do what you damn like, but keep the hell out of my hair!”
Blake turned Sundown away and let him walk. Looking straight ahead, he ignored the threat of the drawn guns. At the top of the slope, he swung Sundown south and let him pick up pace.
Behind him, Mark Madie said, “Pa, what’ll we do?”
Isaac scowled, then bellowed, “Get on your horses, quick! And put up them guns. You’d likely hit me or yourselves if you got to fire them.”
Isaac pushed John out of his way and scrambled onto his big white stallion. He glared after Blake Durant, muttering to himself. Mark and Luke were already in their saddles when Isaac hit the white into a run. But John, dodging away from his brothers’ horses, lost his footing again and fell on his face. Moaning, he struggled up, caught the reins of the lean range poke and dragged himself into the leather. It took him several attempts to get the poke facing the right way, then he hit it into a run and gave chase. Ahead of him, Blake Durant had settled Sundown into an easy gait and Isaac, Mark and Luke Madie were thundering their mounts in pursuit across the dry country. The dust from the hoofs rose to blind him, but nothing in the world would have made him turn away from the trail blazed by his father.
The sun was high and the wind hot and dry. Angela Grant drove the horses hard, trying to keep Zeb Ragnall in sight as he scouted ahead. The rim before her was broken by several ancient slides, and on the talus-littered slope of one of these, Ragnall had just drawn rein. Angela breathed a deep sigh of relief. Her hands, arms and shoulders ached from the drag of the reins and her skin seemed to be shriveling on her face and neck. Her clothes were stuck to her body and she had never felt so grubby in all her life.
Slowing the buckboard, Angela eased it into the shade of three gray-barked trees and drew up a few yards from Ragnall. When he turned to her, she saw that he was completely unaffected by the heat. In fact, he looked just as cool as he had that same morning, after blowing up the bridge.
“I thought you’d never stop,” she said to him and he gave her a wry smile and pointed ahead. Angela’s brow furrowed when she saw the bright glare coming off the baked expanse of unbroken flat country.
“Figured it’d be best to rest the horses here and get the cramp out of us,” he said. “You bore up real well, Angela.”
Angela felt color rise in her face. He had a disarming way of making her feel uncomfortable when he looked so intently at her.
“I feel so worn out,” she said, but without the hint of a grumble in the words. “Where exactly are we going, Zeb?”
Ragnall came off his horse and uncinched the saddle. Dropping it in the shade, he ground-hitched the horse and let it walk off in search of feed. He removed the canteen from the saddlehorn and drank, spilling cool water over his hairy chest. Standing there, braced on wide-planted feet, he looked to Angela to be as trim a man as she had ever known. His body seemed to be all muscle and sinew with none of the loose flesh she had seen on so many townsmen in Cheyenne. Now he smiled at her.
“Well, Angela, I reckon we’ve put the worst behind us. From now on it’ll get cooler and even when we get into the desert, I don’t think you’ll find it too hard travelling.”
“Desert?” she asked, troubled again.
“Small stretch. Should hit it just on sundown if we keep up the pace we been going. Don’t have to, though, if you feel yourself gettin’ tired again. I reckon we gave everybody behind us the slip.”
Angela pushed her dank hair from her face and accepted the canteen from him. The heat was like a blanket about her.
She crossed to the first of the trees, sat against the trunk and stretched out her legs. The cramp in her body began to lessen and she smiled with the relief of it.
Ragnall ambled over and sat beside her. He picked up a stick and began to scratch about in the dirt, making circles and putting his initials into them. Angela watched, feeling there was still a lot of youth in him. Then her gaze fell on the initials he kept scratching: R.N.
“What does R.N. mean?”
Ragnall dropped the stick and Angela saw a tightness stretch at his face. He erased the letters with his boot.
“The initials stand for Red Nelson,” he said. “He owned the last ranch I worked on before I took to mining.”
“Is he still a friend of yours, Zeb?” she asked, hoping to learn a little more about him. She’d always found it profitable to let men talk about themselves.
Ragnall shrugged. “Nelson was all right, I guess. As a bossman he was no worse than all the others.”
“You don’t like working for other people, do you, Zeb?”
He looked up sharply. “Who does?” he rasped.
She settled back, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “I don’t suppose any man really does, Zeb. Is that why you took up mining, to be your own boss, to go where you liked, when you liked?”
“Guess so.”
Ragnall rose, stretched his legs and walked about the shaded area lazily. Angela again had the feeling that impatience was gnawing at him, that he was eager to shift on. From time to time she saw him gazing back over the country they had come.
“Zeb, have you ever been lonely, I mean really lonely?”
He turned slowly. “Yeah, I’ve been lonely, Angela.”
“So have I. Sometimes I’ve been so lonely I could have screamed just to have somebody come up and ask me what was wrong. There have been times in my life when I believed there would never be another happy day for me.”
Ragnall came back and squatted in front of her. He reached out and took her hands. “I had it hard for five years. I had it real hard. Even now, with those hard times behind me, I can’t forget them. I’ve been so hungry I scratched the ground for salt, been so thirsty I chewed sticks and kept a pebble in my mouth for days. Some nights I’ve been so tired I couldn’t sleep with the aches in my body. I’ve been so damned hot, every part of my skin crawled, and so cold I couldn’t shift my toes or fingers.” He breathed a deep sigh. “A man don’t ever forget those times, and it’s a lie when they say it makes the good times better. Nothing makes the good
times better unless a man has money, plenty of it, to do what he likes.”
Angela ran her tongue over her dry lips. She did not know how she felt about this man who was still a stranger to her in so many ways. But she knew she did not dislike him, and she felt that one day perhaps she would have some regard for him. But never real love. She had experienced that once and been hurt by it. She would never really love anybody again.
“I got me a lot of gold, Angela. I took gold dust and traded it in for bullion. With bullion a man can buy in any territory. Everybody values gold bullion, and it holds its price no matter what. Tomorrow morning we’ll pick up that bullion and stash it in the buckboard. Then we’ll cross the border and head south. We’ll buy a place and stock it and settle down to ranching. We’re gonna have neighbors and friends callin’ by, and we’ll have some real high times. That’s what you can marry into, Angela, just as soon as you like.”
She tried to withdraw her hands but his fingers tightened their hold. Angela was surprised that his hands were so smooth.
“When did you give up hard work, Zeb?” she asked.
He frowned, glanced at his hands and smiled awkwardly. “Just as soon as I could, Angela, months ago now. Nights I used to sit and rub grease into them, wanting to put behind me every reminder of the hard times. And you can see how good that greasin’ worked. Now I got me hands as smooth as a card player’s, eh?”
Angela nodded, but a wrinkle of concern rose within her. Ragnall pulled her close suddenly and pushed her hair back from her neck. She did not move even when his lips caressed her skin. She felt his other hand sliding up her waist to stop just short of a breast. She stiffened.
Ragnall said, “I figure to have you, Angela, and I can’t see how it matters whether it’s now or later.”
Angela drew back. “No, Zeb, not like this. Not now. Not here.”
His stare settled seriously on her. “You came out this way in answer to my letters. I thought your decision had been made, that you wanted to get married, have some money, be able to look after your brother.”
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