Something More

by Janet Dailey

  Still, she felt obligated to say, “You aren’t going to get away with this.”

  “It’s my gold,” he stated emphatically. “After all the years I spent lookin’ fer it, I earned it fair an’ square.”

  “But what good is it?” Angie argued.

  “Good?” He looked at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. “It’s gold.”

  “But what will it buy you?” she reasoned. “You can’t walk into a store, plunk a bar of gold on the counter, and buy yourself food or clothes—or even a place to sleep.”

  He grunted a non-answer, then said, “I’ll figure that out when we git t’ Canada.”

  “We?” She was startled by the pronoun, stunned that he planned to force her to accompany him that far. “I’m not going to Canada.”

  But he didn’t react to her defiant statement the way she expected. “Maybe Canada ain’t a good idea. Close as it is, they might figure we’d hightail fer its border. Mexico is a better idea. It’s warm there.”

  Mexico was even farther than Canada, Angie thought with a kind of panic. She considered making a break for it right then. But with the other horses tied behind hers, she knew she wouldn’t make it. A poor horseman or not, Saddlebags would still catch up with her.

  The finger rock jutted into the skyline directly ahead of them, the same formation that had pointed out the canyon’s location only days before. It reminded Angie of the letter and all the unanswered questions she had about her grandfather.

  “Do you know what happened to my grandfather?” she demanded. But Saddlebags gave no sign that he had heard her question as he gazed into the distance, absorbed in heavy thought. “Look, I know that somehow you got your hands on his copy of the letter or you wouldn’t have known about the eagle rock. Did he give it to you? Do you know how he died?”

  “Don’t matter how a man dies,” he growled out of a corner of his mouth. “When he’s dead, he’s dead.”

  Angie started to argue and abruptly broke it off, chilled by a thought that made her blood run cold. Had Saddlebags killed him for the letter? Was she riding beside her grandfather’s murderer? What would happen when Saddlebags decided he didn’t need her any longer as a hostage? Would he simply turn her loose? Or would he decide she needed to be eliminated? Anyone who had killed once wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.

  Angie’s desire to escape had been strong before, but it was even stronger now.

  They angled across a shallow, dry creek bed. As they climbed its long sloping bank, Angie noticed the chestnut’s uneven gait.

  “My horse is limping,” she said to Saddlebags. “I think he must have picked up a stone in his shoe.”

  Not taking her word for it, Saddlebags studied the horse’s walk for himself, then pulled up. “Looks like the left front,” he concluded. “You’d better git down an’ dig it out. An’ don’t take all day about it. We gotta’ keep movin’.”

  Without a word, Angie dismounted and lifted the chestnut’s left hoof. She saw at once that a stone wasn’t the problem. “He’s thrown a shoe.”

  “A shoe?” Saddlebags hopped off the gelding and came around to take a look.

  While Angie held the chestnut’s reins, he inspected its hoof, then straightened and froze in sudden suspicion. In a flash, he was in motion, going down the line checking the hooves of the other horses. Another shoe missing. A third one. By the time he located the fourth, Saddlebags was sputtering in anger.

  “This is McCallister’s doin’. Not that many shoes git throwed by accident. Figured on slowin’ me down with sore-footed horses, that’s what he did. That dirty, rotten . . . I oughta throttle him with my bare hands,” he ranted. “He knowed I needed these horses t’ tote that gold.”

  From the chestnut’s head, Angie watched Saddlebags stomping about, his anger growing by the minute. Suddenly it dawned on her that this was her chance to slip away while he was too preoccupied with impotently venting his wrath to notice.

  She glanced around, seeking the nearest cover and spotting a thicket of heavy brush farther up the bank of the dry creek bed. Angie ducked under the chestnut’s neck, using its bulk to shield her from his sight, took two long and cautious steps toward the brush, then broke into a crouching run toward it.

  She was a foot away from ducking behind it when she heard his discovering shout, “Hey! Come back here!”

  Spurred by his yell, Angie dashed around the brush and dove into the densest part of the thicket, branches whipping and slashing at her. On her hands and knees, she crawled forward, making enough noise to alert an army. At last she reached the wall of the bank and slipped as quietly as she could into the dry creek bed. She flattened herself against its earthen side and struggled to regulate her heavy breathing.

  “You crazy fool!” Saddlebags shouted from somewhere above her. “Snakes hole up in that brush during daylight. Yore gonna git yoreself bit.”

  Angie closed her eyes, relieved she hadn’t known that when she piled into the thicket. Opening her eyes again, she strained to catch some further sound that would more precisely pinpoint Saddlebags’s location. Nothing.

  Recognizing that the shallow bank provided dubious cover, Angie knew she had to keep moving but which way? Toward the canyon—the instant the thought occurred to her, she knew it was the right one. If Saddlebags was right and Luke was following them, then that was the direction she needed to go.

  Careful to make as little noise as possible, Angie gathered herself for the sprint across the dry wash. She raced across it, the crunching scrape of her footsteps on the gravel sounding loud in the stillness, but this time there was no responding shout from Saddlebags. She scrambled up the opposite bank and zigzagged around the brush clumps until she reached a large boulder. She slipped behind it and waited, listening, remembering too well how soundlessly Saddlebags could move, like a stalking cat, all stealth and silence. She glanced toward the canyon, searching out the next bit of cover the land offered in that direction.

  “You might as well come out.”

  Angie stiffened at the sound of Saddlebags’s voice. She could tell he was close. Very close.

  “I know yore behind that rock,” he said, and her heart sank. “I can see yore shadow.”

  What now, she wondered. Should she run for the canyon and risk being shot? Or come out and take the chance she would have another opportunity to escape later, especially if Luke caught up with them? Deciding that the latter seemed to be the wisest course, Angie started to push away from the boulder.

  “Stay where you are, Angie!” Luke’s shouted order came from somewhere to her right. “Drop the rifle, Saddlebags.”

  Without thinking, Angie swung around to locate him. There he stood on a low knoll not twenty yards away, a rifle tucked into the crook of his shoulder as he sighted down its barrel, taking aim on the old man ten feet from her.

  “You ain’t takin’ my gold, McCallister,” Saddlebags yelled, his back still to Luke.

  “I don’t want your gold,” Luke snapped. “Just drop the rifle and turn around.”

  Saddlebags turned, but he didn’t drop the rifle. He swung it up. Before he could lever a bullet into the chamber, Luke fired.

  The bullet struck the old man in the side, spinning him in a staggering quarter turn back toward Angie. He struggled to regain his balance, grabbed for his side, and stumbled on a rock, losing his grip on the old rifle as he fell. Seeing it lying free on the ground, Angie ran over and snatched it up an instant before his clawing fingers could grasp it.

  By that time, Luke had reached them. Bending, he reached inside the old man’s baggy coat and removed the skinning knife. He handed it to Angie, his glance rummaging over her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She managed to offer him a quick, weak smile of assurance, conscious that her legs felt just a little bit rubbery.

  On the ground, Saddlebags moaned, giving Angie no chance to dwell on her now-shaky nerves. Now that he was unarmed and wounded, she wasn’t afraid of him an
ymore, especially with Luke here.

  She dropped to her knees beside the old man. The floppy hat was still on his head. Bright red blood oozed from between the fingers of his left hand, clasped tightly against his right side. Swiveling from the hips, she laid the knife and rifle well out of reach, then turned back and attempted to pry his hand away from the wound. The old man’s wrist felt like little more than skin over hard bone, yet he resisted her effort with surprising strength.

  “We need to stop the bleeding, Saddlebags,” she said in her firmest voice.

  Luke knelt down on the other side of him. “How bad is he hurt?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’d better let me check him.” He passed Angie his rifle. She sat back on her heels and laid the rifle next to the other weapons. When she turned back, Luke was pushing aside the clothing. “He must have five layers of clothes on,” Luke muttered, then arrived at bare skin. “I’m surprised he isn’t sweltering in this sun.”

  “Le’ me be,” Saddlebags mumbled in protest and pushed at Luke’s hands. But the movement drew a grimace of pain from him, revealing his loose-fitting dentures, yellowed with age and tartar. “Don’ nee’ . . . yore help.”

  “I have half a notion to let you bleed to death, so don’t tempt me,” Luke shot back and continued his inspection. “The old guy’s skinnier than I thought. These baggy clothes made him look bigger than he is. Lucky for you,” he told the still-resisting Saddlebags before he explained to Angie. “The bullet only creased him, but it’s a deep one. Might have chipped a rib bone. We just need to get the bleeding stopped, though. Do you have a handkerchief?” Luke straightened to dig his own out of his back pocket.

  Angie removed hers and gave it a shake. “It’s a bit dusty, I’m afraid,” she said uncertainly.

  “So is mine,” Luke acknowledged. “But they’re both cleaner than the material touching him now. They’ll do the trick until we get back to camp. We’ve got a first-aid kit there.”

  Taking both handkerchiefs, Luke wadded them together and attempted to press them to the wound, but Saddlebags fought him off and fumbled around in his own pocket.

  “Go’ m’ own,” he insisted weakly and dragged a dirty rag out of his pocket to show them.

  “That thing is filthy . . .” Angie grabbed at the rag and engaged in a short tug-of-war with him before she succeeded in wresting it from his grasp.

  During their brief tussle, Luke maneuvered the handkerchiefs in place. “Here.” He took Saddlebags’s hand and pressed it against the spot. “If you want something to do, keep pressure on this to slow down the bleeding.”

  Grunting with pain, Saddlebags nodded agreement. Luke sat back and released a heavy breath of satisfaction, then plopped his hands on his thighs.

  “Now let’s get him back to camp.”

  “How will we do that?” Angie asked worriedly. “The horses are going lame. You pulled some of their shoes.”

  “Not all of them,” he corrected, eyes twinkling. “Jackpot and Sandy are still wearing a full set. I didn’t fancy the idea of walking all the way back to camp once I finally caught up with you. Tobe would tell you that no cowboy will walk if he can ride.”

  “I’m sure he would.” Angie smiled in spite of herself. “But how could you be sure—”

  “—that Saddlebags wouldn’t take the two horses and keep going?” Luke finished the question for her. “I counted on his greed for the gold. He wouldn’t have abandoned it. And two horses wouldn’t have been able to carry it very far. And definitely not very fast.”

  “Clever,” she murmured.

  “I thought so.” He smiled crookedly, and gestured with a nod of his head. “Why don’t you go get the horses and bring them over here?”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them,” Luke confirmed. “As long as we stay at a walk, the others can make it to camp without much trouble.”

  It was late afternoon when they finally reached the canyon campsite, with Luke leading the way, riding double behind Saddlebags, one arm wrapped around the old man’s middle to keep pressure on the wound. Angie brought up the rear, leading the three sore-footed horses.

  Tobe trotted out to meet them, a bright angry light blazing in his eyes at the sight of Saddlebags. “You got ’im. I knew you would. Man, I wish I could’ve gone with you.”

  “See to the horses,” Luke told him. “And get that gold unloaded.”

  Griff took one look at the old man drooped over the horn, weak from the loss of blood, and said, “I was kinda hopin’ you’d bring him back draped over the saddle.”

  “Nope.” Luke reined in and swung out of the saddle. “Only creased him in the side.”

  From his place by the smoldering campfire, Fargo harrumphed at the news. “Too bad.” He turned his head to the side and spat at the ground as Dulcie peeked from behind his legs, all round-eyed and scared.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood, though.” Angie dismounted and passed the reins to Tobe, then walked swiftly after Luke. “We’ll need to get that wound disinfected and bandaged.”

  Seeing Angie, Dulcie raced to meet her, careful to make a wide arc around Luke and the old man he carried. When she reached Angie’s side, she seized her hand, clutching it tightly.

  “I was worried about you, Angie,” she declared in a voice much too earnest to be ignored.

  Angie paused and stroked a hand over the girl’s flaxen hair. “And I was worried about you. But we’re both all right now, and that’s good.”

  “Yes.” But Dulcie sounded none too certain about that. She darted an apprehensive glance at Saddlebags, then back at Angie. “Is he gonna die?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Angie stated.

  Dulcie looked again toward the old man. “He scares me.”

  “I know. But he won’t ever hurt you again,” Angie assured her. “I promise.”

  “Tobe says they’ll put him in prison and throw away the key. Will they?”

  “They might.” But Angie knew what that would entail—lawyers, a trial, testimony, sentencing, appeals, publicity, reporters. She didn’t look forward to any of it, certainly not in Dulcie’s case. “Why don’t you go help Tobe with the horses?”

  Glad of a reason to have distance between herself and Saddlebags, Dulcie dashed off to join her brother. With a last glance after Dulcie, Angie turned and crossed to the bedroll where Luke had laid Saddlebags down.

  Lying there, the old man looked small and frail, not in the least bit menacing. The first-aid kit sat open next to Luke. Angie looked on while Luke peeled back the layers of clothes and removed the blood-stained handkerchief compress, ignoring the weak protests Saddlebags made.

  “I can do it m’self,” he insisted, interfering with pawing hands.

  He sucked in a breath of pain when Luke washed out the wound with disinfectant. By the time the wound was clean, Tobe walked into camp lugging the first ingot with Dulcie right by his side. Griff followed them, carrying the second. As they left camp to fetch the rest, Luke applied ointment to the bullet wound, then a bandage, and wrapped it in place with an encircling gauze strip.

  “Didn’t you say something about your grandfather owning a gold pocket watch?” Luke asked without rising.

  “Yes. Why?” Her interest heightened, Angie watched as Luke appeared to rearrange the layers of clothes, paying no attention when Tobe and Griff returned toting more of the outlaw gold.

  “Because he’s got one pinned inside his vest,” Luke announced and proceeded to unfasten it.

  “Hey! What’re you doin’?” Saddlebags clawed at Luke’s hands, but he hadn’t the strength to stop him.

  “Take a look. Is this it?” He passed the watch to Angie.

  She had only caught glimpses of its scratched and grimy surface while Luke was unpinning the watch from the vest. Now Angie held it in her hands with only a meager description from her grandmother to identify it—gold with a scrolly leaflike design around the outer edge and the initials JW inscribed in it but Angi
e couldn’t remember where she was supposed to find them.

  “Gimme that watch! It’s mine, I tell ya. Mine!” In a frantic rage, Saddlebags hurled himself at her, hands grasping to seize it from her. Angie turned, using her body to shield the watch from his reach while she checked first the front then the back for the initials. Luke pulled him off of her and forced him back onto the bedroll. “Give it t’ me, ya hear!” Saddlebags continued to struggle. “It’s mine by rights.”

  Deaf to his cries, Angie located the clasp and opened it to look inside the face cover. There, wedged in the circle, was an old black-and-white photograph taken in the late teens or early twenties of a young woman, her fashionably short hair styled in finger waves. Angie stared at it in shocked recognition.

  “This picture—it’s my grandmother.” She swung back to stare at Saddlebags. His hat had come off during his struggle with Luke. The pallor of his forehead and the crown of his head showed gray and stringy hair that the hat had plastered to his head, giving the illusion of a skull cap. “Where did you get this?” Angie demanded. “You took it from him, didn’t you?”

  She jerked the watch back when Saddlebags tried to grab it from her. Again Luke pulled him back.

  “No, no, no,” Saddlebags raged helplessly. “Thieves! That’s what ya are! Thieves! Stealin’ from an ole man.”

  “Where did you get this?” Angie repeated, refusing to give up until she received some answers. “Tell me where—” She broke off the question, her gaze drawn to a small dark patch on his forehead, centimeters from his receding hairline. Stunned, she leaned closer.

  “It couldn’t be,” she murmured in disbelief.

  But there was no mistaking the small, bluish birthmark high on the right, almost hidden in his hairline—exactly as her grandmother had described.

  “It’s you. Blue Boy.” With her fingertips, Angie reached to touch it, but Saddlebags pulled away, an angry pain darkening his eyes.