“If he sees you, you figure he’ll come on into the camp?”
“Eventually he will, I’m confident of it. But maybe not right tonight. Even with me here, he may not show himself until after he’s had the chance to try and eavesdrop a little, hope to gain a better idea what it is we’re up to.”
Kendrick nodded. “Makes sense.”
Hickory’s head bobbed in concert. “Way I’d do it.”
* * * * *
Before the sun went down, Kendrick and Hickory took fishing lines over to the stream and, when they returned to the campfire only a short time later, they were proudly displaying a half dozen plump trout. Not surprisingly, they were also arguing about who landed the biggest one.
While Hickory and Amelia set about cleaning the fish and preparing a fresh-picked pot of greens to serve with them, Kendrick took the opportunity to venture farther upslope and see what he could see. He took his spyglass with him.
When Kendrick returned, supper was ready. They dined on pan-fried trout and boiled greens dished up with hot bacon grease and chopped bacon pieces poured over them. Once again everybody proclaimed it to be one of the best meals they’d ever eaten and gorged themselves accordingly.
Asked about his exploration, Kendrick replied vaguely that he’d only seen more trees and rocks. Nobody seemed to notice that the flow of the stream over on the edge of the clearing was beginning to slow to little more than a trickle. It stayed that way during most of the nighttime hours, but by morning had returned to its former strength.
Chapter Fifteen
Caleb Frost made his appearance shortly past daybreak.
The camp was awake and stirring. A cooking fire had been freshly stoked, a pot of coffee brewed, and now a pan of bacon was starting to sizzle over the flames.
Fittingly, it was Hickory who spotted him first. He glanced up from turning over strips of bacon in the pan and there, across the clearing, just inside the fringe of birch and jack pines where there’d been nothing only moments ago, stood a man.
Hickory straightened up from tending the bacon and said to Kendrick, who stood nearby pouring himself some coffee, “We got company.”
Kendrick turned his head, following the line of Hickory’s gaze, and saw their visitor.
The old prospector carried his years with stooped shoulders and a pair of spindly, bowed legs like those commonly seen on veteran cowpunchers who’d spent years in the saddle. His full beard was white as snow while the long strands of hair that trailed down from under his slouch hat still had numerous streaks of darker color. His clothes were patched and mismatched but looked relatively clean. He wore no handgun but had a Henry repeater slung casually over one shoulder.
Hickory stepped forward, smiling disarmingly, and said, “G’mornin’ to you, Caleb. Welcome to our camp. Come ahead and help yourself to a cup of coffee, join us in a bite of breakfast.”
Caleb licked his lips. “That bacon smells right good.”
“It’ll be ready in a short. We got some leftover but still tasty pan biscuits to go with it.”
“Flour for biscuits I got. Ran out of bacon, though. Been without for a spell now.”
“We got plenty. Come and join us.”
Caleb advanced three or four steps into the camp and then halted abruptly, as if remembering something. “Surprised to see you up this way, Hickory,” he said, frowning.
“Aw, you know me. Never can tell where I’m gonna pop up,” Hickory responded with an easy grin.
“Even more surprised,” Caleb said, gesturing, “you’d bring womenfolk along with you.”
“Well, now. These womenfolk, especially the redheaded gal there, are an important part of the business we’re on,” Hickory explained.
The others had by now taken note of Caleb’s presence and were bending ears to pick up on the conversation. All except for Amelia; she was doing more than just trying to listen in, she was headed straight for the two men with the clear intent to join the discussion.
“Hard to imagine a piece of business that’d make it necessary to drag a coupla women clear out here to the wilderness,” Caleb stated stubbornly.
“Let me assure you, sir,” said Amelia as she marched up to stand before Caleb, “that I am present by my own free will and have not been ‘dragged’ anywhere. With that understood, can I presume you are Caleb Frost?”
“Yeah, this here’s your man,” Hickory assured her, speaking up when Caleb seemed a little taken aback by Amelia’s directness.
Amelia thrust out her right hand. “My name is Amelia Gailwood. It’s a pleasure to meet you. We’ve traveled a long way on our quest and no small part of it has been to seek you out.”
Caleb looked down at Amelia’s hand with all the uncertainty of somebody eying a coiled rattler.
“Where’s your manners, dang it? Go ahead and shake her hand,” urged Hickory impatiently. “She ain’t fixin’ to fling you to the ground and stomp on you … Not yet, anyway.”
After wiping his callused paw on the front of his shirt, Caleb shook Amelia’s hand. “Ma’am.”
Hickory took the opportunity to introduce the others, motioning as he said their names. Caleb nodded his head in acknowledgement to each one.
The old prospector’s eyes lingered on Kendrick. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Possible,” Kendrick admitted. “I drift around. Haven’t been in these parts for quite a spell, though.”
“Kendrick’s a bounty hunter by trade,” Hickory explained.
“Maybe I just heard the name,” Caleb allowed. Then he scowled. “You ain’t out this way on the trail of any owlhoots, are you?”
Before Kendrick could reply, Amelia cut in. “No, not in the way you mean,” she said. “But it so happens we are on the trail of something. Something or someone, I guess you could say, depending how you look at it. Either way, it’s a matter you’re on record as having some familiarity with. That’s why we came in search of you.”
Caleb looked pained. “Ma’am, whatever you just said—with all due respect—I couldn’t follow hardly a lick of.”
“Let me try to boil it down,” Hickory said. “What Miss Amelia and her party is in search of is that runaway camel, the Red Ghost. Miss Amelia read in a Denver newspaper—remember that reporter fella you talked to a while back?—about how you’d seen the Ghost a number of times. So we came here hopin’ you maybe could give us an idea where we might have the best chance of finding the critter ourselves.”
“All this,” Caleb said, indicating the camp and the assemblage of people, “just to find the Red Ghost?”
“Our full undertaking is a bit more complex than that,” Amelia said. “But it’s true that the immediate purpose of our being here is to try and find the Red Ghost. The whole matter dates back several years to when the Ghost and a number of other camels were shipped from Egypt to—“
“Egyptians!” blurted Caleb, interrupting her. “That’s the thing that’s been bugging me. Those two” —he jabbed a finger to indicate Faleejah and Kazmir— “are Egyptians, ain’t they? With their dark complexions and all I knew they were foreigners of some kind, but I couldn’t place why they looked familiar. Now I know. When I was with the Army Camel Corps, I worked side by side next to some of the Egyptian handlers who came over with Ghost and the other camels when they first got shipped here.”
Kazmir frowned and said in a challenging tone, “Do you have a problem with Egyptians, sir?”
Caleb held up one hand, palm out. “Not at all, mister. They was some of the nicest fellas and hardest workers from all my time in the Camel Corps. They took good care of the animals and they saw smart to their duties, no matter what was asked of ‘em. If the other jackasses in our outfit had taken a clue from those boys and ever gave the camels a fair chance, that whole program could’ve been a success.”
“You were actually there when Nabda first arrived to be part of your army?” Faleejah said, appearing genuinely intrigued by Caleb’s account of those early days.
“Nabda,” Faleejah said again, smiling at Caleb’s obvious fondness for the animal. “It’s Egyptian for ‘scar’, due to the mark on his face.”
“I’ll be doggone,” Caleb marveled.
“So. You have an obvious familiarity with the animal,” said Amelia, attempting to steer the conversation back to business. “Do you also, as we’ve been hoping, happen to have a reasonably good idea where we might be able to locate him?”
Caleb considered for a minute. Then: “Before I answer that, I’d have to know better what your intentions are. You ain’t fixin’ to hurt him none, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“There’ve been plenty who tried. They’ve tried to run him down, tried to rope him and trap him, even tried to shoot him. I won’t abide any such treatment.”
“We ain’t here for nothing like that,” Hickory said solemnly.
“Before Nabda was shipped from Egypt,” Amelia explained, “a crafty smuggler hid on him a fabulously rare artifact. The smuggler did this by making an incision and then sewing the object under the hide on Nabda’s back. He planned on returning and reclaiming the artifact but did not realize Nadba was scheduled to be shipped away to America. The smuggler was killed in prison and it took many years for the pieces of the puzzle regarding what he’d done with the artifact to be fitted together. Now that we’ve done so, we are here to find Nabda—or the Red Ghost, as you will—for the sake of reclaiming the artifact.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “A thing like you’re talking about … all historical and everything … That must make it worth some money, right?”
“Indeed so,” Amelia responded. Then, with surprising candor, she continued. “I will tell you that the article in question is a diamond from the time of Caesar and Cleopatra. Just being a diamond, of course, gives it considerable value strictly on its own. Ancient records describe it as being flawless and quite remarkable, but reports from that era—especially anything in regard to the great Caesar—were often wildly exaggerated. How large, how flawless, how precise the cut by today’s standards … might be a different matter as far as placing a flat monetary value on it. Its real value, by far, is in its historical significance.”
“Which means,” Kendrick added in a hard tone, reading the dollar signs starting to spin in Caleb’s eyes, “somebody like you tryin’ to cash it in at the Lowdown bank or assayer’s office or some such wouldn’t gain you spit compared to its real worth. For that, you need to know who to go to and where to find ‘em. And, believe me, both of those things are a mighty far reach from this piney old mountain. So if you’re hatchin’ some kind of grab-and-get-rich scheme, best get it out of your head real quick.”
“You got an awful suspicious mind, you know that, mister?” Caleb fired back.
“Yeah, and it got that way with good reason,” Kendrick told him. “Now, back to that diamond. There’s another reason you might want to think careful about hatchin’ any notion to try and claim it for yourself. You see, we ain’t the only ones after it. There are others followin’ behind—including some top notch hired guns—wantin’ real bad to get their hands on it. Bad enough, as they’ve already proved, to kill without a whole lot of hesitation.”
“He’s tellin’ it straight, old hoss,” spoke up Hickory. “Five days ago my stage from Wilcox got hit by some jaspers out to stop Miss Amelia and her friends from makin’ it as far as Lowdown. You remember Lenny Thorpe, the fella used to ride shotgun with me? They shot him dead. Another hombre, too. Had us pinned down, likely would’ve got us all if Kendrick here hadn’t showed up to cut down two of the bastards and put the rest on the run. Then they made another try in town before he saw to the rest of that pack … You better believe these are some serious boys, Caleb. And there’s more comin’ behind.”
Caleb eyed Kendrick. “Sounds like that makes you a pretty tough nail to chew.”
“Got my share of gnaw marks, I reckon. But I’m still here.”
Nobody said anything for a minute. Caleb’s eyes traveled from Kendrick to Hickory to Amelia, as if weighing one against the other.
Amelia broke the silence. “Well?” she said. “Are you willing to help us? Can you tell us where we have the best chance of finding the Red Ghost?”
“Say I do,” Caleb replied guardedly. “What’s in it for me? Anything? A reward maybe?”
Amelia nodded. “Fair enough. If you can lead us directly—or reasonably close—to the Red Ghost, then I will pay you a reward of one hundred dollars. If we are successful in retrieving the diamond, I will add another hundred.”
“Lady, you got a deal. Count out your money, then sit back and relax a spell.” Caleb’s face split nearly in two with a wide grin. “I will deliver the Red Ghost to you right here in this camp.”
Chapter Sixteen
The reason the old prospector was able to make such a bold promise, it turned out, was the startling revelation that he had the Red Ghost already captured back at his own camp.
Returning from his last trip to Lowdown, he related, he had once again encountered the elusive camel out in the desert. Only this time there was a difference: the Ghost was badly wounded. Somebody had run across him prior to Caleb and had seen fit to shoot him. He was carrying two slugs in his right front shoulder and another had torn through his chest.
“He wasn’t bleedin’ fresh when I came upon him, but he’d already lost a lot of blood,” Caleb told it. “He was weak and hurtin’ something fierce. I could tell. And it almost seemed like … well, it felt like he was there waitin’ for me. That probably sounds crazy. I don’t know if camels even have such a thing as a memory. But I got the impression he somehow still knew me from the old days, back when I always treated him good while those other jackasses hoorawed him and the rest of the camels so much of the time.
“Anyhow, he let me put a rope on him and he followed along real meek like. I set an easy pace and led him on up to my camp here in the Pinalenos. I tended his wounds as best I could, seen to it he had plenty to eat and drink, and his strength has been buildin’ back right smart.
"Probably time to release him back into the desert, where he belongs, but I guess I been draggin' my feet on that. Sorta got used to havin’ him around.”
This information, knowing that the Red Ghost and the prize he carried was so close at hand, sent a ripple of excitement through the camp that made taking time for breakfast more of a distraction to be hurried through than something to be savored. All except for Caleb. He’d been promised a repast and made it clear he expected not only to have one but to eat his fill and take his time doing it.
During the meal, it was decided that the plan of action, after eating, would be for Hickory to accompany Caleb up to his camp and then the two of them return with the Red Ghost. Amelia protested against this initially, wanting to accompany them.
Her insistence finally forced Caleb to state rather bluntly that he wasn't willing to reveal the location of his diggings to just anybody. "You want me to bring you the Ghost, we do it my way," he told her. Then added, "Besides, like I said before, it's time to bring the old fella down and turn him back to the desert where he belongs. Hickory and I can go fetch him, then we can get both pieces of business—yours and mine—took care of."
And so it was settled. Not surprisingly, once Caleb and Hickory had departed, a kind of restlessness quickly gripped those left in the camp to await their return. Kendrick was mostly exempt from this, as his days as a manhunter had taught him how to be patient under even the tensest conditions. Rather than watch it eat at the others, however, he decided it was time to spring the little surprise he had prepared. He’d initially intended to wait until the afternoon, when it was warmer, but given the recent turn of events the
re wasn’t likely to be a better time than now.
“Before you get started on that,” he said to Amelia, who had taken out a pencil and one of the pads of paper in which she was always jotting her notes and observations, “I wonder if you might rather come have a look at something upstream.”
“What would that be?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“Well. I can show you better than I can tell you. It ain’t far … And you might want to bring along a bar of soap and some fresh clothes.”
Amelia blinked twice as she continued to look up at him. And then, suddenly realizing what he was hinting at, he eyes grew wide and bright. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Did you find a pool like we were talking about the other day?”
Kendrick grinned. “I think you’ll find it suitable. But I got to tell you, just like Hickory warned, the water is colder than a bedrock well.”
“Did you hear that, Faleejah?” Amelia called over to the dusky beauty. “Kendrick has found us a bathing pool! Are you still interested?”
Faleejah’s smile flashed brilliantly. “Does the desert wind blow sand in your eyes? Absolutely I am still interested!”
“He warns that the water is very cold.” As she said this, Amelia was already rummaging for fresh clothes in her personal pack.
Replying, Faleejah also began eagerly digging for clean clothes. “If it is not frozen over with ice, then it is warm enough. I will soak until I turn blue!”
Half an hour later—with Kendrick leading the way, Amelia and Faleejah following, and Kazmir bringing up the rear—they had followed the edge of the stream upward about four hundred yards until they came to a shelf-like flattening where the stream bed widened into a shallow, teardrop-shaped pool. Piney underbrush and a smattering of birch trees lined the water’s edge. To the south, where the stream spilled away again downslope, you could look out over the foothills and see the brown-gold desert shimmering in the distance.
Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 10
