“Tip, what are you barking at?” a woman’s voice called. “What’s out there?”
Her voice was clear and sounded relatively young to Duval. He squinted and was able to make out the shape of her as she stood in the doorway. It was an appealing shape.
He could also see that she was holding something. A rifle, by the look of it.
“A woman,” Latch breathed.
“Yeah, a woman with a gun,” Duval said.
“She must be alone here. If there was a man, he would have come to the door to speak to the dog instead of her.”
That made sense to Duval, but he still didn’t see any point in bothering this woman when in less than a week they would be in San Antonio and could have all the whores they wanted.
He didn’t recall Latch ever expressing much interest in women. Duval didn’t know what the man did between raids, but he’d always assumed Latch was the kind of madman who preferred killing to loving.
“If it was me, I think I’d ride on back to camp and forget about this place, boss,” Duval said, knowing Latch wouldn’t kill him out of hand for offering a piece of advice like that. “But I’ll do whatever you say, of course.”
“I say we take a closer look,” Latch declared. He gigged his horse forward.
Duval managed not to sigh as he followed.
The dog was still barking. The woman called him to her, gripped him by the scruff of the neck, and took him inside. The door closed, cutting off the light. The yellow glow still showed in the window.
When they were about fifty yards from the cabin, Latch and Duval dismounted, moving forward on foot. Latch drew one of his Mausers, and Duval followed suit with his Colt.
The window was open to allow fresh air into the cabin on the warm night ... and it let the aroma of fresh-baked bread out into the darkness, as well. The smell made Duval’s mouth water.
Close enough to hear voices, the outlaws heard the woman say, “Paula, when you and Helen finish with the dishes you can go on to bed.”
Another female voice replied, “But I thought you wanted me to tend to the horses, Mama.”
“Which you should have done before it got dark,” the older woman said. “I’ll do it. I just want to give whatever stirred up old Tip a few minutes to drift on its way.”
“What do you reckon it was, Mama?” That was a third slightly different female voice.
Three women, Duval thought as his heart started to pound a little harder in spite of himself. And apparently they were alone.
“Might have been a wolf or a panther,” the mother replied. “More than likely, though, it was just a coyote.”
“Or an Indian,” one of the daughters suggested.
“Hush, girl,” the mother said. “There’s not a savage within a hundred miles of here, and you know it.”
Well now, she was wrong about that, mused Duval.
Warren Latch’s skin might be white instead of red, but Latch was as savage as any Comanche or Apache who had ever roamed the plains. Maybe more so.
The two of them flanked the window, moving with the stealth of true predators. Duval edged an eye over the edge to risk a look.
Gauzy curtains hung on the inside of the window, but they didn’t prevent him from seeing the woman sitting at a table petting the black-and-white dog at her feet. She was in her late thirties, he guessed, and still attractive, with honey-colored hair that hung past her shoulders.
On the other side of the room, two girls worked at a washtub, one of them rinsing dishes while the other dried them with a cloth. They were seventeen or eighteen, Duval judged. Their hair was fairer than their mother’s, and they wore it braided. As their heads turned so he could see their identical features, he realized they were twins.
Son ... of ... a ... bitch, Duval thought. Twins.
“Tip’s calmed down now. I’ll go on out to the barn.” The woman stood up. “Come on, boy.”
As the big, shaggy dog got to its feet to follow her, Duval realized the animal was old and made its way with a halting gait. It might not be able to see or hear very well, either, but it could probably smell him and Latch.
Thinking the same thing, Latch jerked his head for Duval to follow him and retreated around the corner of the cabin.
“We’ll follow the woman and take her prisoner,” Latch whispered. “With her as our captive, those girls will be much easier to handle. They’ll do whatever we say. Once we have them all under control, you can ride back to camp and fetch the rest of the men. We’ll spend the night here.”
Duval was a little disappointed he and Latch weren’t going to keep the women for themselves, but Latch was nothing if not loyal to his men. That made them loyal to him, despite him being loco.
“All right, boss,” Duval breathed.
The woman stepped out of the cabin and started toward the barn with the old dog trailing slowly behind her. She was carrying the rifle again.
“Wait until she gets in the barn,” Latch ordered. “I’ll grab the woman, you kill the dog.”
Duval nodded. They waited until the woman disappeared into the barn. A faint glow appeared through the open door. The woman had lit a lantern.
Silently, the two men approached the structure. They moved into the entrance.
The woman had leaned the rifle, an old Henry, against one of the stalls and had a pitchfork in her hands as she forked some fresh hay into the stalls for several horses quartered there.
The dog suddenly turned toward the men and growled. Latch rushed forward. Duval drew his gun as he lunged through the door. The animal tried to bite him but was too slow. Duval’s gun rose and fell, thudding against the animal’s head and causing it to collapse on the barn’s hard-packed dirt floor.
He could have hit the dog again and made sure it was dead, but he didn’t bother. The old critter was no real threat.
Meanwhile, the woman didn’t scream when she saw the two men charging into the barn. Her face grim, she counterattacked, thrusting the sharp tines of the pitchfork at Latch.
He twisted aside, but the fork ripped a hole in his duster. It hung on the coat for a second, long enough for him to grab the handle and twist the pitchfork out of the woman’s grip. He spun it around and cracked the handle against her head. With a groan, she fell to her knees.
Duval’s eyes widened in surprise as Latch reversed the pitchfork again and drove the tines deep into the woman’s chest.
She gasped in shock and pain and pawed feebly at the pitchfork. Latch ripped it out of her body. Blood started to well from the five holes it left behind. The woman’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell forward on her face.
“You killed her,” Duval said into the hush that fell over the barn. The horses were moving around in the stalls, spooked by the violence and the smell of blood.
“She tried to kill me,” Latch said as if that were the only explanation needed. “You can still tell those girls that she’s our prisoner out here. That will do nicely. Go and get them.”
With Latch standing there holding a pitchfork with blood still dripping from its tines, Duval wasn’t about to argue with him. He nodded. “Sure.”
In truth, he was glad to get out of the barn. The way Latch had killed the woman, swiftly, coldly, and emotionlessly, had spooked him, too.
As he approached the cabin, gun in hand again, he heard the young women talking. One of them was saying, “—be glad when Pa and the boys get back tomorrow.”
“I will be, too,” the other one agreed.
Duval stepped into the doorway and leveled his Colt. “Sorry, ladies. Somebody else is coming to call first.”
Chapter 10
Nick Burton kept his word that night when the posse made camp. He didn’t say anything about who the newest member of the group really was ... at least as far as The Kid could tell.
He felt confident if Nick had said something about his reputation as a gunfighter, at least some of the men would be looking at him from the corners of their eyes and whispering. Instead, m
ost of them ignored him.
The Kid had his own supplies, so he fixed his own supper, although he used the common campfire to do it. While he was sitting on a rock eating the beans and bacon he had warmed up, Culhane came over to him and sat down, too.
“You willin’ to take a turn standin’ guard tonight?” the Ranger asked.
“Sure,” The Kid replied without hesitation. “If I’m going to ride with you, I’ll do my part.”
“Figured as much.” Culhane had brought a cup of coffee with him and took a sip.
“How are the wounded men doing?”
In addition to the man with the bullet hole in his arm, another posse man had been creased in the side.
“They’ll live,” Culhane said. “I’d send Gordon back—he’s the one who got the crease and lost quite a bit of blood—if I didn’t need every man I got.”
“He can’t be in as bad a shape as Reilly.”
Culhane drank some more coffee and said quietly, “Ain’t that the truth.”
Reilly was on the other side of camp, sitting cross-legged on the ground. He was slumped over, and his head sagged forward on his chest.
“Is he asleep?” The Kid asked with a frown.
“Could be,” Culhane said. “He’s burned all over. Can’t stretch out to sleep without it hurtin’ him too bad, he says. Next settlement we come to, I’m leavin’ him there, even if I have to hog-tie him to do it.”
“He won’t like that.”
“I don’t care. I can’t stand to watch what he’s doin’ to himself anymore.”
Culhane was in charge of the posse, so it was his decision to make, but The Kid figured Reilly would put up a fight. In the end, though, Culhane would probably get his way.
“What guard shift do you want me to take?”
“Get some sleep while you can,” Culhane said. “I’ll wake you up after a while.”
The Kid nodded his agreement. He had already tended to his horses, so as soon as he finished his supper and used sand to clean the pan, he spread his bedroll and stretched out. The Kid did his watch and all was quiet.
The dry air lost the day’s heat rapidly at night, and it was pleasantly cool the next morning in the pre-dawn hours as the posse ate breakfast and got ready to ride.
It wouldn’t stay that way very long, The Kid thought as a breeze stirred the air. Once the sun was up, the temperature would begin to climb. When the posse moved out, The Kid rode next to Culhane again. None of the others questioned his right to be there.
“What’s in this direction?” The Kid asked.
Grinning, Culhane replied, “Well, San Antonio, if you keep goin’ far enough. But it’s five or six days’ ride away from here, at least. In between there are a few little towns and some ranches and a whole lot of nothin’. You ever been to Texas before, Morgan?”
“Yeah, but not this part. I’ve been to San Antonio, though. Do you think that’s where Latch is headed?”
The Ranger rubbed his jaw as he pondered the question. “Could be. Plenty of folks in San Antone. Latch and his men might be able to blend in there. Every time after they’ve pulled a few jobs, they drop out of sight for a while, so we know they’re goin’ somewhere and hidin’ out.”
As the morning went on, the posse rode through more of those miles of nothing Culhane had mentioned. The Kid heard muttering from some of the men, so when they paused to rest the horses, he caught a moment alone with Culhane. “How far are these men willing to go?”
“I thought you said you hadn’t ridden with a posse before.”
“I haven’t.”
Culhane chuckled. “Maybe not, but you seem to know that once fellas have been gone from home for a few days, they start wantin’ to turn around and go back.” The lawman grew serious. “With this bunch, though, the ones from Fire Hill don’t have any homes to go back to. Most of ’em are single men, so they don’t have families to worry about, either. And old man Burton ordered his punchers not to come back without his money, so they ain’t gonna be inclined to give up.” Culhane nodded. “I think they’ll all stick, at least for a while longer.”
“I hope you’re right,” The Kid said.
They pushed on.
After a while Nick Burton moved his horse up alongside The Kid’s buckskin. “How are you today, Mr. Morgan?”
“I’m fine, Nick. How about you?”
“All right, I guess.” Nick shifted in the saddle. “This is the most I’ve ever ridden, though. I’m a mite sore.”
“Did you grow up on your grandfather’s ranch?”
“No, sir. We lived in Dallas. My father’s a businessman. Has a furniture store there. It’s very successful.”
“Successful enough that he sent you to school in Philadelphia, I guess.”
“That’s right. I’ve spent the past few summers on the M-B Connected, though. My grandpa insisted on it.” Nick hesitated. “I think he has some idea that I’m going to take over the ranch someday.”
“How do you feel about that?” The Kid asked. The conversation helped pass the time.
“I’d love to,” Nick replied eagerly. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Morgan, I’ve never been that fond of the idea of selling furniture the rest of my life.”
The Kid had to laugh. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’d be happy about that, either.”
Not after all the changes he had gone through. Business just didn’t have any appeal for him anymore, although there had been a time in his life when he had practically lived for the thrill of dealing in high finance.
“I don’t know if I’m up to running the ranch, though,” Nick said. “You may have noticed, I’m not very big.”
“What does that matter? If you’re in charge, and you let everybody else know that you’re in charge, folks tend to forget about how tall you are ... or aren’t.”
“I’d like to think you’re right, but I’ve never been the sort to take over at anything.”
“Maybe you’ll grow into it.”
“Maybe,” Nick said with a doubtful shrug. “Did you grow into being what you are, Mr. Morgan?”
“I guess you could say that,” The Kid replied.
But it was more like fate had thrust his current life upon him, and a cruel fate, at that. He had come through the fires of tragedy and loss, and for a time he had found hope again.
Then that hope had been snatched away from him, too, leaving him to drift aimlessly. As far as he could see into the future at this moment, that was going to be his life.
Culhane called, “Ever ybody hold it!”
The Kid reined in, as did the other members of the posse. Culhane sat up straight in his saddle, craned his neck, and peered into the distance.
“Looks like a little ranch house yonder,” he announced. “We’ll noon there and water the horses. Before we do, I reckon somebody ought to ride up there and scout the place. Latch has tried to spring one trap on us already. We ain’t gonna waltz right into another one with our eyes closed.”
The Ranger turned his head to look at The Kid. “How about you and young Burton there check it out, Morgan?”
The Kid nodded, but Nick gulped. “Me? You want me to scout the place, Ranger Culhane?”
“That’s what I just said, ain’t it?”
“I don’t know if I can—”
“It’ll be all right, Nick,” The Kid interrupted him. “We can handle it.”
Nick took a deep breath. “Well, if you say so.” But he didn’t sound convinced that it was a good idea.
“If it’s all clear, give us a high sign and we’ll come on in,” Culhane told The Kid as he and Nick rode past the Ranger.
The Kid nodded. He and Nick left the posse behind and rode toward the ranch house, which sat on the plains about a mile ahead of them.
After a minute, Nick said, “I don’t know if Ranger Culhane should’ve picked me for this job, but I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty exciting being on a scouting mission with the famous Kid Morgan.”
“Get yo
ur Winchester out,” The Kid advised as he pulled his own rifle from the saddle boot, not commenting on Nick’s assessment of his fame. “You see that barn?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Keep your eyes on it,” The Kid told him. “Do you see anybody moving around?”
“No. There are three or four horses in the corral, though.”
“Watch the barn. If you see sunlight reflect off anything, you let me know right away, understand?”
“Sure. Are you watching the house for the same thing, Mr. Morgan?”
“That’s right,” The Kid said. “If there’s a chance of a trap and you see the sun glinting on something, it’s likely to be a gun. If it’s not, if it turns out to be something harmless, you haven’t lost anything by being careful.”
“I’ll remember that.” Nick paused for a second, then added with youthful enthusiasm, “I wish I could ride with you all the time, Mr. Morgan!”
“No,” The Kid said flatly. “You don’t.”
In reality, he was probably only five or six years older than Nick Burton. But at this moment, he felt at least a hundred years older than the youngster.
The Kid didn’t see any signs of trouble waiting for them at the ranch, but he didn’t see any signs of life, either, except the horses in the corral. That was a little troubling.
People should have been moving around, going about the day’s work. If not for the horses, he would have begun to wonder if the ranch had been abandoned.
When they were about two hundred yards from the buildings, The Kid signaled for Nick to stop. They reined in and dismounted, taking their rifles with them.
“We’ll leave the horses here and go ahead on foot,” The Kid said. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t shoot at anything unless you’re absolutely sure what it is you’re shooting at.”
The last thing they needed was for Nick to gun down some unsuspecting rancher, The Kid thought.
Silently, he motioned Nick toward the barn as they approached. The Kid closed in on the house. The double cabin had chimneys at both ends, but smoke wasn’t coming from either of them.
At this time of day, somebody should have been preparing a midday meal. The fact that they weren’t was a bad sign.
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