Casey shook her head. “It’s not that at all, Lonnie. It took me a while to remember where I’d heard Calhoun’s name before, after he introduced himself. But before he came around the table to inspect my foot, I remembered. A few months back, Pa was visited by Marshal Barrows from Camp Collins. Barrows had a wanted poster, and I saw it. It had the name …”
Casey paused and glanced back at the cabin once more. Lonnie could hear Calhoun whistling in there as he chopped up the rabbit’s carcass on the kitchen table.
“It had the name Wilbur Calhoun splashed in big, black letters across the top of it,” Casey said, whispering and shielding her mouth with her hand. “He’s a train robber!”
“A train robber?”
“Shhhh!”
Lonnie gritted his teeth and turned to the cabin again. Calhoun was still whistling while he worked.
“A train robber?” Lonnie asked again, much lower this time.
Casey nodded. “The marshal said some prospectors had seen him camping alone in the Never Summers. Said the man had a list of train robberies as long as his leg. He’d been robbing trains since after the Civil War, and often took to remote mountains between holdups. The marshal was out lookin’ for Calhoun but when he talked to Pa, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him, but he wanted Pa to keep an eye skinned for him.” She glanced back at the cabin as she added, “He said Calhoun was fast as greased lightning with his old Confederate pistols. A cold-blooded killer, with a hefty reward on his head.”
She slowly kicked her foot in the water, making gurgling sounds. She turned back to Lonnie, looking grave. “And you know what else?”
“Ah, heck,” Lonnie groaned. “I don’t think I wanna hear any more.”
Casey stopped kicking her foot in the water, and swallowed. “Just after the war, he killed his wife. That’s when he came west and started robbing trains.”
Lonnie stared at Casey in disbelief. He could still hear Calhoun whistling, and he could hear meat frying in a pan. “You mean, that old man in there did that?”
“Well, he probably wasn’t so old back then. And did you see how easily he blew those outlaws’ hats off their heads? Those weren’t accidental hits. I mean, if he’d been aimin’ a little lower—well, you get my drift. And he stared down Dupree like he was no more of a danger than a cottontail rabbit!”
Lonnie pondered the information as again he felt his shoulder tighten with trepidation. He glanced a couple more times back at the cabin, then he said, half to himself, “Well, I reckon that’s why he’s so suspicious of strangers. Probably been one step ahead of one lawman or another since the war ended. But what I don’t understand is this, Casey.”
“What don’t you understand?”
Lonnie hooked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the cabin. “He could have run off with that money, and he didn’t. He could have run off with it twice now and he didn’t!”
“Yeah,” Casey said, slowing nodding. “And he saved your life twice and mine once.” She shook her head and resumed kicking her foot in the cold spring water gurgling along the creek. “No figuring some people, I reckon.”
She turned to Lonnie. “What do you figure we should do?”
“I think we oughta pull out first thing in the mornin’.” Lonnie felt something brush up against his right thigh and saw that Cherokee had hunkered down beside him, slapping his tail against the ground. “Hey, look—his dog’s right friendly!”
“Yeah, but Calhoun killed his wife, Lonnie. And he’s a train robber. Imagine how many innocent people he killed!”
They both pondered that while Lonnie stroked the dog’s burr-laden coat that smelled a little gamey.
“What if …” Casey seemed to ruminate on continuing, and then she decided to go ahead: “What if he’s one of those crazy killers you hear so much about, wandering the mountains looking for innocent blood to spill?”
“Innocent blood to spill?”
“Yeah, like in the stories you read about in Policeman’s Gazette.”
“Oh,” Lonnie said, nodding. “Pa used to bring them rags home from town once in a while. I wasn’t supposed to, but I’d read ’em out in the barn. You think them stories are true?”
“I don’t know, but I hope we don’t become the makin’s of one of those stories tonight, Lonnie. I sure don’t. I’m not sure I want Mister Calhoun close enough to me to wrap my foot with rawhide.” Casey looked at Lonnie, her eyes glinting worriedly.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Under the circumstances, I don’t think I would, neither.”
The cabin door scraped open and thudded shut. “All right, young’uns,” Calhoun called, striding toward the creek. “Time to doctor that foot and make you good as new again, Miss Casey!”
CHAPTER 47
Cherokee barked as his master walked toward the creek.
Casey looked at Lonnie and gasped. “What am I gonna do?”
Lonnie didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t have his rifle near, if he should need it. There wasn’t much he could do except sit there as Calhoun knelt down beside Casey and pulled her foot out of the water. Lonnie saw that the man was wearing both his pistols and the knife he’d dressed the rabbit with, too.
If the old Confederate should go crazy and start shooting and stabbing, there’d be nothing Lonnie could do about it.
Wilbur Calhoun didn’t, however, go crazy and start stabbing or shooting. He very gently set Casey’s bare foot on his thigh again. He slowly and with painstaking gentleness wrapped the back of the girl’s foot and ankle halfway up to her shin with the rawhide, tying and knotting it and professing, “There—you’ll be good as new in a few days, or I’ll return the shoat!”
Calhoun chuckled at that. When neither Lonnie nor Casey said anything, and both seemed not to understand, the old Confederate gave them a wink and, patting the head of Cherokee who’d taken a seat close to his master, tongue lolling, said, “That’s an old Southern expression. Back before the war, many folks paid for their doctoring with pigs or other animals. Maybe they still do. I wouldn’t know. Been a while since I been back to the old home country.”
Calhoun cleared his throat, and, rising, his old knees popping, said, “Yes, ma’am—that ankle’ll be good as new in no time. Soak it once more with the rawhide on, and then come on in and get warm by the fire. The hide’ll shrink up and form a cast of sorts, hold the tendons tight so they can heal.” As he tramped on back to the cabin, Cherokee following close on his heels, the old Southerner said, “Come on inside, now, young’uns. Gettin’ cold in this holler, and supper’s on. No hominy, gallblast it, but it’s a good one, just the same!”
He cackled and went on inside while the dog laid out by the front door, though Lonnie could only see his white spots in the darkness in front of the low-slung hovel.
Lonnie looked at Casey. Neither said as much, but they didn’t know what to make of old Calhoun. But the smell of the man’s rabbit stew and coffee had drifted out over the canyon, and Lonnie’s stomach was rumbling. He and Casey hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and their bellies were getting way too cozy with their backbones.
Their concerns about the man’s past being overpowered by the pangs of their hunger, Lonnie climbed to his feet. He helped Casey to hers, and, arm in arm, they made their way back to the cabin, past Cherokee now curled into a tight ball near the door, and on inside to one of the best meals Lonnie could remember devouring.
Of course, most meals probably tasted that good when they sated a hunger as big and lumbering as the one Lonnie was harboring, but the old Southerner’s cooking was still good. Especially given that it was composed of the bare minimum of ingredients—the rabbit, canned tomatoes, and a few wild onions. There were no spices for seasoning. The coffee was hot and black, and as Lonnie tossed the last of it back, Calhoun cleared his own plate with a thick finger and poked it into his mouth.
He looked up, shuttled his gaze from Lonnie to Casey, and chuckled. Both had already cleaned their plates. Casey looked a little sheep
ish, sitting back from her own nearly spotless plate and empty coffee cup, her hands in her lap.
“You young’uns get enough?” asked the old Confederate.
Lonnie stifled a belch with his fist.
Casey said, “That was absolutely heavenly, Mister Calhoun.” Lonnie wanted to kick her under the table to forestall what she said next, but he didn’t know the headstrong girl was going to say what she did until the words were half out of her mouth.
Casey probably didn’t, either. “You’re a right good cook, for a man. You ever have a woman cook for you, Mister Calhoun? I mean, besides your mother, of course …”
She flushed a little, vaguely ashamed, while she slid a furtive glance over at Lonnie. Obviously, she was probing the man.
“A man gets to be my age, he’s usually suffered havin’ a female around the place, time or two,” Calhoun said with a caustic chuff, piling up the empty plates on the table before him and rising. Then he stopped, gave Casey a sly grin, and winked at her. The girl blushed. The man’s jovial retort seemed to shame the girl more than a straight-out admonishment for prying so boldly into his past would have done.
“I’ll wash those, Mister Calhoun,” Casey said, apparently feeling the need for penance.
“And strain that injured wing? I’ll say you won’t. You best get to sleep, little girl. You, too, boy. I’ll take care of the cleanin’ up. Miss Casey, you sleep right down there on the mat. It smells a little skunky, as skunk’s what was likely livin’ here before me an’ Cherokee moved in. But that hotroll there came with the place—some pilgrim must’ve forgot it—and it’s fresh. The boy an’ me’ll sleep outside—give you plenty of peace and quiet from our snorin’—eh, boy?”
Calhoun guffawed and headed out to the creek with the plates.
Casey looked at Lonnie. “Whoops,” she said.
“Good goin’, girl,” Lonnie said, genuinely peeved at her. “If he goes loony on me out there, I’ll have you to thank.”
Casey stuck out her tongue at him.
Lonnie checked on the horses, contentedly grazing. Lonnie didn’t think he’d have to tie or hobble them. Calhoun had told him that the canyon, with its steep ridge walls, served as a nearly enclosed corral of sorts. Besides, the horses were tired from all the running they’d done. Calhoun had also assured Lonnie that he didn’t need to worry about Dupree catching up to him and Casey here.
At least, not tonight.
Not only would the outlaws have to run their horses down first, which would take considerable time, the canyon was hidden well and virtually impossible to find on even a moonlit night to someone who didn’t know it was even here. Calhoun doubted that more than a few handfuls of folks over the past couple of hundred years had known of the canyon’s whereabouts, and most of them, besides the old prospector or sheepherder who’d built the place, had likely been Arapaho Indians, who’d called the Never Summers home not all that long ago. A couple of wandering bands still did.
Feeling as secure as possible given the situation, and considering what he now knew about Calhoun himself, the boy threw his gear down in the soft grass and ferns by the creek. When Calhoun was done working around the cabin, the old-timer spread out his own bedroll and saddle near Lonnie. While the old Confederate was asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the soft underside of his saddle, Lonnie fidgeted and rolled from side to side. His nerves were still popping like miniature lightning bolts inside him.
As he’d started to drift off, he’d imagine a bear’s roar or the demon-like face of Dupree would reveal itself, ominously shadowed by imagined firelight.
Guns would pop and hooves would pound inside the boy’s weary head.
Also, Calhoun snored. Lonnie had never heard a man snore as loudly as the old Confederate. He sounded like ripsaw trying to cleave solid rock, only louder. And the snores weren’t steady and predictable, which somehow made them worse. They were as irregular as the thunder in a slowly swirling storm.
Eventually, however, the soft hand of sleep rose up out of the primordial soup of unconsciousness, and swept Lonnie away. When he awoke, it took him nearly a full minute to remember where he was and what he was doing there. He sat up suddenly, squinting at the blinding sun pillaring on and around him through the canopy of the towering firs and aspens.
He shielded his eyes against the light with his hand, and sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. The sun was not only high, but it seemed to be starting its slow shift to the west!
He blinked sleep from his eyes and looked around, getting his bearings. Straight across the creek and beyond the trees, he could see three horses—General Sherman, Casey’s chestnut, and Calhoun’s cream stallion grazing in a small clearing bright with sunshine gilding the green grass. Beyond the horses and more trees rose a tall, gray crag of ridge wall maybe a thousand feet tall.
The air was warm. Not hot but warm. A light breeze blew.
There was a splashing sound, and Lonnie turned to look upstream. Calhoun was sitting on the beaver dam about sixty yards away. The old Confederate was slowly kicking his bare feet in the water and holding a willow fishing pole against his thigh, the line angling down the dam and into a dark, gently rippling pool in which a cork bobbed gently. The collie dog, Cherokee, was scrounging around on the bank, head down, tail curled over his back.
Suddenly, the dog pitched back onto his hind paws, coiling like a spring. Then, bounding high and forward, Cherokee formed a near-perfect brown-and-white arc over the grass before he slammed his front paws down on the ground, burying his head for a second in a thick patch of ferns before pulling it back up with a mouse squealing between his jaws.
The dog flipped the mouse high in the air and then plunged after it again, playing.
“Cherokee, stop tormentin’ that poor creature and either eat it or leave it alone!” Calhoun beseeched the dog. The man turned his bearded face, shaded by his old cavalry hat, toward Lonnie and said, “Good mornin’, sunshine!”
“It ain’t mornin’ no more, is it?” Lonnie asked, dreadfully. He’d wanted him and Casey to get an early start. They needed to stay ahead of Dupree and to get the loot to Camp Collins pronto.
Calhoun squinted up at the sun and then casually pulled a gold watch from the pocket of his calico shirt. “Accordin’ to this old timepiece I acquired thanks to you, it’s nigh onto one thirty.”
“Holy moly,” Lonnie said, bewildered. “Half the day is gone.”
He looked around for Casey. There was no sign of the girl.
He looked at Calhoun, who was grinning at him like the cat that ate the canary.
That grin caused a cold stone to drop deep, deep down into the deep well of the boy’s soul.
Casey …
CHAPTER 48
“What?” Calhoun asked. “You think I ate her or somethin’?”
Lonnie hadn’t realized he’d called the girl’s name.
Calhoun chuckled, dropped his chin as he looked toward the cabin. “There she is now.”
Lonnie turned to the cabin. Casey was fully clothed but she was standing in the open doorway, staring out and blinking as though she, too, had just awakened.
“What time is it?” she asked in a sleep-gravelly voice.
Calhoun said, “Well, you’re both late for breakfast and lunch. Now, I reckon you’ll have to wait for supper. I’m tryin’ to catch it right now. Ain’t havin’ much luck.” He scowled at the cork floating in the pool. “Never was much of an angler, and that’s a bonded fact.”
“We gotta get movin’, Casey an’ me,” Lonnie said, shrugging off his blankets and climbing stiffly to his feet.
“You’d best rest up today. You two young’uns been through a lot. Rest up the rest of the day and get a clean start in the mornin’.”
“What about Dupree?” Casey said, gazing apprehensively back the way they’d ridden into the canyon.
“He’s likely fetched his horses by now, and him and them other two curly wolves are most like scourin’ the country for you.” The old Conf
ederate pulled in his bait, inspected the worm dangling from the hook, and tossed it and the cork back into the stream again. “He won’t find you here. I went back and scratched out any sign we left last night. There’s only about one time of the day a fella can see the entrance to this canyon clear, from the western valley, on account of the way the light and shadows sit, and that time’s done come and gone. There’s a way in from the north, but it’s a long ride around. You’re safe here. Tomorrow, you can ride out bright and early. You’ll both have some good rest behind you, good vittles in your bellies.”
Calhoun scowled down at the unmoving cork in the water, and shook his head. “Leastways, I hope you do …”
Lonnie shuttled his gaze upstream. He’d had visions of Dupree and Fuego and Childress riding Lonnie and Casey down last night, and those phantoms lingered, needling the boy. He went over to the cabin and helped Casey hobble out to the creek, where she sat down to bathe her foot. He found a stout branch for the girl to use as a cane to help her get around, then he rolled his blankets.
“Helkatoot,” Calhoun said, retrieving his line. “If there’s any fish in this stream, they ain’t hungry. Never have been hungry long as I been here. This old Reb can’t abide a finicky fish.” He gained his feet and began walking carefully down off the beaver dam. With Cherokee dogging his heels, he strode back to the cabin bathed in midday sunshine.
Lonnie sat down on the bank near Casey, still drowsy from her long slumber, and chewed a weed stem. His dreams about Dupree would not leave him. A few minutes later, Calhoun called his stallion into the yard, and saddled him. Then the old Rebel swung up into the leather, turned the horse downstream, and galloped off, the collie dog running along behind but swerving this way and that to investigate brush clumps or to give brief chase to rabbits and squirrels.
When Calhoun had followed the stream around a wide, right-swinging bend and had disappeared amongst the firs and aspens, Casey said, “Wonder where he’s goin’.”
Lonnie Gentry Page 19
