Nathanial

by J. B. Richard

  The sun was low in the sky when he left the Short ranch and headed south, following the bay’s print. Buck was a sure-footed, fast horse with lots of wind. Nate was a featherweight, so the mustang didn’t have to rest as often as Pa’s bay or the marshal’s horse. Jesse, too, would have to give his steed a breather now and then, and Nate hoped to use that to his advantage.

  Pa, no doubt, would skin Nate if he caught him following, but that wasn’t why Nate didn’t want to catch him or the marshal. Pa had taught him to face his trouble, but this time, he just couldn’t. The trouble with the Fletchers was too big. Maybe Pa couldn’t even handle it. Jesse was a different story. Pa had taught him to face his problems head on too, and that was exactly what he did when the state of affairs pertained to him. This situation with the Fletchers was Nate’s worry. But knowing Jesse the way he did, he would probably come up with some plan for them to get away together. Or at least that’s what he was counting on. He tried not to think about how sad his folks would be without the two of them. He made a silent promise to come back home as soon as possible.

  The moon was bright and lit the trail fairly well. There were dozens of stars twinkling overhead. Good thing it was a warm night because Nate didn’t have his coat. It made him sad for the things he’d left behind at his house.

  A flicker of light out ahead of him, not far in the distance, caught his eye. It was back among the trees just off the trail. Was it Jesse, Pa, and the marshal? It could just be some men traveling through the territory, or it could be Shorty and his men on their way home from the cattle drive. Nate turned the mustang off the trail. The ground was darker there under the trees, too many shadows, and he wouldn’t risk breaking one of Buck’s legs. He slid out of the saddle with his reins in hand. Every step was taken with care to miss any rock or holes that might trip his horse as he wound his way closer to the camp. He didn’t want Buck to whinny if he smelled another horse, so he picketed him behind an evergreen, then went forward on foot.

  Just outside the firelight and hunkered down among a thatch of tall grass and milkweed, Nate listened as Pa and the marshal talked. Jesse wasn’t with them, so he must have taken after the outlaws and been on their trail before Pa and the marshal got to Shorty’s ranch. It was the only reason that made sense. He could get to Jesse first and explain everything about the Fletchers. Then once Jesse saved Kristy and Hattie, he and Jesse could light out on their own. Hopefully, in that time, Pa didn’t catch up. Then Nate would have to return and be part of a legal trial, a terrifying thought.

  Nate turned to go back to Buck when the name Fletcher caught in his ears and stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “I’m sorry to mention the Fletchers, but we need to talk,” Huckabee said.

  “Honestly, Joseph, I can’t think about that right now. Judging by the tracks we’ve been following, my deputy ain’t too far behind those five armed criminals. Let’s get the girls back. Then we discuss that other matter. I just hope Nate doesn’t see those papers.” Pa sounded worried, his voice cracking.

  “Nolan, this is urgent. Prescott told me to advise ya to get a good lawyer, and if there isn’t one in Gray Rock, then he’ll give ya the names of a few that he considers top of the line.”

  “Dammit. I mean it, Joseph. Let it lie.”

  Nate had never heard Pa snap at his best friend. The marshal was quiet then, and like Pa, he stared with a sad, glazed-over look into the flickering flames.

  Nate walked a mile or so, leading Buck by the reins, skirting around Pa’s camp. He’d be damned if the Fletchers would snatch him. They probably wouldn’t even let him keep Buck. Mr. Fletcher, when Nate had seen him in Birch Creek, looked real smart, like a bookworm. He might make Nate study twenty-three hours of the day, and if he failed to get straight A’s and mind his P’s and Q’s in every situation, the Fletchers might lock him in his room or whatever uppity people did to punish their kids.

  He needed not to think about it anymore. He looked down at the badge on his shirt and thought of how upset Mrs. Short and his pals had been. He needed to focus on helping find Kristy and Hattie. It was what a deputy should do, and it would make him feel better.

  CHAPTER 18

  Nate was in the saddle at sunup, and the mustang seemed to be holding up just fine. They’d stopped a couple times to drink and rest a few minutes. Pa and the marshal would be on the move again since there was a little light in the sky, so Nate needed to keep trailing Jesse. If Nate calculated right, he was ahead of them by five, six hours if they hadn’t started out before daybreak. Nate pulled up reins on a little butte. There were a lot of miles stretched out before him, and every inch of it seemed lonely. It made him think about how frightened Kristy and Hattie had to be. And they weren’t the only ones. Ma, most likely, was worried sick since he hadn’t come home last night, nor Pa or Jesse.

  Nate searched the ground, and after a half mile or so, he spotted a hoofprint belonging to Jesse’s appaloosa. At noon, he happened to sight a berry bush. He let Buck eat grass while he ate raspberries as quick as he could pick them. When he crawled into the saddle, his fingers were stained purple. He wiped them down the front of his shirt and on his pants, but that didn’t help take the color off his hands, so he got down and tried wiping them on the grass, finding a fresher print from Jesse’s horse.

  A few hours later, Nate pulled up next to a trickling spring.

  In the dirt at Buck’s feet was a clear shoe mark of the appaloosa, and it was fresh, minutes old. Nate slid out of the saddle, looked around, then bent down, cupped water with his hand, and drank. He let Buck drink too. Then Nate took a few steps, following the appaloosa’s prints. The trail went into the tree line, which appeared to lead up and over a ridge side. The ground there was rockier, and that would make it harder to track Jesse, though not impossible. Nate got on his horse and started up through the trees.

  When he got to the top, out of ahead of him and down in the green valley below, a single line of gray seeped up from someone’s camp or cabin. Nate nudged the mustang. He figured that was where Jesse would head. It certainly drew the eyes and made one want to turn that way as though following a beacon.

  He’d gone no more than two hundred yards. Tucked under some flowering trees was a tiny cabin. There was nothing polished about it. One window, one door, and four ugly wooden walls, aged gray from withstanding the change of seasons year after year. Yet it was a good place for anyone on the run or just traveling through to rest. Nate sat his horse inside the tree line and watched the cabin for any sign of life.

  The door swung open. A scruffy, unshaven man in a red shirt stepped into the doorway. “Flynn, what’s taking ya so long? Hurry up with that horseshoe. Walt ain’t gonna like waitin’ fer us.”

  Nate couldn’t see the fella called Flynn because of the heavy tree cover that hemmed the rear of the cabin, but out of nowhere, the bang of a hammer rang out. A few minutes later, a tall, lean fella walked out from the tree line back there where the horses must have been hidden, and he and the man in the red shirt had words. They both stomped inside, and then the cabin door slammed shut.

  Nate didn’t have to wait long before the door peeled open again. This time, Kristy was marched out, Flynn holding tight to her arm. She was wiping at her eyes with her other hand. Nate’s breath caught, and he froze. If he had caught up with these men, that meant Jesse had to be around somewhere. Jesse’s fresh tracks, the ones Nate had found not twenty minutes ago, were not far from this place.

  The man in the red shirt dragged Hattie by an arm toward where Nate suspected the horses were hidden. A third man, a big, blubbery-looking brute of a fella, wobbled from the house. His stern face told of having a surly disposition. There had been two more men at Shorty’s ranch, or at least there had been five horses. Maybe two of the horses had been there so no one rode double, which would tire a horse out quick. That way there was one for Kristy and the other for Hattie.

  A shot rang out from across the stretch of grass that separated the cabin and the next
set of tree-covered hills. It had to be Jesse. He’d put himself in the outlaws’ path. If he turned them back, they would run right into Pa and the marshal, but Jesse didn’t know that. He only knew he was stopping them from going forward with his woman and her little sister.

  The man holding Hattie pitched forward and hit the ground with a hole in his chest. He didn’t move. Jesse must have killed him with one shot. Hattie was screaming as if someone were shooting at her, and it might have seemed that way. She took off running away from the fat one, who was definitely too round to be fast enough to catch her on foot.

  “Run, Hattie!” Kristy screamed while struggling under Flynn’s restraint as she tried to get free.

  Flynn threw Kristy on his horse, then swung a leg over the saddle and spurred his mount, disappearing quickly among the trees. He obviously wasn’t so stupid that he’d try escaping across open ground where Jesse’s Winchester might send him to the devil’s doorstep.

  Another rifle blasted from the other side of that small valley. Jesse’s Winchester boomed. A ricochet of gunfire rocked the trees and everything else nestled between those ridges. That made four men: one dead, Flynn, the fat one now on his horse and disappearing into the trees, and the fourth engaged in the rifle battle with Jesse. So where was guy number five? Nate hoped Jesse had eyes in the back of his head. This one might be keeping him busy while the fifth fella snuck up on him.

  There was one thing Nate could do to help. It would be one less worry for Jesse.

  “Hattie! Over here!” Nate kicked Buck. The sudden thump against the buckskin’s sides made him leap forward at a run. Nate ran his horse out into the open area and straight toward Hattie. She was running headlong for him. Her eyes were red, and tears streaked her face.

  Gunfire blasted overhead. Nate kept his head down and his shoulders curled, not wanting to get shot. He slowed Buck just enough to pull Hattie with a great grunt, helping her into the saddle behind him. Then he gave a hard cluck, and Buck took off flying into the tree line where they would be covered by all the branches and hopefully wouldn’t get captured or killed.

  Nate didn’t bother to look for Jesse. That might have been the smart thing to do, but the Winchester was still battling the other rifle and Nate didn’t want him or Hattie caught in the crossfire. Plus, with Jesse tied up in a fight, those other men were getting away with Kristy.

  Nate made a snap decision to follow. He’d do his best to keep Hattie safe. How he’d do that, he wasn’t sure, but his thought was to leave a clear trail for Jesse to follow. That way he could catch up quick. As long as he didn’t lose that fight he was in. Jesse was a master with the Winchester, but if it was two against one and that fifth fella was back there somewhere, then Jesse did have his work cut out for him. Maybe soon, Pa and the marshal would catch up. That would be a big help to Jesse. Then he could catch up to the men who still had Kristy.

  “Where are you going?” Hattie screeched in a quivering voice. She held tight around Nate’s waist as Buck hustled along the path. The poor girl was shaking all over. He didn’t want to scare her more than she already was, but he wouldn’t lie to her.

  “We’re going after your sister.” Nate was blunt but honest.

  A funny squeak slipped out between Hattie’s lips, and her eyes swelled with more tears. She shook her head. “Let’s go back to Jesse.”

  Nate kept Buck moving forward. “Listen to me, Hattie. I know how these outlaws work.”

  Everyone in Gray Rock knew the name of Nate’s birth father, and the entire country knew details of Jim Younger’s crimes. Hattie might not know that once upon a time, Nate had helped rob banks, but she was aware that he had been raised for a time by an outlaw.

  “The one back there fightin’ Jesse means to kill him, and while they’re battlin’, it gives these two time to get away with your sister. If I can help it, I ain’t gonna let that happen.”

  “What if they catch us?” A flood of tears streaked her face, and the boom of Jesse’s Winchester could still be heard.

  Nate grinned confidently. “They won’t. Buck’s too fast, and I promise I’ll not get that close. We’ll follow at a distance. I’m good at reading sign, so if they turn direction or try to trick us somehow, I’ll spot it.”

  The men ahead of them did switch directions about ten darn times. And each time, Nate got off Buck and scratched an arrow in the dirt for Jesse to easily follow.

  Nightfall was coming on when the tinkering of ivories danced on the wind and into their ears. Out of nowhere, two buildings, a small barn, and a corral appeared. If this was a town, it wasn’t much of one. There were several horses in the corral, and an empty wagon sat under the eaves of the barn. One light then another came on inside the place pitching out the gay melody. Several saddled horses stood tied just outside the swinging doors. In the ever-fading light of dusk, Nate couldn’t tell if those horses were lathered from running. He could only tell that they were darkish in color. The windows of the other building were black, which made it seem spooky. No lights shone out from inside the barn either.

  “I don’t think we should go in there.” Hattie’s gaze was fixed on the lively joint that Nate assumed was some sort of saloon. She squeezed him harder around the middle, nearly cutting his breath off, and in a way, she was letting him know just how frightened she was.

  “Those horses might belong to the men that have your sister. Maybe they have her locked up in one of the buildings or even maybe the barn.” Nate’s thoughts were such that they should do what the two of them could to locate Kristy. It was worth a look.

  “We should wait for Jesse.” Hattie’s voice quivered.

  Nate didn’t want to say it and put the fear of God into her, but Jesse should have caught up by now. He had all too clearly marked the trail for him to follow, so he shouldn’t have had to waste time hunting sign to track them. Jesse might be in a bad way, injured during that gun battle. As good as he was with his rifle, he, like any man, could catch lead.

  Nate put his hand over the badge on his chest. Every deputy repeated an oath before pinning on that symbol of justice. Pa had never sworn Nate in because he was too young, but Nate had the words memorized and had repeated them to himself a hundred times or more.

  His heart was pounding. “I’m not afraid,” he whispered to himself.

  It was dark now, so Jesse was probably just trying to save his horse by moving slow.

  “I’m goin’ down thar.” Nate didn’t cotton to waiting. The sooner he found sign of Kristy, the better. Every minute she was stuck with those outlaws, her life was in danger. Nate was willing to risk himself getting caught. He almost didn’t care if anything happened to him. After all, it seemed he was going to lose his family. What the marshal had said about Judge Prescott advising Pa didn’t leave Nate with much hope of staying in Gray Rock.

  He started to shift his weight to slide down off Buck, but Hattie wouldn’t let go of him, holding him there.

  “Let go of me.”

  “No. My sister’s gone.” Hattie turned her face into her shoulder and wiped tears off her cheek. “I don’t want you to get taken too.”

  “I’ll be so quiet that no one’ll notice me.” He unpinned the badge on his shirt and handed it to her. “This badge always gives me strength, makes me feel brave.” He sweetly grinned.

  She accepted it, squeezing it in her hand. Even so, it took a few more minutes of arguing, some convincing of his experience with such situations, and a solemn promise that he’d be right back before Hattie finally released her death grip on him so he could slip into that so-called town.

  On his tiptoes, Nate peeked in one of the side windows, his nose barely above the sill. It was a saloon all right. Brown bottles of whiskey sat on a shelf behind a long bar at the far end of the room. A burly, gray-haired man with a Texas longhorn mustache that curled on the ends poured a drink from behind the counter. On the other side was Flynn, leaning on an elbow. There were a few round tables with chairs tucked in around them. The fat man was
n’t there, but there were two other fellas with tied-down guns. Nate hadn’t seen either of them back at the cabin where he’d seen Kristy, but that didn’t mean they weren’t part of that gang.

  The piano and the man stroking the keys sat just inside the door to the left. Not far from the music was a set of stairs. Maybe the big guy was up there keeping an eye on Kristy.

  Nate looked around for some way to scale the side of the building and have a look-see in the upstairs window. There wasn’t even a tree close by that he could jump from onto the roof and get in from above. He cursed under his breath. A couple of crates were stacked near the back door, but they weren’t big enough to put him in range of the second-floor window. What were the chances he’d get caught if he just slipped in the back door?

  “Hey, kid! What are ya doin’ back thar?” The voice had come out of nowhere behind Nate.

  He whipped around, tripping himself, and stumbled back into the crates, rattling them. Shit! It had to be one of the men from inside. Who else was around? This was the only place that seemed to contain any life.

  Nate’s breathing was all off at being startled, and he couldn’t seem to regain control of his wobbly legs and started to fall. The man was running toward him. Nate wanted to scream, but nothing came out, though his mouth was wide open. Suddenly, the back door flung wide, and light spilled out. A burly figure was silhouetted in the doorway, and an arm reached out and grabbed him by the scruff. Nate squealed and, as a result, got hastily shaken limp.

  He was dragged inside kicking and squirming. All he could think about was Hattie. If she’d heard him scream—and she probably had—then she was sure to be panicking.