Latigo 3, page 2
From the spacing and indentations made by the three horses it was evident to Cole that the riders were pushing their animals. And there was no place within miles where they could pick up fresh mounts. Cole itched to get his hands on such scum who had turned a handsome young woman into a grieving widow. How old was she, anyway? Twenty-five? Maybe even younger. He had seen her at a disadvantage, for sure, eyes reddened from weeping, the mouth a pale slash across the handsome face that was twisted in grief for a dead mate.
Finally Cole reached the top of the mountain. The sharp wind that struck his face had also uncovered the moon, so that its light flooded the trail ahead. He pulled up the collar of the heavy coat to cover his ears. When they began the descent on the far side, the wind grew shrill and wintry for a few miles and then became a whisper.
The three outlaws had broken through the ice of a frozen creek to let their horses drink. Water dripped from iced tree limbs, glistened on a shoulder of rock that jutted on the far side of the creek. There the three sets of tracks continued. Under the trees where Cole and the others watered the horses, the moonlight was gone; shadows made everyone anonymous.
As Cole picked up the reins, preparing to mount, his eye ran along the line of shadowed figures at the creek bank, his posse that he would lead deeper into wild country.
He made a mental calculation: Jeff Peters and four men. With luck they could handle three murderers. A posse of six, counting Cole himself. He put a foot in a stirrup, frowned, removed the foot and counted again. There were six shadowed figures, not five, as there should be. Were his eyes playing tricks?
The sixth figure had stood in deeper shadows. Tall, the head back, squarish chin, the hat tied on by a scarf, mounting now in a pool of moon yellow that filtered through a gap in the trees.
Cole swore under his breath and marched through snow and brush. His shoulder cracked against a tree branch, knocking loose an icicle.
“You’re supposed to be on your way back to Tracy Junction,” he snarled at the handsome face of Amanda Cutler.
“I have a right to be with this posse.” Her tone was defiant. “After all, it was my husband who was murdered.”
Chapter Two
FOR A DOZEN heartbeats Cole was speechless. Then he noticed that Jeff Peters refused to meet his eyes. “Jeff, did you know she tricked me like this?”
Peters fidgeted, his boots digging into the snow, his bad leg causing him to wince. “Yeah, I seen her,” he admitted at last. “But like she says, Latigo, she’s sure got a right to be with us.”
“For Crissakes, Jeff, you’ve been in these mountains long enough to know that it’s dangerous enough for an experienced man. Impossible for an inexperienced female ...”
“Didn’t see no harm,” Peters mumbled.
“When we close in on those three hombres, there’ll be hell popping, and you know it. Mrs. Cutler will just be underfoot.”
Amanda Cutler’s voice rang clearly through the trees. “I assure you I will not be underfoot. I will do my part!”
Cole glared. About all he could make out now were her large eyes. “I doubt if you even know how to handle a gun “
She walked up to him, into a bar of moonlight, the men standing aside. Something metallic rammed him in the belly. Looking down he saw that she had drawn a weapon from a pocket of her great coat. Large enough for a .45. He could feel the metal eye of its muzzle through the front of his open coat. “Gawd, lady, don’t shoot him!” Jeff Peters cried.
The other men stiffened, breaths held as they watched the woman. Her pale hand, now ungloved, was steady. Cole noticed that her fingers were long and tapering. There was obvious strength in the wrist.
“I can take care of myself, Mr. Cole Latigo Cantrell!” she cried in a shrill voice.
“Not against three killers. You’re upset. Put away the gun.”
Cole knew he couldn’t send her back down the mountain alone. Even an arrogant female didn’t deserve that. And he couldn’t spare any men for escort.
“I’ll do my share of fighting,” she said, her full lips trembling, “and help bring in the men who ... who killed my husband.”
Cole bit back an oath and an urge to boot Jeff Peters in his scrawny rump for not alerting him that the woman was coming up the mountain with them. And how about Eddie Prince? Why hadn’t he yelled that the Cutler woman was riding with them? But he supposed the kid was too busy hitching up the team to notice. Cole drew a deep breath. No matter what, the responsibility was his. He should have made sure she rode back to Tracy Junction with Eddie.
“I want you to listen to me, Mrs. Cutler. When there’s trouble, and there will be, I want you to keep back. And when I yell back, I’ll mean it!”
Without a word she put away her gun, buttoned the heavy coat and mounted the horse. Even though she wore what looked like long johns under her stockings, there was no way she could keep coat and dress from sliding up her fine-looking legs. Cole undid his bedroll and gave her a blanket to wrap around her legs. She didn’t thank him but sat with chin lifted, staring at the tracks that zigzagged off in the snow on the far side of the creek.
They pushed on. An hour passed, and another. At a cul-de-sac sheltered from a wind that squeezed out of canyons in the higher mountains, Cole called a halt. The snow was not as heavy as it had been below.
“We keep on, we’ll kill our horses,” he warned. “Any time lost now, we’ll make up come daylight.”
“How do we do that?” asked Silas Meagan, a round little man with a deeply creased face.
“I know where they’re heading. Blue Dog Pass.”
“What a colorful name,” Amanda Cutler said in that arrogant voice Cole was beginning to despise.
“That dog kept some people from starving to death one winter,” he snapped.
“Well, I didn’t mean they ... ate it. Or did they?” She looked down at the trampled snow. “I ... I guess I don’t know what I mean.”
“You reckon we oughta set out a guard?” Peters asked.
“I reckon, Jeff.” Cole added, “You argue among yourselves the rotation. I haven’t had but a few winks of sleep since night before last, so I’ll take last watch. Jeff, you wake me up.”
“Mr. Cantrell, you’ll need your blanket.” Amanda tossed it to him. He got his other blanket and walked over to where she had stretched out on the ground.
“We’ll share two blankets,” he announced. “One isn’t enough.”
“My coat is sufficient.”
“I didn’t invite you along, ma’am. I don’t figure to freeze to death. Or see you turn into an icicle. Whether you like it or not, we’re gonna share these blankets.”
He lay down, their backs touching, and spread the two blankets over them. He felt the gentle curve of her hip through the heavy coats.
“You don’t like me,” she said, her voice muffled against the coat collar.
“My Crow blood tells me that a woman in battle is bad medicine.”
“I can fight.”
“Then why didn’t you when those three no-goods jumped your camp?”
“Walter would never allow me to have a weapon. It’s his gun I have now.”
“It isn’t pleasant for you. Of course you couldn’t fight off three desperate men. I shouldn’t have brought it up. One thing, it’s luck they didn’t find you.”
“I guess they were only after the money.”
“They knew about the money?”
She said at a place called Jimson her husband and Knight had gone to a saloon and gambled. “I stayed at the hotel. I imagine Walter bragged a little about the money he carried. He had a habit of doing that. He liked to challenge people. As if daring anyone to make a move against him.”
“Much money?”
“Considerable. Walter had heard of a gambler in New Sodom. We were going to take a stagecoach from Scalplock to there after Walter ran out of villages.”
“This gambler in New Sodom. You know his name?”
She didn’t. Only that Walter was determined to beat the man at his own game, poker.
Cole wondered if it could be Duke Sateen that Cutler had intended to buck. The last Cole had heard of Sateen, the former Confederate officer had been house man at the Four Aces, in New Sodom. He had once saved Sateen’s life.
“Walter liked to play in these villages,” she was saying, “and challenge those who thought they could play poker. There wasn’t much of a challenge at Jimson, so Walter said.”
“And your husband and his partner just decided to run off and leave a ranch to run itself?”
“Walter believed the crew capable. They wouldn’t dare do anything that might displease him.”
These were the last words he remembered. Her warmth brought sleep roaring in like wind he could no longer hear from the high places. All around them the silent mountains formed a jagged line against the night sky.
Some miles east of Blue Dog Pass the Latchey brothers, Kane and Elmo, and their cousin, Willy Latchey, had found a cave as shelter from the night. They built a fire and fried some hog fat and drank strong coffee. Then Kane dragged out the money sack. It was canvas, and on the side was stamped CLEARWATER BANK. They emptied it on the cave floor. Some of the double eagles rolled into fresh horse droppings where the mounts had been hobbled at the rear of the cave.
Willy, thin and with a narrow vicious face, scampered after the coins. Those that had been dirtied he wiped off on the front of his shirt.
They counted the money. Elmo Latchey was a giggler and seemed to enjoy showing off his gapped teeth. “Son of a bitch. Fifteen thousand nine hunnerd an’ ninety two dollars. Been sixteen thousand if that colonel bastard hadn’t lost eight dollar at Jimson Town.”
Kane Latchey scooped the money back into the sack, scowled at the others. “Ain’t said nothin’, but I got me a feelin’ there’s somebody on our back trail.”
Willy shook his head. “Hell, we kilt ’em both. Might be a day, two days, afore anybody finds them carcasses.”
“Won’t be nothin’ to find if the big cats get there first.” Elmo giggled and tongued the largest gap in his teeth.
“Come first light, I’ll have me a look through the glasses,” Kane said. “Soon’s I kin find high enough ground for a good look-see.” In his saddlebags were a pair of U.S. Army field glasses he had stolen from Fort Savage.
“If there is somebody,” Willy said, “we better set us up an ambush.”
“Only if they git too close,” Kane said.
“Our hosses mightn’t hold out,” Willy put in doubtfully to his older cousin.
“Once we’re through the pass we’re safe. We’ll git to the tracks an’ hitch us a ride when the trains slow for that big curve.”
“What you gonna buy with your share of the money?” Elmo asked young Willy.
“They tell me they got a fancy whorehouse in New Sodom. I aim to buy it out for a week,” which caused Elmo to emit another giggle. “I ain’t had a woman for so long I ache from just thinkin’ about it,” Willy finished.
Kane winked at his brother and said to Willy, “Go warm your hand at the fire an’ play ol’ lady five fingers an’ you won’t ache so much.” Kane, with the hard eyes that matched his slash of mouth, had to smile as Willy flushed with embarrassment.
“I ain’t done that since I was a keed.”
Elmo howled with laughter. “Hell, you ain’t much more’n a keed now.”
Willy glared at his cousin. “We find us a female, an’ I’ll show you a damn long-winded stud.”
“Quit talkin’ about it,” Kane snapped. “I’m kinda gettin’ the ache myself.” He fixed his brother and cousin with a cold eye. “Anyhow, if we do find a woman, I get first go.”
“Just ’cause you’re older,” Willy said with a sour laugh.
“An’ tougher,” Kane pointed out. He touched the big pistol at his belt.
Elmo said, “Wait’ll we git to New Sodom. Willy’s gonna buy us gals aplenty for a whole week.” He giggled, curled up on the stone floor and fell asleep. The fact that he had had a hand in murdering two men miles back on the Tracy road did not even nudge his conscience. He slept soundly, as did Kane. Willy sat in the cave mouth, on guard, a rifle across his knees, staring out at the dark and endless mountains. Wolves howled.
Chapter Three
AT THE POSSE camp Silas Meagan had drawn first watch, the others taking turns. Jeff Peters finally shook Cole awake. In a way Cole was sorry he had gotten mixed up in this. But he couldn’t deny that last night Peters had voiced one truth. These bandits would no doubt turn their attention to the stage line before long, and that certainly was Cole’s responsibility. It was the first time, so far as Cole knew, that the trio had committed cold-blooded murder. Mrs. Cutler was fortunate to be alive.
He was turning it over in his mind as he finished last watch. Already the night was beginning to dim. By daylight he had his first close look at his men. They looked worn out already, showing their age. But in the thin gray light of morning Mrs. Cutler looked even better than she had in the night just passed. He watched her as she slept; she seemed younger, the mouth relaxed. In a showdown she wouldn’t be any more help than the males in his posse. If there were criminals to be captured and brought to justice it would be up to him. Him alone. But it wouldn’t be the first time he’d bucked such odds. Not too far in the past it had been four against one. He was the only survivor.
Chuck Hampton cranked his bearded face around to look at the eastern sky and comment on the cloudless day. “Don’t look like snow, anyhow. Thank God for that much luck.” He gave a sour laugh. Faded red underwear showed through a gap in his shirt. “Luck is what we’re gonna need, seems like,” he added unhappily.
Daylight was beginning to spawn misgivings in Sid Rugger and Curley Digg also. Meagan tried to be cheerful, as did Jeff Peters, who was fixing breakfast. Mrs. Cutler emerged from the privacy of tall trees and sat down, frowning up the mountain slope and the three sets of fugitive horse tracks.
Hampton plucked a branch from the fire and lighted his pipe with it while Peters said, “Don’t care what you claim about readin’ the sky. But my leg tells me it’s gonna snow ’fore the day is out.”
“I got me a bad leg too,” Meagan said, screwing up his deeply creased face. “Damn Yankee shot me at Chancellorsville.” Mention of the battleground brought Cole’s head up. How well he remembered. It crossed his mind that there was a chance Meagan’s bullet had come from his pistol as he rallied his troopers. He didn’t like to think of the war and wished Meagan hadn’t mentioned it. The war was behind them all. It had drained off four years of his life even though he had believed in the cause. Worse, not many weeks after Appomattox his parents had been foully murdered, the crime blamed on renegade Indians. From the first Cole had not been fooled when he arrived home to find his parents dead in the ranch yard, house and barn a charred ruin. One by one he had hunted down the five white men who had actually committed the murders. But the one who had ordered it done, who had paid the five men, was still alive, still unpunished. It was not so easy to bring down a man of power who owned, among other things, a railroad.
With the supplies from the Cutler wagon they had brought only two cups. When Cole poured steaming coffee he said, “You’ll have one cup for yourself alone, Mrs. Cutler.”
But she shook her head, the sun bringing out the dark-red lights of her hair. She insisted on sharing her cup with the others. At least she was that human, Cole had to admit.
“You seem grim this morning, Mr. Cantrell.” Her deep-set eyes stared into his.
He didn’t tell her he had been thinking of the war. “Some memories are grim,” he said. “Yours will be, after last night.”
“Grim memories? I had them before last night.” She took a cup from Meagan, drank from it, steam rising against her smooth cheeks.
Cole wondered about her previous grim memories. He had a feeling Amanda Cutler had had her own way in life. And that the life had been easy. This morning her voice was more relaxed, musical, her slight Southern accent pleasing.
Cole held out his cup when she had passed along the other one to Sid Rugger. A faint smile curved her full lips as she drank from Cole’s cup.
“How long will it take us to find those outlaws?” she asked.
He told her they should reach Blue Dog Pass by midafternoon, perhaps sooner if the weather held. “It’s the only way out of here. At least, the quickest way without detouring for miles. They must know about the pass or they wouldn’t be heading straight in that direction. At the pass, that’s when we’ll get ’em.”
Sid Rugger tended to the fire, dousing it with water, then doing a little dance on it with his long skinny legs to make sure the sparks were dead.
When they started out, Cole said, “You keep behind us, ma’am.” And to the others, “By now they’ve likely looked over their back trail and know they’re being followed. So we’ve got to keep our eyes peeled for an ambush.”
Mention of an ambush caused her to sink white teeth into the lower lip. But there was no hint of worry in the large eyes.
Soon the trail led straight up a hogback, spilled left into a ravine, then snake-tracked for two miles or more toward a crumbling sandstone rim laced with snow. Now that sunlight was stronger Cole noticed the tracks they followed were uneven, deeper; the mounts of the outlaws were beginning to weaken. And after passing the cave where the killers had holed up for the night, Cole noticed blood on the snow. He backtracked to the cave and found a bloodied spot, where one of the horses had apparently scraped against a rough place on the cave wall.
