Latigo 3, page 5
“Because you wouldn’t have listened. And I’m tired of arguing.”
She leaned over in the saddle and touched his gloved hand. “Listen to me, please. The only way I can cleanse my soul is to keep on until I personally have a hand in the destruction of those Latcheys.”
“You’ll cleanse your soul when they hang. They’ll keep on and on, and one day soon they’ll be caught. It’s inevitable.”
“You don’t understand.” She withdrew her hand from his. “You simply do not understand.” The large gray eyes seemed to acquire a new intensity. “There was hardly a day passed that I did not wish Walter dead,” she said, lips white with strain. “And because he is dead, I must pay a price for wishing it so.”
He leaned over the saddle horn, felt it press through the heavy coat to his belly. “You hated your husband?”
“When he did die ...” Her voice drained to a husky whisper, “it ... it came so suddenly I was completely stunned. But I knew that my prayers had been answered. At the same time, I am an accessory.”
“Nonsense ... if he treated you badly ...”
“There are more subtle ways to beat a woman than with fist or horsewhip.” She removed a glove and was shaking out a large white linen handkerchief. She used it to wipe her face. “That is why I have to go on, Cole. I have to see those men brought to whatever justice we can find in this back country.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
She rode on, but he spurred and caught up. They halted on a rise of ground some distance below the original trail, which bore tracks of the fugitives.
“It’s expiation of sins,” she said shakily.
“You’re being too dramatic.”
“I’m going on alone, Cole, if I have to.” She gestured at the ridge above and put on her glove.
“That’s the most senseless thing you’ve said yet.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Cantrell.”
“I haven’t believed half of what you’ve told me.” He twisted in the saddle, his mouth hard.
Her eyes, reddened from weeping, were resolute. She drew the big pistol from her pocket, gloved fingers clamped to the butt. She steadied it with her left hand. It was pointed at him.
“Put the gun away,” he said roughly.
“And give you a chance to tie my hands and lead me down the mountain?”
It was exactly what was going through his mind. No longer did he have any reluctance about binding her wrists. It was past that. But he didn’t allow his intentions to show on his face.
“All right, you win,” he said with a shrug. “We’ll do whatever you want.” He didn’t feel it wrong to lie to a woman when you were trying to save her life.
She studied him for a few moments, then dropped the gun back into the pocket of her greatcoat. Cotton clouds moved lazily across higher peaks.
Cole neck reined Trooper as if to retrace their steps. All he wanted was to get close enough to grab that gun. Because in her overwrought condition she just might try to shoot him out of the saddle. At the moment he almost hated her for complicating his life with her own tangled feelings of sin and guilt.
Once he had disposed of the gun he would tie her wrists to the saddle horn, no mistake about that.
It was all cleverly planned, and he even managed a disarming smile as he rode in close. But she wasn’t fooled. She suddenly reined her horse aside so quickly it nearly slipped on snowy shale. “Damn you,” she hissed, “I know what you’re planning...”
She stiffened, her jaw dropping. She did not scream but only uttered a small sound of shock and pain. He saw her eyes roll back in her head, saw her sag in the saddle. Then she toppled backward into the snow, hugging her midsection with both arms.
And in that same space of seconds came the distant crack of a rifle.
Feeling sick, Cole glanced at her crumpled in the snow, eyes clamped shut. At least she was alive, breathing in great gulps of air. He suddenly came out of his daze and sank in the spurs. Trooper lunged as another bullet cut down from above and plowed a long furrow through the snow. All he thought about at the moment was to draw fire away from her.
He saw the smudge of blue powder-smoke, oily in the brilliant sunlight. Then he glimped a face on a rocky promontory.
“Damn it, Elmo! You got the woman!”
“Hell with it! Him next!” Elmo yelled off to the left.
Cole’s Henry was out and leveled as Trooper bounded upslope, scattering rocks, punching great holes in the snow. His Henry spat, spat again, and Elmo’s face seemed to disintegrate. A hand came up involuntarily, as if to check a sudden flow of blood from a scalp wound. In trying to get away, Elmo leaned to his feet and into the path of another bullet from the Henry. His mouth popped open, exposing gapped teeth. Impact spun him. His hat sailed off. His hair, long and brownish, flopped like the wing of a great brown bird.
“Elmo!” Kane yelled hoarsely from his rock shelter.
And then Kane Latchey was mounted up and spurring away, hampered by a heavy sack, tied to the horn, that swayed, and bumped his running horse on the flank.
As Trooper narrowed the gap, Cole was close enough to see Kane’s reddened eyes, swollen from dirt Cole’s bullet had hurled into them. Kane Latchey was looking back, a large pistol in his right hand, above the bouncing sack.
Cole swerved aside, shouting angrily, “You sons of bitches shot her!” It didn’t make any difference which one of them had turned Amanda Cutler from avenging goddess into a pitiful lump of clay in the snow.
Kane fired twice, missed. Then, knowing he could not outdistance the great cavalry horse, he reined in suddenly, the hooves of his mount sending up a geyser of snow and mud. He took more careful aim with the pistol, but not in time. The Henry rifle roared, the sound confined now, reverberating off towering cliffs. The redheaded Latchey screamed and made an abrupt flight from the saddle, all loose arms and legs. As he came down his head struck a granite slab. It left a great smear on rock worn slick from a hundred centuries of mountain weather.
Cole knew Kane was dead, but he was unsure about Elmo. He only took the time to hurl their weapons into a gulch far below.
Then Cole rode recklessly back to where he had last seen Amanda. He was surprised and gratified to see her sitting up. Her hat had been knocked off and her hair was dusted with snow. She stared at him dazedly.
He swung down and knelt at her side, snowy rocks chilling his knees. “You badly hurt?” he asked gently.
The gray eyes gradually focused on him. “Knocked the wind out of me ... bullet struck Walter’s gun ...”
He realized it hurt her to speak. There was a great rip in her coat pocket where the bullet had struck the gun and slammed the weapon with great force against her solar plexus.
“You scared me,” he said hoarsely, and leaned over to brush back a lock of dark-red hair that had fallen over her eye.
“If I never realized it before, I know now that death in this wild country is only a whisper away.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you, Amanda.”
“I know.” She looked at him, muscles in the strong throat working. “Were they Latcheys?”
“Elmo and Kane.”
“Are they both dead?”
He told her he was sure about Kane, but not Elmo. “I’ll go make sure.” He caught up her horse, which had drifted off a few yards to a patch of grass Trooper’s hooves had uncovered in the wild ride toward the ridge.
He warned her not to move, to stay where she was. He found that Elmo was also dead. He got their mounts where they had been left, reins weighted by heavy rocks. Then he rolled the dead ones in their own yellow slickers and lashed them to their horses.
Although still shaky from her experience, Amanda was able to ride.
“We’ll head for the railroad tracks,” Cole said as they started out. “Closer than Tracy Junction.”
“You’re no longer worried about me going on with you?” she asked with a faint smile.
“Main trouble’s over with. If anything else comes up, I’ll handle it.”
“I’m sure you will, Cole.”
After the brief but furious gunfight he felt let down. When they came at last to the pass, Amanda looked curiously at a narrow slot in the sheer wall of mountains. “A dog saved the lives of travelers here so long ago. And you saved mine today. Twice.”
He shrugged it off. “A lot of it was just luck.”
“I think it was destined that we meet.”
“I’m no hero. Could as easily be me dead as the Latcheys.”
“No, Cole, you’re destined for greatness.”
But Trooper was clattering over a stretch of cap rock reasonably free of snow, and the murmur of her voice was lost. Enormous clouds built up over the mountains ahead, great castles of white that nearly filled the sky.
Behind the man and the woman labored the two riding horses, now pack animals, their former masters in sickly-yellow shrouds.
Chapter Five
MARTIN GALE, WHO owned Intermountain, waited for the northbound to arrive in Scalplock. His once-rugged figure had slumped mostly to paunch, and his step was slow. He had a small bag that contained a change of clothing. When his coach drew nearer he was surprised to see Al Grubb handling the team. Cole had said he intended to fire the man.
A fresh team was brought up, and new passengers boarded. The coach was full. Martin Gale would have to ride up with Grubb. He tried to be pleasant to the big man, because he had enough worries as it was without having the driver lose his temper.
It was several miles before Gale let his personal problems spill out. He was bundled up in a slicker over a heavy coat to ward off the chill wind. One thing to be said for Al Grubb, despite his other faults, the man was a good listener.
Gale’s problem was his niece, who boarded at an academy for young ladies in St. Louis. “But she’s kinda headstrong, like her ma was ...”
“What’s happened to the kid, anyhow?” Grubb was hunched on the high seat, the ribbons wrapped around oversize gloved hands, his great strength keeping the pounding team in line.
“She quit the school. Got a letter day before yesterday. Got to talk it over with Cole.”
“Cantrell know the kid?”
“No, but he helped me out once before when ... well, when things kind of went wrong.”
“Sure feel sorry for you, Mr. Gale, havin’ a young niece.”
“Thank you, Al. But when her ma died I shoulda got married an’ took the poor gal to raise.” He sighed. “Feel better when I can see Cole and get his advice.”
Noticing that Gale had used his first name, Grubb decided to test new waters. “Tell you one thing, Mr. Gale. Was I your super I’d be where you could get hold of me. An’ not go chasin’ killers. I’d leave it up to a sheriff.”
Grubb delighted in telling his employer about the killings on the Tracy road. Killings were common in the high country, and Gale wasn’t too upset. He only hoped Cole didn’t take unnecessary risks. He’d been restless of late. Maybe hunting murderers would let off some of the steam.
“Somethin’ ever happen to Cantrell, an’ you need a new super,” Grubb said above the clank and creak of stagecoach wheels, “I’d like to have a try at the job, Mr. Gale.”
“But you’re always off fightin’ somewheres, so I hear.”
“Bare-knuckle, you mean. I give that up.”
“Lost your stomach for bare-knuckle fightin’?”
“Naw. It’s just that there ain’t nobody around tough enough to give me a good fight.”
At a rest stop Al Grubb took a long pull from a bottle he carried in his slicker pocket. Then he tried to kill the odor by chewing a thick slice of onion.
When they were rolling again, Gale mentioned the smell of whiskey. “It’s against the rules for a driver to drink.”
Grubb fought an urge to pitch the old bastard off the thundering coach. “Got a touch of grippe, Mr. Gale.”
“Doc Wheedlock’s elixir fixes me up.”
“Hear it also cures warts.”
Gale decided to change the subject. “Didn’t you knock out Tiger Blaine in Denver?”
“He was the last tough one. Took me twenty-nine rounds. He ain’t been worth a pound of mule shit since.”
Gale pretended to doze. Sunk deep in his coat and slicker, he thought glumly that one day this would all be over. In five years the railroad would have it all. It had already eliminated some of his best routes.
Then he got to thinking about Cole. There was a possibility that Cole might never return from chasing those outlaws. Gale felt a cold hollowness in his stomach ...
Chapter Six
IT WAS ANOTHER fifteen miles before Cole and Amanda saw the gleam of sunlight on steel rails. “What a feat of engineering to build track in such rugged country,” Amanda said in awe.
“Engineers and track layers I admire. Other things about the railroad I don’t.”
She thought he disliked the railroad because it was hurting the stage-line business. And Peters had told her Cole was with Intermountain.
“Don’t worry about your job,” she said, leaning in the saddle so that the furred sleeve of her coat was tight against his arm. “You’ll help me run a ranch.”
At that moment their horses and the pair of mounts behind them were making a great clatter of shod hooves on rock, so he wasn’t sure whether he had heard her correctly or not. He didn’t ask her to repeat it.
Here at the summit was a level stretch of track that would suit his purpose. He untied the bodies and dumped them on the ground so the horses could get some rest. He couldn’t help but think of Peters and Rugger and Meagan packing the bodies of the two dead fools who had ridden blindly into Latchey guns. But he couldn’t condemn them, he supposed. Mention money to a veteran in these postwar years, and there was no telling what his reaction would be. And he couldn’t blame Amanda for her part in it. Apparently her husband had kept a tight rein, so that she knew little of life and its dangers. But she was learning fast.
He came back from staking out the horses, to remind her they might have to wait all day and half the night. “I don’t know how often a train runs up here.”
“It won’t make any difference. One hour or twenty.”
She was seated on a deadfall, her back straight, the horses tethered to a stump. All about them lay rubble torn from the mountain by blasting powder to make grading for the tracks. At her feet was the money sack he had taken from Kane’s horse. He toed the sack.
“That’s what started it all,” she said thoughtfully.
Cole picked up a chunk of rock, which he hurled down the grade. It bounced along ties, made a chinking sound against a rail, then shot over the edge into a deep canyon.
Just as he was about to start a cook fire Cole heard a steady chuffing beat of a locomotive, heading for New Sodom. Amanda leaped to her feet and peered down the mountain where tracks twisted out of sight behind great cliffs and then emerged to run nearly straight for a hundred yards or more. Spots of snow whitened rails and ties.
“Good place to try and catch it here,” Cole said.
It was a freight train of ten cars coupled to a laboring locomotive.
“Take off your hat when it gets closer,” Cole instructed her, “so they can tell you’re a woman.”
Her lips curved in a warm smile. “Is that the only way they could tell I’m female?” And then, as she joshed, she happened to glance at the lumps of what had been living flesh in bloodied slickers. Her mouth paled. She turned away, removed the hat, clamped it under an arm and began shaking out her braids. Cole turned from the slowly approaching train, and his eyes brightened.
“You look like a young girl, with your hair loose like that.”
“I’m glad you like me this way,” she called to him. Although a cold wind blew from higher ridges, she let the coat slip down her arms for the benefit of the engine crew so they could see the swell of breasts, the in-curve at waist, the greater curve of hips and the suggestion of long and shapely legs. With the wind pressing against her dress, there was no doubt concerning her attributes.
She walked, hips swaying, to stand at Cole’s side and face the oncoming locomotive in its shroud of smoke and steam. Even though it was daylight, a headlamp glowed in the center of the iron forehead, like a Cyclopean eye.
The monster spurted steam and made clanking sounds as the driving wheels slowed on the level stretch of track, then came to a halt. An engineer and fireman leaned out to stare at Amanda, an unexpected sight in the wilderness, where a man was more apt to see a grizzly or mountain lion than a beautiful woman.
Then, their breaths steaming, the engine crew turned their attention to Cole. The engineer, his sweaty face streaked with smoke, suddenly grinned.
“Cole Cantrell!” he shouted. “By gad, I’d know you anywheres...”
A plump little man with a button nose centered in a red face was puffing along the track, the tails of a heavy wool coat sailing out behind.
“I hear somebody say your name was Cole Cantrell?” he panted, coming to a halt.
“You heard right.” Cole tried not to look at the name on the tender: CENTURION-PACIFIC RR. That the original plans for the rail line to reach the Pacific coast had been altered partly because of one Cole Cantrell did not bring him any particular joy. He sensed what was coming next as the brakeman glared up into his face.
“Got orders never to let you ride on a C-P train,” he puffed.
“I don’t give a damn about orders! I’ve got two dead outlaws to turn over to the sheriff. They murdered this woman’s husband and his partner.”
“Cantrell, them orders come from Claudius Max,” the brakeman said, his face reddening. “Reckon you’ve heard of him ...”
Cole’s laugh was so chilling that Amanda looked at him in surprise. His dark face had lost color, and his lips were pinched white.
Amanda was taller than the brakeman; he seemed impressed. “I am Mrs. Walter Cutler. A widow, thanks to those two men.” She made a sweeping gesture at the bodies in the slickers. “I demand that Mr. Cantrell be given passage to New Sodom.”
