“I’ve given you enough details. Now you just have to make sure that you don’t take a wrong turn and get yourself hopelessly lost. Then you could end up wandering around for days until we all have a stroke of luck and the bandits find you.”

  Newell snorted a laugh making Stanhope mutter to himself.

  “That would benefit nobody, so it’d be better if you take me there.”

  Eliza tensed up showing that she wouldn’t want Dalton to go with this man, so he didn’t respond while several men stopped to sneer at Stanhope before they resumed walking. Stanhope spread his hands beseeching someone to help him until only Cliff and Newell were left along with Dalton, Loren and Eliza. These five people faced him resolutely until Newell spoke up.

  “I reckon it’s time you left,” he said. “Make sure you tell Marshal Vaughn that you failed.”

  Stanhope took a deep breath suggesting that he was minded to retort and get in the final word. Then, with a shake of the head, he dismissed the matter and moved to head by Newell, but Newell’s comment had made Dalton’s heart race.

  With a gulp he thought quickly. Then he raised a hand, halting Stanhope.

  “Wait,” he said. “I’ll take you there.”

  Chapter Three

  “Are you going with Stanhope because his boss is called Vaughn?” Eliza asked when she and Dalton had returned to their house to collect Dalton’s horse.

  Stanhope was waiting some distance away having said nothing more about the matter since Dalton had agreed to help him.

  “Yeah,” Dalton said while not meeting her eye.

  “Then don’t. You’re worrying for no good reason. Stanhope is Marshal Vaughn’s deputy and he’s shown no sign that he’s been told to look for you.”

  “Perhaps he was told to be cautious.”

  “Stanhope doesn’t act like a cautious man.” She smiled. “My brother knows some of the details of your past and he didn’t even register that there was anything odd about the name, so I reckon this is just a coincidence.”

  Dalton accepted that she could be right, but he couldn’t shake off his concern. A few years ago, in a time and place that now felt as if it belonged in another lifetime, Dalton had killed a man to protect innocent lives.

  Unfortunately, others had formed a different opinion about the incident and afterward the corrupt and brutal lawman Deputy Vaughn had pursued him relentlessly. Shortly before he’d met up with Eliza and Loren the deputy had died.

  Dalton had hoped that would be an end to the matter, but he still feared that someone else from his past would seek him out. He had told Eliza and Loren the full story, and a few people in town gathered that he had a secret, even if they didn’t know the details, but nobody was concerned, judging him instead on his behavior since they had gotten to know him.

  Despite his concern, the passage of time had helped him to put the matter from his mind. Then Newell’s casual mentioning that a new lawman to the area had the same name as his former nemesis had made his old concern resurface.

  “This could just be an odd coincidence,” he said. “That still won’t stop me worrying about it until I know for sure that this man isn’t a relative.”

  “Worrying won’t get you killed,” she said. “Traipsing off with Marshal Vaughn’s deputy might get you into trouble you don’t need.”

  “I’ll be careful and besides, no matter how much the townsfolk distrust this man, Stanhope does need my help to find the place where these bandits attacked. After doing that, I’ll just have to do what I think is best.”

  Eliza frowned. “You could get to the outcrop and back before nightfall, but I’m guessing that was your way of telling me that you don’t know how long you’ll be gone.”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It is. I have to find out if this lawman came to the area to look for me, but I don’t want you worrying about me.”

  Eliza swiped away a tear. He smiled widely hoping to cheer her, but that only made her gulp.

  “I can’t help it. I just have the feeling that this is the last time I’ll ever see you.”

  “It won’t be.” He drew her closer. “Even if my worst fears are proved right I’ll come back to you.”

  She gave a brief nod and then buried her head against his chest before stepping back and pointing past him.

  “Tell Loren I’ll never forgive him if he doesn’t bring you back.”

  Dalton furrowed his brow, but when he turned around, Loren was now mounted up and standing beside Stanhope. Loren had given no hint that he intended to join him on this mission and Dalton wouldn’t have asked him to come, but his presence made Dalton smile before he turned back to her.

  They embraced again. This time she had gathered her composure enough to smile, so Dalton didn’t dally as he mounted up and then rode away toward the others.

  “That sure was some farewell.” Stanhope said with a wry smile when Dalton joined them. “I assume you haven’t been married for long, then?”

  “No,” he said as Eliza raised a hand to him. “It’s just a good marriage.”

  Dalton waved back at Eliza. Then, with a jerk of the reins, he moved his horse on to head toward Durando. The group rode in silence around the perimeter of Cliff Sinclair’s land and then beside the river until they reached the waterfall where they swung away to head for the outcrop. Although their destination wasn’t yet visible, Stanhope turned to Dalton.

  “It looks as if your directions were good enough for me to have found this place on my own,” he said. “Despite that, I’m sure your presence will prove useful.”

  “You got off to a bad start in Two Forks, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help each other,” Dalton said, figuring that it would be easier to find out about Marshal Vaughn if they were on friendlier terms.

  “I don’t reckon Newell and the rest would agree with you.”

  “They would have helped if you hadn’t have tried to force them to accept you as their new lawman.”

  Stanhope tipped back his hat and bunched his jaw as he mulled over his response.

  “That’s their problem and when McKinley Vinge shoots up one of them, they’ll learn the error of their ways and come crawling back to me. With any luck, Newell will be the first one on the receiving end of a bullet.”

  Loren muttered something to himself while Dalton reckoned that comment marked the end of his attempts to find common ground with Stanhope.

  “So how long has McKinley been here and what’s he done so far?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “I’ve already told you that nobody knows,” Stanhope snapped.

  “Not even your boss?”

  “Not even him.”

  As Stanhope’s closed responses would make it hard for Dalton to find out about Marshal Vaughn, he thought about how he could continue probing him without sounding overly interested, but then Stanhope moved ahead of him curtailing their conversation. Dalton and Loren filed in behind him.

  They rode in silence even when the outcrop came into view. When they approached the scene of the gunfight, Dalton hurried on and dismounted at the mid-point between the hollow where the wagon had stopped and the mound where they’d shot at the bandits.

  Loren dismounted and stood beside him while Stanhope turned on the spot to consider the area. Stanhope didn’t ask Dalton to repeat the details of the gunfight and he just walked to the hollow and then to the mound.

  “He seems thorough,” Dalton said when Stanhope had disappeared from view behind the mound.

  “That’s one word to describe him,” Loren said making Dalton smile. “But I’m surprised you’re giving him a second chance after he drew a gun on Newell.”

  “I haven’t forgotten about that, but it’s in everybody’s best interests that he finds out whatever he needs to know.”

  When Stanhope appeared at the top of the mound, Loren murmured to himself uneasily, but Dalton didn’t make it easy for him by being the first to mention the real reason they were here. A few minutes passed and Stanhope was clambering back down the mound when Loren snorted a laugh to himself.

  “So it seems that Stanhope’s boss is Marshal Vaughn,” he said with a casual tone.

  Dalton sighed. “He is, and don’t say that his name could be a coincidence.”

  “I’m sure that’s what Eliza said to you, so I’ll settle for saying that if this man is a relative of Deputy Vaughn and he came here to find you, you’d already know about it. Sweet Valley has been growing for a while and that means for Vaughn to have been made their town marshal, he must have been here for a while, too.”

  “That’s another way of saying it’s a coincidence and I shouldn’t do anything, but to my way of thinking, if Vaughn’s presence here isn’t sinister I have nothing to lose by finding out everything I can about him.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I’ll do whatever I have to do.” Dalton shrugged. Then, as Stanhope was walking back toward them, he turned to Loren and adopted a casual pose hoping to make it look less obvious that they were discussing a serious matter. “I won’t know what that is until I find out the truth about this new man called Vaughn.”

  “Whatever the answer, I hope you don’t behave like Billy Boyd did,” Loren said, bringing up the subject of a man who had lived in Two Forks for a short while. “He settled here despite a troubled past and he could have put that behind him, but then for no good reason he got worried and moved on.”

  Stanhope was now a dozen yards away, so Dalton spoke quickly and with a lowered voice.

  “I’m sure that wherever Billy is, he’ll be fine, as I will be if I have to leave.” Dalton frowned and then softened his expression. “But I’m a long way from thinking about taking such action. For now, I’ll help Stanhope and if I get the opportunity to find out more about his boss in a subtle way, I’ll take it.”

  Loren nodded and then moved aside so he could face Stanhope.

  “Are you content with what you’ve seen?” he asked.

  “I’m getting a clear idea about what happened here,” Stanhope said, moving on to stand between Dalton and Loren.

  “Is it clear enough yet to take a full report back to your boss?” Loren waited, but when Stanhope only grunted he continued. “When you do make that report, is Marshal Vaughn a good enough lawman to deal with these bandits?”

  Stanhope had his back to Dalton, so Dalton registered Loren’s lack of subtlety by rubbing his brow and shaking his head. Loren ignored him while Stanhope shrugged, seemingly unconcerned by the question.

  “Roger Vaughn was a town marshal for over twenty years. When he settled here, his was an obvious appointment.”

  “Does that mean that yours wasn’t?”

  Stanhope had been starting to turn away, but he swung back to face Loren.

  “I’m a fast draw and a fine shot, so Roger picked the right man for the job.”

  “I doubt that those were the qualities he was looking for when he appointed you. It sounds to me as if he wanted someone who would be able to talk the good folks of Two Forks into providing help, which you failed to do.”

  Stanhope’s eyes blazed as he snorted his breath in and out of his mouth proving that Loren had correctly deduced the situation.

  “With or without that help, I’m the man who’ll get rid of McKinley.” He gestured at the mound. “If I’d have been up there, from such a good position I could have shot up all six of the bandits without even breaking sweat.”

  Stanhope advanced on Loren while meeting his eye, defying him to refute his claim. Loren didn’t reply, so with a snort of contempt Stanhope turned away to the outcrop. Then, with a quick gesture, he beckoned for the two men to join him in heading there. He moved off to his horse, but Loren and Dalton waited for a moment to speak to each other.

  “Do you reckon he could have done better than we did?” Dalton asked.

  “Nope,” Loren said. “We now know everything we need to know about Stanhope. Marshal Vaughn sent him to Two Forks as a test, but he’s too arrogant to accept that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. So the only thing a hot-headed fool like him will do in a tough situation is get himself killed.”

  Dalton nodded. “And probably a whole lot of other people, too.”

  Chapter Four

  “This is a good place for a bandit to wait for his next victim to come along,” Stanhope said when the three men reached the top of the slope beside the outcrop where McKinley Vinge had launched his raid.

  A camp had once been here and it had been occupied for several days. This meant that Dalton and Loren had been lucky to have headed around the other side of the outcrop or they would have ridden into the midst of the bandits.

  “It’s also a place he’s unlikely to use again now that we’ve been here,” Dalton said.

  “That’s no problem. There’s nowhere where McKinley will be welcome.”

  Dalton sighed, figuring that he’d waste his breath if he tried to explain that Stanhope might have been better served by not riding around and showing that he knew about a place where McKinley had holed up and where he might return.

  “So what are you going to do now?”

  Stanhope firmed his jaw, suggesting that he didn’t have a plan in mind and then moved to the top of the slope that overlooked the scene of the gunfight and beyond.

  “Which way did Grover and Velma go after you left them?” he asked.

  “We directed them on the quickest route to Sweet Valley.” Dalton moved on to stand beside him and smiled. “It’s through a long and winding pass between two ridges that we’ve called Cottonwood Pass. It’s a few miles from here, but I suppose you need us to show you where it is.”

  “I reckon I know the place you mean, but I don’t know how to get to it from here, and as you abandoned them when bandits were around, someone needs to catch up with them and keep them safe.”

  Dalton had become tired with Stanhope’s attitude, so he didn’t bother explaining that they’d escorted the wagon until they had all reckoned the danger was over and that Grover had insisted they leave them to make their own way. Instead, without comment, they headed back down the slope and then on past the scene of the gunfight.

  After a few miles they veered to the west. As Grover would be traveling along Cottonwood Pass for most of the next day, giving Stanhope plenty of time to catch up with him, when the pass first came into sight Dalton considered whether he wanted to abandon Stanhope and get back to town before nightfall. He was able to voice his thoughts on the matter when Stanhope took the lead, letting him move closer to Loren.

  “How much longer are we staying with this idiot?” Loren asked.

  “I don’t reckon I’ll get to learn anything about Marshal Vaughn from him,” Dalton said. “So I’m tempted to stay with him until he joins Grover and then accompany them all to Sweet Valley. Then again, like you I’m not enjoying spending time with him.”

  Loren nodded. “I reckon we’d be better served in getting back to town and making sure the townsfolk are aware of the danger McKinley represents. Then, at a time of your choosing, we can pay a visit to Sweet Valley to check out this new marshal.”

  “That’s the best way to deal with this, but bearing in mind that Vaughn deputized a hot-headed fool like Stanhope, I already have a bad feeling about the marshal.”

  Loren grunted that he agreed, but despite that worrying thought, the imminent opportunity to leave Stanhope made them both relax, but when they reached the entrance to Cottonwood Pass their good moods ended. They located wagon tracks that they assumed Grover had made, but there were also several sets of fresh horse tracks heading into the pass. These tracks could be innocent, but Dalton couldn’t help but think that McKinley had followed the wagon, after all.

  “This is exactly what I feared would happen,” Stanhope said, rounding on them. “If McKinley’s raided these people, it’ll be your fault.”

  The sight of the tracks had shocked Dalton, so he didn’t disagree. Then they all hurried into the pass. At the pace that Grover had been traveling Dalton figured they ought to be able to catch up with the wagon before nightfall, but that also meant that McKinley could have tracked him down already, so they maintained a brisk pace.

  At regular intervals they stopped to check that the tracks they were following were still there and this precaution proved its use when, after a prolonged period of riding over hard ground, they failed to find the wagon tracks. The horse tracks were still there, but they searched from one side of the pass to the other without coming across the distinctive wheel ruts in the ground.

  “I reckoned Grover was no fool,” Dalton said. “It looks as if he threw off his pursuers.”

  “That’s yet to be seen,” Stanhope said. “Where could he have gone?”

  “I’d guess he holed up at some point during that stretch of hard ground. Luckily McKinley isn’t as observant as we are and he didn’t notice that the tracks were no longer there, or at least he hasn’t yet.”

  Stanhope nodded and without further discussion they made their way back along the pass. They passed several narrow gullies in the sides of the ridges that were large enough to accommodate a wagon and they explored each one, but they failed to find the wagon.

  The sun had set by the time they reached the end of the hard stretch of ground and again picked up the wagon tracks. They followed them intently for a hundred yards until they disappeared. This time Dalton noted that they were still on ground that was soft enough to show the tracks, so Grover must have doubled back to brush them away before he hid the wagon.

  “He must be close,” Loren said.

  “He must be, but we’ve checked out every likely place we’ve come across,” Dalton said. He sighed as he joined Loren. “It’s one thing to hide yourself away so that McKinley couldn’t find him, but Grover’s done it so well we can’t find him either.”

  “It’ll be dark soon, so perhaps we should deal with our most pressing problem first and make sure McKinley doesn’t find us if he doubles back. We can start looking for Grover again tomorrow.”

 

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