Dead Man's Trail (9781101606957) (17 page)

“All right, then,” Demarest said. “Let's go check out them trees and call it a day. Then I reckon we'd best run that breed down, cuff him, and hold him at the jail in Broken Jaw. After Christmas, we'll sift through the warrants he's got on him.”

“Fair enough.”

As the men gigged their horses forward, Demarest said jovially, “How's that girl of yours?”

“She's gonna be mad when I'm late gettin' to Cheyenne for Christmas. Why couldn't that damn Mendenhour have waited till after New Year's to hang Betajack?”

Demarest laughed. “Hell, he's been sharpenin' his horns ever since he was voted to the office down there in Big Horn County. Old Wild Bill got him voted in—you can be sure of that. Gonna get himself killed, though, sooner or later. I'm not sure this country is ready just yet for his brand of law and order.”

“It ain't!”

Both men reined their horses up sharply, startled by the voice that had seemed to emanate from the air around them. They looked around wildly, Demarest closing his hand around the stock of the Winchester jutting from his saddle boot. He froze when he looked behind him, as did Kelsey, to see ten or so hard-looking, well-armed men in furs and skins and dusters step out from behind tree boles. One of the party was old Floyd Betajack himself, his craggy face beet-red from the cold. Another taller, younger man just stepping out from behind another tree to the old man's right was none other than Claw Hendricks in his trademark black opera hat and rose-colored glasses.

Both his holsters belted around the outside of his horsehide coat were empty. The long-barreled .45s were in his gloved hands, aimed straight out from his belly at the lawman and the major. He smiled. Most of the other men, including old Betajack, just looked stony-faced in their hats and scarves, their mustaches and beards rimed with frost. A scrawny, blond, coyote-faced kid flanking Betajack gave a lewd snicker.

“You two doin' anything for Christmas?” the old man asked tonelessly.

Silence.

One of the horses snorted.

There was a very faint dribbling sound, and Kelsey looked over at Demarest. The major sat tense in his saddle, lips and mustache bunched angrily, eyes hard beneath his thick red brows. Then Kelsey saw that urine was dribbling down from inside the cuff of his left dark blue uniform pants to splatter onto the toe of his worn cavalry boot.

That more than anything else caused the deputy U.S. marshal to realize he wouldn't be heading back to Cheyenne this Christmas. Or ever again.

“Yeah,” he said, his own voice as toneless as Floyd Betajack's had been, making the statement an eerily emotionless observation. “Yeah, I reckon we're dyin'.”

The killers stared at him. A few smiled. A few chuckled. The wild-looking blond kid flanking Betajack gave a coyote-like whoop.

Betajack blinked slowly. Hendricks grinned.

His guns blossomed like twin poinsettias in a sunlit Christmas window.

Chapter 23

Crows lighted from a copse lining a boulder-choked canyon gap off the right side of the stage trail.

Staring out the right window as she faced forward in the rocking stage just now slowing to climb a hill, Glendolene felt her heart quicken. But then she saw what had frightened the birds—four shaggy, red-brown, white-faced cows running up a slanting hill climbing the north side of the canyon.

Behind the cows came a young man in woolly chaps and a ragged blanket coat with the collar turned up. He was riding a fine chestnut gelding with one white stocking. Glendolene could tell that the rider was young because he was only about fifty yards away, and his pale face beneath his Stetson's brim shone pink and hairless in the coppery light of the setting sun.

He was whistling shrilly and waving a coiled lariat at the cows that he was hazing out of the canyon, and now he turned toward the stage, shouted something that Glendolene couldn't hear above the coach's thundering clatter, and waved his arm broadly over his head.

Atop the stage, the driver, Adlard, shouted something in return, and the young man smiled and then returned his attention to the cows. The crows were a thin line, ever thinning against the steel gray sky, as they drifted off up the deep, narrow canyon to the east. Glendolene eased back in her seat and turned forward to face her husband, riding opposite her in the carriage, facing the stage's rear.

Mendenhour had heard the young man's whistle, and he was just now turning his head away from the window, flushed with anxiety. He had a Colt pistol with gutta-percha grips stuffed down in the right coat pocket, and he must have grabbed it when he'd heard the whistle. Now he released it, glancing sheepishly at Glendolene and then returning his gaze to the dun-colored hills striding past beyond the window.

Glendolene kept her eyes on Lee. He'd been oddly quiet and contemplative all day as they'd ridden through this vast land, stopping occasionally and briefly to rest the horses or to have a fresh team hitched to the stage at one of the two relay stations the trail had passed through so far this day, their second full day on the trail. Glendolene couldn't help wondering if he suspected the truth about her and Yakima Henry.

But no, he couldn't have. The idea would have been so far out of the realm of what he thought her capable of doing that it wouldn't have occurred to him. Such a possibility would have seemed just as fantastic to her only a few months ago, before she'd run into the dark-skinned, black-haired loner with the coal black stallion at the line shack.

No, that wasn't what was bothering Lee. Such a suspicion was merely her own guilt needling her.

As she studied him now she saw not only the trepidation in his eyes about when and where the killers would strike again, but—maybe she was only imagining this, too?—whether he'd done the right thing in hanging Pres Betajack. Glendolene never would have thought him capable of killing a man without the utmost evidence convicting him of the crime he'd been accused of, but coupling his grim, sheepish demeanor with what Floyd Betajack had accused him of earlier, she was beginning to wonder.

And worry.

The man she'd met in Omaha would have done no such thing. Lee Mendenhour had been serious, but his seriousness had been tempered by a playful sense of humor, even a loquacious frivolousness at times. Most of all, he'd been fair and just to an idealistic degree, and he'd wanted nothing more than to bring that fairness and justice home to Wyoming.

She had thought that for the first few months after he'd become the county's prosecuting attorney, he'd retained those ideals. It was later when she'd noted a change in his temperament—a sternness and remoteness, like that of a man who sees he's waging a tough battle and must summon all his strength to fight it.

All of his strength while subjugating his sense of justice?

She felt sick and hollow when she considered the possibility that Lee's desire to run Betajack's gang to ground had caused him to be negligent in making sure that the man he'd caused to be sentenced to hang had been genuinely guilty of stealing those horses.

After their romantic affair in Omaha, what kind of man had she really found herself married to?

“What are you thinking about, Glen?”

Suddenly, she found that he was returning her penetrating, faintly quizzical gaze. Again, her heart quickened. Guilt racked her for the thoughts she'd been entertaining as well as about her indiscretions that, after the first one, had been not only premeditated but an-ticipated with eagerness and downright longing. “I was . . . thinking about Uncle Walt and Aunt Evelyn, hoping they're not going to too much trouble with us coming for Christmas.”

He stared at her with the same expression. Inwardly, she flinched from it and was relieved when Mrs. O'Reilly sitting to her left said, “What are we all doing for Christmas?” as though to relieve the tension that was almost palpable inside the coach.

No one said anything. The two drummers, sitting facing each other and playing cards on a small trunk they'd upended in the aisle between them, merely glanced at each other and continuing playing. Old Elijah Weatherford was dozing, chin on his chest, to Mrs. O'Reilly's left. Sally Rand and her husband, Percy, sat to Lee's right, across from Mrs. O'Reilly. They both looked the most fearful of all the passengers.

“How 'bout you, dear?” asked Mrs. O'Reilly, smiling at the plain-faced young woman, who looked at her with her stricken pale blue eyes, as though she thought she could die at any time. And she was probably right, Glendolene thought. One bullet through the thin walls of the coach could kill two, possibly even three of them. All because of Lee. . . .

“Me?”

“You and your husband. What is his name, again?”

“N-name's Percy, ma'am,” the young man said in his shy, country manner. He leaned forward, his large hands in their deerskin mittens hanging down over his slender knees.

“What are your plans for Christmas, if I my ask?” said Lori O'Reilly. “Don't you just love this time of the year?”

Sally Rand tried to smile, but the look came off as more of a wince. Christmas, it seemed, was the last thing on her mind. Obviously, Lori was just trying to get her mind back in the holiday spirit and off Betajack and Hendricks, but Glendolene knew from her own attempts at it that was like trying to get a thousand-pound horse off your foot.

“We're going home to Percy's family place up on the Missouri River,” said Mrs. Rand, almost too softly to be heard above the loud squawking of the stage's thoroughbraces. “We won't make it for Christmas, but we hope to arrive by New Year's.”

“And what will you do there?” Lori continued to prod the young woman.

“Oh, I don't know. . . .”

“Probably sit around and do my old man's chores while he stumbles around drunk,” said Percy Rand, chuckling with what appeared genuine mirth. He was at least trying to distract himself, however awkwardly, Glendolene thought.

“Percy!” Sally scolded the young man.

Percy shrugged his broad, bony shoulders, flushing and dropping his eyes to his thick-soled boots in embarrassment.

“Drinking problem, has he?” said Lori. “My pa was the same way. I reckon your ma has to carry most of the load, eh, Percy?”

“Oh, she has to!” Sally said, wrinkling the skin above the bridge of her nose. “That old George Rand—all he does is drink and, like Percy says, stumble around drunk. We was gonna ranch with him, but we pulled out when Percy heard about good homestead land up near the Snowy Range. All his pa done was boss him and didn't do nothin' else but drink up any profits we saw. We proved up on the place in Wyoming, but . . .” A corner of her mouth slanted up, and she let her voice trail off, looking a little shameful about her outburst.

Percy appeared to harbor no offense. “Blackleg,” he said, by way of explanation. “Two years of it broke us. Now . . . we're heading back to old George's ranch.”

“Ah,” Lori said. “To eat some humble pie, which I'm sure George will serve up aplenty.” She chuckled. “But I'll bet deep down he'll be very happy to see you back. Why, I bet he's let his own place fall into ruin. You two will get it back in shape in no time.”

Sally Rand's eyes brightened slightly as she said, “I'm with child.” She looked around a little sheepishly at the other men. Old Weatherford must have been sleeping lightly, because he lifted his chin just then, and opened his eyes that shone in the salmon light pushing through the windows on the other side of the coach from Glendolene.

He smiled, his handlebar mustache above the bib beard lifting until the upswept ends nearly encircled his nose.

“Congratulations, my sweet!” said Lori, leaning forward to clasp her knit-mittened hands around those of Sally Rand. “Congratulations, indeed. I bet it'll be such a help to have Percy's mother around.”

“Oh, she's very happy,” said Sally.

“Congratulations,” Glendolene said, genuinely happy for the girl, who appeared genuinely happy herself, riddled with none of the misgivings that Glendolene herself was feeling about bringing her own child into what might very well be a loveless marriage. If a marriage much longer at all. She felt tears fill her eyes, and her voice pinch, as she said, “I wish you every happiness.”

She turned away quickly. As she did, tears dribbling down her cheeks, she saw Lee regarding her incredulously. Quickly, she brushed her tears from her cheeks and gave her gaze to the countryside rushing past now as they stormed down a hill, toward what must have been the overnight station—another grim collection of crude gray buildings and corrals—nestled along a creek in a broad bowl below.

The sun went down, and twilight filled the now-silent coach. Outside, snow the size of buckshot fell at a slant. Glendolene felt the growing cold penetrate her womb. She shuddered against it.

* * *

Yakima hunkered low against his saddle, drawing his buckskin's collar up to his ears. The fire popped before him. The falling snow sizzled in the orange flames, melted on the stones surrounding it.

He was camped just off the stage road, about half a mile south of the station at which he'd seen the coach pull up to a couple of hours earlier. He'd wanted to ride on, but he hadn't been able to. Something had held him back, keeping the clattering of the iron-shod wheels and the thudding of the horses' hooves just within his hearing.

Holding a tin cup of steaming coffee in his left hand, he shivered against the cold that blew into this hollow he'd found in some glacier-strewn rocks and stared into the darkness beyond the fire. It wasn't her that held him back. He'd just started to realize that a while ago, after he'd set up the camp.

In the shadows to his left, Wolf whinnied.

Yakima jerked his .44 out of its holster, raking the hammer back, managing to hold on to the cup in his opposite hand, but feeling the hot coffee dribbling down the sides and wetting his gloves.

“Hal-looo the camp,” came a call from the darkness on the other side of the fire.