HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (45 page)

If only it hadn’t been Reid Bannock. It burned, the idea of Reid seizing such riches and fleeing for Mexico. He would live large, and long, with such funds. Odessa wanted him to suffer. Die for what he had done. So much hurt, so much haunting. The memory of him bringing Moira to them, injured, tossing her to the ground, made her want to leap from her saddle and take him down to the ground. She wanted to strike him again and again. Bite him.

She looked up to the ridges around them. She hoped Bryce and his men were behind them, closing in.

And even though she knew it was wrong, she hoped that when Reid died, he would suffer.

Bryce rode out under cover of darkness, emboldened by the five men who came back with Tabito and Cassie’s brother, mostly a group of neighbors, but good men. They had miles to gain, and they must do it quickly if they were to catch up with Bannock and his men. They had to be heading toward Avilla Canyon, their only clue.

They pushed their mounts to their limits before pausing at daybreak, halfway to the canyon. There, by a stream, they let the horses rest and drink their fill to cool down, relieved temporarily of their riders’ weight.

They’d left Daniel behind to guard Cassie, Moira, and the baby. But Bryce’s instinct was that the battle was ahead. Reid cared not for the inhabitants of the Circle M—only in how they might aid him in finding the gold these mountains held captive. He undoubtedly planned to seize the booty and ride out southward, past the border of Mexico, deep into her recesses where no lawman would follow. He probably did not even care what became of the mercantile and house that he had left behind in Leadville. With the promised wealth of the conquistador gold, he could purchase ten of the same, with money left over, even after he paid off his men.

His men. A man such as Reid Bannock did not often abide by splitting the spoils. Would he do the honorable thing and pay them off, or would he turn on them, take them down? Bryce hoped for the latter. If they turned on one another, it would make his success in fighting them off—and freeing Odessa—more likely.

They paused and circled in the clearing, gazing up at wide, glacier-carved walls that surrounded them like a bowl. Odessa studied the striations of rock. There in the midst of the salmon pink and rose hues were stripes of gray—and a thin line of black. “Onyx,” she said, pointing up at it triumphantly. She was half relieved, half aghast to be exposing this clue to Reid.

Reid eyed her and then the men around them. “Set out in twos, men. You’re looking for a plant that gives off a gumlike resin.” He smiled thinly. “The Good Book called it bdellium. I call it breadcrumbs, breadcrumbs that will lead us all the way home. Anyone who finds anything you think fits, call out. Sound will carry a good distance in a canyon like this. I’ll come by. If I agree we’re on the right trail, I’ll call the rest of you in.” He looked up to the canyon’s edge. “Bryce McAllan won’t be far behind us. But we have scouts out. They’ll warn us when McAllan comes. If we’re still looking, the task will be to take out Bryce and his men, then return to the search. Understood?”

One of the men let out a low whistle. “Could be more than a hundred caves in these parts, Boss.”

“Yes there could be. And maybe cougars inside,” he tossed out with a grin. “Keep a close eye out for signs of ’em. You won’t find much gold if you’re mauled into bloody ribbons.”

The men laughed, but some of them were clearly nervous. Odessa had a hard time not hoping there was a cougar in every cave they encountered.

Reid passed out hunks of bread and cheese, then reached into his saddlebag and pulled out apples that he tossed to each man. “Good hunting, men. The man who finds our cave will get an extra portion, but all will share in the bounty, just like with the bank stage. Today, we’ll all become richer than we ever dreamed. Move quickly and stay alert.”

They moved out, disappearing down the trail and up into the hills. Odessa studied the canyon and striations, how the thin black line was on either side, moving northward, but how in a small side canyon, it seemed to pick up again, on the other side, at the same level. She glanced away, not wanting Reid to see what she was thinking, but it was too late. He was studying the rock too. “So, you think it might be back there?” he said.

She didn’t respond, only looked at her hands.

“Here,” he said, rising and crossing a few steps toward her. He handed her an apple. “Come on, take it. You need your strength to climb.”

She took it and ate, casting aside the guilt from taking food from her captor. “Where’re we climbing?”

He smiled. “You know where we’re going. You’re leading the way.”

She rose and immediately walked in the opposite direction. In only a few steps, she knew Reid was not following her. When she turned to look at him, he gestured for her to come back, as if patiently dealing with a stubborn child. She frowned and returned to him.

“I’ve been a gentleman with you so far, Odessa,” he said, cocking his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to see my more ungentlemanly side. Come.” He gestured ahead into the side canyon.

“Is that what happened to Moira?” she spit out, over her shoulder. “Are you responsible for her burns?”

He chuckled, and Odessa fought the urge to turn and slap him. “No, she did that all on her own. It’s tragic, but perfect in a way, isn’t it? The beauty loses her beauty.”

“I see nothing good in it.”

“Ah. But I do. Retribution is beautiful. Moira made poor choices. Now she sees what those poor choices have led her to. A life as a maimed, forgotten woman alone.”

“She will not be forgotten or alone. She will be celebrated, loved by us.”

He remained silent, and Odessa hated that her words sounded hollow, too defensive because of his lack of response. The two of them turned a corner on a goat or deer trail, climbing, already panting hard. Ten minutes later, she slipped on the loose shale and began sliding. Reid reached for her and missed, but Odessa grasped for a passing bush and came to a halt. Reid sidestepped down to her and offered her a hand up.

Odessa spit out the dust in her mouth and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, ignoring his. It was then she noticed the gummy substance. She opened and closed her fingers, then opened them again, watching the strings pull apart like taffy.

“Bdellium,” Reid murmured. His mouth fell slightly open.

“Probably not exactly like the biblical plant,” Odessa said, rising. “But close enough.” They looked to the right, where there were more of the plants, growing along a deep ravine that probably ran with a thin stream of snowmelt into June.

Reid pushed forward. “This is an old riverbed.”

“An old river,” Odessa muttered, thinking. She knew Bryce and Tabito had searched the next canyon over. Had the No Sip River once run on this side, instead of that one? Had it been diverted at some point, changed direction by avalanche or erosion?

Reid studied her. “Is this a clue?”

When she didn’t respond, he reached out and grabbed her arm, yanking her to his chest. “Tell me,” he ground out. “Hold nothing back or I’ll send four men to go and collect your baby.”

“The riverbed,” she said, lifting her chin, but keeping her eyes on Reid, as if he were a deadly rattler about to strike. “We figured out another clue—the No Sip River, was Pison, spelled backward. But it runs over there, back in that last canyon, now.”

Reid smiled and let her arm go. She rubbed it. “You think it got diverted at some point,” he guessed.

“I wondered, yes.”

He didn’t summon his men, but it made sense to her, then. Reid didn’t want to share the treasure if they found it. If he could find the cave, mark it, and then return to it later, it would be all his. She smiled thinly. If that was his plan, he was a fool. She knew from holding the one, just how heavy those gold bars were. He’d need a whole mule train to get them out. And there was no way that Bryce and the men would ever let that happen.

Reid laughed then. Odessa, curious in spite of herself, rushed forward. He looked back at her and then forward again. “See it?”

She did the same and discovered the faint outline of a path, carefully marked with the same size stones. Most of it had washed away, but it was clear that someone had once tried to mark it for reference. Louise O’Toole? Sam? He pushed away the scrub oak that had encroached over the years—and completely covered the cave entrance.

Here and there were cougar tracks, but they were old, imprinted in the mud.

Reid slashed away some branches with a huge knife and, with a powerful heave, broke off a leafy branch of the oak that blocked their route. He stood back, gazing at the black hole, panting, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he looked back at her and laughed. “I think, Odessa, you should leave your husband and marry me. I’m about to become the richest man you know. Look around for me, would you?” With that, he clamped down on her arm and threw her toward the cave entrance. “If there’s a cougar in this one, I want him to discover you first.”

Tabito nodded, and Bryce and he threw their knives at the same moment. Both men went down silently, and they rushed them, intending to tie them up and leave them for later. But both were dead.

“You’ll need to teach me how to throw like that,” Dietrich said in an undertone. The three men continued on, working their way to the second pair they’d seen from the ridge, just five minutes distant. Even now, men from the Circle M would be quietly gathering the Bannock group’s horses and leading them away. Bryce intended this to end here and now. There would be no escape for the interlopers who had dared to attack his men, his wife, his sister-in-law on his land. At least not on horseback.

They swiftly took care of the second pair, surprising them as they had the first. Bryce lifted his head as the sounds of a fistfight echoed through the canyon and then all was silent. Had any of Reid’s men heard it too? If so, they’d be alerted now, wary. Their whole plan hinged on taking the interlopers out, two at a time. If they were discovered, it would mean an all-out battle.

But Bryce and Tabito had just eliminated four of Reid’s men. Now it would be easier to capture the rest. What bothered him now was that Odessa and Reid had disappeared from the clearing.

Bryce stood where he had seen them an hour before, turning slowly, looking and listening for his wife or her abductor. They were in the middle of Avilla Canyon. Where could the two have gone?