Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series) (24 page)

Captain Boone, Rochenbach and Sergeant Goodrich stood watching as two of the troopers and Corporal Rourke washed and dressed the Giant’s and Casings’ wounds as best they could with scraps of bandannas they tore into strips. As they finished cleaning the two up and both Casings and the Giant began to come to, the soldiers crossed Casings’ wrists and snapped a pair of handcuffs on them.

They did the same with Rochenbach. Unable to get the cuffs around the Giant’s thick wrists, the soldiers tied his hands together with rope.

“Now that we have three prisoners, Mr. Smith, we wouldn’t want any of you wandering away from us,” Boone said.

“I told you these men had nothing to do with the robbery, Captain,” Rochenbach said for the Giant’s and Casings’ benefit. As he spoke, he looked down at the cuffs, realizing he had a key that would open them tucked inside the lining of his coat sleeve.

“You certainly did, Mr. Smith,” said the captain. “But you also said the same thing about yourself.” He offered a tight smile. “You can see how I might be a little skeptical.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Rock asked. “These men need more than bandannas stuck against their wounds. They need a doctor, some proper bandaging, some serious treatment to keep these wounds from bleeding all over again.”

He had taken this case as far as he could. It was time for him to bow out, let these soldiers do their job. In spite of their wounds, it looked as though Casings and the Giant were going to make it now that the bleeding had slowed.

“We’re taking the three of you to the jail in Dunbar,” said the captain. “There’s a doctor there who’ll properly attend to these two. I’ll telegraph my superiors, tell them you’re there. My men and I are going on after this Andrew Grolin and his gang.”

Rochenbach had no doubt Boone and his men could chase Grolin down now that they were hot on their trail. Besides, he reminded himself, there was no real gold stolen—only decoys, gilded ingots.
Fool’s gold,
he thought to himself. It was time to share that fact with the captain.

“If you’ll permit me, Captain Boone,” he said. He reached inside his coat with his cuffed hands.

“As you were, Smith!” the captain barked, jerking his Colt from its holster and aiming it toward Rock.

“Easy, Captain,” Rochenbach said. “I only want to show you something.” He pulled out the ingot slowly.
With his thumbs, he pressed open the corner slit that he had made with his knife. He handed it to the captain.

As Boone studied it closely, Rochenbach glanced over at Casings, who sat watching intently.

“I’m not an expert, Captain,” Rochenbach said, “but this is the dullest gold I’ve ever seen.”

Boone studied the ingot, then looked up at Rock.

“You’re telling me this is from the stolen shipment?” he asked.

“Yes, it is,” Rochenbach said, knowing better than to say any more on the matter, not with the captain already wondering who he really was, especially not with Casings and the Giant listening close at hand.

The captain took Rochenbach by his handcuffs and led him farther away from the others. Rochenbach looked over his shoulder and shrugged toward Casings and the Giant.

“This isn’t
real
gold,” the captain said. “Why did you show me this? What is your angle here?”

“No angle, Captain,” Rochenbach said. “I figured I’d give it to you, let you decide if it’s worth dying for.” He shrugged. “I’d feel guilty otherwise, if something bad happened to you or your men.”

“I bet you would,” Boone said skeptically. He tightened his fist around the ingot. “Of course you might only be showing me this in hopes it would lighten my efforts of capturing your cohorts.”

Rock stared at him.

“That would be one more possibility, Captain,” he said. It wasn’t a matter he could push any further without the risk of exposing who he was. But he
wasn’t overly concerned with them catching Grolin. If they didn’t catch him now, they would catch him when he returned to his hotel and saloon in Denver City. Either way, it was over for Andrew Grolin. Rock was being honest about the cheap gilded ingots; they weren’t worth dying for.

Boone studied Rochenbach’s eyes, trying to decide whether or not to believe him.

“Sergeant,” he called out finally, without taking his gaze off Rochenbach, “get those men ready to ride. We’re following the wagon tracks until they lead us to the thieves.”

“Yes, sir, Captain,” said Sergeant Goodrich. “But what about this big fellow? He’d wear a poor horse down in no time.”

“
Damn it all!
” Captain Boone hissed to himself in his frustration. He gave Rock a strange look. “How did I get stuck with a wounded giant?”

Rock just stared.

“Captain, sir,” the sergeant called out, “might I suggest we assemble a travois and pull both these men on it until we get to Dunbar?”

“Yes, Sergeant, please see to that,” the captain said. He hefted the gilded ingot on his palm in contemplation.

“Captain,” Rochenbach said quietly, anticipating the question on Boone’s mind, “since your
superiors
knew to expect a robbery Thursday night, do you suppose, as a precaution, they decided to ship these fake ingots all week long?”

Boone let out a breath, still hefting the ingot.

“As a precaution? Just in case of some last-minute
change, such as this?” the captain said, as if he’d forgotten he was talking to,
possibly
, one of the thieves.

“It’s a thought, Captain,” Rock said.

“
It’s a thought…,
” said Boone, bemused, as it suddenly dawned on him what he was doing. “Just who the hell are you,
Smith
? What the hell is it you’re doing out here?”

Rochenbach gave him a cool, level stare, his hands cuffed in front of him.

“Aren’t you supposed to know who a man
is
, and what he’s doing
out here
, Captain, before you haul him off to jail?” Rochenbach said.

When Pres Casings and the Stillwater Giant were bandaged, watered and ready to ride, two soldiers helped Casings onto a hastily constructed travois made from four long pine saplings, the broken wagon tongue and front wagon boards. When the soldiers offered to help the Giant, he fanned them away with his tied hands. He allowed Rock to steady him and help him to his feet and lead him to the travois.

“I heard you, Rock,” he whispered in his thick, deep voice. “You didn’t tell these suckers nothing.” He gave him his wide, toothy grin. “You’re my pal. Soon as I get rested, I’ll break these strings and—”

Strings…?

“Don’t do it, Giant,” Rock said, cutting him off, looking down at the strong rope double-wrapped around the Giant’s thick wrists. “You’re my pal too. Don’t make these soldiers kill you. Stick with Casings. Do what he tells you, all right?”

“All right, whatever you say, Rock,” the Giant
whispered, lying back beside Casings. The two wagon horses stirred and collected themselves, feeling the weight of the Giant on the travois poles.

Rochenbach shot Pres Casings a look. Casings nodded, a blood-soaked bandanna tied around his head, wrapped around the bullet graze. He held a torn, bloody bandanna to the wound in his side. Whatever Rock was up to, Casings saw that he had his and the Giant’s interests at heart.

“Obliged,” he whispered.

Rock only nodded and turned away.

Captain Boone sat watching from his saddle, seeing the three whispering back and forth. He took note of it but decided to say nothing. These two wounded men were as guilty as sin; he knew it.

Garth Oliver indeed
.… He’d heard of the Stillwater Giant. Who else could this monster of a man be? The captain smiled to himself as Rochenbach walked over and took the reins to his horse from him. As far as he was concerned,
Mr. Smith
was guilty too, until something proved him otherwise.

Undercover operative? Maybe,
Boone thought.
But if he is an operative and not willing to say the four numbers that will get him off the hook, he must have a good reason for it
. Whatever that reason might be, Boone had probed the matter as far as he could. He would jail the three in Dunbar and let the law sort them out.

“Let’s move out, Sergeant,” he said.

Beside him, Goodrich raised a gloved hand and waved the men forward without a verbal command.

On the other side of the captain, Rochenbach nudged his horse forward at a walk.

The party rode along the trail in silence for the next hour until the sergeant threw up a hand and stopped suddenly at the sight of Lambert Kane’s body stuck to the large pine, the frozen expression of surprise on his purple face.

“Holy
be-jesus,
Captain,” Goodrich said.

“Yes, Sergeant, I see it,” said Captain Boone, sounding as if it wasn’t the first time he’d found a man spiked to the side of a tree by a limb stub, ten feet off the ground. “Have your men take him down.”

“Two men forward,” the sergeant called out, looking back at the mounted soldiers.

As two soldiers booted their horses forward to assist the sergeant, Boone gave Rochenbach a sidelong look, followed by a backward nod directed toward the travois.

“Something your friends had a hand in, no doubt?” he said.

“I wouldn’t know, Captain,” said Rochenbach. “I wasn’t here.”

“No, of course you weren’t,” said Captain Boone correcting himself. “You were busy leading our horses back to us.”

“That’s right, Captain,” said Rochenbach. “That’s what I was doing, any way you look at it.”

Just to see if he could get by with it, Rock nudged his horse forward, watching the two soldiers stand atop their saddles and lift the body off the tree stub. Hearing the captain’s Army Colt cock behind him, he stopped and gave him a faint, wry grin.

“What, Captain? No warning first?” he said without looking around. “You’ll just shoot me?”

“You’ve been warned,
Smith
,” Boone said in a somber tone. “No other warning is needed.”

Without another word on the matter, Rochenbach turned his horse, rode it back slowly and turned it beside the captain. Boone uncocked the Colt, but kept it in hand. They watched the soldiers lower Lambert Kane’s body to the sergeant, who in turned laid it out on the ground.

Boone looked over his shoulder at the three soldiers fixated on Lambert’s body and the blood-streaked tree where it had hung.

“Corporal Rourke, scout ahead two hundred yards, then fall back and report,” he said as Goodrich and the two soldiers dragged the body out onto the trail.

“Yes, sir,” said the corporal. He swung his horse around Rochenbach and rode away at a gallop. One soldier remained, the lead rope to the travois in hand. He looked back nervously at the Giant and Pres Casings, but saw them both sleeping, their hats pulled over their eyes.

The captain and Rochenbach nudged their horses over and looked down at the body, able to see the ground through the wide, gaping wound.

After a moment, the captain straightened in his saddle and shook his head.

“Sergeant,” he said, “search the body for identification, then drag him off the trail and pile rocks over him. We’re not a burial detail,” he added, as if to justify himself.

As the sergeant and the two soldiers followed the captain’s orders, Rochenbach and Boone sat atop their horses in silence. A few moments later, they both turned toward the sound of the corporal’s horse galloping back around the turn toward them.

“Captain Boone,” he said, sliding his horse to a halt and sidling over to the captain. “I found this alongside the trail, less than two hundred yards from here, sir.” He held out a closed hand and opened it in a way as to reveal its contents only to the captain.

“It’s all right, Corporal,” Boone said, taking the ingot from Rourke’s hand and eyeing it in the midmorning sunlight. Looking at Rochenbach, he said to Rourke, “Your knife, Corporal?”

Rourke reached into his boot well, came out with a bowie-style knife and handed it to him.

“Thank you, Corporal,” said Boone.

He carved a deep cut across the corner of the ingot and examined it. Then he squeezed the cut closed and handed the big knife back to Rourke. He gave Rochenbach a look that said the ingot was the same as the one he’d taken from him.

“And this is the only one you found, Corporal?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Rourke. “I saw where the wagon went off the trail. It’s broken up all over the hillside. There’s busted crates everywhere.”

“Empty, I presume?” said the captain.

“From what I could see, yes, sir,” said Rourke. “I didn’t climb down and check. I knew you would want to hear this straightaway. There must have been some shoot-out there. There’s blood everywhere, sir.”

“Good work, Corporal,” said the captain. He turned to Sergeant Goodrich and said, “Sergeant, prepare your men to move out.”

At the sergeant’s command, the troopers abandoned Lambert Kane’s body, leaving it only partially covered with rocks. In moments, they had mounted and assembled behind the travois. Leaving Goodrich and the three troopers to escort the slow-moving travois, the captain, Corporal Rourke and Rochenbach moved ahead along the winding trail at a gallop, until they reached the spot where the wagon tracks veered off the trail.