The Man from Shenandoah (29 page)

~~~

Carl drew rein in the blackberry canyon. Ellen’s pail lay in the path, contents scattered and mashed into the dirt.

“They took them here, but they didn’t linger,” he told James through tight lips.

“We’d best wait for Rulon. He’s the best tracker of us all.”

“I’m good enough to follow these hair-bellied four-flushers. I ain’t waiting for Rulon. They’ve got Ellen.”

Carl alighted from his horse and fingered the hoof marks left by the kidnappers’ horses. “Only one bug has scooted through here. They ain’t been gone long.” He stepped into the saddle. “Come on, James. Let’s get them scoundrels.”

James checked his pistol load, and made sure the rifle was secure in the saddle scabbard. “How are your firearms?” he asked Carl.

His brother drew his pistol and spun the cylinder. “It’s full but for one chamber.” Turning in the saddle, he loosened the flap of a saddlebag and removed the Smith and Wesson. “This one’s ready to go. I keep all six chambers loaded, just for varmints.” He tucked it down behind his waistband, then checked the rifle in his scabbard. “We’d best get a move on,” he said, frowning. “Every minute their lead gets longer.” He put spurs to the horse’s flanks and followed the trail out of the canyon.

Heading south, he skirted the boulder Julianna had used for cover and picked up the tracks of the abductors. James came behind, and they took the trail leading upward, into the pine forest, then past a deep canyon that reached back up the mountain. The trail forked, and Carl took the branch that stretched into the forest, where the path soon lay under a thick layer of pine needles.

“I lost ‘em,” he sputtered, and circled his horse back to cast around for the tracks. He glanced up and saw his father and the other riders coming through the trees. “Well, here’s Rulon’s chance to go to work,” he muttered.

When Rulon was in hailing distance, Carl called out to him. “I lost the trail. You been tracking?”

Rulon grinned. “Does a red hound have fleas? You missed a turn back yonder. They headed straight into the canyon. I reckon they know you’re following them now.”

“Where they going? We ain’t been on this section of the mountain.”

Sourdough Smith, the cook Bill Henry had brought along, turned over the lump of plug tobacco in his cheek. “I reckon they’re heading for an old cabin up there, below the crest of the ridge. I done some trapping through here, years ago.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice into the brush. “I reckon I can still find it, if you want me to take you there.”

“You find it,” Carl said. “I’ll be right behind you. Nobody but a lowdown snake abuses a woman where I come from.”

Rod looked around at the riders. “I know I’m not paying soldier’s wages, but who will stand with me and my boys to get those girls back?”

Bill Henry said, “We go after scum like that for free down in Texas.” He turned to the others. “Any of you want to stay behind, you’re declaring yourselves in favor of snakes and lowlifes.”

Pete Dawes looked around at the sober-eyed Owen men. “Well, I shoot any snakes I come across,” he said, spreading his lips open across his teeth.

“I ain’t in favor of no lowlifes,” grunted Frank Tilden.

Chico Henderson checked his revolver. “Let’s go.”

“You got my gun,” added Bob Henry.

Sourdough led off, up the canyon on the left side, the rest of the riders following him on the dim trail, one by one, riding with their rifles loose in their scabbards and their eyes scanning the way ahead.

Carl felt a prickle in the hairs on the back of his neck. As he changed directions on a switchback in the trail, he muttered to Rulon, “I don’t like this. We’re all exposed on the face of this wall. If they’re laying for us, they can pick us off one at a time, and us with no cover.”

Rulon nodded. “Keep your eyes peeled when we top that ridge.”

The canyon wall was steep, and the horses were winded by the climb as they approached the lip of the cut. The ten riders edged cautiously into the open on top, and moved quickly into the shelter of the forest.

Sourdough pointed through the trees in the direction of the summit. “We’ve got a right smart way yet to go. Best we let the horses rest a while.” He dismounted, and his horse shied against Frank Tilden’s mount.

Tilden’s horse reared, but the man kept his seat, cursing the cook. “I don’t ride with rum-soaked, broken-down old codgers. Here’s yours.”

He drew and fired at Sourdough, but the horse turned as he pulled the trigger, and his bullet struck Bob Henry in the chest, knocking him off his horse.

“You stupid oaf,” cried Pete Dawes. “Can’t you do anything right?” His gun was out, and he shot Chico through the left shoulder. “Damn, you got me doing it now,” he shouted, firing at Rod as he turned his horse to flee. His last shot also went high, and opened a furrow across Rod’s skull. Then he was gone, and Tilden with him, and three men were down, their blood soaking into the pine needles.

Carl and Bill Henry started to ride after them, but Rulon called them back. “Let them go. I reckon I’d druther have them in front of me than behind, now that we know the set of their minds.”

James and Sourdough bent over the injured men. Bob was the worst hit, struggling to breathe, fighting the pain of his shattered chest.

Bill went to his knees and looked at the gaping hole in his cousin’s body. “Lie still,” he growled, his face working. “You’re going to pull through.”

“Ah, Bill,” Bob coughed, choking on his own blood. “Be sure they bury me in a patch of green. I never could abide the dust in Texas.”

“Don’t you go!” his cousin cried out, but Bob never heard him.

James stuffed moss into the hole in Chico’s shoulder. “It missed the bone, tore up the muscle, then came out the back, so you won’t die of lead poisoning,” He untied Chico’s neckerchief and used it to bind the wound. “We got to get you off this mountain and down to Ma. She can clean you up better.” James looked around at Rulon and Carl, who were tending to Rod’s wound. “How’s Pa? Can he ride?”

“It’s deeper than I first thought, but if he don’t pass out, he’s tough enough to make it.” Rulon helped his father to his feet. “Dizzy, Pa? This fight’s over for you. You need to get Chico down where Ma can put him and you to rights.”

Rod shook his head to clear it. “I got to what?” he asked, obviously confused by the bullet crease on his head.

“Go home, Pa. We lost Bob. Take his body down home. Ma will patch you up.”

“I should have had more sense,” Rod muttered, seemingly getting his thoughts straight at last. “Them eyes always had something in them I didn’t like.” Drying blood covered one side of his face.

Rulon brought Rod’s horse over to him and helped him to mount. James had Chico in the saddle and handed the reins to Rod, then patted the neck of Chico’s horse. Carl tied the reins of Bob’s horse onto Chico’s saddle while Sourdough and Bill secured the blanket-wrapped burden of Bob’s body across his horse.

“Don’t stop until you get home, Pa,” said Rulon, slapping Rod’s horse on the rump. The animal started down the trail.

“I hope Chico can stay on that horse,” James said. “He’s lost a passel of blood.”

“He’ll do,” said Bill. “He’s got sand in his craw.”

Sourdough was up on his horse. “That cabin’s still a good piece distant,” he reminded them. “We need to ride to catch them fellers before nightfall.”

Carl’s blood boiled him up into his saddle as he remembered that Ellen was in the hands of men like Dawes and Tilden. “I reckon the odds are getting well nigh even now,” he shouted. “They got four, and we got five.”

“We know about four,” Rulon corrected. “The way Dawes and Tilden chewed up the trail, I can’t tell if anybody else has been along this way.”

Sourdough led off again, Rulon beside him to check the trail, and the other three came in a bunch behind. The horses were rested, and they made good time, climbing the gentle slope of the mountain through the pines and firs that girdled its higher reaches.

Three hours before nightfall, Sourdough called a halt.

“That cabin ain’t but a half mile or less through them trees,” he said. “It’s partly a dugout into the side of the mountain. We’ll surround it easy, for there ain’t but one way in, but they’ve got them girls, so they have a fair hand of cards, too. What you might call a Mexican standoff. When dark falls, we can get in real close, but if we go to shooting, we might hit them girls.”

“Best we sneak on up there and have a good look,” Bill said. “Can’t harm nothing to know how the ground lies.”

Dismounting, they picketed their horses in a protected hollow where they could graze, took their rifles, and set out on foot.

Rulon saw the cabin first, its log front protruding from the side of the mountain, and reached out to tap Carl on the shoulder.

“Yep,” whispered Carl, crouching behind a pine trunk.

James came silently behind them, and whispered, “Where do you think they put their horses? I went a piece to the right, and there’s no cover close in big enough to hide four horses. They ain’t in the woods, or we would have heard them.”

“I reckon if I was them, I’d want my horse close by,” Rulon reasoned. “We’ll circle to the left and check. The mountain ain’t swallowed them up.”

Sourdough appeared behind a neighboring pine. He glided over to join the three brothers.

“That cabin’s weathered some since I was last here. The roof’s in bad shape. Another storm will knock it down, and then the front wall will fall in.” He looked back toward the cabin and spotted a rifle barrel poking through the front window. “I reckon they know we arrived.”

A bullet whanged into a tree behind them, and the four men ducked into the brush, spreading out to cover the entire front of the cabin.

“Ah ha!” rang out a cry. “We have meet again. And this time you will not have the good luck.”

Carl’s stomach churned. “It’s Acosta,” he exclaimed. “I should have finished him off back in Kansas City.”

“We should have ground his bones on the prairie,” James responded, gritting his teeth.

“I must thank you for the gift of these lovely young
muchachas
, but where is the other one, the
diosa blanca
? I have been yearning to pay my respects to her.”

“Yearn away. She couldn’t make the trip,” Carl yelled, and moved back from his position.

Another slug whipped through the air, barking the tree where Carl had stood. “He can shoot,” Carl whispered from his new bush.

A twig snapped off to the left, and Carl swung his rifle to cover whoever was approaching. After a moment, Bill’s head moved into view, and he hissed, “Stand easy. It’s me.”

He motioned for the men to join him, and they all moved out of rifle range to confer. “I been scouting on the left, and there’s no sign of their horses.” He paused a moment, puzzlement twisting his face. “I heard a whinny once, but I’ll be switched if I could locate them.” He glanced around at the other men. “Any luck on the right?”

“Nothing,” James answered. “But we know who’s in there now. Feller by the name of Berto Acosta. We tussled with him back in Kansas City on our way out here.”

“Berto Acosta? He’s got a black name in Texas,” said Bill. “Cattle thief, stage robber, murderer: he’s done it all. I wondered where Dawes and Tilden blew in from. It pains me to find I hired a pair of spies and murderers.” Bill scowled and looked fiercely at the old trapper and the brothers. “I got a bullet with Tilden’s name on it. Don’t you forget that. When the time comes, he’s all mine.”

Rulon rubbed his cheek with his left hand. “Sourdough, you stay in that cabin long? When you was trapping?”

“Two winters I holed up there. But I didn’t just trap. When I had nothing to do, I’d take a pick and do some hacking against the back wall. I’d heard tell there was a vein somewheres, but I never found it. I must have moved three ton of rock out of there for my trouble, but nary an ounce of gold did I find.”

“And folks stayed in there since then?”

“Before and since. Folks have been moving up and down through these hills for centuries: Indians, Spanish, trappers, and prospectors. I don’t know how old the cabin is, but over the years, many a body’s bound to have stumbled onto it and put it to use.”

Rulon could barely contain his excitement. “You reckon one of those bodies could have dug clear through the hill? Made a back door?”

“There was a bear’s den over yonder. I left the old she and her cubs alone.” He ran his fingers through his white thatch of hair. “If some feller with more brawn than brain camped in here long enough, he could have tunneled through to the den. They could keep horses in such a tunnel.”

“It’s coming on dark in an hour or so. Now’s the time to find that den, or cave, or tunnel.” Rulon turned to Bill. “Take me over to where you heard the whinny. If there’s an opening, we’ll find it and see if it connects with the house. Carl, you and James go to shooting from different positions, to make them think we’re all out here. Sourdough, you go to the right and give them a cross fire. If Bill and me find a back way in, you’ll know it by the commotion. Give them a rush when you hear us blast our way in.”

“I thought this was my fight,” Carl growled.

Rulon thumbed his nose with his knuckle, and put his other hand on James’s arm to keep him still. “I figure we three got equal shares in it, seeing as how it’s our sister over yonder. And Bill has a stake because of Bob. Sourdough knows this place.” Rulon looked around at all the men, then addressed Carl again. “Your job is to get in there with these two and fetch the girls out when Bill and me stir up a ruckus.”