Angry to have wasted so much time, while the outlaws were putting distance between him and themselves, he began a search of the grassy meadow just below the ledge. From the look of it, the outlaws had camped there overnight. Judging by the tracks, the two horses had been tied to the limbs of a couple of stunted pines. Looking farther, he found tracks where the two had fled down the back side of the ridge, but if he could believe those tracks, they had gone in opposite directions. He puzzled over the fact for a few moments, because it would have made more sense to retain their two-to-one advantage. He went back to the place where the horses had been tied to have another look before he decided which of the two trails he was going to follow. “I'm wasting time,” he decided aloud, and was about to start back down to fetch his horse, when he happened to notice a spotting of color on the grass blades at his feet. He paused and knelt to look closer.
Blood
, he thought.
So I did hit one of them last night! And he's still bleeding
. This didn't explain why the two men had obviously split up when they left the ridge, however. One thing seemed evident to him now: they were gambling on the fact that he could not chase both of them.
He faced several problems at this point. He had never seen either man close enough to be able to identify him, so he was dependent upon the tracks they left behind. If he could choose between them, he would follow the trail of the one who was not wounded, since the man with the wound might be easier to find later on. The problem with that, howeverâthere was no way to tell which set of hoof tracks belonged to the wounded man. Undecided, he turned to look out over the back of the ridge in the directions each trail indicated. One would seem headed south, toward the broad river valley, the way they had originally come several days before. The other led straight down the backside of the ridge toward the mountain beyond. He stood there, unable to decide for a moment. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out the one remaining twenty-dollar gold piece and flipped it up in the air. “Heads, it's the mountainâtails, it's the valley.” It was heads. He went to get his horse.
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“That son of a bitch,” Seeger whined as he strained to stay in the saddle. The thought of the cowardly abandonment by his partner was the only thing keeping him upright in the saddle as his horse followed an old game trail up the mountain. He could feel the back of his shirt getting more and more soaked from the blood that had started to flow again. He needed a doctor, for he feared he might bleed to death before he had a chance to recover, and he desperately needed to recover so he could seek his revenge on Cruz. Knowing he was too weak to try to follow the double-crosser now, he had chosen to try to find a place to hide and heal. Now he began to fear that he was going to fall off his horse, so he knew he had to pick a place to rest soon.
He was suffering so much pain from his shoulder that he forgot that he had not eaten since the day before. Even as weak as he now was, food was not a priority at this moment in his life.
If I could just rest
, he thought,
then maybe the shoulder will begin to heal on its own. I could make it then.
It was the last thought he had before passing out and falling from his saddle. The jolt when he hit the ground was enough to jar him awake, but he knew he could not get himself back on his horse again. There was no other option open for him, so he crawled painfully over against a pine tree and sat waiting for whatever his fate might be. The foremost regret he had was not being able to settle the score with Cruz.
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The trail Adam had selected to follow was not a difficult one. The outlaw had not taken pains to hide his flight. When he reached the foot of the mountain, he had taken a game trail that appeared to wind its way through the pines before gradually ascending toward the top. Upon coming to a sharp turn where the trail became quite steep and appeared to double back, he was stopped short by the discovery of a riderless horse standing on the narrow trail. His reaction was immediate as he slid quickly from the saddle, expecting gunshots coming his way. But there was nothing except the greeting nicker of the horse. Kneeling on one knee, he scanned the trees from left to right and back again, seeing no one. When he rose to his feet again, the snap of a .44 slug whistled a few inches from his ear, and he dived for cover beside the trail. It was not until two more shots were fired that he located the shooter. With his back propped against a tree at the turn of the narrow trail, a man sat slumped, his pistol in hand. Adam, astonished that his assailant had taken no pains to protect himself, immediately lifted his rifle and drove a slug into the bushwhacker's chest. The revolver fell from the man's hand.
It was obvious that the outlaw was finished, but Adam approached him with caution, lest he suddenly pick up his pistol and fire again. As before, when ending the life of one of the murderous outlaws who had killed his brother and the girl, Lacey, and sought to kill him, Adam felt no pity for the man now dying before him. He kicked the pistol lying on the ground out of reach, then stood gazing at the figure sprawled against the tree.
Seeger's eyes fluttered, then opened halfway. “I reckon my luck ran out,” he uttered, his speech slurred and slow. “Why the hell didn't you go after Cruz instead of me? The son of a bitch deserves to die.”
“Like you said, your luck ran out,” Adam said somberly, then waited for a few moments when Seeger began to cough up the blood that was congesting his chest. “The other one's name is Cruz?” he asked.
Content to send death's messenger to even the score with the man who had left him to be killed, Seeger nodded, then said, “Bailey Cruz, heavyset feller, long hair down to his shoulders.” The talking seemed to exhaust him, and his eyelids began to flutter again.
Adam could see that the man was taking his last breath. “Where can I find him?”
“O'Grady's maybe. Kill the son of a bitch.” Those were his last words.
Adam stood over him a few moments longer. Seeger's eyes had suddenly opened wide just before he exhaled his last breath, causing Adam to wonder what the poor wretch saw at the moment of death. Whatever it was must not have been very pleasant, he decided, for it had left his face twisted into a mask of terror. Reminding himself then that he had no time to linger there, he took Seeger's guns and ammunition and put them on the horse still standing patiently in the path. Leading the dead man's horse, he rode back to pick up Cruz's trail, leaving Seeger to await the buzzards.
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The trail that had angled down the back of the ridge pointed in the general direction of the river valley, south of the high mountains where Bonnie and Finn waited for his return. Not sure he hadn't lost it after coming upon a wide outcropping of rock, he thought of his brother. Jake could track as well as any Indian he'd ever met.
I need you here now
, he thought when finally he had to give up on looking for tracks on the rocky surface. Going strictly on a guess as to where the outlaw had headed, he was relieved to pick up the tracks again at the bank of a small stream where the man he now knew as Bailey Cruz had paused to let his horse drink. As the afternoon wore on, with the promise of evening to come shortly, Adam spurred the horses on, knowing Cruz's lead might be too substantial to overcome. Darkness found him at the banks of the Ruby River, where he was forced to end the chase until morning.
After watering the horses, he rode downriver a short distance to find a suitable campsite where he could build a fire that would not be easily seen. A few strips of deer jerky were all he could produce for his supper, since he had not taken the time to pack many supplies with him. He reprimanded himself severely for not bringing his coffeepot, the one utensil that he could never do without. Ignoring the angry growls coming from his empty stomach, he settled down to pass the night. Sleep didn't come easily, however. There were too many things to sort out in his head. His single demanding objective was to run Bailey Cruz to ground and balance the ledger in that regard. But he could not forget the obligation he had taken on for the safe deliverance of Finn and Bonnie out of this territory and safely to the Gallatin Valley. Torn between the contract he had made with them and the determination to follow Cruz, he found it difficult to decide which was the more important. Unable to make the decision, he put it off until morning.
Morning brought rain. The storm clouds began to form in the wee hours of the morning, pushing their way toward the mountains. A little before daylight the rain began to fall, and by the time he pulled his rain slicker off his saddle and put it on, he was hit with a pelting shower that lasted for over an hour. Concerned for the effect it might have on the trail he must find, he saddled the horses and hurried back upstream to find the hoofprints that had led into the river were now effectively erased by the rain. He was left with the discouraging fact that he knew only that Cruz had entered the river here, and not if he went straight across, or stayed in the water to leave the river upstream or downstream. Recalling his indecision of the night just passed, he said, “Well, I reckon my decision has been made for me.” But to be sure, he rode a mile or so along the east bank, then crossed over and came back on the other side before finally turning the bay gelding back the way he had come. He would see Finn and Bonnie safely out of the mountains. Then he would hunt Bailey Cruz down. He knew his name, a vague description of him, and he knew at least one place where he might be found. He was not looking forward to a return visit to Virginia City, but that seemed to be where the trail led. It was extremely hard not to simply head there now, but he could not say how long it would take to track Cruz down once he got there.
Once I take care of Finn and Bonnie
, he thought,
then it won't matter how long it takes
. It was more than ten miles to the ridge where he had encountered Seeger. He still had more than half a day from there to Black Otter's camp, but he decided to try to make it before dark.
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“Thank you,” Bonnie Wells said politely when Little Flower placed a portion of freshly roasted venison before her. The Indian woman responded with a slight nod, her face devoid of expression. When Little Flower withdrew to seat herself on the opposite side of the fire, Bonnie looked at Finn and commented softly, “I think Mrs. Black Otter wishes we'd get the hell out of her home.” There was no doubt that Little Flower felt threatened with the two white people in her camp. From the first, she had been accommodating, but far less cordial than her husband.
“I don't doubt it,” Finn replied. “It helped matters very little when those killers followed us here.”
“Black Otter seems friendly enough,” Bonnie said. “She could warm up a little bit. It ain't like we wanna be here.”
Finn took a loud sip of the coffee Bonnie had made before commenting, “Black Otter counts it as good fortune. He gained horses and guns he didn't have before. All she gained was a couple of extra mouths to feed.” He slurped his coffee loudly again and smacked his lips in approval. “We'll be pullin' outta here as soon as Adam gets back.”
“He's been gone two days already,” Bonnie fretted. “What if he doesn't come back? Then what in hell are we gonna do? I'm not planning on spending the winter in an Indian camp,” she said, emphatically.
“He said he'd be back,” Finn replied. “He's as good as his word. He'll be back.” His statement was far more confident than his inner feelings. Finn had worked hard all his life with nothing to show for it, until the last few years. Hard work had finally paid off, for now he was a wealthy man. But his wealth was packed right there in a lone Indian's camp in ten canvas bags, no good to him or anyone else if he failed to transport it to someplace where it had value. Finally able to sneak his fortune out from under the watchful eyes of Sheriff Albert Ainsworth and his gang of outlaws in Bannack, he now found himself in a quandary. He was afraid to lead his mules out of these mountains without some formidable protection. The two gangs that had attacked them had been defeated, but there were still those many outlaws who constantly watched the roads in and out of Virginia City. So the past three nights, with Adam gone, were especially worrisome for him. The thought of starting out for Three Forks or Butte, leading his string of mules, loaded down with a fortune in gold dust, was one that offered nothing short of suicide. He was sure that Bonnie would stick with him. Where else was she to go? She was as spunky and tough as any woman he had ever met, but she was not enough protection against seasoned road agents.
I wish to hell Adam would show up
, he silently prayed.
“I hope you're right,” Bonnie said, “because the nights are getting cold up here.” She thought of another point that only served to worry the little Irishman further. “You know, you and I just invited ourselves along on this little journey as extra baggage. He was only going to take Lacey home with him, and that was just because he figured he owed it to his brother. He might decide he doesn't owe us a damn thing.” It gave them something to think about. She paused, however, before saying more on the subject when she saw Black Otter get up from the fire, pick up his new Spencer carbine, and move quickly to the edge of the clearing. Fearing trouble, she grabbed her carbine and moved up beside him. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Big Hunter,” Black Otter replied. A moment later, Adam hailed the camp. The Indian dropped his weapon to his side and walked out to meet him.
Bonnie remained where she stood, and when Finn walked up to join her, she asked, “Now, how in hell did he know that?”
Finn shrugged. “He's an Injun.” He didn't care how the Indian knew; he just released a great sigh of relief.
A few seconds later, Adam appeared at the edge of the stream. Behind him, on a lead line, followed a string of seven saddled horses. “Well, I'll be damned,” Finn muttered. “You went back for the horses.”