Snake Eyes (9781101552469) (26 page)

“I wonder where Brad is now,” she said as they all listened to the thunderclaps in the distance, the rollicking rumble of a storm over the foothills and down on the plain. “I wonder if he has caught up with the Snake.”

“I wonder, too,” Sorenson said. “But I know he won't quit until he's caught both Schneck and Wagner. He don't have no quit in him, that man.”

They were silent after that, and when Sorenson put down his bedroll in one of the empty cabins, he fell asleep with the sound of thunder rolling across the sky like empty barrels in an attic.

The last thing he heard was the far-off bleating of a sheep, and it gave him a strange feeling of utter peace just before he dropped off into the bottomless abyss of sleep.

Schneck and Loomis rode into a light rainsquall that soon turned into a frog strangler. Then they felt the sting of the rain on their faces as the wind rose up like some avenging banshee and battered them with howling torrents that drenched their slickers and turned their hats into sodden rain gutters.

“Looks like we done rode into a full-bore, .60-caliber howler,” Loomis said.

“Yeah, so what?”

“So, we're goin' to have a lot of wet cattle in the mornin'.”

“They'll dry out,” Schneck said.

“You still got that detective in your craw, Otto?”

“What if I do?”

“It don't make your disposition any better.”

“My disposition is none of your business,” Schneck said.

“Well, it could use a little sugar on it. You want to hole up and wait out this storm under a rock or somethin'?”

“No, damn it. We'll ride on, Loomis. It'll be just as cold and wet under a rock ledge.”

“Look, Otto, I'm real sorry about that stampedin', but I did all I could, and it wasn't my fault.”

“I am not angry at you, Chet. Hell, I've had cattle stampede on me a couple of times.”

“Then what're you mad at, Otto? That jasper on your tail?”

“Yeah, him and those damn sheepherders. If I hadn't run out of rifle cartridges, that Sidewinder would be wolf meat.”

“I ain't packin' a Winchester, and my rifle's .40 caliber.”

“I know.”

“Maybe some of the hands can help you out when we meet up with them.”

“That might be too late. I can feel that bastard breathing down my neck. I'd like to wring his neck.”

Schneck thought back to his boyhood in Andernach, Germany, and the summers he spent on his uncle Gustav's farm. He loved to wring the necks of the chickens when they wanted some for Sunday supper. He also liked to use a hammer and kill the rabbits when his aunt Helga made rabbit stew or ha-senpfeffer. Later, he trapped small birds in wooden boxes held up on a stick with a string attached to it. He put seeds under the box and, when a bird hopped in to get at the seeds, he pulled the string and caught the bird. He would hold a bird in his hand and squeeze its breast until it gasped for breath and died. Killing small animals gave him much pleasure, but he liked to make them suffer first. He would have liked to have done that with those Basque women and children, but he wanted to send a strong message to Garaboxosa. He hoped the bastard had gotten the message and would remember him when he buried all those dead people.

Maybe, he thought, all those sheep would be out of the mountains by the time he drove his cattle herd up there in a day or two.

“Well,” Loomis said as he wiped water from his mouth, “maybe this Sidewinder is holed up somewhere hisself, or has just give up.”

“I have a feeling he's not a man to give up, Chet.”

“Then, get a bead on him when he shows up and blow out his candle.”

“I had the bastard. I had him dead to rights, and I ran out of bullets. So did Jim.”

“Too bad. But you can't cry over spilt milk, Otto. What's done is done and you can't change it.”

“No, but I'd like to have another chance at Sidewinder.”

“Maybe you'll get another chance by and by,” Loomis said.

“I hope I do,” Schneck said and meant it.

The rain whipped at them. The wind snarled and railed at them with increasing ferocity. The horses splashed in large puddles, and their hooves slipped off wet rocks and they staggered and stumbled, drooping their heads as if they were pulling plows.

Loomis thought that it was not a fit night for man or beast. But both man and beast were in it, and he kept hoping Otto would relent and let him seek shelter for both of them.

He knew damned well that the German was a hardhead and wouldn't stop to rest or dry out, no matter what.

It was going to be a long night.

Sorenson awoke to the sound of a shotgun blast, a high-pitched yelp, and angry men's voices.

He sat up in his bedroll and groped for his boots in the dark. He slipped his feet into them, picked up his gun belt next to his pillow, stood up, and strapped on his pistol. He strode outside and walked to the wagon where the dead lay under the tarp that glistened with dew. He smelled the acrid aroma of exploded gunpowder, and there was a ghostly wisp of smoke hanging in the air a few feet from the wagon.

Moonlight glazed the back of a man who was bent over something on the ground a dozen yards away. The man stood up and looked toward Sorenson.

“Wolf,” Joe said.

Sorenson walked over and saw the dead timber wolf lying stretched out. Joe held a sawed-off shotgun in his left hand that reeked of burned cordite.

“It must be a good eight or nine feet long,” Sorenson said. Joe had stretched the tail full length and placed the head in a straight line with its body.

“Big one,” Joe said.

“Just one?” Sorenson asked. He grazed his fingers over his beard stubble, which felt like sandpaper.

“Just this one. Sneaked up on me. I was sitting under the wagon when I saw him.”

Sorenson looked up at the starry sky, the shining half-moon, the sparkling band of the Milky Way. Venus shone like a brilliant diamond, and he could see the faint orange glow of Mars winking in the black void beyond the moon.

“Time for me to relieve you, Joe,” Sorenson said. “Get some sleep.”

“Do you want the shotgun? In case you see another wolf?”

“No. My six-gun will be enough.”

“I will sleep, then. I am glad this one did not go for the sheep.”

“Good night, Joe,” Sorenson said.

“Good night, Thor.”

Joe walked away toward one of the log cabins. He opened the door and disappeared inside. Sorenson walked back to the wagon and leaned against the bed. The tarp made a crackling sound when he put his weight against it. He could smell the decomposing bodies underneath the fabric. The wagon reeked of a faint, cloying, somewhat sweet smell that was sickening to him. He tried not to think of the stiff bodies stacked in the wagon bed like cordwood.

Two hours later, the sky began to pale in the east. Light washed out the stars as it crept across the arc of the sky, and the moon became a pale shell, as faded as a late summer flower, its skeletal shape suspended in a sea of cerulean blue. Mike walked from his cabin to the wagon where Sorenson stood, gazing at the shadows crawling downward from the high country, revealing brilliant white peaks that seemed to glow from some inner fluorescence.

“Good morning, Thor,” Mike said. “How'd you like to take a ride with me?”

Sorenson turned and gave Mike his full attention.

“Maybe. Where you going?”

“To the upper valley where we drove most of the sheep yesterday. I need some diggers to help bury our dead. And some of the shepherds there have wives and children among the dead.”

Sorenson thought about it for a moment.

“Yes, Mike, I'll ride up there with you, but then I'm going on to the other valley where Schneck is grazing his cattle.”

“Are you going back there to work for Schneck?”

“Not on your life, Mike. There's someone I want to see up there.”

Mike rubbed his chin as he thought about what Sorenson had told him.

“The Mexican?” Mike said.

“Yes. Jorge Verdugo. The man who came down here under false pretenses and worked for you, suppered with you, and then betrayed you.”

“You know that to be true?”

“Yes. Schneck sent him down here to spy on you. I think Schneck planned to come down here and murder the women and children, but after Verdugo told him they were all leaving, he changed his plans.”

“What will you do with the Mexican?”

“I'm going to bring him down here to help dig graves. And I want him to see the people he caused to die. The people who befriended him.”

“Some of my men may not take kindly to your bringing the Mexican down here at such a solemn and holy time.”

“Verdugo needs to know what his words to Schneck caused to happen.”

“Just tell him,” Mike said.

Sorenson snorted in derision.

“Verdugo is not a very smart man. My telling him might just wash over him and seep away like water down a hole.”

“I see,” Mike said. “Bring him down then, but I won't be responsible for what happens if the men find out what he did.”

“I won't tell them if you won't, Mike.”

“I will not tell them. But I may put a rope around his neck and hang him from one of those big junipers.”

“If you do, I'll help you string him up,” Sorenson said.

Less than an hour later, with sourdough biscuits, coffee, and mutton in their bellies, Mike and Thor rode across the valley and up the trail to the higher ground. The sun was high and drenched the grasses and the trees with warmth and golden sunshine, burning off the dew and making the green hues as radiant as emeralds.

“Tell me about Minnesota,” Mike said when they were riding through the timber that gave them shade among the shimmering shafts of sunlight. “I have never been there. What is it like?”

“It is a land of many lakes, although I guess some of them are no more than ponds. The lakes are teeming with fish. There are no mountains, like here. Just a lot of lakes and a legend about them.”

“What is this legend?”

“They say a giant created the land and lived there. They call him Paul Bunyan. They say that the lakes were made by his heavy footprints when he walked the land. They explain everything unusual there was caused by Paul Bunyan.”

Mike laughed, and Sorenson joined him.

“Perhaps it is so,” Mike said.

“Minnesota has many Swedes and Norwegians and Germans living there, and I think the early settlers brought their fairy tales with them across the ocean. Many of them believe in little folks and ancient gods and strange creatures.”

“And giants,” Mike said with a smile.

“Just that one giant, Mike.”

Sorenson left Mike in the upper valley and rode on to the cattle camp. He found Verdugo working in the stable and called him out.

“What is it you want, Sorenson?” Verdugo asked.

“Saddle up a horse and ride with me, Jorge,” Sorenson said. It was not a request, but a command.

“Why? Where do we go?”

“I'm going to show you something, and I have some work for you.”

“Does Snake send you?”

“No, Schneck didn't send me. You get crackin', Jorge, or I'll take a quirt to your worthless Mexican hide.”

Verdugo seemed to recall the beating he took at the hands of the Swede and nodded.

“I will go with you,” he said.

A half hour later the two were riding at a good clip through the timber. They descended into the lower valley to see men digging graves, wielding their shovels against buried rocks and hard, grassy dirt.