“Half hour ago, maybe.”
“Mighty close,” Ben said.
“We might catch up to 'em.”
“You think so? Looky yonder.”
Several yards farther on, John saw the tracks all at tangents to the trail as if they had scattered like a covey of quail, each veering off in a different direction. They rode several yards and examined the tracks. Deep indentations showed where the horses had dug in their hind hooves, spurred to jump into a lope, then a gallop.
Five men riding hell bent for leather in five different directions.
“Old Dick must have scared the pants off'n 'em,” Ben said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, they're scattered to the winds.”
“You won't catch up to 'em now, less'n you want to wear out leather and founder our horses.”
“We don't need to follow them, Ben. We know where they're going. Let's cut trail down to the creek and follow it to Pueblo.”
“Good idea, Johnny. Gent and Dynamite are plumb tuckered. It's been a long day.”
“And it ain't over yet.”
Ben frowned. There was no real hurry now, but he could have used some shade and a rest. He was plumb tuckered, too. The strain was not so much from riding, but from reading tracks and watching John Savage, with that look of the hunter on his face, that grim jaw set of determination as if he were some kind of marauding adventurer bent on laying waste to every living thing in his path. It was plain that John was on a mission, bent on vengeance, his heart throbbing at a murderous pace.
It was too bad, Ben thought, that young John had to grow up so fast. And before the day was done, much to Ben's regret, Johnny was going to have to grow up a little more, a little faster. He had been keeping the secret inside him so long, he felt as if he were going to burst open with it and splash it all over Johnny like a bucket of slop. But best to tell him now, out in the big emptiness of the foothills where John couldn't hurt anybody much, including himself.
They rode out of the valley and up onto a ridge where they looked down on more hills, rumples in the earth, gentle and rolling, dotted with trees and cactus, aspen along a small creek, their leaves fluttering in the breeze like green butterflies, their trunks looking as if whitewash had been painted over the brown, just slapped on with an erratic brush.
Ben felt a queasiness in his stomach. Soon, he knew, they would come to Fountain Creek and head south to Pueblo. A day's ride, maybe. Not long. And then they'd be in the city. It would be too late to tell Johnny then. He would take the bit in his teeth and dash straight for the cantina. And he might be shot down without ever drawing that lethal silvered pistol of his.
They were starting down the slope when Ben cleared his throat. He had said the words many times, over and over in his mind. But when it came to uttering them, they all vanished and got jumbled and tossed out of order, so that he found himself searching for the easy phrases he had imagined, groping for the right words that he had formed so many times in his head.
“Johnny, ah, something you oughta know,” Ben said. “Before we get there.”
“Before we get where?”
“Well, I mean Pueblo. Or somewhere in Pueblo, damn it. Don't make me struggle to tell you what I got to tell you.”
“Well, spill it then, Ben. What's on your mind that you can't just spit it out?”
“A lot, I reckon. Just keep quiet, will you, and let me get it out.”
“All right.”
“Remember when me, your daddy, and my brother Leland first come up here to prospect? You and your ma and little Alice stayed down in Taos with her brother and some folks we knew from back home.”
“Yeah, I remember. I wanted to come with you, but Daddy wouldn't let me. He said I had to look after Ma and Alice. I was mad the whole time you all were gone.”
“Well, and this is mighty hard to say, we kind of head-quartered in Pueblo. We rode all over the mountains, and heard about Cripple Creek, rode up there and we all got the fever pretty bad. Then we found that stretch of creek, found some color and staked out our claims. Had to make several trips.”
“I know all that,” John said. “My pa went on and on about how you all prospected and found that stretch of creek. Daddy was mighty proud of what you all did.”
“Well, yeah, and rightly so. But when we was all in Pueblo, we stayed at this little hotel on Calle Vaca. It was cheap and we got meals there. And right next door was a cantina where we could go and smoke and relax. You know.”
“No, I don't know. What cantina?”
Ben knew that John's dander was up. He bristled like a cat spoiling for a fight, hair standing up on end, tail switching back and forth like a snake.
“Well, it was Rosa's Cantina, Johnny.”
“Where Ollie's headed? The same one?”
“The very same, son. It's owned by Rosa Delgado, and if she ain't one of the prettiest Mexicans I ever laid eyes on, I don't know what.”
“So?”
“So, your daddy and Rosa, they had eyes for each other. I mean, we was there by ourselves and it didn't seem like real life at night. There was music, Mexican music, and pretty women, and dancing, and all. And Rosa, she and your daddy, well, they had a fling I guess you'd call it. Wasn't nothin' more than that. But here's what you got to know, Johnny. We, me and your pa, saw Rosa a couple more times after we staked our claim and when we come down to the assay office and your pa was mighty proud of striking gold and he told Rosa and she, well, I think she was the one what told Ollie about your pa and where to find him.”
Ben closed his mouth and looked at John.
John's face darkened with a sullen rage that he kept inside him. But the veins on his neck stood out like blue worms and his eyes narrowed down so much they didn't have any light in them. Yet he didn't explode or go into a rage. He just rode on, smoldering like some lighted fuse, or a banked fire, and Ben could feel it, could feel the knife going into Johnny's heart, could feel him twisting and squirming on its point as it burrowed deeper into him.
It was a hell of a thing to tell Johnny, but he had to know.
Rosa Delgado would not be friendly when she saw him and John walk into her cantina.
He was pretty sure that Ollie was going to pay her for the information she gave him. He was going to pay her in gold.
And the gold had Dan Savage's blood on it.
“Johnny,” Ben said, after a while, as they topped still another ridge and could see the shadowy plain in the distance, the shadows from the low hills stretching out to it like desperate fingers, and there, shining like silver, Fountain Creek, its waters tumbling over rocks, shadows playing in the foam, making each one a winking eye. “I'm sorry.”
And then John said the words Ben dreaded to hear, but knew were coming.
“I'll kill her,” John said, and there wasn't a hint of anger or bitterness in his tone. He said the words so matter-of-factly, he might have been talking about buying something at the store, a stick of licorice, perhaps, a trinket for his sister Alice.
And, as the sun fell behind a cloud, there was a sudden chill over the land, and the breeze picked up as if the gods were whispering among themselves about what they had in store for certain mortals bound up in the terrible coils of fate.
17
JOHN FELT AS IF SOMEONE HAD SLAMMED A PILE DRIVER straight into his stomach. What Ben had told him about his father came as a great shock to him. He could not picture his father with another woman. Nor could he come to grips with his father keeping a secret like that from his mother. What kind of a spell had this Rosa woman cast over Dan Savage? And why did she betray him?
A hundred questions flooded John's mind as he and Ben rode slowly down the slope into the shadowy cut between two swollen hills, a narrow ravine that still bore traces of the rain. The rocks were wet and slippery and their horses made mud out of the damp soil, their hooves sinking deep at times, making sucking sounds as Gent and Dynamite lifted their hooves, breaking the seal.
They came out of the draw and crossed one of the outlaw tracks. The sign showed that the rider was still running, pushing his horse. Flung dirt littered the ground where the animal had passed. John studied the hoofprints carefully and reasoned that Ollie was not the horseman, and he didn't know which of the men had made them. All he knew, for sure, was that neither Dick nor Ollie were on that particular animal.
“We'll not make the creek today,” Ben said, looking ahead at other hills that rose up before them.
“No matter. We've got plenty of water and we can chew on jerky and hardtack some more, I reckon. I'm not going to wear out our horses chasing this one.”
“First thing you've said lately's made any sense, Johnny.”
“Well, the way these men are scattered, we'll beat something of them into Pueblo. Ollie's the one I want most.”
“The big feller.”
“Yeah, the leader.”
“Can you kill five more men, Johnny? There's the law, you know.”
“The law?”
“You could swear out a warrant for them in Pueblo. Have them arrested for murder.”
“I could tie sewing thread to bumblebee's legs and fly 'em like kites, too.”
“You don't think the law would hang those men for what they done?”
They rode in deep shadow, the sun already dipped behind the highest peaks. The flat was laced with old sheep trails, narrow paths less than a foot wide.
“Look yonder,” Ben said, “over where them aspens is growing. Looks like a tank.”
John saw the land slope off near the white-boned trees and what looked like a dirt bank beyond an even deeper depression.
“Horses can water there, if the tank's holding some,” John said.
“That makes it easy.”
“I got a feeling about that fellow who took to the slope,” John said. “Something we might do when we make camp.”
“He might be up there looking down at us now,” Ben said, glancing up at that last low hill with its long ridgeline.
“I'm counting on it,” John said.
A few gilded clouds streamed like salmon on the sky and there was still that faint afterglow tingeing the blue with a coppery fringe. It was more than a little chilly, even with the extra clothes they were wearing, and the two men began to shiver.
They came to a grove of aspen where the ground was fairly dry. The horse tracks were no longer visible. They had turned off to the east, toward that last foothill, and John had decided not to follow it. He'd had enough fighting for one day, and whoever was on that horse could be waiting up at the top to pick them off. He'd have the advantage. He and Ben would be riding blind up a slope that had already darkened near to night.
“I'd bet that Ollie will already have an alibi set up. It would be our word against his,” John said.
“You mean that woman. Rosa Delgado.”
“Yeah, I mean Rosa Delgado. You know her. Would she lie for Ollie and his men?”
They stopped in the grove of aspen. The horses whickered gently, softly. The leaves jiggled in the breeze like scraps of green bunting. Water rippled in the tank. The horses whickered at the smell of the water. Beyond, there were more trees, and some open spots, small glades where they could spread their bedrolls and still have some protection. The shadows deepened, distorting all the landmarks and the trees, turning some into hostile, threatening shapes that tricked the eyes. They pulled their rifles from their sheaths and walked back to the tank.
Then, sudden nightfall, as the sun died in the west, taking the last glowing coals with it. They threw down their bedrolls, let the horses slake their thirst with a snuffling of lips, a snorting through rubbery nostrils, and a siphoning through their teeth. Then they led the animals, still saddled, some distance away into a lush, thick grove of small pines, hobbled them, tied them to lariats so they could graze on the plentiful grass.
“Why so far away, Johnny?”
“We're going to pitch two camps, make one fire,” he said, laconically. “Get out your knife.”
“My knife? What for?”
“You taught me something that first night,” John said. “When we cut those spruce boughs. We're going to do some tree trimming here. Try not to make a whole lot of noise.”
“You are a caution, young Savage,” Ben said.
“Wait'll you see how cold that ground's going to be, old man.”
Puzzled, Ben helped John lay out one camp. They collected stones, made a fire ring, gathered deadwood and squaw wood, placed some of it in the center.
“We won't light it yet,” John whispered. “Now, let's get to cutting.”
The two trimmed some pine boughs, carried them over by the fire ring. John arranged some on the ground. When he finished, they stretched the length of a man. Then he threw his blanket over it.
Ben, without being told, did the same to another spot. When they stepped back, the blankets resembled two sleeping figures.
“Where we goin' to sleep?” Ben asked.
“About twenty yards away, behind that jumble of rocks.”
“I can't see ten feet. What jumble of rocks?”
John chuckled and led Ben over to a pile of stones on a small knoll. They cleared spaces, removing most of the small stones and sticks.
“We'll freeze our asses off,” Ben said.
“Might not have to stay here that long.”
“Oh?”
“We'll see,” John said. “Now, go down there and light that fire. When it gets going, come on back. I'll sit here with my rifle.”
“You using me as bait?”