“That right, Luke?” Ollie's tone sounded almost casual.
“I guess we heard kind of a whumpin' sound,” Luke said. “I thought it might have been thunder way off.”
“Did you see smoke? Dust? Hear any rocks falling?”
“I seen some smoke, maybe,” Luke said.
“Well, there are two of them pilgrims didn't make it to boot hill,” Ollie said, his right hand flexing open and closed as if he were limbering it up.
Mort's horse bleated a short burst of flatulence, then lifted its tail and began ejecting apples from its rectum. The misshapen brown balls fell in a pile, along with green scum, making a series of wet plops as they struck the ground and each other.
“Mort, maybe you ought to take that nag to a privy somewheres,” Army Mandrake said, “before he pisses all over us.”
Nobody laughed. They were all thinking of that explosion, trying to decipher not only what it meant, but what Ollie thought it meant.
“So,” Ollie said, “we got a couple of hard-rock miners in that bunch. And we missed 'em. They're still back there. Alive, goddamnit. And maybe them two saw our faces.”
“That ain't likely,” Luke said.
“Oh, what makes you say that, Luke?” Ollie said.
“Well, nobody shot at us. We didn't see nobody else. Everybody what was there eatin' grub got rubbed out, slicker than snot.”
“Well, maybe they were scared shitless,” Ollie said. “Maybe they didn't have any guns. But there's damned sure a mine up above that little bluff and them two bastards had to hear us come barreling in there shooting off our guns like we was a county fair.”
None of the men said a word.
Ollie let the silence settle in before he broke it.
“All right,” Hobart said. “Here's what we're going to do.” He looked at Luke and Pete. His glance was withering, as if his eyes could project heat and melt stone or wilt grass. “Luke, you and Pete are going back there and finish the job.”
“What?” Luke said. “Go back there? Hell, we need to go to Pueblo with you to get our cut.”
“We'll wait for you.”
“Shit,” Luke said.
“You two ride back and clean up any mess you see. I want proof. Cut their scalps off or their balls, but I want them two men dead and gone by the time you get to Pueblo. If you don't show up, we'll all say a prayer for your sorry asses.”
“Damn, Ollie,” Pete said. “Why don't we just let it be? Or else all of us go back and see if there's anybody there?”
“Pete, this discussion is over. Now git, the both of you. And, remember, I want proof. I don't want to spend the rest of my days lookin' over my shoulder wondering if them two jaspers are traipsin' after us.”
Grumbling under his breath, Luke clucked to his horse and dug spurs into its flanks. Pete spurred his horse and followed after him. The two men vanished into the woods, the brush rustling, small limbs snapping as they went.
“Let's go to Pueblo, boys,” Ollie said.
“What if they don't come back?” Dick Tanner said.
“Then, we'd sure as hell better watch our backs, Dick,” Ollie said, slapping his horse on the rump with his reins. The others fell in beside Ollie. One or two of them looked back as they rode away.
Clouds darkened the land as the men turned south and east, heading toward Fountain Creek. They cast no shadows and the caw of a crow as it flapped overhead was the only sound they heard.
Ollie hoped Luke and Pete would join them in Pueblo. In fact, he was counting on it. If they had left two men alive back there, these boys were both crack shots.
He just hoped they had more wits than they'd had that morning.
Ollie didn't want anybody on his backtrail bent on revenge.
And he sure as hell didn't want those two miners going to the law.
More crows flew overhead, cawing noisily as they flapped toward the long prairie beyond the mountains. They were specks in the sky by the time Ollie stopped thinking about the two nameless miners who were still alive and witnesses to nearly a dozen cold-blooded murders.
9
WITH MUMBLES OF THUNDER IN THE DISTANCE, BEN AND JOHN quickly picked up the campground, carried all the items into the pitched tent. The sky had turned from a slate gray to an obsidian black, with huge thunderheads sinking lower, blotting out the snowcapped peaks, replacing the murky creek waters with lampblack.
“I'd better get going, Ben,” John said. “I want to get a look at those tracks. You can finish up here. I'll see you again, someday.”
John stuck out his hand.
“Johnny,” Ben said, “put your hand down. I'm going with you.”
“No, Ben. You can't.”
“Yes, I can. And I am.”
“You don't know what you're getting into, Ben.”
“Neither do you. But if you think I'm going to batch it here in this camp all by myself, you've got another think coming. Besides, you're outmanned and outgunned. I'm going with you and no damned argument.”
“Well, that's good of you. I just think I ought to go at this alone.”
“We've been partners here, haven't we? Why break it up, Johnny? I've got my Yellow Boy and a Colt pistol and I can shoot the eye out of a gnat at twenty-five yards.”
“I could do without the bullshit, Ben. Let's go, then. But, don't say I didn't warn you. Neither of us might ever get back here.”
“You could use another set of eyes and ears, though. Am I right?”
“Ben, it'll be a pleasure.”
It was settled then. The two walked in long, ground-eating strides up the road to the barn. They carried their rifles, cartridges, sacks of jerky, tins of peaches and apricots. John's knife hung from his belt, snug against his hip. Each of them wore two shirts and two pairs of pants for a change of clothing, and they had balled-up socks in their back pockets.
“What are you going to do about the horses and mules?” Ben asked.
“Take off their hobbles and turn 'em out,” John said. “Leave the barn open. There's hay and grain in there and if they have good sense, come winter, they'll come in out of the cold.”
“Good idea. I'll get two halters, catch up my little gelding, Dynamite, and fetch Gent. You lay out the saddles, bridles, and blankets. I'll take the hobbles off the others.”
A mule deer bounded up into the center of the meadow, trotted toward the far trees on the opposite side, a shadow against the dull green of the field and trees, its black tail twitching in silent warning. One of the horses whickered and a mule gave an answering bray. John went into the barn, opened the tack room door, and laid out saddles, bridles, blankets, and saddlebags. He found a scabbard for his Winchester and took Ben's down from a dowel driven into the log wall.
It was dark inside the barn, the only light a few gray shafts spearing the heavy shadows like mystical lances. A column of dull light stood in the doorway like a block of transparent rock, its rectangular shape filled with fluttering motes that danced like phantom fireflies.
John carried the gear outside and set it down. Ben had taken the hobbles off several horses and was kneeling down in front of another. The meadow was bathed in an odd twilight, the black clouds so low they obscured the tops of the tall trees, hid the mountains. The grass had a metallic cast to it, a strange hue that seemed to break up the spectrum, imparting a dull yellow and blue mixed in with the hard dark green. The spindly trunks of aspens along the small creek shivered in the wind, bone white against the brown backdrop of pines.
Ben put halters on his mottled gray gelding and John's black Gent, started leading them toward the barn. Some of the horses followed at a distance, their manes tousled by the wind, shaking across their necks like swaying tassels on a lampshade.
“Here's your Gent,” Ben said, handing the halter reins to John.
The two men slapped blankets on the backs of their horses, hefted single-cinched Denver saddles, snugged them on the blankets, pulled the straps underneath the horses' bellies, and secured the cinches through O-rings. They attached their rifle sheaths, draped their saddlebags behind the cantles, filled them with ammunition and grub sacks. Last, they folded and bundled their rain slickers and tied them on with leather thongs attached to the saddles just behind the cantles.
Both men looked up at the black whales of clouds swimming just over their heads, great bulging masses that seemed to be growing larger by the minute. They mounted up as the horses in the field stood like statues watching them go.
Thunder grumbled in the distance and the wind swirled and surged from different directions, circling, sniffing like an invisible wolf through their shirts and at their hair, ruffling their hats, surging through the grasses and bending the stems of wildflowers that had closed their petals as if for night in the waning hours of a blackening afternoon.
Ben noticed that John did not even look at their camp as they approached. He didn't look at the tent Ben had pitched, nor at any of the familiar landmarks. Instead, he headed straight for the creek, entering it almost at the same point the killers had, when they rode off into the woods following the massacre.
The creek waters boiled. Little bubble nests of soapsuds scudded out from the shadows of rocks that poked their heads out, creating small eddies amid the sudsy turbulence. It seemed to be running fuller and swifter, as though, higher up, rain had already begun to fall. As if to underscore Ben's thoughts, there were muffled grunts of thunder from the north, sounding like the guttural groans of some great leviathan approaching on rolling combers across a great, turbulent sea. And the wind grew colder, snapping at them with lusty gusts, licking their faces with icy tongues, lashing their earlobes until they turned pink as if stung by bees.
As soon as they entered the trees, John bent his head and looked down at the ground. Ben knew that he was seeing the same things he was, a maze of horse tracks, ground churned up by iron hooves, the plain track of men fleeing a scene of carnage on horseback.
John's blood quickened when he saw the tracks. He did not try to count them. He knew how many men had come to kill. He knew their faces. He knew the names of some. It was warmer now that they were in the trees. He rubbed the sting of cold from his left earlobe, then shifted hands and warmed the other. The storm was still far off. He had heard no thundercrack, nor seen any flash of light in the dark and ponderous sky. But he knew it was coming and was glad they had their slickers and were wearing extra shirts.
The horse tracks were dark scars on the land, difficult to see in the mingled shadows of the thick pines. But the outlaw horses had been running and their hooves tore through fallen pine needles, dislodged small stones, plowed soft earth, so that they left a wide swath that John could follow. The heady scent of loam and the musty fragrance of the pines conjured up memories of his Arkansas home, his father and mother. His little sister.
Dan Savage had come to the Ozarks from Knoxville, Tennessee, with his parents, Obie and Belinda Savage, a few years after the War Between the States. Dan had met Clare shortly after that and married her. They had taken up farming in Jasper, south of Harrison. John remembered growing up along the Buffalo River, hunting deer in the hardwoods on soft hills that blazed with every color of the rainbow in fall. The two of them hunted squirrels with small-caliber black powder rifles, .36-caliber single-shot muzzleloaders. They caught catfish and bass on cane poles near late-night campfires and hiked the hills and hollows in search of morels every redbud- and dogwood-blooming spring. His mother would soak them in salty water to clear out all the dirt, soak them in milk, and simmer them in a hot skillet. They ate wild poke and collard greens, black-eyed peas, and hog jowls every New Year's Day, and celebrated Christmas with a lighted cedar tree.
The memories flooded through John's mind until he felt a sharp blow to his right shoulder. He turned in anger and saw Ben riding right next to him. Ben held a single finger to his mouth, then flattened his hand in a signal to stop.
John reined in Gent and looked quizzically at Ben. He opened his mouth to speak, but again, Ben held a finger to his lips, indicating silence. Then he pointed to his ear, cupped it.
John turned his head, trying to pick up whatever sound Ben had heard, or thought he had heard. He looked at Gent's ears. They were stiffened into taut cones and twisted first one way, then another.
A silence rose up around them.
John waited. Listened.
Then, he heard it. Off to his left, a furtive sound, unnatural. A footstep? A small sound, like a foot touching pine needles and earth, then a scraping sound as if someone had brushed against the bark of a pine tree.
A second or two later, he heard another sound, this one off to his right. He looked at Ben.
Ben held up two fingers.
He pointed left and then right. And again, he held up two fingers.
John nodded.
Ben was telling him there were at least two men making those noises. Not deer. Not elk. Not squirrels or chipmunks. Men. Hiding, or waiting in ambush.
Ben put a finger to his lips again, then drew his rifle very slowly from its sheath. He pointed down, then, in slow motion, drew his left foot from the stirrup and raised it. His saddle creaked when he shifted all of his weight to his right foot, swung his left leg over the saddle. He eased himself to the ground, left his reins trailing.
John did the same. He carefully slipped his rifle from its sheath, his body tensed for any sound he might make. He left the saddle in the same slow way as Ben. He stepped around Ben's horse until he stood next to him.
Ben pointed to his chest, then motioned to the right.