Trackdown (9781101619384) (14 page)

“Not by yourself,” Hartnett said. “I’m coming with you.”

Bill shook his head.

“No, you’re not. If anything was to happen to me, you’re in charge of this posse, Josiah.” Bill looked at the other men. “All the rest of you hear that?”

They nodded in understanding, and Jesse Overstreet said, “Why don’t I come with you, Marshal? I ain’t fit to be in charge of much of anything, but I can shoot pretty good when I’m sober. Don’t go by the other night when I had a snootful.”

Bill thought about it for a second, then shrugged.

“Sure, come on, Overstreet. Let’s go take a look.”

“Be careful,” Hartnett called after them as they nudged their horses into motion again. Bill pulled his rifle from its scabbard and laid it across the saddle in front of him.

“Would you look at us?” Overstreet said cheerfully as they rode toward the gap. “A couple of Texas cowboys ridin’ for the law in Kansas. Don’t that beat all?”

Overstreet’s attitude annoyed Bill, but he reminded himself that the cowboy didn’t have much at stake here other than his life, and Bill knew from experience that young cowboys often regarded that as pretty trivial compared to the pursuit of adventure and excitement. Less than a year ago, he thought, he had been pretty much the same way.

Now he had a wife and a home, and he realized bleakly how dangerous that situation was. If you cared about something, it could be taken away from you. You could be hurt, in more ways than just physically. The only way to avoid that was to never let yourself get too attached to anybody or anything.

The only true freedom lay in not giving a damn.

Unfortunately, in his case it was too late for that. Never again would he be like Jesse Overstreet, whistling cheerfully as he rode into what might turn out to be a death trap.

And Overstreet was actually whistling, too. Bill glanced over at him and said, “Stop that. You tryin’ to tell them that we’re coming?”

“If they got eyes, they already know that,” Overstreet pointed out.

He was right, of course. Sneaking up on anybody was the next thing to impossible out here on these plains.

As they reached the mouth of the canyon, Bill lifted his rifle and worked the lever to throw a shell into the chamber. The metallic noise echoed back from the earthen walls.

“There’s nobody here,” Overstreet said.

It was true. A few clumps of brush lined the walls of the canyon, but nothing big enough to hide any bushwhackers. Bill rode forward slowly, studying the ground.

“Lots of horses have been in here recently,” he said. “The tracks are all mixed up.”

Overstreet pointed and said, “A bunch of them were held for a while over there by that wall, too. You can tell by all the droppin’s.” He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his sandy hair. “Looks to me like they had extra mounts hidden here, Marshal.”

Bill had reached that conclusion at the same time, and he didn’t like it.

“If they have enough horses to switch back and forth, they’re gonna be able to make mighty good time,” he said. “Better time than us.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid you’re right. Maybe we should’ve brought extra horses, too.”

Bill didn’t know whether to curse or groan, so he didn’t do either. He was disgusted with himself, though. He had never even thought about bringing extra horses. He’d been in such a hurry to get on the trail of the bank robbers, that urgency and his fear for Eden had consumed all his thoughts.

He was still new to this law business, too. He’d never been in charge of a posse before. He had only ridden with a couple of them, back home in Texas, and somebody else had been giving the orders.

Those posses hadn’t caught the men they were after, either, he recalled.

He couldn’t allow that to be the case here.

“Marshal, look there,” Overstreet said, pointing at something on the ground.

At first Bill didn’t see anything except a welter of boot prints, which was to be expected because the outlaws would
have had to dismount to switch their saddles to the fresh horses.

But then he spotted what Overstreet must have seen and quickly swung down from the saddle. Holding his reins in one hand, he knelt and reached out with the other, his fingertips stopping just short of some faint impressions in the dirt.

Those weren’t boot prints. They were smaller than that, and shaped wrong. They were the prints of a woman’s shoes.

Eden had stood right here.

It had to be her who had made those marks, unless the gang had somehow picked up another woman and Bill didn’t think that was possible. No, he told himself, his wife had been right here in this place less than eighteen hours earlier. Even though he had known she was with the outlaws, seeing her footprints here like this, mingled with theirs, shook him to his core for a moment.

He got control of himself and straightened.

“Did you see a bunch of tracks leading back out of this canyon?” he asked Overstreet.

“Not so’s you’d notice. They must’ve left out the other end. It ain’t too steep, and it looks like there’s a trail back there they could’ve used.”

“Go wave the others on,” Bill said. He put his foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. “I’ll ride up and see if I can pick up the trail.”

“Sure thing, Marshal.”

Overstreet turned his horse and galloped back to the mouth of the canyon. He took off his hat and waved it over his head, signaling to the rest of the posse that it was all right to advance.

Bill rode toward the far end of the canyon, thinking again about how Eden had been right here in this very place.

He hoped that wherever she was now, she knew he was coming to get her.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Eden had woken up snuggled next to her husband in a warm, soft bed.

That had been
so
much nicer than this.

She groaned as she shifted slightly on the hard ground. Even though she was awake, she didn’t want to open her eyes just yet. As long as she couldn’t see her surroundings, maybe she could pretend that she wasn’t in as much trouble as she was.

That didn’t work. A boot toe nudged her, none too gently, and Hannah said, “I know you’re awake. Don’t try to fool anybody.”

Eden pried her eyes open. The redhead stood over her, hands on hips, glaring down at her with the usual dislike on her face.

“I’m not trying to fool anybody,” Eden said. “I…I just woke up.”

“Uh-huh.” Hannah reached down, took hold of Eden’s shoulders, and hauled her upright, pushing her back against the cottonwood trunk.

Last night before everyone turned in, Hannah had changed the way Eden was tied, lashing her ankles together and her
hands behind her back, but at least she wasn’t bound tightly to the tree trunk anymore. She was able to stretch out on the ground. Hannah ran a rope from Eden’s wrists to the tree, though, to make sure she didn’t try to roll away. Tied up like she was, she certainly couldn’t get up and run.

As uncomfortable as she was, her sleep had been restless. She had roused briefly what seemed like a thousand times. As a result, she was still very tired this morning, and the chill from lying on the ground in the open had seeped into her bones and made her ache from head to foot.

“Someone could have at least thrown a blanket over me,” she said now.

“You’re lucky nobody’s thrown a few feet of dirt over you, princess,” Hannah snapped.

Eden ignored the threat in those words and looked around. The campsite was even more bleak in the gray light of predawn. A couple of the outlaws were stirring around. One poked at the ashes of last night’s fire, trying to bring it back to life, while another had climbed down into the wash and was filling canteens from the creek’s trickle. The other men were still rolled in their blankets.

Not for long. Hannah raised her voice and said, “All right, get up, you bunch of loafers! We need to cover some ground today.”

Caleb sat up and yawned. He said, “I don’t recall putting you in charge of rising and shining, Hannah.”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” she said with a snort. “You’re probably too busy dreamin’.”

“Somebody has to dream,” Caleb said. “Everything worthwhile in the world started with somebody’s dream.”

“Yeah, and while you’re doin’ that, somebody else has to get the coffee boilin’ and see to the horses.”

Hannah turned away and started walking among the outlaws, prodding them with her foot as she told them to get up. Caleb, watching her, smiled and shook his head.

Then he looked over at Eden and asked, “How are you this morning?”

“How do you think?” she asked through clenched teeth. Her jaw was tight from both anger and her effort to keep her
teeth from chattering. “I’m cold, I hurt all over, and I want you to let me go.”

Caleb shook his head again.

“I’m sorry about the first part of that,” he said. “And you know I can’t let you go.”

“Why not? Just leave me here. When the posse finds me, I…I’ll tell them you went a different direction than you really did.”

Caleb gave her an indulgent smile.

“You don’t think I believe that, do you?” he asked.

“You’ve treated me halfway decent,” Eden argued. “I’m grateful for that. I…I don’t mind if you get away.”

“What about that money we took from the bank? Are you saying you don’t want the posse to recover it?”

“I’m saying that my life is a lot more important to me than any amount of money.”

“Well, that’s where you and I are different.” Caleb pushed aside his blankets and climbed to his feet. “But I’ll do what I can to keep you comfortable as long as you’re with us. You should have had a blanket last night. It was such a long day yesterday I just didn’t think of it. Sorry.”

Hannah came back up in time to hear that. She said, “Don’t apologize to her. She’s a prisoner. She’s lucky we didn’t just put a bullet in her head and leave her for the buzzards and the coyotes.”

“There’s no need to talk like that,” Caleb said with a frown.

Hannah just glared at him and turned toward the fire. The cottonwood trees along the bank of the wash, stunted though they were, provided some small branches for firewood, and the outlaw who had been messing with the embers earlier now had flames leaping merrily in the gloom. The coffee was on to boil, and the man soon had salt pork sizzling in a frying pan.

Eden began to feel a pressing need. She felt her face burning hotly with embarrassment as she was forced to say, “I…I could use some privacy…”

Caleb opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Hannah said, “I’ll take her down in the wash. You men stay here.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t want you shooting her and then claiming she tried to get away.”

“If I wanted to shoot her, I’d shoot her,” Hannah said. “I wouldn’t make up some damned excuse.”

She bent down and untied the rope connecting Eden’s wrists to the tree. Then she untied the one around Eden’s ankles.

“What about my wrists?”

“You don’t need ’em,” Hannah said. She took hold of Eden’s arm and hauled her to her feet, seemingly effortlessly.

The rope around Eden’s ankles had been so tight that her feet were numb and unresponsive. When she tried to take a step it was like nothing was there at the ends of her legs. She cried out and would have fallen if Hannah hadn’t been holding her up.

“Wiggle your damn toes,” Hannah ordered.

Eden tried to. The pain was even worse as the blood began to flow freely again in her feet. She bit her lip, determined not to cry out again.

After a few moments, the pins and needles eased. She was able to hobble along with Hannah’s help. The side of the wash wasn’t too steep, and it was rough enough that there were plenty of places to step as they went down into it. Here below the level of the prairie, shadows still lingered.

For about half a second, Eden considered the idea of lowering her head, butting Hannah in the stomach, and trying to knock her down. If she could do that, she could turn and run along the twisting wash.

And if she did, she would probably get all of ten feet or so before Hannah put a rifle bullet in her back. Caleb would be angry about that, but the outlaw leader’s anger wouldn’t bring Eden back to life.

Eden didn’t want to give Hannah the satisfaction of killing her, either.

So once they were out of sight of the camp, she took care of her personal business awkwardly but the best she could, ignoring the shame she felt about knowing that Hannah was watching her.

When she was finished she staggered to her feet. Hannah smirked at her and said, “You know, for a second there I thought you were gonna make a run for it.”

“I have more sense than that,” Eden said.

“But not sense enough to keep from gettin’ carried off by a love-struck outlaw.”

Eden blinked in surprise.

“Love-struck?” she repeated. “Caleb’s not…He took me to use as a hostage.”

“Yeah, that’s what he says. Might even be what he thinks is true. But I know better. I’ve seen him get smitten by some sweet-looking gal. You see, he thinks that because he’s had some book-learnin’, he’s too good for a hillbilly girl like me. But sooner or later he figures out that he’s wrong about that. He tries to stray, but he always comes back to me. And when he don’t…” Hannah shrugged. “Well, when I get through with those gals, they ain’t so sweet-lookin’, and he don’t want ’em no more. So you’d best remember that.”