Trackdown (9781101619384) (16 page)

“Maybe, but I still say we shouldn’t give up. They were headed north, right? They had to leave these rocks somewhere if they kept going. What we should do is split up and ride east and west, searching for the place they came out. When one group finds it, they can signal the others and we’ll join forces again. That’ll work, won’t it?”

Hartnett’s words penetrated the despair that gripped Bill. What his friend was saying made sense. That plan was their best option, Bill realized. Unless…

“What if they turned around?”

“What?” Hartnett asked with a frown.

“What if they rode across that rocky ground for a mile or two, then turned around and headed back south or southwest? They could be going the opposite direction and we’d never know it.”

“Well…I suppose that’s possible,” Hartnett said. “But I think it’s more likely they’re still headed north, toward the badlands. That’s the most likely place for their hideout to be. But it’s your decision, Bill. I suppose we could send some men back to search in that direction, too…”

“No,” Bill said abruptly. “That would be splitting our forces too much. We’d wind up scattered all over the country.” Hartnett was right: it was his decision. Bill went on, “Take some of the men and head east from here, Josiah. I’ll take the others and go west. If you find what looks like the tracks of that gang, fire three shots in the air. We’ll do the same.”

Hartnett nodded and said, “Sounds like a good plan.” He waved to some of the men. “You fellas come with me.”

The posse split up. Overstreet was among the riders who went with Bill, and he moved his horse alongside his fellow Texan to say, “We’re gonna find those varmints, Marshal. I know we are.”

“I appreciate the confidence, Overstreet,” Bill said.

“Oh, it ain’t confidence. I got the sight.”

Bill looked over at him and said, “The sight?”

“I’m the seventh son of a seventh son. That gives a fella powers. I can tell the future.”

“If you can tell the future…did you know ahead of time you were gonna wind up in my jail?”

“Maybe,” Overstreet said with a grin. “Maybe I figured fate had a good reason for me to get all liquored up and go loco.”

“Or maybe you just wanted to get liquored up.”

“Well…either way it worked out all right, didn’t it?”

Bill wasn’t sure about that. So far Overstreet hadn’t given him any trouble, but this was probably a long way from over.

They were watching the ground closely as they rode, and Bill estimated that they had come about a mile when he spotted something up ahead. His heart slugged in his chest. He told himself not to get his hopes up too much, but that was impossible. He pointed and said to Overstreet, “Are those tracks?”

“Looks like they might be,” the young cowboy replied. He spurred his horse forward.

“Hold it!” Bill ordered. “You don’t want to mess them up.”

Overstreet reined in and grinned sheepishly over his shoulder at Bill.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Marshal. Reckon I got carried away.”

Bill dismounted and walked forward, unwilling to disturb any of the hoofprints he saw on the ground. During the early part of the chase, he had studied the prints of the outlaws’ horses as closely as he could, committing little details about them to memory. Every horseshoe left a slightly different print, and Bill knew that if he saw familiar combinations of nicks and lines and angles, that would be the confirmation he needed.

His pulse hammered in his head as he knelt to study these tracks. After a long moment, he swallowed and turned his head to look up at Jesse Overstreet.

“It’s them,” he said. “Fire those three shots to signal Josiah and the others.”

“Be glad to,” Overstreet said with a grin. He pulled his Colt, pointed it into the air, and triggered three rounds. The booming reports rolled over the plains.

By the time Hartnett and the rest of the posse galloped up a quarter of an hour later, Bill had already followed the trail a ways north and then returned.

“It’s them, all right,” he told Hartnett. “And as far as I can tell, they’re all still together. I worried a little that they might have split up while they were in those rocks. That would have been a smart thing to do. They could have rendezvoused somewhere else later.”

Hartnett shook his head and said, “I don’t reckon any of those boys want to let that money out of their sight. They’ll stay together until they get to their hideout and divvy it up.”

Bill wondered if there was another reason for the outlaws to stay together. It could be that they all had their eye on Eden, and they didn’t want to go their separate ways until they had a chance to divvy
her
up, too.

But he wasn’t going to think about that, he told himself. He had known from the start there was a chance bad things might happen, and he was bound and determined that it wasn’t going to matter as long as he got her back alive. All he wanted was the chance to make her see that.

“Everybody dismount,” he told the newcomers. “We’re gonna rest the horses for a while longer.”

Hartnett looked confused. He said, “I figured since we’ve got the trail again, you’d want to move on, Bill.”

“We will…as soon as the horses catch their breath.” Bill gazed off to the north, knowing that Eden was up there somewhere. “Because when we do move out, we’re gonna ride like hell.”

Eden wouldn’t have thought it was possible that her muscles could hurt even worse than they had the day before, but she discovered that wasn’t true. Sharp, jabbing pains each time her horse took a step were mixed with a never-ending ache.

At least she had her own mount today. She didn’t have to ride in front of Caleb’s saddle with his arm around her. She was thankful for that.

She wasn’t sure whose idea it was for her to ride one of the extra horses, but she suspected that Hannah had something to do with it. Hannah didn’t like the attention Caleb was paying to Eden, so she wouldn’t want him in such close proximity to the prisoner all day.

Caleb had objected at first, saying that it might make it easier for Eden to try to escape, but Hannah said, “We can ride around her so there’s nowhere for her to go except where we’re goin’.”

So that was exactly what they did, surrounding Eden so that her horse had no choice but to go the same direction. If she had tried to make a break for freedom, someone was there to block her no matter which way she turned.

Seeing that it was hopeless, she didn’t even try. She rode
with her wrists tied to the saddle horn and her head down. She didn’t have to guide her horse; it trotted right along with the others.

She didn’t know how far away those badlands that Hannah had mentioned were, or how long it would take to get there. But by late afternoon, they hadn’t reached their destination, and Caleb reined in and ordered the men to make camp.

“Lou, you and Andy ride back a ways and have a look,” Caleb went on after he’d dismounted. “I want to make sure that posse isn’t closing in on us.”

“What do we do if we run into them?” one of the men asked.

“If you’re careful, you won’t run into them,” Caleb said. “You’ll see them before they have a chance to see you. Think you can manage that?”

Both outlaws looked a little annoyed by his tone, but they shrugged and the other one said, “Sure, Caleb.”

“If they’re close, though, fog on back here and let me know,” Caleb went on. “I’d just as soon give all the horses the chance to rest for the night, but we’ll light a shuck and move out again if we have to. I can steer by the stars.”

Eden didn’t doubt that. She hoped they didn’t have to travel at night, though. She needed rest, too. Her body complained constantly that she wasn’t accustomed to this.

Caleb started toward her as the two outlaws he had given the job of scouting rode off to the south. She figured he was going to untie her wrists from the saddle horn and help her down from the horse, but Hannah moved smoothly between them.

“I can take care of this,” she told him. “You can see to it that camp is set up properly.”

Caleb frowned.

“That sounded like you were giving me an order,” he said.

“No, just lettin’ you know I don’t need your help takin’ care of the prisoner.”

Caleb still didn’t look happy about it, but evidently he didn’t think the matter was worth an argument. He turned away to supervise the rest of the men as they tended to the horses and got a small fire burning, fed by buffalo chips.

Hannah untied the ropes, which left Eden’s hands free for the first time all day. She flexed her fingers to get feeling back in them and then grasped the horn to help her dismount.

“No trees hereabouts to tie you to, so you’ll have to be hog-tied tonight,” Hannah said.

“Why?” Eden gestured toward the empty, desolate landscape all around them. “Where am I going to go? Even if I escaped, I’d probably starve to death out here.”

“Yeah, you might,” Hannah admitted. She lowered her voice so that only Eden could hear her. “And it’d be all right with me if you were gone. But I’m not gonna let you escape just to get Caleb’s mind off of you. He wouldn’t be happy about that. Besides, maybe he’s right. Maybe havin’ you around will come in handy if that posse catches up to us. So I don’t plan on takin’ any chances with you.” Hannah put a hand on Eden’s shoulder and shoved. “Go over there out of the way and sit down.”

Eden had no choice but to do as she was told.

The man who had started the fire also boiled coffee, fried salt pork, and cooked biscuits. Eating the same thing for every meal was tiresome, Eden thought, but the food kept them going. She had never lived out on the trail like this. Bill had probably grown used to an existence something like this when he was a cowboy, driving cattle from Texas to the railhead. Eden didn’t think she was cut out for it, though.

Darkness had begun to settle down over the prairie by the time the meal was ready. The cook put some bacon and a biscuit on a tin plate and looked around. He held the plate out to one of the other men and said, “Take this to the lady.”

The man took the plate and started toward Eden. He was young and darkly handsome. She recalled hearing one of the others call him Chico. He smiled broadly at her as he came up and hunkered on his heels in front of her.

“Here you go,” he said as he extended the plate to her.

“Thank you,” Eden said. She could at least be polite to him. She saw the interest in his eyes as he looked at her and figured it wouldn’t do any harm to play up to him a little. Somewhere along the way, she might be able to turn that to her advantage. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s not much,” he said. “But I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

“I could use a cup of coffee, too.”

“I’ll get one—”

That was all he got out before Caleb came up behind him and demanded angrily, “What the hell are you doing?”

Tatum knew he needed to control his temper, but when he saw that damned Chico Flynn making eyes at Eden, emotion boiled up inside him. He’d already had to put up with Hannah and her jealousy, and now he had a smooth-talking greaser moving in on Eden.

He had seen it plenty of times before, seen how Chico thought he could bend any woman to his will just by smiling at her and flirting. Most of the time he was right, too.

Of course, none of those women had been prisoners, but that didn’t really change things. No doubt Chico thought he had a clear field with Eden because of the way Hannah figured she had Tatum under her thumb.

They were all about to find out different, Tatum told himself. It was a vow he intended to keep.

Chico straightened and turned to face him.

“I just brought the lady her supper, Caleb. Dave asked me to. And she wants a cup of coffee, so I figured why not?”

Tatum felt his eyes narrowing involuntarily as he said, “Is that all you figured why not about, Chico?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know how your mind works. You’re thinking that you’re going to have some fun with this woman. As you put it, why not? She’s our prisoner, she can’t do anything about it. And all women are just panting to have you make love to them, aren’t they?”

“You got this all wrong,” Chico said. “She won’t be any good as a hostage if we let her starve to death or die of thirst, will she?”