Beneath the cover it was difficult to breathe, and what air the hidden ones sucked into their lungs was filled with dust and grit from the feed sacks. Gunnison fought to stifle insistent urges to cough and sneeze.
They rolled along, buried in cloth and darkness, hearing the creak of the wagon wheels on the road. Above it all was Perk’s voice: “…by and by the harvest, and the labor ended, we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!”
Now Gunnison heard something else and sensed the presence of others. The silent vigilantes were approaching; he knew it even though he couldn’t see them. The others knew too; Gunnison felt Mrs. Deverell tense beside him, felt her husband patting her hand.
Perk began a new selection, one that did nothing to put anyone at ease: “In the sweet—by an’ by—we shall meet on that beautiful shore…”
The wagon creaked to a stop. Perk stopped singing. Everything was far too silent for a quarter of a minute. The vigilantes and Perk were facing off.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Perk finally said. He lifted his now nearly empty whiskey bottle. “Care to scour your gullet a little?”
“No.” The voice, filtered through a mask, was humorless and sandy. “Who are you?”
“I’m Perk Starlin. Best watchman west of Denver. Dang good wagon driver, too.”
“And a drunk, it would appear.” The speaker sounded disgusted. Whoever this vigilante was, Gunnison found him peculiarly moralistic for a man heading out to take the life of another without trial or real evidence.
“It so happensh I am a drunk, sir,” Perk slurred back. “My father wuzza drunk, an’ my grandmother afore him.”
Nobody laughed. “What are you doing out here this time of night?”
Perk turned up the flask, drank the last swallow, then belched loudly. “I wash wondering the same about you fellowsh, masked up an’ all like you are.”
“You answer my question.” One of them shifted in a saddle and levered a rifle.
“Well, to tell you truth, I jush been out drinkin’. Ain’t nothin’ to brag on, I know, but ish the straight fact.”
“You came all the way out here just to drink?”
“Well, yeah. Man gets drunk in town, he c’n get arreshted.”
“What’s in the back of the wagon?”
Every muscle in Gunnison’s neck became hard as granite; he felt as stiff as a cemetery statue.
“Jush some feed sacksh.”
“Well, you won’t mind us taking a look, then.”
Gunnison’s moment had come. Sending up a silent prayer, he let out a loud sputtering cough, groaned, and sat up, pushing aside the feed sacks that had covered his face and chest. “Perk, whash happenin’? Whur are we?” He hoped his drunken slur was as convincing as Perk’s had been.
“We met us shome frien’s on the road, Willie,” Perk said. “These gents’re out getting some fresh air and wearin’ corn-meal sacks over their headsh ta keep their ears warm.” He gave an inebriated cackle.
“Who is this?” the vigilante leader demanded.
“That there’s my frien’ Willie Smith. Him and me wash drinkin’ tagether.” Perk took on a worried look. “He ain’t like me—comes from good family. He’s gotta repatation. Gets back to his daddy that he was out drinking, an’ ish hell to pay for him. That’s why I didn’t tell you about him. You won’t tell, will you?”
The leader peered at Gunnison through holes in sackcloth. He shook his head. “Have you been near the old Darwin cabin?” he asked Perk.
“We rode close by, we did.”
“Any sign of life about it?”
“Seems we shaw a light, didn’ we, Willie? Thash right—we sure did see a light there.”
The vigilante leader waved his hand. “You two get on. Forget you saw us, and we’ll forget about you. Not a word, understand?”
“I didn’t see a thing, mishter. Not a shingle thing. You, Willie?”
“Notta thing.” Gunnison coughed again and tried to look as if he might get unpleasantly sick at any moment.
“Get on, then,” the man in the mask said.
The vigilantes filed past on both sides. One stopped and looked at Gunnison for a couple of moments. Like the others, he was masked, but Gunnison knew beyond question it was Mark Straker, looking at him, thinking he looked familiar. Gunnison rubbed his hand over his face as if he were scratching it. Straker looked a moment longer, then went on. He had a coil of rope over his shoulder. Ironic, but not surprising, that he should be the one to carry it.
The last of the vigilantes went past. Perk drew up the lines and prepared to start off again. At that moment, Mary Deverell gave a loud, feminine moan from beneath the piled feed sacks.
“What was that?” one of the vigilantes asked. The entire group had heard it. They wheeled, came back toward the wagon.
The leader came to the side of the wagon and looked at Perk. “That was a woman’s voice, and don’t deny it. Who else you got under there with you?”
He reached into the wagon.
“No!” Gunnison bellowed, totally at a loss about what to do. Mary Deverell moaned again.
“Pull back those sacks!” the man ordered.
“I can’t…she’s…”
Perk cut in. “She’s a little short of clothes if you gotta know. Willie’s a little too respectable to flat out shay something like that, but thash what it comes down to. She kind of, huh, well, somehow lost ’er skirts today.”
Gunnison could almost read the disgust on the man’s face right through his mask. “Drunks and harlots. We ought to hang you all right here. Pull back those sacks like I said.”
“You might not oughtta do that,” Perk said. “This gal ain’t no harlot.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just that she comes from one of yer good Leadville families. Her daddy, he’d be right embarrashed if this here situation got out in public. We pull them sacks back, and one of you very gentlemen is liable to look here in this wagon and see his own little girl, drunk as a shailor and missin’ her skirts.” He paused and looked over the now-silent group.
“Pull those sacks back!” came a voice from farther back. It was Mark Straker’s.
Perk shook his head resignedly. “If you gentlemen are sure…” He reached into the back of the wagon.
“Leave it be,” the leader snapped quickly. “Get out of our sight, get back into town and try to find forgiveness for your evil ways.”
Perk put on a bright face. “Now I shee! You gents are in some sorta church! Them ma-masks, they something you wear when you’re doing holy things?” He grinned as if oblivious to the irony of his own words.
“Get out of here—and forget you saw us. Otherwise we’ll come looking for you, and we won’t be lenient.”
“Good evenin’, genmun.”
The wagon lurched away. Perk burst into a chorus of “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Gunnison lay back, gasping in relief, saying a prayer of gratitude that Perk was so quick a thinker and convincing a liar.
When the wagon had gone a sufficient distance, Kenton rose. “I hope you realize how close we came to a noose right then,” he said. “Perk, let’s get a move on. When they find that cabin empty, they’ll come back looking for us.”
Mary Deverell moaned again,. Squire Deverell rose and pushed away the sacks. Mary Deverell did not rise; she moaned all the louder.
“What’s the matter with her?” Kenton asked crossly. “She almost got us killed back there!”
Deverell was in tears. “It’s not her fault,” he said. “Mary has a bad heart, and I think this has been too much for it. We’ve got to get her some help, or I’m afraid I’ll lose her!”
Kenton said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Deverell—I didn’t know.”
Gunnison said, “Kenton, if it’s her heart—”
“Ella Chrisman?”
“Yes.”
“Good thinking, Alex. Perk, we’ve got to go to the house of Ella Chrisman, Chestnut Street. If there’s any way to approach from behind, or by some less obvious way…”
“I can manage that,” Perk said. “You folks hang on—we’re going to speed up now, and it may get bumpy.”
He snapped the lines and sped down the road.