The predawn hour was cold, and because of the shortage of dry wood, the fire was large enough only to boil coffee and fry bacon and grease bread. The meal was eaten and camp broken in the deep silence of men chilled to the bone and in ill humor.
But later the sun caught them moving up the trail in single file, and as its warmth spread subtly over the mountain and seeped into their bodies, they began to loosen up and some of the hostility faded from their manner.
Starbuck, intentionally choosing the second-in-line position behind Harry Brandon where he would be able to see the outlaws at the same moment the lawman located them, scoured his mind for some plan by which he could get to the three before the marshal could carry out his threat to shoot first and ask no questions.
He felt sure Ben would not be one of the killers; Brandon had voiced the possibility only as a means to enlist him in the posse, but he was not so convinced that he would blindly accept the conviction without making an effort to be certain. Ben could have changed—and he must know for certain, one way or the other, before any shooting was done.
Just how he could do so was the question. He might break away from the posse, circle ahead and put himself well out in front and thereby be able to spot the outlaws first. But that would be difficult. The trail still clung to the crest of a narrow hogback and the slopes dropping away on either side were both steep and exceedingly slippery from the rain. Footing for either man or horse was impossible.
Also, to determine definitely if one of the men was Ben, he would have to move in close to them. Even then it would be only a guess. Ben likely had changed much in ten years, and from a distance there would be only a hoped-for family resemblance to go by. To be absolutely certain, it would be necessary to draw near enough to talk and look for the small scar that could be found above his brother’s left eye.
Starbuck shrugged in impatience. There seemed no way other than persuading Brandon to close in quietly on the men and capture them rather than to shoot them down when sighted.
Spurring the sorrel nearer to the lawman, he said, “Marshal, I’d like to make you a deal.”
Brandon, the incident of the whiskey bottle plainly a galling recollection still in his mind, half turned on his saddle.
“On what?” he asked sourly.
“The outlaws. When we spot them, how about letting me go ahead, slip in close and see if I can recognize my brother. You keep them covered and I’ll offer to let them throw down their guns while I’m having my look—”
“Forget it, Starbuck,” the lawman snapped, his mouth a hard line. “You’d never be able to get that close.”
“It would be me taking the chance.”
“Buying yourself a grave’d be more like it.”
“It’s my neck.”
“And getting them’s my responsibility. Like as not your messing around would fix it so’s they could make a run for it—get away.”
“Not if you had them covered,” Shawn persisted, stubbornly.
Brandon was silent for a brief time, then he shook his head. “No, I ain’t risking losing them.”
Anger welled through Starbuck. “You do some thinking about it, marshal.” he said in a level voice.
The lawman came fully around, gave Shawn’s taut features a calculating appraisal. Reading the determination in the tall rider’s eyes, he nodded slowly.
“All right, I’ll think on it,” he said curtly, and squared himself on his saddle.
Starbuck dropped back into his place in the slow-moving cavalcade, glancing at the others as he did. Dave Gilder, drawn and desolate, looking as if he’d had no sleep at all, was behind him. Moody, slumped to one side, nursing his arm, came next. Able Rome, as before, brought up the rear. His solemn eyes met Shawn’s, held, expressing nothing.
The thought came into Starbuck’s mind as he rocked gently with the motion of the sorrel and listened to the quiet thunk of his hooves on the mushy ground, that turning on Brandon, taking charge of the posse himself might be the solution. The marshal was handling the matter unlike any lawman he had ever known—planning to murder the men he pursued without giving them a chance to surrender—and that actually was ample reason to assume command.
It wouldn’t matter to the townspeople who had expressed their dislike for their marshal, or to the Paradise mine, which was interested only in recovering its stolen gold. All that mattered to either faction was the apprehension of the outlaws.
But he would need the support of the rest of the posse and that was something he could not be sure of. Moody was more or less out of it, although he could use a gun, if need be; the two others, unstable, and unpredictable, were hard to measure.
Gilder, in his present state of mind, could fall apart completely or he might, in consideration of what he believed to be his best interests, stand by Brandon. That could also apply to Able Rome—a man bent on carving a niche for himself in an unfriendly world, regardless of opposition—or tradition.
But most important of all he would be breaking the law himself by deposing the marshal, and that he did not relish the thought of doing. No matter how he looked at it, Harry Brandon was a duly elected representative of the law, the merits of his judgment, good or bad, notwithstanding. To oppose him meant defiance of the law and that was something that ran counter to Shawn Starbuck’s nature and beliefs ... Best he give the idea serious deliberation before making such a move.
Reaching up, he released the top button of his brush jacket. The day was warming rapidly and signs of the heavy rain were beginning to disappear. Pools of water, yet lay on the trail and brush and trees on the slopes still glistened wetly in the bright sunlight, but such evidence would all have disappeared by sundown.
Overheard in the cloudless sky an eagle soared effortlessly on broad wings, and here and there on the upper slopes irregular patches of gold marked the location of aspen groves. They were in high country, Shawn realized, and still climbing. It would seem they should be topping out the range and dropping off onto its yonder side before too long. It was difficult to tell, however, just where that point would be because the timber growth was dense and visibility limited to a short distance.
Near noon they reached a small clearing that lay off the trail to the left. More rock was in evidence now and the timber had thinned to some extent, indicating they were drawing near the summit.
“Get some coffee made,” Brandon directed, swinging down onto the flat and dismounting. His mien had changed to one of cheerfulness and he seemed to have forgotten the cross-purpose words he’d had with Starbuck. “Hard climb coming up. Horses need a bit of rest.”
Shawn and the others had followed suit, grunting a little as they came off their saddles. It had been a slow, tedious climb and leaving the leather was a welcome break.
Taking up the sack of grub and cooking gear, Starbuck motioned Walt Moody to a log where he could sit and be out of the way, and then moved to the center of the clearing. Brandon, rifle in hand, doubled back to the trail for his customary look at the country ahead. Rome led the horses off to one side and Dave Gilder began his quest for dry wood.
It was more plentiful among the rocks, and shortly he had a brisk fire going for Shawn to set his containers of water over. A piñon jay appeared and began to flit nervously about in the nearby trees. His noisy scolding quickly attracted others and soon a dozen or more of the slate blue birds were voicing their harsh disapproval of intruders, from the safety of the pines and spruces.
Shawn, hunched over the flames, frying bacon and chunks of potatoes he’d baked that previous night while they lazed around the campfire, glanced up as Rome paused before him.
“I heard you arguing with the marshal about your brother. He willing to let you go first?”
“Hasn’t said so.”
“Still aims to shoot first—then look?”
Starbuck nodded. “I don’t much think my brother’s with them, but I’d like to be sure.”
Rome drew out his cigarette sack. “That’s not the way the law’s supposed to work, anyway. We ought to give them a chance to quit.”
“That’s the way I see it, too, but I figured, having a personal interest, I could be looking at it one-sided.” Starbuck hesitated, then said: “If I was to take over from the marshal, handle this the way I think a lawman should, where would you stand?”
“With you,” Rome said promptly. “Right’s right, and Brandon’s sure wrong—planning murder the way he is.”
Shawn stirred the contents of the spider slowly. “I’m not one to buck the law. I always believed it was due respect regardless of who wore the star, and that’s got me trying to convince myself that what I’m thinking of doing is for the sake of the law and not because of my brother.”
Rome turned to Dave Gilder, coming back into the clearing with another armload of wood. “We’d like for you to hear this. We don’t figure the marshal’s acting like a marshal,” he said. “The way we see it, he ought to give those outlaws a chance to give in—not shoot them down.”
“It amounts to murder,” Moody said from his place on the log.
Shawn glanced at the man. He had assumed him to be dozing and unaware of the conversation.
Gilder dropped the firewood, rubbed at his jaw nervously. “I—I don’t know. They ain’t nothing but killers. Not deserving of decent treatment.”
“The law says every man’s entitled to a fair trial,” Rome pointed out. “Or don’t you figure the law ought to apply to every man?”
Gilder stared at Able bleakly. “Sure I do, only when—”
The sudden smash of rifle shots echoed through the canyons and across the plateaus. Starbuck, features grim, leaped to his feet. Drawing his pistol, he ran toward the trail.
“No use talking about it,” he shouted. “Brandon’s, spotted them!”