With constantly trembling hands, and the feeling of ice water flowing through her veins, Molly served her four unholy guests while at least three sets of eyes watched her every move. Feeling almost paralyzed by desperation and the hopelessness of her situation, her thoughts bounded back and forth between her fear for Matt and the dread of what awaited her. Who these people were, she had no idea. That they came for Matt was the one thing she knew for certain. Whether they came to kill or capture, she could only speculate what was in the minds of this treacherous woman who looked like a man and her loathsome sons. They might kill him on sight, just as they had murdered Zeb. Then they would kill her, too, as soon as they were finished with her. She felt she must find some way to warn Matt, but she was helpless to do so at this point.
The meal quickly devoured by the men, Arlo was the first to stand up and announce, “I’m ready to turn in.” His eyes locked on Molly.
“I’ll just bet you are,” Bo responded at once. “I reckon I am, too.” He got up to stand beside his brother.
“What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” Arlo demanded. “You ain’t invited.”
P. D., still taking her time to stuff herself with the last of the venison from the spit, interrupted. “Before you young studs get yourselves in a lather, I’m gonna tell you what you’re gonna do. We’re gonna have to stand guard tonight in case Slaughter comes back before mornin’. Bo, you take the first watch. After a couple of hours, Arlo can take over, and you can take your turn with the woman,” she added impatiently. “Wiley can spell you and I’ll finish her up.”
Filled with terror and a loathing for what the night promised, Molly tried to think of anything to delay the inevitable. She made motions that she should clean the tin plates they had eaten on. “To hell with the dishes,” P. D. scoffed. “Go on outta here with her,” she said to Arlo. “I don’t wanna hear your gruntin’ and groanin’.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” Arlo said, taking Molly by the arm while giving Bo a snide smile. To his brother, he said, “You’d best get your ass out there and watch for Slaughter.”
Molly tried to draw back, defying Arlo, but he was a strong brute of a man, and barely noticed her resistance. Desperate then, she tried to make frantic motions with her hands, which only served to confuse Arlo. “What the hell’s the matter with her?” he blurted.
P. D. laughed, amused now by her son’s awkward impatience to satisfy his lust. “She has to pee.” Then, warning him, she said, “You make sure you keep an eye on her.”
Arlo pulled Molly out the door. He was followed by his two brothers. P. D. remained seated at the rough plank table. She shook her head and chuckled when she heard Arlo say, “Where the hell do you two think you’re goin’?”
“I’m gonna keep an eye on her, too,” Bo replied.
“Me, too,” Wiley said. “I can watch her pee, same as you.”
Inside the cabin, P. D. chuckled again as their voices faded away. They were sons any mother would be proud of, she thought.
Before being dragged out of the cabin, Molly had actually felt the need to relieve herself. But outside, even in the dark, she found it impossible to accomplish this with the three lecherous brothers watching intently. After a long wait, Arlo became impatient. “All right, dammit, that’s long enough.” He grabbed for her, but she dodged his hand and tried to run.
Bo was upon her before she had run five yards. “Hod-a-mighty!” he yelled as he tackled her, pawing and groping her all over as she struggled against him. Trying to stop her flailing arms with one hand while he pulled her skirt up with the other, he exclaimed gleefully, “Look at that! She’s wearin’ them long leggin’s like a damn Injun.” He didn’t have time to say more before Arlo grabbed him by one ankle and dragged him off of Molly.
“You can get your ass over by the corner of that corral and keep an eye out for Slaughter like Ma told you!” Arlo scolded. Bo struggled and kicked at his brother with his free foot, but to no avail. He was forcefully hauled several yards before Arlo released him.
“Ma said to hide the horses first,” Wiley, an interested spectator to that point, reminded his brothers.
“Yeah, Wiley,” Bo replied. “Why don’t you do that? Me and Arlo has got to take care of the little lady.”
“The hell you say,” Arlo responded. “There ain’t no me and you about it. You get your turn after I’m done with her. You heard Ma. Now help Wiley with them horses before I have to kick your butt.”
“That might be a little more than you can handle,” Bo shot back defiantly. The response was nothing more than an empty boast, however. Bo knew Arlo was stronger than he when it came to a fistfight or a wrestling match. He glared at his older brother for an extended moment before getting to his feet. “Come on, Wiley. We’d best do what Ma said.”
Arlo pulled Molly to her feet and held her by the arm while he watched Bo and Wiley collect the horses. Once they had disappeared into the stand of pine trees above the cabin, he pushed her toward the back of the corral. With an ever-growing sense of panic, she stumbled along, knowing she could not resist the brute’s physical dominance. In her mind was the terrifying thought that she was going to die no matter what happened in the next few hours. She made up her mind then that she was not going to make it easy for them. That determination served to give her failing nervous system new life. When he started to pull her to the ground, she balked, shaking her head. He drew back his hand, preparing to strike her, but she quickly held up her hand, then pointed toward the trees behind the cabin.
Puzzled, he hesitated. “You wanna go over there?” he asked. She nodded. Thinking that she had decided to accept her fate, he said, “Maybe that would be a better place. Easier on my knees in the pine needles.”
He led her just inside the trees, and immediately started unbuckling his belt. She started to slowly back away. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said. Taking her arm again, he forced her down upon the pine needles. She tried to get up, but she was held down by his massive body. She fought him with all the strength she could muster, but he was gradually overcoming her resistance, finally succeeding in forcing her legs apart. In desperation, her fingers clawed at the pine needles until she felt the rocky soil beneath. Clutching a handful of the gritty soil, she threw it in his face when he leaned close in an effort to kiss her.
“Damn you!” he roared when the grit struck him in his eyes. “I oughta kill you right now!” He rocked back on his heels, and tried to wipe the offending soil from his eyes.
“You sure have got a way with the ladies.” The voice came from right behind him as Bo suddenly appeared from the darkness. “You ain’t doin’ no good. Get offa her and lemme show you how to treat a woman.”
Enraged, his eyes still stinging from the grit, Arlo was in no mood to suffer Bo’s taunts. “Get the hell away from here before I break your back for you,” he threatened gruffly.
“Aw, now, brother, you ought’n let your mouth make no promises your ass can’t keep.” He reached down to place a hand on Molly’s breast. “Hop off her, and I’ll get a little before I go on guard duty.”
Already at the breaking point in his rage, Bo’s taunts were the spark that lit the big man’s fuse. Without further warning, he suddenly hurled himself into Bo, knocking him backward, the two of them crashing over and over in the thick brush. Rolling almost out in the open at the edge of the trees, they grappled, each one seeking the advantage. It quickly went to the stronger man, however, and soon Arlo was on top of Bo, hammering him with lefts and rights.
A witness to all this, Wiley stood watching, following the two combatants as they rolled down toward the back of the cabin. When it was obvious that the fight was effectively over, and with the prospect that Arlo was going to bludgeon Bo to death, Wiley tried to intervene. “Arlo!” he cried. “Stop! You’re gonna kill him!” He grabbed the back of Arlo’s shirt, and tried to pull him away.
Still in a fit of rage, Arlo finally heard Wiley’s pleas, and paused. Then, giving Bo one more fist in the mouth, he relented. Getting to his feet, he said, “Get him on away from here, or I’ll damn-sure kill him.” Brushing his trousers off briefly, he returned to the pine thicket. Molly was gone.
* * *
“Damn you and your lustful ways!” P. D. screeched and laid into the backs of her two eldest sons with her rawhide whip. “Find that bitch! She’ll be runnin’ straight to warn Slaughter, and you damn-sure better find her before she does.” The whip snapped like a rifle shot as it kissed Bo’s behind, causing him to yelp in pain. Both men hunkered down subserviently, cowering before their mother’s rage until she tired of the lashing.
When the beating was over and P. D. had calmed down, Arlo got painfully to his feet. Bo was considerably slower in accomplishing the same, having suffered not only his mother’s rage, but still feeling the effects of the sound beating he had just absorbed at the hands of his brother. “I ain’t sure we can track her in the dark, Mama,” Arlo said.
“You damn-sure better,” P. D. fired back. “Get up that mountain and look for her. She can’t get far.”
There was no hesitation as all three jumped to obey her command. At the pine thicket where Arlo had laid Molly down, he paused to look back at his mother. “What if Slaughter comes back while we’re gone?” he asked.
“Then I’ll damn-sure shoot his ass,” P. D. replied. Then, after a moment’s pause, she said, “I’ll keep Wiley here with me just in case.”
“I’ll get the horses,” Bo volunteered, but P. D. held up a hand to stop him.
“You don’t need no horse,” she said. “She ain’t got no horse. Get up through them trees and root her out.” Without further delay, both men scrambled up through the trees, vanishing in the darkness.
“They’d break their necks tryin’ to ride a horse up that mountain in the dark,” Wiley said as he and P. D. returned to the cabin.
“Why, that’s a fact,” she said, surprised by the sensible remark from her youngest. “You seen that right off, didn’t you, son?” She reached over and patted Wiley on the back. “Let that be a lesson to you. See what happens when you let your britches get in the way of your business.” She glanced back toward the darkened mountainside, her voice stern again. “If their foolishness causes me to lose that Slaughter feller, I’ll take the hide off both of ’em.”
* * *
Huddled in the crevice of a large boulder above the tree line, Molly strained to control her heavy breathing, her heart still pumping solidly after her rapid climb up the steep slope. At least one hundred feet below her, she could hear the thrashing around in a thicket as Arlo and Bo stumbled in the dark, cursing and panting when they blundered into unseen limbs and underbrush.
When the two brothers had been distracted by their lust for her, she had slipped away into the forest. Climbing for all she was worth, ignoring the slaps and scratches encountered in the dark thicket, she pushed onward until she had what she judged to be a safe distance between herself and her pursuers. Now, upon hearing the confusion below her, she decided it was safer to stay put, right where she was, for to keep going she would have to cross over some very rugged ledges and gullies in the dark. The pause also gave her time to think about her situation.
She had no idea which direction Matt might be coming from. Chances of finding him were slim at best. She had had no choice of escape routes, anyway, even had there been time to think about it. Alone, with no weapon, not even a knife, the only thing she had was a flint and steel in the pocket of her deerskin shirt. With no notion as to how long she had hidden in the crevice, she suddenly realized that it had been some time since she had heard her pursuers. Alarmed at first, thinking that they might be sneaking silently along the rock ledge that led to the boulder she was hiding in, her heart began to beat rapidly once again. Holding very still, afraid to even breathe, she listened, straining to hear even a faint sound that would tell her they were near.
Afraid to leave her hiding place, while fearful that she might be trapped in the fissure, she waited, listening. Moments passed, then minutes, with no sound. A single beam of light suddenly danced across the rocky ledge before the crevice as a full moon began its climb up over the mountain. Her heart skipped a beat then, fearful that the mountaintop would soon be bathed in moonlight. At that moment, she heard a distant voice, as one of the brothers called to the other, and she realized that they had gone in the opposite direction and were heading away from her, toward the far side of the mountain.
This, she realized, was her chance to escape. Now the moonlight was welcome, for it would light her way across the ledges and down the side of the mountain. With luck, she might be able to make her way down to Broken Hand’s village when morning came.
* * *
He had been fortunate to get close enough to the elk cow to take the shot with his bow. Leaving the paint and his packhorse in a small pocket halfway up the slope, he had climbed up through the rocks before daylight, barely able to see two feet ahead of him. The moon had settled behind the neighboring mountain by the time he reached the high meadow and settled beside a small boulder to await the dawn. He scanned the area around him, trying to get a clear picture in the predawn darkness. The open meadow was a feeding place for elk. He had seen sign there the day before. Off to his right there had appeared to be several large bushes. It had been hard to make them out in the darkness, but he didn’t recall noticing them before, when he was up there in the daylight.
He had to laugh when he thought about it. With his rifle as backup, in case he didn’t get close enough for the bow, he had sat with his back against the rock awaiting the first rays of the sun. Just as objects around him began to take definitive shape in the gray light, the large bushes on his right began to move. He had realized only then that he had crawled up in the middle of a herd of elk. Unaware of the man’s presence, the huge animals had begun to wander out into the meadow. Matt had simply waited behind his rock until a large cow passed close to him.
Zeb would get a good chuckle out of it—the supposedly skilled tracker sitting dumbly in the middle of a herd of elk without even knowing it. Maybe I won’t even tell him how I got the elk, he thought, smiling to himself as he tied a rope around a hoof. That done, he threw the other end over a tree limb and hauled on the rope, lifting the cow’s leg up in the air. With the rope tied off around the tree trunk, he could more easily begin the butchering.
Satisfied that he had plenty of meat to put back in case of a hard winter, he started back toward home. Leading the packhorse, he guided the paint down through a forest of young spruce trees interspersed with larger, burned-out trunks, the result of a lightning strike five years or so before. As he rocked along, his body as one with the easy gait of the paint pony, he thought about the young woman waiting back at the cabin. He had never set out to get married, never wanted to have a woman to worry about. And as he thought back over the past couple of years, he couldn’t remember a particular time when he had changed his mind. In all honesty, he had to confess, he never had changed his mind. Molly had changed it for him, and he freely admitted to himself that he was happy as hell that she had. The thought made him anxious to get back to his little family. Zeb had become like family. The old man was almost as excited about the arrival of Molly’s baby as she was, and had taken to referring to himself as “Uncle Zeb.” The thought made him smile. “Uncle Zeb,” he murmured under his breath, and the image of the old scout sitting in front of the cabin dandling a baby on his knee suddenly struck another thought. He was now a family man, like his brother Owen, and it occurred to him that he was ready for the transition. Having known so much violence in his young years, he felt he was now at a place in his life where he could live peacefully. With the war against the Sioux to occupy them, surely the army was no longer concerned with searching for him. He had a loving wife, a good friend, and good neighbors in the Crow village. Game was plentiful, as well as good grass and water for his horses. He paused a moment to look around him when he emerged from the burned-out forest and struck the game trail he had followed up the mountain. As far as he could see in any direction there were endless mountain peaks piercing the brilliant, blue sky. The sight never failed to stir deep emotion in his soul. He was where he wanted to be. “Let’s go home, boy,” he said, and gently nudged his horse with his heels.
* * *
“You two can get your lazy asses outta them blankets and go find that girl,” P. D. scolded. For emphasis, she gave each of the two a sharp kick with the toe of her boot. “It’s already daylight, and you’re still layin’ around this cabin.”
Reluctant to stir from his blanket, Arlo nevertheless roused himself, knowing that the next kick would be even sharper. Bo remained unmoving, the desire for sleep stronger than his mother’s badgering at that early moment. He and Arlo had stumbled around the slopes above the cabin in the darkness for almost the entire night before giving up just hours before dawn. There had been no sign of the woman. Even if there had been, Arlo was convinced that it would have been impossible to see. After the moon came up over the mountaintop, they had followed what they thought might be Molly’s trail. It turned out to be a trail left by a deer, or possibly a bear, and it led to a stone ledge and disappeared.
After a few moments, with Bo still unmoving, P. D. turned to Wiley, who was standing by the fireplace. “Hand me a dipper of water from that bucket.”
Bo bolted upright when the dipperful of water drenched his head. “Dammit, Ma! I’m up!” he growled.
“Don’t you raise your voice to me,” P. D. warned. “I’ll take the hide offen you with my whip. You two studs let that girl slip away, and I want her back. You ain’t the only ones didn’t get no sleep. Because of you and Arlo, me and Wiley had to take turns keepin’ a lookout for Slaughter.”
Bo, his face swollen and bruised from the beating Arlo had administered the night before, crawled out of his blanket and followed his brother out the door to empty his bladder. P. D. was waiting for them when they came back. “Get you some coffee and somethin’ to eat,” she said. “Then I expect you’d better saddle up and head back down the mountain. That little gal’s on the run, and I expect she might try to circle around and head down to that Crow camp by the river. Maybe you can be waitin’ for her if she does. We don’t want no damn Injun war party comin’ after us.” She stood over them while they gulped down their breakfast. “And Arlo,” she added, “don’t do nothin’ foolish. Kill her and be done with it.”
“Yessum,” Arlo answered respectfully. “Don’t you want me and Bo to stay here in case he shows up this mornin’?”
“I expect I’m more concerned about havin’ a Crow war party on my neck than I am about takin’ care of one man. Me and Wiley’ll set up a little welcome party for him.”
* * *
It was the middle of the morning when Matt reined the paint to a halt, and paused to look down at his little homestead in the valley below him. A matter of habit, he always took a few minutes to look over the cabin when he had been away for a day or two. There was no sign of anyone about. He was mildly surprised that Zeb was not already sitting outside, soaking in the sunshine, an almost daily ritual since being wounded. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so he figured Molly to be inside doing some chore.
He started to nudge his horse to descend the slope, but paused again. Something was not right. It was a feeling that just came to him. And then it occurred to him—the horses were still in the corral. Zeb had not turned them out to graze in the meadow below the cabin. Maybe Zeb was feeling poorly, he thought, which could explain why he wasn’t taking his customary sunbath. But Molly certainly knew to turn the horses out to water and graze. His natural instincts warned him to be cautious. He sat there for a while longer, watching to see if Zeb or Molly appeared. When they did not, he began to become concerned. “Easy now,” he counseled himself. “She’s all right. Don’t go gettin’ spooked.”
Impatient, but still cautious, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to traverse the mountain face, and come up to the cabin from below and behind, just to satisfy the feeling of suspicion that had descended upon him. There was a deep gully that cut a trough from the back of the cabin down a hundred feet or so until fanning out to form an apron on the western side of the valley. Created by the normal runoff of melted snow in the early summer, Matt had almost decided to locate the cabin more toward the edge of the meadow because of it. Zeb had insisted that it was unnecessary, so Matt left the cabin where it was. Zeb had been right. When the snow melted in the spring, the gully was a rushing torrent, but the water never reached the top, and by midsummer it was bone-dry. On this morning, it would serve as Matt’s approach to the cabin. He couldn’t help thinking that Zeb would no doubt find humor in his secretive return home if, in fact, his gut feeling was wrong.
Riding along a narrow cliff, Matt made his way carefully over the apron of shale to the entrance to the rugged defile. Leaving the horses at the bottom, he started climbing up the gully on foot. Halfway up, he suddenly dropped to one knee and quickly brought his rifle up, ready to fire. He had caught a glimpse of someone lying in wait, partially hidden by a sizable rock resting in the middle of the gully. He was trapped, caught in the bottom of the deep defile. He had no cover, and no chance to run. There was no choice but to prepare to exchange shots with whomever was lying in wait behind the rock.
Several tense moments passed in deathly silence, with no sound save that of a lonely crow somewhere in the pines above the cabin. Well, come on, then, he thought, anxious to get it done. A few more moments passed. Tense and impatient, he aimed his rifle at the rock, waiting. Then it occurred to him that the arm and shoulder he could see had not moved. He was at a standoff with a corpse. He was immediately overcome by a feeling of dread.
He scrambled up to the rock, knowing inside that it was Zeb, but praying that he was wrong. He was not, and the sight of the old scout lying in an awkward sprawl across the rock was enough to tear away at Matt’s very soul. This was the second time he had found his friend battered and discarded, thrown away like so much rubbish. As he gazed at the body that seemed so small and fragile in death, his vision began to blur, his eyes threatening to fill with tears. Molly! His inner voice cried out then, and he immediately hurried past the rock and charged up the gully.
The wave of sorrow that had overwhelmed him upon finding Zeb’s body had ebbed, replaced by the storm of anger that now took control of his mind. One thought dominated his thinking—to go to Molly. All concerns for his own safety were lost in the desperate need to find her as he climbed recklessly up the rugged defile. As soon as he reached the top, his warrior instincts automatically caused him to pause to look things over before charging into an ambush. The moment’s hesitation served to restore a calmer sense of what he was faced with.
Scanning the area around his cabin, he could see no signs of activity. There were no strange horses in the corral or tied in front of the cabin. However, there was smoke coming from the chimney. Were Zeb’s killers gone? Or were they inside, and their horses hidden somewhere? And what of Molly? His anger started to rise again with the thought of her, and he cautioned himself to keep his emotions out of his thinking and try not to imagine what might be happening to her. He decided that he had better assume the killers were inside and act accordingly.
There were no windows in the back of the little cabin he and Zeb had built, so he scrambled up over the edge of the gully, and quickly moved to the back wall. He waited a few moments, listening to see if he could hear anyone talking inside the cabin. Hearing nothing, he moved along the log wall, turned the corner, and eased up to the side window. There was no sound coming from inside. He tried to peer in at the bottom of the window, but it was blocked by a deerskin hung over it to keep out the cold. Moving to the front corner of the cabin, he knelt on one knee while he scanned the open area between the corral and the stream once again. Seeing no one, and still hearing no sound of voices, he stood up and went directly to the door.
Dreading that he might find Molly’s body inside, he raised his foot and kicked the door open. His rifle ready, he burst into the cabin poised to fire. It was empty—no one, and to his relief, no corpse. He glanced at the fire. New logs had been recently added to the flames. The thought struck him too late as he realized he had walked into a trap.
The solid smack of lead against the cabin wall reached his ears only a fraction of an instant before he heard the sharp report of rifles. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the front window. Like the side window, it was blocked by a deerskin. As soon as he pulled the corner of the hide away to try to locate his assailants, a volley of rifle shots ripped through the pelt. Why, he wondered, had they permitted him to enter the cabin, and refrained from simply shooting him outside when he was defenseless? He paused to consider his options. They were few and not very promising. They could keep him pinned down for as long as they wanted, or until they decided to burn the cabin down around him. Maybe the side window, he thought. Apparently they had been unable to see him when he had paused there before. To refute that possibility, the window was suddenly splintered by a volley of rifle shots that ripped holes in the deer hide. He knew then that there were at least two assailants, for they had the front and side of the cabin covered.
Lying behind the trunk of a pine tree, P. D. was momentarily stunned. The man she had allowed to enter the cabin was the same man who had come to her rescue when they had been attacked by the Sioux war party. Though properly astonished, she could nevertheless appreciate the irony of it. All the trouble she had gone to, all the way to Virginia City and back here, and he had been standing right before her at point-blank range. It was him all right. There was no mistaking the tall, buckskin-clad rifleman. She wondered if Wiley had recognized him as well. What was it he said his name was? Johnson? It was almost enough to cause her to chuckle.
P. D. looked across toward the corner of the corral, and gave Wiley a sign of approval. As she had instructed, he had held his fire until Slaughter had entered the cabin. P. D. wanted Slaughter trapped with no way out but the door. It made him easier to deal with. If Wiley had fired too soon, and missed, Slaughter might have dived back in the gully and scrambled away. It would have been the easiest thing to simply put a bullet in Slaughter’s back while he was standing outside the cabin door. P. D. would have preferred to do it that way, but Mathis had offered an extra two hundred and fifty dollars if Slaughter was brought back to stand trial.
“Slaughter!” P. D. called out. “If you leave that rifle in there and come out peaceful-like, we won’t kill you.”
“You mean like you didn’t kill Zeb?” Matt called back.
“Were that his name?” P. D. returned sarcastically. “Hell, he looked like he was half dead, anyway. Nah, I ain’t gonna shoot you if you come outta there peaceable. You’re worth extra money to me if I deliver you alive. That wore-out old man weren’t worth nothing.” She paused a moment, waiting for his response, then added, “I could use the extra money, but if I have to burn that cabin down around you, I’ll sure as hell do it.”
“Where’s Molly?”
“That little deef and dumb gal?” P. D. answered with a slight chuckle. “Why, she’s all right. I got her safe and sound, waitin’ for you.”
“Who the hell are you?” Matt demanded, listening closely to P. D.’s responses in an effort to try to pinpoint her location. As well as he could guess, the person doing the talking was somewhere near the twin pines by the head of the path. The other, the one who had shot the side window full of holes, had to be positioned at the far corner of the corral.
“Never you mind that,” P. D. responded to his question. “I’m the one come to take you back to Virginia, where you murdered that feller, so you might as well make up your mind to that. I always get who I go after. The only choice you have to make is whether you go back settin’ in the saddle or belly-down across it. So why don’t you lay your rifle down and come on outta there, and we can do this thing without a whole lotta fuss.”
Matt did not doubt that P. D. was truthful in saying she would not shoot if he surrendered, for he definitely had presented an easy target when he had been standing before the cabin door. He knew by now that he was dealing with a bounty hunter, and he was obviously worth more alive than dead, just as his assailant had claimed. He also knew that Zeb was lying dead halfway down the gully behind the cabin. Someone was going to have to pay for that, and he had nothing more than the word of a bounty hunter that Molly was alive. “Where’s Molly?” Matt demanded once more. “I wanna see her.”
“I got her somewhere safe,” P. D. lied. “You throw down that rifle and come on out, and I’ll take you to see her.”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Matt mumbled cynically under his breath, and crawled to the other side of the window in an effort to spot the partner of the person doing all the talking. Though it gave him a bit more of an angle, he still could not see all of the corral from there. Calling out to P. D. again, he said, “If you show me the girl, I’ll come out.”
“Dammit, I told you she ain’t here,” P. D. replied heatedly. “I’ve got her somewhere safe.” It was beginning to dawn upon her that it had not been a good idea to permit Slaughter to get inside the cabin. I shoulda just shot him in the leg while I had the chance, she thought. “I ain’t got all day. You come on outta there now, or I’m gonna hafta burn you out.”
“I reckon you’re gonna have to come and get me,” Matt yelled back. He was pretty confident now that his assailants numbered only two, and it was going to be damn difficult for them to set fire to his cabin—at least without giving him a shot at one of them, maybe both.
Seething with frustration over what she realized too late had been a poor decision in an effort to collect a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bonus, P. D. paused to ponder her next move. Over by the back corner of the corral, lying flat on his belly, Wiley was still trying to reconcile his mother’s order to let Slaughter get inside the cabin. In the past, the policy had always been to shoot whenever the opportunity presented itself, and he had had his sights on Slaughter from the moment he moved along the cabin wall. It had occurred to him that he had seen the man before, but he couldn’t recall where. Then another thought occurred to him—while P. D. kept Slaughter talking, he could hustle to the side window, and get the drop on him. Maybe, he thought, that was what his mama hoped he would do, and that was the reason she kept talking. Smiling with satisfaction that he had figured it out for himself, he got up on one knee and prepared to make a run for the cabin wall.
“Wiley! No!” P. D. screamed when she saw what her youngest son had in mind. But it was too late. Inside, at the corner of the front window, Matt caught the movement by the corral. It was an opportunity he had not expected, but his reactions were swift enough to respond before Wiley could take two steps toward the cabin. The Henry rifle spoke twice in rapid succession, each shot finding its mark, slamming Wiley in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He swept the rifle quickly back toward the twin pines by the path, seeking a target. He could not spot anyone, but he was sure that’s where the voice had come from. Unconcerned with attack from another quarter, for he was confident now that he was left facing one man, he kept the rifle trained on the pines. While he waited, it occurred to him that when the person screamed out to stop Wiley, the voice had sounded almost feminine in its high pitch.
From her position behind a small boulder just a few feet from the pines, P. D. Wildmoon was stunned by the sight of her youngest, her favorite, when he was dropped awkwardly by the lead slugs, his arms flailing mindlessly, his legs wobbling drunkenly and collapsing beneath his body. Wiley! My baby! She screamed silently, the outcry exploding in her brain. Somehow, it had never entered her mind that she could lose one of her sons, and especially not Wiley, her pet. He was the son she had imagined would take care of his mama in her old age. “Wiley!” she screamed again, her brain boiling with the fury of a mama grizzly over the loss of a cub. Unable to control her rage, she rose to one knee and peppered the front window of the cabin with lead, firing until her rifle’s magazine was empty.
The barrage caused Matt to pull away from the window while splinters of pine from the window frame went flying all about him. Sensing the situation as it now stood, he moved immediately to the side window and climbed out, landing on the ground beside the cabin. The advantage was now his. There followed a brief silence that lasted for the time it would take to reload a rifle, and then the barrage was resumed as shot after shot tore into the front of the cabin. It was a senseless waste of ammunition, for the bullets would not penetrate the heavy log wall, and Matt paused to consider what manner of maniac he was dealing with.
Edging up to the front of the cabin, he took a cautious peek around the corner. As he had surmised, the assault was coming from the rocks next to the twin pines, but all he could see of his assailant was a rifle barrel continuing to spit lead at the cabin wall. Matt raised his rifle to rest in a notch of the log corner and fired at the only target he could see. His shots were immediately answered, with lead ripping into the wall above his head. He pulled back away from the corner as chunks of pine logs were chipped away and sent flying. Then, after a few moments, the shooting stopped. Matt quickly crawled back to peer around the corner, thinking his adversary was moving to a better position.
Behind the cover of the rocks, P. D. searched her gun belt anxiously, having just realized that she had exhausted her ammunition in her manic reaction to her son’s death. The sobering discovery was enough to cool her overheated passion for revenge, and spawn thoughts of self-preservation. Damn, she thought as she cocked the rifle, exposing an empty chamber. Suddenly the roles were reversed. It would only be a matter of time before Slaughter would guess her predicament, and she would be the hunted. She could not help remembering how the man calling himself Johnson had effectively routed an entire Sioux war party.
Her pistol was fully loaded, but she could only rely on that if Slaughter was close enough, and she didn’t fancy letting him get that close. There were more cartridges in her saddlebags, but the horses were hobbled some fifty yards or more down the mountain in a stand of spruce. With no other option, she hurriedly withdrew from the rocks and made her way quickly down the slope toward the spruce pocket where the horses were hidden. All thoughts of her slain son were effectively crowded out of her brain by a stronger sense of survival. She did not fear for her life. P. D. had never met the man she was afraid of. Her sense of survival was triggered strictly by her determination to win the game. To her, Slaughter was no longer just one more in a long list of desperadoes she had tracked down and collected on. He had killed her baby.
As she descended the slope, moving quickly through the spruce trees that grew thick on the western side of the mountain, she wondered about the whereabouts of Arlo and Bo. If they were anywhere close by, they should have heard the shooting and come to see what it was all about. Since they had not, she assumed that they must have found sign of the girl, and were following her. “Dammit,” she swore. “I shoulda kept ’em with me, and said to hell with the girl.” She realized all too well that, had she done so, they would have been able to surround the cabin and Slaughter would not be chasing her down the mountain. And Wiley wouldn’t be lying back there dead, she thought, adding fuel to her anger once again. That son of a bitch is a dead man, she thought. I don’t give a damn about the bonus.
Panting noisily from transporting her stocky body down through the trees, she arrived at the horses. Rushing straight to her saddlebags, she pulled a rolled-up ammunition belt from one of the pockets and hurriedly jammed cartridges into the rifle’s magazine. With a fully loaded rifle and the belt across her shoulder like a bandolier, P. D. was ready to rejoin the battle. “Now, by God,” she uttered confidently. Leaving her horse again, she started the climb back up the slope to meet her pursuer, determined that one of them would not walk down the mountain again.
Unaware that his assailant had retreated down the mountainside, Matt decided to work his way around the other side of the cabin and attempt to approach his antagonist from the far side of the creek. Pausing at the rear corner of his cabin, he listened for sounds of movement from the twin pines. The frantic rifle fire had stopped, causing him to consider the possibility that his adversary might be moving to a new position. Without further hesitation, he moved quickly across the open area beside the cabin to the cover of the trees beside the stream. Still there were no shots fired. Thinking something strange was afoot, he continued to circle around the rocks near the two pines. His senses sharpened, he prepared to react to whatever he encountered. Just below the rocks now, he paused again to listen. There was nothing but the whisper of the wind through the pine needles. What the hell? he thought, and charged up into the rocks, his rifle ready. There was no one there. He looked down at his feet to discover a multitude of spent cartridges. This was definitely the spot. He looked all around him, expecting a barrage of shots from any direction. After a few more moments, he had to conclude that his assailant had fled the scene. Kneeling then to examine the ground, he discovered boot prints indicating the man had retreated down the slope.
Matt’s first inclination was to follow his adversary down the slope and finish the job. But with the intruders driven from his homestead, his thoughts shifted immediately to finding Molly. There were only two bounty hunters, and even though the one who did all the talking claimed to have Molly in a “safe place,” she might be close by, bound hand and foot. Or she might have somehow escaped, and be hiding somewhere on the mountain. On impulse, he called out, “Molly!” again and again. “It’s all right now. If you can hear me, it’s all right to come out now.” He waited, but there was no response. He had to figure that, if indeed she had managed to escape, she would most likely try to make her way down to Broken Hand’s village. He would look for her there. If she was not there, he would comb every inch of the mountains to find her. He thought then of the man he had sent fleeing down the mountain. If the bounty hunter had hunted him down all this way from Virginia, he was not likely to give up after one confrontation. Even though finding Molly was foremost in his mind, he realized that the bounty hunter had to be dealt with.
He paused a moment to go and look at the man he had killed. The body lay sprawled with arms outstretched awkwardly. A young man, it appeared, his shirt red with the blood that had seeped from two bullet holes neatly placed near his heart. A thought flashed through his mind that he might have seen the man somewhere before, but he could not be sure. He wondered if he could possibly be the one that escaped him when he cleaned out the Frenchman’s trading post. In the heat of that confrontation, there had been little time to get a good look at him.
Matt felt no remorse for killing the young man. He had chosen a deadly business, and he had paid the price for failure. It mattered not to Matt if Zeb died at the hand of this man, or from that of his partner. They were both guilty, and should be held equally accountable for the murder. He turned away from the body and stared for a moment at the rocks by the twin pines. There was a job to be finished. The sooner he finished it, the sooner he could go in search of Molly.
* * *
Grunting with the effort required to climb back up the rocky slope she had just hurriedly descended, P. D. made her way toward the clearing where the cabin stood. Her breath coming in short, labored gasps, she murmured bitter threats to herself as she recalled the picture of Wiley crashing to the ground. Approximately fifty feet below the clearing, she came to a steep rise that required her to use her free hand to help pull her bulky body up. When fleeing Slaughter before, she had slid down the incline, never giving thought to the difficulty in climbing back up. Determined, and seething with anger, she pushed upward, steadying herself by grasping handholds on the rocks and the occasional scrub pine. Approaching the top of the rise, she looked up just as Matt appeared at the rim.
Both rifles went off almost simultaneously. Due to P. D.’s lack of steady footing, her feet slid in the loose shale, causing her aim to err, her shot snapping harmlessly by Matt’s ear. Matt did not miss. However, P. D.’s slippery footing resulted in his bullet striking her in the shoulder, spinning her around to go crashing down the slope, rolling over and over all the way down to the edge of a cliff several hundred feet below the clearing. In the split second before they both fired, Matt realized he had seen the man before. There had not been time for more than a glimpse of his face, but he knew he had seen the short, stocky man, and it came to him then. It had been south of the Big Horns.
Certain now that it was the same man, he followed P. D. down the mountain, making his way as quickly as possible while trying his best not to lose his footing and join his adversary. He arrived at the bottom of the slope just in time to see P. D.’s body drop over the edge of the cliff. For one brief moment, he could see one hand grasping desperately for a small rock at the rim of the cliff. Then the rock dislodged, and both rock and hand were gone.
On hands and knees, Matt crawled to the cliff’s edge and peered over into several hundred feet of clear space. There was no sign of a body in the tops of the tall pines thrusting up from a shelf far below. There was no way a man could survive that fall. When he had prevented Iron Claw’s Sioux warriors from killing the white men before, there had been four of them. He could only account for two. Where were the other two? It was possible they had split up after reaching Virginia City. It was troubling, but his concentration shifted to finding Molly now.
Sidling along the face of the slope, in search of a more forgiving climb back to his cabin, he found P. D. and Wiley’s horses tethered in the trees. He took the reins of one of the horses and started leading it back up the narrow game trail Wiley had followed down when he hid them. He figured the other horse would probably follow. Back at the cabin, he turned the horses in with the other two in the corral, and then went to get the paint and packhorse at the bottom of the gully behind the cabin.
Making his way down the gully, he paused when he came to Zeb’s body. “I’m sorry, partner,” he said softly, suddenly feeling the burden of responsibility for the death of another friend and partner. It seemed that every man who had befriended him had met with a violent death. Not all of them were his fault, but Zeb was definitely dead because of him. He reached down and patted the old scout on the shoulder. “I’ll be back for you. I ain’t gonna leave you here like this.”
When he reached the horses, he dumped the load of elk meat over the edge of the cliff. With no time to dry it, it would only spoil. Then he led the horses back up the gully to pick up Zeb’s body. Upon reaching the cabin again, he paused to decide what to do. His first thought was to put Zeb in the cabin where his body would be safe from predators until he returned. But he was not sure when that would be. He was anxious to find Molly, but he was sure she would make her way down to Broken Hand’s camp. He told himself that, with both of the bounty hunters dead, she should be all right, and he could at least take a little time to lay Zeb in the ground. He picked a spot on the north edge of the clearing for the old scout’s final resting place.
The grave was dug with a little more haste than he would have preferred, but he promised his old friend that he would return to improve upon it after he had gone after Molly. There was one more thing to do before going after her. He decided to turn the other horses out of the corral. He could not be sure how long he would be gone, and he wanted them to be able to get to water and grass. He figured they wouldn’t wander far from home.
With one foot in the stirrup, he paused before climbing up in the saddle. Something had caught his eye. Withdrawing his foot, he took a few steps toward the pine trees behind the cabin before kneeling to examine the ground. Someone unaccustomed to reading sign would probably have missed the faint marks and disturbed pine needles, but he saw at once that someone had been led toward the trees. The sign told him that person had not gone willingly, for the needles had been scuffed and dragged, much more so than prints left by the mere act of walking. He felt his heart go icy cold, for he knew the tracks could only have belonged to Molly. He feared that they also answered the question as to the whereabouts of the other two of the four ambushed by Iron Claw.
He glanced up, and peered at the stand of pine trees behind the cabin. A feeling of dread descended upon him as he stared at the dark pines. He tried to convince himself that Molly had fled the killers, and was probably on her way to Broken Hand’s village. Afraid now of what he might find, he nevertheless hurried to follow the faint trail into the forest. Just inside the tree line, he discovered unmistakable signs of a struggle. His first thoughts almost caused him to cry out in anguish, for he interpreted the disturbed patch in the forest floor as evidence of Molly’s attempts to resist an assault upon her body. Trying to force the mental image of her struggle from his mind, he studied the signs more closely. He could not help but question the apparent battle that the slight girl had managed. It looked more like a fight of some consequence had occurred. Maybe the two men had fought over Molly. The thought caused him to quickly begin a wider search around the thicket. Soon he found sign that gave him hope once again, for there was one small print in the dirt where the needles had been scraped away.
He stood up and took a few steps back, as if taking a look at the overall picture. He decided that the two men had fought over Molly and, while they fought, she had escaped. That had to be it. She had fled up the mountain. She was alive.