A smile cracked Ben Jordan’s lips as he watched the grim-faced outlaws approach. The laugh was on them now. The money was safe where they could not touch it. They were too late. And then Jordan frowned. What was Bishop doing with them? There was no denying the ill-feeling that existed between him and the cowpuncher, but he did not think Oran so bitter that he would seek to gratify it by siding in with outlaws such as Bart Crawford. Drawing back until the corner of the building where he had halted shielded him from the men’s view, he watched as the riders moved along the street and came to a stop in its center. Several persons emerged from the doorways of the weathered stores and stared at them curiously. There appeared to be a discussion between the five, something that had to do with the marshal, for all glanced now and then toward the lawman’s office.
Jordan contemplated riding out into the open, moving up to them and having his moment of victory, but the presence of Oran Bishop among the group held him back. He could find no logical reason for the blond cowpuncher’s being with them unless—Jordan’s thoughts came to a halt—unless Crawford actually was a lawman, as he had claimed to be at Slaughter’s camp. And if that were true, then Walt Woodward, far from being an honest rancher, had been an outlaw in possession of stolen money. The possibility of that struck Ben forcibly, pinning him motionless to his saddle. It could be true, and it would account for Oran Bishop’s presence. When he looked back over the past days’ incidents, recalled the words spoken by Woodward, Crawford’s actions, the way Olivia Woodward, far from a grieving wife, had received the news, a pattern began to fall into place. But if it were so—Woodward an outlaw and Crawford a sheriff or marshal—he was now little better off in the eyes of the lawman than before. Crawford would never believe his story of handing over the saddlebags and the $20,000 to Al Sharpe; he would have to have proof in the form of the deputy himself.
A door slammed somewhere behind Jordan. He half turned, glanced down the narrow lane. Olivia Woodward, carrying a small carpetbag, was coming from her house, walking hurriedly. She was fully dressed with a light coat thrown over her arm. She cut sharply right when she left her yard, headed not for the street and the business section of Langford, but for the dense, wooded area that lay east of the town. As Ben Jordan watched her, his convictions grew. Olivia Woodward was leaving hastily. She was avoiding the settlement. That she had no intention of meeting him at dark was also perfectly clear; such had been only a means for getting rid of him. It all meant something—something that concerned him vitally.
Jordan wheeled the sorrel about. As the gelding swung around, he moved briefly into the street. Ben flung a glance toward the five men and saw they had seen him. Crawford’s hand came up swiftly. There was sharp glint of sunlight on metal and then a gunshot echoed along the buildings. Ben felt the warm breath of the bullet and saw the five riders break into a charging run. He drove his spurs into the gelding, sent him plunging down the lane. He swung off to the right of Woodward’s place, drove hard for the trees and underbrush beyond it. He did not want to rush on after Olivia Woodward—not yet. He would lead Crawford and his party off to the side, lose them, and double back. She would not go far.
The sorrel thundered along a hedge of wild roses, sailing effortlessly over a low, sagging fence, and gained the thicker growth. At that moment Crawford and his followers rounded the corner. Jordan, low in the saddle, did not look back. He heard Bishop’s voice yelling something at him but the words were lost in the pounding of the gelding’s hoofs. He expected Crawford to open up again with his pistol, but no more shots came. He raced straight ahead through the welter of rocks, brush, and scrubby trees for several hundred yards. Now there was no need to look over his shoulder; he could tell his pursuers were coming on from the hammering of their horses, and he knew they were not far behind. But they were having difficulty keeping him in sight. As they cleared the fence, he heard Crawford’s shout.
“Keep bearin’ right! He’s headin’ that way!”
Jordan grinned and began to curve the sorrel to the left. The brush was dragging at him, tearing at his legs but it was screening his flight effectively. He pressed on, letting the gelding have his head and pick his own way. Through the trees he began to see open ground, realizing they were coming into the open again. He angled the big horse more sharply to the left, and was now riding in the exact opposite direction to that he had taken at the beginning. He listened for sounds of Crawford and the others, but could hear nothing. Evidently they were hanging to the course they had chosen at the start and still believed him to be somewhere ahead.
He broke out onto cleared ground suddenly and saw that he was on the lane that fronted the Woodward house. He pulled the sorrel to a stop and looked about. He was several hundred yards below the house—and below the point where he had last seen the woman. He cut around, sent the gelding up the lane at a trot, his glance searching through the brush for some signs of her. When he came to a fork where a second lane angled off, he halted again. He dropped from the saddle and made a close inspection of the loose dust. The narrow, pointed toe imprints of a woman’s foot were unmistakable. Jordan went back onto the gelding and headed him down the side lane. He held the horse to a quiet walk. Olivia Woodward could not have gotten far.
He had no difficulty in following her. Every few yards the print of her small foot was visible, and he knew he had only to use care to catch up eventually with her. Just what it would mean when he did, he had no idea, but that it all tied in with Sharpe and the money, he was certain. Stolen money—and he had aided an outlaw in the furtherance of his crime. That he was an innocent party in the scheme was beside the point; the law would make no allowances for his actions unless, of course, he could recover the money and hand it over to the authorities. Only then might they be inclined to listen. The money—$20,000 in gold coin and currency—where was it? He had last seen it when Al Sharpe, the deputy, had taken it from him, stating that he would take it to Olivia Woodward. The delivery had never been made, and now, here he was, Jordan thought, blindly following the woman for no good reason other than on a hunch that she was more involved than she purported to be, and would lead him to it. If the hunch didn’t pan out …? Jordan brushed the possibility from his mind. He would ford that creek when he came to it.
The area was becoming more overgrown, the lane less clearly cut. They were somewhere east of the settlement, he reckoned, in a section that was seldom visited by the residents. A few moments later he caught the first glimpse of Olivia. She was still walking fast, the coat in one hand, the small bag in the other. Jordan halted, allowed her to get well ahead again. He did not want her looking over her shoulder and seeing him on her trail. But she seemed in much too great a hurry for that. She was bent on reaching some particular place—or meeting some person, as quickly as possible.
Ben thought he heard sounds of Crawford and his men shortly after that and he continued to wait and listen in the warm hush. The noise came from the direction where he had last seen the five riders and he wondered if they had discovered their error and had turned back and were now combing through the brush for him. In all likelihood this was the case. The trees and rocks ended a short distance to the south, just as they had to the east. The grove had appeared to be a sort of oasis in the center of which Langford had sprung up. He heard nothing more and put the sorrel into motion once again. He covered a hundred yards, rounded a sharp turn in the lane—and found it empty for a considerable distance. Olivia Woodward had disappeared.
He glanced around hurriedly. She could have done nothing other than turn off. In that next moment he saw her again, a brief flash of color through the trees to his left. She was walking up a narrow path toward a cabin that was set deep in the tangled brush. As Ben watched, she reached the door, lifted the latch, and without hesitation entered. Jordan wheeled off the lane and quietly made his way to a point fifty yards or so from the weathered shack. Tying the sorrel securely to a clump of juniper, he worked in on the rear of the structure. There was but one small window, low off the ground. He dropped to his hands and knees, crept to the opening. Voices, laughter, and conversation reached him. Removing his hat, he raised himself carefully, quietly to where he could look in. The first face he saw was that of Al Sharpe.