It was quiet in the early afternoon, and so hot that Buck Halliday had dismounted and was moving on foot, giving his sorrel a much-needed breather. The crossing of the desert had all but exhausted his water supply, so now he was looking to replenish.
He had often been in country similar to this, so he carefully checked every line of the terrain, looking for a telltale sign of a rock cluster or anything that might lead him to the head of a spring. He made wide two-mile circles in the rocky country beyond the desert and it was sundown before he stopped for a rest, his search having proved fruitless.
His lips dry and cracked, he rested with his back against a deadfall and again thought about his future. Hope Clayton’s taunting behavior still irked him, but he decided that searching for her might well prove to be of no real value. And if Rees Mann and Zac Whelan caught up with the rig, then Dick Clayton would surely rue this day.
Then Hope would have to fend for herself with something more powerful than a whip ...
The air cooled as evening set in. With it came the stirring sounds of night animals foraging about for food. Halliday removed his boots, checked the tie-rein on his sorrel and made his way up a rocky slope. He sat in the dark, motionless, waiting, willing to wait out the night while his throat burned dry and craved for water.
Finally, he heard the rustle of some animal moving through the brush below him. Halliday waited until the sound died, then he worked his way on his belly onto a narrow trail. It took him twenty minutes to follow the trail down to a hollow where a jackrabbit sat on its haunches, its mouth working rapidly as it drank. Halliday waited for it to have its fill before he hurried forward and dropped onto his stomach.
He drank slowly, then, taking the canteen from his shoulder, he filled it, rose and with no reason for stealth any longer, strode back up the slope to his waiting sorrel. He watered the horse from his hat, tied the canteen to the saddle pommel and then stretched out and slept.
“Uncle?”
Hope Clayton regarded the craggy-featured old-timer over the rim of her fire-blackened coffee mug. Her uncle was repairing a rein and frowning with the concentration needed to do the job properly. His face reflected the strain of the day’s hard driving, for he had taken over the reins late the previous night and hadn’t stopped even to give the horse a break during the long, hot crossing.
“Yeah, girl?” Clayton said finally.
“Are you sure Mr. Halliday will be all right?”
“A man can’t be sure of anythin’ in this world, darlin’,” he told her. “But I’m willin’ to bet money that tomorrow is gonna be as hot as today and we’re gonna need every bit of strength we’ve got to make it to Parson Falls. You’d best stretch out now and get all the sleep you can. I’ll keep watch and wake you in time to pack.”
Hope sipped her coffee and looked frowningly down into the cup. After a moment, she said, “I certainly hope he will be all right. After all, he did help us in town and he was willing to keep watch for us during the night. I think we did wrong sneaking off like we did.”
The old man looked up sharply at her. “He happened into our lives when we most needed him, girl, which, the way I look at it, was too bad for him. I figgered it out right ... it was him or us. And with you to look after, I didn’t spend long figurin’ on which way it was gonna be. Now forget about him. He’s a big man and he sure enough knows how to look after hisself. If he makes it, I guess he’ll be sour at us, and with some right. But what the hell? We’re in the clear and in another two days, we should link up with the stage trail into Parson Falls. We might even run into that representative the railroad was dyin’ to meet us. If we do, we’ll sign, get our money and head straight for California.”
Hope bit at her lower lip and stared at him. “Uncle Dick, I’m not that interested in the money.”
“You ain’t, eh? All right, tell me how money ain’t important. Money is what puts clothes on a man’s back, a horse beneath him, and food in his belly. It does a hell of a lot fer a woman, too, maybe even more, with all the finery and frippery a woman likes to buy. Now see here, girl, all day long you been moonin’ alongside me. You ain’t spoke but a couple decent words to me in all that time and all I’m doin’ is savin’ your skin from a bunch of gunnies. I’m tellin’ you for the last time, forget that feller. He’s been on the drift for most of his life. He knows the score.”
Hope put her cup down and looked past her uncle to the wall of rock that curved around them. She sensed that her uncle had selected this place because of his fear of a night attack. Yet she could not believe that the country they had traveled that day could possibly be covered by anybody else following them. It had been the hottest day she’d ever experienced and she longed to wash her body of the dust and sweat.
“Will you pay Mr. Halliday if we meet him again, Uncle?” Hope asked a moment later.
That earned her a deeper scowl.
“Halliday, Halliday, Halliday! You gonna keep right on talkin’ about him, ain’t ya? He do somethin’ to you last night I should know about and which you’re keepin’ to yourself? By hell, if he so much as—”
“He did nothing to me,” Hope answered angrily. “He could have done anything in the world to me up there but he didn’t. And God knows I wanted him to. So if I find out that he died trying to help us, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life!”
Clayton tossed the mended reins aside and hopped to his feet. He crossed to Hope on a tree branch he was using as a crutch. “What’s this you’re sayin’, girl? You regret not lettin’ that drifter bed you down? What’s come over you? I’ve tried to bring you up right, just like your ma and pa would have wanted me to. You gonna throw all them years I gave you back in my face and tell me I done wrong by my dead brother and his poor wife?”
Hope struggled with her emotions and stood there tall and graceful, knowing the picture of loveliness she presented.
“I’m no longer a girl,” she said. “So I don’t want you to call me that again. I’m a woman and for a long time now I’ve been thinking about getting myself a man. I don’t think that’s anything but natural. I want a man and if that man happens to be Buck Halliday, then I will be anything but disappointed. In fact, I’ll give myself to him gladly ... with no strings attached.”
The old man stepped back as if she had struck him. He pulled on his gray straggle of a beard and shook his head in disbelief. “Am I hearin’ right?”
“Yes, Uncle, you’re hearing right. There are a few other things you should know, too, and one of them is the fact that you never discuss anything with me. You never give me the chance to voice my opinions. It’s always what you do or are going to do. My opinion means nothing. It’s as though I don’t matter to you at all.”
“You matter, girl, by hell—you matter more to me than anythin’ alive. But I’m tellin’ you now that I know what’s best fer you and fer me, and as long as I can sink my teeth into a cud, why then, girl—”
“I’m not a girl, Uncle. This is the last time I’ll remind you of the fact. As for knowing what’s best for me, I might have wanted to stay in the valley and work the ranch. I loved that place. It was so quiet and green, and so peaceful. If it was worked right it would support both of us and give us all the comfort we need.”
“Worked right?” Clayton barked. “You tellin’ me that I—?”
“Uncle Dick, I’m telling you that you’re anything but a hard worker. The opportunity to sell the place and get out suited you just fine. Your desire for money stopped you from accepting Latimer’s offer of a trade for another place. Only a mind as cunning as yours where money is concerned could possibly have suspected some ulterior motive on Mr. Latimer’s part. Of course, you were right about him, but in admitting that I’m forced to admit a few other things to myself. You are greedy, sneaky, grasping ... and you’re a liar.”
Clayton gaped at her and stepped back another pace, scrubbing a hand across his neck.
“Now see here, girl ... young woman. I ain’t about to take that from you or anybody else. I always done what I figgered was best for the two of us and I aim to keep right on makin’ the decisions. So you shut down and don’t argue with an old man who don’t have nobody left in the whole world but you.”
But Hope would not be mollified. “Uncle Dick, from now on, we will not desert friends or put anybody in a position where he might get hurt, regardless of what rewards we might be able to get from his misfortune. I don’t think we can ever do anything to rectify what we did last night. I can only hope and pray that Mr. Halliday escaped from Latimer’s killers. And if we succeed in this, then we’ll put aside some money to make sure he gets paid for helping us.”
Clayton tugged at his lower lip and scowled. But this time he remained quiet, remembering other times in his life when he had done verbal battle with a woman just like her. By hell, he told himself, Hope was the image of her mother, who put his brother in his grave long before his time.
Clayton turned and crossed to the rig. He put his crutch up against the wheel and took down his old rifle, felt a twinge of pain from his bandaged ankle and limped back past Hope to sit on a smooth-topped boulder from where he could see down into the desert.
The nerve of her, he thought ... and the spunk, too.
Why did women have to speak their minds so openly?
Ten minutes alone with a damned drifter and he’d turned her head to mush. He decided that when they reached California, he’d invest in a decent, profitable town business, and then he’d watch her carefully. Given the slightest chance, she might become what her mother had been and hand all menfolk within her range one big taste of hell.
On her part, Hope spread out a blanket, and with her conscience somewhat cleared, she settled down and looked up at the stars. She raised a hand to her breasts and thought of Buck Halliday. His touch had sent a thrill up her spine. If he was with her now, she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist him ... she wouldn’t want to.
Rees Mann stood perfectly still. The sound of Zac Whelan using his authority to get the other men to unsaddle the horses annoyed him. He had come to dislike Whelan a great deal. The man had proved himself to be a bully and something of a coward. He was also dim-witted. If it hadn’t been for the man’s foolish ways, he wouldn’t have had to ride from Cannon Creek with a lawman eyeing him off and a drifter defiantly opposing him.
Mann smoothed his hands down his pants leg. His wrist still hurt, but it was his pride that had suffered the most pain. Buck Halliday had shot him. It had been five years since any man had been able to do that, and even then, it had taken four men and an ambush to achieve it. The four had died under Mann’s blazing guns. But Buck Halliday was still alive.
The door of the little cabin opened and a short, fat man stepped outside. His face was round and bloated. The dark, evil smelling smoke from his cigar all but screened his piggy eyes.
“Well?” he asked. “You get ’em?”
“No,” Mann said.
Whelan had come up behind Mann and he remained in the background as if wanting no part of this confrontation between the gunfighter and the fat man with the cigar. The others stood back, shoulder to shoulder, uneasy in the sundown shadows.
The fat man raised his head and his dark gaze swept past Mann to take in Whelan first and then the other two.
“Where’s Collinson, Barker and Jones?” Whelan asked.
“Dead,” Mann told him.
The cigar rolled across the fat man’s fat lips. “Dead? Three of ’em? What the hell did you run into? A troop of cavalry?”
“A drifter named Halliday,” Mann said. “A good man with a gun, a man who moves fast, makes no mistakes, and who doesn’t give a damn if you keep trailin’ him to the end of the earth.”
The fat man worked his neck and pulled the cigar free of his thick lips. He studied the sloppy end of the weed, gave a grunt and hurled the cigar aside. The fat man eyed Mann more intently, shaking his head a little, then sighing.
“Well, Rees, I guess you’d best step inside and tell me all about it. I reckon I know enough about you to realize you walked into something you weren’t expectin’, otherwise this drifter would be dead—wouldn’t he?”
“He would be and he will be,” was Mann’s clipped reply. He brushed past the fat man who turned to Whelan and said;
“Keep them horses quiet. Get a fire goin’. No smoke. Then stick close to this place in case I need you in a hurry.”
Whelan was about to speak when the fat man turned his back on him. When the door closed, Whelan wiped his oily face with a soiled bandanna. Suddenly, he whirled on the others and growled;
“Well, you heard Mr. Latimer! Get a fire goin’. And get some coffee and grub together. I’m starved near outta my mind.”
The two men hurried off without argument and Whelan sat on a tree stump and his stubby fingers patted the sore spots on his face. There were many of them. He grumbled to himself and looked into the distance, remembering how close he had come to being killed. Halliday hadn’t wasted lead in getting Collinson, Barker and Jones, and Whelan considered it was just plain good luck that he hadn’t collected the bullet that had shattered Mann’s wrist. So he sat there and first he wished to hell that Halliday had gone the other way, and then that he was down in Pecos country where somebody else would have to worry about him. Whelan didn’t mind fighting old Dick Clayton and his niece, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the drifter named Buck Halliday!
Inside the cabin, Aldo Latimer poured two drinks and handed a glass across the table to Mann. He then cut the end off a cigar with a pocketknife and pushed the weed between his lips. He rolled the cigar in his mouth for a time before he said;
“Tell me about it, Rees. Hell, this ain’t how we planned it, is it?”
“Far from it,” Mann said. “You know about the Cannon Creek ruckus?”
“Only what you told me last night, which wasn’t much. But I saw the bruises and the cuts on the men. That Halliday’s doing?”
“Him and the Bar-Nine bunch. No matter. After we left you last night, we cut back to the Clayton valley and went through the gap. There we ran into Halliday. He had the cover, used it well—got three of the boys before I went in after him. He ran, but we didn’t know he’d gone till we burned down the cabin and he didn’t come out. Later, we found a trail back of the cabin, one nobody knew about.”
“Back of the cabin?” Latimer said. “Hell, I didn’t even know about that. I figured that cabin was vulnerable to attack from the front, and once cornered in that valley, Clayton would have no chance.”
“You underestimated him, just as I underestimated Halliday,” Mann said sourly. “So we’re even on that score. As for the rest of it, we trailed Halliday, lost him, then continued until we picked up Clayton’s trail. I figure they’re about six, seven hours ahead of us, but stuck with one horse and a heavy rig to pull. Another day of traveling in that country and Clayton will slow to a walk. Then we’ll have him.”
Despite Mann’s show of confidence, Latimer was still a worried man.
“That’ll give him a whole day on us, Rees. He can cover a lot of territory in that time.”
“It’ll get him only half of the way to Parson Falls,” Mann said. He leaned back and waved cigar smoke from his face. “We’ll rest for the night, take along a change of horses and keep after him till we pin him down.”
Latimer nodded, indicating that the plan suited him. But then his brow rutted again. “What about Halliday?”
“I don’t rightly know about him,” Mann admitted. “He might keep tagging us or he might figure he’s had too many close shaves so far. If he comes, I’ll handle him.”
Latimer stood up, finished his drink and opened the door of the cabin. As the fresh air burst through the opening and he saw his three hired guns settled down near a smokeless fire, he said;
“Well, we’re short-handed, I guess, but the loss cuts down the payment we have to make to those rannies, Rees. The girl and the old man shouldn’t cause us much trouble in the open, eh?”
“Very little,” Mann agreed.
Mann got to his feet and joined Latimer in the doorway. He studied the fat man’s profile for a moment, then he turned away from the cigar’s black smoke. There were lots of things about Aldo Latimer that he didn’t like. But he conceded that Latimer was a thinker and not a complainer. All in all, the fat man was good enough company for the time being, but just as soon as he got his stake, Mann meant to cut out on his own. He didn’t like working as part of a group. He had worked for too long on his own to change his ways now. Men who’d hunted him had either lost his trail or were buried in lonely graves.
He was a loner and didn’t care. A long time ago fate had ruled that he earn a reputation with his guns. When one killing led to another then another, he saw life as an expendable thing. But he didn’t hate. Nor did he love. He just went his way, asking for nothing and receiving very little in return.
Now, walking from Latimer, he ignored a call for coffee from Whelan and strolled into the shadows of evening.
Whelan waited for Mann to get out of earshot, then he turned to Latimer and said, “Did he tell you everything?”
“He told me Halliday beat the stuffin’ outta you.”
Whelan frowned up at him. “I wouldn’t say it like that, Mr. Latimer. Hell, we were jumped by that drifter and—”
“Sure, Zac. But hear me now. If you can’t handle men, don’t get the idea you can take your bitterness out on a woman. When we catch up with Hope Clayton and her uncle, you concentrate on the old man. I want you to leave the girl to me. You hear?”
Whelan licked his lips and wiped his mouth on a sleeve. In the firelight, his face was ugly. “I ain’t ever had no intention of—”
“Keep that in mind, Zac. That woman is mine. Soon as you’ve finished supper, turn in—and no drinking. We’ve got a long ride ahead and I want you fit and healthy.”
Latimer went to where the horses were tethered. He ran a hand gently over the nose of his horse and spoke soothingly to it. But all the time his mind was thinking of Hope Clayton. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. From the first moment he saw her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He had never wanted a woman so badly. He didn’t completely understand his feelings himself, but he knew that until he had her in his arms, the craving for her would not go away. He settled down, drew on his cigar and thought about his bunch. It had started out as seven ... now it was down to four. And all in the space of one day.
But surely five were enough to bring an old man and a girl down to size and get a paper signed. After that he’d get rid of Clayton and cut out with the girl. But what would he do about Rees Mann? Having Mann about worried him. There was something about the man that reminded Latimer of a lobo wolf.
What if Mann wanted to tag along with him to the border? What if, in Mann’s coldhearted soul, there was a desire for Hope Clayton, too?
Latimer could see only trouble ahead if that were the case. He was honest enough to split the money, but sharing a woman had little appeal. Still, he told himself, maybe he was trying to cross a river before he came to it. Maybe the river would run smooth and slow and the crossing would pose no threat. He certainly hoped so, because if it proved to be otherwise ... well, he’d just have to kill Rees Mann.