Chapter Nineteen
“I reckon that’s the place,” Luther Ironside said.
Shamus O’Brien nodded. “It’s the only cabin in sight, so it’s got to be.” He kneed his horse forward. “We’ll go in grinning, Luther, like we’re visiting kinfolk.”
“If ol’ Scout has turned into a dog today, we can pat his head, like,” Ironside said, grinning.
“Just so long as he wags his tail,” Shamus said.
“Damn right.” Ironside smiled. “That was funny, Colonel.”
“Good, because I don’t much feel like being funny.”
They rode closer, their eyes everywhere.
The sun cast a golden hue on the day and birds sang in the trees. There was no suggestion of danger, yet Shamus felt uneasy and Ironside had dropped his right hand closer to his holstered Colt.
The wide arc of Bar Ridge curved around the cabin and tall pines grew close, almost shielding the flat-roofed stone building from view. Smoke from an iron chimney tied bows in the air and a couple of paint horses munched hay in the adjoining corral.
Ten yards from the front door, they drew rein. “Hello, the cabin!” Shamus yelled.
A few moments passed and then a man’s voice said, “Mister, I got a Sharps fifty centered on your chest, so don’t make any of them fancy gunfighter moves.” Another pause then, “What the hell do you want?”
“My name is—”
“What do you want?”
“Jim Clitherow sent us. We’re here to ask you to do a job for us.”
The lace curtain in the cabin window twitched a little. “What kind of job?”
“We want you to find something. That is, if your name is Scout.”
“That ain’t my real given name, but it will do for a white man.”
Shamus heard the murmur of a woman’s voice, then Scout said, “I won’t do your killing for you.”
“No killing,” Shamus said. “Just finding.”
The man called Scout appeared at the cabin door, the Sharps still in his hands. “What did you say your name was?”
“You didn’t give a chance to say my name, but it’s Colonel Shamus O’Brien of Dromore and this is my segundo and friend, Luther Ironside.”
“From up Glorieta Mesa way in the cattle country?”
“Indeed I am, and before that Texas and before that the blessed green isle of Ireland.”
“How’s Jake?”
“If you’re talking about my son Jacob, he was doing just fine when I left.”
“Jake’s a good man, a fighting man,” Scout said.
“Damn right he is,” Ironside said. “I taught him all he knows.”
Scout didn’t comment on that. He studied the riders with eyes that missed nothing, and then seemed to make up his mind. “You are Jake’s father, Colonel, and therefore a welcome guest in my home. Light and set, both of you. My woman has coffee on the stove.”
Shamus and Ironside dismounted and Scout led them inside.
The cabin was neat, the old oak furniture waxed and polished to a honey color, and fine Navajo rugs covered the floor. In all, it was as cozy a home as Shamus had ever entered.
Scout circled the slender waist of a pretty Indian woman with his arm and smiled. “This is my wife, Abequa. She is Chippewa of the Little Shell tribe and she makes good coffee.”
“I am honored to enter your home, ma’am,” Shamus said, removing his hat before giving the woman a little bow.
“You have a dog, Scout?” Ironside said.
“No dog. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered.”
Ironside quailed under Shamus’s blistering look and was glad when Abequa waved him into a chair at the table.
The woman served coffee in blue china cups, placing sugar and a small jug of canned milk within reaching distance.
Shamus produced a cigar. “May I crave your indulgence, ma’am?”
“Please do. My husband often enjoys a pipe.”
For a while the three men drank coffee in silence while Abequa sat in a chair by the fireplace and applied flowered beadwork to a pair of buckskin leggings that were much favored by Chippewa women in wintertime.
“You have the manners and style of the old South, Colonel O’Brien,” Scout said. “Did you fight in the war?”
“I had that honor. And so did Mr. Ironside.”
“You bear a scar on your face. Was that from battle?”
“Indeed it was. A Yankee saber.”
“Battle scars are honorable things, like gold medals.”
“That is how I think of them, yes,” Shamus said.
“What is it you wish me to find, Colonel O’Brien?” Scout said after a silence.
Shamus frowned. “The short answer is that I don’t really know.”
“To search for an unknown thing is impossible.”
“Damn right, Scout,” Ironside said. “So iffen you’re gonna tree this coon you’d better bring all the dogs.”
This brought him another glare from Shamus, who waited until Ironside squirmed, then said, “Scout, perhaps if I tell you what’s happening, you can make a decision from there.”
The Navajo nodded and the colonel told him about the night riders and their attempt to drive settlers and miners out of the southern Playas Valley.
“The question is why,” Shamus said. “I can find no explanation.”
After a moment’s thought, Scout said, “Gold is usually what men desire and its glister can make them do evil things to acquire it.”
“You mean them night riders are after a lost gold mine or some such?” Ironside said.
“It’s likely.”
“If there is such a mine, can you find it for us?” Shamus asked.
“Perhaps, but not in a day or a week and maybe not in a month.”
“Come with us back to Recoil, Scout. Find the gold mine as quickly as you possibly can.”
“You wish the gold for yourself?”
“No, I don’t. But I believe if we take away what motivates Nate Condor and his men, the killings will stop.”
“I have heard the name English Nate Condor,” Scout said. “He is a man to be reckoned with.”
“So I believe,” Shamus said.
Scout was silent for so long that Shamus thought the Navajo’s talking was done. But then he said, “I will think on this. Go back to Recoil and if I decide to help you I’ll meet you there.”
“When might that be?”
“When I think the time is right.”
Shamus and Ironside exchanged glances and Abequa smiled at them from her chair as though it was a conversation she’d heard many times before.
“We’ll pay you, of course,” Shamus said, pushing it.
“Of course.” Scout rose to his feet. “You can make Recoil before dark. I have no food to offer you because I have not hunted since the last full moon. My hired man, Mr. Hyde, will hunt tonight. You understand?”
Shamus rose and said he understood, though he didn’t. “We would not care to impose upon your hospitality further.” He looked at Abequa and smiled. “You make a fine cup of coffee, ma’am. It was much appreciated.”
“Thank you, Colonel. My husband will see you to your horses.”
Shamus noticed for the first time that the woman’s eyes were green flecked with gold . . . like those of a cougar.
“Well, hell, that didn’t help much,” Luther Ironside said.
“It wasn’t conclusive, Luther, no.”
“You think he’ll show up in Recoil?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Why did he tell us he’d no grub? There was something cooking in a pot on the stove.”
Shamus turned his head and smiled. “Would you want to eat it, whatever it was?”
“No, I guess not. It was probably something he killed under a full moon, huh?”
“An owl, maybe,” Shamus said, grinning.
But Ironside wasn’t listening. He rose in the stirrups and pointed east, to the foothills of the Big Hatchet Mountains. “Lookee, Colonel, among the trees. What the hell is that?”
Shamus reached behind him and retrieved a pair of field glasses from his saddlebags. He drew rein and scanned the aspen line for a few moments, then said, “It was there and now it’s gone.”
“What was it?”
“A cougar,” Shamus said. “Small enough to be a hunting female, I reckon. She moved through the aspen like a puff of smoke, then vanished.”
Ironside grinned. “Maybe it was ol’ Scout.”
“Or someone close to him.”