CHAPTER 7
Gnawing on the last of Mabel’s biscuits, Cole crossed the river and found a narrow trail that followed along beside it. There were only a few tracks, most of them from days before, but he saw what he estimated to be fresher tracks from a couple of horses. They had to be left by Womack. And as long as I’ve got tracks, I’ve got Womack, he thought. He had ridden no more than a quarter of an hour, however, when he realized the fresh tracks he had been following were gone. “Damn,” he scolded himself and turned the bay around, studying the trail more intently to see where Womack had left the common track.
Cole backtracked for less than a mile before discovering the place where the fresh tracks forked off and headed almost due west on what appeared to be an old game trail. Not having been in the country west of Laramie before, he had no idea where the trail might lead. For as far as he could see, there was nothing but wild, rolling prairie around him, with mountains in the distance. A thought crossed his mind then, reminding him that he had blundered into an ambush before while doggedly following Womack’s trail. His carelessness had cost him the best horse he had ever owned. If I make the same dumb mistake, he thought, I deserve to get shot. Another thought occurred to him. He might not even be following Womack’s tracks, but those of some trapper or settler on his way back from town.
“Damn,” he cursed again. “I wonder if that ol’ gal back there in the diner knows what she really saw.” He’d gone too far to give up on it, however, so he decided to take it a while longer, just in case. At least the tracks were fresh and clear and they were the only trail he had.
Another couple of miles and he came to a low ridge running north and south. He rode up to the top, surprised to see what appeared to be a river, outlined clearly by the growth of trees and shrubs along its banks. Seeing a small cabin caused him to pause, however. Little more than a shack, it sat back among the cottonwoods. So these damn tracks do lead somewhere, he thought, and strained to see what appeared to be the corner of a corral behind the cabin.
He estimated a distance of almost a mile, so he couldn’t quite tell if there were any horses in the corral or not, for he could only see that corner. He had to consider the possibility that he might be dealing with more than one person. He was suddenly struck with a feeling of caution, for he had to make sure he had not followed Womack to an outlaw hideout.
Cole looked long and hard at the cabin and the ground between him and the trees that guarded the river. He decided it was too risky to follow the trail that led straight to the shack and guided the bay about halfway down the slope before turning its head away from the trail to circle around to the south and advance upon the cabin from downstream.
Making his way cautiously along the west bank of the river, he stopped and tied his horse near the water when he was within fifty yards of the cabin. From there, he advanced on foot until he was close enough to get a clear view of it and everything around it. He could see no sign of any activity. The corral was empty, and there was no smoke coming from the short stone chimney. If he had been following Troy Womack’s tracks from Laramie, and not on a wild-goose chase as he had feared, then he could conclude that Womack had already come and gone. Maybe he would be back.
Cole took a few moments to decide what to do—wait in ambush for him to return or figure he was not going to.
Another possibility returned to caution him once again. What if Womack knew he was being followed, and was at that moment watching the cabin from a spot upstream, with an ambush of his own in mind?
Hell, Cole told himself, I could spend the rest of the day waiting for him to show up while he’s making tracks to someplace else. That thought caused him to look up at the sky. Not much daylight left. The thing that worried him most, however, was the look of the low-lying clouds moving in from the west. They had the look of more snow coming. So far, he had been fortunate in that there had been a mere dusting of snow on the ground, making tracking easy. From the looks of the sky, that might not be the case come morning.
He took another long look at the cabin, sitting small and dark against the riverbank, seemingly deserted. “Hell,” he muttered. “I’m goin’ in, ambush be damned.”
He walked back to get his horse, then rode cautiously up to the front of the cabin, holding his rifle in his arms, ready to respond if, in fact, he was riding into an ambush. There were no shots, however, and no ambush. Wasted a lot of time, he thought. One thing was confirmed before he even stepped down from the saddle. There were a multitude of tracks, both boots and hooves, so more than one person had been there. Many of the tracks were fresh. He was especially interested in the hoofprints leading out of the corral and heading directly down to the river. Whoever had been there had evidently left, and maybe not more than a few hours before.
A quick search inside the cabin told him that the recent occupants had left nothing behind, which led him to believe they had no intention to return. The fire had long ago gone out in the fireplace, but the ashes were still warm. He concluded that Womack had ridden to the dilapidated shack to meet someone, and then they had decided to leave together. Where they went was the problem.
Cole walked back outside. “Damn,” he blurted as soon as he cleared the door, for he was met with the first flakes of snow falling to land softly on the doorstep. If this keeps up, he thought, it won’t be long before any tracks they left will be covered up. Knowing he couldn’t afford to waste any more time, he stepped up into the saddle and followed the tracks that led him down to the water.
Frustrated, for he was still not certain he was actually following Troy Womack, he decided to stick with it because it was the only option he had, other than giving up. With that discouraging thought in mind, he pushed on across the river to pick up the trail where it emerged on the east bank. All the while, he apologized to the bay gelding, for he had not rested the horse as he should have. He had to follow the trail for as long as he could before it disappeared under the snow, which was falling in earnest. Even when all traces were gone, he counted on at least knowing the party’s general direction. And given that, maybe he could guess where they were heading.
As darkness settled in, he continued following the tracks of half a dozen or more horses until he finally lost them at the forks of two small streams. His horse was tired, and he could no longer see any tracks left by the men he followed. He had no choice but to call it a day.
Going about the business of making a camp. his first concern was for his horse. He pulled the saddle off, leaving the blanket on. Next, with his hand ax, he cut some of the smaller limbs from several of the cottonwoods beside the stream and peeled the bark from them to serve as horse feed. “Just as good as oats,” he commented to the bay while it made short work of them. He gathered an armload of dead limbs from among the cottonwoods to start a good fire and carried them into a stand of pines on the opposite bank, where he made his camp for the night. Bending some young pines over and tying them together formed a scanty shelter. Soon he had the fire burning hot enough to burn even the peeled cottonwood limbs, one of which he used as a spit to roast some of the smoked venison he carried.
Once he’d eaten, he crawled under a flap of deer hide he carried and fell right to sleep.
During the night, he slept fairly well, waking in the early morning hours to discover that the snow had stopped. He shook off the inch or two that had found its way through his pine tent onto his deerskin cover. Placing more wood on his fire, he stayed until the first fingers of light filtered through his canopy of pines. Eager to see if there were any traces of a trail, he saddled the bay and was underway before any thoughts of breakfast or even coffee. He found out right away, however, that there was no need for haste, for the snowfall had done the work he had feared. He rode up from the forks of the stream to gaze out upon a wide snow-white prairie devoid of tracks.
All he had to go on was the general direction the party had started in. It was a guess at best. Based solely on his intuition, he decided the course suggested two different destinations. Even though he was not familiar with the country west of Laramie, he figured that if he continued in the direction he had been riding, he would end up somewhere near Iron Mountain on Chugwater Creek. The trading post there was well known as a hangout for outlaws and was one of the reasons he had chosen to take his hides to Fort Laramie to trade. On the other hand, the party could have turned back slightly south and gone to Cheyenne. He had to consider that possibility. Iron Mountain made more sense because Womack had just fled Cheyenne. And Raymond Potter, who owned the trading post at Iron Mountain, was more like the people Womack was inclined to deal with.
Cole nudged the bay with his heels and started for Iron Mountain.
* * *
Martha Green walked into the store from the storeroom in back carrying a bolt of calico. “I forgot I had this,” she said to Carrie, who was dusting the shelves behind the front counter. “I think it would be just right for a dress you could wear when you’re helping out in the store.”
With her face lighting up in a big smile, Carrie exclaimed, “Oh, Mom, it’s beautiful.” Right from the beginning of their short relationship, the Greens had insisted that Carrie should call them Mom and Dad. She was still somewhat astounded by their generosity and acceptance of her as their daughter. After all the fears she had entertained before meeting them, she was eternally grateful for their warmth, and at last she felt that she was in a safe, comfortable place in her life. She turned to meet Douglas Green’s smiling countenance. “What do you think, Dad?”
“You’ll be pretty as a picture in a dress made outta that. Robert woulda liked that, too.”
“But this is material you hope to sell,” Carrie said. “I have that money Cole Bonner gave me. I should pay you for the material.”
“No such thing,” Martha insisted at once. “You’ve got to stop trying to pay for everything. You’re family, and family doesn’t pay for things in the store. Isn’t that right, Douglas?”
“That’s a fact,” he replied. “Family don’t pay.” He chuckled then. “Besides, that bolt of cloth has been settin’ back there in the storeroom for over a year. Came in with the stock we hauled from Julesburg.”
“You’re both spoiling me,” Carrie said.
“Ain’t nothin’ too good for our daughter,” Douglas declared. It had been a hard thing to lose their only son, but the sweet girl he had left a widow was a genuine help in the healing. Now that Carrie was with them, it was a little bit like having their son still with them.
“When I get back,” Martha said, “I’ll dig in that drawer where I keep my patterns and see if I can find one that would be best for you.” She went out the back door then to deliver a sack of flour to the hotel as a favor for Maggie Whitehouse. Outside, she was not aware of the dark cloud that an ill wind had just then gathered over the little settlement of Cheyenne.
* * *
Leon Bloodworth walked out the door just in time to see the four riders trot past his stable. He couldn’t recall having seen three of them, but he immediately recognized the fourth. “Troy Womack,” he muttered and stepped back against the door, astonished to see the outlaw back in Cheyenne. “Lord a-mercy, he’s come back, and brung three more with him!” He was immediately struck by the thought that Harley’s fancy Mexican saddle was sitting in his tack room and Harley’s horse was in the corral.
Unable to move for a long moment, Leon didn’t know what to do. He should tell somebody, but who? There wasn’t really anyone in town who could stand up to the four obvious gunmen alone. It would take a gathering of the men who had answered to the vigilante call before and that wouldn’t be easy. The altercation when Slade Corbett had been run out of town had taken the will to fight out of most of the men involved. Leon, himself, was one of the men who first answered the call to protect the town. He was the one who’d approached his fellow citizens to organize but was reluctant to risk his neck a second time. John Henry Black had been hired to protect the town and was laid up in his bed in the hotel, with still a long way to recover from his wounds.
Leon thought of Gordon Luck, the man who had led the vigilance committee before, and thought he should get word to Gordon down at the sawmill by the river. Leon had little doubt that every merchant in town would soon know Womack had returned. Before he saddled a horse and alerted Gordon to the danger, it occurred to the liveryman that it would be wise to warn Harley that Womack was back in town. Knowing Harley was usually found in his favorite saloon, the Cowboy’s Rest, Leon headed there.
* * *
“Nice quiet little town,” Flint Yarborough declared as he and his friends slowly walked their horses past the Cowboy’s Rest, heading toward the hotel up the street. “I’m thinkin’ this is just what we’re lookin’ for.” He looked over at Troy riding beside him. “And you say the sheriff is dead?”
“I reckon he’s dead,” Troy replied. “I couldn’t hang around for the funeral, but I put two bullets in him, and he didn’t get up again.”
“Yep.” Yarborough repeated, “right nice little town. Just what we’re lookin’ for.”
“I’m thinkin’ we’re passin’ just what I’m lookin’ for,” Red Swann said. “Whaddaya say we pull over here and get a drink of whiskey?”
“Hold your horses,” Yarborough said. “Hell, there’s two more saloons up the street. I wanna get a look at the whole town first—see what we’ve got to work with here.” He looked over at Troy again. “Besides, ol’ Troy wants to see if that Harley Branch feller is still in town. Ain’t that right, Troy?”
“That’s a fact,” Troy answered, secure in his resolve now that he had the backing of three hardened gunmen.
“Probably a good idea to take care of that son of a bitch first, so maybe we won’t have to worry about gettin’ shot in the back while we’re settin’ around in one of these saloons drinkin’ whiskey,” Yarborough said. Riding past the locked door of the sheriff’s office, he joked, “I don’t see no sign on the door that says HELP WANTED.”
It brought a laugh from his companions. No one noticed the nervous figure walking hurriedly from the stable to disappear through the door to the Cowboy’s Rest behind them.
They proceeded past the Sundown Saloon as the occasional person on the boardwalk stopped to gape before quickly stepping inside one of the stores.
One young lady caught Tiny Weaver’s eye when she hurried into the general store next to the hotel. “Damn, did you see that?” he blurted, grinning, “Went in that store, there.”
“Yeah, I saw her,” Red answered him, getting only a glimpse of the woman’s back.
Yarborough pulled up to the hitching post in front of the hotel. The others pulled up on either side of him.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Red told Yarborough. “I need to see if they’ve got some tobacco in that store.”
“I’ll go with you,” Tiny said at once, eager to get another look at the woman.
“I’ll see ’bout gettin’ us a couple of rooms,” Yarborough said.
“Might be a lot cheaper if we can take a couple of rooms in one of those saloons,” Red said. “One of ’em has got two floors, so they most likely have rooms to let. I like livin’ high on the hog, but the hotel will most likely cost us too much.”
“Might at that,” Yarborough replied. “But who said anything about payin’?”
Red laughed. “That’s why you’re callin’ the shots. Come on, Tiny. I need some tobacco.” He and Tiny looped their reins over the rail and headed for the store proclaiming itself as Green’s Merchandise.
“Well, I’ll be go to hell,” Red muttered in disbelief when he walked into the store, his eyes focused on the young woman standing at the end of the counter. “Corina Burnett!” he declared emphatically. “I thought you mighta been dead. How the hell did you end up in a place like this? You workin’ in one of the saloons here?”
Douglas Green, at first puzzled, was stunned when he realized the stranger’s outburst was aimed at his daughter-in-law. He turned to stare at Carrie, his eyes wide with his confusion, when seeing the obvious alarm in the startled woman’s face. Looking back at the leering faces of the two crude drifters, he sputtered thoughtlessly, “Can I help you?”
Carrie, whose very soul seemed to have frozen solid inside her, was speechless, the knuckles on her hand white from the desperate grip on the broom handle she had picked up moments before.
Equally puzzled by her reaction, Red went on. “What’s the matter, Corina, don’t you remember me? Last time I saw you, you was workin’ in The Cattleman’s in Ogallala. Flint Yarborough was with me. I know you remember him, big man with a handlebar mustache. I know I remember you.”
She remembered him all right, but had made every effort to forget him and every man like him, especially the man he mentioned, Flint Yarborough. She had fled Ogallala to escape the brutish beast with the handlebar mustache who had become obsessed with possessing her. And now the nightmare had found her, seeking to destroy the opportunity to restart her life. Finally able to talk, she tried to speak in a calm voice, although her heart was racing. “You seem to have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Carrie Green, and I don’t recall ever having been in Ogallala.”
It caused Red to pause, unsure for a moment, but for only a moment. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? Your name’s Corina Burnett. Carrie, huh? Is that what you’re callin’ yourself these days?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. Turning to Tiny, he said, “Me and Yarborough was in Ogallala for a week, a couple of years back. We was in The Cattleman’s every night just ’cause Corina worked there. She was the best-lookin’ whore in town, no doubt about it. But the last night we was there, she was gone. Didn’t nobody know what happened to her. I figured some damn cowboy, crazy out of his head with that rotgut they sold for whiskey, mighta killed her. But it got away with Yarborough somethin’ awful. He liked to never got over it.”
Totally unaware of the cannonball he had just dropped in their midst, he turned to the still paralyzed Douglas Green long enough to order. “Gimme some smokin’ tobacco. You got it in them cans or them twists?” Turning back to Carrie, he said, “Me and my friends are gonna be in town for a few days. How about you and me gettin’ together tonight—maybe before Yarborough knows you’re here?” He turned to Tiny and grinned. “When Yarborough finds out she’s here, he ain’t gonna be sharin’ her with nobody else.”
Knowing her whole world was crashing down around her, a world that she had only recently discovered possible, Carrie had no choice but denial, even as she could see the shock registered in her father-in-law’s eyes. “I’m sorry, sir,” she replied, barely able to keep her voice from trembling. “I’m not this woman you knew. My name’s Carrie Green, and I’m not the kind of woman you’re talking about. So if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” With that she picked up the bolt of cloth and turned toward the storeroom door.
Again Red was stumped for a moment, looking back and forth between Carrie and the storekeeper. Then it hit him, Carrie Green and Green’s Merchandise, and he threw his head back to guffaw loudly. “Well, damn me to hell,” he bellowed. “I let the cat outta the bag, didn’t I?” He gave Tiny a playful slap on the back. “Carrie Green. Now that sounds right respectable.” He looked Douglas in the eye. “I gotta hand it to ya, you old hound dog.”
When Douglas continued to stand there in shock, Red demanded, “How ’bout that tobacco? Leastways, I can get me somethin’ to chew. I reckon we can find some female company in one of the saloons since ol’ Corina has got herself respectable.”
As if in a trance, Douglas went through the motions to fetch the tobacco for his offensive customer after Carrie disappeared through the storeroom door. He had no idea how he was supposed to respond to Red’s horrifying accusations about his daughter-in-law. The only thing he could think to say was, “Carrie’s not my wife. She’s my son’s wife.”
“Is that a fact?” Red replied, still laughing at what he perceived as a really entertaining joke as he went out the door. “Wait till ol’ Yarborough hears about this,” he said to Tiny. “Carrie Green. Ha!”
Still dazed by the devastating encounter with the two men, Douglas stood motionless for a long moment, trying to make some sense out of what had just happened. Surely those two ruffians were mistaken, he tried to tell himself, but he could not rid his mind of the shock he had seen on Carrie’s face. They seemed so certain that she was someone named Corina Burnett, a prostitute. How can this be? he asked himself. She was Robert’s wife, and he would not marry a whore. Maybe she had lied to them, and Robert and the real Carrie were still on their way here. But if that was the case, she would be foolish to attempt her charade. They would expose her as soon as they arrived in town. Another, more serious thought entered his mind. What if she was involved in Robert and Carrie’s murder, and consequently knew Robert and the real Carrie would not show up?
It was too much for his brain to handle. He had to know the real story and went into the storeroom, looking for Carrie, or Corina, whoever she was. He found her on the floor in the back corner of the room. Huddled against the wall, her face in her hands, she was weeping silently. He couldn’t help feeling a tinge of pity for her, but he resolved himself to the task at hand—to find the truth, no matter how damning.
“You wanna tell me about this?” he asked. When she looked up at him with huge tears streaking her cheeks, she was so pitiful that he felt himself caving in.
At that moment, Martha walked in the back door.
“What’s the matter?” she asked when she saw her daughter-in-law hovering in the corner, tears streaming down her face. Martha looked at once from Carrie to Douglas and demanded, “What did you say to her?” She hurried over to the nearby washstand to comfort the distressed girl.
Feeling a bit more authoritative with the prospect of his wife’s support, Douglas answered her. “It ain’t what I said to her. It’s what she has to say for herself. She’s got some explaining to do.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Douglas?” Martha demanded as she tried to help Carrie to her feet.
“I’m talking about her name ain’t really Carrie,” he blurted. “It’s Corina somethin’, and according to one of those two fellows who was just in the store, she’s a whore.”
Taken aback, Martha released Carrie’s arm and stood back to stare at the distraught young woman. “What is he talking about, Carrie? What happened here?” When there was no explanation from either of them, she demanded again, this time with angry impatience, “What happened here?”
Carrie seemed to pull herself together then, as if resigned to take what fate had in store for her. For it struck her that she was doomed to suffer the lot that destiny had written for her. And there would be no release from the hell she had known before Robert Green had stepped forward to save her. “I’m not the person I told you I was,” she confessed. “I’m not who that man said I am, either, but I can’t deny I once was the person he said I was.”
As her husband had been, Martha was blindsided by what Carrie’s confession implied. At first looking helpless at Douglas, she turned back to face her daughter-in-law, hoping it was all a misunderstanding and Carrie would explain it away. When there was no such explanation forthcoming, she beseeched her husband to tell her what had caused his accusation. He told her of the two strangers who had just been in the store, one of whom had known Carrie before she’d married Robert. Finding it impossible to believe, Martha turned to the shaken young woman, praying for a denial. Instead, she got a tearful confession.
“His name is Red,” Carrie admitted soulfully. “I recognized him. He was one of a crowd of drifters and cowhands that came into the saloon. That was before I met Robert and changed my life.”
Totally distraught, Martha could barely believe what she was hearing, first her only son’s death, and now this shameful discovery. She felt she had been betrayed and deceived, and she immediately became angry. “You’re a whore? Did my son know about your wicked past?” she demanded.
“Yes, ma’am,” Carrie replied softly. “I told him everything. And he said nothing that happened before we met mattered.”
“Well, it matters to me!” Martha snapped. “How could you take advantage of a gentle soul like Robert?” She glared at her husband, expecting him to join her in condemning this evil woman. When he did nothing beyond staring at Carrie with his mouth agape, she turned back to her daughter-in-law. “I’ll expect you to gather your shabby belongings and get out of my house immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carrie replied, knowing there was no sense in trying to plead her case. It was obvious that Martha and Douglas were not interested in hearing about her impoverished childhood, drunken father, and the pitiful conditions that had forced her to do what she’d had to do to survive. “I’ll go right now and get my things.”
“I’ll go with you to see you don’t forget anything,” Martha said, still fuming. She gave Douglas another scorching gaze to emphasize her disappointment in his lack of indignation.
Carrie turned at once and started for the door, well aware that Martha was going with her to make sure she didn’t steal anything. If she was a whore and a liar, then she was probably a thief as well. I guess that’s only natural, she thought.
* * *
Harley looked up when Leon Bloodworth walked into the saloon. He grinned when Leon looked over the half-empty room until he spotted him, then walked straight across the floor to his table. “Howdy, Leon, you come to join me in a little drink?”
“Hell, no,” Leon replied. “I came to tell you there’s four fellers lookin’ for you, and I don’t think you want ’em to find you. One of ’em is Troy Womack.”
“Womack?” Harley responded. “What are you talkin’ about? Troy Womack took off with Cole ridin’ after him.”
“I’m tryin’ to tell you Womack is back in town. He’s got three rough-lookin’ fellers with him, and they are huntin’ for Harley Branch.”
Sufficiently alarmed, Harley asked, “What the hell are they lookin’ for me for?” If Womack’s back in town, where the hell is Cole?
Harley was at once anxious, afraid that his friend had come out on the short end in a confrontation with Womack. Knowing Cole was a pretty good tracker, Harley could only pray that Cole had lost Womack’s trail, but he feared that maybe the worst had happened.
“’Cause you’ve got that Mexican saddle that belonged to Troy’s brother,” Leon explained. “And they think you’re Cole and you shot the other two Womack boys.”
“How do they think that?” Harley asked.
“I don’t know, but that’s what they think for sure,” Leon said, choosing not to admit that it was him who gave them Harley’s name. “I’ll tell them I don’t know where you are, but I heard them talkin’ ’bout checkin’ all the saloons to see if you were in one of ’em. When they passed my place, though, they rode right on by this ’un, else you might be havin’ a drink with ’em right now. You’d best make yourself scarce before they show up here.”
“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said,” Harley said, tossed down the rest of the whiskey in his glass, and got to his feet. He grabbed the bottle, went to the bar to settle up with the bartender, then followed Leon back to the stable to get his horse.
Harley considered hiding out in the stable, but Leon talked him out of it, saying he felt pretty sure that the four men would be back to the stable when they didn’t find him in town.
“I didn’t know who to tell about those gunmen,” Leon said. “With Cole gone and John Henry laid up, I figured the only one who might do somethin’ was Gordon Luck. I was fixin’ to ride over to the sawmill to tell him after I told you to skedaddle. Why don’t you ride out there instead and tell him about our visitors? Might be a good place for you to hide out.”
Harley thought about the suggestion while he loaded the packhorse and threw his fancy Mexican saddle onto his horse. Luck had been active with the vigilantes before. He might want to face up to the four gunmen. If he did, Harley would help him, and maybe John Beecher at the blacksmith shop would join them. He had before when the vigilance committee went up against Slade Corbett. Harley was willing to help, but he had better sense than to go up against four gunmen by himself. He just wished Cole was there.
“I’ll go tell Gordon what’s goin’ on.” Harley tightened the girth strap and stepped up into the saddle. Then he waited until Leon took another look up toward the hotel to make sure the four visitors were still up at that end of the street. When Leon said their horses were still tied at the rail, Harley prepared to ride out the back door when he was confronted with Carrie coming in. She was carrying her few personal things bundled up in her arms. “Carrie!” he exclaimed. “What’s goin’ on?”
Startled to see Harley, she was initially at a loss for what to say. But she told herself there was no use in trying to hide the truth; he would know soon enough, anyway. “I guess it’s just time for me to move on. I came to get my horse.”
Fairly astonished, Harley dismounted. “Time to move on? What are you talkin’ about? Where are you goin’?” Thinking about the trouble he and Cole had gone to just to get her to Cheyenne, he was confused by her talk of leaving town. He forgot for the moment about his own need to leave right away. “What’s happened? Do Mr. and Mrs. Green know you’re goin’?”
She took a moment to put her bundle down while she decided what to tell him. Again, thinking it useless to make up a story, she told Leon to fetch the sorrel she had ridden in on.
When he went to the tack room to get her bridle and saddle, she turned to Harley and said, “Harley, you and Cole are the only people who have ever bothered to help me without question, so I’ll tell you the straight of it. Douglas and Martha kicked me out.” She went on then to relate the unfortunate happenings that took place in the past half hour, pausing once when Leon left the tack room and went to the corral. “So now I’m leaving this place. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I can’t stay here.”
“My Lord in heaven.” Harley exhaled, momentarily at a loss for words, but lost for a moment only, for he immediately responded. “You can’t just go ridin’ off by yourself. I’ll go with you.” He went on to explain his intention to leave town as well. “I’m glad I didn’t ride out before you got here. I can’t have you wanderin’ all over the prairie by yourself. Cole would give me the devil for that. Tell you what. Lemme pack your things on my packhorse. There’s four hardened gunmen in town lookin’ for me, and from what you just told me, they’ll likely be lookin’ to find you, too. So we’ll just make ourselves scarce, and find us a place that’s better for our health. Whaddaya say?”
Desperate for help from any source, but especially relieved to be under his wing again, she gladly accepted his proposal. “I say yes,” she replied at once. “But are you sure you want to help me? I mean, with all I just told you?”
“’Course I’m sure. Anybody’s liable to make a mistake, especially when they’re young and ain’t got better choices. Besides, as long as I’ve known you, you’re Carrie Green, and she’s a mighty fine lady in my opinion.”
She turned her head quickly to blink a tear from her eye as Leon led her sorrel back inside the stable.
“We’ll stop by the sawmill and let Gordon Luck know what’s goin’ on,” Harley said to Leon. He looked at Carrie again. “I was plannin’ on headin’ out by the river, anyway, so the sawmill will be right on our way.” Ready to ride, they filed out the back door of the stable, heading for the river.
Behind them, Leon stood watching and puzzling over Carrie’s decision to go with Harley. “I wonder what Douglas and Martha will think about this?”