Chapter Eighteen
“That Professor Cope feller was all for waiting to see if Professor Owen found the big lizard you were all talking about,” Ira Kline said to Red. “But your driver and the Texas Ranger decided to push on to Fredericksburg.”
“Mr. Ryan, I sense Cope’s perfidy at work here,” Sir Richard Owen said. “He knows if I’m to remove the dinosaur I’ll need pick-and-shovel laborers and he’ll try to turn the town against me.”
“Begging your pardon, Professor,” Kline said, “but that wasn’t the reason. Last night one of them Mexican prisoners of the ranger’s took sick and was in a bad way. He needs a doctor, and that’s why they decided to head for Fritztown without delay.”
“Cope will take advantage of that,” Owen said. “He’ll take advantage, mark my words. There’s treachery afoot.”
Kline smiled. “Professor Cope and the other professors said they were already saddle sore, so they insisted on riding in the stage. Then Buttons said he’d have to charge them full fare from Fort Concho, and there was a big argument, but Buttons won in the end because them professors didn’t want nothing to do with climbing on horses again.”
Then, his face changing, Kline said, “What in God’s name is that noise?”
The roaring, hissing, clanking racket became louder, and Red said above the din, “It’s the steam wagon firing up, Ira.”
“The lady took half of my woodpile,” Kline said, yelling. “And she said that will only get her as far as Fredericksburg.”
“And that’s why it will never replace the horse,” Red said, shouting directly into Kline’s ear.
After a few minutes the sound settled down to a steady thump-thump-thump of pistons and the hiss of escaping steam. Blanche Carter stepped into the cabin and said, “We’re all ready to go, Professor Owen.”
Red thought the woman looked wonderful that morning. Her pith helmet with its goggles was tipped back on her chestnut hair and the black smudge of soot on her right cheekbone only added to her charm. Red smiled, glad he’d slept with her.
“I’m ready,” Owen said. “Professors Marsh and Harcourt, are you ready to board Aurora?”
Harcourt, a slender man with striking hazel eyes, smiled. “I look forward to seeing Professor Cope’s face when we tell him we found the dinosaur.”
“And a carnivore at that,” Professor Marsh said. “In nature there are many herbivores but few meat-eaters. We were very lucky.”
Owen nodded. “That’s what Cope lacks . . . luck. He’s devious and crafty and treacherous but unlucky.” He smiled. “I’ve even heard it said that he’s unlucky in love, but I don’t want to speculate on that subject.”
The ensuing laughter accompanied the professors out of the cabin door, where Hannah Huckabee stood close to the throbbing steam wagon. She held a half-eaten beef sandwich, forced on her by Abby Kline, who’d declared her “too thin by at least twenty pounds.”
“All aboard!” Blanche Carter yelled.
Hannah bolted what was left of her sandwich, and still chewing, she climbed into the steam wagon beside Blanche, who worked levers and got Aurora rolling. Red stepped into the saddle and took up a position at the rear of the machine. The wagon lurched forward and gathered speed, smoke belching from its exhaust pipes. With their tall son between them, Ira and Abby Kline stood outside the cabin and watched them leave. “Good luck,” Abby called out. “Good luck, everybody.”
Red waved his farewell, ahead of him a vast expanse of grassland that seemed to have no beginning and no end. The sun had risen higher in the sky, and the heat of the morning was making itself felt.
Three hours later, the Aurora forced its way through underbrush that grew around the pecan, oak, and cedar on the north bank of the San Saba River and, despite the presence of rapids, forded its shallows without difficulty.
“Miles of good grass ahead of us,” Blanche yelled to Hannah above the racket of the engine. “Aurora is running well.”
“This is quite an experience,” Hannah said. “So different from riding in the stage.”
“Better?” Blanche said.
“No, not better, just different.”
“Aurora is the future, Hannah.”
“I can’t make up my mind if that’s a good thing or bad.”
“Both,” Blanche said. “I imagine it’s both.”
A few minutes later, borne on a warm south wind, came the stench of death.
* * *
“My God, what happened here?” Sir Richard Owen said. He stared at the fat black flies buzzing round the faces of the two dead men and looked as though he wanted to be sick. Professor Harcourt had already done that, and Professor Marsh stood apart and nervously tugged at his beard. John Latimer had seen violent death before and seemed unmoved.
“Looks like they got into a fight and killed each other,” Red Ryan said.
“What did they fight about?” Owen said.
“What do men usually fight about? Women, money, a casual insult . . . who knows?”
Owen ordered the women back, but Hannah Huckabee stepped up and said, “I’ve seen dead men in the past, and I’ve seen them covered in flies and worse.” Then to Red, “There were other riders here.”
“Saw that,” Red said. “Judging by the tracks, at least a dozen booted men, and I’d say they stood around and watched these two fight it out.”
“But . . . but who would do such a thing?” Owen said.
Red’s smile was grim. “Plenty of renegades in this part of Texas, but the name Dave Winter springs to mind. He’s known to have recently moved north from the border country with a bunch of hard cases, and that came as bad news to just about everybody.”
“Is he a bandit?” Professor Harcourt asked. He seemed nervous.
“Yeah, he’s a bandit,” Red said. “And he’s a man who enjoys killing for the sake of killing. I’ve heard Winter isn’t right in the head, but I don’t know the truth of that.”
“I hope I never meet him,” Harcourt said. “He sounds like a desperate character.”
“Uh-huh, he’s all of that,” Red said.
“The stagecoach must have passed this way, Mr. Ryan,” Latimer said.
“Yeah, it did, and close, over in that direction,” Red said. He walked about thirty yards from the bodies, turned, waved, and yelled, “The stage tracks are here.”
When Red returned, professor Owen said, “Do you think the ranger saw the bodies?”
“He sure as hell must have smelled them,” Red said.
“Then why didn’t he stop and bury them?” Owen said. “After all, he’s an officer of the law.”
Red’s eyes never left the grass around and ahead of him. “I guess he figured he’d let the coyotes play undertaker,” he said. He walked off a few yards, took a knee, and plucked some blades of grass and then examined them closely. “Or maybe he got shot.”
“Shot?” Hannah Huckabee said.
“Look,” Red said, taking the woman’s hand. He dropped the grass into Hannah’s palm and said, “That rust-colored stain you see is dried blood, and there’s a lot of it around. Buttons would have bled into the coach and so would the passengers. The only one who could’ve spilled his blood over the grass was Tim Adams.”
“Or maybe he or Buttons shot somebody else,” Hannah said. “That could be.”
“Yeah, it could be,” Red allowed. “But to me, it just doesn’t stack up that way. The horse tracks tell the tale. When the stage passed this way, the team was in a flat-out gallop. Buttons never runs his horses that hard, unless he’s in trouble. He was being chased.”
“Highwaymen?” John Latimer said. He’d just joined them and already Hannah looked uncomfortable to be around him.
“If you mean road agents, then yes, it could be,” Red said. “But in this neck of the woods I’m willing to guess that Dave Winter has a hand in it. Let’s go talk it over with Blanche Carter and the professors.”