CHAPTER 5
Monroe Pratt was rapidly learning that the guide he had hired to help him track down his brother was like no other man he had ever met. When Hawk had started firing his rifle Monroe naturally thought he planned to murder Nestor at long range, with no intent to face him in a duel. To the contrary, the rangy rifleman appeared to have no desire to kill Nestor, because every shot he fired traced a neat little pattern around Nestor’s feet, moving him backward, like herding cattle. Monroe didn’t think to count the shots, but he guessed that Hawk must have almost emptied the magazine, and every shot, one of pinpoint accuracy. There was little doubt that he could have placed a fatal shot, had he so desired, but he settled for a wounded foot, just to rid himself of an annoyance. The only worry that occurred to Monroe was whether or not Nestor had sense enough to know his life had been spared and to count himself lucky to still be walking around. Or was Hawk, and maybe himself, now in danger of being shot in the back? He knew one thing for certain—he was not going to rest easy until they had left Bozeman behind them, and that would not be until morning.
These were the thoughts that occupied Monroe’s mind when he walked into the hotel dining room to find Hawk seated at a table with his back to the wall, waiting for him. He noticed the rifle propped against the wall beside Hawk’s chair as he unbuckled his gun belt and left his Colt on the table just inside the door. He questioned Hawk about it when he approached the table. “How’d you get away with holding on to your rifle? The hotel’s pretty strict about their rule of no guns in the dining room.”
“Yes, they are,” Hawk replied. “And a good rule it is, too, but the woman runnin’ things here agreed that it might be a good idea to have a little bit of protection while there’s a mad dog with a sore foot runnin’ around town. I reckon she heard all those shots fired in the street earlier—mighta spooked her a little. She—I think her name’s Sadie—told me to leave it by the door at first, but she let me keep it as long as I promised not to shoot her cook if I didn’t like the food.”
Monroe nodded. He could well imagine that Sadie might have even witnessed the altercation having just taken place outside on the street. With that thought in mind, he pulled out a chair on the side so as not to have his back to the door as well. “It’s been pretty good eating here for the couple of days I’ve been in town,” he said, mostly for the benefit of the woman approaching the table with a coffeepot and an extra cup for him.
“You eatin’, too?” Sadie asked Monroe.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “What is the special tonight?”
“Beef stew,” she answered. “Same as it is every Wednesday night.”
“Right,” he came back quickly, as if he should have known. He had tried on prior occasions to make polite conversation with the stoic woman, but she seemed either incapable of small talk or simply saw no future in knowing him any better. She filled their cups and returned to the kitchen to prepare two plates.
In spite of Sadie’s lack of cheer, the food was good and the servings were generous. They ate their supper without interruption save that of the somber woman with her coffeepot. Although Hawk had taken precautions against a sudden visit from Roy Nestor, he had felt that there was little danger of an attack in the hotel dining room. He figured Nestor to be more inclined to hide someplace across the street from the hotel, wait for him to come out, and try for a shot in the back. They ate their supper and made their plans to get started early the next morning before breakfast. Because neither man had any strong need, nor desire, to visit a saloon after supper, and because of the early start scheduled the next day, they said good night when the meal was finished. After Monroe went upstairs to his room, Hawk stuck his head in the kitchen door to tell Sadie he thought the stew was the best he’d ever eaten. It wasn’t, but he made it a habit to always compliment the cook. His comment served to replace the ever-present scowl on her face with an awkward smile. “You come back to see us,” she said as he went out the back door to make his way behind the buildings on his way to the stable. He had advised Monroe to take the same route in the morning, just to be safe.
* * *
Like the night just past, morning came without further incident. Hawk was saddled up and his packhorse ready to go by the time Monroe appeared at the stable door. “I saddled your horse,” Hawk said. “You can check that cinch to see if it suits you.”
“Much obliged,” Monroe said. “I reckon we’re ready to get started, then.” Since Lem Birchfield had been paid in advance, they stepped up into the saddle and walked their horses out into the early-morning light. Hawk peered down the empty street, his focus moving from storefront to storefront, seeking to catch any irregularity in the normal outlines of the structures. Satisfied that Nestor had no plans for an early visit, he waved Monroe on and pushed his buckskin to a steady lope past the hotel and saloons.
Once they were out of town, they followed the wagon track northwest along the Gallatin River to a point about twelve miles east of Three Forks. They left the common wagon track at that point and veered off up the valley to the north, riding another ten miles or so before stopping to rest the horses and eat their breakfast. Pushing on, they continued up the broad valley, west of the Big Belt Mountains, stopping to make camp on the Missouri River with a little over a day’s ride left to reach Helena. Hawk had caught no sign of anyone following them all through the day, but he reminded himself that Nestor had worked many years as a scout and tracker, so he was careful in choosing a campsite. There was never any reason to be careless, he told himself, whether anyone was chasing him or not. But by the time they were sitting around the fire eating the venison Hawk had killed two days before, concern about Roy Nestor was all but forgotten. Their talk centered more on Jamie Pratt. Hawk was interested in knowing more about Monroe’s younger brother, thinking the more he knew about him, the more he might be able to mentally walk in his boots if it came to the point of guessing what might have happened to him. There was not much Monroe could tell him, however, that would provide any help in tracking him. Most of what he learned was about the Pratt ranch in the Bitterroot Valley. From what he gathered, Monroe, the oldest brother, made the decisions since the death of his father, but nearly always after conferring with Thomas, the middle brother. According to Monroe, Thomas was married to the land and the cattle, and worked harder than anyone else to develop the Pratt brand. Jamie, on the other hand, was never one to embrace the business of the ranch. It was welcome news to his brothers when he began exchanging letters with Rachel White, at last showing the interest in the family ranch his brothers shared. A separate cabin was already being built for Jamie and his wife to start their family. Kinda sad when you think about it, Hawk thought, and took the last swallow of his coffee.
* * *
“Might be he knows we’re on his tail,” Walt Keenum suggested. The three men stood over the hoofprints leading away from the common trail.
“Maybe,” Nestor conceded, “but I doubt it.” He held on to his saddle horn in an effort to relieve the weight on his right foot. The bullet that had smashed three of his toes had required no removal by the barber since it had gone right through the boot. But the swelling in his foot had rendered his every step painful—this in spite of the enormous wad of bandaging that forced him to walk on his heel and made it impossible to place his right foot in the stirrup.
“These tracks mighta been left by somebody else,” Shorty Doyle suggested. “How do you know these tracks are his?”
“’Cause they’re the same damn tracks we’ve been followin’ ever since we left Bozeman,” Nestor replied curtly. “And they’re the only fresh tracks on the whole damn road.”
Shorty paused to consider that, then asked, “Reckon why he didn’t just stay on the road to Helena?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Nestor replied. His impatience with the two partners he had enlisted was growing with each mile. On another occasion he might have been oblivious to Shorty’s inane remarks, but after his humiliation the night before, he was in no mood to be tolerant. “Maybe he thinks it’s a shorter distance ridin’ straight up the valley.”
Keenum and Doyle were two of the three men who had been drinking with him the night before when Hawk walked into Grainger’s. Both men were drifters, Shorty wanted in Nebraska for bank robbery, Walt in Texas for stabbing a dance hall woman. Between the two, there weren’t enough brains to fill the head of a lizard, but they provided Nestor with two extra guns and they agreed to ride with him for a split of the money they found on the two bodies. With no idea if it was true or not, Nestor told them that Monroe was carrying a great sum of money. He figured that after the job was done, he’d be inclined to pay Shorty and Walt in lead and continue on to Helena alone, where he was not well-known. “We need to hang back a little farther,” he said. “I don’t wanna take a chance on them seein’ us. I don’t wanna catch up to ’em before they’ve already set up for the night. If we catch ’em in their blankets, it’ll be like shootin’ fish in a barrel.”
“That’s the way I like it best,” Shorty said, a foolish grin spreading his whiskers. Matching Shorty’s grin, Walt agreed, and they stepped up into the saddle and followed Nestor over a low rise beside the road in the direction the tracks led. Unseen by Nestor, his two partners exchanged winks at the sight of his one bundled foot dangling beside his right stirrup. They were not above enjoying a bit of amusement watching him grimacing and cursing his sore foot, but they took care to hide it from him. Nestor was in no mood to endure ridicule or japing at his expense.
After a ride of about two hours, they came upon the ashes of a small fire beside a tiny stream. “That’s about what I figured,” Nestor said. “I figured they oughta been stoppin’ pretty soon to rest their horses and this was the place.”
“That’s what I figured, too,” Walt said. “’Cause it was gettin’ about time to rest mine.”
They dismounted and Shorty went immediately to inspect the ashes of the fire to see if there were any with a little life left to make it easier for him to start another one. “Hell,” he cursed. “They threw water on the fire.” He looked around him. “There ain’t nothin’ close enough to worry ’bout startin’ a prairie fire.”
“We ain’t gonna be needin’ to build a big fire, anyway,” Nestor muttered, really no more than speaking his thoughts aloud. “We ain’t gonna be here long.” He looked at the sun, already well past midday, thinking he wanted to catch up to Hawk before hard dark. His concern was that the rangy scout might hide his camp so well that he wouldn’t be able to find it after dark. He hoped that Hawk didn’t expect him to come after him, and so far, there seemed to be no real effort to hide his trail. But he wasn’t willing to discount the possibility that the wily scout might try to lead him into an ambush. So in spite of his urgency to settle the score, he forced himself to be cautious.
“I hope we’re gonna be here long enough for a cup of coffee,” Walt declared. “I can’t go all day without somethin’ to keep the sides of my belly from rubbin’ together.” He pulled a frying pan out of his “war bag” and some salt pork to slice. That was enough to encourage Shorty to start searching the underbrush for kindling. It was not long before Walt’s coffeepot was boiling over in the fire and there was bacon sizzling in the pan. It was difficult for Nestor to keep from brooding over the two brainless partners he had to rely on to help him settle the score with Hawk. Watching them, he was reminded of a Sunday school picnic—at least what he imagined one would be like. He would have no trouble shooting both of them as soon as Hawk and Pratt were dead. He had no real quarrel with Monroe Pratt, but he didn’t plan to leave a witness, either.
It seemed longer to Nestor than the hour he had allowed to rest the horses, but when it was finally time to mount up, he wasted no time arousing his partners. Both men had taken advantage of the time after their stomachs were content to take a nap. So with a bitter spleen and an aching foot from bearing his weight while he used his good foot to kick both of them awake, Nestor started out again, his hired gunmen following.
* * *
It was close to twilight by the time the three would-be assassins reached the Missouri River. Nestor had planned his time just right. He had figured Hawk would camp at the river and in the dusky light of evening, the tracks he followed could still be seen. He pulled up when they were within about one hundred and fifty yards from the cottonwoods lining the river. Shorty was the first to spot the smoke. A thin gray ribbon of smoke was barely discernable drifting up through the branches of the tall trees. Nestor was satisfied that the timing was just as he had planned. In another hour, the smoke would be invisible and it might have been much harder to locate the camp. “Reckon it’s them?” Shorty asked.
“Who the hell else would it be?” Nestor replied. He could feel his heartbeat quicken with the prospect of having the opportunity to leave Hawk for the buzzards to feed on. “As long as nobody don’t make a move till I tell ’em,” he said, finishing the thought out loud. Looking around them, he spotted a low grassy swale a few yards away. “All right, we’re gonna set awhile over there and let those boys bed down for the night. Then we’ll move in closer and see what’s what before we start shootin’. I don’t want nobody gettin’ outta there alive.”
“You got nothin’ to worry about, Roy,” Shorty responded. “Me and Walt know how to handle a gun. Reckon how much money that Pratt feller is totin’?”
“I hope he’s totin’ as much as you said he was,” Walt said.
“He is,” Nestor assured them. “Don’t you worry about that. He came all the way over to Bozeman to find Hawk and Hawk ain’t about to lift his hand lessen he gets paid for it.” They rode over to the swale and dismounted and Nestor cautioned them, “You can let them horses graze, but hold on to them reins. I don’t wanna be chasin’ no horses when I’m ready to move in closer to that river.” There were no trees close to the swale to tie the horses to and Nestor wasn’t even willing to hobble them for the hour or so they would be there.
The time ticked away at a snail’s pace for Roy Nestor, his mind filled with the hatred he felt for Hawk. He would never think to admit it, but that hatred was fueled by a huge dislike for anyone who was better at his craft than he was. And now the son of a bitch has shamed me, made a fool of me, in front of a whole town. The thought of it triggered a wave of pain in his right foot. He would kill him and leave this part of the country, go someplace where nobody knew him, and he would leave no witnesses behind. As he thought it, he looked over at Shorty and Walt, exchanging tall tales like two simple children. No witnesses, he repeated to himself.
Finally it was time. A dark moonless sky settled over the prairie. All three men checked their rifles to make sure they were fully loaded before climbing into the saddle. Nestor led them at a slow walk to a point almost a hundred yards upstream of the camp. They tied their horses there, lest they might alert Hawk’s and Pratt’s horses. Hobbling painfully on his heavily bandaged foot, Nestor led them through cottonwoods and bushes until they reached a point where they could see the slowly dying fire through the trees. Nestor paused there only a moment before cautiously moving closer until they spotted the horses by the water’s edge. At first, the two men were nowhere to be seen, causing Nestor to be more cautious. There were no bedrolls or blankets close by the fire. Thinking he may have been tricked, he hesitated, suddenly afraid he was about to walk into an ambush. What if the son of a bitch is circling around us? he thought, and unconsciously looked behind him. But there was nothing behind him except the two anxious faces staring back at him. He never spotted us, he reassured himself. He was certain of that.
“Yonder they are,” Walt suddenly whispered, “just outside the firelight. Their fire’s died down some. That’s why we didn’t see ’em right off.”
“I see ’em,” Shorty whispered. “Let’s get the job done.”
“Hold on!” Nestor cautioned. He could see the two blanket rolls just outside the light of the fire, but they didn’t look big enough for a man Hawk’s size. He knows we’re following him! The question he asked himself now was, what would he do if he was in Hawk’s place and didn’t want to bed down where anyone could surprise him in the open? He took another long look over the clearing and the campsite. There were no high bluffs to hide under at this point in the river, except for one spot where the channel had cut off one side of a low hummock. His attention was immediately drawn to it. A slow grin spread across his face. That was where they were hiding, and anybody who came charging into the camp, looking to catch them asleep, would be sitting ducks. They could pop up from behind that hummock and blast away. He couldn’t help but chuckle to have seen through the trap Hawk had prepared. He was especially amused by the added touch Hawk had gone to, placing the two blanket rolls just outside the light of the fire. By doing so, it would appear that the two men felt they were hidden while they slept. It was an old trick and Nestor was onto it. He looked again toward the hummock. They would be well protected from anyone slipping up on them from either side. But not from anyone on the other side of the river, he thought. “I’ve got ’em,” he whispered. “Follow me, we’re gonna cross over.”
“Cross over?” Walt questioned. “What for? Hell, we’re close enough to pick ’em off from right here.”
“That ain’t them,” Nestor explained. “They just want you to think it’s them. They’re hidin’ behind that hump over there by the river, so we’ve got to get behind them.”
“Oh,” Shorty muttered. “They thought they was gonna outsmart us.”
They backed slowly away from the edge of the clearing until well out of sight, should anyone in the camp happen to be looking their way. Hobbling as fast as he could manage, Nestor led them into the water and started across. His two partners followed, but not without complaints, most of them from Shorty when the water reached up to his armpits before gradually becoming shallow again. “If I’da knowed we was plannin’ on takin’ a bath,” he joked, “I’da brung me a bar of soap.”
“Hell, you don’t own a bar of soap,” Walt chided.
“Keep your voice down!” Nestor scolded, and started back downstream along the bank, almost ignoring the wet bundle that served as bandage for his right foot now, as he anticipated the pleasure of catching Hawk with one of his own tricks. When they reached a point opposite the hummock he had spotted, he crawled down halfway to the water’s edge, straining to make out details in the dark bluff created by the river in times of high water. The smug smile returned to his surly face when he began to make out the shapes of the two sleeping campers snuggled up under the bank. He had ridden on patrols with Hawk, enough to know some of his tricks. Well, this ol’ dog knows some tricks, too, he thought. “Yonder,” he whispered, and pointed.
“I see ’em,” Walt whispered back, and moved up beside Nestor, trying to get a clear line of fire. “Might have to get down closer to the water to get a better angle, though.”
“I got ’em now,” Shorty almost blurted out, “right there under that bluff, sleepin’ like a couple of babies.” He scrambled down closer to the water beside Walt, then looked back at Nestor when a random thought occurred to him. “How can we tell which one is Hawk?”
“It don’t make no difference, dummy,” Walt said. “We’re fixin’ to shoot both of ’em.”
“Oh, okay then,” Shorty replied, thinking that he might have thought of that, given enough time.
“Take dead aim and wait till I shoot, then pump enough lead into them two bodies before they get woke up enough to know what hit ’em,” Nestor said. “I’m puttin’ my first shot into that one on the left.” He wasn’t sure why, but he somehow sensed that the body lying closer to the edge of the depression was Hawk because it was in a position to return fire quicker than the one back up under the bank. Only, there ain’t gonna be no time to return fire, he thought. “Everybody ready?” He squeezed the trigger that released the first round of .44 slugs to descend upon the hapless victims like a blanket of relentless fire.
The peaceful riverbanks were turned into a hailstorm of lead as Nestor’s wishes were fulfilled, with the continuous barking of the three rifles and the screaming of the frightened horses. The attack was so intense that there had been no opportunity for return fire. The body that Nestor had assumed to be Hawk had finally rolled out of the hollowed-out depression and lay still by the water’s edge. “That’s enough!” Nestor finally had to shout to stop his two partners caught up in the sensation of killing. “They’re done for. You’re just throwin’ away cartridges now.”
It was deathly silent again until Walt released a joyful oath. “Hot damn,” he drawled, which prompted Shorty to perform his imitation of a howling wolf. It was cut short by the impact of a rifle slug between his shoulder blades, causing him to stagger a few steps forward before collapsing facedown in the water. Confused when he heard the report of the shot that killed Shorty, Walt made the mistake of standing stone-still, making him an easy target. He dropped to the ground, the victim of a bullet in his chest. Quicker to react and lucky to have been standing with Walt between him and the rifles firing from the slope behind them, Nestor hit the ground immediately and rolled as fast as he could into the river. With no cover available to him, he was in no position to return fire, even if he was sure where the shooters were. His only option was the river, so he clawed and crawled his way into the dark water while rifle slugs probed the surface all around him. As soon as he reached water deep enough, he went under, dragging his rifle behind him, the soggy bandage on his foot leaving a tail as it unraveled. The only emotion that registered in his brain was the desperate need to run for his life, so he held his breath as long as he possibly could and swam as best he could, using only one arm. Even in his desperation to escape, he could not release his rifle, so he continued to struggle until the water suddenly became too shallow to swim under any longer.
Knowing he was going to have to wade the rest of the way to the other side, he slowly raised his head above the surface to see where he was. With his knees drawn up under him, he crouched in the shallow water and peered back toward the bank from which he had fled. It was too dark to see anything other than the dark outline of the slope beyond the trees. It occurred to him then that that was a good thing because it meant Hawk couldn’t see him, either. Trying to make as little noise as possible, he rose up and started making his way to shore, scanning the bank as he did, in an effort to determine where they had left the horses. He recognized a bent-over tree they had passed, so he left the water and headed toward the tree. Only then did he remember his bandaged foot, when he stepped on dry land and he felt the dull throbbing return. “Damn,” he cursed, reminded that he had been outfoxed by Hawk again, and the bitter bile of defeat returned to his throat. He paused for a second to consider another attempt to avenge himself. He didn’t like the odds with surprise no longer in his favor, and he was now outnumbered two to one. He looked at his rifle and wondered how much the soaking in the river might affect it. Maybe it wouldn’t shoot at all until thoroughly dried out and oiled. The same applied to his pistol. He didn’t really know, and it would be bad to find out when it was too late. These were the thoughts that went racing through his brain as he continued to make his way as fast as he could through the bushes where he and his partners had left their horses.
He felt a wave of relief wash over him when he found the horses right where he remembered. He told himself that it would have been impossible for Hawk to have somehow circled around and stolen the horses. Still, it was a thought that had occurred, since everything else had gone wrong. It took precious time for him to untie Walt’s and Shorty’s horses and retie them to a lead rope behind his saddle, but he was reluctant to leave two good horses and saddles behind. Up in the saddle and ready to ride, he had one more thought. Hawk and Pratt had been waiting in ambush on the other side of the river. Maybe they had come across already and maybe they hadn’t. Their horses were on this side of the river. Should he go back and make a try to run their horses off, even possibly steal them? He didn’t consider that idea for more than a second or two, thinking it a good chance he might get shot in the process. He turned his horse back the way he had come, intent upon putting as much prairie between himself and Hawk as possible. After a full gallop for about a quarter of a mile, he reined his horse back to a lope, concerned about the possibility of stumbling in the darkness. When he became convinced that he had managed to escape the trap set for him, the intense hatred for the man called Hawk flared up in his veins, fueled by the knowledge that Hawk had bested him again.
* * *
Behind the would-be assassin, Hawk and Monroe moved down to the water’s edge to check on the two bodies lying there. Hawk took hold of Shorty’s boots, dragged him out of the water, and turned him over. “Ain’t no question about this one. If the bullet didn’t kill him, he likely drowned himself.”
“This one’s dead, too,” Monroe said, staring down at Walt. He remained unmoving for a long moment.
Hawk was puzzled by Monroe’s apparent trance until it occurred to him that he was reacting to the realization that he had killed a man. It was plain to see that he had never done it before. “It ain’t an easy thing, killin’ a man, even one as low-down mean as these two, but they were set on killin’ us. We just beat ’em to it this time. Next time it might be our time to catch a bullet.”
Monroe blinked a couple of times, as if waking from a dream. Then he finally looked up at Hawk and said, “These were two of the men with Nestor in the saloon in Bozeman. You think he has anyone else with him?”
“I doubt it, unless he left him holdin’ the horses. We need to find out what happened to Nestor. I couldn’t tell if we hit him or not when he was swimmin’ in the river, but I expect that we didn’t. Let’s check the bank on the other side. If he made it, maybe we can find where he came out.”
Hindered somewhat by the moonless night, Hawk and Monroe searched the riverbank on the other side. They moved with deliberate caution, not sure if Nestor had run, or if he was waiting in ambush for them to follow. Helped by a piece of torn bandage caught on a bush, Hawk was able to follow a trail left when Nestor had broken branches in his hurry to run. “This is where they tied their horses,” he said to Monroe when he pushed through the bushes to a small clump of pines to join him.
Monroe looked around him in the darkened pine thicket. “How do you know that? I can’t see a damn thing, it’s so dark.”
“I smell horse shit,” Hawk said matter-of-factly.
“Oh,” Monroe responded, and took a step backward, thinking not to step in it.
“Yep,” Hawk said. “He took off right through those young pines.” He pointed to some small bushes, trampled by the horses in their haste. “Took those other fellows’ horses with him. I don’t expect he’s thinkin’ much about comin’ back for more. I think Nestor has finally had enough.” Thinking he knew Nestor pretty well now, he figured he wouldn’t make another attempt without a couple of new men for backup.
Hawk took the time to scout the banks of the river for almost a mile upstream and down, moving silently through the dark cottonwoods and pines that lined it. Satisfied that he could assume that Nestor was not likely to make another try, he returned to the campfire to talk things over with Monroe. He found him, kneeling by the fire, examining his rifle as if seeing it for the first time. Hawk had a fair idea of what he was thinking and figured he had been right in guessing that Monroe had never killed a man before. No matter how heinous the victim, to take another man’s life was a portal that few decent men crossed. And everything on the other side of that threshold would never be the same as it had been before. He didn’t know how to tell him that. Monroe would have to work that out himself.
There remained always a danger that sometime in the future another attempt might be made by Nestor to settle what had now become a sizable score. But Hawk felt sure that they would see no more of the belligerent would-be murderer in the near future. His normal tendency might be to go after Nestor and bring the feud to a close, but there was a more important job to consider, the task they had first set out to accomplish. Every day that passed would put them farther and farther behind in the effort to find Jamie Pratt and his wife. They could not afford to delay any more than they could help, because the trail was already cold. Still, he felt obligated to warn Monroe. “I can’t say for sure if Roy Nestor has called it quits or not. A man like him don’t take to gettin’ whupped as bad as he just got. It’s me he’s out to get, but he’ll put you under, too, if he decides to come after me again and you’re ridin’ with me.”
“I appreciate what you’re telling me,” Monroe said. “But I’m still convinced you’re the best chance I’ve got of finding my brother. And you’re right, we can’t afford to waste any more time, so I say, to hell with Roy Nestor. Let’s keep going at first light.”
“You’re the boss,” Hawk replied, glad to see that Monroe appeared not to have let the recent events get the better of him. “We’ll get a couple hours’ sleep before we saddle up and should be in Helena before dark. We’d best make our beds down close to the horses just in case. I’ll go back and see if there’s anything left of the blankets we wrapped around those logs. I expect they’re about shot full of holes.” He started to walk away, then stopped, turned around, and asked, “Is that okay with you?”
“It’s okay with me,” Monroe replied, “but I think I could use a drink outta that bottle we bought in Bozeman.”
“Might not be a bad idea at that,” Hawk said, and started toward the hummock to fetch the blankets, a faint smile on his face and the feeling that Monroe showed enough grit to get the job done.