CHAPTER SIX
The stage’s sidelamps glowed amber in the gloom as Buttons Muldoon urged the team across the rocky, cactus-strewn flat. To the west, lost in darkness, rose the rugged Finlay peaks, where the Old Ones, the ancient and long-forgotten Indians who once lived there, had left their mysterious mark on the sandstone cliff faces. The moon was still high over the mountains, and it silvered the coats of the coyotes in the draws as they paused in their hunt to stare at the coach as it rumbled by, pluming dust.
“So . . . what do you think, Red?” Buttons said.
“About what?”
“About Leah Leighton. You think she done for the Reverend Solomon Palmer?”
Red Ryan took time to light the cigarette he’d been holding between his lips for the past few minutes and then said through a cloud of blue smoke, “I don’t think Palmer was a reverend, and yeah, I’m sure she shot him.”
“Murdered him, more like,” Buttons said. “The question is, why?”
Red said. “Maybe Palmer was headed for his gun and Leah had no choice but to trigger him. I mean, that’s possible, ain’t it?”
“It’s possible, but what could lay between them that would lead to a killing?” Buttons said.
Red shook his head. “I have no idea. I can’t even make a guess.”
“Me neither,” Buttons said, his eyes probing the gloom ahead. “It’s a great mystery.”
Red smiled and rapped on the coffin behind him. “I bet he knows the answer.”
“Yeah, I’d say he does, but he ain’t talking.”
* * *
At first light, Buttons rested the team and then broke out the grub sack. He and Red shared stale sourdough bread and cold bacon and then each took a swig of whiskey as a morning heart-starter.
Buttons used his gloved hand to wipe crumbs off his mustache and his hand froze in place when he saw the riders coming in from the east, three men on tall horses. He looked at Red, a question on his face.
“Yeah, I see them. Looks like they mean business.”
“What kind of business?”
“They’ll let us know, I’m sure.
Buttons closed his mouth and then opened it again. “Rangers maybe? They might be Rangers.”
“Could be.” Red placed the shotgun across his thighs. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
A minute later the riders proved they were not Rangers. A bullet shot from a rifle spanged off the wrought-iron armrest of the driver’s-seat, and a second split the air inches from Red’s nose.
He jerked back in alarm. Damn, those boys were good!
Buttons had that same thought and said urgently, “Let them come, Red. We got nothing they want.”
“Except our scalps.”