Chapter 18

Pushing hard along the hill trails, the Ranger followed the hoofprints left by Mattie’s dapple gray onto the flatlands and stopped where two new sets of prints joined them. The Ranger was well aware that she had traded clothes with her sister not only to fool him, but also to make her way through whatever guards and gunmen Dad Orwick had protecting his lair.

Did she realize how dangerous this game could get if anything went wrong?

Sam studied the hoofprints, seeing no indication of a struggle. Yes, he decided, of course she knew the risks. Mattie was nobody’s fool. She was headstrong, self-reliant and self-possessed—not about to be dissuaded from what she’d set out to do. But he’d seen no signs of foolishness in her.

The life she’d been forced to lead had not dampened or killed her spirit. Rather, over the passing of time, Dad Orwick’s dominance and abuse had only served to strengthen her resolve. As his eyes followed the three sets of tracks off across the flatlands, Sam realized that Orwick had—with every bite of the whip across the young child’s back—forged in the child that which one day would return and destroy him.

And so it goes. . . .

Sam nudged the copper dun forward along the three sets of tracks. Within only yards of where Mattie and the two riders had met, three new sets of tracks had come from the other side of the flatlands and confronted them. Still, no signs of struggle or disagreement, Sam noted.

“Whatever you’re telling them, Mattie, keep it up,” he murmured to himself.

For the next seven miles, Sam followed the tracks across the flatlands, onto a thinner trail leading up among rocks and scrub cedar around the side of a steep stony ridge. As the copper dun made its way up the narrow winding trail, the Ranger looked down at the six sets of hooves that had now tightened and formed into twos.

Looking up and all around along the boulders and overreaching cliffs towering above him, the Ranger took off his sombrero and laid it on his lap. With the reins in his left hand, he loosened his dusty bandanna, shook it out and wiped his forehead. When he draped the bandanna back around his neck, he left his sombrero off, hooked its strap around his saddle horn and rode on.

Twenty yards farther up the trail, he saw the three gunmen appear suddenly, sitting atop their horses in the middle of the trail facing him. One rider held an aimed rifle to his shoulder; the other two held cocked and aimed revolvers at arm’s length.

“Arizona Ranger,” the rifleman said, noting the badge on Sam’s chest. To his two companions he said, “Brethren, this day has truly blessed us abundantly.”

Sam sat still as stone atop the cooper dun, staring at the three men, summing up them and their horses. The horses stepped restlessly in place and had to be checked down firmly—handsome, well cared-for animals, Sam noted, but not trail hardened, he’d bet.

The man with the rifle appeared the eldest, the more experienced, yet still not as at-ease as a man who made his living with a gun. The other two were younger, around Sam’s age, but neither with the bearing of men who could face bullets being shot at them and keep the kind of cool, level head needed for killing.

“Lift the rifle with your left hand and toss it aside,” the rifleman said.

Sam lifted the cocked Winchester with his left hand, but he held it suspended for a moment.

“How much farther to the compound?” he asked, much like one man asking another for the time of the day.

For a moment the rifleman appeared as if he was tempted to answer Sam instinctively. But he caught himself and steadied the rifle.

“Never you mind how far,” he said evenly. “You’ll not be going there. Now toss the rifle away.”

But the Ranger only raised the outheld Winchester another inch as if ready to toss it way, but not quite yet.

“I’m following a woman and two other riders headed there,” he said. “I don’t suppose—?”

“Brother Lowery, Brother Anders!” the man said, getting edgy, cutting Sam off. “If he doesn’t toss the rifle away when I count three, shoot him down.”

“Shoot him?” said one of the younger men, looking away from his revolver toward the rifleman as he asked.

“Yes, Brother, shoot him! Are you deaf?” the rifleman said.

Getting rattled, Sam gauged, watching him.

“One!” the rifleman called out with determination.

“All right, stop,” Sam said. “I’m tossing it. See?” He raised the cocked rifle and pitched it away, in a manner that caused it to stand straight up and strike the hard ground butt first. The hammer fell; a blue-orange blast of fire exploded from its barrel.

All three men flinched in surprise; their horses almost bolted. The riders tightened their hold on the spooked animals as the Ranger flipped his sombrero aside with the tip of his big Colt lying cocked in his hand beneath it.

Jerking the dun’s head to his left, quarterwise, the Ranger fired, once, twice, three times, seeing the rifle and the revolvers fly from the men’s hands and the men fly from their saddles. He saw two of the horses rear and bolt away, breaking from the trail, racing and sliding down the steep hillside. The third frightened animal turned tail, bucking and kicking, and ran away, following the hill trail out of sight.

Sam nudged the copper dun forward through a cloud of smoke, stopped and looked down, his Colt still cocked and ready. On the ground one of the younger men held a bloody hand up toward him.

“Please, don’t shoot no more,” he said. “I’m dead here.”

Sam stepped down from the copper dun and unhooked his canteen strap from his saddle horn out of habit. He looked at the two men sprawled dead in the dirt and stepped over to the one who lay panting and clutching his bloody chest.

“One of Dad’s brethren saints, I take it?” Sam said, stooping down beside him. He uncapped the canteen and offered it to him.

“Yes . . . that’s right,” the man said. “I—I didn’t die in vain. I’ll be rewarded . . . for this, you know.” He shook his head toward the canteen.

Sam noted desperation in his trembling voice.

“I hope so,” he said. He ran his fingers back through his damp hair and looked around. “Who’re the two men riding with the woman?” he asked.

“Two of Dad’s gunmen . . . escorting Miss Isabelle to the new compound,” the man said in a strained voice.

“Isabelle,” Sam said.

“Yes . . . one of Dad’s older wives,” he said. “But she’s . . . not anymore.”

“Because Dad has replaced all of his wives with some younger women,” Sam said.

“He had . . . good cause to do so, Ranger,” the wounded man said, defending his leader’s actions. “Some of them . . . were too close akin. A man has to be careful of that . . . with so many wives.”

Sam didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway.

“How many of Dad’s gunmen are going to be waiting for me at the new compound?” he asked.

“Most of the gunmen . . . have drawn out and gone,” the man said. “But Dad’s saints will kill you . . . for what you did, killing Dad’s son.”

“I didn’t kill that boy,” Sam said.

“Dad was told you’re to blame . . . so you’ll die for it,” the man said.

“Blame . . . ?” said Sam. “If anybody’s to blame, it’s Orwick. He should have taught his son, if he shoots at people there’s a possibility people will shoot back.”

“His son Ezekiel lived for a cause . . . ordained by God,” the dying man said. “What cause do you . . . live or die for?”

Sam didn’t bother answering. He looked at the man’s revolver lying a few feet away.

“I shot one of Dad’s outlaws, night before last. It was almost the same as this. He asked me for a gun with a bullet in it so he could spare himself being eaten by wolves.”

“So,” the man said, “are you asking . . . if I want a gun for that same reason—to end my own life?”

Sam stared at him and said, “Night will come. So will the wolves. If you’re still alive, lying here . . .” He let his words trail, knowing the man got the grim picture.

“Keep the gun. I will not condemn my soul to hell . . . committing murder on myself.”

“You’d rather watch the wolves rip out your belly?” Sam said, offering it as harshly as he could.

“If that’s God’s will,” the man said, clutching his stomach with both hands now against the spreading circle of blood. “If you shoot me . . . it’s a different matter,” he added.

Sam saw the pleading in his eyes.

“You would have me commit the sin, but the sin is beneath you?” he said, picking up the gun from the ground.

The man just stared at him.

Sam said, “I saved you from sinning when I shot you before you could shoot me.”

“You’re a murderer anyway,” the man said. “Your soul has . . . never been cleansed by forgiveness. Mine has.”

“Good point,” Sam said, dismissing the matter. He turned to the dun and stepped up into his saddle.

“Wait,” the man said. “You can’t just leave me here . . . like this.”

“What do you want me to do?” Sam asked, staring down intently at him.

The man only looked on, clenching his jaw.

“It’s your call,” Sam said. “Make it, or I ride away.”

“I—I can’t,” the man said, shaking his head. “Don’t you see I can’t?”

“Yes, I see,” Sam said. He nudged the dun along the trail. But in a few yards he stopped and took a deep breath. He looked back at the wounded man who sat trembling, staring out across the rocky land. The sun had made its turn in the sky and leaned to the west.

No, he couldn’t leave him here like this, Sam told himself.

The man never heard the gunshot; he only felt the sudden impact of it, and only for a split second at that.

The Ranger watched his body flop over onto its side. He sat for a moment in contemplation. Then he pitched the smoking gun away and turned forward in his saddle. Nudging the copper dun, he rode on.

—

Later in the afternoon he lost the tracks belonging to Mattie and the other two riders’ horses crossing a stone plateau above the eastern canyon of the Valley of the Gun. Fortunately, when he’d crossed the plateau and ridden on a few miles through a thick pine forest perched on a long sloping hillside, he picked up a wagon trail marked with fresh wheel prints. He’d followed the wagon trail for three miles when he spotted smoke rising from a partially hidden gully and crept forward on a cliff overhang for a better look.

In the rocky gully he saw a single Conestoga-style wagon sitting with a team of oxen still hitched to it. Around the wagon he saw women and children busily at work, the children chopping and carrying wood from a deadfall pine, the women preparing the evening meal over a large campfire.

Were they Dad’s people? Yes, he was certain of it.

But looking all around closely and seeing no sign of Mattie or her dapple gray, Sam eased back from the cliff’s edge, rose in a crouch and turned to walk back to the dun, his rifle in hand. Before taking a step he froze in place, seeing the copper dun facing him from the edge of the trail, a young boy holding the horse by its reins. Behind a tall rock, a man clutching a long shotgun stepped into sight and stood close behind the boy.

“This is as far as you’re going, lawman,” the man said.

Sam looked all around, seeing more men with shotguns and rifles step into sight half circling him, each of them standing closely flanked by wide-eyed children.

“Do not test us, Ranger,” another of the gunmen warned, seeing a look on Sam’s face that showed no sign of surrender. This man stood behind a young girl with long blond braids draping down past her thin shoulders. She clutched a rag doll against her chest.

“These are your own children?” Sam asked quietly, appearing surprised that men would do such a thing as put children between the sights of loaded guns.

“Mister, they are the Lord’s children, and of course Dad Orwick’s,” said the gunman standing behind the young boy. “We are only given their charge for a time, until Dad or the Lord sees otherwise fit to call upon them.”

“What happens now is a lot up to you, Ranger,” said a man holding a pointed rifle, a young boy on his left, a younger girl on his right.

“What’s Dad going to say when he finds out you held these children hostages in a gunfight?” he asked, stalling, looking for any way out, any way but this.

“Dad knows that we’re out here to do his bidding,” the man between the two children said. “Anything that happens to these innocent young ones will be your fault, and nobody else’s.”

My fault? Sam looked back and forth. Recalling the words and lopsided rational of the men he’d killed earlier, he realized there was no talking to these people, no reasoning with their blind side, no getting through the layers of their religious madness. It was useless to try.

“Now drop your rifle,” another man said. “Let not the blood of the innocent be upon your head.”

“And what happens then?” Sam asked, already knowing he had to give up his guns or start the bloodletting. Had he the slightest notion that these men were bluffing, he wouldn’t give up his guns. Yet as he looked back and forth, he realized, there was no room here to call even their bluff. Either he would give up his guns or the next moment bullets would be flying. He stood tense, waiting for a reply.

“Once we have your guns, we’re taking you to Dad,” said the man standing behind the young girl with the blond braids. “It will be Dad’s decision—and God’s, of course—whatever is to become of you, Ranger. We will have fulfilled our duty to Dad and our church.”

“Dad can’t ask for more than that, I suppose,” Sam said under his breath, lowering his rifle, letting it fall from his hands.