FORTY
Dolan pointed east.
“Where do we end up if we keep going that way?” he asked over breakfast.
“Louisiana.”
“What is there?”
“Gumbo, women, New Orleans—”
He looked across the fire at Santee.
“Any banks?”
“A lot.”
“Can we get some more men?”
“A lot.”
“And that way?”
He was pointing north.
“More of Texas,” Santee said. “A lot more of Texas.”
“And banks?”
“Yes.”
“More men?”
Oh, yes.”
“One more question before I decide.”
“What is it?” Santee asked.
“What is gumbo?”
Clint had camped for the night, hoping that Weaver and McBeth would not try to keep riding after dark. Neither of them was particularly adept at this kind of traveling, and he was sure one of them would end up falling if they tried it. If they were smart, they’d camp and catch up to him the next day—today.
Clint had a cold breakfast of jerky and water before continuing on. He had ridden only a few miles when he spotted something a few hundred yards ahead.
“Horses,” he said to Eclipse. “With saddles. Come on, big boy.”
There were also buzzards circling, so he had an idea of what he would find.
There were two horses wandering about. As he approached they shied away from him, but he managed to ride one down. He grabbed the reins, dismounted, and checked the saddle and saddlebags. There was a rifle in the scabbard, but the saddlebags were empty. He turned to look for the other horse, saw it standing a few yards away, worrying something on the ground. He kept hold of the first animal and walked to the second. The animal was pushing at a dead man with its snout. There was a second man, also dead. Both bodies were lying by an extinguished campfire.
He grabbed the second horse’s reins, then examined the bodies. They had both been shot in the back. The second horse’s saddlebags were also empty.
“Well,” Clint said, “they were shot and robbed, or they were part of the gang.” He looked at the two horses. “Thieves would have taken everything, horses and saddles. So you fellows didn’t get your share. Dolan and Santee got it all.”
He checked the heels of both men, hoping it wasn’t one of them who had the worn down left one. It wasn’t.
It was getting dark and he wanted to camp, but not by the dead men, who had already been visited by various forms of wild life. The buzzards overhead were just waiting for Clint to leave.
He didn’t have the time or the inclination to bury the two men. He shooed the horses away after unsaddling them, just dropped the saddles down next to the dead men.
He mounted up, stood in his stirrups, and looked behind him. Unless McBeth’s wound had reopened, he figured his two colleagues would be catching up to him anytime now. He hoped to have some sort of trail for them to follow when they did.
He turned Eclipse’s head east.
Riders had a habit of using the same likely spots to stop and either rest or camp. That was why Clint was able to find such a place, littered with the run-down left heel mark, which was obviously being left by either the Mexican, Santee, or the Irishman, Dolan. It showed Clint that he was on the right track, that the men had obviously decided to keep going east, to Louisiana.
Weaver and McBeth were still nowhere in sight, and they were not going to be able to catch up to Eclipse if Clint kept going. Since he’d determined that Louisiana was the outlaws’ goal, he decided to turn back the way he came, hoping to join up with Weaver and McBeth before long.
McBeth remained in his saddle while Weaver stepped down to check the bodies.
“Dead,” he said, mounting up again. “Shot in the back.”
“Not Dolan’s style,” McBeth said.
“Maybe it was Santee’s style,” Weaver suggested.
McBeth looked at the buzzards overhead. From the looks of the bodies, they had interrupted the birds’ quest for carrion.
“Clint’s got to be just up ahead,” Weaver said. “But we’ll never catch up to him and that monster he rides unless he comes back to us.”
“I suppose we should take this as a sign that we are goin’ in the right direction,” McBeth said, indicating the bodies.
“Well, let’s leave them to the buzzards and keep goin’,” Weaver said.
McBeth stretched a bit in his saddle.
“You okay?” Weaver asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Stiches holdin’?”
McBeth felt behind him, didn’t find any wetness. “They seem to be.”
“Good.”
“They just have to hold long enough,” McBeth added. “Just long enough.”