the Quick and the Dead (1983) (16 page)

Suddenly, off to his left he heard the pounding of hoofs. Men had ridden away. At least two, probably more. A trick? A device to get him to stand up and move so he could be killed? Or had they abandoned the fight?

He waited while the minutes went slowly by. There was no other sound, not so much as a whisper of movement. An owl swung low over the beaver ponds and winged by, unalarmed. Still, he remained where he was.

After a while he moved stealthily forward, waited, then moved again. There was nothing, no sound, no movement.

Suddenly, from further off, he heard another horse, a lone rider this time, start off. Hoofbeats dwindled and the sound faded out.

From where he now stood he could see a horse standing with an empty saddle. He could see the reflected light from the polished leather. Out on the grass some thirty yards from the cabin he could see the dark shape of what appeared to be a body.

Warily he moved around through the trees, doubly careful, for he was now in enemy country and did not wish to be shot by McKaskel.

By the time another half hour had gone by he had worked his way around the ambush position, and then slipped through the slender white aspens to the place of ambush.

It was empty. They were gone. In the darkness he could see nothing. Squatting, he ran his ringers swiftly over the leaves that had been the wild animal bed. Nothing ... no blood, no weapons, no bodies.

Why had they pulled out? Or had they been taken by force?

To move around searching would be to wipe out what sign they might have left, so he pulled back and strode across the moonlit grass toward the fallen man.

With a boot toe, he rolled him over. The man's hat fell off, and his face turned up to the sky. Booster McCutcheon, with a bullet hole through his skull and his body caked with blood from other wounds.

He stopped at McCutcheon's horse. Then mounting he rode back around the cabin to the hidden mule corral. The mules were still there, and the sorrel horses as well as his own. He stripped the gear from Booster's horse and turned it in with the others, then led out his own horse and stepped into the saddle.

At this moment there was little he could do, except to avoid smearing what tracks they might have left. Two possibilities remained. Either Red Hyle and Doc Shabbitt had captured the McKaskels, or being doubtful of their position, the McKaskels had themselves pulled out.

If the first were true Red would not bother with McKaskel. He would kill him and leave him where he fell.

Unless the others still believed in the gold, and hoped to torture the hiding place from him. And they would not believe him when he denied there was any gold.

The Mantles were still around, no doubt, and the Huron. He walked his horse into the edge of the aspens and tying the horse, he stretched out on the ground and slept. He was dead tired, and he slept soundly, watched over by the mustang.

Nearby the stream rustled, above him the aspens whispered mysteriously of the night and an owl spoke inquiringly at the moon.

Duncan McKaskel had decided quickly, after the first burst of firing.

By then, he decided, the attackers would know their position, and would move in swiftly. Hence the logical move was to get out.

He whispered his decision to Susanna and Tom.

"Pa!" Tom said excitedly, "There's a path up the bank right here! I found it! You can go right up through the trees!"

"Let's have a look."

At some time in the past deer had evidently come down the bank under cover of the trees. Possibly it had been those very deer who had slept here, but regardless of that, it offered a covered escape route by which they could leave the ambush position without being seen.

"All right, Tom. You take your mother up that trail. Follow right along where the deer went and cross the open place up there to the trees across the way. You wait there for me."

"Duncan? What about you?" Susanna asked.

"Don't worry. I'll wait, fire a few more shots, then get out. That will make them think we're still here."

"And if we miss each other? What then?"

"Go to the hidden corral, where we left the mules."

Tom tugged at his mother's arm. "Ma! Come on!"

Reluctantly, with a quick glance over her shoulder, she followed. Bright as the moonlight was out in the open, it was dark and still back under the close-growing aspens. The path was steep and even darker. Holding her skirts away from the brush, Susanna followed Tom. It was only a dozen yards or so to the top of the bank.

Tom looked quickly around, found the way the deer had gone. Tom grabbed his mother's arm. Swiftly, they moved along the trail.

Duncan McKaskel looked out into the moonlit clearing. A tall man in a slope-brimmed slouch hat was standing there with a gun in his hand. The man's face was invisible, but there was no doubt that he was one of the renegades.

"Howdy, Mac. Was you goin' to go some wheres?"

Duncan McKaskel had expected to be frightened, and he supposed he was. These men were not the sort to hesitate over a killing. He knew that. "Not really," he spoke quietly, stalling for time, for any kind of a break. "I was looking forward to a talk with you."

"With me?" The man was obviously startled.

"Why, of course. I am a curious man, Mr ... ah?"

"Mantle. Ike Mantle."

"I am a curious man, Mr. Mantle, and ever since this all began I have been curious. I have been wondering why you were following me. If you don't mind, it did seem rather pointless."

Ike Mantle was puzzled, and he was curious, also. This man was different, somehow. He was a tenderfoot--everybody knew that--but he was different.

"Ain't so hard to figger," he said conversationally, "we wanted your gold."

"Gold?"Duncan McKaskel was startled. "But I have no gold. Lord, man, if I had gold do you suppose I'd ever leave all that back east and come out here? I don't know if you've been east--"

"I ain't."

"What I mean is there's a dozen ways to enjoy money back there for every one out here. If I had any gold I'd of stayed there until I spent it." He paused. "In fact, that's just what I did, I am afraid. I never had much but what I had just seemed to dribble away."

Ike understood. "I reckon it'll do that wherever you are." Then the fact touched him and stirred him to irritation. "You mean you got nothing in that wagon?"

"We did have some of Susanna ... that's Mrs. McKaskel ... we did have some of her furniture, but the load was too heavy. About all that's left now are a few tools, our bedding, and what we need to live. You know, a small sheet-iron stove, Dutch oven, and such things."

"Well," Ike said resignedly, "you got mules, horses, and your woman. We'll have to settle for that."

Ike was rather amazed with himself. Here he was talking things over with a man he fully intended to kill, but it was McKaskel's approach that threw him, the easy, conversational way that invited the same sort of reaction.

"Why don't you just ride off, Mr. Mantle? Look, those horses and mules will do you nothing but harm. They are known, Mr. Mantle."

"Don't matter. Ain't no law out here that doesn't come from the barrel of a six-gun, and mine's as good as any other."

"There's a rope, Mr. Mantle. I have heard it said that quite a lot of law is enforced with a rope. Particularly where a woman is involved ... or the stealing of horses."

"Who'll know?" Ike said. "Horses are horses an' mules are mules, and you folks ... you won't be givin' evidence agin us."

"Mr. Mantle? Why don't you fellows just ride out of here and forget all this? You thought we had gold. We have none. Our wagon has nothing that would be of value to riding men, and I must warn you. Our mules and the sorrels would be a death-trap for you."

"A death-trap? What's that mean?" Duncan McKaskel lied quietly, coolly. "Mr. Mantle, my brother is in Cherry Creek. He is an officer in the cavalry there. There are, I believe, three troops of cavalry stationed near there at this moment because of expected Indian trouble. My brother is expecting us. When we do not arrive on time, and we are already several days late, he will be curious.

"My brother is a very hard, persistent man. He will begin to look around. Those mules and the sorrels were purchased from my brother, who raised them himself. As you have noticed, these are no ordinary sort of mules, and the sorrels are well bred. He will start looking for those horses, and he will find you and your friends.

"I might add, sir, that my brother is a very precipitate sort of a man. I mean, when angered he acts quickly, and he will have several hundred soldiers to help him."

It was a good story, and McKaskel wished it were true.

"You!" Ike Mantle gestured with his gun. "Walk out there in the open." McKaskel walked. "Now right ... into the trees."

They were waiting for him.

"Where's the woman?" Hyle demanded. "Where is she?"

"Gone. They done pulled out. I caught this one as he figured to go after 'em."

"I'll kill the--"

"Hold up there!" Ike threw up a hand. "You pull in your neck, Red. This here's my prisoner. Anyway, you better hear what he told me."

Ike repeated the story, with some trimmings, and Doc Shabbitt swore. "Hell, Ike! He's lyin'! Can't you see that?"

"Mebbe. But you want to ride into Cherry Crick with them mules and find out you're wrong? They hung a man over there a few weeks ago. They'll do it. That there's a rough bunch."

"Where's your woman?" Red thrust himself at McKaskel. "Where'd she go, damn it!"

"I haven't the slightest idea, and if I knew, I would not tell you."

Red swung a wicked backhand blow that knocked him sprawling. McKaskel hit the ground with a jolt, his head spinning, the taste of blood in his mouth. He had been hit before. He had been a boxer and it was his instinct to get up. He started up and looked at three guns.

Slowly, he got to his feet.

"She's with Vallian," he said, and spat blood. "She left me."

Chapter
XVIII

Even as he lied he hoped she was with Vallian, for with him she would be safe ... safer, anyway. He put the back of his hand against his smashed lip and stared at the blood. He could feel something happening within him.

He had been a peace-loving man. He believed in peace, had argued for it, written about it. There was no difficulty he had said, that could not be solved without violence by reasonable human beings. That was what he had said, and what he now believed. Or had believed until now.

"We have no reason for trouble," he said quietly. "As I was explaining to Mr. Mantle, I have nothing of value. That was the reason I came west, to start over again."

"Was that true? What you said about your brother and troops in Cherry Creek?" Shabbitt demanded.

"Why else would I have said it?" he replied. "But even if it were not true you know what the attitude would be toward such an attack as this."

"Kill him," Ike Mantle said, after a moment. "Kill him and let's get out of here."

"Why bother?" Purdy wanted to know. "Just turn him loose. He's got no horse, an' he's a tenderfoot. There's Utes all over this country who'd take his hair."

"Build a fire," Shabbitt said suddenly. "I want some coffee. No use tryin' to trace 'em down until daylight, anyway."

Purdy looked at McKaskel. "You say Vallian's got your woman?"

"She's gone, isn't she? And so's he. They even took my boy."

"I wondered why he was hangin' around," Shabbitt said. "Begins to make sense." Doc glanced around at Red Hyle. "He beat you to it, Red."

Hyle shrugged.

Purdy began to gather sticks and put a fire together. He broke some bark from a dead stump and shredded it between his palms to use for tinder. It caught quickly when he held a match to it, and flared up. He added some thin tissues of bark, then twigs.

Ike walked to his horse and got a coffee-pot and came back. "He ain't worth nothin'. We can kill him or leave him."

"Somethin' funny here," Shabbitt said. "If Con Vallian stole his woman, why ain't he sore? Why ain't he after him?"

"Turn me loose," McKaskel said. "Give me a chance."

"You want to go after him?" Purdy asked.

"Well, I would have to consider it. Con Vallian is a dead shot. I'd have to make up my mind whether I'd trade my life for a woman. There's other women, but I've only one life."

"It makes sense," Purdy agreed.

Nobody else spoke. The night air was cold and they moved closer to the fire. Duncan McKaskel decided to hold his peace. For the time they seemed to have forgotten him, and to have forgotten their intention to kill him. Yet it had at last come home to him that all men might not be reasonable. He had tried reasoning but it might not work. There was only a slim chance.

They had taken his guns but they made no move to tie him up. At the first move to escape they'd empty their guns into him, and he knew it.

A half mile away, in thick brush near the mules, Susanna saw the sky turning gray. There had been no shooting, but Duncan had not joined them. If he could have come, he would have. He was hurt or a prisoner. Yet why would they want him a prisoner? It might be they would hold him to bring her back.