Longarm and the Arapaho Hellcats (6 page)

Longarm wheeled, grabbed his Colt from its holster, and twisted around, clicking the hammer back. Two round eyes reflected the fire's umber light from just beyond the fire, near where one of Cynthia's three attackers lay. Above the eyes, large ears twitched.

Longarm eased the tension on the Colt's trigger and lowered the piece. “Horse.” He sighed. “Just a horse, Cynthia.”

“Oh, God,” Cynthia said with a sigh, resting her head back against the ground.

The three dead men must have hobbled their horses and one had come to investigate the commotion. Now it shook its head and backed away, out of the sphere of shimmering firelight.

Longarm holstered his Colt, picked up the barlow knife where he'd dropped it, and cut the ropes binding Cynthia to the four stakes. When she was free, she sat up and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his bare chest.

“I'm sorry, Custis. I guess I acted a little impetuously when I rode out here. I just couldn't stop thinking about Casey.”

“You never should have come out here, girl. Damn foolhardy.”

“I just wanted to pick up their trail, so they couldn't get away. I knew you had your hands full with the fire . . .”

Longarm drew her more tightly against him and kissed her forehead. He pressed her badly mussed hair back from her face and looked at her. “You all right?”

She nodded. “I think I'll go wash in the creek.”

“Me, too. Then we'd best pack up, camp a little farther upstream. The rest of the gang might have heard the shooting, might come to investigate. We don't need to be taking on twenty men alone in the dark.”

Cynthia nodded. Longarm rose, took her hand, and together they walked over to where the creek bubbled over rocks. They both knelt and cupped water to their faces and their privates, washing themselves.

Longarm was aware of Cynthia casting occasional, furtive glances at him. He cast his own at her, sheepish and also incredulous about what had just occurred between them.

Love bred by violence.

He chalked it up to their anxiety, then took a long drink of the cool water, and returned to the camp and dressed. When Cynthia had also dressed, Longarm kicked dirt on the ­near-­dead fire, retrieved his horse from where he'd left it downstream, and then saddled Cynthia's horse. He confiscated two of the dead men's bedrolls and some coffee, jerky, and biscuits they had in their saddlebags, freed their horses, and gave Cynthia a hand up onto her steeldust's back.

They rode upstream about a thousand yards, at a narrow spot in the canyon, and set up camp in a small horseshoe of the creek, in a nest of rocks and junipers. Longarm did not build a fire. The light would only attract those of Drummond's gang sent to investigate the shooting.

He and Cynthia unsaddled their horses and spread their bedrolls in the soft grass, in the lee of their saddles. She sat down on her blankets, leaned back against her saddle, and drew her knees up. She wore a long, green wool riding skirt and ­high-­topped brown boots. She smoothed the dress down against her legs. The temperature had dropped down to the low fifties or so. Thin tendrils of vapor trailed around their heads as they breathed.

“What those men were doing to me,” she said in a thin, pensive voice, staring off toward a ­powder-­horn moon climbing over a black ridge, “is probably what the rest of the gang is doing to Casey.”

“Don't think about it.”

“Over and over.” Cynthia shuddered.

“I'll get after them in the morning, do everything I can to get her away from them coyotes.”

Cynthia looked at him. “
We
will. I'm going with you.”

“No.”

Longarm had dug his bottle out of his saddlebags. He popped the cork and handed the bottle down to her.

She took the bottle. “Custis, I'­m—”

“No,” he said, putting steel in his voice. “Take a drink of that. It'll warm you up and help you sleep.”

Cynthia tipped the bottle back. She didn't take a very large sip before pulling the bottle back down. She made a face as she swallowed, then ran the back of her hand across her mouth. “I don't see how you drink that stuff.”

She'd always been more of a port drinker.

“It's not going to help me sleep.” She handed the bottle back to Longarm. “I won't be able to sleep, knowing that Casey's with those . . . men. Going through what she's going through and knowing that Ryan is dead. I wouldn't doubt it at all if she simply gave up, knowing that even if she does get away from those killers, she has nothing to go home to but heartbreak.”

Longarm took a long pull from the bottle. He looked around, pricking his ears. Hearing nothing more than the horses breathing where they were tethered nearby, he took another pull from the bottle and then sat down beside Cynthia. He wrapped an arm around her, squeezed her reassuringly.

“I know it'll be hard, but try to get some sleep. It's late. Mornin' will be here before we know it.”

She sighed and squirmed against him, wrapping both her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. She gave a sob, and then he felt her slump against him as her exhaustion overtook her.

Soon he could tell from the lack of tension in her body, and her slow, regular breaths, that she was asleep.

He leaned back against his saddle, holding her. A few times he dozed, but mostly he sort of half lay there against his saddle, holding her, watching and listening, thinking about how he was going to run down twenty men and pry a girl out of their viselike grip.

If Casey was even still alive by the time he found her, that was. Men like those in Drummond's bunch would likely use her and cast her away like an old newspaper. Longarm knew that it was entirely likely that he'd find Casey Summerville lying dead in a ravine somewhere along the trail to the Never Summer range.

He looked down at Cynthia slumped against him, her eyes lightly closed, lips parted as she breathed in a deep, dreamless sleep. At least that hadn't happened to Cynthia. He'd never given much thought to love before, but he figured that to have been as fearful as he'd been for the heiress's fate, love must have found him, after all.

At the first pale brush of the false dawn, Longarm slipped out from beneath the beautiful, sleeping girl and gentled her back against his saddle. Quietly, he scoured the brush for deadfall. He'd build a fire and make some coffee with the supplies he'd confiscated from one of the three men he'd killed.

He could risk a fire now, with day coming on. Drummond's bunch was most likely headed south toward the Colorado border and the maze of mountains beyond. They'd hole up amongst those rugged peaks and wait for their trail to grow cold before heading on out of Colorado, spending their loot all along the way.

Then they hit another bank or a train, maybe a stage, take another girl or two . . .

Longarm built a fire, filled a pot at the creek, and set coffee to boil.

Dawn became a pale lamp gradually glowing brighter around him, and birds began chirping in the trees. He sat on a rock near his small, crackling fire, a cup of hot, black Arbuckles in his hand, and watched Cynthia sleep, one cheek pressed against the palm of an open hand.

The girl stirred, lifted her head with a start.

“Easy, girl,” Longarm said. “All's well.”

She blinked. When her frightened eyes found him, they softened, and she smiled. “That coffee smells good.”

“Damn good. And just what the doctor ordered. I'll pour you a cup.”

Cynthia stretched, rose, winced, and pressed a hand to her back. “Stiff,” she said. “I can't imagine how you sleep on the cold, hard ground as often as you do, Custis.”

“You get used to the creaks. No choice but to, I reckon.”

As Longarm filled a second cup, Cynthia came over with a blanket draped around her shoulders. She hugged Longarm from behind, kissed his ear and his cheek. “I'm gonna go freshen up. Be right back.”

He watched her walk away, her round rump swaying enticingly behind the tight, slitted riding skirt that offered a teasing glimpse of one long, pale leg. Her long, black hair hung free down her back to nearly her waist. The stygian tresses were prettily mussed and tangled, lending the refined young heiress an ever-so-vaguely savage air.

Longarm remembered the mad rutting of the night before, her three attackers lying freshly dead around them. A vague guilt prodded him when his member stirred.

Cynthia returned to the camp, and they had a cup of coffee together and chewed biscuits and jerky. When the golden sun was beginning to poke above the eastern horizon, sending buttery spears across the sky, they saddled their horses. Longarm slid his rifle into his saddle scabbard and then walked over to where Cynthia was adjusting her left stirrup.

Knowing their parting was imminent, and that there was no way he was going to let her ride along with him on the trail of her kidnapped friend, Cynthia looked ­frustrated. Longarm wrapped an arm around her waist, kissed her cheek. “You head straight back to Arapaho, now, girl. Your aunt is probably beside herself.”

“I want to ride with you in the worst way, Custis. Casey needs me.” She turned to face him. “But I know when you've made up your mind.”

“Don't let me catch you on my back trail,” he said, pointing an admonishing finger at her.

“You won't,” Cynthia said, nodding. “I promise. I'll ride straight back to Arapaho and wait.”

Longarm engulfed the girl in his arms and squeezed her.

“I just hope you find her alive, Custis,” Cynthia said.

“Me, too.”

Longarm helped her into her saddle and watched her ride off along the creek, heading northeast. He watched until she was out of sight, and then he climbed into his own saddle and reined the horse through the woods and onto the trail that angled southwest, toward the Colorado border.

The tracks of many shod horses were still clear in the chalky dirt, with the occasional, relatively fresh horse apple. Longarm followed them, pushing the sorrel as fast as he dared, knowing that being set afoot out here in this wide open country, with ranches spread as wide as an old coyote's teeth, would mean that he'd likely lose the gang as well as any chance of saving Casey Summerville, and he'd have a long walk back to Arapaho.

The trail he followed through the morning forked in a couple of places, but it was not hard to see which tine the gang had taken. They continued heading southwest, toward the rugged, ­spruce-­green peaks jutting on the southern horizon.

All he'd learned from the outlaw whom McIntyre had executed was that the gang was headed for a ranch cabin along Purgatory Creek in the Never Summers. Longarm knew that Purgatory Creek was a long, meandering creek that virtually split the Never Summers in two. Those mountains, barely distinguishable from several other ranges around them, were wild, savage country.

If he lost the gang's tracks, he'd have one bear of a time finding that ranch. There was a good chance that he never would.

Around eleven thirty, hearing something, Longarm reined the sorrel to a halt and turned the mount sideways. He stared off down his back trail.

He heard the sound ­again—­the intermittent drumming of shod hooves. He squinted as he stared toward the north and eventually saw a dust plume rising between two sandstone dikes. From this distance of nearly a mile, he could make out a ­thumbnail-­sized gob of brown pulling that dust plume along at a rapid clip.

Several riders heading toward him.

Apprehension tickled the back of the lawman's neck. Had Drummond's bunch circled around and picked up his trail? Were they now dogging
him
?

Quickly, Longarm reined the sorrel off the side of the trace and into some thick scrub behind a butte that became a rocky crag halfway from its bottom. Longarm tied the grulla to a juniper branch, slid his Winchester from its scabbard, and jogged to the crag. He began climbing the badly eroded slope, boots slipping in the loose dirt and gravel.

Watching for rattlesnakes, he wended his way through the rocks until he was about fifteen feet from the top of the formation. He found a niche amongst the boulders overlooking the trail, dropped to a knee, levered a cartridge into the Winchester's action, and hunkered low, waiting.

From his position on the butte's shoulder, he could see about a quarter mile up trail. Gradually, the thudding of the galloping horses grew louder. He could feel the vibration through the rocks. He started to hear the animals snorting and blowing, the creak of saddle leather, and the rattle of bridle chains.

The gang appeared through the scrub, tracing a bend in the trail. Longarm raised his rifle, rested the barrel on a rock in front of him, and dipped his cheek to the stock, narrowing one eye as he aimed down the barrel.

The gang came around the bend, and Longarm instantly slackened his trigger finger. Thrum McIntyre was at the head of the pack that appeared to number around ten men. A chunk of tin flashed on the man's brown leather vest.

Longarm stepped out to one side, planting a boot on the edge of a rock and waving his Winchester broadly, ready to throw himself back into the niche if one of the posse members threw a hasty slug his way.

McIntyre turned his head toward Longarm. The old lawman's eyes widened beneath the brim of his brown, ­high-­crowned Stetson. He started to reach for the rifle sheathed under his right thigh, but then he blinked in recognition and threw up his left hand, hauling back on his reins with the right one.

“Whoa! Stand down, boys!”

When the posse came to a dusty halt on the trail at the butte's base, Longarm shouldered his Winchester and said, “Thrum, what in the hell are you doin' out here?”

McIntyre held his jittery buckskin under tight rein, jerking in the saddle as the horse fidgeted, shook its head. “What the hell you mean, Custis? That passel of savages murdered my boy. I'm not dead, so I'm ridin' after 'em. Any sign of 'em yet?”

“I shot three that had waylaid Miss Larimer.”

“Oh, no,” McIntyre said, wincing. “Her aunt told me the young lady had ridden after the gang. Did they kill her?”

Longarm scowled down the slope at the posse ensconced in billowing dust. He could smell the sweat of the lathered horses. “No, they didn't kill her. Didn't you meet her on the trail? I put her on her horse early this morning and headed her back toward Arapaho.”

McIntyre scowled back at the federal lawman. “Hell, ­no—­I haven't seen her. Hope she didn't get off the main trail, get herself lost.”

Longarm cursed as he turned away and hiked back down the slope, weaving his way amongst the rocks. He scowled down at the ground, his rifle on his shoulder, as he leaped rocks and occasional clumps of dry, twisted buckbrush. Again he found himself worried about Cynthia.

There was only one route back to Arapaho. If she'd been on it, she would have met the posse somewhere along the trail. Since McIntyre hadn't seen the girl, she must have gotten off the ­trail—­either intentionally or unintentionally.

Either way was bad. But, as much as he wanted to, Longarm didn't have time to try to track her down. He had to get after Drummond.

He tramped back to his horse and swung into the leather. He rode back out to the trail where McIntyre sat with the rest of the posse. There were eleven ­men—­shopkeepers, by the look of them. Most wore shabby dress shirts and pants, their coats tied around their bedrolls. While they were ­well-­armed, the bulk of the weapons Longarm saw were old as dirt.

The oldest gent, in a ­three-­piece suit and derby hat and riding a mule, was armed with what appeared to be an old Civil ­War–­model Leech & ­Rigdon—­a ­Confederate-­made ­cap-­and-­ball revolver that sported as much rust on its steel frame as bluing. Three inches of the barrel poked out the ­open-­toed leather holster that the older gent wore on his thigh.

McIntyre read Longarm's mind. The old lawman glanced at the men behind him. “They'll do.”

Longarm nodded, trying to conceal his wariness. Ten shopkeepers and one aging sheriff with a heart condition were no match for the Drummond gang. But it wasn't Longarm's place to turn them back.

Longarm pointed his sorrel up the trail and touched heels to the mount's flanks. McIntyre did the same, his buckskin matching the sorrel's stride to Longarm's left.

As they rode, Longarm looked his old friend over. Thrum rode ­stiff-­backed, his jaws set hard, his eyes dark with a steely determination. The rage and grief fairly emanated from the old lawman. His face was just as pale and haggard as it had been yesterday, when McIntyre had been sitting on the boardwalk staring at his dead son. His shoulders appeared even more fragile, as though his long, thin arms could be pulled from their sockets with the least pressure.

Longarm wished his old friend had stayed in town with the rest of these men. But he understood why McIntyre and they had to be here, and he didn't blame them. Longarm just didn't think that his having these men behind him was going to up his odds much at running down Drummond's bunch. In fact, they mighty even hinder his efforts. Sometimes the silence and stealth of one man was as valuable a weapon as twelve armed men powdering a trail together.

All that day, McIntyre didn't say much. Neither did the others. During stops to water and feed and rest the horses, an uneasy, weary tension oozed from the group.

None aside from McIntyre and possibly the even older man with the shotgun and the mule wanted to be here. During a brief conversation while he and the others filled their canteens at a spring, Longarm learned that the ­old-­timer was Milford Stanley, president of Arapaho Bank & Trust. Stanley and his wife had lived in the bank's second story while renting out the third story to a half dozen other ­citizens—­all without homes now. One elderly lady, a widow, had died in the fire. The old banker was looking for a comeuppance as well to help out his old friend, McIntyre.

Longarm genuinely hoped he got that reckoning and didn't die bloody or suffer a stroke for his efforts.

They continued heading south through valleys that narrowed and then broadened. They followed canyons around mountain walls and climbed high into heavy conifer forests. Longarm could tell that the air was getting thinner, for he felt a dull ache in his head, and his horse seemed to be blowing harder, straining. The air was fresher, cooler.

A moon rose, allowing the posse to keep hammering the trail after dark. Longarm could tell by the tracks they were following, and by the horse apples that he occasionally tested with his fingers, that they were gaining on the gang. The farther they traveled from Arapaho, the more leisurely the gang's pace had become, as though they'd doubted they'd be followed beyond twenty miles or so.

The waxing moon was hovering high over the eastern ridges when Longarm reined the sorrel to a stop in a broad valley between ­pine-­clad slopes. He held up a hand, and the others checked their own tired mounts down.

“What is it?” McIntyre said in a raspy voice. He coughed into his fist, spat to one side. The ride had been hard on the unhealthy man.

Longarm sniffed the air. “Smoke. There's a fire nearby.” He glanced at the men flanking him. “Everyone, off the trail!”

He led the way off the trail's north side into a small grove of piñons and cedars studding several small knolls. The others followed and dismounted when he ­did—­wearily, heavily, some of the men groaning, others sighing. The banker dropped his shotgun, which hit the ground with a clattering thud.

Longarm picked it up for the man, brushed it off, and handed it back to him.

“Thanks,” Stanley said in a pinched voice. His old, potbellied body was worn out and stiff from the ride. In the moonlight, he looked miserable. “You think they're close?”

“Someone's close. That smoke's from a campfire. No point in ridin' right up on 'em.”

Longarm slid his Winchester from his saddle boot. He plucked his field glasses from his saddlebags and looped the lanyard around his neck. He walked southeast, the direction from which the smell of the smoke had come.

The others tramped along behind him, stumbling, making more noise than they should have been. Some­-
one kicked a rock and raked out a curse. McIntyre walked up alongside Longarm, holding his Winchester up high across his chest in both his gloved hands.

Longarm led the men up a low ridge. When he dropped to his hands and knees, the others did the same and crawled along behind him and McIntyre.

Near the crest, Longarm doffed his hat and edged a look over the ridge and into a canyon on the other side. Through the trees dropping away below him, he could see a flickering light. The milky blue moonlight shone on the roof of what appeared a ­low-­slung cabin on the canyon floor, against a ridge and surrounded on three sides by evergreen forest. Smoke rose from the cabin's chimney, showing ­blue-­gray in the moonlight.

Longarm raised his field glasses and studied the clearing in which the cabin sat. Flanking the cabin was what appeared a privy, a barn, a small ­building—­possibly a ­springhouse—­and at least two corrals. Dark, bulky shapes shifted around in one of the corrals.

“I do believe we've found 'em,” Longarm said as he continued studying the canyon through the glasses.

McIntyre was gazing through his own spyglass. He was breathing hard and audibly, the air raking in and out of his tired lungs. Longarm could smell the sickly, ­vinegar-­like sweat on the older man.

“Well, I'll be damned. Probably stopped to rest their horses for the last pull into the Never Summers.”

“Why don't you and your men wait here while I check it out?” Longarm said. “We'd best be sure it's Drummond and not just some rancher's house.”

“Their trail leads into that Canyon, Custis.”

“Just the same, we'd best be sure.”

McIntyre nodded. “All right. We'll all get a little closer.”

He looked at the weary men spread out to his right and canted his head toward the canyon. Longarm wished that McIntyre would remain here on the ridge, but he was out of his jurisdiction. Hell, officially he wasn't even on duty. He was on vacation. McIntyre was calling the shots.

Longarm donned his hat with a sigh. He rose and walked up and over the ridge, staying as low as possible. He glanced to his right at the others stumbling over rocks and cursing under their breaths. Their weapons clattered. One man kept sniffling as though he'd picked up a chill.

Longarm shook his head as he made his way down the slope and into the pines. There appeared to be two tiers to the slope. The first tier was relatively ­short—­maybe a hundred yards. The next one was shallower, and there was a mix of conifers as well as deciduous trees, mainly aspens and some wild mahogany and currant shrubs, growing on its slope.

Here, McIntyre and the others hunkered down with their weapons while Longarm continued down the last slope toward the canyon floor. From this slope, he could see the cabin more clearly. All of its windows appeared lit. The smoke continued to unfurl from the broad stone chimney on the cabin's far side.

Halfway down the second slope, Longarm stopped and dropped to a knee. He looked around carefully, using his ears as well as his nose in addition to his eyes. Drummond must have posted pickets around the perimeters of the ­yard—­if it really was the Drummond gang holed up in the cabin, that was. To not post a guard would have been foolish, and Drummond hadn't lived long enough to gain the reputation he had by being foolish.

Savage, yes. Foolish, no.

But Longarm neither saw nor heard or smelled anything unnatural. The night was so quiet that he could occasionally hear the horses sniffing in the corral flanking the cabin and the yammer of a distant coyote and the hoot of an owl. But that was it.

And the ­near-­total silence made him nervous.

He walked down another stretch of the slope. It was steep here so he sort of slid down sideways, holding his rifle in his left hand and holding his right one out toward the slope to catch himself if he fell. Something nudged his left shoulder.

He wheeled.

A ­pointed-­toed, badly scuffed brown boot hung suspended before him. Longarm gave an involuntary shudder and stumbled backward. His left boot slipped, and he hit the ground on his ass.

He stared up at the brown boot that had nudged him. There were two boots hanging side by side. The toe of the left boot had been worn all the way through, showing a white sock. Longarm's gaze followed the boots up to a pair of ­denim-­clad legs. Then he saw the entire figure of the man hanging from an aspen branch.

Another figure hung beside the first.

Longarm gained his feet, holding his rifle in both hands, his thumb raking the hammer back. He stared up at a ­dark-­clad, old, ­gray-­faced woman hanging beside
the old, ­bib-­bearded man. They'd both been hanged from the same aspen branch.

They were likely the couple from the cabin. The Drummond bunch had shown just how savage they actually were. They'd hanged the old couple, probably as a warning to anyone following, and taken over the cabin.

Longarm returned his gaze to the ­well-­lit shack spewing smoke into the moonlit sky. Apprehension raked him.

Quiet. It was just too damn quiet. Silent.

What was Drummond up to?