Mark of the Hunter (13 page)

The third day found them riding along the North Platte, traveling a path beat out years before by covered wagons on their journey to Oregon, and that night was spent within sight of the formation the settlers called Chimney Rock. The next morning they awoke to find a thin covering of snow that hid all but the deep ruts left by the settlers' wagon wheels. It would be two more days before they reached range land that Cord was familiar with, prairie he had ridden for the Triple-T. They camped one more night by the river, planning to reach the ranch by noon the next day. While Cord and Dooley took care of the horses, Birdie set about gathering wood among the trees by the river, and soon had a warm fire blazing in a deep gully where there was some protection from the wind sweeping the prairie. In a short time, there was meat roasting over the flames and the coffeepot resting in the coals.

Bill Dooley settled himself as close to the fire as he comfortably could without setting his clothes on fire, watching Birdie tend the meat. “I swear,” he declared, “it seems to me that the weather gets colder than it used to. I reckon my blood must be gettin' thinner the older I get. When I was your age, Cord, I used to be able to lay down on the prairie without no fire and sleep like a baby.”

“Is that a fact?” Cord replied, somewhat skeptical. “Maybe your blood
is
gettin' thinner. I don't know, but I think your memory has sure as hell rotted away.”

Dooley chuckled at Cord's response, encouraged by the fact that the always stoic young man had actually made a joke. His expression turned a bit sheepish then and he asked a favor of them both. “You know, when we get to that ranch you worked for, there ain't no use in tellin' everybody that I'm wanted by the law, is there? I mean, I'd sure like to maybe get a fresh start with folks who don't know about my outlaw days.”

“I don't see why anybody needs to know about your past,” Cord said. “I don't think anybody on the Triple-T has any business askin' any questions. You can tell 'em you're the president of the United States for all I care.”

“Maybe I'll do that,” Dooley said, and poured himself another cup of coffee. “Who the hell is the president, anyway?”

“Damned if I know,” Cord replied, scratching his head. “Grant?”

“No,” Birdie said. “Rutherford Hayes.”

“I don't believe I ever heard that name before,” Cord said. “Better remember that name, Dooley, if you're gonna be the president.”

“If we're gonna do that,” Birdie added, “let's don't tell them you found me in a whorehouse, either. We can tell them I'm the president's daughter.” Her remark caused them all to laugh.

The joking caused Cord to try to remember the last time he had experienced a lighthearted evening with friends. He could not remember one—maybe there were times with his mother when he was a small boy; he couldn't recall. That thought caused him to return to the somber vow of vengeance he had taken, and had now put aside, for how long he couldn't know. A sudden nickering from the horses brought his mind back to the present, and he became immediately alert. Hearing it as well, Dooley rolled over the edge of the gully into the shadows, a reaction formed after many years on the fugitive end of a deputy marshal's posse. Cord motioned for Birdie to get down near the narrow head of the gully. She did so at once, pulling the .44 Colt she had taken to wearing from her holster. Silently berating himself for becoming careless, Cord drew his rifle up beside him and hugged the side of the gully. There was something out there in the darkness—there always was—but this something had come close enough to make the horses inquire. A few more moments passed; then the silence was broken.

“Looks like we got us some squatters, Bo, or maybe some cattle rustlers. Whaddaya think?” Mace Tarpley walked up to the side of the gully to stand just outside the firelight, his rifle carried casually in one hand.

“Sure looks that way,” Bo Denton agreed. “On Roman-Three range, too, after Mr. Striker said not to let no drifters camp on his land.” He appeared on the other side of the gully. “Whaddaya reckon we oughta do with 'em?”

Trapped between the two men, Cord was not in a position to do much about it. They might have evil intentions in mind, or they might just be thinking about having some entertainment by rawhiding some drifters. The longer he could keep them talking, the better his chances of coming out of this alive, he figured. He hoped that Birdie would stay huddled down in the narrow head of the gully. A moment later, that thought was answered.

“Look up here at the top of this gully,” a third voice said as Benny Sykes moved up to stand over Birdie. “Looks like a boy hidin' up here.”

There was nothing left for Cord but to try to talk his way out of the situation. “This ain't nothin' but a little misunderstandin',” he said. “We thought we were on Triple-T range.”

“Well, you ain't,” Mace said. “You're on the Roman-Three, and Harlan Striker don't allow no riffraff on his property.”

“That so?” Cord replied, getting madder by the moment, but trying to control his anger for fear he might get Birdie hurt. “Well, if you back off a little, we'll move on across the river.”

“That ain't gonna do no good,” Mace said. “The other side of the river belongs to the Roman-Three, too. So I reckon we're just gonna have to teach you and the boy a little lesson so you don't forget whose land this is.”

“There's another'n here somewhere, Mace,” Bo warned. “There's three saddles here.”

Mace became alert at once and pulled his rifle up in both hands. “Where's the other one?” he demanded of Cord.

“Right behind you, you sorry piece of shit,” Dooley informed him from the shadow of the trees, “with this Winchester aimed at the center of your back.”

Bo's hand immediately dropped to the handle of his Colt. “Pull it and you're a dead man,” Cord warned him, his rifle now leveled at him.

“I've got the other one,” Birdie announced, trying to make her voice as husky and deep as she could.

“Looks like there's a standoff,” Cord told Mace. “That kinda changes things, don't it? I figure you've got two choices. You can take a slug in the back, and your two friends get one in the gut, or you can back outta here real slow and get offa Triple-T range. What's it gonna be?”

“Mister, I don't know who you are, but you're makin' a helluva mistake. Harlan Striker owns this range, and we'll hunt you down,” Mace threatened.

“That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard somebody say when we've got the drop on ever' one of you,” Dooley opined from the deep shadows behind Mace.

Mace was smart enough to see that the advantage had been reversed, and chances were he and his partners would lose if he pushed a gunfight. The situation infuriated him, knowing that he had been careless in scouting the camp before walking in on them the way they had. They should have accounted for the third man. It was too late now for anything but threats. “All right,” he said. “There ain't no need for anybody to get shot tonight. But if you know what's good for you, you'll get offa Roman-Three range first thing in the mornin', 'cause there'll be more'n three of us next time.”

“You tell your boss that there won't be any more crowdin' in on Triple-T range and no more cattle missin' from Will Murphy's herd,” Cord told him. “Tell him he's been warned and there won't be no more warnin's.”

“Mister,” Mace said, “you're talkin' like a man that don't know what he's up against.”

“I'm tired of hearin' your mouth,” Cord responded. “Get on your horses and get outta here.” He raised his voice then. “Dooley, keep your eye on 'em. Make sure they don't change their minds.”

“I'll watch 'em,” Dooley assured him.

“Come on,” Mace called to his two companions, and started to back away toward their horses. Benny Sykes, who was standing over the narrow end of the gully, had other ideas. During the standoff, he had been trying to get a better look at the “boy” huddled in the trench below him. He didn't look to be a very big boy. The hand holding the pistol aimed at him looked a little unsteady. He felt sure it was worth a try, but he hesitated to make the move. When Mace and Bo started backing away, he felt that the time was now, if he was going to do it. Suddenly he reached for the .44 at his side, setting off an explosion of gunfire. He never cleared his holster, doubling over when the bullet from Birdie's pistol tore into his side at the same time a slug from Cord's rifle smashed his breastbone. Almost in one move, Cord swung his rifle back in time to stagger Bo with a shot in the hip when the unfortunate man pulled his pistol. The pistol dropped to the bottom of the gully.

Not fool enough to try anything with a rifle already aimed at his back, Mace threw his hands up in the air. “Don't shoot!” he cried. “We're done! We're goin'.”

“Drop that rifle and back outta here,” Cord ordered as he climbed up on the side of the gully. “Birdie, you all right?” She said that she was, although her voice was shaky. Back to Mace then, he said, “Pick up that body and you and your friend get the hell outta here.”

Down on his hands and knees, Bo called out to Mace, “Mace, I'm shot. I can't walk. You gotta help me!”

“Help him,” Cord said.

Still burning inside by the total reversal of what had promised to provide some entertainment at the three campers' expense, Mace swallowed the bile rising in his throat and moved to help his wounded partner. He glanced down at his rifle lying on the ground, only to hear Dooley's words behind him. “I wish you would.” It was enough to hurry him along to help Bo back to his horse. Standing by the horses now, Dooley pulled the rifle out of Bo's saddle scabbard and held the horse's bridle while Mace struggled to get Bo up in the saddle. “Now get over there and pick up the other one,” he said.

With Cord following him and holding his rifle on him, Mace went over to the head of the gully where Sykes's body lay. Sykes was not a small man, and after a couple of attempts to pick him up, Mace complained, “I'm gonna need help to get him on his horse.”

Impatient with the clearing of his camp, Cord handed his rifle to Birdie and said, “If he makes a move, shoot him.” Then he grabbed the corpse by the shirtfront and jerked it to its feet, got his shoulder under his midsection, and hefted him up. “Come on,” he barked, and walked over to Sykes's horse and dropped the body across the saddle. Taking his rifle back from Birdie then, he watched while Mace climbed in the saddle. “Now git,” he said, and stood back. Mace didn't have to be told again. He rode up from the riverbank, furious and humiliated, vowing silently to avenge his defeat, holding the reins of Sykes's horse. Behind him Bo rode, lying on his horse's neck in an effort to ease the pain caused by sitting in the saddle.

Cord and Dooley followed their departing visitors on foot for a few hundred yards before turning back to their camp by the river's edge. “I reckon we'd best move from here,” Cord said when they got back to the fire where Birdie was waiting.

“That's just exactly what I was thinkin',” Dooley replied. “Those fellers might come sneakin' back around here to take a couple of shots at us.” There was no way of knowing if they had extra pistols in their saddlebags or not, or how far away their home base was. At any rate, it wasn't worth gambling on a peaceful night if they remained where they were.

Cord looked at Birdie. The young lady looked as if she was still shaken from the traumatic experience of shooting someone. He readily understood the shock to her whole system, for his adrenaline was still racing as well. “Are you all right?” he asked. “That was a pretty brave thing you did.”

Her eyes seemed to get even wider as she grappled with her emotions over having shot someone. After a moment, she responded, “Yes, I guess so.” She paused again. “I didn't even know I was going to do it. The gun just went off. It scared me, and now I can't seem to stop shaking.”

“We're gonna move on in closer to the Triple-T,” he told her, “and try to find somethin' a little safer. Why don't you gather up the cookin' utensils and see if you can pack up as much of that meat as you can. Dooley and I will saddle the horses and get ready to pull outta here.” He figured she'd snap out of it a little quicker if she busied herself with something. She nodded and began kicking snow over the fire as he left to help Dooley.

In a short time, they were packed up again and ready to ride. What meat they could carry was wrapped in the two antelope hides and tied on behind Dooley and Cord. The cooking supplies rode with Birdie on her mare. They rode for close to an hour before they began to see numbers of cattle in separate bunches, which told them they were well within the boundaries of the Triple-T. So they began to scout out a campsite that would afford some protection in the event they had any more guests that night. They settled on a small island in the middle of the river where they could see the approaches from either side. Cord and Dooley decided to take turns keeping watch until daylight. Birdie insisted that she could stand a watch as well as they, but the men wouldn't hear of it.

Harlan Striker was fuming when interrupted at breakfast to be told that one of his men had been killed and another wounded. His dark eyes seemed to throw sparks as Mace explained what had happened. “You mean to tell me you surprised three drifters camped on my range and you come limpin' back here with your tails draggin' and one less man? And now you're tellin' me that the three of them are still alive? What in hell do you think I pay you for?”

“We got bushwhacked,” Mace said in defense. “We didn't know that one of 'em was hid back in the trees. He had the drop on us. There wasn't nothin' we could do.”

“Three damn drifters,” Striker repeated in disgust. “And you ain't ever seen any of 'em before?”

“Maybe they weren't just drifters,” Mace said, remembering then. “The big one with the scar on his face said to tell you there wouldn't be no more cattle rustled on Triple-T range. They knew where they were and they knew the Triple-T. That sounds to me like they've hired on some new hands, and there ain't no doubt that feller with the scar is a paid killer. They were out there keepin' an eye on the cattle, just waitin' for us to show up.”

Striker couldn't deny that possibility, but it still didn't excuse the report Mace offered on the prior night's incident. His crew of fifteen men had been hired for their toughness and their know-how with guns. With Triple-T's crippled manpower situation, he should have had no trouble rolling right over them. Will Murphy wasn't even in the country, so when Mace put a bullet into Mike Duffy's chest, there was no one left to lead the Triple-T crew—and more than likely nobody to hire on new hands. And yet they stubbornly held on. “Damn it!” he suddenly swore, and threw his coffee cup against the log wall, causing Mace to take a quick step back. The news was turning his breakfast sour. “I need every man I've got.” The ranch house he had planned to have completed before winter was still only partially built, and would now have to wait until spring before the other bedroom and dining room were finished. He wanted a herd of at least two thousand to ship to the markets in the coming summer, and that meant changing a lot of Triple-T brands. “Rena!” he yelled. “Bring me some fresh coffee.”

In a few moments, the seldom-speaking half-breed Crow woman came from the kitchen, carrying the coffeepot. Solidly built and just a shade shorter than Striker, she was accustomed to his angry outbursts, but unperturbed by them, however, because she knew he would have trouble finding a replacement for her. She stood silently there by the table, holding the coffee- pot and staring at the table. “Where's your cup?” When he pointed to the cup lying on the floor near the wall, she looked at him and frowned. “You throw it down there again, I don't bring you no more.” She picked up the cup, put it in front of him, and filled it.

“Don't you sass me,” he warned. “I'll send your ass back to that stinkin' reservation.”

“Ha,” she scoffed, “who you gonna get to cook for you?” She fixed Mace with a dull gaze then and asked, “You want coffee?”

“No,” Striker answered for him, “he don't want no coffee. Now get outta here. We're talkin' business.” She shrugged and left the room. Mace stared after her, always amazed at how Striker tolerated the woman's impudence. Any of the men working for him would have been shot for such back talk.
Of course, none of the men came crawling in the old man's bed when he got cold in the middle of the night,
he thought, and would have grinned had he not been faced with Striker's angry countenance.

“How bad is Bo hurt?” Striker continued.

“Well, I reckon he'll live, but he ain't in no shape to ride anytime soon—shot in the hip. We put him in the bunkhouse. Smokey's lookin' after him, but there ain't a helluva lot he can do. It's pretty much up to Bo if he gets back on a horse or not.”

“He'd better,” Striker said. “He ain't no use to me if he can't ride.”

“Yes, sir. There's one other thing,” Mace said, reluctant to bring it up. “Those fellers took my rifle, Bo's and Sykes's, too. I'm gonna need another'n.”

Striker's scalding look of disgust was enough to make Mace cringe. “Then you'd better see about gettin' it back,” he snapped, and let him stand there under his fierce gaze for a long moment. “You can take one of the rifles against the wall, but it's only a loan till you get yours back. If you don't get it back, I'll take the cost of that one outta your pay.”

“Yes, sir,” Mace replied, humbly. “I 'preciate it. Ain't no problem. I'll damn sure get my rifle back, and I'll get the son of a bitch who killed Sykes.”

“They've got to learn that they ain't gettin' away with killing any of my men,” Striker told him. “By God, they want a war, I'll sure as hell give it to them. Take some of the boys and go find those three gunmen. You know what to do when you find 'em.”

“Yes, sir,” Mace said.

Striker watched his foreman take his leave, and stared at the door after it closed behind him, thinking about what had happened the night before. If what he suspected might have happened, he wondered if Mace was the man he needed to take care of it. The Triple-T must have imported some new gun hands to fight against his takeover. That could be more trouble for Mace than he knew how to handle. Mace and his boys would do any foul deed asked of them, but they were little more than back-shooting bushwhackers. And up to this point, that's all he had needed. Then again, maybe he was worrying too soon. The three riders they ran up on last night might be part of the same crew they'd been fighting all along, whether Mace had seen them before or not.
Before I spend any money on some high-priced specialist, I'll wait to see if anything's changed on the Triple-T,
he thought, but he had invested too much in the takeover to be scared off by some cheap gunslingers. If he had to send for a higher-priced specialist, he would do it, although it was already costing him much more than he had anticipated to get the cattle he wanted. It had taken him over five years as vice president in a San Francisco bank to accumulate his investment money, money he had embezzled, and he was getting impatient to see his ambitions bear fruit.

•   •   •

Mace and three men rode down to the river where Sykes and Bo had been shot the night before, to find the camp abandoned. “They musta got outta here pretty early,” Mace suggested.

“By the look of this fire, I think they musta left last night,” Lou Suggs speculated. “The ashes ain't even warm.”

“Right after we got away from here, most likely,” Mace conceded. “They probably headed for the ranch house.” He hesitated for a few moments, not really sure what he should do at this point. Striker had given him specific orders to find the three riders, but if they had gone straight to the Triple-T ranch house, he couldn't very well follow them there. He wasn't sure how many men were left on the Triple-T, but he suspected their numbers had dwindled considerably. It seemed that whenever he had spotted any of them, it had been the same few faces. And if that was indeed the case, he didn't understand why Striker didn't simply order all thirteen of his men to raid the ranch house and wipe them all out. He shared these thoughts with Lou. “Why don't we just go on in that place and kill 'em all, and be done with it?”

Lou Suggs was not an especially intelligent man, but he was smart enough to see the reasoning behind Striker's hesitation to make such a move. “I reckon Striker don't wanna take the chance of stirrin' up such a fuss that the law or the army will get wind of it. There's already talk in Ogallala about trouble between the Triple-T and the Roman-Three. As long as we just keep shavin' away at their cattle and thinnin' out their men, Striker probably figures won't nobody in town get riled up enough to stick their nose in it.”

Mace considered Lou's comments for a few moments. “Maybe you're right, but he damn sure told me to take care of those three strangers. So let's ride on down the river a ways and see if we can pick up some sign of 'em.”

•   •   •

The party Mace and his men searched for was approaching the charred remains of a line shack on Blue Creek. “Looks to me like this place was burnt down not too long ago,” Dooley said as he stirred some ashes with the toe of his boot.

“Hard to say,” Cord speculated, “but I'd have to agree with you.” He recalled the first time he had seen the log shack. It had been on the first night he worked for Mike Duffy when Lem Jenkins took him around part of the perimeter of the Triple-T. Lem had told him that the shack was built on a spot where a large Lakota village had once stood before being destroyed by the army. This was over twenty years before that night and Lem said he had often found bits of metal and arrowheads half buried in the grassy prairie. Cord was about to pass that history on to his two companions when the first bullet kicked up ashes barely a few inches from his foot. “Get down!” he yelled when he realized what was happening, and another bullet whined as it passed between Dooley and him. All three hit the ground behind the burned timbers of the cabin. Several more shots rang out, thudding into the timbers shielding them. “Can you see where they're comin' from?”

“I think so,” Dooley answered. “See that little knoll where the creek bends back to the right? I think they're layin' behind it.”

Cord looked in the direction indicated. “I think you're right.” He looked behind him to see if Birdie was all right. She was scrunched up against his back. “Well, we can't stay here,” he decided. “Stay low and lead the horses back into the creek. We can get a little better cover below the bank. Use the horses for cover till we get there.” He didn't have to encourage them further, for the bullets were beginning to land closer to them as the shooters found the range. Clambering to the creek on a dead run, they ran the few yards from the shack to the water, all three jumping down the bank, leading the horses behind them.

Once they were safely settled, Cord led them a dozen yards downstream to a group of trees that offered a little less exposure. “Well, our luck's holdin' out,” Dooley said. “They ain't hit none of us or the horses, either. We can hold 'em off from here.”

“That may be,” Cord said, “but we ain't goin' anywhere as long as they've got that high ground. They can keep us pinned down in this creek for as long as they want to.” In order to prove what he said, he put his hat on the barrel of his rifle and held it up over the edge of the bank. In less than a second, the hat was knocked off his rifle. “Well, I reckon they've got their rifles right on the distance now.”

Afraid they'd shoot the horses if they tried to run, Dooley said, “I reckon we ain't got no choice but wait till dark and sneak outta here then.”

“It's a long time till dark,” Cord replied, “and I don't cotton much to bein' holed up in this creek all day.” He didn't express it, but he was fighting to control his anger over the thought of being shot at when he was well on Triple-T range. He edged up behind a tree trunk to look at the knoll that protected the shooters. There were no targets presented for him and Dooley to return fire. He followed the creek with his eye then and figured it was worth a try. “I'm gonna work my way down the creek to where it turns back toward those buttes,” he told Dooley. “I just might be able to sneak outta there at the closest point to that knoll and get up behind 'em.”

“And get yourself killed.” Birdie offered an opinion.

“Not if I'm careful,” Cord replied.

“Damn, Cord,” Dooley complained, “I was countin' on you to help me get started makin' an honest livin' with your friends on the Triple-T. You go gettin' yourself shot and that leaves me in a tight spot. Hell, they ain't gonna hire me without your say-so.”

Cord almost laughed. “I'm touched by your concern for my life,” he said. “You ain't got nothin' to worry about. Just remember to tell 'em you're the president.” He didn't wait to hear Dooley's response, but immediately started down the creek, running hunched over in an effort to keep his profile below the creek bank.

“Damn it!” Birdie called after him. “Be careful!” She had placed her faith in the tall young man to see her safely to Ogallala. Without him, she was not that confident in Dooley's commitment to her welfare.

As if aware of what she was thinking, Dooley tried to reassure her. “Don't worry. He won't take no crazy chances. If anythin' happens to him, I won't leave you on your own.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, still not comfortable with the idea. She turned to look after Cord, who was already close to fifty yards away, running in a crouch, and expected to see him knocked over by a bullet at any second.

After a long few minutes, with no shots fired in Cord's general direction of flight, Dooley stated, “I don't think they saw him.”

Running until he was almost staggering from his hunched-over posture, Cord reached the point where Blue Creek turned abruptly toward a couple of buttes to the south. He paused to rest there and took a look at the situation. At the bottom of the back side of the knoll, three horses were tied to some mesquite bushes. When his eyes followed the slope of the hill, they came to rest on three forms lying near the top of the knoll. Flat on their bellies, all three were aiming at the creek bank some two hundred yards distant. Figuring that he should make his way about halfway up the slope to give himself the best chance of getting at least two of the three men before they had time to react, he left the creek and sprinted toward the horses.

The bushwhackers were too engrossed in their efforts to keep their adversaries pinned down in the ditch to notice the man coming up behind them. Even the inquisitive whinnies of the horses went unnoticed. Kneeling next to a clump of sagebrush, Cord brought the Winchester up to his shoulder and took careful aim at the man on the right. Suddenly he hesitated, unsure. Then instead of squeezing the trigger, he pulled the rifle down and yelled at them, “Hold your fire!” As if someone had thrown scalding water on them, all three jumped to defend themselves from a rear attack, causing Cord to have to yell at them again. “Stony! It's me, Cord Malone! Don't shoot, damn it!”