The Last Hard Men (13 page)

“The tracks go down there,” said Sheriff Nye.

“So do we,” Burgade said, and put his horse forward.

The old-timer on the porch had veinshot eyes. He spat tobacco juice off the porch and waited for the posse to come in. Then his face changed and he said, “If it ain’t Sam Burgade.”

Burgade tried to make out the features in the porch shade. The old man cackled: “Shit, Sam, you don’t recognize me.”

“Rinehart. Dutch Rinehart.”

“Sure I am.”

It was beyond belief. This old caved-in wreckage of a man. Burgade remembered him: full of spit and beams, top horse-wrangler on the Hatchet ranch. Burgade wiped a hand across his face to conceal his awe and the dismal rage of knowing he was himself just as old and used-up as the half-drunk human carrion on the porch.

Burgade was looking at the bandage wrapped unsanitarily around the spindly old leg. The old man was a strange sight in clawhammer coat and dirty white drawers, no trousers. “You all right, Dutch?”

“Ain’t but a bullet hole. Went through me clean. I’ve had worse.” The bleary eyes surveyed the posse. “Shit, you still in the man-tracking business, Sam?”

“Looking for Zach Provo, Dutch.”

“I didn’t get their names,” the old man said dryly. “They were eight or nine of ’em. Scairt the pants off me, as you can plainly see.”

Sheriff Nye said, “It was them shot you?”

“Yair, I sure as hell don’t go round shootin’ myself.”

“Why’d they do it?”

“I guess to keep me from walkin’ into Snowflake and telling the law they was here,” Rinehart said, with an amazing lack of rancor. “I only had but six or seven head of horses here but they tooken off with ’em all. You catch ’em, Sam, I’d be obliged if you get me my horses back.”

Burgade had climbed down; he walked up onto the porch and said, “Better let me have a look at that, Dutch.”

“No, never mind. If you happen to ride through Snowflake you might ask Doc Travis to drop out here.” Rinehart waved him away. “Shit, I’m all right. Take more’n a forty-five-caliber hole in the leg to do me much damage. It went clear through—bullet’s in that wall over there. I stuck a hot running-iron through it. Cauterized up fine.”

Behind him, Burgade heard young Hal Brickman whisper an oath in amazed horror. It made Dutch Rinehart grin. “These young ones ain’t got no i-dee what tough is, do they, Sam?”

Burgade’s face had closed up tight. He said in a taut hoarse-weary voice, “They had a girl with them.”

“Yair. Sure was a looker.”

“Was she all right, Dutch?” Burgade had to lick his dry, cracked lips.

“I guess. Hell, she was alive. She didn’t look as if she cared much if she was alive or dead. Like she just didn’t give a shit either way. But I guess she was all right. Why?”

“She’s my daughter.”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Christ, Sam, I am sorry.”

“How long were they here?”

“Long enough to rope out all my horses. Listen, you get your hands on them, my Rocking Chair brand ain’t hard to pick out. I’d be obliged.”

“How much of a jump have they got on us?”

“Six, maybe seven hours.” Rinehart spat an amber stream at the ground. His lips peeled back in a mostly toothless smile. “They the toughest bunch I seen in a good spell. That skinny little Mex didn’t bat an eye when he shot me. Just took aim, casual like, as if I was a tin can for practice. I swear I didn’t really think he was gonna do anything until the damn gun went off. He wasn’t even mad. Jesus, I’m sorry about your girl, Sam. I hope you run them down.”

“I will,” Burgade said. “Thanks for your time, Dutch.”

“Hell, I wisht you could set a spell. You and me ain’t jawed in years, we got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Take care of yourself. We’ll send the doctor out.” Burgade went to his horse and climbed up, anguish in all his joints. He turned the horse and heard Nye say behind him, “One little thing, Mr. Rinehart—you happen to notice which way they headed?” Nye’s voice was dry and Burgade didn’t miss the implied rebuke.
Getting rattled
, he admitted to himself, but he kept right on going and barely heard Rinehart’s reply:

“Northeast. You want to watch out for them hard cases, mister, they don’t—”

Burgade rode out of earshot. Past the deputies and Hal Brickman with his sunburnt, bleak, tired face, and kept on riding, not waiting for the others, angling out to the northeast and scanning the ground for sign. There was an urgency in him and Nye remarked it when he galloped up: “Easy, Captain, let’s don’t windbreak these horses.”

“Another day and they’ll be across the line, Noel.”

“Then let’s get ourselves on into Snowflake and make a few telephone calls, get a couple posses moving out of Winslow and Holbrook to head them off this side of the line.”

But the phones were dead in Snowflake, as might have been expected: the wires had been cut outside the town at both ends. They dispatched the doctor to Rinehart’s and rode on into the dusk.

They had been fifty-six hours on the trail now. Time and heat and jurisdiction boundaries had pared the posse down and changed the personnel: only one of Nye’s deputies was still with them; the rest had gone back to Pima County to be replaced by men from Coconino and Navajo counties. Posses were out all over northeastern Arizona, New Mexico had squads combing the badlands, both Utah and Colorado had statewide alarms out. But it was a big wilderness. Provo had slipped through, cutting every wire he came across. The fugitives had avoided most towns and main roads; they had raided horse ranches frequently enough to keep supplied with fast mounts, and if they were sleeping at all they were doing it in the saddle, on the move.

The moon came up, a horned crescent not yet in its first quarter, only a thin rind; but there were no clouds and the starlight was good enough for tracking. Until they got into the chopped-up rocklands. Here it was all shale and petrified wood and there wasn’t a chance of picking up sign at night. Nye started to curse. “Christ, we know they’re headed north, but northeast or northwest now? That line’s two hundred mile long. They can cross it anyplace.”

“Provo had it planned out this way,” Burgade said. “That’s why he hasn’t covered his tracks before. He knew he’d lose us along here.”

“Bastard,” Nye gritted.

“Let’s get on into Holbrook.”

It was after midnight when they pulled into Holbrook and rode across the Santa Fe tracks. Huge gray moths rustled around the street lamps. The town was asleep. Burgade dismounted in agony and went into the sheriffs office. The place was awake because of the manhunt but the only two people in it were temporary deputies; the permanent staff was out combing the badlands somewhere. Burgade borrowed the telephone and tried to get through to Gallup and Winslow. The line to Winslow was dead, but he reached the telephone exchange in Gallup, which was just over the line in New Mexico, and after some discussion with the switchboard lady in Gallup he finally got a sleepy-voiced deputy U.S. marshal on the line. Burgade identified himself and explained the situation in three or four terse sentences and said, “We’d take it kindly if you’d get on up to Window Rock, Marshal, and try to talk the Tribal Council into giving us permission to come aboard the Reservation to hunt these men down.”

When he concluded the call he went outside with Nye and propped his shoulder against the front of the building. He was too tired to stand up without support. He said, “They cut the lines somewhere between here and Winslow. That’s only a thirty-five mile stretch, so we’ve got a fair idea where they went across the Santa Fe tracks. It’s my guess they crossed over close to the east end of Winslow. Two or three big outfits right around there where they might pick up fresh horses and provisions. From there, on a horseback guess, I’d say they’d go north along the Little Colorado as far as Corn Creek and head into the rough country from there.”

“That’s prob’ly as good a guess as any,” Nye said. “But it don’t make no never-mind now, does it? They bound to be acrosst the line by morning. We ain’t gonna catch them now. Ain’t got a prayer.”

“Maybe. Let’s go down to the railroad depot.”

“Now that’s an idea.”

They commandeered a switching engine and caboose and left their horses behind; they piled into the caboose with their saddles and kit. Burgade stretched out on a trainman’s bunk and went immediately and thoroughly to sleep. Less than an hour later someone shook him awake. He came pawing up out of his coma like a man fighting an ocean undertow. Nye said, “The boys scared us up some horses.”

“What time is it?”

“Little after two.”

“We’ve still got a chance, then. We must have picked up four or five hours on them.”

“Don’t count on nothing, Captain—don’t be gettin’ yo’ hopes up.”

Winslow town was dead asleep. Burgade stepped down off the caboose and saw Hal Brickman waiting with a pair of horses. Everybody else was already mounted. It registered fuzzily on Burgade’s brain that the waiting horse was already cinched-up and ready to ride. Somebody had saddled up for him; they had let him sleep the extra minutes. It made him spiteful: he didn’t want to be humored or pampered. He climbed aboard, compressing his lips and gamely swinging his leg over, trying not to let them see how close he came to not making it.

He tugged his hat down. “Somebody’s missing.”

“Deppity Wellard,” Nye said. “Provo turned loose of those horses he stole off your friend Rinehart. I told Wellard he could take the horses on back to Rinehart’s and then go home—he was pret’ near played out anyhow. For that matter ain’t none of us in no fit shape for this, Captain. I’m only statin’ a fact. We ain’t quitting.”

“Where’d they find Rinehart’s horses?”

“Just outside the. ranch over there where we hired these. Nobody seen them swap horses but they must of done it not more’n two, three hours ago. Yeah, you was rat—they did come here.” Quiet respect echoed in Nye’s voice.

Settling his stirrups, Burgade caught Hal Brickman’s worried glance. Hal didn’t say anything. Hal hadn’t said much of anything for three days. He was a poor horseman and must be in saddle-blistered agony by now. But his jaw was thick with determination. A good man, Burgade judged: Hal had backbone. Burgade would get Susan back for him. Or die trying. Very likely the latter, he observed without passion.

Burgade’s posse left Winslow at a canter, steel-shod hoofs drumming in the starlight, along the right bank of the Little Colorado River toward the Navajo desert. It was just ten or twelve miles west of here that Provo had robbed the Santa Fe train twenty-eight years ago.

Seven

“Slow and easy, now,” Provo’s voice said in the darkness. “We won’t get another change of horses—these are going to have to do us.” The heavy, raspy voice reached Mike Shelby’s ears dimly, as if through a strong crosswind. Everything was a little hazy in Shelby’s consciousness; all he wanted in the world was sleep. The horse moved like a rocking chair under him and he had to fight to stay upright on the saddle; several times he almost fell off. At times he thought he’d have preferred to stay in the penitentiary and serve out his time. But he’d only served six months and had another nine and a half years to go. He guessed it would all depend on whether Provo was telling the truth about splitting up his buried cache of railroad gold. In the first place Shelby didn’t trust anybody much, and in the second place nobody was a hundred percent sure Provo even had the gold, let alone was willing to part with it. But one thing was certain: Provo was twice as trail-wise as any of the rest of them. Provo wasn’t just bragging when he kept reminding them that without him they’d have been captured a long time ago and sent back to the hole with years added on to their sentences: Provo knew every trick in the book and some that weren’t in any book. But Shelby didn’t like him much and didn’t trust him anymore than he trusted anybody else. Shelby hadn’t trusted anybody since his mother had run off with a drummer in Nineteen-ought-Five. He’d never known who his father was. His mother had kept company with a lot of men but at least she’d looked after her kid, until the drummer came along. Then she left him behind without even saying good-bye, as if he was an old towel she didn’t want to bother to pack.