Part 14 (2/2)
The smile faded from the marshal's face as he stared into his coffee, absently swirling it. He took a sip, set the cup back on his thigh. ”I can tell you a better Considine story than that. About a year ago, he hit the town I was living in, shot up a saloon, and kidnapped my daughter. Took her off the street in front of the haberdashery. I tracked him into the mountains above Tucson, found Peg's naked body in the Salt River Canyon. She'd been beaten, carved up-”
Patchen took another sip of the coffee, his eyes hard as he stared out over the rim. ”Before he hit Saber Creek, he shot a pair of rangers. Execution style. That's what I'm gonna do to him.”
Speares sucked on his quirley as he looked off through the desert willows. ”Not if I get to him fir-” He stopped, frowning, slowly reaching up to pluck the quirley from between his lips.
”What is it?” Patchen asked.
Speares threw out an arm as he continued staring through the darkness. ”Quick-douse the fire!”
Patchen threw out the last of his coffee and sprang to his feet, kicking dirt on the fire. A second later he was crouched beside Speares, his Henry in his hands, following the sheriff's gaze through the willows and across the rolling, rocky slopes cloaked in starlit darkness.
It was hard to judge distance in this broken country, but about a mile away, a flickering, cone-shaped light shone. As Speares and Patchen stared, another, smaller light grew left of the first. A minute later, still another light appeared, quickly gaining vibrancy until it was as bright as the first two.
The three fires were about ten, fifteen yards apart.
The lawmen glanced at each other.
”What do you think?” Speares said.
”I think we got company,” said Patchen.
”Strange time to be settin' up camp.”
Patchen rubbed his sunburned chin. ”Ain't it, though?”
”Think we oughta check it out?”
”It smells like a trap.”
”If it's the gang, we might be able to pop a couple and get Anjanette out before they do to her what they did to your girl.”
”If they haven't already,” Patchen said.
”Once she's safe, we could go back in for Considine and the gold.”
”On the other hand, we might be wandering into an Indian camp. Or banditos.”
Speares smirked, impatient. ”Well, now, how in the h.e.l.l are we gonna know if we don't check it out?”
”I reckon you have a point.” Patchen walked back to the doused fire, where smoke rose from the dusty ashes, and began gathering his gear. ”We best break camp in case we need to split a.s.s outta here.”
When both men had rolled their blankets and saddled up, Patchen swung onto his horse's back. ”Let's take it slow. Apache slow. They could be waiting for us between here and the fires.”
”You know, Patchen,” Speares said snidely, toeing his stirrup while holding his saddle horn, ”you ain't the only experienced lawman out here.”
Patchen turned his horse and gigged it around rocks and through the willows, heading toward the fires and grumbling. ”Maybe not. But at least I learn learn from my experiences.” from my experiences.”
”I heard that,” Speares said, gigging his own mount up beside Patchen's. ”You're talkin' about that ambush, ain't ya? Well, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I done told you I was sorry about that. Those sonsab.i.t.c.hes are slick as d.a.m.n snakes in a privy pit!”
”Don't be sorry,” Speares said, swinging his head from left to right as he walked the horse down a rocky hill, starlight limning the sage, creosote, and occasional pine. ”Just keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”
Speares muttered something too softly for Patchen to make out, reining his horse a few yards right of the marshal and raking his gaze across the brush and the low, rolling hills revealed by starlight.
Moving slowly, often stopping and listening, the lawmen worked their way to within a hundred yards of the fires. They dismounted, tied their horses to a couple of low pines in a crease between hogbacks, removed their spurs from their boots, and continued on foot, about twenty yards apart and holding their rifles up high across their chests. They stepped quietly, keeping a low boulder snag between them and the fires, stopping every few yards to look around and listen.
As they moved, they heard only the slight swish of the breeze in the brush, occasional owls and coyotes, and the pops and snaps of the fires on the other side of the rocks. Sparks rose above the rocks, winking out among low cottonwood branches.
Speares moved around left of the rubble while Patchen slipped to the right. The marshal hunkered down behind a boulder, squeezing his rifle in his hands, and peered toward the flickering firelight about thirty yards ahead.
The three fires burned in shallow pits. The wood had burned down some, falling with soft thumps and thuds, but the flames still reached several feet into the air.
Around them, no one. There was no tack or gear of any kind. No extra wood for keeping the fires burning. It was as if someone had merely set the fires and left.
Electricity fired through Patchen's veins. His first instinct had been correct. The fires were a trap.
He'd begun to retreat when the snap of a branch rose on the other side of the false encampment. He stopped, held his position, peering around the rocks.
In the brush beyond the firelight, a shadow moved. Flames winked off steel.
A spur chinged softly.
From somewhere above and left of the marshal, a rifle boomed, shattering the heavy silence. A man grunted, and there was the thud of a body falling in brush.
”It's a trap!” a voice shouted, pinched with fury.
Boots thumped and brush crackled as two figures materialized from the shadows on the other side of the fire, both aiming rifles. Patchen pulled his head back behind the rock as two slugs blasted the side of it, spraying sand and rock shards.
Patchen snaked his rifle around the rock and was about to draw a bead on the shooter, when the rifle above and left boomed again. The man on the other side of the fire screamed and flew straight back into the darkness, throwing his Winchester.
A rifle lever rasped, and there were two more quick shots. A man cursed shrilly to Patchen's left. There was a loud thump, followed by a crunch.
A wail rose, filled with such misery that Patchen's belly flip-flopped.
Patchen peered around the rocks and to the left and saw a man crawling out of the far fire, his back and arms aflame. Still screaming, he pinwheeled, flapping his arms as though trying to fly, and sprinted off into the darkness-a human torch lighting up the surrounding brush and trees.
About twenty yards away, he collapsed against a boulder, clung there for a time, legs moving as though he were trying to climb the rock, and gave another yell. It sounded like a horse's anguished whinny. Finally, the man slumped to the ground and lay there, flames leaping around him.
Patchen spied movement on the far left side of the rocks. Speares came slowly out from cover, crouching over his rifle as he peered into the darkness around the fire.
A shadow jounced in the tree ahead and to the left of Speares. Patchen tensed, brought his rifle up. At the same time, Speares swung his own rifle around, angling it up at the tree.
A familiar voice: ”Hold on.”
Firelight flashed off a bra.s.s rifle casing. A man dropped from a stout branch to the fork of the cottonwood and from there to the ground, landing flat-footed, bending his knees. Long black hair fell across his shoulders, and his sweat-stained buckskin s.h.i.+rt stretched taut across his chest.
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