Manhunter's Mountain (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series Book 4) Page 4

  Cash smiled a wolf's smile. "Wouldn't you like to think so ... "

  * * *

  Parley pushed his miners as hard and far as he could before the storm forced them to take shelter. They found it in a narrow gully choked by stunted fir trees.

  "Damn rotten luck!" Parley cursed as they scraped out a camp clearing and got a fire going. "We could have ridden them down by sunset if only this snow had held off."

  "Same storm's gotta have them holed up somewhere, too," Swede Dixon pointed out. "We'll still catch up with 'em, it's just a matter of when."

  "And where," Hank Rostler added as he rubbed his hands together over the warming flames of the fire. "This wind and snow is sure as hell gonna wreck our tracking chances if it turns out Laramie is headin' his bunch anywhere else besides Split Rock Pass."

  "Abe Bushberry was pretty sure when he pointed us this way," Parley insisted.

  "What's more," Dixon added, "once that marshal starts out again he'll be leaving sign in this fresh snow that even a blind man could follow. We've got to be close, all we have to do is cut that sign and we'll not only have a clear way to follow but we'll have the trail broke for us to boot."

  Rostler grunted. "Yeah, well you two just keep clingin' to that rosy and positive outlook. Thing to remember, though, is that gettin' back on their trail is only part of our chore. If and when we catch up with 'em, takin' those whores away from the marshal ... Well, that'll present a whole new kind of storm to deal with. A storm of trouble and hot lead, most likely, before it's done."

  "You knew all that right from the get-go. Yet you volunteered," Dixon reminded him. "You ain't getting cold feet are you, Rostler?"

  Rostler's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I got cold feet ... And a cold nose and a cold pecker and a cold everything else. But not the way you mean, you damn smart-mouthed Swede."

  "Now everybody take it easy," Parley cautioned.

  Merl emerged from the thick fir growth at that point, carrying an armload of dry limbs and twigs that he'd gathered. "What's going on?" he asked as he deposited the wood beside the fire.

  "Nothing," Rostler grumbled. "We're just discussin' plans for how we're gonna deal with that marshal when we catch up with him and our whores."

  "You almost sound like you're lookin' forward to gunnin' down Laramie," Parley said in an accusatory tone.

  "A minute ago the Swede implied I was showin' yellow over facin' him—make up your minds."

  "I told you at the outset we ain't settin' out to commit murder, Rostler."

  Rostler sneered. "You keep tellin' yourself that, Parley. You know damn well Laramie ain't gonna give up those whores unless we do gun him down. If you think otherwise, you're a fool."

  Tension hung in the air for several beats, but no further words were immediately exchanged. Gradually, the hard looks were cast away and each man took up duties to help fortify their night's shelter. A wall of heavy blankets was strung up and the horses were staked in close to help provide a windbreak. Bedrolls were spread within nests of evergreen boughs.

  Over the fire, Merl soon had a pot of coffee bubbling and a huge pan of bacon sizzling. With this he served hardtack biscuits soaked in the bacon grease. The men ate mostly in silence, with the wind moaning low down through the gully and shrieking at a higher pitch up in the peaks. The fir growth absorbed much of the snow, but a steady accumulation of finer flakes still filtered through.

  When the meal was finished and final cups of coffee had been poured, Parley produced a bottle of whiskey that he passed around for each man to lace his drink. "From my private stock," he explained. Then, with a dry chuckle, he added, "Might be one of the last bottles left in Silver Gulch. Better to drink it out here as a defender against the cold—if I had it back in camp and word got around, I might be mobbed for it before winter was over."

  This bit of levity, on top of the hot food and the soothing effect of the spirits, seemed to finally put at ease most of the tension that had built up earlier. The men sipped their coffee and hunkered quietly against the cold and the night, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts.

  Suddenly, Swede Dixon sat up a little straighter and cocked one ear. "What was that? ... Did you hear that?" he said.

  "I don't hear nothin' but the damn wind," said Rostler, frowning.

  Dixon gave a faint shake of his head. "No, something carrying on the wind ... Listen."

  Four sets of ears strained and four hands edged closer to the nearest gun.

  And then a loud, booming voice floated in on the wind. "Hello, the camp!"

  Parley and the others all rose to their feet, fully alert now, guns gripped tight and held at the ready. Each man eased away from the campfire and into shadows on the edge of its illumination.

  "Hello, the camp!" called the voice again.

  "Hello back!" shouted Parley. "Show yourself and make yourself known."

  "I'm just an unlucky traveler caught in this storm," the voice replied. "I'm comin' in now."

  "You do that ... Come slow and keep your hands where we can see 'em."

  Out of the darkness, a lone man leading a horse became visible. The man was broad-shouldered, wearing a bearskin coat. A brightly colored bandana was tied under his chin, holding a short-crowned beaver hat down tight on his head.

  "Mighty glad to see your fire," the man greeted. His skin was as dark as Merl's coffee and the contrasting smile that he flashed shone a gleaming gold tooth. "I was lookin' for a place to hunker in when I saw your light—like a beacon." His smile faded and his expression turned guarded, somewhat anxious. "Ya'll don't mind sharin' your camp with a colored man, do you?"

  "The color of your skin makes no difference to us," Parley said, "as long as your intentions are honorable."

  "My intentions may not be honorable toward all men," Cole Bouchet responded, again flashing a brief smile, "but I bear no ill will toward anyone here."

  "Welcome then," said Parley. "We can offer you hot coffee and some leftover hardtack biscuits."

  "Under the circumstances, that sounds like a feast."

  Once Bouchet had unsaddled and staked his horse with the others, he lowered his big frame close to the fire and sat hunched toward it, gratefully accepting the coffee and hardtack offered him. "Obliged. Mighty obliged," he said. "My name, by the way, is Bouchet—Cole Bouchet. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen, and I hope some day I'll have the chance to repay your hospitality."

  –SEVEN–

  True to Faye's word, she and Little Red both proved quite useful at helping to set up their camp. While Cash tended the horses (after making sure Ames was adequately locked down), the women gathered kindling, got a fire going, spread out bedrolls on a layer of evergreen boughs to provide a block against the frozen ground, then prepared coffee and a meal.

  When they were done eating and their plates had been snow-washed and put away, Cash and Faye relaxed near the fire and talked. He lit up a cheroot, she a cigarette. Lobo Ames hunkered sullen and silent at the back of the cavern, chained there, wrapped in heavy blankets that he'd grumbled were insufficient to keep him warm—until Cash threatened to remove all but one if he didn't quit his complaining.

  Little Red had gone over to spend time with the horses, especially the little dappled gray mare Faye bought for her back in Silver Gulch. A delighted Little Red had named her Freckles. She named Faye's mare, too, calling her Rusty. It was clear the girl had a deep fondness for animals and they seemed to sense this somehow, responding readily to her gentle touch and murmurings, even Paint, Cash's tall, rugged pinto who generally displayed a bit of an independent streak. When Little Red had asked Ames what his horse's name was, he'd responded sullenly, "How the hell should I know—I only just stole the nag a week ago." The girl had showed little or no reaction over the horse being stolen, but she was clearly dismayed that it had no name so she promptly came up with one for it as well, deciding upon Blaze. After that, with each of the animals properly christened, she seemed content.

  Above the crackle of
the fire, Cash and Faye could hear the girl talking to the animals in a soft, soothing, sing-song voice. "Gal sure is crazy about them critters, ain't she?" Cash observed.

  "Something I was wholly unaware of," said Faye. "Although, since we didn't get a lot of horses upstairs back at Fat Oscar's, I guess I wouldn't be. But you're right, she's like a little kid surrounded by a bunch of four-legged toys. And they seem to respond to her as well."

  Cash grunted. "You know, up until she asked me about my horse's name I don't think I heard her speak half a dozen words. I sorta thought she was, well, a little simple in the head."

  "No, Little Red's actually quite bright. She's just terribly shy—around people, anyway. That might sound strange considering what she was doing in Silver Gulch, but you don't exactly have to be sociable or a brilliant conversationalist to lie on your back and let slobbering drunks paw at you. From what I've gathered, as she gradually came to trust and open up to me, Little Red has had a mighty rough go of things in her young life."

  "How so?"

  "She grew up in these mountains. Bred and born to 'em. Mother died when she was very young, Little Red barely remembers her. Her father was some kind of leftover mountain man or something, hated being around towns and civilization. Lived in a primitive cabin, hunted and trapped, existed off the land except for a few necessities he was forced to barter for. She never said in so many words but I got a pretty clear impression that, when Little Red got into her teens, the old bastard started using her ... you know, as his woman. Then came a point where he wasn't able to get around so good to do his hunting or trapping so their supplies wore down almost to starvation level. That's when Papa took her and sold her to some men in a mining camp—not Silver Gulch, but one just like it—and they made her their whore. She got sold and handed over a couple more times after that until she did end up in Silver Gulch ... I guess you know the rest."

  "What happened to the father?"

  "Nobody seems to know. Nobody saw or heard of him after he sold off Little Red. With any luck the old bastard fell in a hole and broke his back and lay there until he did starve to death ... or froze to death ... or maybe got bit to death by rattlesnakes."

  Cash nodded. "Be nice to think that. But even any of those would be too good for him."

  "We've all got out stories, I guess," Faye said, exhaling smoke. "But, damn, being sold into whoredom by your own pa ... that's a hard one."

  "What's yours?" Cash asked.

  "What's my what?"

  "Your story. You said everybody's got one."

  Faye laughed, somewhat bitterly. "Mine's real simple ... Bad timing, bad luck, and bad judgment in men. Let's just leave it at that." She flicked her cigarette butt into the fire, then turned her head and regarded the marshal closely. "What about you? What's your story, Cash Laramie?"

  The scrutiny caused Cash a measure of discomfort. He wasn't one to hold still for a lot of questions, especially about his past. Still, something about Faye made him feel more at ease with her than he did with most people. His sometimes partner Gideon Miles, a fellow deputy marshal, and Lenora Wilkes, a prostitute from a Cheyenne brothel he frequented when he was in town, were really the only two people he talked openly with on a regular basis. Nevertheless, he went ahead now and told Faye some of what she'd asked. "In a nutshell," he said, puffing his cheroot, "my story ain't a whole lot different from any other frontier brat whose parents got wiped out in a crossfire between Calvary forces and Indians and then got raised by the Arapaho until he returned to the White Man's world and became a federal marshal."

  Faye's eyes widened momentarily and then softened as she studied his face for a long moment before saying, "You're not kidding, are you?"

  "Not something I'd likely poke fun at."

  Nodding faintly, Faye said, "That would explain why there's a certain ... well, hardness about you. But I sense that, down deep, where you seldom want anyone to see, there's a tenderness too."

  Cash smiled thinly. "Yeah, I'm a regular pussycat."

  "No, seriously. The Arapaho people who raised you—they loved you like one of their own, didn't they?"

  "For a fact."

  "That arrowhead you wear around your neck ... that ties in some way to your Indian upbringing, doesn't it?"

  "It was a gift from my Arapaho mother."

  Faye sensed that she had prodded about as far as was advisable and felt too much respect and admiration for the marshal to push it further. So she lit another cigarette and refrained from asking more.

  Neither of them said anything for a time.

  The fire crackled, the storm outside the shallow cavern howled.

  Ames could be heard snoring contentedly, despite all his earlier lamentations.

  Little Red continued soothing and speaking her sing-song words to Freckles and the other horses.

  At length, Cash knocked the dried coffee grounds out of his cup and said, "Reckon we oughta be bunkin' down and getting ourselves some sleep. If this storm blows through like I'm countin' on and we're able to travel again, tomorrow's gonna be a long, hard day. Most likely be bitter cold and we'll have to break fresh trail the whole way from here."

  "If we are able to travel, how far do you hope to get in a full day?"

  "Down through Split Rock Pass, at least. There's a decent-sized settlement down in the foothills not too far beyond that. I doubt we can make it that far, though, so I expect we'll be spendin' one more night on the trail."

  Faye nodded. "We're up to it."

  "I know you are," Cash said. "You've shown your grit—you and Little Red both. But you still need to get some sleep now, while you can."

  Half-teasingly, Faye said, "You want we should leave those bedrolls like we first laid them out ... or should we maybe push them a little closer together?"

  "I said we need sleep," Cash growled. "Push those bedrolls any closer, there'd be too much risk none of us would get any rest."

  –EIGHT–

  The storm blew itself out during the night, just as Cash had been hoping.

  The new day broke still and bright and bone-numbingly cold.

  The marshal crawled reluctantly out of his bedroll, immediately pulling on his mackinaw and Stetson and then stomping into his boots, which he'd kept with him under the blankets to prevent them from growing cold and stiff in the open air. After he'd stoked a fresh fire and set a pot of coffee to brewing, he lit his first cheroot of the day and puffed on it as he made his way outside the protection of the cavern to see what their surrounding conditions looked like.

  The first rays of sunlight stabbing down over the eastern peaks bounced off six inches of fresh powder with blinding brilliance. Cash drank in the beauty of it while at the same time gauging the degree of difficulty it would add to their travel. For certain it would make their passage harder, he decided, but it was nevertheless manageable. It could have been a lot worse.

  And that was when he heard the distant gunshots.

  Sound does funny things in the mountains, bouncing this way and that, skipping over some spots altogether and then landing some other place where you might not expect it at all. A noise from a mile away might reach your ears distinctly, another from only a half mile might not be discernable at all.

  These sounds, these shots—there were four in all, three grouped closely together and then one final one coming after a slight pause—Cash was pretty sure came from somewhere west and a bit north of where he stood, and at a distance of less than a mile. Some other traveler caught in the storm, most likely. But who? And why? And what were they shooting at? Cash didn't have the answers to those questions, and the not knowing troubled him. He couldn't think of a solid reason why someone in close proximity necessarily posed a threat, but neither could he be sure that they didn't.

  He stood motionless for a handful of minutes, listening intently. No further shots were heard, no sound of anything really, except the soft rustle of the snow settling and the creak of the cold seeping into the trees.

  When Cash got
back to camp, everyone else was awake and stirring. Faye was slicing bacon for their breakfast, Little Red was tending the horses. Lobo Ames was sitting up in his blankets, scowling.

  "Was that gunshots a minute ago?" Ames said.

  "For a fact," Cash replied.

  Faye poured a cup of coffee and held it out to Cash. "So what does that mean?"

  "Means somebody was shootin' a gun." Cash sipped the coffee. "Who or why, I can't say."

  "Does it have anything to do with us?"

  "Don't see why it would."

  "You don't suppose some of the miners started out to try and reclaim Little Red and me, do you?"

  "Possible. They didn't seem to have that much fight when I faced 'em down outside the store. But maybe they worked up more courage after we lit out. Either way, it don't really explain the shots."

  "So what do we do? Get ready and continue on without worrying about those shots?"

  Cash sighed. "No, I don't care much for the idea of somebody prowlin' around out there close without knowin' what their intentions might be. Guess I'll have to go find that out."

  "What should we do in the meantime?"

  "Go ahead and have your breakfast. Get the horses saddled and packed. Be ready to ride when I get back." He jabbed a thumb toward Ames. "Feed that jackass something, too, but take care gettin' too close when you do."

  "What if you don't make it back?" Ames said.

  "That ain't gonna happen."

  "But what if it does?"

  Turning his back on the prisoner and striding to saddle his paint, Cash said over his shoulder, "Then you'll be in a world of hurt, mister, because I'm takin' your handcuffs key with me."

  * * *

  Not wanting to give away their position until he had a better idea who else was in the vicinity and what their intentions might be, Cash left the cavern encampment via a circuitous route, exiting out through the fir trees and then traveling a good distance south before looping west and then finally north. If his approximation of where the shots had come from was anywhere close, he would be angling down toward the spot from the northwest and thus providing no indication of his starting point.