Manhunter's Mountain (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series Book 4) Page 5

  As his pinto plowed sure-footedly through the snow, Cash's eyes swept ceaselessly before him in a wide arc. So far the climbing sun had done little to cut the deep chill of the morning. Puffs of vapor streamed from the nostrils of both horse and rider.

  In the end, it was the reaction of Paint that helped Cash pinpoint the spot. A series of anxious snorts and a reluctance shown by the pinto to approach a certain evergreen-choked gully indicated to the marshal there was something in there—something unpleasant—that he would need to explore. He reined up and studied the scene for a long moment, finally discerning a thin wisp of smoke rising up from deeper in the gully. Not too long ago a campfire had been burning down there.

  Cash dismounted, tied off Paint, proceeded on foot. Having left his Winchester with Faye, he folded back a corner of his mackinaw to make the Colt riding on his hip more easily accessible.

  When the camp clearing came into sight, Cash paused and studied the scene. The bodies of two men lay sprawled to either side of the blackened circle that had been a campfire. The lack of any horses left in the camp and the way the ground was chewed up on the far side indicated that a handful of riders had departed out the opposite end of the gully. Cash's gaze returned to the bodies. Copious splashes of bright crimson blood made irregular patterns on the whitened ground around each. One of the men was thick-bodied and clad in a familiar-looking black- and red-checkered coat. Cash was almost certain it was Parley, the boss miner from Silver Gulch, but he'd fallen belly down with his head turned so that his face wasn't visible.

  Cash edged into the clearing and went over to the body in the checkered coat. He squatted down and tugged gently but firmly on one shoulder, intending to roll the body so he could get a look at the face.

  The man emitted a shriek so agonized and so startling that Cash jerked his hand away and nearly fell back on his heels!

  "Whoever you are, don't try to move me ... Oh, my God, don't do that," the wounded man whimpered.

  Cash scrambled around to the other side of the victim and lowered himself close in order to get a look at his face. It was Parley, like he'd thought.

  "What happened here, Parley?" he wanted to know.

  Parley opened bloodshot, pain-wracked eyes and looked at him. "Marshal?"

  "Yeah, it's me. What happened?"

  Parley groaned and gasped out short bursts of words. "They came for me with a knife ... gutted me, sliced me open bad ... some of my insides are spilled out, frozen to the ground now ... Don't try to move me."

  "Okay. Okay, I won't touch you no more. Jesus, man."

  "Oh lord it hurts, Marshal ... I think the cold stopped the bleeding ... I must have passed out."

  "We'll get you some help."

  Parley groaned again. "There ain't no help for me ... Oh God, it hurts so."

  "Who did this?"

  "Coupla men riding with me turned bad ... We were coming after our whores ... and then a stranger showed up at our camp last night after the storm started." Parley's voice broke and he sobbed.

  "Stranger give a name?" Cash asked. He hated to prod the man, but it was clear Parley wasn't going to last much longer and he wanted to get as much information as he could.

  "Bouchet ... Cole Bouchet."

  Cash grimaced. He knew the name. Cole Bouchet had a reputation for being the most vicious bounty hunter in the business.

  Parley forced himself to speak some more. "The men ridin' with me ... Rostler and Crane are their names ... they intend to take the whores for themselves ... Bouchet wants your prisoner for the bounty ... They must have struck a deal during the night ... Didn't need me and Swede no more, easier with us out of the way ... I heard them talkin' af-after they thought they'd killed me." He stopped and sobbed again. "Jesus, Jesus ... the pain ... "

  "Try to hang on," Cash urged. He folded a blanket from Parley's bedroll and tucked it gently under the side of the miner's head.

  "They went for Swede after me ... They were using knives because they figured you were some-where close and didn't want any noise to alert you ... but Swede must've had a gun in his bedroll and forced 'em into a shootout ... They still got him, though, didn't they?"

  Cash glanced over at the other bloody body. "Afraid so."

  "They're gonna be layin' for you at Split Rock Pass, Marshal ... That was some more of their talk that I heard ... "

  "I'll be ready for 'em. Thanks for the warning."

  Parley reached with a trembling hand and clutched weakly at Cash's sleeve. "If you really want to thank me ... then finish what they started ... Put me out of my misery."

  Cash uttered a curse under his breath.

  "For the love of God, man, I'm beggin' you ... No way in hell I'm gonna make it ... You can't move me without tearing me the rest of the way open, and there ain't no place to take me even if you could ... But what you can do is end this ungodly pain ... Not let it drag on any more ... I'm beggin' you."

  "You're talkin' out of your head," Cash tried to tell him. "I'll get a fire stoked up here close, melt away where you're froze to the ground and then I'll be able to—"

  "You won't be able to do nothing!" Parley was weeping now. "All you'll do is make the pain last longer, maybe make it worse ... and then I'll die anyway ... End it. Now! Do it quick."

  Cash knew the man was right. He knew also that in his place he would want the same thing.

  He gazed once more into Parley's pain-ravaged eyes and then, slowly, reluctantly, his hand started to reach for his Colt.

  "You do that," Parley rasped, "you risk them hearing the shot ... just like you did ... might come back looking for you ... Best for you if they don't know you're onto them ... Best for you to do this quiet ... "

  Cash's hand seemed to linger uncertainly over the Colt for another moment ... Then, swiftly, it shifted instead to close on the handle of his Bowie knife, unsheathing the long blade in a practiced sweeping motion.

  –NINE–

  Merl Crane was very troubled. He was glad that he was riding behind his cousin and the bounty hunter Bouchet so they weren't likely to notice his glum expression and question what was eating him.

  Merl had killed before. During the war—and since. But those other times had always involved some kind of conflict, a fight, an argument, some situation where Merl had been angered or felt a measure of threat against himself that made the killing seem justified. Not this time, though. Not the way they'd done with Parley and the Swede.

  Sneaking up on a man still asleep in his bedroll and putting a bullet or knife blade in him ... that was just plain murder. And it only made it worse that one of the victims had been Parley. Merl had liked Parley, finding him to be fair and decent, even in the rough environs of a mining camp. Above all Parley had always treated Merl with respect, which was something not everybody did on account of Merl being a little slow in the thinking department (as Cousin Hank often reminded him).

  Yet there Merl had been, holding Parley down, hand clamped over his mouth, while Hank had slammed his knife again and again into Parley's stomach. The blood gushed everywhere, hot and coppery-smelling. And all the while there was the gurgling, awful sounds Parley had made even with Merl's hand trying to stifle him ...

  For a long time now Merl had been taking his lead from Hank, following him wherever he went and listening to his ideas and advice, even though Hank was sometimes thoughtless and hurtful in his remarks. The idea of taking the whores and going into business for themselves had sounded real good. Merl had understood doing that was certain to involve a confrontation with the marshal, maybe even gunplay. Somehow, though, he'd never considered exactly what it would take where Parley and Swede were concerned.

  Now he knew.

  And it left him feeling sick.

  What's more, a confrontation with the marshal still lay ahead. Only now it was no longer slated to be a confrontation but rather an ambush. Another word for more cold-blooded killing. Sure, Merl had been involved in military ambushes during the war, but that was different. It was a ta
ctic both sides practiced and therefore something both accepted, knew to expect. But cutting down a lawman—back-shooting him, most likely, without giving him any chance to try and talk it out or make a fair fight of it ... that was a whole different thing.

  Merl didn't like the way any of this was going. Didn't like it at all.

  Not even the thought of recovering the whores—for business and for personal pleasure—seemed very attractive any more.

  But what troubled Merl most of all was the change that seemed to be coming over Cousin Hank. A change, the way Merl saw it, caused by the influence of Cole Bouchet. Hank had always been a hard man, not always fair, sometimes even cruel. But he'd never been completely cold or heartless. Those were traits Merl had seen in Cole Bouchet right away. And then, right before his eyes—as they were killing Parley and Swede that morning—Merl had seen those same things take root in his cousin. Maybe they'd always been there and he'd just never noticed before; or he'd overlooked them in his blind loyalty to Hank. Whatever the case, it didn't really matter. What mattered was that now he had seen that side of his cousin and it was unnerving as hell.

  Merl was frightened of Cole Bouchet, had been right from the first. Too frightened not to do whatever the bounty man ordered. Merl didn't like admitting that to himself, yet he knew it to be true.

  And now he realized that he was starting to be frightened of Cousin Hank in the same way. He hated admitting that to himself even more ...

  * * *

  Returning to the cavern, Cash found that Faye and Little Red had the horses saddled and everything ready to hit the trail, just as he'd instructed. The problem now was what awaited them down the trail when they reached Split Rock Pass.

  All during the ride back, Cash had debated how much to tell the others about what he had learned. He didn't want to alarm or discourage them unduly. In the end, however—partly because lies never tasted good on his tongue and partly because Faye and Little Red had shown mettle strong enough to earn them nothing less than the truth—he leveled with them. The only thing he left out was the manner in which Parley had been dispatched, leaving them to believe he'd simply bled out.

  When Cash had finished telling it, the most dramatic reaction came from Lobo Ames. "Boy, you are just full of good news, ain't you?" wailed the prisoner. "Havin' Cole Bouchet on my backtrail ... that's swell, that's terrific. That's like havin' the damn Grim Reaper ridin' down on me."

  "The Grim Reaper is ridin' down on all of us, from the day we're born," Cash pointed out.

  "Not right now, not right here," Ames insisted.

  "You don't know that. Nobody ever knows when Old Bones and his scythe are gonna strike."

  "Well if Bouchet catches up with me, I damn sure know when the strike'll come. Don't tell me you haven't heard the stories on him. He don't bother takin' back prisoners alive and he don't even bother takin' back the whole prisoner for his reward—he just delivers their heads in a sack!"

  "The reward on you ain't Dead or Alive," said Cash. "Your head in a sack won't earn Bouchet no money, and that's the whole game for him."

  "The reward you know about may not be Dead or Alive," Ames sneered. "But there's other fliers on me, from some business down in Kansas a few years back. The money on them is a site higher and the tag under my picture says Wanted Dead or Alive real plain. You can bet Bouchet ain't after me for that piddly holdup job in Lusk—he's after the bigger money and that means the condition he needs to deliver me in to collect it don't mean squat."

  "Maybe you should've thought of that before you took to doing things that plastered your name and face on wanted posters to begin with."

  "Thanks for the heartfelt advice, but here's something you'd better be thinking about—it's your job and obligation to keep Bouchet from gettin' to me. You understand? No matter how lowdown you might think of me, I'm in your custody and that makes it your responsibility to keep me safe."

  "I hardly need the likes of you tellin' me how to do my job," Cash growled.

  "I just hope you're good enough at it, that's all."

  "He's good enough," Faye spoke up. "I've got complete confidence that the marshal will see us all to safety."

  Ames cut her a disdainful look. "Well then, that settles it. A big vote of confidence coming from a washed-up old whore should be—"

  "Mister," Cash cut him off, his words coming through gritted teeth, "you've run your mouth just about enough for the whole day. Shut it. Slink back over there against the rock and keep it shut, or I'll be forced to give you a reminder that Cole Bouchet is the least of your miserable worries."

  Ames hesitated long enough to give the marshal a hateful look, then backed away and did as he'd been told.

  Cash turned back to Faye. "Thanks for the vote of confidence," he said to her.

  "I meant every word of it."

  "I know you did." Cash thumbed back his Stetson and favored her with a wan smile. "Now I've just got to figure out a way to live up to your expectations."

  "You'll think of something ... Is there another route besides this Split Rock Pass?"

  Cash shook his head. "Only one halfway close is Kelsey Canyon, and that's on north of Split Rock. I doubt we could make it that far by nightfall. And if we don't show at Split Rock by then, Bouchet and his bunch will start to wonder why. Sooner or later they'll come lookin' for an answer. That might avoid us havin' to face their ambush—but they'd still be hard on our tail."

  Faye peered up at him. "And with two women and a chained prisoner you don't figure we can outrun them, do you?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "No, but you were thinking it." She held her eyes on him. "I'm not blaming you, I'm just stating the obvious."

  "Okay," Cash allowed. "Then there's one more thing that's obvious. It ain't a pleasant option, but it at least would take you and Little Red out of danger."

  Now Faye's eyes changed, hardened. "Me and her go back to Silver Gulch, you mean."

  "All I'm sayin' is that it might be worth considering. The choice is yours but, in case you ain't noticed, the risks out here are startin' to stack up a mite higher than when we started out."

  "To hell with the risks! Nothing can be worse than spending another winter in that—"

  "There's another way."

  Cash and Faye had been so involved in their discussion they hadn't noticed Little Red, who'd been standing over by the horses, moving up beside them. It was her words, spoken in a voice stronger and surer than either of them had ever heard out of her before, that had interrupted Faye.

  Cash turned to look at the girl. "What did you say, gal?"

  "I said there's another way down from here to the foothills." Little Red pointed to the south. "It's that way, not far. The old trappers called it Five Falls Creek. My pap traveled it a number of times when I was with him ... I can show you the way."

  –TEN–

  "The creek isn't all that wide or deep," Little Red was explaining as they rode. "But it runs at a pretty sharp slant all the way down from the higher peaks, so the current is fast and seldom freezes over in most places. There's a passable path all the way on the north side, though we may have to clear a rockslide or two. And the path gets mighty tight and narrow in places—especially along the falls—so we'll for sure have to get off and walk our horses some of the way."

  "The falls?" Cash said.

  "There's five waterfalls as the creek works its way down, that's why they call it Five Falls Creek. We're already below the two biggest ones, so we're lucky. We've only got three left to manage and outside the falls areas the going shouldn't be too bad."

  By now the sun had climbed nearly to its noon peak in the sky overhead, warming the morning although the air still had a definite bite to it. They were making good progress, horses plowing with minimal trouble through the fresh snowfall. Little Red was at the lead, breaking trail and setting their course for the creek she swore would prove to be a viable way out of their predicament.

  Cash was somewhat surprised at himself
for the faith he was putting in the girl. But the trans-formation that had taken place in Little Red—quite a surprise in itself—was so convincing it won him over with little reservation. "Bred and born to these mountains," Faye had told him of the girl's past. And now Red was showing it. Clear-eyed, determined, confident in what she was about and where she was leading them.

  In time, they came to a stand of tall pines under which the snow cover was sparse enough to leave uncovered several patches of scraggly grass. They took a break here, allowing the horses to graze while they cooked coffee and drank it while gnawing on strips of beef jerky.

  "We'll reach the creek soon," Little Red predicted. "The horses can water there. Then we can make it past of the first falls we'll have to deal with, before nightfall. There'll be good places to camp below the falls."

  Cash nodded. "Sounds good. If all goes according to plan, you think we've got a chance to make it to the foothills by tomorrow night?"

  "To the foothills, yeah. For sure below the bottom falls." Little Red took a thoughtful measure. "But I doubt we can reach the settlement by then."

  "That's okay, long as we clear the main part of the mountains." Cash eyed the sky to the northwest. "Everything looks okay right now, but the air's startin' to have a different feel to it. I think another storm will be movin' in before too long."

  Now it was Little Red's turn to nod. "You're right. Before too long."

  * * *

  Cole Bouchet reined his horse and pointed. "There it is, men. There's the pass."

  Hank Rostler and Merl Crane pulled up on either side of the bounty hunter. Following the line of his finger they were able to discern, in the near distance, a narrow gap in the ridge of rugged, saw-toothed peaks that spread wide before them.