Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 8

  After a ways, once the buildings of Lowdown had visually shrunk behind them to a fraction of their actual size, Kendrick veered off the main trail and set a course more directly to the east. Anyone paying attention might wonder at this. And anyone attempting to follow them would quickly be isolated from the traffic on the main trail and make themselves easy to spot … Which, it so happened, was the main purpose of the veering-off tactic. Neither Kendrick nor anyone in his group had any true interest in the Dos Cabezas other than to make this determination of possibly being followed and at the same time plant a false trail for anyone who might come along later and inquire which way they had headed out of Lowdown.

  Well up into the steeper reaches of the foothills, Kendrick called a halt in the middle of a small, rocky plateau with a fringe of grass and a handful of stubborn trees running along the backside. Off to the right, a ribbon of churning water bubbled down from the higher peaks.

  Despite the late afternoon air starting to cool rapidly with the sun dipping closer to the horizon, the riders were quick to reach for their canteens and to tip them high. Once they had slaked their own thirsts, everyone dismounted and saw to their horses, leading them over to the stream where they could drink and nibble at some of the grass. Kazmir saw to his mount as well as Faleejah’s. Hickory made sure the pack animals were also allowed to drink.

  While the others were thus occupied, Kendrick stayed in his saddle a couple extra minutes, reining Blockhead over to the front rim of the plateau and carefully scanning down over their back trail for sign of any interest in their undertaking. He’d been making regular checks all during the ascent. On none of those occasions, however—as now—did he spot anything.

  Satisfied for the time being, Kendrick swung down from the saddle and led Blockhead back to the stream for his turn at the cool water. As the big chestnut noisily drank, Kendrick made a quick appraisal of the others and how they were holding up. He’d regularly been doing this, too, over the past few hours.

  By this point, Kendrick had become convinced that Amelia’s capabilities were a match for just about anything. Faleejah, on the other hand, remained an unknown factor. True she had shown herself to be determined, uncomplaining, and competent on horseback; but otherwise she hadn’t really been tested. The same might also be said for the subservient Kazmir, yet something about the dark little man left Kendrick with the strong hunch there was a harder side to him that could be counted on if and when needed. As for Hickory Dawson … well, Hickory was Hickory. Past his prime perhaps, yet still—befitting his name—rough as a slab of hickory bark if the going got tough.

  All in all, not exactly a force Kendrick would have hand-picked to go up against what they might have to deal with before this was over. But the fact remained, it was what he had, what he’d made up his mind to thrown in with. Kendrick had learned long ago that a man has to play the hand he gets dealt, and bellyaching about it never helps a lick.

  Although Kendrick had already indicated to Amelia that he would hire on to help her try and find the “Red Ghost” and the legendary jewel the beast was supposedly carrying around under its hide, his resolve was increased all the more upon hearing the things Grimes started to spill once his tongue had been loosened by getting slapped around and creek-dunked after being dragged from Mama Ling’s opium den.

  “W-Wilby … Anse Wilby,” he’d finally sputtered under Kendrick’s questioning. “He’s the one who contacted Eckert about doing this job. Sent him a t-telegram in Las Cruces … They’d done some stuff together in the past, that’s how Wilby knew where to get hold of him … Eckert rounded up the r-rest of us to back his play.”

  “What exactly was the job Wilby wanted done?” Kendrick had demanded.

  “We was to interfere with the Gailwood woman and those travelin’ w-with her … Wilby figured we ought to be able to catch up with ‘em by the time they reached Wilcox. S-said they’d be takin’ the stage from there to Lowdown … We was to stop ‘em before they made it that far. Whatever it took … Th-then, in whatever time we had before Wilby showed up, we was to start findin’ out as much we could about some runaway c-camel out in the desert, called the Red Ghost.”

  The name Anse Wilby hadn’t meant anything to Amelia.

  But it did to Kendrick.

  Wilby was a gunslinger who plied his trade throughout the Southwest and sometimes beyond. Double-tough and lightning on the draw. He was exactly the kind of gun for hire Kendrick had described to Amelia that night in her hotel room. One of the best—and most feared—of the breed.

  So Wilby had hired Eckert, who apparently was closer to Wilcox and Lowdown than Wilby himself and therefore could take action faster. The next question, then, was who hired Wilby? The way Kendrick and Amelia both saw it, the only logical answer had to be Brandon Totter. And if Wilby was on his way to Lowdown, could Totter be far behind? Most likely not, had to be the assumption.

  The answer to the question of how Totter had found out so fast that Amelia herself was headed for Lowdown wasn’t so clear-cut, not even as a guess. But they nevertheless had to face the fact that he somehow had. That meant they had to move and move fast in order to take advantage of whatever lead they still had. Hence, the hurried preparation and departure today.

  Once Hickory overheard the things Grimes spilled, he was quick to decide he needed a break from stagecoach driving and pleaded to join Amelia’s cause instead. Since he would have been a risk of sorts to leave behind, due to how much he’d heard and how much more he might be able to piece together, he was brought on board. The clincher was that he was able to provide a piece of information that gave their group what might prove to be another advantage in addition to their slim lead.

  The newspaper accounts Amelia had read about the most recent Red Ghost sightings in the Lowdown area had credited a man named Caleb Frost as having been the last to report seeing the beast. One of Amelia’s aims in coming to Lowdown, along with generally narrowing her focus on the search for Nadba, had been to try and locate Frost in hopes of getting from him a more exact idea of where his sighting had taken place.

  Inasmuch as the news article had described Frost as a “local prospector,” Amelia had assumed he could be found among the other pickers and diggers swarming all over the Dos Cabezas. But that was where Hickory’s little tidbit of news had come into play.

  The ex jehu made a convincing pitch that Frost wasn’t likely to be found in the Dos Cabezas or any part of the Chiracahua Range at all. A crusty old loner who loathed being crowded by others, Frost had been shunning the whole Dos Cabezas area ever since the influx of silver-hungry newcomers had started showing up.

  For a brief time he’d tried simply retreating higher up and farther back. But even just the thought of all the new activity and the increasing number of “neighbors” swarming in down below was more than he could bear. End result was that Frost pulled up stakes and headed to another mountain range, the Pinalenos, about fifty miles north of Lowdown. He could do his picking and digging there, he concluded, and could also find the kind of solitude he craved.

  Hickory was privy to these details by virtue of being a drinking buddy of Frost’s whenever the prospector made his infrequent trips to town for the sake of restocking supplies and letting the wolf howl a little. Their wolves had often howled loud and long together.

  It was on the last such occasion that Hickory learned Frost had relocated his base camp to the Pinalenos. Frost had also spoken of seeing the Red Ghost out in the desert once again, an encounter that had taken place at least a half dozen previous times. So often, in fact, that Frost took to seldom mentioning it anymore to avoid the teasing he’d risk getting from some of the saloon regulars who, among other things, had started wondering out loud if he had some kind of romantic interest in the shaggy beast because he spent so much time with it. Frost could handle good-natured ribbing as well as anybody, but every once in a while the remarks would get too personal and nasty and a fight was sure to break out.

  “I can speak o
n that part all too well,” Hickory had stated, rubbing his bristly jaw as if in memory. “I was there more than once when the fists started flyin’ and I was caught in a situation where I naturally had to side with ol’ Caleb. Dangedest thing was, he never could seem to get riled when the odds were anywhere near even.”

  “So many alleged sightings,” Amelia had said somewhat dubiously. “Could it be that Frost is just a big windbag who perhaps has seen nothing at all?”

  “Ain’t sayin’ Caleb can’t lay it on a mite thick at times. But not when it comes to the Red Ghost, I don’t think,” Hickory answered.

  “But you said he’d quit talking about his sightings of the Ghost,” Amelia pressed. “Yet he told that newspaper reporter about them.”

  “Yeah, he did,” Hickory allowed. “Guess the thought of seein’ his name in print—not that the old rascal can even read, far as I know—must have swayed him to speak of it.”

  “And that would have been after he’d gone north to continue his prospecting?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The look on Amelia’s face—the doubt—had been pretty plain. And it had been equally plain that this troubled Hickory. “Look,” he’d said, his face scrunched with seriousness. “The Red Ghost is for sure out there, too many others have seen him on and off. The way Caleb wanders about alone, I don’t think it’s so surprisin’ he might spot him more. Plus, there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?” Amelia wanted to know.

  “You see, not too many know it but Caleb was part of the Army Camel Corps when it first formed up. He was one of the few who saw the good in those humpy critters. He took to the idea right smart and it pissed him royally that so many others wouldn’t even give it a fair shot … But then the war broke out and none of that mattered so much. Caleb, bein’ a Southern-born boy, shucked off the blue and lit out for back east to put on the gray and fight for General Robert.

  “After the war, he eventually drifted out this way again. His army days was over and so was the Camel Corps. But when, in his wanderings, he’d spot one of the animals who’d escaped or been released—like the Red Ghost or a handful of others who used to be around—it kinda excited him and he still looked with favor on ‘em.

  “At one point, he told me, he even thought about trying to catch one of the critters and making use of it. But by then the camels had roamed free for too long and didn’t exactly take to the notion of bein’ roped and tamed again. Plus Caleb was a ways past his prime and busted up some from the war, so the notion didn’t go very far. Still, he continued to have kind feelings toward the camels whenever he ran across one. Never ran away screechin’ scared or tried to run ‘em down and shoot ‘em like some others did.”

  Amelia said, “Are you suggesting that the Red Ghost somehow senses and responds to Caleb because of his favorable feelings? That this is why he’s encountered him so often?”

  “Sounds kinda loony when you say it right out like that,” Hickory had responded, twisting his mouth wryly. “All I know is that I don’t believe Caleb’s claims of seein’ the Red Ghost are just the blowins’ of a windbag. You want to talk to the man and make up your own mind, we’ll find him in the Pinalenos up north.” Hickory had raised an arm and pointed with a scrawny, crooked finger. “And I expect that somewhere in between—though this part is just a hunch, mind you—is where the Red Ghost is doin’ his roaming these days.”

  The conviction in Hickory’s tone combined with the details he was able to provide—all coming on top of the startling revelation that Brandon Totter, fronted by Anse Wilby, was closing the gap on Amelia far faster than anticipated—gave the final impetus for setting their group on the course of action they were now following.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Under Kendrick’s direction, the group made a quick-break camp on the high foothills plateau where there was good water and passable graze. All were encouraged to rest, eat well, and enjoy the opportunity for taking it easy. They’d been fully warned that, at the signal from Kendrick which would come somewhere around midnight, they would be rousted to quit the camp hurriedly and then, guided by star- and moonlight, descend silently and unseen back down to the desert floor where they would strike north for the Pinalenos. If all went well, they would be several miles away from Dos Cabezas by first light.

  While the others relaxed and rested as they’d been urged to do, Kendrick prowled anxiously, rolling things over and over in his mind. Maybe he was being too cautious, maybe not cautious enough. If the former, then they were wasting precious time when they could have started directly for the Pineros and been part way there by now. If the latter … well, that would reveal itself soon enough if it turned out to be the case.

  With his spyglass, while there was still light, Kendrick once again stood alone on the rim of the plateau and closely studied the descent they would follow, re-crossing the main trail between the town and heaviest concentration of mines, continuing down and out into the desert, always angling north. He plotted their course over the terrain for as far as he could see. At first they would leave no tracks on the hard, rocky surfaces to be found throughout the foothills. Once out onto the desert floor, however, it would be a different story. But he’d make sure that anyone who came looking would have to search and search hard before they picked up where any sign started.

  As darkness settled, Amelia put aside the notebook in which she was always jotting entries and walked out to where he was, bearing a cup of coffee for him.

  “You keep telling everyone else to get some rest. Shouldn’t be doing the same?” she said, handing him the cup.

  “I will. Right shortly.” Kendrick drank some of the coffee. “Thanks. That’s real good.”

  Amelia pushed her hands into the pockets of the fleece-lined coat she was wearing and shivered slightly. “I can never get used to how fast the desert turns cold once the sun goes down,” she said.

  “Maybe it’s meant to help a body forget how hot it turns in the daytime,” Kendrick suggested.

  “Yes, it surely does that,” Amelia agreed. “And tomorrow, when we’re frying out there in the sun, tonight’s cold will be all but forgotten, too … Guess I just like to complain.”

  “From what I’ve seen,” Kendrick said, “you hold up pretty well to just about anything. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  After regarding him for a moment, Amelia said, “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Fair enough. What it was meant to be.”

  She continued to study him. “I thought you didn’t really like me very much.”

  One corner of Kendrick’s mouth lifted briefly. “Didn’t quite know what to make of you at first, that’s all. And, if you remember, once you found out I was a bounty hunter you made up your mind pretty quick that you didn’t think too highly of me. Reckon you could say neither of us worked very hard at gettin’ off on a good foot with one another.”

  “One of my bad habits,” Amelia said with a sigh, “is sometimes judging too quickly and too harshly.”

  “Not a bad trait to be careful with your trust. Especially for a gal out here on the frontier.”

  “Too bad my trust wasn’t on keener alert where Brandon Totter was concerned.” An expression of mixed pain and anger gripped Amelia’s pretty face. “Maybe my father and brother and Hugh Crandall would all still be alive. And everyone here in our group now wouldn’t be exposed to the danger barking so closely on our heels.”

  “A lot of people—including your father and brother, meanin’ no disrespect—had a hand in the decisions and misplaced trust that brought your situation to this point. Not to mention the deceit and double-dealing from that snake Totter. So don’t go heapin’ it all on yourself,” Kendrick said sternly. “The thing now is for you to stay the course and make sure that, however it plays out from here, it damn well don’t end up in Totter’s favor.”

  Amelia set her jaw and tried not to look worried. “You really think we’ve got a chance?”

  “Don’t see
why not,” Kendrick was quick to reply, one brow arched sharply. “Hell, we only got to cross a boilin’ stretch of desert and then go pokin’ around in some spikey ol’ mountains to find a reclusive prospector so he can lead us to a crazy runaway camel with a fabulous jewel sewed under his skin. After that, it’ll only be a matter of fighting our way clear through a small army of hardcases hired by a high society crook and led by the most feared gunslinger in the territory … I just hope I don’t get so bored I doze off in the middle of it all and miss what little drab of excitement there’s apt to be.”

  * * * * *

  Their descent from the plateau camp went without incident. Kendrick’s careful scanning of the terrain earlier proved beneficial in picking their path. He’d finally rested some himself but then had been up again to roust everyone a half hour ahead of midnight. Before the night rolled over into a new day they were on the move.

  By daybreak they were well away from the Dos Cabezas and by late morning they’d covered close to thirty miles, a little over half way to their destination. The Pinalenos could be seen in the distance now, a lumpy purplish-black smudge above the rim of the northern horizon, shimmering in the rapidly building heat.

  But Kendrick knew they couldn’t reach the mountains before day’s end. Not with the furnace-like conditions of the afternoon still to come and his group’s fatigue from the hours and miles already covered. He’d never expected to make the journey in one shot anyway, and in fact was pleased with their progress so far.

  So when he spotted a narrow arroyo with tall, ragged ridges on either side, he led them there to set up camp and wait out the most brutal part of the day. Even with the sun nearing its peak in the cloudless sky there were patches of shade to be found along the base of the tall ridges. As the fiery ball started its afternoon slide, these patches would grow wider and cooler.