Crossing the Line (17 page)

Back then, Carl had been quiet and unassuming. Clint supposed he still was those things, but they didn't fit him the same way as they had back then. Now, Carl was still quiet. He just seemed to be seething quietly instead of scurrying like a frightened mouse. That short time ago, Clint certainly wouldn't have guessed to hear the next words to come out of Carl's mouth.

“I nearly killed the men responsible for shooting up Pace's. I had 'em in my sights, but I didn't pull the trigger. Sorry,” he added with a deferential look at Clint. “I meant squeeze the trigger.”

“What men?” Clint asked.

Carl looked at the cabin and then leaned over a bit so he could see through one of the windows. Once he saw that his sister was still inside, he said, “George, for one. There are some others, but I don't know exactly who they are.”

“Friends of George?”

“I don't think so. They were pushing him around pretty good.”

“Why don't you want to say any of this in front of Sadie?” Clint asked.

“Because she's a fighter. If someone says so much as a cross word to me or her, she's likely to give them a piece of her mind. She doesn't know what kind of trouble that leads to.”

“I think you may be underestimating her.”

Carl nodded. “Then she just doesn't care about starting any trouble. I do. I've got to. Women get leeway that men don't.”

“That's neither here nor there, Carl. Where the hell have you been?”

“I'm doing what you taught me to do. Standing up for myself and seeing to it that men like George don't just trample all over me. Since nobody gives a damn about Delilah now that she's in the ground, I suppose I'm standing up for her too. Lord knows she deserves it.”

“You can't be going too far,” Clint pointed out. “Sadie says that you come back here every other day or so.”

“Don't need to go far. George and them others are holed up at an old farm a few miles from here. It took some doing, but I followed one of them all the way back to that spot without being seen.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, sir,” Carl said with a solid nod. “I'd follow them a ways and back off when they got suspicious. Followed them a bit farther the next time and even farther the next. Once I knew they were going to the old Blair place, I crept in to get a look.”

Apparently, Carl's old mouselike habits had their uses after all.

“They're planning something,” Carl continued.

“How do you figure that?”

“Because every time I check in on them, they've got a few more horses and a few more guns lying about.”

“Could just be that there are more men coming in,” Clint said.

“Which doesn't make things any better. They're up at that farm hiding and getting ready for something. Otherwise, they'd be in town where there's hot food and warm beds.”

“Do you recognize any of these men?”

Carl slowly shook his head. “Other than George, I've only seen maybe one or two of them in Pace's a time or two. But I can't be certain about that. The more I think about it, the more all those faces tend to blend together. I guess you were right. I should have kept my head up more. Maybe then I'd be of some use.”

“I don't know. It sounds like you've been making yourself real useful.”

“All I've been doing is following and watching,” Carl grumbled. “That doesn't amount to much.”

“That depends on if you can get me to that farm without being seen.”

“I could do that for certain.”

“How good are you with that rifle?” Clint asked, nodding toward the Winchester hanging from the boot on Carl's saddle.

“I'm a pretty good shot up to sixty yards out,” he replied. “Any farther than that, I can hold my own.”

“Let's get out to that farm and see if we can figure out what George and those others are up to,” Clint said. “Here's where all that following and watching will pay off.”

Clint might not have considered riding out with Carl if there was any decent law to be found in Trickle Creek. There were a few good lawmen he knew in the neighboring county, but getting to them and bringing them back would take more time than they had. George was an idiot, but even the biggest idiots knew when to run. From what Carl had said, George seemed anxious to do just that. And if the others Carl had spotted really were planning something, there was no way to be certain of how much time was left before that plan was put into motion.

Even with everything working in his favor, Clint knew there wasn't much time before Carl took action on his own. Carl was wound up tighter than a watch spring. The fact that he had a just cause only added more tension. It wasn't long after he and Clint rode away from the cabin that Carl's shoulders began to come down from around his ears.

“You sure Sadie will be all right in that hotel?” Carl asked.

“I spent all night thinking about every spot to watch and every sound to listen for in that room,” Clint replied. “She'll be fine. Also, she's got her shotgun. Anyone walking into that door trying to do her harm won't have much time to regret it.”

“I suppose nobody's got a good reason to come after her. All those times I came back to check on her, I didn't find anyone close to that cabin. Whatever it is George and those men are after, it's not Sadie.”

“We'll see for ourselves.”

They covered a good amount of ground in a short amount of time. Eclipse was well rested and ready to go, but Carl's horse didn't have any problem keeping up. Where Eclipse excelled in pure muscle and stamina, Carl's horse made up in experience. Carl claimed to have blazed the trail from the cabin to the farm himself, and Clint had no reason to disagree.

To the naked eye, the trail looked like any other stretch of flat Kansas grassland. Tall weeds and clumps of trees blanketed an expanse of gentle slopes, rocks, and holes dug by any number of critters. Carl navigated it all with ease. He turned sharply at times, so Clint followed in the same path to narrowly avoid a stump that would have tripped up a less cautious rider. Every so often, Carl would hunker down and tap his heels to his horse's sides to take advantage of a clear shot across half a mile of smooth ground.

Not once in all of this time did Clint see so much as a hint of a real trail. When Carl pulled back on his reins after a few hours of riding, Clint thought it was just to give the horses a rest.

“The Blair Farm is just over there,” Carl said as he pointed to the west.

It was the time of day when the sun was on its way down, but not close to the horizon just yet. Clint thought he was looking at more old trees when he was actually seeing the bleached, crooked planks that might have been the skeletal remains of a windmill. If Carl hadn't pointed it out, he might have ridden past without giving it a second glance.

“Doesn't look like there's much of anything there,” Clint said.

“Most of it's overgrown, burnt down or just plain rotted away. Most of the town's probably forgotten it's even here.”

“Are there any lookouts?”

“Sometimes,” Carl replied. “The only ones I've ever seen are posted on top of the old barn. We rode all the way around to this side of the property so we could creep up on the blind side of that barn.”

Clint squinted into the distance and shook his head. “I don't see any barn.”

When Carl looked over to him, it was one of the few times Clint had seen him smile. “If everything could be spotted from a mile away, why the hell would anyone want to hide there?”

“Good point.”

After tethering the horses to a nearby tree, Clint and Carl started walking toward the farm. Carl had a route memorized for that as well. He barely even needed to look down as he dashed through the tall grass and hopped over the various things on the ground that might trip him up. Because he knew exactly where to step, he hardly even made a sound. Clint, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky.

The first time Clint accidentally kicked a rock, Carl shot him a stern backward glance. The second time, Carl let out a hiss that would have put any snake to shame. When Clint stumbled on a tangle of low bushes, he thought the other man was going to tear his head off.

“We're almost there,” Carl rasped. “Do you want to have a look or just march in, pretty as you please?”

“We agreed on the first.”

“Then hush up!”

Clint wanted to defend himself, but knew it wouldn't do any good. Instead, he lowered his head and scurried after Carl like a dog with its tail between its legs. Carl was too distracted to appreciate the irony.

After a lot of scrambling through the weeds, Clint and Carl circled around to cross onto the Blair property line, which was marked by a broken-down old fence. The ground beneath Clint's feet took on a smoother feel. Although it hadn't been worked in a long time, the land had obviously been cared for in its day. They didn't have to scurry for much longer before Clint could spot the rest of the structures.

The tallest of those was the old windmill, but that wasn't sturdy enough to stand up to the wind. A man perched upon those splintered beams would have brought it all crashing down. The next tallest structure was an old barn missing most of its roof and loft. The little house was in the same terrible shape. He had heard mention of a fire, but the farm could just as likely have been hit by a twister. Either way, the spread was a large corpse rotting in the prairie sun.

Clint might not have scouted the area as well as Carl had, but he did come prepared. Lifting the spyglass he'd brought from his saddlebag, Clint studied the farm a little more closely. “Looks like there're a few men in that house,” he said.

“And don't forget the two in the barn.”

Shifting his gaze toward the barn, Clint muttered, “I only see one.”

“One in the loft and one inside, watching through the doors.”

“I don't see the one on the ground floor.”

“He's there,” Carl assured him. “Every time I've come here, there've been two in that barn.”

“All right. I'll take your word for it.” Clint slowly panned the spyglass back and forth. “I count six horses tethered near the house. Could be more tied up somewhere else but I doubt it. Those six are being kept in a spot where they have the best chance of staying out of sight.”

“Sometimes they keep their horses in the house,” Carl explained. “The whole thing's close to being hollow.”

“Is there a second floor or did that collapse?”

“Must've collapsed, because I've seen men leading their horses in and out of there.”

“Did you recognize any of those men?” Clint asked.

“I thought I might have seen a few of them at Pace's, but just about anyone who comes to town heads into Pace's sometime or other.”

“I recognize one of them.”

Carl leaned over as if he meant to look through the same eyepiece as Clint. Even when Clint handed over the spyglass and pointed him in the right direction, Carl still didn't catch on.

“Look through the front window of the house,” Clint said. “Big guy wearing the coat. See him?”

“Yeah. He's been there a few times. Always wears that big hat and the bandanna wrapped around his neck. It's tough to see his face.”

“Don't need to see his face. Look at the double-rig holster he's wearing. See the way he keeps his hands near those guns at all times? Notice the way he stands like he's filling up as much space as he can?”

“Yeah,” Carl said with an inkling of recognition. “I can't put my finger on it, but I may have seen that man before.”

“You don't recognize him because he's mostly covered up in the sorts of clothes he never wears on a daily basis. Those guns are a dead giveaway, though. At least, they are for someone who knows what he's looking at.”

“And what are you looking at?” Carl asked.

Staring at the window as if he could see through it just fine without the spyglass, Clint said, “That's Les. I couldn't tell you exactly what he's saying to those men in there, but that's him all right.”

Carl studied the house for another few seconds before muttering, “I'll be damned. How the hell did I not pick him out before?”

“There're a lot of big men with guns in that house. Come to think of it, I may just know what they're planning in there.”

“What's your guess?”

Rather than weigh in too soon, Clint asked, “Have there been more men gathering here as more days have passed?”

“They've been drifting in, but I couldn't tell which were new or which were ones I'd already seen.”

“Have you followed them anywhere else but here?”

“Most all of 'em have been going to Pace's, but never together. They usually head into town after dark, so I figured I would just show you how they ride in and out.”

Clint glanced up at the sky. There was some time before it became dark, which would give them a little while to scout a bit more. Even so, he said, “My guess is that these men are planning on robbing Mister Pace blind, and Les intends on leading the way.”

“Are you sure that's Les?” Carl asked. “I mean, it could be him, but it could be just about anyone under that hat and scarf.”

“It's him,” Clint replied. “He wears those same guns all the time and he always keeps his hands in that spot so he can get to them. Besides, it all fits.”

“What does?”

“Everything I've been hearing. Everything you've told me. Bank robbers do the same thing when they're scouting out a place. They'll send their men in a few at a time at different times of day. And if there're a lot of guards or if the money's especially tough to get at, they may even raise some hell in or near the bank just to see how the guards respond.”