Golden Riders (18 page)

“Damn, he's one of ours,” said Short, stepping in beside Bolten, rolling the man's head with the sole of his boot and taking a better look.

“
One of ours
, sure enough?” Bolten said in a bemused tone. He shook his head at the bleeding man on the ground, then back along the dark trail.

“What . . . ?” said Short, catching a critical edge to Bolten's question.

“Oh, nothing . . . ,” Bolten said. He slid the barrel of his Big Russian behind his duster lapel and down into this cross-draw holster. Seeing Short stare at him for a reply he said, “To be honest, so far your bunch ain't exactly impressing the hell out of me.” He only uncocked the Russian after he'd seated it in its leather. “That
one's got his nose broken, this one appears to be shy of transportation. No wonder they haven't showed up—” He gazed out along the dark trail, the wide sand flats below. “They could all be wandering around lost out there.”

In the low rising morning sunlight, the Ranger and Cutthroat Teddy Bonsell eased their horses around a turn on the high trail and stopped at the charred remnants of a campsite. Across the campsite, a line of buzzards stood along the rocky edge. The big scavengers divided their attention between the bodies of three dead men lying on the rocks below, and on one of their own species flopping on the ground a few feet away, its head stuck tightly inside an empty bean tin. The big buzzard appeared exhausted in its struggle, as if having spent the night in such a state of blind captivity.

“Holy Moses . . . ,” Bonsell whispered. “I know I still ain't seeing things exactly right,” he said sidelong to Sam, not taking his eyes nor his fascination off the head-locked buzzard, “but
please
tell me there's a buzzard over there wearing a tin can over his head.”

“Yes, I see him too,” Sam said. “It's not so much that he's
wearing
it. I think he got nosy and it grabbed him and won't turn loose.”

“That helps me a little,” said Bonsell, still staring at the big, flopping bird, “but not a whole lot.”

“Get down from your horse,” Sam said. “Let's see what we can do.”

“Do about
what
?” Bonsell asked, swinging his leg over, stepping down from his saddle.

Sam didn't answer. Instead he swung down from his horse and gathered both horses' reins.

“Wait. You're not stopping to help a buzzard, are you?” Bonsell asked, amazed.

“I've helped worse,” Sam said, leading the horses as the two walked closer to the stuck bird. Growing nervous, the buzzards along the edge gave up their roost and flew away with a powerful batting of wings.

“All right, I understand,” said Bonsell, as if having a change of heart. “I don't like seeing an animal suffer myself. Go ahead, I'll stay back here out of your way.”

“Staying beside me would be best for you,” the Ranger said, stopping and reining the horses to a low rock stuck in the ground.

“Best for me how?” Bonsell asked.

“It'll keep you from feeling a bullet hit you when you try to make a run for those rocks,” Sam said calmly. He nodded toward a stand of rock on the far side of the campsite.

Bonsell was taken aback.

“Make run for it, on foot?
Hunh-uh
, Ranger,” said Bonsell. “I'd have to be crazy making a run for it out here, no horse, no gun, a bloody shoulder wound trying to heal?” He gestured at the bandage under his bloodstained shirt.

“That
would
be crazy, wouldn't it?” the Ranger said.

“Yep, it for sure would,” said Bonsell, his eyes still bloodshot and sunk in his forehead.

“Keep telling yourself that while you sit here with only one boot on.”

“One boot on?” Bonsell looked down making sure he wasn't missing some footwear. Then it came to him what the Ranger was saying. “Aw hell, are you joshing me?”

“Have I
ever
?” the Ranger asked, his voice getting a little sharper.

“All right,” said Bonsell, “here goes.” He sat down in the dirt and took a boot and held it up. Sam took it and pitched it a few feet away.

“Stay sitting there, and watch,” he said to the outlaw. “We get this bird straightened out, we'll see why his cousins are so interested in the rocks down there.”

On the ground ten feet from them, the buzzard had stopped flopping and batting the dirt, its greasy-looking talons stopped scratching at the bean tin. Sam saw its heartbeat pulsing hard all the way down in its belly. Sam made his few footsteps silently, knowing the bird was not fooled, but also knowing that as worn out as it was, he might get close enough to grab its talons out from under it before it could stop him.
And then what . . . ?
He wasn't sure, but he'd know in a minute, he told himself.

Bonsell watched him swipe a hand out and around, catching the tired buzzard's legs in his gloved hand and quickly upending the odorous fowl.

“I can't believe this . . . ,” Bonsell said under his breath. He watched the exhausted bird still try to flap its wings as the Ranger held it upside down for a minute. Then he stooped onto one knee and laid the bird out in way that seemed to settle it.

“Tell him you mean him no harm, Ranger,” Bonsell called out cynically. “Tell him you're only here to help him.”

Sam gave the gunman a sharp look. He huddled over the bird, twisted the tin back and forth gently, examining the bird's neck closely.

“Cut the other end out of it,” Bonsell called out. “Shove it on down, he can wear it around his neck.”

“Shut up, Teddy,” Sam called out, keeping his voice down. Holding the bird, he lifted the can as he turned it back and forth, careful of the sharp, inner edge.

“I'll be dipped,” Bonsell said in surprise, seeing the tin can come loose and the big buzzard's head snap at the Ranger's gloved hands. “You did it, Burrack! You set that gut-plucker free!” He stood on one boot and his sock foot. “If I ever see a buzzard caught in a tin can, I'll know to send for—”

“Sit down, Teddy,” the Ranger warned, his free hand going to his holstered Colt. Bonsell dropped like a rock.

Sam pitched the bird aside on the ground as it clawed and bit at him. Instead of flying away as Sam thought it would, the bird hurried away, one wing dragging the dirt, and huddled and gasped for air. Sam dropped the can, crushed it flat under his bootheel and walked back toward Bonsell.

“Ranger, I've never seen anybody befriend a buzzard,” he chuckled.

“I'm better at catching buzzards than I am at setting them free,” Sam said flatly.

“That's real funny, Ranger,” said Bonsell on a sour note, catching Sam's meaning.

“On your feet, Teddy . . . Get your boot on,” said Sam, reaching down, untying the horses from the rock. Overhead, buzzards circled in large numbers, begrudging two humans the use of their abandoned roost. Sam led the horses over to the rocky edge and looked. Behind him, Bonsell had straggled back putting on his boot. As he walked closer, Sam pointed along the edge ten feet away. “Stay that far off my side, Teddy,” he said.

“Afraid I'll push you over it, Ranger?” Bonsell asked boldly.

“No,” said Sam. “I'm afraid you'll try to end up down there with them.” He gestured down at three bodies lying in the rocks below. A half-dozen buzzards stood on the dead men's backs, their feasting, pulling and plucking beaks causing the bodies to jerk and move as if still alive.

“Recognize any of them?” Sam asked, watching the twitching, writhing corpses. Along the steep hillside four saddles lay strewn about in the rocks.

“I might recognize that one,” Bonsell said with sarcasm, “if he had a little more face left.”

Sam only nodded and watched with a grim expression.

“Poor sonsabitches,” said Bonsell in a hushed tone. “See? That's why I never helped that buzzard.”

“A buzzard didn't kill those three men,” the Ranger replied quietly. “The birds just showed up for the feed.”

“They're still buzzards, Ranger,” Bonsell said. “If I had my way I'd kill every one of them on earth.”

The Ranger looked up at the sky full of slow circling scavengers.

“You're ambitious, Teddy, I'll give you that,” he said.

“I've seen enough of this,” Bonsell said, taking a step back from the edge.

“Me too,” Sam said.

The two turned from the grisly scene below. Sam led the horses with him as he looked all around on the ground. He stopped and looked at the long, red smear of dark blood in the dirt. All around he saw horses' hooves leading off along the trail, the drag marks wiping some of them out.

Someone badly wounded, following riders on horseback . . . ?

“Come on, Teddy,” he said, “we've got one crawling away.” He handed Bonsell the reins to his horse; the two led their animals less than a half mile along the rugged trail when the dragging marks and the dried blood came to a halt among boot prints and horse tracks. Sam noted some of the horse tracks were not as recent as others.
Two separate sets of riders,
he decided
.

“Looks like you've reached a dead end, Ranger,” Bonsell said smugly, watching the Ranger stoop down over the dark dried spots of blood in the dirt. Sam touched a gloved finger to one of the heavier drops. He stood up and studied a smear on his fingertip.

Still a little wet . . .

“We've got tracks to follow now, Teddy,” he replied finally, wiping his gloved fingertips together. “When we run out of tracks to follow, I'm counting on you telling me which way to go.”

“Count all you want, Ranger,” Bonsell said. “When you're through
counting
, you still won't hear me tell you a damned thing.”

“I hope you don't say much now that you'll be embarrassed when the time comes to change your mind, Teddy,” Sam said.

“Keep watching, Ranger,” Bonsell said with a crooked determined grin. “Tell me when you see I'm about to change my mind. You have no idea where Braxton Kane and the men hide out. If you did it would only get you killed.”

“In the saddle, Teddy,” the Ranger said. “You'll tell me when the time's right.” He paused, then said, “I'm counting on you.”

“Like hell I'll tell you,” Bonsell sneered. As he spoke the two swung up into their saddles. The Ranger turned his horse back along the trail they'd come, away from the tracks in the dirt. Bonsell nudged his horse over beside him.

“Wait, Ranger. Which way we going?” he asked.

“Back through the campsite to the main trail,” Sam said.

“These prints will lead us back to the main trail, just at a different place,” Bonsell offered.

“I know,” said Sam, “but it's a higher trail we were on. I like being up where I can see everything. We'll pick up these tracks again where the trails connect.”

Bonsell shook his head.

“I can't see backtracking, even if it's just a half mile,” he said.

“You don't have to see it, Teddy,” Sam replied. “I see it for you. That's why I'm here, remember?”

They rode on in silence through the campsite toward the main trail. As they passed the place where Sam had
freed the buzzard from the tin can, they saw no sign of the big bird, only a small, dark feather where the bird had lifted up and batted away after regaining the strength to do so.

“Looks like your feathered pal is gone, Ranger,” Bonsell said. He gave a cruel grin. “I hope the two of you meet again somewhere,
real soon
.”

“If I don't meet him, maybe you will,” Sam replied, his coppery dun moving along at a walk. “If you see him first tell him I said hello.”

Dayton Short, Earl Faraday and Hank Woods sat their horses atop a ridge overlooking the main trail. Short didn't like the way Woods kept himself back a few feet from him and Faraday, as if to keep an eye on them. But this wasn't the time or place to say anything. Bringing these three along with them had been a mistake, he'd decided. But it was a mistake he'd have to live with until they got back to Kane's hideout.

“Here they come,” Faraday said beside him beneath his big swollen nose. He nodded out toward the trail, his voice sounding thick and nasal. On the trail, they saw Bolten and Jimmy Quince riding along toward them at a brisk gait. Faraday adjusted himself in his saddle and nodded back over his shoulder. “When is somebody else going to do this?”

Behind Faraday's saddle sat Lester Stevens, the man they'd found crawling along the trail. Stevens was still unconscious, lying against Faraday's back, his wrists tied around Faraday's waist to keep him from falling off.

“I don't know,” said Short, a little testily. “You lost the card draw. You're stuck with him for now.”

“Damn it.” Faraday spit. “I was hoping these two would've killed somebody and brought back a horse for this one.” Stevens lay against him as limp as a dead man. Quince had donated the dirty shirt that they'd tied around Steven's gunshot wound as a bandage.

They sat watching as Bolten and Quince rode up around a large boulder and joined them.

“Nobody back there, hunh?” Short asked Bolten.

“Oh, there's somebody back there—two of them in fact,” said Bolten. “But whoever they are, they turned back before they got down under our gun sights.”

“Lawmen . . . ,” Short deduced, studying the trail in dark contemplation. “A posse, maybe?”

“Lawmen's a possibility,” Bolten said. “But it's not a posse. Two men out front of a posse wouldn't have turned back. Finding prints that fresh, they would sit still, waited for the others and come on like bloodhounds.” He looked around the rugged hill country. “These two might be why your pals haven't been showing up. Nothing like a shiny badge to send a squirrel up a tree.”

“Golden Riders ain't squirrels, Bolten. We eat lawmen for breakfast,” Faraday said in a thick nasal twang.

“Run on back there and
eat them
, then, if you're hungry,” Bolten challenged. He turned his horse back down toward the trail. “We're going to follow the other horse tracks
we
found.”

“Wait up,” said Short. “We're going when and where
I say
,” he said stiffly.

“Suit yourself,” said Bolten, still moving his horse toward the trail, Woods and Quince falling in beside him. “Show us a better direction and we'll take it.”

“Damn it . . . ,” Short growled under his breath, knowing Bolten was right. He booted his horse forward almost at a run and quickly moved around in front of the other three on the trail. Faraday stayed at the rear of the riders, the wounded gunman leaning heavily on his back.