Marshal of Hel Dorado (27 page)

 
    
He carried the glasses over and waited
until the Judge made himself comfortable. Jed’s study was all dark woods and
heavy built furniture, designed for men to drop into without worry of snapping
off the delicate accents that Molly furnished throughout the house.

 
    
 
Ah Molly, what have the boys done now? No
worries, ma’am. I’ll take care of it.
 

 
    
“I thought you were up by the Red River.”
He pressed the glass into the Judges hands.

 
    
The leathery skin was stretched tight over
three of bulbous, red knuckles, hooking the pinky at an uncomfortable angle.
He’d ask Miss Annabeth for some liniment and get the doc to check on the Judge.

 
    
“Oh I was, but a rider from Fort Worth
brought word that your boy caught one of the robbers and they loaned me a horse
to get on my way. Afraid my old girl threw her last shoe.

 
    
She’s as tired and as lame as I am, I left
her with a family up by the border. She’s likely sunning her old bones at the
river. I paid them ten gold to cover her keep and let her retire.”

 
    
“That’s a steep price.”

 
    
“Ohhh, maybe.” The Judge stretched out his
legs and leaned back into the chair, sighing at the comfort. “But I’ve had her
since she was a filly and she deserves a good retirement. The family was just
scraping by and with four kids and a fifth on the way, I didn’t mind helping
out.

 
    
So tell me, has your boy caught the rest?
Or are we just hanging one of them?”

 
    
“Well Collin, it’s like this…”

 
F
ive days later…

 
    
“Mount up boys. They were spotted heading
west of San Angelo, we’re going to have to ride quick to catch ‘em. The Army’s
posted a reward and I aim to collect.” Ryker whipped his men into a frenzy, the
dissolute lot composed of local gamblers, drunkards and hard types that drifted
from ranch to ranch, unable to settle. Cob watched it all, leaning against the
porch rail of the Marshal’s office, his scattergun comfortable in the crook of
his arm.

 
    
Men like Ryker lived for trouble and if it
didn’t find them, they stirred it up. He’d been livid since the night Sam sent
him tumbling on his ass out into the street. He’d spoken out against the Marshal
every time he’d left town and discovering that Miss Scarlett had gone missing
was a burr under his saddle.

 
    
The arrival of the Army reward posters in
the mail the day before lathered the town up.

 
    
Ryker turned his attention to Cob, flinty,
cold eyes hard like a rattlesnake. “You tell the Marshal when he can be
bothered, that we’ll take care of those thieves.”

 
    
Cob said nothing. Rumors were flying in
from all over the prairie. The thieves had been spotted as far south as
Galveston and further east, as if they were riding to the Mississippi. The
rumors of the riders in San Angelo were just as likely as the ones that said
they were in San Antonio and south to the Rio Bravo.

 
    
“Pity you backed the wrong man, eh Cob?”
Ryker, not content to be ignored, kicked his mare over to where Cob stood. He
glared a challenge and Cob leaned to the side and spit into the dirt, waiting.

 
    
“Gold fever doesn’t leave much behind,
Ryker. You would do well to remember that.”

 
    
The man snorted, disrespect and derision
his companions. “Cob.”

 
    
“Ryker.”

 
    
With a few more hoots and hollers, dust
drifted on the lazy, hot breeze as Ryker and his men rode out. Jason walked out
the office door behind him. “I sent the riders out. They’ll meet up with their
strings. We had word yesterday that Sam and Micah picked up Kid just outside of
San Antonio.”

 
    
“She wasn’t with him, was she?” Cob grunted
at Jason’s nod. The boy looked more city slicker than rancher, but he was armed
with a pair of twin colts and like all of Jed’s boys, he knew how to use them.

 
    
“Well that lot’s headed the wrong way, but
just as likely to change as the wind. Keep sending more men out. I want them
picketed from here to Galveston and send more west to the passes. We need to be
able to get word to Sam quick.”

 
    
Jason nodded. “The Judge still at the
Flying K?”

 
    
“Yeah, your Pa will keep him under wraps.”

 
    
“The Governor could still pardon her.”

 
    
“You think that’s going to happen?”

 
    
Jason shook his head. “He’s afraid of Pa,
but he doesn’t want to piss the army off. Not when the Federals might be paying
off our war debt.”

 
    
Cob kept his gaze on the column of dust in
the distance, Ryker’s riders were pushing their horses hard. They wouldn’t get
too far today at that pace.

 
    
“Jason, find me another rider. I’ve a mind
to send a note to Colonel Stanley.”

 
    
“I thought he was retired.”

 
    
“A lot of people make that mistake.”

 
    
“On it.”

 
    
Cob sighed and scratched a hand over the
misshapen star pinned uncomfortably to his breast pocket. They’d hold Dorado together
until Sam could find them.

 
    
He and Jed had been doing it for years.

 
O
ne week later…

 
    
“Jason says the Governor is considering a
pardon.” Micah scanned the letter they’d found waiting for them in Pecos. His
face itched for lack of a shave and his body ached from a week in the saddle,
but Sam kept pushing them, pausing only when the horses absolutely needed to
rest.

 
    
He spared a glance for Sam, his older
brother’s fierce mood had only darkened over the intervening days. He’d barely
been able to pull him off Kid when they’d found him, having been a recent
recipient of Sam’s fists, he’d done his younger brother a favor. Particularly
since he was already injured, his chest a mass of scabbed scratches. Scratches
he’d refused to explain.

 
    
The boy in question was stripping their
tack down while Sam and Micah ate trail jerky and reviewed the mail from Flying
K riders. It seemed Cob was picketing men across the state to carry letters,
each one a few hours further than the next so they could ride fast and hard,
carrying the mail that would otherwise take days.

 
    
Stagecoaches didn’t come this far west. The
arid land, populated by roving tribes of Indians, outlaws and Mexican bandits,
wasn't hospitable. Micah almost hoped they ran into one or two, maybe giving
Sam someone to shoot would lighten his mood.

 
    
“Considering.”

 
    
“Yeah, considering. He’s commission Judge
Farrell to make a recommendation after he speaks to her. But the army might be
sending out their own men and they’ve posted a reward.”

 
    
Sam growled. Micah understood. A reward
made their job more difficult as it would bring out bounty hunters and more.

 
    
“How much?”

 
    
“Ten gold each, alive. Four if they’re
dead.”

 
    
Kid glanced up from the saddle repair to
stare at him. “Ten gold?”

 
    
“Feeling more helpful now?” Sam spit the
words and Micah sighed. The two men had been arguing since San Antonio, if they
bothered to speak at all.

 
    
“Do you really care?” Short tempers were in
plentiful supply. When his younger and older brothers started to square off,
Micah put two fingers in his mouth and issued a shrill whistle. Peacemaking was
Jason’s job, not his, but he was done.

 
    
He glared at the pair of them when they
turned their intemperate looks to him. “Enough.

 
    
We’re not likely to find her if you two
keep snapping at each other.”

 
    
His words had as much effect as a waving a
hat at a prairie fire. It was almost funny to think how much alike his oldest
and youngest brothers were, intractable, hot-headed and unlikely to turn away
from a course once they’d put their minds to it. Ignoring Sam, Micah focused on
Kid. The boy meant well, even when he couldn’t seem to manage a task without
screwing it up.

 
    
It was their own fault, really. Micah
worked with too many animals not to recognize that. Kid’s birth robbed them of
their mother and later, they’d nearly lost him to a fever. They’d indulged him
for years, never pushing, never demanding and always covering up for him with
their father.

 
    
It was no wonder Kid didn’t have much care
for consequences.

 
    
“Kid, you sure they didn’t mention where
they were headed?”

 
    
The younger man gave a sharp, quick shake
of his head. “She didn’t say and I didn’t ask.

 
    
Sam’s the one convinced they are riding for
the mountains.”

 
    
“What about her brothers, what did they
say?” Sam pounced on the line of questioning.

 
    
“He didn’t say anything.”

 
    
 
He.
 
Micah frowned. “So there was only one.”

 
    
Kid nodded again, his expression revealing
nothing.

 
    
“What did
he
say?”

 
    
“I just told you he didn’t say anything.
He…” Kid made a slashing gesture with one hand.

 
    
“Never mind, you wouldn’t believe me
anyway.”

 
    
Something rippled through Sam’s stony
expression. He pushed his hat back. Micah kept his thoughts to himself. It was
the first time since they’d found Kid that Sam even looked remotely like he was
listening.

 
    
“Tell me anyway.” Sam’s tone eased away
from hard-biting orders to something more speculative. “Tell me about the gold,
you spoke to them then, didn’t you?”

 
    
“Does it really matter?”

 
    
“Yes.” Sam scowled. “It does.”

 
    
The horses munched quietly on the sparse
grass around the pitiful watering hole they’d found to camp at. None of them
wanted to stay in Pecos, not with word of the reward spreading.

 
    
Their fresh supplies sat in bulging
saddlebags and they were content with cold water and trail jerky for a meal.

 
    
Micah sighed, stripping off his trail coat
and going to work digging a depression in the hard earth for a fire pit. He was
tired of jerky. “Kid, just tell us whatever it is. It can’t be much worse than
what we’ve been imagining.”

 
    
“Fine, I talked to a wolf.”

 
    
He hadn’t really known what he was
expecting, but if Kid’s explanation surprised him, Sam’s reaction shocked him.

 
    
“A great sandy-colored wolf?”

 
T
en days later…

 
    
Scarlett flicked a pebble across the still,
serene surface of the lake. It bounced once, twice and sank on the third. She
never did seem able to get past that third skip. Her mare grazed lazily in the
thick, green grass that verged around the lake. The sweet mare liked the
mountains, the cooler air and gentler weather much kinder than the arid desert
they’d crossed at a hard pace, Cody urging them on. The brothers had caught up
to them a few miles south of Dorado, Cody having skirted the town entirely and
waiting until nightfall when Buck could dream to them.