Nest of Vipers (9781101613283) (19 page)

FORTY

Brad directed Wil and Joe to take up their hiding places on the side of the road opposite the wagon.

“Julio and I will be on the other side. I'll handle the twine to open the tailgate and snake box,” he said. “Lay low and stay quiet.”

“It's gonna be a long day,” Wil said.

“Probably the longest day of your life,” Brad said.

“We can handle it,” Joe said.

“You probably won't need your rifles, but keep them handy.” Brad hefted his Winchester for emphasis.

“Yeah, when they come down the road and pass by the wagon, they'll be real close,” Joe said.

“And, when they get their wits back, they'll be shooting right and left,” Brad said.

“But we're going to ask them surrender first, aren't we?” Joe asked.

Brad looked at him in the dim light of morning.

“If you want it by the book, you can politely ask them, Joe.”

“You know what I mean,” Joe said.

“Yeah, I know. Go ahead and demand their surrender. But you better be ducked down when you do. Unless I miss my guess, Jordan's men won't throw up their hands and throw their guns down.”

“No, I expect not,” Joe said.

“Play it any way you like. But be ready to return fire if they start shooting,” Brad said.

“We will,” Wil said. “I swear.”

Brad watched the two men cross the road. Then he and Julio went to the wagon side and climbed into the brush. A cottontail jumped up and ran out as they entered the thicket.

“Pow,” Julio said and squeezed a mock trigger with his right hand. “Supper,” he said.

“Let's just hope all the rattlers are in that box, Julio. Stomp around here to make sure.”

Both of them made a racket as they burrowed out a place for them to sit and wait. It was a spot where they could both sit and stand up with an unobstructed view of the road and the wagon. The two strands of heavy twine lay a half foot away. Brad reached over and picked them both up. He sat down and pulled them almost tight. A quick jerk would drop the tailgate first and another jerk on the second strand would open the snake box and release the rattlers.

He hoped the snakes would wriggle out the back of the wagon and start streaming toward the road. If any came their way, they could be in trouble.

The men in hiding drank from their canteens at frequent intervals. They sweated under the hot sun, and wiped their sweaty hands frequently on their trousers. The morning wore on and the sun continued to climb the heavens.

Then, at around noon, all of them heard the faint sound of hoofbeats up on the road. The riders were advancing very slowly.

Brad hoped that Wil and Joe would resist the urge to stretch their necks to see who was coming down the road.

He hunkered down and drew his pistol.

He nodded to Julio who also drew his weapon.

They waited.

From his hiding place, Brad could see the top of the road as it dipped off the tabletop. In a few moments, the road filled with riders. A man on a black Arabian halted and the others crowded around him.

Brad saw them all scan the valley with their eyes slitted.

It seemed an eternity before any of the men on horseback moved.

Then they all slowly began to descend the road.

Brad figured the man on the black Arab was Jordan Killdeer. As the men rode down the road, he noticed that Jordan let them pass him as he continued to look in all directions. Jordan's gaze was fixed on the wagon as they all approached it. He heard the low murmur of voices as the men in front of Jordan expressed their opinions on what they were seeing and not seeing, what they were not hearing, as well.

Then, Jordan halted as the others rode on down toward the valley.

“Storm,” Jordan called in a loud voice. “We're here. Show yourself.”

The men halted for a moment and turned to look back at their leader.

“Storm, I've got your money. Come out, wherever you are.” Killdeer's voice was even louder as he cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice as if he had a megaphone.

Brad set his pistol down in front of him and picked up both strands of twine.

The men in front of Killdeer resumed their descent into the valley. When they were just below the back end of the wagon, Brad pulled the cord attached to the tailgate.

The tailgate opened and dropped. Wood slammed against wood.

All of the men halted and stared at the wagon.

A second later, Brad pulled the other cord and the snake box opened. He held the door open and watched for the snakes to wriggle toward the tail of the wagon.

A second or two later, the first snake reached the edge of the wagon bed. The snakes began to shake their tails. Then the entire bunch of them steamed off the back of the wagon and dropped to the ground.

The rattling of the snakes startled the horses and the men riding them.

Snakes began to streak toward the road. The horses neighed in terror and a couple of them reared up and the riders had to force them back down on four legs.

“Snakes,” one of the men shouted.

“Rattlers,” cried another, and the riders began to fight for control of their mounts as the horses milled in confusion.

Across the road, Joe shouted.

“Drop your guns. You're all under arrest.”

Jinglebob was the first to draw his pistol. He cocked it and fired at the sound of Joe's voice.

The bullet sizzled over his and Wil's heads, and caromed off a rock and spun off with an angry whine.

Then all of the riders drew their pistols.

Brad stood up and shot Jinglebob out of the saddle. The bullet from Brad's .45 smashed into his left side and crushed ribs, mangled his left lung and smashed a hole though his stomach.

Jinglebob doubled over and tried to turn his horse and raise his pistol. Instead, he dropped from the saddle and hit the ground, gushing blood from two wounds.

All of the men started firing their weapons, both in Brad's direction and at Joe and Wil.

The blast of gunfire from several weapons thundered from different explosions.

Julio stood up and picked out a target, shot a man in the upper chest.

Lenny's horse spun around in a half circle and he grabbed his saddle horn, mortally wounded.

Joe and Wil shot at the milling riders as fast as they could pull the triggers on their guns. A horse was hit and fell forward as its knees buckled.

Smoke filled the air. Sparks and flame flew from pistols.

As Brad watched, Killdeer turned his horse and galloped up the road. He fired a quick shot at Killdeer, but the man topped the rise and disappeared in a drumbeat of hooves.

“Drop your guns,” Joe shouted again.

He and Wil stood up, rifles in their hands.

“Now,” Wil shouted as he levered a cartridge into the firing chamber of his rifle.

The remaining men dropped their pistols.

Brad and Julio scrambled out of the thicket and approached the men on horseback.

“Raise your hands,” Brad said. “Grab some sky.”

The men raised their hands high as Wil and Joe came up on them with leveled rifles.

Brad ran to Jinglebob's horse and grabbed the reins. He pulled himself into the saddle.

“Tie 'em up,” he told Joe.

“Where you goin'?” Joe asked.

“Killdeer got away. I'm going after him.”

Two men lay dead on the ground. Joe ordered the other riders to dismount.

Snakes swarmed the road, their rattles frantically knocking together.

Will kicked one away and stomped on another. The snakes wriggled into the brush on the other side of the road where he and Joe had been. They continued to rattle until they were out of sight.

The riders dismounted and Joe made them all line up and turn their backs to him.

Brad galloped off on the blue roan that had belonged to Jinglebob. A Winchester jutted from its scabbard. He disappeared over the rim of the tabletop.

“Wil,” Joe ordered, “cut me a up a bunch of that twine. Julio, you shoot any man who turns around.” He began to kick the fallen pistols off the road while Wil dashed to the wagon and picked up one of the strands of twine.

“You damned traitor,” Toby said to Wil.

“Shut your mouth,” Joe commanded.

Wil cut several lengths of twine and brought them to Joe.

“Keep 'em covered, Wilbur,” Joe said.

To the prisoners, he said: “Put your hands behind your back. Any funny moves and you get a bullet.”

The men put their hands behind their backs. Joe tied Cletus's hands together first and pulled the twine tight before he knotted it.

“That hurts,” Cletus said.

“It's supposed to hurt,” Joe said.

“You ain't the law,” Toby growled.

“Yes, I am,” Joe said, “and I told you to keep your damned mouth shut.”

He went from man to man and tied their hands behind their backs. When he was finished, he, Wil and Julio marched them up the road as their horses ran down the road and onto the grass of the valley.

All of the rattlesnakes had disappeared.

When Joe looked back, he saw Brad up on the rimrock, following tracks.

The tracks of Jordan Killdeer.

“I hope he catches that sonofabitch,” Joe said.

“I do, too,” Wil said. “I truly do.”

“He will catch him,” Julio said.

Joe herded his prisoners into the timber toward his lean-to and their camp.

“Sit down,” he ordered, “five feet apart. Make a circle and turn your backs to each other.”

The outlaws did as he ordered.

“Wil,” Joe said, “if any of them try to get up or run, you shoot 'em down. Can you do that?”

“I sure can,” Wil said.

Then Joe turned to Julio.

“Julio,” he said, “do you think you can go down on your horse and round up their horses, bring them back here?”

“Yes, I can do that,” Julio said. “Then what will you do, Joe?”

“We'll wait for Brad. But I want to have their horses up here and hobbled. Ready to go.”

“To Denver?” Wil said.

“Yes, to Denver and to jail.”

Some of the prisoners cursed under their breaths.

Julio went to his horse and saddled up. In fifteen minutes, he rode away toward the road.

“Now,” Joe said to Wil, “we wait.”

He looked at the men sitting in a circle on the ground, their backs to one another.

He wondered if Wil would back him if there was trouble.

“Do you know any of these men, Wil?” he asked.

“I know two of 'em,” Wil said. He pointed to Toby. “That's Toby Dugan.” He pointed to another man. “And that's Cletus Hemphill. I don't know who these others are.”

“Friends of yours?” Joe asked.

Wil shook his head.

“Nope. They work for Jordan is all. On his ranch. But they're horse thieves all right.”

“You may have to kill them, Wil. Could you do that?”

“I could shoot 'em down like the dogs they are,” Wil said.

“Good,” Joe said. “I just wanted to make sure.”

Wil tapped the receiver of his rifle. Curly's rifle.

Joe smiled at him and patted his rifle.

He had no idea how long they would have to wait for Brad to return, but he hoped he'd bring Killdeer back alive.

He wanted to see Killdeer, along with the men he had in custody, hang from the gallows.

Joe walked to where he had his lariats coiled and picked up one of them. When he returned, he cut lengths of three feet each. Then he squatted and began to tie the rope around the booted ankles of the prisoners. Each man glared at him as he tied their feet together.

Then he picked up his rifle and sat down on the log, the rifle in his lap.

The sun began to slide on its downward arc. Beams of yellow light streamed through the pine boughs. Wil sat down on the log and laid his rifle across his legs, his finger inside the trigger guard.

Joe nodded in approval. He knew he could count on Wilbur.

The man was reformed, for sure.

FORTY-ONE

The tracks Brad saw were small and easy to follow. The horse that had left the tracks moved at a gallop for some distance, so the ground was chewed up where its hooves had landed. The horse seemed to have been recently shod, as well, so the impressions were especially sharp and well defined. In between the tracks, there were small clumps and clods of dirt kicked up so that the trail seemed to have arrows pointing in the direction the rider was traveling.

For some distance, Killdeer's horse climbed almost straight up the small hills toward ever higher ones. Brad followed the tracks across small gullies and shallow ravines, and then, as the hills grew in size, he noticed the tracks were in parallel zigzags to the summits.

The tracking became more difficult as the terrain became steeper and more broken. None of the country looked familiar to Brad and he realized he had never been there before. At one point, the tracks followed a game trail for a mile or so, then Kildeer doubled back into a gully where the tracks were harder to see.

After that, he crisscrossed through ever deeper ravines, only to climb out at a low point and head for higher ground. Then Brad lost the tracks for a brief spell when the horse hit a rocky plateau where it left no visible tracks. He was able to pick up the trail again by studying the dislodged stones and the overturned pebbles that revealed their wet or damp undersides.

He knows I'm tracking him, Brad thought as he picked up the trail again in an expected area beyond the plateau.

After that, he strained to follow the thread of the tracks as Kildeer backtracked and sidestepped, or rode back over hard ground where the impressions were faint. And in one small stretch, the horse was backed for several yards, then turned around and headed in a different direction.

“This guy knows what he's doing,” Brad muttered to himself as he rode through a brush ravine and into a canyon that was open on both ends.

As the afternoon wore on, the chore of tracking became more taxing on Brad. Killdeer seemed to enjoy leading his pursuer onto consistently more difficult paths through thick timber, grassy swales, brush-choked gullies, and difficult, rock-infested ravines. Yet, there was no avoiding it. If he was to catch Killdeer, he had to keep after him.

He was somewhat encouraged by the age of the tracks. It seemed to Brad that he was closing the gap. Yet, at other times, he sensed that Killdeer had gained time on him. Perhaps he was becoming disoriented and confused by the winding trail he followed, the up and down path that Killdeer was forging in the rugged mountains.

Then suddenly, Brad noticed a new pattern. From the high hills, the tracks led downward; although still in a zigzag, they were descending to another level. The tracks led him into heavy timber, older pines with many deadfalls and elk beds. He jumped a pair of muleys and began to smell bear scat.

On a lower level, he began to see where Killdeer had ridden his horse over rotted deadfalls as if to thumb his nose at his tracker. The logs were mashed down in the center and leaked crumbling pulp from the innards. Not hard to track, but disconcerting, because a man usually made his horse jump deadfalls, not step and walk on top of them.

He began to see rocky outcroppings on small hillsides that were heavily thicketed with brush and pines. By then, Killdeer was riding in a straight line toward some unknown destination, staying at the same level on the hillsides. And he was moving faster. That told Brad that Killdeer either knew the country, or he was betting on his horse not stumbling into a burrow or sinkhole. The tracks were straight, and the stride of the horse indicated its faster speed.

Toward late afternoon when the light in the timber began to lessen, Brad saw another set of tracks that he recognized. Curly's tracks from the day before. To his surprise, he passed the large boulder that guarded the depression in the hillside where he had seen the stone with the ancient glyphs etched in its surface.

His heart quickened as he saw Killdeer's tracks blot out or mar some of the tracks that Curly's horse had made the previous day.

He suddenly realized that Curly had not found that cave by accident. He had known where he was going all the time.

And now it seemed clear to Brad that Killdeer was heading in the same direction, over the same path.

His hunch was verified later when he saw the caves and, when he looked closely at the ground, there were the tracks of Killdeer's horse heading up to the cave where he would have a commanding view of the terrain below the ledge. This gave Brad a sudden chill. In the distance, he saw the bare rim of the ledge and the large cave. As he rode to higher ground, he even saw Curly's corpse, lying there on the ledge where he had left it.

He reined up and rested the roan while he thought of his next moves.

Was Killdeer in the cave, the same cave where Curly had hidden out yesterday? Was his horse inside with him as Curly's had been?

He looked at the pile of stones where he had hidden below the ledge. He did not want to go there again. If Killdeer was up there in that same cave, he would know that Brad had concealed himself there. His tracks would be plain to see.

Brad now knew that he was following a very crafty man.

Should he wait him out? Or try to sneak up to the cave on foot as he had done before?

He breathed and rested. He patted the horse's withers and thought about what he should do.

Finally, he turned the horse until he could no longer see the ledge and the large cave. He slipped out of the saddle and ground-tied the reins to a sturdy juniper bush. Then he pulled Jinglebob's rifle from its scabbard. He eased the lever down and saw that there was a fresh cartridge in the chamber. He seated the lever.

He waited there for several minutes, listening for any sound coming from the cave, the scrape of a boot, the nicker of a horse. Anything.

Then he walked upslope until he was about even with the ledge. He walked toward the ledge and found a shallow depression where he could sit and see the cave opening as a black blot on the face of the limestone bluff.

He waited and listened as the sun began to descend toward the snow-flocked peaks. The air turned chill, and he felt the whisper of a breeze on his face.

The silence was excruciating.

The silence was deep and ominous.