Pete (The Cowboys) (40 page)

Anne even considered abandoning the scheme. She would go back to the ranch, maybe back to town. Tell the sheriff. Hire some men to come with her. No matter what she had to do, she couldn’t abandon Pete. If she couldn’t prove these men killed Peter Warren, Pete would surely hang. Other schemes might offer a better chance for success, but it would be impossible to keep them secret from Mason. Slim as it was, this was her only chance.

She tried to think what Pete would have done. He had been faced with one unexpected challenge after another, and he’d always come up with a plausible explanation. He kept calm, said as little as possible, and let others do the talking. Pete said she was smart. Well, this was her chance to prove it. She just wished the consequences of failure weren’t so grave.

Ray drove the wagon as close as he dared to the line of junipers that formed a woodland at the base of one of the foothills.

“We should be in place by the time you reach the front of the cabin,” Mrs. Dean said. “Have you decided what you’re going to say to them?”

“No,” Anne replied. “I’ll have to improvise. Get as close to the cabin as possible so you can hear what I’m saying.” She drove away before Mrs. Dean could start offering more suggestions.

“What
are
you going to say?” Dolores asked.

“I really don’t know. Do you have any suggestions?”

“No.”

Anne couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound stupid. During the hour it took her to circle the butte and approach the cabin from the front, she racked her brain searching for new ideas, going over old ones, but nothing brilliant occurred to her.

“Do you think they’ll shoot us?” Dolores asked as they neared the cabin.

“We don’t even know they’re in there,” Anne said. She didn’t know why the men would have stayed around this long unless Mason had told Eddie to keep them around in case he needed them again. Her skin crawled at the thought that she might have been the need he was talking about.

“Somebody’s in there. I can smell smoke.”

But as they approached the cabin, they saw no sign it was occupied.

“They probably hid their horses in the trees,” Dolores said.

That didn’t make Anne feel any better. It made the killers appear all the more determined not to be found. How far would they go to keep from being captured?

Anne was still a hundred yards away when she saw the barrel of a rifle appear through one of the windows.

“Turn around,” Dolores said. “They’re going to kill us.”

Anne’s heart was in her throat, but she couldn’t turn back. There was a chance she would get hurt, but Pete would surely hang if she backed down. She had no choice but to keep going. “I’ll let you down,” she said to Dolores, “but I can’t stop.”

“Go on,” Dolores said. “I can’t let you be the only fool out here.”

As they drew closer to the cabin, Anne searched frantically for some explanation of her presence, but nothing came to mind. How could anyone possibly explain two women in a wagon miles away from any ranch?

A bullet kicked up dust in front of her horse just as the sound of a rifle split the silence. “Go away, or I’ll kill you,” a man shouted.

“Don’t shoot,” Anne called out, doing her best to act like a silly, harmless female flustered by the rifle shot. She knew it was dangerous to keep going, but she had to get closer. “We’re not carrying any guns.” She kept the wagon moving. She was the bait to draw the killers outside so Ray and the Deans could capture them.

“What do you want?” the man asked.

“I’m looking for my parents,” Anne said. “They came out hunting elk, but their horses came back without them.” It was a silly story, but it was the best she could do.

“There’s nobody around here. We heard no gunshots.”

“My father’s hunting with a sword,” Anne said, remember the sword Mr. Dean insisted upon bringing.

“He must be a complete fool!” the outlaw said.

“My parents are from Illinois. They don’t understand Wyoming.”

The gun barrel disappeared from the window, and a man appeared at the doorway holding a rifle. Anne had imagined killers would look mean and ugly. She was right. The man had several days’ growth of beard and oily hair, and his clothes looked as if they hadn’t been changed in several days.

“My parents are rather old,” Anne said, “and Father doesn’t see very well, but they wanted a set of elk antlers to take back with them. Are you sure you haven’t seen them?”

“Look, lady, when I say I haven’t seen anybody, I mean I haven’t—”

“You’ve got to help us find them,” Anne said. “It’ll soon be dark. My mother will start to scream if she’s caught out in the dark.”

“Mrs. Dean will kill you,” Dolores whispered, giggling softly. “She prides herself on being able to handle any situation.”

A second man had come out of the cabin. He looked just as unkempt as his partner, but he had cold, cruel eyes. Anne was relieved to see he hadn’t brought a gun, but she didn’t like the way he looked at her and Dolores. She didn’t know much about killers, but she didn’t want to learn by becoming their next victim.

“I don’t know how she’s going to handle this situation,” Anne whispered. “Look at those men. They’re big and healthy.”

“Why did you come here?” the second man asked, clearly suspicious.

“Because of your cabin. You must have horses somewhere. My parents would want to buy them so they could return home.”

“We ain’t selling our horses to nobody,” the first man said.

“But we might consider it, if the price is right,” the second man said. “Why don’t you get down and come inside? We can talk it over. Who knows—your parents might show up before we settle on a price.”

“We ought to start looking for them right now,” Anne said. “Mother,” she called as loudly as she could, “can you hear me?”

Dolores made a sound that Anne could only compare to a coyote’s wail. “They’ll hear that a lot better,” she said.

“Here, stop that!” the first outlaw said. “You’ll have every four-legged animal within five miles coming this way.”

“Mother!” Anne called again. “Please come if you can hear me. She’s frightened of four-legged animals,” she told the outlaws.

“Then what the hell is she doing out here looking for elk?” the outlaw asked.

“She wants Papa to have his antlers,” Anne explained, “but she doesn’t realize they must first be attached to an elk.”

The outlaws approached the wagon as she pulled to a stop in front of the cabin.

“You’ll have to get down,” the second one said. “You’ll never find them sitting up there screeching like a prairie chicken.”

Anne didn’t want to get down. She knew what that outlaw had in mind, but she couldn’t figure out how she was going to do anything sitting in the wagon either. She handed the reins to Dolores. “You hold the horse,” she said, “while these men help me look for Mama.”

“I’m going with you,” Dolores said.

“No,” Anne said.

“She ought to get down, too,” the second outlaw said.

“Why?” Anne asked.

“We can split up. We’ll find them a lot faster that way.”

Anne didn’t want to split up. That would make it virtually impossible to capture both men. She and Dolores got down from the wagon and started walking quickly toward the trees that came up to the back of the cabin.

“Wait,” the second outlaw said, clearly angry that things weren’t going according to his plan.

Anne didn’t slow down. “If my parents are lost in those trees, Mother will be so frightened she won’t be able to move. It’ll take both of us to coax her out”

The outlaws hurried after them. “Wait up,” the second outlaw called. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you ladies to go into them woods.” He took hold of Anne’s arm with a grip that didn’t allow for argument. “Now let’s go inside and talk about this.”

Just then Mrs. Dean came stumbling out of the trees, her hair flying in all directions, her clothes looking as though she’d come through a briar patch backward. “Praise be to the saints,” she cried out as she sank to her knees. “Horace, we’re saved. Our daughter has found us at last.”

Both outlaws stared open-mouthed at Mrs. Dean. Anne was certain they never expected—or intended—to look for anybody. Anne was relieved to see that Mrs. Dean kept a firm grip on the rifle she carried.

Anne tried to pull away, but the outlaw didn’t release her. “You’ve got to help her,” she said. “We’ve got to take her to your cabin until she recovers.”

Just then Mr. Dean darted out of the trees looking just as demented as his wife, brandishing a sword at some imaginary foe. He looked around as if he had no idea where he was or what he was doing there.

Anne broke from the outlaw’s slackened hold and hurried forward to Mrs. Dean.

“Get them both to come help me up,” Mrs. Dean whispered when Anne reached her. “You must get both of them.”

Anne and Dolores attempted to help Mrs. Dean to her feet, but she collapsed rather dramatically, still holding tightly to her rifle.

“Can’t you get the old cow to her feet,” the second outlaw scoffed.

“She’s exhausted,” Anne said. “We need your help—both of you.”

“We ought to shoot her and put her out of her misery,” the second outlaw said. He appeared to be weighing in his mind the possibility of getting rid of Mr. and Mrs. Dean and having Dolores and Anne to himself.

“Don’t say things like that,” Anne said. “You’ll frighten Mama.”

“Oh, hell!” the first outlaw said. “Let’s get her in the wagon and out of here.”

The two outlaws bent over to help Mrs. Dean to her feet. As they did so, Anne and Dolores wrenched the rifle from the first outlaw’s slackened grip. At the same moment, Mr. Dean attacked the second outlaw with his sword. The outlaw managed to deflect the sword point, but the two of them went over in a heap.

Mrs. Dean lurched to her feet, her rifle on the first outlaw. “Don’t move, or I’ll put a bullet in you. Horace, you fool, let go of that man.”

“I’m holding him for you, my dear,” Horace said as he was flung against a tree. Ray came out of the woods at that moment, his gun drawn and pointed at the second outlaw. But Horace staggered to his feet and into his line of fire. The outlaw, unarmed, grabbed Horace for a shield.

“Pull that murderer off Horace before he kills him!” Mrs. Dean cried.

Ray tried fruitlessly to draw a bead on the outlaw, but he hid behind Horace. Holstering his gun, Ray attacked the outlaw, head first. They all went down with a series of grunts.

“Don’t try to help your partner,” Mrs. Dean warned the first outlaw.

He ignored her, and she put a bullet in his thigh. The man screamed and fell to the ground clutching his bleeding leg.

“My leg is broken,” he cried.

“I doubt it, but if it is, it serves you right. I warned you,” Mrs. Dean said. “I’m very good with this rifle.”

“I’ll kill you,” the outlaw shouted to the accompaniment of grunts and groans from the three men wrestling on the ground.

“Not until you can walk,” Mrs. Dean said, then turned her attention to the other man, who seemed to be holding both Ray and Mr. Dean down at the same time.

“Hit him with something,” she said to Anne.

“What?”

“Anything.”

Anne had nothing except the first outlaw’s rife. She was reluctant to do anything as violent as hit a man on the head with a rifle stock. Then she thought of Peter and Pete. Those men had shot them in cold blood and left their bodies in the open for wild animals to tear to pieces. Cold anger that anyone could be so cruel and coldhearted ousted any feeling of sympathy. Gritting her teeth, she raised the rifle into the air and slammed the butt into the back of the outlaw’s head.

He subsided into an inert lump atop Mr. Dean.

“See, my dear,” Mr. Dean said as he lay pinned under the outlaw, a self-satisfied smile on his face, “I told you we could capture these ruffians.”

“I don’t deny these men stopped by my chuck wagon,” Bill Mason told the sheriff. “We give hospitality to any wandering cowhand. But I never hired them to kill Peter Warren.”

The hearing had been scheduled for the sheriff’s office, but so many people had showed up that the sheriff moved it to one of the larger saloons. Anne was certain every person in town was in the room. It was so crowded, she couldn’t see the faces of half the spectators, but she hadn’t failed to notice her uncle and Cyrus McCaine. Apparently they still hoped some twist of fortune would return her to their control.