The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill (11 page)

This was the way Tod must have bolted, he thought — but with three after him instead of just one. And Tod had managed to get away. Somehow he had eluded all three riders and made his way into the high country. From Larabee’s words, Cameron guessed that Tod was holed up where he could defend himself but where he couldn’t leave.

Cameron’s knowledge of the high country was limited. He knew only the few places Jenny had shown him on their infrequent rides. She had taken him to tucked away meadows — secret places, she called them, where she and her brother and Tod had hunted before her brother’s death. It was a place such as one of these that she planned to go after the wild horses, Cameron thought; and it would be the same kind of place Tod would have headed for.

He looked back to see Larabee barely within handgun range. He tried again to command his right arm to move but it hung lifelessly, flopping with the motion of the roan. Cameron drove his heels into the horse, lifting its gait to a dangerous pace here on the steep downslope. To his right, the timber looked inviting. But he thrust the temptation from his mind. He would gain nothing by holding up there. His one chance to help Tod would be to ride for the high country and try to break him free of the trap he had probably ridden himself into.

The rutted track leading to Rafe Arker’s place loomed on the left. As Cameron swung toward it, a bullet whined in his direction, much of its force spent by distance. He slowed the roan briefly, allowing it to gain footing on this different terrain, and then he urged it to speed again. Sand spurted from under the flying hoofs as they raced through the stand of scrub pine. Shoes rang on rock as they sliced through the twisting cut. Then Cameron burst into Arker’s yard. It was empty, and the feel of desolation reminded him that Arker had gone ahead into the hills.

Ahead lay the rock-hard ground of the first hills. Behind, the beat of hoofs warned that the bay was close. Cameron sent the roan up a steep slope, down into a narrow gully, and along the hard-packed trail toward the mountains rising close ahead.

Lead slashed the air behind him as Larabee fired. But for the moment he had the distance, and the shot fell short. He kept the roan driving, hating this as he heard the horse’s breath begin to gust, as he felt the foam of sweat lathering its sides.

Now the first timber appeared and a coolness touched the air. The trail broke onto a flat and the roan shied. Cameron swore. Halfway across the flat Rafe Arker rode his palomino, the pack horse ambling along behind. The roan drew even and then was past. Arker lifted his head, gasping as Cameron charged by. From behind, came Larabee’s shrill cry, “Get him, you fool! Gun him down!”

Arker’s answer was a shout of pure pleasure. Cameron twisted around to see the big body settling in the saddle, to see sunlight glinting on a swiftly drawn gun barrel. He turned back. He had to find refuge soon. In an open race, the long-legged palomino could run the little roan into the ground. Three or four trails wound across the flat and into canyon openings at the far end. One half blocked by a rock slide caught Cameron’s eye. Faintly he recalled Jenny leading him around that slide. He reined the roan slightly to the left, swung it around the tumble of rocks, and disappeared into the shadow cast by the canyon walls. Arker’s gun slammed viciously behind him, sending lead shrilling off rock. Then the twists in the canyon carried him to momentary safety.

He rode a good two hundred yards, hearing nothing but the heavy breathing of the roan and the beat of its hoofs on the hard floor of the canyon. Then the echo of other horses coming reached his ears. Cameron sought to remember what lay ahead, to recall any possible way to throw his pursuers off the track. He swore as he realized that Rafe Arker would know this country all too well. If Larabee had been alone, he might be fooled. But there was no chance of that with Arker to guide him.

And now Cameron felt the roan stumble. He slowed its pace and looked ahead. The canyon was widening. Beyond it, he could see a kink of trail winding steeply up the mountainside, and he knew that he would have to rest the roan soon. Its heart would burst under the effort of running up those pitches ahead.

Now Cameron caught a glimpse of red rock on his left, of a tiny spring trickling down the hillside on his right, of a strange formation half blocking the sky ahead — and memory surged back. A short distance on, the canyon branched into three trails. One was a culde-sac, but the other two eventually met higher up. The right-hand fork was the longer, he recalled. It wormed its way through a thick stand of trees and across the sharpness of flint rock. And because it was the poorer of the two trails, he just might throw Rafe Arker off by taking it — if he could get past the first bend without being seen. Then he could chance resting the roan in a small clearing by a spring where he and Jenny had once stopped to cook coffee.

The beginning of the trail loomed close. Cameron looked back. The twisting canyon showed empty for the moment. Quickly, he spurred the roan up the right fork. It stumbled over flinty ground, dropped down a short slope and then moved around the first bend. And now Cameron took the pressure off, letting the horse find its own gait.

The trees began a short distance ahead. It would be somewhere within the next quarter mile that he would find the clearing, he recalled. He watched the trees close in, casting their shadows, bringing the coolness that lay ahead with the night. They were big trees, with thick boles and great tangles of branches. A thick carpet of their needles lay over the trail, undisturbed for some time. Now he caught a glimpse of a long-cut butt and he remembered that it had been Jenny’s signpost. A moment after, he saw the thin break in the buckbrush clumped under the trees and he edged the roan through and on a short distance to the small grassy clearing he sought.

Leaving the saddle, Cameron tied the roan away from the small pool at the edge of the clearing and walked back to the break in the brush. He was thinking of covering his tracks here where he had turned off the trail but he saw that this would not help him at all. The roan’s hoofs had scuffed the pine needles all along the trail to this point. Wearily, Cameron hurried back to the roan and mounted it again. Returning to the trail, he rode up it a good fifty yards. Here the trees ended and the ground was flinty again, too hard to show any sign.

Now Cameron slid from the saddle and led the horse. He angled into the trees, careful not to put any more sign on the pine needles. It was slow, tiring work, finding room enough through the thick stand of timber and through the brush to lead the roan. But finally he was back in the clearing. Tying the animal again, he returned to the place where he had first left the trail and smoothed away any sign of his turning off here. It was far from a perfect job, he knew, but it might be enough to keep Rafe Arker away those few extra minutes the roan needed to recover its strength.

The horse had cooled down when Cameron returned to the clearing, and now he let it drink. He set it to grazing on the grass and stretched out, his face to the sky, and tried to nurse some feeling back into his numbed right side.

The silence here was broken only by the soft sounds of the roan eating and by the occasional cry of a bird. Arker and Larabee had taken the other trail. But Cameron knew they wouldn’t be fooled for long. Once Arker realized there was no sign on the trail he was following, he would know what had happened.

Cameron kneaded his right arm with his left hand. Feeling came back — dull pain at first, and then sharp shoots that brought the sweat out on his body. Slowly he lifted his right shoulder, feeling the cramped, bruised muscles across his ribs draw out reluctantly. He began to move his arm higher, quicker, teeth clenched against the pain lancing through him. But he felt the looseness coming, the hard, sharp spasms lessening, and he knew that until he had another shock like the one by the Dondee mine, he was fit again.

Now he heard the jangle of harness. He glanced at the roan. It was still drooping a little but some of the strength had come back to its muscles if the speed of its eating had any meaning. Turning away, Cameron eased through the brush until he was almost at the edge of the trail. He could hear them coming, their voices carrying over the soft plopping sounds of hoofs against the pine needles.

“He didn’t take the other trail so he must have taken this one,” Rafe Arker was rumbling.

“I still think us both coming here was a fool thing to do,” Sax Larabee answered. “One of us should have stayed on the other trail. If it’s as much shorter as you claim, we could have blocked him where the two meet.”

“No,” Arker said. “I know these trails; you don’t. There are too many places along here for Cameron to hide and pick one of us off. If we’re together, hell think twice before chancing a fight.” He gave his rough laugh. “As for him getting ahead far, I ain’t worried. That roan was about beat when it hit the fiat. It’ll play out sooner or later. Then we’ll have him.”

They moved on past at a steady pace, and soon a bend took them out of sight. Cameron sat quietly, trying to recall just how much more of this trail there was up to where it met the other, shorter one. A good mile beyond the end of the trees, he thought. Not so far as distance went, but achingly slow because of the terrain. He could go back and take the other trail and with any luck be past the fork ahead before Arker and Larabee reached it.

Hurrying back to the roan, he mounted and rode to the trail. He turned downslope, and the roan moved easily now that it had no upgrade to pull.

Cameron slapped it lightly on the neck. His arm was functioning again. The roan was somewhat rested. He felt for the first time that he might have a chance to reach the high country ahead of Arker and Larabee.

He came to the foot of the trail, rode along the bottom of a bluff and turned up the other trail. It was the one he had seen from the canyon. For the first quarter mile it kinked openly up the hillside. But then it leveled off and it ran only slightly sloping the rest of the distance to the fork.

He was over the grade and trotting the roan along a packed dirt trail when another memory came back to him. A short distance beyond the fork, the trail crossed a swampy spot. Arker would see that Cameron had left no sign there and he would realize he had been tricked.

And then he and Larabee would come back. And this time, Cameron guessed, each man would take a branch of the trail, searching for him with gun drawn. His only chance was to reach the soft ground first.

He looked ahead. This trail ran over small, open flats. It ran through smooth-sided cuts. But nowhere did it cut into a stand of timber. Nowhere was there a place for a man to hide. His one chance then was to push the roan again. To reach the fork and get beyond it, beyond the swampy spot, before Arker and Larabee could realize they had him trapped.

And once more he dug his heels into the tiring horse’s flanks.

T
HEY BEGAN
to angle sharply eastward and Cameron knew that the junction of the two. trails lay not far ahead. He rounded a shoulder of rock and there was the fork. He swung in the saddle, looking back. From here he could see some distance down the other trail. There was no sign of life yet. He glanced ahead. The trail lay exposed as it worked up to the lip of a high bench. It was empty.

Cameron squinted westward at the sun. It was sliding for the distant hills. It wouldn’t be too long now before dusk came to this high country, and with it would be the mountain chill. Now, while he still had light and while Larabee and Arker were still behind him, was the time to make as much speed as he could to put precious distance between himself and his pursuers. But the roan was staggering again. He wouldn’t be able to carry Cameron’s weight much longer.

“Make it to the bench, fellow,” he murmured.

The roan kept moving, but its pace was slow now, almost a walk. Halfway up the slope toward the bench, Cameron looked back. He saw the two riders reach the fork. They paused. Then a hand lifted and pointed toward him.

The swampy ground lay just ahead and Cameron turned his attention to getting the roan through it. When he was on the far side, he looked back again. Larabee and Arker had cut down the distance more than he had expected. He would be lucky to get halfway across the bench before they caught up with him.

He had hoped to reach the timber beyond the bench, using the thick stand of spruce and high country fir as a refuge. But he made no effort now to hurry the roan. It would respond, he knew, and at this altitude going too fast would burst its heart.

The lip of the bench lay just ahead. Once Cameron glanced over his shoulder. Arker and his big palomino were in the lead, almost within handgun range. The roan strained itself and came up onto the level ground. Cameron reined it in and dropped to the trail.

“You rest a minute,” he said softly.

Pulling the carbine from the saddle boot, he stepped to the beginning of the downslope. He lifted the gun carefully, testing his own reactions. He could feel the pull of his rib muscles, but his arm functioned well enough. Now he sighted carefully, drawing his bead on Arker’s bobbing hat. He caught the rhythm of the palomino’s gait and when Arker went up in the saddle, he fired.

His bullet took a tuft of felt from the crown of the hat. Arker flattened in the saddle. Cameron fired again, this time driving his shot in front of the palomino, forcing it to rear up. He saw Arker claw for leather with the horse’s unexpected movement. Then he had control again, but the big animal was standing still now.

Cameron moved back out of sight. He eased along the rim of the bench until he found a screen of bushes. He bellied down there and slipped his gun barrel through the tangle of leaves. He could see Arker, with Larabee alongside him now. They were coming hard up the trail.

Cameron fired three quick shots, driving lead into the ground in front of the horses, forcing their riders to fight for control. Arker and Larabee stopped. Then they came on, guns drawn. Cameron ticked the air close to Larabee, and again the two men stopped.

He saw them squint toward the sun and he chuckled softly. This was what he wanted — to force them to wait until darkness to come after him. He fired again and then sat up to reload.