The Devil's Badland: The Loner (13 page)

Whitfield threw his hands in the air. “You’re the stubbornest fool I ever run across!” He pointed at James. “I don’t take kindly to bein’ called a liar, and that’s what you called me, right to my face. You’re gonna see that I was tellin’ the truth, and when you do, you’re gonna apologize…or you and me are gonna have even more trouble than we’d had so far.”

“Your men have murdered my brother and maybe my father and tried to blow up our home,” James replied. “How much more trouble do you intend to cause, Whitfield?”

Muttering curses, Whitfield just shook his head and turned away. He and James might have called a truce—but Conrad wasn’t sure there would ever be any real peace between them.

The men pushed on a short time later. By the time the sun had lowered toward the western horizon, the Hatchet Mountains didn’t look much closer. Conrad and his companions had to make camp and wait until morning to push on, or else risk losing the trail in the dark.

He nudged the buckskin up alongside Whitfield’s mount and said, “Don’t you think you can give James and me our guns back now?”

Whitfield regarded him with narrow eyes. “You, maybe,” the rancher said after a moment. “I don’t reckon you’re the sort to go off half-cocked. But I’m not puttin’ a gun back in that boy’s hands just yet.”

Conrad shrugged. He was willing to accept a partial victory as long as it meant that he would have his Colt again. Anyway, there was something else on his mind.

“Does it seem to you that we didn’t have much trouble picking up and following this trail?” he asked Whitfield.

“You mean it’s almost like they
want
us to follow them?”

“Exactly.”

Whitfield nodded. “The thought crossed my mind. But it’s pretty hard to cover up a trail out here.”

“Not really. We’ve passed several rocky stretches where they could have veered off and not left any tracks for a while, if they wanted to.”

Whitfield’s eyes narrowed even more. “What are you gettin’ at, Browning? You think we’re ridin’ into a trap?”

“Could be.”

“Why would anybody think that grabbin’ Meggie MacTavish would make me follow ’em? I ain’t exactly a friend of the family, and everybody in these parts knows that.”

“Maybe it’s not you they baited the trap for,” Conrad said. “Maybe it just happened to work out that way.”

“What the hell does
that
mean?”

Before Conrad had to decide whether to answer or not, Jack Trace spurred up to the front of the group, too, flanking Whitfield on the right. “I’ve got news for you, boss,” the gunman said. “While we’ve been followin’ these tracks…somebody’s been followin’ us.”

Whitfield reined in sharply and hipped around in the saddle. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” he demanded.

Conrad twisted to look back, too, but he didn’t see anything behind them except a semi-arid wilderness.

“It’s just one man, as far as I can tell,” Trace said. “He’s stayin’ pretty far back, too. But he’s there. I’ve seen him a couple of times this afternoon.”

“Remember what we were just talking about, Whitfield,” Conrad said.

“One man don’t make a trap,” the rancher snapped.

“What’s this about a trap?” Trace asked. His right hand drifted toward his gun. “If you’ve double-crossed us, Browning…”

“Take it easy,” Conrad said. “I haven’t double-crossed anybody. Whitfield and I were just talking about how it seems like this trail has been pretty easy to follow.”

Trace’s eyes slitted with suspicion. “Yeah, you’re right about that. I reckon it
could
be a trap. Not much of one, though, if there’s only one hombre following us.”

“We don’t know what’s up ahead,” Conrad pointed out.

James said, “I don’t care. My sister’s up there somewhere, and I’m not stoppin’ until I have her back, safe and sound.”

Conrad hoped that was the way it turned out. He had worried ever since they picked up the trail that they might find Meggie MacTavish’s body lying used and broken in some gully. So far, that hadn’t happened.

He felt a twinge every time James blustered about saving Meggie. He had been full of the same confidence and resolve, back there in Carson City when Rebel was kidnapped.

Just because that situation had ended in tragedy, it didn’t mean this one had to, Conrad reminded himself.

“Why don’t the rest of you push on toward the mountains and find a place to camp?” he suggested. “I’ll split off from the group, circle back around, and see if I can jump whoever is following us. If I can get my hands on him, that might give us some answers.”

“How do we know you won’t just go runnin’ back to Val Verde?” Trace asked.

“I didn’t
have
to come with you, remember? I didn’t have to get mixed up in this mess at all. I’m here to help save Margaret, that’s all.”

“Unless you’re workin’ with whoever’s back there and the two of you are gonna ambush us once we make camp.”

Whitfield rasped his fingers over his beard-stubbled jaw and said, “Jack’s got a point there, Browning.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Conrad said. “I don’t know who’s back there any more than you do. It’s certainly not anyone I’m in cahoots with, because I don’t have any friends or partners in this part of the country.”

“Yeah, I reckon that makes sense…and your idea’s a good one. I’d like to know who’s trailin’ us, too. But I’d feel better about it if Jack went with you.”

An ugly grin spread across Trace’s face. “I reckon I could do that.”

Conrad was about to object when Whitfield moved his horse closer and reached into his saddlebag to pull out a Colt Peacemaker. Conrad recognized it as his gun.

“Don’t get any ideas, Jack,” Whitfield cautioned as he held out the revolver to Conrad, butt first. “You’ve been a good hand for me, but I don’t cotton to murder.”

“Furthest thing from my mind, Dave,” Trace said coolly.

Conrad checked the loads in the Colt and then pouched the iron. He met Trace’s look with a cold, level stare of his own.

“I’m ready when you are.”

“Lead the way, dude,” Trace said, grinning again. “Since you know what you’re doin’ and all.”

Conrad wheeled the buckskin and started back along the trail they had been following. He swung off to the right, recalling that he had seen an arroyo in that direction as they passed it a short time earlier. He didn’t look back to see if Trace was coming with him, but he could hear the hoofbeats of the gunman’s horse.

When Conrad reached the arroyo, he followed it until he came to a place where the bank had caved in, allowing him to ride down into the defile. Trace followed right behind him. As the two men rode along the sandy floor of the arroyo, Trace moved up alongside Conrad and said, “I’m curious about something, Browning.”

“Everybody’s curious about something, I suppose,” Conrad replied without looking over at Trace.

The gunman chuckled. “Take it easy. You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m not gonna shoot you in the back or even try to get you to throw down with me.”

“Because out here, there’s no one to
see
it,” Conrad guessed.

“Damn right. When I outdraw you and kill you, I want plenty of folks around watching, so they’ll know I’m faster than you and tell all their friends they were there when Jack Trace killed the son of Frank Morgan.”

“Be more impressive if you killed Frank Morgan.”

“Hell, I know that. But I’ll get to that. You’ll do for now. What I want to know is, how’d you get to be as fast as you are? Some of it you must’ve inherited from your old man, but I’ve got a hunch you been practicin’, Browning. Tryin’ to impress your pa?”

“Whatever is between my father and myself is none of your business, Trace. I’d advise you to keep your questions to yourself.”

“Sure, sure.” Trace chuckled. “Anyway, I reckon I got my answer.”

Conrad wanted to smash the smugness out of the gunman, but that could wait. Rescuing Meggie MacTavish came first, and then dealing out some long-delayed justice to Anthony Tarleton. Trace’s goading was just an annoyance compared to those two things.

A potentially dangerous annoyance, to be sure.

“Answer something for me,” Conrad said.

“Sure. We’re pards now. We don’t have any secrets from each other.”

Conrad let that comment go. He asked, “Are you the one who killed Charlie MacTavish?”

Trace shrugged. “He came in talkin’ big about how the boss was lyin’ when he said the MacTavishes were rustlers. I told him that if he believed in what he was sayin’, he wouldn’t mind backin’ it up with some lead. He slapped leather.”

“He never had a chance against you, did he?”

“Not one damn chance in the world,” Trace said.

Conrad nodded. It was just as he had thought. Even though legally the shooting was a case of self-defense because Charlie MacTavish had reached for his gun first, to Conrad it was cold-blooded murder. And sooner or later, Trace would have to answer for it.

He’d just have to wait his turn.

When they had followed the arroyo for about half a mile, Conrad reined in where the bank sloped enough so a man could climb it without much trouble.

“Let’s take a look,” he said as he swung down from the saddle. “We ought to be able see whoever it is following the others when he rides past this spot.”

Trace dismounted as well. Both men took their hats off and climbed up the side of the arroyo. They edged their heads above the rim and peered out across the mostly flat landscape.

At first Conrad didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then movement caught his eye. He honed in on it and saw a rider moving from right to left, paralleling the arroyo about five hundred yards away.

“There he is,” Trace breathed. “Wish I had a good pair of field glasses.”

“Yeah, so do I.” Conrad’s eyes were quite keen, but at that distance, even he couldn’t make out any details about the rider.

They slid back down the bank, mounted up, and rode on, looking for some place they could get out of the arroyo. Conrad’s frustration mounted as they didn’t find one. They should have turned around and gone back to the place where they had entered the defile, he thought.

They rounded a bend and saw another spot where the bank had eroded and collapsed. It was a rough climb for the horses, but Conrad and Trace dismounted and were able to lead the animals up the uneven slope. As they came up onto the plain again, they quickly climbed into their saddles and set out after the man who was following Whitfield and the others.

Trace slid his Winchester from its saddle boot. Conrad glanced over at him and said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? We’re not supposed to ambush him. We want to capture him so we can find out who he is and why he’s been following us.”

“Yeah, well, what if he puts up a fight?” Trace asked. “I ain’t in the habit of lettin’ anybody shoot at me without shootin’ back.”

“We won’t let it come to that.”

“How do you intend to stop it?”

Conrad thought for a second, then said, “Let’s split up. We’ll flank him and come in from two directions at once. He’ll see that he can’t get rid of both of us and surrender.”

“You hope.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work, we’ll deal with that then,” Conrad snapped.

“Whatever you say,” Trace agreed grudgingly. “Any bullets start to fly, though, and all bets are off.”

Conrad didn’t like the situation any more than Trace did, but for different reasons. Still, there was nothing he could do except go along with the gunman and hope they could capture the mysterious follower without anyone getting hurt.

He angled the buckskin to the right, while Trace went to the left. The rider was about a quarter of a mile ahead of them. The sun had just dipped below the western horizon, so the light was starting to fade. Night fell quickly out there. Conrad knew they couldn’t afford to waste any time, and called on the buckskin for more speed.

The horse had already put a lot of miles behind him that day. He needed rest, just like Conrad did. But the buckskin responded gallantly, stretching out into a gallop, giving it everything he had.

Conrad glanced to the left, where Trace had split off a couple of hundred yards and also pushed his mount into a run. The two of them closed in on the follower. If the man had looked back, he would have seen them, but instead he kept his gaze fixed on the group of riders he’d been trailing all afternoon.

That was good. It was more likely they’d be able to take him alive if he didn’t notice them until it was too late. Conrad urged the buckskin on.

In the fading light, he still couldn’t see the man very well. As the distance between them narrowed, Conrad veered left to get behind the rider. Finally, when only twenty yards separated them, the man heard hoofbeats and he glanced back. Conrad saw him jerk in the saddle as he realized that the hunter had become the hunted.

Conrad thought the man might pull a gun and put up a fight, but instead, he leaned forward in the saddle and tried to get more speed out of his mount. Conrad looked at Trace and saw that the gunman had his Winchester out again. He waved for Trace to stay back and dug his heels into the buckskin’s flanks. The horse responded, spurting ahead to match the increased pace of their quarry.

The rider kept looking back. Conrad could tell that he was getting frantic. The man’s horse didn’t have the same speed and stamina as the buckskin, and steadily, Conrad closed the gap.

He could see now that the man was dressed in a rough work shirt and trousers, as well as a hat with a broad, drooping brim. As far as Conrad could tell, the man wasn’t wearing a gunbelt. He didn’t see a rifle butt sticking up from a saddle sheath, either.

What sort of fool would come out here in the middle of nowhere unarmed? Maybe the man had a revolver in his saddlebags.

Conrad was right behind him, only a few feet away. He debated whether to tackle the man and knock him out of the saddle, or just try to grab the reins and bring the horse to a stop. That would be less dangerous. Tackling the man would risk breaking both their necks.

Before Conrad could do either one, fate took a hand. The man’s horse stumbled and went down, spilling the rider from the saddle and landing hard. Dust billowed into the air and obscured Conrad’s vision for a second. He couldn’t see what had happened to the man. The horse might have rolled over him and crushed him.

Conrad hauled back on the buckskin’s reins. As the big, rangy horse skidded to a stop, Conrad swung down, his boots hitting the ground while the buckskin was still moving. He turned toward the fallen horse and rider and drew his gun. Between the dust and the fading light, he still couldn’t see much, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If the rider hadn’t been knocked out by the fall, he might come up with a gun in his hand.

Conrad waited, legs slightly spread and gun in hand, for the dust to blow away. As it did so, the fallen man’s form became visible. He was sprawled face down on the ground a few yards away. Nearby, the horse struggled upright, blowing and snorting as it did so. The animal didn’t appear to be badly hurt, although it might be too lame to ride for a day or two.

Something struck Conrad as odd, and as he moved forward and the dust cleared even more, he figured out what it was. The man’s hat had fallen off, spilling long, dark hair around his head. It wasn’t common to find a man with hair that long these days. And there was something else that didn’t seem quite right.

With a shock, Conrad realized what seemed wrong to him. The fallen rider wasn’t shaped like a man. Despite the rough work clothes, Conrad could tell that much. The slender waist and swelling hips belonged to a woman. That explained the long hair, too.

Conrad stalked over to the body on the ground, reached down to grasp the woman’s shoulder, and rolled her onto her back. As he did, her arm came up suddenly, and he found himself staring into the barrel of a small pistol about six inches from his nose.

Even more shocking, he found himself staring into eyes that he knew were deep green, even though their color was hard to make out in the dim light.

Because those eyes belonged to Pamela Tarleton.