The End of the Trail (18 page)

The others had their boots and coats on now. Pat moved away silently to the right with Sam right behind him, while Ezra led Dock off in the other direction to get behind a small ridge out of range of flying lead.

Pat stopped a hundred feet from the deserted camp. He lay flat on his belly, and Sam dropped to the ground beside him. They both put their ears down and listened, and Pat muttered, “Seems like I hear 'em all right. Comin' this way on foot like Ezra said. Headin'
right straight
for our camp.”

“How-come anybody knows we're camped here?” Sam protested. “Even if they knowed we made a fast ride over the Divide without stoppin' to sleep. How do they know we're camped
here?”

Pat said, “We'll ask 'em presently. Keep quiet now, they're gettin' close. Have yore gun ready an' start shootin' when I do. But shoot to cripple 'em, Sam. We won't get any answers from dead men. We got to keep 'em alive so's they'll talk.”

Both men drew their guns and lay on their bellies waiting. The early morning silence was intense. It was that brief hour before dawn when the whole world seems to slumber.

Then the silence was broken by small scuffing sounds from the south. The grating of a bit of frozen ground beneath a man's heel and the faint crackle of dead grass beneath the weight of a man's body.

Two figures loomed up suddenly and distinctly in the faint starlight less than a hundred yards away. They moved forward stealthily, seemingly directed by some inhuman instinct toward the dead campfire with the four empty bedrolls ranged about it.

Pat had his .45 cocked, and he lay full-length with the butt of it resting solidly on the frozen ground in front of him, his finger firm on the trigger. There was enough light from the bright stars overhead to see his gunsights and train the muzzle steadily on the slowly advancing figures.

Beside him, Sam maintained the same position of tense readiness to open fire. They had fought together so often in the past that there was complete wordless understanding between them that each would concentrate on the enemy on his own side.

The two figures halted fifty feet from the empty bedrolls. Starlight glittered on the barrel of a rifle in the hands of the one nearest Pat.

They must have whispered together for a moment, though not a sound reached the ears of the listening men.

Then they separated, swinging in two diverging arcs to take them to either side of the deserted camp.

Pat kept a steady bead on the rifleman, swinging the muzzle of his six-gun slowly and evenly, putting an even pressure on the trigger so there would be no jerk when the important moment arrived.

He waited until his prey stopped twenty-five feet from the bedrolls. He waited until the rifle stock came up to the man's shoulder. He had a perfect bead on the weapon and he increased his trigger-pressure by an infinitesimal degree.

His six-gun roared and recoiled in his hand, and the rifle clattered to the hard ground.

Sam's gun spoke a split-second later. The other man dropped to his knees with a loud cry of pain at the same moment.

Without moving from his prone position, Pat shouted, “Get yore hands up quick.”

The one who was still on his feet thrust his hands high in the air while his companion groveled on the ground, groaning loudly.

Pat got up, warning them sternly, “Yo're both covered from both sides. One funny move an' you'll eat lead where it hurts more'n them first shots.”

He moved forward with his gun ready toward the rifleman while Sam swung around to approach the wounded man on the ground.

When he was ten feet away, Pat's prisoner sobbed out, “Why don't you kill us outright? Why do you torture us this way?”

Pat stopped short, his gun sagging down incredulously. It was a
woman's
voice. For a moment he was all confused. He thought it was Lily Lytell. Then he realized that the voice was lighter than Lily's, with more of a lilting musical quality.

He leveled his gun again and went closer, warning her sternly, “Turn around with yore back to me an' keep yore hands plenty high.”

The woman turned slowly. She wore a man's breeches and hat, and a man's leather jacket.

Pat kicked the fallen rifle aside with the toe of his boot. With his left hand he awkwardly unholstered a revolver at the woman's right hip, and tossed it aside. He patted her under the armpits to make sure she wasn't wearing a shoulder holster, then stepped back and said gruffly, “You can put yore hands down now, Ma'm. Walk right ahead of me.”

By this time Dock and Ezra had reached Sam and the wounded man. While Ezra stopped to examine the wound with Sam, Dock raced, toward his father crying excitedly, “Did you get him, Dad? Want me to get some rope to tie him up?”

“I got
her,”
Pat announced grimly. “You get a fire started Dock. A big one so we can look this pair over. How'd Sam do?”

“Shot him through the leg,” Sam called out. “'Tain't too bad. If you can't walk, you kin crawl,” he told the wounded man angrily. “Git over towards them bedrolls 'fore I help you along with my boot.”

“You can sit down on that bed, Ma'm,” Pat told his female prisoner quietly. “We'll get a fire goin' an' see what's what.”

She sat down at the foot of his bedroll without saying anything. Pat circled around to help Dock get a big blaze going. There were hot embers left from the supper fire and a big pile of dry pinon branches that had been gathered before dark. They blazed up quickly, and Pat turned to look at the man whom Sam and Ezra were herding forward on his hands and knees.

He was a big man with a ruddy face that looked as though it would normally be good-natured. Right now it was twisted into a grimace of pain and anger. He slumped forward on the ground near the fire and asked thickly, “Where'd they get you, Karen?”

“I'm not wounded.” Her voice was hard now, and contemptuous. Her eyes glittered with reflected light from the leaping flames, and her face was smooth and reposed.

“I'll be damned if it ain't a woman!” Sam ejaculated, leaning forward to get a better look. “You see that, Ezra? We've done caught us a female gun-slinger.”

“Who are you?” Pat asked her curtly.

“Karen Larson. Who are you?”

Pat disregarded her question. “Who's yore pardner?”

“I'm Henderson,” the bulky man said. “Are you. going to fix my leg or let me bleed to death?”

Pat didn't look at him. He asked the woman, “How'd you know we were camped here?”

“Slim came in to warn us.”

“Slim, huh?” Pat frowned. “How'd he know who we were?”

“Why shouldn't he know?” Her upper lip curled contemptuously. “He isn't so dumb. All three of them just pretend to be because they don't want to be bothered by people. They just want to be left alone to live the way they've always lived.”

“We saw the old wrecked stage-coach,” Pat muttered, “an' figured they must have lived in that cave from babies. Who're you, Ma'm?” he went on to Karen. “I know Henderson's the TB foreman and I ain't much surprised to find him mixed up in this, but how do you figure in this?”

“Don't you know? I run the restaurant at the railhead.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Henderson demanded.

“Take you in, I reckon.”

“Take us in? Where? Why don't you kill us right now and be done with it?” Henderson's voice was shrill with pain and fear.

“I figure to make you talk first,” Pat told him angrily. “I want to know how-come you expected us to come in this-away. Who warned you we was on our way?”

“Nobody. Karen has already told you that Slim came for us tonight.”

“But how'd
he
know to come for you? Don't try to pertend there's not someone else back of this business. I want to know who it is.”

“Slim was just doing what I'd asked him to do,” Karen told him. “We've gotten right friendly while he delivered fresh meat to my restaurant.”

“All right, then, how'd
you
know we'd be comin' in this way?”

“Over the old stage road? It's the only entrance into the Flat except by railroad. I discovered that for sure the night Nate Morris was killed. Slim told me that night he'd seen you ride down the mountain.”

“Wait a minute.” Pat shook his head in bewilderment. “What do you mean about the night Morris was killed?”

“You know well enough what I mean.” Her voice was like a whiplash. “You and your gang murdered him and killed the bulls that night. Just as you had previously murdered my husband.”

“Yore … husband?” Pat blinked at her incredulously.

“Doane Weatherby.” She flung the name at him bitterly. “The investigator for the Burns Detective Agency whom you murdered two years ago.”

Pat swallowed hard. “I thought yore name was Larson. Ma'm.”

“That's my maiden name. I took it after you murdered my husband … when I came out to run the cafe and try and get on the trail of his murderer.”

Pat got up and put more wood on the fire. He looked at Sam and Ezra and Dock, and finally back at Karen. When he spoke his voice was very gentle, “I reckon maybe you an' me are talkin' crosswise, Ma'm. Do you think
we're
the gang that's been doin' all the killing here in the Flat?”

“Are you going to tell me you aren't?”

“I'm Pat Stevens from Powder Valley.” Pat dug a hand deep into his pocket and brought out his sheriff's badge. He held it so she and Henderson could see it. “These're my pardners, Sam and Ezra. An' my boy, Dock. The Syndicate hired us to come out an' catch the killers. When you-all slipped up on us tonight we thought you were the ones we was after.”

“You're … a lawman?” Karen faltered.

“That's right. Start tyin' up Henderson's leg,” Pat told Sam. “And now, Ma'm, you better tell me all you know about this. You say the killers come in over the mountain like we did?”

“Yes.” Her face was shining now. She leaned toward him eagerly. “I didn't know at first. I suspected the three hermits here. And I suspected Mr. Henderson. I made friends with Slim, and I finally found out from him that someone
did
know how to get into the Flat over the old road that's supposed to be blocked off. He told me about a gang of men riding down periodically. I felt certain they were the killers, but I wasn't positive until the night Nate Morris was murdered.” She shuddered and was silent for a moment.

“Slim didn't tell me in time to save Morris's life. I tried to warn him. You see, I recognized him as a range detective and I think he recognized me. He'd worked with my husband on a case, and visited our house in Denver once. But I still wasn't sure the killers came from the outside. I still suspected Mr. Henderson. Then the next day Slim told me the gang had ridden into the Flat and out again that night, and then I was
sure
. I told Mr. Henderson and we planned to trap them red-handed next time they came down. Slim agreed to try to detain them, and hurry in to inform us. That's what he did … tonight.”

Pat said, “I'll be plumb damned, beggin' yore pardon, Ma'm.” He whirled on his companions. “You hear that? You know what it means?”

Sam and Ezra had cut away Henderson's pants-leg and were busy bandaging the flesh-wound. They looked up without replying.

“It means the Runyon gang are the ones we're after,” Pat said harshly.
“They're
the only ones that know how to get over the old road. They've been slippin' down here to do murder in between their mine holdups. An' we let that girl ride up to 'em alone.”

Sam and Ezra were on their feet instantly, circling out toward the hobbled horses. Karen leaped up also and exclaimed, “I don't understand what you're saying, but I'm riding with you if it's my husband's murderers you're after. I'll get my horse …” She turned and ran back to where she and Henderson had left their saddled horses.

Pat walked over to the wounded ranch foreman and asked him gruffly, “How bad are you hurt, Henderson? Can you make it back to the ranch all right if I leave Dock here with you?”

“Of course.” Henderson struggled up to a sitting position. “You needn't leave anyone to help me.”

“I'd like a good reason for leavin' my boy behind … out of the shootin'. We'll leave our extra hawses an' camp stuff too so we can ride light an' fast. Will you see he gets help to gather 'em up? Ship him an' all the stuff back to Powder Valley by train if we don't come back in a couple of days. When we get through with the Runyons, I'd like to take what's left of 'em in to Fairplay,” he explained swiftly. “Dock ain't going to like bein' left behind, but if he thinks yo're hurt bad an' need help to get back to the ranch, he won't take it so hard.”

“Of course.” Henderson understood instantly and sank back with a groan. “You get right ahead after the killers, Stevens. I'll make out all right with your boy to help me.”

16

While Sam and Ezra hastily saddled fresh horses, Pat drew Dock aside and told him gravely, “I'm leaving you in charge here, Son. It's up to you to see that Henderson gets back to the ranch safe, and get all our hawses and camp stuff gathered up. If we don't come back or you don't get word from us, load everything on the first train goin' back to Pueblo. From Pueblo, you can pack the hawses an' drive 'em on in home.”

“All right, Dad.” Dock was very grown-up and matter-of-fact about it. “What are you going to do after you clean up the gang?”

“We'll have to take 'em into Fairplay. Then we'll ride straight home. Maybe get there before you do.” Pat held out his hand. “Think you'll be all right takin' care of everything?”

“Sure,” Dock said with the complete assurance of a twelve-year-old. “I'll take care of Mr. Henderson and everything. An' give them outlaws
hell
, Dad.”