Trackdown (9781101619384) (20 page)

“You’re going to lock him up?”

“You’re dang right I am!”

Annabelle’s mouth twisted as she said, “It’s my understanding that this woman is his wife.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Most people believe a man has the right to do whatever he wants to his wife.”

“Look,” Mordecai said. “The best I can figure it from what I heard, that fella Bassett and Miz Gentry were messin’ around with each other. If Gentry had come in and found ’em together like that and shot ’em both, I don’t reckon anybody would’ve done a blasted thing about it. Ain’t sayin’ that’s right or wrong, just the way it is. And I ain’t even all that concerned about what he done to Bassett, if you want the truth. But beatin’ his own wife damn near to death…I can’t stomach that.”

“But yet it would have been all right if he’d shot and killed her.”

Mordecai heaved a sigh. This argument was wearing him out.

“Ma’am, are you gonna help out here or not?” he asked.

“All right. I’ll go get some men.” She glanced at Tom Gentry’s unconscious form. “But as far as I’m concerned, you could just put a bullet in his head and save us all some trouble.”

“Maybe, but that ain’t gonna happen.”

Annabelle left and came back a minute later with two burly townsmen who took hold of Tom Gentry by the shoulders and feet and lifted him. Mordecai drew his gun, just in case Gentry came to and tried to put up a fight, and told the men, “Take him down to the jail and put him in a cell. I’ll be right behind you.”

He glanced at Morley, who was using a wet cloth to clean blood off Virginia Gentry’s face.

“Somebody needs to stay with her once you’ve done all you can for her,” the deputy said.

“I’ll do that,” Annabelle told him. “Glenn can go back to the saloon and see if he can help that young man.”

“I’m obliged to both of you,” Mordecai said.

He hurried out and caught up to the men carrying Gentry.

A few minutes later, Mordecai clanged the cell door closed. Gentry shifted on the bunk inside the cell and groaned. He was starting to come around.

When he woke up, let him wonder what the hell had happened, Mordecai thought as he went out into the office and closed the cell block door. He had some wondering of his own to do, he thought as he sank wearily into the chair behind the desk.

Mainly, he wondered just how much more hell was going to break loose around here before Marshal Bill Harvey got back to Redemption.

True to his word, Bill kept the posse riding like hell the rest of the day after picking up the outlaws’ trail again. His hope was that they might be able to see the dust raised by the horses they pursued, or even spot the bank robbers themselves.

But the northern horizon remained mockingly empty.

While they were camped that night, Bill dozed restlessly in his blankets when it wasn’t his turn to stand guard. Once, far into the night, his eyes snapped open and he sat up abruptly. He would have sworn that he’d heard the distant drumming of hoofbeats somewhere on the prairie.

“Something wrong, Marshal?” Jesse Overstreet called softly. The young cowboy was standing guard, along with one of the men from Redemption, and must have noticed Bill’s movement.

Bill pushed his blankets aside and stood up. Keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t disturb the other men, he asked, “Did you just hear something, Jesse?”

Overstreet shook his head.

“Nope, not really. What are you talkin’ about, Marshal?”

“I thought I heard horses.”

Overstreet straightened from his casual pose.

“A lot of ’em?” he asked. “Like that bunch of outlaws doublin’ back to jump us?”

Bill had been aware all along that was a possibility, although it seemed more likely the gang would make a straight run for its hideout.

“No, this was more like just one or two horses,” he was forced to admit. “I don’t think it was the whole bunch.”

“Sorry, Marshal, I didn’t hear anything like that,” Overstreet said.

The other guard had walked over to listen to their conversation. He said, “Neither did I, Marshal. Maybe you dreamed it.”

Bill felt a surge of anger. He wasn’t prone to dreaming things and then believing they were real.

But giving in to that anger wouldn’t help anything, so he said, “Yeah, maybe so.” He listened intently for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t hear anything now, that’s for sure.”

It was true. The plains were as quiet and peaceful as they could be.

Bill went back to his blankets, but his slumber was even more restless the remainder of the night. He didn’t know if he had really heard riders, and even if he had, there was no way of knowing if they were part of the outlaw gang. Other people might be traveling out here.

Despite knowing that, his instincts told him what he’d heard might be important, and that was a prod that kept him awake until exhaustion finally forced him to succumb.

Bill had the members of the posse up early the next morning, and after a hurried breakfast, they set off again as soon as it was light enough to see the tracks they had been following. Bill set a fast pace again today, thinking that this might be the day they would catch up to their quarry at last.

Chico Flynn was surly the next morning after his battle with Caleb, but he didn’t say anything, evidently content to keep his distance and glare in Caleb’s direction every now and then.

He glanced at Eden, too, but didn’t approach her.

That was somewhat disappointing. She had hoped to drive a wedge between the members of the gang. She knew that if it came to a showdown between Chico and Caleb, some of the outlaws, maybe even most of them, would support Chico.

On the other hand, Caleb seemed to be devoted to keeping her alive and relatively unharmed, even if it was only because he wanted her for himself, eventually. If he wasn’t around anymore, there was no telling what the rest of the gang might do.

For one thing, Hannah would probably want to go ahead and just shoot her. It was clear that the redhead hated her.

No, as bad as it seemed on the surface, the status quo was probably preferable right now, Eden decided.

That might all change when they reached those badlands they kept talking about.

Hannah brought her half a cup of coffee and a stale biscuit for breakfast. Eden had been hog-tied the night before as Hannah had threatened. Her wrists were lashed behind her back, her ankles were tied, and a length of rope ran between wrists and ankles so that her body was bent and cramped in an awkward, uncomfortable position. She was grateful when Hannah untied her and allowed her to sit up and eat.

“Will we get to the badlands today?” she asked.

“What business is that of yours?” Hannah snapped.

“I’m just curious, that’s all,” Eden said with a shrug. “I’ve never ridden this far before. I’m tired.”

“I’ve told you before, things ain’t gonna get better for you once we’re there.”

“Anything will be better than bouncing in a saddle all day.”

That brought a laugh from Hannah.

“I’ll ask you in a week or so if you still feel that way,” she said.

Eden didn’t say anything else, just drank the coffee and gnawed on the hard biscuit. She was growing numb in both mind and body. She didn’t know how long she could survive this ordeal.

She wasn’t going to give up, though, because she knew that Bill wouldn’t.

At one point during that long day, she found herself wondering just why she had so much confidence in him. True, he had stood up to the dangers facing Redemption, but she had known him less than a year. Did she really know how determined he would be to follow the outlaws and rescue her? She didn’t doubt his love, but would his despair overwhelm it in the end, causing him to abandon the chase?

She wouldn’t allow herself to think that. She just couldn’t.

Sometime during the afternoon, she realized that something lay ahead of them on the horizon. For days now she had seen nothing but the endless prairie around them and had grown so accustomed to that monotony that at first she didn’t even notice anything different.

But when she did, it was shocking. The thing, whatever it was, jutted up in sharp contrast to the plains surrounding it.

“What in the world?” she muttered under her breath.

Hannah, riding beside her, must have heard the startled question.

“Castle Rock,” the redhead said. “Ever see anything like it?”

Eden hadn’t.

It was a huge rock formation, reared up from the surrounding plains by some geologic upheaval in ages past, and as a matter of fact, it did look a little like the sort of storybook castles Eden had seen pictures of. Four thick, towering stone spires were crowded together at their bases as they rose from the prairie. The formation gleamed a grayish white in the sun.

“There’s a lot of chalk in the rock,” Hannah said. “That’s what gives it that color.”

Castle Rock itself wasn’t the only thing different, Eden realized. Beyond it lay a dark line rising from the prairie, and as the riders came closer she began to be able to make out details. The line was actually a series of jagged, rocky ridges that rose a hundred feet or more from the plains, extending to the south like gnarled fingers and forming a twisting maze of canyons.

“Those are the badlands,” she said.

“Yeah,” Hannah said. “The Castle Rock badlands, because
of the rock standin’ there like a sentinel in front of ’em.” The woman went on in smug satisfaction, “I told you, it’d take an army to get us out of there.”

Looking at the badlands now, Eden saw that Hannah was right. She felt her heart sinking. Bill didn’t know this country. He might not even be able to find her in that maze, let alone rescue her from the outlaws. For the first time since being carried out of Redemption as a prisoner, she felt hope slipping away from her. Out here on the plains, she might have stood a chance in a running fight between the outlaws and the posse…

But now it seemed there was no chance for her to escape her fate, whatever that might be.

Tatum reined to a halt in the shade of the huge rock formation and the others did likewise. He turned in his saddle to look at his men and said, “All right. Dave, Roy, you’re the best rifle shots. You know what to do.”

The men nodded and dismounted.

Eden asked, “What are they going to do?”

Tatum smiled at her. Her face was gray with fatigue and hopelessness, but she would come around once she realized she might as well make the best of the situation, he told himself.

“They’re going to take their rifles and climb up to the top of the rock,” he explained. “From up there they’ll be able to see for ten miles or more. If that posse is still on our trail, Dave and Roy will see them coming.”

“So they can signal you?”

“Well…it won’t work exactly like that.”

Tatum saw the young woman’s eyes widen as she realized what he was talking about. She said, “Oh, my God. You wouldn’t—”

“That gap there is the best approach to the badlands,” Tatum went on, pointing. “But nobody can get to it without riding right past Castle Rock. And nobody can ride past Castle Rock as long as my men are up there with plenty of ammunition.” Tatum shrugged. “Of course, it probably won’t
come to that. Dave and Roy will let them get close before opening fire. That posse won’t know they’re up there. It’ll be like target practice for them.”