“How long after we hit the grade?” Cole said.
“Ten minutes or so, ain’t far, but the engine’s strugglin’.”
“Anybody there.”
“Nope.”
“Thanks,” Cole said.
I looked at Bragg. He was still staring out the window without expression. If he expected action at Chester, he wasn’t letting on.
“When we get there,” Cole said to me, “I’ll go to the front of the car. You take the rear. Outside. I don’t want us sitting in here like a tom at a turkey shoot.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You boys stay here with the prisoner,” he said to Stringer. “Me ’n Everett will do some recognicence.”
He picked up his Winchester, pointed me toward the back of the train, and walked toward the front. As I walked toward the rear coupling space between my car and the caboose, I could feel the train beginning to lurch up the grade. Virgil disappeared out onto the front. The strong-smelling smoke from the engine streamed back over the train. I held the handrail and swung out and looked ahead. At the top of the rise, I could see the water tower and beside it, higher, the windmill that kept it full. I could also see Virgil’s head as he looked out past the cars in front of us. I scanned the dry scrubland around us. There was nothing moving. The train wasn’t moving fast enough to generate any breeze, and the thick air was oppressive. I turned and looked on the other side of the train. Nothing moved over there, either. There was nothing behind us.
As we went over a small bridge over a shallow dry wash, three riders trailing a saddled, riderless horse on a lead appeared beside the train tracks up ahead. Two of them were the Sheltons; the other, riding between them, was Allie. Ring held the lead from the riderless horse. They rode slowly beside the train letting our car draw even with them. There was a rope around Allie’s neck. The other end was looped around Ring’s saddle horn. On the other side of her, Mackie held a double-barreled shotgun resting on her shoulder, pressed against her neck. Everything slowed down. I could see the locomotive top the rise and level out as it approached the water tower. The train slowed, then halted, with the water spout over the boiler cap. I saw Cole step down from the train and stand stock-still, holding the Winchester, barrel down, in his left hand, looking at the three riders. I realized that I had stepped down, too, still holding the shotgun. There was no movement in the well shack next to the water tower, only the slow revolution of the windmill above it.
The three riders halted in front of Cole. He was motionless. So was I. The fireman had climbed onto the top of the cab to set the spout. He pulled the rope to drop it and stepped back as the water poured in, sending a slash of steam up. When he saw us all, he stopped and stared and stayed put. There was no sound but that of steam hissing from the idle engine.
“You see how this is going to go, Virgil,” Ring Shelton said.
Cole looked at the three riders without any sign. Between the two Shelton brothers Allie looked red-eyed and pale. Her face seemed crumpled.
“Any sign of trouble from anybody,” Ring said, “and Mackie gives her both barrels. The horses will then head off in different directions, and what’s left of her will be yanked off of hers, and her neck will break and she’ll drag for miles through the mesquite. Less Mackie blows her head clean off, then the rope’ll probably slip loose.”
He talked slowly and carefully, as if to be sure everyone understood what was being said. I didn’t move. Cole looked at the three riders, unblinking. Stringer had moved out of the car and stood above the coupling behind Cole. He had his Winchester leveled at Ring. Mackie’s horse swished his tail at a fly that buzzed his flank. He shifted slightly when he did, but Mackie adjusted and the shotgun stayed easy and straight against Allie’s neck.
“So you folks are going to have to unshackle Bragg and parade him on out here, or she gets killed.”
Stringer had brought the Winchester to his shoulder.
“I got you in my sights,” he said. “Whatever happens to her, you’re dead.”
Ring smiled gently.
“What do you think, Virgil?” Ring said. “Think I’ll get scared and change my mind?”
“Put the rifle down,” Cole said to Stringer.
“This ain’t your jurisdiction, Cole,” Stringer said.
“Put it down,” Cole said.
Stringer held still. Two of his deputies were on the platform behind me with Winchesters.
“I’ll kill anybody don’t lower their rifles,” Cole said.
It was like a painting, everyone frozen in color and time with the rolling, hardscrabble land stretching out to the horizon.
Then Stringer lowered his Winchester.
“Lower ’em, boys,” he said.
And the two deputies dropped the rifle barrels toward the ground.
“We give you Bragg, you give us the woman,” Cole said.
Ring laughed.
“Virgil, you know I ain’t that dumb. You give us Bragg. We keep the woman. You ride off on the train, and when it’s out of sight, we cut her loose.”
The few passengers in the other cars had gathered on our side of the train and were looking out the windows. Cole ignored them. His whole focus was on Allie and the Sheltons. He stood as he had since he’d stepped down from the train. He had not moved. He didn’t move now.
Then he said, “Everett, get Bragg.”
I looked at Stringer.
“It’ll go easier with the other deputy,” I said, “if you do it.”
Stringer held my look for a minute. Then he nodded and turned and walked back into the train. In the silence I thought I could hear Allie sniveling. Neither of the Shelton brothers paid any attention to her except for the steady pressure of the shotgun against her neck. Then Stringer came out with Bragg. He had taken off the handcuffs and the leg shackles. Bragg stepped past him when he reached the door, and jumped down from the train and walked to the riderless horse, and swung into the saddle.
“Gimme a gun,” he said to Ring.
“Why?”
“Cole,” Bragg said. “I’m going to shoot the sonova bitch.”
If Cole heard him, he made no sign. His gaze remained steady on the riders.
“Ain’t part of the deal,” Ring said, and began to turn his horse slowly.
“Turn with us, darlin’,” he said to Allie.
“Goddamn it, you work for me, gimme a fucking gun,” Bragg said.
“I hired on to get you loose,” Ring said. “You’re loose. You keep yappin’ and I’ll leave you and the girl right here.”
Bragg opened his mouth and closed it. He glanced down at Cole.
“Another time,” he said.
Cole didn’t move.
“We’ll ride off now,” Ring said. “No hurry. We can see a long way, so best you get the train rolling, because we ain’t cutting her loose until the train is out of sight, and that’s a ways down the track.”
With the rope around Allie’s neck tied to Ring’s saddle, and Mackie on the other side with the shotgun against her neck, the three of them had to wheel in formation. Which they did slowly.
“Bragg, you lead on out,” Ring said.
Bragg glanced back at us as he rode away. Allie didn’t, nor did the Sheltons.
31
“Stay away from him,” I said.
“The bastards said they’d leave her here.”
“They’re safer if they got her,” I said.
“You knew they were lying.”
“We both knew,” I said. “But there wasn’t nothing to be done about it. “
“We got to discuss this,” Stringer said.
“Discuss it with me,” I said. “Don’t try to talk to Virgil.”
Stringer stared after Virgil.
“We got no horses,” Stringer said. “We can’t go after them on foot.”
I nodded.
“We’ll go back to town and get some,” I said.
“Quicker Cole gets back here,” Stringer said, “quicker we’re on our way.”
“He won’t come back,” I said.
“Won’t come back?”
I shook my head.
“Wait for me,” I said and walked after Cole.
Cole was standing on the little bridge over the wash, looking south down the wash.
I said, “We got no horses, Virgil.”
A half mile or so away, the wash curved slightly west and you couldn’t see down it anymore.
“I’ll ride the train on to Yaqui and get some.”
Cole still held the Winchester exactly as he had held it when he was talking to the Sheltons. He was squinting into the sun as he looked southwest along the wash. His face, half shielded by his hat’s brim, was without expression.
“I’ll bring the horses back here,” I said, “and if you ain’t here, I’ll follow you down the wash.”
Cole turned suddenly and walked off the bridge and began to edge down the side of the dry wash.
“You leave the wash,” I said. “Leave me a sign.”
Cole didn’t answer or look at me. He started walking southwest along the flat bottom of the wash, looking at the tracks in the dirt. I went back and got aboard the train.
We didn’t get to Yaqui until after six that night. Stringer, being a deputy, could roust people around a little and, even though some of the stores were closed in Yaqui, I was on the way back to Chester by 8:15 with three horses and a pack mule carrying supplies. There was a good moon, and the stars were bright, and all I had to do was follow the tracks.
32
I had matches wrapped up in oilcloth in my shirt pocket. I had a Winchester in a saddle scabbard under my left leg, and the eight-gauge under my right. I had two canteens slung over the saddle horn. I had a .45- caliber Colt on my belt and a bowie knife. Wrapped in a slicker and tied behind my saddle was a change of clothes. Cole would have to make do with what he was wearing. I had ammunition and food and water and whiskey and a few sundries on the mule.
The tracks were clear enough. There was nothing out here and no reason for anybody to be here. Nobody else had ridden the wash for a long time. There were some coyote tracks mixed in, and some antelope spoor. As the wash turned west, I could feel the sun hard on my back. It was getting hot. The horses weren’t tugging on the lead anymore. The mule had been on a lead all his life and the extra saddle mounts had fallen into his rhythm. I drank a little water. The sun was halfway up toward midday when the wash petered out onto a flat plain. The tracks stayed west and then got hard to follow in the scrub that covered the ground. I had to get off my horse to follow them, leading all four of the damned animals. Pretty soon they’d be riding me.
It was past midday when I came to a pile of stones about a foot high. I stopped and squatted and looked at it. Beside it, on the ground, was a smaller pattern of stones in the form of an arrow. It pointed south. I scattered the stones, remounted, and turned my animals south, and we moved on. I didn’t need to track much anymore. I knew Cole would leave me directions. And he did. Some mesquite freshly cut. Some dry sticks pointing south, bigger growth with a prominent slash. In the late afternoon, I found him, near a shale outcropping, sitting on a rock, beside a marshy-looking water hole, with the Winchester in his lap, his boots off, and his feet in the water. He watched me ride up, trailing the animals.
“Everett,” he said.
“Virgil.”
“Might as well get down,” Cole said. “We can camp here. Water’s good, and”-he nodded at the outcropping-“we can shelter a fire if we stay by the stone.”
I unloaded the mule and unsaddled the horses and put them on a loose tether so they could drink and forage for food among the scrub. Then I built a fire against the outcropping and put out food for supper, and squatted on my heels and started to cook. Cole never moved from where he sat with his feet in the water, until the thick slices of salt pork began to hiss in the frying pan. Then he put his boots on and came to the fire with a limp that barely showed. He poured himself some coffee.
“Whiskey in that saddlebag,” I said.
He got the bottle and poured some in his coffee.
“You?” he said.
I held out my coffee cup, and he poured some whiskey into it. Each of us took a sip, first blowing on the surface of the coffee so we wouldn’t burn our lips.
“Stringer getting a posse up?” Cole said.
“Talking about it when I left Yaqui,” I said.
“You found my stones.”
“Yep.”
“Scatter the arrow?” Cole said.
“Yep.”
Cole sipped more of his coffee.
“Good,” he said after he swallowed. “Don’t want no goddamn herd of cowboys and hardware clerks stampedin’ around out here. Getting in our way.”
When the salt pork had cooked nearly through, I dropped some biscuit dough into the grease and let it fry, and turned it once, and took the fried biscuits and the salt pork and put them into tin plates.
“They ahead of us?” I said.
“Yep. Probably widened the gap today. Me walking and all.”
“Twelve,” I said, “fifteen hours.”
Cole nodded.
“They know we’re behind them?” I said.
“Sheltons know me,” Cole said. “They know I’ll be coming.”
“We plannin’ on stayin’ the night here?” I said.
“Got to sleep,” Cole said. “We ain’t going to catch them today.”