Riders From Long Pines (5 page)

As soon as he'd plopped the bag onto the ground, the three of them saw the name painted on its side in black letters.

“D. Grissin Enterprises,” Brewer read aloud in an awe-stricken voice.

A puzzled half grin came to Mackenzie's face. “Davin Grissin . . . ,” he said quietly.

“The same thief who's had us cussing in our whiskey all this time?” Brewer said. “What are the odds on that?”

“Long and troublesome, I'd say,” Mackenzie replied. He stared at the bag and the money lying beside it, then said suddenly, as if overcome by some dark premonition, “Let's get away from here. This looks bad, us standing over a pile of Grissin's money after all the bad-mouthing we've been given him in the saloons.”

“Good idea. Let's go,” said Brewer. He stood and stepped back, wiping his hands on his trousers as if to clean them of the cash.

But without standing, Tadpole Harper looked up with a grin and said, “What's your hurry? Look at all this.” He held three stacks of money in his hand, fanned out like playing cards. “Mr.
D. Grissin
chased us off like we was coyotes in his henhouse. The least we can do is play with his money some.”

“Get up, Tadpole. Let's go,” Mackenzie said firmly to the young drover. “You were right to begin with. We're going to leave here and act like we never seen any of this.”

“I know that's what I said. . . .” Harper stood up slowly. He stared down at the money and shook his head. He still held three stacks of cash in his gloved hand. “But that was before. We can't leave this kind of money lying in the dirt.”

“Tadpole's right. We better make danged sure we do the right thing leaving this money lying here,” Brewer said. “If something happens to it and anybody ever figures out we were here, we'll have Grissin's bodyguards down our shirts before we can spit or whistle.”

“We'd be a sight better off without it than we would be having it on us, if we run into a posse searching for it,” Mackenzie reasoned.

“Would we?” Harper asked, still holding the three bundles of money. He shook the wads back and forth for emphasis. “If something happens to all this after we leave here, we better hope to God nobody ever figures we seen it. Because they'd never believe we'd be foolish enough to just leave it lying here.”

“How come you got so danged smart all of a sudden, Tadpole?” Mackenzie asked, irritated and worried.

Harper gave a dejected look, then lowered his head and started to turn away.

“Wait, I didn't mean nothing by that, Tadpole,” Mackenzie called out. “Dang it!” He rubbed his troubled forehead, needing to think things through clearly, but feeling too pressed to do so.

“Tadpole was right, what he said before . . . and he's right what he's saying now,” Brewer said quietly to Mackenzie. “If we leave this money lying here and something happens to it, we'll be the ones answering for it, sure enough.”

Mackenzie shook his troubled head. He looked all around as if searching for a way to pull his herd out of a box canyon. “Bag it up,” he said with resolve, not facing Brewer or Harper. “We'll take it with us to the next town where's there's a sheriff, turn it in there and explain why we did it this way.”

“What town is that?” asked Thorpe.

“There's a supply town named Red Hill, thirty, forty miles ahead,” said Mackenzie. “They used to have a sheriff. I'm hoping they still do.”

“
Hoping?
” Harper said, with more insight than the others were used to hearing from him. “Even if there is a sheriff, he'll more than likely—”

Cutting him off, Mackenzie said with a stare, “He'll take
our word
for it. None of us are thieves, Tadpole. The law don't condemn innocent men for trying to do the right thing.”

“Come on, Tad.” Brewer gave Harper a slight nudge toward the money. “Don't crowd him right now, give him some room.” Without another word, the two stooped down and began stuffing the money stacks into the carpetbag.

Mackenzie walked a few feet away and looked out across the badlands below. He needed to think this thing through, he told himself, drawing a deep breath. But before a clear thought come to mind, Holly Thorpe called out to him, “Mac? What about these stray horses?”

The young trail boss looked around, appearing pressed and put upon by so much hitting him at once.

“Them,” said Thorpe, nodding toward Moore's and Carnes' horses, standing off the trail staring at them.

Whew . . .
Mackenzie felt the pressure, yet he kept his voice calm. “Drop their saddles and turn them loose.”

But no sooner had he'd spoken than Harper called out from over beside the bag of money, “It'll be a sure sign somebody else was here after the shooting if we turn them loose now.”

“Quiet, Tad,” Brewer said, still stuffing money into the bag.

“No, Tadpole's right again,” said Mackenzie. He let out a tense breath. “All right, we'll take the horses with us. Like as not, we'll find the stage horses somewhere ahead. We'll have to take them too.” He shook his head, looked back out across the rugged terrain and murmured to himself, “I just hope we can lay all this on the law before the law lays it all on us.”

 

In the thick brush alongside the trail, Buckshot Parks stayed hidden, watching and listening as closely as he could until the four drovers mounted and rode out of sight, leading Moore's and Carnes' horses along behind them. Then he ran out onto the littered trail, looked all around and kicked the unopened strongbox.

Damn it! Damn it all to hell!
He had no idea how much money he'd just watched the four cowhands ride off with, but there was not a doubt in his mind that it was
his
money. After all, it had been him, Moore and Carnes who'd robbed the stage. He'd heard them mention Davin Grissin's name. If that money had belonged to Davin Grissin, the four cowpokes had more trouble coming than they knew what to do with, he told himself. But all that aside, it was
his
money now, regardless who it had belonged to before.

Red Hill, huh?
Hurriedly he walked to where the double-barreled shotgun lay in the dirt near Jim Blanton's dead hand. He stooped over Blanton, picked up the weapon and searched Blanton's body until he found four fresh loads shoved down in his vest pocket.

Standing, shotgun loaded and in hand, Parks searched all around until he found a canteen he'd seen lying in the dirt earlier. He picked it up, shook it, determined it was half-f and slipped the strap over his shoulder. He looked back and forth for his horse. Not seeing the animal, he pressed his fingers to his mouth and let out a loud whistle.

Hearing no sound of the horse's hooves or the breaking of brush and twig, he'd turned to leave when he heard a deep moan coming from the direction of the leaning stagecoach. He turned and walked warily over to one of the businessmen who had fallen from inside the tipped stage.

“Are you still alive, you bloody sumbitch, you?” Parks asked, staring down at the blank dead eyes. He kicked the bloody face and watched it wobble limply back and forth. The blank eyes remained unchanged. They continued staring straight ahead.

“All this craziness has got me hearing things,” Parks said. He looked at the expensive new derby hat lying in the dust near the body, with only a streak of dust on its rolled-edge brim to prove it had been in a stagecoach crash.

“Well, now, I don't mind if I do,” said Parks. He stooped down, picked up the derby and slapped it against his thigh. He shoved it down atop his bare head, turned and looked back and forth along the trail again. He gave another loud whistle, then walked away, following the hoofprints on the ground, tracking his money.

 

Three hours later, in the fading afternoon light, Millard Kinnard rode around a turn in the trail and came upon the ghastly sight so suddenly that it caused him to jerk back sharply on his reins and startle his horse. The frightened animal reared, nickered loudly and turned in a full circle on its rear hooves. While perched high and hanging on to the horse's mane, Kinnard got a close-up, wide-eyed look at the dead, the crashed stage and the money box lying in the trail.

The frightened schoolmaster let out a loud shriek as his horse came down, its direction reversed, and raced back along the winding trail toward Albertson, out of control.

At the bottom of a hill where a fork led in one direction toward town and in another out toward the badlands, Maria and Sam both stopped at the sound of hooves and the shouting, pleading, cursing voice of the schoolmaster approaching them.

“I've got him,” Sam said quickly, the two sidling off the trail to keep the racing horse from veering off the trail into rocks and brush.

Maria reined back and watched as the ranger's white barb with its black-circled eye shot out like a dart and swung alongside the spooked animal. In a second, Sam had reached out and slowed the animal to a walk and turned it alongside him and headed back along the trail. The man in the saddle straightened with a worried and embarrassed look on his sweaty face. He appeared relieved to see the badge on the ranger's chest.

“My goodness! I thought this horse was never going to stop!” Maria heard him say as the two drew to a halt in front of her. Seeing Maria, the man reached to tip his hat, only to realize that his hat had flown off somewhere back along the winding uphill trail.

“What spooked it?” Sam asked, seeing Maria offer the man a curt nod.

The schoolmaster turned to Sam as he fished a handkerchief from his lapel with a nervous hand. “Ranger, a terrible thing has happened up there,” he said, nodding toward the uphill trail. “The stage to Albertson has been crashed and robbed, there are dead everywhere!”

“Calm down, mister,” the ranger said, looking off in the same direction. “Who are you? What were you doing up there?”

“Oh, excuse me, I'm Millard Kinnard, I'm the schoolmaster in Alberston,” said Kinnard in a shaky voice. “I was on my way to Wakely to advise them in starting a school there. And who are you, sir, ma'am?” he asked.

“I'm Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack. This is Maria,” Sam said. As he spoke, he sidled in, lifted the flap on one of Kinnard's saddlebags and looked inside. Seeing only three leather-bound books and some food wrapped in canvas, he dropped the flap and stepped his horse back. “How far up the trail is the stage?”

“A mile, I estimate,” the schoolmaster replied. “This horse has been running so long, everything is a blur to me.” He looked back and forth between Sam and Maria, then looked at the white barb with the black spot circling one of its eyes. Recognition came to him and he said, “Oh my. You're
the ranger
, aren't you
?”

“Yes, I am,” Sam said. “I'm going to ask you to ride back up there with us, show us what you saw.”

“What I saw?” Kinnard looked frightened at the prospect. “Ranger Burrack, I hardly see how riding back up there with you is helpful in any way. Shouldn't I ride back to Albertson and tell everyone what has happened?”

“It's only a mile,” said Sam. “You'll have plenty of time to ride back to Albertson afterward.”

A look of realization came to the schoolmaster's eyes. “Do you think I might have had something to do with this, Ranger Burrack?”

“No,” Sam said cordially, “I'm not thinking that at all, and I won't think it unless you start trying to stall us.” He nodded toward the trail. “Now, what do you say? You want to ride up with us?”

“Oh yes, of course,” said Kinnard, “anything to help.”

As they turned their horses, Maria reached out with her gloved hand and offered Kinnard an uncapped canteen of water. “Oh yes. Thank you, ma'am,” he said, grasping the canteen and drinking from it eagerly.

They rode upward until they reached the turn in the trail. Along the way the ranger and Maria had both kept an eye toward the trail beneath them, seeing zigzagging wheel marks, hoofprints, boot prints and drag marks, getting a picture of what had gone on. Before rounding the turn and stepping down from their saddles, Sam said quietly to Kinnard, “Stay back a little,” which the schoolmaster did gratefully.

Kinnard stood back with his eyes averted while Sam and Maria walked among the dead and the debris, recognizing Moore's, Carnes', Baggs' and Blanton's bloody bodies. When Sam reached the spot where the colonel's body lay in the ditch alongside the bottom edge of the rock wall, he called out to Maria, who had walked over closer to the stagecoach.

“This is Colonel Tanner over here,” he said. “That explains things a little. Between him riding as a passenger and Jim Blanton riding shotgun, I'd say these two took on more than they'd bargained on.”

“Sam,” said Maria, “the colonel had Sergeant Tom Haines with him.”

“I know,” Sam said, looking down at dark bloody paw prints in the dirt.

Kinnard had ventured closer. “Who—who is Sergeant Tom Haines? The colonel's orderly?” he asked.

“No, Tom Haines is his dog,” Sam said. He followed the dog's paw prints in reverse, over to where Maria stood crouched between the leaning stage and the rock wall. Looking in, Sam saw her hold up the cut leash in her hand. On the ground lay a wide dark puddle of blood. From the dark puddle the dog's paw prints had led to the colonel's body, then off into the brush.

Kinnard asked, “Do you suppose the dog is . . . ?”

“Dead?” said Sam, looking off into the brush. “I don't know. He might be wounded, wandering around out there somewhere. He won't last long if he is.”

Walking to where Moore lay dead, his black left boot missing, Parks' heelless brown boot lying in the dirt, Sam said quietly, his Colt still in his hand from when they'd ridden in, “There's another one somewhere.”