Chapter 10
Nick Burton kept his word that night when the posse made camp. He didn’t say anything about who the newest member of the group really was ... at least as far as The Kid could tell.
He felt confident if Nick
had
said something about his reputation as a gunfighter, at least some of the men would be looking at him from the corners of their eyes and whispering. Instead, most of them ignored him.
The Kid had his own supplies, so he fixed his own supper, although he used the common campfire to do it. While he was sitting on a rock eating the beans and bacon he had warmed up, Culhane came over to him and sat down, too.
“You willin’ to take a turn standin’ guard tonight?” the Ranger asked.
“Sure,” The Kid replied without hesitation. “If I’m going to ride with you, I’ll do my part.”
“Figured as much.” Culhane had brought a cup of coffee with him and took a sip.
“How are the wounded men doing?”
In addition to the man with the bullet hole in his arm, another posse man had been creased in the side.
“They’ll live,” Culhane said. “I’d send Gordon back—he’s the one who got the crease and lost quite a bit of blood—if I didn’t need every man I got.”
“He can’t be in as bad a shape as Reilly.”
Culhane drank some more coffee and said quietly, “Ain’t that the truth.”
Reilly was on the other side of camp, sitting cross-legged on the ground. He was slumped over, and his head sagged forward on his chest.
“Is he asleep?” The Kid asked with a frown.
“Could be,” Culhane said. “He’s burned all over. Can’t stretch out to sleep without it hurtin’ him too bad, he says. Next settlement we come to, I’m leavin’ him there, even if I have to hog-tie him to do it.”
“He won’t like that.”
“I don’t care. I can’t stand to watch what he’s doin’ to himself anymore.”
Culhane was in charge of the posse, so it was his decision to make, but The Kid figured Reilly would put up a fight. In the end, though, Culhane would probably get his way.
“What guard shift do you want me to take?”
“Get some sleep while you can,” Culhane said. “I’ll wake you up after a while.”
The Kid nodded his agreement. He had already tended to his horses, so as soon as he finished his supper and used sand to clean the pan, he spread his bedroll and stretched out. The Kid did his watch and all was quiet.
The dry air lost the day’s heat rapidly at night, and it was pleasantly cool the next morning in the pre-dawn hours as the posse ate breakfast and got ready to ride.
It wouldn’t stay that way very long, The Kid thought as a breeze stirred the air. Once the sun was up, the temperature would begin to climb. When the posse moved out, The Kid rode next to Culhane again. None of the others questioned his right to be there.
“What’s in this direction?” The Kid asked.
Grinning, Culhane replied, “Well, San Antonio, if you keep goin’ far enough. But it’s five or six days’ ride away from here, at least. In between there are a few little towns and some ranches and a whole lot of nothin’. You ever been to Texas before, Morgan?”
“Yeah, but not this part. I’ve been to San Antonio, though. Do you think that’s where Latch is headed?”
The Ranger rubbed his jaw as he pondered the question. “Could be. Plenty of folks in San Antone. Latch and his men might be able to blend in there. Every time after they’ve pulled a few jobs, they drop out of sight for a while, so we know they’re goin’ somewhere and hidin’ out.”
As the morning went on, the posse rode through more of those miles of nothing Culhane had mentioned. The Kid heard muttering from some of the men, so when they paused to rest the horses, he caught a moment alone with Culhane. “How far are these men willing to go?”
“I thought you said you hadn’t ridden with a posse before.”
“I haven’t.”
Culhane chuckled. “Maybe not, but you seem to know that once fellas have been gone from home for a few days, they start wantin’ to turn around and go back.” The lawman grew serious. “With this bunch, though, the ones from Fire Hill don’t have any homes to go back to. Most of ’em are single men, so they don’t have families to worry about, either. And old man Burton ordered his punchers not to come back without his money, so they ain’t gonna be inclined to give up.” Culhane nodded. “I think they’ll all stick, at least for a while longer.”
“I hope you’re right,” The Kid said.
They pushed on.
After a while Nick Burton moved his horse up alongside The Kid’s buckskin. “How are you today, Mr. Morgan?”
“I’m fine, Nick. How about you?”
“All right, I guess.” Nick shifted in the saddle. “This is the most I’ve ever ridden, though. I’m a mite sore.”
“Did you grow up on your grandfather’s ranch?”
“No, sir. We lived in Dallas. My father’s a businessman. Has a furniture store there. It’s very successful.”
“Successful enough that he sent you to school in Philadelphia, I guess.”
“That’s right. I’ve spent the past few summers on the M-B Connected, though. My grandpa insisted on it.” Nick hesitated. “I think he has some idea that I’m going to take over the ranch someday.”
“How do you feel about that?” The Kid asked. The conversation helped pass the time.
“I’d love to,” Nick replied eagerly. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Morgan, I’ve never been that fond of the idea of selling furniture the rest of my life.”
The Kid had to laugh. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’d be happy about that, either.”
Not after all the changes he had gone through. Business just didn’t have any appeal for him anymore, although there had been a time in his life when he had practically lived for the thrill of dealing in high finance.
“I don’t know if I’m up to running the ranch, though,” Nick said. “You may have noticed, I’m not very big.”
“What does that matter? If you’re in charge, and you let everybody else know that you’re in charge, folks tend to forget about how tall you are ... or aren’t.”
“I’d like to think you’re right, but I’ve never been the sort to take over at anything.”
“Maybe you’ll grow into it.”
“Maybe,” Nick said with a doubtful shrug. “Did you grow into being what you are, Mr. Morgan?”
“I guess you could say that,” The Kid replied.
But it was more like fate had thrust his current life upon him, and a cruel fate, at that. He had come through the fires of tragedy and loss, and for a time he had found hope again.
Then that hope had been snatched away from him, too, leaving him to drift aimlessly. As far as he could see into the future at this moment, that was going to be his life.
Culhane called, “Ever ybody hold it!”
The Kid reined in, as did the other members of the posse. Culhane sat up straight in his saddle, craned his neck, and peered into the distance.
“Looks like a little ranch house yonder,” he announced. “We’ll noon there and water the horses. Before we do, I reckon somebody ought to ride up there and scout the place. Latch has tried to spring one trap on us already. We ain’t gonna waltz right into another one with our eyes closed.”
The Ranger turned his head to look at The Kid. “How about you and young Burton there check it out, Morgan?”
The Kid nodded, but Nick gulped. “Me? You want me to scout the place, Ranger Culhane?”
“That’s what I just said, ain’t it?”
“I don’t know if I can—”
“It’ll be all right, Nick,” The Kid interrupted him. “We can handle it.”
Nick took a deep breath. “Well, if you say so.” But he didn’t sound convinced that it was a good idea.
“If it’s all clear, give us a high sign and we’ll come on in,” Culhane told The Kid as he and Nick rode past the Ranger.
The Kid nodded. He and Nick left the posse behind and rode toward the ranch house, which sat on the plains about a mile ahead of them.
After a minute, Nick said, “I don’t know if Ranger Culhane should’ve picked me for this job, but I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty exciting being on a scouting mission with the famous Kid Morgan.”
“Get your Winchester out,” The Kid advised as he pulled his own rifle from the saddle boot, not commenting on Nick’s assessment of his fame. “You see that barn?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Keep your eyes on it,” The Kid told him. “Do you see anybody moving around?”
“No. There are three or four horses in the corral, though.”
“Watch the barn. If you see sunlight reflect off anything, you let me know right away, understand?”
“Sure. Are you watching the house for the same thing, Mr. Morgan?”
“That’s right,” The Kid said. “If there’s a chance of a trap and you see the sun glinting on something, it’s likely to be a gun. If it’s not, if it turns out to be something harmless, you haven’t lost anything by being careful.”
“I’ll remember that.” Nick paused for a second, then added with youthful enthusiasm, “I wish I could ride with you all the time, Mr. Morgan!”
“No,” The Kid said flatly. “You don’t.”
In reality, he was probably only five or six years older than Nick Burton. But at this moment, he felt at least a hundred years older than the youngster.
The Kid didn’t see any signs of trouble waiting for them at the ranch, but he didn’t see any signs of life, either, except the horses in the corral. That was a little troubling.
People should have been moving around, going about the day’s work. If not for the horses, he would have begun to wonder if the ranch had been abandoned.
When they were about two hundred yards from the buildings, The Kid signaled for Nick to stop. They reined in and dismounted, taking their rifles with them.
“We’ll leave the horses here and go ahead on foot,” The Kid said. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t shoot at anything unless you’re absolutely sure what it is you’re shooting at.”
The last thing they needed was for Nick to gun down some unsuspecting rancher, The Kid thought.
Silently, he motioned Nick toward the barn as they approached. The Kid closed in on the house. The double cabin had chimneys at both ends, but smoke wasn’t coming from either of them.
At this time of day, somebody should have been preparing a midday meal. The fact that they weren’t was a bad sign.
The Kid looked at the dogtrot and frowned. No dog had bounded out and started barking at them as they approached.
Of course, just because the cabin was designed with that open area between its two halves didn’t mean the family had to have a dog. That was just what it was called.
However, nearly every ranch had at least one big cur on it, and no barking had greeted the newcomers. In fact, an eerie silence hung over the place. Every nerve in The Kid’s body told him something was badly wrong.
Quietly, he moved into the shade under the dogtrot. The door of the cabin to his left was closed, but the one on the right stood open.
“Anybody home?” he called.
There was no answer.
The Kid glanced toward the barn. One of the big double doors was partially open, and as he watched, Nick disappeared through that dark gap.
The Kid stepped to the open door of the cabin and looked inside. The first thing he saw was an overturned chair, and beyond it on the floor a couple broken dishes.
A fight of some sort had taken place in there, but no one was inside now.
He moved back into the dogtrot and turned toward the barn. As he did, Nick suddenly let out a startled yell and came into sight again, backing up as fast as he could, practically running backward, in fact.
He tried to point his rifle at the barn, but as he lifted the weapon he got his feet tangled up and went over backward, sitting down so hard dust puffed up around him. He grunted from the impact and dropped the Winchester.
A man stepped out of the barn holding a revolver. “I don’t know who you are, boy, but you poked your nose into the wrong place!”
The gun came up, and The Kid knew Nick was only instants away from having the life blasted out of him.