Riders From Long Pines (9 page)

She stopped him with a questioning look. “What about the dog? We can't trust these men to take him to Albertson and see to it he finds a good home.”

“Right,” said Sam, sounding as if he'd already given the matter some more thought, “maybe Sergeant Tom Haines would be better off riding with us . . . for a while anyway.” He looked at her closely. “What do you think?”

Upon hearing his name spoken, the dog turned to face them and stopped pacing for a moment, as if awaiting orders. Noting the dog's action, Maria asked, “Why do you call him by his full name? It is such a long name for a dog.”

“His full name was the only name he responded to,” Sam replied. “I expect that must be what the colonel called him.” Also noting that the dog had stopped and stood looking at them, Sam called over to him, “As you were, Sergeant Tom Haines.”

The dog stood staring blankly for a second, then turned and resumed pacing back and forth. The ranger and Maria looked at each other as if in disbelief. “
Sí
,” said Maria, turning an astonished gaze back toward the pacing animal,
“
perhaps he
should
stay with us . . . for a while anyway.”

 

Peyton Quinn awakened leaning back against the stagecoach wheel. Beside him sprawled Black. Both men's left hands were cuffed together between two wooden spokes. Antan Fellows stood beside them, leaning on the wheel, his right hand cuffed to it. He held a wet cloth to the line of dog bite down his cheeks. The dog stood ten feet away, watching the three men.

“Who—who did this to me?” Quinn asked in a thick voice, cupping his bruised and swollen chin. Even as he spoke and tried to shake his stalled mind back to consciousness, his free hand eased down to his empty holster.

“I did,” the ranger said, watching Quinn's hand search the empty holster. “Don't give me cause to do it again.” He stared at Quinn from a few feet away where he sat on the unopened strongbox, sipping coffee. Behind him, the three men's horses and the team of stage animals stood watching with disinterest.

Quinn said defiantly, “You had no cause to do it the first time.” But his hand left the holster, gave up its search and fell to his lap. “I'm an officer of the law, the same as you.” He jerked his throbbing head toward Grady Black, who sat coming to slowly. “So is this man. I'll see to it you pay for this, Burrack. As soon as I get back to Albertson, I'll wire the circuit judge—”

Sam cut him off. “You'll take the stagecoach and the dead back to Albertson and forget all about your cracked chin and the goose egg on your forehead, if you're wise, Quinn.”

“Sheriff Quinn to you,” Quinn snapped.

“Stop testing me, Quinn,” said the ranger. “You and this man dishonored your badges. You don't know how hard it is for me to keep from wearing this rifle butt out on the two of you.”

Quinn fell silent, seeing the fire in the ranger's eyes grow more intense.

“I'm going to turn all three of you loose,” said Sam, holding up the handcuff key in his gloved hand. “But first, tell me what was in the hidden freight compartment.”

“Nothing,” said Quinn, a little too fast, a bit too harshly. He caught himself and shrugged. “I mean, nothing that I know of. Why, is it empty?” But the look on his face had already told the ranger he was lying.

“Yes, it is empty,” said the ranger, watching Quinn's eyes.

“Oh well, that's too bad,” said Quinn. “It could have been private mail, personal business documents.”

“Come on, Quinn,” said Sam, “you know about everything coming and going on the Albertson stage. You're bought and paid for by Davin Grissin.” He gestured toward Antan Fellows. “This one has already told me that Grissin owns a big piece of the stage lines. What was on the stage that was more important than the money in this strongbox?”

Quinn gave Fellows a hard look. “What?” said the dog-bitten half-breed. “It's not a secret that Grissin owns everything that's worth anything around here.”

“You talk too much,
breed
,” Quinn growled. To the ranger he said, “As soon as I get this coach back to town, me and my deputy here will be headed out after whoever did this. So this is one time when your services will be neither welcomed nor required. I've got everything under control.”

“Are you sure you want to play it this way?” Sam asked. “I'll be on the trail after whoever done this whether you like it or not. If there's anything going on that I need to know about, this is the time to tell me.”

“You've got some nerve, Burrack,” said Quinn, “after what you've done to me.” He shook his cuffed hand. “If this wasn't on my wrist and I had my gun in my hand, I'd kill you.”

The ranger levered a round into his rifle chamber and left the hammer cocked. “My hand isn't cuffed. I am holding a gun. Every time you think about how wrongly you've been treated, remind yourself I could've killed you. Don't make me sorry that I didn't.”

Quinn looked away, too proud to admit to himself that the ranger was right.

The ranger continued. “It won't help either one of us or your boss, Grissin, either, if you and I keep bumping heads out here.”

“We take care of our own business in Albertson, Burrack,” said Quinn, turning a cold stare back to the ranger. “You'll do well to keep your nose out of things here.”

Sam stepped in with the handcuff key and unlocked Fellows' cuffs first. The half-breed rubbed his wrists and stepped back, not wanting any trouble.

Sam turned from Fellows and stepped over to Quinn. In an even tone he said as he reached down and stuck the key into the handcuffs, “You've made your threats, Quinn. Now here's something you'd better know as the gospel. Don't ever come into my camp the way you did tonight, or badge or no badge I'll treat you like the vermin you are.”

Quinn struggled up onto his feet, his head still pounding. “What about our guns?”

“You don't have any guns,” Sam said flatly. He reached down, unlocked Black's cuffs and poked him with the toe of his boot to help awaken him.

“You can't send us back to town unarmed,” Quinn raged. “You can't disgrace us that way!”

“You'll be more disgraced if I ride in with the three of you handcuffed and tell the town what you were up to out here,” said the ranger. “Now get your horses and get out of my sight.”

The other two started for their horses, but Quinn would have none of it. He stood with his feet spread shoulder width apart, still rubbing his wrists. Nodding toward his Colt sticking up from behind the ranger's gun belt, he said, “Give me that gun, Burrack. We'll see who gets
out of sight.
You might be a big wind out on the badlands, but for my money you're just one more—”

Before he'd gotten his words finished, his Colt landed with a plop in the dirt at his feet. The ranger leaned his rifle against the wagon wheel and dropped his right hand down beside his holstered Colt. “There it is, Quinn. Make use of it, or crawfish back away from it like a coward.”

The big dog stood back, watching from the side, his head lowered slightly, his ears back. His paws spread wide beneath him, he looked prepared to spring forward with no further warning. Antan Fellows noted the animal's fierce demeanor and eased a step farther away toward his horse, the wet cloth to his cheek. Black was still too groggy to understand what was about to happen. He stood staggering in place, his palms out flat toward the ground as if stabilizing him.

Stunned by the ranger's pitching the gun at his feet, Quinn eyed the weapon lying in the dirt. He considered his odds while a drum pounded hard, sharp beats inside his forehead, inside his swollen chin. He looked back up and caught the cold, killing look in the ranger's eyes and heard Maria say quietly, “Sam, don't do this. Don't kill him.”

“See what he's doing?” Quinn said over his shoulder to the other two. “He
wants
me to make a move for my shooting iron. He wants me to grab it and come up fighting. But I see through his plan.” Staring at the ranger, he gave a tense, knowing grin. “He took all the bullets out of my gun. Didn't you, Ranger? My gun's not loaded, is it?”

Sam stood staring calmly, at ease, yet with his gun hand poised at his side. “There's only one way you'll ever know for sure, Quinn.”

“Yeah, that's it, I get it. I see what you've done, Burrack.” Quinn straightened and put any thought of going for his gun from his mind. “I'm not making a move. See this, boys? I'm not making a move. I want you both to see that I'm not going for my Colt . . . not getting myself shot down while I reach for an unloaded gun.”

Antan Fellows eyed the big Colt lying in the dirt closely and said, “Sheriff, I didn't see him unload it. If you ask me it's still—”

“That's just it, Antan!” Quinn said angrily. “Nobody asked you a damn thing.” He pointed at the ranger. “This man is no fool. He knows my reputation with a gun. He's not about to lay a loaded gun at my feet and invite me to pick it up and use it.” His cold, sly grin came back as he stared at the ranger. “Some other time, Burrack. I'm not falling for any tricks tonight. I've got business that needs attending.” He backed away.

“Suit yourself, Quinn,” Sam said coolly. He stepped forward, picked up the Colt and held it up. He let bullet after bullet fall to the ground until all six lay in the dirt at his feet. “But don't leave here with your shirt in a knot, feeling like I took unfair advantage.”

Fellows shook his head; Black blinked his unsteady eyes. Quinn clenched his fists and gritted his teeth in humiliation. “I hope to hell we meet again, Burrack.”

“Careful what you hope for, Peyton Quinn,” the ranger said before the gunman had hardly finished his words. He made it a point not to put the word “Sheriff” before Quinn's name, not acknowledging the man having any moral claim to the title.

“He wasn't lying, Quinn,” Black said in a thick, still addled voice, “the gun was as loaded now as it was ever going to be—”

“Let's get a damn move on!” Quinn snapped fiercely. “We've wasted most of the night dealing with this blasted stagecoach! We need to get it back to Albertson and get on after the men who robbed it!”

Sam stood beside Maria, the two of them watching closely as the three shamed and beaten men hitched the team of stage horses to the coach and hefted the strongbox up behind the driver's seat. He returned Quinn's cold stare while the gunman made one final look in his direction as the stage rolled away.

“I've got a feeling there'll be some lively conversation going on when these three explain everything to Davin Grissin,” he said when the stagecoach lurched forward. Antan Fellows sat in the driver's seat. The other two rode alongside, Quinn slapping his reins hard to his horse's rump as if blaming the poor animal for all of his woes and degradation.

“He is right about one thing,” Maria said. “The night is nearly gone. Should we break camp and get an early start? Parks is wasting no time finding himself a hole to crawl into.”

“Yes, we can do that,” Sam replied, knowing Maria, realizing that she wanted to ride away from this place and the events that had nearly occurred here. “First, let's give credit where it's due.” He looked over at the dog and saw the big animal standing as if at attention, watching the two of them closely. “Sergeant Tom Haines, come right over here, front and center,” he called out in a feigned military tone of voice. “You've earned yourself a nice strip of jerked elk.”

The big cur loped over and sat down near their feet, facing them. “This one is certainly recovering fast,” Maria said, stopping and rubbing the dog on his shoulder, his head still too tender and swollen to be patted. “Do you suppose he will ever take up with anyone the way he did with the colonel?”

Sam gave a slight smile, taking a piece of elk jerky from the colonel's handkerchief in his trouser pocket. “We'll find out soon enough, I expect,” he said, reaching out, letting the big cur take its reward from his gloved fingertips.

The big dog swallowed the elk morsel without so much as a chew, then stood up and licked his flews. Maria nodded toward the hoofprints leading away toward the north and asked the ranger, “Where you suppose these tracks are going to lead us?”

“To Red Hill,” the ranger said with confidence.

“The supply town?” Maria queried. “Won't they try to lie low for a while first, hide themselves until their trail turns cold?”

“That's what most robbers would do,” Sam said. “But I've got a feeling this isn't thieves we're dealing with here . . . not yet anyway.” He gazed in contemplation along the dark trail ahead of them as the first glimmer of dawn wreathed the eastern horizon. “These folks are still wondering whether or not they're going to keep the money or turn it in.”

“Oh?” said Maria, raising a brow at his keen perception. “And which of the two choices do you predict they will make?”

“I don't know,” Sam admitted. A troubled look came to his face as he considered it. “I expect they realize by now that either choice can be dangerous.”

Maria nodded. “And if they are headed for Red Hill, we can bet that Parks is hot on their heels.”

“That is my thought, exactly,” the ranger said, his gloved hand at his side. He felt the big dog sniff at his fingertips, then sit back down at his side, gazing ahead in the same direction.

 

Jet Mackenzie rode his claybank dun onto the dirt street of Red Hill. Jock Brewer rode his brown-speckled barb beside him, followed closely by Tadpole Harper on a white-faced roan and Holly Thorpe atop a salt-and-pepper barb. Thorpe led the two spare horses behind him. Harper led three of the four stage horses they'd gathered on their way, having stripped the animals bare and discarded their harnesses along the trail.