A horse went about its business, working on clumps of grass. It never looked up as Carson approached.

  From his vantage atop the rocks, he hunted for the bounty hunter. Brody was nowhere to be seen.

  “What do you want to do, Clay?” Potter paced restlessly, never stopping his hunt for the man who had ambushed them so easily.

  “He’s too good at disappearing. We lost him. I lost him.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re out of practice, unless chopping cotton counts.”

  Carson told his friend what he could do with that observation. It still burned. He had wasted time worrying that Brody had gone in the opposite direction, in spite of evidence to the contrary. As hard as it was for him to accept, he was older, slower, and nowhere near as good at skills needed to keep a road agent alive.

  “Let’s get back with Joe and his brother, but we have to take the time to be sure our smelly giant isn’t in the cards.”

  “Putting distance between me and Marshal Sutcliff worked. We can do the same with the bounty hunter,” said Potter. “If we take his horse, it’ll discourage him from looking for me.”

  “Do you think he recognized you? He had no idea who I was.”

  Carson kicked away the rock holding the reins and took them in hand. He led the willing horse to where his own horse had finally stopped to graze. In a few minutes, Simon Potter joined him.

  “We’re doing better as horse thieves than we are as road agents,” Potter said. “How many times can they hang us for stealing another horse?”

  “Once is plenty for me,” Carson said. “Twice, in your case.”

  “Once was too many.” Potter ran his fingers around his collar. His Adam’s apple bobbed where the scraped skin still glowed bright red from the hangman’s rope.

  “Brody wanted the reward. You must have a Wanted poster floating around for him to identify you back in Elbow Bend.” Carson knew the poster wasn’t found in Elbow Bend. Where had Brody seen it? Boone? That made sense.

  “Never saw him there. He’s a sneaky one, he is. Wherever he is.” Potter stood in the stirrups and scanned the prairie one last time.

  Carson secured Brody’s horse to the back of his saddle, then lit out at a fast gait. The way they were accumulating men on their trail, they’d have half of Texas dogging their tracks. At least Brody wasn’t the law. But having a bounty hunter chasing them was worse. He’d track them to the ends of the earth for a few dollars.

  CHAPTER 21

  “We heard gunshots, but didn’t know what to do,” Joe Easterly said. He looked hesitantly at Carson to gauge his reaction. He heaved a sigh of relief when Carson told him what had happened.

  “That explains where you found the extra horse.” Joe patted the nose of Brody’s horse, which nuzzled him. Joe had a way with animals from his time wrangling cattle.

  “There wasn’t much you could have done if you’d been there. We did the best we could.”

  “Chasing him away is going to bite us in the rear,” Potter complained. “We should have tracked him down, no matter how long it took.”

  “Time is against us,” Carson said sharply. “You saw how good at hiding his trail Brody was. All of us would be a month hunting for his spoor.”

  “You spend as much time worrying about who’s on our trail as you do figuring ways of finding the gold.”

  “Lemuel’s not going to last much longer. We all agree on that. It’s time to settle down and work out what is necessary.”

  “Clay there was always the one with the plan,” Simon Potter said. “That’s what made riding with the gang so enjoyable. He finds a decent bank or train and lets Lemuel lead us into the fray.”

  “It could have been more enjoyable if we’d made more money from the robberies,” Carson said, reflecting on their lack of success. It sounded as if Potter ridiculed him over the poorly planned stagecoach robbery. Simon hadn’t said a word about how the gang operated before.

  Until Fort Worth.

  “We had fun whenever we went into a town. Admit it, Clay. You’re a stick in the mud now. We should have stayed together instead of going our separate ways.”

  “It’s a good thing for you I didn’t. We’d both have gotten our necks stretched. You need me to pull your fat out of the fire.”

  The two argued endlessly about who relished riding the outlaw trail most. They weren’t really fighting—just falling back into familiar rhythms, the kind of ribbing that masked deeper tensions. Men like them didn’t know how to speak plain when it came to fear or regret, so they picked at each other instead, same as they’d done when the sun got high and the saddles got hot.

  “Do they always sound like a pair of grackles?” asked Daniel Easterly.

  “You don’t think this is what owlhoots like us did when we weren’t sticking up banks? It gets dull and they’ve found a way to pass the time.” Joe Easterly handed the reins of Brody’s horse to his younger brother and tilted his head toward their remuda. It was Daniel’s turn to tend the horses.

  “But, Joe,” protested Daniel, “they’re … they’re notorious!”

  “Notorious liars, the pair of them. When they put their heads together, they spin the wildest yarns you ever did hear. You think the Double Diamond ramrod had some crazy stories? Get Potter started. Clay feeds him and—”

  “Enough of that, Joe. You’re disillusioning the lad,” said Potter. “He thinks we’re a cut above. There’s no call to disabuse him of that notion.” Potter tried to pat Brody’s horse on the nose. It took a nip at him.

  “There’s the mark,” Carson said, pointing to a double notch hacked into a tree near the road.

  “Follow the arrow,” said Potter, “but in the opposite direction. Unless you’ve changed the way we did things.”

  “Nope. We head thataway.” Carson edged his horse down an embankment and across a rocky stretch. A half mile off, a stand of cottonwoods grew by a small lake. That’d be where Wylie would pick for a camp.

  The air had cooled with the falling sun, and crickets had begun to sing from the shadows. Dust rose and clung to their boots as they rode down through the brushy flats. They passed an old half-rotted fence—barbed wire sagging like tired eyelids—and a rusted branding iron someone had hung over a gatepost long abandoned. The kind of place that whispered about better days long gone.

  They made their way toward the stand of trees, leading the horse they had stolen. A dozen yards from the trees, Carson spotted Turner flattened on one limb, partially hidden by leaves. He sighted down the barrel of his rifle, ready to pick off anyone getting too close.

  “Billy, it’s us. You still as nearsighted as an armadillo?” Potter trotted ahead of the others. “And glory be if that’s not Sam Wylie. You still afraid of heights, Sam?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything, Simon Potter, except for being bored to death by your constant yammering.” Wylie stepped out and slid his six-shooter back into its holster.

  Potter hit the ground and ran forward. The men hugged each other. By the time they had properly greeted each other, Turner dropped from his sentry position and joined them. They shook hands and both started talking at the same time.

  “I never in all my born days saw men so friendly,” said Daniel.

  “We depend on each other.” Joe Easterly turned glum. “We depended on each other a year back.”

  “Come on,” said Carson. “Let’s get our horses watered and bedded down.”

  They led the animals to a spring-fed pond ringed with reeds. A pair of mallards flapped off the surface, disturbed by the sudden influx of dust-covered men and beasts. The water was clear and cold, and the horses drank with long, greedy gulps.

  “Where’s Mr. Jones?”

  “Did I hear someone calling my name in vain? Who’s this young buck? The one who’s the spitting image of my old pal Joe Easterly.” Lemuel made his way out of the trees, leaning heavily on a thick stick he used as a cane.

  Carson made the introductions. He watched Lemuel for his reaction to having a new recruit in the gang, and not one who had taken part in the bank looting. He tried to hide his displeasure, but Carson knew him well enough to see it in the set to his jaw and the way his eyes narrowed just a mite when he looked at Daniel.

  “He said he doesn’t want a cut of the dinero,” Carson said. “He just wants to ride with the famous Lemuel Jones.”

  “Famous? Not at all!” Jones struck a pose like a stage actor, coughed, and spat a bloody gob. “I don’t want to be famous. I want to be infamous. And feared. I want entire towns to quake at the mere mention of my name.” He cleared his throat and finished, “Hide the women, hide the family silverware, the Dirty Creek Gang is on the prowl!”

  “What a load of cow flop, Lemuel. You’ll make the boy think we’re as bad as our reputations say.” Joe shook hands with Jones. From the way he recoiled after touching Lemuel’s hand, Joe worried he had crushed down too hard and hurt the man.

  Lemuel had grown frailer in the time Carson had rounded up the Easterly brothers and Simon. If the infirm man had looked like he had one foot in the grave before, now he was sitting on the edge with both feet dangling inside.

  The only thing strong about Jones was his voice. He sounded confident and in command.

  “We’ve got to hit the trail, Lemuel. As soon as you’re up for it,” Carson said.

  “What happened?” Jones fixed a hard stare on him.

  “There’s a marshal looking for us,” he said.

  “And a bounty hunter,” cut in Potter. “That cayuse is not going to stop. Even after we stole his horse.” He looked at Brody’s horse trying to distance itself from the rest of their remuda. It was as if the bounty hunter’s cantankerous personality had rubbed off on his mount.

  “You boys were surely busy while me and Sam and Billy sat around playing checkers.”

  “I’m saying we need to find the loot so we can go ride our separate trails again,” Carson said. “Time’s working against us, with all the lawmen sniffing around.”

  “You’re not happy riding with the gang, Clay?” Jones puffed up his chest. “This is going to be our last grand adventure.”

  “Too many people with blood in their eyes are after us. You haven’t seen Brody.”

  “Or Sutcliff,” added Potter. “That man’s mind is as fixed as the North Star, and it’s on finding me.”

  “You’re right,” Jones said. “Time’s a-wasting. Everyone, saddle up. We’re going to fetch the gold and get rich.”

  “Where is it, Lemuel?” Potter helped the consumptive man to his horse. A quick look in his friend’s direction prompted Potter to push the matter further. “Look, Clay’s got a point. We need to hit the trail, but we’ve both dodged lead that came close to ending us.”

  “Do you have a map?” Carson demanded. “Let us see it, so if anything happens, we—”

  “No!” Jones snapped. He jerked away from Simon Potter. He wobbled a little, but used his horse to support himself. “If I did that, you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

  “Don’t you trust us to play fair?” Carson looked around at the assembled gang. From the looks on Wylie’s and Turner’s faces, they had tried to pry the hiding place out of Jones and had failed.

  He had no doubt that if they had learned the location, Jones would have been left for the buzzards alongside the road. It would have been a race between the two men to reach the gold. Then the real gunfight would have filled the air with smoke and lead and death.

  “Saddle up. We’re leaving now,” Jones said. He pulled himself onto his horse, then sat still, struggling to regain his breath. This small exertion almost tuckered him out entirely.

  Carson stepped up. By the time he gathered the reins of a couple other horses and trotted after Jones, Potter and the others in the newly reunited gang looked as if they had never been apart for a year. After a while, Potter stopped his socializing. Letting the rest ride alongside Jones, Potter fell back until he was knee to knee with Carson.

  “Which one do you think?”

  Carson looked at him quizzically.

  “Which one, Clay, is most likely to shoot us in the back?”

  “Take your pick. Wylie and Turner are both different from when they rode with us before.”

  “Billy seems bitter enough to do us all in, given the chance. He told me he thought the rest of us intended to cut him out.”

  “Wylie spent the year as a bank teller. Seeing all the bills and coins pass through his fingers, and none of it was his, has soured him, too.”

  “That so?” Potter sucked on his teeth, then said, “They might find how dangerous this little ole jaunt can be.” He touched the six-shooter at his side.

  “We were all friends once,” Carson said.

  “Once. Some of us still are.” Potter grinned and ran his finger around his neck.

  “Where’s he heading?” Carson stood in the stirrups and looked around. “Lemuel’s heading southeast, off the road.”

  “That makes some sense. He came this way after we got all shot up at the bank.”

  “We can’t keep going this way.” Carson put his heels to his horse. He wasn’t able to gallop trailing two other horses, but he made as quick a trip as he could to overtake Jones.

  All the others gathered around him. He saw that Daniel Easterly was captivated by Jones’s endless stories. That didn’t bode well if the boy came to believe anything Jones said was true. There wasn’t any glory to be had robbing others.

  Just easy money.

  “Lemuel, hold up. Wait!” Carson grumbled when Jones kept riding. It forced him to push his way through the circle of the Easterly brothers and the other two from the gang. He cut in front to keep Jones from pressing on.

  “Where are you heading?”

  “To get the gold, you dolt. Where do you think?”

  “There’s a town this way.”

  “I know. I reckoned we could use a little rest along the way.”

  “Lemuel, you’re heading toward Boone.”

  “Yeah, that’s the name. It’s a nice little town. What’s eating you?”

  Carson sucked in his breath when he looked ahead in the direction of the town. They were several miles from Boone.

  They were less than a mile away from three riders who had the alert look of a posse hunting for an escaped prisoner and the man who saved him from being hanged.

  CHAPTER 22

  “We can’t run off. They’ll come after us,” complained Lemuel Jones.

  “There isn’t any way we can take on three of them,” Carson said, “because we’re so close to town. Gunfire will draw more.”

  “How do we know they’re not just cowboys out riding the range?”

  “Do they look like cowhands, Lemuel? I can’t see badges on their vests, but they don’t carry themselves like cowboys. They’re too alert and too well armed.”

  “Clay’s right,” Potter said. “Those are arrogant sons of—”

  “Simon.” Carson reached over and grabbed his friend’s arm.

  “We are not going to get out of this without swapping lead,” Potter said. “What do we do?”

  Carson wasn’t sure who the question was directed at. He didn’t have a good idea. From the confused look on Lemuel’s face, he didn’t have anything to add, either.

  “What’s going on? Who’re them riders in front of us?” Daniel Easterly bounced about in the saddle. His eagerness angered Carson. He had to concentrate and the boy’s nervous gestures distracted him.

  “The ones toward town, we think, are deputies. And riding up behind us is the bounty hunter we told you about with a pair of friends.”

  “But it’s only two men. Oh,” Daniel said, seeing what Carson and Potter already had.

  One horse carried two men. The other had a rider as determined as the three coming from the direction of Boone.

  “That’s the bounty hunter, isn’t it?” Daniel pulled out his sixgun. He lifted it as if he intended to take Brody out of the saddle a quarter mile away.

  “Don’t start anything. We might get out of this yet,” Carson said, his brain running hot with ideas. “Sam, Billy, look after Lemuel.”

  “I don’t need lookin’ after. You can’t take over. I’m the boss of this gang.” The frail man thrashed about, protesting Wylie and Turner steering him off to the east.

  “Go with them, Daniel. You too, Joe.” Carson reached back and pulled the reins of Brody’s horse free.

  “Split them up again? Is that it, Clay?”

  “Ride, Joe. No time for arguing. Find a place to hole up. We’ll catch up with you before midnight.” Carson nodded once to Simon. They had the same idea.

  Potter reached over and swatted the bounty hunter’s horse on the rump. It let out an aggrieved neigh and galloped away. This caused confusion in the men behind them. Brody tried to make the man whose horse he shared go after the fleeing horse. The rider refused.

  Carson had to grin when the bounty hunter wrapped a meaty arm around the rider’s throat and yanked. The man flew through the air and landed hard. This caused his partner to protest.

  Guns flashed and Brody charged the other man. The burly man launched himself from his commandeered horse and crashed into the other rider.

  “Let’s go, partner!” Carson put his head down and spurred his horse to a full gallop. He and Potter raced due west.

  This forced the three coming from the town to choose. A fierce battle raged on the ground. Brody hammered away at the downed rider. Horses reared and pawed the air. And neglected in the fight was Lemuel Jones and the others, escaping to the east.

  Carson added to the confusion by charging past Brody and the unconscious man on the ground that the bounty hunter still pummeled. His sole intent was to frighten the horses. They had been agitated before. Now they thundered off, snorting and braying in panic.

  “You’re like one of those old Greek gods, Clay.” Simon Potter matched Carson as they fled to the west.

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of ’em sowed chaos. You’re the god Eris.”

  “Eris was a female goddess. You’re not calling me girly?”