“How’d you know that wasn’t a god?”

  Carson found an arroyo, jumped down into it, and raced along the gravel-strewn bottom, hidden from sight of anyone riding on the prairie.

  “We read the same dime novels. You bought that one in El Paso.”

  “It was in Mesilla,” contradicted Potter.

  “El Paso. It was a store on Oregon Street, just north of the plaza. You remember that bookstore? The one with the cute señorita who gave you short shrift because she only had eyes for me.”

  “She was pretending. She wanted me. I saw it in the way she kept looking out of the corner of her eye at me.” Potter slowed. His horse began to tire running in the gully’s sandy, rocky bottom. “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere far away from the deputies.”

  “You sure they were law dogs?”

  Carson nodded.

  “Have we gone far enough to get away?”

  “Can’t say,” Carson grated out. He felt every time his horse’s hoof hit a rock, which caused a small stumble. He pulled back on the reins and brought the horse to a halt. The animal’s flanks heaved. Lather flecked it and shudders rippled enough to worry Carson. If the horse died under him, he’d be in a real pickle.

  “Where do you think Lemuel’s got off to by now?”

  “I don’t know this part of the countryside. You were almost hanged up on a hill outside Boone. Where do you think he and the others hid?”

  “Not near Hangman’s Hill,” Potter said. “That’s to the south of town and we’re still north. I think we are.”

  “Let’s take a look. We need to circle way north and come around on the far side of Boone. Otherwise, we—”

  The bullet almost took his head off. A hole the size of a quarter appeared as if by magic in his hat brim. The hat would have gone flying if he hadn’t kept the chinstrap tight while he was riding.

  “There. That rise,” cried Potter. “It’s Brody. How’d he get in front of us?”

  “He must know the land better ’n we do. Or maybe he’s some kind of Indian spirit. I wouldn’t put it past him to turn into a skinwalker.” Carson dragged out his Winchester as he spoke. “We can get him in a cross fire if you ride to the left. I’ll stay here and keep him occupied.”

  Carson got off three quick shots that drove the bounty hunter under cover. He had found a low hill that overlooked the side of the arroyo where Carson and Potter had scrambled back to level ground.

  Firing from horseback proved too hard, but Carson traded inaccurate fire for the mobility of remaining in the saddle. He trotted his horse away from the gully and drew the bounty hunter’s fire to give Potter time to get into position.

  He jerked as another of the heavy .50-caliber slugs almost took off his head. A second hole had been chewed through the hat brim, this time on the other side. Brody wasn’t the kind to miss a third time. The first pair of shots had given him the range.

  Carson did all he could to throw off the man’s aim. He zigzagged about and jumped back into the arroyo. At this point, the bank only came up a few feet, leaving him exposed from the waist up. Having no choice, he slid off his horse and went to the bank. His horse was protected by the dry, crumbly earthen embankment. Resting his rifle on the side, he waited for Brody to show himself.

  The two men fired at the same time. Dirt kicked up in Carson’s face, blinding him. Cursing, he wiped the grit from his eyes. Blinking hard to get tears flowing, he regarded the distant hill again.

  By the time his tears had washed away the last of the dirt, he decided Brody had abandoned his spot. He swung his barrel from one side of the hill to the other, waiting for any hint where the bounty hunter had gone. The merest flash of dirty buckskin against the lighter background of rippling grass gave him his target.

  He squeezed off a round.

  Even at this range, he heard Brody screech in pain.

  Then came a fusillade like Gettysburg had begun anew. Potter had flanked their attacker and found the range.

  Carson scrambled over the edge of the arroyo. He considered getting his horse out, but there wasn’t an easy exit for the bay. Instead, he lit out on foot, clutching his rifle as he ran. At one point, he spotted Brody’s grizzled head pop up. He fired without much hope of hitting anything. The shots went astray, but forced the bounty hunter back down.

  This gave Potter time to unleash a new volley.

  Carson crested the small hill and looked down on the far side. He hoped to see Brody sprawled on the ground, filled with lead.

  “Simon, are you hit?”

  His friend knelt, one knee on the ground and his hands pressing into the other. His six-gun had been returned to its holster.

  “He grazed me. It’s not too bad. Bloody as all get-out, but it looks worse than it is.” He winced. “It feels worse than it is, too.”

  “Where’d he get off to?”

  “We chased him over that next lump in the prairie. I swear, there’s so many of them this might be some kind of cemetery for giants.”

  “Rolling hills. That’s what they call them.” Carson reloaded his rifle, then went hunting. Letting Brody get away meant trouble aplenty later. Better to end the fight here and now.

  He popped up at the top of the next mound. Carson sagged in defeat. The bounty hunter had mounted and rode away. He saw the distant dust cloud and took a futile shot at it. If he’d been mounted, overtaking Brody would have been easy. On foot, though, he had no chance to catch up to the escaping man.

  Carson poked around and saw blood on the grass. He followed the trail a few feet. It matched up with the direction Brody had fled.

  They had wounded the man and driven him off. But he knew the fight had just begun. Persistence was one trait he’d found in all bounty hunters. The way Brody came at them after he’d retrieved his horse showed he was one to carry a grudge. Even if there wasn’t a bounty on their heads, he’d take them in.

  Or put them in the ground.

  Clay Carson hiked back to help his friend hobble to his horse and mount. They had taken care of Brody for the time being. Now they had to find Jones and the rest of the gang—that is, if the Boone marshal and his posse hadn’t arrested them.

  The light was beginning to fail, settling into the deep amber of twilight. Cicadas whined through the brush. Carson looked toward the horizon, where the heat shimmered off the flats like water. There was no sign of Lemuel or the others.

  Potter pulled himself upright with a grunt. “Next time Brody comes calling, I vote we don’t let him walk away.”

  “Wasn’t for lack of trying,” Carson said, scanning the ridgelines. “He moves like a damn ghost when he wants to.”

  They followed the rutted edge of a cattle trail for a while, dust hanging in the still air. A crow called from a nearby tree, its cry thin and distant. The silence after the gunfire felt thick and unnatural.

  Potter broke it. “What if they didn’t get away? Lemuel ain’t half the man he was. And Wylie and Turner—well, they’ve got their own way of seeing things.”

  Carson nodded slowly. “Then we find them before the law does. Or Brody.”

  They mounted and turned their horses east, the red sun dipping low behind them, casting long shadows like fingers clawing at their backs.

  CHAPTER 23

  “Two more. What are we going to do?” Simon Potter tapped his fingers on the butt of his pistol.

  “This is the second pair we’ve seen. The marshal must have sent out a posse, all right, but they’re split up to cover more territory.” Carson watched as the deputies rode slowly toward Boone. “There is a man bound and determined to catch his escaped prisoner.” He looked at Potter meaningfully.

  “What do you want to do?” Potter asked.

  Taking them out was possible. It was even easy. Carson saw several places where an ambush done quickly enough would remove them from their patrol. The problem was that so many tiny groups hunting for Potter—and for him—must report in on a regular basis to keep from duplicating their effort. If one team failed to send the all-clear, Marshal Sutcliff knew where to start a serious hunt.

  “How many men did he put on our heels?” Carson wondered aloud. Potter had no more idea than he did, but hearing his own words put things into order.

  “If we put on a couple badges, we could waltz right on past them. How many of those yahoos know everyone else in the posse by sight?” Potter suggested.

  “Yeah,” Carson said, “we put on badges, go on patrol with them, and get paid. Maybe at the end of the day, we collect a shot of whiskey as part of the pay.” He licked dried lips. It had been a spell since he’d taken a sip of the whiskey Potter had bought in Elbow Bend. “That’d go down my gullet real smooth right about now, especially if Sutcliff paid for it.” He spat, mostly dirt. At least he wasn’t consumptive like Lemuel Jones. He wasn’t able to muster enough spittle to make a decent gob, much less one bloody with leakage from his lungs.

  “I’m beginning to think that’s more likely than Lemuel giving us our share of the loot.”

  “Wylie and Turner,” Carson said. “By now, they could have convinced Joe and his kid brother to deal us out of the hand.”

  “You really don’t trust them anymore, do you?”

  Carson shook his head. There wasn’t any reason to waste his breath telling Potter what he thought. His partner had come to the same conclusion.

  “Do you remember the train robbery outside Topeka?” Potter asked.

  “We didn’t get but a few bucks each.”

  “Billy was the first one into the mail car. I always thought it was odd that there wasn’t a cashbox.”

  “We did all right. I found that fifty-dollar bill in a letter.” Carson held up his index finger. The paper cut he got opening the letter had become infected. For a few days, he worried he’d lose his trigger finger to gangrene.

  “Yeah, you were the big winner. But Billy stood us all to a round of drinks after we hid out in that whorehouse. Did you ever see him pawing through the mail, hunting for cash?”

  “He must have found something, unless you’re sure he swiped money from under our noses.” Carson tried to remember what he’d thought of Billy’s behavior so long ago. It was all a blur, but that smudged memory added to his suspicions now.

  “He’s a sneaky one. Quiet. You have to worry about the quiet ones.”

  “And that, Simon, is why I know you’re not going to double-cross me. You never shut up.”

  They waited for the two deputies to disappear over a hummock before taking to the road. At the spot where the two lawmen had gone out of sight, Carson saw a sign declaring Boone to be two miles off.

  “Fifty dollars,” Potter said. He shook his head in disgust. “That’s all?”

  “Why so little? Is that what you reckon the marshal put on your head, or was it a judge somewhere? Sutcliff can’t think too highly of you escaping his necktie justice.”

  “He bragged on that being the most he’d ever pay out for a bounty. He got real mad when I suggested that this was chicken feed and that he must get more from the town.”

  “He cuts himself into every reward?”

  “That’s my guess. Knowing that about him is another reason for him to stretch my neck.”

  “That,” Carson observed, chuckling, “and you snorted up against his wife’s flank.”

  “It was a comely flank, too. But thinking back on it, maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did.”

  “That, and stealing a horse,” Carson said.

  “It was my own horse. They tried to take it from me!”

  “From all I’ve seen of most towns, they don’t care if their elected officials steal them blind, as long as things are peaceable.” Carson twisted about to get a good look in all directions, to see if any of the roving posses had spotted them. So far, so good.

  “And the marshal keeps the dead critters off the main street. Sutcliff had his prisoners out doing that chore for him.”

  “You?”

  “Me,” Potter said. “If Lemuel is joshing us about the gold, I can get a wagon and go from town to town and haul off the dead animals. With all my experience, I’d make a killing.”

  “I’m sorry I bothered getting your neck out of the noose. Your jokes are something criminal.”

  They rode in silence for another mile before seeing two more sentries along the road. Carson had reached the point of wanting to gun down the lawmen as a parting gesture of disdain. He was tired and battered and shot at. He reached up and ran a finger through both holes on either side of his hat brim. If it stormed, he’d be trapped under two rainspouts.

  “Clay, lookee there!”

  It took him a few seconds to spot what his partner already had. The ground to the north of the road had been cut up by horses’ hooves. A quick count convinced him at least four horses had cut away from the well-traveled road.

  “Five horses. Lemuel and the others,” declared Potter.

  Carson leaned toward the tracks. His horse dutifully followed the trail. Two miles off, amid gently rolling hills, he saw a curlicue of smoke twisting its way into the sky.

  “About time,” Potter said, taking a deep whiff of the air. “My stomach’s rubbing up against my backbone. That’s meat cooking.”

  “Joe or the kid must have bagged a rabbit or two. Sam and Billy were never good at hunting small game.”

  “Sam brought down a deer once, when we were prowling around the Guadalupe Mountains.”

  “I remember,” said Carson, “that he tried to cook it. He was lucky bringing it down. We were unlucky eating it after he burned it to a cinder. I still get a bellyache thinking about it.”

  “My slab was half raw.” Potter sucked in a lungful of air again. “Whoever’s cooking that is doing it right.”

  “There’s a cabin. I can just see the top of a chimney.” Carson settled back into the saddle. “After we eat, we get the map from Lemuel.”

  “I’ll back your play,” Potter said. “With so many of Sutcliff’s posse out prowling around, chances are good they’ll nab some of us. If it’s Lemuel, we won’t have any idea where he stashed the gold.”

  Carson said nothing. The marshal capturing Jones was possible. He worried more about Lemuel’s health. He might up and die on them at any minute. Worse, he might lapse into a coma. The hiding place for the gold would be so near and yet impossibly far away. It’d be better for Carson’s peace of mind if, in that case, the man died.

  “Sorry, Clay. We should have slowed up and let you catch us,” said Joe Easterly. “We caught sight of you a couple miles back.”

  “You did the right thing,” Carson said. “Keep riding as long as Lemuel’s up to it.” He glanced over to where Lemuel Jones sat astride his horse, yammering away to Daniel. The youngster took in whatever guff Lemuel spewed forth.

  Turner and Wylie had separated and rode sentry on either flank.

  “You saw the smoke, too?” Joe looked to the north, where the white smoke curled straight up into the sky. Without wind, it reached a hundred feet or better before being absorbed by the blue sky.

  “We need to talk privately with Lemuel,” Carson said. “It’s turning downright dangerous out here with the Boone marshal’s deputies and that bounty hunter prowling about and breathing down our necks.”

  “You think you can convince him to tell us where the gold is? Just in case?” Joe’s voice took on a harder edge.

  Carson suspected he had reached the point where Lemuel’s antics weren’t amusing any longer. Gold or nothing.

  “I’ll try to convince him it’s for the best.” Carson looked over as Lemuel slapped Daniel on the shoulder. Both laughed. “I might not be the one to ask him. Your brother’s getting on real well with him.”

  Joe said nothing, but the expression that crossed his face like a cloud across the sun warned Carson that the brothers weren’t on the best of terms anymore.

  Joining the Dirty Creek Gang wasn’t what Joe wanted for his brother.

  Carson waved to the two outriders, then got Lemuel’s attention and pointed ahead. The smoke billowed faster. The cooking fire was blazing away now, preparing a decent supper.

  They rode down into a shallow depression, where the cabin sat forlornly defiant. A small shed out back was for housing a horse or mule. The lone stall stood empty.

  Carson swung about in the saddle when he heard the cabin door creak open. A woman in her early thirties stood there, a rifle in her grip. She pointed the long gun in their general direction, but didn’t aim at anyone in particular.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” Lemuel said, riding closer. “We didn’t mean to frighten you, but we had to come down.”

  “Why? Who are you?”

  “Ma’am, we’re simple travelers who smelled that mighty fine mess of beans you’re cooking. They are beans, aren’t they?”

  “Chili,” she said indignantly. “You don’t put beans in chili.”

  “Reckon not, you being a dutiful daughter of the Lone Star State.” Lemuel graced her with one of his brilliant, winning smiles. He almost fell from his horse when he started coughing.

  “You’re not well. You been wounded?”

  “Ma’am,” Lemuel said, “I am in a fiercely bad way. We don’t want to put you out. We’ll just ride on our way.”

  “Like that? The lot of you?” She scowled as she studied each in turn. “Some of you’ve been shot up. I see the wounds.”

  “That doesn’t concern you, ma’am.” Lemuel pinched the brim of his hat and called, “Back on the trail, men. We’ve interrupted this fair lady long enough. She’s got a meal to fix for her family.”

  A new coughing fit hit Lemuel. Sam Wylie rode up and kept him from tumbling to the ground.

  “You get on down this instant. I don’t have enough to feed the lot of you, but I can dish up some.” The woman had no fear of the gang. All she saw were men who’d been wounded—and Lemuel Jones. He was obviously the worst off and ready to collapse.

  “We have our own supplies. Your generosity is appreciated, but it’s not necessary.” Carson considered leading the gang away, but Lemuel slumped. A coughing fit shook him all over. Seeing this, the woman badgered Wylie into helping her with the ailing consumptive.