the men below him, he would have been willing to bet that one of them had only four fingers on one hand.
“Good,” the leader went on. “I’m done with this. Once we hit the bank in Deadwood and clean it out, we’ll be back to pick up you and Lowell and the rest of the gold, and then we’re puttin’ these damned Black Hills behind us. I don’t care what the boss says.”
So Bardwell—if that’s who the leader of the Devils was—was working for someone else. That went along with Bo’s theory, too. He didn’t know who the boss was or if there was anything behind the Devils’ reign of terror beyond sheer profit, but at least some of his hunches had been confirmed.
“It’s a shame those blasted Texans had to come along,” the man in the doorway said. “This was a sweet setup until then.”
“Yeah, not knowin’ whether they’re dead or not is the one thing that bothers me,” the leader agreed. He laughed harshly. “But havin’ all that gold will help me get over it.”
The man lifted a gloved hand in farewell and headed for the corral, where one of the other outlaws had saddled his horse for him. They all mounted up and rode away, their horses’ hooves thudding on the snowy ground as they started back down the canyon. They could follow it to the ridge that ran between Deadwood Gulch and the canyon where the Golden Queen mine was located. In weather like this, especially, it would take them most of the night to reach Deadwood.
But once they got there, no one would expect the raid on the bank they had planned. It was the finishing stroke in this violent game. The Devils would sweep into town on a cold, snowy morning and clean out the bank. Sheriff Henry Manning would probably try to stop them, but the lawman wouldn’t be any match for a dozen hardened owlhoots.
But if Gustaffson and the rest of the cavalrymen, along with Bo and Scratch, could get there first, they could have one heck of a surprise waiting for the Deadwood Devils.
Once the outlaws were out of sight, Bo motioned for Scratch to head back up the ledge. When they reached the rimrock, Scratch said, “There ain’t no doubt about it now. Those were the Devils.”
“Yeah,” Bo agreed, “and that dead guard is the one the boss was talking about called Lowell. The other one will probably find his body in the morning when he doesn’t come in from guard duty, but by then it’ll be too late for him to warn the others. They’ll be in Deadwood already . . . and so will we.”
“We’re goin’ after ’em to put a stop to that bank robbery?”
“Yeah, but we have to find Olaf and the other troopers first. Let’s hope they were able to follow our trail.”
It was dark as midnight now, even though it wasn’t long after sundown. The snow still fell. When the wind gusted particularly hard, it seemed to be falling sideways.
“Gettin’ hard to see,” Scratch said as he and Bo rode back the way they had come from. “I hope those soldier boys don’t ride right off a cliff into a canyon.”
That was a legitimate worry, Bo thought. If the storm got much worse, they might not be able to travel, even if they did manage to rendezvous with the survivors from the cavalry patrol.
A few minutes later, dark figures loomed up in front of them, made indistinct by the snow. Bo and Scratch reined in and lifted their rifles. The other riders did the same, and one of them called out the traditional military challenge.
“Who goes there?”
Bo relaxed as he recognized Sergeant Gustaffson’s voice. “It’s us, Olaf,” he called. “Bo Creel and Scratch Morton.”
The cavalrymen prodded their horses forward. “Thank God,” Gustaffson said fervently. “With this snow, we were riding around blindly. I was able to follow your tracks for a while, but between the darkness and the wind, we were lost.”
“There’s only so much room up here on this ridge,” Bo said, “so I was hoping we’d run into each other. We have news.”
“You found the Devils’ hideout?”
“That’s right, but there’s only one man there right now. They left him to guard the loot from their previous robberies.”
“Where’d the rest of them go?” Gustaffson asked.
“They’re headed for Deadwood,” Bo explained. “They’re going to rob the bank there first thing in the morning and then take off for the tall and uncut.”
Gustaffson let out a surprised curse. “We’ve got to stop ’em! Nobody in Deadwood will expect the Devils to ride right into town like that. It’ll be a massacre.”
Bo nodded and said, “It could be. But not if we can get there first.”
Gustaffson lifted his reins and turned his horse. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
With Bo and Scratch in the lead, the little group started toward Deadwood. The Texans were relying on instinct to guide them now more than anything else. Decades of wandering had given them a built-in sense of direction, but even so, they had to wonder if they were going the right way. It was going to take a lot of luck for them to get back to Deadwood at all in this storm, let alone get there before the outlaws reached the settlement.
The wind blew harder and the snow fell thicker. Every bone in Bo’s body was frozen and aching from the cold, and he knew Scratch felt the same way. This late autumn storm was becoming a blizzard, and there wasn’t a blasted thing they could do about it. All the men hunched deeper in their coats, and the horses plodded on.
Bo’s horse suddenly stopped and wouldn’t go on. Trusting the animal’s instincts, Bo cried out over the howling wind, “Hold it! Everybody stop!”
Scratch, Gustaffson, and the troopers came to a halt. “What is it, Bo?” Scratch asked.
“I don’t know! Everybody hold on for a minute!”
