“Fighting each other isn’t going to accomplish anything,” the lawman said sharply. He turned back to Bo and Scratch. “Some of the townspeople had joined in the fight, but once the Devils had the two women as hostages, everyone had to hold their fire. They made it to their horses, stole a couple of mounts from a hitch rack for the women, and galloped out of town. I put together a posse and came after them as fast as I could, but it took a little while.”
Bo looked at the five men and said, “No offense, Sheriff, but this isn’t much of a posse.”
“People are still afraid of the Devils, some of them even more so now that they’ve dared to invade the town itself. I had more men with me when we left, but they dropped out during the day, one or two at a time, and headed back. It’s cold and it’s going to be dark after a while, and like I said . . . people are afraid of the Devils.”
“But the trail went past the Golden Queen,” Chloride put in, “so me and Andy here joined up when the posse came through.”
“You didn’t see that the outlaws had Miss Sutton with them?” Bo asked.
“We didn’t actually see ’em,” Chloride explained. “Heard some horses this mornin’, but they were on the other side of the canyon, out of sight of the mine.”
“We didn’t know what had happened until Sheriff Manning stopped to tell us,” Keefer added.
“We followed the trail on up here, ran into Sergeant Gustaffson, and then caught up to you two,” Manning told the Texans. “Now you know as much as we do. We’d better mount up and get after them again.”
Bo nodded. “You’re right, Sheriff. We don’t need to push the horses too hard, though. Save something for a hard run later if we need it.”
“Makes sense,” Manning agreed. “Let’s go.”
They swung up into their saddles and set off after the Devils. The posse was seven men strong now, which matched exactly the number of outlaws who had fled from the hideout. It would be an even fight once they caught up.
Except for the fact that the Devils still had two hostages, and as much as the members of the posse wanted the gold back and wanted to bring the outlaws to justice, they wanted to save the lives of Sue Beth Pendleton and Martha Sutton even more.
The wind began to pick up late in the afternoon, which added to Bo’s worries. “If it starts to snow again, those tracks we’ve been following could fill up,” he said quietly to Scratch as they rode side by side just behind Henry Manning, who continued to lead the posse.
“Yeah, I thought of that, too. We need to get in front of ’em somehow. I wonder how well Chloride knows this part of the country.”
“Let’s ask him,” Bo suggested.
The old-timer was bringing up the rear on his mule. Bo and Scratch dropped back, letting Gustaffson, Bardwell, Ramsey, and Keefer go past them, and fell in on either side of Chloride.
He looked back and forth at them with narrowed eyes. “You boys got somethin’ in mind,” he said. “I can tell by lookin’ at you.”
“You have any idea where those varmints might be headin’?” Scratch asked.
“How should I know? Do I look like a bandit to you?”
“We thought maybe you’d know a good place for them to set up an ambush,” Bo said. “They’ve got to have a pretty good idea that we’re on their trail, and they’re bound to want to get rid of us.”
“Well . . .” Chloride scratched at his beard. “Back in my prospectin’ days, I wandered up and down a bunch of these canyons and climbed some of the mountains, includin’ that one it looks like they’re headin’ for. There’s a place called Wolf Head Rock that got the name because—”
“It’s shaped like a wolf ’s head,” Scratch guessed.
Chloride glared at him. “Are you tellin’ this story, or am I?”
“Go ahead, Chloride,” Bo told him.
The old-timer snorted and said, “Well, anyway . . . There’s a pass on the south side of the mountain that’s the easiest way to get through to the other side, especially now with this snow. The other passes are narrow enough they’re gonna be drifted up so’s it’d be hard to make it through ’em, even though this wasn’t that bad of a storm. Thing of it is, Wolf Head Rock sorta sits there overlookin’ the trail to the pass, so you can’t get up there without ridin’ by it. Once you go past there’s a trail that loops back around to the top.”
“And some riflemen hidden up there could pick off anybody who rode past,” Bo said.
Chloride nodded. “If I was on the run and tryin’ to get shut of a posse, that’s the way I’d go, sure enough.”
“The Devils ride past the rock and leave plenty of tracks so the posse has to follow ’em,” Scratch mused, “then they circle around, get above the trail, and wait to bushwhack whoever’s followin’ ’em.”
“Yep,” Chloride said. “It’s just a guess, mind you, but if the trail we’re followin’ goes past Wolf Head Rock, I’d bet my last dime those varmints’ll be up there layin’ for us.”
Bo thought about it for a moment and then asked, “Is there any way to get up to the rock without going past it and then doubling back?”
“Yeah,” Chloride said. “If you’re a—”
“Don’t say mountain goat,” Bo interrupted. “Please.”
Chloride frowned at him. “How’d you know that’s what I was gonna say?”
