coated the rock, and he cautioned himself not to get impatient and rush things.
You would think that somebody who had lived as long and done as many things as he had wouldn’t be all that upset about the prospect of dying, he mused. But every time his feet slid a little on the snow and his hand tightened on the horse’s reins, his heart pounded a little harder and he knew that more than anything else he wanted to see the sun come up in the morning, guaranteed or not. Life had never been perfect for him, far from it, in fact, but he wasn’t through with it yet.
He reached the top of the bridge’s arch and started down the far side, being even more careful now. He began to be able to make out Scratch and Chloride at the other end. A moment later he was beside them, his pulse hammering in his head and his breath seemingly frozen in his throat. He forced himself to start breathing again and calm down.
“This was the hard part, right?” Scratch asked the old-timer.
“Actually, yeah, it was,” Chloride replied. “Until we get to Wolf Head Rock, that is. That’s liable to be even worse.”
The three of them started making their way out of the valley, and as Chloride had said, the going wasn’t too difficult. A few minutes later, snow began to fall again. It wasn’t coming down very hard, but Bo was glad it waited until they had crossed that stone bridge, anyway.
Chloride followed a narrow game trail that zigzagged up the mountainside and then curled around it. The snow-covered ground had a certain luminosity to it that allowed the three men to see where they were going despite the pitch-black skies. After what seemed like half the night, Chloride called a halt and said quietly, “We can’t take the horses no higher. We’ll have to leave ’em here. You’ll want a rope.”
“Got one,” Scratch said as he unfastened his lasso from the saddle.
They tied the reins to the trunk of a stubby pine beside the trail. Then Chloride started climbing a rock-studded and brush-littered slope that was steep enough to have all three men breathing hard after only a few minutes.
“How’d you find this place?” Bo asked when they finally paused to rest.
“I was followin’ a big horn sheep,” Chloride explained. “Got me the idea I wanted a set o’ them curly horns as a trophy. Don’t know why. It was a durned fool notion. And I never did get a good shot at the blasted thing, but after a while I come out on a ledge where the trail ended and realized I was up above Wolf Head Rock. Don’t know if anybody ever set foot up there besides the Injuns. Probably ain’t anywhere in these hills they ain’t been at one time or another.” Chloride bent over, rested his hands on his knees, and took several deep breaths. When he straightened, he went on. “You ready to go some more?”
“Yeah,” Scratch said. “Let’s go.”
They resumed their climb. In places it was so steep they had to reach out and give each other a hand. But in time they came to the ledge Chloride had mentioned. It was narrow, maybe ten feet deep and twice that long. The Texans pressed their backs against the cold rock wall and rested there, catching their breath again.
“We’re gettin’ . . . a mite too old for this,” Scratch said in a whisper.
“Yeah,” Bo agreed, “but I reckon it’s better than not living this long.”
“Amen.”
They took their hats off, stretched out on the snow-covered ledge, and bellied up to the edge so they could look over. Bo had already smelled smoke, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw a small fire built in a ring of rocks that had been stacked up to hide the flames. No one would be able to see the fire from the main trail below. Bo and his companions had a bird’s-eye view from up here, though.
The orange glow from the flames filtered out over the big, level area that formed the top of the so-called wolf’s head. Men moved around down there, talking quietly and drinking coffee from the pot sitting at the edge of the fire. The horses were off to the left, tied to a rope that was strung between two trees. Half a dozen pines bordered the open space on that side.
Sue Beth Pendleton and Martha Sutton were sitting with their backs to two of those trees, huddled in their coats. Bo couldn’t tell if they were tied to the pines or if the outlaws had left them loose because there was no place for them to go if they tried to escape. The Devils were between the women and the narrow path that led down to the main trail.
Scratch leaned his head close to Bo’s and whispered, “If we can get down there without them seein’ us, we can grab the gals, hustle ’em behind those trees, and throw down on the varmints. Maybe ventilate a couple of ’em before they even know what’s goin’ on.”
“That’s the way I figure it, too,” Bo replied, his voice so quiet that only Scratch and Chloride could hear him. “That was a good guess you made about them being here, old-timer.”
“Now don’t
“After all the things they’ve done, you really reckon we ought to worry about that?” Scratch asked.
“I ain’t goin’ to. I was just askin’ if you were.”
“We’re not officially deputized,” Bo pointed out, “so Sheriff Manning doesn’t need to know every little detail about what happens up here.”
“That sounds good to me,” Chloride said. “I ain’t forgot how that big varmint carved those pitchforks on my friends. Don’t know if I ever will forget it.” The old-timer gave a little shake of his head, as if to get that image out of his thoughts. He pointed and went on. “You can see what I mean about the rock bulgin’ out a little. Ain’t no way to climb down.”
“And even using the lasso, it’s going to be hard to get down there quietly,” Bo said. “We’re going to have to rig a loop under the arms of one of us, dally the rope around a rock, and let him down slow and easy.”
“That’ll work while there’s still two hombres up here to hold the other one’s weight and lower him,” Scratch pointed out. “Chloride ain’t big enough to handle that chore by himself.”
“I’m willin’ to give it a try,” Chloride said.
Bo shook his head. “No, we’d just wind up making a racket and alerting the Devils, and the second man would
