them, sniffing the air.
“I don’t smell any dust,” he said. “I don’t think the wagon’s come along here yet. We’re ahead of Thorpe.”
“You sure about that?”
“Pretty sure.”
Sam took a lucifer from his shirt pocket and snapped it to life with the thumbnail of his left hand, cupping the right around the flame so that it couldn’t be seen from more than a few feet away. He studied the ground for a moment before snuffing out the match.
“Nobody’s been over this branch trail for days,” he said positively as he straightened. “Let’s get over there behind the rock and wait.”
The dog-head rock was big enough to shield them completely from the road. They had been there for about fifteen minutes when the thudding of hoofbeats and the creaking of wagon wheels announced the approach of someone coming along the trail from Arrowhead.
Matt and Sam put their hands over their horses’ muzzles to keep the animals quiet as the group of riders neared. Invisible in the deep shadows next to the rock, they watched as the first outriders came into view, followed by the wagon and more men on horseback ranged around it.
The wagon had an enclosed bed with a couple of small windows in its sides and one in the back. Slats had been nailed over those windows to form bars. They weren’t as secure as iron bars, of course, but they would do for a short trip. Matt and Sam knew that the wagon ought to reach Pancake Flats and the railroad by nightfall the next day.
The temperature inside that wagon would get mighty hot in the middle of the day, Matt and Sam knew, but neither of them felt any sympathy for Joshua Shade. It was going to be a lot hotter where the outlaw was going.
A hell of a lot hotter, in fact.
A saddle horse was tied on to the back of the wagon, plodding along behind it. Two men were on the seat, one handling the reins attached to the six mules pulling the wagon, the other sitting there with the butt of a shotgun propped against his leg and the twin barrels extending skyward at an angle. The rising moon cast enough light for Matt and Sam to recognize Marshal Asa Thorpe as the shotgunner.
“Ever seen the driver before?” Matt asked in a whisper.
“I can’t really tell in this light, but I don’t think so,” Sam replied.
“There’s somethin’ familiar about him,” Matt mused. “Can’t quite place him, though. Reckon I must’ve seen him around Arrowhead sometime before we left.”
“He was one of the men Sheriff Flagg didn’t know. I hope the sheriff had a chance to warn Thorpe to keep an eye on him.”
“Thorpe’s got enough sense to do that—I hope.”
The wagon and the outriders all swung onto the trail leading south to Pancake Flats. Matt and Sam watched them go, letting them get well ahead before they led their horses out of the shadows next to the rock and mounted up.
Then they set off at an easy lope, heading south themselves and listening for the sound of gunshots in the night.
Chapter 21
By morning, the wagon had covered several miles without encountering any trouble. Exhaustion and the strain of worrying about his family had taken quite a toll on Ike Winslow, dulling him mentally and physically. He swayed a little on the seat next to Marshal Thorpe as he clutched the reins, slapping them against the backs of the mules from time to time to keep the animals moving.
Thorpe was still as stiff and upright as he had been when the journey started. His head swiveled from side to side almost constantly as he kept a lookout for any sign of trouble. Garth and the other outlaws were going to have a hard time taking him by surprise.
But that was
He had never killed anybody, hadn’t even been in a serious fight since he was a kid. All he’d done for years now was work hard and try to provide for his family.
But a series of bad years on the farm had forced him to borrow money, and then more bad years had kept him from being able to pay it back. And almost before he knew it, the farm was gone, taken away by the bank.
He had been able to scrape together enough money to buy supplies for the trip West. If he hadn’t already had the wagon, left over from better times, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
Maggie had been mighty good about the whole thing. She knew Ike was doing his best, she had told him, and she thought heading West to make a new start was a fine idea. Maybe deep down she didn’t really believe those things—Ike suspected that she didn’t—but she said them anyway.
Now he had led her right into trouble that might be the end of them all. Lord knows what was happening to her even now. You couldn’t expect brutal, ruthless men like Shade’s gang to keep their hands off of a young, pretty woman for very long. Sickness roiled Ike’s gut as he tried to shove the horrible images out of his head.
He had to concentrate completely on the job he had been given, he told himself. That was all he could allow himself to think about.
Kill Thorpe. Turn into an outlaw like the rest of Shade’s men. Even if he somehow survived this ordeal, he would be hunted for the rest of his life as a murderer, a wanted fugitive who had shot down a federal lawman.
That new life he had hoped for when they started West was gone, slipping through his fingers like smoke.
