safer to transport a dead man. The papers on you say ‘dead or alive,’ as I remember.”
“Jesus, meeting up with you has given me second thoughts on stealing cows for a living. When they find out I’m not Cotton Younger and cut me loose, I reckon I’ll go back to washing dishes!”
Longarm didn’t answer. The boy was a born thief, whether he was Cotton Younger or some other reprobate. There was maybe one chance in a hundred that he was telling the truth and that this had all been a fool’s errand. The odds of the prisoner living to a ripe old age hadn’t changed worth mentioning. If they didn’t hang him this year for being Cotton Younger, they’d hang him sooner or later anyway. He was a shifty-eyed and probably vicious thief, no matter how it turned out in Denver.
The prisoner glanced up and said, “Smoke’s rising over the top of this rock shelter. You reckon anyone can see it?”
“Not unless they’re close enough to smell it. The whole sky is filled with drifting gray.”
“How much of a lead do you reckon we have, Longarm?”
“Can’t say. We took the two best mounts I knew Of and they’re bound to be held back by the slowest pony in the posse, ‘less they like to ride after an armed man all strung out. I suspicion we’re a good fifteen miles or more out front. We’d be farther if somebody wasn’t leading who knows his business.”
“Yeah. They’d have had to be cat-eyed and hound-nosed to follow us along the railroad tracks like they done.”
“Hell, they didn’t follow us by reading sign. They followed us by knowing. I’d say they sent a party in to Bitter Creek and another down the track, covering all bets. They got more riders than they need, so they ain’t riding bunched together. They’ll be split into half a dozen patrols, sweeping everywhere we’d be likely to head.”
“Jesus, how you figure to shake ‘em, then?”
“Don’t. Not all of ‘em. No matter which fork we take, at least half of ‘em will be following us up the right one. Ought to whittle ‘em down some if we keep offering choices.”
“I see what you mean. How many men you reckon you can hold off if any of ‘em catch up?”
“Not one, if he’s better than me. Any number if they don’t know how to fight. I doubt if they’ll dare split up into parties of less than a dozen. I’m hoping the Mountie won’t make me shoot him. Man could get in trouble with the State Department, shooting guests.”
“He’s as likely to be riding off with someone in the wrong direction as on our trail, won’t he?”
“Nope. The only ones likely to follow the right trail are the good trackers.”
He threw another faggot on the fire, watching it steam dry enough to burn as he mused, half to himself, “The cooler heads among the party will likely stay attached to Sergeant Foster. So if push comes to shove we’ll be up against Timberline, the Hankses, maybe even Captain Walthers. He’s likely riled about me stealing his walker and would know the Mountie knows his business.”
“If we get cornered, you could give me a gun and I’d be proud to side you, Longarm.”
“Not hardly. I never sprung you from that jail to shoot U.S. or Canadian peace officers. I don’t like getting shot all that much myself.”
“Hell, you don’t think I’d be dumb enough to try to gun you, do you?”
“You’ll never get the chance from me, so we’ll most likely never know.”
“Listen, you can’t let ‘em take me, handcuffed like this! You’d have to give me a chance for my life!”
“Son, you had that chance, before you took to stealing from folks.”
“gawd! You mean you’d let ‘em kill me, if it comes down to you or me?”
“If it comes down to you or me? That’s a fool question. I’d boil you in oil to save myself a hangnail, but don’t fret about it. We’re both a long way from caught up with.”
It didn’t stop raining. They rode out of the storm that afternoon by getting above the clouds. The slanting rays of the sun warmed and dried them as they rode over the frost-shattered rocks where stunted junipers grew like contorted green gnomes on either side. Cushion flowers peeked at them between boulders, not daring to raise a twig high enough for the cruel, thin winds to bite them off. Surprised, invisible ground squirrels chattered at them from either side of the trail, which now was little more than a meandering flatness between patches of treacherous scree or dusty snow patches. The air was still, and drier than a mummy’s arm pit, but only warm where the sun shone through it. Each juniper’s shadow they rode through held the chill of the void between the planets. They passed a last wind-crippled little tree and knew they’d reached the timberline. It wasn’t a real line painted over the shattered scree, it was simply that after you got high enough on a mountain, nothing grew tall enough to matter.
Longarm led them to a saddle between higher, snow-covered peaks to the east and west, and at the summit of the pass, reined in for a moment.
There was nothing to see back the way they’d ridden but the carpet of pink-tinged clouds, spread clear to the far horizon with an occasional peak rising like an island above the storm below them.
The prisoner asked, “See anybody?”
Longarm snorted, “We’d be in a hell of a fix if I did. Let’s ride.”
The other side of the pass was a mirror image of the one they’d just ridden up. The prisoner looked down into the carpet of cloud spread out ahead of them and groaned, “Hell, I was just getting comfortable.”
“We ain’t riding for comfort. We’re riding for your life, and Denver. How long you figure to live once we get there ain’t my worry.”
“How far do you reckon Denver is, Longarm?”
“About four hundred miles, as the crow flies. We ain’t riding crows, so it’s likely a mite farther.”
“Four hundred miles across the top of the world with half of it chasing us? Jehosaphat, I wish I was back
