'Horse stomped my foot.'
'Let's get that boot off and take a look at it.'
As Traywick had said, his boot was full of blood from the ugly gash that had been opened across the top of his foot. Wing examined the wound after carefully working the boot off and cutting away Traywick's blood-soaked sock. 'You're going to be laid up for a good spell, Joe,' said the cook solemnly. 'I can sew up that cut, or we can take you to the doc in Timber City if you want. You've likely got some broken bones in there too.'
Traywick shook his head. 'You take care of it, Wing,' he said. 'I trust you more'n I do any sawbones from town. You've been patchin' us up for a long time around here.'
'All too true,' agreed Wing. 'I'll need some whiskey.'
'You and me both,' grunted Traywick. A new voice came from the doorway of the kitchen. 'My God, Joe, what happened?' Molly Kinsman rushed into the room, wrapped in a long blue robe. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, not yet brushed after her night's sleep, and Longarm thought she looked mighty pretty.
He had other things on his mind besides appreciating how lovely Molly was, however. As Traywick launched into yet another explanation of what had happened to him, and Wing and Molly fussed over him, Longarm eased out the back door of the house. He still had work to do.
During their conversation of the day before, Traywick had told him quite a bit about the lay of the land higher up in the mountains. Though he would have felt better about things with Traywick guiding him--and backing him up in case of trouble--Longarm felt confident he could find the places Traywick had told him about. He was sure he could get one of the other hands to ride with him, but there were none of them he trusted as much as he did Traywick. Besides, it was his job to run those badmen to ground, and he didn't really have the right to expose anyone else to the danger that might be awaiting him.
No, he would go it alone, he decided. Wouldn't be the first time he had played a lone hand, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
In the dim light of the lantern he lit in the barn, he saddled the roan and then led the horse outside. The sky was still just turning gray to the east. The rest of the hands would be rising soon, and Longarm wanted to be gone before then. He had plenty of riding to do today. He swung up into the saddle and heeled the roan into a trot.
The rising sun found Longarm high on the mountain that loomed directly above the Diamond K. He was cutting through part of the Mcentire timber lease, but it was a section the loggers had not yet reached. He was far enough away from Aurora's current operation that he couldn't even hear the axes of the men as they began their day's work. In fact, he might as well have been alone on the mountain, save for the birds that flitted from pine to pine and the small animals that rustled away through the underbrush at his approach. A chattering noise made him look up, and he grinned at a squirrel that sat perched on a branch about twenty feet over his head, scolding him. Suddenly, something bounced off Longarm's hat and rolled to a stop on the forest floor.
'Better watch it, old son,' he told the squirrel. 'You keep throwing pine cones at me, we're liable to have us some squirrel stew for supper tonight.'
With a defiant flip of its bushy red tail, the squirrel bounded off the branch, leaping easily to another one and then vanishing among the pine boughs.
Longarm chuckled and rode on. All of his problems should be so easily solved, he thought.
As the sun rose higher, the vegetation began to thin somewhat. In places, Longarm could look up and see the bare rock of the mountain peaks. Nothing grew up there except some lichen and moss. It was always cold at those elevations too, no matter what the weather was down below. In fact, there was already a chilly breeze playing around him, but Longarm wasn't bothered enough by it to reach into his saddlebags and pull out the jacket he had rolled up and put there. He just tugged his Stetson down a little tighter on his head and rode on.
Around mid-morning, he found himself at the lower end of a deep coulee that ran almost straight up the side of the mountain. The slope was fairly steep, but the roan was surefooted. Longarm felt confident that the horse could make it. The floor of the coulee was littered with small boulders and dead brush that had washed down during heavy rains. The sky was clear today, with only a few white puffballs of cloud floating here and there, and no threat of a storm. Still, Longarm felt a prickle of nervousness as he started up the coulee. He had seen more than one flash flood in his time, and he knew how quickly gullies like this could turn into raging torrents.
He recognized the coulee from his conversation with Joe Traywick the day before, though, and knew from what the ranch foreman had told him that this was the quickest and best way to the upper reaches of the mountain. Longarm kept the roan moving, letting the mount set its own pace and pick its own way.
As he rode, Longarm kept an eye on the rocky ground. After a few minutes, he reined the horse to a stop and swung down from the saddle to kneel beside a small, silvery mark on the stone floor of the coulee. Only a keen observer would have ever noticed it. Longarm touched the mark lightly with his finger.
A horseshoe had scraped the rock here, Longarm knew. He looked a little farther on, and saw a small stone that appeared to have been overturned recently. Riders moving through this coulee, especially if they were careful, would leave few if any tracks.
But even the most careful riders could overlook tiny signs of their presence like these. It would take a sharp- eyed tracker to spot them... but Longarm had been taught to read sign by some of the best in the world: Apaches, Arapahos, Crows. By the time he mounted again and rode another half mile or so, he was certain that a good-sized group of horsemen had ridden through this coulee several times recently.
His pulse quickened. He was on the trail of the hired killers who worked for the man behind all the trouble down below. He was sure of it.
As he neared the upper end of the coulee, it began to twist and turn. Longarm proceeded carefully around the bends in the natural passage. It was conceivable that the hired guns would have posted guards, though he figured they probably felt pretty safe way up here on the mountain like this. Still, he didn't want to ride into another ambush.
Suddenly, the small sound of metal clinking on stone made him rein in and stiffen in the saddle. The noise had come from behind him, rather than in front of him, as he might have expected. He listened intently, and heard a few more little sounds that told him he was definitely being followed.
Grim-faced, Longarm slid down from the roan's saddle and led the horse around another bend in the coulee. There was a good-sized boulder here that jutted out from the side of the gully. Longarm hid the roan behind it, then began climbing the rough, sloping face of the big rock. When he got to the top, he would be able to look down on the primitive trail and see whoever was following him.
