Owen pondered this slowly. He hated like death to admit that Ben McKeever and all the others had defeated him and brought him to heel, but perhaps that was the answer after all.
Chapter Ten
After a hard climb they reached a crest known as Hogback the next afternoon. Dunc Lester had guided them around the scattered hill-country farms, through heavy timber, along rocky trails that could hardly be seen a few feet away. Owen and Deland were not strangers to this country. As a haven for outlaws, the Cooksons ranked second only to the western wastelands of the Panhandle, and as U.S. deputies they had ridden this high wilderness often. Still, they did not know the land as Dunc Lester did, and Owen was grateful that the boy had come.
Now the three of them paused in a small clearing to blow the horses, and Dunc got down and walked stiffly to the far edge of the ridge, and there was bleakness in his eyes as he stood there, gazing hard at the land below.
Arch brought the pack horse up to graze, and Owen got down and loosened the cinch on his roan. The two men looked at each other, then at the boy.
“What is it?” Owen called.
“Maybe you'd like to see.”
When Owen and Arch reached the place where the boy stood, they saw below them a small blackened clearing and the charred remains of a cabin and a few outbuildings.
“What is it?” Deland asked.
“Nothin' now. It used to be our home place.”
Owen and Arch looked at each other quickly and frowned. “I think we'd better move back in the timber,” Owen said. “If Ike Brunner is as smart as he's supposed to be, he'll figure you'll come back to this place and have it watched.”
“I was here before,” Dunc said, “and nothin'-happened. The Tanis place is on the other side of the slope, but they can't see us from here.”
“Is Tanis a member of the gang?”
Dunc nodded, and Arch Deland was already headed back toward the horses at an awkward trot. “What's the matter?” the boy asked, vaguely disturbed.
Then, before Owen could answer, they heard something over to the right, in a heavy growth of scrub oak and pine. Owen was running almost instantly toward a rock outcropping to his left, calling to the old deputy:
“Arch, get the horses back in the timber!”
Before the words were out, a rifle spoke sharply in the afternoon, and one of the horses reared and screamed. Owen swore softly, knowing that the boy had led them blindly into a trap. “Arch!” he yelled again, and then the rifle spoke for the second time and a bullet screamed past Owen's head and went ripping into the woods.
Arch Deland hit the ground and rolled into some brush. Owen saw him get up and head toward the horses, but the sickness in his stomach told him that the horses were gone. He could hear them crashing through the timber in panic.
Owen hit the ground and scrambled toward the outcropping. Dunc Lester had bolted toward the edge of the clearing and now had shelter in the woods.
Suddenly the hills were quiet, except for the echoes of rifle fire resounding down through the draws and valleys. Owen had drawn his revolver, but there was nothing now to shoot at. He heard the horses crashing down the sheer rock-strewn slope behind them, but there was no time to worry about that now. Crouching, Owen shoved himself away from the rock and headed for the woods, and this time he saw the curl of gun smoke rise up near the far end of the ridge.
Another rifle exploded, much nearer this time. Arch Deland had seen the smoke too and was going to work with his carbine. Deland fired once, twice, three times, and the lead slugs ripped noisily into the scrub-oak thicket. Then, once more, all was silent.
Owen had reached the woods by this time and could see the deputy resting his carbine across the rump of his dead horse.
Long, tense minutes passed and the silence held. Then they all heard the sound of a horse far below, and Owen came to his feet and ran to the far end of the ridge. Dunc Lester came up, and finally Arch Deland, and the three of them watched helplessly as the horsemen disappeared into the timber below.
Owen glanced at the boy. “Did you know him?”
The muscles of the youth's throat drew tight in anger and he balled his hard fists as though to hit someone. “Yes. It was Gabe Tanis.”
“Your neighbor?”
“For almost as long as I can remember.”
Arch Deland sighed wearily. “I guess that doesn't mean much when you're a member of the gang.” He glanced back across the clearing at his dead horse, and smiled bitterly. “It's goin' to be a long walk wherever we go.”
Thoughtfully Owen reloaded from his cartridge belt.
“Maybe Ike will loan us some horses,” the deputy said wryly.
Dunc Lester glanced hard at the two men. “Maybe Ike Brunner won't have anything to say about it. Gabe's leavin' a pretty wide trace through the woods, and my guess is it'll lead us right to the gang headquarters.”
Owen had been thinking the same thing, and he had also been wondering how far away it was and how long it would take Ike to bring enough men to wipe them out. A little nervous ripple went up his back like a cold finger. He was not frightened, but he was acutely aware of the odds against them.
