Chapter Three
The tall wooded hills of the old Cherokee Nation stood silent and green in the early morning. The rugged peaks seemed to stretch and expand, growing wilder and more formidable in the brilliant clean light of the new day. Slowly the sound of hoofs faded in and overrode the silence of the hills, and from the south a rider appeared flogging a barrel-chested little bay over an old Indian trace, pounding relentlessly toward the higher ground.
The rider's name was Dunc Lester, and he had come a long way. He had been as far south as the Canadian, had glimpsed the Arkansas border on the east, had spread the word as far north as the Verdigris. A lanky, big- boned boy in his late teens, he wore the clothing of the hill country: big overalls, flannel shirt, and heavy, thick-soled shoes. An ancient Colt's .44, converted to use modern brass-cased ammunition, was strapped around his waist. A twelve-gauge shotgun was slung in a makeshift boot by his left knee.
Indian-like, Dunc rode with blithe disregard for his mount, putting the lathered animal up the hard incline at full gallop. Suddenly, from the great emptiness of the hills, a rifle barked sharply. The slug screamed over Dunc's head and he hauled hard on the reins, bringing the bay to a rearing stop. Quickly he cupped one hand to his mouth and sounded the mournful, sobbing bark of a coyote. Then he kicked the faltering bay and moved on, carefully.
Far above Dunc a man appeared on a limestone outcropping near the crest of the hill. He cradled a repeating Winchester in the crook of his arm and grinned as the rider came toward him.
“Goddamn it, Gabe!” Dunc Lester cried. “What're you tryin' to do, kill me?”
Gabe Tanis, a dish-faced, round-shouldered man in his early forties, shrugged off the boy's anger. “You know what Ike said. Nobody gets through this pass without he gives the signal.”
Dunc appeared disgusted. His family and the Tanises had farmed side by side almost as long as he could remember, and Gabe knew him like a brother. “Damn it, Gabe, have your eyes give out on you? Couldn't you see it was me?”
“Sure,” Tanis said mildly.
“Then why,” Dunc demanded, “did you try to burn the hair off my head with that rifle? You mad at me or somethin'?”
“Nope,” Gabe drawled. “But you know when Ike or Cal says something...”
“All right!” Dunc groaned. A man who rode with the Brunners accepted the brothers' word as absolute law, and Dunc knew that he should have given the signal.
Gabe bit off a piece of twist tobacco and chewed thoughtfully. “You get over toward Talequah?” he asked finally.
Dunc began to cool off. He figured he might as well rest a minute and let the horse blow. “Not all the way,” he said. “But I've been to a hell of a bunch of places. I don't reckon the Brunners've changed their minds about robbin' the freight company, have they?”
“They ain't said nothing about it if they have.”
“Well,” Dunc said, “I guess they know what they're doin'. Spring of the year seems like a bad time to get the gang together, though. Johnson grass will take the crops before the boys can get back to the fields.”
Gabe shrugged. He didn't care much whether Johnson grass got the crops or not. He seemed to ponder something for a moment. “Did you go past the home place?” he asked finally.
“Came past there yesterday,” Dunc said. “Everybody's fine. Your wife was down with the croup last week, but she's up now.”
“Sarah Sue's tough,” Gabe said with faint pride. “Always was. How many of the boys you expect will be in on the freight-company raid?”
“Plenty.” Dunc decided that he was ready to travel again. Ike and Cal would be waiting to hear from him. He nodded to Gabe and kicked the bay back on the trace. As he was pulling out, he called over his shoulder. “And try not to kill anybody, will you? In case somebody forgets the signal!”
There were two more outposts between Gabe's position and Ulster's Cave. Dunc was careful to stop each time and give the signal. Now he was moving into the wildest section of the hills, where there wasn't even an Indian trace to follow. This was a country of tall pine and spruce, of dangerous limestone overhangs and rocky peaks, of old deer trails that twisted crazily through the woods and led nowhere. In these woods a man could get lost before he knew what had happened; in this forest every tree looked like the next one, every hill had an identical twin. Horses became confused, and even Indians lost their way.
But Dunc Lester had lived most of his life in this hill country of eastern Oklahoma and he knew it well. His folks had moved here when it had been Cherokee country, and they hadn't asked the Cherokees about it, either. He had never learned to read, and he couldn't even sign his name, but he knew better than to let a deer trail throw him off in these hills.
Once his pa had taken him to Talequah, but Dunc couldn't say that he cared much for town life. He remembered vaguely that Talequah had been the capital of the old Cherokee Nation, and he had heard that over to the west somewhere there was a place called Tulsa, and south of that another place called Oklahoma City. He neither wanted nor expected ever to see those places. He had heard that a town called Reunion was the county seat for this part of the country, but about all he knew about Reunion was the bunch of county law dogs they'd chased out of the hills three weeks ago.
Thinking of that episode, Dunc grinned widely. Townspeople were soft. He guessed he'd never forget the way that bunch of deputies had stuck their tails between their legs and lit out for the bottomland. He guessed they wouldn't be bothered any more with the law dogs.
After giving the third and last signal, Dunc was almost within sight of Ulster's Cave. You had to get pretty close before you could see it at all, for it was more of a wide overhanging shelf than a cave. Sort of like one big room that you could drive a dozen or more wagons into, with a roof of stone and three walls of red clay dirt. The way it was grown up in brush and scrub spruce, it was just about impossible to see it at all.
The last sentry, a short, potbellied little man named Dove Wakeley, waved to him. “You have a good trip, Dunc?”
“Good enough, I guess,” Dunc called. “Passed your home place yesterday. The folks are doin' fine.”
