curled away from its teeth in an atavistic sneer. With brush-notched ears at attention, like an extended set of funeral home fans mounted on its gigantic head, a subdued growl rumbled deep inside his thick canine chest. Every ropelike muscle trembled with strained anticipation, but he would not move from his chosen spot until told to do so.
I extracted a surplus cavalry officer’s spyglass from a weathered and age-battered case that dangled from the end of a leather thong tied to my saddle horn. I snapped the telescope out to its maximum, five-segment length and scanned the copse of verdant, whispering cottonwoods at the bottom of the hill. Swept the entire area, back and forth—three times. Examined every tree, bush, rock, and blade of swaying grass. Meticulously inspected those viewable portions of a canvas-covered wagon nigh on hidden by all the tree trunks and greenery.
“Quieter than the bottom of a fresh-dug grave at midnight down there,” Boz muttered between teeth clenched around his twiglike, unlit cheroot.
“Can’t make much out,” I said, left eye still pressed against the leading lens of the foot-long telescope. “Appears as though there’s some kind of wagon pulled up under that thickest stand of cottonwoods down yonder.”
“Thought somethin’ didn’t look right,” Boz mumbled.
“Yeah. Spot nearest the creek where it drops off the mesa into the river. Looks like a cross between an old- fashioned prairie schooner and a trail-drive chuck wagon. Has a water barrel mounted on the side facing us.”
Boz chewed on the cheroot. “Hear tell as how some town folk are buyin’ them old chuck wagons just so’s they can gad about the countryside these days. Convertin’ ’em over just for travelin’ around. Campin’ out and such. Leastways, that’s what I’ve heard. Don’t that just beat all you ever heard? Town folk campin’ out just for the fun of it?”
“Umm, well, maybe it is a converted chuck wagon. No chuck box left on the back though. Grass growing all around the site looks like it’s probably close to belly deep on the horses. Pretty well trampled down in some spots, though. From up here, it’s kind of like looking through a series of weed-choked windows. Only allows a body a small piece of the scene at a time.”
“People? You see any people, Mistuh Dodge?” Glorious said.
“Not a soul, Glo. Leastways none that’s upright and moving around. Do spy a couple of lumps, or mounds, on the ground near the wagon’s back wheels. Sad to say, but they look an awful lot like bodies to me. All those weeds render any solid observations, from this far away, little more than an educated guess though.”
Boz pushed his hand-creased sombrero to the back of a sweaty head, pulled a blue-and-white bandanna, and mopped at a dripping brow. “Damn. Cool of the mornin’ sure ’nuff didn’t last long.”
Me and Glo grunted our agreement. Bear breathed a snarling sound around a dripping tongue, like some monstrous wild animal.
“You know, that’s mighty suspicious lookin’, even from up here, you ask me, Lucius,” Boz said. “Oughta be able to see somebody movin’ around. It’s more’n a bit worrisome, by God. Mighty worrisome. Earlier, we heard a right smart amount of shooting coming from this spot. Crop of dead folks won’t surprise me much. You see anything else as might look like bodies?”
Several seconds of oppressive silence followed. Then Grizz impatiently pawed at the ground with one iron- shod front foot. The bit and reins rattled when he shook his equine head and softly whinnied.
I lowered my glass, shoved it back into the protective sheath, and let the whole package dangle from the leather thong. “Not real sure, Boz. Just can’t make out much from this far away, ’cause of all the brush and such. Driver pulled that wagon up so far beneath those trees a body would have to really be looking for the thing to even know it was down there.”
Boz grunted, “Uhmmm,” but added nothing more.
“Seems most like he was trying to hide it from anyone who might happen to pass by. No fire as I can detect. Not even a ghostly wisp of smoke. Doesn’t appear that whoever might be left alive down there even bothered to put one together.” Another brief bit of wordless silence passed between us before I added, “Or maybe they just never got the chance.”
“Gonna make damned fine targets if we go ridin’ in there sittin’ up tall on these hammerheaded bangtails,” Boz offered. “Figure we’d best dismount, fan out a bit. Walk in. Maybe do a little of the ole Comanche tiptoe,” he said and stuffed the damp bandanna back into his pocket, then snugged his battered hat down.
I swung off Grizz. Pulled the heavy, octagon-barreled Winchester hunting rifle from its boot in a single practiced move. Levered a hot round into the big shooter’s chamber, as Boz and Glo stepped off their animals and loosed their own long guns.
“Gimme a few minutes to get over to the camp’s far side, Glo,” Boz said, then shoved the spit-soaked cheroot into his vest pocket. He breeched the coach gun and rechecked each massive brass-cased round. The weapon made a loud, metallic, thunking click when he snapped it shut.
With the blaster draped across one arm, Boz cast a steely, squint-eyed gaze from one side of the stand of trees to the other. “Once I’m set up, Glo, I’ll give a yelp. Then you can move in on this side. Lucius can take the middle. Three of us close in on the camp at the same time, from different directions, should spread the fire from any hidden, back-shootin’ varmint as might be lying in wait.”
“Ya, suh, Mistuh Tatum. I’ll be right ’hind yuh.”
Silently nodding my agreement of the suggested strategy, I threw Boz a quick smile, then winked. “Sounds like a good enough plan to me. Guess we aren’t getting any younger just standing around, twiddling our thumbs. Let’s head on out and get ’er done.”
I watched as my friends wordlessly turned and moved off through the waist-deep dry grass.
My compadres in position, I cast a quick, unblinking glance toward Heaven. Said, “Lord, let’s try not to let anyone get hurt today. Want all my folks sitting down to one of Paco’s suppers at the same time later this afternoon when we say grace over our food. Okay?” Then I snapped my fingers and motioned Bear into action.
The dog snorted out an enthusiastic growl and hit the ground running. Rifle at the ready, I hunched over and slipped into the already parted weeds, silently trailing behind the happy beast.
A stricken look carved deep lines of pain and concern into Glorious Johnson’s already creased face. He squatted at the edge of a semicircle of flattened grass and trampled earth near the remains of a pair of oozing corpses.
Nearby, Bear flopped on his hairy belly and let out a series of low guttural yowls.
Appearing as though lost in confused thought, Johnson gazed at the bullet-riddled bodies, then sadly shook his head. The recently departed lay on their backs and gazed with unmoving, sightless eyes, at cotton boll clouds pinned onto a crystalline, turquoise sky.
Caught in a hailstorm of blue whistlers, the dead couple had fallen near the back of the refurbished Studebaker. The entire side of the vehicle’s wooden freight box facing the river was riddled with fresh, splinter- decorated bullet holes. A team of fine-looking mules lay dead in the traces.
In the manner of a gory carpet, a clotted mat of blood and viscera, as thick as half a family Bible, covered the well-trampled earth for several feet around the bodies of the man, woman, and their animals. Here and there, like flakes of blood-flecked snow, bits of brain matter and splintered bone from the couple’s shattered skulls decorated the thin exposed areas of crushed grass and packed dirt.
Shotgun at the death-dealing ready, Boz circled the wagon.
I stood near the dog and swept a piercing gaze from one side of the campsite to the other. Hissed, “Can you make any kind of sense from all this, Glo?”
Johnson pushed a sweat-stained, gray flop hat to the back of his head, then scratched a spot over one ear in puzzlement. “As you see, Mistuh Dodge, these poor folks been shot slap to pieces. Done bled slap out right where they fell. Just like them poor defenseless mules.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Damned sorry business all right. Damned sorry.”
“Looks to me like whoever done fer ’em wanted to make certain sure they didn’t get up once they ’uz down. Both these poor folk been drilled through the head bone several times—least twice, maybe more. This here pitiful feller’s skull’s splattered all over hell and yonder.” He paused, then as an afterthought added, “Woman’s, too. Top of all that, they’s bullet holes in the dirt all around ’em. ’Pears near half a dozen men stood over these unfortunates and just blasted the by-God bejabbers out of ’em.”
“What about them as done the deed?”
“Gone, Mistuh Dodge. Leastways, near as I can tell. Ain’t been gone long, but them as done this sorry deed
