the others had given him last fall, snugging its high pommel up against the withers before he tugged up on the buffalo-hair cinch and locked it down.
“How you figger this, Jack?” Wood asked.
“We’ll ride on down to the stream they camped by,” Hatcher began as if he had given it all the thought in the world. “Feel how the wind moves, then see if we can find where them red-bellies put their horses out to graze.”
Fish asked, “Come onto ’em from downwind?”
“Only way,” Jack replied. “Afore that, best we give some thought to taking care of ary a horse guard they throwed out.”
“How many you wager they might have out?” Bass inquired.
“Two, maybe. You?”
“That sounds about right,” Scratch answered. “I want one of ’em for my own self afore we put them ponies on the run.”
“Awright,” Jack said, his eyes glinting with starlight as he stared coldly at Bass. “You and me, Scratch. We’ll take care of the horse guard afore the rest of the boys here move in on them others.” He stuffed a foot into a stirrup and flung himself into the saddle. “I’ll lead out. Single file. Keep quiet as the dead.”
He reined away toward the far timber.
Bass rose to the saddle with the others, brought his horse around, and watched Hatcher’s back disappear into the dark. “Damn, if it ain’t quiet as the dead,” he repeated, in a whisper.
None of the rest saw how he shuddered in the dark as a lone drop of cold sweat spilled down his backbone.
By the time they had dropped off the ridge and worked their way down to the creek, Scratch could tell how old the night had become, those early hours of morning when the temperature was at its coldest. When both man and animal normally slept their soundest.
Not this night.
The six moved slowly, cautiously, feeling their way upstream through the tall, horseman-high willow and buckbrush so they wouldn’t rustle or snap branches, alerting the enemy to their approach. Time and again they stopped, signaling back down their file with an arm thrown up, every man jack of them listening and smelling. More than half a dozen times already they had halted like that, when Hatcher finally cocked his head and sniffed at the cold wind more than usual, then swung his horse around sharply.
When he dropped to the ground, it was clear they had come as far as they were going to in the saddle until the moment arrived to escape with the horses. Jack stepped up to Caleb Wood, handing him the reins to his mount.
“Ye’ll see to my horse. Solomon, take the reins to Scratch’s pony. Things go the way I plan—the two of us rub out the herd guard—we’ll circle back here to join up with the rest afore we all ride in to whoop up a scare in them horses together.”
“You smell ’em, Jack?” Gray asked.
“I make the horses off yonder,” he answered, pointing north, away from the stream. “But I ain’t smelled no Blackfoot yet.”
“Mayhaps they’re camped on the far side of the herd,” Wood replied.
“Things’ll sit pretty if they are,” Hatcher stated. Then he fixed Bass with his eyes for a moment before he went on. “The rest of ye know what to do … if’n one or the both of us don’t come back in a bit.”
“We get the hell out of here,” Rowland declared. “There’s more Blackfoot camped in spitting distance than I ary wanna see—”
“No!” Hatcher snapped as he took a step closer to Rowland. “Don’t none of ye dare run off if things go mad. Ye finish just what we set out to do miles and miles ago.”
“We come for the horses,” Gray explained.
“Damn right we did,” Hatcher agreed. “Something happen to me—ye don’t leave ’thout them horses.”
Rowland wagged his head, saying, “But if they kill’t the two of you—”
“Then that just means they got their hands full for the time being,” Bass interrupted. “If them brownskins are busy taking what’s left of my scalp, boys—you damned well better see to riding off with their horses.”
Hatcher looked a moment into each face. “Ye all understand what Bass is saying? Hell breaks loose, me and Scratch here are on our own. Ye boys just get, and get fast. Ye drive off the ponies, why—Bug’s Boys in there won’t have ’em nothing to ride and no way to keep up with ye.”
“Can we count on you meeting us back to camp?” Wood asked hopefully.
Hatcher shook his head. “Something goes wrong—don’t count on seeing my mud-ugly mug again, Caleb. Just have ye a drink for me come ronnyvoo this summer.”
Caleb stepped forward, held out his hand to Hatcher in that sudden, shy sort of way. “Don’t do nothing stupid, Jack.”
“Like jumping more’n thirty Blackfoots by ourselves?” Hatcher snorted with a grin that always made the man’s mouth a wide and friendly bow. “Ain’t nothing stupid ’bout that, is there, boys?”
The four shook hands with the pair, who silently turned and disappeared into the willow on foot. Bass followed Jack, a slow step at a time, careful of their footing, toes feeling their way along in the dark, working this maze through the brush a yard at a time until Hatcher stopped and turned.
“This gonna be close-up work.”
“I know,” Titus whispered. He pulled the old knife from its rawhide sheath.
“Ye done this afore?”
Bass shook his head. “No. Not really.”
“Just like sneaking up ahin’t someone,” Jack explained. “Nothing much to it.”
“I figger there’s allays a first time,” Scratch said.
Hatcher smiled. “Just make sure ye’re around for a second time, friend. I come to like ye, Titus Bass.”
He laid his hand on the tall, thin man’s shoulder. “I come to like you some myself, Mad Jack.”
Hatcher held out his hand, and they shook swiftly, suddenly conscious once more of what lay before them. “I’m gonna work on past the herd to yonder where I figger they got ’em a second guard.”
“Where’s the first gonna be?”
Pointing, Jack said, “Not far, over by that ledge, I’d wager.”
“You want me to wait for you to get to the far side?”
“No. Ye kill that son of a bitch, and kill him quick. Sooner he’s dead, sooner we’re sure that one won’t make a sound to rouse the others.”
“Meet you back with the rest?”
“Less’n something goes wrong, Scratch,” he answered. “Then ye get the hell out of there the best way ye can.”
“Same goes for you, Jack. Something haps to me—see yourself that the boys split up what little I got to my name.”
He smiled quickly. “I awready got call on yer rifle, Scratch.”
“And my mule too?” Titus asked with a grin.
“Hell no, ye lop-eared dunderhead. Who the hell’d want that cantankerous bitch?”
An uneasy moment of quiet fell between them; then Titus said, “Watch your back, now, you hear?”
“Ye watch yer’n.”
Bass stared at the black hole among the tall willow where Hatcher had disappeared for what seemed like a long time. The breeze rustled the leafy branches around him as he endlessly tried to sort out sounds, like picking mule hair off a saddle pad, staring now and again at the dim form of the rocky ledge not all that distant. Then back again at the hole in the night Hatcher had punched through to disappear.
Scratch wondered, if it was so cold, then why in hell was he sweating the way he was?
2
