camp in time to depart with the rest of the train … with or without that missing cow. If one of the Burwells’ cows had ever managed to wander off on its own through the night.
At the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Sweete again, coming out of a knot of horse-high cedar. They waved and gestured to tell one another the direction they were moving in their search; then each disappeared from the view of the other once more. It had been that way ever since the two old friends had mounted up and left their wives behind with several rifles and a pistol apiece for them and Amanda too. Titus Bass didn’t trust Phineas Hargrove and them young bucks of his any farther than he could puke.
“I’m goin’ with you,” Sweete had announced as the backs of those five riders headed down the long slope toward the bottoms, where the grayed canvas of the wagontops looked like the back of a bull snake winding its way north by west for the Little Muddy and the north end of the Bear River Divide.
For a long moment Amanda had shoved herself against her father, clinging to him, sobbing into his chest. That’s when Titus noticed his four grandchildren coming their way, their eyes filled with questions, even the beginnings of a little terror.
“Amanda, your young’uns,” he whispered and pulled her away from him slightly so he could peer into her face. “They need you right now.”
“B-but … Roman?”
His eyes narrowed meaningfully. “We’ll find ’im. Shadrach an’ me. You … you see to the young’uns while we’re gone. Don’t let ’em see you worry.”
She nodded and swallowed deeply, quickly dragging a palm down both of her cheeks as she blinked her eyes clear. “Yes, you’re right,” she said bravely, then attempted a smile. “I’ll wait here with the children while you and Shad go f-find Roman.”
The children stopped right behind her, Annie and little Lucas both tucking themselves under their mother’s arms as they pressed themselves against her legs. She clutched them desperately. “We’ll wait here for Gran’pa to find your father … then we’ll be on our way for the day.”
“But them others has left without us,” Lemuel said.
“It doesn’t matter!” she snapped at her eldest.
Titus put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “That train ain’t goin’ nowhere we can’t find it. All them tracks. We’ll catch up afore end of the day, son. Tie up them dogs so they stay right here with the rest of you.”
“Aw-awright, sir.”
He patted the lad on the shoulder, then turned to his tall friend. “Let’s see the women got ’em plenty of guns ready afore we light out.”
Each of them had stuffed an extra pistol in their belts before leaving their two Indian wives with the spare rifles and smoothbores. Both of them could shoot center well enough. There was never any telling what sort of critter might wander out of these cedar breaks to pose a danger to the women and children they were leaving behind. Four-legged and clawed … or two-legged and snake-eyed to boot.
“Why can’t I go with you?” Lemuel demanded as he sprinted up to them a few minutes later when the men swung into their saddles.
Titus had peered down at the boy’s face. “Your ma, she needs you right now. An’ I need to know I left a man behind to watch over the rest, Lemuel.”
The boy took a step back from the horse, peering up at his grandfather from beneath the shapeless brim of his low-crowned hat, his eyes glinting with a newfound courage. “Yessir.”
“That’s a good man,” Titus said quietly as he reined aside.
He made it a point to ride right past Amanda as she stepped toward them in their leave-taking. When she held out her hand he reached out with his. And seeing the tears streaking her dust-covered face, he gripped her thin fingers a brief instant as his horse carried him past. Then kicked the horse for all it was worth.
He was feeling his own eyes sting as the animal beneath him bolted into a gallop.
And he didn’t slow the horse until he and Shad reached the bottom of the next swale where he could no longer look back over his shoulder and see the wagon camp. Nothing more than that long smudge of dust rising yellow against the hot, pale blue of the summer sky as the sun finally broke the horizon—instantly creating shadows in the cedar thickets where before they had been only shades of gray outlines.
He found the body at the head of a draw.
Instantly sizing things up from the saddle, Titus did not find a single bootmark until it was plain how the rider had dropped from his horse and approached the animal. Those weren’t Roman Burwell’s square-toed boot tracks either. Not deep enough, nowhere big enough for the tall sodbuster. Titus sighed, searched in three directions for Shad, took one last look around for sign of Roman or maybe a strange rider on the horizon, then came out of the saddle. Dropping the reins he stepped toward the carcass of the milk cow. A few flies were clustered on the udder, and by the hundreds they were already clotting the long, deep gash across the throat.
He followed the half dozen boot tracks to the carcass, saw how the man had walked right up to the docile animal, then slashed its neck then and there. There was a dribble of blood where the boot tracks ended, then cowprints as the animal stumbled sideways, flinging its head and blood in both directions until it fell several yards from where the boot tracks ended. Titus stepped beyond the last of those prints, right over to the cow, and knelt beside its head. He held out his left hand, fingertip tapping the wide puddle of dark brown molasses beneath the carcass.
Cold. A little gummy beneath the crusty surface. But soaked into the ground and hard for the most part.
Wiping his fingers across the gritty soil, he stood and turned back for the horse. Shoving his right foot into the wide cottonwood stirrup, Scratch heaved himself into the saddle and shifted the big .54 across his thighs. Things did not look good for Roman.
Whoever it was came out here did this sometime after dark last night. This killing wasn’t done in the last few hours. The lone horseman had wrangled the cow away from the rest of the stock, then herded it over two hills and into the bottom of this draw. When he finally had the animal boxed at the head of the draw, he had dismounted and slit its neck.
Things did not look good for Roman Burwell at all.
Slamming his heels into his horse’s ribs, Titus Bass tasted the sour burn of dread rising in his throat with the burn of gall.
“If You really do listen to folks,” he whispered bitterly as he reined directly up the side of the coulee, “then I want You to listen to me. You can’t do this to Amanda. Can’t take Roman from her like this.”
He suddenly saw Shad appear at the top of the next hill, farther south than he would have thought to look, but back in the direction that unknown rider would have herded the cow. Sweete yanked his reins to the side, hard, forcing his horse to make a circle, then a second tight circle as he held his rifle high in the air. When Shad stopped after that third circle, he pointed with his rifle and kicked his horse into motion down the side of the draw. Titus hammered his horse into a gallop a heartbeat later. They both reached the body about the same time.
That’s when he raised his eyes to the sky and whispered again, but only one word this time, “P-please.”
Finding it hard to breathe, Titus was the first to leap out of his saddle, sprinting those last few yards toward the gnarled, wind-sculpted cedar where Roman Burwell was tied—his arms outstretched, legs spread-eagled. His shirt had been ripped from his shoulders and hung in tatters from the high waist of his drop-front, button-fly britches. From the bruises up and down the washboard of muscles rippling over his chest and belly, it was plain to see they had done their best to break the man’s ribs. And that gave him hope as he lunged to a stop a foot away from the body.
He grabbed a handful of thick hair on Roman’s brow, pulled the head back so he could peer into the face. The eyes barely fluttered. By damn—he was still alive!
Sweete was trudging up behind him, swinging that big .62-caliber flintlock side to side as he covered Titus’s back. For a heartfelt moment, Bass looked at the sky once more. “Thankee. Thankee more’n You’ll ever know.”
“He breathin’ any?” Shad asked quietly.
“Some,” he answered. “Barely. Roman?” Then he thought and told his friend, “Cut ’im down, Shadrach. I’ll hold him up best I can while you cut—”
“He’s a big lad, Titus,” Sweete volunteered as he stepped right against Bass and propped his .62 against the foot of the cedar. “Lemme hold him and you cut the ropes.”
Soon as he dropped his rifle against a clump of sage, Scratch slashed through the narrow rope that held the legs spread; then as he cut through the bonds around the wrists, the body sank from sheer exhaustion and the
