CHAPTER 20
For a long moment, Scratch didn’t say anything.
Then he asked, “What are you talkin’ about?”
“When me and Hank and the rest of the boys were runnin’ wild down in Texas, before we ever came up here to Indian Territory, we had a hideout in some rugged country west of Fort Worth. There’s not much out in those parts except rocks and rattlesnakes. So Hank figured it was safe to stash most of our loot there. We kept what money we needed to get by and cached the rest in a cave.”
Again, Scratch didn’t know whether to believe her or to think that she was making up some story for reasons of her own. It was possible she was telling the truth. Plenty of outlaws hid part of their loot, rather than spending it all right away.
“Are you sayin’ that money is still there?” he asked.
“Don’t forget the gold,” Cara said. “And yeah, it’s still there unless somebody found it. Nobody would know to look for it there, so it’d have to be somebody just stumblin’ over it. Just blind luck. I’d bet anything it’s still there.” She paused. “I’d bet my life on that, Scratch.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see how that has anything to do with what’s goin’ on now,” he said as a feeling of crawling unease grew inside him.
“I know how to find that cache. I could lead you right to it. There’s plenty there to make two people rich.”
“Forget it,” Scratch said without hesitation. “Bo and me gave our word to Forty-two and to Judge Parker. Anyway, Bo would never go along with it.”
“I wasn’t talkin’ about Bo,” Cara snapped. “Or does he do all the thinking for both of you?”
“That ain’t the way it is. We’re partners. Equal partners.”
“Sure,” Cara said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
Scratch grimaced and rubbed his jaw. He figured now that he never should have come over here to talk to Cara LaChance. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking.
Bo would like it even less, especially if he knew the thoughts that were going through Scratch’s mind at this very minute. He could see how it would all play out, how he could let Cara loose and steal Brubaker’s horse, and they could take off together for the tall and uncut ...
With a fortune in stolen loot waiting for them.
It was enough to tempt any man, especially with Cara herself thrown in as an added prize. He could never fully trust her, of course, but if they were off on their own, he didn’t think she would double-cross him.
For one thing, she would need him to keep her safe. She might be hell on wheels, but a woman traveling alone would have a hard time ever making it to that hideout she’d talked about, especially if the country around it was as rugged as she made it sound.
“What about Lowe and Elam?” he asked. “We couldn’t take them.”
“The hell with them!” Cara whispered savagely. “I don’t owe them a damn thing. Brubaker and your friend can take them on to Tyler and the hangman as far as I’m concerned. I promise you, considerin’ some of the things I’ve seen them do, whatever happens to ’em, they’ve got it comin’.”
Scratch thought hard, following the idea to its logical conclusions. As far as he could see, it would work, except for one thing.
“Bo would come after us,” he said.
“You think so?”
“I know he would. He’d try to track us down, sure as shootin’.” Scratch thought some more. “It’d be better to wait until after we cross the Red River. Then it won’t take us as long to reach that hideout. We’ll have a better chance of gettin’ away with it.”
He knew he was talking like he agreed to go along with Cara’s suggestion. But he had to do some more thinking about it, and this would give him the time to do so.
“I suppose I could wait a few more days,” Cara replied with obvious reluctance. “Even though bein’ locked up like this is makin’ me awful crazy, Scratch.”
“You can do it,” Scratch told her, thinking that the delay would give him a chance to work out every last detail of the plan that had sprung into his mind. He couldn’t take a chance on anything going wrong. “It won’t be much longer, and then the two of us can be together.”
“That sounds good,” Cara breathed. “I’m so glad I didn’t cut your throat, Scratch.”
“You and me both,” Scratch said.
The next few days were uneventful, which came as a definite relief after the journey’s action-packed beginning. Brubaker kept the wagon rolling from dawn until nearly dark, changing trails several times but always trending in a generally south-to-southwest direction.
They passed a number of farms and skirted around a couple of settlements. Hank Gentry might have spies just about anywhere, Brubaker explained, and he didn’t want to make it easier for the outlaws to find them. That made sense to Bo.
They were out of the Cherokee reservation now and were crossing Choctaw land, Brubaker told them. Scratch commented, “You really do know every foot of this country, don’t you, Forty-two?”
“Damn straight I do,” Brubaker replied. “I’ve been ridin’ for Judge Parker for several years now. A man who don’t know where he’s goin’ winds up dead, more often than not.”
“Words to live by,” Bo agreed solemnly.
Scratch asked, “How about Texas? You know your way around down there?”
“Why in the hell would I know my way around Texas?” Brubaker replied with a disdainful snort. “I can find my way from one place to another, but it’s outta my jurisdiction. No offense to you Lone Star waddies, but I agree with General Sheridan: if I owned hell and Texas, I’d live in hell and rent out Texas.”
“I reckon there are plenty of people who feel that way,” Bo said.
“But we make allowances for ’em because they don’t know no better,” Scratch added.
Scratch had been unusually quiet for the past couple of days. This was the first time he had cracked wise in a while. That was because he had a lot on his mind. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Cara again, and he would have to before he made his move. There were still things that he wanted to know.
They reached the Red River, the boundary between Indian Territory and Texas, the next day. The stream, with its banks of reddish clay that gave the water its namesake color, twisted through rugged hills. Brubaker explained that as the trail sloped down toward a low-water crossing, it went between a couple of high cutbanks covered with stunted brush.
Bo was riding in front of the wagon. When he was still a few hundred yards from the river, he held up his hand to signal a stop and turned in the saddle to talk to Brubaker.
“I don’t much like the looks of this,” he said to the deputy. “This is a good spot for another ambush. How many crossings like this are there along the river?”
“Half a dozen or so,” Brubaker replied. “Depends on how far west you go, I guess. You think Gentry’s waitin’ down there for us?”
“He’s bound to have figured out by now that we left the main road back in Arkansas,” Bo said. “He might have tried to follow us ... or he might have decided to get ahead of us instead and wait for us to come to him.”
Brubaker shook his head.
“That ain’t very likely considerin’ that he wouldn’t have any way of knowin’ which crossin’ we’d head for. His gang’s not big enough that he could set up an ambush at every place we could cross into Texas.”
“Maybe not,” Bo said, “but he could send men out to watch every crossing and get back on our trail that way.”
Scratch had brought his horse up alongside the wagon while Bo and Brubaker were talking. He asked, “Would Gentry risk crossin’ back over into Texas just to rescue these three? Didn’t he light out for the Indian Nations to start with because the law made it too hot for him south of the Red River?”
Brubaker chewed at his drooping mustache as he thought about Scratch’s question. After a moment he said, “It’s true that he and his bunch got out of Texas by the skin of their teeth when the Rangers were after them. But that’s been a couple of years ago. Yeah, I think he’d risk it.” Brubaker leaned his head toward the back of the
