The youngster jerked his head toward Bo, who smiled.
“You’ve admitted knowin’ Gentry,” Brubaker said, and his voice was as cold as the night air. “That makes you a witness, and I can hold a witness in custody for as long as I damned well please.”
“But it ain’t fair!”
“Goes to show what a babe in the woods you really are, Nesbit, hollerin’ about fair. There ain’t no fair in this world. There’s only the law, them that follow it ... and them that don’t.”
Early leaned back against the rock where he’d been sitting. He fell into a sullen silence as he glared at Brubaker and the Texans.
A short time later, Bo said, “I’ll stand first watch tonight. Scratch, you want the second turn?”
“Sure,” Scratch replied. “That’ll leave you to finish up, Forty-two.”
Brubaker nodded curtly and said, “Sure. Fine by me.”
Scratch yawned. “Reckon I’ll turn in, then,” he said. “Want to be wide awake when it’s my turn to stand guard.”
He wrapped up in his blankets and fell asleep almost right away, without even thinking about what would happen later. On the frontier, a man grabbed whatever chances he could to rest.
After several hours, Bo woke him to take over. The fire had burned down quite a bit. Bo had fed it just enough wood to keep it going and provide a slight bit of warmth. Mostly, though, it was another cold winter night.
The wagon was dark and quiet. Brubaker lay motionless in his blankets, snoring softly. Not far away, Early Nesbit was wrapped up in blankets as well, sleeping restlessly because it was difficult to get comfortable when you were tied hand and foot.
“Anything unusual goin’ on?” Scratch asked Bo in a whisper.
“Not a thing. Night’s as quiet as can be.”
Scratch nodded and said, “Just the way I like it.”
Taking his rifle, he went over and sat down on the wagon tongue. He watched Bo crawl into the other bedroll, turn to face away from the fire, and pillow his head on his saddle. Within moments, Bo was breathing deeply, steadily.
Scratch waited some more.
When half an hour had passed, he stood up. Moving with the stealth and silence that decades of experience had taught him, he approached the recumbent Brubaker. The deputy didn’t stir as Scratch lifted his rifle and then brought the butt crashing down.
Swiftly, wasting not even a second, Scratch whirled away from Brubaker and took a couple of quick steps that brought him within reach of Bo. The rifle rose and fell again, brutally.
Then Scratch turned back and bent over to reach into Brubaker’s coat pocket. He brought out the heavy key that unlocked the padlocks.
He had just started toward the wagon when Early Nesbit started up off the ground as much as his bonds would let him, apparently startled out of sleep. He started to say, “Wha—”
Scratch’s boot crashed against the young man’s jaw, stretching him out on the ground, senseless.
Scratch went to the wagon, thrust the key into the padlock, and turned it. When he opened the door, Cara was already awake and waiting for him. She whispered, “Knock out these two, quick!”
“No need,” Scratch told her. “Bo and Brubaker are dead. I stove in their skulls. Got to thinkin’ about it and decided why take chances?”
“You ... killed them?”
“Yep.” Scratch unfastened the padlock holding Cara’s chains to the ring in the floor.
She began to laugh. Lowe and Elam both stirred, and Lowe rumbled, “What’s goin’ on here?”
“I’m gettin’ away, that’s what’s goin’ on, you damned fool!” she told him.
Scratch unlocked the shackles on her ankles, then the ones on her wrists.
“Hey!” Elam said. “Let us loose, too!”
“Sorry, boys,” Cara said. “Scratch and I are the only ones ridin’ away from here tonight.”
“You bitch!” Lowe roared. “You double-crossin’ bitch!”
“I’ll see you in hell for this,” Elam snarled.
“Not if I see you first,” Cara taunted. She bent over for a moment to rub her ankles and get better circulation in her feet, then stood up and said to Scratch, “Let’s get out of here.”
“You’ll have to lead the way,” he told her. “I don’t know this part of Texas.”
“Fine. Come on.”
She climbed down from the wagon without any trouble. Behind her, Lowe and Elam bellowed futile curses. Cara told Scratch to close the door and lock it again.
“I’m tired of listenin’ to those two,” she said. “I hope they both starve to death before somebody finds them.”
Scratch replaced the padlock on the door and snapped it shut. He gave it a tug to make sure it was secure.
“We’re gonna be rich, Scratch, just you and me,” Cara went on. “I’m takin’ your friend’s horse, all right?”
“Fine with me,” Scratch said. “He don’t need it anymore.”
Moving quickly, he saddled his own horse and Bo’s mount. They climbed onto the animals. Cara looked at the Winchester sticking up from Bo’s saddle boot, and for a second Scratch thought she was going to pull out the rifle and put a few slugs into the motionless forms of Bo and Brubaker for good measure.
But then she turned the horse and said, “Let’s ride!”
Her reckless laughter rang through the cold night as she kicked the horse into a run despite the darkness. Scratch followed close behind her.
When the sound of rapid hoofbeats had dwindled away completely, Bo pushed his blankets aside and stood up.
“They’re gone, Forty-two,” he said.
Brubaker sat up and said, “This is the biggest damn fool stunt I ever did see. I don’t know how in blazes I let you two Texans talk me into it.”
Bo grinned. “It was Scratch’s idea. But you’ve got to admit, using Cara to lead us right to all that loot the gang stashed is probably the only way the law would ever find it.”
“I know, I know,” Brubaker grumbled as he got to his feet. “But he came damn near to actually hittin’ me with that rifle butt! If he’d missed a little and hit me instead of my saddle, my skull’d be cracked now.”
Bo checked on Early. The young man was unconscious and had a bruise starting up on his jaw, but he would be all right.
Profane yelling still came from inside the wagon. Brubaker walked over to it and slapped a hand on the side a couple of times.
“Shut up in there!” he roared. “Or else I won’t feed you breakfast in the mornin’!”
A stunned silence came over the wagon. After a few seconds, Jim Elam said tentatively, “Marshal? Is that you?”
“Who the hell else do you think it’d be, Colonel George Armstrong Custer? Now settle down, the both of you.”
Dayton Lowe began to laugh. It was a low, rumbling sound.
“That treacherous little hellcat ain’t as smart as she thinks she is!” he said.
“Maybe not, but you ain’t, either,” Brubaker said. “Shut up and go back to sleep.”
He left the prisoners and walked back over to where Bo was standing and gazing off in the direction Scratch and Cara had taken when they rode away from the camp.
“Judge Parker’s gonna have my hide for goin’ off on my own like this,” Brubaker said quietly. “And if those prisoners manage to escape ...”
“They won’t,” Bo said. “The county jail in Gainesville is plenty sturdy, and Gentry won’t have any reason to look for them there. They’ll be fine for a week or so, until we get back. And then we’ll have not only Cara, but all the loot that Gentry hid before he headed for Indian Territory, too. The judge will understand.”
“Maybe,” Brubaker said. “Or maybe that gal will outsmart us, and we’ll all wind up dead.”
Bo nodded slowly as he peered into the darkness and hoped Scratch knew what he was doing.
