Longarm turned his head, looking up at the peaks of the Cascades rising above this lower valley. Somewhere up there was the place where the troublemakers lurked, awaiting the word from their mysterious boss so that they could ride out and bring death and destruction once more to those in their path. Longarm's fingers clenched tightly on the clasp knife.
There was a little matter of a couple of bushwhackings too. The attempts on his life had come before anyone on the Diamond K knew who he really was. That was important, and he realized now that he had tried to grasp that fact several days earlier, as he was going to sleep in the spare bedroom of the ranch house following the meal Wing had brought to him. No one on the ranch--not Kinsman or Traywick, or Seth Thomas, or any of the other hands, no matter how young and hot-headed--had had any reason to try to have him killed so early on in the game. Seth held a grudge against him, sure... but the young cowboy would have tried to settle it himself, not hired a back-shooter. Longarm was sure of that.
Which left Callahan as the only logical suspect. Callahan had a spy in the Mcentire camp; that was beyond dispute. Eli could have told Callahan that a federal lawman was poking around, and Callahan could have issued orders to have that potentially thorny problem nipped in the bud--with a bullet.
But despite everything that pointed to Callahan, there was still one problem: The man had an explanation for his actions, and one that could even be considered halfway logical if you made allowances for how love could addle a man's mind.
Longarm kept coming back to the fact that the gang, no matter who their boss was, had to have a place to hide out. Those stolen cows had gone somewhere. Why not up into the mountains, to some isolated high valley? Some place above the Diamond K range, maybe along the border between the timber leases of Aurora Mcentire and Ben Callahan. It was possible. Longarm knew he was going to have to find out for sure.
He was deep in those thoughts when a familiar voice asked, "What you carvin' there, Custis?"
Longarm looked up and saw Traywick standing there in front of him. Then he glanced at the branch in his hand, which he had whittled down to practically nothing while he was thinking. There was only a thin length of pale white pine left. Longarm grinned and said, "Reckon it's an albino snake."
Traywick hooked another stool with his foot, drew it over, and sat down wearily. "You ought to see the things one of our hands named Hank can whittle. Boy carved out a little bitty Studebaker wagon once. Wheels turned and the wagon tongue went up and down, just like a real one." The ranch foreman shook his head. "Boy's got a gift."
"I've been thinking, Joe," said Longarm, changing the subject. "You've been in this part of the country for a long time, haven't you?"
Traywick nodded. "Man and boy, nigh onto thirty years. I've ridden over most of it."
"Are there any places high up in the mountains, maybe just under the timberline, where a group of men could hole up, maybe even keep a small herd of cattle?"
"You're thinkin' of that stock we had rustled back when this whole mess started, ain't you?"
"Those cows had to go somewhere," Longarm pointed out. "And those cowboys who raided the lumber camp have to have some place to hide too."
Slowly, Traywick nodded. "I suppose there are some places that fit the bill. We never really went lookin' because-" He abruptly fell silent.
"Because you just figured that Aurora Mcentire and her men were to blame," Longarm finished.
"Made sense at the time," Traywick muttered with a shrug.
"Think I'll take a ride up into the mountains tomorrow," Longarm said. "See what I can find if I look around a mite."
Traywick glanced over at him. "Want some company?"
"I'd like that, Joe," said Longarm. "Reckon I'd like that just fine."
As it turned out, though, Joe Traywick didn't ride with him. Longarm planned to start early, before dawn, and as he walked toward the barn in the grayness of approaching day, he heard yelling from inside the big building. A moment later, Traywick came hopping through the open double doors. Longarm hurried over to him to steady him.
"What happened?"
"Son-of-a-bitchin' horse stomped the hell out of my foot," Traywick groaned. "My boot's full of blood, Custis."
"Come on, let's get you in the house."
Longarm helped Traywick to the back door of the ranch house, knowing that Wing was already up and about in the kitchen. Wing took one look at the foreman's gray, haggard face and exclaimed in Chinese. "Don't start talkin' that gibberish," said Traywick as Longarm helped him sit down at the table, "nor that pidgin English neither. I know you can talk as good as anybody on the ranch, Wing, maybe better."
Wing gave a mock sigh. "Can a man have no secrets around here?" he asked rhetorically. "What in Tophet happened to you, Joe?"
"Horse stomped my foot."
"Let's get that boot off and take a look at it."
As Traywick had said, his boot was full of blood from the ugly gash that had been opened across the top of his foot. Wing examined the wound after carefully working the boot off and cutting away Traywick's blood-soaked sock. "You're going to be laid up for a good spell, Joe," said the cook solemnly. "I can sew up that cut, or we can take you to the doc in Timber City if you want. You've likely got some broken bones in there too."
Traywick shook his head. "You take care of it, Wing," he said. "I trust you more'n I do any sawbones from town. You've been patchin' us up for a long time around here."
"All too true," agreed Wing. "I'll need some whiskey."
"You and me both," grunted Traywick. A new voice came from the doorway of the kitchen. "My God, Joe, what happened?" Molly Kinsman rushed into the room, wrapped in a long blue robe. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, not yet brushed after her night's sleep, and Longarm thought she looked mighty pretty.
He had other things on his mind besides appreciating how lovely Molly was, however. As Traywick launched into yet another explanation of what had happened to him, and Wing and Molly fussed over him, Longarm eased out the back door of the house. He still had work to do.
During their conversation of the day before, Traywick had told him quite a bit about the lay of the land higher up in the mountains. Though he would have felt better about things with Traywick guiding him--and backing him up in case of trouble--Longarm felt confident he could find the places Traywick had told him about. He was sure he could get one of the other hands to ride with him, but there were none of them he trusted as much as he did Traywick. Besides, it was his job to run those badmen to ground, and he didn't really have the right to expose anyone else to the danger that might be awaiting him.
No, he would go it alone, he decided. Wouldn't be the first time he had played a lone hand, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
In the dim light of the lantern he lit in the barn, he saddled the roan and then led the horse outside. The sky was still just turning gray to the east. The rest of the hands would be rising soon, and Longarm wanted to be gone before then. He had plenty of riding to do today. He swung up into the saddle and heeled the roan into a trot.
The rising sun found Longarm high on the mountain that loomed directly above the Diamond K. He was cutting through part of the Mcentire timber lease, but it was a section the loggers had not yet reached. He was far enough away from Aurora's current operation that he couldn't even hear the axes of the men as they began their day's work. In fact, he might as well have been alone on the mountain, save for the birds that flitted from pine to pine and the small animals that rustled away through the underbrush at his approach. A chattering noise made him look up, and he grinned at a squirrel that sat perched on a branch about twenty feet over his head, scolding him. Suddenly, something bounced off Longarm's hat and rolled to a stop on the forest floor.