"Better watch it, old son," he told the squirrel. "You keep throwing pine cones at me, we're liable to have us some squirrel stew for supper tonight."
With a defiant flip of its bushy red tail, the squirrel bounded off the branch, leaping easily to another one and then vanishing among the pine boughs.
Longarm chuckled and rode on. All of his problems should be so easily solved, he thought.
As the sun rose higher, the vegetation began to thin somewhat. In places, Longarm could look up and see the bare rock of the mountain peaks. Nothing grew up there except some lichen and moss. It was always cold at those elevations too, no matter what the weather was down below. In fact, there was already a chilly breeze playing around him, but Longarm wasn't bothered enough by it to reach into his saddlebags and pull out the jacket he had rolled up and put there. He just tugged his Stetson down a little tighter on his head and rode on.
Around mid-morning, he found himself at the lower end of a deep coulee that ran almost straight up the side of the mountain. The slope was fairly steep, but the roan was surefooted. Longarm felt confident that the horse could make it. The floor of the coulee was littered with small boulders and dead brush that had washed down during heavy rains. The sky was clear today, with only a few white puffballs of cloud floating here and there, and no threat of a storm. Still, Longarm felt a prickle of nervousness as he started up the coulee. He had seen more than one flash flood in his time, and he knew how quickly gullies like this could turn into raging torrents.
He recognized the coulee from his conversation with Joe Traywick the day before, though, and knew from what the ranch foreman had told him that this was the quickest and best way to the upper reaches of the mountain. Longarm kept the roan moving, letting the mount set its own pace and pick its own way.
As he rode, Longarm kept an eye on the rocky ground. After a few minutes, he reined the horse to a stop and swung down from the saddle to kneel beside a small, silvery mark on the stone floor of the coulee. Only a keen observer would have ever noticed it. Longarm touched the mark lightly with his finger.
A horseshoe had scraped the rock here, Longarm knew. He looked a little farther on, and saw a small stone that appeared to have been overturned recently. Riders moving through this coulee, especially if they were careful, would leave few if any tracks.
But even the most careful riders could overlook tiny signs of their presence like these. It would take a sharp-eyed tracker to spot them... but Longarm had been taught to read sign by some of the best in the world: Apaches, Arapahos, Crows. By the time he mounted again and rode another half mile or so, he was certain that a good-sized group of horsemen had ridden through this coulee several times recently.
His pulse quickened. He was on the trail of the hired killers who worked for the man behind all the trouble down below. He was sure of it.
As he neared the upper end of the coulee, it began to twist and turn. Longarm proceeded carefully around the bends in the natural passage. It was conceivable that the hired guns would have posted guards, though he figured they probably felt pretty safe way up here on the mountain like this. Still, he didn't want to ride into another ambush.
Suddenly, the small sound of metal clinking on stone made him rein in and stiffen in the saddle. The noise had come from behind him, rather than in front of him, as he might have expected. He listened intently, and heard a few more little sounds that told him he was definitely being followed.
Grim-faced, Longarm slid down from the roan's saddle and led the horse around another bend in the coulee. There was a good-sized boulder here that jutted out from the side of the gully. Longarm hid the roan behind it, then began climbing the rough, sloping face of the big rock. When he got to the top, he would be able to look down on the primitive trail and see whoever was following him.
The noises came closer, and he was able to identify them positively now as hoofbeats. The mysterious tracker seemed to be trying to be quiet, but he wasn't very good at it. Longarm waited patiently.
The rider came into view, wearing a sheepskin jacket and a flat-crowned hat. Longarm caught only a glimpse of him before he started around the big rock on which Longarm crouched. The lawman twisted around and drew his Colt. If the rider kept moving--and there was no reason to think that he wouldn't--in a moment or two he would emerge so that once more Longarm could cover him.
That was what happened. Longarm straightened as the rider rounded the upthrust rock. The sound of a shot would echo far up the mountain, so Longarm didn't want to use the Colt unless he had to. Instead, he slid down the rock face a short distance and used his momentum to launch himself into space.
His dive carried him across the open space between himself and his mysterious follower. Longarm crashed heavily into the man, knocking him out of the saddle. They both fell, and Longarm grunted in pain as the impact of landing on the hard, rocky ground sent flashes of pain through his injured back. He didn't feel any wetness against his skin, however, so he thought the gash across his back hadn't opened up and started bleeding again.
The fellow he had jumped seemed to be stunned. Longarm scrambled up, still holding the gun, and used his free hand to grab the man's shoulder. As he rolled the follower over, the man's hat came loose.
And long red spilled out from under it.
Longarm bit back a curse. He was looking down into the face of Molly Kinsman.
He should have expected that, Longarm told himself as he stood up. Molly moved her head back and forth a little and moaned. She was stunned, all right, but she was coming around. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked up at Longarm in confusion.
"What... what happened?"
He sighed and reached down to give her a hand as she struggled to sit up. "Reckon I could ask you the same thing," he said. "What are you doing here, Molly? How'd you come to be following me?"
Slowly, she got to her feet. "Joe told me what you were doing today," she said. "He even told me where I was likely to find you. I took a few shortcuts."
"Blast it! I told Traywick I didn't want him blabbing to anybody about what we had planned."
Molly smiled. "Oh. Well, that was a waste of time, Custis. Joe's never been able to keep a secret from me."
Longarm grunted. He could just imagine. Molly probably had Traywick wrapped completely around her little finger. Likely she hadn't even had to try very hard to worm Longarm's destination out of him.
"Joe said you shouldn't have started up here by yourself," Molly went on, "and since I've ridden over every foot of this mountain a dozen times since I was a little girl, I thought I'd come lend a hand." She gestured toward the upper end of the coulee. "There's a little valley up there, just like you asked Joe about. Men could stay there, and they could hide stolen cattle there too. And that's not the only place. I know several more spots that might make good hideouts for somebody."
Longarm shook his head. "I want you to get right back on that horse and head back down to the ranch," he told her sternly. "Hunting outlaws and hired guns is no place for you."
"That's not fair," she protested, once again sounding like a little kid. "I can help you, Custis."
"Don't want your help," he said flatly. He might have to offend her in order to get her to leave, but it would be worth it.
Molly's face hardened as she looked at him. "You don't seem to want any of the things I've offered you," she said slowly. "I practically throw myself at you over and over again, and you keep shooing me away like I'm nothing more than a bratty little pest!"