Buck found the road out of the compound ran straight for two miles, then curved around a series of small hills. From there it descended into swampland that buzzed with mosquitoes, stinging flies and black gnats. Another mile on and Buck came to a long wooden causeway, barely wide enough for the coach. Cypress trees crowded both sides of the shaky structure. Once on the bridge the coach would be committed to moving forward.
“If ever there was an ambush waiting to happen,” Buck muttered to himself, “this is it.”
Before crossing, he removed the binoculars from his saddle bag and scanned the flat terrain. No sign of anyone about. He started across the bridge. The gelding’s iron shoes drummed the half rotted timbers, an alarm to anyone coming the other way, but also a tocsin for anyone lying in wait. Buck didn’t like it, but it appeared to be the only road to Holly Hill. He wasn’t ready to turn back yet, however. If the travelers were to be successful in negotiating this thieves’ corner, he needed to be familiar with what still lay ahead.
A mile farther along, the road widened and the opportunities for maneuver improved. Buck also discovered what appeared to be a little-used by-road that swept to the south, presumably to farms. Dead ends, probably.
He turned around and retraced his way to the stage depot. But, before he reached the causeway, he stopped to use his binoculars once more. The tall cypress trees growing so close to the road bothered him.
There. Someone was sitting on a thick bough less than fifty feet from the middle of the wooden structure.
How did he get there so fast, or had he been there earlier and Buck hadn’t seen him? The thought wasn’t encouraging. He continued to scan other trees and other branches, this time catching glimpses of at least five other men straddling limbs, holding rifles.
Had they all been there all along?
Was one of them Rufus Snead?
Buck didn’t see him, but he knew the sneaky coward was there. Somewhere.
He also realized he was now cut off from the people he was trying to protect. If he continued down the road and across the causeway, he’d be killed outright. Another fifty yards, and Rufus Snead would surely have him in his sights—if he didn’t already.
He remembered the farm road he’d seen and hoped it would take him to St Matthews.
Reining in Gypsy, he reversed course and rode quietly away from the assassins. At the intersection with the by-road, he checked behind him one last time and set his horse into an easy trot.
The sun was fully up now, warming the damp air. At least he was moving away from the swamp. Insects chased him but not in the numbers he’d previously encountered. Only three or four had so far drawn blood.
As expected, the dirt road brought him to a small once-white farmhouse with an unpainted cypress barn behind it. A bent old man in bib overalls was carrying a tin bucket from the house, presumably to empty in the privy several yards beyond.
Buck could feel the man’s anxiety build at his approach. “Hello, old-timer. Is this the road to St. Matthews?”
“Well, it ain’t the main one no more, but it’ll get you there.”
“Does it get any better?”
“It don’t get no worse.”
“That’s small consolation.”
An hour later, Buck pulled into the stage compound. The traveling party was outside, no doubt to enjoy the fresh air. The ladies were sitting in wicker chairs on the porch of the building, fanning themselves, while the men were standing under an oak tree, smoking little cigars or pipes.
“Is everything all right?” Sarah came to meet him. She was clearly apprehensive. “You were gone so long, I . . . we were worried.”
Tracker moved closer as Buck dismounted. “Trouble?”
“They’re waiting for us,” Buck responded.
Sarah gasped, and he regretted giving the report in her presence.
“We can go around them, though,” he announced. The driver and guard joined them. “I came back by a different way. It’s longer and slower, but it’ll circle around the trap on the main route. Now, y’all best be going if you hope to make Holly Hill before sundown.”
“What about you?” Tracker asked. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
“I’ll meet you there. I have some other business to take care of.”
Tracker frowned. “By yourself? You need some company?”
“You protect the women. I’ll join you in Holly Hill. Might even be there to welcome you.”
Janey joined them. “In case we can’t stop to eat lunch,” she said, “I asked Miz Hopkins to pack some food for us.”
Buck raised an eyebrow before he realized he’d done it. “And did she?”
“Cornbread and sidemeat, scuppernongs and red plums.”
“Sounds like a feast.”
“She throwed in some honeycakes too. I mean threw.”
Sarah smiled. “You and Mrs. Hopkins have been getting along pretty well, haven’t you?”
“Aw, she’s all right away from her husband.”
Jim Hopkins approached from the inn. “About the bill. Mister,” he said in a flat voice.
Buck followed him inside where he settled what, in his estimation, amounted to an outrageous sum. His wife seemed embarrassed by the transaction but said nothing. If Buck hadn’t had the feeling they were desperate, he would have objected to the fleecing.
Outside, everyone had taken their places in and on the coach. Wes shook the reins and the lumbering wagon got underway.
#
Buck mounted Gypsy and started down the main road. This was a good opportunity to reverse roles with the redheaded man. Let the pursuer be the pursued. Not far from the causeway, he found a footpath winding through the swampy cypress grove. He dismounted and walked Gypsy as quietly as possible closer to the ambush site he’d discovered earlier.
The surrounding land was flat, the trees dense. He tied Gypsy to a cypress knee and, taking a lesson from his antagonist, climbed up a stout sycamore, his rifle and binoculars slung over his shoulder.
Shinnying up the tree at Sayler’s Creek had been a first since he and Clay were boys. The memory of his dead brother and the recollection of how he’d been assassinated spurred him higher. He was about twenty-five feet up when he straddled a substantial limb, pulled the binoculars around and surveyed the forest on the far side of the wooden bridge. It took several minutes before he spied what he was looking for, three men facing him from the cover of swamp chestnuts. Earlier he’d seen five men in these trees. He kept searching, hoping to see the other two and praying that one of them might be the redheaded man. Rufus Snead was the real target. These others were mere distractions. Still, their gunfire would be as lethal as their leader’s.
Buck propped his Henry in the fork of the bough he was braced in, leveled the barrel and focused on the man farthest away. With a slow squeeze of the trigger, he fired. The round shattered the man’s nose and kept going. His dead body hit the shallow swamp water with an echoing splash.
Before that sound faded, Buck had a bead on the second man, who was closer to him. Another calculated tightening of his trigger finger and this target jerked backward and tumbled from his perch. The third man was scrambling desperately down a neighboring oak, having already dropped his rifle into the brackish water. Through his sights Buck was following the man’s frantic descent, waiting for a clear shot, when Gypsy reared and snorted and stamped his feet. Buck realized his prey had fled and he was in danger of losing his horse. Scampering down the sycamore as fast as he could, he arrived in time to see a cottonmouth slither into the underbrush away from Gypsy’s pounding hooves.
After calming his steed, Buck examined the animal’s legs and found no fang marks. He was about to swing up into the saddle, when he heard the clatter of the retreating gunmen on the wooden structure. To his surprise they were returning toward St Matthews, not advancing to Holly Hill. Buck stayed hidden until their hoof beats had faded into the distance. Was the redheaded man one of them?