Taking Gypsy by the reins and carrying his rifle in his other hand, Buck again led the horse quietly along the footpath, watching carefully for snakes, human and reptilian. Only when he was past the wooden bridge did he mount the steed again and, not taking any chances, put him in a full gallop toward Holly Hill.
#
Rufus swatted at another horse fly and brushed away the glob of blood the insect had drawn. “Damn you, Zeke. We waited hours for that coach. Never showed up, and now we got two men killed. What the hell happened back there?”
“Only thing I can figure, boss, is the coach took the other road.”
Rufus’s face grew hot with rage. “What other road, damn you?”
“The old one, boss. This here’s the new one.”
“Why didn’t you tell me there was two?”
“Nobody uses the old one no more, boss. Except farmers. It was abandoned fifteen years ago or thereabouts.”
“Well, obviously somebody still uses it.”
“What about Joe and Eddie, boss?” Hank asked. “Should we go back and get ‘em? They may just be wounded.”
“Get ‘em if you want to, but if they ain’t cold as a wagon tire by now, they will be by the time you find ‘em, either bled to death or finished off by snakes and varmints.”
Zeke shrugged. “What now, boss?”
“My neck hurts,” Rufus complained, “and these gallnippers is about to eat me alive. First you fetch that ointment of yours and fix me up. Then I’ll figure out our next move. Where you reckon that coach is now?”
“Most to Holly Hill,” Zeke told him. “We might could catch up—”
“No. We’ll go on and find a place to put up for tonight, then get after ‘em tomorrow. Early. I want Doc Thomson to pay for Joe and Eddie.”
“How you know it was the Doc shot them?”
“Cause he didn’t miss. Ain’t but one person’s better with a rifle than him. Me.”
Jake rode up. “Rufus, there’s a good campsite yonder, where we can build a fire to smoke off some of these here pests, and it’s got enough cover. Nobody’ll spot us there.”
“I hope you’re better at picking campsites then this idiot is at figuring out roads,” Rufus replied, glaring at Zeke.
Jake led them to a ravine several miles away. One of the other men had already started a fire. His cohorts were gathering pine straw from under the nearby trees to put on the fire to smoke the bugs away.
“Get out the whiskey, boys,” Rufus yelled. “We’re in for the night. Tomorrow at daybreak we’re gonna have to ride like hell, ‘cause I want to get ahead of that doctor and his friends. Zeke, you best get that damn stuff of yours and treat my neck again.”
“Whatever you say, boss.” Zeke left and returned a minute later with the smelly ointment. “Now hold still.”
“Ouch, God dammit. What you got in there, lye? Burns like hell.”
“Axle grease, a little sulfur and some soothing turpentine. Good for what ails you.”
“If it don’t kill you first.”
Jake brought a whiskey bottle. “Here you go, boss. This’ll help.”
Rufus guzzled a quarter of it before handing it back. “Lord. Even my daddy’s rotgut was better than this pisswater.”
“Better than nothing though, I reckon,” Jake told him.
They settled down, broke out a sack of stale biscuits, a moldy chunk of salt pork, a jar of molasses and another bottle of whiskey.
As soon as Zeke finished with the ointment and had put a semi-clean rag around his boss’s neck, Rufus moved out into the clearing and stared up at the sky. New moon. To make matters worse, there was dense cloud cover. Couldn’t even see the stars.
“Wrong goddam time of the month,” Rufus griped.
Mundo snickered. “What’re we gonna do tomorrow? Why we have to get up so early?”
“So’s we can be on the road ahead of ‘em. Ain’t that what I just said? Then we wait for ‘em to come to us.”
Clem cut a piece of mold off the fatback and sliced the rest into small strips which he put on the iron skillet he carried in his bedroll. The pork was starting to crisp when he knocked the handle and tilted everything into the fire. The grease blazed up, backing everybody away.
“Damn your eyes, Clem.” The redheaded man exploded. “Can’t you do anything right? Now we’re down to dry biscuits, molasses and whiskey. One of you jackasses spill the whiskey and I swear I’ll kill him. Got that?”
The men around him nodded.
They were all snoring when the rain started three hours later. A patter, patter on rocks and leaves at first. Rufus woke in time to realize what was coming. He roused the others. None of them was enthusiastic about being awakened.
“Get up or drown, you dumb sons of bitches. Get up.”
Bodies were stirring, sort of, when, a few minutes later the fire went out and they heard a roar. A wall of water three feet high knocked them sprawling. They were awake now and sputtering. In the darkness they could hear the terrified horses whinnying and snorting. A streak of lightning showed three rearing and pawing at
the swirling waters.
Two hours later, Rufus took inventory of his gang. Nobody knew what had happened to Neezy Collins. The teenager and his horse were missing. Some of the others had lost their bedrolls. Clem had lost his saddle.
“You still got that ointment, Zeke?” Rufus asked.
“Safe and dry, better off than me.”
Rufus gazed up at the sky. The clouds had moved off, which he could clearly see because the sun was fully up now. He’d lost the initiative he’d sought.
“What now, boss?”
Chapter SEVENTEEN
“What now, boss?” Jake asked after the others had gathered around.
Rufus was seething. Things had gone bad before, but this gang of his brother’s was more worthless than his old man’s word. He took in the pathetic bunch of soggy, half-drowned drunks. They’d lost two horses but managed to save the whiskey jug, damn them. Two men were missing as well, so the score was even.
“First we dry off. No use trying to go after the coach today. It’s hours ahead of us now.”
He’d had the perfect plan last night. Ride head of Doc Thomson and have him come to him. He hadn’t counted on the damn storm. How could he? Nobody could predict the weather—‘cept his old granny, when her rheumatism was acting up. But she’d been dead for years.
“We get something to eat, then we ride as hard as we can, but stay behind the coach till it stops for the night at Goose Creek. Then we ride on ahead of it, so’s we can be ready by sun-up when Doc Thomson goes out to do his re-con-noit-ering.”
“His what?” Clem asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow we hit ‘em for sure. And remember, you can do whatever you want with any of them—”
“Like the women?” Clem asked enthusiastically.
Rufus shook his head. “But the doc is mine.”
#
The two men sat down facing each other at the trestle table in the main room of the Holly Hill Inn. “Road appears open,” Buck told Tracker. “I wasn’t able to go the whole way, but what I saw was wide and clear. Trees well back and not very dense. If there was anyone up in them, I didn’t see them.”
The innkeeper brought Tracker his breakfast, a stack of pancakes and a dish of grits.