“We mean you no harm,” Rock said.
“That’s what everybody says before they cut a man’s throat or bludgeon him to death!” He struggled in vain to close the door.
“Not us,” said Rochenbach, keeping his boot planted firmly. “We’re tracking three men who robbed us on the trail down from the mines. I saw fresh tracks at your rail. Were they here in the night?”
“Will they come back and kill me if they find out I said they were?” the owner asked shakily.
“Point us right and they won’t be coming back at all,” Rock said firmly.
“Are you the law?” the man asked, still wary, seeing Rochenbach’s big Remington belly gun, the rifles hanging in each man’s hands.
Instead of answering, Rochenbach started to turn away from the cracked door. “I’ll tell all their friends we came by here—how well you helped us find them,” he said.
“Hold it! Wait a minute!” said the post owner, seeing the three men were ready to leave.
Rochenbach stopped and turned back to the door; it opened wider.
“They were here, sure enough!” said the owner. “They took whiskey and cigars, never paid a penny for either. Those kind of men never do.” He looked Rock up and down and added quickly, “Not that I’m anybody’s judge, you understand.”
“I understand,” Rochenbach said. “We’ll be obliged if you’ll sack us some food and boil us a canteen of hot coffee for the trail.” Seeing the dubious look on the man’s face, he fished a gold coin from his coat and flipped it to him. “For pay, of course,” he added.
“Yes, sir, coming right up,” said the trading post owner, catching the gold coin and hefting its weight on his palm. “I’ll meet you at the front door and let you in.”
The three walked around to the front of the log and stone building and waited for the man to unbolt the front door.
“How much farther is it to the Apostle Camp?” Rochenbach asked Casings.
“If we don’t spend too much time here, we’ll be there midmorning, maybe sooner. But don’t expect to ride in and find these three alone. They’re like us. They’ve got men everywhere. Some drift out, others drift in. There’s an old blind road agent named Simon Goss who lives there most times.”
“Blind, huh…?” said Rochenbach. He thought it over. “We’ve got no fight with anybody except the ones who have our money,” he said.
“That’s good,” said Casings, “because you never know when we might need to lie low there ourselves. Blind Simon’s a good man to keep on our side.”
The Stillwater Giant grinned and said guardedly, “Yeah, let’s not forget we’re some far-handed long riders ourselves, eh?”
When the door opened and the three stepped inside, the owner stared up at the Giant in awe. A canteen in the Giant’s huge hand looked more the size of a tin of salve.
“I—I’m going to give you the pot of coffee I just boiled for myself a few minutes ago,” he said. “No need in me holding you fellows up from your search.”
“Obliged,” came the Giant, handing him the empty canteen.
In moments, the canteen had been filled with hot coffee. The owner also packed a flour sack with fresh morning biscuits, tins of beans and a venison shank wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string.
“I’m going to make change for you,” the owner said, sliding the flour sack across the worn-slick wooden countertop.
“Keep it for your trouble,” said Rochenbach as Casings picked up the sack and the Giant took the canteen of coffee in his bag hand. Leaving the store, the three unhitched their horses, stepped up into their saddles and turned the animals toward the trail.
“That’s the biggest man I ever saw in my life,” the trading post owner said aloud to himself, watching the riders fade back into the silver morning darkness from which they’d come.
Blind Simon Goss was the first of the outlaws to awake from a drunken sleep. He’d spent the rest of the night wrapped in a blanket, sitting in a wooden chair he’d dragged out onto the front porch and leaned against the front of the shack. A burnt-out cigar hung from his lips.
The warmth of morning sunlight creeping up his face had been the first thing to rouse him—but there had been something else pushing its way into his sleep. He’d begun to catch the faint scent of man and horse wafting up from the trail winding down the hillside.
Without opening his sightless eyes, Simon slid his hand over the stock of the shotgun lying on his lap. He put his thumb over both hammers and pulled them back.
Lying on the porch beside him, wrapped in a ragged blanket, Parnell Hobbs snapped his eyes open at the metal-on-metal sound. A cigar fell from his mouth.
“What is it, Simon?” he asked in a hushed tone, his fingers searching around for the burnt-out cigar. Under his blanket, his free hand went to the Colt holstered on his hip.
“Riders climbing the trail,” said the blind outlaw, his sightless eyes roving aimlessly along the far side of the clearing. He spoke with a whiskey slur in his voice.
“Are you tracking their scent, or hearing them or both?” Hobbs asked, standing up stiffly, sticking the cigar back between his teeth. He let his blanket fall to the porch and picked up his repeating rifle, which was resting against a post. A half bottle of whiskey stood beside the rifle. He reached for it and pulled its cork.
“I’m smelling them,” said the blind outlaw, “but I’ll be hearing them when they make the last switchback.” At the sound of the cork leaving the bottle with a soft plop, he reached a hand out in the direction of the whiskey.
Hobbs took a long swig and put the bottle into Goss’ hand.
“I best wake everybody up,” Hobbs said, turning to walk inside the shack.
“We’re already awake,” said Macon Ray, meeting Hobbs at the door, swinging his gun belt around his waist. He puffed on a freshly lit cigar. Behind him, Joe Fackler and Albert Kinney stood dressing in the light of a smoldering hearth fire, each with a cigar burning between his fingers.
Latner Karr stood by the hearth in his gray and frayed long-john underwear, sipping coffee from a thick mug. He clasped a bottle of whiskey in his other hand.
“You said nobody’s dogging you, Raymond,” he said in a prickly tone.
“I’m still saying there’s not,” said Macon Ray. “Far as I know, he could be smelling a mail buggy.”
“He knows the smell of a mail buggy, drunk or sober,” said Hobbs, standing in the open door.
From his porch chair, Blind Simon lowered the whiskey bottle from his lips and wiped his shirt cuff across them.
“They’re at the switchback turn,” he said. “Now I can hear them. Two of them,” he added. “It ain’t the U.S. Mail.”
“The ears on this man!” Macon Ray marveled, shaking his head. As he spoke, he slung the saddlebags of money over his shoulder.
“Are you going to run or fight?” Karr asked, a long stub of a stolen cigar stuck behind his ear. He sipped from his bottle and chased it with a gulp of coffee. “There’s two of them, six of us. We’re beholding to siding with you, for the money and the whiskey.”
Joe Fackler, Albert Kinney and Macon Ray looked at one another.
“Six to two…,” said Macon Ray. “What do you say? Do we make a stand, or make a run?”
“I’ll get our horses,” Joe Fackler volunteered. He turned and hurried out the rear door toward a small lean-to shed barn.
“Uh-oh,” said Blind Simon, his right ear turned to the path leading into the stand of pine, “they’ve speeded up!”