Tree said to Gant, “Untie Mrs. Earp’s hands and watch her, I don’t want her yanking the gag off.” To Earp: “Just your pants. You’ll ride without a shirt, at least till we’re clear, of town. I’ll put your coat across your shoulders if you’re cold.”
Obie Macklin came out of the stable shadows, prodding Warren Earp ahead of him. Warren had his pants on over the nightshirt he had been wearing. Tree said, “Hurry up-let’s go, now.”
Twelve
Eight hours of hard travel brought them to a frothy stream that came slicing down out of the eastward mountains. The noon sun was brass-brilliant, its heat cut by altitude; tall crags loomed high above them against the sky. The canyon was green with lush growth, its walls upended in stark, steep tilts that climbed, tier after tier, toward the great, high Rocky Mountain passes at twelve and thirteen thousand feet. The tall timber was an admixture of lance-like conifers and silver-barked aspens. The forest floors made for silent passage across deep beds of pine needles; the trees grew so close together that even without undergrowth travel was difficult.
Gnats and dragonflies hovered above slack eddies where the stream made a bend across massive rocks. Tree called a brief halt to water the horses, remove the gags, and get proper clothes on the prisoners. Josie went with Caroline behind a pinon to protect her saddle-scraped legs with petticoats; the Earp brothers were untied one at a time and watched with alert care. When Warren said, “I got to take a leak,” Obie Macklin went with him-with a gun-and Tree stood by the horses, watching Mordecai Gant make faces at Wyatt Earp. Gant was on the prod, trying to egg Wyatt Earp into reaction, but Earp was having none of it, ignoring Gant.
Wyatt Earp had simmered soundlessly since dawn. Now he went to a tree and sat down with his back to it, lifting and bending one knee. He put his rawhide-manacled hands in his lap and stared passionately at the roaring stream.
Macklin herded Warren into sight. Tree walked over to Wyatt Earp and said, “How’re you making it?”
Earp glanced up at him; instead of answering, he said, “Where’d you pick up those two ass holes?” talking about Macklin and Gant.
Tree said, “Does it matter?”
“They’re scum.”
“That’s why they’re handy.” Tree took his pipe out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. He seldom lit it but the stem was tooth-scarred from chewing. He said, “If I’d been alone last night you’d have let out a bellow that would’ve brought an army on the run. But you couldn’t trust Gant not to kill Josie. You trust me too much-that’s why I needed him.”
“Trust you? That’s not the point.” Earp looked up-he was taking some strange satisfaction from this. “The point is, I couldn’t trust you to handle Gant.”
“Same thing.”
“I knew that wretch a long time ago. He used to ride for Phin Clanton. He’d carve up his own mother if he could get a good price for the pieces.”
“I expect he would,” Tree muttered, without heat. Gant and Macklin were too far away to hear but he glanced that way anyhow.
Earp said, “I’m not in the habit of making empty threats, so listen to me. If that scum lays one finger on my wife I’ll have his guts for guitar strings-and yours with them. Clear?”
Tree, surveying the camp, said in a mild, abstracted voice, “You don’t give any orders here-maybe you ought to bear that in mind.”
Warren Earp was sitting on the rocks, massaging his bare foot; he seemed to have picked up a splinter. Josie and Caroline reappeared from behind the pifton clump; Josie went directly to Wyatt, sat beside him and reached, awkwardly with bound hands, for his fingers. When she looked up at Tree there was white heat in her eyes.
Gant and Macklin sat gnawing on strips of jerky, hunkered on their haunches like a pair of unshaven cavemen, watching the Earps with bloodshot eyes and waiting-maybe hoping-for a false move. Gant’s eyes played across Josie’s supple body with sensuous lust: he even licked his lips. Tree had no intention of reining him in; Gant’s too-obvious lust would keep Wyatt Earp too mad to concentrate on other things.
The air was thick and heady, laden with the scent of pine resin. Insects buzzed around the horses. Caroline moved around restlessly, a. 38 birdhead revolver in the waistband of her Levi’s. Her flannel shirt enclosed her abundant milkmaid breasts without concealing their weighted, soft curves. Her feet stopped, she turned and laid her eyes directly on him, but he couldn’t fathom her expression.
He turned to face the three Earps and said, with strong projection, “Pay attention, I’m going to make a little speech and I’ll only make it once.”
Josie tossed her head. She didn’t say horse shit-she didn’t have to. Warren glanced at him derisively and went on rubbing his foot. Wyatt was the only one of them who gave him full attention. Whatever was in his mind didn’t show on his leonine face.
Tree said, “It must’ve taken Cooley a little while to discover you were gone, and a little while more to find out I’d disappeared too. They’ll put things together soon enough-they’ll know we didn’t take the train, they’ll start hunting for tracks and sooner or later they’ll find them, the time it takes depending on luck more than anything else. I have no doubts Cooley’s on our backtrail with his whole gang.”
Warren’s mouth twisted; he said, “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you pulled this idiotic stunt.”
Tree ignored him. “We can’t outshoot all of them. But we’ve got two advantages, one of which is that we’ve got you three for hostages. The other-and I state this plain at the risk of boasting-I survived a few years fighting Indians by playing the Indians’ own game a little better than they played it. I don’t mean to leave Cooley a plain trail to follow. When we pull out of here we’ll ride upstream in the creek and from time to time I’ll pull one or two other tricks. If I catch any one of you trying to leave sign for Cooley to pick up later, I’ll tie all three of you facedown across your saddles in a dead-man ride. Not very comfortable after the first few hours. I hope you all understand I mean that.”
He saw Josie shudder and knew he had scored the point. Earp scowled at him and had nothing to say. Warren Earp was concentrating on his foot as if he hadn’t even listened.
Tree added softly, “If that doesn’t persuade you, I might think about turning Gant lose on Mrs. Earp. Understood?”
Wyatt Earp looked at him, in the eye. After a moment he switched his attention to Gant and the smile that settled on Earp’s face was as chilling as any expression Tree had ever seen.
Mordecai Gant said, “Maybe I’ll just turn me loose on her anyhow, huh?”
“Not before I say so,” Tree said. He wheeled, trying to catch Gant off guard: “Any objections?”
Gant shrugged. “You runnin’ this thang.”
Obie Macklin uttered his brief, nervous laugh.
“All right. Mount up.”
They put the prisoners on their horses, lashed their bound hands to the saddle horns and ran a tether rope through the three bridles. Mordecai Gant held the lead end of the rope and led the way out of camp, splashing upstream in the shallow, fast running creek. Tree posted Macklin and Caroline at the rear, and splashed past Gant to ride ahead and scout, not wanting to get beyond earshot but needing to find a route that wouldn’t box them into a blind canyon.
When he came to a long barren strip of granite that shelved down to the edge of the stream, he tied the horse and climbed the slope on foot, avoiding the risk of leaving iron horsehoe scars on the rock. At the top of the ten-minute climb he had a commanding view of the country through which they had climbed steadily the past few hours. Gunnison was somewhere southwest, many miles out of sight in the tangle of hills and canyons. On this exposed height, the wind was turbulent; but there was no sign of rain clouds anywhere on the great dome of the sky. That was both good and bad. Heavy rain might wash out their tracks; but the mud left behind after a rain would just as easily retain sign.