Beyond the pass the slope was a downgrade but not an easy one. Steep slides alternated with boulder-littered humps. At intervals they trotted, walked, and got off to lead. Tree kept looking back, expecting to see horsemen on the skyline. The moon rose, a pale, thin rind. They walked down into the forest of scrub pine and high mountain piiion and Caroline broke off unripe pinon nuts to chew. By the time dawn broke across the Rockies, there was a glaze on the surfaces of Tree’s eyes that made him blink continuously to keep it away. He felt as if he had gritty sand under his eyelids. His legs were numb stumps, blistered and uncooperative. Wyatt Earp had developed a tic above his right cheekbone; his eyes were raw, sunk back behind dark pouches. He had gone hoarse and stopped talking an hour before sunrise.
They ate on the move. Around nine o’clock they entered the upper fringe of taller pine forest and at the edge Tree looked back once more. Still no sign of Sparrow: had he lost them? It didn’t seem possible. They went down through the dry timber-land, zigzagging through canyons to stay dff the visible high ground. He checked the ropes which lashed the Earps’ wrists. There was a raw-rubbed spot on Warren’s left wrist that was ugly red with scabbed blood but Tree didn’t loosen the ropes. Warren hardly seemed to recognize him. Tree scraped a hand across the abrasive stubble on his jaw, pinched his eyes with thumb and forefinger, and looked up to see they were near the edge of a promontory that looked down past a tortured series of gorges and ridges into a deep river valley. The sun, in the east beyond, reflected painfully off the rushing river several miles below and the steel ribbons of railroad tracks running along by the river. Tree looked at Caroline and said, “The Arkansas. If these horses get us that far we’ll flag a southbound train and ram through to Denver if I have to hold a gun at the engineer’s head.”
A wind rushed through the trees and at midafternoon they were within a mile of the Arkansas when a rifle went off somewhere not too far away, the solitary crack echoing and rebounding through the canyons. It stirred Tree’s adrenalin, bringing him more fully awake. All of them had stiffened in their saddles; they were all looking around. The timber was broken up into patches separated by meadows; the hilly horizons were near. Abruptly Tree spotted movement: a bunch, on horseback, wheeling out of the forest half a mile back. The rifle shot had been a rallying signal; horsemen galloped in from several directions. He recognized the white horse.
Wyatt Earp bellowed, “We can’t outrun them on these horses.”
“We can try,” Tree said. “On the run, now!” They urged the faltering animals downslope-just one more ridge to cross, then downhill to the river. But when they started up the ridge, a pack of riders materialized at the crest. Tree reined in; Caroline yanked her horse to a stop so abruptly that the other three got tangled up. Tree slapped Caroline’s horse across the rump and went wheeling past her, turning aside into a boulder-strewn gully that angled upslope to the right. They clattered up the defile in a row. It took them five hundred yards toward the crest of the ridge, and turned a bend, and ended: it just petered out in a sloping field of buffalo grass. They emerged, fully exposed on the flats. The upper band of riders was ramming forward at a gallop-and Caroline sucked in her breath: “That’s Cooley’s gang. God damn them!” Cooley must have taken a calculated chance, cutting ahead to wait by the Arkansas and trap the fugitives coming down. So now it was Cooley up there and Sparrow’s miners galloping up from below-a hopeless pincer.
Wyatt Earp roared, “For the love of God cut us loose-at least let a man die with a gun in his hand!”
Warren said bitterly, “You really fucked it up, Deputy-I hope you roast in Hell.”
Tree got them dismounted. Cooley was three quarters of a mile away, plunging his army forward at a full gallop, riders fanning out in a tense arc-and half a mile below them, Sparrow’s miners, ungainly on horseback but armed to the teeth, came swirling upslope, disdaining the gully.
Warren said, “All fucked up,” spitting it out like acid, and Wyatt Earp’s eyes, gone hard again, penetrated Tree. Dispassionately Tree took down his rifle, cocked it, and said with unhurried clarity, “We’re all going to walk back into that gully and belly down in the rocks. Move.”
He jabbed Wyatt Earp in the gut, hard enough to make the big man stumble. Earp, his hands tied together, turned lobster red and went at an awkward, shambling run. Tree gathered up all the guns, handed some of them to Caroline to carry, and brought up the rear. They tumbled into the rocks and flattened themselves in boulder crevices.
Wyatt Earp said, “Give us to Cooley and I’ll safeguard your hide. It’s the only chance you’ve got.”
“My string’s not played out,” Tree said, watching the miners come-Sparrow had the lead, two or three hundred yards, but his path was uphill and Cooley’s was down. It looked like a dead heat: already both groups were lifting their guns, reining in, trying to feel out the shape of things.
Tree said, “Keep your heads down.”
Josie said, “Horse shit. If I’ve got to get shot I want to watch.”
Warren Earp banged his shoulder into her and knocked her down. Two or three rifles went off-Sparrow’s men-the bullets singing off the rocks. Both posses came within two hundred yards of the gully, on the opposite sides of it-and stopped.
Tree said softly, “We’ll just count on Cooley to protect us from Sparrow.”
Caroline said dully, “And who protects us from our protector?”
“Cooley won’t ram in here as long as I’ve got a gun at Wyatt Earp’s head.”
“So,” said Warren, “that’s it.”
Rifles opened up: Cooley’s men shot high overhead in arced trajectories, trying to scatter Sparrow’s bunch. The miners returned the fire. It wasn’t long before both groups retired beyond rifle range of each other, leaving a few gunshot horses on the field. Wyatt Earp, squatting in the rocks, said, “Fine. Mexican standoff till sundown and then Sparrow’s ghouls sneak in here and finish us off.”
Caroline said, “Will you shut up? Will you please just shut up?”
Tree scanned the grass. Cooley’s strikebreakers had moved back into a grove of trees, left their horses, and now could be seen fanning out on foot. Sparrow’s men were somewhere in the thickets below. Tree thought, We won’t have to wait until dark. He said, “They’ll be coming up the gully. Watch the bend.”
“With what?” Wyatt Earp demanded. “God damn it, a gun, man!”
The grass was waving in various places; there was no wind to stir it. Men crawling on their bellies. Tree said, “Oh, Christ.” He looked at his rifle and closed his eyes down hard, hating it all, hating Wyatt Earp most of all. He opened his eyes and turned a bleak, hollow stare on Earp and said, “Call your friends down here.” He put his gun to Earp’s head.
A man came in sight down the gully, a miner with a rifle. The rifle went off, badly aimed, and Tree fired a snap shot which drove the miner behind cover. Tree wheeled flat against a boulder, jacked a cartridge into the magazine and heard Wyatt Earp bellow, “Cooley! Get down here!”