Shaye went to see the mayor, who was sitting in his office with a half empty bottle of whiskey in his hand.
“That’s not helpin’.”
“She’s dead,” Timmerman said. “Nothing’s going to bring her back.”
“Now you feel guilty?” Shaye asked. “A week later.”
Timmerman took a drink from the bottle, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and asked, “What do you want, Sheriff?”
“I’m goin’ after them myself,” Shaye said.
“Your boys are probably dead too.”
“I don’t think so,” Shaye said, “but thanks for the thought.” He walked to the door. “I’ll find someone to deputize in my stead.”
“I don’t care,” Timmerman said.
“You will,” Shaye said, “once that bottle’s empty. I’m gonna bring the money back, Mayor, and the bank robbers.”
Timmerman waved a hand, but Shaye was gone.
At the livery, he saddled his horse and tied a canvas bag to the saddle horn. All he needed was some beef jerky, some coffee, and a canteen. He was going to travel fast.
“You and your boys comin’ back, Sheriff?” Ron Hill asked.
“We’ll be back, Hill,” Shaye said. “Mean-while…” He took a deputy’s badge from his pocket and pinned it on the liveryman’s chest. “…you’re in charge.”
“What?” he said as Shaye mounted up. “I’m no lawman.”
“That’s okay,” Shaye said. “The mayor’s no mayor either. Just keep the office clean.”
He rode out of the livery, leaving Hill to sputter his protests behind him. All he was concerned with was getting his boys back, along with the money and the bank robbers. After that he had a feeling they’d be leaving Vengeance Creek as far behind them as they’d hoped to leave Epitaph.
46
“I don’t understand,” Thomas said. “I only came here to ask some questions.”
“Hal?”
“He and some others were down by the stream,” Forbes replied. “Said they were trackin’ some men who were ridin’ some of our horses. Said they were law.”
“Deputies,” Thomas said, indicating the badge on his chest, “from Vengeance Creek.”
“You’re a little far from home.” She was a woman, but just barely, probably twenty-four or-five. She was wearing a man’s work shirt and jeans, and a pair of work-worn boots.
“Who are you?” Thomas asked.
“My name’s Wendy Wilson.”
“I came here to talk to your—”
“Father,” she said. “My father.”
“Is he here?”
“He’s dead,” she said. “He was killed about two weeks ago. The men who killed him stole some horses.”
“Okay, I think I understand,” Thomas said. “The men I’m trackin’ are also the men who killed your father. They came to Vengeance Creek and hit our bank, killed all the people who worked in it.”
“Hal?” the pretty girl said.
“I believe him, Wendy.”
“If you’ll put your guns down,” Thomas said, “we can talk about it.”
“There’s not much to talk about,” Wendy Wilson said, “but we’ll put our guns down.”
She lowered hers, followed by Hal Forbes.
“Sorry,” Forbes said, “but we can’t be too careful.”
Thomas thought the man might have had cause to be suspicious, but that he also might have produced his gun to impress the woman—because she was his boss now, or for some other reason?
“Do you know the names of the men who killed your father?” Thomas asked Wendy.
She went to a chair and sat down. The gun dangled between her legs, forgotten. Forbes had holstered his. Now he walked to the girl and took the gun from her. She hardly noticed.
“We don’t know their names,” she said.
“We never did,” Forbes said.
“What happened?”
“They rode up on us while the hands were out,” Wendy said. “We offered them refreshments, which they took…and then they took more.” She turned her face away.
“They killed Mr. Wilson, raped Wendy, and took some horses,” Forbes finished.
“I’m sorry…What about the law?”
“Local law ain’t worth much,” Forbes said. “I tracked them for a while, but lost them. I ain’t no bounty hunter. None of us are. We had to give up.”
“So there’s nothin’ you can tell me about them?”
“You want to know what they look like,” Wendy asked, “down there?”
“Uh…no,” Thomas said. “No, I don’t.” He turned to Forbes, because looking at Wendy Williams made him uncomfortable. “I better catch up to the rest of my party.”
“Sure,” Forbes said.
“I’m not at all sure why you let me come here, Mr. Forbes.”
“To tell you the truth, Deputy,” Forbes said, “neither am I.”
Thomas turned to the woman again. “Ma’am, we’re gonna catch these men. I promise you that.”
“My father’s dead,” she said. “Catching them won’t bring him back.”
“But…for what they did to you…”
She stood up abruptly and glared at him. “I’ll live, Deputy,” she said. “It was just sex, wasn’t it?”
Before Thomas could answer, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving an awkward silence behind.
“I, uh, guess I’ll be goin’.”
Forbes nodded and walked him out. He had Thomas’s horse brought up to the front of the house.
“I can let you have some men, if you like,” Forbes said. “Ranch hands, not gun hands.”
“That’s all right,” Thomas said, mounting up. “I think we’ll be able to handle it.”
Thomas rode off the Double W property with only a couple of answers to his questions. One, they knew why the two men had ridden into town on Double W horses, and two, he knew exactly what kind of men these were. Killers, yes—but worse. But all in all he hadn’t found out anything helpful, and the stop at the Double W ranch only served to put him behind James and the others. Coming here, he decided, had probably been a bad decision.
But not the first, or last, he would ever make.
Jacks looked up as Ben Cardwell came out of the telegraph office.
“Okay,” Cardwell said. “The rest of them will be waitin’ when we get there.”
“The rest of who?” Jacks asked.
“Just some men I know, who I think we can trust to do this job with us.”
“We can trust them?”
“Yes.”
“But can they trust us?”
“Right up until we get all that money in our hot little hands,” Cardwell said. “Then all bets are off.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Simon Jacks said. “Can we get out of Blue Mesa now? Stupid name for a town.”
“Yeah,” Cardwell said, “stupid.”
As they walked toward the livery, Jacks said, “Now Red Mesa, that’d be a good name for a town….”
47
“Two hours,” Ralph Cory said. “No more.” He pointed to one particular set of tracks. “These.” Then he pointed to the other, original two. “These are older. Yesterday.”
“I agree,” Colon said.
James was still mounted, twisted around in his saddle so he could look behind them.
Cory and Colon stood and turned to face him.
“Anything?” Cory asked.
“I see some dust…I think.”
“Berto?” Cory asked.
Colon mounted his horse so he could take advantage of the same vantage point James had.
“Anything?” Cory asked again.
“I see nothing,” Colon said.
James looked disappointed. “I thought I saw…”
Cory mounted, touched James on the shoulder. “He’ll catch up. Don’t worry.”