Hale looked around doubtfully. “The gold could be buried anywhere,” he said, “how would a man know? A few days of the blowing this country gets and it would look like any other place.”
“He didn’t bury it.” Molina squatted on his heels and fed sticks into the fire. “He would have been afraid of the noise. He hid it someplace that was ready for him.”
“Noise?”
“Digging…at night it would have awakened everybody. Even if he dug it out with his hands it would have to be a pretty fair-sized hole, and men on the trail sleep mighty light.”
* * *
YET BY SUNDOWN the following day they were no closer to the solution. Every hole in the rocks behind the pool, and there were not many, had been examined. Trees, brush piles, everywhere either of them could imagine had been carefully checked. It could not have been far from camp, yet they looked and looked without luck.
Hale was irritable. “Molina, you’ve had it your way. Now we’re here, and for all we know they’ve got your gold and have ridden out of the country. I say we mount up and ride out of here.”
Molina glanced up. “You ride out. That gold is here, and sooner or later they’ll come. Maybe tonight.”
Hale got up and walked to his horse. He picked up his saddle to swing to his horse’s back but when he looked across the saddle blanket he froze. “I see them,” he said. “They’re coming now, and they’ve seen our fire.”
“Sit tight then, and be ready.”
They came riding, spread out and ready for trouble. They drew up and Molina looked up and said, “Light and set. The coffee’s hot.”
“Where’d you come from?” Stebbins was doing the talking. Short was beside him, the stranger a little behind. He was a thin, narrow-faced man with empty eyes.
“Fort Griffin,” Molina lied coolly, holding his cup in his left hand.
They did not like it, that was obvious enough. They didn’t like Hale sitting there with a shotgun across his lap, either.
These were the men who had tortured and killed Pike. Molina thought of that and grew hard and cold inside.
“You’re off the trail, aren’t you?” he asked. “This is one of the loneliest water holes in creation.”
Monty Short got down from his horse. “I’ll try that coffee,” he said, and held out a cup for it.
Molina smiled at him. “There’s the pot. Pour it for yourself.”
Molina’s words had apparently aroused the stranger’s curiosity, and he sized Molina up with attentive eyes.
“You might be off the trail yourself,” the stranger suggested. “This is, as you say, a lonely water hole.”
“Used to be good country,” Molina agreed, conver- sationally, “there was good grass all through here.” He indicated Hale. “This man is Bob Hale; he’s a cattle buyer, and finances some ranching operations. We figured to start us a place right here if the grass is good.”
Stebbins chuckled without humor. “A man’s lucky to find feed for his horse. You couldn’t run ten head on ten square miles of it now.”
The stranger was still watching Molina and suddenly he said, “I don’t like him, Lew,” he indicated Molina, “this one is smart.”
All three looked at Molina, and ever so gently Hale’s shotgun moved so it was still on his lap but pointed casually at the group. The movement went unobserved with all attention centered on Molina.
Molina lifted his coffee cup and sipped a swallow of coffee, and then said quietly, “So you don’t like it. We got here first. We’re staying. If you boys want to use the water, you’re welcome.”
“We think you’re the ones who should leave,” Short spoke suddenly. “We think you should mount up and ride out.”
Molina smiled wryly. “Now that’s foolish talk, Monty. You might get us but we’d take a couple of you with us, and probably all three. You and Lew aren’t going to buy trouble you don’t need.”
Molina merely looked at them. “I told you…I came here from Fort Griffin, but I’ve also been in Mobeetie. What you do is your own business, but I wouldn’t go back that way with posters on both of you.”
Stebbins turned abruptly away, and as he did so, he saw the shotgun in Hale’s hands. “Let’s build a fire, Monty,” he said, and he walked away. After an instant’s hesitation, the others followed, the stranger lingering to take a last, careful look at Molina.
When they had gone, Molina sat down and filled his cup. “If I could only think!” he said angrily. “I know the stuff is here.” Then he looked across his cup at Hale. “Which one are you after?”
“Short and Stebbins…train holdup. They didn’t get much, but that doesn’t matter to us. That other one…he should be wanted somewhere.”
* * *
IT WAS AFTER midnight, and Hale was on guard when they heard the wagon. Hale had been watching the other fire. He wanted his prisoners and expected to take them when they fell asleep, but they had a man on watch also, and there was small chance to even make a move without being seen. Then he heard the sound of wheels.
Hale did not believe what he heard, and neither did Stebbins, who was on watch in the other camp. Stebbins got to his feet and drew back from the fire, and Hale did likewise. Somehow the sound got through to Molina and he sat up.
The wagon rolled in from the darkness, drawn by two mules, and stopped on the edge of the firelight. There was a bearded man on the seat, and beside him a girl.
She was young; Molina saw that quickly…and her eyes found his across the intervening space with what seemed to be a plea for help. Yet that was foolish…he could not read a glance at that distance…but of one thing he was sure; she did not belong with the man on the wagon seat beside her.
When he got down and the firelight fell on his face, Molina saw the man was old, but still strong and wiry, and there was a sly, suspicious way about him that Molina distrusted.
“Quite a settlement,” the old man looked around inquisitively, “somethin’ goin’ on?”
“Just passing through,” Molina said. “How about you?”
The old man chuckled. “Might say we’re passin’ through, ourselves. My name’s Barnes…that there’s my niece, name of Ruth Crandall.” He looked around carefully, his eyes remaining on the other fire for the longest time.
“Now there,” he said, his eyes on the stranger, “is a man to remember.”
“You know him?”
“Why sure. I’d say I know him…but he don’t know me. Not yet, he don’t.” He threw a shrewd glance at Molina. “Name of Van Hagan…a man well known in Montana and Wyoming.”
He peered around. “Been some time since folks camped around here, I expect.” He paused. “Can’t see how anybody would drive cattle through here.”
“Nobody has,” Molina told him, “lately.”
“Now that’s odd,” Barnes spat, “for I did hear about a man named Gore driving through this country.”
Molina took out the makings and began to build a smoke. Was everybody in Texas thinking about that gold? “Tom Gore,” he said, “made his drive away east of here. He was driving for Wichita, then changed his mind and went to Dodge.”
Barnes nodded. “Now that sounds right. It surely does. Maybe it was when he was coming back that Gore went through here, and a passel of hands with him.” He turned his head on his thin, buzzardlike neck. “Might you be one of them?”
“I worked for Tom on the home ranch,” Molina said. “He was a friend of mine.”
Ruth had gotten down from the wagon and walked nearer, and as they talked, she listened, looking from time to time at Molina, but trying to keep out of Barnes’ line of sight. There was more here, Molina decided, than was apparent at first glance. One thing was obvious: here was another man on the trail of the Gore money.
It seemed impossible for anything to be hidden here, of all places. And he had looked around and examined the ground pretty thoroughly on the basis of earlier familiarity. However, Tom Gore had known this place, and so had Pike. Gore had planned to have Pike locate the gold and there might have been something each knew that was unknown to anyone else.
Obviously, the three outlaws did not know the exact location or they would have made a move toward it…or were they worried by Molina and Hale?
They had murdered once for this gold, and they would not hesitate again.
* * *
HALE STOOD GUARD and Molina slept while the camp quieted down, and in the early hours before dawn, he awakened Molina.
“All quiet…But I don’t believe those boys will wait much longer.”