Elmer moved out, searching the ground for tracks. He had never spent time in the woods or wilds, knew nothing about tracking, yet the tracks of the men who had gone out to capture Echo Sackett were plain enough.
She had stabbed Harry. It would have to be her. Who would ever expect a pretty little thing like that to have a knife? Or that she would use it?
That time he had suggested walking her home. He had thought that maybe, on one of those dark streets …
His brow broke into a cold sweat. Why, she probably had that knife then. It would have been him who got stabbed. The thought gave him a queasy feeling in the stomach. Cold steel had that effect on some people.
Elmer paused, looking all about him; then slowly he began to walk. He counted his steps, stopping every few yards to look all about him. When he had walked two hundred steps, he walked several yards to the east and then turned about on a route parallel with his first and walked slowly back, searching the ground with his eyes as he moved.
This was no time to be careless. He was going to work this out bit by bit. When they came back, if they did come back, he could be just scouting, but he hoped he would find the bag and be long gone by the time they returned.
There was a place where the sunlight splashed a clearing in the woods, and there was a tangle of wild rose there. He looked at it but could see no trail through, nor where any bush had been trampled down or broken. There was a profusion of the wild roses there, all pink and lovely in the sunlight. He stood for a moment, caught by the lonely beauty of the place, then shook it off and walked away, frowning at some transient thought.
What was he doing here, anyway? Why had he come? He had come because White had sent him, but was he to be White’s errand boy forever? Or was he to go his own way? With this money he would have a start, he would go away, leave White behind, and perhaps study law for himself.
He paused again among the trunks of the great trees. How still it was! How beautiful a place! He did not recall ever thinking of beauty before. He had been sly, cheating, prepared to do White’s bidding, no matter what.
He remembered Echo Sackett’s cool reaction to his innuendos, if they could be called that, and for the first time he felt shame. There had been something about her, small as she was, a kind of quiet dignity that left him uneasy. Then Finian Chantry had come and Elmer had felt ashamed for James White. He had thought White was quite a man, important and shrewd. Suddenly he saw White dwarfed and he knew he could never respect him again. Finian Chantry had put him in his place quietly but firmly.
Thinking left Elmer uneasy. He was not used to it, and ethics had never concerned him. Why was he thinking like this? Was it she who had started him? Or Finian Chantry? Or was it something about the silence here? He was uneasy, eager only to be away.
On the fourth march of two hundred steps he drew near the toppled tree, its top caught in the branches. He looked up at it, held so insecurely. He looked again, and swung his path a little wide of it.
When he started back, he was on the far side of the tree, and it was not until he had passed it that he turned to look back at the great mass of uplifted roots.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Why not?” He turned and walked back and stood looking at the shallow pit where the roots had been torn from the ground. It was almost filled with leaves. He stood for a moment, looking around. He was sure this was the place, yet he was suddenly uneasy.
Suppose somebody saw him? Suppose Felix Horst returned before he could get away?
Get the carpetbag and leave at once, right down the mountain to the river. He did not know what the river was, but there would be towns along the river, a place where he could catch the stage or a steamboat and get back to civilization.
He glanced quickly around. All was still; there was nobody. So why did he feel uneasy? What was bothering him? He went down into the pit, waded through the leaves, kicking with his feet to find it.
His toe hit something yielding. He brushed away the leaves, and there it was.
The carpetbag! The gold! And all his!
He grasped the handle and straightened up and turned.
Patton Sardust was standing on the rim of the pit, his rifle in his hands.
“Now, ain’t that nice?” he said softly. “And just the two of us. Nobody else. Just you an’ me.”
21
Sunlight was falling through the leaves, weaving a web of gold and shadow, when my eyes opened. Dorian’s coat was over me, and I sat up suddenly, frightened.
“Did I fall asleep? On watch?”
“You did not,” he said. “You awakened me when you knew you couldn’t stay awake, then you went to sleep as though you’d never slept before.”
“What’s happened?”
He shrugged. “Nothing I know of. I’ve heard some movement out there, but nothing close. We’d better get ready to move.” He looked around. “What happened to the dog?”
Getting up, I brushed off the leaves and straightened my clothes, wishing there was somewhere to bathe. I felt grimy and my hair would look a sight.
“I think we’d better get your carpetbag and leave,” he said. “We’ll get to a settlement of some kind, then I’ll get help and come back and look for Archie.”
“All right.” There was no more run in me. I was tired and I wanted to be home and take the money to Ma. Rightly it was mine, but in my mind it was ours, and that was the way it was going to be.
Quiet as we could move, we worked our way down through the trees. No way I could forget that great hanging tree where I had left the carpetbag. We were still a good sixty yards off when I saw it, and we stopped, looking carefully around. Their camp had been just beyond. Now there was no smoke, nor smell of smoke, and no sound or movement. Still, we waited.
We were almost to the edge of the pit left by the torn-up roots when I saw the tracks. For the first time I felt panic. If somebody had found that money …
I ran down into the pit, scattered the leaves, wading from side to side.
It was gone!
“They’ve taken it?”
Dumbly I nodded. I fought to keep the tears back. After all our trouble, after all this, I had failed my family, I had failed Ma, I had failed Regal, I had failed Finian Chantry and his efforts to help. I said as much.
“Maybe not,” Dorian said. “Maybe not. Let’s go after them. Uncle Finian sent me to see you got home safely with your money, and that’s just what I am going to do!”
I nodded, unable to speak. They were gone, and the money was gone.
“I wish I was a better tracker,” Dorian said, studying the ground.
It brought me back to reality. “I can track. I’ve been tracking game since I was knee-high.”
Of course, I had seen all their tracks, and once a body has tracked, he or she just naturally registers things in the mind. That was Elmer. He had big flat feet and he toed out when he walked. No question about him.
“And that” — I pointed to another track on the rim of the pit — “that’s the big fellow. Patton Sardust, I heard him called. Looks to me like Elmer was in the pit an’ Sardust came up on him. Or they came together.”
“What about Horst?”
“No tracks of his here, nor Oat’s either.” I began to cast about. Those two had walked away together. In some places where there were no leaves I could see the tracks better.
“Elmer’s got my carpetbag,” I said.
“How can you tell?”
“Walkin’ away from the hole back yonder, his right foot makes a deeper track. He’s carryin’ weight in his right hand.”
We walked away, following them. They were not wasting time moving out of the area. “Heading for the river,” I said. “They don’t plan to share with the others.”
“Or with each other, probably,” Dorian said cynically.
He was learning. Maybe he knew more all the time than I’d expected. “We’d better be careful,” I said. “Horst was looking for us. He has Hans with him, maybe somebody else. There must have been eight of them, including the men Horst rounded up.”