“What did you promise him?”
Peg Cullane gave Manly a disgusted glance. “Him? I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, and sent him packing.”
She dismounted with the others and watched Lyman put a fire together. Standing off at one side gave her a chance to think. For the first time in several weeks she could look at the problem calmly and assay her position.
Since returning from school she had lived in El Paso with a maiden aunt. Their income comfortable, but not large, and the future that lay before her was to her anything but pleasant. She did not like El Paso, and she did not like the West. She wanted to go back east or to Europe, but on their limited finances that was impossible.
Completely selfish, she cared nothing for her aunt, and was impatient of the restrictions put upon her by the small city in which they lived. School in the East had let her see how things might be, and she at once had begun to plan an escape. During her last trip east Davidge’s brother-in-law, whom she had met casually through Fan, had given her information that she believed she alone possessed – until she discovered that Judge Niland was also aware of it.
Where there is money there will be hands reaching for it, and the idea that half a million dollars was lying somewhere unknown to anyone galled her. Moreover, Peg felt there was no reason why Fan should ever know about the money. At the same time, it was nearly impossible to search the ranch for hiding places while Ben Janish and his outlaws were there.
The information that came to her, partly from Dean and partly from the Judge, was a shock. A man had been sent to kill several of the outlaws, and he was to deliver the money to Fan. When Ruble Noon arrived in the country, four people there knew about the money: Judge Niland, Dean Cullane, Ben Janish, and herself.
Ben Janish had been told when it became necessary to get him to kill Ruble Noon. The Judge had convinced Janish he must not wait to give Noon a chance in a gun battle, but must kill him at once, before he met Fan Davidge to tell her of the money.
The attempt had failed, and somehow Dean Cullane had been killed during that evening. That left three who had known about the money. Now Ben Janish had been killed by Ruble Noon, which left only two on their side.
She did not look toward the Judge, but she was thinking about him. All her life she had schemed and plotted to get what she wanted, and she had no doubt she would succeed in this, too.
Ruble Noon was her first trouble, but she had little doubt that he would be killed. Finn Cagle and German Bayles, whom she had hired herself, would take care of that. They would also be on hand to handle anyone else who might stand between her and the money.
But now Ruble Noon had killed Janish and had escaped with the money, so undoubtedly Fan now knew of it, too.
“Denver,” the Judge suddenly said positively. “He will try to bank the money there. I doubt if he would trust it to any bank between here and there, because he knows we might hold up the bank to get it. He’s simply got to go to Denver-and we can’t allow him to get there.”
“He’ll try for the train,” Lang said. “He’s got a better chance of making it by train.”
“And we’ll be there first,” Niland said. “We’ll ride right down the trail to Durango. He will stay off the trail for fear of ambush, and so he will travel slower.”
“Where’s Durango?” Lyman asked. “I’m new in this country.”
“East of here. Animas City was the town, but when the railroad came in they built their own town right at the tracks. That’s Durango. It’s only been there a few months.”
“I gotta friend down the line,” Lang offered. “We can ride like hell and swap horses at his place.”
Peg Cullane made no comment, but she was doing some thinking of her own. The fools! Do they think a man like Ruble Noon will chance appearing on the station platform at Durango? In a town so small that nobody could hide?
Judge Niland brought her a cup of coffee and she thanked him. She brushed a wisp of hair back from her face. “I’m afraid I’m not cut out for this,” she said. “I prefer towns and cities.”
He smiled. “Why don’t you just ride on to Durango with us? It will be all over there, and if there is any more that remains to be done you can just wait there. I will protect your interests.”
I’ll bet, she thought, but she smiled. “Thank you, Judge. I believe I will do just that.”
They finished their coffee, put out the fire, mounted their horses, and started down the trail to Durango.
The man standing in the aspens thirty feet off the trail relaxed the grip on his horse’s nostrils and kicked the kinks from his own legs, cramped from being in the same position too long.
J. B. Rimes had come upon them unexpectedly, and although he was friendly with John Lang and was known to Judge Niland, he did not feel it wise to let his presence be known.
They had been absent from the ranch for many hours and knew nothing of the raid that had swept up the last of the outlaws, a few nondescripts who counted for nothing. Arch Billing, Henneker, and a few new hands were now in control, and he himself had been working out the trail of Janish and the others.
He had found the body of Dave Cherry from directions given him by Kissling, before Kissling rode away. That was his first lead.
An hour before, he had heard shots, but by the time he got down the mountain he had found only the body of Ben Janish.
“Two gone,” he said aloud.
Rimes had not been living on the ranch for several days, but had taken to the hills to avoid being roped in on the fight against Ruble Noon. He had his own job to do, and it had nothing in common with the work of Ben Janish.
Now he mounted his horse and started east, holding to the path beside the trail. As he rode he was thinking out what he had just overheard.
They were going after Ruble Noon, and they were expecting to head him off at Durango, but Peg Cullane was leaving them, supposedly to go into town and clean up. He had a very good hunch that Peg would be on the train before they were, and that she would be heading east, not for Durango. . . . For Alamosa? La Veta?
He had scouted the country well, and now he struck an old Indian trail that would take him across country toward Ignacio, on the railroad below Durango.
He picked up the first tracks on the slope of Bridge Timber Mountain. Five horses? The tracks were confused, and there might have been one more or one less. After that, he glimpsed tracks occasionally, and near the mouth of Sawmill Canyon he picked them up clearly.
He had guessed right. There were three riders and two pack horses. When they stopped for water and dismounted, he could see the three riders’ tracks clearly, and one set was made by a small foot. That would be Fan’s. Noon’s moccasins he had learned to know, but the third rider was a puzzle-high-heeled boots and large-roweled California-style spurs. Wherever this man squatted he left spur marks in the sand.
J. B. Rimes was satisfied. He was going to overtake them before they reached the railroad.
Chapter Nineteen
Several hours before Rimes found their tracks on Bridge Timber Mountain, they had broken camp there and moved on. In his haste to pursue their trail, Rimes never did locate that camp.
In the last moments of light, Ruble Noon had turned off the trail into the pines, found a small clearing where melting snow offered water, and made a hasty camp. They were about eight thousand-feet up, and the air was cold.
Noon’s work was swift and practiced. While Lebo put together a small fire, he cut two forked sticks, set them in the ground, and laid a pole across the forks. With other cut branches he built a lean-to against this frame and thatched it with evergreens, starting from the bottom and hooking each branch over a crosspiece as he worked up. It was not long before he had a good shelter from either wind or ram.
“How far is it now to the railroad?” Fan asked. “Not far now. We’ll catch the train at Ignacio.”
“You mean the reservation trading post?”