“If we do. This here may be a long chase.”
“Maybe. But pa was at home, and Jesse. You know Jesse. He was always good with a gun.”
“If he was there. And if pa was there. They might have been out on the range lookin’ after stock, and these people don’t waste around. You saw that back there.”
Through the long, still afternoon they followed the trail, approaching every patch of brush with care, riding slowly up each slope to see over it without being seen. “Headin’ right for our place,” Dal said once, “almost as if they knew it was there.”
“Maybe one of them does,” Mac said. “Somebody knows the country, looks like to me.”
“Let’s study on that,” Dal suggested. “Maybe we can figure their next camp.”
“Hell,” Mac said, “we know where that’ll be. We’ve got the best water in the country around. They will stop at our place.”
A few spattering drops of rain fell, and Dal held back, helping Susan with her slicker. It was one that had belonged to her father and covered her like a tent. “Room for two of you in there,” he said, smiling. “You holdin’ up all right?”
“Yes, sir. I used to ride to town with mama, and that was thirty miles.”
“Let’s go then.”
Mac had ridden on ahead, but now he had reined in and was waiting. “Look at this.” He pointed at a fresh lot of tracks.
The tracks were of five riders in a bunch, driving several head of cattle.
“Foragers, rounding up everything they can,” Dal said. “We’d best ride careful. We might come up on some of them.”
“Ain’t heard any shooting,” Mac added.
The rain fell softly, but the trail ahead was broad and easy to follow. At each rise they walked their horses until they could peer over, then rode on.
“How far would you say?” Dal asked.
“Five, six miles.”
“Let’s swing off to the west and come up that draw behind the barn. Give us a little cover until we’re right close.”
They drew up when they reached the draw, listening. There was no sound but the rain.
“Susan,” Dal said gently, “if you see your ma, don’t you yell out. There’ll be maybe twenty of them and only two of us. We may have to back off and wait until night-time.”
“I used to go hunting with papa. I can be quiet.”
“Good girl. Mac, it looks like we picked a winner when we tied up with Susan.”
A trickle of water ran down the draw. The air was very still, the clouds low. Their horses’ hoofs made almost no sound on the wet grass. Twice more they drew up to listen, but there was no sound.
Suddenly, Mac drew up, pointing.
A dead and butchered steer lay on the ground near some bushes. The best cuts of meat had been taken, the rest abandoned to the coyotes, which had already been at it.
“At least two days. Maybe three. I think they’ve come and gone.”
“Careful, then, when we ride up. Pa always could shoot.”
Over the edge of the draw they could see the roof and the chimney. There was no smoke. Nor was there any sound. Suddenly, Dal put spurs to his horse. “To Hell with it!” he said, and pistol in hand he charged up the bank of the draw and into the empty yard.
He pulled up sharply. The corral bars were down, and the door hung on its hinges, gaping wide. He swung down and ran into the house.
Mac faced the barn. That door was open also, but there was no sign of life. Rifle up, he walked his horse toward the corral, then drew up.
Old Shep lay there, bloody and dead, a bit of cloth still gripped in his teeth. It was a bloody cloth. Mac swore and turned away. Susan looked at him, wide-eyed and sad.
“He was your dog?”
“He was our dog. We all owned him, we all loved him. He’d been with us since I was a youngster, seems like.”
Dal came out of the house. “They’ve been here. No sign of pa, ma, or Gretchen. Jesse was here. His bed’s been slept in. They must have taken him, too.”
Slowly, Mac dismounted and helped Susan to the ground. “No use killin’ our horses. We’ve a long ride ahead of us. Let’s fix some grub.”
“You fix it,” Dal said. “I’m going to scout around.”
Mac Traven walked inside and looked around. He felt sick and empty. Ma, pa, … Gretchen. Even Jesse. All gone. What kind of a man was this Ashford, if he was the one behind this?
The house looked smaller than he remembered, but there were still curtains in the windows and the rag rugs ma used to make. They had not taken those.
He got out a frying pan and sliced bacon into it. He looked around when Susan came in. “I’m sorry about your dog.”
“He was a good dog, Susan. Never bothered anybody. He helped us a lot with the cattle. I never knew him to bite anybody, but I guess when those men grabbed my sister he tried to make a fight.”
“What will you do?”
“Go after them, Susan. We will have to go after them.”
Dal came in through the open door. “There’s a light in the window over at the Wyatts’. When I topped the rise west of here I could just make it out.”
“The way their house sets down in the hollow they might have missed it. If Aunt Maddy is over there that might be a good place for Susan to stay.”
Susan looked at him, and tears came into her eyes. “You will leave me?”
“Have to, Susan. We’ve got to chase after those men, and when we catch up there will be shooting. It will be no place for a little girl.
“But you’ll love Aunt Maddy. She’s not really our aunt, but everybody calls her that. There’s only one trouble with it.”
Dal looked around from where he was pulling off his boots. “What’s that? Aunt Maddy’s a great old girl.”
Mac looked very serious. “If we leave Susan there we won’t know her when we get back. The way Aunt Maddy likes to cook she’ll have Susan so fatted up we won’t know her. She’d be round as a pumpkin!”
“I would not!”
“Maddy Wyatt sets a good table. She’s never so happy as when she’s feeding somebody. She likes to bake an’ cook, and she’s always putting up jars of fruit, vegetables, whatever.”
“They’re travellin’ fast, Mac. Looks to me like they’re just hittin’ the high spots close to their line of travel. I’d say they’re headed for Mexico, and I know that was in Ashford’s thinkin’. Go there, build up their strength, and come back.”
“He’s crazy! The South has had enough of war. So has the North.”
“Not according to him, Mac. He’s a fanatic. He’ll stop at nothing.”
“Dal?” When his brother looked up he said, “Dal, what about Kate?”
Four
“I’ve been thinkin’ about her. Maybe we should ride into town?”
Mac shook his head. “There’s no time, Dal. We’ll stop by Maddy’s and see if she can take care of Susan. If all’s well and she can, then we’ll just have to leave word. We’re three or four days behind now.”
At daybreak they rolled out of their blankets and picked up what they needed. Dal fixed the door and they fastened it shut to keep the weather out.
Maddy Wyatt was in the doorway shading her eyes at them when they came down the slope into the hollow where her ranch-house stood. Aunt Maddy Wyatt was fair, fat, and forty … or maybe fifty. She had a wide, friendly smile, rosy cheeks, and a booming laugh.
“Recognized you! I says to myself there’s nobody sets a saddle like them Traven boys! Has to be them! And what a relief you’re here now. Light an’ set!”
“Can’t, Maddy. We’re ridin’ after our folks. What happened here?”
“I don’t rightly know what happened at your place. I was out in the brush huntin’ a sertin hen that had laid her eggs out yonder when I heard shootin’. I figured it was Injuns, so I fetched my Sharps and bellied down in the ol’ rifle-pit up yonder. Sure enough, they come around.
“There was seven of them, mostly in parts of uniforms, but no proper sojers. I know sojers when I see ’em, an’ one time or another, I’ve knowed a-plenty.
“They come down the slope yonder, and I let the ol’ Sharps lack dirt in front of them. They pulled up quick, and I got me an idea then they wasn’t lookin’ for a fight. They wanted all they could git but without a fight.
“They hollered at me but I made ’em no answer. Let ’em worry. I didn’t want ’em to know I was a woman alone or that there was only one of me. That ol’ rifle-pit was well dug, an’ I had me a way out from behind and down into the canyon and the trees behind, an’ a good field of fire.