“I’m taking this as a loan.” He turned toward the door, but stopped and came back. “Why should I cover for them? They brought me nothing but bad luck.
so I’ll tell you this.
‘Ruby Shaw went to Los Angeles. She’ll be registered at the Bella Urtion Hotel, and she’ll wait for them there.” If Pit Burnett had left them at Horse Springs and they were now en route to Los Angeles, they had a good lead on me, and my horse was about used up. So I made a swap at the livery stable, giving a little to boot, and owned a strawberry roan mustang that took me down the trail toward Prescott.
It was a far piece, and a man had to ride with eyes for Apaches.
They haunted the canyons of the Mogollons, alert for lone travelers or isolated cabins.
Angling north, I came on a company of freighterstwenty huge wagons, drawn by bull teams, and twenty-five men, including the cook, two wranglers, and the boss. I told them my name, and I shared their beans and beef, adding to the menu with three turkeys I’d killed shortly before. Around the fire there was good talk.
“Shell Tucker?” the cook said. He was a hard old man, who had been a buffalo hunter and a mustanger. “l know that name.” ‘I’m from Texas,” I said.
“An” Colorado. I heard about you.” “there’s not much to hear.” I filled my coffee cup.
“I’m headed for Los Angeles was I added.
“Is that where they’ve gone? I heard you was follerin” after them pretty constant.” When I said nothing the cook went on, “I heard about Bob Heseltine, and I know Burnett. He carries a derringer, too.” ‘Burnett’s out of it. I saw hiTonight in Socorro at “KiRather him?” “Why? He’s left them, and he’d never done anything to me. It’s Heseltine and Reese I want.” When I left them I went on my way toward Prescott.
The sun was low over Thumb Butte as I rode domm Curley Street and watered my horse in Granite Creek.
My eyes had been busy as I came through town, but I saw no horses like the ones Heseltine and Reese had been riding when I last saw them.
There wasn’t much activity in town. I took off my chaps and brushed the dust off my boots as best I could.
The water in the horse through did for a looking glass as I combed my hair.when I hitched my six-gun into place.
Close by I found an eating place where they served you on red-checked tablecloths. There were a few coffee and grease stains left from earlier eaters, but that didn’t seem to have any effect on my appetite.
There was a door to the kitchen, and eight tables, each with four chairs, and a long table with benches on each side. From where I sat I could look out on the street, but I could see only a piece of it.
It was still and cool there, and the room seemed to be waiting, as empty chairs and tables always seem to be waiting.
It was good just to sit there and relax. Out back somebody was singing an old Spanish song, with sentiment but with a bad accent. As I listened, my thoughts kept turning back to Vashti, to her father, to Con Judy, and all I’d left behind me.
What was I doing, anyhow? The chances were the money was mostly gone by now, gambled away or spent. I didn’t have hatred for the men I followed, so much as a feeling that somehow justice must be done.
My father might have been alive but for them … and me.
Months had passed since then. I had ridden away from home a gangling, know-it-all boy, and now I was a man, or what passed for one; but still I had no idea; what I wanted to become, or where I was going . . .
except to find Heseltine.
Was it really the money? I did want to pay those who trusted my father and me. Yet there was something more, I suspected. Those two had faced me over the money, and I had backed up. It was all right to say I had done the right thing, and the older I grew and the more I learned, the more I knew I had been wise beyond my years … but had it really been wisdom? Or had it been because I was afraid?
One more time, I told myself. One more time facing them to see if I had been afraid … and perhaps to convince them I wasn’t.
Burns King was dead, but I would file no notches on my gun-that was a tinhorn’s trick.
Pit Burnett had chosen to pull out, perhaps because of my haunting their trail.
Suddenly I realized that I might destroy them in that way, without a gurl What if I stayed so close to them they had no time to plan? No time to prepare? I knew enough about such men to know that other outlaws would begin to avoid them, knowing that I was always around somewhere.
The cook for the freighters had known me. Perhaps that was my best weapon: just to let the story follow them, the story that no matter where they were, I was coming right behind them.
As I sat there I thought that Prescott was a pleasant place to be.
I looked out on the darkening street and thought of the lights in the cabins along the hillsides and on the flat. Men were coming in from their chores, standing their rifles in the corner, hanging up their guns, sitting down at tables with their families.
Truth to tell, I was lonesome. What I’d like to do was sleep until sunup and then mount my horse and ride back to Colorado. Ride back to where I had friends, and to where Vashti was.
In the kitchen the cook was working over the dishes, and the girl who waited on tables was busy somewhere else. The restaurant was empty, lighted by four kerosene lamps with reflectors behind them, one lamp to each wall. My table was at the edge of one circle of light.
I ate slowly. The food was good, but I was so hungry it tasted better than it was.
A while back my head would have been full of fancies, wild stories in which I was always the hero, the man galloping up to save some girl in danger, or someone else in trouble. Right now my brain was still, with no fancies, no imaginings. But it was listening. For now I was a hunting man, and a hunting man never knows when he himself may become the hunted. I had some considering to do.
Why had Haseltine and Reese not gone with Ruby Shaw? If she was taking the stage, why had they chosen to ride horseback?
First, they might not have the money, but I had seen no signs of their spending.
Second, they expected to pull a job of some kind before reaching Los Angeles, to give them more money.
Third, they wanted to take care of me without waiting any longer.
Perhaps they planned both to do another holdup and to get me, too.
They had tried that at the house in the mountains, just as they had tried it in Leadville. I knew that I must be careful, always.
I’d made my first move against them in their attempted holdup of the stage. Pit Burnett left them after that; and word was likely getting around that to tie up with Heseltine and Reese meant trouble.
My meal was finished, but I didn’t want to move.
Down the street I could now hear the faint sounds of a music box, and once a horse walked down the street, but Prescott seemed peaceful.
The relaxation had allowed time for me to consider myself. The brief contact with Con Judy and his friends had, I realized, given me a new viewpoint, some new standards of behavior, some new ideas.
This country wasn’t going to stay wild and free always. Folks would be moving in and cluttering it up, and although the wild, reckless men came first, they would soon be followed by people who wanted to be more settled, who wanted a peaceful community with churches, schools, and all of that.
There would be no place in such a world for men like Heseltine.
Kid Reese might change, for he was a follower, a man who tried to fit himself in. He wasn’t big enough to be a leader, so he chose a leader who was the kind he wanted to be, and lived in his shadow. In this case, he’d chosen the wrong man to pattern himself after, and it was going to get him killed…. Or in prison, which was much the same thing. Why a man would risk years of his Ille for a few quick dollars was beyond me.