Caleb was no bounty hunter.But if doing this job saved Doc’s hide as well as helping get the ranch up and running smoothly, then he was just fine with the arrangements.
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that stepping back onto a trail like this might cost him something he’d only recently begun building.
“And that letter for Henry Jordan?”
“I’ll sign it now.”Patterson picked up his pen and scratched his name at the bottom.As he sealed it, he called to his secretary, who came running.“This goes to the governor in the next mail pouch.”
The judge held out his hand, and Caleb shook it.
“We have a bargain, and I trust you, Mr.Marlowe.I believe you will do right for me, for Doc, and for Elkhorn.”
Caleb strode out of the judge’s office, looking for the sheriff.Pig Face was standing by himself.Neither man spoke, but the big guard spat contemptuously in the general direction of the spittoon.He wasn’t finished with either one of them, Caleb thought as he descended the stairs and went out onto the street.But he had more important things to take care of.
He crossed the busy street toward the livery stable, waiting as a wagon filled with sacks of flour lumbered past.Caleb considered all he had to do.He needed to go back to the ranch for provisions and ammunition.And while he was getting his horse, he also had to arrange for Gabriel to go out there and look after his dog and the cattle while he was away.
And somewhere in all of that, he needed to decide what to say to Sheila Burnett before riding into the mountains after her father.
Caleb stopped in front of the livery and gazed up at the mountain peaks to the east.Doc was his friend and in real danger.He wasn’t making less of that.But the thought of going out on the trail again made the blood pulse in his veins.
It was months since he’d been alone in the mountains, surrounded only by the tall trees and the cool breeze.He missed the cold, clean taste of spring-fed water.The smells of the pine forest.Of silence broken only by the chittering of birds and the rhythmic thudding of his horse’s hooves.And the night sounds of wolves and owls and a crackling fire.
Staying in one place and ranching was a responsible thing for a man.But that other life—simple and pure and solitary—called to him still.
That was the trouble.Part of him still belonged to the mountains.But another part—one he barely recognized yet—wanted the ranch, the cattle, and the kind of future a man could have if he stayed put long enough.
Shaking off these thoughts, he went through the open doors of the livery stable and called out for Gabriel.There was no sign of him or his father.Caleb’s buckskin gelding was tied in a stall next to a small paint, and he leaned his Winchester against the wall of the enclosure.A sound behind him drew his attention.It wasn’t Gabe.
Out of the shadows came a young fellow, little more than a boy.He was wearing a battered old hat and wool coat that were both too big for him.
So was the Colt Dragoon in his hand.But he was having no trouble leveling it at Caleb’s chest.
“You killed my brother, mister.”
ChapterEight
The boy wasn’t alone.The shadow of another spilled across the packed dirt floor from the open doors leading to the corral.
Caleb instantly judged that the wheezing breaths coming from behind him were about three paces back and from someone less than five feet tall.It was the sound of a child’s breathing, and nervous, at that.From the shadow, Caleb could tell there was something in his hand—an iron rod, a baling hook, a horse shoe.Whatever it was, it wasn’t a gun.He never took his eyes off the young fella with the old long-barreled revolver, but he knew he was dealing with two children.
The boy in front of him was on the edge of tears, and the gun shook a little in his hand.He was clearly angry and hurting in a way that only came with grieving.His brown felt hat, far too big and hanging over his ears, had to be twenty years old if it was a day.It was missing a big chunk out of the brim on the left side and had a bullet hole in the crown near the top.The worn wool coat must have been of a definable color when it was new, but that would have been back when this fella’s grandpappy was a boy.Now, it was the color of scorched prairie with a smattering of mud and straw clinging to the shredded sleeves.From what Caleb could see of the cotton shirt, it was little more than a rag, and beneath the boy’s tattered woolen trousers, bare toes stuck out of broken shoes.
The sight tightened something deep inside him.He knew this kind of hungry, ragged loneliness too well.
Caleb considered his two choices.First, he could take that old Dragoon away from the kid right now and kick him and his half-pint friend in the doorway halfway across Main Street.That wouldn’t be difficult.A simple distraction, two steps, and this confrontation—if you wanted to call it that—was over.Or, second, he could find out what they wanted and deal with it.Maybe the would-be gunslick would learn something.
And maybe the boy wouldn’t walk away from this carrying one more hard thing.After all, guns like the one he was holding did go off.
“What’s your name, fella?”
“Why you wanna know?You’re gonna be dead.”
“The Code of the Gunslinger requires that—as a courtesy—a man knows who shot him.”
The young face darkened as he ran that through his mind.“What Code of the Gunslinger?”
Caleb saw the puzzled eyes flicker toward the twin Colts at his hips.
He raised his eyebrows in a look of surprise.“I thought all gunhawks knew the Code.”
