They needed him.Which meant the chances were good that Doc was still alive.Caleb held on to that.For Sheila’s sake as much as his own.
It was too dark to track the killers into the hills.But Smith’s claim was nearby.Somehow, the road agents must have known about it.
Caleb swung up onto his mount.He’d spend the night there, see if he could find anything of the gunslingers who took the miner to town, and start out at first light.
A light breeze was drifting out of the northwest, and he caught no scent of any cooking fire.So he rode east.The stars were appearing in the black velvet sky, and a soft bulge of white was forming above the ridge of mountains ahead of him.A few minutes later, the silvery moon showed her face.
He could have found the trail leading off the main road even without the light of the rising moon.The judge told him his men had been out here already and found nothing of Smith or the road agents.They’d come through like a troop of cavalry, a half dozen sets of hooves obliterating any telltale signs of the outlaws.
He dismounted and led his Pirate along the trail.From the wear of the brush on either side, he could see the miner had once used a wagon, but not lately.The forest pines grew higher as he made his way along, with occasional groves of cottonwood, and the darkness was vast and deep.He moved silently and carefully, wary and attentive.He didn’t expect to find any of the road agents, but if they turned Smith loose after fetching Doc, he could be back here.
The trail followed a creek for some time before entering a gulch.Here, the moon barely filtered through the sighing boughs of the trees.A mile or so from the Denver road, he reached a stump-filled clearing surrounding a log cabin.
Caleb paused, studying the place.With the exception of the burbling sound of water running fast and smooth in the nearby creek, a stern and heavy silence weighed down the cool air.There was no movement that he could see.No smoke rose from a stovepipe above the cabin.
The side of the cabin in front of him was facing north, with no door and no windows showing.Beyond it, he could see a grassy meadow and a gradual slope down toward the creek.
Tying his mount to a branch at the edge of the clearing, he shrugged out of his duster, unfastened the thongs over his Colts, and loosened the iron in their holsters.
“I’ll be back and tend to you shortly,” he murmured, running his hand over the buckskin’s neck.
Pirate flicked an ear, as if answering.Caleb almost wished Bear had come along, after all.A dog had a way of making lonely country feel less empty.
He knew Smith had been working this claim for a couple of years—a long time for a single miner to work it alone.If a place was profitable, it would pay off fairly quickly, and the prospector would expand the effort to mine it properly.Hire extra hands.Bring in machinery.But if it wasn’t profitable or the vein pinched out, a miner would leave everything and move on.
As Caleb treaded softly toward the south side of the cabin, it seemed to him that neither of those things applied.Most miners went to town for provisions rather than take the time and effort of growing anything.But in the moonlit meadow beyond the cabin, a good-sized garden had been planted.A weave of pine branches formed a perimeter border fence, and neat raised rows ran side by side.Smith had an established garden, and it wasn’t the first year he’d raised crops in it.
That garden changed how Caleb looked at the place.Smith hadn’t merely been scratching silver from the earth.He’d been trying to live here.Settle.Hold on.
Halfway along the cabin, a small window had been cut into the timber wall.Caleb carefully peered in, but the inside was dark as the grave.There was no movement.No fire showing.The hackles on his neck rose, however, and his instincts told him he wasn’t alone.
Near the corner of the building, an axe, a maul, and a cross-cut saw leaned against a half year’s stack of firewood.By it, the ground was soft, covered with sawdust, and a fresh footprint caught his eye.Beside it, there were black spots that trailed toward the south side.He crouched and pressed his fingers to it, rubbing it between thumb and fingertips before raising it to his nose.
It was blood, but not human blood.Maybe rabbit or squirrel, but more likely grouse.And from the scent and texture, he knew it was fresh.No more than an hour or two old.
It would be someone’s supper.And that someone wasn’t too far away.
He slid one of his pistols from its holster, moved stealthily to the corner, and peeked around it.The moon was nearly full and high enough to light everything clearly.Two more windows had been cut on this side, but they were shuttered.A door sat between them, but it too was shut.
Caleb scanned the blackness beneath the line of trees bordering the meadow.Everything was quiet, but again he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.Whoever or whatever it was, they were either waiting to see what he intended, or they were waiting to get a clear shot at him.
Out here, he decided, he was too exposed.Moving in a low crouch, he ran to the cabin door and eased it open.
As the light of the moon spilled across the floor, Caleb saw two things.First, a native woman standing as poised and still as a cougar on the hunt.Second, the gleaming barrel of the shotgun in her hands pointed directly at his chest.
ChapterEleven
Caleb staredat her over the thirty-inch barrels of the 12-gauge Greener.The woman had the shotgun’s walnut stock comfortably nestled against her side, and both hammers were cocked and ready.One barrel at this range would put a hole in the front of him the size of his hand.Both barrels would send him off in two pieces to the Promised Land.
He had his Colt Frontier trained on her as well.Because she hadn’t blasted him as he came onto the threshold, they appeared to be at a standoff.Dark eyes, shining in the spill of moonlight, watched him intently.They each knew that if those guns started blazing, they’d both be dead.
How many times had he stood in a doorway where the next breath might be his last?Too many.
Fringed buckskin, cinched at the waist with a belt of dark leather, hung to below her knees, where a brown-and-yellow wool skirt was visible above elk-hide shoes.Long, thick, black braids had been thrown back over her shoulders.A modest string of elk teeth lay on her breast, and silver earrings glinted in the light of the moon.
“My name is Caleb Marlowe.I mean you no harm,” he said in Cheyenne.
From her clothing, he thought she might be Arapaho, but he knew there were strong similarities between her language and Cheyenne.He hoped she’d realize he was making a peaceful effort to communicate.
