Caleb considered that information.He looked up the slope where the attack had come from.“Maybe you fellas just got too close to them.”
Zeke shook his head.“I ain’t heard of even one ambush like this one.And like I said, we been dogging them off and on for a couple months now.”
Everett was trying to get to his feet, but his long legs were wobbling some.They went over to him.
“Also, when you run them mangy hounds off,” Zeke continued, “I believe I heard them horses heading south.”He pointed in the direction of the Denver road.“Our gang of road agents wouldn’t have no call to be going that way.”
“Why?”
“Far as folk can tell, they only come down from that wild country up beyond this Devil’s Claw pass when they’re bent on robbing Wells Fargo.And there ain’t no stagecoach coming through for the next few days.”Zeke paused and stuffed a plug of tobacco in his cheek.“What brings you to these parts?”
Caleb had tucked the tin star into his pocket last night before turning in, and he saw no reason to share with them that Patterson hired him as deputy to do the same thing they were doing.At least not yet.
“Doc Burnett’s gone missing.I’m searching for him.”
“You don’t say.When?”
“Early Wednesday morning.Today being Saturday, he’d have been back if there was no trouble.”
“Wednesday?”Zeke pondered that.“The gang hit the stage on Tuesday evening.They killed the driver and the guard.But it looked like a passenger got shot too, and they took him.Maybe there’s a connection.”
“That’s what I reckon.”Caleb nodded.“Did you all go out to the claim belonging to a fella named Smith a couple of days ago?He’s got a cabin not far from the Denver road.”
“Nope.Don’t know no miner named Smith out this way.Why do you ask?”
“The judge told me he sent some men out there.Smith was the one that fetched Doc.Nobody’s seen neither one since.”
Everett shrugged and then winced.“That weren’t us.”
Zeke lifted his broad, burly shoulders.“Well, that’s the way the judge works.When he sets his mind to getting something, he has men going out every which way, all doing the same thing.In the last month, we’ve been falling all over each other trying to find this outfit.But he wants them found, and he’s as tough and persistent as a starving dog hunting a buried bone.He ain’t an easy man, the judge, and he don’t accept no failure.”
“But when he has a job that needs doing,” Everett added, “the money’s awful tempting.”
Meeting Patterson, Caleb had read him exactly the same way.A man didn’t reach a position of power like that unless they were tenacious and ruthless.And the judge was very persuasive when it came to getting someone to work for him.
“He’s paying you too,” Zeke asked.“Ain’t he?”
“What he’s paying ain’t as important to me as a private favor he’s promised to do,” Caleb said honestly.“He has connections.”
“There’s nobody in the state that can’t pull strings better, if that’s what you need.”
“And he’s good for his promises,” Everett added
Caleb had to take their word for it.For now.He gestured toward the wounded man’s arm.“When you fellas get back to town, who’ll see to that with Doc gone?”
Everett gently stretched his arm again.“That bullet just grazed me.But I’ll get one of the girls at the Belle to give me some loving attention.”
That easy talk of warmth and company struck Caleb harder than Everett likely intended.He could not remember the last time anyone fussed over him just because they cared whether he was hurting.
It was nearly dark, and Caleb knew they had tasks to accomplish, but Zeke had that talkativeness that sometimes comes with having just escaped death by a frog hair.
“Marlowe, you aiming to go out beyond the Devil’s Claw on your own?”
“That I am.”
“Well, if you want, you could come back to town with us or even wait around here for a spell.Everett and I can gather more men and supplies and meet you back here.”
“Much obliged for the offer.”Caleb gestured north, through the pass.“But maybe we can meet up on the other side.”
