The others looked at him, unwilling to move. Some studied their hats, others rubbed their boot toes into the ground. None met his eyes.
“No more jobs, nothing more until that man is found. You understand me?” Cord said. He was calm now, relaxed. Good. He needed to be calm. He needed to sort out the cowboy’s next move and then his own. Cord walked away from the fire to think. What would the cowboy do next?
He wouldn’t bring more gold to Bidwell’s. Not after tonight. And he was somewhere to the south. Not far, or he would have sold his gold at Sutter’s Mill. But would he go there next?
Cord walked farther down the trail; he stared into the blackness after his missing future. It wouldn’t stay missing forever. Soon enough, he would find it.
Van. Cord needed to talk to Van next. The tracker might have turned up something by now.
Tomorrow they would pull out of Bidwell’s and roam south. There were other towns, none with the easy gold Bidwell’s offered, but now they had money enough for supplies and a long hunt. Rather than letting the men spend it on whiskey and women, he’d stock up on food. Then they could afford to lie low while they searched.
“I’ll see you soon, cowboy, at your place, and then I won’t have to be so careful about killing you.”
* * * *
Jim walked long into the night.
The Appaloosa trailed after him, one plodding step after another. The horse had been magnificent. He’d given everything he had. He’d been surefooted and quick. He’d outrun Cord Bannen and his men.
He had, ultimately, kept Jim alive. And now, he and Jim badly needed rest and shelter for what remained of the night.
There was only pale moonlight. A dim gloom surrounded them. Jim could see the outline of trees, the trail, almost nothing else. A few miles back, the river had split sharply away from the trail. It was now far off to the west, racing toward the blue Pacific.
He paused for a moment, peering off into the dark, unsure of why he’d stopped, unsure of what he was seeing.
Faint and very old, it was a trail. It led east, toward a line of tall mountains. He could see their jagged outline biting into the star-filled sky.
Jim looked the Appaloosa up and down. He couldn’t go much farther, and anything was better than camping on the road. Jim took the horse twenty paces down the old trail. Then he snapped a branch off a nearby tree and used it to brush away their tracks. It wouldn’t fool anyone if they looked close. There was an old log laying off to the trail’s side. Jim rolled it into the trail, blocking it off completely. He went back to the horse, and they walked on.
They walked slow. The trail was dark and difficult to follow. Clumpy brush had grown over it in many places. Finally, it widened out into a narrow clearing. It wasn’t much of a camp, just a place to rest for the night, but they could go no farther.
Jim stripped his gear off the Appaloosa. He let it lay where it fell, too tired to do more. He found a level spot to spread out his bedroll, and he laid down. Sleep claimed him in less than a minute.
His dreams were dark, fog-filled things. In the fog, men were chasing him. Ellen, Walt, and Alma were with him. Then they weren’t. They, too, were being chased. Jim heard them crying out in the woods where he couldn’t reach them. Cord Bannen was there, threatening, menacing. He caught Jim, and they fought, first with their fists, then their guns. Jim drew quicker than he ever had, but Bannen was faster. Jim felt the man’s bullet strike his chest. Over and over, they fought. Over and over, Jim was too slow, and he died. Finally, the dreams ended and Jim slept calm and deep.
The sun was almost to its full height when the Appaloosa nuzzled him awake.
Light hit Jim’s eyes, painfully sharp. Still lying there, he reached up and scratched the horse under the nose.
“I’m awake,” Jim said. He rolled from his back to his side, then pushed up on one elbow. “You must’ve slept better than I did.”
The clearing proved larger than he’d thought last night—an acre, maybe two, and covered in lush, green grass. His horse had clipped the grass he could reach. Jim rose and shifted the Appaloosa’s picket to allow him reach more.
He wanted coffee, but settled for water from his canteen. Breakfast was a stale biscuit and a handful of dried jerky.
The jagged peaks were clearly visible now, and he recognized them. Bidwell’s was on the opposite side of them. That meant home was somewhere south and east.
Jim saddled his horse and started out along the old trail up toward the mountains. He could have gone back to the main road, but that way led to danger. Cord Bannen had almost trapped him there. Cord and his men might be there still.
Better to forge ahead and find a different way out.
The trail improved as they went along, widening out considerably. There were several intersections running north or south. Jim ignored these. For now, he only wanted distance from where he’d run into Bannen.
Bidwell’s Bar lay on the opposite side of the mountain. He was certain of that. If he went on far enough, he might drop down along the main trail to the camp, or if it swept around north, he could circumvent the camp entirely, make his way east and then swing south for home. He had some knowledge of that country. He’d ridden that way the first time he’d gone to sell his gold.
The trail grew steeper as they neared the mountain. To spare the horse, Jim dismounted and climbed. Near the crest, the trail turned north along the ridgeline and he followed. From this vantage point, he could see for miles.
The river came in from the Sierras farther east, then curled south before turning sharply north to carve a path around the mountains he now stood upon. Bidwell’s Bar lay almost directly below. A haze of smoke and dust rose over the camp like a low cloud. His eyes followed the river west and into the flatlands. The Pacific lay somewhere out there. Jim had never seen it, despite coming so near. He and Ellen’s family had stopped in Donovan’s Valley and never gone farther west than Onionville.
Suddenly, he wanted to see that deep blue water.
Looking west, he could make out the trail where he’d ridden last night. Unable to pick out any details over the distance, he saw several groups of travelers down below. Most had wagons and teams. Freighters, he guessed. But one group of a half-dozen men were all on horseback. He watched them approach a pair of wagons. Wagons and riders all stopped for a few minutes, then the mounted group went on along.
Cord and his men, asking after me, asking if anyone on the trail saw me.
Bannen didn’t strike Jim as a trusting man, though. He wouldn’t take the wagon drivers’ word that they hadn’t seen or heard anything. He’d send his men off in both directions just to be sure.
Jim studied the trail farther north and saw two more riders. The pair were traveling more slowly, one on either side of the road. One of them stopped and dismounted and began looking at something on the trail’s edge.
Yesterday, someone among Bannen’s crew had proven a capable tracker. If they searched long enough they would find where Jim had split off. Then they’d find his camp and where he’d gone.
Jim wasn’t particularly worried about that. They didn’t know his destination, and despite Bannen’s words about knowing he had a woman, they couldn’t know where his cabin might be, not yet anyway. Bannen might be shrewd, but Jim had several miles’ advantage on him now.
There were ways to hide his trail so that no tracker could follow. It took time, of course, but time was something he now had.
Chapter 14
“Look at me, look at me,” Walt said.
