Colton frowned but did as he was told. Then Neill and he disappeared into the gloom.
Jim drew the rifle from its scabbard. He dropped a handful of spare cartridges into his shirt pocket. Then he hitched both horses to a young spruce and crept back down toward the ravine.
He found a rock big enough to hide behind, one with a clear path back to the horses. There wasn’t much by way of cover, a few bits of brush, scattered rocks, some long-stemmed grasses, but it was the best he could hope for. He settled down to wait.
The stars stood out like diamonds against the ink-black sky. Jim recalled some half-forgotten stories his father told him about them. One of his ancestors had been a sailing man, and he’d known how to chart the stars. Jim could tell directions by them, of course, most cowhands could, but that wasn’t the same thing as true navigation. Through the generations of Hestons, that knowledge had been utterly lost. Jim found both the Big and Little Dippers easily enough. The other stars were mere mysteries. A sailing man would have surely known more. Perhaps one of his and Ellen’s descendants might take to the sea again and rediscover the stars’ secrets.
How much knowledge has been lost to the transit of time?
Not all knowledge was lost, though. Some held true through the ages. He and Neill had followed his enemies by the signs of the trail, and men—whether hunting prey or predators or even other men—had been reading tracks for thousands of years. Soon, day’s first light would come, and he would strike at his enemies, killing who he could, while trying to avoid his own death. That, too, was a knowledge held fast over the ages. How far back had men been killing each other? And over what? A shiny yellow rock? A morsel of food? A woman?
Jim’s mother had taught him about Cain and Abel. The Bible’s first chapters described mankind’s first murder. David and Goliath, Samson and the Philistines, all the way up to the very son of God himself. There was a lot of killing in the Good Book.
A hint of stray light caught his eye, and Jim’s thoughts turned to the ravine and the slumbering men below. Soon he’d have his own killing to do. He may not have David’s sling or the jawbone of an ass, but the Winchester would do.
He steadied the rifle on the rock, waited, and watched.
It wouldn’t be long now.
Chapter 30
“Where are they?” Jim muttered to himself.
He held his rifle pointed into Bannen’s camp, not looking along the sights where his vision would be limited, but over them so he could see the whole ravine. Unable to reach the bottom of the ravine, light filtered down over a range of mountains in the far east. The air carried the smell of fresh sage and smoke from the outlaws’ campfire.
He could see the children some distance down from the outlaws. Walt and Alma were sleeping back-to-back. Jim wanted nothing more than to charge down there and take them home. But there were too many guns waiting. He’d be dead before he reached the bottom, and then where would Ellen be?
Still without her children, and also without a husband to bring them home.
Jim fought back his urge to strike. Dawn had well and truly come. Neill and Colton should have moved long before. Only Jim hadn’t seen a thing.
Had they been found?
Unlikely. He had heard no shots. What other trouble might have delayed them?
Before he could consider the question, he noticed movement from near the children. It wasn’t much. A bit of brush moved as if driven by the wind, only—down in the ravine as it was—the wind couldn’t have reached it. He saw Walt shift suddenly, then go completely still. The boy nodded. Then a knife appeared beside him and he scooped it up with both hands and set about cutting Alma free.
The girl started to move when her bonds were free, and Walt put a hand over her mouth. He passed her the knife, and she began sawing through the ropes around his hands and feet. Then they were free and Jim let out a huge breath. His eyes stung with dampness.
Walt and Alma would be on their way home soon.
They started to crawl toward Neill, then stopped.
Why?
One of the men in the camp stirred. It was the dirty fellow from the trail, the one with the faded blue shirt. He stretched both arms, before letting out a huge yawn. Then he threw off his blankets and climbed to his feet. He went to the fire next, first stirring the coals alight, then heading off into the brush to do his business. The barrel of Jim’s rifle followed every move.
The outlaw was just finishing up when he looked at where the children were. The cut ropes lay back where they’d been, Walt and Alma a good dozen feet away. This close, Jim could hear him swear. His hand flew down for his pistol, coming up empty when he realized he’d left it back with his blankets.
“Last mistake you’ll ever make,” Jim said, and shot him.
Jim hesitated long enough to see Walt and Alma rise and dash toward Neill, then he swung the rifle and opened up on the camp. The outlaws were all moving now, scrambling for their rifles and out of their blankets. Jim caught one in the belly, missed another clean, and by then they’d all disappeared behind cover.
“Bannen. Cord Bannen, I got your gold here. Come out and get it,” Jim taunted.
“I’ll get it when I’m damn well good and ready,” Bannen roared. He stood up behind an outcropping of rock and snapped off a quick shot that hit somewhere to Jim’s left.
Jim answered with one that scored the outcropping and chipped away a handful of fragments. Then all was still. Jim waited, and his patience was rewarded when one outlaw broke for the horses. Jim cut him down with a pair of bullets.
More shots came, and this time they had his location. Several struck the boulder and one punched a smoking hole through the brim of Jim’s hat.
Jim settled down lower.
No sense giving them so much to shoot at.
Good as his position was, he couldn’t hold it forever. There were at least six of them still down there, and sooner or later, they’d figure out how to slip out around behind him. He needed to be moving. Every moment here was one more for the others to get clear.
More shots probed around him.
Jim risked a quick glance around the boulder. A pair of them were running up the ravine’s bottom, trying to get a better angle on him. Jim raised the rifle to fire, but a bullet spat dirt in his eyes. His time was up.
Without aiming, Jim emptied the rifle into the ravine, then sprinted from the boulder back toward the waiting horses.
The outlaws fired back, but he’d bought himself some time and he’d chosen his route carefully. Weaving through brush and scattered rocks, he wasn’t an easy target.
Then he was over the hill and down where the horses waited. He snatched both free and put heels to the Appaloosa.
“Time to go,” he said.
