Sliphammer

Warren’s mouth twisted; he said, “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you pulled this idiotic stunt.”

Tree ignored him. “We can’t outshoot all of them. But we’ve got two advantages, one of which is that we’ve got you three for hostages. The other-and I state this plain at the risk of boasting-I survived a few years fighting Indians by playing the Indians’ own game a little better than they played it. I don’t mean to leave Cooley a plain trail to follow. When we pull out of here we’ll ride upstream in the creek and from time to time I’ll pull one or two other tricks. If I catch any one of you trying to leave sign for Cooley to pick up later, I’ll tie all three of you facedown across your saddles in a dead-man ride. Not very comfortable after the first few hours. I hope you all understand I mean that.”

He saw Josie shudder and knew he had scored the point. Earp scowled at him and had nothing to say. Warren Earp was concentrating on his foot as if he hadn’t even listened.

Tree added softly, “If that doesn’t persuade you, I might think about turning Gant lose on Mrs. Earp. Understood?”

Wyatt Earp looked at him, in the eye. After a moment he switched his attention to Gant and the smile that settled on Earp’s face was as chilling as any expression Tree had ever seen.

Mordecai Gant said, “Maybe I’ll just turn me loose on her anyhow, huh?”

“Not before I say so,” Tree said. He wheeled, trying to catch Gant off guard: “Any objections?”

Gant shrugged. “You ru

Obie Macklin uttered his brief, nervous laugh.

“All right. Mount up.”

They put the prisoners on their horses, lashed their bound hands to the saddle horns and ran a tether rope through the three bridles. Mordecai Gant held the lead end of the rope and led the way out of camp, splashing upstream in the shallow, fast ru

When he came to a long barren strip of granite that shelved down to the edge of the stream, he tied the horse and climbed the slope on foot, avoiding the risk of leaving iron horsehoe scars on the rock. At the top of the ten-minute climb he had a commanding view of the country through which they had climbed steadily the past few hours. Gu

Somewhere about two days’ ride to the northeast sat Leadville, which Tree pla

But if Cooley’s posse was on the track, it wasn’t close enough to be seen from this vantage point. The country seemed so peaceful and uninhabited that when he took a deep breath the air tasted fresh-clean as if nobody had ever breathed it before. The only signs of life were twittering birds, clumps of crickets, and a mountain antelope which showed briefly in a clearing beyond the stream, several hundred yards below him. The antelope froze, alerted by the approaching racket of the riders in the stream bed; it wheeled, with the signal spots of alarm snowing bright on its rump, and disappeared into the thick stand of aspen from which it had emerged.

Tree looked forward, into the rising passes, and chose what looked like a good route. Fixing it in mind, he scrabbled down the steep tilt of rock to his horse, got mounted, and waited for the others to come up. He thought he was studying the problems ahead, but when the riders came in sight and he saw Caroline, fluffy and blonde on her wiry sorrel pony, he realized he had been thinking about her with most of his mind. Thinking about her unsettled him-the mere fact that he was thinking of her at all made him uneasy. He spoke gruffly to Gant and turned his horse into the stream to lead the way.

The afternoon was a steady progress, without haste; they had no change of horses, they had to conserve the ones they had. Twice more he rode considerably ahead to check out the land above; once they had to retrace a quarter mile and choose another canyon. At two o’clock by the sun they had left the original stream and led their horses across half a mile of gravel and broken boulders, mounted up and ridden around the circumference of a high-grass meadow; since then, by sundown, Tree had not spent much effort trying to conceal tracks-it would have taken too long and he was fairly sure Cooley was not close enough to justify the time.

When the sun went down he examined the peaks with close scrutiny, imprinting on his mind the shape of the land which darkness would soon make invisible; he was resolved to keep moving as late as possible. They didn’t stop to eat until the last twilight had drained out of the sky; and after the brief, tireless meal, they went on.

The intimate enclosure of darkness brought fantasies more vividly alive in his mind. The singing, silky warmth of her body, imagined as it must be; he only drew himself up with anger when he realized he was rehearsing in his mind the act itself-taking her with rough quickness, somewhere on an open mountain meadow, a quickness matched in his wishful thinking by her own eager, ready hungers.

He halted the column three hours after dark: visibility was too poor to go on. They had been moving for eighteen hours with only a few brief halts; his rough estimate was that they had put at least seventy miles behind them, all of it uphill and tough. Obviously seventy traveled miles didn’t put them seventy straight-line miles from Gu

Macklin got up without being told, went to Warren Earp and tied him to a pine trunk. Taking the hint, Moradecai Gant lumbered toward Wyatt and Josie, who lay on their sides with their heads together, murmuring. Gant uncoiled a rope and said something in a crude, harsh-laughing voice which made Wyatt Earp look up at him and spit deliberately on the ground at Gant’s feet. Gant began to growl in his throat. Tree levered himself upright and said, “All right, Gant,” and went across the camp, taking the rope away from Gant and kneeling to pass it around a tree and snug it to Earp.