Sliphammer

Tree spun, crouching, toward Gant, but Gant hadn’t fired at all: clearly Tree’s first one had hit him somewhere. His bodily functions had lost control; there was the sharp stink of human urine and manure coming upwind from Gant. Tree got to him in four strides and found him dying.

Macklin’s horse scrambled for footing and ran in terror, back the way they had come. Gant’s horse wanted to run too but it was joined by rope tether to the prisoners’ horses; it reared and stayed put. Caroline stood back there with the birdhead. 38 in her fist, aimed at Wyatt Earp, who hadn’t moved a muscle after crouching down and whipping Josie flat to the ground.

Tree walked away from Gant, taking a deep breath and letting it out, went past Macklin’s body, and reached for the reins of his horse. “That gunshot will bring them on the run. Get mounted.”

Josie said in a cracked voice, “Dear God. But those-” she was staring at the bodies.

Tree said harshly, “Let Sparrow bury them.” He led his horse over to Wyatt and Josie, glanced at Warren’s shocked face, and said in a bitter, clipped way, ‘They were blazing a trail for Sparrow-Sparrow had to get you out here alone, away from Cooley and the rest of your friends.”

“How long have you known that?”

“I just got proof. Do you want to argue about it or get out of here?”

“Untie my hands first,” said Earp.

“No. I’m not done yet. Now damn it get mounted.” He swung toward Caroline: “You’ll ride Gant’s horse and lead the others.”

She didn’t ask questions; she went to Gant’s horse. The stirrups were far too long for her and she had to ride with her feet dangling. They left the dead men on the ground and went out as fast as the bone-tired horses would move them, curving broadly northeast, then east, then back toward the pass, because there was a chance Sparrow would not double back after finding the bodies. And the pass, now, was the fastest way across.

Fourteen

In the pass, the night wind sliced through Tree as if he were naked. His horse turned a fetlock and went lame; he swapped over to the spare animal but even without a rider the lame horse couldn’t keep up with the slow pace, and he had to unsaddle it and turn it loose. With a game leg it wouldn’t drift far and Sparrow would surely pick it up. Luck had turned all bad; this was just one more thing that couldn’t be helped. Wyatt Earp’s remarks, delivered at intervals, were snappish and bitter. Josie swore in a monotonous voice, going through her limited vocabulary of obscenities and then going through it again. Warren was the silent one; his eyes were shut half the time and he was probably half drugged with sleeplessness, so tired he just didn’t care any more. Of the five of them, only Caroline didn’t seem to have run out of stamina.

Beyond the pass the slope was a downgrade but not an easy one. Steep slides alternated with boulder-littered humps. At intervals they trotted, walked, and got off to lead. Tree kept looking back, expecting to see horsemen on the skyline. The moon rose, a pale, thin rind. They walked down into the forest of scrub pine and high mountain piiion and Caroline broke off unripe pinon nuts to chew. By the time dawn broke across the Rockies, there was a glaze on the surfaces of Tree’s eyes that made him blink continuously to keep it away. He felt as if he had gritty sand under his eyelids. His legs were numb stumps, blistered and uncooperative. Wyatt Earp had developed a tic above his right cheekbone; his eyes were raw, sunk back behind dark pouches. He had gone hoarse and stopped talking an hour before sunrise.

They ate on the move. Around nine o’clock they entered the upper fringe of taller pine forest and at the edge Tree looked back once more. Still no sign of Sparrow: had he lost them? It didn’t seem possible. They went down through the dry timber-land, zigzagging through canyons to stay dff the visible high ground. He checked the ropes which lashed the Earps’ wrists. There was a raw-rubbed spot on Warren’s left wrist that was ugly red with scabbed blood but Tree didn’t loosen the ropes. Warren hardly seemed to recognize him. Tree scraped a hand across the abrasive stubble on his jaw, pinched his eyes with thumb and forefinger, and looked up to see they were near the edge of a promontory that looked down past a tortured series of gorges and ridges into a deep river valley. The sun, in the east beyond, reflected painfully off the rushing river several miles below and the steel ribbons of railroad tracks ru

A wind rushed through the trees and at midafternoon they were within a mile of the Arkansas when a rifle went off somewhere not too far away, the solitary crack echoing and rebounding through the canyons. It stirred Tree’s adrenalin, bringing him more fully awake. All of them had stiffened in their saddles; they were all looking around. The timber was broken up into patches separated by meadows; the hilly horizons were near. Abruptly Tree spotted movement: a bunch, on horseback, wheeling out of the forest half a mile back. The rifle shot had been a rallying signal; horsemen galloped in from several directions. He recognized the white horse.

Wyatt Earp bellowed, “We can’t outrun them on these horses.”

“We can try,” Tree said. “On the run, now!” They urged the faltering animals downslope-just one more ridge to cross, then downhill to the river. But when they started up the ridge, a pack of riders materialized at the crest. Tree reined in; Caroline yanked her horse to a stop so abruptly that the other three got tangled up. Tree slapped Caroline’s horse across the rump and went wheeling past her, turning aside into a boulder-strewn gully that angled upslope to the right. They clattered up the defile in a row. It took them five hundred yards toward the crest of the ridge, and turned a bend, and ended: it just petered out in a sloping field of buffalo grass. They emerged, fully exposed on the flats. The upper band of riders was ramming forward at a gallop-and Caroline sucked in her breath: “That’s Cooley’s gang. God damn them!” Cooley must have taken a calculated chance, cutting ahead to wait by the Arkansas and trap the fugitives coming down. So now it was Cooley up there and Sparrow’s miners galloping up from below-a hopeless pincer.

Wyatt Earp roared, “For the love of God cut us loose-at least let a man die with a gun in his hand!”

Warren said bitterly, “You really fucked it up, Deputy-I hope you roast in Hell.”

Tree got them dismounted. Cooley was three quarters of a mile away, plunging his army forward at a full gallop, riders fa

Warren said, “All fucked up,” spitting it out like acid, and Wyatt Earp’s eyes, gone hard again, penetrated Tree. Dispassionately Tree took down his rifle, cocked it, and said with unhurried clarity, “We’re all going to walk back into that gully and belly down in the rocks. Move.”

He jabbed Wyatt Earp in the gut, hard enough to make the big man stumble. Earp, his hands tied together, turned lobster red and went at an awkward, shambling run. Tree gathered up all the guns, handed some of them to Caroline to carry, and brought up the rear. They tumbled into the rocks and flattened themselves in boulder crevices.

Wyatt Earp said, “Give us to Cooley and I’ll safeguard your hide. It’s the only chance you’ve got.”

“My string’s not played out,” Tree said, watching the miners come-Sparrow had the lead, two or three hundred yards, but his path was uphill and Cooley’s was down. It looked like a dead heat: already both groups were lifting their guns, reining in, trying to feel out the shape of things.