Gasher Creek Part 5

"She found me," Don said, pus.h.i.+ng past her.

Doc Ansen squeaked with alarm.

Cole winced.

"Is it that bad?" Don asked.

"Uh," Tracker said.

He looked like the victim of a stampede. His entire face was bruised green and yellow with a bit of purple around the chin. His eyes were wet, bloodshot, and swelling shut. His nose pointed slightly to the left. Blood soaked his s.h.i.+rt.

"You need an ointment," Doc Ansen said.

"I need a coffin," Don replied.

"Liza, you help Andy get home," Tracker said. "Doc, keep searching for the cause of Hank's death. Cole, I'll need your a.s.sistance tonight."

"You got it, Sheriff," Cole said.

Looking at Don, Tracker said, "Can you ride?"

"No," Don said, dabbing his nose. "Wait-why?"

In Bear Hunt city, a man can go his whole life without experiencing night. He can experience shadow; the streets and alleys are crammed with them. But true night could never breech the glow of the city's thousand flickering gas lamps. It wasn't until Tracker joined the army at age eighteen that he first saw true night, the kind that blindfolds the land.

Tracker, Don, and Cole set out from Gasher Creek, accompanied by Gil Forbish, owner of the feed store, and Hans Hefler, a teller at the bank. Although Gil and Hans were not Tracker's finest choice for apprehending a fugitive (Gil was fifty-five with regular attacks of the gout, and Hans fainted every time he got a nosebleed), they were trustworthy enough, and no friends of Hank Dupois. Hank never had a need for feed, and he routinely declared all bankers as crooks.

"No moon," Hans said. "It's like trying to light a house with a single candlestick. We'll not find him tonight, Sheriff."

Tracker leaned forward in the saddle and held out his lantern. "He may be injured," he said. "If so, then there's a chance." He gave a rea.s.suring pat to Bucko, his five-year-old quarter horse with a chocolate brown coat and white speckles on its haunches. It was a reliable horse, built for speed. He'd need that speed to catch Devlin.

"Now, maybe it's just because I was beaten within an inch of my life," Don said from the back, "but I'm afraid I agree with ol' nosebleed. We're riding inside a big empty nothing, Sheriff. Can't we set out in the morning?"

"Ol' nosebleed?" Hans said indignantly. "Are you referring to me, young man? It's not my fault the dry air-"

"Sheriff's right," Cole said. "We can't give up." He moved past the others and took the lead.

"Stay close," Tracker said.

"Right, Sheriff," Cole said. A shotgun lay in its scabbard by his knee.

"Devlin's a twig without muscle," Gil said. "I wager we find him within the hour."

"Let's hope," Tracker said. "We can't allow him to roam free."

"So you think he did it?"

"Wouldn't be the first man to kill a wh.o.r.e, but it's not up to me whether he's guilty or innocent." Noticing the pace of Cole's horse, Tracker said, "Smith, I told you to stay close, we need your light-"

A startled whinny interrupted him. Hans' horse shook its head and rose onto its hind legs, throwing Hans free of his saddle. The banker crashed into the gra.s.s and cried out in pain. Cole's horse snorted and backed up so quickly that it nearly tripped. "Whoa," Cole said, pulling sharply on the reins. "Settle you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, settle!"

Bucko stopped. His ears pulled back.

"Something's out there," Gil said.

They listened. The wind rustled the gra.s.s around them. Cole leaned over so far that his chest brushed his horse's mane. Suddenly, he grabbed the stock of his shotgun and pulled it free of its scabbard.

Gil pulled his shotgun.

Don pulled his revolver.

Hans fell back into the gra.s.s and covered his head.

"Whoa!" Tracker said. He gripped his gun but didn't draw. "Speak to me, Cole."

"I saw something," Cole said. "Something big, like a bear."

"A bear?" Don said. "This far from the mountains?"

"I didn't say it was a bear, I said it was something like a bear." Despite his horse drifting nervously to the left, he held his aim steady.

"Coyote," Gil said, as if caught in a daydream.

"What coyote?" Tracker asked.

"At the hotel, I heard talk of a black coyote near Hannigan's Tree. Biggest coyote ever seen. We should turn back, Sheriff."

"No," Tracker said, wrapping the reins around his fist. "I'm not turning back because of the words of some drunken lynchers."

"Between this dark and our spooked horses, we don't have a chance of finding Devlin now," Don said. "Also, I have the powerful need to pa.s.s out."

"I think I'm getting a nose bleed," Hans added.

"Maybe Don's right, Sheriff," Gil said. "In this dark, he can see us better than we can see him. I say let him run. Either he'll starve on the prairie or he'll wander into the Badlands. He goes in there, he's not coming out."

"I'll not rest on that," Tracker said, "but we will head back. In the morning, I'll send a message to Brush town and inform Chuck Garnell."

"That old fool won't lift a finger," Cole said. "I say we wait until daylight and strike out after him."

"I don't have the man power to chase Devlin all over creation," Tracker said. "I'll send word to Garnell in Brush and Seth Manlin over in Leverton Mills."

"Manlin is sour on rye," Cole said. His hair glowed white in the lantern light.

"Home, Smith," Tracker said.

Cole smirked. "I can't believe you're going to let that b.u.mmer free because you can't stand being away from your missus. It's a baby, Sheriff, not a bar of gold."

Tracker let his hand drift to his side, but he didn't touch his gun.

He stared at Cole.

Cole stared back.

"Just so's you all know? I'm in very real pain," Don said.

"Right," Cole said, snapping the reins. He headed back toward Gasher Creek. The others followed.

Tracker held back a moment. As the others disappeared, the world closed about him until it was just himself and Bucko in a patch of lantern light.

He stared into the darkness, and cursed.

Chapter Five.

Jack ran. He fell.

Jack opened his eyes. The wind screamed in his ears. Gra.s.s blades groped his face like cold, dead fingers.

G.o.d dammit, Jack, your dream come true!

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s on his chest. Her breath hot on his forehead. Her eyes large, black, and empty. Her mouth, open and slack. Her tongue b.l.o.o.d.y.

I couldn't I wouldn't no I protected her I loved her like Jeanie I'd never hurt her I'd never hurt any woman not Sally not Jeanie- Jack opened his eyes and cried out. He tore a handful of gra.s.s from the ground. Dew ran down his arm as he squeezed.

He'd remembered something, a sc.r.a.p of memory. Sally had been naked on top of him, breathing on him with a rank, b.l.o.o.d.y breath. She'd been hurt, beaten- Like father like son.

"Oh G.o.d," Jack moaned. "Oh G.o.d!"

So he had been with her. He'd done something to her, he must have. He tried to remember more, anything. Had he really killed her?

Ride her, Jack, ride her!

A voice. Had someone else been in that room with him? Or were they just his own twisted, demented ramblings.

Thunder rumbled above him, briefly interrupting his thoughts.

Thunder of Heaven...

When he was a boy, his ma had once told him that thunder was the sound of the Almighty's golden chariots coming for sinners. "But not you, Jackie," she'd rea.s.sured him, stroking his head. "You're no sinner."

Now it growled-an angry, hungry sound, reminding him of Andy's dog Whiskey as it gnawed on leftover chicken bones. Jack rolled onto his back and waited for the storm. He wanted a torrent to beat him, to punish him, to fill his lungs. Not a bad way to die, really. Better than a noose.

He waited, and watched.

He saw a star.

Then he saw another.

Then the moon appeared, white and round as a dinner plate. The clouds were moving on.

But he'd heard it. He'd heard thunder.

Unless ... it wasn't thunder.

Jack sat up. Looking around, he saw nothing but acres of gra.s.s licked with moonlight. There was nothing there.

Just us murderers.

He stood. In the moonlight, he felt as exposed as a stage actor in a spotlight. He started walking, his legs stiff from lying in the wet gra.s.s.

He looked behind him.

Nothing. Just gra.s.s and shadows and- Another growl.

Two golden eyes appeared.

"What," he said, before the thing moved and he lost his voice.

It was a coyote.

It was the biggest d.a.m.n coyote he had ever seen.

It crept toward him with slow, languid steps as if slipping through water. From snout to tail, it was as long as a horse and half the height. It was skinny, the corpse of a coyote reanimated. Its fur glistened in the moonlight like ink. Two ears sprouted from its skull like spearheads. Its large, whiskey colored eyes watched him.

Jack didn't move. He knew enough about dogs to know that if he moved, it would pounce. No doubt, a coyote that size could make him an easy meal.

"You followed me, didn't you," he said. "You were what those fellas saw at Hannigan's Tree."

It blinked.

"I'm not worth the trouble. Try some of them fat ranchers back in town. Eat Hank, if you haven't already."

Jack tried an experimental step backward, and the coyote took a step toward him. It watched him carefully, but its fur stayed down.

"You want to walk with me, that's fine," he said. "I'll not argue with a fella as big as you. But try to bite me and we'll have at it."

It was a foolish thing to say, and he knew it. The only thing he'd have at was dying a very quick and b.l.o.o.d.y death.