Gasher Creek Part 51

"Drop the gun," Tracker said, standing.

Jack c.o.c.ked the hammer again. He pulled the trigger-another misfire-and c.o.c.ked the hammer a third time.

Tracker ran toward him. "Stop!"

It may have been the hours in the rain, or his summersault into the stream. Whatever the reason, the gun was useless; or at least useless enough to give an idiot a second chance.

Tracker had almost reached him, but not before Devlin pulled the trigger click- again and again- click click click.

He'd nearly c.o.c.ked for a seventh try when Tracker rammed his shoulder into Devlin's chest and knocked him down. He stomped on his wrist and ripped the gun from his grasp. "You fool!" he shouted.

Jack stared up at him, desperate as a drowning man. "I have to do it," he said.

"No you don't."

"I have to!" he pleaded, his face a quivering mess of dirt and blood and tears. In that moment, he looked so much like a child that Tracker fought the urge to scold him like one.

"Listen to me, Devlin. Whatever you reckon that coyote is, it won't go away by you scattering your brains all over the ground."

"You-don't-understand," Jack insisted.

"I understand plenty. You think you got no reason to live. You let your pa, Andy, and everyone else treat you like a cur and you want it to stop. But they gain by your death, don't you see that?"

"I can't keep feeding it," Jack said, his eyes on the coyote.

"It's just a wild dog," Tracker said, "starving and crazed. Look how skinny it is."

The black coyote growled. Tracker knew it could pounce on him again, but he didn't dare take his eyes off Jack. "Look Devlin, I know there are plenty of shadows in the day. Most men spend their lives without promise, but-"

"What did you say?" Devlin asked.

"Most men spend their lives without promise," Tracker repeated. "But that doesn't have to be your lot in life. If you just-"

Devlin looked at his hands. He looked at the gun. He whispered a word but it was too soft to be heard.

And that's when something extraordinary happened.

When Tracker was a soldier, he hated marching on damp, fall mornings. The wind chilled him to the bone, the grey clouds muted his spirits, and he marched as if wearing leaden boots. But every once in a while the sun would break through. It would warm the top of his head, spill down his back, and chase away the gloom.

That's how Jack Devlin looked; like the sun had broken through.

"What is it, Devlin?" Tracker asked.

"I ... promised," he said. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then re-opened them. He stared past Tracker.

Tracker turned.

The black coyote was gone.

Moving away from Jack, Tracker scanned the landscape and peered into the patches of long gra.s.s. "Devlin," he said. "What in blue Heaven happened to your coyote?"

When he turned back, Jack was on his feet.

"I have to go," he said.

"It was here," Tracker said, "and then-go? Go where."

Devlin started walking toward his horse. "Wait," Tracker said, raising his gun. "Halt!"

Jack stopped and turned around.

It was an empty threat. A gun with soaked powder was nothing more than a fancy little club. But he couldn't let him go.

"You need to come back with me," Tracker said.

"Why?"

"I need you to testify against Andy."

"I need to go."

"I need your help. Don't you want justice?"

Devlin looked at Andy's unconscious body. "Not anymore," he said.

"Then let me protect you from Smith," Tracker said. "I have reason to believe he's involved in the murders. If he finds you-"

"He's dead," Jack said. "Shot in Brush."

"Dead ... by your hand?"

"No. I just saw it."

"I send word to Sheriff Garnell and he'll tell me the same story?"

"He's dead, too," Jack said. "Cole shot him. You send word to anyone in Brush and they'll tell you that."

Tracker couldn't detect any trace of a lie. In fact, it was the first time the boy didn't look twitchy and frightened. He stood taller somehow, his chin held high.

Tracker knew he should force him back to town. Andy had confessed to an involvement, but perhaps there was more. The threat of Jack's testimony could draw that out of him. It was the logical course of action. It's what the law required.

"Well?" Jack said.

Tracker slipped the gun into his holster. "All right, Devlin," he said. "I came out here to get my man, and I got him. You can go. You're a free man."

"Yeah," Devlin said. "I reckon I am."

Shortly after Devlin left, Tracker turned south. Andy was still unconscious, so he laid his body over Bucko's hindquarters and tied him to the saddle. It was a ch.o.r.e doing it, but Tracker preferred an unconscious prisoner to a conscious one. A man in custody could be counted on to cry, plea, hara.s.s, and bargain, but rarely did he stay quiet. It was a bit of good fortune that Tracker hoped would last all the way home.

As the morning stretched into noon, the sky remained cloudless and the sun burned hot. Tracker's clothes dried. He was able to sweat out the fever. Bucko moved at a good pace and seemed to enjoy the heat. If they didn't stop to rest, they'd reach Gasher Creek by late evening.

Smiling, he imagined himself entering the cabin. Which would he want to do first, kiss Caroline or hold Edward? It was impossible to decide. Of course, the very first thing he'd do is listen to Caroline cuss him out for not saying goodbye to her. This cussing out may or may not involve a book hurtling toward his head. But after that, a kiss was surely forthcoming. He hoped.

After spending a few more minutes thinking about his wife and son, his thoughts returned to Jack Devlin. He thought about him traveling north on that giant horse of his, wondering where on earth he got such an animal. He pondered the meaning of the words I promised but didn't know what they meant. And, of course, he thought about the black coyote. There was something unsettling about that animal. It wasn't just its size, although its size was alarming. It wasn't its strange, copper colored eyes or gaunt appearance. It was the fact that it had disappeared. Tracker didn't have the eyes of a hawk, but he could still spot a prairie dog at four hundred yards. That coyote hadn't run away. He knew it.

When he was a boy, his mother often visited a Chinese fortune teller named Liu Ying. Tracker thought it was a load of hogwash, but his mother believed it without question. He once asked her why she believed, and she said, "Thomas, there are things in life that make us s.h.i.+ver, and that's all we'll ever know about them."

At the time, he dismissed her words as nonsense. But now, in a strange way, he understood. The black coyote was one of those things. It reached into the deep, dark places of the mind, like the emptiness of a dead body or the kind of thoughts that only arise in bed at night. Thoughts of a dark tapestry, and what lies behind...

Tracker snapped the reins, urging Bucko to go faster. Bucko eased into a canter, stretched into a gallop, and then started to waver and buck his head. Tracker slowed him down, saying, "Whoa, whoa. What's the matter, you smell something?"

Months later, when Tracker recounted the tale, an old rancher named Ferguson said he wasn't surprised at Bucko's sudden switch. "They can smell it on the wind," he said to Tracker. "They can smell blood the way we can smell the hotel's coffee from the other side of the street."

Tracker didn't know if this was a fact, as Ferguson also claimed that horses could read minds, count to ten (but not eleven), and recite the poems of Tennyson under a full moon. But even if he was a little touched, he may have been right about Bucko's twitchiness. Until that moment, the young quarter horse had performed admirably, carrying his master over uneven land with little rest, braving the lightning and thunder without spooking, and staying with Tracker throughout the night even though he wasn't tied off. The only time he'd put himself in hitches was when it sensed the dead paint mule.

And now it was happening again. Bucko snorted, bared his teeth, and made strange guttural noises in his throat.

Tracker slowed to a stop. He scanned the land but couldn't see anything. "I don't," he said, and then fell silent as his eyes caught a shape in the east. It was too small to be a soddy, too large to be a cow or buffalo. He wished he carried an army telescope.

"Come on," he said, snapping the reins. Bucko swished his tail, but obeyed.

As they drew closer, the shape spread in length and definition until he recognized it as a homesteader wagon. But something was off about it. There was no movement around the wagon, no cooking fire, no smoke. A mule, freed from its harness, stood near the wagon and grazed.

Then Tracker spotted the first body. He pulled on the reins, dismounted, and moved closer to investigate.

Up on the wagon seat, a woman lay slumped over as if napping. She was young, eighteen maybe, her face partially obscured by a slip of blonde hair. She wore a dark green bonnet and matching dress; or at least the dress used to be green. Blood had drenched it a muddy brown. She'd been shot in the neck.

The wagon appeared untouched. There were no tears to the bonnet or breaks to the bows. No broken dishes littering the ground, no ripped clothing, no signs of looting at all.

Circling the wagon, Tracker looked inside and found pots and pans, a shovel, and some other supplies. All untouched. Whatever happened to the woman, it wasn't at the hands of longriders or rogue Chewaks.

Returning to the front, he nearly tripped over the second body. It was a young man, most likely the woman's husband. He lay face down in the gra.s.s, still gripping his shotgun. The back of his head had been blasted out.

Tracker scratched at his moustache and glanced from the man to the woman. It didn't make sense. Why would someone shoot them and not rob them? Perhaps whoever did this was in an awful hurry.

Examining the tack, Tracker found two harnesses. He looked at the mule as it grazed on the long gra.s.s.

It was a paint mule.

"Oh ... G.o.d."

He turned and stared at the unconscious body of Andy Dupois.

He'd done it. He'd shot the both of them.

Tracker marched back to Bucko. He untied Andy, grabbed him by the s.h.i.+rt, and yanked him off. Andy fell onto the ground but didn't move.

"Wake up," Tracker said. He dug his canteen out of the saddlebag and dumped the water onto Andy's face. "Wake up. Wake up, you dog!"

Andy's purple, swollen eyelids opened. Blinking away the water, he said, "Sheriff?"

Tracker gripped him by the arm and pulled him onto his knees. "Look at this," he said, pointing. "Look!"

Andy looked. Despite the bruises, the blood, and the dirt, he turned very pale.

"You coward," Tracker said.

"No," Andy said. "No, Sheriff, I didn't-"

"Don't lie to me. You see that mule? It's a paint, a rare breed. Your mule, the one you borrowed from your pa's friend? That was a paint as well. Andy, you shot these people!"

Andy held his hands up to Tracker. "I did," he said. "Yes sir, I did, but it was in self-defense. I needed a horse, a mule, anything to help me get away. My ankle was sore and I couldn't run. So when I came across these folks, I tried to take one of their mules. But then they shot at me. I had no choice but to shoot back."

"You were shot at?"

"Honest to G.o.d."

Tracker released him and marched back to the second body. He bent down, pulled the shotgun from the man's grip, and checked. It was fully loaded.

As he turned, he saw Andy hobbling away.

Tracker ran after him and tripped him. With his hands still cuffed, Andy fell hard, his face smacking the ground. He cried out as blood spurted from his nose.

"Shut up," Tracker said. He gripped Andy's ankles and dragged him back toward the wagon.

"No," Andy cried, trying to kick free. "No!"

Tracker dropped him inches from the dead man. He reached into his belt and pulled out the pepperbox. "This is a close shooter. You looked these folks in the eye when you shot them, didn't you?" He crouched and gripped Andy's head. "Look at this man. Look at what you did." Yanking him to his feet, he said. "Look at her. You shot a woman, Andy. A woman!"

Andy dropped to his knees and started sobbing. "I was frightened," he said. "I thought you were coming to kill me."

"You ever see me shoot a man?" Tracker asked. "You ever see me pull my gun without provocation?"

Andy shook his head. "No, no, no. No I haven't, I have not."

"How did you figure on me not finding out about this?"

"I didn't think you'd catch me," Andy said, trembling. "I'm sorry. Forgive me, Sheriff."

"I'm not your judge," Tracker said. "That's O'Donnell's task, not mine."

"He won't forgive me. Not for this. He's going to hang me, isn't he?"

Tracker looked down at him. He could have lied to the boy in an effort to keep him calm, but Andy was smart enough to know the truth anyway.

"Yeah," Tracker said. "He's going to hang you."