Chapter 19
“I’m Gordon Duncan.” The man had a deep red welt on his forehead. “Can I sit, please?”
His knees wobbled, and Owen caught the back of his shirt as Gordon sank to the ground. Owen had left his hands and feet untied, but Morg stood behind him, watching him close.
“What happened to my Stella?”
“Is she your daughter?” Owen asked.
“No, she’s Sly’s. But she’s mine in all the important ways. Sly never wanted nuthin’ but boy children, so she found a place in my heart.” Gordon’s head and shoulders bowed as if the weight of the world had settled on him.
Owen decided to make the story short. “All three of your kin made a break for it. They chose three different directions and ran at the same time.”
“You hadn’t found the razors in their clothes, and they used them to escape. Is that right?”
“Yep.” Owen held up his hand so Gordon could see the wound. “I found one when I cut myself on it.”
Owen accepted a cup of steaming-hot coffee from Delaney, gave her a grateful nod. He felt about half asleep even with his eyes open. He sipped the coffee gratefully, then returned to his story.
“I went after Clive, Morgan went after Sly, and Tex and Marley went after Stella. Your Stella is tougher than her brother and pa, I’d say.
We corralled those two and brought them back fast, but Tex and Stella didn’t come back with Marley.
He saw both Tex and Stella go flying off their horses over a cliff after the critters skidded to a stop.
” Owen shook his head. “It was a long way down to a rushing river. Marley saw no sign of them and no way to make it down to the river. He came back for us, brought the horses and all the gear, including Tex’s rifle.
We went to see what was what, but after a longer search, we found no way down to the river either. And there was no sign of any bodies.”
“My Stella . . .” Gordon sounded anguished. Then his head came up, and hope flashed in his eyes in the firelight. “What if she survived? She’s a tough woman. If anyone could ride that river and get herself out, it’s Stella.”
“Tex too,” Owen said. “But we had no way to go after them short of mountain climbing, and we couldn’t hang on to our prisoners if we tried that.
” He might have attempted it on his own if he’d thought he could get down there.
The decision not to had nearly torn him in two.
“We aim to look for them both after we bring the lot of you to Fort Russell, where we’ll turn all of you over to the law. ”
Gordon reached out an unsteady hand and touched Owen’s wrist. Owen tensed up, but the look of fear and grief in the man’s eyes made him allow the contact.
“Listen to me, please. I know you don’t believe us, but we truly aren’t outlaws.
We’re . . . well, we think of ourselves as a tribe.
We’ve always loved the wilderness life. We roam, do some work from time to time to earn cash money, mostly just hunt.
We can live off the land forever. When Sly got married, his wife refused to come with us.
She didn’t know what she was getting into when she married my big brother.
“Sly built her a cabin and left her to live in it, though we visited. I envied him that life, so I rustled up a wife and married her and built her a cabin too, right next to Sly’s.
We’d stay there when we weren’t roaming.
As our youngsters grew up, they’d come with us.
We’ve had a few ride off and find their own life, and I suppose the rest will, too.
My youngest two left when Leland, Sly’s son, opened fire on you Marshals.
Leland was a headlong fool. We didn’t set out to shoot anyone. ”
Gordon’s brow furrowed. It was then Owen realized the dawn was pushing back the night. It wasn’t just the firelight now that let him see Gordon clearly.
“I’ve heard the name Duncan,” Morgan said. “You’re known men. I’ve seen wanted posters for bank robbery.”
Gordon shook his head fiercely, glancing at Morgen. “No. I’ve heard the talk. The wanted poster you’ve seen is for my youngest brother.”
“There were three of you?” Owen had to admit he couldn’t remember a first name, and there was no picture.
“Yep, Leonard. We call him Lenny. I think his wanted poster calls him ‘Wildcat Duncan.’ Never seen the poster, but I’ve heard tell.”
Owen nodded. “Wildcat Duncan, that’s it.”
“And Wildcat had sons, so there’s a group of them.
That’s the Duncan Gang. Our cabins were built in a high-up camp alongside the Outlaw Trail west of Denver.
The trail is secret and has a lot of twists and side trails.
Few men know how to get up there. We left our wives there with the youngsters, and those men, outlaws or not, treated them right. ”
“You may be able to talk your way out of a bank-robbery charge, Gordon, but it was you and your kin, the ones right here, who busted Clive out of the stockade at the fort. That’s a crime, and you’re wanted for it.”
“That was Leland.”
Owen’s jaw tightened. Gordon had an answer for everything.
Gordon said, “Leland was the sneakiest of us and a hothead to boot. That’s why he opened fire on you.”
Owen didn’t respond beyond saying, “A Deputy Marshal was killed. It’s mighty convenient for you to pin that murder and the jailbreak on the one among you who’s already dead.”
Gordon shook his head. “I’m real sorry that anyone died.
We think of ourselves as masters in the woods.
We slip around silent as ghosts, wily as cougars.
Leland especially could sneak in and out of a fort and open a locked cell and sneak out again.
” Gordon swallowed hard. “We take pride in that, how sneaky we are, as if that isn’t shameful.
We should have stayed to home. Cared for our wives and children. ”
Gordon looked over his shoulder at his family, tied up, all of them headed for jail.
He turned back to Owen. “But what Clive did was self-defense. Finlay MacNeil was a soldier, but he was a bully and a man known to be cruel to women. Our Clive stopped him when he dragged a woman off the streets of Cheyenne. Finlay pulled a gun. Clive was faster. Clive is no killer. It was a fair fight. Except there stood Finlay’s cousin Calan MacNeil, who swore with his hand on the Bible that Clive had attacked, intent on stealing the money he’d lost at poker.
The woman ran off and didn’t come forward to speak up for Clive. They found Clive guilty.”
A strange mutter came from Colonel Bridger.
“Um, Owen, I have to admit, I’ve heard this story.
It all happened after the shooting, long after Clive escaped.
Calan MacNeil, a private at Fort Russell, was in a fury when Clive escaped, ranting about his cousin being murdered.
He said in front of witnesses—and I’ve talked directly to the men who heard it—that he’d set out wanting to avenge his cousin’s death.
That it was a stain on the family name to be beaten to the draw.
Others heard of the woman, and someone even found her and talked to her.
I heard this from men I trust. Clive was long gone, but I’ve talked with the judge who oversaw the trial and sentencing.
He said the rumors had gotten back to him, too.
When you brought Clive back, I was going to insist on a new trial, and the judge had agreed to it. ”
Owen couldn’t quite take it all in. Clive might’ve been wrongly convicted. The only true criminal, Leland, a killer and the man who’d assisted in the jailbreak, was dead now. Deputy Marshal Stan Ross, dead for nothing. Tex and Stella, missing and possibly dead for nothing.
Even Clive, who’d probably been watching out the stockade window as they built a gallows for him . . . hard to blame the man for escaping when he got the chance to do it.
Anger bubbled and brewed in Owen’s gut as he considered what to do now. He locked eyes with Morgan, then Marley, who was lucky he still had both his legs.
Morgan gave his head a firm nod. “We’ll iron it all out when we get to Fort Russell.”
Owen sighed and shoved himself to his feet.
“I think it’s close enough to daylight we should get moving.” Roz started packing up her bedroll.
Owen, in the mood to give orders, snapped, “Let’s get on the trail.”
That was when Owen noticed Jesse sitting on the ground between Boone and the colonel. He seemed to be fascinated by them. He was sure seeing all the broad swath of humanity on this trip.
They got to work breaking camp and were on their way within the hour.
They’d be in Fort Collins by bedtime. One more long day’s ride from here and they’d all be safe and sound.
As they began winding their way out of the treacherous mountains, Owen had to wonder if Tex and Stella had survived their terrible fall off a cliff into rushing water.
And if they had survived, likely without horses or guns, without food or the tools to get food .
. . if they survived all that, then where in heaven’s name were they?