Chapter 28
Conn and Sheffield rode up into the mountains through alternating patches of open, sandy ground and sagebrush, past islands of pine and juniper, the trail growing rockier every step of the way and narrowing as they left the valley and scaled the slope.
The scrub first gave way to ponderosas, then to lodgepoles, and the trail became a dim rivulet winding ever upward.
They came to a ridge where the trail forked. Many times while climbing the mountain, they spotted the tracks of Toole’s gang, and they saw them again here, heading south, as expected.
They pointed their horses in that direction and crossed the ridge saddle, buffeted by strong winds as the sun sank lower in the western horizon and their shadows seemed to stretch out impossibly long, down the eastern slope to join with the sea of shadow that was the lodgepole forest beneath them.
Beyond, down in the valley, South Park stretched away like a limitless promise, pink in the evening light.
But of course, even the great promise of this beautiful land had its limits. You could not enjoy its remarkable bounty if a gang of bloodthirsty outlaws murdered you.
They rode slowly across the high ground, following the tracks of the killers, and stopped an hour before dark to change horses. The horses had handled the climb with seeming ease, but the air up here was cold and thin, and Conn didn’t want to overwork their animals.
Here and there, game trails crossed their path.
In other places, old mining roads plunged into the pines or switched back beneath the rimrock.
Once the trail tightened to a razor’s edge, their horses stepped lightly as they crossed a narrow spine of stone from which pebbles skipped away and slid into the open, tumbling breathlessly into the void that yawned to either side.
Conn didn’t particularly like heights, and his guts were tight as shrunk leather as he crossed this narrow ridge with sheer cliffs on both sides.
The gelding slipped a little on an icy patch, making Conn’s heart jump, but the horse kept its wits and its footing, and a short time later, they were across the ridge and back on the mountain proper, with gentler slopes of scrub and scree to either side.
As the light of day dimmed, snow fell. In the silence between gusts of wind, they could hear its gritty patter against their hats and jackets.
None of it would reach the valley below. Not yet. The mountain had its own weather. But it was a reminder of what was coming not only for the mountain but for all they beheld.
If Mary wanted to rebuild, she had her work cut out for her.
He hoped her family came for her soon. He hoped they talked some sense into her. He hoped when he returned to the homestead, he would find it empty with maybe a note awaiting him, Mary explaining that she was needed on her father’s farm, where he was welcome to visit.
An invitation he would decline.
It was too much, too sad.
Once he killed these men, he wanted to put all of this behind him as quickly and completely as possible. If Mary stuck to her guns and set to rebuilding, he would keep his promise and help her, of course, but he hoped she would give up that empty dream and start over with her family in Canon City.
Certainly, she could have a better life there, close to family and far from this place that had been so cruel to her.
Meanwhile, she would also free Conn to go in search of a better life himself.
He didn’t know what that would look like, exactly, but he supposed there was no rush, either. He had been certain that his destiny awaited him here, alongside his brother.
Now, with Cole dead, he wouldn’t even know which way to turn once he left the hopefully empty homestead.
He had changed. He knew that. He was done with the life he’d been living. But at the same time, he didn’t want to head back to Kansas. Maybe for a visit. He did miss his parents, and they would probably like to see him, especially because of what happened to Cole.
But not to stay.
He had moved beyond Kansas somehow, just as he had moved beyond the rough life he’d been living since leaving there.
But he supposed he shouldn’t plan too far ahead.
Not just because Mary might indeed stick to her plans, delaying him probably through winter and maybe even spring planting, but also because he had this work in front him, the dark work of vengeance, and he had no idea how this work might change him further.
Better not to think at all, he reckoned as the cold wind whipped harder and sleet sizzled against his jacket and made him squint.
The day was dying.
Sheffield rode forward and drew up beside him. “Best get off this ridge and make camp while we can still see, Conn.”
Conn nodded, and a short time later, they left the main path and followed a game trail downhill into the trees, where night had, for all intents and purposes, already fallen.
They made camp on level ground among the snapped-off trees of a storm-ravaged bench, comfortably out of the wind next to a sizeable deadfall from which they quickly gathered dry wood. They built a campfire in the shelter of a cave-like overhang that blocked the wind and caught and held the heat.
They boiled coffee, and Conn threw together a meal of beans with bacon and bread he bought in the Fairplay bakery.
They ate, as they had traveled, in silence.
But once the plates were cleaned and packed away and they sat there, sipping their coffee, Sheffield said, “This whole ride, I been thinking about that marshal.”
“Mayfield?”
Sheffield nodded and lifted the coffee cup to his drooping mustache, his bony face looking brutally hard in the flickering firelight and shifting shadows. “What do you think he was talking about with Junior?”
Now it was Conn’s turn to sip his coffee. “Hard to tell. Man like Mayfield, maybe he was just trying to put a burr under your saddle.”
Sheffield stared away from the fire out into the darkness. “Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“No, I reckon probably I don’t.”
“I won’t think twice if you ride the other way come morning.”
“No,” Sheffield said. “I won’t do that. I started this. I’m gonna finish it.”
“All right.”
“But then, I guess maybe I’d better head up to Stump Run and check on my boy.”
“You won’t ride alone.”
“Appreciate it. Because I reckon maybe Junior’s got himself into trouble up there with Ligget and them. I might end up needing some help.”
“You’ll have it. Least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”
Sheffield said nothing to that.
They sat in silence for a long stretch, the wind howling across the ridge high above them and sighing through the treetops between. The woods were silent, save for the wind and the light hiss of gritty snow.
There were no bird calls, not even an owl’s hoot. Nothing was moving. Everything was still.
“You know Mayfield from before, huh?” Sheffield said.
“Yeah, I know him. We had what you might call a disagreement down in Arizona.”
Sheffield arched one brow, waiting.
“I was riding for a cattle outfit down there,” Conn said, remembering the heat and the dust and the way everything seemed to go wrong that trip. “Never should have gone on that drive. The night I signed on, I was drunk and broke.”
“Bad combination.”
“It is. As I soon learned. Point is, we started in Texas, and right from the start, everything that could’ve gone wrong did.”
“I been on drives like that.”
“Me, too. But this one took the cake. Bad luck every step of the way. Bad weather, bad crossings, and bad food—which got even worse when a band of Comancheros killed our cook.”
Sheffield sipped his coffee.
Conn said, “But we didn’t hit the real trouble until we crossed over into Arizona. By that time, I knew I’d fallen in with the wrong outfit. It wasn’t just things going wrong. It was the men. Some of them were pretty rough. But it was too late to turn back. I’d signed on.”
Sheffield nodded.
“Then one night on the borderlands, we bedded down beside a dry creek, and rustlers hit us again. Or that’s what I thought when the gunshots woke me.
I grabbed my gun and ran toward the fighting, and this fella stepped out of the darkness and shot at me.
Burned me across my hip. I fired back and put him down.
Then Mayfield comes at me from an angle with his gun drawn.
I would’ve killed him, but I saw his badge and lowered my weapon.
Then one of his men yelled that I wasn’t the one. ”
Up on the ridge, the wind howled fiercely. A cold breeze whipped through the enclosure. The fire wavered, making light and shadow dance.
“Turns out they were after another fella in the outfit. He was tall with a scarred face, too. He got killed in the fight. Mayfield didn’t want to believe it.
He wanted to shoot me. We both stood there.
He was telling me to lay my weapon on the ground, and his men were shouting that I wasn’t the guy, that they had gotten him. ”
“Wonder you didn’t shoot each other.”
“It is. I didn’t want to kill a lawman, and I guess he didn’t want to kill an innocent man.
Afterward, he took me in and jailed me and made me stand trial for shooting his deputy.
It was a clearcut case of self-defense. Everybody knew it.
And the circuit judge cut me loose. But I was stuck in that borderlands jail for three weeks waiting for that judge to show up.
Waiting and sweating. Got in a fight in there, too.
I sorted him, but he stuck his thumb in my eye, and I couldn’t see right for near on a month. All because of Mayfield.”
“Seems like he’s still sore about it, too.”
Conn nodded. “It’s unfinished business between us.”