CHAPTER FIVE The Water Between Them #2
The walls widened around a shallow basin littered with storm debris. A dead cottonwood lay across one side. There was no visible exit except the narrow passage through which they had entered.
A trap.
Jude looked toward the wall.
“Spring should be behind that stone.”
“Should?”
“My brother brought me here once.”
Gideon examined the basin. “How do we reach it?”
“Not from this side.”
Bootsteps approached.
Gideon positioned himself behind the fallen tree.
Jude crouched beside him.
Their joined wrists forced Gideon’s left arm against Jude’s right. He transferred the revolver to his free hand and raised it over the trunk.
The first tracker entered the basin slowly.
He was broad through the chest, with a wet hat pulled low and a long knife in one hand. His revolver remained holstered.
The second man followed several paces behind with a short-barreled rifle.
“Shaw,” the first called. “We don’t need to make this difficult.”
Jude whispered, “Men who say that always brought rope.”
Gideon kept the revolver trained on the nearer man. “Drop your weapons.”
The tracker smiled.
“You’re outnumbered.”
“I count accurately.”
“You have a wounded prisoner chained to your arm.”
“You appear confused about which one of us is wounded.”
The rifleman moved to the right.
Jude saw it.
He shifted closer to Gideon, their shoulders touching.
The man with the knife took another step. “Hand Calder over. You walk away.”
“On whose authority?”
“Marshal Cutter’s.”
The name passed through Gideon like cold metal.
“Show me the order.”
“After.”
“Then you have none.”
The tracker’s smile widened. “You always were stubborn, Shaw.”
He threw the knife.
Jude jerked the chain.
Gideon’s left arm snapped sideways, pulling his entire body out of the blade’s path. The knife passed close enough to slice his open shirt.
Gideon followed the momentum rather than fighting it.
He turned with the pull, pivoted around Jude, and drove his right fist into the tracker’s jaw.
The man fell against the cottonwood.
The rifleman raised his weapon.
Jude seized Gideon’s cuffed wrist with his free hand and pulled downward.
Both men dropped.
The rifle fired over them.
Gideon rolled beneath Jude’s arm and used the chain as a fixed point, turning their combined weight toward the rifleman. Jude understood before Gideon spoke.
He surged in the same direction.
They struck the man together.
Gideon’s shoulder drove into his stomach. Jude caught the rifle barrel and forced it upward. The weapon fired again, deafening inside the canyon.
The stock struck Jude across the cheek.
Jude staggered.
The chain pulled Gideon with him.
The knife thrower rose behind Gideon and wrapped one arm around his throat.
Jude saw the movement.
He yanked their joined wrists forward.
The chain dragged Gideon out of the attacker’s hold. Gideon turned with it, planted one boot, and drove his elbow backward into the man’s ribs.
Bone gave beneath the strike.
The attacker doubled over.
Gideon caught Jude’s shoulder with his chained hand, using him as an anchor, and kicked the man’s knee sideways.
The tracker fell.
The rifleman charged Jude.
Gideon moved before thought.
He drew Jude toward him by the chain. Jude spun into Gideon’s chest, avoiding the rifle stock, then continued through the turn. Gideon guided the momentum with one hand at Jude’s waist.
Jude’s free elbow struck the rifleman’s throat.
The man stumbled.
Gideon released Jude’s waist, caught the rifle barrel, and tore the weapon from the tracker’s hands.
Jude drove his shoulder into the man’s chest.
They hit the canyon wall together.
The tracker drew a revolver.
Jude trapped his wrist against the stone.
Gideon pressed the rifle across the man’s throat.
“Drop it.”
The tracker strained against them.
Jude looked at Gideon.
No words.
None were necessary.
Gideon shifted the rifle upward while Jude twisted the man’s gun hand. The revolver fell.
The tracker drove his forehead into Jude’s injured cheek.
Jude lost his grip.
The man reached for the fallen weapon.
Gideon struck him once with the rifle stock.
He collapsed.
Behind them, the first tracker crawled toward his knife.
Jude pulled Gideon backward by the chain.
Gideon turned, caught the discarded revolver from the ground, and fired.
The bullet entered the tracker’s shoulder and spun him onto his back.
Silence returned to the basin.
Gideon and Jude stood with their backs touching.
Both breathed hard.
Their cuffed hands remained locked together between them, Jude’s fingers wrapped around Gideon’s wrist and Gideon’s around Jude’s. Mud covered their clothing. Blood ran from a new cut on Jude’s cheek, while Gideon’s bandage had turned dark beneath his open shirt.
The unconscious rifleman groaned.
Gideon moved toward him.
Jude moved at the same instant.
For the first time, the chain did not jerk either man off balance.
They crossed the ground as one.
Gideon kicked the revolver away from the wounded tracker and searched him. Jude covered the unconscious man with the rifle.
“Alive?” Jude asked.
“For now.”
“That sounded almost generous.”
“I need answers.”
The wounded man spat blood into the mud. “Go to hell.”
“Who gave you the order?”
The tracker smiled through clenched teeth.
“Cutter?” Gideon asked.
No response.
“Harrow?”
The smile remained.
Jude crouched beside Gideon. “Search his coat.”
Gideon opened the tracker’s vest. Inside, an oilskin packet had been sewn into the lining.
He cut it free.
The packet contained three twenty-dollar gold certificates and a folded sheet of paper.
Gideon opened it.
The message consisted of four lines:
TRANSFER COMPROMISED.SHAW AND CALDER ARE NOT TO REACH SANTA REINA.RECOVER ALL DOCUMENTS. LEAVE NO PRISONERS.AUTHORIZATION C-17.
Beneath the final line was a pattern of dots and crossed strokes arranged around a five-pointed star.
Jude watched Gideon’s face.
“You recognize it.”
Gideon did not answer.
He had seen the cipher dozens of times.
Marshal Amos Cutter used it to authenticate confidential instructions sent through unsecured telegraph offices. Each deputy received a numbered authorization code known only to Cutter’s office and the men working directly beneath him.
C-17 belonged to Gideon.
“Marshal?” Jude asked.
“It’s Cutter’s cipher.”
The words tasted like betrayal.
“Could it be copied?”
“Not this precisely.”
“Then your superior ordered your murder.”
“My death.”
Jude looked at the paper. “What distinction are you making?”
“Calder was already under federal indictment. Killing him before trial is murder. Killing a deputy during an escape can be explained.”
“Ah.” Jude’s mouth hardened. “Then I admire the law’s vocabulary.”
Gideon folded the order and placed it inside his coat.
The wounded tracker laughed weakly.
“You think paper saves you?” he asked. “Cutter owns the court. Harrow owns everything between here and it.”
Jude leaned closer. “Where are the other two men?”
The tracker’s smile faded.
“Back at the shack?” Jude continued. “Or circling the canyon?”
The man remained silent.
Jude took the knife from the mud and held it where the tracker could see.
Gideon caught Jude’s wrist.
“No.”
Jude looked at him. “He knows where they are.”
“We’re not torturing him.”
“They tortured Noah.”
“We are not them.”
The answer came harder than Gideon intended.
Jude stared at him.
Anger moved beneath his expression, but after a long moment he lowered the knife.
The wounded tracker laughed again.
Jude struck him once across the jaw with the hilt.
The man went limp.
Gideon looked at Jude.
“He’ll wake,” Jude said.
“You enjoyed that.”
“A little.”
The rifleman began stirring.
Gideon bound both trackers with their own belts, using a length of saddle cord to secure their ankles. He placed the empty canteen beside them and left one revolver unloaded within sight but out of reach. Their horses, if they found the canyon, would provide the men a chance to survive.
“You’re leaving them alive?” Jude asked.
“They’re no threat now.”
“They will be again.”
“Possibly.”
“Harrow doesn’t reward failure.”
Gideon checked the tracker’s knots. “Then they should reconsider their employer.”
Jude studied him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You have never meant that word once.”
“No,” Jude said. “I suppose I haven’t.”
A distant shout entered the canyon.
The other trackers were approaching.
Jude went to the sandstone wall at the rear of the basin. Rainwater had darkened the lower half, revealing a vertical crack hidden behind a curtain of thorny vines.
“There.”
He pulled the vines aside.
A passage scarcely two feet wide opened behind them.
Gideon looked at the gap, then at the two men on the ground.
“They know about it?”
“Not unless they know Noah.”
Jude entered first.
The chain followed.
Gideon squeezed into the passage behind him just as another shout echoed from the basin.
The sandstone closed around them.
They moved sideways through the crack, chests scraping one wall and backs touching the other. Their cuffed wrists remained pressed between their bodies. Each breath required space neither man possessed.
Jude stopped.
Gideon collided with him from behind.
“What?” Gideon whispered.
“Drop.”
The floor vanished ahead.
Jude lowered himself into darkness. The chain pulled Gideon’s arm downward.
“How far?”
“Trust me.”
“That phrase has acquired dangerous habits.”
“Then stay and meet Harrow’s men.”
Gideon crouched.
Jude’s free hand found his thigh in the darkness.
The touch traveled upward until his palm reached Gideon’s hip.
“I’m guiding you,” Jude said.
“I know.”
“Rule after dark.”
“It is daylight.”
“Not in here.”
Gideon lowered himself.
Jude’s hand remained at his hip, supporting him as his boots searched for the hidden ledge below. Their bodies pressed together in the crack. Gideon felt Jude’s shoulder beneath his chest and the warmth of Jude’s breath through his open shirt.
“Lower,” Jude whispered.
Gideon slid another few inches.
His boot found stone.
“There.”
Jude guided him down.
They descended through the hidden cleft, one body following the other. At the bottom, the passage widened and green light appeared ahead.