Chapter Nine The Heir in the Dust #3
Relief weakened Drew's knees. He sat behind the stones and waited while darkness gathered.
Waiting had never been his skill. Warren kept servants to wait on him and made Drew wait as discipline; Hank turned waiting into readiness.
Drew checked the sluice gate, counted the guards again, and found the rope anchoring the eastern line.
An hour later hoofbeats climbed the northern slope. Drew drew his pistol and flattened against the rock.
"If you shoot me," Hank said from the dark, "I'll be irritated."
Drew lowered the weapon. Hank stepped into the shallow hollow, followed by Ortiz and Will. Rage and relief fought visibly across his face.
"I told you to stay."
"You did."
"Sam let you go."
"Sam recognized useful information."
"Sam's injured."
"His judgment appears untouched."
Hank seized the front of Drew's coat and pulled him close. For one dangerous instant, Drew thought he might be struck. Instead Hank's forehead hit his, hard enough to hurt.
"You don't get to disappear," Hank said.
"You sent me away."
"From the outfit. Not the earth."
Their mouths were inches apart. Drew felt Hank's breath, saw the hunger that anger could not conceal, and answered it with a bodily reaction equally clear beneath trail-worn clothes. The shared awareness made the moment more painful, not less.
"Briggs has eighteen men," Drew whispered. "He plans to hold you for Copper Ridge or kill you if you resist. The cattle are penned below. I can move them through the east split."
Hank released his coat but not before his knuckles brushed Drew's chest. "Show me."
They knelt over the map. Strategy made a temporary truce where forgiveness could not.
Drew described the sluice and rope line.
Hank asked exact questions: slope, distance, guards, wind.
Ortiz proposed circling six riders to the western mouth once the herd moved.
Will volunteered to cut the remuda loose.
"You stay on the ridge," Hank told Drew.
"No. I know the gate."
"You've done enough."
"Not nearly."
Hank's gaze held his. "This isn't penance. Men who ride to get hurt make bad partners."
The word struck them both.
"I am not trying to get hurt," Drew said. "I am trying to finish what I began."
Hank searched his face, then handed him a coil of rope. "You open the gate and come straight back."
"Yes."
"Say it like you mean it."
"I will come back."
They moved before midnight. Drew descended through the split, using juniper shadow for cover. Below, the herd pressed toward any scent of water. He reached the rusted sluice wheel, put both hands to it, and strained. Nothing moved.
Voices approached along the ridge.
Drew wrapped the rope around the wheel and ran the free end up through a stone notch. Above, Hank took it. Their combined weight broke the rust seal with a shriek of metal. Water rushed from the catchment, thin at first, then darkening the old channel.
The cattle smelled it.
The eastern half of the herd surged. Drew cut the anchor rope. Hundreds of animals drove through the split, hooves shaking the ridge. Briggs's men shouted from the western fires. Gunshots cracked. Will's riders opened the remuda, and loose horses tore across the camp.
Drew climbed. A steer struck the slope below him and dislodged a sheet of stone. His foot slipped. The rope snapped taut around his wrist.
Hank hauled him over the edge with one arm and dragged him against his chest.
"You came back," Hank said, breathless.
"I promised."
There was no time for more. They mounted and rode along the ridge, turning the freed cattle north while Ortiz closed the western exit. By dawn most of the stolen herd had rejoined. Briggs escaped with perhaps fifty head and four men, but his plan was broken.
Drew's horse stumbled during the last turn. A hidden rifle shot sounded from the rocks. The roan went down beneath him.
He remembered impact, dust, and Hank shouting his name. Then the weight of the animal was gone. Will and Ortiz pulled him free while Hank fired toward the ridge. The bullet had killed the horse and grazed Drew's thigh.
"Can you stand?" Hank demanded.
Drew did, because Hank looked as though the answer might determine whether he burned the entire territory.
"I can ride."
"On mine."
"And you?"
"I'll walk."
In full view of the crew, Hank helped Drew into his saddle and checked the graze with hands that trembled only after finding it shallow. Drew caught one of those hands.
"I followed because I knew the land," he said. "Not because I expected rescue."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Hank looked up at him. "Starting to."
The words were not forgiveness. They were the first stone laid toward it.
On the slow ride back, the crew treated Drew differently. Ortiz asked for the map. Will passed him coffee without being prompted. Ben, when they reached camp, put a shoulder beneath Drew's arm and did not mention the threat to tie him to the wagon.
Drew had wanted absolution in one grand act because grand acts were simple.
The trail offered harder terms: tomorrow's work, then the day after, each choice observed and weighed.
Loyalty that cost nothing had never been loyalty at all.
The cost would not be settled by one wound, one horse, or one recovered herd.
He intended to pay.