Chapter 22 #2
Rafe knew he was looking for a needle in a haystack, but he simply couldn’t sit and wait any longer.
He’d go mad if he did. He returned to the cabin each night in the event there was any message for him from Clint, Ben, or any of the others.
Abner, who seemed content enough there with the crumbs Rafe left, would always creep out and welcome him, begging for an affectionate touch.
And Rafe would remember Shea’s delight with Abner, with the cub.
Today he tried to dismiss memories of her as, once again, he scoured the mountainside.
His horse tied behind a thick clump of berry bushes, he skirted the ridges of the steep mountain gulch, looking below at the stream where several miners still panned for gold.
He wished he had a spyglass, but he didn’t.
His gaze stopped roaming for a moment, fixed on a bush below him.
It seemed to move, but there was no wind stirring this day.
The sky was cloudless, the sun bright, the air still and dry.
Farther on down the mountain sat a miner’s cabin.
There was a figure standing in the creek, obviously panning for gold. A rifle lay on the ground nearby.
Rafe turned his gaze back to the moving bush. A glint of silver shone among the dull green leaves. Someone was there, someone who was also watching.
Could he be this damn lucky for once?
Rafe cautiously moved down, snaking through the underbrush. He wondered whether he should use his rifle to warn the miner below. And then he saw the barrel of a rifle sticking through the moving bush.
Hurriedly, Rafe aimed at the barrel of the rifle below, realizing he had little chance of hitting it. He pulled the trigger just a fraction of a second before the other man shot. Rafe missed the rifle barrel but kicked up a cloud of dust. The other man’s bullet also went astray, missing the miner.
The miner below spun around, his hand going for the rifle as he darted for the cover of nearby rocks.
The unseen man took another shot at the miner, then turned the rifle upward, toward Rafe. The miner aimed his rifle upward, too, then fired at … Rafe.
The bullet winged Rafe’s arm, right where the bear had clawed him, and he dropped the rifle and clutched at the pain shooting up his arm. More shots peppered the ground around him, coming from two rifles this time.
Rafe rolled behind a boulder, damning himself, damning his luck.
The miner evidently thought Rafe was his assailant.
Rafe realized he should have shouted out a warning, but his first instinct had been to take the man who had been doing the killing, the man he believed was McClary.
Now Rafe was pinned down. He tried to crawl toward the horse, but a bullet ricocheted off the boulder, slicing along his thigh.
He sat upright behind the rock and looked down. The miner had taken refuge behind a tree; the man below him was nowhere to be seen.
Then he heard a shout, followed by another, and the sound of hoofbeats. A lot of them. The posse!
There was no time for explanations. He heard horses scrambling up the steep incline. More shouts, orders giving directions. He looked around. There was no escape except to run out in the open toward the berry bushes where his horse was tied. He knew he wouldn’t get five feet.
He had six bullets in the Colt. He pulled it out of the holster and aimed at the closest member of the posse, but he couldn’t pull the trigger.
He’d thought he could. He’d thought he could do anything to keep from going back to prison.
He could have easily killed the man below him, the man who had been killing the miners and framing him.
Probably he could even kill Randall. But he couldn’t kill an innocent rancher.
He thought about trying to escape and taking a bullet. But he wasn’t ready to die. He hadn’t finished his business with Randall. And there was another reason, one that he kept trying to push away.
Rafe threw out the Colt and slowly stood, both hands raised. His arm was bleeding badly, and the leg of his trousers was drenched in blood.
The men forming the posse approached cautiously, holding guns on him. One man, whose dull tin star pinned to a well-worn leather vest identified him as the sheriff, dismounted and walked cautiously toward Rafe. “The miner said there were two of you.”
“Did he also say one was firing at me?” Rafe said dryly. “I was trying to help that miner.”
“By sneaking around up here?” the sheriff said with obvious disbelief.
“Go down to that bush below,” Rafe said. “See for yourself. A man was hiding behind it.”
The sheriff shrugged. “An accomplice?”
“No, dammit: I saw him taking aim at the miner, and I fired my rifle in warning,” Rafe said, knowing his explanation was futile.
“And who are you?” the lawman asked.
Rafe hesitated. He was wearing his gloves. Once the posse saw his hand, he’d have no further chance to explain.
“Dammit,” he said. “The real gunman will get away. If he hasn’t already.”
The lawman stared at him for a long while, then looked at one of his men. “Go down and look around that bush. See if you can pick up any tracks. Take a couple of men with you.”
He turned his attention back to Rafe. “You didn’t tell me your name or what you’re doing here.”
Rafe lowered his hands. “Thinking about doing some mining, looking for a part of the stream that wasn’t taken, when I saw this fellow showing an undue interest in that miner,” he said.
“Is that so?” the sheriff asked. “Unbuckle that gunbelt and let me see your hands.”
Rafe felt his whole body tense. “Why?”
“A miner has calluses on his hand. Calluses different than those come from riding.”
“I haven’t mined much before.”
“I thought as much,” the man said. He leaned down, picked up Rate’s rifle, and checked the magazine. “One shot fired,” he said to the others. He turned back to Rafe. “Unbuckle that gunbelt.”
Rafe did as he was ordered. When the belt fell, the sheriff leaned down and picked it up, checking the number of bullets. He then picked up the pistol and spun the cylinder, finding all the bullets in place. “You could have fired at us.”
Rafe remained quiet, very aware of the three guns still leveled at him, at the hostile, disbelieving stares.
“Maybe you’re what you say you are. Maybe you’re not,” the lawman said. “But with all the robberies and killings around here, I’m not taking any chances.” He went to his horse and took handcuffs from the saddlebags. Rafe stiffened.
“I’m Russ Dewayne,” the lawman said, and Rafe remembered the name. Clint had liked him, thought him a fair man.
Dewayne set the handcuffs down on a rock and took off his bandanna. “Roll up your sleeve,” he said. “Let’s take a look at that arm.”
Rafe nodded and the sheriff turned his attention to the bleeding wound that had torn open the still-stitched ragged tear from the bear. “What in the hell happened to you?”
“A bear,” Rafe said.
His eyes narrowed. “You seem to have bad luck, Mr.…”
“Tyler.” It seemed useless to give another name, particularly with the brand that would soon be discovered.
The lawman said nothing else but tied the bandanna around the wound and then checked the leg. It had already stopped bleeding. “Just a crease, but it needs to be looked after. I’m taking you into Casey Springs. There’s a doctor there.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No. The miner down there claims you shot at him. And there’ve been a lot of robberies.
I’ll be real interested to see whether they’ll continue once you’re locked up.
” He picked up the handcuffs, then looked at the arm he’d just bandaged and hesitated.
Rafe realized what the lawman was thinking.
It would be damned difficult to get down the mountain with the wounds and the handcuffs.
“Where’s your horse?”
Rafe deliberately put a hand over the bandage as if it bothered him more than it did. “Up above.”
“How far?”
“Quarter of a mile.”
The lawman signaled one of his men to go find it. “Let’s go on down,” he said. “Talk to that miner.” He tucked the handcuffs in his belt. “After you … Mr. Tyler.”
Rafe carefully made his way down the slope, very conscious of the guns still on him. His leg hurt, and his arm felt like fire, but he was damned grateful to the man behind him. He had a chance, a slim one, to escape. Or convince the miner he hadn’t been trying to shoot at him.
They reached the bottom of the slope. The miner stood there, rifle in hand, glaring at him, taking several threatening steps toward him.
The lawman stopped in front of the miner. “Take it easy, Charlie. He says he was just trying to help you. You see anyone else up there?”
“Yes, sir. There was two of them. Saw the sun hit the barrel of their rifles. That’s how I hit him,” he said with satisfaction. “Figure they was together.”
“Then why in hell do you figure he was shooting at me?” Rafe said.
“Well, now, I didn’t see that,” the miner said. “I just knew the dust was jumping up around me.”
“That first bullet,” the lawman said. “Do you know where it came from?”
The miner squinted back up the slope. “I don’t know. I just heard it coming from my back and grabbed old Herman here,” he said, lifting his rifle. “Saw the sun on the rifle up there and shot. Then a bullet hit real close, and I dived for the woods and started shooting.”
“So it could have been like he said?”
“Ain’t likely,” the miner said. “Why would he just happen along at the right time? More likely he’s one of them that’s been killing miners up here.”
Rafe saw the trap closing just as it had years ago. No one was going to believe him, especially when they saw his hand, and that, he knew, was just a matter of time, maybe even minutes.
He schooled his face to indifference. He had one chance now, and that was to keep those handcuffs off, to make a run for it, once he was on his horse.
One chance in a million.
He thought to test his captors, to see how closely they were watching him. He walked over to a tree and leaned against it as if too weak to stand any longer. The wounds had kept his hands free thus far.
Two men followed him. They holstered their guns, but their eyes didn’t leave him. Neither did the sheriff’s, although he continued to speak to the miner in a low voice that Rafe couldn’t hear.
Two men rode in with his horse in tow, then the three men the sheriff had sent out earlier to trail the missing man. “There’s tracks, Russ, but whoever made them got plumb away.”
“No loyalty among thieves,” one said with a grin as he glanced at Rafe.
Rafe kept his gaze cool, but he was dying inside, piece by piece. He wouldn’t see her again. Shea. Pretty Shea. Randall’s daughter.
Randall was winning again.
The sheriff walked over to Rafe. “I’m sorry to do this with those wounds,” he said, “but I can’t take any chances. Hold out your wrists.”
Dewayne was standing in front of him, the irons in his hand.
Rafe felt a muscle in his cheek twitch, and he concentrated on controlling it. He wouldn’t show the bastards how familiar he was with irons. How much he flinched at the thought of them. Not again, dammit. Not again, something inside him screamed.
“Tyler.” It was Dewayne again, his voice insistent. “Your wrists.”
Slowly, Rafe lifted them. He felt the iron close over the left wrist and then start to enclose the right, but the glove got in the way. Dewayne pulled it down, stared, and Rafe heard the hiss of indrawn breath.
Dewayne’s hands hesitated and then snapped the lock shut on the right cuff. “God in heaven, I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said, pulling the glove back up over the brand as if he’d revealed someone’s nakedness.
Rafe shrugged. He’d known this was coming; still, he could barely contain the rage and frustration he felt. They would watch him like a hawk now, and with eyes that proclaimed him guilty.
But he wouldn’t let them know how much it hurt, how very much it hurt. He had tried to help the miner. Christ, he had helped. And now he most likely would hang for it because of the brand he carried. The brand burned on him because of Jack Randall.
His only satisfaction was that Clint and Ben and the others were safe, uninvolved. Somehow, he had to keep them that way. He might hang, but he would hang alone.
Rafe looked up at the sky, at the sun peaking over the mountains. He thought of the past few months. The beginning of his being able to feel again. To hope once more. Fool!
Shea. The image of her face flashed through his mind. It had been there, hovering in his consciousness ever since she’d left. He wondered where she was now.
One of the men brought his bay over to him and waited for him to mount. He clenched his teeth together as he stretched his arm for the saddlehorn and cascades of pain roared through him. Another man took the reins of his horse and started leading it across the creek and down toward Casey Springs.