Chapter Seven
Roscoe Carver spit on the ground and then wiped tobacco juice from his dirty brown beard. He and his gang were almost to the Oklahoma Territory.
“What’s the word?” he growled at a tired rider that had just ridden up from Caldwell.
“Ain’t no one seen hide nor hair of Bonnie, Boss,” Harry Pearson, a young kid of nineteen, answered. “I checked all the spreads.”
Maybe Bonnie did head north the way Jack is thinking. The spreads I’m in charge of know better than to cross me.
Roscoe looked over at Jack Yelters. He was on the scrawny side, but real smart-like.
He’d been raised up by the Apache before running off.
His Apache ma had been raped by a white man—a man Jack never knew and hadn’t been able to catch up to and kill.
Jack had the look of a white man himself, but his blood had wild Apache riders thundering through it.
“She’s gone north,” Jack told Roscoe.
“You sure of that, Jack?”
“You heard that drifter we came across. Said he crossed a cattle drive.”
“Don’t mean Bonnie is on the drive!” Roscoe spit again.
Bonnie was my first big prize. She’s my trophy. I expect she thinks I’m gonna kill her this time around. I’m tempted, but I won’t. I’ll beat her real good and bring her back. Lucien is after my gang. Has been for some time. Time is gonna come when we’re gonna draw guns on each other.
Lucien was eyeing the river with vicious eyes.
He was only twenty-five, but bloodier than a wild bullet—and real smart, too.
He was also a handsome fella who knew how to charm the ladies.
Wavy blond hair and deep green eyes always did the trick.
But Roscoe knew the boy’s soul was dark, just like his own soul.
“I say we ride back down to Caldwell. Ain’t no sense in us being up this far, Roscoe,” Lucien fussed. “Word is, Ace Carter is running a small herd up to Wichita for Henry Ashford—about seventy head or so. They’re probably halfway up the trail.”
“I heard Ace Carter is a tough ride,” Matt Cullers added. He was young like Lucien and determined to help his friend take over someday.
Roscoe spit again. Yeah, he’d heard about Ace. Just some trail hound who runs herds. I heard he killed a few guns. Ain’t no worry to me. Neither is Henry Ashford. I ain’t interested in his spread. Army buys beef from him. Ain’t wanting to stir up that hornet’s nest.
Deep in his gut, Roscoe felt like he was losing his nerve.
He was thirty-eight years old, but he’d been riding bloody since he was fourteen.
The years were catching up with him. His beard was already starting to gray.
At times, his body felt plumb worn down, and he found himself unable to ride saddle on the trail as hard as he used to do.
Doc Wilford told me my back ain’t that good no more ever since my horse threw me after coming up on that rattler. Don’t matter—I’m still in charge! I’m gonna hunt Bonnie down and beat her real good, then get back to the ranch and show these boys I’m still the head gun.
“Who cares about Ace Carter?” he snapped at Matt. “Boy, you’re afraid of your own shadow!” He whipped out a deadly gun with an ugly black handle.
Before Matt could move, Roscoe fired off a single bullet that nipped his right ear. He yelled out in pain.
“Just nicked you, boy. Could have killed you!” Roscoe put his gun away and eyed the rest of his men. Besides Jack, Lucien, and Matt, there were three older men who were faithful to him. Those fellas were pushing more toward Lucien than him. “Jim, Andy, Ed—you fellas with me, or what?”
“Always have been, Roscoe,” Ed Hall answered. He was a large man who’d spent a good many years working as a bounty hunter. His appearance was sickening—like a buffalo infected with a fatal disease.
Jim and Andy Ingles were brothers, hired guns that had done time in three different prisons. They were hard in sight and meaner than kicked rattlers. Neither man said much. Just a nod here and there.
Jim nodded his head to show he was with Roscoe. Andy did the same.
“You best listen to me, all of you!” Roscoe kept his hand on his gun while locking eyes with Lucien. “I’m in charge. Any one of you thinks otherwise, you best draw on me here and now!”
He gave Lucien time to think the matter over as Matt tended to his bleeding ear.
Only… Roscoe felt a tad uneasy. What if Lucien does go for his gun? Is he faster?
Such thoughts would never have entered his mind when he was younger. Being thrown from his horse… hurting his back… having Bonnie run off… lots of things were going wrong.
Lucien didn’t go for his gun, a Navy revolver that he’d bought in Fort Worth—a gun Roscoe had come to despise.
“Jack thinks we need to ride north. We’re riding north! Harry, get back to Caldwell and keep an eye out—now.”
Harry took off like lightning.
Jack leaned forward on his saddle. “Roscoe, if Bonnie is riding with Ace Carter, we might be in good standing.”
“How do you figure?”
“Why go back to the ranch empty-handed?” Jack asked. “We can take the herd. You know the Mexicans always put up a good fight. We lost three guns in our last run down to Mexico.”
“The Mexicans only put up a fight when they’re drunk.” Roscoe scowled. “Half of ’em can’t shoot the backside of a barn. Fact is, I can’t hire a decent gun no more!”
“Law is becoming a real problem. You saw Bryant get hanged last month over in Fairview,” Jack told Roscoe, but not in a troubled voice.
“Texas Rangers hunted him down, the blasted fool,” Roscoe growled. “He swung real bad.”
Roscoe had watched the man, one he’d known for years, meet his end at the end of a rope.
Bonnie had been with him. He’d tried not to show that the hanging had bothered him, but deep down, it had.
He feared his own end would come with a rope around his neck.
Hangings were bad. A man’s arms and hands were tied behind his back real good-like.
Then, a noose was slipped down over his neck.
From that moment forward, it was only a matter of time before death came.
Roscoe had lain awake many a night, wondering what it felt like to be hanged.
He knew you were strangled to death. Obviously, panic set in when he saw the condemned kicking their legs like mad, trying to find solid ground.
A man’s body weight worked against him, pulling him down so hard, all of his air was cut off.
Did the world go dark? Some fellas had black sacks out over their heads—others refused. Did it hurt? Was a fella even aware of what was happening to him?
Roscoe thought so.
And then… when death came… the body just swung back and forth.
Some twisted around and around on the rope.
Folks would stare for a minute, then wander off.
A hanging was a hanging. Still, Roscoe feared being hanged.
Such a death would be humiliating. He was the boss, after all—everyone feared and obeyed him.
“We don’t need to take any chances stealing cattle this far up,” Lucien cut in. “Fort Arrow ain’t too far off. Army rides hard.”
“Fort Arrow is just a drop of spit, boy,” Jack told Lucien. “Nothing there but a few bored soldiers. It’s Fort Reno you got to worry about. If we can hit the herd before they get up that far, we’ll be in the good.”
Roscoe wasn’t so sure about hitting Henry’s herd. He preferred to do his dealings further south. But if he backed down, it would seem like he was turning yellow. Jack had presented a dangerous proposition, one that demanded guts and hard riding.
“We’ll see how the trail rides, Jack. I want to find Bonnie before I think about running cattle.”
“Roscoe, you heard that drifter. He said one of the hands he saw looked real funny,” Jack pointed out.
“Yeah, I heard.” Roscoe spit again.
Maybe Bonnie got herself a disguise and is pretending to be a man. She’s a real clever gal—and tough, too. Always liked that about her. But she ain’t gonna fool nobody trying to be a man. She’s gotta know that.
Roscoe had to wonder. Bonnie was real slippery, and the woman didn’t mind taking insane chances when she was on the run.
Once, she’d lowered herself down into a well and stayed there two whole days before Jack tracked her down.
The well had been mostly mud by then, but Roscoe had found Bonnie standing at the bottom with a rifle, threatening to shoot anyone who tried to get at her. He’d had to wait her out.
“All right, we’ll keep following the trail and see what happens.”
“What about Dallas?” Jack asked. “That old man up and quit on you in a bad way, then Bonnie ran off.”
Roscoe gritted his teeth. Hiring Dallas had been a mistake. The old man had stood up to him real good before riding off. “That old-timer ain’t had no dealings with Bonnie, Jack.”
“Can’t be too sure.” Jack checked his horse and then nodded north. “We best get going. Storm is moving in. Need to find a place to camp for the night.”
Roscoe agreed.
A half hour later, he rode up on an old campsite. Roscoe kicked at some burned wood and had a good look around. He didn’t find anything important, though—only dried-up manure.