“What are you talkin’ about?” Scratch asked from Bo’s other side.
Gustaffson laughed and shook his head. “Nothing. Folks in the part of the world where my family comes from tend to be a mite down in the mouth most of the time. I reckon you would be, too, if it was always cold and dark where you lived.”
“Maybe,” Scratch said. “I like Mexico, myself. Warm sun and good food and pretty little señoritas . . . It’s plumb peaceful down there.”
“Yeah, that’s not what you thought the last time we were there and all those hombres tried to kill us,” Bo pointed out.
“Well, everywhere has its drawbacks, I suppose.”
Something else occurred to Bo. Quietly, he said to Gustaffson, “Trooper Wilson did a good job taking care of those wounded men. Almost like he had medical training.”
Gustaffson looked around to make sure no one was riding very close to them before he said, “Yeah, Wilson’s good enough at patching up wounds that it’s almost like he was a surgeon back during the War Between the States. I’ll bet some of those doctors who wore Confederate gray changed their names and came west after the war. A cavalry troop would be mighty lucky to have a fella like that join up with them.”
“As long as some of the men who still hate Rebels didn’t know about it,” Bo said.
Gustaffson nodded. “Yeah. As long as that was true.”
Satisfied now, Bo let the subject drop. But it was good to know that they had a man with the knowledge and skill to treat the wounded with them.
Because there was no doubt in Bo’s mind that more blood would be spilled before this was over.
By late morning, the patrol reached a spot where several ridges came together. Craggy cliffs rose above them. A number of canyons cut into those cliffs, the walls leaning toward each other like the jaws of a trap about to snap shut.
Lieutenant Holbrook reined in and signaled for the patrol to halt. He turned to Bo and Scratch and said, “I suppose now it’ll become more difficult to follow the trail, since there are several ways they could have gone.”
“Yeah, they may have even split up,” Scratch said.
“That wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Bo added.
The silver-haired Texan swung down from his saddle. “Let me take a look around,” Scratch said.
For several minutes Scratch walked back and forth, studying the ground. Large stretches of it were too rocky to take a print, but there were other ways of following a trail. Finally, Scratch rejoined Bo and the lieutenant and said, “It looks like they stayed together and rode into that center canyon.”
He pointed out the opening in the cliffs he was talking about. It was twenty feet wide and ran straight for perhaps fifty yards before it took a sharp turn.
“Are you sure?” Holbrook asked. “I don’t see any tracks at all.”
“Horses can’t travel over rocky ground without turnin’ over some of the rocks, and their shoes leave little nicks and scratches on the rocks, too,” Scratch explained. “And there are places where there’s enough dirt to pick up part of a hoofprint. I can see enough sign to tell that a bunch of riders came through here in the past twelve hours, and there ain’t nothin’ pointin’ to any of those other canyons.” Scratch nodded. “That’s the way they went, all right. You can count on it.”
“And if Scratch says it, you can believe it,” Bo put in. “He’s a fine tracker. Always has been.”
“All right,” Holbrook said. “That means we go after them.”
“Hold on a minute,” Bo said. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Holbrook frowned at him. “What do you mean? We came out here to track down the Deadwood Devils, didn’t we? Who else could it have been that attacked us last night?”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t the Devils,” Bo replied. “I’m saying it might not be a good idea to follow them into that canyon. Can’t you see that it’s a perfect setting for another ambush?”
Scratch added, “They haven’t gone to any trouble to cover their trail, Lieutenant. It’s sorta like they want us to follow ’em.”
“Nonsense,” Holbrook said. “They were just in a hurry to get away once it became obvious that their ambush wasn’t going to work.”
“I don’t know,” Bo said. “Maybe they thought it would be easier just to lure you into a trap.”
Sergeant Gustaffson had listened to the conversation with great interest. Now he spoke up, saying, “Beggin’ your pardon, Lieutenant, but what these fellas are saying makes sense. If those outlaws really wanted to get away, they could have split up here and gone half a dozen different directions. Instead they stayed together and rode into that canyon.”
“Which is probably where their hideout is located,” Holbrook said with irritation and impatience in his voice. “You men don’t seem to understand. This is our chance to catch them all together and wipe them out. The best time to attack is when the enemy is concentrated in one spot. You’d understand that if you’d been trained in tactics like I have.”
Scratch and Gustaffson both looked like they were about to lose their tempers. Bo was more than a mite annoyed himself at Holbrook’s smug certainty that he was right. Keeping a tight rein on his own anger, Bo said, “Maybe you’d better let Scratch and me do a little scouting before you go charging in there, Lieutenant. That’s why you brought us along, isn’t it?”
Holbrook shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t want to waste this opportunity, though. I’ll give you a few minutes to reconnoiter in that canyon, but then I’m leading my men in pursuit of the enemy.”
“Just wait until we get back,” Bo suggested.
“And if you hear shots, don’t come chargin’ in there,” Scratch added. “We’ll get back to you if we can. If we can’t, then you’ll know it was a trap and we’ve sprung it.”
“Go ahead,” Holbrook said. Bo noted that the lieutenant didn’t actually promise to go along with what they had asked, and that left him with an uneasy feeling as Scratch mounted up and the two of them rode toward the dark cleft.
“I knew no good would come from gettin’ mixed up with some greenhorn glory hound,” Scratch muttered as they approached the canyon mouth.
“Maybe he’ll wait,” Bo said.
“You really think so?”
“Well, it depends on whether or not he listens to Olaf.”
“He ain’t showed no signs of it so far,” Scratch pointed out.
“Yeah, I know,” Bo said, and he couldn’t keep a note of worry out of his voice.
The Texans drew their Winchesters and rested them across the saddles as they reached the mouth of the canyon. The wind that whistled down the cleft was bone chilling. Steep, rocky walls rose fifty or sixty feet on both sides of them, and the dark, overcast day meant that a thick gloom clogged the canyon as they proceeded into it. They rode side by side, Bo on the right and Scratch on the left, and each of them watched the rimrock on his side, alert for any sign of an ambush. There were no sounds except the slow, steady hoofbeats of their horses.
They reached the first bend and rode around it. Now they could see another hundred yards or so ahead of them. The canyon floor was empty except for some boulders and stunted bushes here and there along the base of the walls.
“This cut’s liable to zigzag along for a mile or more, without ever runnin’ straight for more’n a hundred yards at a time,” Scratch said. “And then it might run smack-dab into a dead end.”
Bo knew his friend was right. Some geological upheaval in the dim, distant past had created this canyon, possibly at the same time the rest of the Black Hills had risen. He had read about such things in books, and he had seen the results many times with his own eyes.
That cataclysm had left a number of large rocks broken and perched on the rims of both sides of the canyon. Bo eyed them warily as he and Scratch rode past.