"You don't get lonely up here?"
"Naw. There's a few of us old mountain men still prowling these peaks. We get together once in a while to swap tales and catch up."
"I think I understand," Frank told him. "I've got a dog. I call him Dog. He's better company than most humans. I've had him for quite a spell."
"Same goes for Martha," Tin Pan said, glancing into the pines where his mule and the horses were tied. "She's right decent company, when she ain't in the mood to kick me if I don't get the packsaddle on just right."
Frank chuckled. "I want you to know I'm grateful for you helping me with those gunmen."
Tin Pan gave him a steady gaze. "You're takin' on too much, Morgan, tryin' to go after eleven more of 'em all by your lonesome."
"I don't have much of a choice. They're holding my son hostage. I can't turn my back on it."
"Maybe you do have a choice," Tin Pan said after he gave it some thought.
"How's that?"
"I might just throw in with you to help get that boy of yours away from Ned Pine. I ain't no gunfighter, but I can damn sure shoot a rifle. If I find a spot on the rim of that canyon, I can take a few of 'em down with my Sharps."
"It isn't your fight," Franks said. "But I'm grateful for the offer anyhow."
"I've been in fights that wasn't mine before," Tin Pan declared. "Let me study on it some. I'll let you know in the morning what I've decided to do. I'd have to ask Martha about it. She don't like loud noises, like guns."
* * * *
Frank's eyes blinked open. The cabin was dark. Was it fate that had led him to Buck Waite and his beautiful daughter while he was on yet another manhunt?
It was hard to figure why unexpected friends showed up just when he needed them.
--------
*Eighteen*
Conrad Browning began to whimper as cold winds whipped past his horse, swirling around the two men escorting him toward higher peaks.
"I'm freezing," he said, his teeth rattling, as darkness blanketed the mountains.
Cletus Huling gave the boy a steely look as their horses plodded up a switchback toward Glenwood Springs, and the valley beyond.
"You want me give this baby something to complain about?" Diego Ponce said, pulling a foot-long bowie knife from his stovepipe boot, snowflakes dusting his sombrero and his dark black beard.
"Yeah. Shut the bastard up," Cletus said, reining his horse around a knot of pinyon pines. "I'm tired of listenin' to the son of a bitch bellyache."
With one sudden motion Diego grabbed a fistful of Conrad's hair and, jerking him sideways out of the saddle, sliced off the tip of his left ear.
Blood poured over Conrad's woolen greatcoat as he let out a piercing yell that echoed from the slopes around them, startling the horses.
Cletus, leading the way to Ghost Valley, turned back in the saddle to watch the pain on Conrad's face.
Diego laughed, tossing the piece of the boy's ear into a snowdrift. "Now he have something to cry about," Diego said, wiping the blood from his knife on one leg of his badly worn leather chaps.
Blood seeped down Conrad's cheek as he held his palm to the wound. "My father will get you for this!" he cried, slumping over in the saddle.
"That ol' man of yours don't give a damn what happens to you," Cletus said. "He never did come up with the money Ned an' Victor wanted from him. Only he'd better bring the money this time or you're a dead son of a bitch."
"Dad came after me," Conrad said, nursing his missing ear tip with a handkerchief he removed from an inside pocket of his snow-laden coat.
"Morgan never did get to Ned," Cletus reminded the kid. "He's way past his prime. He got too old to mess with the likes of Victor an' Ned. At least that's what everybody says about Frank."
"You'll see," Conrad whimpered, tears brimming in his eyes as their horses climbed higher into the Rockies. "My dad will make you sorry for what you've done to me. Both of you will be dead."
"You want me kill this loudmouth little _bastardo?"_ Diego asked.
"Naw. Let him bleed an' let him cry as loud as he wants," Cletus replied. "Ned promised us a ten-thousand-dollar share of the ransom he's gonna get from Morgan, an' we're damn sure gonna collect it."
Diego frowned a moment. "Does this Morgan have that kind of money?"
"He's got plenty, according to Ned. We ain't gonna take no chance by killin' the boy."
Diego put his knife away. "If he make more noise I cut off his other ear. Then he don't hear so goddamn good when he make all this noise."
"Suits the hell outta me," Cletus replied. "Far as I know he's worth the same to us with or without ears. All we gotta do is find this place Ned called Ghost Valley, an' I've got us a map to it."
"How come we don't just shoot this worthless little piece of cow shit?"
"We need to keep him alive so his daddy will see he's okay," Cletus replied. "That's how we get the ten thousand, accordin' to what Ned told me."
"I say we kill him."
Cletus glanced up at the mountains looming before them. "I reckon that's why you're flat broke, Diego. You leave the thinkin' part to me."
Diego went into a sulk.
Conrad kept the handkerchief against his ear as their horses began a steeper climb.
Once, Diego glanced over his shoulder at their back trail.
"I do not see nothing, Senyor," he said.
Cletus turned up the collar on his mackinaw and kept on riding, shivering, wishing they'd brought along more whiskey. There had been plenty of it for sale at Trinidad. All they had between them was a half pint of red-eye.
* * * *
"Shut up!" Diego demanded, sending a boot crashing into Conrad's skull.
The boy screamed, toppling over on his back after the savage blow.
"Take it easy on the little bastard," Cletus warned. "We got us a ten-thousand-dollar package there if you don't kill him."
"It is _muy frio,"_ Diego said, shuddering. "I don't like to listen to this boy complain."
"Tie somethin' over his damn mouth," Cletus said while he was tying his horse in a clump of trees. "We're gonna make us some coffee so my insides don't freeze. Bring that bottle so we can put a little bite in it."
_"Por favor, senyor,"_ Diego said, "but the bottle is almost gone."
Cletus whirled toward his Mexican companion." You been drinkin' it this whole time?"
"It was cold, Senyor."
Cletus jerked out his revolver. "You got any idea how cold it's gonna be if you're dead, Meskin?"
Diego glowered. "You would not shoot me."
"I goddamn sure will if that pint is empty. Fetch it for me now!"
"But there is only a little bit left, _jefe."_
"If there ain't enough to keep me warm, you're a dead son of a bitch, Diego. I paid for that pint with my own goddamn hard money."
"Maybeso there are a few swallows, Senyor."
"There'd damn sure better be more'n that, you rotten Meskin bastard."
Diego turned toward his horse to reach into his saddlebags. A shot rang out.
Diego Ponce slumped to the snow on his knees with a dark stain blackening his coat. His horse snorted and bounded away in the snow, trailing its reins.