"How come they hang around here?" Cletus asked.
"Nobody knows. We asked folks down in Glenwood Springs. They tell stories about 'em."
"What kind of stories?"
Ned looked down at his boots a moment. "About how they're called the Old Ones, the Ones Who Came Before. Some of the old-timers around here claim they're the Anasazi, the Injuns who built all them old mud houses up on the bluffs."
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Cletus asked him.
Ned seemed reluctant to answer right at first. "They've all been dead for hundreds of years, Cletus, or so the locals tell it."
"So that's where them ghost stories come from?"
"Most likely."
Buster spoke. "The sumbitch shootin' at me an' Coy and Bud wasn't no ghost. Leastways, the bullets, was real enough to knock 'em off their horses."
"It was Morgan," Cletus said, sounding sure of it.
"That's the way I've got it figured," Buster answered in a faraway voice.
Cletus walked over to the door and opened it a crack. For a time he stared out at the snowy night.
"What are you doin', Cletus?" Ned asked.
Cletus didn't answer until he closed the door. "I may not wait for him to come to us."
"What?" Victor seemed surprised.
"I may go after him myself."
"That'd be plumb crazy," Buster said. "He's just waitin' up there on that rim for one of us to try it."
"Wait until it gets light," Ned suggested. "That way, you can see his tracks."
"I ain't much on waitin'," Cletus replied, "not when I'm owed ten thousand dollars."
"But you won't know where to look," Ned said.
Cletus shook his head. "When you're huntin' a man, it's easy to know where to look."
Victor shrugged. "Suit yourself on it, Cletus, only be sure to bring us our part of the money if you find him."
"Are you sayin' I'd double-cross you, Vic?"
"No. Didn't mean that at all."
Ned went to the door and peered out. "It's stopped snowin', looks like. A man would be easier to find now."
Buster shuffled off to a corner of the fireplace. "You'd best have eyes in the back of your head," he said. "Morgan, or whoever it was, can see like a cat at night."
"I was born with eyes in the back of my head," Cletus said quietly, shouldering into his mackinaw. "That's how come I'm still alive."
"You want us to send some of the boys with you, Cletus?" Victor asked.
"Hell, no. They'd only be in the way."
"Find out where Morgan's hidin'," Ned suggested. "Then come get the rest of us an' we'll kill him an' sack up all that damn money."
Cletus picked up his rifle. "I'll let you know if I find him."
"And the money," Victor said, glancing at the Browning boy tied to a chair.
Cletus moved to the door and prepared to go outside. "One thing don't figure," he said thoughtfully.
"What's that?" Ned asked.
"If Morgan brought all that money up here to get his son back, then how come he ain't just sent word to you that he's ready to pay?"
Ned and Victor gave each other questioning looks. Ned spoke first. "We ain't set eyes on him yet."
Cletus wasn't convinced. "It don't sound to me like he intends to pay that ransom at all."
"Then why the hell is he here?" Victor asked.
"To kill every last one of you," Cletus replied, opening the door carefully. "By the way he's been actin' since I got here, it don't appear he's in no money-payin' mood."
--------
*Twenty-five*
Buck came back to the cabin an hour before dawn. He came through the door soundlessly while Frank was drinking another cup of whiskey and bark tea. Karen sat near him in a hide-bottom chair.
"I got two of 'em," Buck said, leaning his buffalo gun in a corner. "They was followin' the smell of our smoke from this here fireplace."
"Two?" Frank asked, clearing his head to hear what the old man had to say.
"One of 'em got away. It was hard to see in that forest down yonder, but I don't figure it'll be long before more of 'em start looking' for us up here."
Frank tossed the wool blanket off his shoulders, flexing his bad arm. "Hand me my shirt, Karen," he said. "I think I can pull on my boots."
"You ain't strong enough, Morgan," Buck said.
"I reckon I'm about to find out."
"Don't do it, Frank," Karen pleaded.
"I've got no choice. Pine and Vanbergen know I'm here and they're sending men after me now."
Steadying himself, he put his cup of tea and whiskey on the dirt floor and pushed himself upright. "Hand me my shirt," he said again.
"I can handle 'em, if they don't come all at once," Buck said.
"It's not your responsibility ... it's mine," Frank said, taking the flannel shirt Karen offered him. "It's me they want, and the ransom money they think I'm carrying."
"You didn't bring any ransom money, did you?" Karen asked him.
He shook his head. "Nope. Just a load of lead for what they've done. I intend to pay them in heavy metal, but not the kind they're expecting."
Buck sighed. "I'll go out an' saddle your horse. It'll be light soon."
"I'd be obliged," Frank told him, buttoning the front of his shirt, ignoring the pain, then stepping into one stovepipe boot, and then the other.
" This is crazy," Karen said, watching Frank struggle to get dressed.
"Maybe," Frank replied. "Now if you'll hand me my coat and that Winchester in the corner. There's a box of shells in my saddlebags."
"And what if I won't?" Karen asked, folding her arms across her chest.
Frank pretended he didn't hear her. "I may have to have you help me strap on my gunbelt."
Dog whimpered softly, sensing his master's pain, coming over to him to lick the back of his hand.
"You can go, Dog," he said gruffly. "Two sets of eyes are better than one."
Dog trotted over to the door as soon as Buck went out to saddle the bay.
"Please don't do this, Frank," Karen said. "To tell the truth, I've gotten mighty fond of you."
"This is business, Karen. Dirty business, and not of my own making. My only son is down in that valley now. What kind of father would I be if I didn't go after him?"
"But you're hurt bad."
"I've been hurt this badly before. It takes a helluva lot more than one bullet to kill me ... if it don't go in at the right place."
"You're hardheaded, Frank Morgan."
He eased into his mackinaw. "So I've been told. My ma used to tell me the same thing nearly every day. Now help me strap on that gunbelt."
"I'll never understand men," Karen said, moving over to the bed to get his Colt.
Frank grinned in spite of the throbbing ache in his left shoulder. "I never met a woman who did," he told her gently while she reached around him to buckle on his cartridge belt just below the top of his denims.
"Thanks," he said softly, and for reasons he couldn't explain at the time, he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips.
She returned his kiss and stepped back, and now there was a trace of a smile on her face. "That was nice, Frank. You come back so we can do that again."
"I have every intention of coming back."
"Just make sure you do."