"What happened ... to Morgan's kid?"
"Ned had a gun to his head," Rich recalled.
"That's the ... only way it's gonna stop," Jerry moaned as he put a hand over the deep knife wound between his ribs. "Ned's gotta let that boy go."
"Ned's gone crazy for revenge. He won't stop until he kills Morgan."
"Morgan ... will ... kill him first," Jerry assured them. "I need a drink of whiskey. Anything."
"We're boilin' old coffee grounds," Rich said. "There ain't no whiskey. Ned and the others took it all with them when we pulled out of here."
"Water," Jerry whispered, his ice-clad eyelids batting as if he was losing consciousness. "Gimme some water. Morgan's gonna kill us all unless Ned ... lets that boy go."
"You know Ned," Cabot said, pouring a cup of weak coffee for Jerry, steaming rising from the rusted tin cup. "He won't listen to reason."
"I'm gonna die ... way up here in Colorado," Jerry said as his eyes closed. "I sure as hell wish I was home where I could see my mama one more time...."
Jerry's chest stopped moving.
"Don't waste that coffee," Rich said. "Jerry's on his way back home now."
Cabot stared into the cup. "This is not coffee, _mon ami._ It is only warm water with a little color in it."
* * * *
Ned paced back and forth as a fire burned under a rocky ledge in the bend of a dry streambed.
"Where the hell is Rich and Cabot?" he asked, glancing once at Conrad, bound hand and foot beneath the outcrop where the fire flickered. It was dark, and still snowing, but the snowfall had let up some.
"They ain't comin'," Lyle said.
"What the hell do you mean, they ain't coming?" Ned barked with his jaw set hard.
"Morgan got to 'em," Slade said from his lookout point on top of the ledge. "They'd have been here by now if they were able."
"Slade's right," Bud said, his Winchester resting on his shoulder. "Some way or another, Frank Morgan slipped up behind 'em and got 'em both."
"Bullshit!" Ned cried. "Morgan is an old man, too old to be a the gunman. He doesn't have it in him to slip up behind Rich and Cabot."
"I figure he got Jerry and Roger," Slade went on without raising his voice. "We know he shot Mack and Don and Jeff and Scott back at the cabin. Poor ol' Curtis never had a chance either. Then you've got to wonder what happened to Sam and Buster and Tony back on the trail when they went to check on Charlie."
Lyle grunted. "Morgan must be slick," he said, casting a wary glance around their camp. "I wish we'd never gotten into this mess. That kid over yonder ain't worth no big bunch of dollars to nobody."
"He ain't worth a plug nickel to me," Billy said as he added wood to the fire. "I say we kill the little bastard an' get clear of this cold country."
Ned turned on his men. "We're not leaving until Frank Morgan is dead!" he yelled.
Lyle gave Ned a look. "Who's gonna kill him, Ned? We ain't had much luck tryin' it so far."
"We'll join up with Victor at Gypsum Gap and hunt him down like a dog," Ned replied.
Slade shrugged. "Bein' outnumbered don't seem to bother Morgan all that much."
"Are you taking Morgan's side?" Ned asked.
"I'm not takin' any side but my own. My main purpose now is to stay alive."
"Me too," Billy added.
"Same goes for me," Lyle muttered. "This Morgan feller is a handful."
"Are you boys yellow?" Ned demanded.
"Nope," Lyle was the first to say. "Just smart. If a man is a manhunter by profession, he's usually mighty damn good at it if he lives very long."
"I never met a man who didn't make a mistake," Ned said, coming back to the fire to warm his hands.
"So far," Slade said quietly, "Morgan hasn't made very many mistakes."
"One of you saddle a horse and ride back down the trail to see if you can find Rich and Cabot," Ned ordered, his patience worn thin.
"I'm not going," Slade said. "That's exactly what a man like Morgan will want us to do."
"What the hell do you mean?" Ned inquired, knocking snowflakes from the brim of his hat.
"He wants us to split up, so he can take us down a few at a time."
"Slade's right," Lyle said.
"We oughta stay together," Billy chimed in. "At least until we join up with Vic an' his boys."
"Morgan!" Ned spat, pacing again. "That son of a bitch is a dead man when I get him in my sights."
"That'll be the trouble," Lyle offered. "A man like Morgan don't let you get him in your gunsights all that often, an' when he does, there's usually a reason."
"He'll come after us tonight," Billy said, glancing around at forest shadows. "He's liable to kill us in our bedrolls if we ain't careful."
"I'm not goin' to sleep tonight," Slade said.
"Why's that?" Ned asked.
Slade grinned. "I want to make damn sure I see the sun come up tomorrow mornin'."
Ned was fuming now. Even his two best gunmen, Lyle and Slade, showed signs of fear.
"You ride back a ways, Billy," Ned said. "Just a mile or two."
"I won't do it, Ned." Billy was certain it was a death sentence.
"Are you disobeying a direct order from me?" Ned demanded as he opened his coat.
"Yessir I am," Billy replied. "If Morgan's back there, he'll kill me from ambush someplace."
Ned snaked his Colt from a holster. He aimed for Billy's stomach. "Get on one of those horses and ride southwest to see if you can find Rich and Cabot. If you don't, I'll damn sure kill you myself."
Billy's eyes rounded. "You'd shoot me down for not goin' back?"
"I damn sure will. Get mounted."
Billy backed away from the fire with his palms spread wide. "You let this Morgan feller get stuck in your craw, Ned. I never seen you like this."
"Get on that goddamn horse. See if you can find their tracks."
Billy turned his back on Ned and trudged off to the picket ropes.
"You may have just gotten that boy killed," Slade said tonelessly.
* * * *
Bud felt something pierce his chest, pinning him to the ground. The last thing he saw before his eyes batted shut was the Indian, holding a bow with a quivering bowstring.
Was the Indian Morgan's sidekick? he wondered.
But the Indian, who called himself Anasazi, wasn't carrying a rifle.
Bud felt his body rising off the ground, spinning in lazy circles.
"What the hell is goin' on?" he mumbled, then fell silent.
* * * *
A slender figure dressed in deerskin leggings and a deerskin shirt bent over Bud, jerking his arrow from Bud's rib cage with one savage pull.
"Sleep, white-eyes," he said, turning away quickly with the bloody arrow in his fist.
He mounted a piebald pony and disappeared into the pine forest as dawn brightened the eastern horizon.
--------
*Twenty-seven*
"Show me where you found the three men," Frank said, clinging to his saddle horn, shivering inside his coat from the fever from his wound and the below-freezing temperatures at this high elevation.
"It's a mile or so," Buck said. "Can you stay on your horse that long?"
"Yeah," Frank whispered, thinking about Conrad and this second attempt by Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen to hold him for ransom. "I can sit this saddle for a spell." Clouds of swirling steam came out of his mouth when he spoke even though his lips were pressed tightly together, a mark of the anger welling inside him.