Rainey blew out his breath in a noisy sigh and started muttering about highhanded lawmen who killed a fella’s partner and then didn’t give a damn about whether or not a gent got blood poisoning from the bullet wound that the damned highhanded lawman had been responsible for in the first place. Longarm paid no attention to the complaints. Instead he gestured with the barrel of the Winchester in his hands and said, “Go over there to that post oak tree.”
“What for?” Rainey asked with a suspicious frown.
“Just do it.”
The outlaw walked slowly to the tree Longarm had indicated, then said, “All right, I’m here. Now what?”
“Hug it.”
Rainey’s frown deepened as he pulled his head back to stare at Longarm. “What?”
“I said hug the tree.”
“I’m an outlaw, damn it!” Rainey burst out. “I don’t go around huggin’ trees!”
“You do now,” Longarm said calmly. He lifted the barrel of the rifle a little for emphasis.
Rainey rolled his eyes, gritted his teeth, then faced the tree and threw his arms around it. The trunk of the post oak was slender enough so that his arms easily encircled it.
“That’s good,” Longarm said. “Now, stay just like that for-“
Rainey had his back to Longarm now and couldn’t see the lawman. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked anxiously as he twisted his neck and tried to look back over his shoulder. “What in blazes are you up to, Long?”
Without answering, Longarm walked around the tree and reached underneath his coat. He brought out a pair of handcuffs. Sometimes he kept the cuffs in his saddlebags, but today he’d had them on him, which was another stroke of luck. Otherwise the gray would have carried them off too when he spooked and ran away.
“Stick your arms out,” Longarm instructed.
Rainey saw the handcuffs, and his eyes widened as he said, “Aw, hell, Deputy, you can’t-“
Longarm lifted the Winchester again.
Rainey bit back a mouthful of profanity and extended his arms. Longarm clapped the cuffs on him with one smooth, practiced movement. Rainey couldn’t go anywhere now unless he figured out a way to uproot that post oak and carry it along with him, which Longarm didn’t think was very likely. Longarm took a deep breath. He could relax again now, at least for a little while.
“I’ll start that bacon frying,” he said as he went back toward the horses.
“You could’ve let me take a leak first before you cuffed me to this damn tree,” Rainey said.
“Well, I guess having to wait will keep your mind off any mischief you might be thinking about,” Longarm replied with a grin.
Over the next few minutes, he ignored Rainey’s near-constant complaining and gathered enough small, fallen branches from underneath the trees to make a nice fire in the clearing. Some of the leaves had already fallen with the onset of autumn, and they made good kindling. Longarm had the fire going in no time. He fetched the frying pan from Lloyd’s saddlebags and the bacon and already cooked biscuits from Rainey’s. Longarm remembered an old trail cook he’d met who claimed his biscuits were the hardest substance known to man, but these would run the old-timer’s a close second. They would soften up a mite once they were soaked in some bacon grease, though.
Longarm was kneeling beside the frying pan, listening to the crackle of the bacon and whistling an old cavalry tune about a big black charger and a little white mare, when out of the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement downstream. Turning his head to look more closely, he saw the gray gelding he had rented from the stable in Weatherford. The horse was about two hundred yards away, and had emerged from the woods to drink from the stream.
“Well, what do you know?” Longarm said to himself. He stood up and called to his prisoner, “I got to go do something, Rainey. You stay right there.”
“Where the hell do you think I’d be going?” the outlaw asked bitterly.
Longarm didn’t bother answering. He started walking along the riverbank, moving slowly and on foot so he wouldn’t spook the gray again. As the trees grew closer to the edge of the bank, he had to move down into the streambed itself, which was dry along here. The nearest channel of the Brazos was a good fifty yards away. Longarm remembered too late that he’d left the bacon on the fire. It would probably be cooked to a black crisp by the time he got back with the horse, but that couldn’t be helped. He could always fry up more bacon. Recovering his saddle and rig was more important.
A bend of the river took him out of sight of Rainey. The Brazos twisted again a little farther downstream, where the gray was still drinking. Once Longarm reached that spot, he would be able to look back upstream and see the place where he had camped with his prisoner. He wasn’t worried about Rainey going anywhere, though. Not with his arms around that tree and the handcuffs on his wrists.
Longarm drew steadily closer to the horse. The gray looked up and saw him coming, but didn’t seem particularly upset by the sight. That was good, Longarm thought. The horse had settled down since its flight earlier, and that would make it easier to catch. He moved a few steps closer and lifted a hand, reaching out to the gray as he spoke softly and quietly to it, the calming words of a veteran rider who had settled down many a mount. Longarm’s fingers were almost touching the reins.
That was when Mitch Rainey started to scream.
Longarm’s head jerked around as the shrieks cut through the air. The horse let out a shrill whinny and danced away from him. Longarm said, “Damn!” and lunged after the gray, reaching for the reins. He was too late. The gelding whirled around and raced off into the trees.
Longarm hesitated, torn between going after the horse and finding out what was wrong with Rainey. The prisoner was still screaming—harsh, terrible sounds, as if he was being tortured.
With another curse, Longarm turned and looked upstream. He saw Rainey, still cuffed to the tree, and there was movement beyond the outlaw. The noontime shadows were thick underneath the oaks, so Longarm couldn’t tell what was up there that had spooked Rainey so badly. He didn’t know if there were any bears left in this part of the country, but there were certainly still plenty of wolves around. Maybe some old lobo had decided that a man cuffed to a tree made a tempting target.
“Hold on, Rainey, I’m coming!” Longarm shouted as he broke into a run toward the clearing. The sandy streambed made for slow going, though, and it seemed to tug hard at his stovepipe cavalry boots with every step he took. As he ran, he drew his pistol and fired it once into the air, hoping the shot might scare off whatever was tormenting Rainey.
The outlaw’s cries were fading now, not from any lack of effort on his part, but simply because he had screamed so long and so loud that his throat had to be completely raw by now. He was still making terrified little wheezing noises when Longarm reached him a few moments later.
Longarm peered into the grove of trees, searching intently for whatever had set Rainey to screaming. He didn’t see a blessed thing that looked out of the ordinary. Whatever Rainey had spotted up here earlier was gone now. Longarm holstered his gun and looked Rainey over, thinking that maybe the outlaw had been attacked. Other than the dried blood from the bullet crease on his hip, however, there was no sign that Rainey was hurt.
Rainey’s eyes were open about as far as humanly possible, and under his tan, his features had an ashen pallor. He kept opening and closing his mouth and uttering small sounds that made no sense. Longarm had heard of people being scared out of their wits before, but Mitch Rainey was probably the only person he’d ever seen who really matched that description.
“What happened here, Rainey?” demanded Longarm. “Why’d you start yelling your fool head off?”
Rainey didn’t answer him, didn’t even look at him. Instead, Rainey’s gaze was still fixed on the spot where Longarm thought he’d seen something moving.