“All right,” she said, drawing the animal up for a short breather and then jumping down to hand her reins to a very disheveled-looking Sophie. “Hang onto my horse while I scoot up on top of that rock and see if it really was the Kane brothers and that crowd following us.”
“I hope this was all unnecessary,” Sophie said. “I hope that no one is following us, or that it’s just someone heading over the mountains for reasons that haven’t a thing to do with us or Ford Oakley.”
“That would be my hope too,” Molly said, scrambling up rocks.
But five minutes later, when she reappeared again, Molly looked grim. “It was them,” she announced. “The Kane brothers and Deke and Gus. They must have followed us all the way.”
“What are they doing now?” Sophie asked, her heart beginning to pound.
“They stayed on the road and kept riding. They didn’t see where we cut away.”
“Then we’re saved!”
“Not exactly,” Molly said. “They won’t ride far before they’ll realize our tracks are missing. When that happens, they’ll be furious and start backtracking to find where we gave them the slip.”
“Will they be able to do that?”
“Yes,” Molly said. “I’m sure that even they are smart enough to flank the road and finally chance across our tracks. Once that happens, they’ll come running.”
“So … so how much of a head start do we have?”
“Three or four hours… maybe.”
Sophie nodded. “Well, then, let’s make the most of them and find that damned medicine wagon.”
“I think that would be an excellent idea,” Molly said, climbing back onto her horse and leading the way over the mountain.
Three hours later they’d finally looped back, and now they were staring at the Hollingsworth homestead. Parked right beside it was the medicine wagon.
“There it is!” Molly said. “Custis must be inside with Ford. Thank heavens we’ve time to warn him about the Kane brothers and their friends.”
“And to see if we can’t just tip the scales of justice a little quicker and send Ford to Hell,” Sophie said, patting the derringer that she kept hidden in her pocket.
“Yes, and that too.” Molly frowned. “The only thing that I can’t figure is why the marshal would be staying here and why those mules are hitched to the wagon.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said, “that is a mystery, but …”
Right then, they saw a thin young man appear from behind the cabin. He was carrying a burlap sack so heavy he was straining. They watched him struggle to lift and put it into the back of the medicine wagon. He closed and latched the door carefully and then he mopped his brow.
“He must be the homesteader that lives here,” Molly said.
“Kind of cute,” Sophie commented. “Looks awfully underfed, though.”
“Look,” Molly said as the man went to his corral and dropped the gate poles, “now he’s bringing up some horses and tying them to the back of the wagon. He’s in a real hurry to leave.”
“Do you think he could have somehow gotten the drop on Custis and killed both him and Ford?”
“Naw,” Molly said. “Not a chance.”
“Then where are they?”
Molly shook her head. “We’re just going to have to go down there and ask. With the Kane brothers coming up somewhere behind us, we haven’t got the time to fiddle around.”
“And no more giving our bodies away for information!” Sophie snapped. “This one may be young and even cute, but I’m feeling a little bit used right now and having another man is not in my plans.”
“All right,” Molly said. “That old blacksmith was a little rough and we’re just not going to do that anymore. At least, not until we find Marshal Long.”
Sophie grinned. “Yeah,” she said, “I could put him back in my pants in a hurry!”
They both laughed, which was important since they were under such a great deal of strain, and then they rode down to talk to the thin homesteader and find out what had happened to the marshal and his prisoner.
When Bert saw them coming, he almost panicked. He had read Custis’s note about the gold and he had not really settled back down to earth yet. Bert had taken the note completely at face value, so he was determined to leave as soon as possible. The last thing he’d expected to see was two pretty young women riding down out of the mountains and grinning and waving at him like he was their long-lost brother.
He again checked the latch on the back door of the medicine wagon, which now held about two hundred pounds of his gold-bearing quartz. He also checked to make sure his two extra saddle horses were securely tethered to the rear of the wagon. His fine pair of matched Missouri mules were in harness and even impatient to get rolling, so Bert climbed up on the driver’s seat and raised his lines.
“Hello there!” Molly said, trotting into the yard. “Are you hurrying off someplace?”
“I’m afraid so,” Bert said, trying not to notice how pretty they both were for he had decided never again to trust good-looking women.
“Could we get some food and water from you?” Sophie whined. “We’re just starving!”
“I’d sure like to help you ladies out,” he said, “but I just can’t. You see, I’m in a real big hurry to get to Elko. But you are both welcome to use my cabin. There’s a couple of tins of beans inside.”
“Where did you get the medicine wagon?” Molly asked in her most matter-of-fact manner.
“I … I bought it,” Bert lied.
Molly carried a six-gun, and now she dragged it up and pointed it at the young man’s chest. “No, you didn’t,” she said, cocking back the hammer. “You must have stole it from Marshal Custis Long of Denver. Now, where is he?”
Bert’s eyes widened with fear and his hands shot up over his head. “Are you the ones that he warned me about?”
“No,” Molly said with disgust, “but I mean business, that’s for damned sure. Now where is the marshal?”
Before Bert could answer, Sophie twisted around in her saddle and spied the fresh graves. “Look, Molly. Over in that dead cornfield you can see where the dirt has just been turned.”
“Four graves,” Molly said, looking back at the man now quaking in fear on the seat of the medicine wagon. “Mister, you had just damn well better start talking fast.”
“Don’t shoot!” he cried. “I’m the marshal’s friend! He asked me to bury them four and, in return, he paid me a dollar and this wagon.”
“Liar!” Molly cried. “He wouldn’t give you that wagon for nothing but a measly dollar!”
“And what,” Sophie demanded as she produced her derringer and also pointed it at the now thoroughly frightened homesteader, “happened to that ornery, murdering sonofabitch Ford Oakley?”
“I’ll tell you everything!” Bert said. “Just please don’t shoot.”
“Then quit shaking and start giving us some answers,” Molly ordered as she lowered the gun.
Bert managed to calm himself down. He told them everything—everything, that is, except about Longarm’s note and the fact that he had probably struck it rich up behind his log cabin.
When he was finished, Molly said, “You got any way to prove what you’re telling us is the truth?”
Bert took a deep breath and said, “You could dig up those graves and you’d see that the deputy from Gold Mountain is lying in one of them and that the others are filled with bad-looking men instead of Marshal Long or his prisoner.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said, wrinkling her nose because the idea was so objectionable, “I suppose that we could do that.”
“No,” Molly decided, “that would take up too much time. We have to get out of here, remember?”
Sophie looked back over her shoulder and nodded with understanding. “You’re right.”
Bert followed their gaze. “Ladies, is there somebody following you? Someone that I should know about?”