“Yes,” Molly said, deciding to tell this young man the truth. “We are being followed by some of Ford Oakley’s friends and they are killers.”
Bert paled a little. “Killers?”
“Absolutely,” Sophie said.
“But why would they kill any of us?” Bert asked. “We don’t have their friend in custody.”
“No, but you helped the marshal and they know that Sophie and me would like to kill their friend. Those are a couple of the reasons that first come to mind. They also just like to see people suffer and then die.”
“Oh, my Gawd,” Bert said, wiping his face. “This sounds even worse than the marshal said it could be.”
“It could get real bad,” Sophie agreed.
Bert gulped. “So … so what are we going to do?”
Molly took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I think,” she said, “the best thing we can do is to lead them off on a wild-goose chase after that medicine wagon.”
“Are you crazy!” Sophie exclaimed, forgetting herself and staring at her friend.
“Only for a few miles,” Molly said, “and then we can abandon the wagon and stampede the mules so that there are tracks going off into the forest in two directions.”
“No!” Bert cried. “I can’t leave the wagon and I won’t give up my mules either!”
“The mules I can understand because they look to be a fine pair,” Molly said. “But why do you want to keep the medicine wagon?”
He couldn’t dare tell them that it was loaded with his precious gold-bearing quartz rock. “It … it’s valuable,” he finally stuttered.
“No, it isn’t!” Molly argued. “It’s not worth much at all, and you can be sure that the Kane brothers won’t take it with them. They want Ford! Not the wagon.”
Bert squirmed under their intense scrutiny. “But … but you just don’t understand!”
“What don’t we understand?” Molly demanded.
“The wagon is carrying …” Bert heaved a sigh. He was trapped and time was running out. “The wagon is carrying my gold ore!“What!” Sophie shouted.
“It’s true,” Bert confessed, dragging out Longarm’s hurried note. “Read this and it’ll prove that I’ve been telling you the truth from the start.”
“Except for one very important omission about the gold,” Sophie observed. “Is it high-grade stuff?”
“I don’t know,” Bert admitted, climbing down from his wagon and going to the back to unlock the door, “but I promise you that it’s not going to fall into the hands of those outlaws.”
Sophie looked at Molly. “Instead of running, I say just go into that cabin, wait, and ambush the Kane brothers, then share his gold mine.”
“Don’t be stupid!” Molly snapped. “In the first place, we’d be the ones that were killed. And in the second place, the gold doesn’t belong to us.”
Sophie’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, dammit, we ought to get something if we’re going to fight to protect it!”
But Bert was already hauling the sacks out of the wagon. “There’s only one answer to this,” he said, grunting. “I’m tossing every last one of these sacks of ore into my dry well and then we’re leaving.”
Alarm sprang into Sophie’s eyes. “Well, how deep is the damned well?”
“Ten feet,” Bert grunted, dumping in the first sack. “Not so deep that I can’t come back and pull them back up.”
“What’s this stuff?” Sophie said. “We ought to get something for coming here to warn you. If we hadn’t-“
“I’d have already been gone,” Bert interrupted.
“Yeah,” Molly said, “but they’d have spotted the wheel tracks and followed you. They’d have caught you long before you reached Elko, and then they’d have tortured you into telling them how to find Marshal Long and Ford Oakley. And after that, they’d have found those sacks of gold ore and tortured you some more until you told them about your gold mine. Then, they’d finally have put you out of your misery.”
Bert expelled a deep breath and placed his hands on his narrow hips. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose that’s all true.”
“It sure is!” Molly said. “So, we are trying to save your life and we should have a share of your gold.”
“A third,” Sophie interjected.
Bert’s jaw sagged. “Hell, no!”
“All right,” Molly said, “if we survive, we get half, you get half. Half is better than Willard Kane breaking all your fingers and toes, then slowly peeling off your skin with a dull knife. Isn’t it?”
Bert tossed another heavy bag of ore in the well. “All right,” he said, “half and half. It’s a deal. Just figure out a way to keep us alive.”
“That’s the grand plan,” Molly said. “Now let’s get out of here fast.”
It broke Bert’s heart to leave his gold mine and sacks of ore behind, but he knew that the killers who followed Marshal Long would never think to look down a dry well for gold. They would probably spot the fresh grave sites, though. After that, they’d take a few minutes and dig them up to make sure that Ford Oakley’s body wasn’t resting in one of the shallow graves. And when they discovered that Ford was still alive, they would come after the medicine wagon with a vengeance. What happened after that, Bert was afraid to even think about.
Chapter 15
Longarm had crossed over the Ruby Mountains through Secret Pass just a little to the west of Pilot Peak, which was nearly eleven thousand feet high. Now he could see the Humbolt River just up ahead, and he knew that, if he followed the river another thirty or forty miles, he’d be arriving in Elko.
The trouble was, all four of his horses were played out and darkness would be falling on this high desert country in another hour. If his horses had been fresh, Longarm would have just ground out this last hot, dry stretch into Elko by riding all night. As it was, he had relayed the horses, and all four had already been pushed to their limits humping it over the Ruby Mountains. Longarm knew that to push them any harder was to risk laming one of the animals he’d promised to leave for the blacksmith back in Lone Pine.
As if reading his thoughts, Oakley called, “Hey! You want us to wind up walking the last thirty miles, just keep pushing these horses!”
“Shut up,” Longarm ordered.
“You ain’t thinking of trying to ride all the way into Elko tonight, are you?”
“What I’m thinking,” Longarm said, “is none of your business.”
Oakley snickered. “I forgot to ask you a very important question, Marshal Custis Long.” Longarm ignored the man. “Ain’t you curious what I mean to ask?”
“NO.”
“I’ll tell you anyway,” Oakley said. “I’ve had so much on my mind that I keep forgetting to ask if you’re a family man. You know, with a wife and children?”
“No.”
“That’s good!” Oakley said, nodding vigorously. “I sure hate to leave a woman a widow. Especially the ugly ones. The pretty ones, well, they can always find another man. But the ugly ones have a devil of a time.”
Longarm glanced over at the outlaw, whose hands were lashed to his saddlehorn and whose ankles were bound to his stirrups. “Too bad you weren’t an honest, upstanding citizen, Ford.”
“Why is that?” the outlaw asked with a grin.
“Well, you’re so full of bullshit that you could have made a fine lawyer.”
Ford brayed like a mule, laughing until he ran out of air. “Marshal, it’s real good to see that you have a sense of humor after all.”
“I’ve got a good sense of humor,” Longarm said, and a sense of justice that is just dying to see you swing from the gallows.”
Ford’s grin melted into a scowl. “You know, I’ve got some money hidden that could set you up pretty fine.”
“Really?”
“That’s right!” Ford looked closely at Longarm. “And I’m not talking pocket change either.”
“How much are you talking about?”
“Thousands.”
“About four thousand, I’d imagine.”