“Nobody asked you.”
Since Kinman seemed more interested in the ground under his feet than the conversation at hand, Lester stood up in his stirrups and made a show of looking left and right. “I don’t see him or anyone else around here. Maybe you’re just trying to get me to agree to giving you most of the money we’re set to find.”
“You think so? Then maybe I should just shoot you and take you back into Rock Springs. I’ll bet they’d know where to go to turn your carcass in.” Surprisingly enough, there wasn’t a scowl on Kinman’s face when he turned around. “Don’t piss yourself just yet, Lester. I think I just found what I was after.”
“Really?”
Kinman drew his horse to a stop and climbed down from the saddle. Lester would have liked to climb down with him, but his feet were tied to his stirrups, which were also connected by another rope that crossed underneath the horse they’d stolen for him to ride. Leaning forward, Lester stared intently at where Kinman was going.
“You see Graves somewhere?” Lester asked. “I told you we shouldn’t have circled town so much when we left.”
Ignoring the other man’s ramblings, Kinman walked to a small patch of open ground that was just a little way from the trail. He reached a spot where the dirt had been smoothed out and ran the tips of his fingers along the earth. Kinman looked around slowly, taking in everything. When he spotted the deep set of horse’s tracks, he grinned and nodded.
“What’d you find?” Lester asked. “Where is he? I don’t see nobody.”
Standing up but not moving from his spot, Kinman turned and studied every inch of ground in the vicinity one more time. Only then did he allow himself to disturb another speck of dirt with his own boot. “He was here,” Kinman said as he walked back to where his horse was standing.
“How do you know it was him?”
Plenty of things rushed through Kinman’s head that would serve as good answers to that question. Things ranging from the freshness of the tracks to the direction they were headed would have been good enough. There were also things like instinct and a knowledge that he’d gained after spending years of hunting down his fellow man that would shed some light on the matter. With all those things in mind, Kinman simply looked over to Lester and grunted, “It don’t matter how I know. I just do.”
Lester’s instincts told him a few things as well. Namely, that it wasn’t a good idea to press the matter any further. “All right,” he said. “I was just askin’.”
Although the tone in his voice left no room for doubt, Kinman didn’t turn his back on the spot he’d found. He bent at the knees so he could run his hands into the upper layers of dirt. In a matter of seconds, his fingertips found a few scraps of food and the remnants of what had to have been a very small fire. Those things were enough to tell him that Nick had been trying to stay out of sight when he’d stopped there.
If he’d been waiting for Kinman to arrive, Graves wouldn’t have minded building a larger fire. In fact, he might have built a sizeable one to make certain he was spotted. There was always the argument that Graves wouldn’t have been anxious to be seen considering the circumstances in which they’d left Rock Springs, but any man should have known that the law in that town would have had their hands full with more important matters.
Kinman nodded to himself and straightened up. Graves had been there, all right. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. Now, the trick would be to catch up to him without drawing too much suspicion.
“Looks like he headed to the northeast,” Lester said. “I can see some horse tracks from here.”
Kinman looked in that direction. His eyes followed the tracks, which he’d spotted less than a second after he’d spotted the campsite itself. The imprints were fairly fresh, which meant they’d probably been put down when the sun wasn’t even high enough in the sky to chase away the shadows. They seemed to be evenly spaced, so the horse wasn’t taking off in a rush. That either meant the rider was taking his sweet time, or was level-headed enough to walk when he knew damn well he should have been running.
Of course, there was always the third option. Nick Graves could have put down those tracks to give the impression of the first two possibilities. Having lost Graves’ trail so many times over the years, Kinman knew that was a distinct possibility. He also knew it was useless to try and second-guess his prey’s motives while standing still.
“Jesus Christ,” Lester mumbled. “A slug could’ve gotten to the Dakotas by now.”
Kinman wheeled around quickly enough to make Lester twitch in his saddle. As he climbed onto his own horse’s back, Kinman said, “For the first time, I agree with you.” He then snapped his reins and got moving.
Since Lester’s horse was tied to Kinman’s saddle horn, the other man had no choice but to follow.
Nick pulled in a lungful of air as the wind whipped past his head. Gripping the reins in a fist, he hunkered down low over Kazys’s neck and leaned into the torrent of wind caused by the horse’s galloping stride. The thunder of Kazys’s hooves reminded him of the rumble of the train’s engine that had carried them both all the way from California. At the moment, it was hard for him to believe that Kazys couldn’t have covered that same amount of ground in half the time.
The entire country was spread out in front of him like a giant multicolored blanket. Mountains, rivers, plains and forests all rushed past him in a continuous display. As more dusty wind blasted his face, Nick grinned and choked down the grit that had collected in his throat.
The scenery was starting to look more familiar. Although he wasn’t one for memorizing trails or shortcuts, he always had a good sense of where he was going. When he and Barrett had ridden together, the rest of the gang always knew that Barrett could figure out the quickest way to get where they were going and Nick could always get them home.
Nick was still amazed that he was the one riding back into the Dakotas wearing a few streaks of gray in his hair and Barrett was the one cooling his heels under several feet of dirt. No gambling man would have bet on Nick living through his twenties.
Kazys kept charging forward as if he was trying to rip away the upper layers of earth with his hooves. Nick steered away from the main trail at his first opportunity, while looking for the spot where he could eventually circle back onto the main course.
The tracks had grown deeper and farther apart. That caught Kinman’s eye right away, telling him that Nick was moving faster. Even though there weren’t many sets of fresh tracks in sight, Kinman had to trust his instinct that the ones he was following truly belonged to Nick Graves.
There were plenty of Indians in these parts. There were also scouts, messengers, couriers, and any number of men who might be riding by themselves and traveling in a rush. Come to think of it, Kinman guessed that anyone wanting to stay ahead of the Crow or Sioux would be riding pretty damn quickly right about now.
Even as all that raced through his mind, Kinman didn’t consider slowing down. There were times when a man needed to be careful and there were times when he needed to throw himself headlong into whatever path he’d chosen. This was one of the latter times and Kinman raced down his own path, not caring whether it led to a coffin full of jewels or a slow death.
There was no time to worry about what lay in between.
SEVENTEEN