Chapter 1
Lem Snider glared down in anger at the body sprawled on the ground before him. In a fit of rage, he kicked the corpse several times. "Goddamn dirt-poor bastard," he bellowed, cursing the pathetic remains of a gray-haired prospector who had had the misfortune of encountering the four men now searching every inch of his camp. "Tear this damn place apart. They must have somethin' hid around here somewhere, or they wouldn'ta been camped here so long."
He then turned his anger to level it at Henry Nix. "And hurry up, dammit. We got to get the hell outta here, thanks to you."
"Hell, Lem," Nix replied, "I couldn't help it if that other feller got away. If we'da come up on 'em from downstream, we'da seen their horses in the trees."
Snider was in no mood to hear excuses. His policy was to leave no witnesses. Nix had been the only one of the four to get a clean shot at the boy galloping away on one of the horses that had been tied below the camp, and he'd missed. To further infuriate Snider, Nix had pulled his bandanna down before he realized the boy was there. "We ain't got a lotta time before that boy gets into town, and he saw your face," Snider scolded.
"Well, he didn't have much time to see it," Nix said. "Hell, he was most likely too scared to remember my face."
They were interrupted by a shout from the stream. "Here it is!" Curly Jenkins exclaimed. "I found it! It's always hid under a rock somewhere." A big, simpleminded brute, Curly rolled a large stone over at the stream's edge. "Don't look like much of a poke, though," he said when he took the small hide pouch from under the stone. He immediately handed the pouch to Snider when Lem held out his hand.
Peering inside the sack, Snider snorted. "There ain't much here, but I reckon it's enough to split three ways." His comment caused raised eyebrows on all three of his companions.
"Whaddaya mean, three ways?" Bob Dawson wanted to know right away. If someone was going to lose his share, Dawson was damn certain it wasn't going to be him.
Lem Snider focused his gaze on Henry Nix, but said nothing. Feeling the stares now of three pairs of eyes, Henry glanced nervously from one man to another. "Now wait a minute," he blurted, "I don't know what you're thinkin', but I don't like the way you're lookin' at me."
"You don't get a split," Snider told him. "You got yourself spotted, and you ain't gonna take the rest of us to jail with you. That boy brings the sheriff back here, he's gonna identify you and the rest of us, too. I'm gonna be easy on you, and let you ride on outta here. Me and Curly and Bob will go our way, and you go yours. But you ain't gettin' no split of this little bit of dust, 'cause you ain't a member of my gang anymore."
"I'll be damned!" Nix blurted. "I worked just as much as anybody else for that dust. You ain't cuttin' me off." He looked quickly back and forth between Curly and Dawson, but saw no sympathy there.
Snider drew his pistol and leveled it at Nix. "You're runnin' outta time. Get on that horse and ride, or get shot down right where you stand."
Nix's heavy brows knitted as he scowled bitterly, the anger glistening in his eyes. For a moment, his hand hovered over his holster, but the gun barrel already staring at him discouraged a futile attempt. "All right," he finally said, "I'm goin', and no hard feelin's." He dropped a shovel he had picked up near the old man's body and walked toward his horse. As he walked past Snider, Snider stepped back, and when he did, Nix made a sudden lunge toward him, grabbing his gun hand and bowling him over. Down they went, rolling over and over on the ground, each man straining to get the upper hand.
Snider fought desperately to free his gun hand in order to finish Nix quickly, but Nix held Snider's arms locked in a bear hug. Snider responded by head-butting Nix. Nix was getting the worst of it, and retaliated by clamping his teeth down on Snider's right ear. Howling with pain, Snider jerked his head away, leaving the tip of his ear in Henry's mouth. Grinning malevolently, Nix spat the piece of cartilage in Snider's face, causing the injured man to explode in uncontrollable rage. Ripping his hand free, he smashed Nix's face with the barrel of his six-gun again and again until the battered man's resistance was reduced to a weak tremble throughout his body. Seeing that Nix was unconscious, Snider rested the barrel of his pistol on Henry's bloody forehead and pulled the trigger.
Snider rose slowly to his feet, breathing heavily from exertion. With his pistol still drawn, he looked in turn at each of the two witnesses, in his eyes the unspoken question they both understood. The first to respond was Curly, the simple hulk whose name derived from his hairless pate. "I'da helped you, Lem, but I was afeared if I'da tried to shoot him, I mighta hit you."
Bob Dawson simply shrugged his shoulders and muttered, "I figured you didn't need no help." When Snider continued to stare at him, he added, "He had it comin'."
Snider knew that between his two partners, the surly Dawson was the one to keep an eye on. Curly was mindless, and like a hound dog, just wanted someone to tell him what to do. The fact that Curly and Bob didn't like each other was a positive thing in Snider's mind, because it lessened the likelihood of their combining to gang up on him.
"Curly," Snider commanded, "turn over the rest of those rocks along the edge there. Make sure we don't leave anything." Turning to Dawson then, he said, "Let's get outta here before we have company." He reached down and ripped the front of Henry Nix's shirt. Then, using his knife to cut a
section away, he used the square to dab his bloody ear. "We'll split up the dust after we put some distance behind us."
Riding out of the miner's camp, Snider led them toward the river. He was thinking about the little pouch of gold dust they had just taken. It wasn't much. He was thinking that it was time to leave this part of the country. They had left too many bodies in too many spent mining claims to make it healthy to hang around much longer. Each claim they had bushwhacked had failed to provide the big payoff he had been looking for, and his frustration was beginning to wear on him. He turned in the saddle to address the two following him. "It's time we looked for new pickin's. We'll head east toward Coulson."
"Well, at least there's a saloon and a whorehouse there," Bob Dawson muttered to himself.
Young Cade Hunter stood gazing down at the bay gelding lying still at his feet. His Colt .45 still in his hand, he shook his head in apology. "Damn, I'm sorry, Billy, but there wasn't any other choice." Just one month past his twentieth birthday, Cade could not remember a time when old Billy was not there. The horse was at least as old as he was, and was the last tie Cade had to his boyhood home. He
looked again at the broken foreleg, snapped like a dried limb, the bone protruding awkwardly at an angle, the result of an unseen prairie dog hole. "You're just too damn old to heal that bone, even if I coulda put a splint on it," he tried to explain to the dead horse.
He found it difficult to believe that Billy was actually gone, his final breath taken by the hand of Cade himself. His
mind was flooded with thoughts of his childhood, most of them recollections of stories his father had told him about the horse. He used to tell Cade that Billy was confused. Cade thought Billy was part dog, especially when as a toddler Cade wandered into the pasture and the horse took it upon himself to keep an eye on the boy. Cade's father said he could always find the youngster by looking out across the pasture to see where Billy was grazing.
John Hunter often told his son of the day he was repairing fences, and paused to see where Cade had wandered off to. As usual, he spotted Billy apart from the other horses, but the horse was acting strange. John stood and watched for a few minutes before deciding to ride over and investigate.
Little Cade had been playing near an outcropping of
rocks at the lower end of the pasture. What had piqued John's interest was the way Billy appeared to be annoying the child, repeatedly circling him, and often nudging Cade, making him sit down on the ground. As John approached, he saw that little Cade was crying, frustrated with Billy's refusal to let him play in peace. Seeing the boy's father ride up, Billy stood still and waited. "What's got into you, Billy?" John said, and started to dismount. Before he took his foot out of the stirrup, his horse squealed and reared back a couple of steps. John then saw the cause of the horse's fright: a rattlesnake coiled on the rocks, rattles vibrating in angry warning. It was a story some folks found hard to believe, but John Hunter swore that the horse saved his son's life that day.
Cade shook his head sadly and holstered his pistol, telling himself that standing around lamenting the loss of the
faithful old horse was nothing more than wasting time. Knowing it was going to take a little work to accomplish, he
set about getting his saddle off Billy's carcass. Gentle and cooperative to the end, Billy had thoughtfully come to settle his body across the edge of a shallow gully after tumbling headfirst and throwing Cade clear of the saddle. As a result, the job of getting the cinches of the three-quarter-double-rigged saddle out from under him was a great deal easier. Even so, Cade had to find a stout limb to use as a pry bar before he managed to pull his saddle free of the body. Saddle, saddlebags, a Winchester '73, a Colt Peacemaker, and the rest of his tack, made up the bulk of his worldly possessions. There was also the few dollars he had left from the last cattle drive for Mr. Henry Travis down on the Cimarron. The money was tucked inside his extra shirt in his war bag. The
war bag, which was no more than a two-bushel cotton grain sack, held his extra clothing and personal items. Every cowpuncher carried one. Now he found himself on foot in the middle of Colorado Territory. It wasn't a good fix to be in, and the possessions he stood staring at were not much to show for six years of working for various cattle ranches.
Since the age of fourteen, Cade Hunter had done a man's work. He found at an even earlier age that he had a gift for working with horses. It was a gift that stood him well with the ranchers he worked for. The only horse he'd actually owned was Billy, but he had his mind set on raising horses for himself. Deciding the time had come, he had started out for Montana Territory determined to make it one way or another. Intrigued by reports that there were bands of wild horses roaming the Montana plains, he wanted to see for himself if the tales were true.
The decisions to be made at this unforeseen moment, however, were more basic in nature, as they applied to his survival. He hadn't figured on Billy stepping in a prairie dog hole. A man on foot was no man at all in this wild country. He took a long hard look at his possessions before deciding just how much he could carry. As close as he could estimate, he should be no farther than eight or ten miles from the town of Pueblo. Although reluctant to leave anything behind, he knew he couldn't carry everything on his back for that distance, so he looked around for a place to hide his saddle and tack. Seeing a sharp rock protruding from the mouth of a narrow gully, he decided he could find that again easily enough. After making sure his gear couldn't be easily seen by any chance passerby, he drew his rifle from the saddle scabbard, slung his canteen over his shoulder, and set out along the trail to Pueblo.
After walking little more than a mile, he came upon a tiny
stream. It was a welcome sight because there wasn't much water left in his canteen when he started his walk. The water looked clear enough, so he lay on his belly and sucked up a few mouthfuls to quench his thirst. Sitting back on his heels, he looked back the way he had come. At once, he spotted what looked to be a wagon approaching in the distance. With a renewed sense of optimism, he got to his feet and stared at the slowly moving object. As it closed the distance between them, he realized that it was a chuck wagon, which seemed odd since he had seen no sign of a herd of cattle. Maybe it's a peddler or something, he thought, and just looks like a chuck wagon.
As it drew near, however, he could see that it was, indeed, a chuck wagon. He stood waiting while the driver, a full-
whiskered little man wearing a battered old hat with the front brim flattened back against the crown, pulled the wagon up to a stop before him.
"I seen your horse back yonder a piece," the driver said. "Figured I'd run across you sooner or later."
"Yep," Cade said, "I had to shoot him. He broke his leg in a prairie dog hole."
"I seen that right off." He looked Cade over for a moment or two. "I don't see no saddle or nothin'."
"I hid it back yonder near my horse."
The wagon driver studied the young man on foot for another long moment, making a judgment. "I can take you into Pueblo. Climb on and we'll go back and get your saddle."
"Much obliged," Cade said.
He waited while Cade climbed up beside him on the seat. "Warm day for walkin'," he commented. "My name's Stump Johnson." He offered his hand, and Cade shook it.
"Cade Hunter," he replied.
"You from around these parts?" Stump asked. "You headed for Pueblo?"
"I used to live near here. I'm just passin' through now," Cade said. "I was thinkin' about makin' my way up to Montana Territory, but I reckon I'm gonna have to find myself a horse now-maybe have to find a job to make enough money to buy one."
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