The Baron Range Read online

  “Don’t sound natural.”

  “Sounds like a big animal of some sort.”

  “Like a horse, you mean?”

  “Horse, bear, a man,” Martin said.

  “You wait here. I’m gettin’ off my horse and goin’ in on foot.” Peebo drew his rifle from its scabbard, checked the pan and slipped out of the saddle, landed lightly on his feet after the long drop down from the horse.

  Martin pulled his rifle from its sheath and lay it across his pommel, visually checking to see that the pan was primed. He turned and looked back over his shoulder just as Peebo entered the brier patch.

  “Anson?” he whispered.

  There was no answer.

  “Anson, don’t be funny now,” Martin said. His voice sounded hollow in his ears. It was like talking to an empty room. He listened intently for a sound that would tell him Anson was still following them. But he heard nothing. The silence rose up around him until he thought he was going deaf. He no longer heard the thrashing ahead of them, nor Peebo stalking through the briers. Instead, he heard only the sound of his own breathing.

  And he felt absolutely alone.

  A sense of panic rose up in Martin to the point that he felt as if he were suffocating. For a moment he thought he might not be breathing. He gulped for air and called out again. “Anson, are you back there?”

  Still no answer.

  “Peebo?” Martin’s voice was a squeak in his throat.

  Now the silence was eerie. Martin felt as if someone was playing a trick on him. He looked around wildly to see if either Peebo or Anson would suddenly appear. But there was no one there, anywhere.

  “This isn’t a goddamned bit funny,” Martin muttered and turned his horse to go back up the ravine. Then Peebo called out to him.

  “Hold up, Martin.” Peebo’s loud whisper sounded like the backdraft of an arrow slicing through the still air.

  Martin turned in the saddle and saw Peebo emerge from the brush. He was leading a horse Martin didn’t recognize. “What you got there?” he asked.

  Peebo held a single finger to his lips. He tied the horse to his own saddle, walked over to Martin. He leaned close to him. “That’s the horse Cullers stole,” he said. “But no Cullers.”

  “Anson’s not here,” Martin whispered.

  “Then Cullers has him.”

  “Christ,” swore Martin.

  Peebo gestured for Martin to climb off his horse. “We’ll have to backtrack on foot. Be real quiet.”

  Martin nodded. He checked his rifle again, the pistol in his belt. Then he followed Peebo along the back trail, climbing back up through the ravine with a heavy heart.

  37

  ANSON STRUGGLED TO find his way out of the sudden darkness. Lights danced in his throbbing skull like shooting stars across a velvet-black sky. Pain shot through his right shoulder and his right elbow hurt. Then he felt rough hands on his neck, pulling at him. He was jerked upright, then dragged somewhere. He tried to keep up but his feet wouldn’t obey. One of the hands released his shoulder and clamped around his mouth. He tried to open his eyes, but his lids seemed to be made of iron.

  “One word out of you and I’ll cut your throat,” someone said to him, and through the fog in his brain he recognized the voice as Cullers’s.

  Anson felt the fingers over his lips relax and drop away. Then he went down as Cullers pushed him to the ground. He wondered where his rifle was, wondered what had happened to him. Slowly the clouds of darkness parted and he regained consciousness, moved into the full-blown pain of an aching head. He opened his eyes.

  Cullers stood over him carrying Anson’s rifle. It must have dropped out of his hands when he fell, Anson thought. He reached down with his hand. His pistol was gone too, but he still had his knife. When Cullers turned around, Anson saw the pistol jammed behind Cullers’s belt, the butt jutting out within easy reach.

  “Come to your senses, did you?” Cullers said in a hoarse whisper. “Not a word out of you, hear?”

  Anson nodded.

  “I’ll blow your brains out if you make a sound.”

  Again Anson nodded. But his mind scrambled for a way out of this. He had no doubt that Cullers would kill him if he tried anything. There had to be something he could do, though. His father and Peebo might come looking for him and Cullers could easily kill them both. He figured that Cullers had taken him hostage for that very purpose.

  Cullers was breathing hard after the tussle and watching the trail, which Anson saw was only a few yards away. He saw his own horse standing there, hipshot, his reins tied to a scrub oak. From where Cullers stood he had a clear shot at anyone who came up to get Anson’s horse.

  Anson touched a hand to the side of his head where he had struck it when he fell. This brought an instant reaction from Cullers, who whirled on him, Anson’s rifle aimed at his chest.

  “Don’t you move,” Cullers ordered in a thick whisper.

  Anson quickly brought his hand down, but he had felt the lump, the stickiness of his own blood. But as he sat there, helpless for the moment, he mentally assessed his injuries. Not crippled. No broken bones. A headache and a pain in his right elbow, that was all.

  Cullers moved a foot away for a clearer shot through the brush at the place where Anson’s horse stood. He made no sound. Anson watched him closely, holding his breath whenever he could, drawing it into him as if to give himself strength in case there was an opportunity to make a lunge at Cullers before he shot anyone, either Peebo or his father.

  He wondered where they were. They should have discovered Cullers’s trick by now. Perhaps Peebo was coming back for him. But if he did, he would have no chance against Cullers. And what if his father came back first? Anson shut his eyes. Cullers would put a bullet into him for sure.

  “Where in hell are those sonsofbitches?” Cullers muttered under his breath. But Anson heard him clearly and hoped his father or Peebo could hear him too.

  The quiet stretched into agonizing moments for Anson. He listened for any sound that might indicate Peebo and his father were coming for him, but it was deathly still. Cullers was breathing more easily now and Anson cursed his luck. His own breathing had returned to normal, but his head began to throb with a fresh pain that seemed timed to his heartbeat.

  He looked at Cullers and realized his vision was blurred. Cullers swam around in a misty double image that Anson could not bring into sharp focus. Then, as suddenly, the throbbing diminished and his vision cleared.

  38

  PEEBO STUCK OUT a hand behind him. Martin stopped in his tracks.

  He wanted to ask Peebo why they had stopped. They had walked to the top of the ravine and a little beyond, some yards from where the other ravine peaked.

  Peebo gestured to his right, then stepped off the trail, careful to make no sound. He beckoned for Martin to follow him. They walked for what seemed a long time to Martin, well away from their back trail. Then Peebo stopped and squatted. He motioned for Martin to do the same.

  “Why are we going this way?” Martin asked, still in a whisper.

  “Because I saw Anson’s horse, the ass-end of it anyways. Just a-standin’ there in the open.”

  “So? Did you see Anson?”

  “No sign of him. I figger that horse was left there for a reason.”

  “What reason?”

  “I think Cullers jumped Anson. But not to steal his horse and ride off in the opposite direction.”

  Martin thought about it for a moment. “You think Cullers has Anson and is just waiting for us to come up and look for him.”

  Peebo nodded. “That’s just what I think. If we walk up to that horse, Cullers will be waiting for us. And he’ll shoot us both dead. He’s probably got Anson’s rifle and pistol aimed smack-dab at that horse.”

  “What’ll we do?” Martin asked, a quaver in his voice. He tried to push images of his son’s dead body out of his mind, but the thoughts kept surfacing and turning concrete, sticking there in the whirlwind of his fears for his son’
s safety. He thought of bearing Anson’s body back to the Box B and explaining to Caroline how he had taken his son into a dangerous situation and gotten him killed. His throat constricted and went dry, and deep inside him there was a trembling that made his heart stutter and his hands tremble and turn cold.

  Then Peebo did a strange thing. He smiled a crooked little smile like that of a conspirator or someone about to play a prank on someone. “Listen,” he said. “Do you hear that?”

  Martin jumped up, looked all around. “Rattlesnake, Peebo. Get up.” Then he looked at Peebo, who had a strange expression on his face. He realized then that Peebo was making the sound of a rattler. It sounded very authentic to Martin.

  “Holy jumpin’ shit, was that you?”

  For an answer, Peebo made the sound of a quail calling. A bobwhite. He did the female call, then the male. Martin looked at him, dumbfounded.

  “What do you intend to do with that talent, Peebo?”

  “Maybe it will give us an advantage, Martin. Look, Cullers is probably up there holding a gun on Anson, or he’s knocked him cold and is standing over him watching that horse. What we’re going to do is outflank him, and I want you to be quieter than you’ve ever been when we do it.”

  “All right.”

  “I want you to circle to the left of the trail. Real wide. The horse is about thirty yards from the crest of that other ravine, right at the top. You’ve got to be on the mark, so get it all set in your mind where you’re going to wind up. I’m going to make a circle on the right and then I’m going to become a rattlesnake. If either your son or Cullers hollers, we’ll know where they are.”

  “Then?”

  “Then we move in and shoot the shit out of Cullers before he shoots us.”

  “What if he shoots Anson first? Or if we miss and hit Anson?”

  “That’s why you’ve got to sneak up behind Cullers. To the right of the horse. Where we are now, it’s thick brush, but I noticed a little opening where we come up, and my hunch is that’s where Cullers is waiting right now. He’ll have a clear shot at anyone comes up on that horse.”

  “Question is, will Cullers hear us going through that brush?”

  “Ever stalk a deer? You watch each step and set your foot down so that it don’t make no noise. You take an hour to go ten yards if you have to.”

  “I’ll step careful. And make damned sure you do the same.”

  “We can do it, Baron. Just takes some concentration, that’s all.”

  “I hope to hell you’re right, Peebo.”

  “Me, too,” Peebo said, and grinned that sly little prankster smile of his.

  Martin set out as Peebo went in the other direction. If Peebo’s plan worked, he thought, they’d have Cullers in a cross fire. If it didn’t work, Anson might be shot and killed, and how would he ever explain such a thing to Caroline?

  39

  ANSON WATCHED CULLERS, trying to figure out what was going through the man’s mind. His vision kept blurring and Cullers would waver and develop shadows of himself, sometimes two or three of them, until he came back into focus. Cullers never said a word, just waited, watching Anson’s horse, his finger inside the trigger guard of the rifle. Anson wished now he had not been so careful to keep the rifle primed, the powder dry. Too late for second guesses, though, he reasoned. He wondered if he could get the jump on Cullers and overpower him before he had a chance to kill anyone else.

  Cullers was bigger and stronger than Anson, he knew, but several times while he sat there, he thought he might have the advantage. He cursed himself silently for submitting to the outlaw’s threats, for just sitting there and doing nothing. But he knew that if he made a mistake, Cullers would kill him and his efforts would have been for nothing.

  Anson mulled over what Juanito might do in such a situation. Juanito was not a violent man, but he was a man of action. And Anson knew that Juanito would not hesitate to defend himself. And then he remembered some things Juanito had told him in one of their talks. He wondered if Juanito would try and jump Cullers if he found himself in the same situation. There was the knife he wore, Anson thought. He wasn’t unarmed.

  How do you kill a man with a knife? Did he stick it in his back? Or cut his throat? Anson shuddered as an image of bloodletting filled his mind. What if the knife hit a bone and didn’t go in? If he didn’t kill Cullers right away, Cullers would turn on him and shoot him or stab him to death.

  He looked at Cullers. So close, yet so far away. He would have to draw his knife and jump those few feet and have the knife ready to plunge into Cullers. Where? In the back, that was the closest, but would that kill him right away? Where in the back? If he tried to stick the knife in his ribs, the blade might slide off. Sure, Cullers would be hurt, but if he didn’t fall down and bleed to death, he would be mad. He would still be ready to kill.

  Anson thought that he would not be able to kill Cullers like that, with a knife. He had shot Hoxie, but that was almost an accident. He had not been close, but far away. He hadn’t smelled the breath of the man or got any of his blood on him. If he had a gun, he was sure he could shoot Cullers. But a knife? It sounded so easy. Cullers could probably do it that way. Kill a man with a knife in cold blood.

  I’m not a killer, Anson thought to himself. Yet he had killed Hoxie. But it didn’t seem real to him. Not when he did it. A gun was not so personal as a knife blade. A knife meant you had to touch someone and mean to kill. “I couldn’t do that unless my life depended on it,” Anson almost said aloud, so deep was he in his thoughts.

  What had Juanito said about life and death? So much. So many times. Anson tried to clear his head, but he was still slipping in and out of consciousness for brief moments, probably for no more than a second or two. There was something he had to know, something that was just beyond his grasp. Something Juanito had said that might help him in this situation.

  “Life is a journey,” Juanito had told Anson one day. “A hero’s journey. And every so often there are other little journeys to take.”

  “You mean we are going somewhere?” Anson had asked.

  “Even if we do not know where, we are going somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  Juanito had shrugged and smiled. “Who knows? That is part of the journey, too. Wondering, looking, searching.”

  “You don’t make sense, Juanito. Ever.”

  Juanito had laughed.

  “Do you not wonder what is around the next bend of the road? Do you not wonder where you will be in ten years, twenty, thirty? Forty?”

  “I think about it now and then. Don’t do no good, though.”

  “No, because we cannot see into the future. But we take the path nevertheless. The journey. And the little journeys that teach us things.”

  “Teach us what?”

  Juanito had smiled wisely and looked off into the distance. As if he was seeing something that was invisible to everyone else. “Maybe nothing, Anson. Maybe everything.”

  “There you go again, Juanito. Speaking in riddles. Tell me something I can understand.”

  “All stories, all of the old stories are the same. All are myths, smoke to hide the truth. But you can look through the smoke and see beyond the shadows.”

  “I don’t know any old stories, Juanito. Only those I’ve heard from you.”

  “The hero is always on a quest. He leaves his world to enter another. There is great danger waiting for him. But he is on a journey, a hero’s journey, and he must keep his wits about him. He must fight and sometimes kill to gain what he seeks.”

  “Are you saying life is like that?”

  “In many ways. You will face many perils in your life. Sometimes they will seem small and of no importance, but once in a while you will have to make a difficult decision.”

  “Like what?” Anson had asked.

  “Oh, I think you might have to kill another human being to save yourself or someone you love.”

  “I hope that never happens to me.”

  “I hope so t
oo, Anson.”

  “What if it did? I mean, what would I do and how would I know it was right?”

  “Ah, very good questions. In the old stories the hero must always enter the deep and dark place of the journey. It may not be a real place, but it will seem real to him. And there is where he faces the greatest danger. And that is also where the object of the hero’s quest is to be had for the taking.”

  “It all sounds like a fairy tale to me, Juanito.”

  “Many fairy tales are myths, true stories in disguise. But they mask the struggles of people like you and me. Sometimes because in their very truth they are too horrible, and sometimes because to reveal the true story would cause great harm.”

  “Would I know if I was in a dark place?”

  “You would know. You would know because you must complete the journey and your life would be in peril. When you enter the dark place, the cave where the evil one, the monster, the bad man lives, then you must be on your guard, and perhaps you might have to kill this man to get what you want.”

  “That doesn’t seem right to me.”

  “It will seem right if what you seek is your own life.”

  Anson had not understood all of what Juanito had told him that day, but now his words began to make sense. He and his father had been on a journey. And they had faced many dangers. He had killed a man and saved his own life. But not in a dark place. Not in a cave. Was this what Juanito had been talking about? Was this the dark place where he must act to save himself? His father? Peebo? Perhaps all of their lives?

  Anson looked again at Cullers. The man was getting fidgety. He would walk away a few steps and then return to his hiding place. The cave? It certainly did look dark for him and for Peebo and his father. Maybe Cullers was the monster in the cave, waiting to kill them all.

  He wished Juanito were with them so he could ask him what to do. It was one thing to wish a man dead and try to be a hero. It was another to actually do such a thing.

  Suddenly everything seemed unreal to him. Cullers blurred in and out of focus. Darkness all around him as he slipped away from reality. In and out of darkness. Cullers a shadow, a creature that faded in and out of reality. A bad man. A killer. He had cut Jerry Winfield’s throat and mutilated him.