Backed to the Wall by C. M. Wendelboe

Author:C. M. Wendelboe [Wendelboe, C. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Published: 2017-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

* * *

At the ragged edge of a fitful sleep Aurand bolted upright. The hairs stood straight on the nape of his neck, and, without realizing it, he had drawn his gun. Where his head swiveled searching for what had alerted him, the barrel of his gun followed.

“No need for that,” a gravelly voice said from somewhere away from the periphery of the campfire.

“That you, Red?”

“It is if you put that gun away.”

Aurand holstered his gun and stood. He shook off the stiffness in his legs as Red came into the dim campfire light, leading his horse. He hobbled the mare in the grass beside Aurand’s grulla, while Aurand stacked more driftwood onto the fire. He set the coffee pot atop the coals and warmed his hands over it. “Where’s our man?”

“Not until I have a cup,” Red said.

The iron pot spewed steam, and Aurand took two tin cups from his saddlebag. He blew dust out of them before pouring the coffee. Red wrapped his hands around the cup to warm them and daintily blew into the hot liquid to cool the coffee.

“All right,” Aurand demanded. “Where’s Tucker?”

“First thing,” Red said, “I want to tell you I admire the man. I know you don’t want to hear that.”

Aurand pinched his nose between his thumb and finger. “But it looks like I’ll have to endure it.”

Red sipped his coffee and looked at the stars as if formulating his thoughts. “I found a shallow grave a couple days ago.”

“Graves are everywhere,” Aurand said. “I’ve filled a few myself a time or two.”

“But two Lakota in one arroyo, covered up by rocks? It took me a mite longer to figure things out, but, near as I can decipher it, those two Indians ambushed Tucker and Jack Worman. Should have had them dead to rights, them having the high ground. It should have been Tucker and Jack in those graves, but it was not.”

“How’s that tell me where he is?”

“I am getting to that.” Red nodded to Aurand’s saddle. “You got the makin’s?”

Aurand nodded. He grabbed his tobacco pouch and papers from his saddlebag and handed them to Red, who began rolling a smoke as he continued. “Right after I found the grave, I followed Tucker and Jack for some time but lost their trail . . .”

“You?” Aurand said. “Lost their trail?”

Red shrugged. “Even I do now and again when the hunted is particularly trail savvy. Anyway, I worked on ahead and saw the Indians were headed toward Cowtown, and that bothered me. ‘Why,’ says I to myself, ‘would Indians be riding toward a white man’s town?’ ”

“And did you come up with an explanation?”

Red frowned and patted his shirt for a match. Aurand handed Red a glowing sage brush branch from the fire, and he lit his smoke. The paper flared, catching the tobacco on fire and raining hot ashes down the front of Red’s calico shirt. When he had patted the ashes out, he explained. “Made no more sense to me than it did that Tucker and Jack Worman were trailing those Indians.

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