Cold Corpse, Hot Trail

Author:Peter Brandvold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

Hawk buried the girl on a knoll above an ancient riverbed lined with cottonwoods. He mounded the grave with dirt and, to keep predators out, stones.

He fashioned a crude cross from driftwood. He said no words over the grave, because he didn’t believe in such things anymore. He merely held his hat before his chest for a few quiet moments, the dark night gathered around him, several coyotes howling from ridges.

He swung up into his saddle, descended the knoll, rode along a wash for a mile, and made camp on a sloping shoulder of ground angling out from a high, chalky butte. A spring bubbled out of the rocks, feeding some short grass and spindly brush. The water trickled down the slope and disappeared in the wash.

Hawk kept his fire small. A half hour after he’d hobbled his horse, he was sitting by his fire, eating beans and drinking coffee. A horse blew and kicked a stone.

A tired voice rose from the darkness. “It’s Primrose.”

Hawk said nothing. Knees raised, his boot heels snug in the dirt near the fire ring, he continued to eat.

The horse nickered, and Hawk heard hoof falls coming along the wash. Behind him and to his right, his own grulla lifted an answering whinny. Through the shrubs and boulders, a shadow moved. Tack squeaked as a man stepped down from a saddle. Boots clacked on the rocks. A figure appeared—Primrose, his tunic torn and bloody, his hat misshapen, his face so swollen it appeared round in the dim light.

He was leading a horse—one of the Indians’ short-legged mustangs, with a saddle that must have been worn by the mount the Indians had been roasting. The horse looked about as comfortable with the saddle as the lieutenant looked with all those bruises on his face.

He stopped in the shadows on the other side of the fire, his shoulders slumped with fatigue. “You’re still going after them?”

Hawk nodded and forked more beans into his mouth.

Primrose studied him, lines spoking his eyes. “The girl?”

Hawk lifted a shoulder and swallowed the beans in his mouth, dipped his fork for more. “I’ve come all this way, I’m gonna finish the job. Those killers don’t deserve to live. They’re due a reckoning, and I’m gonna serve it up raw.”

Primrose studied him skeptically, saw the deputy U.S. marshal’s badge pinned to his vest. The lieutenant shook his head. “You’re not a lawman anymore, Hawk.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Lieutenant.” Hawk chewed. “I am a lawman. I’m the only lawman anymore.”

Primrose looked off, turned back to Hawk. “I think you’re pure-dee crazy, Hawk. But I reckon you’re my only hope of getting the money back. I’m going with you.” He turned and led the Indian pony around the fire, toward where Hawk had hobbled the grulla.

Hawk sipped his coffee and stared into the fire.

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