Long Trail by John Armstrong

Author:John Armstrong [Armstrong, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The next morning found us up early, but even so, both Toby and her grandfather were already drinking coffee and sitting by a handful of fire. Toby was slicing salt pork into a pot of rice, and fresh biscuits sat steaming on a makeshift table. My stomach growled hungrily and I hurried to join our two new friends at the table, Ring only a moment behind me. He grinned when he saw Toby, realizing that his suspicions about her had been correct all along.

After we had eaten, I laid out my plans for the day. I wanted to scout the cabin where Ring had trailed Frank and Caxton banks along with Antoinette. Carboneau told us that the cabin was known as ‘Smuggler’s Cabin’, as years ago smugglers and pirates had used it as a hiding place while their captains and officers were about in New Orleans. It had been many years, he said, since anyone had used it, other than himself. And he had been surprised two days ago to find it occupied by five ‘bad looking’ men.

When Ring had first spied the cabin and its occupants, he had recognized two: Sawyer Bates, from Natchez-Under-The-Hill, and Hondo Cain, the Kansas Badman. The other three were unknown to us, but simply to ride with the Bankses marked them as dangerous men. If in fact the cabin was as defendable as Carboneau had assured us, there was little that Ring and I could do to flush them out. But they were seven men and one young woman. They were also in possession of the gold. They had no reason to seek asylum in an old smuggler’s cabin on the edges of a swamp. They had places to go and things to do, and two men they desperately wanted to kill. I was at the top of the list, and the father of the three men I had killed was here in these very woods and swamps seeking a father’s vengeance. Ring would be next, at least in priority, as he had killed Caxton’s brother Everson just last night. If I judged Caxton right, the gold and San Francisco would call louder to him than vengeance for his brother. But Frank would keep them on track, and until Ring and I were dead, no one would be leaving this wild tangle of wetland – gold or no gold.

I wanted to see the cabin myself, and try to discover the plans of the Bankses. I felt they would be out in search of us first thing, perhaps even now, and although I felt relatively safe here, I didn’t want to bring the hounds to the fox, so to speak, as at this moment, Henry Carboneau and his presence was unknown to the Bankses. I doubted if anyone in their group could track us here, as gunmen weren’t generally known as trackers. But three of the five gunmen with the Bankses were unknown to us, and to assume too much could cost us our lives, as well as those of Henry Carboneau and Toby.

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