Reckoning by Lyle Brandt

Author:Lyle Brandt [Brandt, Lyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101569115
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Slade caught another break, four hours after taking up the trail from where his quarry had apparently spent two or three days at their ease, lolling around like they were on vacation, sending parties out to scout the territory while the rest remained at ease. It was another camp, twenty-odd miles from the preceding one—and once again, Slade’s guide detected evidence of riders spending more than one night on the spot.

Elated and confused at the same time, Slade asked the question that was troubling him. “What are they thinking? Seven killings that we know of and they drag their heels like no one’s even looking for them.”

“Nobody’s found them,” Little Wolf reminded him.

“You’re right. Damn it! Instead of running, they sit still and let the hunt just pass them by,” Slade said.

It showed more brains than he had given Thornton and the others credit for. Maybe they knew Judge Dennison had only half a dozen full-time deputies to cover all the territory under his domain. Each marshal rode circuit over something close to twelve thousand square miles. About the size of Maryland, that was. Taken in those terms, Slade supposed it was a miracle that any fugitives were ever found, at all.

His momentary anger past, Slade said, “Okay. Where did they go from here?”

“Sent riders out in all directions, like before,” said Little Wolf. “But when they left together, all went south.”

“They’re tired of Oklahoma,” Slade surmised. “Looking for something new.”

“Or old,” the Cherokee suggested.

“Right,” Slade said. Old Mexico.

They would be safe there, legally, from extradition to the States. The government led by Porfirio Díaz since 1884, with no end yet in sight, maintained an ironclad policy of shielding fugitives from trial in other countries. If they watched their step in Mexico and, some said, greased the wheels of so-called justice with mordida, the traditional payoffs to Mexican authorities, they should be free and clear.

Texas Rangers sometimes crossed the Rio Grande without authority, Slade knew, and Mexicans sometimes returned the favor, as when they’d ambushed Old Man Clanton’s rustling gang at Guadalupe Canyon, Arizona, back in ’eighty-one. Such incidents produced saber-rattling in Washington and Mexico City, but the border still leaked like a sieve.

Slade hoped he wouldn’t have to cross it to complete his task, but if it came to that … why not? In his mind, there should be no sanctuary for a murderer.

If necessary, he would chase Burch Thornton and his cronies through the gates of Hell.

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