Wildcat Hills: A Lone McGantry Western by Dundee Wayne D

Author:Dundee, Wayne D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lone and Arizona sat their saddles at the upward-sloping base of a tall, flat-faced butte a short distance within the western reaches of the Wildcat Hills central mass. The natural cream color of the sandstone face was presently tinted a pale rose hue by the setting sun. The same wash of fading light threw long, distorted shadows out ahead of the two mounted men.

“Well, there she be,” declared Arizona. “A big, lumpy, wild sprawl of scarps and cliffs and twisty canyons waitin’ with open arms. Waitin’ to swallow us up, churn us this way and that, then hopefully—somewhere in the churnin’—dump us somewhere near to Col. Cody.”

Lone cocked an eyebrow. “You make it sound not too different than steppin’ into a slow twistin’ tornado and hopin’ to get dropped out in reasonably good shape.”

“Wait’ll we get deeper in. You’ll see that’s a comparison not too far off.”

Lone cast a sidelong glance. “You sound like you’ve been deep in before.”

“Matter of fact I have,” Arizona conceded. “Some years back, as one of the more lunk-headed escapades from my misspent youth, I let a one-eyed old prairie dog by the name of Schonover convince me there was gold to be found in the Wildcats. Never mind nobody had ever found a lick of an ounce before, he claimed to know better. So I coughed up money for a grub stake and in we went.

“Long story short, we spent most of a summer, all of the fall, and a good chunk into winter traipsin’ and climbin’ and diggin’ with no results but blisters and sore feet. I finally bailed out ahead of a blizzard I could see was formin’ up to come in a ripper, Schoony cursin’ my back the whole way. I couldn’t convince him to come with me. Far as I know, nobody’s ever heard from him since.”

“Maybe we’ll run into him,” Lone suggested dryly. “One of those crazy old hermits, sittin’ on a whole pile of gold he’s been accumulatin’ and hoardin’ all this while.”

“If we do run across him,” Arizona chuffed, “he won’t be nothing but a dried up skeleton with his finger bones wore off and a magpie nest in his empty skull. Which, come to think of it, I half deserved myself, back when I was empty-headed enough to fall for his stupid yarn.”

Lone grinned crookedly. “Not smart like both of us are bein’ now, right? Chargin’ into a pile of rocks you say is gonna turn us every way but loose in order to chase down one of the prime yarn spinners of all time. All for the sake of wantin’ to make sure he’s safe from his notion to jump backward out of a soft life of pretend adventures in show business and once more try to be who he was in the wild old days. Add in a hornet’s nest of renegade Indians, a pack or maybe two of hardcases up to no good, and now a handful of U.S. Cavalry soldiers we’ve managed to piss off.

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