The Devil You Know by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2021-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Both Pops and Rollie found the early-morning ride to the bandits’ rocky hideout a tense couple of hours. It took them longer than they expected, but they picked their way, guns drawn and reining up, eyeing every boulder, pine, and bend in the trail for a sign that something, anything might be off. But the early birds kept warbling and the breeze kept soughing and the horses never once acted balky.

Halfway into the trip, at Pops’ suggestion, nothing more than a gesturing nod, they departed from the beaten trail that most folks used to travel west from Boar Gulch. Pops reined up, and Rollie rode close.

“Down that way.” He nodded ahead. “Another hour at this speed.”

Rollie nodded, and they moved out. They took to the same wooded, sloped terrain Pops had traveled what felt to him like mere minutes before.

They rode, a dozen yards apart, slow going, cautious and keeping a check on where Cap and Bucky would put their feet. They paused, stopping and starting, looking with caution at everything. Pops rode point since he’d been there before, and Rollie was seeing this particular slice of scenery for the first time.

He was amazed, as Pops had been, that he’d not seen any of this side valley. As his own foray showed him yesterday, the country hereabouts was immense. Rollie wondered if you flattened out all the peaks, how vast a region would it cover?

Ahead, Pops rode as he always did, straight-backed and alert, his Greener resting across his saddle before him. He was wishing the head bandit hadn’t stomped his old corncob pipe. He’d had it many a-year, and now he had to shell out for a new one.

A low, birdlike whistle sounded. He stopped and held still. Rollie also stopped, not breathing, straining and listening for another whistle. It didn’t come.

Pops cut his glance toward Rollie quick. The ex-Pinkerton man had far more experience than he in such potentially grim situations. Branches rustled ahead and a blur of brown hurtled out, gliding through low branches.

Pops let out a breath. It was a grouse, good eating, bad at staying silent and worse at not scaring me, thought Pops. Didn’t mean the bandits weren’t even now arranged throughout the woods, sighting on them. This was foolhardy, but unless they had scouts out, there was little chance they would know they were coming. If they were at the camp.

If I ran that outfit, thought Pops, I would have cleared out as soon as I came back from my robbing run and found those two fools dead. He knew the boss man would think like he did on this matter, that Pops would no doubt bring hell down on them. But not this soon, right? He hoped so. The logic was flimsy, but he had to at least try to think like the boss man of the bandits.

They crested a berm, recognizable to Pops, and he halted once more. Rollie did, as well, then after a pause, cut to his left and rode close to Pops.

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