Noose Page 17

  Hell.

  They’d taken her guns—her holsters were empty, he saw.

  Bess hadn’t looked scared before but she looked so now though her face was a stoic mask. This girl had guts, despite her young years, and the bounty hunter admired her plenty. When he saw natural character in a person he recognized it.

  The horses kept moving, slinking in predatory procession, the gang passing below. Noose loved horses and knew even bad men rode good horses and it wasn’t the horses that were wrong but the owners . . . but these steeds looked as foul as their riders, brutish and malignant, an aggressive surly gait and predation to their every step. It was as if the evil the bounty killers exuded had infected the horses they rode. While under normal circumstances Noose never shot a horse if he could avoid it, he would put these animals right down if the time came and he had the chance.

  Bess Sugarland was a dead woman.

  Even if Butler didn’t know Bess knew Noose had been framed by the men responsible for the murder, there was no way the leader of the gang was going to let an officer of the law live to tell how she’d been taken prisoner, because he and his men would all swing from the gallows if she lived to tell the tale.

  The horse with the marshal’s daughter passed directly below him and Noose got the closest look at her he was going to get.

  She’d been manhandled and punched in the face, judging by the bruise and swelling and blood on her mouth, but she was very tough. A normal woman would be a mess of tears and humiliation at that treatment and would look defeated but this girl did not. Noose could only guess why she was being taken along with them alive, but was glad they had spared her life. This gang was a piece of work.

  None of the bounty killers looked in his direction, even as they looked almost everywhere else. His cover of branches and leaves was dense and he was in shadow. But Noose could see them all clear as day.

  He had to get that girl out of there.

  She didn’t have much time left—every minute in that bad company was a threat to her life and limb.

  But he had no guns.

  He had no bullets.

  Then he had an idea.

  The large boulder on his left had been unstable when he took cover behind it a few moments before and it nearly tumbled down the hill. Luckily, he’d stopped it from rolling.

  The gang rode from right to left below him and on the other side of the trail the embankment steepened, overgrown with thick bushes and undergrowth. It was too steep for horses but a person could get down it and be lost to sight a few yards in. Noose saw how he could create the perfect distraction, and if Bess had the brain he figured she did, the marshal’s daughter could use the confusion to escape.

  He hoped she had a good head on her shoulders.

  Noose shoved the rock.

  * * *

  The crashing of a heavy object tumbling through the bushes above them, rolling down the embankment, made all the bounty killers look up and aim their guns at once.

  Bess’s head swung around at the gang and saw nobody was looking at her.

  All the men’s eyes were locked on the approaching boulder that rolled over and over down the hill toward them. Culhane and Lawson, too quick on the trigger, blasted their guns uselessly up into the woods. To the credit of the rest, their reflexes were fast and most of the gang didn’t fire a shot or waste a bullet. All of them saw it was a falling rock even before it glanced off a thick tree trunk that sent it tumbling harmlessly out of their path.

  “It’s nothing,” growled Butler.

  The guns were lowered.

  Thumbed-back hammers were slowly released.

  You could hear a chorus of exhales.

  Butler rotated his head to look fiercely back at his men. His eyes widened in fury.

  Bess’s saddle was empty.

  She was long gone.

  CHAPTER 35

  Four long miles away from where Joe Noose was, the two Jackson Hole lawmen riding in his direction heard the shots.

  Marshal Mackenzie reined his horse on the narrow trail in the valley above Hoback and put up his gloved hand for Deputy Swallows to halt. The peace officers turned their heads toward the mountainous rise ahead and adopted an intensely listening attitude.

  A string of distant cracks emanated from somewhere in the towering pine forest blanketing the rugged barrier range of the Hoback Junction where the Snake River forked . . . where exactly the lawmen couldn’t be sure, but the sound of gunfire was unmistakable and plenty of shots were being exchanged. The echoes of the guns reverberated in the amplification of the walls of the forested canyons a few miles ahead.

  Finally, it stopped.

  The reports dispersed in the light wind.

  Mackenzie and Swallows swung their glances to each other, both thinking the same thing: maybe this thing is over and the U.S. Marshal’s killer has been shot dead.

  No way to tell.

  They had to keep going, see firsthand.

  At least they knew they were headed in the right direction.

  The lawmen spurred their horses and rode on.

  “Something ain’t right about this,” said Mackenzie.

  “Damn right it ain’t,” retorted Swallows.

  “I heard tell about that gang of bounty hunters. Them boys that passed through and is chasing this reward,” the marshal said. “You were out running an errand when they stopped by.”

  “What did you hear?” the deputy inquired.

  “None of it good,” his boss replied, and left it at that.

  “That so?”

  “Let’s just say there ain’t no dead or alive about those boys. They always bring the men in dead.”

  “Ain’t against the law.”

  “Even when they don’t have to kill ’em, they do. It’s like they take pleasure in it. Frank Butler and his boys like shooting people, they say. You missed that gang when they rode through Jackson a couple days back. Like a black cloud it was.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, sir.”

  “Those bounty hunters brought to mind a kettle of vultures.”

  “Buzzards they sound like, for sure.”

  “Their leader, Butler. That man had killer’s eyes. Dead.” Mackenzie shook his head.

  “The bounty hunter profession ain’t a nice line of work,” Swallows replied. “That’s why you and me, we do this. But somebody got to do that.”

  “I don’t like them. But like’s got nothing to do with it. In this job, we have to deal with all types.” The marshal thumbed his chin, thinking for a minute. “Now, as I recollect it, when Butler and his boys stopped by our office they found out about that fugitive Jim Henry Barrow, the Victor bank robber there’s the reward on. They said they were going after the bounty on him. Joe Noose had come through earlier, asked us the same questions about Barrow, then went after him. You were there.” The deputy nodded as the marshal kept talking. “Noose, he said he meant to bring Barrow in alive. Anyhow, I told them Butler boys Noose had a head start on them on that reward. As I remember, they took off like their asses were on fire.”

  “What are you getting at, sir?”

  “Hell if I know. Reckon we’ll soon find out.”

  Both lawmen laughed a little. The conversation lagged for a while and neither man spoke for a few minutes as they rode over the grassy plain. A cloud passed over the sun in the lowering skies and a shadow fell across the Teton Pass mountain range miles west to their right. The deputy lapsed into a thoughtful silence, then finally shook his head no to himself. The marshal, who had been rolling a cigarette in his saddle and was now in the process of licking the paper, looked over at his man.

  “Joe Noose, he don’t fit the type to kill Marshal Sugarland,” Swallows said. “Why would he do it?”

  “Folks kill people.” Mackenzie shrugged, striking a match. “Ain’t always a why. Wish there was. It would simplify things and make our job a lot easier.” He puffed.

  “There’s got to be a why.”

  “The marshal a
nd he had some kind of disagreement we don’t know about, at least not yet.” Mackenzie shrugged.

  “I heard lots of stories about Noose,” Swallows added. “Colorful individual. He was a lawman out in Cody. Ran cattle in New Mexico.”

  “He don’t wear a badge no more. Heard about Noose, too. He’s been in jail. Killed a man.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “Justifiable homicide was the charge. Five-year sentence. They suspended it. He was let out because the local law needed him for something, disremember what. It was dangerous work and he’s a dangerous man, so they say, and he had the skill set required.”

  “You sure that was Noose?”

  “Pretty sure. The name is memorable.”

  “I don’t see him killing Sugarland, Marshal. Something ain’t right about this.”

  “Listen, Swallows. Nate Sugarland’s own daughter called in to get the reward authorized for Noose and she was the deputy. I say ‘was’ because with her father dead she’s the acting marshal right now. I know that girl and you do, too, and she’s got a level head. Bess must have seen Noose do it or why would she have telegraphed us? Stands to reason she’s a witness.”

  “Mebbe.”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Well, mebbe she is. Or mebbe one of Butler’s boys had a gun to her head. Or otherwise put her up to it someways, somehow.”

  “A thing is what it looks like. Most of the time, in my experience, exactly what it looks like. Regardless, this is why we’re riding over there to intercept them and get to the bottom of this.”

  “Hold up.” Both lawmen slowed their horses to a trot at the obstruction they had come to.

  A wide stretch of the mighty Snake River lay before them, a powerful surging flow of flat rapids moving slowly through a wending ravine in the valley floor.

  There was a sheep bridge across it.

  A narrow, weathered, rickety wooden structure wide enough for only one horse to cross at a time.

  It stretched over a two-hundred-and-twenty-foot width of muddy blue-brown water serpentining through the valley.

  “I hate this bridge,” the marshal said.

  “I hate it, too,” the deputy agreed.

  “Why those heathens didn’t build the damn thing wide enough for two horses to cross side by side, I’ll never know,” said Mackenzie. “Well, let’s get across. I’ll go first if it makes you feel better.”

  That settled, spurring their horses, the two lawmen trotted down the declination toward the shoreline and moments later rode their horses in a single-file procession across the old bridge spanning the Snake.

  CHAPTER 36

  Her boots kicked up the dirt.

  Bess Sugarland had seen her chance and seized it when seconds before she had jumped out of the saddle off the horse. Her trammeled hands were bound in front of her so her departure wasn’t graceful by any means: she landed on the slope like a sack of potatoes but the sound of impact when her shoulder slammed to the ground of the muddy embankment was muffled by the loud din of the falling boulder so none of the gang heard her running feet escape down the hill.

  Now Bess barreled like a mad steer through the undergrowth—half running, half sliding, half falling, and getting up again in her rushed descent down the hill, not looking back.

  No bullets came her way.

  That was all she needed to worry about.

  She was shielded from view by the thick trees and branches and when the shots finally came they missed by a mile. Bess knew these boys could shoot. The gang could not see her or where she went from their present position, or they would have hit what they aimed at.

  Even so, Bess Sugarland thought the best idea was to keep running and that’s exactly what she did.

  * * *

  That falling rock was no damn accident—Butler knew better.

  It was Noose.

  He’d known that taking the woman hostage would flush out their man sooner or later but Noose had outsmarted him and been a step ahead. Now Butler had lost the girl, a live witness to the frame-up, and if she talked to anybody the jig was up.

  She had to be silenced.

  The leader of the bounty killers reined his rearing black horse around with one hand, his cocked Colt Dragoon clenched in the other gloved fist, his keen observant eyes cutting back and forth scanning the slope above his gang. All he could see were thick rows of conifers, bushy branches, walls of dense green—that slippery bastard Noose could be thirty yards away and Butler might still not see him. If he was out there, he was being quiet as a ghost.

  Too quiet, in fact. No shots had come from above, and Noose would have a clear shot at Butler and his men, which meant only one thing: Noose was out of bullets and defenseless.

  That was the good news.

  The bad news was Butler was going to have to split his gang up. They couldn’t let that marshal’s daughter get away, and she had a head of steam on now, probably already a quarter mile away in woods it would be easy to hide out in.

  And with Noose so close he and some of his boys had to chase him down, because without the man’s corpse slumped over a saddle there wouldn’t be no reward anyhow.

  “Culhane! Lawson! Get after that woman!” Butler roared. “If you see her, shoot her! Blow her damn head off if you can! I want her dead! Dead, you hear me?”

  With terse, obedient nods, the two bounty killers followed orders and quickly dismounted, tying the reins of their horses to the trees. Drawing out their Winchester and Sharps rifles, the thugs jumped down the slope below the trailhead and hurried after the female marshal in the direction they saw her depart. Soon the shootists were lost to view in the dense woods.

  The leader swung his gaze to Sharpless, Garrity, Trumbull, and Wingo. “The rest of you, come with me! That son of a bitch we’re after can’t be far! Time is money! Let’s finish this business!”

  Jagging his spurs into his stallion’s flanks, Butler charged the frothing beast directly up the hill into the slanted tangle of trees. The pounding hooves of the horse’s muscle-bound legs cut into the dirt as it drove its hulking body relentlessly upward, climbing with ferocious lunges of speed, the steed’s eyes as insane as those of its master. Birds exploded from the trees in frightened flight at the clamor of the dangerous horse and rider.

  In Butler’s furious wake, Sharpless, Garrity, Wingo, and Trumbull drew their rifles and pistols and galloped in single-file formation after their leader, ready to shoot anything that moved . . . even, it might look to the casual observer, each other.

  * * *

  She’d gotten away!

  That beautiful sight had made Noose’s heart leap with hope and his pulse skipped a beat with excitement.

  The marshal’s daughter, smart as he’d counted on, used the distraction of the falling rock to jump out of her saddle—she was off her horse and away down the slope in mere seconds, it seemed.

  They gang was splitting up. Good. Below, Noose saw the chaos and confusion of spinning horses and heard Butler yelling orders—then two of the bounty killers were dismounted and racing down the hill after the woman and the leader and his other four men were riding up the hill in his general direction.

  And that was not good.

  So Noose started running.

  As he heard the thunder of the approaching hooves and creaking of saddle leather, the cowboy saw glimpses of the riders through the leaves.

  They had a lot of guns out.

  He didn’t have any.

  Bad odds.

  Staying low, avoiding the tree branches so as not to make noise or movement, Joe Noose sprinted across the muddy dirt, keeping his boots squarely in the undergrowth. He wanted to avoid leaving sign they could track. He could hear the bounty killers getting closer but they would not know where he was exactly. And up here with him, they were down to five. That was a whole lot better than twelve, as yesterday had started.

  The gang was at a disadvantage splitting up with their numbers reduced. If Butler didn’t know that, he should
. Divide and conquer was Noose’s plan. The cowboy pushed on through the woods, seeing nothing ahead but more trees and patches of sky through the treetops.

  What Noose needed to do was take down one of those riders and steal his horse, getting the man’s guns—then he’d have a fighting chance to shoot it out with Butler and the other bastards. But to do that, Noose couldn’t be out front—he’d have to get behind them somehow . . . or above them.

  He switched his gaze to the pine tree twenty feet to his right.

  The nearest branch was just low enough.

  * * *

  They sounded like they were no more than a hundred yards behind her on the other side of the thick tree trunk Bess stood pressed flat against, not moving a muscle.

  Sounded like three of seven men, maybe two, she couldn’t tell—but only a few of the gang were after her. The rest would be after Joe Noose, so she whispered a hushed prayer for him.

  Holding her breath, not making a sound, the young woman just kept her ears open and listened. The fat tree trunk she knew shielded her from view. The unseen bounty killers mumbled curses and spat on the ground, making no effort to be quiet as they lumbered like oxen through the underbrush. Muffled voices sounded through the bushes.

  “—You see her?—” Culhane. Crap. She knew his voice.

  “—Bitch—” Lawson. Of course.

  “—Wait a minute. Think I heard her—”

  The two bounty killers who most wanted her hide were the ones Butler had sent after her and that meant Butler wanted her dead, not recaptured.

  For a long, scary moment, Bess tensed up and clenched her eyes shut as the boot falls of the professional killers stopped and it got very quiet while they strained their ears trying to hear some sound of her.

  “—I don’t hear squat—”

  “—Which way?—”

  “That way.”

  Patience wasn’t these lowlifes’ long suit, and seconds later Bess heard them on the move again.

  The footsteps were moving away from her, deeper into the forest down the declination below. When the clumsy noises they made became distant, Bess chanced a glance from around the edge of the tree trunk and saw the flash in the nick of time before the heavy-caliber round blew off a fist-sized chunk of bark and wood that showered her face with splinters as the shot missed her nose by an inch. She cried out and then they knew exactly where she was.