Noose Page 18

  The woman took off.

  Bullets flew past her ears.

  Bess didn’t dare look back.

  She just watched where she was putting her feet as the rutted ground dropped and rose, rose and dropped, side-skidding her boots down the muddy slope—a twisted or broken ankle at this moment would end her. Gunshots rang out behind—muffled cracks in the forest—and slugs sang through the leaves and branches, rebounding off rocks and tree trunks to her right and left.

  Either they were bad shots or she was faster or they were slower than she thought.

  Right now Bess was alive and her adrenaline was pumping so she ran for her life away from the bounty killers chasing her down. And she had a little more motivation than they did: her own skin.

  With her hands tied in front of her, the rope lashed around her wrists threw her off balance on the uneven ground.

  Jumping over a boulder, she scampered down a ridge.

  CHAPTER 37

  Marshal Mackenzie and Deputy Swallows had just ridden up the mountain trailhead into a densely forested glen and decided to rest their horses a moment, when no sooner had they swung out of the saddle than the two strangers showed up.

  The Jackson lawmen noticed them first. Saw both individuals were very out of breath, panting heavily. The men had clearly been running. Two big fellows in long dusters and no hats, carrying Winchester and Sharps rifles and, judging from their perspiring winded faces, busy chasing something or being chased by something right up to the moment they saw the two lawmen. Then they stopped dead in their tracks, regarding the interlopers with flat eyes and after a beat started to come across the glen in a casual stride toward the peace officers. Cool customers indeed, the marshal judged, going from running like the devil was on their tail to walking like they were just passing the time of day without a care in the world.

  His deputy was reading his thoughts. “Huntin’?” Swallows said out of the side of his mouth.

  “Hunting somethin’,” Mackenzie replied out the other side of his.

  One of the approaching men, who had a beard and a scar across his face, raised his hand in greeting.

  “Howdy,” the other called across the grass, a long and thin man with features like a battle hatchet.

  “Howdy back,” said the marshal.

  His deputy made do with a nod.

  Seeing as the strangers were coming to them and despite their big guns and aggressive appearance that indicated they meant harm, Mackenzie and Swallows went back to tying off their horses’ reins on the tree and refreshing their mounts with water from a canteen. Mackenzie was laconic in all things, slow in his movements from age; Swallows moved slow for other reasons having more to do with lethal cool—but both men moved very quick and drew very fast when the occasion demanded it and their metal badges were in plain view on their hats and the lawmen’s Winchester and Henry repeater rifles were in easy reach on their horses’ saddles as were the Colt Single Action Army revolvers in their gun belts. If these men heading toward them were in the market for some trouble, the Jackson Hole U.S. Marshal’s office would give them all the business they could handle.

  The armed men kept on coming, easy as you please, taking their sweet time in the approach. The marshal guessed this was a deliberate attempt to act casual, given how dodgy an entrance they’d made moments before.

  Never taking his muddy brown eyes off the two blurry figures expanding in his field of vision, Mackenzie took a swig of his canteen and splashed it on his hot face. His eyesight was bad at distance and his hard stare that they probably took for hostility was just the old man hoping his vision would clear enough to see who he was dealing with. Didn’t matter in the end—his reliable deputy had perfect twenty-twenty vision and the old man didn’t need to move his head to know Swallows had just loaded his long-range Henry rifle because he heard the familiar snick of the hammer being cocked.

  Mackenzie’s attention was trained on those two strangers who had made their presence known and, even though he could discern only their blurry shapes, several thoughts traveled through his mind.

  What are these men doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Had to be one of two things.They’re being chased by or chasing something on four legs or two.

  And whatever they want, what is it?

  * * *

  As the bounty killer called Lawson was halfway across the field toward the lawmen he had identified by the gleam of sunlight glinting off the metal of the marshal star on the hat badge, he suddenly recognized the old one and nudged Culhane, walking beside him. “Look. That’s that marshal from Jackson we handed over Bonny Kate to.”

  The other gunman lifted his hand to his brow to block the sunlight and made visual confirmation. “Good call. That’s him, all right. Other one must be the deputy. Wasn’t there when we were. Won’t know us. We got nothing to worry about. Marshal won’t remember seeing us, neither.”

  “It was four days ago.”

  “Could be two seconds ago. Won’t know your face. Trust me.”

  The bounty killers were a good two hundred yards from the peace officers who they had a pressing question to ask of, too far away for their conversation to be overheard, but they kept their voices down anyway so as not to take any chances. They were professionals and it was their job not to do anything stupid.

  “That old-timer’s been looking straight at us this whole time,” Lawson said tightly. “Must recognize us.”

  “He don’t recognize us.” With a smile, Culhane shook his head and didn’t drop his stride.

  “He’s looking right at us.”

  “Don’t know our faces.”

  “Excuse me, friend, I have seen that look on many a lawdog’s face before and that look is, I recognize you, boy. That look is, I know your face.”

  “Nope, what that look is, indeed, is, I’m staring in your direction and squinting because I can’t see nothing. That old man over there can’t see the nose in front of his own face.”

  “You don’t know that. I say you’re wrong.”

  Culhane cocked his head to Lawson, giving him a narrow glance. “Think back, friend. You need to be more observant like I always tell ya, Long Gone. Remember back at the marshal’s office? Were you paying attention?” The other shootist nodded. “The old man had to keep putting on and taking off his thick glasses every time he looked up from his desk. Took ’em off to look down at the papers on his desk, put ’em on when he looked up. Them glasses were for distance. You and me was standing right over him at his desk two feet from his face when we signed on that reward receipt and all our faces was to him was a big old blur.”

  “You sound mighty confident about that.”

  “I notice things. You should get into the habit.”

  Lawson returned the side-eye. “You’re so cocky, put your money where your mouth is. A third of my share of the Noose bounty says that this marshal remembers us right away when we ask him our question. So, he don’t recognize us, I pay you, let’s see, with five of us down, that’s up to fourteen thousand dollars and change apiece for each now. Let’s call it five thousand dollars you pay me, if the marshal knows us, when we collect the reward.” Lawson leaned back at his waist and peered down his nose at Culhane.

  Who merely replied, “So if he recognizes our faces or remembers meeting us I pay you five thousand bucks.”

  Lawson nodded and Culhane shook his head.

  “I never take a bet I don’t want to win.”

  * * *

  “Have you officers seen a lost woman out here all by her lonesome somewhere the last few miles?” the larger blur said, asking the question it seemed they had come over to ask.

  Mackenzie was three feet from the speaker and couldn’t make out his features with his piss-poor eyesight. The marshal kept his gaze squarely fixed at the upper part of the blur, figuring that’s where the man’s eyes were, so the guy he was talking to would feel intimidated thinking Mackenzie was looking at him fearlessly in the eye like any U.S. Marshal should. His dis
tance glasses were in the case in his saddle and the marshal considered walking over and getting them, but that would mean he would have to show weakness by breaking the staredown with the out-of-focus stranger. Couldn’t do that. You never wanted to be the one to blink first. Never wanted to be the one who broke a staredown, even though he couldn’t say for sure if this man was even looking at him. The proud old lawman was image-conscious as part of the job and that age vanity was getting worse with the advancing years. He figured, wrongly, that folks didn’t know he was half-blind if he simply stared in their faces when he talked to them. “Lost woman, you say,” Mackenzie responded gravely after a suitable pause.

  “Our sister,” the second blur, who the old lawman could see in the corner of his eye without having to turn his head, replied a bit too quickly. “She got lost in the woods and we gots to find her.”

  “We thought maybe you good officers might have seen her along the trail while you were riding,” the bigger blur said. “We’re mighty glad we run into you. She’ll be, too, if you can point us in her direction. If you happened to have seen her, that is.”

  Marshal Jack Mackenzie’s eyes were bad but his nose was good . . . he’d smelled these men before. Wasn’t sure where but he recognized something about their odor that sent warning signals through him. Where had he met them?

  So he asked them.

  They both said they had never met. Said it at the exact same time, like it was a planned response. The marshal’s hunting dog instincts tingled and he’d get back to that in a minute with them. “The girl you say is gone missing who you’re after, what did she look like?”

  “Five feet high. Comes up to my shoulder. Bright brown hair. Hot as a pistol.”

  “Yeah, she sure is.”

  Mackenzie eyeballed the men, his aspect laconic and mock observant. “Hell, boys. That fits the description of Bess Sugarland. Maybe you know her. U.S. Marshal’s daughter. She’s a deputy.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “No?”

  “Nope.”

  “And she’s a marshal now. Her pop, Nate Sugarland, got murdered two days ago up in Hoback. You boys heard about that?”

  “We’re not from around here.”

  “Strange, you seem damn familiar.”

  “We got those kind of faces.”

  “I mean you smell familiar. I got a nose like a bloodhound. Never been one to remember a face. But I always remember a man’s smell and my nose says we’ve met before. Yup, I know you boys.”

  “Like I say, we’re just passing through.”

  “Chasing some runaway tail.”

  Mackenzie scowled. “Tail is a funny word to use about your sister, mister.”

  The bigger blur jumped in. “Our sister, she don’t know the woods, scared of animals and such. Want to find her before she gets eaten by a bear. Well, we’ll keep looking.”

  “Good luck.”

  The tense, awkward encounter ended as the bounty killers headed off toward the woods.

  Marshal Mackenzie went to his saddlebags, took out his thick spectacles and put them on, turning to look with crystal vision in the direction of the departing pair.

  “Mister.” Mackenzie didn’t say it as a question.

  The men stopped, backs to the lawmen. Frozen.

  “Can you boys look this way a minute?”

  Lawson and Culhane slowly turned with blank, dead expressions.

  Mackenzie saw both their faces clear as day with his glasses on.

  The bounty killers saw the marshal had his glasses on now. His face had that look lawmen got, the look they had been talking about before, the look that told Culhane and Lawson they had been made. The shootists’ jaws clenched. This could get messy. The way this day was going, real messy. Butler wasn’t going to like it.

  “I remember where I know you boys from,” Mackenzie muttered quietly.

  The marshal hooked his fingers in his belt and looked the gunmen square in their faces, switching his unblinking gaze between two pairs of jumpy unpredictable eyes. His big hands were nearer to his guns than theirs were to their own. “You boys were with Frank Butler and rode with that bounty posse done brought in Bonny Kate Valance three days ago. You were in my office in Jackson. I definitely remember you. All you guys made quite an impression. Probably got both your signatures on that reward receipt on my desk and could find your names if I looked. Last I recall you and your pals were riding out to Hoback to try to track down that reward on the fugitive Jim Henry Barrow. Riding in the direction of Hoback when I last saw you. Puts you right about here. And here you be.”

  “Yeah, that was us. Disremembered.” Culhane turned up his palms in a vague gesture of surrender that brought both hands an inch closer to the smoke wagons slung in his holsters.

  Lawson didn’t do or say anything but was thinking about it.

  “So you do know about the marshal being shot.” Mackenzie didn’t say it as a question.

  With cold empty eyes and steel nerves, Culhane and Lawson watched Mackenzie and Swallows. “Don’t know nothing about no marshal getting shot . . . Marshal.” The flat tone of Culhane’s reply made the implication sound like a threat.

  The deputy kept his hands on his rifle, and the marshal gripped his big knuckles on his belt, widening his liver-spotted old hands on the strap ever closer to his holstered pair of Colt SAA .45 revolvers. Mackenzie’s jowls jiggled in a toothy chummy grin but his eyes held no warmth. “Why sure you do, boys. Butler and his gang called in the reward yesterday morning and are chasing down his killer and you’re in the gang like you just said.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And I disbelieve you, son.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about because we split up with Butler two days ago.”

  “That so?”

  “Me and Long Gone here both parted ways with the man.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Had our money. Bonny Kate was a big payday. We’re taking us a vacation. Fishing and such.”

  “With your sister. The one who got lost and you’re looking for.”

  “Just so. No law against it.”

  “A sister who fits the description of Bess Sugarland, the dead marshal’s daughter. Deputy Bess Sugarland, who called in the reward Butler is chasing down.”

  “Don’t know nothing about that. We don’t ride with Butler no more.”

  “When was the last time you saw Frank Butler?”

  “Two days ago. At the bend of the Snake by Hoback Junction. That’s where we went our separate ways.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Believe what you want, Marshal. You want to charge us with something, be my guest. Don’t see how anything in this game of twenty questions you’ve been playing the last few minutes has anything to do with any crime other than killing a marshal but you said that Butler is already hunting down Joe Noose for the reward so your problems are over.”

  “I never said his name was Joe Noose.”

  A shadow passed over the sun and the forest grew dark as the air suddenly crackled with tension as did the bodies of the four men facing one another in the woods. It got very quiet. All eyes were locked. Seconds passed and nobody spoke.

  “Yes, you did,” said Culhane softly.

  “No, I did not.”

  “You said ‘Noose.’ I clearly remember. Didn’t he say ‘Noose,’ Long Gone?”

  “You said ‘Noose.’ Just now you did.”

  “You both need better ears or better lies because the whole last five minutes we’ve been talking I never once said his name was Noose. Now, keep those hands away from those gun belts and before I tell you boys to raise your hands and place you under arrest, I want to know—”

  Culhane didn’t blink as he interrupted. “You told us at your office. After we delivered Bonny Kate. After Mr. Butler asked about that reward on whoever his name was, you clearly said Joe Noose is a bounty hunter done already gone after it. That’s what
you said.”

  A moment passed, then Mackenzie raised a hand from his belt to scratch his head. “That is what I said, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “Still. It don’t add up.” The marshal shook his head slowly side to side, wearing a hooded expression and shuttered gaze. “Something ain’t right.”

  Culhane clapped his hands together in loud report and boomed cheerfully, “Lot of things ain’t right in these here United States of America, Marshal. That’s a fact. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re mighty worried about our sister and want to catch up with her before a bear eats her or she gets snakebit. So . . .”

  “Be on your way.” Mackenzie waved them off dismissively.

  The bounty killers headed into the trees.

  They were gone from view a minute later.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Culhane and Lawson had returned to Frank Butler, telling him Jackson Hole marshals were in the area sniffing around their business and what was he going to do about it.

  * * *

  That same fifteen minutes later Marshal Jack Mackenzie was still kicking himself for not thinking quick enough when he was questioning the men—yes, it was plausible those men heard him mention Joe Noose’s name but that would have been a full day before Marshal Sugarland’s murder and the reward placed on Noose . . . If these bounty hunters had parted ways with Frank Butler’s gang when and where they claimed and Butler and the rest of his men rode south to Hoback before the marshal’s demise even took place, there’s no way those sons of bitches could have known about the reward on Noose because they weren’t there!

  And Mackenzie had let these sons of bitches just walk away.

  They had been lying through their teeth.

  The question was why?

  Why also were they chasing after a girl who had to be Bess?