The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [37]
“Must have run a straight line for the border.”
“Maybe,” Quantro conceded, stepping down to examine the tracks more closely. “Doesn’t figure. Seems to me Upton pulled out first, the way this sign reads. But if he left Dobey here as a rearguard, why did Dobey cut out before I hit the rim?”
“So what?”
“Something else, too. They must have left the packhorses away from the canyon so they’d make less noise when they sneaked back last night, but they sure as hell didn’t bring them here on to the rim.”
“You saying if you don’t pick up their sign soon, they left them some place else?”
“That’s about it.”
“Then they’ll be riding like hell for wherever the silver is,” Pete sniffed. “Can’t see Upton letting it out of his sight for long. “
“Me neither,” Quantro agreed, vaulting back into the saddle. “What I don’t like to think about is there could be somebody else in on it, maybe someone with a place near the border who’s minding it for Upton. That could make it even more difficult.”
“If that’s so, we can forget it. We’ve lost ’em.”
Quantro looked up, face grim. “Not yet we haven’t.”
CHAPTER 9
Upton wished his arm would stop bleeding. He had already changed the makeshift bandage once since he had left the canyon but the material was again soaked. It was that way sometimes. You got hit bad and you hardly bled at all, but when you just got nicked you bled like a neck-cut buffalo.
He was almost there.
He had it all to himself now, and that was the way he had planned on from the very beginning. The only trouble was he would have to load all the packhorses himself. The original scheme hadn’t called for Dobey to be disposed of quite so soon, but what the hell, Quantro would take care of that for him. With any luck, Dobey would keep Quantro occupied on the rim for a while. Maybe he would even kill him, but Upton didn’t think Dobey was anywhere near as good as that. Keeping him tied up for a while would be good enough. As long as there was time to reload the silver and cover the short ride to the border.
The border spelt freedom. And rich. Rich with a capital R.
The horses were penned in a dry wash Dobey’d found. When Upton had decided to turn tail and go back to the canyon to get Quantro, it had been a simple matter to weave some brushwood to form an effective corral gate to cover the end of the wash. In one of the shale walls Upton had found a hollow deep enough to hide the saddlebags that contained the silver, then covered them over.
He pulled his lathered horse to a standstill and studied the land. If he cut west a little he would soon be there. Good. He turned to inspect his back trail. No telltale plumes of dust. Also good. Dobey was probably still holding off Quantro. Wishful thinking perhaps, but any additional minute that Quantro was kept off the trail was another minute for Upton to make his getaway.
He urged his weary horse forward, angling across the rising ground. It was a good hiding-place he had chosen; there was no sign of the dry wash as he approached it.
He passed through a saddle in the rise then swung west into the beginnings of broken ground. Jagged rocks thrust through the earth as though grasping for a handhold in the clear sky, and on the south side, a huge saguaro cactus pointed swollen fingers accusingly at the fireball of the sun.
The brushwood gate was still in place. Still mounted, he fashioned a loop in his lariat, then made a cast on to the twisted weave of thorny wood. He hauled in the slack. Once satisfied the rope would hold, he wound a coil around his saddle horn and backed his horse. The gate swung open.
The packhorses were still there, but it was the silver his mind was uneasy about. The shale in the hollow was undisturbed. Distrusting