The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [40]
Upton steadied his aim as best he could with the galloping horse beneath him. He had to shoot fast, he was coming to a rise. He squeezed the trigger.
The rifle barked and Dobey went down.
The horse side-stepped, and with one foot still out of the stirrup, Upton almost fell. He grabbed for the saddle horn, his boot groping for a hold. He found it, but when he turned again, Dobey was lost to sight behind the billowing dust kicked up by the horses.
Upton was free again.
***
Quantro found the dry wash without any difficulty. He had followed Dobey’s straight line, noting wryly that the gunman was riding flat out. Any man riding like that wasn’t exactly bothering to cover his trail, his mind all too obviously concerned with something up ahead.
But what?
The thought crossed Quantro’s mind that it would be a trick. Upton had already played foxy more than once since Santa Cruz. There was more than an even chance he would again.
When he and Pete came upon the dry wash, Quantro was even more suspicious. Were Dobey’s obvious tracks just to lure them into an ambush set in the bottoms?
He left the buckskin with reins trailing and approached the wash on foot. All was quiet.
The place was empty.
Without waiting for Pete, he went over the rim, moccasins skidding even though they sank ankle deep in the loose shale. At the bottom he read the sign. When he had uncovered its story, he called for Pete.
The older man crested the rim and slid his horse down the slope Quantro had used. “You got it all figured out?”
“Some,” Quantro conceded, going on to explain how Dobey had sat on the rim for a while before he’d come down, then how the two men had talked before Upton pulled out, leaving Dobey behind.
“They fell out?”
“Seems like it.”
Pete sniffed and pushed his hat to the back of his head. “Men always get greedy. See a little silver, they want more.” He put a hand to his chin, rubbing thoughtfully at the two-day growth of graying whiskers. “So now Dobey’s after him too.”
Quantro nodded.
Pete pursed his lips. “That could save us a sight of trouble.”
Quantro glanced at where Dobey’s trail led out of the wash. “Know what you mean. If both of them were riding with the silver, one could take time out to mess up the trail. This way, Upton might cover his tracks but Dobey’s going to be so all fired angry he ain’t gonna bother to cover his. He should give us a straight line to Upton.” He turned to read the older man’s face.
Pete was already walking back to his pony.
***
Pete leaned out over the boardwalk railings and spat into the dust of the street. He grimaced and looked over to the sign that read: CHARLESTON TELEGRAPH OFFICE, COCHISE COUNTY, ARIZONA TERRITORY. He studied it a moment, then spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
“Well, are you going to send it or not?”
Quantro followed Pete’s sightline. The ferocity of his gaze gave voice to his wish that the office would disappear. It didn’t. Instead, the curl of smoke from the cigarette in his mouth drifted across his eyes. He rubbed at his face, then inhaled a last lungful before he plucked the stub from his lips and tossed it out into the street.
“Well?” Pete persisted.
Quantro’s facial muscles pulled his face in different directions. His shoulders hunched as if he was about to shrug but he was only hooking his thumbs in his gunbelt.
“If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were kinda reluctant,” Pete said dryly.
Quantro’s head dipped and he finally executed the shrug his shoulders had threatened before. When his voice came, it came like a twister out of the dry prairie, full of venom and cutting down everything that stood in its path.
“And tell them what, for God’s sake? Tell Harley we lost ’em? He’s going to love that to death, ain’t he? Lost them.” He spat it out. His knuckles were white as his hand snaked out to grab the railing. “Son of a bitch. What can I tell him? That we trailed