The Last Hard Men - Brian Garfield [46]
Hal Brickman’s eyes widened. “You mean kill Susan.”
“That’s it. If I don’t show up where Provo can see me in the next twenty-four hours, she’ll be dead, and he’ll see to it I find out about it.”
Nye’s voice began to climb unreasonably. “But god-damnit, Captain. S’posin’ you do show up? S’posin’ you take his bait? What good’ll that do Susan?”
“Maybe he’ll make a trade,” Burgade murmured.
Nye stared at him. “You for Susan, you mean.”
“He might do it.”
“Jesus goddamn Christ.”
The deputies came out of the shack, followed by two uniformed Navajo police who stood on the porch and folded their arms and watched while the posse got mounted. Burgade said, “I’ll have to ride back with you until we’re out of sight.”
Little gray birds flitted soundlessly from the roof of the police shack to the treetops up by the spring. Burgade locked both hands around the saddle horn and hauled himself up by an effort of will. Riding away from the village, Nye said to him, “Jesus, Captain, you ain’t in no fit shape.”
“Shut up.”
They batted south along the tawny earth, everybody in a bitter frame of mind. It took forty-five minutes to get beyond the line of sight of the Castle Butte village. Nye said, “Maybe you ought to ride back at least as far as the line. You know damn well they gonna come out here in a little while to see if we kep our word.”
“I can’t waste that much time, Noel.”
The posse came to a ragged halt. Nye’s unrevealing eyes swept bleakly across them. “Moorhead, you mand swappin’ horses with the Captain? I believe you got the best horse of the bunch there.”
“I’ll keep this one” Burgade didn’t want to have to dismount and climb up again. He said, “But I’d take it kindly if some of you’d let me have a little spare food and a couple of canteens.”
“You heard the Captain. Pony up, boys.”
Hal Brickman kneed his horse forward. “I could use some provisions too, Sheriff.”
Burgade said, “Forget it, Hal.”
“No. I’m going with you.”
“I appreciate the gesture, Hal, but—”
“If I turn back now and anything happens to Susan, I’ll feel exactly the same way you’d feel. You’ve got to see that.”
A gust of wind came along, like a breath from an oven. The hovering glare had given Burgade a headache. He studied Hal over a long stretch of time and finally he said, “You stand an excellent chance of being killed if you ride with me. You accept that?”
“Yes, sir. I know I’m a greenhorn but I can shoot. I’ll do what you tell me to do.”
Nye said, “God knows you could use the hep, Captain.”
“All right, Hal. It’s your decision.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me, for God’s sake.”
They looked back a couple of times and saw the posse’s dust receding to the south. Burgade chose a westerly course that kept them below the horizon, running along dry watercourses and the groined notches between low hills. “We’ll circle around and try to pick up their tracks north of Castle Butte.” The strong sun slashed at them, hot breezes raked them with sinister abrasive caresses, there wasn’t a vestige of shade anywhere; sweat was sticky in the small of his back, in his palms, in his crotch, on his lips and throat. He had got inured to the smell of himself.
An eagle passed high overhead with a steady wingbeat. The empty land was a match for Burgade’s emptiness of spirit. Sixteen million acres, Nye had said, and that was just about exactly the size of it. The Reservation sprawled all over the high desert, overlapping the boundaries of four states. Most of it was just like this—a leafless sun-blasted furnace, broken here and there by craggy mesas and cutbank arroyos and the deep-canyon tributaries of the Colorado: the Grand Canyon was just a little way to the northwest.
It was a hard-mouthed horse, a small tough gray gelding. Burgade set a pace to conserve the animals—walk, trot, canter, then walk again. The gray fought