The Last Hard Men - Brian Garfield [51]
“How can you tell?”
“Horses kicked over a lot of pebbles. Look.” He reached down into the water, up to his elbow, and picked up a small stone. “Rough side up. It’s been turned over recently—otherwise it would have been smooth and slimy like the other side.”
They walked very slowly up the bank. After ten minutes Burgade was trying to conceal the fact that he was breathing hard. He stopped and scowled at the heavy carpet of black clouds that was unrolling swiftly overhead. “We’ll have rain tonight.”
“Does that mean we might lose them?”
“Provo will make sure we don’t.” Burgade had been weighing things in his mind. Now he said with abrupt decision, “He’s not going to leave anything to chance. He’s got to be right around here someplace—three miles, maybe five, but no more than that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to ride in the water.”
“And?”
“He knows we’re close to him. He’s probably doubled back on his own tracks and set up an ambush. I don’t see any point in walking into it.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Nothing. We camp and sit tight. When we. don’t show up, he’ll send somebody out to look for us.”
“What if he does?”
“We’ll just wait for whoever it is to show up.” The trees crowded down close along both banks of the stream. The dusk was thickening, made darker by swelling storm clouds. Burgade spent ten minutes walking around in the trees until he found a spot that satisfied him. “We’ll picket the horses in here and roll up a couple of fake blanket dummies to look like men asleep. Doubtful anybody’ll fall for it, but whoever comes will investigate. Well set a little snare for him.”
“With what?”
Burgade rummaged in his saddlebags. “This.” He took out the coil of fine high-test fishing line.
The rain held off. Burgade showed Hal how to string the line, at shin level, taut from tree to tree. There wasn’t enough to go all the way around but it wasn’t likely an intruder would expose himself by stepping across the stream, so Burgade left that side open. The rest was circled by the tripwire.
By the time they were finished it was full dark. Burgade picked his spot and pushed down on Hal’s shoulder. “Don’t even breathe. We don’t want him to spot us.”
“What makes you think anyone will come?”
“We didn’t cross over the top. Provo had to be watching for us. When we didn’t show up, he must have started to worry. He may even think we got lost. He’ll send a stalking horse.”
“A what?”
“A man to show himself. Somebody we’ll recognize and follow. Meant to lead us into a trap. Now shut up and lie still.”
Burgade sat on the ground with his .30-06 rifle across his lap. Forty feet away, inside the tripwire circle, the picketed horses browsed. He couldn’t really see them; the darkness was complete. He spent a quarter of an hour gathering up dry pine needles and lashing them to the end of a two-foot twig in a torch-sized bundle. When that was done he unwrapped his waterproof match bag and put three wooden matches where he could get at them—one behind each ear and one between his teeth in the corner of his mouth like a toothpick. He set the rifle silently aside and palmed his .45 double-action, and then there was nothing to do but wait, and nothing to think about but Susan.
The shadows were deep and sinister, the darkness all but total. It was possible to make out the darker outlines of the trees overhead against the clouds beyond, and he could distinguish the boles of nearby trees and the shape of the forest ground, but the horses were only vague suggestions and he had to rely mainly on his ears.
It was hard to think about the anguish Susan must be going through; it was impossible not to think about it. Whether or not they had laid so much as a finger on her, she was living at every breath with the horror of it, the awful knowledge of what Provo aimed to do. Even if she could be rescued alive, would she ever be whole again?
Zach Provo had that to answer for. Burgade knew the rage that burned in Provo. It was no more savage than his own.