The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1) by Brad Dennison (microsoft ebook reader .TXT) 📗

into Josh’s cup, the girl said, “Felicia’s not my real name. It just sounds like the kind of woman who would be able to get men a-wantin’. My real name is Sarah-Ann.”

“You don’t need a fancy name to get men a-wantin’,” Josh said.

She gave him a pleased smile.

Dusty rolled his eyes with disbelief, and handed her the coffee.

“Do you mind if we call you Sarah-Ann?” Josh asked.

“I think I’d like that. It’s been so long since anyone called me that,” she said a little sadly.

“Look,” Dusty said. “I don’t mean to seem rude, but I have to wonder what you’re doing out here, alone, at this time of night.”

“I came here to warn you. Go back where you come from,” she said gently. “There’ll only be trouble if you stay in this area. Real trouble.”

“You don’t even know us. And yet you’re risking your life to ride out here?”

“It’s just that, I know what those men are capable of. You two seem like good sorts. I just don’t want to see them hurt anyone else.” She took a sip of coffee. “I can’t stay long. If they even suspect I rode out to talk to you, they’ll shoot me.”

“Who would?” Josh asked.

“Flossy Knight, the woman I work for. And her beau, Victor Falcone.”

“Vic Falcone?” Dusty asked.

She gave him her full attention now. “You know him?”

Dusty was careful with his reply. “I know the name. He rides with..,” he hesitated a moment while he appeared to search his memory for a name, “...Sam Patterson, doesn’t he?”

She nodded. “That’s him. Only now, he’s got his own gang together. I’ve never met Sam Patterson. Vic and the boys have a hideout somewhere in these hills.”

“How do you know that?”

“Flossy has them bring us girls to the hideout sometimes for...for..,” she stopped as if she could not bear to speak the word, and lowered her head in shame.

“Those-sons-of-a-,” Josh visibly erupted, and almost made a show of keeping his temper in check.

Dusty had to hold back a grin. He had already seen Josh’s temper enough to know when it was real. Just be careful, he thought. Don’t over-act.

Josh said, “Could you lead us to their hideout?”

She shook her head. “Whenever they take us there, they always blind-fold us.”

“How do they take you? Wagon or horseback?”

“By horseback. A wagon couldn’t make it over the trail.”

“How long does it take you to get there from town?”

She shrugged. “Three hours, maybe.”

Dusty stepped away to think for a moment, one hand rubbing his bristly chin unconsciously.

“They’re afraid of you boys,” she said.

“Why?” Josh asked.

“Because of the way you carry those guns, and the fact that you asked about them as soon as you rode into town.”

Josh shrugged. “Well, we’ll make sure and be careful.”

“Please do.” She gave him a smile.

She handed him the coffee cup. “I really should be heading back to town.”

“You took a risk coming out here,” Josh said.

“Not really. I often ride alone at night, when business is slow, to clear my mind.”

She climbed back into the saddle, and handed him back his jacket.

“You ride careful, now,” Josh said. “Take care of yourself.”

“I always do.”

She turned the horse out of the ring of firelight, and once her hoofbeats had disappeared into the distance, Josh said, “Well, now. We’ve met a vamp named Felicia, and a shy farm girl named Sarah-Ann. Two for the price of one.”

Dusty said, “If she’s telling the truth, then that might explain why they were careless when they attacked the ranch. Vic has leadership skills, but never was as thorough as Sam in his thinking.”

“Even if this Vic Falcone is the one in charge now, and he’s as careless as you remember, would he be stupid enough to have sent a girl out riding into the night alone just to pry information out of us? It seems like kind of an elaborate thing to do.”

“Yeah. He might. The thing about being on the run, it makes you wary. Maybe overly so. And you sometimes take foolish chances. The interest you seemed to show in the girl, back at the saloon, might have made Vic think sending her out here would be a good idea. What he did, though, was tip his hand. Because, now we know for sure he and the boys are in the area. It was a mistake I don’t think Sam would have made. Underestimating your opponent can get you killed.”

“So, what’s next?”

Dusty grabbed his bedroll and began to roll it. “Grab your gear. We’re getting out of here. We’ll ride a while, then set up another camp.”

“Why?”

“Precaution. And we’ll make cold camp tonight. We’ll bank this fire good so it will burn long into the night and give anyone out there something to look at while we ride away. In the morning, before we start cutting for sign, we’ll take us a little ride back this way. You might find it educational.”

By sun-up, they were already saddled up and riding, heading back to their first camp of the night before. The earth in and around their camp was littered with a scattered collection of hoofprints and bootprints.

“You can see they tried to pay us a visit last night,” Dusty said. “They waited out there in the darkness, giving us time to go to sleep. Then they charged the campfire.”

“That’s a second time they underestimated us.”

“We can’t keep banking on them doing that, though. We can’t afford the luxury of underestimating them.”

Josh could seem, among the boot prints made by the men, was a set of smaller tracks. They matched the smallish bootprints he and Pa had seen at the raider’s camp, back in the ridges that rimmed their valley.

Josh said, “These tracks look like they were made by maybe a woman. Must have been Felicia.”

Dusty nodded. “She probably didn’t ride out alone. These men held back, maybe a half mile out, while she rode into our camp alone. Then they held back and waited.”

“Come on,” Josh said. “Let’s go find their hideout.”

THIRTY-FIVE

The trail created