The Hunted Read online

  The marshal nodded knowingly. “I’ll bet you don’t. No man worth his salt does. But you’re not married to Ethel. I almost forgot to mention that the job does come with recompense.”

  Charlie’s eyebrows met in a questioning look.

  “The position pays.”

  Charlie almost smiled. “How much?”

  “Knowing my foolish brother-in-law, a man whose very existence is a testament to frugality, I doubt it is very much at all.” He leaned forward and in a lowered voice said, “But it will be more than the distinct lack of coins in your pocket at present.”

  “How did you . . . ?”

  “It is my town, Charlie. I am paid to know everything that goes on here. And I found out in fairly rapid fashion that you lost your shirt at Wilkie’s faro table this afternoon. I’m guessing you could ill afford the loss.”

  “You guessed right.”

  “So does that mean . . . ?”

  Charlie sighed. He settled back into the wooden chair and reached for the cooling cup of coffee. “Tell me about this trip.”

  The marshal nodded and leaned back in his chair. “It’s a freighting run up into the Bitterroots of our very own Idaho Territory, to a mine camp up there, place by the name of Gamble.”

  “That far, this late in the season? You ever been up that high in the fall, Marshal?”

  “As it happens, I have not. I am a Southern man by birth and inclination, relocated here to this outpost as far from magnolia blossoms and beautiful belles as a man can be. Curse me for being a man of my word. Curse me for a fool.” He looked back at Charlie. “Pardon me for being wistful. I gather from your reaction that such a trek at this late date is ill-advised.”

  “You got that right, and then some.”

  “Then it’s a good thing it begins tomorrow morning.”

  “What?”

  “Bright and early, yes, sir. Now, you may spend the night here and in the morning you can collect your things and I’ll show you to the freighters’ camp. And before you protest, I’ll tell you that I’ve seen the best of men, when faced with tantalizing temptation, make mistakes they regret for a long, long time. You are looking at one of them, in fact. With that in mind, you will indeed spend the night in the back cell. But I will make sure you get extra blankets—and a tray of food from Hazel’s Hash House and not from my own harpy’s kitchen. Deal?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No, sir, as a matter of fact, you do not.” The marshal smiled and extended his hand. Charlie noticed the other hand still hovered by his holster, thumb lightly hooked in the belt. They shook.

  “And Mabel-Mae?”

  The marshal looked surprised for the second time that night. “That your wife?”

  Charlie smiled, shook his head. “No, not me. Never had one of those, never will. Mabel-Mae’s my mule, back yonder at the stable. You already met her.”

  “Oh, sure. I’ll see that she’s taken care of for the evening. You have my word. But I will stable her with Skunk.”

  “Skunk?”

  “Yeah, best liveryman in town, but the creature will not bathe to save his life. Can’t understand it. Stock don’t seem to mind, but his customers come and go quick. Now that I think on it, maybe that’s why he chooses to remain so smelly. One way to get out of dealing with the public.”

  Charlie nodded. “And my . . . name?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no paper on you . . . Big Charlie.”

  True to his word, the marshal made sure Charlie had a stack of blankets, moth-eaten, but all to himself. And Watt returned with a tray heaped with food. It went a long way toward satisfying Charlie’s impressive appetite.

  That night, as he stretched out on the hard plank bunk, Charlie thought back on the long day and decided that it could have ended a whole lot better, to be sure. But on the other hand, it nearly ended a whole lot worse. Sure, he’d lost his life’s savings, but he still had Mabel-Mae, his health, his reputation, such as it was, and his freedom, of sorts.

  He also had a job, something he sorely needed, especially heading into winter. But north into the Bitterroot Range, in late October? That was a fool’s mission, make no mistake.

  Nearly asleep, he chuckled, because he was the fool on the mission.

  Chapter 6

  Jasper Rafferty hadn’t been down to the freighters’ camp since they’d arrived two days before. Now it was dark and he’d wished he’d gone an hour earlier, while there was still daylight. He hated leaving town for much of anything unless he was riding high in his barouche, and he never liked to touch the bare ground out here along the river if he could help it.

  He’d seen his share of snakes, but always from as far away as possible. But who knew what the foul creatures did at night? Didn’t they come out of their holes in the dark to hunt and find warmth? What if they sought him out—wrapped themselves right around his ankles and . . . ? Just then he stepped on a brittle length of old branch. It snapped and he pinched out a high, girlish cry.

  A few moments later, he saw a low bloom of lantern light, and footsteps approached.

  “That you, Rafferty?”

  Rafferty recognized the voice as that of the coarse little freighting boss, Everett Meecher.

  “Well, I swear, it is you. I admit to being a bit disappointed. By the sound of it, thought maybe it was a little girl from town, come to show us her attentions.” Meecher doubled over in a squeezebox wheeze that tailed off in a coughing fit. The lantern swung up and down with him, the wire bail squeaking.

  Meecher spat what sounded to Rafferty like a hand-sized gob of phlegm, then said, “Come on to camp, then. I reckon you got some mother-henning to do, so we might as well get that out of the way. And grab that stick while you’re at it. Take all we can get for the fire. It’s fixing to be a cold one tonight.”

  Rafferty froze, wondering if he should go back for the stick. Then thoughts of bending down and wrapping his fingers around something cold and slithery turned his innards to stone and he ran straight for Meecher’s lantern light.

  Once they reached the freighters’ camp, Meecher handed him a tin cup of hot coffee, set the pot back on the flat rock beside the fire.

  “Thank you, Meecher.” Rafferty sipped, looked around the camp.

  Meecher caught his eye. “Don’t worry your head, Rafferty. The men are in town, getting potted up one last time before we load up and hit the trail tomorrow.”

  “That’s what I’m here about, actually.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, you see, one of them, the man named Dutch?”

  “Dutchy, yeah, what of him?”

  “It seems he’s gotten himself in a bit of a pickle. Been punched pretty hard by someone. Got himself laid out good and proper for running his mouth. He was hit by a man some of the folks in town seem to feel is an outlaw.”

  “Hell, how bad is Dutchy hurt?”

  “He is alive, but his jaw’s broken and he can’t stand on his own. I think he’ll be laid up for quite a while, by the looks of it.”

  Meecher stared into the dark toward the lights of the end of town, as if waiting for his men to emerge from the dark at any second. Finally he sighed and said, “I can’t leave the teams. I’ll wait till they get back, then see to Dutchy.”

  “I think, Mr. Meecher, that this would be an ideal time to, well, to . . .”

  “Out with it, Rafferty.”

  “I feel we should call off the trip.” Rafferty liked how that came out, much easier than he had expected. He was already picturing where the stock for the wagons would go in his store and warehouse. The town of Gamble would have to wait out the winter by tightening their belts.

  His know-it-all brother-in-law, Marshal Watt, wouldn’t like the idea, but really, where were the people of Gamble going to go? And who would visit them? Snow would soon seal them in, giving h
im and Watt time to get their investors lined up.

  “Call it off?” Meecher gritted his teeth, the makings of a smile barely tugging his mouth corners. He looked behind him, as if at other men, then back to the thin, nervous man standing before him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Meecher kept the raw smile stretched wide and nudged his hat back on his head. “Seems to me you made a deal with them folks up in Gamble to get this freight on through. They’ll be socked in tighter’n a bull’s backside before too long and they won’t have a lick of flour, nor coffee, nor dried fruit, nor nothing. Not to mention me and my men and the pains we took in getting here at your request. You’d go back on that? On your word, Rafferty?”

  “I never said that. I never said anything of the sort. It’s just that with the Dutch fellow laid out, well, it doesn’t make any sense to push on, you one man short and all.”

  Meecher stared at him hard. Even though he was not a large man, Everett Meecher had a habit of demanding attention wherever he went, simply by being himself. That much Rafferty had noticed from the first day the little scowling man and his crew had arrived in town, the only ones to have responded to Rafferty’s too-late feelers for a freighting outfit.

  “What of it? We got five wagons, five men. Simple.”

  “But,” said Rafferty, “you need a backup man, someone to take up the slack should one of your men come down with something.” Rafferty half turned away, swallowed hard. Not looking at the older man, he said, “No, I’m afraid my mind’s made up. I can’t risk it—”

  “Since when did you know anything about freighting, Rafferty? You did, you’d know them people up in Gamble should have had their supplies long before now.” Meecher squinted. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but if you think you can weasel out on me, you best think again.”

  Meecher came at Rafferty again with that stiff little finger, prodding into his chest with each phrase uttered. “I got all the men I need!” Prod. “And I got all the wagons I need!” Prod. “So you just be ready with the goods first thing in the morning at your storeroom, you hear me? We’ll be there and so will you!” Prod.

  Rafferty stared wide-eyed down at the vicious little man, saying nothing.

  “You got me, Rafferty?”

  “Yes, yes, sir, Mr. Meecher. I . . . I’ll be there.”

  “Then git gone!” Meecher turned back to the fire, his arms wrapped around himself, brooding into the flames.

  It was a long walk back to town, made worse by the fact that Rafferty’s lantern went out with more than half of the twenty-minute walk still ahead of him. It seemed to him that he might well freeze to death or be bitten to death and partially consumed by snakes before he could reach the town.

  It would only be much later, in bed next to his angry stick of a wife, that he would recall someone telling him that snakes denned up in cold weather, all winter long.

  But for the remainder of his walk, the one thing that kept him heading toward the town’s lights was his increasing anger, not with Meecher, though he would dearly love to see the last of that rank man, but with himself for not standing up to the little tyrant. He should have known dealing with Meecher was like dealing with his wife—you never can win an argument with such belligerence. But now he was stuck and had to honor the contract—unless he could make his brother-in-law, the marshal, order Meecher to go away and find some other town to bother.

  For the first time in long minutes, Jasper Rafferty thought that maybe he’d come out of this deal okay after all. Yes, sir, he’d pay a visit to the marshal, try to convince him of the wisdom of canceling the trip altogether. Then see if he might not be interested in running that freighting outfit right out of town.

  Chapter 7

  Rafferty decided to postpone his visit to the marshal until he double-checked the store for the night. He hadn’t been there for five minutes before he heard a rapping on the back door. His first thought was of his wife, Edna. Maybe she’d left something behind after they had closed up for the day. The children were forever in need of a sweet or requiring liniment, or making some other demand for goods from the store shelves he could ill afford to give them, not when creditors were a constant threat in this business.

  His wife had once been a woman who could make a penny scream she pinched it so hard. But once the children came, she indulged them in ways he never would have suspected of her in the days when it had been the two of them, a young couple seeking to establish themselves in Monkton and make a mark there. She was still frugal in most matters, to be sure, but not where the children were concerned. It was irksome.

  But as Rafferty moved to the back door, hastened by the repeated knocking, he knew it could not have been her. She would have her own key and would have used the store’s front door. Who could it be, then? Perhaps one of the freighters—maybe they had found out somehow about his attempt to cancel the trip. He stopped in the dark of the storeroom. They might be angry . . . and drunk.

  The knocking resumed, but it didn’t sound like the rapping of a drunken or angry man’s knuckles. He hesitated before the door, swallowed once, and in a voice he hoped sounded deep and menacing, he said, “Who is it? What do you want?”

  Scuffing sounded, as if someone in boots had stepped backward on the wood of the loading platform. “Hello, sir. Pardon me. . . .”

  A woman’s voice. Jasper sucked cold air in through his tight-set teeth. And not his wife. That’s what he needed, some woman trying to rob him. Or worse! “What? What do you want? I am a busy man.” He paused, then said, “And I have a gun.”

  The woman’s voice came to him closer now, close by the other side of the plank door. “No, sir. We don’t want trouble, only to find out if you are Mr. Rafferty—we were told that your supply train hasn’t gone on to Gamble yet.”

  What could this all mean? Why would a woman want to know about the freight trip? It was no voice he recognized, and he fancied he knew everyone’s voice in Monkton.

  “I am Jasper Rafferty. What do you want with my supply train?”

  He heard a weary sigh, and lifted free the two timbers barring the door. As he swung the door inward, he held aloft his lantern and saw a woman in dark dress standing back from the door. He nodded out of politeness, but was ready to slam the door in her face should she do the slightest thing he didn’t like.

  “I am Hester O’Fallon. My sister, Delia, is back there.” She indicated over her shoulder at the dark. “Sitting on our horse. We are on our way to Gamble and had thought we would have to travel there alone. But a woman at the eatery, the Hash House, told me that your supply train to Gamble hasn’t left yet.”

  “That would have been Hazel. Yep, she would tell strangers my business.”

  “We aren’t asking for anything from you, Mr. Rafferty. Merely to be allowed to follow along. We’d appreciate the company. And we don’t really know how to get there on our own.”

  “My freighters are on a business trip to Gamble. This is no silly mercy mission. They are a rough outfit looking to make good time, and I won’t tolerate anything that might slow them down.”

  “I can assure you we won’t slow anyone down, sir.”

  Rafferty sighed, then canted his head and looked her up and down again. “This is the sort of thing that folks usually have to pay for. No different than buying a ticket on a steam train, you know.”

  “I understand that, Mr. Rafferty. And we can pay our way.”

  Now, that was more like what he had in mind. A business transaction. “I tell you, Miss . . . uh . . .”

  “O’Fallon. Hester O’Fallon.”

  “Right, Miss O’Fallon, you see, this trip’s more complicated than that. I am willing to charge you, say, ten dollars each.”

  The woman’s shoulders sagged as if under a great weight. “I need to buy supplies and that would leave us nearly destitute. I am sorry, Mr. Rafferty, but we’ll have to g
o it alone. I thank you for your time, sir. But I would like to purchase a few items from you tonight.”

  “Where will you go?” Rafferty didn’t really care, but he’d become a bit curious about them and their need to get to Gamble. He wasn’t keen on anything fouling the trip, and Watt would certainly not like new faces headed to Gamble. It flew in the face of the air of quiet they were trying to lend the town until spring.

  “Tonight I will try to find accommodation at the town marshal’s office.”

  “Why? Why would you go to the law?”

  “To see if we might stay there the night. We have stayed in empty jail cells before.”

  Rafferty shook his head. “No, no. That won’t do. Marshal Watt won’t like that at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well . . . you’re indigent, right? That means you’re lawbreakers.”

  “Mr. Rafferty, just because we are not wealthy does not mean we are indigent. We are travelers, nothing more, nothing less. Despite what you say, I will risk a visit to the town marshal. He may be able to offer us some sort of help. We will see you in the morning, sir.”

  “Oh, very well, then. You may as well stay in my stable out yonder. We don’t have a horse at present, our last delivery animal having come down with colic some months ago. There you’ll find hay, and I daresay there are oats, what the mice haven’t carried off anyway. It even has a door.”

  “Thank you. Now, seeing as how the store is still open—the back door, at least—I would like to buy some items from you.”

  Rafferty didn’t move, so she continued. “Two wool blankets, bread, cheese . . . and laudanum.”

  “Aah, so that’s it, is it?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Rafferty. Do not mistake what you hear. My sister is ill and that is the only thing that eases her increasing pain. I would like two bottles of the stuff, for I fear it will be an unpleasant journey.”