Sam Madigan thought over the situation for a few minutes before making up his mind on what to do next.
“How’d you like to make another five-dollar gold piece?” he asked Roy.
“Who do I have to kill?” Roy asked with a grin, his lined face lighting up at the prospect of another five dollars.
“No one. Just get back to the store and pick up the things I have on this list.”
Roy gave Madigan a curious look as he handed him the paper. “Boy, this must be my day,” he said. “But you don’t have to pay me. I’d do it gladly for you.”
“Thanks anyway, Roy, but let me give you the money. You’ll be taking a chance with all the cutthroats in town. If they see you, they’re sure to ask questions. And that could mean trouble for you.”
“Don’t worry about me being seen,” Talley said. “I’ll go in the back door. Besides, those boys aren’t about to get out of the sack before noon.”
“By the way, does he stock much ammunition?” Madigan asked, remembering he was running low.
“Yep, in fact he might even have some for that big gun of yours.”
“Get me a couple of boxes of.44–40’s, and if he does have any of the big stuff, get me all he has of the.50–90’s. It’s getting hard to come by, so I always try to stock up when I can,” Madigan explained. He handed Roy a twenty-dollar gold piece. “That ought to just about do it,” he stated.
“I’m thinkin’ more than enough,” Talley said. Madigan watched as Roy pocketed the money and was soon out of sight as he turned the corner of a building at the far end of town.
Madigan took another look about him, then got busy getting the horses ready to leave as soon as Roy got back with his supplies.
From the balcony of the Pleasure Palace, a man stood smoking a long, foul-smelling cigar. The smoke rose up and drifted lazily around his face in the still morning air. From time to time the man would fan the smoke away from his eyes, then take another long pull on the stogie as he looked slowly down Main Street, first one way then the other.
He was about to go back inside to the warm bed where his woman for the night waited, when he noticed movement far down the road. It was early and the morning sun was still low in the east, throwing long shadows between the buildings on Main Street. Whatever it had been was now hidden in one of those shadows.
The man waited and was rewarded with the sight of an old man scurrying across the street to disappear along the far side of the store. As the man watched, the scar on the side of his face began to grow red in the morning light. Why would the old man be in such a hurry to cross the street, O’Neill wondered to himself. There is more to this than meets the eye he thought, and it might be wise to check it out.
“Honey, come back to bed,” came a voice from behind him. For a moment the temptation was almost too great, but O’Neill fought back the desire and hurriedly pulled on his boots.
Descending the stairs two at a time he was quickly out the door, and a short time later he found himself at the back door of the store. Carefully he peered around the corner of the open door. There within was the old man talking to a younger man who O’Neill took to be the storekeeper. They were not expecting company, so they talked freely.
“Sherm,” the old man was saying, “I need this list of goods filled as quickly as you can. You still got that ammunition for those buffalo guns?”
“Sure do. Can’t get rid of it. What you want with that stuff?” the younger man queried. “The only time I ever sell that ammo is to the few mountain men that come through on a grizzly hunt now and again.”
“Got a friend that wanted me to get some for him, but keep it to yourself for awhile will you, Sherm?”
“Anything you say, Roy. How much does he want? I have several different calibers. Which does he use?”
Fifty-ninety’s. He’ll take all you got.”
“That will be three boxes then. That’s the most I’ve sold of this stuff at one time since I opened this here place up! What’s he use it for?”
“For shootin’ things with.”
“Hell, I know that, Roy, but why three boxes? Take a hell of a man to go through one box in a year, less’n he’s wearing one of those old buffalo robes to protect his shoulder. Ever fire one of these things off, Roy?” Sherm asked, holding up a huge.50–90 cartridge.
“Not without a gun,” Roy smarted back.
“You know what I mean! You ever shoot a Sharps.50–90?”
“Yeah, once, and that was enough. My shoulder was black and blue for a month of Sundays. But this boy does all right with it, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.”
Sherm studied Roy for a moment before speaking. “Only one man I ever heard could shoot a.50–90 like you and me shoot a.44–40.”
“And who might that be, Sherm?”
“A man by the name of Sam Madigan. But I hear tell he’s over the other side of the Divide.”
“Not any more he’s not! He’s over at my place right now fixin’ to go on to California. Now hurry it up, Sherm. Those rascals at the Palace will be up before you get this stuff together.”
So, Madigan followed me, O’Neill cursed under his breath. And he’s in town right now! As O’Neill listened to the two men inside, his first thought was to go over to the livery and shoot Madigan in the back. But being the coward that he was, he thought better of the idea. The only other option to him was to get a couple of men together and bushwhack Madigan when he came out of the stable.
O’Neill pondered the second idea for a brief minute before deciding against it, his reason being that would show his men just how much of a yellow belly he was. No, he would have to figure another way to get this man that scarred him for life.
Somehow, somewhere, he would find a way to kill this man that he hated-not only for bringing him to trial and for the terrible wound he had inflicted on him, but for being the kind of man that everyone respected and looked up to, the kind of man that O’Neill knew he could never be. Yes, somewhere up the trail he would kill Madigan, but on his terms and in his way.
Roy was putting some of the supplies in a canvas bag when he stopped and tilted his head back. “Sherm, you been smoking those cheap cigars again?”
Sherm gave Roy a startled look. “You know I don’t smoke.”
Yeah, I just remembered. So where’s that smell coming from?”
Sherm sniffed at the air. “I smell something, but it’s not anything I’d sell.” He sniffed the air again, then walked to the back door of his shop. “Smells like someone lit up a cow pie,” he remarked as he looked out the door.
“Anybody out there?” Roy asked.
“Don’t see anyone, but there’s a cigar butt still burning on the ground. Whoever threw it here is long gone now. Hope I didn’t get anybody in trouble with all my fool questions.”
“Too late to worry about it now. I’d better get over to the stable and warn Madigan. Bring the rest of the stuff over when you get it together,” Roy ordered as he hurried out the door and around the corner.
Madigan listened patiently as Roy ran down the events of the last few minutes. So, the very thing that he hoped to avoid was now upon him. With luck it might have been just the town gossip looking for news, but down in his gut he knew better. It would be a race with time now.
He planned on leaving as soon as the supplies arrived, but not without some reluctance. He had met a friend here, one of his own kind, and they were far and few between, so it was like leaving part of his family. Roy was sad at Madigan’s leaving too. He could see it in his eyes and hear it on the edge of his voice, but to stay would only bring more trouble Roy’s way-and Madigan’s also. Trouble that was better left far behind, and that’s what he fully intended to do.
A few minutes later Sherm showed up with the rest of the supplies. Madigan quickly loaded them on the packhorse, said his good-bye to Roy, and was on his way. Madigan couldn’t help feeling that Roy wished he was riding along with him. But age has a way of keeping the body from doing the things the mind still believes it’s capable of doing. So it was with Roy Talley; the mind was willing, but the body was not.
The trail turned southwest just out of town, and Madigan rode steadily onward for the first few miles, then turned his horses off the path to wait and see if he was being followed. Satisfied that he was alone, he started to remount when a curious thing caught his attention. There in the dirt were the large and small prints that he had seen before. So the two men he had saved were still ahead of him. And from the looks of the tracks, they weren’t taking any chances either!
Now Madigan had what could turn out to be a serious problem. Behind him were the cutthroats from town, ahead were the two men he had saved days before. Both parties would sooner or later be closing in on each other, with Madigan in the middle. So Madigan would have to make a decision soon, whether to ride this trail or turn northward and take the longer trail to California.
Sometimes a man is compelled to do what he knows is not in the best interest of survival, spurred on by a longing inside to go just a little further, and so it was with Madigan. He continued to ride on to the southwest and his destiny.
He was riding into the land of the Navajo and Hopi, and from what he had heard, they were at peace now, if Indians ever were at peace with the white man. But where there were Indians there could be trouble, and a lone rider had all the odds stacked against him from the start. Madigan checked his guns before riding on, wondering what the next few days would bring.
The Navajo was kin to the Apache, one of the most fearsome warrior tribes known to man, and they had long used the white man coming through their land as their own personal trading post. Only what they were trading left no white man alive.
In a few days Madigan would cut the northwestern corner of New Mexico, and a few days later, if he kept at it steady, would be in Arizona. The scenery was already changing as he rode further south. There were fewer trees and more canyons and cactus.
Sometimes the trail was hard to follow and he would have to dismount to check for tracks. And always there were the hoofprints of the two men’s horses leading on as if they had been here countless times before and were following some unseen map in their minds.
On the second day, Madigan knew he had crossed into New Mexico, as ahead was a mountain he knew to be Shiprock Peak. Here the trail turned even more southward, and as Madigan rode deeper into the Navajo nation, he kept a weary eye out for any sign of trouble ahead.
At night he made a cold camp in whatever cover he could find, always checking for snakes among the rocks before settling down for the night. No man wants to wake and find a rattler in his bedroll with him, least of all Madigan.
Here the stars were the brightest he could ever remember seeing and they seemed to go on forever. And even though he was vigilant to danger, he could not recall sleeping on the trail as sound as he did these nights.
The next morning, he passed an old Navajo village whose people had disappeared years before. It gave him an eerie feeling as he skirted around it.
The trail was well marked by the two men ahead, and he had no trouble following it, only occasionally having to look where they had gone off the path to rest their horses. From time to time he would pass patches of quicksand and would have to detour around them to keep from being swallowed up.
On the third day out from Durango, Madigan topped a rise and saw dust rising miles behind him and knew that the rogues from town were unknowingly closing in on him. Judging from their position, he figured he still had a day before he had to take evasive action.
It was near noon when he stopped to get a bite to eat and contemplate his next move. The day was hotter than Madigan liked it, and the temptation to find a cool spot and take a nap was almost overpowering, but he resisted.
Letting his thoughts wander, Madigan soon realized he was irritated at having circumstances control his life, instead of him controlling his own fate. What started as a fairly simple trip to California had turned out to be a fight for his life.
There had been many times when he would have liked to fish a stream along the way or rest a day or two, taking in the beauty of his surroundings, but instead had to be constantly on the alert for trouble.
He even entertained the thought of setting up an ambush for his followers. He could simply lead them into a deep canyon with shear walls on either side and pick them off one by one with the Sharps.
Out here no one would ever know, or care, for that matter. They would just be a pile of bones after the vultures got through with them, a pile of bones to ride on by and be glad they weren’t your own.
The more Madigan thought about it, the more it sounded like just plain murder to him. He may have been a lot of things in his life, but a murderer was not one of them, so he solemnly rode on.
For the last few days there had been less trees and more barren ground. Sometimes he would ride through canyons with slick red rock walls going up three hundred feet or more, and the color was such that it made the rest of the landscape seem dull by comparison.
Madigan’s guess was that he was riding into the Canyon De Chelly area, from the description Talley had given him. To his right were the Chuska Mountains and ahead the trail disappeared into a labyrinth of steep rock walls.
A chill was in the air and he stopped to put on a jacket while he checked his back trail. He had been riding up an incline for several miles and now was somewhat higher than the terrain behind him. From here he had a clear view for about twenty miles on his back trail.
And there in the distance, as he had expected, was the telltale dust cloud marking the progress of his enemies. He stood watching for a long while when something caught his attention only a few miles away. He stared hard but could no longer see anything. Was it his imagination or did he really see a wisp of smoke floating just above the rim rock?
After watching the spot for close to five minutes, he was convinced it was only the heat playing tricks on him in the late afternoon sun. Still, something told him he had better be careful.