Chapter Two

"The stage was robbed."

Jess' eyes lingered into Slim's gaze. It was easy to see the sparks flashing back at him, and Jess guessed that he was seeing a part of himself in Slim's blue. They were both angry. And even a little bit afraid. If Mose had suffered the same as the shotgun man, slumped over in the seat with a stream of blood coming from a bullet hole, their search for the missing stagecoach might end with the burying of a good friend.

As it was, Toby could wind up on dead man's road. Although there would be nothing to fish out of his hide as the lead went in his shoulder and out the other side, the loss of blood was pushing him along the path that there might be no turning back on.

Slim, standing with one foot in the driver's box, reached out a hand to make sure the blood wasn't being slowed by the lack of a heartbeat. He was still alive. "One of us is going to have to take Toby to the ranch, the other continue on for Mose."

"Well, you already got your limbs attached to Toby, so I'll go on for Mose," said Jess, his boot's tip barely feeling the inside of the stirrup as he hopped into the saddle. "But if he's dead, I might just go straight into the trail of whoever's responsible."

"You'd let me catch up, right?"

One shoulder rose. "Depends on how close I'd be to pulling the trigger."

Jess didn't look behind him as the nudge against his horse's sides simultaneously kicked up the road's dust. Pounding away where the stagecoach had made a reckless roll, Jess expected to find Mose around the sharp bend just ahead. All he found there were the tracks of the team, pulling hard against a set of reins that were limp in an injured man's hands. Whoever had fired the gun on Toby had also spooked the team.

Jess' heartbeat jumped before it took off again. Seeing the blood stain both sides of Toby put the same picture in place for Mose. But now Jess had to add another fearful thought to the mix. Had Mose fallen? At a set of four's frantic pace, a broken neck could do even worse damage than a bullet hole.

Lying lower over the saddle to increase the churn of legs underneath him, Jess' surroundings whirled as he rode, but around the next corner that introduced a bridge to the path, Jess pulled up hard. Mose was in the bridge's center, sitting upright, not a smear of red on him. Thank God.

Feet in motion the moment dirt was underneath him, Jess hurried to Mose's side. "You all right?"

Mose blinked his weathered eyes until Jess' face was directly above his. "Don't worry none about me, what of Toby?"

"Slim's getting him to the ranch. Daisy'll see to him."

There was a glimmer of a smile. "Then he's still alive?"

"Was when I left the coach a coupla minutes back."

A shaking hand went across Mose's face. "I was so sure he was a goner."

"How'd you get here?" Jess asked, his eyes leaving Mose long enough to wander the area. "Did you fall from the coach?"

"Nah." Mose jabbed a finger to where Jess' horse stood still. "This's where he held us up. He made Toby toss the gun down, ordered me outta the box with the money."

"How much?"

"Saddlebag, not a strongbox. Less than a thousand, maybe. Ain't worth it, it just ain't worth it."

"He musta thought so." The frown, like Jess' muscles, grew harder. "You recognize who did it, Mose?"

"Nope. T'weren't nobody I recognized. But thet ain't saying much, what with 'is face all covered up like it was. Dressed in black, though. Head to toe."

Jess wrapped his hand around Mose's arm. "Here, lemme help you up."

"Oh wait, no, Jess." Mose's fingers rushed into his hair. "Dizzy."

"What happened?"

"He walloped my head, but I didn't go out. I guess he didn't figger on an old feller like me'd have such a hard crown. What with all the knocks I've taken in all my years, it takes a buffalo stampede kinda stomp to put me in the dark."

"He do that after he shot Toby?"

"Yeah. Took the money, then turned 'is gun on Toby and me. Didn't trigger me, though. Just the butt end."

"I need to get after him, Mose. You see him ride out?"

"Didn't ride out," Mose answered, nodding when Jess' eyes widened. "He was on foot. Headed on up those rocks over there then disappeared."

"Then he ain't gonna be far," Jess said, his fingers tingling in desire to wrap them around his iron. For now they remained above the curve of his handle, but all that it would take would be the slightest movement of a shadow to give in to his craving. Jess would not get his wish.

Hoisting his frame to the top of the rock, Jess' eyes traveled as far as the terrain allowed. No man was in sight. Not even a single track marred the earth. But without even a layer of wind-driven dust among the boulders, that would be impossible. Jess' jaw solidified to the strength of what he stood upon. The man he was after definitely had done this kind of work before.

Even still, now wasn't the time to admit defeat. Wanting to search for the tiniest hint of a sign, Jess stepped forward. Needing the support of his hand so that his boots didn't cause a slide in the smaller stones, Jess kept his gun holstered, but the intensity in his palm raced so rapidly, Jess knew he could stumble and draw at the same time.

"And make a strike," Jess said aloud, his voice hard, slapping against the wind that whistled around him.

Autumn would be upon them soon. Strange that Jess' mind would wander toward the weather when he was hunting a man that deserved to be behind bars, or atop a scaffold, but it did. Without his jacket, he felt the distinct nip that would have been there even without the breeze. Anger had sustained him in chilled air with a certain oomph in his blood flow before so Jess knew he could go on well into dark, but it wouldn't help Mose. Jess looked behind him and shook his head. He wanted to keep going, yearned for it as how hunger gnawed at him when the supper dish was absent, but Jess wouldn't leave the old man there to shiver when the sun disappeared.

Giving his steps a quicker retreat than how he had gone into the rocks, Jess crossed the span that would bring his return to the road. His eyes prone to wander, it seemed as if every drop of his feet he would look back. The last glance would be on the rocks above the ground where he had started. Nothing stirred except for the air from his own lungs that billowed around him. Landing back on the road with a plop of both boots against the hard surface, it was enough to wake the driver that had been balancing on the dark end of drowsiness.

Jess gently gripped his shoulder. "Sorry, Mose for leaving you like this. I didn't wanna turn back until I found a track."

"Did you?"

"No," Jess answered, but then took his eyes to his waiting mount. "You think you can sit a saddle?"

"Mebbe if you're hanging on."

Jess' lips created a curve. "I'll be right behind you."

Jess knew Daisy was capable of having more than one patient in her care, but being halfway between the two points of aid, the decision to take Mose into Laramie instead of the ranch had another reason backing the first one up. In case Slim didn't meet with a rider that would race the news into town, the law needed to know about the hold-up. It wasn't too late in the day yet to gather a posse together. In fact, Jess had been on more than one of Mort Cory's hunts that went well into the dark hours. Considering that a well-known member of town was on the injured list, the later hour shouldn't make too many men pause before getting mounted. And if it did, Jess' growl would induce the remaining hesitant.

Boots pounding the sidewalk from the moment he left the doc's, Jess didn't need to turn the handle to enter Mort's office, for the sheriff's stride was already bringing him outside.

Jess' hand went to his friend's chest to stop their collision. "You hear anything from Slim?"

"No. Should I've?"

"Yeah." Jess' thumb started to hook toward the doctor's office, but the cluster of men wearing a rifle in each hand, turned his attention back toward Mort. "What's going on?"

"The Claycamp's were robbed."

"Anybody hurt?"

"Finley took such a hard knock to his jaw that Doc thinks he's gonna lose more than one tooth. But no one was killed. Took every cent they had though, so I wonder if in the end, no graves being dug is gonna turn out true."

"Got any clue who did it?"

"None of the Claycamp's recognized the man, but he was distinct in one way."

"Lemme guess. He was dressed all in black."

Mort nodded. "Yup. And he was on foot."

The rolls of anger returned to Jess' frame, now even harder. "Same man that hit the stagecoach."

"What's this?"

"The stagecoach was robbed about six miles outta town. Toby took a bullet, don't know yet of his fate as Slim took him to Daisy, and Mose got a lump on his head big enough that he ain't gonna be wearing his hat for a week. But what's more, Mose gave me the very same description."

Mort's call was just as much for the approaching men as for Jess in front of him. "Let's go."

Jess wheeled the chamber of his gun. "I'm already in the saddle."

"We'll start our search at the Claycamp's," Mort said, swinging inside of his own leather seat. "If the man really is on foot, in that kind of terrain, he won't be far."

Full daylight held so many shades that it would have been impossible to tally each color on a list. Dusk had a way of muting each one, yet still a man could see through its depths. But by the time the horses' hooves quieted a mile past the Claycamp's everything had turned into a blend of grays, blacks and blues. And the man that they were after was prominently wearing one of these. He could be nowhere. But he could also be anywhere close by.

Jess sensed that he was.

Mort felt Jess' tension. "What is it Jess?"

Fingertips in the dust, Jess' hand quickly produced a fist as there was nothing on the ground to go by. But the air? It had its own feel. Jess looked into its darkness. "Dunno. Something doesn't feel right."

"We being watched?"

Jess had figured that part out the last mile they had been trailing on up to this dead end. This was more than feeling a set of eyes peering through his skull, this wore the sense of a single eye, that of a barrel's point. And close. With the hitch of Jess' breath, he heard the sound of a rifle's slug going from its belly to its mouth. The touch of a trigger could spit it into someone's flesh. Maybe his. Yet Jess lingered.

Mort's whisper floated into his ear. "You think we ought to head back?"

"I ain't about to run. But I also ain't about to get anyone here shot."

Hand reaching out to the reins that hadn't seen a knot, the loose ends trailed to the ground, and Jess' frame bent to pick them up. The crack of the rifle made the bullet whizz over his back, a clear miss. But not for everyone.

Jess turned at the sound of the grunt. Both badge and man were covered in blood.