Slim fell again, and this time he couldn't get up. He wasn't even sure he wanted to; every muscle in his body, every inch of his skin screamed for a mercy he couldn't give.
His captors must not have wanted him dead yet, though, because Skeenan called a halt to the march without dragging Slim any farther. As the gang set about making camp, Burt hauled him across the dirt with more force than necessary and handcuffed his hands behind a tree. Slim didn't fight it; he couldn't do much beyond lifting his head. And even that was a chore.
He sat there, breathing and hurting and appreciating that he didn't have to keep walking, while the horses were tended, the sentries set, the food cooked. It was the smell of food that rejuvenated his senses, lifting his head almost involuntarily from his chest. His stomach rumbled at the rich scent of coffee, and it was nice to note that his body did still want to live, despite the agony coursing through it.
He didn't get any coffee, though. Or food, or water. He wasn't even close enough to appreciate the warmth of the fire. He just sat there, slumped against the tree, sore and cold and alone, smelling the enticing aroma of food and listening to the men talk and laugh. He did his best to look away and keep his mind off the hunger, but his eyes kept pulling back as if they had a mind of their own. He hadn't eaten since yesterday, hadn't sat down to a full meal in days. And his stomach was fed up with it.
Metaphorically speaking.
Skeenan glanced up at him and Slim quickly looked away from the fire, but it was too late. Skeenan stood up, grinning and carrying a plate of food and cup, and walked over to Slim's tree.
"Enjoy the journey?" he asked, poking at one of the many brushburns on Slim's chest as the rancher stared stoically ahead and tried not to wince. "'Cause you're gonna do it all again tomorrow. Only I'm thinking the ending's gonna be a little different. Course, I wanted your brother to be here for it, but I'll take what I can get. I'm not all that picky."
Slim diligently ignored him, but his traitor of a stomach chose that moment to grumble. Loudly.
Skeenan laughed. "Hungry, huh, Sherman?" He leaned forward so that it was nearly impossible for Slim to avoid looking at him. "Just how hungry? I mean, if I threw you some food, would you eat it off the ground like a dog?" He held up the tin cup, and the smell of coffee threw Slim's ravenous stomach into a frenzy. "You willing to beg yet, Sherman?"
The fire in his belly was almost enough to make him forget he was hungry. "Go to hell, Skeenan," snarled Slim.
"You first, Sherman." He flung the coffee into Slim's face, standing to the echo of laughter from his cohorts.
It took all of Slim's willpower not to lick up the coffee dripping over his lips. Which, unfortunately, meant he didn't have any left to curb his tongue. "Takes a pretty big man to pick on someone tied to a tree."
"Ya know something, Sherman?" hissed Skeenan. "You got a big mouth." Slim gritted his teeth against it, but the handkerchief was soon out and around his mouth, throttling any future words with more tightness than necessary.
The rest of the night passed in extreme discomfort, as Slim, already sore from the pain of the day and being tied up in one position, shivered in the cold and listened to the growling of his stomach and the loud guffaws of his captors. Thankfully, he was soon released from at least one of his torments as, one by one, the men drifted off to sleep, leaving a crackling fire and a single, silent man on watch.
Slim was immensely grateful to note that the watch started with Charlie. Of the six, Charlie seemed more reasonable – at the very least, he didn't want to tear Slim's ears off, the way Burt probably did. The worst Charlie was going to do was ignore him, and Slim was perfectly happy with that.
With the comfort of knowing he wasn't going to be disemboweled alive – at least, not yet – Slim finally let himself drift off into a restless, uneasy sleep.
But it didn't last. A sudden lurch forward woke him, sharply and suddenly, and it took him a moment to realize that his hands were uncuffed from the tree.
He was free!
Before he could make a move toward a safer, more permanent freedom, however, Skeenan was in front of him, cuffing his hands back together and cutting through the ropes around his feet. An edgy, concerned tightness stiffened Slim's shoulders. Skeenan helping him was like a cowhand bathing for dinner – it wasn't going to happen. So what was he up to?
"All right, move," hissed Skeenan, hauling Slim up to standing, and Slim took his sweet time, moving slowly to work the blood back into his legs and figure out what was going on.
It didn't add up to pretty. The fire had nearly died down, just red, glowing coals spitting barely enough heat and smoke to keep the men warm, and everyone else was asleep. All Slim could figure was that it was Skeenan's turn to keep watch, and he was breaking from the plan.
And, Slim noticed as he let himself be pushed into the shadowed foliage, he had an innocuous brown leather bag slung over his shoulder. A bag just the right size to stash away a significant load of bank notes and greenbacks.
Skeenan, it seemed, had done the math, and decided that 60,000 divided better by one than six.
And he was bringing Slim along – not, Slim guessed, to share in the loot. If Skeenan knew how close they were to the Pass leading the rest of the way into Canada, he would probably just cut Slim's throat here and now. As it was, Slim guessed that time wasn't that far off.
He shuffled his feet and kicked at rocks, doing his best to make noise and wake the rest of the gang up. He wasn't too thrilled about their return to consciousness, especially Burt, but he would prefer they learned of their friend's betrayal before Skeenan took off with all the money and a hostage to boot.
Skeenan grabbed his arm from behind. "You wake any of these men up," he hissed, "and I'll tell 'em I caught you running off with the money." To emphasize his point, he shoved the leather bag forcefully into Slim's arms. "I don't think either one of us has to work too hard to figure what they'll do to you then."
Slim glared down furiously at the bag in his hands, but Skeenan was right. It was Slim's word against Skeenan, and it wasn't hard to figure who they'd believe. Especially when they were already looking for a reason to take their anger out on Slim. He reached up to pull the gag off, at the very least, but Skeenan grabbed his arm again.
"That stays on."
Slim wasn't thrilled about that, but gagged and cuffed with a knife to his throat, his choices were few and far between. Better to wait for an opportunity to present itself. He nodded, knuckles turning white as he clenched the leather bag of money, and his captor pushed him away from the camp and deeper into the forest.
XXX
It was dark by the time he finally rode into something resembling a town. Andy had never thought of Laramie as a bustling metropolis, but it was that and more compared to this little hole in the middle of nowhere. He wasn't even entirely sure it had a name. But all that really mattered to him were the telegraph lines running through it.
He nudged his horse onto the main street, a packed length of dirt surrounded by about four buildings to a side, and stopped at the one announcing a sheriff inside.
Andy's heart hammered against his chest as he slid stiffly from the horse. If he couldn't find help here…
Ignoring the terrible implications of that thought, he pounded a fist against the door, and, when no one inside answered quickly enough, brought up his other fist. The cacophony didn't break through the sheriff's door, but a man did step out from the building beside him and call out, "What's going on, Sonny?"
Andy turned, melting in relief. He hadn't heard a friendly voice that wasn't Slim or Jess in a long, long time. "Please, I need to see the sheriff. It's important. My…" His voice cracked, and he could barely choke out, "my brother…" He didn't even know if he was talking about Slim or Jess.
The man's round face dropped into a frown, but he waved a beefy arm. "Come on over, then, Son. Sheriff's inside getting a bite. And you look like you could use one, yourself."
Andy shook his head even as his stomach rumbled, but he followed the man's gesture and crossed over to the next building. "I ain't got time, I gotta get help."
The man rested a heavy hand on Andy's shoulder, and the boy didn't have the energy or, to be completely honest, the desire to break free. Instead, he simply let the man push him into the building, which turned out to be a warm, bustling center of food and activity. If he hadn't been so desperately worried about Slim and Jess, he would have burst into tears at finally being somewhere that felt safe and welcoming.
"Most folks around here stop by for supper," said the man from behind him. "Good way to catch up on the doings of the day." He gave Andy a gentle shove farther into the room. "Sheriff's in the back."
Andy let the man nudge him towards the back until he was standing in front of a dark-haired man with a pug nose and dusty clothes. And, thank everything on Heaven and earth, a tin star on his vest.
"Sheriff, this kid was trying to break through your door with his bare hands. Says it's important."
The sheriff looked up at Andy with gray eyes lined in sympathy. "Well, sit down, kid, and tell me about it."
Instantly, Andy knew he could trust this man, and his knees felt like marmalade at the thought. Gratefully, he sank into the chair as relief buzzed through his body. He barely heard the sheriff say, "Get the kid some food, will you, Pete? He looks done in." Then the sheriff's attention returned to Andy. "Now, what's the trouble?"
And Andy just sat in dumbfounded silence. After all this, with this desperate search for help and the certain knowledge that Slim and Jess were in more danger with every moment that passed, he couldn't for the life of him think of how to even begin telling the harrowing tale of the past week. He stared blankly at the sheriff.
The sheriff stared back at him for a moment, then pushed the glass of whiskey that had been sitting in front of him to Andy. "Here, start with a swig of this. You look a mite young, but it'll bolster you."
A whiff of the fumes brought Andy momentarily back to his last encounter with the liquor, and that somehow got his brain and his tongue all working again. He pushed the glass away. "No thanks, Sheriff."
He started from the beginning.
He didn't know if it was necessary. He didn't know if the sheriff really needed to know everything, from the moment Skeenan rode in as a capable ranch hand named Sellers to the last moment Andy saw Slim, handcuffed to a tree in the middle of an outlaw camp, but he told him anyway. Told him about every time he had to choose Jess over Slim, or Slim over Jess. About Jess kicking over the desk, and Slim lying in a crumpled heap on the bearskin, and Jess tied up in the basement and dying of dehydration. It wasn't until he reached the ending, with him pounding on the sheriff's door, that he realized the entire restaurant had fallen silent.
"Damn, son." The sheriff was leaning back in his chair, food and drink untouched. "That's quite a tale."
"And now we've got to go," said Andy impatiently. He couldn't understand how these people could have listened to everything he just said and still be sitting there. "We have to get help to Jess, and we have to rescue Slim."
The sheriff didn't stand, but he did wave a hand at the young waitress. "Mandy, get me paper and a pencil, will you?" Returning his attention to Andy, he said, "All right, you said you're from Laramie? Sheriff's named Corey, isn't he?"
Andy nodded as the waitress set pad and paper before the sheriff and he bent over it, writing out a note with surprising ease for this part of the country. After a moment, he held the scrap of paper out to Andy. "How does that read to you?"
Andy snatched the paper and skimmed its contents: To Sheriff Corey, Laramie, from Sheriff O'Brien, Dry Ground. Jess Harper in danger STOP tied up in Sherman root cellar STOP immediate rescue necessary STOP Slim Sherman still prisoner STOP will pursue at first light STOP Andy Sherman returning on stage FULL STOP.
"What do you mean, will pursue at first light?" Andy was ready to go now, no matter that his legs still felt wobbly and he was pretty sure he would be exhausted for the rest of his life. "Slim could be in trouble!"
The sheriff had the good grace to look unhappy. "I know, son. It's not ideal, I grant you, but we won't make enough headway to matter in the dark. Not without hurting some of our horses and making enough of a nuisance of ourselves to scare off any outlaws around."
Andy swallowed against the lump of fear and anger in his throat. Sheriff O'Brien was right, and he knew it. He had barely managed to get one horse through riding slow. A whole posse would have a hard time of it.
Besides, Andy was also having a problem with the last sentence of the telegram. "I'm riding with you," he said, but the sheriff was already shaking his head.
"You're going back first thing, just as soon as we can get you home. I'll have someone ride you into Rock River; you'll be able to catch the stage from there."
His tone brooked no argument, but Andy argued anyway, jumping up in heated temper. "That's my brother out there with those men! Jess won't need me, but maybe Slim will!"
The sheriff rose and rested a hand on Andy's shoulder. "The way I see it, you've got things backwards. We'll take after Slim. There's not much you can do on that front, but if Jess is as bad off as you say, he'll need family around. He'll need you."
"But…" Andy didn't have a but. He did want to go home, to see Jess and make sure he was all right. And there really wasn't much more he could do for Slim, not now that Sheriff O'Brien and the grown men of the town had taken over. But…
The sheriff put his other hand on Andy's shoulder, facing him square and meeting his eye. "From all you say of this brother of yours, he'll want to know that you're safe, more than anything. Let's give him that."
Andy blinked fiercely and desperately willed back the water welling in his eyes. The sheriff, thank goodness, pretended not to notice, turning instead to a skinny man with a deputy star standing next to him. "Logos, get this sent right away," he instructed, handing him the scrap of paper. "If no one answers, send it again. Keep it up until you get a response. If you don't hear back, we'll send someone to ride into Laramie at first light."
He reached into his vest and pulled out a few coins to pay for the telegraph, but before the skinny man could take them, a man near the door called out, "No need for the money, Sheriff. I'll send the telegram free of charge." He winked at Andy, then led the deputy out of the diner.
Next, the sheriff turned to the portly man who had led Andy into this safe haven. "Bidi, you got any room upstairs for a scrawny waif like this?"
The big man grinned at Andy. "I sure do, Pat. And I'm thinking we'd better get him up there quick, before he falls asleep on one of my tables."
"I'm not that tired," said Andy indignantly, but even as he said the words, he could feel the lie of them washing over him. He wished he could stay awake and alert, for Slim and Jess, but the warmth of the restaurant was getting to him. He could barely keep his eyes open.
The sheriff pushed him gently toward a green door standing in the wall behind them. "Hotel's through there, Son. Bidi'll get you settled, and you sleep. You look like you could use it."
Andy followed Bidi through the door, up a staircase, and through another door that led to a room with a bed, a dresser, and a small wash station. It was simplicity itself, but nothing had ever looked so good to Andy.
Bidi gave him a supportive clap on the shoulder, shut the door behind him, and left Andy alone to get the rest he so desperately needed.
But Andy didn't go to sleep. There was so much churning in his head and his heart that he wasn't sure he could fall asleep, no matter how much his body longed for it. Moving slowly, he crossed over to the window and peered through the faded glass. Before him, the wilderness stretched on forever, and he wasn't sure whether he was looking north, toward Slim, or south to Jess. Or even somewhere in between.
He looked up. The stars were bright and beautiful, but he wished he was looking at them from their own porch. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Let them be alive, God," he prayed. "Let them both be alive."