Cord 7 Read online

  In the waning light of a purple sunset, Cord and Chi were crouched over a fold-creased map of Wyoming Territory. Chi had won it in a poker game in Laramie three years before. Military maps were worth more than money when you were moving through strange country, because they were sketched in relief to show the lay of the land off the trails; this one was based on Fremont’s survey of 1843 and the work of other government topographers since then. With his guide Kit Carson, Fremont had camped not far from where Cord and Chi were holed up. The land was the same, except now it was mostly claimed, and bound by lines on paper.

  They were twenty or so miles west of Casper, in a copse of stunted juniper along a nameless trickle creek. During the afternoon they had gained another mile or so on Enos Ryker. A few minutes earlier, from above their position on the edge of a high prairie ridge, Cord had watched the posse through his spyglass, Mr. Earl bent over in his saddle reading track in the last light, Ryker back a length out of his way, Bernard Pearl and the three sour-faced gunmen, all coming on in the shimmering heat and hanging dust.

  Cord was worried about the horses, from a point of view of survival rather than sentimental attachment. In this situation, nothing counted so heavily as the ability to keep moving. The long-reached Standard Bred/Morgan crosses they rode were strong as any breed in the West, but limited like any horse by the boundaries of pure endurance. Push hard enough in this endless Wyoming high desert and the animal would give all it had, feather out and fail. There was nothing to do but ease along and stay low, take water where you could and hope you had time and horse stamina to reach mountains and lush pasture.

  It would have been a pleasant enough spring evening, the air warm and still and crickets whirring in the brush, the sun touching the rolling treeless horizon. Chi stood. “He thinks he’s got us. That son of a pig Ryker thinks he had us roped and trussed and ready for gutting. We might have to stand our ground, fort up, and have it out.”

  Cord folded the map and stuck it inside the travel pouch behind his saddle. “Not yet,” he said. “We fort up now and all he has to do is wait us out.”

  “We got water here.”

  “Fine, except we’d be eating field mice in short order.”

  Cord fished his pouch from his flapped shirt pocket and handed it over.

  “There are ways this could work out.” Chi creased two papers and balanced them between her fingers, sprinkled tobacco in a thin even line, and pulled the drawstring closed with her teeth.

  “Tell me a good one.”

  Chi licked the brown paper daintily, twisted the smokes closed, and handed one to Cord. “We search out those two who made out they were us,” Chi said. “Track them and the money down and make them tell their story. We’re clear.”

  Cord struck a lucifer on the sole of his boot and lit both smokes. “What do we do with the money?”

  Chi looked exasperated. “We give it back.”

  “Give back the money?” Cord echoed incredulously. “Cord, we have got plenty of money.” Chi was trying to be patient. “We don’t want money. What we want is to not get sucked back into the old days, with us always on the run. You and I have come to agree on that one thing, at least.”

  Cord blew smoke out into the twilight. “We sure as hell are on the run at the moment. Will be, I guess, long as Ryker is alive.”

  “Don’t you see it, querido?” Chi said urgently. “Ryker was afraid to shoot us down in cold blood—otherwise why would he have bothered with this dog-and-pony show? And he still is afraid. He can’t risk pure murder. So if we find those other two, turn them and the money in, and make sure they own up to the truth, we are clear as we were before this storm started.”

  “No,” Cord said. “Goddamn it, no!” He turned away. The moon was edging up over the eastern horizon and the brightest stars were beginning to dot the blue-black sky.

  “Nobody is going to sneak up on us. Ryker is camped for the night by some creek, bet on it. They got all the time in the world, that’s what Ryker figures. There is no rush.” Chi was looking at him strangely. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  Cord watched the moon. “Ryker is crazy.”

  “Loco. Sure. Of course.”

  “I mean really crazy.” Cord turned back to her. “He is high-centered on the idea of running us into the ground and stomping our brains into some mud hole. That cut on his cheek is festering and sending poison to his brain. He can’t get over what you did to him.”

  “He deserved worse.”

  “I’m not gainsaying you on that. But we’ve been down this trail before, and we know how it has got to come out.” Chi nodded, but let him talk it out.

  “Unfinished business,” Cord said. “It won’t ever go away. This sort of trouble from some earlier time sticks to you until you take care of it. You can duck it for a time but you can’t outrun it, especially when it gets close. Something like Ryker and his little posse out there.” Cord gestured at the night. “They will take their time and stick to us like trail dogs, unless we get rid of them once and for all.”

  “You thinking about killing him?”

  “Maybe,” Cord said. “Ryker has some bad news coming to him. Maybe we are it.”

  “Killing a lawman...” Chi began.

  Cord threw down his cigarette butt and ground it into the scrub grass under his boot heel. “We’re already wanted for killing a lawman, that poor bastard of a deputy town marshal back in Casper. So, no se, compadre. You tell me how we are going to get out from under that killing, and get Ryker off our backs for good. You want to fix it so we can move on to Montana and maybe some kind of goddamned real life for once. You think up a plan, amiga.”

  Cord stalked off into the darkness without giving her a chance to respond. He was not angry at her, of course, just filled to bursting with rotten luck. Why did this craziness have to intrude now, when everything seemed on the verge of working out? Running outside the law was close to impossible now, and Cord for one was willing to give it up, if they would only let him. Over time, the blood cooled and the mind no longer fixed itself on the same reckless objectives.

  It was childish to moan, Cord decided, calming down. When you rode beyond the law for ten years you couldn’t expect your past to dissolve like salt in water. But damn, this business of becoming a law-abiding citizen was more complicated than he’d reckoned

  Chi was crouched on her haunches, finishing her smoke, when he returned. “Doesn’t take much to light you off, does it?” she said. “A murder charge and posse on your tail, and you go all to pieces.”

  “Your idea of finding those two imposters,” Cord said carefully. “There’s a problem or two there. They could have lit out in any direction once they were clear, even circled back to Casper. They are maybe having a drink there right now, laughing their asses off. Dump those stage costumes in some gully, ride in, and order a beer. Who says there is no such thing as the perfect crime?”

  “The only ones who can call them liars and make it stick is us, and we are gone for a while, thanks to that bastard Ryker.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Chi shrugged. “Get some rest, like you say. This is as good a place as any. We can see a few miles, and we’re safe long as we keep a guard.”

  A horse whinnied and snorted: Cord’s gelding, hobbled and grazing down by the creek. The sound carried clear and far in the thin cooling night air. Cord crouched and duck-walled up to the ridge. There was a lone rider on the trail from the west, maybe a quarter mile off, reined up and head cocked in a listening posture.

  Chi came up beside him. “Does he know we’re here?” Cord whispered. The rider’s horse nickered, and Cord’s gelding snorted again in response.

  “Does now,” Chi said.

  “I’ll cover you,” Cord said, and edged back from the rim. Prudent folk did not generally ride this wild country after dark unless they were sneaking around, but that did not mean this represented danger to them. Assuming a person did have legitimate reason to be abroad, he’d likely ride
in, seeking coffee, and a few minutes of gab.

  Which did not obviate the need for caution. Cord moved down through the low brush to the horses, while Chi came out where she could be spotted. The rider waved and turned in the direction of their cold camp. Cord circled around by the creek, cropping to hands and knees to crab-walk to the edge of the clearing. Chi was facing the visitor, whose back was to Cord.

  Chi’s hands were under her serape, and her expression was neutral. The rider wore a rubberized poncho. “You’re not riding alone.” The rider had a curious high voice. “Where’s your man?” The rider turned slightly and Cord saw the gun.

  Cord rose and eased forward on cat feet, put his Colt on the rider’s back. “You found me,” he said. He came up close enough to touch the gun to the poncho. “First you drop the gun.”

  The revolver hit the grass.

  “Next, hands up high. Then turn around. Everything happens very slowly.”

  The rider turned. It was a woman, a girl really.

  “Mi hermana.” Chi sounded as if she found this amusing.

  Cord stared into the girl’s face and saw the vague resemblance. But Chi’s sister? What the hell... ?

  “Mi hermana the bank robber,” Chi said.

  “Well I’ll be dipped,” Cord said.

  “Put up your gun and sit,” Chi said. “La hermana has a story to tell.”

  Eleven

  “First off,” Cord said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Take her?” Chi cocked her head.

  Cord scowled at the girl in the rubberized poncho. “Got to, for now.”

  Chi nodded. Cord jammed his Colt back into its holster, but after that no one moved. This was happening too quickly. This business kept taking disconcerting turns, and Cord hated the feeling that other people were pulling his strings. “You let her get the drop?”

  Chi’s hand came out from under her serape. The girl’s eyes widened at the Colt that had been covering her all along. “I was curious,” Chi said. “Still am. So you are with us for a while, hermana.” Chi wagged the Colt’s barrel. “Climb back on your horse.”

  “We can be friends,” the girl said. “We are working for the same ends.”

  “Sure, amiga,” Chi said. “Now get on your horse, or we will tie you on like a sack of grain.”

  “You got no call...”

  Chi took two quick steps and put her revolver in the girl’s face. “Bizcochita,” Chi hissed. “I got all the call in the world. You put me in the middle of this trouble. You never saw me before, didn’t know a damned thing, but just the same you robbed a bank and killed a lawman, and I am the one they want to hang. So you step carefully, and weigh every word you say to me.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody. Ryker is your man.”

  “Maybe, but right now I got you. So you move your ass, pronto.”

  “You don’t have to run,” the girl said petulantly, like a child forced to bend to the illogic of an adult’s will. “Ryker won’t come after you in the dark—doesn’t have the men for it. The big Indian don’t get paid to lift a gun. Them three Payne cousins aren’t worth spit, and you know Pearl.”

  Chi scowled. She hated for people to know things she did not, especially things about her. And how did this girl come by her helpful information, and why was she handing it out free?

  “Ryker means to ride you down,” the girl went on. “He wants you tied up and looking into his ugly face when he uses that shotgun on you.” She poked her chin out at Cord. “She’ll be first, so you can watch. That’s what Ryker likes to say, heard him myself. The Devil is in that man,” she added surprisingly.

  Chi stepped away and lowered the gun, but kept it in her hand. “What’s your name?”

  “Kelsey.”

  “What do you want, Señorita Kelsey?”

  “Your guns.” The girl smiled a little, as if things were finally beginning to go her way. “Your guns, on my side.”

  “Whose side is that?”

  “Not Ryker’s.”

  “What are you trading?” Cord asked.

  “A way out of this, for you.”

  “Bueno,” Chi said sourly. “Which way is that?”

  The girl called Kelsey crouched suddenly on her haunches. The rubberized poncho tented around her. She pulled up a handful of grass and let the blades dribble between her fingers, then stared at their pattern as if casting their fortunes. “First thing,” she said in a low expressionless voice, “you got to kill Ryker.”

  Twelve

  Damn, Cord thought, but wouldn’t coffee go fine. Or whiskey; bourbon whiskey would go even finer. But they didn’t have whiskey, nor any other comforts such as their Winchester rifles. The girl Kelsey was carrying ground beans and a pot, but Cord was damned if they were going to risk a fire.

  So Cord drew on a cigarette and thought his dark thoughts, about the snake-crazy Ryker and his queer little lapdog Bernard Pearl, and the Indian tracker named Mr. Earl, in his circus-clown costume and round red glasses. Except there was nothing funny about any of them. Cord stared balefully through cigarette smoke at the girl and wondered where she fit in and how she skewed the overall odds.

  She was younger than Cord had first thought, probably not yet twenty. The rubberized poncho covered her to the knees, and below she wore mud-splattered denim pants. Her boots were worn and the heels turned over. When she swept aside the voluminous skirts of the poncho, she was tiny, an inch or two over five feet, and she had a gamine’s little-boy body.

  Atop dark, straight hair cut short in shapeless and severe bangs, she wore a crushed slouch hat with a narrow round crown and a broken floppy brim, the hat of a muleskinner or a farm girl but rarely of a dashing desperado. Overall she could have used a wash, but so could they all.

  But she had a strong handsome little face, open-featured with a small turned-up nose and dark quick eyes and white even teeth. Cord thought she might be Italian or Hebrew, or even part Indian. A good enough kid, Cord sensed, but unsure of herself in this high muddy water and struggling to keep her footing.

  “Girl, what happened to those fine duds you wore in Casper?” Cord gestured at her boots. “You like those boots better than the hand-tooled boots Ryker fitted you up with?”

  “I don’t like anything Ryker touches,” Kelsey snapped. “But I’m not stupid—you ought to get used to that idea right off, if we’re doing business. Anyway, them boots and leather britches and that braided horsehair wig, they are wrapped up with a rock inside the serape, rotting at the bottom of the North Platte River. No one is ever going to hook me up with that bank robbery.”

  “How about me?” Chi said darkly.

  “Not you either. Not if you are smart.”

  “I’m smart enough.” Chi bit off the words. “If you say different, I’ll bloody your mouth for you. You got me into this trouble and then you ride in and expect to get welcomed like money from home. So you be smart as me, watch your mouth, and maybe you might live another hour or two.” The girl wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  “I’d be in the right if I killed you,” Chi said. “By my lights, anyway.” Chi frowned, but her tone softened. “Think before you speak, hija.”

  Somewhere off north a train rumbled and clattered through the night. Cord recalled the hatched line of the tracks on the military map. “Tell me about Ryker,” he said. “Tell me why you are so sure he isn’t sighting a rifle on the spot between my shoulder blades, right this minute.”

  “Ryker doesn’t have to sneak around.” Kelsey seemed relieved at the chance to get out of the heat of Chi’s glare. “He’s been making money on the side, as some marshals will, working as a regulator for the big cattle companies.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Scaring nesters. The cattlemen broadcast the news that Ryker is working on their behalf, and all he needs do is come calling and look mean. The nester wets himself, and fences come down. Ryker rides on his reputation—he don’t hardly ever need to gun down any sodbusters these days.” Kelse
y cocked her middle finger and flicked her cigarette into the darkness. “So you see how it is. Ryker has got friends on the big ranches. Any direction you run, he has fresh horseflesh. Change animals every day if he wants. He’ll follow you until yours drop dead, and by then you’ll be tired and careless too. Right away he will be at your throat, like a pack dog going for a mule deer.”

  Kelsey threw her hands in the air. “He has all the time in the world. He can go where he wants and do what he pleases, all legal. He is a U.S. marshal.”

  “What would they say,” Chi suggested, “if we brought you back to Casper, made you tell the law what you just told us?”

  “They’d say you were liars—after they finished laughing—and throw your ass in jail to wait for hanging.”

  She stood abruptly, and Cord automatically shifted a little to his left to free his gun. “Ryker tells a whale of a tall tale,” Cord said. “How do we know you are not playacting a role in one of them?”

  “Think what you want, but hear me out. Take your chances. I sure as hell am.”

  That was true enough, Cord had to admit.

  “I came to you,” Kelsey pointed out. “I heard how you been partnered up all these years. You trusted each other so long, I figure I can trust you too. Got me a partner of my own, you know.”

  Another too-quick turn. “How’s that?” Cord said.

  “Been together over two years,” Kelsey said, a little dreamily. “Not doing so bad neither.”

  “At what?”

  “This and that. We rustled some cows, even robbed a stage or two.”

  “You’re not sure exactly how many?” Chi put in. Kelsey smiled at her. “Anyway we was doing all right, until Ryker came back. Crazy egg-sucking bastard.” She looked up quickly, like a child surprised at her own brashness, and not sure what reaction it would draw.

  “Maybe you are not cut out for this line of work, hermana,” Chi said.

  “Funny thing is,” Kelsey said, “you’re right. I want out. Me and my partner, we been getting on good. Like husband and wife, if you know what I mean.” She lowered her head, and Cord thought he saw color high on her cheekbones. “But I’m not so tough, and my partner, he’s...” She looked up. “He’s not always right, especially if I’m not there to take care.”