3

The Gauntlet

Davenport’s eyes were closed, but there was a rigidity about him that made it clear he was far from sleep. A few feet from the campfire, but still within the glow of its flames, Bongani’s eyes shone like beacons through the blackness of the night. Adam wondered if that man ever slept. He also wondered about Bongani’s relationship with Davenport. He couldn’t be a slave; could he? Whatever it was that held the two together, Adam thought it might be a fragile bond, maybe even one he and Joe could help to sever.

And Joe…like Davenport, he was tense; but he didn’t try to hide it by feigning sleep. Shortly after supper, he’d stepped away from the campfire, returning to the tree where he’d been bound earlier, and dropping to the ground to lean against it once more. There he sat watching everything…and everyone. In that regard, he reminded Adam of Bongani. Despite the vast physical differences between them, Joe and Bongani both seemed intent on being sentries. More than that, even; guardians, perhaps. Joe was prepared for either the hunter himself or his ‘hound’ to attack without warning. Bongani was prepared for the brothers to make a run for it. Both were prepared to jump into action the instant either play was made. Unfortunately, Joe was nowhere near as well equipped as Bongani to counter any such play.

They were all players, weren’t they? Players in a game where every move, however subtle, counted. Every glance, every gesture provided a clue as to what might follow.

Sighing, Adam rose to join his brother. Davenport stirred, as though unsettled by Adam’s movement. The hunter opened his eyes, his gaze finding Adam’s and then holding there until Adam broke the connection by turning away. When Adam squatted to his haunches beside Little Joe, he noticed Davenport’s eyes were still on him. It wasn’t until Adam had dropped further to sit cross-legged on the ground that Davenport appeared to settle back into sleep.

The hunter was nervous; that was clear. He expected Adam and Joe to start running at any moment. That was exactly what Adam wanted him to think. It would keep Davenport from the rest he, himself, had said they all needed. With any luck, it might also lead to him making critical tactical mistakes.

“I’m ready,” Joe whispered, pulling Adam’s attention away from Davenport; Joe’s own gaze was locked on Bongani, his chest heaving with shallow, anxious breaths.

“Not yet,” Adam whispered back.

Those two words brought Joe’s attention directly to him. Joe looked at Adam for a short while before taking a deep breath and then nodding. “Davenport should be asleep before too much longer,” he said. “I’m not so sure about Bongani.”

“Don’t be so sure about either of them,” Adam cautioned.

His brow curving, Joe looked at Davenport again.

“He’s just waiting for us to make our move,” Adam went on. “My guess is he won’t sleep at all tonight.”

When Joe turned back to his brother, the pull of his brow reflected disappointment.

Adam grasped Joe’s good arm and offered a small smile. “Don’t worry, Joe. That’s exactly what I was hoping for. He won’t be at his best tomorrow.”

“Neither will we,” Joe admitted.

Adam nodded. “That’s why you need to try to get some sleep right now.”

Joe looked at him as though he’d gone mad. “How can you expect me to get any sleep?”

“You’re tired, Joe. That’s obvious. If you stay awake all night, even a two hour head-start won’t do us much good.”

“You’re tired, too.”

“I wasn’t shot.” Adam tightened his grip. “Please, Joe. Just try. I’ll keep watch for a while.”

Joe took another look at both Davenport and Bongani. “You’ll wake me to relieve you?”

Adam nudged his smile wider. “Sure, Joe, just as soon as I’m ready to give my own eyes a rest.”

While Joe studied him, Adam wondered if he was as transparent to his brother as Joe was to him. If so, Joe would know Adam had no intention of closing his own eyes at any time that night. But hopefully Joe would also realize the sense in what Adam was suggesting.

Apparently doing just that, Joe gave him one quick nod. “Promise to wake me.”

“I promise.” Adam drew his hand away and watched his brother settle into a more comfortable position. But almost as soon as Joe started to close his eyes, they shot open again. “I’ll be right here,” Adam assured him.

Finally, Joe closed his eyes and kept them shut. Before long, his shallow breaths deepened, making it clear he was trusting in Adam to take his turn at playing guardian. For that one night, it would be an easy role for Adam to play. He only wished it could remain so after sunrise.

XxXxX

Adam did not pass the night sitting idle, simply watching the camp. He studied the hunter and his man, Bongani, keeping alert to any changes in either of them. Whenever Davenport started to breathe more heavily, Adam rose to pace, exploring the camp and its boundaries as he did so. Just as he’d anticipated, every time Adam moved, the hunter roused. Adam had no intention of allowing that man any rest at all.

Fortunately, Joe’s sleep was not disturbed by Adam’s movements. But it wasn’t untroubled, either. His eyes danced wildly beneath his lids, and he frequently started muttering words that had no real form. There were several times when Adam had to nudge his brother to help guide him out of the nightmares plaguing him. Even so, Joe never woke. Adam hoped that had more to do with Joe trusting his brother to watch over him than the effects of his injury. Though Bongani seemed to have dressed the wound in Joe’s arm effectively, Adam had not been pleased with the man’s surgical skills. Infection was a far more cunning enemy than Davenport could ever be, and a far more difficult one to evade.

While he moved, Adam also explored Davenport’s provisions. Making no effort at discretion, he took a canteen, a handful of jerky and extra bandages for Joe. The terms of the hunt, after all, had been limited to weapons and timing. If Davenport attempted to later deny Adam and his brother these few items, Adam was ready with a series of arguments to counter him.

Adam spent the rest of the time strategizing not only routes, but preparations. They would need to change the dressing on Joe’s arm before setting out. The burn on Joe’s forehead was small and had little need of a bandage; but burns also had a tendency to invite infection. Adam wished they had some way to cover it—with Joe’s hat, if nothing else. But they’d both lost their hats somewhere along the way.

At least the hats, wherever they were, would provide evidence—along with Joe’s discarded sleeves—that Adam and his brother had been there. Someone would find them—Hoss, most likely—as soon as they started looking, which Adam doubted would occur until mid-day. Pa would accept that Adam and Joe might have needed to spend an extra night on the trail; but he would surely begin to worry if there was still no sign of them by noon.

No, Adam corrected fondly in his thoughts. Pa would have started to worry hours ago; but he would hold himself back from doing anything about it until noon.

It wasn’t until the stars began to fade to the dim glow that presaged the rising sun that Adam’s thoughts turned dark. His mind conjured the image of Joe falling into that creek, and for one horrifying moment he couldn’t breathe, so certain was he that Davenport was going to force him to watch his brother die. But he fought against that turn of his thoughts every bit as hard as he knew he would have to fight Davenport in the coming hours.

They stood a chance, he and Joe. Although Joe was injured, his youth and his hotheaded stubbornness could keep him going for hours, maybe even as far as Virginia City. On the other hand, Joe’s injury could invite mistakes by affecting his balance or his judgment. Neither of them could afford to make mistakes, not with a madman like Davenport tracking them down. That meant Adam could not allow himself to think for even one second longer they might fail. Thinking like that could get them killed. No. They would get through this. They had to. Adam was not going to watch Joe die; and he’d be damned if he was going to let Joe watch him.

Steeling himself with a deep breath of dew-laced mountain air, Adam accepted that he’d prepared as well as he possibly could. The hunt would soon begin. It was time for him to wake Little Joe.

XxXxX

Joe turned, and was immediately relieved to see his brother running toward him. But his relief died in an instant. Behind Adam, off to Joe’s right, a dark figure was emerging from the trees. The man was a shadow, his features indistinct, hidden by deep shadows cast by the towering pines surrounding him. Still, Joe saw one thing with perfect clarity: the man was pointing a rifle at Adam’s back.

In an instant Joe lifted his own rifle, aiming it toward the figure. But something struck him as he started to pull the trigger, driving him backward, downward. He felt himself falling…endlessly falling into a deep abyss…until…someone grabbed him.

He was pulled from the abyss…pulled upward, out of the darkness. When he opened his eyes, he saw a single star above him.

“Joe!” Adam whispered urgently.

On instinct, Joe grabbed for the gun at his hip, feeling panic flare when his fingers touched only fabric.

“Easy, Joe. It’s time to wake up.”

The sound of his brother’s voice and the warmth of Adam’s hand gripping Joe’s shoulder allowed his taut muscles to relax, easing the now throbbing pain in his arm.

Joe took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Thanks.” He blinked, and then tried to rub away the gritty dregs of sleep from his eyes.

“Rough night?” Adam asked in an oddly lighthearted, almost teasing tone.

Confused, Joe looked at his brother. Had Adam stopped worrying about the morning’s grim hunt?

Then something else confused Joe even more. The sky was too light. Joe could see his brother clearly enough to recognize the weariness in his eyes.

It was morning already—or near enough, anyway.

Joe tensed. “You were supposed to wake me to relieve you!”

Adam wasn’t the least bit repentant. He gave Joe a small grin and nodded. “I said I’d wake you when I was ready to rest my eyes.” He shrugged. “As it turned out, I was never ready to do that.”

“This isn’t a game, Adam!”

The grin vanished. “No, Joe. It’s not. Far from it.” He glanced toward Davenport, showing Joe that the hunter, too, was awakening, and then he lowered his voice to the breathiest, quietest whisper he could summon. “I’ve worked out some ideas. I need you to trust me.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve worked out some ideas of my own!” Joe shot back in an equally quiet but immensely more demanding tone.

“Good.”

Joe was taken aback by the sincerity evident in Adam’s response, and the corresponding nod that followed it. There were times when Adam would show an interest in hearing Joe’s ideas, but the more critical the situation, the less likely he was to listen. So…why was he willing, now?

“Why don’t you tell me about them,” Adam went on, “while I change that bandage?”

Suspicious, Joe relaxed nonetheless, sitting up against the tree. If Adam was willing to listen, no matter the reason, Joe was going to give him something to listen to. “The way I figure it,” he started while Adam reached for the bandage on his arm, “he’ll be expecting us to go where we can get help, like Virginia City or the Pon—Hey!” Whatever Adam had done, it felt as though he was digging out another bullet.

Adam pulled back, sighing loudly. “Sorry, Joe. It bled quite a bit last night. And those stitches….”

“What?” Joe was having a hard time catching his breath.

“They’re poorly done. That’s why it kept bleeding. I should take them out and stitch it up again.”

“We don’t have time for that, and you know it.”

“Gentlemen!” Davenport called out in greeting, sounding cloyingly cheerful. “Good morning! I trust you slept well?”

Adam tensed, his jaw jutting out in anger, drawing his lips into thin lines. The way he lowered his head and looked up at Joe made him look predatory, as though he was ready to swivel around to attack the man walking up behind him, like he wanted to tear that man apart with his bare hands. Joe couldn’t help but tense at seeing his brother’s reaction. But surprisingly, when Davenport took that final step and placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder, all Adam did was pull those thinned out lips into a dark smile.

“Davenport,” Adam said tightly, rising to face the hunter.

“This mountain air truly is marvelous; isn’t it? I can scarcely remember when I’ve had a better night’s sleep!”

“Then perhaps you would consider postponing this hunt for a while. You could be our guests at the Ponderosa. Let us show you how invigorating this mountain air can really be.”

Adam’s offer drove Joe angrily to his feet. But he rose too fast. The world spun around him, forcing him to use the tree for support.

“Ah, would that I could,” Davenport answered, either not noticing Joe, or simply ignoring him. “But I have always followed Dickens’ advice.”

Adam didn’t seem to notice Joe, either. His back remained turned, and his words made it clear his attention had been focused on the hunter. “I see. Never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”

Davenport chuckled. “You have yet to disappoint me, my friend!”

“I am not your friend.” There was venom in Adam’s tone then, enough to unbalance Davenport. He stumbled backward, as though he’d been bitten.

Joe’s anger turned inward. He should have known Adam’s earlier offer had been a ruse. If Joe had been thinking straight, he would have known. But he hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d barely been thinking at all. He had danged well had better start! If he didn’t, he could be responsible for getting them both killed.

“You are indeed a man of surprises,” Davenport said. His voice was softer, his cheery attitude lost behind a suddenly ashen look of dismay. “This surely promises to be a most challenging hunt. Most challenging, indeed.”

When Davenport turned away, Joe knew the man had been shaken, a fact that boded well for Joe and his brother. But he also knew the time for Adam’s game of words had been brought to an end. From now on, the game would grow deadly.

And suddenly he felt as ashen as Davenport had looked. Keeping the tree at his back, Joe wanted to ease himself to the ground. Then his gaze moved outward, meeting Bongani’s…making it clear that Bongani had been watching him. At that moment, Joe knew he was showing weakness. He didn’t dare show any more. Taking a deep breath, he straightened and anchored himself firmly where he stood.

“Come on, Joe,” Adam said, turning back toward him. “Let’s see to that bandage.”

Joe nodded to his brother before returning his attention to Bongani; but Bongani was gone.

“So,” Adam went on; he seemed unaware that the only reason Joe made it back to the ground without falling was the tree he’d used to guide him down. “Why don’t you finish telling me about this idea of yours?”

How could Adam do that? How could he get so angry, and then just turn around and forget it?

“Joe?”

“Right.” But he was still feeling unsettled about Bongani. “Well, it’s…it’s like I was saying,” Joe started, trying to pull his thoughts together again. “He’s…he’s gonna expect us to go toward help.”

“I imagine he would.”

Joe’s gaze fixed onto a canteen in Adam’s hand. He watched his brother pour water over a piece of cloth. “Where’d you get that?”

“I borrowed it.”

“Does he know you borrowed it?”

“He does. Tell me about your idea.” Adam started peeling the old bandage away from Joe’s arm with his left hand, using the wet cloth in his right to moisten the clotted blood.

The water eased the sting, although Joe had to work at ignoring the deeper pain. “He’s sure to know where Virginia City is,” Joe went on, “so if he sees us heading in that direction, he could double back for the horses and then try to cut us off.”

Adam’s hands went still. He looked off into the distance, somewhere beyond Joe. “The horses….”

“What?”

Adam returned his attention to Joe, wearing about the most peculiar expression Joe had ever seen him make, sort of dumbfounded, or maybe shocked. “The horses were never mentioned in his terms.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The expression Adam made then was all too familiar to Joe. He was angry. “It means they’re fair game,” he hissed. “It might even mean I made them fair game!”

Now Joe was sure he must look pretty dumbfounded himself. He couldn’t make sense of what his brother was saying. “You’re gonna have to explain a whole lot better than that.”

Adam shook his head. “There isn’t time. Look Joe, you may be right. You might even have touched on a better way to get us out of this, if we can find the horses.”

“So…let me guess. You’re suggesting we go upcountry instead of down, putting ourselves further away from help rather than closer, on the outside chance we might find the horses although the odds are probably against us ever doing that?”

Anger faded to the quirk of a smile. “I suppose that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Joe smiled, too. “Well, then…I suppose all that sleep you forced on me was good for something, seeing as how I came up with something in my sleep that you didn’t wide awake.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

Joe leaned his head back against the tree and watched a pale, blue light start to streak across the sky. “Hey, Adam?”

“Yeah?”

“You gonna be awake enough to handle this, today?”

“Don’t you worry about me. I won’t let you down.”

“I know. That’s not what concerns me.” Feeling Adam’s eyes on him, Joe looked back at his brother.

“We’re gonna make it, Joe,” Adam said, seeming as sure as ever. “And I promise you, that man’s days of hunting are going to end right here.”

“That’s a pretty big promise.”

“It’s one I intend to keep.”

Joe’s smile was smaller, sadder than before. And then it was gone. “I don’t want to let you down, Adam.” He spoke so softly, he wasn’t even sure his brother could hear him.

“You won’t,” Adam said, making it clear he had. He stated it like it was preordained; and his gaze looked hard enough to seal those words in stone. “No matter what happens…you won’t.”

No matter what happens. Joe knew what that meant. Bongani hadn’t been the only one to see his weakness. Adam had seen it, too; he had seen it, and accepted the fact that weakness might very well cause them both to be killed.

Maybe Adam could accept it; but Joe sure couldn’t. He refused to accept it. The only fact he would allow himself to accept was that he was going to do whatever it would take to enable his brother to make it home alive. The moment Joe’s weakness starts to make that outcome too unlikely, then…well…Joe might just have to make sure Adam has no reason to protect him any longer.

Reaching that decision helped Joe to relax as nothing else possibly could. Adam noticed the change in him, too. When Joe saw his brother relax in response, he felt his smile returning.

No matter what happens, older brother, he said into the depths of his thoughts. No matter what….

XxXxX

Davenport, civil but sullen, shared a breakfast of coffee and the remains of last night’s supper before bidding the brothers farewell, “…and good hunting!”

“Excuse me for refusing to wish you the same,” Adam replied coldly.

Their plan involved returning to the station and then climbing higher in the hope of finding the horses; but it would not be wise to take a direct route. It was far too early to show their cards. When Joe suggested starting off in the direction of home and then circling back downstream where the terrain grew rocky, Adam was quick to agree. The thick, sponge-like carpet of pine needles in the woods that led toward the ranch house would absorb most traces of their passage, potentially fooling Davenport into believing they’d continued in that direction; and the rocks downstream would make it practically impossible for the hunter to see where they’d gone.

Of course, there were risks. It was impossible to make any move in this macabre hunt that wasn’t risky. Circling back would keep them closer to Davenport than Adam liked, yet moving forward in a consistently straight line would only give them a short-term advantage. Davenport was taller than Joe, with a much longer stride. And Joe was already weak. The distance between them would grow increasingly shorter. In all likelihood, the gap would be closed long before Adam and his brother reached the safety of home.

It would be a far different matter if Little Joe had not been shot. Adam would probably have to struggle to keep up with his younger and far more energetic brother, just as he’d done the day before when he hadn’t even been able to keep Joe in his sights. Today, they ran side by side. It was a pace Adam knew he could maintain for a good, long while—as long as necessary, if determination was enough to keep him going. But he wasn’t nearly as certain about Joe. Adam’s young brother was hardly as fit as he’d been the day before. By the time the hunt began in truth, two hours after they’d set out, telltale spots of red were beginning to show through on Joe’s bandage, making it clear he was bleeding again. It was also clear he was having a hard time catching his breath.

When they crossed back over the creek where the rocky terrain would gradually lead them to higher ground, Joe could hardly keep his footing. Rocks and stones skittered away from both of them with each step, and Joe stumbled so frequently Adam found himself reaching for him, almost but not quite taking hold of Joe’s arm to offer support. He knew his brother well enough to expect Joe to be more angered than appreciative of the effort—at least, for now.

“Just a little further, Joe,” he said encouragingly as they approached the peak of this small hill at the outer edge of the mountain. Trying to ignore the carrion birds circling to either side, Adam kept his attention on the boulders above them; they would be a good place to watch for the hunter’s approach. There was only one direction from which the hunter could come. No more than twenty feet to their left, the ground gave way to a sheer drop off, where the creek trickled down into the canyon below in a thin waterfall. To the other side, the terrain flattened out, leading toward a meadow not far from the station house…a perfect grazing ground for wayward horses.

“We’re making good time,” Adam lied. “I think we can afford to rest for a while when we reach those boulders.”

Joe didn’t answer. He didn’t even look in Adam’s direction. With his gaze focused ahead of him, he also failed to notice a particularly large rock in his path until it turned his left foot, throwing him sideways and sending a small avalanche of stones toward Adam. Watching Joe fall, Adam saw the elbow of his bad arm hit first, taking all of his weight. There was nothing Adam could do. He wasn’t close enough or fast enough to stop it from happening.

When Joe cried out, Adam almost did as well, stopping himself only by clamping his jaw shut so tightly he couldn’t utter a sound.

And then Joe lay on his back, panting, with his right hand wrapped around his injured arm, just below the bandage.

“Joe?” Adam scrambled up beside him. Reaching a tentative hand forward, he stopped when he saw fresh blood leaking through the bandage to the stone covered ground below. There was also a new wound on Joe’s elbow; Adam could only pray it wasn’t broken.

Adam’s first thought, though he hated himself for it, was that he would have to somehow get rid of those bloodied stones to hide their passage. His second thought was that Joe might not be able to make it to the meadow. He wished his only thought could be for Joe’s well being.

“Let me help you,” Adam said, gritting his teeth once more as he grasped Joe’s good shoulder. He stopped when Joe cried out again.

“Wait!” Joe demanded in a voice made rough by the exertion. “Just…wait,” he repeated more softly, closing his eyes.

Adam watched as his brother’s breathing slowed, noticing that the wound on Joe’s forehead was redder, angrier than it had been when they’d started out.

A moment later, with one long inhalation, Joe opened his eyes and nodded. “Let’s go,” he said.

With a surprising burst of energy, Joe pushed himself up with little help and made his own way to the boulders. Once there, however, he sank to the ground with his back to the rock, laying his head against it and closing his eyes, clearly spent.

As much as Adam wanted to tend to Joe—as much as he knew he needed to—he couldn’t. Not yet. Sighing, he emptied his small sack of borrowed provisions beside his brother and then returned to gather up the blood spattered rocks and stones, running his foot across what remained until he was satisfied their passage would not easily be discovered. Next he walked to the cliff’s edge, upending the sack to spill everything he’d collected into the canyon.

When he turned to go back to his brother, Adam caught sight of something large and red resting on the canyon floor. Only then did he realize the corpses he and Joe had discovered at the station had not been Phillip Davenport’s only victims. The stagecoach, along with its team of horses, lay broken and scattered in the rocks far below. The driver must have tried to make a run for it after discovering Davenport’s intentions. For reasons no one would ever know, he’d taken an old logging road rather than the main route. Maybe he’d hoped to reach the Ponderosa, realizing it was his closest route to help.

“Damn,” Adam said softly before offering up a silent prayer for every one of the hunter’s victims. He ended it with a quiet but desperate plea that his brother and he would succeed where that driver had failed.

They had to, he decided. There simply was no other option.

XxXxX

Hamilton Breckinridge was an interesting man who told horrifying tales. Ben wanted to believe those tales false. But what if they were true? Worse, what if Adam and Joe had encountered the man responsible, this Phillip Davenport whom Breckinridge was so keen on tracking down?

As the night had worn on, Ben’s fear for his sons had grown so intense he couldn’t hope to sleep. He’d become desperate to go after Adam and Joe, to find them and bring them home where they belonged. But the trail would not be safe in the dark, particularly with the likes of Phillip Davenport in the area. Bright as the stars had been, their brightness could never penetrate the thick, pine woods Ben would have to go through to reach Hank’s way station by the route Adam and Joe would surely have taken. There had been no choice but to wait.

Now, barely three hours after setting out with the first ghostly trails of dawn, Ben knew waiting had been a mistake. He’d played it safe while the safety of his sons had been threatened.

“Pa?” Hoss sounded young and frightened as he reined up beside his father. “That pinto, it sure looks like—”

“It is,” Ben declared. Even from this distance he had no doubt whatsoever that lone, bare, unbridled animal moving slowly toward them was his youngest son’s mount. Cochise’s markings were as distinctive as any horse he’d ever known. Ben was sure Hoss knew those markings as well as he did—just as they both knew nothing good would have separated Little Joe from that animal. Nothing good at all.

Putting his heels to his own horse’s flanks, Ben tried to imagine that Joe had been careless, leaving his horse neither tethered nor hobbled for the night; but he knew Little Joe would never be careless when it came to tending that pinto of his.

And then Adam’s horse came out of the trees behind the pinto.

Any hope Ben had harbored about the well being of his sons died in that moment.

XxXxX

Joe was oddly calm when Adam told him about the stage. A healthy Joe would have been driven to his feet, eager to face Davenport head on, weapons be damned. The horses alone should have netted a hastily uttered argument, filled with words that would make Pa cringe. And the driver…. Healthy or not, Joe should have been equal parts enraged and mournful over hearing Davenport had yet another victim lying mangled at the bottom of the canyon.

Yet when Adam had finished speaking, there were no tears in his brother’s eyes. Nor was there any fire. Joe merely pulled down his brows just the slightest bit, and then laid his head back, his gaze seeming more interested in the buzzards overhead.

“I was starting to think they were after me,” he said without any trace of emotion. “I suppose it makes more sense it would take a full team of dead horses to bring around that many.”

“I suppose it does.” Adam stopped working with Joe’s bandage to offer a small smile his brother never noticed.

“According to Hoss,” Joe went on, “I’m not much more than skin and bones anyway. A whole flock like that would starve to death on the likes of me.” The words suggested an attempt at humor, something Joe tended to do to avoid giving in to the gravity of a situation; and a healthy Joe would have smiled, despite the anger and tears that should already have been present. But this Joe spoke like a bored actor reciting Shakespeare by rote, saying the words because it was what was expected of him, making no connection at all to the tragic implications behind them.

Adam had no trouble making the connection for him. Adam saw it in the thin bullet crease on Joe’s forehead that was starting to widen, and the gaping wound in Joe’s arm that could not be contained by Bongani’s careless stitches. He saw it in the raw skin and growing bruise on Joe’s elbow, and in the way Joe seemed to be protecting the ankle he’d twisted in his fall. Yet Adam saw the worst of it in Joe’s eyes. Where he might have expected signs of delirium, he instead saw absolute clarity.

“You need to find those horses, Adam,” Joe said then, sounding like the wiser, older brother rather than the impetuous, younger one.

“We will.” Adam tied off the fresh bandage on Joe’s arm, and then set to work cleaning gravel out of the scraped skin on Joe’s elbow.

“I’m staying here.”

The words hit Adam with an unexpected and unwelcome punch. His hands went still, but only for an instant. “No,” he said firmly. “You’re not.”

“I don’t have a choice, Adam.” Joe’s calm attitude was starting to give way to harsh, hot tempered breathing…or warm tempered, anyway. “And neither do you. We need those horses.”

“You’re not staying here.”

“What are you gonna do?” Joe shouted then. “Carry me?”

Adam met his gaze, holding it as solidly as ever. “If necessary.”

“You’re not thinking, Adam! You’ve got more sense than that. We don’t have time to play it safe or slow. You have to move fast; and you’re not gonna do that with me!”

“Forget it, Joe. I’m not leaving you.”

Joe stared at him appraisingly for a long while before shaking his head, disappointment evident in his eyes. “We’ll never outrun them by staying together,” he said softly.

“Then we’ll just have to find a way to fight them.”

“How?” Joe asked, his anger returning. “How can we possibly fight against that buffalo gun of his?”

“We’ll find a way.”

Joe looked upward again, the movement of his eyes following the path of the buzzards as the tears he’d avoided moments earlier finally began to surface. “I can’t let him do that to you, Adam.”

“Then we’re even.” He waited for Joe to look at him again. “Because I won’t let him do it to you.”

XxXxX

Though the meadow wasn’t far, it took Adam and Joe another two hours to reach it. They never would have, if Joe had continued insisting he could make it on his own. No more than twenty minutes of limping across the rocks with his lungs working harder than should be necessary had been enough to prove he needed his brother’s help. And so he leaned on Adam for the rest of the journey. They stopped frequently, as much to enable Adam to try to erase signs of their passage as to allow Joe to rest. Through it all, Joe never argued. That fact alone kept Adam going as nothing else could. He needed to get his brother on the first horse he could find, and then ride as hard and as fast as necessary to put Davenport behind them.

Unfortunately, reaching the meadow did not provide him with that option. There wasn’t a single horse within view.

“No.” Joe sounded despondent as he slipped out of Adam’s hold and eased himself to the ground. “It can’t be.”

Adam was ready to rage the way Little Joe normally would. But he couldn’t. For Joe’s sake, he wouldn’t. Instead, he clamped down on his jaw, took in a few breaths to steady his nerves, and then forced himself to think as clearly, as reasonably as he possibly could. “They were here,” he said. “They had to have been. This is the best grazing land for miles. They’ve just wandered off.” He looked toward the trees beyond. “Odds are the station horses are still close by. I doubt they’d venture far from the station itself.”

“If they weren’t hobbled,” Joe added a moment later, “Cochise and Sport could be home by now.”

“Could be.” Reason was helping. Adam was feeling more hopeful than he’d been since they’d set out at dawn. He even managed to give his brother an encouraging smile before he set out across the meadow to look for traceable hoof prints.

He was so focused on the grasses ahead of him he gave no notice to the ones behind, not even when the sun reflected off the brass scope mounted on the most powerful and well balanced hunting rifle west of the Mississippi.

XxXxX

Hoss heard the pop of a distant rifle-shot the very instant his gaze landed on something familiar lying on the ground, nearly obscured by the thick brush surrounding the campsite. His entire body jerked with a start at the sound of that shot, but then he stood frozen for a long minute, suddenly afraid in a way he couldn’t ever remember being, not even as a small boy when scary campfire tales had him dreading monsters in the night. Finding those bodies up at the station had made him ill with worry and a deep, almost overwhelming sadness. But seeing that splash of a green on the ground, a color of green that was sharper and deeper than the undergrowth surrounding it…well, it had Hoss’s worry building into pure terror. That was Joe’s jacket he was lookin’ at. Hoss was as certain of that fact as he’d been when he’d seen Cochise comin’ toward them on the trail. He didn’t want to believe it; but he didn’t have a choice.

“Better see what that’s about,” Sheriff Coffee said somewhere nearby.

Hoss knew Roy wasn’t talkin’ about the green cloth on the ground, but Hoss moved toward it just the same. They’d all heard the shot; and the sheriff was sure right about the fact they had to find out who was shootin,’ and just what or who it was they were shootin’ at. But Hoss was equally certain about the fact he had to see to that cloth.

“Pa,” he called out then, keenly aware of the tremor in his voice. If he’d felt ill earlier, he couldn’t even put a word to how he felt when he discovered that green cloth wasn’t Joe’s jacket at all. Not really. It was what was left of Joe’s jacket, nothing more than a sleeve…and a blood-coated sleeve, at that.

He didn’t think there could possibly be any worse feelin’ than the one he had right then…not until he turned to see his pa comin’ toward him. Pa’s face looked pale enough to show he was feelin’ about as sick as Hoss, probably even sicker, if that was possible.

And Pa was holdin’ Adam’s hat.

Then there was a second rifle shot, and suddenly all that fear, all that worry…all that sick feelin’…, well, suddenly Hoss didn’t feel none of it anymore. All he felt was rage.

XxXxX

Joe was hot. He shouldn’t be so hot. Just yesterday there had been a chill in the air that had made him think autumn wasn’t all that far away. But today it felt more like high summer in the middle of the desert. Though his bare arm—his wounded arm—seemed as hot as the rest of him, maybe even hotter, he hoped shedding what remained of his jacket might offer some relief. But when he moved to shrug himself out of the heavy fabric, he caught a flash of some kind from the corner of his eye.

A reflection?

“Adam, get down!” he shouted, all too aware what that reflection likely meant.

Joe threw himself to the ground, hoping his brother did the same as the explosion of a shot rang out. When he looked again, he couldn’t see Adam at all. There was no way for him to tell whether or not his brother had been hit.

He had to find out. Or….

It occurred to him he had two choices. He could either move toward Adam, to see if his brother was….

No. He wouldn’t think that way.

He could move toward Adam to make sure his brother was all right; or he could move toward Davenport to stop that madman from finishing what he’d started.

Suddenly, Joe’s decision was simple. If Adam was all right, Joe needed to make sure he stayed that way. If he wasn’t…then, well, Joe needed to make sure the man responsible got exactly what he deserved. Either way, Joe needed to get his hands on Phillip Davenport. And Davenport was a whole lot closer than Adam.

Joe pulled himself forward across the ground on his right side, keeping his eye on the area where he’d noticed the flash. He no longer saw a reflection of any kind; but he’d looked away for no more than a few seconds when he’d shouted at Adam. Davenport could not have changed his position so quickly; could he?

Yes, Joe realized an instant later when he found himself in the sights of a handgun, no more than six feet from his head. Reacting on instinct to get out of the way, Joe rolled to his other side as the hunter’s finger pressed against the trigger.

The explosion of that second shot should have been deafening, close as Joe was; but a different sort of explosion erupted inside him when he put all of his weight onto his injured arm, rendering him oblivious. He didn’t hear or feel a thing, not even Davenport’s bullet. Nor did he have any idea how lucky he was. It would have embedded itself into his skull if he hadn’t moved. As it was, it merely skimmed his head, directly above his right ear.

XxXxX

Adam’s heart was racing and his breaths came in urgent gasps. Davenport had tried to shoot him down. Without warning, without…. Without any show of decency or respect, that monster had intended to shoot him in the back. Like an animal…like that twelve-point buck Adam had targeted last autumn. Adam had been just as oblivious of Davenport’s threat as that buck had been of Adam’s.

Joe’s warning had saved his life.

Joe’s warning had also given Davenport another victim to target.

Suddenly more afraid for his brother than he was for himself, Adam scrambled back the way he’d come, staying as low as he could…until he heard a second shot. Then he pushed himself to his feet, racing toward the very monster he’d been so desperate to avoid for far too many hellish hours. He couldn’t stay down, not anymore. And so he ran. With each step he saw Davenport move toward Little Joe as though Adam wasn’t a threat he needed to face.

Maybe he wasn’t. Adam’s legs felt weighted. The earth itself seemed intent on preventing him from reaching his brother. And then…then he saw Davenport standing over Joe with a handgun pointed downward. Adam saw Joe clearly then, too, clear enough to prove his brother was not moving.

“No!” Adam shouted as he lunged at the hunter, feeling every bit like the charging lion of Davenport’s favorite hunting tale. But Adam was neither as fast nor as deadly as that lion; and since Davenport was said to have cut that lion down, it should not have been surprising when he cut Adam down as well.

The bullet bit into Adam’s shoulder, stealing his breath…and with that breath, his reason. He could almost believe the whole world had gone still…still and silent. There was no sound, just as there was no movement except for an unsettling tilting of the earth as it pulled him back toward it, the ground slamming up against him with a breath-stealing punch of its own. And then…he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was too mesmerized by the tendrils of a translucent white cloud as it floated across an otherwise pristine blue sky.

He wondered at the serenity of that cloud, wondered for a brief moment if he could float up into it, if his hold on this world…or its hold on him could let go so easily. Then a clicking sound beside him made it clear he could not.

The sound was too distinct, too horrific.

Adam’s cloud drifted out of reach as his thoughts conjured images of Joe…first falling into the creek…and then twisting his ankle in the rocks…and now, lying beside Adam, close enough to see but too far to touch. Joe was as quiet and still as….

Adam turned his head just a fraction, enough to find Davenport’s gun pointed at the bridge of his nose. “You miserable coward!” Adam said in a tone that spat venom with every word.

Fury numbed him, enabling him to forget why he was on the ground, pressing him to forget everything except what had been done to his young brother.

He grabbed the gun by the barrel.

Davenport was clearly not the hunter he’d claimed to be. Any decent hunter would know a wounded animal was the most deadly kind of all, likely to attack viciously, violently, without mercy. Or perhaps he’d simply believed Adam would have had nothing left to fight for, with his brother likely already dead and his own life leaking away, drop by bloody drop, in the grass of the haven that meadow was supposed to have been. Whatever the reason, Adam’s move had unbalanced the hunter. Davenport stumbled backward, giving Adam the leverage he needed to turn the hunter’s hand.

“How dare you!” Davenport complained.

“How dare I?” Adam argued. “You murdered my brother!”

Just a little further…. Adam had to press just a little harder to get that gun aimed at the hunter, instead.

“He was prey! I did what was expected of me!”

“He was my brother!” Adam shouted.

“You are not playing properly!”

“I am not playing!”

The resounding crack! of distant rifle fire made the whole world resonate around him. Stunned, Adam’s hold on the hunter’s gun loosened. Davenport’s did too. Adam watched, confused, as the gun fell to the ground between them and Davenport staggered drunkenly sideways…backwards….

“I am the hunter,” Davenport said, his brows drawn as though he could not quite comprehend how his prey could have forgotten the rules.

When he fell to his knees, Adam noticed a red bloom beginning to stain the right side of the hunter’s coat. An instant later, Davenport fell forward, and Adam saw a smaller bloom on the hunter’s back. He’d been shot clean through. But not by Adam.

Stunned, Adam looked around until he saw Joe. Adam’s brother was leaning on one elbow, gazing dazedly Adam’s way.

“Found y’r rifle,” Joe said, offering a weary smile despite the fresh blood trickling along the side of his face. “Saddle, too. Soon’s I opened my eyes. First th’ng I saw.” His words were slurred enough to make Adam wonder how he could possibly have made such a well-aimed shot. Then Joe’s eyes slipped closed again, and he fell back to the ground.

Adam couldn’t even try to reach him. He, too, felt ready to collapse. But he was unwilling to give in to that feeling. Not yet. Not when he saw something dark rising in the tall grasses behind Joe, perhaps twenty yards away.

“No,” Adam pleaded softly, far too softly for the large man to hear. He couldn’t speak any louder. Nor could he fight any longer. His strength was spent.

He watched, feeling more helpless than he could ever remember feeling, waiting for the inevitable bullet that would send him straight to that translucent cloud. But Bongani did not take aim. He kept his rifle off to his side. And then…he turned. He simply turned around, and started running back the way he’d come…back toward the rocks bordering the canyon.

That was the only sound Adam heard then. Despite the distance, he could swear he heard every one of Bongani’s running steps. When the ground pulled Adam down once more, it seemed to vibrate with each crashing footfall.

No, he told himself as his eyelids shut away the harsh glare of the sun. That wasn’t a man’s steps he was hearing. It was the sound of horses.

Too late, he told them without speaking. Just too damned late.

XxXxX

Hoss reined up beside Roy Coffee and gave the meadow a good, long look.

“Can’t be far,” Roy said.

Absently shaking his head but not really expecting the sheriff to notice, Hoss kept his eyes forward.  “They’re close, sure enough. I reckon that last shot we heard….” He paused, tightening his grip on the reins as his pa moved up on his other side. “Well, it was the last shot,” Hoss went on. “That either means someone stopped shooting back, or—”

“Or,” Pa cut in, “someone no longer had any reason to keep shooting.” Pa’s voice was hard and his glare even harder, with him staring straight ahead just as Hoss had done. “Your brothers could be hurt. They could both be lying right there in that tall grass and we can’t even see them.”

“We’ll find ’em,” Hoss promised.

“We’d better spread out,” Roy said before Pa could answer. “And move slow. We’ll find somethin’ here, whether tracks or….”

He didn’t need to say the rest. And as much as Hoss did not want to hear the words, he turned to look at Sheriff Coffee. Maybe he was looking for his pa’s old friend to look back at him with more confidence than Hoss felt right then; but all Roy showed him was the same sort of sick feelin’ Hoss hadn’t been able to shed.

“We’ll find somethin’.” Roy added before spurring his horse forward.

It wasn’t more than a minute or two later that Hoss saw a shadow up ahead. Some grass was missing, or tromped down maybe. And as he started moving toward it, he heard something, like a man talking off to his left, soft and slow. When he got closer still, he realized that man was saying one sentence over and over again.

“I am the hunter.”

And then Hoss saw Adam, and he didn’t much care what anyone else might have been saying.

“Pa!” he called out, jumping to the ground. He was kneeling beside his brother in an instant, with one hand stretched toward Adam’s chest. But then he hesitated. Adam looked so still lying there. And his shirt was soaked with blood. “Pa?” Hoss said again, his tone much softer, grateful to find his pa beside him once more.

“Adam!” Pa didn’t hesitate like Hoss had. He touched Adam’s chest, and then smoothed his hand across Adam’s forehead. “Adam? Son? Can you hear me?”

That’s when Hoss saw they weren’t too late. Adam’s forehead wrinkled up, his brows pulling down.

“It’s all right, son. You’re going to be just fine.”

Adam’s mouth moved, his lips parting. “Pa?” He said it almost too soft to hear. But then he opened his eyes, and Hoss wanted to let out a whoop and a holler—right up until Adam’s eyes went wide, and he called out, “Joe!”

And then Hoss got that sick feelin’ again. He looked around that tall grass for the brother he still hadn’t found. Instead he saw the sheriff and that Breckinridge fella’ fussing around a stranger. The hunter, Hoss realized. The man responsible for all of it.

Hoss was about to grab the sheriff’s shoulder and tell him to ignore that good-for-nothin’ and start looking for Joe. Then he saw another depression in the grass.

“Easy, son,” Pa said to Adam behind him. “Just lie still until we can do something about that wound.”

“Joe!” Adam called out again, almost like he was forcing Hoss to see their little brother.

And that’s right when Hoss did see Little Joe. Only it didn’t look much like Joe at all. His face was coated with trail dust, and one side of his head looked to have been painted over with a whole bucket of fresh blood. On the other side, there was an ugly crease in his forehead that was crusted over and red with infection. And his arm…. Hoss thought about the sleeve he’d found, and that sick feelin’ he’d had all this time made him about ready to bend over and retch.

“Good lord, Little Joe,” he said softly as he knelt beside his youngest brother. “What’d they do to you?” Swallowing that sick feelin’ down as much as he could, Hoss squeezed Joe’s undamaged shoulder. “Joe?”

“Here, Hoss,” Roy Coffee said before pressing a wet neckerchief into his hand. Hoss hadn’t even known the sheriff was beside him. “See how bad that head wound is.”

Almost without knowing what he was doing, Hoss wiped that cloth across Joe’s eyebrow, his temple, his jaw. “Joe?”

“Hoss?”

Though Hoss didn’t feel quite ready to whoop and holler like he had on finding Adam alive, he sure was relieved to hear his little brother whispering. “That’s right, punkin. It’s ol’ Hoss.”

Hoss found the wound then. It was just above Joe’s ear. And it was a pretty deep gash. But there wasn’t a bullet buried in Joe’s skull…or worse. “You just let Hoss take care of ya’ for now.”

It was strange but comforting to see Joe smile, though his eyes remained closed. “Tell Adam….”

“Tell him what, Joe?” Hoss prodded when his brother said nothing further, seeming to have forgotten he’d spoken.

“Found…his rifle.” Joe’s smile nudged a bit wider. “Can stop…runnin’…start…fightin’ back.”

Anger rose up in Hoss right along with that sick feelin’s bile. Hoss looked up at the sheriff.

“Make him…pray…,” Joe added, confusing Hoss out of his anger for an instant.

“He hunted them,” Breckinridge said then. “My god! He actually hunted them! He made them his prey!”

Hoss didn’t bother with pondering the difference between pray and prey or doing any other kind of thinking then. He just moved, grabbing the cold rifle from Little Joe’s grip and checking the chamber. It was loaded.

“Hoss!”

Sheriff Coffee tried to stop him, but Hoss only had one person on his mind. He wanted to make sure that hunter got everything that was coming to him.

“Hoss!”

Hoss stood before that babbling hunter and started to take aim. But someone tried to pull the rifle out of his hands. Sheriff Coffee, Hoss realized, suddenly turning his rage on a man who had always been a cherished friend to Hoss’s entire family.

“Hoss!” Pa shouted. “Give Roy that rifle!”

“He shot ’em, Pa! He shot ’em both!”

“And he is going to jail for those crimes,” Roy Coffee answered. “And them others, back at that station. You can bet on that. You can also pretty much bet he’s gonna hang for it; that is, if he survives until then. Don’t you make your pa see you hang instead, on account of the fact you had to go and kill a killer!”

Still, Hoss’s grip didn’t loosen until he felt his pa’s hand on his arm.

“Let go of the rifle, son,” Pa said in that gentle tone of his, the kind of tone Joe had started using to gentle wild horses.

Maybe Pa gentled Hoss by using that tone, because Hoss did let go. He wasn’t sure why, but he did. And then he stood where he was, looking down at Pa tending to Little Joe…and he made the mistake of thinking too hard. Suddenly he had no idea what to do. Both his brothers needed him, and he couldn’t do anything except to stand there, stock still.

“That’s strange,” Sheriff Coffee said after giving the weapon a quick inspection.

“What?” Pa didn’t sound too interested. Neither was Hoss.

“Hasn’t been fired.”

“So what?” Pa asked. “It hasn’t been fired. What has that got to do with—”

It took Hoss a bit longer than Pa and Roy, but suddenly he realized why both his pa and the sheriff were looking between Joe and that hunter. And then he asked the question neither one of them had bothered to voice. “If Joe didn’t shoot him, then who did?”

XxXxX

Davenport had not acted alone. Breckinridge made that very clear…as did Adam. Sharing Hoss’s mount, Adam was well secured in his brother’s arms, but his thoughts were not as easy to protect from the horrors he and Joe must have faced since their arrival at the way station. Exhaustion, pain and delirium plagued his ride home, incessantly taking him back to his flight with Joe, desperate to escape the madman chasing them. He kept calling out for Little Joe, unable to comprehend his youngest brother was right beside him, secured in his father’s arms just as he was secured in Hoss’s. He called Davenport’s name as well, and another: Bongani.

“His man,” Breckinridge said, in answer to Ben’s query. “My brother-in-law encountered him in Africa. Bongani was his guide on several hunts. When his tribe was captured by slavers, Phillip claimed Bongani as his own, allowing the African to serve him on the voyage back here rather than having to endure a slave transport.”

“So now they’re partners in murder?” Ben fumed.

Breckinridge had no answer. And though they all wanted to see both Davenport and his man, Bongani, in jail, they would have to settle for Davenport, alone, for now. There simply were not enough able bodied souls to ensure safe transport of the injured men back to the Ponderosa, in addition to riding to Virginia City for the doctor, plus going after Davenport’s missing man.

Roy left them, reluctantly, to make the ride to Virginia City, where he would also organize a posse and a retrieval crew for the hunter’s less fortunate victims. He did not like the idea of leaving such a violent prisoner behind. Ben had been equally reluctant to take Davenport back to the Ponderosa; he wanted that man in jail…or at least somewhere far from Ben’s family. But Davenport was injured and in need of care; riding the longer distance to Virginia City could very well kill him. And while Ben had no concern for the man’s well being, he would not be responsible for Davenport’s death.

No, Ben would neither cause his death, nor deny him appropriate medical treatment. Clearly Hamilton Breckinridge felt the same, though he refused to ‘coddle’ his brother-in-law in the manner Ben and Hoss were so eager to do with Adam and Joe.  Instead, the hunter was tied to Adam’s saddle and mounted alone atop Adam’s horse. His ravings and pain-wracked cries were pointedly ignored.

XxXxX

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