Trent Tolliver had his men up before dawn, too, amid a few grumbles. They had ridden 10 miles the previous night before stopping, so they had a good 15 mile lead on the River Bend posse. His horses were a little weary, though, so he wasn’t going to be able to push them quite as hard this day.
“They’ll be after us now,” Trent said. “I don’t want them to get any closer than they are right now.”
Kelly fixed the men a quick breakfast and they were off. She had spent a terribly uncomfortable night, not just emotionally, but physically. Trent Tolliver was taking absolutely no chances with her, so he tied her ankles together, and her hands behind her back. The final touch was a rope around her neck secured to a tree. The rope was loosely draped over her neck, but it was a Honda knot, the kind used for lassos. If she moved away from the tree, the rope would tighten. She could strangle herself to death if she wasn’t careful. I might do it Monday night, if Rob hasn’t found me yet…
The main road out of River Bend went to Port Station, the headquarters of the territorial Rangers. Port Station was about 100 miles away. There was, however, a road, about 20 miles from River Bend, which branched to the south. It was this path—for it wasn’t much more than that—which Tolliver took. After another 3 miles, they came to a fork in the road.
“All right, here’s where we split up,” Trent said. “Terrell, you, Hank, and Ed come with me. We’ll take the south fork. The woman comes with us. The rest of you keep following this road east. Make your way south to the Hole-in-the-Wall and we’ll meet up there in a few weeks.”
The other seven men weren’t terribly happy with that arrangement; they wanted their turn with Kelly. “You don’t think it will be better if we stay together, Trent?” Sammy Martin asked. “That marshal might come with a pretty big posse.”
“Which is exactly why I want to split up. He’ll have to split up, too, with most of his men following you. Keep an eye out for them, and if you see them getting close, ambush them. If Conners and that Ranger are with them, then it’s $500 each for the men who kill them.” That brightened some eyes. Trent sweetened the pot a little. He pulled out his wallet and counted out $1,000. “Here’s some spending money. Don’t stop at the next town. Wait till you’re sure you’ve lost the posse, then go somewhere and have a nice time.”
That helped mollify the seven men as well. Terrell asked, “Trent, do you think this is going to fool Conners and that Ranger woman? Will they follow the larger party?”
Trent shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. The assumption would be that the woman would be guarded by the most men.” He smiled. “Of course, they might assume that we’d assume they’d assume that and follow us. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, it will split their forces.”
“It will split ours, too.”
“But we’re on the defense, and that’s always an advantage. Plus, we’ll all be able to move faster and get to Wyoming sooner. Legally, they can’t touch us there.”
“I suspect Rob Conners will ‘touch us’ anywhere he finds us.”
“Yeah, well, that works both ways. Let’s do it this way and see what happens.”
There was no further argument or discussion. With a final admonition from Trent to “get to the Hole-in-the-Wall as fast as you can,” the Tolliver gang divided and went two different directions. Kelly thought Trent’s plan was a pretty good ploy. Will Rob follow the bigger group? She didn’t know. To her, it was 50-50.
But Kelly reckoned without considering Allie Summer…
The Port Station road started south, but turned east within the first mile out of River Bend. We rode our horses at a steady, ground-eating pace, yet one that wouldn’t tire them out too quickly. Ol’ Paint could have kept this up all day long, and I suspect Ranger could have, too; they were easily the best two horses in the outfit. About five miles out of town, Allie and I—and we and Ben were riding up front—stopped at the same time, looking down.
“They camped in there for awhile,” Allie said, motioning with her head.
“Yeah,” is all I replied.
We saw seven sets of horse tracks—including the notched shoe of Kelly’s mount—turn into the forest. The hoof prints in the road ended here.
“Where did they come out? Or did they keep moving inland from here?” Ben asked.
“Hang on a minute,” Allie said, “let me check something.”
She rode on ahead about a quarter mile and then waved to us to join her. When we did, she pointed back at the dirt.
“Here’s where they exited,” she said.
There were a lot of horse sign leaving a small opening in the forest—much more than we had seen entering the woods a quarter mile back. This plethora of hoof prints continued on down the road.
“Can you tell how many there are?” Ben said. “We saw six in River Bend. It would help if we knew the total number of men he’s got. It’s obviously more than that.”
Allie and I both got down and scouted around a little. “Something a little strange,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“What is it?” Ben asked, still sitting his horse. “I can see about 10 different horses.”
Like human foot prints, horse prints are different, too. “I count 13 horses, Rob,” Allie said.
“I do, too. But one of them seems to have left a little earlier than the others.” That had been Gus Ferrara, though we didn’t know that at the time, of course. But because he had left during the rain, his set of horse tracks were a little deeper than the others. It could have been simply a bigger, heavier horse, but I didn’t think so, and Allie didn’t, either.
She nodded. “Ben, best I can tell—and Rob can correct me if I’m wrong—but Tolliver had 11 other men with him. One of them left earlier in the day, so 12 people—including Tolliver and Kelly—broke camp.” She looked east. “And they traveled down this road.”
I nodded. “That’s the way I’ve got it, too.”
She looked at me and smiled. “You’re pretty good at reading sign.”
“I’ve been reading horse sign longer than you’ve been alive, girl.” And that was the truth.
“Maybe you ought to take the lead then,” she replied, but not huffily.
“You’re doing ok,” I said. “We’re both on it and it’s nice we agree on this.”
Ben cut in. “So what you’re saying is that Tolliver has 10 men with him, plus Kelly.”
I nodded. “Unless the man who departed early has rejoined them down the road aways.”
A couple of the men with us were scratching their heads. “How can you tell all of that from that mess’a tracks?” a man named Hi Bellus asked. “Looks to me like a bunch a horses got together fer a great big drunk.”
Allie and I laughed. “Well, we don’t have time to explain it now, Hi,” I said. “Take our word for it at the moment, would you? We need to get on down the trail.”
“I’d trust you and that Ranger to hell and back, Mr. Conners.”
I smiled my thanks, but didn’t say anything else. This wasn’t getting us any closer to Kelly. Allie and I mounted, and we put our horses at pace again.
We stopped a couple of miles later, beside a stream, to give the horses some water and change mounts. I thought about continuing to ride Ol’ Paint, but then decided it would be best to rest him when I could. It would be worthwhile to keep him as fresh as possible. He and Ranger looked fine, but the other horses that had been ridden needed a little rest, at least from having somebody on their backs.
About midday, we came to the road that branched south off the main Port Station highway. “They went this way,” Allie said, pointing south, and that was fairly obvious to even the non-sign readers among us. “There’s a stream about a mile up the road with good water and grass. It might be a good idea to stop and rest the horses for an hour or so. We can eat a bite, too.” The Lady Ranger had been on the River Bend-Port Station road a number of times, so she was familiar with the landmarks.
I made an annoyed face; I didn’t want to stop at all, but I knew Allie was right. We had come about 20 miles so far, and that was a pretty good day’s jaunt for a horse with a man on his back; that depended on a lot of factors, of course. Under the best of circumstances, a good horse could do 30 miles, an exceptional one like Ol’ Paint might make 40 or even 50. I’d done a few 50s with him before, but when I had, I’d tried to give him a couple of days off after that. So far on our trip, we had switched horses about every 5 miles, so none of them were being over-exerted. However, we’d also been traveling on fairly level ground but were about to hit some rather severe, rugged terrain, and that was going to slow down our progress significantly. Ben had picked out the best horses in the stables, but every animal has its limitations, and we could only travel as far as the weakest steed we had. And each day, they would get a little more tired and wouldn’t be able to travel as far.
“Can you tell if we’ve caught up with ‘em any?” Heyward Badges asked.
“We’ve picked up a couple miles,” Allie said, without even checking with me. She didn’t need to because she was right and she knew it. “But we’re still at least a dozen miles behind them, and probably more.”
“Can we catch ‘em tomorrer?” Hi Bellus asked.
“No,” she replied. “We’re going to have to slow down a little each day or we’ll kill the horses. But let’s get as far as we can today, make up as much ground as possible, and maybe by Monday, we can get them.”
I knew that Allie was correct, but Monday was cutting it a little too fine for me…
“How long do you think they’ll chase us, boss?” Hank Frobisher asked Trent Tolliver.
“Not too long, actually. That marshal is going to have to get back to work in a few days, and so is that Ranger. She can’t be spending her entire life chasing us all across the country, especially when McConnell realizes we’ve left the territory. That leaves only Conners, but after Tuesday, he won’t have any reason to come after us any more, so he’ll give up, too. We’ll be free and clear before long.”
“Rob will never give up,” Kelly said, albeit despondently.
“After Tuesday, you’re not going to care, my dear,” Tolliver replied…
Within an hour of branching off the main River Bend-Port Station road, we came to the fork where Tolliver and his men had split up.
“Well, now, this is interesting,” Allie said, examining the ground.
Ben followed her gaze. “They divided their forces,” he said, able to read what was fairly obvious. “Can you tell how many went each way? And, more importantly, where Kelly went?”
After a few moments, Allie pointed. “Seven went that way, and five that way. And Kelly is with the five.” She looked at me for confirmation, though she didn’t need to. I think she was just respecting her elders. I nodded.
“What did they split up for?” Hi Bellus asked. “Tryin’ to confuse us?”
“More than likely,” I said. “Tolliver knows that we’ll have to split up, too, especially if we don’t know which way Kelly went. By dividing up seven and five, he figures we’d be more prone to follow the seven and will send most of our men that way.” I looked at Allie. “Which is exactly what we’re going to have to do.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Not a bad ploy on his part, to have us scattered all over hell and gone.”
“How do you know Kelly went with the five?” Speck Spitler, another local rancher, said.
Allie didn’t bother getting off Ranger, she just pointed. “I marked one of the shoes of the horse she’s riding,” she replied. “So we should be able to follow it anywhere.”
“Provided Tolliver didn’t notice and put her on a different horse,” Ben said.
Allie gave him a bemused smile. “Well, there’s that,” she answered. “But I don’t think he will.”
“Why not?”
“Because Turley and I picked out one of the worst horses in the corral for her. One that couldn’t run very fast. Kelly will recognize that fact, and so will Tolliver. She won’t try to escape—at least by outrunning them—because she knows she won’t be able to. Tolliver’s not going to give her a better horse.”
Again I marveled at the foresight and intelligence of this woman. I was in such angst over Kelly leaving, that I hadn’t noticed the horse Allie had procured for her. It was my turn to look bemused. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you,” I said to her.
“Well, every situation is a little different, Rob, and I’ve never faced one quite like this one. But, it doesn’t hurt to think things through.” She smiled. “And with the nag she’s riding, they won’t be able to move as fast or as far each day as they’d like. We’ll catch up to them fairly quickly. Before Tuesday for sure.”
I could only hope. But, objectively, Allie was probably correct.
“How do you think we ought to split up?” Ben asked, looking from Allie to me, yielding to our greater experience. At least Allie’s.
She looked at me and I could read her eyes. She wanted me and her to go after Kelly and Tolliver alone; that way we wouldn’t be held up by amateurs. I was thinking the same thing, and it was I who spoke.
“Ben, I want you—and think Allie would agree with this—to take the rest of the group and follow the seven who went due east. You’ll need more men to corral them. Allie and I will go after Kelly and the Tollivers.”
He started to say something, but stopped and nodded. He knew Allie and I could handle five men, and, given the fact that his posse was made up mostly of untrained men, he’d probably need as many of them as he could have. “Ok,” he said. “Bring them in alive, if you can.”
Allie chuckled at that. “We’ll bring Kelly back alive. If any of the others want to come with her, that’s fine.”
I looked at her and smiled. “You don’t figure they’ll want to do that, do you.”
She didn’t smile back. “Do you?”
No, I didn’t. And, frankly, like her, I didn’t care. The only one I wanted back alive was Kelly Atkins.
And if she died, I wondered whether I would, too.