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Two thousand dollars, and they would need pack-saddles, halters.
He thought of the dust he carried and of the cache up in the canyon. He'd
left another cache back near Pipe Spring. "I'll buy in," he said, "but I can't
work the trail."
"All right. How much?"
"Twenty-five hundred." He took a poke of dust from his pocket. "There's about
two hundred there, and here," he took five gold coins from his pocket, "is a
hundred more." He put the gold on the table and pushed it toward Ledbetter.
"I'll have the rest for you tomorrow."
"This is the best buy you ever made, Val." Ledbetter picked up the gold,
glancing up as a man went past him out the door, a man with fringed knee-high
leggings and a ragged coat. "Here tomorrow, then?"
"Tomorrow." Trevallion got to his feet and looked along the tine of
buildings. Unbelievable, but there it was, a town.
Melissa came toward him. "Mr. Trevallion! We haven't had time for even a
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word!"
"I'll be back."
"Wait, I've somebody I want you to meet."
She gestured to a man seated at her table near the back of the bakery. The
man got up and strolled over. He was a few years older than Trevallion, a
slim, Spanish-looking man, who was not Spanish, with neatly polished boots
into which his gray pants were tucked, and a black frock coat. A gold chain,
heavy with nuggets, crossed the front of a checkered vest.
He flashed a smile, revealing even white teeth.
"Vern Kelby," he said, holding out a hand.
Trevallion took it, and the man gave a quick, hearty squeeze with just a
shade too much strength in it, like a man trying for effect.
"How do you do?" The man wore a gun seated for a cross-draw. Both gun and
holster looked very new. So did the boots.
"I'm a mining man," he explained, "but I've been helping Melissa a bit."
"Helping her?" Trevallion's tone was mild. "Well, that's very nice. I wasn't
aware she needed help. She seems to be doing very well all by herself."
Kelby smiled. "Of course. But a man, well, a man can do some things better
than a woman."
"That's right," Trevallion agreed, "there must be a lot of lifting around
here you could do, and Jake's a bit old for it."
"I wasn't exactly thinking of that," Kelby replied.
"He's been helping me set up the books," Melissa interposed, "so I can keep
track of expenditures better and know where I stand at all times."
"I suspect that's something we all should know," he agreed. "I'm sure Alfie
can oh, pardon me! Sorry, Mr. Kelby, I was thinking of somebody else."
"Well," Melissa said sharply, "you needn't!"
Ledbetter finished his coffee and got up. His face was expressionless. "See
you tomorrow, Val."
Trevallion went to the door, glanced around, and went around the building to
his mule. He mounted up and rode out. There was at least five hundred in dust
in the cache up the canyon where he had first filed his claim.
He took a trail east out of Gold Hill, rode about a half mile and turned
north, then wound around through the prospect holes and shacks into the rough
country again and reachedSixMileCanyon . Several times he checked his back
trail, and he was not followed. At Six Mile he turned east and rode up the
canyon at a rapid trot and did not slow his pace until he was nearing his
claim.
The late afternoon sun was dipping down beyond the far mountains and there
were shadows in the canyons but no darkness as yet. He tied his mule with a
slipknot as usual and went to the cedars where he usually made camp.
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He was jumpy and uneasy. Yet the camp showed no sign that anyone had been
there since he had gone. He broke sticks as if for a fire, laid the sticks in
order and then, rising, went to where his cache was. He was squatting to dig
out his cache when he saw the round white rock from the stream placed atop the
rock near his cache. Right below it, barely visible in the vague light except
for the sharp whiteness of the scar, a deep scratch as if made by a glancing
bullet.
He threw himself to the right, heard the vicious whip of the bullet and the
snapping sound as it clicked off the rock, and then he was firing from his
drawn Colt. Firing at the flash of a rifle, and then he was up and running.
There was another shot, a hasty shot fired by an angry man who had missed a
perfect setup, and then he was among the rocks.
For a few minutes he waited but heard no sound at all, and he expected none.
This was a careful man, a most careful man. He had located Trevallion's
cache, had set the rock up as an easily seen target, and had checked the
distance and range with at least one shot. And then he had waited.
That man with the fringed leggings, the one who left the bakery. He would
have been the one who went to the hunter to report what he had heard.
Trevallion was buying mules, he would need money, he would go to his cache.
For an hour, Trevallion waited. By then it was totally dark, and he went down
to his cache and dug into the sand, into the hollow under the rock.
His gold was gone.
Five hundred dollars much hard work, and all for nothing.
Moreover, there was simply no way in which he could get to Pipe Spring and
back in time for the meeting tomorrow. He rode up the canyon and away from
town then circled back to Spafford's.
The station was open and Spafford was sweeping out when he rode up. Hall
glanced at him and then at his mule. "Put some grain in the bin after you rub
him down," he said, "you've had a hard ride."
"Spaff," Trevallion said, "I need five hundred dollars."
Hall stopped sweeping. "If you need it, you need it," he said. "I always
liked your father. He was a good man."
"I'm buying a piece of Ledbetter's business," Trevallion explained. "He needs
it by noon today, and I can't make it in time. With what I've given him he can
swing the deal and I'll pay him, and you, the next time he comes over the
trail."
"All right." Hall went back inside and Trevallion led the mule around to the
stable, where he rubbed him down and fed him grain. At the stable door he
paused and glanced up and down the road, then went into the store by the back
door.
Hall had the money ready. "You're making a good buy," he commented.
"Ledbetter's coining money."
"Aye." Trevallion took the money and pocketed it. "If anybody asks for me,
you haven't seen me."
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"Trouble?"
"That old trouble."
"You saw it, didn't you? When they killed your ma?"
"I did."
"Somebody's scared, Trevallion, and that's odd. A bunch of renegades like
that. They'd probably killed a lot of people, one time or another."
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