like a worthwhile gamble,” Bo said with a nod. “How’s it working out?”
Gil scowled and shook his head. “Not so good.”
“Because of those outlaws? Folks are too scared of being held up to ride the stage?”
“Well, it didn’t help when Judson and his bunch started raising hell, but that’s not all of it. Those other settlements never sprang up. There’s just Chino Valley and Red Butte. And the mines played out, for the most part. There’s only one still operating at a good level.”
“So there’s not as much business as your pa thought there would be.”
“That’s right. It’s been a struggle to make ends meet.” Gil’s voice caught a little. “It didn’t help matters when my father got sick and died.”
Bo looked over at the young man with a frown. “You’re running the stage line now?”
Gil shook his head again. “My mother’s in charge. I do what I can to help, just like when my father was still alive. I’ve got a younger brother, too, but he—” Gil stopped and drew in a breath. “Let’s just say that he’s not much for hard work and leave it at that.”
Bo didn’t say anything in response to that. Clearly, there were some hard feelings between Gil Sutherland and his little brother, and they might well be justified. But Bo knew it usually didn’t pay for a fella to stick his nose into family squabbles.
Gil drove on in silence for a few minutes, then said, “Thanks for pitching in back there. Judson’s bunch would have caught us in another minute or two, and there’s no telling what they might have done, especially when they found out they weren’t going to get much in the way of loot.”
“It looked like you were about to stop and let them catch up,” Bo said.
“That’s right, I was. I knew we couldn’t outrun them, and the way Ponderosa was only half conscious and bouncing around on the seat, I was afraid he might get pitched off and break his neck. I was hoping they’d just take the mail pouch and let us go.”
“Is Judson in the habit of doing things like that?”
Gil shrugged. “They’ve killed a few men during their holdups, but only when somebody tried to fight back. Like when they hit the bank over in Chino Valley last month.”
“They’re not just stagecoach robbers then.”
“No, they’ve rustled cattle and run them south across the border into Mexico, they robbed the bank like I said, and they raided the Pitchfork Mine and stole an ore shipment that was about to go out. They’ve stopped the stage half a dozen times, I guess, even though they’ve never made a very big haul at it. Killed a driver and a guard, though, so nobody wants to work for us anymore. Ponderosa and I have been taking all the runs ourselves lately. Now he’s going to be laid up for a while, more than likely.” Gil sighed. “I don’t know what we’ll do. Shut down, I guess.”
Bo didn’t say anything to that either. He had some thoughts on the matter, but he kept them to himself for the time being.
The creek that Bo and Scratch had seen from the top of the hill turned out to be a narrow, shallow stream, not much more than a twisting thread of water in a gravelly bed. As Gil drove across it at a ford, he said, “This is Hell Creek. Not much to look at, but it’s the only water this side of the Santa Marias and it never dries up, no matter how hot the weather gets.”
“Spring-fed, I reckon,” Bo said.
Gil nodded. “That’s right. North of here, in the ranching country, it’s bigger.”
Bo sniffed the air. “Sulfur springs, too, unless I miss my guess.”
“That’s how it got its name,” Gil said. “From the smell of brimstone. Not very pleasant, but the water doesn’t taste too bad. You get used to it after a while, I suppose.”
The terrain began to rise a little once they were on the other side of Hell Creek. The slope was very gradual at first, but became more pronounced. More tufts of grass appeared, and even some small bushes. Bo saw trees up ahead, where the foothills of the Santa Maria Mountains began.
A little over an hour after they left the site of the attempted holdup, the stagecoach arrived at Red Butte. Bo and Scratch saw why the settlement had gotten its name. A copper-colored sandstone mesa jutted up from the ground about half a mile north of the town, which had a main street, half a dozen cross streets, and a couple of streets paralleling the main drag. The buildings were a mixture of adobe, lumber from the trees growing in the foothills, and brick that must have been freighted in from Flagstaff or some other big town.
“Not a bad-lookin’ place,” Scratch commented. “Wouldn’t exactly say that it’s boomin’, but it don’t look like it’s about to dry up and blow away either.”
“There are enough ranches along the Santa Marias, both north and south of town, to support quite a few businesses,” Gil said. “Throw in the Pitchfork, too, and folks do all right. They just don’t have much need of a stage line except to deliver the mail.” His mouth twisted. “And we probably won’t have that contract much longer.”
“What do you mean by that, son?” Bo asked, but Gil didn’t answer. The young man was busy bringing the stagecoach to a halt at the edge of the settlement, in front of a neatly kept adobe building with a wooden barn and some corrals behind it. Someone had planted cactus roses on either side of the three steps that led up to the shaded porch attached to the front of the adobe building. The bright yellow roses were blooming, providing a welcome splash of color in an otherwise drab setting.
The front door of the building opened while the coach was still rocking back and forth on the broad leather thoroughbraces that supported it, after coming to a stop. A dark-haired woman wearing a long, blue dress with tiny yellow flowers on it came onto the porch. She pushed back her hair from her face, and relief showed in her eyes as she looked at Gil.
That relief was fleeting, lasting only a second before it was replaced by worry. She looked at Bo, a sober, almost grim stranger riding with Gil, and at Scratch, another stranger who had reined his horse to a halt alongside the team. Then she asked anxiously, “Where’s Ponderosa?”
The old-timer swung the door of the coach open before Gil could answer, saying, “I’m right here, Miz Abigail—what’s left of me anyway!”
The woman cried out in surprise and lifted a hand to her mouth. Then she hurried forward. “For God’s sake, Ponderosa!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“Judson’s men again, Mother,” Gil said from the box. “They hit us about a mile the other side of Hell Creek.”
The woman, who was obviously Abigail Sutherland, turned her head to look up at her son as she was helping the wounded man from the coach. “Did they get the mail pouch?” she asked, and the slight quaver in her voice was evidence of just how important that question was to her.
Gil shook his head. “Not this time. These two strangers came along and lit into Judson’s bunch. They wounded a couple of the outlaws and ran them off.”
“Not in time to keep me from gettin’ plugged, though,” Ponderosa grumbled.
Scratch had dismounted. He came
