Lila could of had somethin’ to do with it. Womenfolks was right highly thought of hereabouts, and killin’ strangers in cold blood weren’t hardly no part of people’s expectations of ’em.
Which sort of got me to ponderin’ even more serious on what I’d do if I come across them three all to onct like I’d had in mind. Plannin’ ahead ain’t one of my long suits. I always been more the type to just cinch up my belt and walk in a-swingin’. But they was a couple good reasons now for doin’ a tad more calculatin’ than was generally my custom.
First o’ course, was the fact that they’d got a couple pistols, a shotgun, and my Winchester repeater, along with maybe some other hardware I might not of took inventory of in the earlier excitement. And I hadn’t got a solitary thing but the clothes on my back and my two bare hands. Which hadn’t done me a awful lot of good earlier, against just Jube by his lonesome.
So under the circumstances, it might be a deal more healthy if I was to set eyes on them three before they seen me, instead of the other way around. And right then I realized that the way I’d been stompin’ up the road like a ole bull through a thicket, without a bit more sense or caution than that dumb critter, was liable to get me kilt before I could do even the first thing towards gettin’ any of my goods back.
I’d spent enough time out west in Indian country to know better from the git-go. But I’d been so all-fired mad about the trouble an’ the hurts I’d got, which done a sight more damage to my pride than my body if I was to be truthful about it, that for a couple hours I’d sort of forgot to take time off from my stewin’ to do any thinking.
Well, it weren’t too late to make a change, fortunately.
I stepped over to the side of the road and took in a deep breath, lettin’ myself settle down a mite and have a good long listen, whilst I studied the territory ahead and behind me. I reckoned my need to catch up to them three wasn’t so pressin’ that I couldn’t manage to start tryin’ to use my noggin in the process. And maybe even come up with some kind of a plan for what I meant to do once I did run into ’em.
They was thick woods all around where I’d stopped, with hills and ravines what kept the road from goin’ straight even a hundred yards before it disappeared round a curve or up a rise or into some li’l draw. Could be it was that layout which sort of jogged my brain back to workin’ in the first place. ’Cause if I was lookin’ for a spot to ambush some unwary traveler, I sure couldn’t do no better than this right here.
But after several cautious minutes, I was pretty sure there weren’t nothing close by except a couple mockingbirds and some katydids back off in the trees. When I finally begun moving again, I done it a heap more quiet and watchful than before, with my ears pricked and my eyes tradin’ off between the road up ahead, the ground at my feet, and the woods on both sides.
It were a sight harder followin’ sign here than it had been earlier, too. Dead leaves an’ pine needles lay thick over the road ’most everwhere I looked. Still, them three horses an’ a mule couldn’t help but leave some marks of their passin’. And a good hard rain the night before had made the sand more inclined to hold its shape whenever I got a chance to see it. But it weren’t until I come into this open place at the crest of a ridge some two, three miles further on that I had any idea how far ahead them riders was, or what they was up to.
There was a fork in the road here, with the left branch headin’ southeast towards Newnansville and then on to Gainesville some fifteen mile beyond. I’d traveled that way a couple months before, whilst I was huntin’ work or some other means of puttin’ change in my pockets.
The second road led more south, and I’d heard it caught up with a old stage route from Newnansville to the railroad at Arredonda, and then past it to the town of Micanopy.
It was mid-afternoon now, and there’d been enough traffic since daybreak so that it took me some several minutes to sort through all the tracks at that crossroads and locate the ones I’d been followin’. Turned out when I did, they wasn’t headed for Newnansville a-tall. They’d took the right-hand fork towards Micanopy, and near as I could tell they was maybe two, three hours ahead of me by this time.
I happened to notice in passin’ that the gent an’ lady in the surrey had went the other way, and it almost made me sorry to see they had. I’d been half thinkin’ about meetin’ up with them folks someplace along the road, just long enough to explain to ’em that I wasn’t no drunkard, and maybe offer a opinion or two about what I thought of travelers who’d leave a man layin’ hurt on the ground, and go makin’ spiteful comments about him to boot.
But what I’d got to say to them two weren’t near as important as the business I’d got with Lila and her compadres. So I pointed my feet to the south just soon as I’d got finished makin’ certain of their trail.
A two-, three-hour lead weren’t hardly nothin’ over a long day’s trek like this. Their mounts would be needin’ to stop and rest a heap more than I would, and to graze too, sooner or later. That’s why a man afoot in tolerable good condition can run down just about any horse in time. You could ask the Apaches about that, or some of their Mex Injun neighbors who never did bother learnin’ to ride.
’Course I knew I wasn’t makin’ anything like the kind of speed a Indian might. I hadn’t much practice travelin’ on shank’s mare lately, and I weren’t accustomed to it. Besides, I didn’t know no Injun alive who’d be fool enough to wear riding boots whilst he were a-hoofin’ it. Though I meant to keep mine on, I’d got to admit they was something of a hindrance.
But I figured I’d catch up to them three before morning, regardless. They’d be wantin’ to make camp for the night somewheres, soon or late. And without no particular worries about what was on their back trail, I expected they might do it early, leavin’ theirselves plenty of time to fix a meal and settle in comfortable before it got too dark to see good.
Me, I hadn’t no plans for doin’ any of those things until I’d got my outfit and my Ole Roan horse back. An’ that there was enough of a thought to keep me hikin’ right steady an’ purposeful through the afternoon, blisters or no blisters.
When I was maybe two, three hours further along that south fork, still not seeing much in the way of folks except a occasional farmer with his mule way off in a field, I begun to hear this peculiar clatterin’ and clankin’ noise comin’ up the road behind me. It was kind of faint at first, but kept gettin’ louder an’ louder by the minute. Nearest thing I could liken it to was some kind of a altercation between two bull gators in a li’l ole kitchen shack piled high to the rafters with pots an’ pans.
I was out amongst some open rolling fields by this time, without no proper cover for a mile or better in any direction. There wasn’t no question of hidin’, even if I’d a notion that clankin’, creakin’ she-bang were something needed hidin’ from. And I’d a pretty fair idea it weren’t. Nothin’ what made that kind of a racket was goin’ to ever get close enough to do nobody harm, without their havin’ plenty of warnin’ and time to take measures to protect theirselves first.
But I was growin’ almighty curious to find out what it was. So I kept slowin’ my steps and peekin’ back over my shoulder, until finally I just stopped altogether and waited alongside the road whilst that unruly contraption come over the top of the rise behind me.
3
IT WERE A MULE-DRAWED WAGON, the like of which I hadn’t never seen in all my borned days. The bottom part appeared to be somethin’ like one of them Conestoga
