Darrel Sparkman - After the Fall

An hour later found him on top of a bald knob overlooking the trail ahead. He was scratched and bleeding from the nearly impenetrable shortcut he had taken. His knee-length moccasins had a jagged tear near the top from the fangs of a startled timber rattler that was sunning itself on a limestone ledge. He’d merely ripped it out of the leather and tossed it away, his mind was on the quarry ahead. If the man followed the trail around the mountain, he would have to appear in one of the clearings below. He picked the clearing that had a stream in it. If they would stop for water….

He set the sights of the rifle to battle setting for longer range, and settled down to wait. Watching the clearing below, he tried to control his breathing. What he was doing was a real gamble. If he guessed wrong and they didn’t show up, he’d lose an hour picking up the trail again, and the girl would be dead. If they did show up and he missed his shot, he’d be behind again. It would take valuable minutes to get off the promontory he was sitting on.

The young girl regained consciousness with a rush of pain and nausea. She remembered someone grabbing her from behind when she was at the church. She had tried to struggle and remembered screaming, but didn’t remember much after that.

Now she was sitting on the ground where the man had unceremoniously dumped her. Her stomach was sore from the ride—from the way he’d draped her over the saddle. She moved to a sitting position and addressed the man. “Mister, don’t do this.”

“Now you just be quiet, missy,” the man said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She wanted to spit at him, but couldn’t find enough moisture in her dry mouth. Her voice came out as a dry rasp. “Like hell you don’t. You’re the one who’s been killing all the girls.”

He pointed his handgun at her. “Hold out your wrists.”

When she didn’t, he casually reached out and hit her on the side of the head with his pistol.

“Now,” he said reasonably.

She held her hands out. Stall. Do what he wants. Anything. Trent would be coming. She’d heard her father talk of him. He was like a god to the woods runners. Everyone either admired him, or was afraid of him. He would come.

Seeming to read her thoughts, the man spoke again, laughing. “That boy won’t catch up to us.”

She turned a defiant face upward. “He’ll come, and if not him, my father will. You don’t know what you’ve done do you? My father is Jeremiah Starking.”

The Watcher, unimpressed by her father’s name, turned to face the direction they’d come from. The trail spiraled around the mountain. At points, he could see the back trail. He was about to give it up, when he saw Trent drift through a clearing in a long-legged woodsman’s lope, head down, rifle in his right hand. Immediately the Watcher snapped his rifle up and fired. And missed.

Trent disappeared into the shadows almost immediately.

The Watcher turned to the girl, chuckling. His body and mouth looked like he was laughing, but his eyes were stone cold, and lifeless. “I believe you may be right. That boy is running, not using a horse. Smart. Knows he can go where we cannot. Yeah, I’d say this is going to be right interesting.”

“See? Like I said mister, you’d better let me go.”

Without replying, the man picked her up and put her on the front of the saddle. Mounting behind her, his hands lingered on her thighs and breasts, as she tried to twist away from him. “We got to move, missy.”

Later in the morning, both the horse and riders were hot and tired, and the Watcher stopped to water his horse. Carrying double in this heat was hard on the animal. Walking upstream from the animal, he braced himself on his hands, and leaned forward to drink from the cool water.

The Watcher’s reflection in the stream exploded in a froth of mud and water. The man jerked backwards as a second round hit the soft earth where he’d been, splattering him with mud. A third notched the heel of his moccasin, taking a bloody piece out of his heel. Whining with fury, he went running and dodging back to the horse, bullets kicking rocks all around him. The girl stayed motionless, hoping to go unnoticed and knowing if she moved it would hamper the shooter. The Watcher gave her one wild look, stopped, and then threw her on his horse and went pounding down the trail.

Trent stood, cursing his luck and poor marksmanship. There was a sick feeling in his stomach. He had done the one thing he couldn’t do. He’d missed.

From behind him came a stampede of sound and he whirled to see Chico and Katie riding into the clearing at the top of the bald knob.

“You made time, Chico.” He was still panting from the run and ashamed he’d missed the shots. He silently sent a thought of apology to the captured girl.

“I heard shots.”

He spoke in a disgusted voice. “I missed him, Chico. I had him and I missed.”

“Shit.” Chico’s fervent oath said it all. Then, he brightened. “The girl is alive?”

He didn’t know how long. “So far.”

“This is good. Starking is coming behind us, and he’s going to kill somebody. If not the man we are after, maybe us. He is mad, my friend.”

“I don’t blame him.” He’d already been moving toward the trail down the mountain as they talked, and Katie was continuing to push him in that direction.

“Go. Go,” she cried.

He grabbed Chico by the arm and pointed at the trail. “Where does that trail come out?”

Chico looked down at the trail, and then looked around more closely at the mountain. Abruptly, he grinned. “The trail he is on has cliffs on both sides. He has to stay on it until the other side of the mountain. There is a small park that the trail empties into.”

Mistake number two. “How long?” Trent was relieving Cruz of his favorite leather riata as he talked.

Cruz watched him curiously. “Couple of hours.”

He put the rope around his chest like an ammo bandoleer. “How long to go over the top?”

“For a bird? Not long. But you can’t do it, my friend, even with my fine rope.”

“If I can make it over, I can be waiting for him at the clearing on the other side.” He abruptly turned to his friend. “Get behind him, Chico. Push him. Not too hard, but stay close enough that he knows you’re there. Watch he doesn’t double back on you.”

He disappeared into the trees before Chico could answer.

“Chico?” Katie’s voice was apprehensive. “What if the man we’re chasing is Gunny? To me, it’s the only thing about this that makes any sense. He’s the only person who’s unaccounted for.”

It did make sense. Chico sat looking at her, fear in his eyes for the first time. It might make a difference. Could Trent kill his friend? Or, would it slow his hand enough to be the instrument of his death.

Shaking his head, and slapping his horse, Chico Cruz went helling down the mountain, making more noise than he’d made in years. Katie was right behind him, pulling the packhorse. They would push him, all right. Maybe even catch him.

Trent stood at the edge of a clearing, half bent over at the waist, holding his side and taking ragged, deep breaths. His hands were torn and bloody, and there was a long gash down his left side, where he had slipped on a jagged edge of limestone. His hat had gone fluttering down a sheer precipice, somewhere behind him.

There was no sign of the man who’d abducted the girl at the Springs. He breathed a silent prayer that he hadn’t stopped along the way, and prayed that Chico had pushed the man hard enough so that he would be careless.

He didn’t have long to wait. With a rustle of leaves and branches, a man rode out of the forest and into the clearing. The man was looking behind him, his face hidden in shadows. It was time.