Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

The wind died down through the night, and when we awoke, a strange low cloud cover had crept in and the early morning was dark. We made coffee and had some hardtack.

Stringer looked to Skillman and shook his head a little.

“What will happen to him and the Dobbin fella in Yaqui, Virgil?” Stringer said.

Virgil looked to Skillman, then back to Stringer.

“Have to let the prison deal with them,” Virgil said. “They are wards of congress.”

“We report what we know,” Stringer said. “What happened with them, what bullshit they did on the outside.”

Virgil nodded.

“Yep, and the warden can deal with them whatever which way on the inside.”

Stringer shook his head a little.

“Poor bastards will likely hang,” he said.

We found ourselves with three directions of detail to deal with: continue dogging after the one escapee who Stringer and his posse had been after with Locky the tracker; going back in the direction where the three crossed the river and see if we were fortunate enough to pick up their trail; and getting Skillman and Dobbin — the other escapee who was wounded and recuperating in Yaqui — returned to Cibola prison.

“What about this Dobbin fella,” Virgil said. “How bad is he?”

“He’ll be all right,” Stringer said. “Sore more than anything. Took a bullet in the arm, buckshot in the back and on his neck. That’s what shocked the hell outta him and knocked him down, but he’s strong and will be good to ride. Might not be his druthers, but so be it. Should have thought about that before breaking out of prison with a passel full of no-goods.”

After some discussion with Stringer, Virgil decided that Stringer and a partial of his posse should continue after the one man they were on the trail of, and Virgil and I would take a few deputies on the southward mission.

After a little more hardtack and coffee we broke camp. Stringer and four men, including Locky, headed north, and Virgil and I headed south with two deputies and Skillman in tow.

The two young deputies with us were Warren Flower, a strong, good-sized young man with a thick blond mustache and piercing blue eyes, and Bill Hart, a slight man with handsome boyish good looks.

The day did not light up much. If anything, it got darker. We stayed in heavy cloud cover as we rode. The first chance we had we crossed the river and started looking for sign.

After a few hours’ ride, Bill Hart stopped and looked around a bit.

“Warren,” he said. “This looks like where we lost them, don’t it?”

Flower looked around and nodded.

“It is,” he said, looking down and pointing to the horse tracks. “We rode back that way looking for them, these tracks here are us.”

“You can see we rode this way, south,” Hart said, “then cut back into the river before going back north.”

“Take ’er goddamn easy,” Skillman said in a low rasp.

We all turned and looked to Skillman, who was staring at us from under the brim of his dark hat. This utterance from him was the only few words he’d spoken that had any substance to them since we’d captured him. As Skillman glared at us the rain began to fall.

“The men you are after, Timothy Eckford, Willard Calyer, and Charlie Ravenscroft, are a deadly lot. The one north that the others are after is for certain Ed Degraw. Degraw is the worst of any of the men that were on Murderers Row, no question, but these three you are looking for are front-page bad news... so just take ’er goddamn easy.”

Virgil looked to me, then back to Skillman.

“Eckford and Calyer would gut their family just for the hell of it, to watch them bleed out and die slow. That you can be goddamn very certain of.”

Virgil moved his horse a bit closer to Skillman.

“And fucking Ravenscroft,” Skillman said. “He would make stew out of them.”

“Where they headed?” I said.

He shrugged.

“My guess is they’re headed to Mexico.”

“What makes you think it is this three that is headed down here and the other, Degraw, headed north?”

Skillman did not speak right away. It was like the simple mentioning of Ed Degraw bothered him.

“Let me tell you about Ed Degraw. Degraw is not fit for market. On the inside, behind bars, he was feared. Assholes and murderers alike stayed clear of him. He is as mean as any man I have ever come across, and I come across a lot of mean men. Going an opposite direction from the others like this says for sure it is Degraw. Them others is hell-bent, but Degraw is plumb hell on earth.”

Skillman stopped talking after that. It was as if he needed to clear out his head. Like there was a reason to be heard for a moment, get something off his chest, to offer up something that gave him some sort of comfort in his compromised situation.

We broke out our slickers as we continued on in a southward direction, looking for any sign of the men as we traveled. With the weather like it was, it was slow going. At about midday we crossed the river back toward the railroad tracks. It rained off and on for the better part of the day, and just before dark we arrived at Yaqui.

Not unlike Appaloosa, and many other towns along the tracks, Yaqui had grown to be too big for its own good. The place was overcrowded, and even though it was raining there were a good number of people out and about when we arrived.

When we stopped at the sheriff’s office we were met by one of Stringer’s old jailers.

“He another one?” the old jailer said as he stepped off the boardwalk, looking at Skillman.

“He is,” I said.

“Got a cozy room for you,” he said. “Right next to one of your good friends.”

Within a matter of moments we had Skillman off his horse and into the office.

We walked Skillman through the office leading to the cells. Skillman stopped when he saw a young man with curly dark hair and a scruffy beard lying on his bunk, looking at him.

“Dobbin,” Skillman said.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Dobbin said as he glared at Skillman. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

The jailer opened the door next to Dobbin’s cell.

“Dick fucking Skillman,” he said.

Dobbin groaned a bit as he sat up. It was clear to see he was wrapped with bandages under a shirt draped over his shoulders, and by the expression on his face he appeared to be not just in pain but also red-faced angry.

“You left me,” Dobbin said through his teeth.

Skillman said nothing as the jailers opened the cell next to Dobbin and escorted Skillman inside.

Dobbin shook his head. “The three of you, you fucking left me,” he said.

Skillman didn’t say anything.

“That cat that dragged your sorry ass in here also got your lying tongue, did it?” Dobbin said.

“Shut your mouth, boy.”

Dobbin shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Don’t think so.”

“Do like I tell you.”

“Or what, you sack of shit?” Dobbin said. “You goddamn left me. You, the nigger, and the old man, you left me.”

I pulled the key out of my pocket and turned Skillman around to remove his cuffs.

“Got nothing to say?” Dobbin said.

“What’d you expect?” Skillman said.

Skillman stared at me as I took the cuffs off him and backed out, leaving him in the cell.

Dobbin looked to me.

“He was the one that killed those two at the sawmill,” Dobbin said. “It was him.”

Skillman swiveled his head slowly and deliberately toward Dobbin.

“You are a goddamn liar,” Skillman said, then looked back to me. “He’s a goddamn liar.”

“We’ll see to it we get you back to Cibola first chance and get things sorted out,” I said, then looked to Dobbin. “The both of you, we’ll get you back to where you started and where you will end.”