Sourdough Creek Read online

  Cassie sucked in her breath. “Ashes must have scratched her when they were on the cliff.”

  Sam stood. “We need to get her to the next town quickly in hopes they have a doctor, and some medicine.” He grabbed the canteen from Pepper’s saddle and poured a good amount onto the child, covering her hair and clothing.

  He gathered up the reins to all the horses. “I’ll take her with me and carry her in front. You’ll have to pony Blu and we’ll let Pepper follow on his own. He’ll not want to be left behind.”

  She nodded.

  “You think you can keep up?”

  “Just get Josephine to a doctor as fast as you can. Don’t worry about me.”

  Sam looked doubtful. “Leading another horse is not as easy as it looks. Takes some getting used to. Especially at the lope.” He went from one horse to another, checking their cinches. When he got to Pepper, he removed the pony’s bridle and stuffed it in his saddlebag. “You’re a good rider, so you shouldn’t have a problem. Just pay attention to your surroundings and you’ll do fine.”

  Sam picked the child up, careful not to jostle her too much. Her head rolled over and lay against his shoulder. She never opened her eyes. He handed her to Cassie so he could mount, then took her back in his arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cassie watched as Sam guided his mount a few feet down the road and then stop. Josephine wa s cuddled to his chest, small and vulnerable. “Don’t let the rope get too long. Keep Blu snubbed short. Actually, the closer she is to you, the safer it is. And, don’t tie the rope off. Just wind it around the saddle horn twice, and hold the end, so you can let it slide easily.”

  He looked worried.

  “Be careful of your fingers.”

  “I’ll be fine! Just get Josephine to town.”

  Cassie mounted, feeling a lot more tentative than she’d indicated. She took the lead rope and did as Sam had instructed. She nudged her horse forward. As the rope tightened it lay taut against her leg, and pulled on Blu too, bringing the mare along. Meadowlark pinned her ears at having the gray drawn so near.

  “Let Meadowlark know right now you mean business,” Sam called from twenty feet up the road. “They’ll get used to each other quick enough.”

  Cassie waved him on, her heart in her throat. It was unnerving having another horse so close. There were a lot of hooves down there to fall under. “Don’t worry about us,” she called back. “Just get moving and I’ll catch up.”

  He waved. “Stay on this road. It can’t be that much farther to Rosenthal.”

  “Go!”

  Sam turned his horse and eased into a lope, quickly pulling away. Meadowlark jumped forward when Cassie squeezed with her legs, asking the mare for a trot. There was a moment of panic when Blu passed Meadowlark and the rope tightened. Her mare tugged the reins aggressively and again pinned her ears, wanting to be in the lead. Secure in her seat, she pulled Blu’s head back next to her knee and snubbed up the rope, and kept riding.

  Pepper, who had been grazing by the side of the road, raised his head at the sound of his companions leaving. He nickered once before taking off after them, eventually settling into his spot behind Blu.

  ***

  Josephine lay on the doctor’s table limp as a rag doll, while Miss Annabelle Hershey, daughter of the town’s doctor, hovered close. Dr. Hershey was out, but she had expected him back hours ago. She assured Sam he’d be walking through the door any moment.

  “How long can she stay so hot?” Sam asked gruffly, feeling completely useless. They’d reached Rosenthal ten minutes ago after riding hard for several hours. As soon as he’d brought Josephine in Miss Hershey washed her wound and applied sulfur to the red, parallel lines. She now bathed her in tepid water from head to toe, being careful to keep the child discreetly covered. Keyed up, he went over to the window and pulled back the yellow eyelet curtain, looking down the street. All was dark, and quiet.

  No sign of Cassie.

  “I need some ice,” Miss Hershey said, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Where can I get some?”

  “You’ll find the icehouse down the street on the left hand side. Behind the jail.” The girl’s long black hair, tied back with a ribbon, swayed when she dumped the water she’d been using and handed the white basin to Sam. “You’ll need this.”

  “Please,” he began, feeling a lump rising in his throat. “Take good care of her.” Sam closed the door with a soft click and started down the street. Josephine was burning up. If they didn’t get her fever down soon, she may start to convulse, or even worse. He’d seen it happen once when he was a boy and his ma had been nursing a sick friend. Nothing she did had seemed to help.

  To make the whole nightmare worse, he’d come upon a split in the road a few miles before reaching Rosenthal. With nightfall coming on, Cassie could easily miss the small sign indicating the right direction to go, especially if she was fighting with the horses.

  Leaving her had been a bad idea. He thought she’d be able to keep pace, at least for a while, but with Pepper running free to complicate matters, any number of things could have happened. Every possible scenario was playing itself out in his mind like a ghoulish stage play.

  First he’d get the ice for Josephine. On the way back, he’d stop at the sheriff’s office and see if there was anyone to help go out and search for Cassie. It was dark and she must be frightened. The street was quiet. There were a few lights in windows, but he hadn’t seen another face except Miss Hershey’s.

  He found the icehouse and descended the thirty or so steps by the light of a lantern he’d found on the porch and helped himself to a pick leaning against the wall. He chipped enough ice to fill the bowl.

  That done, he proceeded to the jail, where a lantern burned dimly from within. The door banged as he entered, waking a man sleeping in the jail cell.

  “Where’s the sheriff?” Sam barked.

  “Who’s asking?” The prisoner looked groggily through the bars.

  Stench permeated the room, telling Sam the prisoner had been incarcerated for some time. The captive got up slowly and approached the cell door. Wrapping his hands around two of the steel bars, he positioned his face so he could get a good look at the newcomer, regarding Sam through rheumy eyes.

  Sam’s patience was worn thin. He didn’t have time for games. But, he hadn’t seen anyone else on the street so far. He began sifting through the things atop the desk.

  The inmate snickered.

  Just then footsteps sounded on the boardwalk and the door opened. A man in his early twenties bounded through the door, holding a gun. “Who’re you?” He wasn’t wearing a badge.

  “Sam Ridgeway. I’m looking for the sheriff.”

  The man kept his gun aimed at Sam’s chest.

  “I never saw you ride in.” His eyes narrowed as he looked Sam up and down. “Where you say you’re from?”

  “I just arrived with a sick little girl. She’s at the doctor’s office.” Sam pointed at the pan of ice sitting on the bench next to the door. “She has a fever.”

  The young man’s shoulders relaxed as he holstered his gun. “That’s a relief. I’d thought someone had come in here to bust him out,” he jerked his head in the direction of the prisoner. “The sheriff’s dead. Killed by this one two months ago. We’re waiting on a new sheriff and the judge so we can hang him.”

  The murderer let go a string of obscenities. “You ain’t gonna hang me.”

  “Shut-up, Spencer! You’ll get yours, and this whole town will turn out to watch.”

  “Not before my men break me out of this stink hole.”

  The young man’s face turned ugly. “They haven’t tried yet, have they?”

  “They’re coming and every last person in this rotten town will pay with—”

  Sam picked up the ice and was several steps out of the jail building before the prisoner finished his sentence. The young man ran to catch up.

  “Wait up, Mr. Ridgeway. I’m headed to the doctor’s offi
ce myself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Whoa,” Cassie said, pulling on Meadowlark’s reins. The tired horse stopped abruptly, causing Blu’s head to bump into her leg. Cassie reached out and stroked the gray mare’s neck. Pepper trotted up behind and stopped, completely hidden by darkness.

  “We’re lost.” She glanced in Pepper’s direction, and toward the cat crying softly from the back of the pony’s saddle, buckled inside.

  “But don’t panic, because we’ll keep going and sooner or later, we’ll have to come to something. We have to.”

  Ashes let out a dreadful howl from her long captivity in the saddlebag, probably needing to relieve herself. Cassie had to relieve herself in the worst way, too. She’d been putting it off for a good hour, stopped by the thought of coming eye to eye with the mountain lion that, she was sure, was still out there somewhere.

  She didn’t know what to do. She was worried sick about Josephine. Had Sam found the town he’d been talking about? She surely hadn’t. Was there a doctor there to minister to Josephine? Oh, how she wished she’d kept up with him, even if it meant galloping the whole way.

  The cat’s cries were pitifully loud now. “Hush up, Ashes. You’re going to bring that big cat down on our heads for sure. I know you have needs, but if I let you out you’ll run off, never to be seen again.”

  Still, she decided, there was no help for it. She’d have to let the cat out of the saddlebag and just hope for the best. But first she had to dismount alongside these two horses in the dark. Cassie unwrapped Blu’s rope from the saddle horn and held it in her hands. Grasping the saddle, she swung her leg over her horse’s back and slowly let herself down until she felt the ground with her toe. By now the animals were comfortable with each other and tired. They stood quietly side by side.

  With reins in hand, she turned and approached the worn-out pony, standing with his head hung low.

  “Whoa, Pepper. Whoa now, boy.” She stroked his neck as she felt her way slowly, inch-by-inch, down his body to the noisy cargo he was carrying.

  She’d hardly gotten the buckle unfastened when the angry cat burst out and bounded off into the night. “Well, that’s one problem I won’t have to be dealing with anymore.” Though saying that made her feel a little better, she still regretted losing a good friend.

  “Now, I have to take care of my own business. Hmmm…” In the dark she couldn’t see any place to tie the horses. “Well, I’ll just make do.”

  Cassie stepped carefully to the side of the road and pulled down her britches. “This place is as good as any.”

  Just then she heard a voice. Far off, but definitely a voice. It was followed by a deep rumble of unpleasant-sounding laughter. For a brief moment Cassie had hoped it might be Sam. The fear in her heart told her otherwise. Shivers coursed through her.

  Hide!

  It was the same inner voice that had awoken her last night.

  Hurry!

  Cassie scrambled to pull up her pants. Losing her balance, she fell, landing palms down on a jagged rock and she dropped Meadowlark’s reins as pain shot up her arm.

  The laughter came again, closer this time.

  On hands and knees she swiped back and forth frantically until she found one strip of leather. Turning, unmindful of the noise she was creating or what might be in front of her in the dark, she ran as best she could, pulling the two horses along like a pack train, stumbling in panic until she was off the side of the road and into some bushes. She couldn’t tell if the foliage they were in covered the gray mare completely, for her coat seemed to shimmer slightly, even in the darkness. Pepper hadn’t followed.

  “Pepper! Pepper! Here, boy,” Cassie called out in a panicked whisper.

  Any moment, whoever it was would be around that bend in the road and find the black pony. If they did, it would only be a matter of minutes until her horses gave her away. Her hands shook so violently she could hardly keep them together as she rubbed them back and forth, creating the same swishing noise she’d used at feeding time to attract his attention.

  “Pepper. Oh, please, Pepper…” she called out to him again in an urgent whisper, all the while continuing the rubbing with her hands. “Come on, boy, come here, come here, come here.” Unshed tears burned behind her eyes. “Please come here, Pepper.”

  After a moment she heard his hoof beats coming through the grass as the pony trotted down the slope looking for his companions and whatever Cassie had to offer.

  “Come on, that’s right, come on.”

  He was by her side now, snuffling her hands and body. In a frenzy, Cassie jerked her rope belt from the loops on her pants and used it to encircle the pony’s neck.

  With the pony haphazardly secured, Cassie had hold of all three horses, and crouched close to their heads. Meadowlark and Blu stood silently side-by-side, but Pepper was still nosing around, looking for his treat.

  “Stop.” Cassie held his muzzle in an effort to settle him down. “I lied. I don’t have anything for you. I’m sorry.” He put his head down into the grass and pulled on the makeshift rope, grazing. “Get up here and be still!” Cassie yanked on the rope and circled the end of it around his muzzle, as she now heard the approaching horses. It sounded like there were several riders.

  “Oh, dear God…”

  Blu’s head lifted and her ears pricked as she looked in their direction. Cassie quickly reached out and rubbed her muzzle, pulling on her to bring her head back down to where she could hold onto it. Now, Meadowlark’s head came up, and she nickered softly.

  “Shhhh. Quiet,” Cassie whispered. She rubbed their muzzles, and blew in their nostrils in an effort to keep the oncoming horses’ scents from them.

  Cassie couldn’t see the group, but she could hear their foul language well enough. Close to the spot where Ashes had leapt to her freedom, they stopped. She thought about her gun tucked away in her saddle bag. Should she try for it? Even if she were able to get it, the odds wouldn’t be good.

  “You hear somethin’, Bart?”

  “No.”

  “Coulda sworn I heard a horse nicker.”

  One man hawked and spit. “You’re always hearin’ something, Billy. You’re skeert of your own shadow. There ain’t no one this far from town.”

  “We’re out here, ain’t we?”

  At that moment, the moon came out from behind a cloud and lit the area in a dim glow. Cassie ducked farther down, praying the horses would keep still. Her hand went from one muzzle to the next, as she stared between the branches. There were three men in all.

  “I’ll feel better when we bust my brother out of that rotten jail.”

  “We all will. By this time tomorrow we’ll be long gone—that is after I kill some people. Now, let’s get moving.”

  The skinny one suddenly sat up straight. “There!” He pointed in Cassie’s direction.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Listen!”

  “Criminysake, Bill you—”

  All three men stopped and looked directly at the bushes where Cassie was hiding. Sheer fright surged through her. Even in the coolness of the night, a sheen of moisture broke out on her skin and slicked her palms. Where can I run? There are too many for me to escape!

  The fat man rode forward a step, and then lashed out, hitting the skinny one in the face and knocking him off his horse. “It’s a cat, you idiot.” He pointed ten feet up the road.

  Ashes sat in the middle of the dirt lane, her tail curled around her feet, gazing at the men. After a melancholy mew, she started toward the side of the road. She slipped off into the tall grass, but lifted her head and looked at the men again, as if uncertain.

  The skinny man stood up and brushed off his clothes. “Well, damn. How the hell would I know it was only a cat? At least I heard it.”

  He remounted as he wiped the blood trickling from his nose on the back of his hand.

  “Don’t get mouthy with me, or the next time you won’t have nothin’ to pick up.”

  The third man, o
n a big black-and-white horse, drew his revolver and shot off several rounds at Ashes. He laughed. “That takes care of that.”

  Cassie’s three horses startled with the shots, but under the cover of the gun blasts their brief movements went unnoticed. She sucked in a horrified breath, brokenhearted at the thought of their beloved pet being blown to pieces. Poor Ashes!

  “Why’d you go and do that, Seamus?” the young man yelled, as he pulled off his hat and hit it across his leg in a show of frustrated anger. “That cat never done nothin’ to you. Nothin’! He was just a poor little kitty.”

  Seamus continued laughing. “When did I ever need a reason for killin’, Billy? Now be a smart fellow and listen to Bart and you’ll stay out of trouble. If not…” He shrugged ominously. “Let’s get back to the others.”

  He kicked his horse and galloped down the road. The other two followed behind.

  Cassie stayed in her hideout for a good twenty minutes, huddled with the horses as she tried to calm her shaking nerves. Oh, Ashes! What a horrible way to die. What if those men decided to come back this way? What kind of a person shoots a cat for no reason whatsoever?

  What should she do now? Turn around? Yes, at least until daybreak. That was better than going in the same direction as those frightful men.

  Totally exhausted from her expenditure of energy and the awful fright, she sat down on a rock, letting her shoulders slump forward and closed her eyes. In the quietness of the night Pepper nudged her shoulder, perhaps still looking for the treat he thought she had. His muzzle came up to her ear and his warm breath tickled her face and brought a rush of hope.

  She reached over and scratched under his cheek. “You almost gave us away, you bad boy. But I still love you.” Disappointed again at finding nothing, Pepper dropped his muzzle into the grass and started grazing.