LITMIR.BIZ

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I didn’t say that…”

      Bo fried bacon, made some fresh gravy with the grease, and heated biscuits left over from that morning’s breakfast. Simple fare, but good and filling. Reilly pitched in and ate his share…a little more than his share maybe.

      When the meal was over and the cleaning up had been done and the flames were burning down to redly glowing embers, Bo and Scratch walked over to check on the horses, leaving Reilly slumped on a log by the fire.

      “We’re gonna have to stand watch all night to keep that young coyote from runnin’ off with our horses and all our gear,” Scratch warned. “Wouldn’t put it past him to try to murder us in our sleep.”

      “I don’t think he’s quite that bad,” Bo said. “And we’d be standing guard anyway, in case Harding and his men come after us.”

      “Which we wouldn’t have to be worryin’ about if we hadn’t stepped in to give Reilly a hand,” Scratch pointed out.

      Bo shrugged. “What’s done is done. Now we make the best of it.”

      “We could cut him loose, let him fend for himself.”

      “It may come to that,” Bo admitted. “But I reckon we can afford to see how the hand plays out.”

      Scratch gave an eloquent snort in response to that.

      By the time the Texans came back to the fire, Reilly had slumped down off the log, stretched out on the ground, and was sound asleep, low-pitched snores coming from him. “I’ll stand first watch,” Scratch volunteered, and Bo nodded. It didn’t really matter who took the first turn and who took the second. Both men were accustomed to making do with a minimal amount of sleep when they had to.

      Contrary to Scratch’s worries, the night passed peacefully. Reilly didn’t budge from his spot beside the log, and he slept like a log, too. Nor was there any sign of Tom Harding and his men. As the sky lightened with the approach of dawn, Bo hoped that Harding had decided losing two of his gun-wolves was enough.

      Bo had bacon frying and coffee boiling by the time the savory smells woke Reilly. The young man sat up, ran his fingers through his tousled blond hair, and yawned. “That sure smells good,” he said with a grin.

      Bo used a piece of leather to protect his hand as he picked up the coffeepot and filled an extra tin cup he had taken from his saddlebags. He held it out to Reilly, who took it and sipped gratefully on the strong black brew.

      Scratch slipped into camp with a Winchester tucked under his arm. “Trail down below looks clear,” he reported. He had gone down to have a look a few minutes earlier.

      “I got to wondering about something,” Reilly said. “Are there any Indians around here?”

      “Hostiles, you mean?” Bo asked.

      “That’s right.”

      Bo shook his head. “Not to speak of. Most of the Indian trouble now comes from the Apaches over in Arizona Territory.”

      “Come to think of it, though,” Scratch said, “there are still a few bands of renegade ’Paches in the mountains over west of here, and they come out to raid ever’ now and then.”

      “Do you think we’ll run into any of them?” Reilly asked with a worried frown.

      “It’s not likely,” Bo told him.

      “But if we do, you don’t want to let ’em take you prisoner,” Scratch added with a leering grin. “They can keep a poor devil alive for days whilst they’re havin’ their fun torturin’ him.”

      Reilly shuddered.

      When breakfast was finished, Bo and Scratch cleaned up the camp. Reilly helped grudgingly. Then they saddled the horses and rode back down the hill to the main trail, Reilly once again behind Bo on the dun’s back.

      The three men continued south, and around mid-morning Scratch suggested that Reilly ride double with him for a while. “It ain’t that I’m all that fond of you, mister,” he informed Reilly bluntly. “But it ain’t fair to Bo’s horse to make him carry you all the time.”

      “It doesn’t matter to me,” Reilly said as he dismounted and then climbed up behind Scratch. “As long as I’m not walking, I don’t care who I ride with.”

      This was magnificent country through which they rode. Up ahead, a rugged slope littered with huge boulders loomed to the left of the trail. A mountain goat bounded from rock to rock with almost supernatural grace and agility.

      Pretty though the scene might be, Bo was eyeing the slope with a wary frown when Scratch said, “Somebody up ahead of us.”

      Bo lowered his eyes to the trail and saw a lone man riding in the same direction they were. He said, “That fella ought to turn around and come back. I don’t like the looks of those rocks up there. I can see a little dust, like they’re trying to shift—”

      At that moment, one of the boulders broke free of its precarious perch. It began to roll down the slope, striking another large rock with a crunching impact. That one moved, too, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye and with a mighty roar, an avalanche began sliding down the side of the mountain…

      Straight toward the lone, luckless rider who found himself directly in the deadly, earth-shaking path of thousands of tons of rock and dirt.

      CHAPTER 5

      As Bo, Scratch, and Reilly watched in horror, the man on horseback ahead of them jerked his mount in a tight circle, his head whipping back and forth. Bo knew the questions that had to be going through the man’s mind: Can I outrun it? Which way should I go?

      He answered those questions by spurring his horse into a hard run back the way he had come, toward the Texans and Jake Reilly.

      Looking over Scratch’s shoulder, Reilly gasped, “He’ll never make it!”

      “He’s got a better chance comin’ this way than goin’ straight ahead,” Scratch said. “But it’s gonna be mighty close. If that rock slide misses him, it’ll just be by a whisker.”

      Reilly surprised Bo a little by asking, “Is there anything we can do to help him?” So far, Reilly hadn’t struck Bo as the sort to care about anyone other than himself. Maybe seeing someone trapped and about to be overwhelmed by an unstoppable force of nature had touched something human inside Reilly.

      “It’s all up to him and his horse,” Bo said. “Say a prayer for him if you like. That’s about all we can do.”

      Reilly swallowed and asked nervously, “We’re well clear of it, aren’t we?”

      Scratch nodded. “Yeah, it’ll miss us by several hundred yards. We don’t have to worry about being caught in it.”

      All three of them had been forced to raise their voices to be heard over the growing rumble of the avalanche. It was a terrible, awe-inspiring sight as it swept down the mountain, too powerful to be halted by anything any puny human could do. Dust billowed up in a huge cloud, obscuring the slope. Smaller rocks began to pelt down in the trail around the fleeing rider, who leaned far forward over his horse’s neck and urged the animal on to its greatest speed.

      “Son of a gun,” Scratch breathed. “I think maybe he’s gonna make it.”

      The lone rider might have escaped, just as Scratch said, if at that moment a rock the size of two doubled fists hadn’t struck him in the head. It was only a glancing blow, but it was enough to knock the man out of the saddle. He pitched to the ground, rolling over and over as the now riderless horse raced on, caught up in a frantic, panic-stricken flight.

      “No!” Reilly cried as he and the Texans saw the man fall. “He was so close!”

      “He’s not giving up,” Bo said as the horse bolted on past them. The man had scrambled to his feet and now ran desperately toward

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