LITMIR.BIZ

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more than likely.” Gil sighed. “I don’t know what we’ll do. Shut down, I guess.”

      Bo didn’t say anything to that either. He had some thoughts on the matter, but he kept them to himself for the time being.

      The creek that Bo and Scratch had seen from the top of the hill turned out to be a narrow, shallow stream, not much more than a twisting thread of water in a gravelly bed. As Gil drove across it at a ford, he said, “This is Hell Creek. Not much to look at, but it’s the only water this side of the Santa Marias and it never dries up, no matter how hot the weather gets.”

      “Spring-fed, I reckon,” Bo said.

      Gil nodded. “That’s right. North of here, in the ranching country, it’s bigger.”

      Bo sniffed the air. “Sulfur springs, too, unless I miss my guess.”

      “That’s how it got its name,” Gil said. “From the smell of brimstone. Not very pleasant, but the water doesn’t taste too bad. You get used to it after a while, I suppose.”

      The terrain began to rise a little once they were on the other side of Hell Creek. The slope was very gradual at first, but became more pronounced. More tufts of grass appeared, and even some small bushes. Bo saw trees up ahead, where the foothills of the Santa Maria Mountains began.

      A little over an hour after they left the site of the attempted holdup, the stagecoach arrived at Red Butte. Bo and Scratch saw why the settlement had gotten its name. A copper-colored sandstone mesa jutted up from the ground about half a mile north of the town, which had a main street, half a dozen cross streets, and a couple of streets paralleling the main drag. The buildings were a mixture of adobe, lumber from the trees growing in the foothills, and brick that must have been freighted in from Flagstaff or some other big town.

      “Not a bad-lookin’ place,” Scratch commented. “Wouldn’t exactly say that it’s boomin’, but it don’t look like it’s about to dry up and blow away either.”

      “There are enough ranches along the Santa Marias, both north and south of town, to support quite a few businesses,” Gil said. “Throw in the Pitchfork, too, and folks do all right. They just don’t have much need of a stage line except to deliver the mail.” His mouth twisted. “And we probably won’t have that contract much longer.”

      “What do you mean by that, son?” Bo asked, but Gil didn’t answer. The young man was busy bringing the stagecoach to a halt at the edge of the settlement, in front of a neatly kept adobe building with a wooden barn and some corrals behind it. Someone had planted cactus roses on either side of the three steps that led up to the shaded porch attached to the front of the adobe building. The bright yellow roses were blooming, providing a welcome splash of color in an otherwise drab setting.

      The front door of the building opened while the coach was still rocking back and forth on the broad leather thoroughbraces that supported it, after coming to a stop. A dark-haired woman wearing a long, blue dress with tiny yellow flowers on it came onto the porch. She pushed back her hair from her face, and relief showed in her eyes as she looked at Gil.

      That relief was fleeting, lasting only a second before it was replaced by worry. She looked at Bo, a sober, almost grim stranger riding with Gil, and at Scratch, another stranger who had reined his horse to a halt alongside the team. Then she asked anxiously, “Where’s Ponderosa?”

      The old-timer swung the door of the coach open before Gil could answer, saying, “I’m right here, Miz Abigail—what’s left of me anyway!”

      The woman cried out in surprise and lifted a hand to her mouth. Then she hurried forward. “For God’s sake, Ponderosa!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

      “Judson’s men again, Mother,” Gil said from the box. “They hit us about a mile the other side of Hell Creek.”

      The woman, who was obviously Abigail Sutherland, turned her head to look up at her son as she was helping the wounded man from the coach. “Did they get the mail pouch?” she asked, and the slight quaver in her voice was evidence of just how important that question was to her.

      Gil shook his head. “Not this time. These two strangers came along and lit into Judson’s bunch. They wounded a couple of the outlaws and ran them off.”

      “Not in time to keep me from gettin’ plugged, though,” Ponderosa grumbled.

      Scratch had dismounted. He came around the back of the coach, leading his bay with the reins in one hand. He used the other hand to sweep the cream-colored Stetson off his head and gave Abigail Sutherland a big, toothy smile.

      “Scratch Morton, at your service, ma’am,” he introduced himself.

      Abigail turned to him. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Morton,” she said. “And your friend is…?”

      Scratch waved the hand holding the Stetson in Bo’s general direction. “That’s Bo Creel. Don’t let that look on his face fool you, ma’am. He ain’t as sour in disposition as he appears. Not quite.”

      Bo grunted and said from the driver’s box, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Sutherland. Just wish it was under better circumstances.”

      “So do I,” said Ponderosa. “In case anybody’s forgotten, I got a dang bullet hole in my carcass!”

      “Yes, and I’ll take you down to Dr. Chambers’ house right now,” Abigail told him. “Can you walk all right?”

      Ponderosa sniffed. “I reckon. Got hit in the shoulder, not the leg. I was a mite dizzy earlier, but I’m feelin’ better now.”

      Abigail got an arm around his waist to help support him, and they started along the street toward the rest of the settlement. She glanced up at her son as they passed the front of the coach and asked, “Can you take care of the team, Gil?”

      “Sure. But where’s Dave?”

      “I don’t know,” Abigail said, and that worried look was back on her face, as well as the concern that could be heard in her voice.

      “We’ll give you a hand with those horses, son,” Scratch said as he put his hat back on. “Won’t we, Bo?”

      “Yeah.” Bo placed the shotgun on the floorboard where he had found it.

      Gil got the team moving again and drove the stagecoach around the adobe office to the barn in the rear. He took the coach all the way into the barn before stopping. Scratch followed, leading his horse.

      Bo and Gil climbed down from the box. Along with Scratch, they went to work unhitching the horses. Watching the sure, practiced actions of the older men, Gil commented, “You fellas have worked around stagecoaches before, haven’t you?”

      “We ran a way station in Kansas for a while,” Bo replied.

      “And we hired on as jehus and shotgun guards in other places,” Scratch added. “Fact is, you won’t find many jobs on the frontier that we ain’t done at one time or another. Ain’t that right, Bo?”

      “Except for donning aprons and clerking in a store,” Bo said. “I don’t think we’ve ever done that.”

      A shudder went through Scratch. “And we ain’t gonna,” he declared.

      When the team had been unhitched and the horses turned out into the corral, Gil reached into the compartment under the driver’s seat on the coach and pulled out a canvas pouch. “I’ll take the mail down to the post office,” he said. “If you’re going to be staying around Red Butte for a while, feel free to unsaddle your horses, give them some grain, and put them in the corral with the others if you want to.”

      Scratch looked at Bo and asked, “What do you think? We gonna be stayin’ in these parts for a while?”

      “We don’t have anywhere else we have to be,” Bo replied. “And Red Butte looks like a pretty nice little town.”

      Scratch grinned.

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