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Updated: May 7, 2025
He knew that under saddle and blanket, sores were forming, that soon he would have no choice but a "trade" such as Hilders might be forcing now, though not at the expense of one of his own fellows. Kirby was reading sign on the other side of the road. His sudden hand signal brought Drew to join him. Hoofprints marked the softer verge. "Turned off not too long ago," Drew commented.
He watched the other lead the bay away from the stream side. Kirby was right, the horse was in better condition than most of the others in the company, and sooner or later someone might again try to rank Boyd out of it. There were a good many in that hunted column who would see that in the same light as Hilders and Cambridge did and would say so, with the weight of public opinion to back them.
Cambridge blinked stupidly, but Hilders took a step back to catch up the reins of a horse that stood dull-eyed, its head bent, pink foam roping from its muzzle as it breathed in heavy gasps. "I said get!" Drew advanced, and Hilders gave ground again, towing the trembling horse. "Now, we don't want no trouble," Cambridge said hurriedly.
Boyd was backed against a tree while the two others advanced on him from different directions. "That's enough!" Drew's Colt was pointed at Hilders. The man's head jerked around. "Get goin'," the scout ordered.
"Jus' what I'm wonderin'." Kirby came to a complete halt. "I came back a little while ago, and nobody's seen him." Drew pulled in beside the other. His horse's head hung low as the gelding blew in gusty snorts. He tried to remember when he had seen Boyd last and when he did, that memory was not too encouraging. "With Hilders ... and Cambridge ..." he said softly. "Yeah."
"It don't foller that because you advise a hombre for his own good, he's goin' to take kindly to your interest in him," the Texan observed. "You tell him Hilders an' Cambridge are wearin' skunk stripes, an' he's apt to claim 'em both as compadres. Suppose he don't come in when we bed down; he coulda jus' cut his picket rope an' drifted, as far as we can prove."
Drew pointed the gelding back down the road and booted the animal into a trot. A moment later he heard more drumming hoofs behind him; Kirby was following. "This ain't your trouble," Drew reminded him. "No, maybe it ain't. But then, me, I'm jus' a rough string rider from way back, an' this may end in a smoke-up. Odds seem a mite one-sided now Hilders is easy on the trigger.
And some like Cambridge and Hilders vanished completely, either cut off when they went to "trade" mounts, or deserting the troop in favor of their own plans for survival. The remaining men burst into Calhoun as a cloud of locusts descending on a field of unprotected vegetation.
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