Tracker moved closer as Buck dismounted. “Trouble?”

“They’re waiting for us,” Buck responded.

Sarah gasped, and he regretted giving the report in her presence.

“We can go around them, though,” he announced. The driver and guard joined them. “I came back by a different way. It’s longer and slower, but it’ll circle around the trap on the main route. Now, y’all best be going if you hope to make Holly Hill before sundown.”

“What about you?” Tracker asked. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

“I’ll meet you there. I have some other business to take care of.”

Tracker frowned. “By yourself? You need some company?”

“You protect the women. I’ll join you in Holly Hill. Might even be there to welcome you.”

Janey joined them. “In case we can’t stop to eat lunch,” she said, “I asked Miz Hopkins to pack some food for us.”

Buck raised an eyebrow before he realized he’d done it. “And did she?”

“Cornbread and sidemeat, scuppernongs and red plums.”

“Sounds like a feast.”

“She throwed in some honeycakes too. I mean threw.”

Sarah smiled. “You and Mrs. Hopkins have been getting along pretty well, haven’t you?”

“Aw, she’s all right away from her husband.”

Jim Hopkins approached from the inn. “About the bill. Mister,” he said in a flat voice.

Buck followed him inside where he settled what, in his estimation, amounted to an outrageous sum. His wife seemed embarrassed by the transaction but said nothing. If Buck hadn’t had the feeling they were desperate, he would have objected to the fleecing.

Outside, everyone had taken their places in and on the coach. Wes shook the reins and the lumbering wagon got underway.

#

Buck mounted Gypsy and started down the main road. This was a good opportunity to reverse roles with the redheaded man. Let the pursuer be the pursued. Not far from the causeway, he found a footpath winding through the swampy cypress grove. He dismounted and walked Gypsy as quietly as possible closer to the ambush site he’d discovered earlier.

The surrounding land was flat, the trees dense. He tied Gypsy to a cypress knee and, taking a lesson from his antagonist, climbed up a stout sycamore, his rifle and binoculars slung over his shoulder.

Shinnying up the tree at Sayler’s Creek had been a first since he and Clay were boys. The memory of his dead brother and the recollection of how he’d been assassinated spurred him higher. He was about twenty-five feet up when he straddled a substantial limb, pulled the binoculars around and surveyed the forest on the far side of the wooden bridge. It took several minutes before he spied what he was looking for, three men facing him from the cover of swamp chestnuts. Earlier he’d seen five men in these trees. He kept searching, hoping to see the other two and praying that one of them might be the redheaded man. Rufus Snead was the real target. These others were mere distractions. Still, their gunfire would be as lethal as their leader’s.

Buck propped his Henry in the fork of the bough he was braced in, leveled the barrel and focused on the man farthest away. With a slow squeeze of the trigger, he fired. The round shattered the man’s nose and kept going. His dead body hit the shallow swamp water with an echoing splash.

Before that sound faded, Buck had a bead on the second man, who was closer to him. Another calculated tightening of his trigger finger and this target jerked backward and tumbled from his perch. The third man was scrambling desperately down a neighboring oak, having already dropped his rifle into the brackish water. Through his sights Buck was following the man’s frantic descent, waiting for a clear shot, when Gypsy reared and snorted and stamped his feet. Buck realized his prey had fled and he was in danger of losing his horse. Scampering down the sycamore as fast as he could, he arrived in time to see a cottonmouth slither into the underbrush away from Gypsy’s pounding hooves.

After calming his steed, Buck examined the animal’s legs and found no fang marks. He was about to swing up into the saddle, when he heard the clatter of the retreating gunmen on the wooden structure. To his surprise they were returning toward St Matthews, not advancing to Holly Hill. Buck stayed hidden until their hoof beats had faded into the distance. Was the redheaded man one of them?

Taking Gypsy by the reins and carrying his rifle in his other hand, Buck again led the horse quietly along the footpath, watching carefully for snakes, human and reptilian. Only when he was past the wooden bridge did he mount the steed again and, not taking any chances, put him in a full gallop toward Holly Hill.

#

Rufus swatted at another horse fly and brushed away the glob of blood the insect had drawn. “Damn you, Zeke. We waited hours for that coach. Never showed up, and now we got two men killed. What the hell happened back there?”

“Only thing I can figure, boss, is the coach took the other road.”

Rufus’s face grew hot with rage. “What other road, damn you?”

“The old one, boss. This here’s the new one.”

“Why didn’t you tell me there was two?”

“Nobody uses the old one no more, boss. Except farmers. It was abandoned fifteen years ago or thereabouts.”

“Well, obviously somebody still uses it.”

“What about Joe and Eddie, boss?” Hank asked. “Should we go back and get ‘em? They may just be wounded.”

“Get ‘em if you want to, but if they ain’t cold as a wagon tire by now, they will be by the time you find ‘em, either bled to death or finished off by snakes and varmints.”

Zeke shrugged. “What now, boss?”

“My neck hurts,” Rufus complained, “and these gallnippers is about to eat me alive. First you fetch that ointment of yours and fix me up. Then I’ll figure out our next move. Where you reckon that coach is now?”

“Most to Holly Hill,” Zeke told him. “We might could catch up—”

“No. We’ll go on and find a place to put up for tonight, then get after ‘em tomorrow. Early. I want Doc Thomson to pay for Joe and Eddie.”

“How you know it was the Doc shot them?”

“Cause he didn’t miss. Ain’t but one person’s better with a rifle than him. Me.”

Jake rode up. “Rufus, there’s a good campsite yonder, where we can build a fire to smoke off some of these here pests, and it’s got enough cover. Nobody’ll spot us there.”

“I hope you’re better at picking campsites then this idiot is at figuring out roads,” Rufus replied, glaring at Zeke.

Jake led them to a ravine several miles away. One of the other men had already started a fire. His cohorts were gathering pine straw from under the nearby trees to put on the fire to smoke the bugs away.

“Get out the whiskey, boys,” Rufus yelled. “We’re in for the night. Tomorrow at daybreak we’re gonna have to ride like hell, ‘cause I want to get ahead of that doctor and his friends. Zeke, you best get that damn stuff of yours and treat my neck again.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Zeke left and returned a minute later with the smelly ointment. “Now hold still.”

“Ouch, God dammit. What you got in there, lye? Burns like hell.”

“Axle grease, a little sulfur and some soothing turpentine. Good for what ails you.”

“If it don’t kill you first.”

Jake brought a whiskey bottle. “Here you go, boss. This’ll help.”

Rufus guzzled a quarter of it before handing it back. “Lord. Even my daddy’s rotgut was better than this pisswater.”

“Better than nothing though, I reckon,” Jake told him.

They settled down, broke out a sack of stale biscuits, a moldy chunk of salt pork, a jar of molasses and another bottle of whiskey.

As soon as Zeke finished with the ointment and had put a semi-clean rag around his boss’s neck, Rufus moved out into the clearing and stared up at the sky. New moon. To make matters worse, there was dense cloud cover. Couldn’t even see the stars.