wind whipped at the three-man posse, bending the prairie grass in waves. Ty knelt beside Tant as Ben and Matt reached for their carbines. They scanned the horizons for danger.
“Tant, it’s me, Ty Holt.”
“Holt.”
“Paul, what happened? Who did this to you?”
“Deek … Deek-a …”
“Who? Tant, who shot you?”
“Sumbitch, Holt, he shot me …”
“Did he have Sarah with him?”
Tant died as Ty leaned closer, trying to hear his voice.
“Tant, Tant, did the man have Sarah with him?”
It was too late. Tant had stopped breathing. With a low, agonized moan, he gave up the ghost.
“Is he dead?” Matt asked.
“He’s dead,” Ty answered, standing up. “Matt, get his horse and be careful not to spook him. I don’t want to spend half the day chasing him. Ben, why don’t you circle a little farther north? Cut a trail from the river, about a mile or so.”
“Yes, sir,” Ben said. “We took off so fast … I wish I’d paid more attention to those hoofprints.”
“Ben,” Matt spoke up as he pulled himself into his saddle. “I took a good look in front of the bank. Let me see if I can cut their signs. You catch Tant’s horse, okay?”
Ben nodded and slowly walked his horse toward the sycamore trees where Tant’s horse was still grazing. As Matt loped up the wagon road, Ty backtracked along the road toward town. He had walked about half a mile before Ben caught up with him. He was leading Tant’s horse, with the dead man tied face down over the saddle.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“No.”
“You sure you’d recognize the tracks?” Ben asked as he dismounted.
“I would,” Ty said. There’s a notch cut dead center along the back edge of one shoe. If I see that track again, I guarantee you, I’ll know it.”
“How about the other horse, Mr. Holt, the one Miss Thompson was on?”
“Unshod, small hoof, slings his right forefoot,” Ty answered.
“Lookie there. Here comes Matt,” Ben said pointing to his brother, who was trotting his horse toward them. Matt’s eyes were to the ground as he approached.
When he got closer, he shouted, “I’m going to go back upstream to where I started. I’ll meet you all at the big Y.”
Ty nodded in agreement as he continued searching for signs along the trail. He and Ben had backtracked nearly to the Y before Matt caught up with them.
“I’m sure they didn’t go north,” Matt told them.
At the fork in the road, Ty spent several minutes walking the roads in all three directions. He found no hoofprints that matched the kidnapper’s or Sarah’s horse. He told the boys to check out the Bandera road to Tarpley Pass, giving them instructions to be careful.
Ty took Tant and moved on toward town. He rode slowly, keeping his eyes cast on the road. Once he found a print of the robber’s horse but lost it quickly in some rocks. He spent more than an hour trying to find it again. It looked as if they had left the road almost as soon as they were out of sight of town and circled back. When he couldn’t find the tracks again, he rode on to Utopia with Tant’s body.
After delivering Tant to Benny Stout, part-time undertaker and full-time carpenter, Ty went back to the bank and started once again to retrace the north road. He knew that before he could do anything, he had to find the direction the riders had taken out of town. Ty noticed several strange stares from people who were still milling around the main street.
The sun had begun to sink behind the mountains in the west when Ben and Matt Franklin found him scouring the north road for the fifth time. Matt was the first to speak. “Mr. Holt, we didn’t find a thing. I’m positive they didn’t go north or east. We’ve looped all over that road and even along both the Little Creek and the Seco Rivers.”
“There ain’t no robber’s tracks to be found anywhere,” Ben added.
Sending them home to supper, Ty thanked the boys. “We can’t do any good after dark,” he told them.
When they were gone, Ty rode around the Davenport place and behind Luke Miller’s house. That was where he spotted the chipped horseshoe print and the flipped-out track of the Indian pony.
They did circle back, Ty thought. He stopped and once again locked the picture of the tracks into his memory. Ty knew he had only twenty minutes at the most before total darkness would halt his search for the night. He put Dog on the scent, realizing that by morning, the scent and any remaining signs of the hoofprints could be gone.
Dog kept up a steady trot as he continued to circle Utopia. The tracks quickly began to disappear as the sun set. Ty followed the yellow dog past the Jackson place and around the Sweeten’s garden before he realized Dog and the tracks were heading straight toward the Thompson’s house.
Chapter 7
The sun had disappeared behind Seco Ridge as Ty eased Blaze into a slow walk. The night had not yet cooled, and sweat ran down Ty’s face. Dog approached the Thompson’s barn, stopping outside the large wooden door. The barn was old and needed repair. It looked like most old barns, with a hayloft over the main room. On the left was a cedar post corncrib. On the right side of the main building was a rock and plaster grain bin, about six feet high.
It was completely dark now. The only light came from a coal oil lamp shining through the Thompsons’ kitchen window. Dog sat panting directly in front of the main door. Ty could no longer see the tracks he had been following but he was sure they led into the barn.
Quietly and with measured patience, Ty stepped from his saddle. After he tied Blaze to a nearby tree, he gently withdrew the carbine from its scabbard. Removing his spurs, he carefully hung them around the saddle horn. Normally he didn’t carry the carbine with a cartridge in the chamber, but with all that had happened, he had the rifle cocked and ready to fire. All he had to do was pull the trigger. Careful not to step on anything or run into something in the dark that would give away his position, he crept toward the barn. He couldn’t believe the kidnapper could be so stupid that he would return to Utopia, much less to the scene of the abduction.
Ty was sure the outlaw must be in the barn, or perhaps holding the entire Thompson family hostage in the house. Dog continued to sit by the barn door. Ty decided to open it enough to let Dog inside. He would let the yellow Lab sniff out anyone hiding in the barn. Then he’d move in and save Sarah.
I can barely see my hand in front of my face, he thought. Without lighting a lantern, I can’t even see if the horses are stabled. Dog will have to do the job in there that I can’t. If anyone is in the barn, he’ll let me know.
Ty’s heart raced as he eased the barn door enough for Dog to run inside. He could hear paws slapping dirt as Dog ran through the structure. In less than a minute, he was back, scratching at the narrow crack to be let out. When Ty pulled the door open, Dog ran out and headed toward the house. Quickly, Ty snapped his finger, and the Lab stopped.
“I can’t have you running up to the back door,” Ty whispered. He slapped his hand on his pant leg and Dog returned beside him. “Good boy.” Ty patted the dog’s head. “Follow,” he commanded and moved toward the back door with Dog at his heels.
If anyone had been in the barn, Dog would have barked. The marauder has got to be in the house, Ty thought. Lord, I hope he hasn’t killed all of them. If he’s the same one who killed those Indians and Shine … then he’s probably the same scalawag who burned the school down and killed Miss Beachem. Sonofabuck like that is capable of killing a whole family. But why