Kicked Out With A Cold Shovel: Classic Western Series (Bloody Joe Mannion Book 6) by Peter Brandvold

Author:Peter Brandvold [Brandvold, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781639778430
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2023-02-06T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Mannion’s party camped that night at the base of the Stalwarts.

They’d had to feel their way down the mountains’ northeastern flank, for the boy’s precocious explorational adventures, previously made when he’d been hunting or looking for stray cattle, had taken him only so far in the mountains. That was all right. He’d led Mannion to his own familiar country now, back on the relatively flat desert floor with the San Juans humping up before him in the north, the Black Range flanking him in the east.

He could take it from here.

He figured he was roughly three days out of Del Norte now, which lay ahead and slightly east, to the right of the San Juans, between that range and the Sangre de Cristos, which were a sawblade shadow to the north and east, a hundred miles away as the crow flew.

Now Mannion studied their back trail through his field glasses. He gave the mountain canyons now behind him a good scrutiny then lowered the glasses, returned them to their case, and made his way back down the rocky bluff he’d climbed, to where Sam and Ilsa waited for him at the bottom with their horses.

“Any sign of ‘em?” Sam was letting his black draw water from his hat.

Ilsa was taking a conservative sip from her own canteen.

“Nothing,” Mannion said, and dropped his field gasses into his saddlebag pouch. “I think you lost ‘em, kid.”

Sam smiled as he tipped his hat over to empty it.

Mannion caught Ilsa giving him a critical, speculative look.

She was an observant one; Joe would give her that.

He sighed as he swung up into the leather and started out, at the head of the two-man, one-girl, one-dog procession. King stayed with them for only another half mile before taking off after another rabbit. He’d caught several over the past day since he’d caught the one they’d put in the stewpot, and hadn’t shared.

He must figure he hadn’t gotten enough of the first one to go to the trouble to continue to feed these humans. The previous evening, Sam had set three rope snares, two of which had proven fruitful. So, they’d dined on rabbit again early that morning, before setting out before sunrise. They needed supplies to get them the rest of the way to Del Norte. Mannion knew a road ranch out this way. If he could find it—he’d never taken this route before, having stuck to old Indian trails and freight roads farther to the east—they’d stock up on what they needed.

A half hour after he’d scanned their back trail, Ilsa gigged her mount up beside Mannion and fingered breeze-tossed strands of her long hair back from her cheek.

“I read that look on your face, Marshal,” she said with vague bemusement in her voice.

“Oh? Which one?”

“The one you had when you climbed back down that butte. After scanning our back trail…?”

“Oh, that one.”

“You were disappointed not to see Trainor back there.”

Mannion hiked a shoulder. “Oh, not really.”

“Really?”

“Really. For your sake and the boy’s.”

“But to your mind, he needs killing.

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