

Petra

A Deadly Game of Hunt and Find  
One Wanting Not to Kill and the Other Demanding No Less

Copyright 2013 Arch Gallen  
Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another reader, please purchase an additional copy. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Art by Conceptual Designs, LLC  
eBook Formatting by Maureen Cutajar

Discover Other Titles by Gallen at Smashwords.com

www.WesternSettlerSaga.com

Email: Gallen@WesternSettlerSaga.com

Sand Hills Sioux – Western Settler Saga I

(Available now at Smashwords.com)

Santa Fe Bandits – Western Settler Saga II

(Available now at Smashwords.com)

Coming down the trail toward you soon:

Colorado Gold Heist – Western Settler Saga III

Arizona Payroll Bandits – Western Settler Saga IV

Outlaw Wars – Western Settler Saga V

Madman From Morale – Western Settler Saga VI

Black Powder Justice – Western Settler Saga VII

Free Titles in the Adam Pike, US Marshall Series by Arch Gallen

Second Helping – A Widow, a Man Hunter and a Battle for Rangeland

(Available now from Smashwords.com)

Petra – Vengeance from the Past

(Available now from Smashwords.com)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilog

Acknowledgements

About Gallen. . .

Chapter 1

Morale, Colorado 1882

Adam growled at the columns of numbers on the ledger before him. He knew from adding sums in his head just about what they should total but this bunch was bolting the herd and not grazing where they should. Thumping his pencil on thick, lined pages, he looked up and saw other brother Step riding toward the house. Even at a distance, Pike could tell there was fretting going on.

Not that such was unusual. For all his care-free good humor, Step was one of the frettingest folks Adam had ever known. He worried over things that could never happen, tussled with problems that almost could never happen and wrestled to pin down difficulties only modestly likely to happen. As wasteful as such seemed to Adam at times, it also meant Step's planning was meticulous and thorough prepared for outcomes none other might consider and, therefore, had results routinely remarkable.

Watching his brother ride up the thought returned to him, as it had often, how glad he was he'd convinced Stoney to frame in that big picture window when they'd built the house. While the small, two by three window used then was a needful concession to defense against attack by outlaws or Indians as a primary concern, Pike had foreseen a day when such would matter less and debated with the mason a week over framing the stone exterior to allow easy removal when the time was right so this larger pane could be set in. Thick two inch hinged shutters ready for easy swinging over glass reminded him still that however calm the world now seemed, defending one's home was never to be forgotten.

He returned to studying the papers before him, frustrated with the exercise. Ordinarily good at toting up accounts and figuring expenses, today wasn't the day for it. Winter was sneaking toward them early, meaning short days mostly overcast and air chilled which Adam disliked more each passing year. A feeble effort to persuade his family to pack up and let them all enjoy a part of these months with friends in Santa Fe went nowhere what with holidays coming up quick and fussing about them already started.

Step dismounted, tied his horse to the porch then held, uncertainty scrawled over him. Up close, Adam saw anxiousness more pronounced than first noticed. Focusing on his ledgers, he recalculated a set of totals and found no change in them, eliciting an exasperated sigh. As most his work these days was with the numbers, all their businesses being run well requiring nothing from the youngest Pike, he took pride in balancing spending and income precisely so best to plan for their collective future. 'Not able to plan if not knowing what comes and goes each day' Pa taught religiously.

Step opened the door and entered without a knock, a habit among the clan annoying to Adam despite occasionally adopting the practice himself. Ma taught knocking and waiting an invitation to enter was polite so the departure from doing never set well with Adam. Ignoring his brother, making busy with studying his work, he was determined to perform to best result despite gloomy skies causing him to want any other needful doing but that.

Closing the heavy plank door, Step slipped out of the close-fitting sheepskin jacket he preferred in cooler months, hung it on the carved wooden dowel behind the door and sidled to the kitchen where coffee waited. Returning with his cup steaming and the pot, he refilled Adam's cup while scanning the columns of figures over his brother's shoulder.

"Numbers not working, Pike." Step said nonchalantly. Pointing a thick, calloused finger at a sum in the middle of the page, he went on. "Can't see that being right."

Adam stared where Step poked and felt a flush rising to his cheeks. A simple mistake, spotted in a casual glance by his brother was missed even when going over it several times. Taking an eraser, he wiped out the offending number and penciled in a correction. The rest of the columns after would need fixing now, he knew, and tossed the pencil down in disgust, eyeing it meanly for laying crooked on the page. Reaching over, he flicked with a fingertip, rolling the irksome tool to the center where it settled straight to his satisfaction.

Mistakes, especially little ones, never sat well among any of the Pikes, most particularly Adam. Living as he had since coming west, he knew well how little mistakes were ones likely to get a body killed or worse and he'd not survived and prospered by making many. Dispatched by their folks weeks after his fifteenth birthday* charged with scouting for land where the kin could settle after the War Between the States ended, he'd fought Indians, outlaws and the land itself to create the 5PL ranch they ran jointly so understood how critical right doing was.

*Sand Hills Sioux, Western Settler Saga I

He picked up the eraser and drummed it on the big oak table, a present along with matching chairs from sister Katherine and her carpenter husband Jeremy which he built from scratch for Adam's wedding. Solid as all Jeremy's furniture was, Sis added a special touch, working some months to burn small symbols meaningful to the couple around the edge. It was a prized possession and one, at the moment, taking a mite of punishment from Adam's disgruntled attitude.

Tossing his hat on the table, Step sat in the chair opposite the fireplace, liking the heat it put out less than Adam, always pleased that his wife Kate and he were in agreement over keeping their house cool even in winter. Always feeling the warmth in Adam's dining room stifling, Step still remarked often on how the big stone fireplaces Adam and Stoney had built in each of their homes kept cold away better than any he'd ever known. For his own taste, rooms with small iron fireboxes made atmospheres more pleasant for sitting and talking or reading.

The brothers sat, accustomed to saying more without spoken words than most folks could with a book full of them. Finally, Adam tossed the eraser aside and looked up, impatient for whatever was on

Step's mind this day. It wasn't like him to leave the Sheriff's office unattended during duty hours and, moreover, Adam was mindful of getting ledgers in order before his children and wife arrived home for supper. Overseeing the many strange little ventures the kin had interest in took much from family life he little liked sacrificing.

Step shifted in his chair. Adam's impatience grew as much from discomfort with the grey season and annoyance with his ledgers as with Step staying quiet. Only a furrowed brow on his brother's face and that Step wouldn't make eye contact kept him from speaking, both features most not like Step under ordinary circumstances. Often named as impatient by many, Adam was not until he became so and now decidedly was.

Lifting his cup, Step took a drink. Looking across the rim, he stared direct at his younger brother. Deciding finally what was needful saying wouldn't be until said, he advised, "Anton Petra is in town."

Adam's eyes tightened. "He's asking for you." Step added.

"Say why?" Adam asked, cocking a brow as Step shook his head imperceptibly. "Make a threat?"

"Nope. Just asking for you. Stopped in Mandano's just before nooning, had some grub first then asked where you'd be found."

Adam shrugged his shoulders. "Not hard to find if he was mindful."

"That's what was said, as I'm told. Seems Petra isn't interested in coming out this way. Was told he'd wait 'til you come to town then took up a room at the Hotel." Pausing, Step brushed the star on his vest absent-mindedly, adding then, "Seemed to recall the name so took out journals the Marshal's kept, read through notes left. He's a man hunter known for killing from ambush."

Adam stared over Step's shoulder into the living room. The furnishings were simple, Western style and mostly fashioned by Jeremy and purchased from him by their agreement. The rest, including their favorite roll-up desk, had been bought with cash and shipped up from Denver or Santa Fe. Owning the freighting wagons made it a sight less costly to buy in either city, a fact Kate and Sis were more inclined to use to their advantage than his own wife. An oil painting on the far wall caught his eye, her gift to him on their second wedding anniversary depicted a band of fur and tasseled woodsmen fighting Indians in forests back east as she'd learned their Pa had done in earlier days. As eldest brother Mitchell did in their time, Pa served the Army just as his Pa and grandpa had in theirs all toward creating the great nation they lived in.

"Always wondered if he'd finally show up." Adam offered, betraying no emotion. "Promised me someday he would."

Much of Adam doing well for himself sprouted from three years as a US Marshal*, connections that post allowed him to make and many benefits it offered a young man of enterprising nature. His kin had success, also, after arriving rooted in soil Adam had found and cultivated. Without hard work shared among them, few of their doings would have been possible but together they built Morale and much of northeastern Colorado into a commercial and business center unmatched outside Denver itself.

*Black Powder Justice, Western Settler Saga VII

Then there was the other side he knew better than any. He'd killed outlaws and troublemakers, a remarkable number for one his age, arrested even more and sent hundreds to prison where they could nurse grudges, build hatred and fantasize about revenge for years before being loosed back on society. The family knew the past might return but Pike understood for certain some hard cases would show up, gun in hand. Already, in fact, a few had but with little fanfare and less killing than some expected as Adam handled business when they did leaving the town and his kin bothered little by it.

Petra, on the other hand, was a different sort than the others. Pike would have some studying to do before facing this problem.

"Any message you want sent back?" Step asked quietly.

Adam looked his brother in the eye, revealing nothing of his thought causing Step to shudder within. What became of the youngest brother between his leaving Michigan and the kin arriving in Morale two years later was the stuff of stories he could most times scarcely believe. Outwardly, Adam looked much the same, more grown and filled out fitting one aging from boy to man but still the blocky rock of granite he already showed becoming as a youngster. His natural penchant for hard work built into uncommon physical strength matched or, maybe, even exceeded by a lightning quick mind.

"No message." Adam replied. "Just let the town folk know I'll be riding in." His jaw tightened. "Petra will hear what he wants to hear from that and disregard the rest anyway."

Unsure what roiled though Adam's mind, Step nodded, a late season house fly getting squashed on the table as penalty for peskiness during a time of Step's uncertainty. Sometimes, he just didn't know what was inside his brother at all. So much of what struck him very different about Adam when arriving in Colorado had become ordinary with a decade's passage but occasions like these reminded there'd been a shift in attitude and thinking from the boy he grew up alongside, one showing itself rarely but unnerving when they did.

Gathering his hat Step rose, setting his cup in the wash basin wordlessly. This was one of those times, he knew, and Adam was best left to himself with nothing to be said or done that would help decide what was needful doing or how to go about it no matter how much desire he had to do so. His best and only decision was to stand aside and be prepared if, and when, Adam needed and asked. With no more than a nod, he left, shutting the door softly behind him. Squinting out over the spread, he inhaled cool air with relief. What was to be, was to be.

Chapter 2

Watching Step ride off, Adam stared disconsolate then, with a heave of his shoulders, stood. Refreshing his coffee, he walked to the porch, plopping down in his favorite wicker chair and setting the steaming cup on a companion table. Irritably, he shook his head, not understanding the aloneness he felt. All around, fruits of his labor blossomed anchored by the 5PL ranch, widely known and respected not just local but across the West as a top notch outfit. Named from the family initials with Sis and Jeremy's last name Levebre, it was managed by Step for the business end of doings and for the cattle piece by their foreman Dave Camp who Adam redeemed after a string of disastrous ranching efforts in New Mexico. Together with partners and friends sharing work and thinking, the five kin had transformed this empty corner of Colorado into a sprawling enterprise.

Six general stores were booming sprouting from one he staked Troy Cleary to start using funds Pike earned fighting off thieves chasing Old Man, two grandchildren, two burros and three bags of high grade gold around a mountain*. Freight hauling launched by Adam's close relations with Spanish Dons in New Mexico was being expertly managed by Dane Hesseldorn, one of few men who understood what Adam faced in the early years of the town while a sawmill set on the East River of 5PL land designed by him was shipping sawed plank lumber to towns springing up across the Territory without a minute of attention from the youngest Pike.

*Colorado Gold Heist, Western Settler Saga Book III

Where Adam built a home for their eldest brother, Mitchell started mining after chance discovery of gold and silver pockets in a seam almost out his rear door generating unseemly profit and nearly ran itself under careful eye of Mitchell's partner. Thousands of acres bought or claimed for graze land or building brought added prosperity to the clan as they sold lots for homes and shops creating in the doing an energetic bustle in the dusty little, one-time outlaw town. Eyeing a bold, black cloud scutter across the sky, he reflected how each of these efforts started from no more than his desire to work hard and rare ability to see opportunity few others did.

Only a few weeks after leaving home, an encounter given by grace with Sheriff Rankin in south Minnesota led Adam to join Bob Patterson's _Running BP_ cattle drive where all basics of handling ranch work was gathered. There, too, was the beginning of his reputation for sly thinking in face of trouble, Adam managing to recover Patterson's horses from an unruly band of Sioux while contributing several useful ideas to difficulties occurring natural when established ranchers like Patterson uproot a generation of living to relocate from Iowa to Nebraska.

Pike sipped his coffee, curious about how his first boss was doing closing in on sixty years of age drifting then to wondering if the old cook Charlie still walked about. Like Patterson's foreman Tucker and several other hands, Charlie knitted together much learning for the youngster by accident or design and

Adam remained intensely grateful for having known them. Of many trails he had crossed for good or bad none meant as much to him inside as those from the _Running BP_ , even his brutal fist fight with Brad Caulfield near the end of the drive delivering lessons well remembered.

Frowning, he brushed a clod of dirt from the porch with the toe of his boot, idly wondering if it was left by Step or some other. Untidiness in every form irked him, suggesting a lack of attention he was never wishful of accepting. It wasn't his nature to miss details, errors in his ledgers notwithstanding, nor had he missed many. The chance discovery of abandoned goods when he worked a warehouse in Santa Fe, leading to a frenetic day of selling with his employer's permission and sizable additions to his own modest cash pile, had been such a detail. Among Spanish there stories were still told of his good work with only a few knowing truth about his rescue of the Don's niece Consuelo or her real role in his hotel room or their battle against French invaders in Mexico.*

*Santa Fe Bandits, Western Settler Saga II

Draining his coffee, he shivered against a sudden, sharp breeze, aggravated again by the shifting season but more by his reaction to it. Winter was a fact and had been all his life; there was no reason the onset of this one should bother more than any he experienced. It wasn't like those first two in Colorado spent sleeping in caves while caring to do no more than build houses for the kin while outlaws took potshots at him. Today, a warm home and loving family all deserved greater gratitude than he felt and brought on less doing than he wanted. Geared to work, to accomplish, everything around grew from exertions completed a half decade before. Studying a sparrow pecking at unknown bits of nothing beside the porch, Adam sighed unhappily, envious of a bird with purpose when he seemingly had none himself.

Abruptly, Adam popped to his feet, sliding gracefully to the far end of his porch. Staring out over

Checkmark Mountains, he ran his mind over every trail on the west arm separating his home from town, knowing each inch of them. The small stream bubbling south from them which brought water to Step's home down canyon Adam routed to create a lake bringing pleasure in hot summers to his children and the nieces and nephews born on the ranch. The barns, smokehouse, and each building in sight had been planned, dug out and constructed by his hands with help delivered by grace, all served usefully still.

Pensive, he recalled great pleasure felt in those early days from all the needful doing. Helping start stores, working to save freight operations threatened with failure by railroads, lending ideas and a strong back to Kate and her niece Trish when they were wishful of transforming a little café in town to a hotel were all challenges meant to use ability granted by grace. Of late, there was little or, he admitted, none similar to satisfy demands he put on himself. Friends were scattered over five territories, the kin were occupied by families, work and matters important while he sat on a cold porch drinking stale coffee.

Now there's Petra. Edgy before the troublemaker arrived, he'd become downright ornery with the news Step brought. Petra wasn't an outlaw he could confront, jail or shoot down but was certainly a threat to all Adam loved. Ruthless, cold blooded and completely devoid of conscience or morals, Petra was capable of doing almost anything imaginable but intent on doing only one.

Kill Adam Pike.

Chapter 3

Pike strode to the barn, account books packed in their leather satchel tossed over his shoulder with thoughts only of a one day task already two days old with another yet needed interrupted by Petra and ghosts from a past best forgotten. Mindful of numerous well tended flower beds surrounding their home first planted after his marriage as a project the couple shared to great pleasure, he felt none of his usual happiness seeing them bending without bloom needful of long absent sun to reignite spring and return them to beauty.

He shook his head. Most years, early autumn overcast brought a day or two of murky attitudes accompanied by difficulty completing even simple chores but this year for no reason he could corral was more a strain than others. That cool overcast days were lasting longer than most years accounted for a part, Colorado not having the weeks or months of winter gloomies he'd grown to know back home, but there was more to his discontent than mere seasons. Choosing to focus on what was needful doing, having learned from childhood that taking action would raise low spirits or, if not, allow at least modest progress on tasks despite them, Adam again ran his thinking across each of their family enterprises but found no relief as all were in capable hands selected by him personally.

Except Petra. No other could handle the outlaw's son, a fact Pike understood easily without regret or thought of asking any to. As a young Marshal, it was his decision to chase Demitri Petra after the man's third robbery ended in killing of an innocent man, that needless death drawing a line between the first two and last which commanded Adam's attention. Throughout his time as a lawman, thefts and holdups were so common in towns and on roads between to cause little noise allowing every Marshal in the West choice which to address but murder demanded the sort of quick, decisive engagement which promptly earned Adam a name for making.

Much of that reputation remained a decade later the way dust clung to air behind a cattle drive, thinning but never quite settling. A hard man, folks would say or think with no sight into what eighteen months battling outlaws to establish a ranch and place for his kin does to a man not yet twenty grown in a loving home among others respectful of law and order. Few new arrivals to Morale saw the incessant violence of that time answerable only in kind or, of greater meaning, the endless months Pike spent in this territory without a friend to chat up or share a meal with.

Riding to Sis's, he eyed the small saddle dipping in the middle of the east ridge of the Checkmark range, vivid images jumping to mind of six men having murderous intent laying there in ambush with what earthly remains left of them still scattered among firs and pines caring none for concerns of men.* A slight turn in the trail let him see the cave on the west arm where he laid with his dog Causin' scratching the pups ears watching thirty of Roy Hawkins band edging up the hillside knowing only that many or most would die before they killed him while harboring no doubt of that end.

*Outlaw Wars, Western Settler Saga V

That day Adam learned truly what it meant to have friends. Men hearing about the uproar Pike set off in trying to cleanse their land newly bought and claimed arrived from all directions to pay back help he had given. Marshal Hanks, his friend then mentor, rode alongside a bunch of Spanish toting two freighters, brothers grateful for Pike saving one from death in a raging flood. Rancher Patterson, still remaining thankful, showed up with Cat Rowley, an Army major Adam teamed with to hunt down killers of a military payroll train and the other brothers Pike in tow.

All converged on Checkmark Mountains just as _Oxbar_ ranch hands riding from west of Morale met Fred Hutchinson's severe band of riflemen dispatched from defending his mine operations north of town. Putting aside differences the youngster had with owners of each outfit, they joined together sharing only the thought of ending outlaw dominance of Morale and surfaced because they knew to a man he'd have come to their aid without hesitation or question.

Those were friends worthy the name, he thought, ones earned by doing in battle and business who gave respect and received it strictly on merit of their work. Since, making friends proved difficult, his time as Marshal requiring frequent, extended absences from town while an increasingly hardened view of life built barriers never seen or expected. Feared by many, he kept distant because of that, not wishful of causing discomfort nor, he admitted, wishful of explaining himself or acting differently than he felt proper just to win their hearts or their approval.

Back home in Michigan, like all the kin, Adam was considered easy-going, known for a sharp wit, keen eye and well regarded by adults and other youngsters, a description likely to bring derision among casual acquaintances now. Those close to him, the kin and their mates would think it apt, seeing him differently in more intimate family settings yet even this small group had to admit the young man they grew up knowing was not the person they met when finally joining him in the west. He was a hard man now, not unloving or uncaring, simply firm in attitudes tolerating little forgiveness of lawbreakers or troublemakers and only modest regard for consequences suffered by folks for their own bad decisions.

Reining in at Katherine's, he paused before dismounting, noticing an addition to the bunkhouse that escaped his attention prior, wondering when Step had chosen to move on a notion discussed several seasons earlier. Shrugging, the ranch business not being his to run, he dropped from the saddle, shifting the strap holding the sack of ledgers from one shoulder to the other then popped to the porch with a step lighter than his mood suggested. Knocking softly, Adam pushed through the door when Sis called him in, giving her a nod and receiving a peck on the cheek in return as she greeted him.

Tossing his hat accurately over a hook behind the door, he strolled feigning nonchalance to the wide roll-top desk Katherine's husband Jeremy had crafted for their use, setting the satchel on the floor beneath a set of shelves holding prior year accountings. As she poured coffee and returned to the table, setting steaming cups down near chairs where each preferred to sit, Katherine surveyed her youngest brother's manner knowing instinctively his mood wasn't all from the season. Watching as he replaced the ledgers precisely organized by operation and year in a fashion agreeable to both, she considered what approach was least likely to fail in drawing him out.

"Not needful, Adam" Katherine chose to start, blue eyes softly glowing, "for you to cart all the books to your place when reviewing. Could do it as easily here."

His back to her as he set the last few in place, Pike tossed his head a mite. "You've enough going on here, Sis." he replied quietly, "Caring for all our outfit's accounts and supplies, tending to Jeremy's workshop needs and a growing family, often with seven nieces and nephews underfoot. Isn't needful to add me sitting at your table several days a month."

She nodded, short cut hair tickling her thin neck a mite as he turned, giving a half-smile while sitting and taking a long swallow of good, hot coffee, suggesting then, "Could use the ranch office. Little enough anyone is there."

Adam raised a brow, answering, "Not so comfortable doing work for the other operations there. Seems it's for ranch business, not my other work and, besides, once all is packed up, is just as easy to tote them to my house as there."

A critical frown crossed Katherine's face, long acquainted with her youngest brother's annual autumn tussle, feeling it at times herself and having seen their Ma suffer every year similarly with bouts of poor thinking for her work lasting nearly all winter. Sensing something more here than just mood, she cocked her head, deciding a modest lashing with credit properly bestowed might serve Adam well.

"Pike" she declared firmly, resorting to a family habit of using their last name when serious, a practice that brought unending confusion to outsiders involved in their discussions, "best you recall that office, this whole ranch, only exists from the work you did. Any work you're wishful of doing there is for none to object."

Adam's eyes wandered over the tidy home, always reminded of the only house any of them had known before moving west, liking new curtains on tall, long windows facing Step's place and his own which, he guessed, Katherine's daughters helped make. Every corner showed care, Jeremy having built almost every piece of furniture and Sis or one of the youngsters making table covers, rugs and decorations hung on each wall giving warmth not quite equaled at his or Step's, neither of their wives as skilled or, truth be spoken, with as much time for such given duties they had at the Hotel and in town.

Seeing her wait for an answer, Pike shrugged. "All given by grace, Sis, so not meant to be abused for my own purposes. Bad enough to have little useful doing to occupy myself not wishful of making it worse by shoving aside others who do."

Katherine pursed her lips, wetting them slightly as she did in a mannerism exactly mimicking Ma when thoughts struggled to escape. "By grace, Adam" she replied, the kin's belief in undeserving gifts granted by an Almighty none could understand well known to her, "but requiring your hard work and smart thinking. Grace unaided amounts to little, you're knowing that."

Staring out over the countryside, Pike nodded, not wishful of more discussion so replying simply, "Am. Still is how I feel."

"Your choice." she responded, concluding more direct comments were required if he was going to speak about what was on his mind, adding softly, "I'm sensing more than weather bothering you. Not my business but am asking anyway."

Adam laughed lightly. No Pike easily intruded on another's affairs regardless of kinship but Sis took special exception in that way. Fiercely protective of her brothers and their family name, he knew she'd struggled for years defending him to folks less aware or appreciative of his toil and sacrifices made to bring law and peace while building a town where they prospered. More than Step, whose ways were natural less abrasive, or Mitchell who seldom appeared in Morale unless spending money, Katherine's greatest efforts were applied to Adam's benefit, often with no help from him.

"Man came to town." he explained, her steady drumming of fingernails on the oval maple table finally getting to him, "Expecting he's meaning to settle up on some doings from Marshal years."

A spasm of concern snapping across the woman's face, replaced instantly by a blank expression meant to conceal her thoughts, escaped Adam's notice, his focus still through the window. Carefully, Katherine set her mug down, asking then, "An outlaw?"

Pike shook his head, looking at her. "Not known as one, at least in any way can be proved. Is said to be a hired gun, killing from ambush when paid enough. Is the son of one I killed years ago. "

"You're knowing all that, how much proving is needful?"

"Enough to convince a judge." Adam replied, "He's canny. As many that know about him, none been able to put evidence together to support arresting."

Katherine snorted. "So many knowing should be plenty."

Pike waggled his head energetically, long brown hair bouncing on his shoulders. "Can't be that way, Sis, not in our country. Without real proof, it's no more than a man's word against another and soon we'd be like Europe, a few on top tossing any they want into cells or onto gallows for no reason but an opinion or thought."

Agreeing despite herself, Katherine rose, retreating to the kitchen for fresh coffee and time to consider. Their upbringing had been to respect the law, a fact central to intense pride she felt in Adam's decision to serve as Marshal and Step as Sheriff, yet she found the system lacking. Allowing men known as lawbreakers more latitude than deserved, she saw with great displeasure how it tied hands of men like her brothers working to keep order.

Filling their cups, she replaced the pot and sat again, facing him. "This fellow a problem?" she asked, realizing the cause of Adam's distress and wanting him to say it aloud.

He shrugged again, a tell-tale sign to her of thoughts unshared, saying after a pause, "Not to me."

"Then why are you acting such?"

Pike eyed his sister closely. More than anyone alive except maybe Kate, Katherine had intuitions and insights into men beyond comprehension. He knew despite no explanation being required of him and his not desiring to make any that he would regardless, an effect she had on him from earliest years.

"More he is to the others." Adam volunteered when silence no longer worked, taking a long drink of coffee as she waited, forcing patience. "Folks around most think days of gun play and killing are over, best left in years past. This man, Petra, will start up the old stories and stir up a mess of feelings I'm not wishful of dealing with again."

Katherine bobbed her head, his comments as expected, when Adam continued, "Family's been happy, almost joyous and free of tension these last few years, Sis, and now we'll be going around again because of him."

Other than Step, none knew better than Pike's sister the profound difference between ideas of Adam's wife and himself on use of guns or the nature of the violence in a countryside filled with men reaching adulthood fighting for Union or Confederate armies moving west, often carrying resentment and meanness in them as a result. In this matter, Katherine and her youngest brother were in complete accord. Pikes were raised not to cause a fuss but neither Pa nor Ma permitted their off-spring to back down in the face of one, a result of that teaching having twice brought Katherine herself to kill.

The first came when a pair of Indians appeared at the ranch house only a week after she arrived in their new home, demanding food and horses. When refused, they charged the door unmindful of the shotgun she held at her side or, perhaps, not believing her capable of using it until too late to mind anything. The second time, walking back to her hotel in Denver City wanting only rest to drive off a headache during a buying trip for the ranch, she'd taken a short cut using a side a lane when a drunk accosted her, commanding privileges reserved for her husband. Unwilling to accept Katherine's scorning denial, he put mean hands on her causing a hat pin to pierce his chest and heart, an event neither planned nor giving remorse. Completing her walk to the hotel, she left his dead body for others to puzzle over, hat pin tidily cleansed and returned to its place.

"Does there have to be a killing, Adam?" she inquired quietly, her mind furiously racing through options to suggest.

Pike laughed a little. "Not if he's here to say all's forgiven." he replied then, seeing a doubting look on her face, admitted, "Little likely that's his thinking."

Taking a long drink, Katherine scanned her brother's face, feeling his despair over possibly being forced to take another life. Adam regretted nothing in his past, she knew, yet despised senseless killing so easily avoided if men would only think more clearly on what was important or not. A number of years had passed since he last used a weapon against a man, another drunk to no one's surprise, attacking a merchant in town with a knife over some trifle none could begin to make clear. When Pike intervened, the man dropped the blade in favor of a six-gun, dying without ever learning who he faced.

"She'll accept it, Adam, as having no choice." Katherine advised after a minute with no more to offer on the matter. For all the love she felt toward wives of her brothers, there were certain lines she knew could not be crossed and this was one. How they managed relations in their own homes could be influenced in some examples but not here.

Pike stood, sliding his empty cup to Katherine's hand. "Appreciate good coffee, Sis. Time for me to go talk with a man about his thinking."

Rising, Katherine embraced Adam in a sisterly hug, leaning up on her toes to plant a kiss on his forehead. "Sun will come out one of these days, Adam." she said, releasing his hand as he moved to the door. "We'll all feel better when it does."

Nodding, he snugged his hat over unruly long hair while crossing through the doorway meeting Everett Langston, one of longest serving 5PL hands, on the porch.

"Morning, Mr. Pike" he greeted, eyes briefly connecting with Adam's before flickering to boards beneath them. "Miss Katherine to home? We got some supply in not expected so am needing to ask of it."

Cocking his head to the door, Adam replied pleasantly, "Morning, Ev. She's inside." then passed by, determined to let no irritation show. Pike had long given up trying to convince their hands to call him by first name but never got accustomed to quivering fear showing in their eyes when they came across him unexpectedly. Hundreds of days he spent working cattle as one of them, volunteering for the most arduous, unpleasant tasks as he believed proper for an owner to do but few among them could sit in his presence for any length of time without giving some excuse to leave.

Even their foreman, Dave Camp, reacted to him that way despite owning a sterling reputation as a fighter. First for the Army in the Mexican War then battling rustlers and Apaches for outfits trying to set up ranching in the southwest, the hard bitten cattleman seldom sat comfortable in Adam's presence. More than twice Pike's age, somewhere between being hired and Adam finishing up as Marshal their relationship changed from equals working together into a peculiar, uneasy one that pleased Pike none but he found impossible to improve.

Turning his horse onto the stone and timber bridge Adam and Step built seven years before over East River which neither expected would survive the first high water to roar down off the mountains, he glanced across the footings as he'd done on every crossing to see signs of distress or weakness never yet spotted then swung north facing Mitchell's stone house on the bench a hundred feet higher. Built giving an expansive view of prairie and river to the front with acres of meadow and a small pond behind, he always hoped it would provide serenity to ease the troubled man but never knew if it had or not.

Following the road west, North River to his right carrying life sustaining water to the 5PL and his own Checkmark Mountains on the left, Adam slowed his mount, not wishful of hurrying his arrival while running over all known about Anton Petra. Gifted with near perfect memory of every written word read and most conversations, Pike ran thinking across each note and story of the man hoping for an elusive tie that could bring an arrest but found none. Canny and careful, Petra was believed to have murdered several dozen times while leaving so little trace his very existence was doubted by some.

How the man learned his trade or chose to pursue it, Adam couldn't say but knew he came by it natural. Anton's father Demitri had cut a wide swath across western Wyoming and southern Idaho for most of a year, robbing banks in towns almost too small to have one with few noticing until the day a young teller resisted, leveling a single shot pistol with the last pile of cash being handed over. While his one bullet grazed the robber, two returned opened holes in his chest that gave eternal sleep as reward to his effort leaving behind a widow not yet twenty-three years of age with two young boys.

Those shots jolted Pike out of a deep sleep following an all night ride hauling in a pair of claim jumping killers to the first judge willing to try, convict and hang them, the young Marshal's enthusiasm for justice often overwhelming desires for rest in those days.* Joining a small throng in the bank lobby, he received a description of Demitri, his horse and an offer of bounty meaning less to him than recovering sums representing life savings of a dozen townsfolk. Riding prompt, Adam trailed the outlaw three days and nights, losing him once but finding him again where blood from his wound had carelessly been left when freshening his bandage.

*Madman from Morale, Western Settler Saga VI

Sign of Petra's passage then were unmistakable leading Pike easily to a weathered log cabin tucked high in a canyon, the sweaty horse stabled behind. Ducking from tree to rock, Adam worked in close, finally spotting the killer through a smudged window before silently approaching the door, toeing it open gun in hand and ordering his surrender. Spinning, alarm etched across his face, Demitri dropped a hand to his revolver, bringing it free as Pike fired, crushing the man backwards against a wall before slowly sliding to a final seat. It was then Adam saw someone near a rear door dash in then freeze. Not knowing who the boy was, Pike pivoted, aiming his pistol.

"Best you set down that rifle you're holding, son." he'd ordered, taking in the slender build and gaunt face staring at him. With dark rings under his eyes and thin, sandy hair, the youngster didn't look more than twelve or so but the Winchester in his hand cared none for age when triggers are pulled. Seeing the boy hesitate, Pike did not, firing a shot that ricocheted off the rifle butt, knocking it to the floor.

Eyes wide, he stared, hatred flaming as he stammered, "You killed Pa!"

Ruefully, Adam replied, "Sorry you had to see this, son, but your pa killed a man while robbing a bank then pulled on me during the arrest." Gesturing toward a battered table, he added, "Have a seat so we can finish up."

The youngster glared, unmoving until Adam waggled his gun, saying "That's not a request but an order on authority of a US Marshal. Not doing will only bring more trouble than you already have."

Holstering his weapon as the boy stumbled to a seat, hands over his face dampened by tears he refused to show, Adam felt lashes of sympathy ripping him. Taking a stance across the table, he asked softly, "What's your name?" hearing a nearly inaudible voice squeak, "Anton."

Exhaling, Pike glanced around but saw no place obvious that concealed the bank bags, so leaned over the rough surface. Talking quiet, he explained, "Anton, helping bury your Pa is only right but before any is done, it's needful you tell me where the money is stashed."

Face flushed, Anton looked up. "You rot in hell, Marshal." he commanded through reddened eyes, his cheeks damp.

Straightening, Adam cocked his head. "Understand this, Anton. Is the easy way for you to tell or the hard way for me to take a sledge hammer to your home until I find it. Nothing else gets done until I have that stolen money back."

The sniffling youngster tossed a look at the fireplace then back to Pike. Following the glance, Adam stepped over, keeping Anton firmly in the corner of his eye, easily spotting Demitri's hiding place. Squatting, he yanked the stone out, removing from behind it three bags of cash and set them on the table. Brow furrowed, Pike read names stenciled there, recalling news of each theft before taking a short rope from the corner and binding the sacks at the neck into one bundle.

"If you're wishful, Anton, I mind none helping bury your pa" Adam offered, his voice low, "then see you safely to the nearest town."

Anton's lips separated and his eyes narrowed to slits. "Get out of my house. You ain't burying and you ain't helping. Get out." he hissed.

Taken aback, Pike studied the boy for a moment, deciding little more could be done but felt a need to try. "Anton, leaving you here alone sits with me poorly. I understand your thinking, but let me bring you to some kin or folks willing to help."

Snarling, Petra spread his hands on the table, leaning forward as if to leap across, savage hatred contorting his youthful features. "Get out." he scowled, veins in his neck pulsing, "Get out now."

Adam nodded then, digging deep in his pocket, withdrew all the cash money he carried, setting a twenty dollar gold coin on the table by Anton's hand.

"Will pay for the rope I'm using." he advised, not wanting to appear as giving a gift, "Use it for any supply you'll be needful having or else as seems suitable."

Sweeping his arm over the table, Anton sent the coin flying, Pike hearing it bounce twice before settling in a distant corner. "What's suitable, Marshal, is finding you when fixed to." he sputtered angrily before raising his head, eyes piercing Pike. "And will" the boy promised, "when it's time, Marshal."

Shrugging slightly, Adam walked backwards to the door. "Son, best you stay seated until I head out lest some moving causes me to think you're of a mind to retrieve your pa's gun." he recommended, edging out the door then dropping into a trot to his horse, canvas sack over his shoulder. Leaving a pistol loaded was less than sensible but the youngster had few enough tools as things stood that taking one so useful struck Pike unfair beyond his ability to act on.

Mounting, Adam took one last look back, feeling remorse seeing Anton still in his chair, hands covering his face. Death bothered him little, being part of nature's ordered way and shooting those who murdered innocents disturbed him less than none. This one, however, bringing that youngster to be left alone alongside his Pa's body not yet cold, sat poorly on his conscience.

Sighing, nudging his horse to a trot, he returned down canyon, reaching the scene of Demitri's last robbery after a couple cold days riding where he returned cash stolen and arranged for transfer to other banks money taken from them. A pleased bank president attempted to award Pike the proffered bounty, agreeing after some protest to present it to the widow instead, Adam hoping at least one fatherless family might benefit from senseless killing without ever knowing that it had.

Chapter 4

Reaching the edge of Morale, Pike swept his gaze over the main road starting nearest to him at German's General Store, twice expanded since Adam first arrived, past Kate's Hotel that was only a tiny, twelve seat café the first time Pike saw it next to Mandano's Saloon. Along with the dingy Sheriff's office that faced Kate's place and Big Injun's livery far down on the right, nothing more existed then but seven empty storefronts left by settlers driven out by Roy Hawkin's outlaws. Now, nearly thirty occupied shops with two lanes running south off the road led past substantial homes in the town and another road went north to the US and County Courthouses and new school just built.

Despite his foul mood, Adam noted twinges of pride and pleasure in him, Morale having a stage station and railroad depot, a telegraph office and Post Office sandwiched between the territory's largest jail and Big Injun's livery when most towns had nothing of the kind. None had come easy, he knew, recalling in detail every nail and board that went into fixing up their first Sheriff's office then erecting next to it a US Marshal headquarters for his own men, connecting the two with a sturdy rock wall jail with entrances usable by both groups of lawmen. After Washington moved the Marshals to Cheyenne, Step natural took both halves of the building presenting a single, impressive monument to peace.

A smirk briefly crossed Pike's face, the deal he made with the Governor to pay for that building as a loan to the government having won four-fold dividends. Working a deal to earn cash hauling slag rock away from Hutchinson's mine then earning again selling it in Denver for homes and in Morale for government funded building of the Marshal office and District Courthouse was, he knew, an example of grace aided by alert thinking no one else ever heard about and a private victory still held secret.

What was no secret, in fact led to much of his reputation among town folks was all the rest he secured for them by accepting appointment as Marshal, the Governor being desperate and favored both by the President and expansion minded business friends alike. Having energetic support in Denver and Washington simply made Morale better while Pike's high profile assault on outlaw gangs, claim jumpers and thieves of all sorts made a grateful Governor's reelections much easier.

Dismounting in front of the Hotel, Adam hopped up the two steps with less than his customary energy, pausing in front of the door to eye gold painted lettering announcing 'Kate's Morale Hotel' with 'Kate' and 'Hotel' in a half circle over and under the banner proudly naming their town. A smile twitched the corner of his lip recalling the plain plank and sod café she had on this spot when Pike first arrived in town and how all thought him loco for proposing they build a hotel on the day the outlaw wars ended.

Like most Adam's early notions, the hotel paid off beyond any imagining, their little community half-way between Denver and Cheyenne becoming a convenient stopover for stage then rail travelers. Pike believed, despite folks saying to the contrary, that all success was Kate's to claim not his. Her constant attention to guests whether serving food or providing accommodations with an effervescent approach proving contagious to all coming through, she won admiration and business for being an original settler in the tempestuous region. His connections and persuasions brought buildings but, to Adam's thinking, without her none would have meant much. Towns exist because of people, merchants and ranchers selling or buying, folks borning children then schooling them which happens only where they're wishful of living. Kate had a way of making it easy to like living in Morale.

Striding purposefully through the door, he painted a casual look over his face, a wide grin given the clerk Jensen with a wave as the man nodded. Found by Adam dying of thirst and injuries from falls taken while chased by a band of mean spirited ranch hands, he was hired by Kate on Pike's suggestion, the young Marshal seeing something in him not clear to anyone other. First as a handyman before his knack for running things became apparent, he worked into an indispensable role as night manager then became through Adam's encouragement part-owner with Kate and Trish.

Turning the corner from the lobby past plush cowhide covered easy chairs empty in mid-day, Pike entered the restaurant with a sweeping glance over tables still being cleaned from a busy lunch. At a corner table, he spied the looming, hunched form of Anton Petra clutching a beer bottle, hesitating for a half step curious how one seeming so ordinary won a reputation so completely not. Approaching as if carefree, Pike stopped behind a wooden chair, fingers resting on the carved back waiting until deciding Petra would choose not to speak first.

"Heard you wanted talk." Adam offered finally, "Mind if I sit?"

Head slowly swiveling, dark eyes meeting Pike's gaze from under thin lids, Petra nodded, his wide forehead sloping evenly over gaunt cheeks to a slightly protruding chin bringing Adam undeniable feelings of being studied by an unusually large rattler. Edging the seat back, he slipped to sitting with an easy manner.

Both men sat silent as the waitress Mary, one of Pike's favorites for a quick wit and bright smile, set coffee down before withdrawing quickly while casting a concerned look at him. Drinking from the mug, Adam focused on towering clouds outside seeking shapes interesting in a favorite pastime but found none, his usual fertile imagination throttled by the season.

Drawing circles on the table with the bottle, Petra said nothing for a full minute then raised his chin an inch, peering at Pike.

"Petra is retiring." he said simply, his attention slithering back to the beer.

Considering, Adam watched the man from the corner of his eye seemingly uninterested. Letting the declaration pass, he withdrew a long, slender cigar from a vest pocket, snipped the end and lit it, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke over the table.

"Going to settle in San Francisco." Petra added quietly. "Already got land there. Gonna build a house, live quiet."

Pike nodded slightly. "Times have changed." he responded.

Throwing a quick glance, Petra sizzled, "Have. No work worth taking been offered for most of a year. Used to have line of work waiting."

"Country's settling. Nothing is like it was."

Petra grimaced a bit. "Got one piece of business to finish before going." he volunteered, sitting straight, eyes tight on Adam.

Raising a brow, Pike met his look direct. "Me?" he asked, a cold band tightening over his chest when Petra nodded.

"Gonna have in Petra's house a little trophy case, 'bout so big." he replied, holding a hand three feet from the ground then stretching them apart as far as he could reach. "Gonna have in it what Pike is known most for, a rifle, shotgun and pair of pistols in that twin holster always was wearing."

A malicious grin covered his face. Hissing, Petra added, "Might add a hank of long hair Marshal so regular described by. Already got words for small brass plate gonna have engraved. 'Here is all left of Marshal Adam Pike' it'll read."

Abruptly, Adam laughed out loud, startling both men. "Anton, you have to know, these guns or even my hair won't be all that's left of me." he sputtered, amused despite himself. "Look around, Petra, at all in sight."

Pausing for a swallow of coffee, Pike gestured toward the window. "When I arrived here the town was most of nothing. Since, the place has become home to over eight hundred people. Around Colorado Territory, there's six stores grown from the first and a freight outfit with three dozen teams moving goods in and out of every town you can name."

Leaning forward on thickly muscled arms, Adam cocked a brow over his cup. "We have a hole in the ground above town makes most miners jealous and run a few thousand head on land any rancher would trade a wife to have. East of town there's a school, most every nail in it I hammered in place and a second new one north of town, both built from planks cut in a mill I helped start and every stone used in the homes of my kin touched my hands."

Resuming a relaxed pose, idly trying to recall the last time he'd taken up a hammer or put a nail in a board, Pike stretched his legs beneath the table, crossing them at the ankle as he took on a serious look. "If my guns and hair get put in your trophy case, Petra, it only means I'm dead, partial as I am to keeping such to myself. But dead won't be all that's left of me, it'll only be giving back a body loaned by grace for use while on this earth. What I am will remain in this town and on a long list of doings."

Tipping his head back, reptilian features transforming Pike to no more than a tasty morsel, his thin lips smiled. "Will do for Petra." he replied calmly, keeping a lifetime of hatred from showing.

Pike stared without expression. "You wanting to step outside and finish now?" he asked softly. "Or you wishful of ambush shooting as you're known to do?"

Slowly shaking his head, wispy sandy hair tossing over his mostly bald head, Petra replied, "Will pick time proper Marshal. Won't be long."

Standing, fingers touching the table lightly inches from his guns, Adam studied him, saying after a moment, "Sensible man would head to San Francisco, live to enjoy riches earned by killing while able."

Petra frowned, nostrils flaring and eyes black. "Sensible man never leaves business unfinished."

Pike bobbed his head. "And have much to attend myself." he answered, eyes flashing fiery blue ice as he turned, walking toward the lobby.

Stopping briefly to chat with Jensen, doing otherwise not being his normal way, Adam saw the display of worry no amount of effort could conceal. Eyes flicking toward the dining room, the hotel manager strove to hide his thoughts but the usual bright manner presented fooled neither man as they talked briefly, Pike giving a wink and smile to his friend before departing.

Watching Adam's broad back pass through the door, Frank Jensen felt twisted deep within. That Pike had saved his life was enough cause for gratitude but he remembered well all the more Adam had done than was required by any badge. Bringing Jensen here, putting him up in Pike's own home for weeks while he regained health then recommending him to Kate had restored a faith in people lost by a decade of misery and betrayal. Every good facet of his life, including meeting the woman who became his wife and mother of their three children, had been made possible by young Pike believing in him when he himself did not.

Glancing at the dining room, Jensen was startled to see the other man was gone. Few moving in their restaurant or lobby escaped his notice adding to anxiety already present from stories surrounding this newcomer. Inhaling deeply, he focused on the room reservations laying in front of him, mouthing a silent prayer for his friend.

Walking smartly from the hotel toward the Sheriff's office, Adam waved at several merchants busy sweeping porches or arranging goods displayed outside their stores and at a pair of horsemen trotting in opposite directions on business of the day. Pausing, he touched his hat in recognition of one driving a wagon away from German's general store headed to Hutchinson's mine outside town in part of a routine familiar to all in Morale. The same driver ran three times a week to meet supply needs there while going two days to Mitchell's, all part of the pulsing activity so familiar, so comfortable to him.

Pike strolled casually, not wishful of any thinking Petra's arrival caused concern but knew some would. No small town keeps secrets well, Adam already seeing Petra's first stop at Mandano's saloon and talking with the day barman Scully a calculated means to spread word of difficulty coming. Lacking sense native to a cactus, Scully was reliable in service to his employer despite a mouth repeating every yarn, story or rumor entering his ears with only modest embellishment as seemed helpful to increase his own importance. That Petra knew Scully's ways was, Pike noted curiously, for later consideration.

Given the hours since Petra's arrival, any willing to listen would have heard his purpose was to settle up with Pike with absence of detail deliberate, suitably completed by imaginations occupied by little else. Without any thought, Adam sensed his standing in Morale precisely, everyone having heard all manner of tall tales about the long battle Pike conducted to make it safe, respecting him for that and, consequently, willing believers of near any story told. For all he'd done, none spoke poorly of him but a large portion were critical of his caustic manner, sharp tongue and cutting wit.

About Mitchell, few had an opinion except to appreciate hard work producing riches digging ore from the ground while liking the ease with which men were given work when needing it no matter any real requirement by him for their help. Among Morale's more proper folks, Mitchell was held distant, his occasional binges and willingness to stand for whiskey and beer having earned disrepute forgiven mostly when paychecks were spent in stores and shops around town. That he was a decorated hero of the Union Army suffering dark spells rooted there also brought clucking sympathy from many.

Other brother Step, completely to the opposite, was Morale's most popular citizen with words always well chosen and thoughtful, an easy-going way that belied his constant concern over matters big and small. As a rancher, he earned loyalty from 5PL hands by working hard alongside them in the worst of weather and doing all duties demanded as Adam did but with a dignified treatment regardless of skill or smarts shown and, more importantly, employing a good humor the youngest Pike often lacked. No ill suffered need be carried alone with Step available nor was any difficulty so great that solutions wouldn't be found.

Around town, Step's years as Sheriff were thought by all central to their prosperity, the calm allowing travelers and merchants alike to conduct business without fear common to frontier towns. Few in Morale understood what Step knew was true, their town's reputation as inhospitable for thieves or robbers was due most to widespread tales of Adam's penchant for instant, often vicious responses to law-breakers of all kinds. Only the early residents of Morale, Step's wife Kate and Adam's wife included, had seen what had been demanded of the youngest Pike to make their town secure or the high price he paid to achieve it while late comers mostly heard stories they did not comprehend.

Nearing the walk laid carefully before the Sheriff's office, Adam smiled at the town Post mistress Emma as she slipped through her office door. A newcomer of only a few years at age sixty two, widowed when an avalanche killed her miner husband, she assumed duties of mail receipt by virtue of being the one person willing. Before her, mail coming by stage was dropped at the hotel with Kate, Trish or Frank insuring all was routed proper without pay because it was needful doing but with no fondness for the task. Once Washington awarded their town an office, Emma raised a hand to take the work and none since have regretted her desire nor begrudged her modest salary.

"Marshal Pike!" she barked, the only tone any ever heard from her in public, "Remind Katherine she's needing to fetch up mail 'fore noon tomorra if wanting it sent out."

Like nearly everyone in town, Emma adopted the custom of referring to him as Marshal despite his retirement from the job a decade earlier, believing correctly an appointment by the President of the United States deserved lifelong recognition. She likely was unaware that he remained a sworn officer of the country, sharing an unknowing widely held outside Pike's closest friends.

Adam grinned briefly through dreary feelings, well aware of both stage timing and the woman's earnest reminders to any listening, Emma covering lonely evenings through chatter with every passerby, familiar or strange.

"Will do, Emma." he responded, halting as she continued toward him, departing her store front in an unusual gesture. Watching, Pike saw concern etched across wrinkles deeply imbedded beneath her tightly pulled bun of grey hair. Leaning in as she reached him, her height under five foot and thin visage was dwarfed next to Adam's thickly built five ten stance.

"Barman came looking for mail" she whispered anxiously, "said that fella' jest arrived is here to settle with you. Says you kilt his pa years back an' is time to clean the slate."

Pike wrapped a muscular arm over her frail shoulders. "Emma, men been looking to settle with me since I was fifteen or so." he replied, letting warmth reaching his eyes radiate over her. "Didn't work so well for the first hundred that tried and I reckon won't this time, neither."

Tears welled up in Emma's eyes. "Adam" she whispered, gripping his arm tightly as could, "they saying this 'uns different. Say he's a killer for hire." Pausing for breath, she edged a mite closer. "You really kill his pa?"

Sighing, Pike glanced off at gloomy skies then faced her closely. "His pa was a murderer, Emma. Killed a bank teller while robbing the place, left two young boys without a father and a young wife with no husband. When I went to arrest him, he drew and meant to kill me, too."

Emma laid her shoulder against Adam's chest, glancing fearfully toward the hotel window. Only she and Pike knew her husband had been targeted for killing by a big mine outfit moving into the canyon he'd panned successfully for years or how Adam was credited for bringing down a wide ranging empire of violence against small miners using information he provided. In saving him, Pike earned from Emma undying, unshakable gratitude rewarded regular with timely news heard over the Post counter shared no where else.

"You watch this one." she cautioned, tightening her hold on his bicep, "We all knowing that Pike operations keep this town going and for what work the others do, you're the brains running it all." then adding, her eyes snapping as she separated from him, "Ain't good for none of us iffen he guns you down with so much growing of our town yet to do."

Adam bent, planting a light kiss on her forehead. "Only brains anywhere in this town, Emma, is needful of sorting mail and worry less over men thinking themselves trouble." he suggested, guiding her to the door of the Post with a kindly hold around her back.

Emma safely deposited in her shop, Pike strode to the Sheriff's office, reflecting on opinion he long rejected as the sharpest mind within the Pike clan until forced by proof of accomplishments to accept and at insistence of his own family among others. Despite that, he saw fully ways each of his kin filled key roles in their common success, Katherine perhaps most of all. Having long managed Pa's daily ledgers back home, she natural took to those duties from first arrival with customary enthusiasm, precisely recording every purchase and sale for all their operations.

Beyond simply keeping records, she'd taken on the task of tracking of supplies, ordering more while insuring all accounts were kept current and debts paid no matter how difficult some years were. Gaining extra benefit by talking with every merchant and seller in town at least once a month and ones in Denver almost as often, her entry to any store was well received as it meant a new sale or bringing of cash to cover those made prior, leading Katherine to become the most liked of theirs while her friendly ways encouraged folks to talk so a careful ear often picked up tidbits useful to their efforts.

With her husband Jeremy, a quiet, contemplative sort whose superior craftsmanship had earned a reputation all the way to the East Coast, Katherine constituted the phantom backbone of Pike doings in Morale and northern Colorado. Keen in understanding people, she was the central nerve center of all they touched, her pipelines into businesses across the region yielded steady information which stitched together that heard by Step and Adam's wives from travelers or cowhands of outlying ranches staying at Kate's Hotel. Between the three women and their husbands, aided by each couple having children in the schools and all being active in community affairs generally, nothing happening in Colorado or the West escaped notice.

It had been his idea, Adam admitted, to have Katherine personally deliver supply orders and payments, intending from the first for her to build a network able to keep them apprised of events or opportunities before others were knowing. Her exceptional ability to discern real meaning from hot air or boastful talk, however, proved the difference repeatedly in unearthing ways to profit from what was said. Lacking Katherine's insight, much of what Adam, Step and Mitchell were credited with doing could never have been possible.

The trait that separated all three brothers from townsfolk and sister Katherine in particular, of course, was the guns they wore and their complete willingness to use them. When the Pike's first settled Checkmark Mountains and Morale, violence was normal, a daily fact of living. Outlaws, rustlers, Indians and troublemakers of every sort running roughshod over northern Colorado and Wyoming Territory for a decade were slow to cede dominance, demanding even peace-loving people to have and use weapons routinely. The least prone to violence of all, Katherine's husband Jeremy carried a rifle but never wore a belt gun and still had planted three men in Morale's boot hill defending his home.

Even Petra had seen times were changing, Adam mused. Most townsmen now rarely belted on a holster unless going into the country, doing so then more in case of rattlesnakes or a bolting horse than from fear of outlaws. Stages were still held up but less often and banks rarely suffered robberies as had once been common. Gunslingers, romantic heroes of eastern papers for a number of years, had mostly been killed off, grown to become decent citizens or simply got old while bands of rampaging thieves had been stamped out, many by Adam himself or those working for him.

He'd been aware for some time that many in Morale felt his wearing twin, tied-down guns was a boastful reminder of his past. Ranchers, of course, still wore pistols as part of their work but he wasn't commonly seen as one like Step or others. His doings involved stores, freighting, mining and politics, or so folks believed, with days spent in offices or meetings between customers or buyers where gunplay was unthinkable. That he was hated by hundreds sent to prison or, like Petra, were related to men killed before and during years as Marshal didn't register anymore nor did the truth of some within that group liking nothing so much as to make him a target.

At least, it hadn't registered until now. Pushing his way through the door into Step's office, Pike could almost hear folks chattering in shops or over supper, that a known killer had arrived hunting Adam and wondering how he'd handle the matter. Most, he was certain, would wager on him if only from his history. A few, he guessed, would wager against him either figuring everyone's time came eventually or, in some cases, out of malicious envy of his success or recalling some past disagreement. He shrugged as only two opinions mattered at all, his own and Petra's.

Closing the door behind him, Adam exhaled, grateful to be in his sanctuary, the one place every Marshal or Sheriff knew they could say or do anything, show any emotion without concern it might be observed or cause comment. Sweeping off his hat, he tossed it over a peg on the wall with perfect aim, eyes meeting other brother Step standing at the massive oak door leading to the cells behind, one hand preparing to release the latch holding it closed.

A raised brow from his brother was all the question Pike required, exploding in torrid flurries of energy needful of releasing. "He's planning to fill a trophy case with my guns and a hunk of hair to put in a home he's building for retiring in California."

Step cocked his head some, wordlessly releasing the door while showing a bemused smirk as a voice from the corner off Adam's left rose from beneath a dusty, battered hat.

"He offer any thinking on how he planned to accomplish that task?"

Pike looked, his expression brightening greatly seeing Deputy Marshal Wells seated over a stack of wanted notices and other papers. Crossing to shut the hall door behind Step, he beamed at the man.

"John! What's bringing you by old haunts?" Adam boomed, striding and offering his hand to the second man Pike hired as Deputy years before.

Shaking then sitting again, Wells grinned as Pike poured coffee then sat across from him. "Was escorting a man from near Sheridan to see a judge down in Denver and swung by while returning." he answered, "Hate missing a chance to catch up with friends. Fact is," he continued off-handedly, "was two of them in the killing but one fancied himself a quick-draw gunman with notions he somehow was faster than my Winchester already in hand cocked and aimed at him."

Wells laughed. "We planted him before coming back."

Adam waggled his head. Gifted with wit and free using it when not tracking outlaws or wanted men, John Wells was a favorite of his. Someone who'd shown Pike much of how men on the dodge lived and thought, having been one near half his life when they met, John's insights had been indispensable to a young lawman and saved his bacon more than once.

"Traipsing down from the Montana border seems less than sensible." Adam responded. "You couldn't find a judge in Casper or Cheyenne?"

Well's face fell. "It's all changed up, Adam. Used to be we'd haul a man before the first judge we found, get a conviction and hanging and be back working the next day. Now all they care over is borders and jurisdiction, courts in both towns you name and another besides insisting the man be tried where he did his killing."

Pike took a long swallow of coffee, listening to John rant. "Six days riding down, three in Denver doing nothing until the case was heard and five more riding back being just time wasted." the Deputy said, lightly slapping the broad table. Looking up, he smirked, "Man was still hung so no gain come of wandering around."

Pausing to raise his own cup, Wells set it back down abruptly. "Tell you, Adam, it's all changed. You knowing they require now a man have four years of schooling just to apply as a Deputy?" he asked, his voice breaking, "And what they hire mostly don't know which end of a rifle to load and couldn't track a sidewinder through soft sand if their own life depended on it."

Actually taking a drink of coffee, John nearly spit it out, blurting, "And let me tell you, too, 'bout this Marshal named when Emsley retired! Retired Army, comes from back east somewheres. Never set foot across the Mississippi until given the job because he knows a Senator or such back in Pennsylvania."

Grinning, Adam gave the man a raised brow followed by a sharp frown, recalling Emsley Eckert as another friend not seen in years. The first Deputy hired, he was also most responsible for displaying shortcomings in Pike's own judgmental nature after their meeting on Bob Patterson's trail drive. Seen by Adam from the first as a misfit with poor attitudes, Eckert demonstrated to Pike what it really meant to live humble and be god-fearing, teaching much to the youngster once Adam finally became willing and open minded to the cow hands way of thinking.

Rising up in his seat, Wells stared at Pike, brows raised. "You'd never believe, Pike, he makes us write reports for every arrest. This one just done, I'll waste another two days telling every detail of the chase, how we caught him and what we did after. I swear more time is spent writing than arresting and all taking time I should be out tracking outlaws."

Pike laughed out loud, the deputy's histrionics touching him deeply recalling as it did very many nights spent sitting up writing reports to send back to Washington, never wishful of wasting Deputy time to compose them. Smirking, he swallowed then leaned close.

"Tell you a way, John?" he asked, whispering conspiratorially when the man bobbed his head. "Was told me by Marshal Hanks early on to write what was needful and no more. All mine, when we were busy, said we tracked the wanted man across the prairie, arrested him and hauled him up for trial with few words describing. When times slowed, every hunt covered half of Idaho, our men shimmying up mountains and down canyons for days. Whole paragraphs described pitched battles needed to make arrests requiring us to travel back through snowstorms or rain, depending on season."

Wells tossed his head back and roared, Adam relating then, "And, you know, I twice got letters from our boss in Washington complimenting those reports. Once" Pike continued, "he even penned a note on the bottom saying he was wishful all Marshals gave such thorough details of events."

Hazel eyes glistening, the Deputy wiped a hand across his face. "Remember seeing you sitting over them reports, Pike. Never did know you made it all up while writing or it was a job for us to do."

"Mostly was."

Settling himself, seriousness coming back to him, Wells waggled his head. "Wouldn't work now, Adam, at least not so well." Straightening in his chair, he set his cup in his lap. "Speaking truth, it's why I swung through town. Heard Step was hiring another deputy. Thought he might consider me despite our differences over the years."

"You want to leave being a Marshal?" Pike asked, brow furrowed thinking troubles between the two men having been long solved.

"Believe so, Adam." Wells replied, his entire manner solemn. "How we work just doesn't satisfy much anymore. That Marshal took me to task some time back, me arriving in the office after two weeks on the trail, for clothes being dusty and boots not polished. Then, too, being home most nights would be pleasing to me, Shannon and the young'uns as well."

"Understand that." Pike agreed, glancing at his own well-polished foot wear, remembering the pleasure felt shortly after retiring at being home with his family, wearing clean clothes and having time to keep boots looking good. "Shannon is wishful of leaving Cheyenne?"

Wells snorted. "Nothing about that town she's ever liked. Hates hearing shooting at all hours of the night, believes the one school should be burned down and can't find any of the three churches with a parson tolerable to her."

Adam chuckled, knowing Morale had less than a quarter the people but two schoolhouses highly regarded, a half dozen churches and peaceful nights rarely broken by gun fire that were ordinary ruckus in most frontier towns. Interrupting Pike's thoughts, Wells added anxiously, "Not sure he be willing to have a former outlaw wearing a badge for him, neither."

Astonished, Pike peered at his friend. "Was a long time ago, Johnny, and for that, is likely Step never did hear those stories. Am certain I said nothing of it to him and your doing for most of ten years since speaks for itself."

Scraping his chair back, Adam retrieved the coffee pot and refilled their cups, considering the man he first called Papago John Wells, a nickname given after standing off a dozen Indians of that tribe in southwestern Arizona. Traveling with a band of troublemakers led by Clete Conyers, Wells was barely nineteen when they were attacked north of the Aqua Dulce Mountains named for sweet water springs where the men holed up. Hunkered down and near starving after three days, Wells decided enough was too much and launched himself madly at their attackers, living through it somehow while the Indians mostly did not.

Conyers, finding pickings slim in the desert, led his gang north over time, terrorizing settlers and travelers alike in northern Arizona and southern Utah as far north as Green River for several years then drifted to Colorado. The canyons and prospectors northwest of Denver suited the man's liking of having gold dug from the ground by hard work of others so they settled in for a spell before making his worst, and last, mistake, developing a fondness for beef raised on the _Oxbar_ Ranch recently started by Ollie Oxfarm just below the new town of Morale.

Conyers began earning a name for rustling to his eternal misfortune as Ollie tolerated such not at all. With a dozen hands gathered to exact retribution, two of whom recruited Adam having recently completed an excursion alongside him to Denver, the rancher unleashed a week's running battle that greatly enhanced Pike's growing reputation for stealth and cunning. Tasked to remove Conyer's night guard as Ollie prepared a final assault into a box canyon where the gang had been driven, Adam simply hog-tied the guard instead of killing him as expected then, once all others were dead, toted him out planning to see him stand trial then hung.

By their arrival back in Morale, Adam and the Oxbar hands took a liking to the wiry, sardonic man and convinced Ollie to put John on as a ranch hand. With Adam guaranteeing Wells good behavior with his own word of honor, his belief in redemption was rewarded well when John performed admirably after Pike tapped him nearly three years later to become a Deputy US Marshal.

Considering, Pike believed no better man could be chosen to serve their town but understood Step had several concerns to satisfy in making a choice so offered no promise to intervene. Instead, he shifted, letting his eyes rest on a wall sized map of the West from Nebraska to Oregon with a moment's thought what share of it he and his deputies touched in three years, his gaze drifting then to bookcases below it. Filled with volumes of notes detailing men wanted, arrested or killed being taken, they also described countryside throughout the District, telling of caves, springs and canyons where outlaws had hidden or tried to hide and others used by the lawmen themselves.

Started by Eckert the first day after Pike's hiring to help in learning the territory, every Marshal, Sheriff and Deputy after continued the effort until little existed that couldn't be found in pages neatly organized. Adam's gaze halted on five one-inch books at the end of the first shelf containing information special to the lawmen. Descriptions there were of men and a few women known for acting outside the law but leaving no proof of it, methods they favored, areas they worked and, most important, relations known to have. Mining companies, cattleman associations and other newly assembled outfits with poor reputations for abiding legalities interlaced dealings recorded in those slim books and guided more than a few successful investigations. Inside, Pike knew, were four full pages on Anton Petra, several written by him and every one committed to memory.

An antsy squirm from Wells brought Adam's focus back. "Why you looking for work at all, John? Can't be you're needful of the earnings." Adam noted, eyeing his friend.

"Not so much." Wells admitted slowly, "What I brought in from bounties and reward money is mostly intact, aided by some land buying and selling we did. Shannon and her Pa are both canny about seeing where folks will be likely to move and he's right good at promoting folks to buy, adding to what's been saved."

Adam nodded, remembering Wells always being tight with money despite having more than most, a fact Pike knew from doling out what came into the Marshal's office. While changed sometime ago, it was common in early days for banks, stages and, later, railroads to post handsome rewards for robbers, most particularly those that killed in the process, hoping to entice bounty hunters and earn a good name for being secure partners. While statute barred lawmen from receiving those rewards directly, it also encouraged Marshal offices to accept them to make funding easier for the Government.

Of course every US Marshal in the west did so passing along most to Deputies, a practice Pike followed as well so knew to a dime what each of his men earned beyond salary. He smirked slightly, recalling how his District, far larger than most and providing hide-outs for lawbreakers across years, had brought in sums impressive by any measure. Wells was the most aggressive at pursuing men with what he called 'most cash in their hat' while Santiago, the Boston born Spaniard hired last considered every reward as motivation in deciding which outlaws to pursue. Eckert, the strictest about all matters of law and justice among the four, oddly found such thinking unchristian and improper so never ordered his activity accordingly.

Standing to stretch, the Deputy peered out at clouds looming with promise of additional rain on the prairie and snow in the mountains. "Man's got to do something, Pike." he muttered, gaze returning to Adam, "Can't just sit on a porch like some, would get old mighty fast doing such. More there is, too, being I spent years causing trouble for folks, it seems I'm needing still to give back some. Watching these men we arrest and the harm done by them, I never feel quite like I can get even for my own."

Understanding Wells thinking, Pike bobbed his head, turning when hearing a series of raps on the cell hall door. Striding over, he ran a finger down a chart posted by Step, each day of the week given a different series of taps signaling those in the office the door was safe to open or, if not the proper sign, to be unlatched with pistols leveled and cocked. Finding all in order, he threw the latch then stepped off, fingers dancing on gun handles should they be required before relaxing as Step passed through, closing and locking the door behind him.

Without a glance at either, the Sheriff walked to his desk, sitting heavily in the wide swivel chair, running a hand through thinning hair then kicking a drawer handle angrily.

Finding his brother acting odd, Adam shot him a look unseen so took up the coffee pot, filling Step's cup then Wells and his own. Returning it to the stove, he cocked his head, Step still avoiding eye contact with either companion.

"Mind saying what's in that cell so disturbing?" Pike asked quietly, resuming his seat.

Step brought his face up, a bleak look coloring his tanned complexion. "Got Ted Russell locked up. Started another saloon brawl last night, claiming some man was cheating at cards."

"Nothing rare in that, Ted always finding someone at fault for his own ills." Adam answered, waiting. Still a young man, Russell had been thought well of around Morale until his parents were killed by Indians, an event peculiar to their region if less so elsewhere, after which his drinking got heavier and attitude worse. Most in town, one time or another, tried hiring him on with poor results as Adam found after having brought him to ride for the 5PL over Step's stern objections. Ted lasted most of a summer before returning to the bunkhouse late in a drunken snit and started a melee over some slight no one present, including Russell, ever could identify.

"Nope." his brother agreed, saying then, "What is more so" swallowing coffee while glaring through the window, "was Ted dumping a big old table on the man, crushing his skull before stomping him in the chest and belly a half dozen times. We got the fellow at Doc's now, hoping to see him live."

"Drinking men never seem to get the worst of it." Wells commented dryly before clamping his mouth shut, remembering his time arresting Mitchell Pike for a similar brawl some distance north of Morale, only one of the man's stays in one jail or another. Although both younger brothers spoke well to John about the arrest, and Mitchell being released the next day as none were hurt much during the fight, it seemed a poor time to remind Step of it being the Sheriff's goodwill was needed if he was to land the Deputy job.

Ignoring Wells, Adam gave Step a puzzled look, cheats seldom getting sympathy from a judge or the law at any time, which his brother caught. "What does Ted say about it?" he inquired.

"Remembers nothing of it." Step sneered, "Even tried telling me at first he wasn't in the saloon last night before I near slapped his ears off. Worst than said already, have a half dozen witnesses saying the card sharp snuck out a side door and the fellow Russell crushed was just a cowhand passing through looking for beer and some grub."

A cold hand clutched Adam's gut. Senseless violence, men mauled for no reason and lives ruined were an old story he was most tired of hearing. Slumping some in his seat, he studied Step, feeling more was to be told to explain the dour manner being witnessed.

Step sighed deeply while pulling out the makings of a smoke, rolled one and lit it, unusual for him to do inside the office, flinging the spent match toward the cuspidor and missing by feet. Sensing the others were waiting, he looked at them knowing only full truth would satisfy and feeling compelled to tell on himself. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, the Sheriff stared at a point beyond the ceiling.

"Had Ted in a cell for an earlier fight until last week, the judge giving him thirty days. After some talking, I got the notion he'd work at acting right so talked his sentence down to time served." Sitting up in his chair, he faced the men direct. "If I'd minded my own business, kept shut my mouth, Ted would've been in jail last night, not at the saloon, and that hand wouldn't be slipping toward dying young."

Clenching his eyes tightly, Adam felt the pain wracking his brother, no Pike able to handle well unneeded hurt caused however indirectly. More even than the other kin Step saw himself made to keep folks safe, managing poorly when unable to meet his own high standards in doing so. With a shake of his head, Adam peered silently out the window, having no words to say useful.

Abruptly, he stood then spun toward the door. Outside, a buggy used by his twin daughters when riding to and from school had rolled into view but without his son's horse Brandy alongside. Alarmed, Petra's presence close to mind, he strode sharply into the street, a hand up to halt the carriage.

"Hey, Pa!" his son Lawson called from inside as daughter Adele gave a smiling, "Hello, Poppa."

Placing one foot on the buggy step, Adam leaned in, tousling Lawson's curly brown hair while giving Adele a peck on the cheek. Dropping back, his face showing more worry than he was wishful of allowing, Adam looked between the two.

"Where's Angela?" he asked, aware the girls and Lawson customarily left school at one time.

"She's staying after." Lawson replied, a tinge of disgust in his high-pitched, young boy voice. "Said she wants more work on her numbers."

Adele smiled shyly, advising, "Mr. Hassan was staying anyway for some cleaning and to grade papers so she's not causing any extra for him."

Their teacher, a Persian by birth named Rajid al-Hassan but known locally as 'Ray' was a trusted, loyal man who came to Morale after Adam, leading a team of men guarding a Hutchinson gold shipment to San Francisco was forced to free a shanghaied member of his outfit, a deed impossible without the Persian's aid. For a couple years now, Ray had taught older youngsters in town, his calm demeanor and broad knowledge eventually becoming valued among a community initially suspicious or outright hostile toward dark skinned foreigners while his friendship with all Pike parents and children grew deep.

Adam smiled at the pair, both reflecting well lessons taught by their mother and him but knew pleasure at seeing them safe didn't reach his eyes when Adele reached out and set her small hand atop his where he held the seat rail.

"It's alright, Poppa." she said, her long ash blonde hair tied back by a maroon ribbon looking every inch as her Ma's used to. "She'll be along in an hour or so promised."

"It's good she's practicing numbers." Adam responded, warmth rising toward the youngsters, "So you two ride on home and tell Ma I'll be along when Angela comes by. 'Til then, be sure your chores get done well and help Ma putting supper on."

"Chores?" Lawson whined, aggravating Pike modestly for acting eleven as he was and not like an adult he wasn't. "Was wanting to go riding since I have to sit in this buggy going home instead."

"You know better, son." Adam replied with a grin. "What we're wanting matters none until all chores are complete."

"I know, Pa." the boy answered, resignedly, his sister chiming in as they said in unison, "Chores done well then fun enjoyed most." repeating a mantra Pike had recited since their earliest days.

Adam laughed, bobbing his head while moving back from the carriage. "Is our way." he agreed, instructing then, "Now you two scoot and we'll be along prompt."

Adele snapped the reins expertly, her ability with horses at thirteen already a marvel among the ranch hands, guiding the team through town traffic confidently. Pike and his wife nearly argued over the girls driving the buggy to school, a chore always before this year performed by one or the other parent until, with help from the children, Adam prevailed. Growing people need to learn doing for themselves he offered persuasively against his wife's natural desire to protect them while keeping them young as long as could be. In this moment, giving a glance through the hotel window where Petra had sat, Adam felt some wishing he'd listened.

Returning to Step's office, Pike reached to remove his hat, noticing then that he'd not bothered grabbing it while heading out to meet his children. That unusual act alone hit home how disturbed he was by Petra, the weather or, most likely, both giving rise to discomforting unease. Shutting the office door quietly, he perked up hearing Step chuckle then ask, "So what's your thinking on it, other brother, having Wells keeping peace here in Morale? Figure the Marshal's will survive without their best badge wearing deputy?"

"Reckon they will, Step, being they've little to do anymore but send men across all of Wyoming to hold a trial anyway." he answered, smirking while dumping cold coffee from his cup to a basin and refilling it with hot. "Of course, we're needful of handling the move gentle, our wives and Sis likely to be irked some when another beautiful woman like Shannon arrives in town permanent."

Their mood lightened, the brothers shared with Wells stories of Morale, its residents, ranches and happenings in general while advising him of those likely to sell a home or property and at what price. Wells, in turn, listened carefully while interspersing jokes and yarns of his work since Adam retired as Marshal, each man feeling the day's gloom abating for it until Pike eased from his seat, edginess setting in. Standing in front of the window, he scanned the street for Angela, her arrival due any time.

"Sure that's where you're wanting to be, Pike?" Wells asked with concern.

Adam shrugged. "He's made a living shooting from ambush in ways none could pin on him. Not likely he'll take a shot from a hotel window in a town where everyone's heard why he's here. He'd not get five steps toward his horse before a mob swarmed and hung him from German's old cottonwood."

As the others nodded agreement, Adam took a swig of coffee, dropping the cup suddenly to the table spotting Ray Hassan heading their way at a full gallop. Dashing to the door while grabbing his hat in passing, Pike threw it open just as the teacher dropped off his horse.

Grabbing him by the arms, Adam bent at the knees to look the shorter man in the eye. "Ray, what is it?" he demanded.

Visibly shaken, his dark complexion paled, Hassan stared at Pike wide-eyed. "Angela, Mr. Adam! She's been taken!"

Chapter 5

Adam gripped the man firmly. "Slowly, Rajid." Pike commanded, not wishful to have the man's accent interfere with understanding. "Tell me what happened."

"I finished grades, Angela finished her work." he related, "Through a window, I see a man riding on a light grey horse with two white stocking on front legs. I do not know horse. Later, only minutes, I leave and as am saddling mine, I look up. The man and horse are riding north, toward river, and leading another. I recognize Brandy with Angela riding."

Pausing for a breath, perspiration pouring over his face, Ray gave Adam a look of sheer terror. "I follow first, to where trail leaves north. There is book bag Angela dropped so came fast as can ride."

Face drawn, Pike nodded. "Mount up, Ray. Take me to where you found her bag."

Hustling to saddle, Adam skidded to a stop when Step barked from the doorway, "We're coming along."

"Stay here!" Pike ordered, pointing a finger at his brother. "Alone I've a chance of slying up on him. He sees three coming, no telling what he'll do."

Wells laid a hand on the Sheriff's arm, whispering, "He's right, Step." as Adam whirled following Hassan, both men riding their horses full out heedless of several townsmen walking in the road. Nearing the school a quarter mile distant, Rajid pointed east, angling to a spot fifty yards ahead. Reining in, Adam swept the landscape before jumping from of his saddle.

"I touched nothing, Mr. Adam." Ray advised as he dismounted.

Pike squatted beside Angela's bag, crab walking around and reading the story told by tracks of two horses and one man. Finally, every clump of dirt telling all it knew, he straightened then moved next to the Persian.

Calmed none, eyes moist, Ray shivered under a brisk, cold wind. "I did not know what to do." he moaned, his fear for Angela and liking of the Pike clan moving him almost to tears.

"You did right, Rajid." Pike said quietly, hand laid gently on the man's shoulder. "He's a killer. If you'd followed further, he likely would have shot you." Snatching up the bag, Adam continued bitterly, "Knowing trouble was at hand, it was mine to ride up and meet her. Didn't expect her to go across the grasses toward home instead of coming into town like usual."

Handing Ray the bag, Adam told the teacher "Go back to town and tell Sheriff Pike I'll be back before dark."

Mounting, he started off, turning only a mite as Hassan asked plaintively, "What will you do?"

Eyes tight, Pike looked at him. "I'm going to bring Angela back." he spat, spurring the horse to a run across flat ground toward the river. Furious with himself, Adam wrapped a velvet glove over his thundering heart. Deep inside, he believed his daughter was in no real danger, nothing known of Petra hinted at that. She was bait, he was sure, the man's intention being to make her watch her father shot down just as Petra saw his own.

Slowing his horse, following a trail intentionally left, his eyes continually scanned the rocky ledge past the water, seeking to spot any movement suggesting their direction. A thousand places along that low ridge Petra could pull up for a clean shot, a possibility Pike dismissed while varying speed and angle as he rode just in case. Somewhere ahead, Petra had a place in mind where Adam would have to expose himself close to where Angela was stashed, a spot ensuring she'd see his death vividly.

Ice water rushed through Pike's veins, his mind clear of every thought but ones of the landscape in front. No one knew that country better or spent close to his hundreds of hours exploring on foot and horseback. Allowing for the time it took Ray to reach town and their ride back, Adam narrowed down a short list of possible sites Petra could chose, a grim smile rising as a likely one surfaced. Crossing the river, he moved close in under buckled rims of stone, weaving between tall pines before turning west with a certain destination in mind.

Two miles further lay the Bottoms, a chaotic, jumbled mass of boulders, shattered trees and lava rock in a deep bowl formed by some ancient collapsed volcano. Through it, only a single trail ran so far as any knew, the same road Roy Hawkins led his gang up after robbing Hutchinson's mine of three wagons loaded with ore expecting to reach the Notch, a cut between high peaks beyond where one man with a rifle could control the entire lower section.

Petra would know of the Bottoms, stories of the place and dozens like it scattered across the west being common. No man on horseback was able to hide there easily although Adam learned one on foot could having chased the murdering half-breed Army scout Black Thorn five days through it without ever being more than five miles from Morale. Later spending hours and days deciphering hundreds of ways to maneuver among the crags and rough if determined enough, he knew how difficult it was to do. Too difficult for what Petra wanted, Pike decided, turning his attention closer.

Eyeing signs left by the two horses, Adam pulled up, following upward as he tracked their path on the chart in his head. Shortly, he'd come across on a dim game trail veering up, a sheer rock wall with thick pines and underbrush giving cover until it turned sharply around a large boulder, opening then to a quarter acre of grass backed by a small cave. Past it, a rider could move on to a number of places with clear view of the trail and pasture and believe no other way in or out existed.

Warily moving up, Pike wondered idly how many times he'd taken men so accustomed to riding they never considered how a man might approach if not. Horsemen walked rarely and fewer still hiked about mountainsides in search of paths or dry water runs that allowed passage as he had. To his mind, anywhere a man could ride permitted several more to walk and he prayed desperately Petra repeated the mistake many others had made.

Halting his horse beside an outcropping opposite the small field, he dismounted, a quick glance around confirming recollections of the place. During the Outlaw Wars, Adam used this grotto as a hide-out with Hawkins men finding it only once, none of them living to tell others. In those visits, he scoured the area, learning positions of every tree and boulder, watching rabbits and deer move through gaps almost invisible to the eye. Nerves completely settled, he played through his mind every step and action needful doing to rescue Angela, willing to leave Petra for another day.

Certain he'd not been seen, Pike slipped to a short rock face, boosting himself using branches of a dead tree for handholds over into underbrush growing there. Slowly, he wormed past brambles trying to make no noise Petra might hear above, arriving after a minute at the top of an old watercourse that once ran alongside the cave wall. Slipping down, one hand steadying himself against the stone and the other on the ground, in a moment he stood next to the cave entrance. With a quick look around, he saw Brandy ground hitched, contentedly munching grass and no other horse present.

Fighting to keep his breathing shallow, he stooped, listening to isolate wind noise creaking trees from sounds inside the cave until certain he heard only one person. Cocking his head, eyes surveying grim masses of clouds beyond the pasture, he concentrated on hearing a second person breathing but could not, choosing finally to trust his senses.

"Angela." he said in a whisper, his daughter responding with muffled grunts.

Pike waited. Petra, if there, would be patient so Adam must be also. After an eternity, he picked up a rock the size of his hand, tossed it in then ducked back against the rifle shot he expected to follow.

Nothing happened. As believed, Petra was hidden higher, covering the grass he thought Pike had to cross to reach his daughter. Drawing a pistol, Pike hopped once then threw himself into the cave, rolling twice before coming to his feet near the back, gun level.

Relief washed over him spotting Angela sitting on a rock tied hand and foot. Scuttling quickly, he squatted beside the girl as he slipped the knife from its holder behind his back and sliced the bindings, freeing her. Instantly, she threw her arms around her father, face buried in his neck.

"Told him you'd come, Poppa!" she said as Adam wrapped an arm around her waist. With the girl's hair tickling his face, Pike leaned back to see hers.

"He hurt you, sweetie?" he asked softly, seeing no signs of harm done.

Angela shook her head, sitting back. "No, Poppa." she answered, "Fact is, he was most polite. Even called me 'ma'am'." she offered, her voice hinting at a girlish pride.

Adam exhaled, eyes relentlessly searching shadows outside for any hint of Petra approaching.

"Okay, then, it's time we got out of here, would you say?"

The girl's eyes widened. "He's waiting, Poppa, with a rifle. Said I was to see you die."

Surprising her, Pike chuckled. Giving his daughter a bright look sincerely felt, he winked. "Always be careful of what men say, darling, as most haven't sense to talk smart things to a pretty lady like you."

"Oh, Poppa." Angela humphed, adding then, "Asked him if he was loco."

Brow raised, it being his turn for surprise, Adam grinned. "Why'd you ask that?"

The girl straightened where she sat. "Figured he must be, Poppa. Told him then a hundred men were laid in town's boot hill after thinking they'd see you die and he wasn't better than any of them."

A brief frown crossing Pike's face was instantly replaced with his most winning smile. Leaning in, he brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead, the notion that his children knew their father had so often killed never occurring to him. Shifting, he studied the ground outside again, realizing as he often did that as much as he loved each of the youngsters, Angela was special to him. All three were bright, energetic people more than willing to do their share and enjoy doing but in ways he could not describe with words, Angela was unlike the others. She saw things, knew things the others might miss, displaying insight beyond her years.

Unbidden, Adam recalled overhearing a comment made by Bob Patterson. 'Can't say how' he told his foreman not knowing Pike stood near watching a brilliant night sky, 'but somehow things go in his head and scramble around, coming out better every time just when we need them.'

Pike understood Angela was similarly gifted, the girl's routine suggestions for better ways to get most anything done already a family tradition as Adam's had been when growing up. It didn't seemingly matter whether she spoke of chores or play, Angela had a knack for finding easier means to accomplish nearly any task without conscious effort at it, just as he so often had.

"You ready to go home, Ang?" Pike asked, assured in his plan for their leaving.

"How we going to do that, Poppa? He's waiting."

"I know he is, sweetie, but he doesn't know what I know."

Angela giggled. "No one knows what you know, Poppa." she told him, tapping him on the arm as she spoke. "But I'm not knowing how we're leaving until you tell."

With a quiet laugh, Adam waggled his head. "Simple, Ang. We're going to sneak out on him."

The girl nodded agreeably. "Can do that, Poppa. Momma says you're the sneakingest man she's ever known so should be easy."

Brows furrowing, Pike shot his daughter a glance, deciding then to wait for time more suitable to discuss his wife's thinking so told her, "You're going to have to be brave to do this, Angela."

"I'm always brave." she declared in response, her eyes flashing defiantly much like her mother's did so often when she and Pike first met.

"Know you are, darling, so listen careful." Adam chortled, waving across the opening. "You step up to the entrance and when I sign, you run fast as can until alongside Brandy. That man isn't expecting you to be free and mostly has no interest in you, so I'm figuring he won't shoot."

Angela's forehead wrinkled. "That's some difficult figuring, Poppa." she complained, relaxing as Pike continued, "Once you've got Brandy between you and him, he won't be able to see you, so you just pull her picket pin and walk quick down past that big rock, being sure to stay close next to her. Okay?"

Lips pressed together, the young woman eyed her path to the horse then down toward the boulder, nodding her head suddenly. "Okay, Poppa, I can do it but what will you be doing?."

Coolly, Pike replied "Well, natural, I'm going to talk with that man. Explain some things to him."

"Poppa!" Angela exclaimed, "Is no time for talk!"

Adam laughed out loud. "Will be a short talk, I promise." he said, adding off-handedly, "Might be a shot or two will go off so don't be surprised by it."

"And how you plan to leave?" she asked, little bothered by thoughts of shooting.

"Just like Ma said, Ang, I'm going to sneak." he chortled, "Will take a couple minutes so you just hunker down until I get there." scooting her then to a position by the cave front, pausing as their eyes met and he saw she was ready so gave her a nod.

Jackrabbit quick, Angela dashed from the cave, running low by instinct thirty feet to Brandy's side, the horse startled at the girl's sudden arrival then settling prompt. Releasing the picket, she looked once at Adam and saw him nod again so began walking quickly, sure to keep next to Brandy's foreleg.

Proud of her, greatly relieved but still anxious, Adam laid his shoulder against the west cave wall closest to where Petra was waiting above.

"Anton Petra!" he bellowed, hearing echoes of his words reverberate through the canyon. "Am grateful for you giving my girl a tour of the country but we'll be leaving now."

Pausing, Pike listened, his every muscle tensed until Angela rounded the corner, disappearing from sight. Taking a deep breath, Adam called out again. "Not wishful of you being disappointed, Anton, so know I plan to be back in the morning. If you're wanting to still be here, give me a sign so I don't go to wasting a trip while you're halfway to California."

Only a moment passed before a bullet whined off the rocks over Adam's head. Snapping back from habit, Pike grinned, agreeing that was a suitable sign. Crossing the cave mouth, he inhaled deeply, popping from inside to the water run, immediately laying his back against the rocks. Wishful of knowing Petra hadn't moved, Pike stretched, hollering, "So we have a deal, Anton, we'll meet here tomorrow?"

A second shot ricocheted off rocks high over head as Adam clambered up and swung around, pausing where an old Ponderosa pine, trunk split generations before, reached high. Peering up between the tree halves, he scanned what could be seen believing Petra couldn't change places from where he'd fired rapidly enough but wanting to be certain. Satisfied, he scampered downhill, startling Angela when he dropped from the rock face right in front of her.

"Ma's going to have supper ready." Pike said, taking her hand as she climbed into Brandy's saddle. "Not wishful of keeping her waiting."

"Poppa" the girl responded cutely, "you know we never wait on you for eating. Would have starved years ago if we'd done so."

Adam smirked as he mounted, knowing it was true.

Above, Anton Petra stared at the grassy flat, furious. 'Might be this time you win, Marshal' he thought disgustedly, 'but come tomorrow, you won't.' Turning, he worked a path back to his horse and led the animal to the cave, determined to find how Pike got in and out without being seen.

Chapter 6

His dining room lit by no more than a small shaded oil lamp turned low sitting on the floor in a corner and embers in the fireplace could provide, Pike stood gently tapping the table as he eyed a small back pack sitting before him. Already inside were field glasses, several coils of rope cut short with ends tied for their purpose and one left long, three candles an inch high, a hand axe and moccasins along with various other odds and ends possibly useful to his plan stowed carefully next to his coffee pot containing small sacks of coffee and jerky. The season was late for berries or nuts to be gathered but he expected less than three days to be gone and had survived often on less.

Thick fingers tracing letters on the cloth reading 'U.S. Army' brought him to wonder what came of the young Corporal who'd given him the pack after they fought side by side against a renegade band of Kiowa attacking settlements in southern Montana. A sharp man that soldier, Adam remembered, who understood Indian fighting better than any ranking officer he served under and knew it. They became close prompt as men in battle frequently do talking late through night watch. Pike learned much of his companion's raising in New Jersey, how he came to join the Army for lack of other good choices and sought land to call his own in a West he thought represented freedom to be himself.

After the hostiles withdrew, they'd gone their own ways, the Corporal giving Adam this pack to use because Pike's own had been ruined while accepting a keen steel knife and scabbard removed from a murderer Adam tracked nine days across Montana prairies before killing him trying to make the arrest. Looking up but without seeing the stone chimney in front of him, Pike recalled sadly the Corporal served under disgraced Colonel Joseph Reynolds and hoped he survived the brutal Powder River battle fought a few years after their meeting.

Adam sighed. Doing so little right, Army campaigns against natives led directly to needless death on both sides, innocent women and children killed as often or more than soldiers and warriors. All that was needful, in his thinking, was for Government to honor treaties negotiated and signed to avoid many of the atrocities but had watched, also, how white settlers overwhelmed the West with or without Army support. Too few Indians scattered across thousands of square miles could never have held out against relentless waves of men determined to make new lives, build communities and take advantage of land deemed theirs to conquer.

Hearing sounds of a horse trotting through spatters of rain on glass, he stooped low then slipped beneath the window, easing aside curtains made and hung by Adele just weeks before. Against rapidly darkening skies, he recognized the outline of Step nearing so strode over and opened the door wanting no annoying feelings over entering without knocking. Gesturing him in, Adam shut the door against a stiff breeze whipping weather about the house.

Passing his younger brother soundlessly, Step strolled to the kitchen, taking down a mug from short dowels holding them then filling it from the coffee pot on the stove, topping off Adam's cup after.

Surveying the dimly lit room, Step asked carefully, "Where's the family?"

Taking a swallow, Adam tossed his head slightly to his left. "Staying at Katherine's for a night." he answered, voice low.

"How'd that go over?" his brother inquired, easing into a chair at the table.

Pike shrugged a bit. "Not well. Especially with it touching the children and her believing all this ended years ago."

Step's brow furrowed. He knew from Kate the long running disagreement between Adam and his wife over the killing and violence so common when they first met and strains on their marriage his work as Marshal created. Then, at least, she understood his wanting to bring order and safety to the country and, mostly, was able to overlook gunplay that involved. Since his retiring, tho' she'd come to believe that was past and handled poorly demands on Adam to act, rarely as they occurred now.

Having no more words useful to the discussion, Step glanced at items on the table, passing over a beaten hat whose purpose was obvious to him then halting on a bow and quiver of arrows laying next to the pack. "Most would say bringing a bow to a gun fight is less than sensible." he observed, pointing his cup at the massive fireplace occupying half the living room wall. "Would think you'd be taking the one that's been mounted since the first day you moved in here."

Adam shook his head, sliding into a chair. "That's a Sioux bow," he advised in a matter of fact way, "good for use in open prairie or plains but too long and cumbersome in mountain forests among rocks and underbrush. This one" he added, taking up the smaller weapon, caressing it fondly while seeing again the fine workmanship that went into its making, "is Blackfoot. Shorter, made to use in tight confines and nearly as powerful on close shots."

Setting the bow down, he considered again his plan, wanting at first to carry the other bow in a sense of balance to life, taken as it was from the first Indian Adam ever killed fending off a raid on Bob Patterson's outfit back in Nebraska. Somehow, using it against Petra, the last man Pike hoped he'd ever be forced to kill, seemed fitting but in the end, practical need overruled emotion as it always did for him.

Too, he believed the Blackfoot bow had good medicine. Over years of living alongside Indians, most times peacefully, Adam respected their thinking, adopting several notions of theirs while speaking rarely of it. This bow, like the pack, was a gift, given by Blackfoot chieftain Soaring Hawk whose son Pike stumbled across badly wounded and nursed back to health before returning to their village. Spending two nights among them, Adam won great esteem by defeating a troublesome young brave who'd begun challenging Soaring Hawk for control of the band unexpectedly earning the bow and quiver by doing so.

The greater prize came several weeks later when Pike, sitting in a saloon miles away, overheard a surly ranch hand bragging up ambushing a redskin. Approaching the man, Marshal badge tucked in his vest safe from notice, Pike garnered enough detail to assure Soaring Hawk's son was the target proudly boasted of then, knowing no judge would convict any white for shooting an Indian, laid in wait until the man staggered out drunk. With a quick rap from his gun butt, Pike knocked the man unconscious before tying him over a saddle and escorting him to Soaring Hawk's village where appreciative Blackfoot elders initiated Pike into their band as a blood brother before he departed leaving them to deal with one would ambush another for no cause but skin color.

Passing on discussion of bows, his last use of one long before leaving home, Step drank coffee watching his brother lean forward on the table from the corner of his eye. He was no longer the bright, hard working youngster who left home with a whimsical, easily stirred good humor when Mitchell and Step arrived in Morale at the end of the Outlaw Wars. Much of what Adam endured those hard eighteen months Step learned from his wife who'd seen it, becoming Adam's big sister, confidante and, at times, the last vestige of conscience guiding him.

Adam never stopped working smart or hard. For certain the kin believed he did so too much, a topic Step and Katherine talked over regularly but discussed with Adam only once, the summer after their arrival. Then, the youngest brother seemed uninterested in opinions of others, unusual for him to their thinking, showing intense difficulty helping them understand how the world appeared to him then. It was only a short time after, Adam engaged in marshaling duties and often absent, the kin decided to leave him to work through what was needful rather than push notions sure to be poorly received. "To him who much is given, much is expected." Adam had reminded them once, a sentiment no Pike could dispute.

While understanding between his ears, Step was slow taking to heart what transformed Adam until Kate demanded one hot summer day her husband ride with her to the cemetery, walking them past scores of graves there by Adam's hand. Telling him as they walked, sat then cried together over beatings taken and given, of a dozen or more times Pike had been hunted by men with no intent but to kill him, Kate opened Step finally to feeling some of what it must have been like and sensing his brothers desperate aloneness through dark nights and grim days when death, dispensed or received, was his only choice.

As Marshal, Adam relaxed some to his siblings great relief, proper authority granted legitimizing his activities so reducing almost unbearable weights that come when one man kills another. Having law on his side, backing from kin, friends and growing communities eased his transition back to decent living more than any words could. Later, grateful more than was ever said to end his work as a lawman, Adam became the person he was raised to be, a hard-working, smart businessman, loving father, husband and good brother. Over the last half decade, Step realized, he'd forgotten by choice or carelessness the fiery cauldron still smoldering inside Adam but saw it now like never before.

"Guessing you have a plan." he said quietly, refilling cups emptied in a half hour of silent sitting.

Adam bobbed imperceptibly. "Hoping to do this without killing." he answered somberly.

"Told Petra that?"

Smirking, Adam shook his head a bit, replying, "Not needful him knowing." then leaned back, a hard look on his face. "Time's come for killing to stop, brother. Was a time no other way existed but it's changed now. We have courts and law here. It doesn't always have to come down to kill or be killed and it's on me to find a better way."

Step stared at Adam, agreeing completely but surprised, unsure when his brother arrived at this point. Raising a brow, all the gesture required to begin Adam explaining his plan, he listened to more detail than caring to hear with less patience than required to hear it. After all was said, he toasted with his cup, reminding, "You're not seventeen anymore, Adam. You have friends, many in fact. Not needful doing this alone."

"It is." Adam disagreed. "First because an army of friends would only shoo him off to show up again when not expected and second because it's mine to do. He's what he is, at least in part, from a choice I made years back and it's on me to end it without risk to others. Besides" he grimaced, "if I was still seventeen, I'd have called him out in the hotel and killed him then so be through already. I'm not wishful of doing such anymore." as Step's expression suggested that notion was suitable to him.

Rising, the youngest Pike took his cup to the basin and rinsed it, pausing to set the coffee pot away from stove heat before standing thoughtfully, hands on hips.

"Your thought?" Adam asked.

"First thought is he's a man hunter, skilled at ambush."

Pike scoffed. "Used to shooting ones not expecting it. Never a day he chased one chasing him back." he replied dismissively.

Rising, extending his hand to shake, Step smirked. "Second thought is shoot the son of a bitch first time you get a clear shot and come home."

Adam laughed, tossing his arm around his brother as they walked to the door, bidding him good night then dousing the lamp and going to bed.

Chapter 7

Crossing the river before sun up, the brothers rode to a point a hundred yards short of the trail Adam followed the prior day, halting by a flat boulder marking a faint gap between two trees. Dropping from his saddle, Pike pulled off his riding boots, trading their spot in his saddlebags with a pair made for miners having thick leather soles with tread cut in for better grip. Pushing into them, he knelt to tie laces then straightened, stepped onto the rock and adjusted his pack while slinging his rifle over his shoulder on a strap designed years earlier to keep the Winchester within easy reach when climbing.

Looking at Step, Adam murmured, "Third morning from now. You know where." Step waggling his head in acknowledgement then saying, "And the fourth morning if you're not there, two dozen men from town and a few up from Denver will be scouring this mountain looking."

The youngest Pike frowned through gray morning light. "Comes to that, shoot any that moves as it won't be me." he suggested solemnly then disappeared from sight.

Step blinked unbelievingly. He'd heard maybe a dozen men tell of Adam appearing as if out of the ground or vanishing into nowhere and dismissed them all until this moment as yarns of those less perceptive or, perhaps, ones making excuses. With a shake of his head, he stared, seeing with his own eyes Adam evaporate faster than steam from a kettle before spurring his horse and leading Adam's to a quick trot toward town, mind half on the day's duty while half worked over how Adam did that.

Tucked in a deep hollow behind the rock, Adam chuckled silently, seeing Step's amazed look and liking much knowing he could still surprise despite years together. Quietly turning, never wanting to use one trail twice if it could be avoided, he began climbing a line parallel to the dry watercourse outside the cave, using tree limbs and bulging rocks as handholds. On his list first was to check the cave, making sure Petra had found Pike's second way in and determine the direction he'd gone after.

While edging his way up, Adam let his ears and eyes roam free for any sound or movement as his mind worked through his plan. Petra believed, foremost, himself a superior hunter now pursuing a target less skilled. There would be no chance to persuade him to abandon this vengeful quest until his will and confidence were shattered. Adam's entire plan depended on Petra knowing at levels primitive, private and deep inside he could not win and, even then, Pike knew the likelihood of ending the matter without bloodshed was slim.

Reaching his objective, Adam turned west, warily darting between massive pines and through prickly underbrush almost noiselessly until overlooking the dry stream. Edging in, he studied the ground, spotting after a moment a hoof print left the day before and a boot print where Petra had dismounted to stare at Pike's small lane to the cave. Smiling briefly, he backtracked the man's path a dozen yards until confident what direction had been taken and where Petra likely had holed up overnight then flitted back, easing over the dry run to the cave mouth.

Listening as before but not so long, Adam jumped into Angela's cave, as he had come to think of it, dashing to the rear instantly. The notion that Petra might be inside was contemplated but discarded, Pike confident the man would never let himself be trapped in a small space with no exit and equally sure Petra wouldn't expect Adam to use it again either. Stepping onto a boulder near the rear, he reversed the pack to his chest, pulled gloves from it and donned them while studying a fissure faintly showing sky hundreds of feet above. Reaching in, he formed fists with both hands then hauled himself up with shoulders and knees braced against rock sides while lifting his arms higher, repeating until he'd gotten a deer's nose past half way to the top where he rested.

Feeling his breath slowing to normal, Adam realized other brother Step's observation was more true than he was wishful of admitting. He wasn't seventeen like he'd been when first climbing through this chimney. That time he hadn't paused a blink encouraged as he was by Hawkins men taking random potshots with Spencer carbines hoping shards of rock and metal caroming about would shred flesh. He outwitted those men by grace, finding a way to climb out unknown to them or him made possible by his superb physical condition and a desperate favoring of living another day.

His second climb, made a few years later and going from top to bottom, had been just for fun, Pike liking the exertion on a day hot, dry and dusty on the plains below, was also made without a break. Part of his explorations, wishful of having complete knowledge of land so close to his community, he'd devised several means to reach the chimney against a time of need before clambering down. Since, he'd worked across the mountain outside several times, alertly noting changes in how trees grew and fell or where rocks tumbled during battering storms so common at higher elevations.

Peering up, he shifted the rifle to a more comfortable spot, aware now as he had been then an enemy suddenly arriving over head couldn't possibly miss with a bullet or rock dropped bringing fresh anxiety to move. As a small grunt escaped, he shifted his feet suddenly, liking how much better narrow toe riding boots fit cracks than wide miner shoes did so gave careful attention to footing as he stretched overhead. Straining, shoulders and arms protesting his effort, Adam climbed steadily, pleased when the fissure widened allowing him to brace thick thighs on either side to ease tension on lesser muscles.

Finally coming within a short arm's length of the top, he removed his old battered hat, the new one left home so not to be damaged, and stuffed it in his pack to permit peeking over the rim without a telling profile. From his earliest battle on Nebraska plains, Pike thought keeping hat on head was the surest way to reveal himself to any foe waiting and had seen many die by doing so, most often from arrow or shots never seen or heard. Habits, whether wearing a hat or riding so much that foot paths were overlooked, were comfortable in easy surroundings but turned fatal when the country was hostile.

Making a final push, knees and feet securely perched, he peered out, slowly surveying a small hollow where the chimney exited and found all as expected. On three sides, heavy stands of woods hid him from view while rocks stacked by nature blocked the fourth, assisted in that end by a couple full days Adam spent adding to the wall. Tossing his pack and rifle over, he gripped the edge, boosting his stocky frame quickly from the hole, rolling twice and drawing a pistol when landing then lay quiet, every sense alert to any sign Petra might have found this place.

A heavy breeze swirled snowflakes overhead, brushing limbs denuded of leaves against pine boughs in a chorus of natural noise. Rising to a squat, Pike pulled his gear to him, securing the pack before brushing dust and pebbles from the rifle, checking its action briefly to insure no damage was done unlikely tho' such might happen. Satisfied, he edged to the piled stones, a brief chuckle at recalling many harsh words he'd directed at himself for working to improve cover in this spot when expecting to never need it again and sincerely gladdened now at preparations completed against futures unknown.

Glancing over, still hatless, Adam let his eyes rove left and right, up and down then repeated his survey in reverse, focusing on no one thing but on everything. Patiently, calmly, he let shadows, images and sounds arrive, sorted by experience and instinct into proper niches of his mind before deciding all was in order. Easing back, he passed the dark circle from which he emerged wraith-like, settling under broad, low hanging evergreens for additional listening, finally gliding into the underbrush soundlessly toward his first planned stop.

Four hundred feet below and almost a hundred yards to the west, Petra sat nestled between two evergreens, eyes restlessly combing trails around the small cave. With morning nearly gone, he'd seen nothing suggesting the Marshal had arrived but his trusted hunter's instinct tingled steadily. His quarry was present he was certain but puzzled as to how and where. He'd been fooled once, Marshal having superior knowledge of the land, and focused on not allowing that to happen again. Many times he'd stalked men on their home range taking advantage of terrain they knew well but rarely needed so forgot or disregarded, always surprised at how seldom men truly learned land they rode over every day.

In that respect, he held in high regard near legendary stories of Pike's extensive knowledge and memory of country covered or heard. For most of ten years, Anton had studied Adam Pike, sitting long hours in saloons buying drinks for men he secretly despised to glean single kernels of wisdom about Marshal. Long ago he'd lost count of campfires attended, the number of cowhands, outlaws or lawmen heard spinning yarns about his hated enemy, all time invested to achieve a reward nearly at hand.

At first, he scorned yarn tellers weaving fabulous tales but, over time, heard them too often, too consistently to dismiss them. Gradually, over fierce objections in his thinking, he built a healthy respect for Marshal's ability, even visiting Morale on two occasions to judge for himself. The first time, riding by stage, he'd loitered around on some pretense, absorbing every detail of Pike's life then rode in several years later with a group of men heading east for work on cattle drives from Nebraska and Colorado to Abilene. It was on this visit he learned of the wedding and birth of twin daughters, spawning his earliest, best plan for revenge so recently ruined after years of nurturing.

Breathing soft, Petra scanned the forest, rocks and ridges around him, supremely confident no amount of knowledge Marshal had of this land could surpass his own ability in the wilderness. He knew the red fox squirrel sixty feet up had been ripping through pine cones for seeds almost an hour so would move soon while hearing a sage grouse behind to his right scuffle in the underbrush for a meal. A bare scrub tree growing out from a rock edge told him when the wind changed direction as if speaking aloud. Part of this country as much as animals and birds, Anton would track Marshal unseen, reveal himself at the last moment then end Pike's life in final proof of his dominance.

That Petra had to become known to Marshal was centered in his thinking; to simply kill would serve poorly. Pike had to look into Anton's eyes in a final moment, had to know evil committed against his father years before was being visited back to him. Without Marshal knowing, his vengeance would be hollow, unsatisfying. He had chances, several times, to shoot from safe cover at distances well within his considerable capabilities but passed on them for just this reason. Petra held no wish to attend Pike's funeral unless Marshal fell knowing the name of his killer.

Abruptly, the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Holding his breath in complete stillness, he let his vision take in every image while hearing every sound fully certain some minute piece of the world around him suddenly changed.

Whirling, he aimed at a crashing in higher underbrush, squeezing the trigger as a large buck pranced in terror over tumbled, broken trees before disappearing into the forest. Exhaling, eyes swiftly working backwards along the deer's path, he saw a flash of cloth, the briefest glimpse of tan not natural in a place where no such sight had been before. Relentlessly examining the area, he walked low, slipping to where his horse stood and took the reins, leading the animal up a thin trail angled to intersect where the man above would arrive.

A sharp grimace flicked over his face. 'A woodsman?' he sneered silently, 'Can't move down a trail without spooking grazing deer?' accepting this event as further, unneeded proof that Marshal Pike as an adversary was unworthy. Veering right up a dry stream, walking low with his horse behind on reins made long to give distance between them greater than usual, Petra slowly picked his way higher in the manner of a big cat, every foot set softly with purpose, brushing aside leaves left under a small stand of aspen he circled. Pausing, he sniffed the air for a clue but found none in the steady wind from above, holding then considering choices for his advance.

Losing sight of Petra in the woods, Adam squinted, separating dim shadow from tree trunks, identifying sharp rock edges which faded easily against bland, ordinary backgrounds. Sitting lightly on a low branch behind a shattered fir, he studied each place Petra could emerge, nearly ignoring the game trail to his right ending only yards from where Anton sat when Pike tossed a rock at the buck knowing his pursuer would also. Easing to his toes, he looked above then reached to a branch several feet higher, raising himself to a new perch then pulled his gloves off, stuffing them deep into his pack, letting the day wander past in silence without hurry or haste.

Petra was a consummate hunter, a fact Adam would use to lead him to points selected where Pike could begin driving cracks into the man's confidence. Believing in himself completely, Anton would think he was pushing Adam into a vulnerable position, unable to defend every approach available and so become an easy target but, with a horse to tend and lacking familiarity of the terrain, it was a plan Pike could exploit to his own advantage. Refusing to underestimate an opponent, Adam would assume Petra knew more, could do more then was likely true and act accordingly.

Sliding along the bare branch, Pike felt it bow wanting to break as he cautiously tossed one leg over followed by the other, facing uphill. Bracing on bare hands, he brought his feet up under, balancing on the limb as he bent at the knees, eyeing another tree barren of leaves reaching close to him. Jumping lightly, he caught a branch, swung up and hooked a heel over it, shimmying with his back to the ground until reaching the trunk where he released his feet. Dangling briefly while surveying the ground below, he dropped almost soundlessly on leaves dampened by rain and snow.

Lowering himself to a squat, Adam sat against the huge tree, eyes riveted below, biding his time until Petra revealed himself. The hunter couldn't be allowed to lose track of his target but also had to be made to work or would deduce Adam's intent, provoking changes in methods less predictable than Pike was wishful of facing. Habits of men changed little, he knew, particularly when they brought success so regularly and he saw no reason to expect different from Petra. Years of his own notes, those from Eckert and other Marshals supplemented with observations of lawmen across the Territory and testimony of witnesses or friends of men killed drew a picture almost complete in his mind, knowledge Petra certainly had no clue existed or was known.

A scrub jay went silent after an hour of annoying screeching then flew out of brush some thirty yards downhill from where Pike sat. Grinning a bit, he surveyed dense growth but saw nothing so held a moment before scaling a rock leaning to his left. Peering over the peak, he ran his gaze along a muddy track beneath him, finding after a moment two twigs no thicker than his wrist laying over pebbles and jumped. Snapping as he landed, the wood flipped over, Adam's prints clearly visible where the points imbedded the ground as he pushed off into a trot up the incline. Forty feet beyond, he ducked through a gap between two spruce, immediately veering back to his right over a flat rock, small clumps of mud left to mark his passage.

Head cocking instantly hearing sounds not regular, Petra peeked through coarse brambles for movement, noting the point where it rose. His eyes scanned back, seeking an avenue useful for getting higher, wanting behind his prey but saw only sheer rock and evergreens impassable in silence. Reversing his gaze, he shortened the lead on his horse to let them wind within the timber over brush until finding a deadfall along which they could move, kneeling at the end into a hollow where he considered the damp ground ahead.

To his right, a twig stood, one end buried with clods of dirt rising on each side. Head swiveling, Petra viewed both directions then lay the reins to the ground, inching over without exposing himself to rifle fire. Resting on his haunches, he scrutinized the track, confusion caused by the tread replaced by understanding having often seen miner boots in his work, following then toe marks leading away absent other imprints with mud churned up. He puzzled over Pike running, looking then to every side, working out a direction his quarry had used to reach this point but found no avenue disturbed, giving birth to a vague, unsettled sensation.

Shaking his head, Anton rested on his heels peeling away notions no longer sensible. Known as a horseman of considerable skill, Marshal was on foot and wearing boots indicating intent to climb among rocks and rubble. Frowning, Petra slowly thought through what the man planned, seeing clear Pike believed himself both hunter and hunted. As darkness crept in, overcast skies no assistance under high canopies of pine and massive hardwoods, he nodded to himself, inching around to his horse and withdrawing downhill toward a suitable campsite found during earlier explorations of the area.

Kindling a hatful of fire with dead dry wood, what little smoke rising dispersed by long drooping boughs of evergreens overhead, Petra sat. His back to meat sizzling in a pan so to hear what few sounds might penetrate a wind of declining intensity and careful not to look into the fire to keep vision sharp in the dim light, he poured coffee and drank the hot liquid with pleasure, hating the raw cold and snow of mountains more every year passing. Most recent autumns, he shifted work to the south where ample opportunity arose around mines and cattle ranches to avoid bone-chilling nights and frost filled days.

He'd had enough of those as a young man to desire any more than needed. The winter after Pike killed his father, Anton survived in their small log cabin, time split between hunting for food and splitting firewood for heat with untold hours occupied filling gaps in walls which allowed menacing cold winds to attack. Leaving the place behind instantly when spring permitted, less than a month later he rolled into a mining camp south of Boise seeking work only to find more men willing to dig than needed but none capable at hunting to feed them. All summer and into fall, he roamed meadows and canyons of southern Idaho keeping larders full for several companies of hungry men while developing skills which served him so well for years.

A mine owner there first approached Anton about having a special problem, a competing outfit better funded buying up claims from prospectors and wildcat operations threatening to push him off a promising mountain. Offering more money than Petra believed possible, his request was simple; get rid of a man bankrolling their work. Proving to be a simple matter to one as capable with a rifle as Petra, it led soon after to another with a special problem summoning Anton, paying less than the first but still a handsome sum for results as satisfactory. In under a year, Petra was making regular rounds in widening circles, solving difficulties for miners growing in size and wealth if not morality or ethics.

The fading Civil War era opened new horizons for the young man, happily willing to abandon frozen mountain caves and cabins to work for individual ranchers troubled by nesters or rustlers then, as his reputation grew, for cattleman associations from the Canadian border to Mexico. Those men, hoping to build outfits considered respectable, liked most that Petra was never discovered, rarely suspected of any involvement but simply drifted into an area, completed assigned tasks then disappeared leaving no trail back to his employers.

At least three cattle wars, two in Kansas and another in Texas, ended unceremoniously through judicious use of Petra's rifle, his elimination of ranch owners, foremen or bosses with brutal efficiency permitting those paying him to overrun all opposition in short order. One of those Kansas jobs, in fact, had been the only time he was close to being caught, eluding a dogged bunch of hard-headed cowhands after a three day chase with the novel idea of swapping his brown gelding for a chestnut mare, a new hat and vest before swinging behind his pursuers and joining them, drifting away unnoticed the next night.

Using a lengthening string of acquaintances, bar owners and cathouses, Petra found himself in demand across the territory for one purpose only, to kill. Never once did he consider his work improper or less than honorable, rather he exalted the precision of his efforts. Senseless violence surrounded life in the West, gunfire being an ordinary occurrence in every town. Men died daily at the hand of others for reasons petty and mindless or no reason at all, a truth repulsive to Anton priding himself as he did on never using a gun except when hired to do so.

Slicing his meat in the fry pan held in front of him, Petra forked a chunk of potato into his mouth and washed it down with a swig of coffee, letting his senses guard while clearing his head of thoughts about Marshal Pike. His back against a rock that tilted out over him, thin lines of trees covered his right flank, their fallen leaves ready to rustle if crossed while his horse grazing to the left gave assurance of an alert should any approach from that direction. He was free to let the day's actions recede, swirl within and come together in clearer understanding. Never able to force good solutions by conscious effort, Anton had learned long before that too much focus served him poorly finding his best work was done when he allowed observations to blend with instinct.

Completing the small meal, he refilled his cup then covered the fire with a coating of sand, just enough to keep coals from smothering so he could ignite them easily in morning, setting his coffee pot on a rock nearby to cool before shifting his seat a shade further under the trees. Listening, he noted the wind had dropped greatly, bringing a calm to air spotted with large, drifting flakes of snow. Raising his mug, he took a swallow then froze, hand at his mouth as he stood.

A hundred yards downhill, perhaps less, a light flickered. Tiny, too steady for a campfire, it lit a halo barely visible, impossible to believe it could be seen. Resuming his seat, a chill ran up his spine as stories of spooks heard as a boy in the Oregon forests came to back to him. He chuckled softly, shaking away childish notions while working to fix a location of the light on his mental chart, seeing it suddenly disappear. Cocking his head, eyes swiveling while holding perfectly still, he breathed softly, unsure what Marshal was up to but confident it was him.

Taking another drink, Petra dismissed the pinpoint as trickery serving no purpose when another appeared suddenly, half the distance away and further up the slope. Frowning tightly, Anton eased from his seat to a stump several feet below, nestling near it for a better view. Eyes flicking between the first and second, this one brightly reflecting off a rock face behind it, he pictured the terrain while calculating distances not figuring how Pike moved from one to another so quickly. Sipping coffee, brow furrowed in the dark, he let his eyes relax, focusing instead on hearing sounds which travel well at night better than most men realize even when through trees and brush.

Nothing came to him but the gleam of that senseless light and an imperceptibly small knot in his stomach which reached his mind but not his awareness. Marshal was up to something, he decided, so marked the place for investigation in the morning before choosing, just as it disappeared, to ignore it further this evening. Exhaling, Petra felt an edginess coming over him, the long, intense day calling now for sleep in preparation for a chance to end this chase tomorrow. His bedroll spread out, he set his cup by the pot and turned to lay when another light fluttered to life but from the opposite direction and far higher up.

Anton stared. There was no way Marshal could have covered that distance in such a short time, let alone in the dark. 'Could there be a second man out here?' he thought, wary at a possibility never considered then dismissed the idea. Pike was known for operating alone, denying help regardless of circumstances. Petra dissected the idea again but could settle on nothing which let him believe Marshal would bring anyone else up here, knowing the danger and certain as he would be that Petra had no reluctance to kill any one seen in these mountains until Pike was dead.

Back tensed, his mind raced furiously after answers to Marshal's doings for a few minutes until a harsh laugh abruptly barked up in him, a relaxing sensation flowing as he realized Pike wanted to produce exactly that effect. Amused, Petra stretched, pulling his blanket over him after setting a pistol close to hand and his rifle beneath the cover with him. Pike might think Anton Petra could be put on edge by such mindless tactics but he'd permit none of that to happen. What was needed now was sleep while his mind assembled what happened during the day into a plan for the next morning, the final push to exterminate a hated man and extinguish, like those little lights, the fetid flames that had seared him for a decade.

Chapter 8

Leaving Petra to puzzle over twigs, tracks and mud, Adam veered up the forested incline, feet bouncing off three boulders nearly buried before settling into a run over pine needles that muffled his passing. Heading northeast, returning toward Angela's cave but above it, he kept a strong silent pace as dark took over the lower bowl where his pursuer sat. Dropping as the ground fell away, he swept along a hollow until it ended then used stony handholds to scale a short granite wall to the path above.

Breaking a slab of bark from a dead hemlock, Adam slid his knife from behind his back, whittled a hole through it then retrieved the long rope coil from the backpack. Slicing off a suitable length, he knotted it through the wood, tying the loose end to a piece of scrub so the bark stood upright before setting a candle under the rope, adjusting each to insure flames and cord met. Easing from his perch, he looked over the arrangement then struck a match, lit the wick and watched fire lick upward.

Protected well against dying winds, Pike felt confidence the scheme would work as planned, the candle biting at rope slowly but insistently. Nodding, he jumped higher to a game trail leading further off to the northwest, resuming his trot with only a pause to peek beneath a majestic spruce, scanning two likely sites below where Petra would camp and spotting a flicker at the second with the man's shadowed bulk sitting close by. This mountain, like most wilderness, gave men unlimited choice for night sleeping but few serving well with water close to hand, natural protection on two or more sides and overhangs to keep weather away and Adam knew every one, having used them all.

Continuing on the rising path to near where the tree line surrendered to bare rock, Adam knelt over a ledge several feet below only sixty yards or less from the first candle which the curving mountain gave an impression of being much closer to Petra's camp than it was. Able to see both places through thickening gloom, grinning slightly, he hacked a dense branch from a fir and tied rope to the stub. Easing to the shelf below, he set a second candle, barricaded it from view then lashed a lead across the wick. Lighting it, pausing to see it blaze up and begin eating the rope, he hoisted himself back up and headed to his final destination.

Dark was falling quickly, enveloping the wide canyon as Adam ran easily over smooth surfaces long familiar to him, wanting to set the last, most important candle before settling in for the night. Two times earlier, Pike used what he called 'the candle trick' to help effect arrests, once in southern Idaho and again on the edge of the Absaroka Range. Neither against men shrewd like Petra or who were, in their own minds, hunters not hunted, Adam hoped for different results here than there so was willing to make an effort to promote his goals.

In Idaho, a trio of stage robbers hunkered down in a cabin knew they were being chased and gave little show of desiring arrest, hanging certain to follow given two killings committed while stealing little more than a sack of mail, a few trinkets from passengers and ten dollars in cash carried by them. At a time when posses might have one man or twenty, they fled rapidly into forested lowlands, camping on a spit of land along the banks of Bear Lake, letting that huge expanse of water cover their back while a wide stream shielded one side. With only a rock ledge as a means to reach them without blundering through thick underbrush, Adam had studied for two days, deciding finally no arrest was possible until they chose to leave.

For an afternoon, he dragged and piled dead wood and brush in a dozen locations circling their hideout, arranging each so fire would cause more to drop and flare embers, leaving only one dark gap below the rocky trail. Using campfires rather than candles but following similar thinking, Pike lit each in order so through a moonless night the outlaws saw what they expected to see, a band of vengeful men pursuing them, blocking every way out. At sunrise, with Adam perched above their path, they emerged stealthily to find a US Marshal holding a shotgun behind them pleased to arrest and more pleased to watch them hang outside a courthouse in Boise a few weeks later.

Candles, he decided later, were preferable where wildfires could easily spread over miles of flat range, thinking spawned by a saloon owner in Montana where Pike sat working over plans to drive a murderous prospector from a narrow canyon retreat above a squalid town south of Bozeman. With the man's hideaway under scrutiny through field glasses, Adam idled away most of week hoping the killer would descend for supply or escape, the stone cabin giving no safe approach and Pike unwilling to take a rifle shot that would execute the man without trial.

Sitting over steak and potatoes, he listened absent-mindedly as the talkative bartender told yarns of events across the region, perking up when talk shifted to tales of spirits said to inhabit nearby mountains. A band of Arapaho preparing to raid the town, he learned, was wiped out one night in the canyon by a rockslide having no obvious cause. As did most Indians, Arapaho believed warriors dying at night could never rest and their souls would wander endlessly, a notion local folks took serious when hearing drums echoing late at night from the hillside.

Intrigued, encouraging the conversation, Pike felt the seed of an idea sprout full grown when a local man told of a mining camp setting up operations in the same ravine, six families totaling twenty people including wives and children who simply disappeared after a week of panning. Two men riding a wagon of supplies to them as planned returned telling everything there looked proper, even clothes hanging on lines seeming usual except no one was found nor any trace of them having left. Swearing the account true, the fellow claimed himself to have seen candles glowing on still nights from windows of shacks built by the prospectors, more than a dozen of them by his account.

Encouraged, his killer being from the area certain to know the tales, Adam popped up from his chair, dropped a coin on the table and skipped to their town's general store, his youthful exuberance at a keen idea on display. Buying up every candle in stock, a small can of lamp oil and several hundred feet of fuse cord, he slinked late that afternoon into the hills, spread the tapers in clusters with wicks amply soaked connected by line and as shadows descended, lit all in a succession of eerie shimmerings. Aiding the sensation by moving around while beating empty logs with a stick and chanting deep nonsensical phrases, he made the arrest at daybreak when his quarry bolted to escape the ghostly menace.

"Don' care if ya' hang me, Marshal, jes' don' let them haunts steal mah soul!" he'd demanded as Adam tied him over a mule in preparation for a trip to the gallows.

Arriving at a barren flat stretch opposite his first candle, Pike repeated his preparations, this last taper serving also to signal other brother Step in town below that he survived the day. Viewing lamps in windows across the distance, he knew the point was visible below and sat with high craggy peaks behind easily spotted even at night so the Sheriff, binoculars in hand, would be reassured all was well.

Bark barrier in place, Adam tied twine around the candle and tossed the roll over the side then shredded the supporting cord to quicken the burn before throwing his long run of rope over the side to a flat rock forty feet below sitting within dense brambles on all sides. Spotted while evading Hawkins men, his original use of the spot required an arduous trek around, no rope being handy then, but served well once reached, a wormhole carved through sharp, cutting branches letting him hide two days while nursing a bullet wound to the inner thigh that came inches from ending Hawkin's problem permanently.

Donning gloves, Pike rappelled hand over hand, bracing his feet while descending with a pause to turn, pleased seeing two haloes of light for a moment then only one. Reaching the base, he secured the rope end under a rock to hold it taut and rested on his haunches until it separated above and fell to the ground at his feet. Knowing the third light glimmered in Petra's mind as much as in his eyes, Adam wound and stored the coil then gathered dead twigs left during previous visits and built a small fire next to the tangled brush so no reflection off the cliff would be created.

With coffee boiling, Pike cut a tunnel almost through where thicket met cliff, withdrawing to gnaw on some jerky and enjoy a beverage while considering the day's doings. Nothing done so far, Pike knew without doubt, would convince or even suggest the idea to Petra of ending the chase, even the candles likely accomplishing no more than to sow uncertainty. Adam's ability to evade would add a level of complexity to the hunt but bring greater resolve rather than a weakened one while various apparent mistakes like rousing a deer and leaving broken twigs should serve to harden his confidence. Smirking grimly, knowing only the hardest surfaces shattered most completely, Pike prepared for the following day to be successful.

Chapter 9

Stretched out under total darkness, Petra stared upward, the overcast night resembling much the first after he buried Pa in a gully behind their cabin, hatred filling him for Marshal Pike, bankers and all manner of men who'd unfairly abused his father. Since childhood, Anton saw the man strive mightily to earn a living, first hauling timber from Oregon forests to the Columbia River for floating to the coast where shipbuilders bought masts and mills purchased to make lumber. Most those years, the youngster stayed weeks at a time in make-shift towns cared for by women with children of their own and favoring them over him most often using cash money paid by Pa. Never once did he recall a kindly moment then except when his father returned to rescue him.

When timbering dried up, Pa took to farming, settling them in a one room house erected by his own hand on land gained through a note issued from a local bank. The best years of his life, Petra loved working the earth alongside his father, harvesting and selling crops to buy supplies and learning from him to hunt game in the forest. Pa knowing everything needed for good living, Anton admired his way of teaching while allowing ample time for the boy to roam country around close to home, learning plants used to make medicine while discovering which would cause rash or burning itches.

When the Sheriff arrived with a foreclosure notice, young Petra had been stunned. Two hard years had been suffered, he knew, one from locust and the second from drought, but never had Pa mentioned it possible the bank might steal their home away nor, it seemed, was he aware that could happen. Folks often had difficult times without banks seizing land but, as his father told it, this time was different as theirs found someone willing to pay cash for their land at a price far better than the value of Demitri's loan.

Behind on the note, Pa had no choice but to pack Anton up, move them both to the hills where prospecting talk was strong and begin panning and digging. The start of several years the boy liked none, hating mountain cold and despairing at father's regular absences said to be needed to explore streams for gold which denied him the only company he wished to have. It had been an early autumn night after one extended stretch alone when Anton woke, thrilled to hear his father moving about and sprung from bed.

Lighting a lamp, he'd been surprised to see Pa wounded, a bloody bandage wrapped around one arm and more astonished to watch him secreting a canvas bank bag behind loose stones in the fireplace. Sitting his son down, Pa explained then his trips away weren't for prospecting but were spent robbing banks, evening the score while building a stash allowing them to soon leave the miserable winters and live in a decent home far to the south where harsh winds and snow could never bother them again. To Anton, embittered by treatment his Pa received from timber men paying little and thieving bankers able to steal homes of men and families, the plan made great sense, renewing love and respect he'd begun to believe was misplaced.

Then Marshal Pike arrived, gun in hand. Anton had seen him approach, sneaking weasel-like through trees unaware he was a lawman. Bursting in their rear door hearing shots being fired, he stood horrified as his father collapsed to the floor dead. For a moment, he stared then spotted both the badge and a pistol aimed at him, the intruder demanding to know where Pa kept the stolen money. Refusing to talk, Petra took a tongue-lashing, crumpling finally under unrelenting threats and revealed the hidden place holding his entire future.

As Pike packed away Pa's earnings, he pretended some concern, pushing to drag the youngster to a town nearby and dump him on folks there, finally accepting Anton's scorning refusals then leaving only after Anton ordered him out several times. Giving a final insult, the Marshal paused in their door claiming to dislike going when the young man had no provisions so dug a twenty dollar coin from a bank bag and spun it carelessly over the table where it bounced twice before landing on the floor. Enraged as Pike rode away, Anton let it sit for most the month following until, in a fit of dark, vengeful planning, he sewed it inside his saddlebag where it would remain until returned to the pocket of a dead Marshal.

Through undisturbed sleep, Petra lay unmoving as Pike worked toward a similar goal with less success, laying concealed within the bramble tunnel. Rest was called for but his mind wouldn't cease flitting between what was needful doing, important to many folks back home, and the senseless struggle forced on him. Troy would be waiting impatiently to talk over opening a new store in Ely, number seven for them and the first in Nevada showing promise for traffic by miners newly entering Schell Creek and Egan mountain ranges. Equally eager for a decision and supporting Troy's notion, Dane saw Ely as a long sought base for freighting toward California and serving communities ignored by railroads or abused by their exorbitant, monopoly rate charges.

Forcing his eyes to stay closed, Adam was unable to stay away from images of Dane as Morale's first real sheriff when their reform Town Council ousted him from that position. Wishful of reforming a tolerant, peaceful community into one more closely resembling their own intolerant variety of religious leanings, the Council savaged Hesseldorn to meet their ends and it wasn't until then did Pike learn of the enormous sacrifice Dane made in taking up service to the town by bowing to Adam's insistence, among others. Because many felt strongly he was the best and only man capable of securing their town during times when most outlaws throughout the Territory still believed Morale sheltered their kind, Dane willingly accepted a role he neither sought nor desired.

Pike, seeking his own redemption and intensely remorseful over pushing Dane to act against his own future interests, attempted to correct matters by installing him as head of their _Best Connected_ _Cartage_ operation, a plan accepted with little enthusiasm but much desperation. For most of three years, heading down that trail seemed an ill-fated effort with trade slow to pick up after the war and buffeted instantly by railroads arriving in major towns but Dane persevered. Relocating their operations from Morale to Denver, he won regular business while creating networks of relations with mining companies and ranchers across mountain and prairie communities that eventually grew to importance. Over time, he built from nothing steady profits shared between them while establishing their outfit as a respected name across the west, managing at the same time to marry, have three youngsters then be elected to Denver's Town Council

Despite his weariness, Adam chuckled silently at the winding, unpredictable trail which looked to be headed off a cliff but brought Dane to a position of prominence, pleased for his friend's happiness more than the earnings regularly deposited. Not all trails smoothed out so well, he knew, with several swirling through dozing thoughts until a frown hidden by darkness came to him, recalling that Morale's first saloon owner Mandano didn't take to Pike from the beginning or since.

Two bulls in one pasture never allowing for a calm situation, Adam worsened the situation from the first by firing a bullet through the saloon roof, a boisterous way of announcing his arrival to Hawkins whiskey swilling bunch, followed by shattering Mandano's expensive plate glass window the night after Pike's friend Santos was ambushed and killed. Never finding any good will afterwards, Adam remained uncomfortable when his efforts at amends were rebuffed leaving the pair to exist in Morale without words between them for months at a time while Pike remained regretful at his lack of ability to close the gap.

Waking without feeling rested, vague dreamy images of paths worn smooth leading away in all directions, Pike squirmed from under his protective cover, stretching as best he could without exposing himself above nature's waist high shield. Tossing a glance at the sky, he guessed dawn was still a ways off if such an event were to occur defiant of clouds blocking all stars from sight. Using time while coffee boiled, he hacked through remaining feet of bramble, completing his exit before sitting stiffly on a rock, chewing jerky and swallowing the hot liquid.

Taking out his paper and pencil, he jotted words on several pages then tore each loose and set them carefully in his shirt pocket. Anger flashed through for a moment as he stood, arms, back and legs protesting sleep taken on unforgiving ground not alongside a loving wife in a pleasing bed, before being forced out in favor of determined planning to end this chase promptly. Yanking the twine, he caught the candle as it fell from the surface above then coiled the string and returned them and his writing tools to his bag.

Straps of his pack looped around one foot, he pulled it behind while squeezing out the channel between bramble and cliff, slipping it on after emerging while scanning the country and mapping activity he hoped would induce Petra to call off his pursuit. Easing ahead more by feel and instinct than sight, he slipped quietly over carpets of needles dropped by high fir limbs until enough thin grey light permitted locating the desired spot where sure fingers quickly crafted a surprise for his adversary. Withdrawing, creating tracks not so obvious to arouse suspicion, he disappeared into the forest.

Thick clouds swirling snow from high elevations greeted Petra's awakening, a moment taken to orient himself followed by slow morning movements to boil coffee. Disdaining breakfast, he drank from a beaten tin mug carried for years and gnawed on dried meat, plotting a means of luring Marshal to a satisfying final resting place, ignoring small knots of doubt grabbing at him. Find his prey, first, then be positioned for the only shot needed demanded new thinking, Pike having shown greater agility in the wild than expected. Musing over several notions as he stowed his gear, Anton pondered the lights from the night before with bemused scorn.

If Marshal expected a seasoned hunter to run off to those points, Petra would teach a lesson about infantile tricks. Eyes flicking between the three positions, he dismissed each one in order, deciding as dim light rose in the canyon on a narrow path taking him to none of them, certain his quarry would avoid them as well. Walking slow, rifle in hand and horse trailing, Anton scouted the trail until arriving at a rivulet flowing from above where he paused to allow his mount to drink at a swirling pool and bent to fill his canteen before kneeling, cupping his hands and sipping from the cool spring himself.

Straightening, he surveyed the watercourse up and down, considering using it as a route to a short peak giving view of the area. Liking this approach, he shifted to his toes, rising to full height for a clearer view, barely hearing a zinging sound before feeling his hat snatched from his head followed by a dull thud. Flinching, Petra rolled, shifted and leveled his rifle on...nothing. Tall pines swaying in the wind, rocks and increasingly large snowflakes were all he saw in any direction.

Inching back warily, he stooped behind the tree that had been nearest, a quick glance enough to see an arrow piercing his hat pinning it deep into the wood. Petra scanned every foot of land to where the arrow had been fired to no avail, Pike moving too quickly after shooting to be spotted now. Reaching around, he grasped the shaft, snapping it and pulled it to him, incensed Marshal would try to blame a killing on Indians instead of taking responsibility himself, sneering also at his inability to use a bow for proper effect.

Yanking his hat free, Petra smashed it to his head, seeing then a flutter of white drifting away. A frozen moment passed as he stared before he stretched to snag the paper, turning it over in his hands and reading,

'AP

Could have been in your ear.

AP'

Beads of perspiration formed under his hat, trickled down his neck and across his chest as Petra glared at the words, hating most his realization that Pike and he shared initials, fighting off a shudder at understanding the arrow had not missed its target. Petra scrunched lower under bushy shelter, stomach wrenching over a clear shot allowed without Anton even aware of his presence until, nostrils flaring, his resolve hardened. He would locate Marshal, showing what happens when an opportunity is passed by in favor of taunts by killing him.

'No one mocks Petra' he thought as he eased toward his horse, 'and those trying pay with their life.' Reaching between scrub brush, Anton released the reins, crab-walking by the animal then jumped into undergrowth past the trail. Confident of his cover, he found a way through the trees, keeping the path to his left while approaching a wide ledge offering good view of the area. Moving warily, emotions firmly under control and concentration high, Petra arrived finally to where the track bent out of sight around a low growing spruce.

Worming his way along the ground, he stretched out below dense, dead leaves obscuring his position where he could follow the trail as it wound upward. Studying, a pinging instinct alerted him of something amiss he wasn't seeing so he let his eyes roam freely, struggling to find the missing hint of trouble. More cautious than before, Petra remained still, unwilling to continue on until his mind knew what his senses told, laying for most of an hour listening to wind whistle through trees overhead.

Patience rewards the patient, he reminded himself, when a small twig quivered and sounds of a small animal scuffling through the brush reached his ears. Moving only his eyes, he watched a doe rabbit emerge, hopping twice over clear ground stop at the edge of a pine bough laying across the trail. Nose wrinkling, the animal turned its head, hesitated then changed directions, skirting the limb completely before disappearing under a thistle.

Anton frowned. Knowing animals don't act such a way without cause, he focused tightly on the branch, spotting then the source of his discomfort. Not broken as by wind or weather, the end had been sliced by a blade then tattered to appear natural so likely placed for a purpose. Smiling grimly, he snaked a long stick from beneath fallen needles and reaching with it snagged the disfigured piece of tree, casting it away to reveal a cut in the rock nearly two feet wide and several deep, sufficient that a man or horse stepping there unaware would certainly suffer a broken leg or worse.

Disgusted, Petra snorted, unbelieving Marshal thought so little of him to try traps or, he smiled, feared him so much that resorting to trickery was the only answer he had. Taking a long look up and around, Anton slid from his position, moving hastily past the hole to fresh cover using the stick to poke beneath fallen leaves and twigs as he scouted, leaving behind his horse to limit a chance sighting.

A partial boot print left fresh in the dirt followed closely by an inch of moss torn loose from a rock showed a few feet past the tree. Scanning ahead, he considered Pike knowing of the outcropping above, perhaps could be waiting there. A hopeful snicker escaped, Petra having used that point before recalled it being reached through a low ravine which would give him full sight of the area before being seen. Guessing Marshal had lost Anton's trail, he figured they both needed higher ground to locate the other, allowing his own approach to create the perfect ambush that would end the pursuit.

Shifting, Petra stirred a pile of leaves, dislodging a peg and releasing a looped rope into the air. Hunching, he held motionless, eyes widened at the branch quaking ten feet above his head, picturing for a second swaying upside down. Rage tore through him over a second snare as he quaked, mixed spasms of anxiety and irritation causing trembles over not having thought of the possibility replaced instantly by full understanding. Afraid of being found, unable to match Petra's skill, Pike was working for an easy kill, shooting a man hanging by his feet, unable to win the contest any other way.

Derision choked him. Marshal Adam Pike, so widely touted for hunting down outlaws, capturing killers and thieves, had no ability useful against one as capable as Petra. Spitting, he clamped an iron hand over fury engulfing him until, clear headed, he stepped onto an exposed flat rock, appraising the trail. Wary of a third trap, Petra swept the stick in a wide circle, knocking aside needles, pebbles and sticks able to hide another snare.

Instinct more than ears heard the slight whisper different than breezes brought, Anton flopping down as a long branch swept in, swatting the back of his head, a spurt of blood shooting out over the rock where he landed. Stunned, he laid a moment before rolling into brown grasses growing up around, one hand grabbing his scalp. Sticky warmth oozed between fingers as he glowered at the limb still undulating from tension removed abruptly, furiously eyeing smaller branches chopped down to sharp, pointed ends meant to brutally savage his face and head.

Panting painfully, he tried to rise to one knee as stars circled. Relaxing back to the ground, Anton gazed around, fearful of moving in any direction lest another deadly trap waited. He wiped his hand on the ground then over his pant leg staring at blood, his blood, left behind. He had never been shot or cut, never bled at the hand of one he hunted. Overcome by hateful wrath, he leapt up, bouncing once off the rock, dashing uphill in a frenzied, staggering run, head low until he lunged into the ravine.

Safe, knowing well none could see to shoot over the top without exposing themselves first, he lay, heart pounding, eyes flashing over every inch of ground ahead. Perspiration soaking his shirt, Petra fought nauseous waves, dismissing them as caused by the tree branch unable to recognize fear never before felt. Gradually, wobbly legs firming, confidence returned as he edged forward, a grim, malicious sneer twisting his face as he pictured the helpless Marshal caught in Petra's trap.

Above and behind, a rifle barked, the sharp report echoing as the bullet tore overhead not close to where he lay. Smirking, Anton stared at leaden skies, shielded by rock from any shot Pike could take, snidely refusing to reveal his position as was surely wanted. Inching onward, a low buzz rose in his ears dragging his eyes to a crushed lump of beehive laying mere feet from his face.

Petra's face whitened as a swarm of insects swirled out, slowed by cold air but teeming angrily despite it. Smoothly at first then panicked, he withdrew, slapping at the first sting on his arm, jumping to his feet and spinning while crushing a second insect piercing the back of his hand. Discarding care in face of a deadly onslaught, he jumped a bush, landing on an incline and tumbled, skidding to a rough halt with one leg bent awkwardly beneath him, his hand and arm swelling rapidly.

Flexing fingers burning intensely, his bicep throbbing under his shirt, Anton gawked at the limb shattered by the Marshal's shot loosing the hive from its hold twenty feet above ground. He blinked at the sight disbelievingly. It was not possible, he thought, that Pike knew a beehive hung there; just luck for him to spot it, making an impossible shot to snap it off.

Tremors wracked him as breathing became labored. Couldn't have known either, Anton gasped, of his poor reaction to stings of any sort, a fact only learned himself a few years back. More luck in one minute than any man could rightfully deserve, luck unable to continue but enough to force Petra from the chase. He needed water and food, both required to combat the toxic effect of bee poison coursing in his system and needed it prompt.

Eyes alert for anything flying, he crawled to the path, each push off his right leg sending yaps of pain until he scrambled over the edge. Limping between trees, labored breaths exploding from his lungs, he slowly worked his way to where he'd left the horse, steadying himself beside it slurping desperately from a canteen held in one hand while scouring saddlebags for dried meat with the other. Alternating long swallows of fresh water with frantic chewing of meat, Petra glared at his swollen hand, his heart racing as he felt mind numbing itching spread up his arm.

Long minutes passed. Dizziness enveloped him enhanced by a dazed, confusing dread of dying from an insect sting before finishing his work. Adrenaline surging at the thought, he drained the canteen then struggled into his saddle, spurring the horse viciously toward the spring near his campsite, holding the reins firmly until they crossed the stream where he threw himself to the ground, face immersed in the cold water as he drank deeply. Feeling the effects waning, he raised to his knees, grimacing as the bruised leg banged a rock, leaning then to fill the canteen and spying a cluster of wild onions and herbs useful in making a poultice.

Grabbing handfuls, Petra stuffed his pockets with no thought but to find a secure place where a fire wouldn't be seen, where he could recover well enough to resume pursuit. Looking around, he saw a hollowed tree facing south away from the trail and led his horse to it, picketing the animal a few dozen steps away over a patch of grass then built a careless mound of sticks in the cavity and lit it. Crushing the plants, he dropped them in a pan, added water and set it to boil.

Rasping as he walked, he retrieved his saddlebags and withdrew thick wads of bandaging cloths. Sitting roughly, he scooped mush from the pot in folded rags, jamming the first under his shirt over the swelled arm while pressing another tight against his hand. Said to be good for drawing poison out, he feverishly tried to recall having used it or seeing it done but could not, hoping only tales proved truthful while taking repeated long swallows of water to ease his parched, tight throat.

Above, watching through his field glasses, Pike's brow furrowed. Finding the hive had been an act of grace aided by skillful shooting, a thin branch clipped clean through at sixty yards, but however astonished Petra was that Pike could make that shot Adam was not, having made many more difficult ones. Wishful of keeping Petra off the ledge where this entire end of the canyon could be seen and was impossible to approach unnoticed, he felt sure few men were so determined that clawing by swarming angry bees seemed sensible however sluggish the weather made them.

But Petra's reaction puzzled. Frowning, Adam studied Anton from the bowl of the huge dead aspen, clearly seeing his face flushed and watched him prepare some concoction, applying it to his arm and hand. 'Bee stings?' Pike wondered, deciding nothing else explained the chaotic behavior exhibited when Petra abandoned the ravine before musing on how poorly Petra might react to more of the same.

Chewing some jerky, Adam rolled his thinking over the notion, finally discarding it with a smirk, the idea of bagging up a hive of half-dormant bees appealing little and, more important, knowing men allergic to stings could die from them and such was contrary to his purpose. If wishful of making Petra dead, he'd just take any of the shots open to him and settle the matter for certain. Returning to plan, he scanned the woods around Anton's camp, selecting an approach suitable and stood, strolling casually by majestic evergreens swaying in afternoon breezes.

Circling lower, Pike paused behind a copse of small shrubs, scraping from a rock sitting there a handful of wet brownish moss, slicing it fine before storing it within a small bag in his pack. A Nez Perce medicine man told him of its special properties to cleanse a man's insides thoroughly when boiled and drank without, Adam recalled, suggesting its use in circumstances such as these. Resuming a steady gait towards Petra's location, he wondered what became of that shrewd, wrinkled old man, sad to conclude his days were likely over.

They'd met during a bitter winter storm, Pike discovering a cave to use for shelter that served a same purpose for the Indian. Across three days, they talked past little familiarity of words, the fellow's English being better by far than Adam's Nez Perce, sharing stories of their people. Pike gloried to learn ways of his kind and some of their tongue while striving to explain to the old warrior why white men and their government so seldom honored agreements signed.

An exile now, he'd been central in persuading the Shapatin, a large band of his tribe, to accept sale of their land under an 1863 treaty. Violated almost immediately by white settlers and soldiers alike, severe deprivation followed for them and disgrace was heaped on him for poor guidance given. Walking alone since, he claimed to have traveled endlessly across the Rocky Mountains seeking punishment from his gods suited to his crime of trusting whites, a goal Pike was little help in achieving.

Nestled in a gnarled tree hidden by branches intertwined like an old man's morning hair, Adam watched Petra by naked eye having no need for field glasses at thirty yards distant to observe what was needful knowing. Pack set below on the ground and rifle laying across his lap half aimed, he heard other brother Step's saying, '...first time you get a clear shot...'. Giving the thought a moment's reflection, he discarded it again, wanting still to end this without killing while admitting chances of doing so were little better than drawing a royal flush in a ten handed poker game.

He considered simply walking down there as he had so many times when pursuing outlaws like a phantom rising and declaring their arrest, most commonly successful if only by surprise and a shotgun or pistol already leveled. Here, no arrest could be announced leaving Petra free choice to fight or not with neither satisfactory, gunplay being what Adam sought to avoid while leaving Anton an option to return another time. To win this game, his adversary had to be vanquished, alive but with no hope remaining to support later scheming.

Fighting men rarely surrender and only then if their acceptance of defeat is complete, at least between their ears. Petra had to believe, to know in the deepest, unreachable recesses of his mind that further struggle was both futile and fatal, willing to trade a decade of hatred for his life. Frowning, Pike knew their final confrontation could include no words like these, that most were able to twist thoughts in many ways so long as they remained unvoiced but once heard aloud would become truth impossible to live with. Absolute, total surrender was necessary; nothing in Petra's manner suggested he was there yet.

Adam exhaled quietly, knowing a second night on hard ground would be required before the man might concede, could feel the utterly dark hopelessness demanded to avoid bloodshed. Scrutinizing the camp, he watched with detached curiosity as Petra prepared a second application for his stings, Ma always liking witch hazel for that purpose. Learned from Menominee Indians traveling out of Wisconsin, she'd packed some for his leaving as none grew in the West, a supply he'd exhausted so was forced to use damp tobacco to reduce swelling and itches. Setting the question aside, chuckling at perhaps asking Anton about his treatment when they spoke, Pike remained curious over the method used.

Needful of making preparations, he finally eased from his post, slipping away with pack in hand to a spot out of sight from Petra's camp and nearly above Angela's cave. Glancing up, he gauged boiling clouds made the afternoon dim enough for signals so withdrew the rescued candle, lit it using one hand to block light from escaping toward town. Confident no wind would snuff the fire, he dropped his hand, returned it to shield the wick then repeated the motion twice more hoping Step would be attentive earlier than expected.

Holding his taper aside, Adam narrowed his gaze on the town below believing his brother or one assigned by him had the mountain under observation, seeing then a lamp flicker once and again. A slight smile crossed his face as they exchanged brief messages in a way devised first by other brother Mitchell when Adam was a youngster. Using mirrors in daytime and fire, candles or even a match after dark, they employed Morse code but lacking vowels, always starting with a single flash if Mitchell was sending, two by Step or three for Adam mastering simple, effective and quick communications completely meaningless to any but themselves.

Grunting, Step's last sending causing wonder on how much more careful his brother thought he could be, Pike doused the flame and stored his candle before retreating back to Petra's camp. Settling in his perch again, he reviewed the scene noting Anton was seeming a mite more spry having unsaddled his horse and deepened a sleeping spot behind the hollow tree. Seeing coffee set to boil aggravated Pike some as there would be none for him this night as he patiently waited for darkening skies to send Petra to sleep.

His path down already chosen for ease of passage in little light, Adam found with his eyes a long, slender limb lying on the ground suitable to his need, studied every detail of the camp while anticipating possible, if unlikely, disruptions to each action planned. Taking the sack of moss from his pack, he tucked it into a vest pocket then switched from boots to moccasins and sat until sure Petra was asleep under blankets in the shadows. Easing to the ground, he laid his pack and rifle aside, flicked the thongs off both pistols and took up the branch then inched ahead, testing every footstep before shifting his weight.

Reaching a deadfall only feet from embers glowing meekly, he kneeled, reaching with the stick to snag Petra's coffee pot set to cool, as it had been the night before, a foot from the fire. Habits of men unrealized were, to Adam, a regular tool as few recognized their number, kind or how each could bring betrayal. Scarcely breathing, any unfamiliar noise able to arouse the slumbering man or alert his horse, Pike set the branch through the container handle, raising it slightly and brought it back to him.

Placing a hand close first checking for heat, Pike removed the top then slipped the bag from his pocket, dumping inches of shredded moss inside. Setting the lid in place, he took from his shirt pocket a second note, poked it over a sharp nub on the limb before returning the vessel to its starting position. Exhaling, Adam smirked through the dark, edging back several feet to where he could lay the branch and message behind Petra's saddle followed by a stealthy retreat, recovering his pack and rifle while heading to a resting spot chosen earlier.

Chapter 10

Petra woke instantly alert to grey skies telling of a sun already up if hidden, anxiety riding within. His intent had been to rise early and begin hunting, to complete his mission by killing Marshal this day. Forehead wrinkled, eyes flickering angrily, he slipped from beneath warm blankets then gasped at his bruised knee screaming after catching a concealed root.

Inhaling deeply, he lay a second longer as the pain subsided, unconsciously scratching over the swelling in his hand becoming aware it was less so than before. Feeling his arm, he noted the poultice worked there also, ending the throbbing while leaving only a slight itching sensation. Squirming to sit, he shoved into his boots and took up his hat, setting it on his head before half standing, peering over the campsite and past into forest cut by broken trees and rock falls. Head swiveling, he saw no movement and heard nothing to bring alarm, morning noises creaking through undergrowth all normal so slipped from his sleeping area, poking twigs into embers to raise only enough flame to boil coffee.

Gathering blankets while water heated, Petra settled in a darkened corner until smells of coffee reached him, quickly snatching the pot from the fire to fill a cup. Sitting again and gnawing dried meat, staring through the gloom, he drank deeply just as an acrid aroma assaulted his nose, head snapping forward when he spit the liquid to the ground while a loud gagging noise erupted. Glaring at the cup, he sniffed suspiciously while feeling his tongue prickling sharply then slapped the cooking tin, dumping its contents. Fingering the steaming pile, he felt the moss, a retching sensation rising from deep within as he angrily hurled the pot and cup into the forest.

Squatting, Anton scowled, morning light brighter than recent creating dim outlines. He snarled, unbelieving Marshal found his camp but not able to locate Petra, artfully concealed as he was, resorted to poison, unable to confront. Scorn simmered, feeling men not capable of facing their own certain death unworthy, Petra eased to his gear alert to the woods surrounding and hoisted his saddle, stopping midway staring at a flapping shred of white on a branch not present the day prior.

Carelessly dropping the load, he hopped, landing alongside thick brush, snatching the note from its holder. Raging, he read,

'AP

Enjoy your coffee?

AP'

Wadding the paper viciously, he cast it aside, lowering to his heels while surveying the country. Taunts were ways of weak men, he believed, snorting at Pike, eyes relentlessly searching higher ground for any sign of his enemy. Finding nothing, seeing no tracks leading to camp or from it, Petra growled hatefully, determined to find Marshal this day and serve vengeance on him.

Certain none could see, he slapped his bags and saddle to the horse, mindlessly tying his bedroll behind. Grabbing his canteen, he took a long swallow, hoping to wash his mouth free of bitter tastes left by the soured coffee before snaking to the stream to refill it. Shielded by twisted branches, he loosened the cap and laid it to catch cool flowing water, shaking away a small spider crawling onto his still itching hand. Raising the container, Petra set the cap in place as the water carrier was savagely torn from his grasp, an echoing rifle shot filling his ears.

Diving, he rolled behind a boulder, anxiously scanning the mountainside, face darting in every direction quickly returned to watching water bubble out a hole in his canteen. Staring, eyes wide, breeze chilled sweat on his neck, his arms quivered as he clutched his rifle, knuckles white.

A bullet whined. Petra's canteen kicked high, landing on rocks yards distant, the sound of Pike's gun bouncing off stone faces shattering Petra's calm. Squirreling himself deep into fallen leaves, Anton grimaced, face pale, hands shaking, knowing fear now by its proper name. Scarcely able to breathe, his gaze flicked to the horse, saddled and ready only a few feet away. A short dash, he could be on its back, riding from these cursed hills.

'Marshal is lucky' he thought, 'too lucky. Beehive was luck. Finding girl was luck.' Exhaling slow, Anton struggled to regain control, nerves twanged by every sound and wind scraped branch. His mind galloped. 'Petra not lucky, was never lucky. Petra is good, needs no luck but cannot fight luck.'

Hatred fought caution. Anton's instinct for survival enveloped his anger, enclosing it firmly. Gaze resting on his saddlebag, a grim smile stretched thin lips. 'Coin is still there.' he remembered, 'Marshal coin will call Petra back to finish later.' Recalling all the times he switched bags, how each change meant removing that coin and sewing it safely away again, his nostrils flared. 'Is no fighting Pike luck. Petra will come back, finish then.'

Decision made, Anton pivoted, judging the distance while surveying the landscape. Slightly over his left shoulder, a band of bright sun burst through thinning clouds, illuminating a swath of brush. Petra stared, gasping, seeing Pa shaped by shadows, slumping dead against their cabin wall, a pinprick a light squared exactly where he'd been shot.

Rage blew apart caution. 'Today Marshal must die!' his mind screeched, his body responding with a scurried leap from cover behind trees to a shallow between two boulders. Face contorted, Petra bared his teeth defiantly upwards, seeking from each inch of bramble, brush and forest a single hint, one clue where Pike hid from him. Keen hunter's sense tingled proof his quarry was as close on the ground as his father's visage was in mind, all his thinking on stealing from Marshal what Pike stole from Pa, just as Pa stole from banks which stole his land, home and hope.

Inching forward, Anton arrived at a wide flat of stone, scanning it carefully. Above, the entire mountain was in view under skies lighter than before while past a waist tall rock at the ridgeline open brown prairie showed. Thirty feet wide, the far side offered complete protection from anyone overhead. He glanced back to his horse, furiously choosing to leave the animal, to stalk Marshal on foot, to hunt as he did when young then kill as done for years, quickly and surely. Studying the hillside, he felt a prickling sensation, halting movement until recognizing what was seen.

Upslope, forty yards or less, a profile barely rose above a stony elevation. Chin quivering, Petra's eyes narrowed, realizing abruptly the outline of a hat with a gun barrel angling up from the place Pike cowered. Snarling, Anton worked his gaze back from the spot, identifying a safe path beneath towering pines that would bring him behind the Marshal. Silently slithering, he passed into protective trees, each move carefully considered to raise no noise, ascending inches at a time closer to his target.

Minutes past as Petra ducked under dancing barren branches among tangles of brush, peering out gingerly to assure himself Pike had not moved. Reaching an outcropping a dozen feet above his quarry's outpost, he raised his rifle. Aiming at the back of Marshal's head, Anton exhaled, squeezed the trigger then halted, head cocked.

The hat was wrong, not the same. Uncertain, rifle lowered, he stared, remembering a new, well shaped one Pike wore the previous days in town. Finding a rock, wary of traps and tricks, he tossed it, knocking the head gear from its position without reaction. Edging around, he viewed it lying in weeds, a battered old hat long abandoned, what seemed below to be a gun barrel revealed to be only a branch. Neck swiveling, he considered stories telling of many men dying in this stretch of mountain, believing then the hat was testimony of yet another murdered by Marshal during battles over control of this land.

Leaning back, Petra peeked past forest covering for views of the area, frustrated. Nothing could be seen past heavy growth, aggravating him further. Open sight needed, he began worming down, the small clearing he crossed giving the expansive vista needed with little exposure for himself. Taking no chances, Anton slipped from tree to bush to rock, coming ever closer to a position permitting him to find his hated nemesis, dropping finally from behind a broken stump to the flat, crouching under cover of tumbled stones, examining the area.

Moving soundlessly, he watched shadows created by spotty sun emerging then disappearing, dancing contours unwilling to settle long enough for clarity. Mind tumbling, battling to contain fear driven anger shaking every muscle, he skirted a dry wash running to unbroken ground below, rising to his full height alongside the boulder sitting at the cliff's edge. Looking over, Petra exploded in disbelief, seeing Morale spread out below bathed in morning light.

Gaping unbelievably at the town, Petra shifted his gaze slightly left, spotting the hollow where he laid waiting for Marshal to come rescue his girl and somewhat lower, the grassy flat outside the cave where she was held. He shook his head almost unmovingly realizing the entire two days of chase hadn't covered a mile along the ridgeline.

He'd been led to this place, _led_! Like a schoolchild or dumb farm animal, Anton Petra had been _led_. But why? Considering, kneeling alongside the massive round stone, he could find no answer. 'Why hadn't Marshal taken a shot?' he asked, twitching, now feeling only fear undisguised.

Pike watched, sensing the uncertainty then eased over a downed tree trunk, dropping lightly to the ground. A whispered scrape of moccasin froze Petra, his shoulders hunched high against a shot in the back he knew was coming but did not.

"Pretty little town, isn't it?" Adam observed conversationally, drawing no response. "Is what I fought for all these years, that little town."

Waiting, Anton giving no sign of hearing, Pike continued, "Best to do now, Anton, is lay that rifle careful to the ground and turn to face me."

"Why?" Petra growled, "So you can shoot Petra in front and claim fair killing?"

Pike sighed quietly. "Don't intend for any shooting, Anton. If was my thinking, I'd four or five clean shots already. Back when I spooked that buck, then when I speared your hat with the arrow. Could have done it when I punched a hole in your canteen or even last night while sneaking about your camp. Could have blown you off this ledge only a minute ago, for that matter. All I'm wishful doing is talk."

For a second, Petra pictured throwing himself to one side, rolling and firing, taking Marshal by surprise and finishing his work but saw no chance of winning, certain a gun was already aimed. Staring at clouds over the horizon, heart pounding, he knew all Pike said was true. If murder was intended, he would have done it before. Slowly he held the rifle out to one side, hesitating a last moment before releasing it then swiveling his reptilian head, moving no other parts.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Marshal leaning slightly against a tree with hands empty but poised over those hated twin pistols only a blink away from shooting. Stomach twisted, his best chance missed, Petra eased around, palms down and wide but kept low.

"Talk about what?" he hissed, lidded eyes flickering.

Adam stared at the man blankly. "Willing to have you climb back on your horse and ride west, never coming back." he answered, hearing words coming out more harshly than was wanted. "Will have to follow, natural, for a time so if you turn around, I'll shoot to kill without thought."

The hunter glared at Pike, Adam almost seeing a split tongue flicking, testing the air for truth. With a guttural laugh, Anton snapped, "You trust Petra not come back?"

Pike nodded. "All known of you tells you're a man of honor. Look at me direct and tell me you're gone for good, I'll accept that."

Petra's lip curled, Marshal maybe being a greater fool than expected, listening then as Adam went on. "Know as well, should you return or kill me up here, there's a passel of men down below waiting for you and no good way off this ridge but the way we came up. Only one choice there is unless you like the notion of dying today."

"Like you killed Pa." the man spat, rising rage driving fear out as his arms drifted to his side.

"We both know there was no helping that, Anton." Adam answered softly. "If arrested, he knew he'd hang. Seems he wasn't wishful for that so made a choice."

Nostrils flaring, Petra's jaw tightened. "Didn't have to be shot dead."

"Doesn't work that way, you know that. Man goes to slapping iron, he or the other are going to die every time. Just how it is."

The two men stared wordlessly at each other for over a minute, Petra calculating value of living to fight another day while Adam felt a glimmering of hope killing could be avoided. Finally, Anton said blandly, "You let Petra just ride off."

Pike nodded. "But if you're still thinking of drawing against me, there's one question needful of answering before you do."

Thin brows furrowing, Petra looked at Adam warily. "What's that?"

Giving a small shrug, hoping mention of money waiting to be claimed might clinch the deal, Pike replied, "The name of your bank in San Francisco."

Sneering, Petra's eyes narrowed. "So you can steal Petra earnings!" he barked.

"Don't want your money, Anton." Pike laughed, surprising both men, "Have all I need and more than am knowing how to spend, every dime earned honest. Would hate, tho' to see California or some bank snatch yours as surely will when unclaimed so unless you've kin, will have to make arrangements."

Instantly, Adam felt heat radiating from Petra, believing it from talk reminding of Pike's success and knew he failed for using careless words boastfully.

Anton heard nothing, saw nothing except Pa, his only family, laying dead.

"Have no kin, you know that." Anton answered quietly giving Pike a final spike of hopefulness, adding after a pause, "Bank information is in my bags but you..." yanking at his pistol in mid-sentence.

Adam drew at the flash in Petra's eyes, firing once, his bullet driving Petra to sit on the boulder behind, his own gun not yet clearing leather.

Anguished and astonished, Petra glared at Pike wide-eyed. "They said you were fast, Marshal. Never said that fast." he gurgled, perspiration pouring from his forehead as blood gushed from under fingers clenching his chest. With a final heave, Anton jerked his gun free, willing his arm to lift as Adam's second shot smashed him back, the gun clinking musically as it fell.

Pike straightened. "They most likely did, Anton." he told the dead man, "Reckon you maybe should have listened better."

Walking across, Adam loosed Petra's holster then picked the body up by his buckle, sliding the gun belt free before releasing him, arms and legs splayed wide over the stone. Picking up the abandoned rifle and unused six-gun, he holstered the pistol then set all aside before walking heavily uphill to find Petra's horse.

Picketed only yards away, Adam found it easily, checking first Petra's saddlebags, one holding nothing but usual supply so dug deep in the other, locating the bank information as said. Glancing through entries in a ledger, Pike frowned.

"Men paid much for killing, Anton, and far more often than we believed." he said aloud, flipping to a final page where the killer had totaled his deposits, bringing a low whistle from Pike at the sizable fortune now ownerless.

Stashing the papers back where they'd been, Adam brought the horse to the clearing, spreading Petra's oilskin poncho and blanket over the saddle wishful of not ruining good leather with blood stains. Bending over the body, he lifted careful not to sully his own clothes either then laid it over the animal's back. With deft, practiced moves, he bound Petra's feet to one stirrup and hands to the other before gathering his own Winchester and pack from where he stowed them. Switching back to his miner boots, stuffing the moccasins into his pack with more anger than seemed proper, he shrugged into the straps then picked up Petra's weapons.

Leading the horse west, he teased their way past sweeping limbs through underbrush slapping his thighs. Twenty five yards lower, he halted at the edge of a long rock slide, studying a best way down. His first time, given no time for thought by Hawkins men chasing close behind, he'd simply ridden to the edge and slalomed, his horse's haunch atop roaring stone until feet hit a solid place at the bottom and they leapt away. The two pursuers, either being less capable or less lucky, were left under hundreds of tons of rock alongside carcasses of mounts deserving better.

Keeping to the edge, miner boots giving traction, he kept firm grip on the reins, knowing Petra's horse would like nothing of their footing. Moving a few feet at time then resting while rocks underfoot settled, Adam worked his way cautiously, arriving near the end where firm earth met their chaotic path and stepped off. Pausing for a long swallow from his canteen, Pike let his breathing return to normal while stretching legs tightened by an hour of careful walking and modestly pleased to see skies growing lighter, the grey overcast thinning.

A few minutes later, he strode around the bend of the mountain, spying Step where expected. Seeing his brother spot him, Adam relaxed his pace some until Step arrived, Pike's horse trailing. Pulling up and handing Adam the reins, Step said nothing until Pike swung into the saddle.

"Couldn't persuade?" he asked sadly, understanding how Adam had felt but, speaking honest, not surprised or sorry by the result

Pike shook his head. "Came close." he answered, "Just not close enough." spurring to a canter.

Swinging toward town after the trail crossed the river, Adam saw three riders headed their way, recognizing two of Step's deputies behind with John Wells leading, comforted to have men such as these on his side then slowed as a throng of horsemen began to emerge from beyond the tall outcropping, a few others trotting as well down the trail leading toward Angela's cave. Slowing to a stop, Adam's eyes widened, counting near forty men, cocking his head at Step as they approached.

His brother shrugged. "Told a couple we'd be looking tomorrow morning for help." he offered, failing to hide a smirk cutting his face open. "Seems some weren't so willing to wait."

Sitting, Pike felt heaviness within that any of these men might have been hurt or killed coming to his aid before smiling faces trotting to a stop close to him relieved him of that burden falsely carried. A dozen riders from the 5PL and their foreman Dave Camp sat to one side jovially. Swinging his horse near, Camp gave Pike a lopsided grin.

"Boys tried telling they'd rather slog out cow ponds and bale hay in the rain then take a peaceful ride to the mountains to help a friend, Adam, but somehow a bunch tagged along this morning." he said as Pike nodded, swallowing a choking sensation, distracted then as Mack Judson, who'd recruited Pike in the Conyers chase, moved up. Leading ten or more _Oxbar_ hands, some Pike knew well and others barely met, Mack stuck out his hand.

" _Oxbar_ ain't bein' lef' out, Adam, feelin' you as much one of us as any." he said giving a firm shake that said more than even his words, "And needin' you as we do to work them Army contracts for next year's delivery of beeves."

Swallowing hard, Adam could say nothing, nodding through a sideways smile as the throng near Judson separated. Bulling his way past the horses, Mandano pushed forward, a contingent of townsmen behind, each with a story known to Adam and many he helped at some time or other. Mickey Bouchard, who rode most of a month as a twelve year old to Morale with a plea for Marshal Pike's help freeing his grandfather falsely imprisoned for burning down a cathouse west of Casper was there, beaming. Frank Jensen, more loyal a man than Adam ever knew, was also and wearing a belt gun for the first time in all the years since Pike found him lying on the Yampa Plateau of Utah.

Beside Jensen, Clint Sola sat quietly, the taciturn owner of Morale's stage operation and Pike's most vocal critic since Adam spearheaded efforts to bring a rail spur to town and constant opponent in all matters of the town's running. Catching Clint's eye, Pike nodded, surprised at a small smile received from one who never showed such and more when Sola gave a wink before wheeling his horse around. Of the others, Adam recalled many days debating, arguing or agreeing on some petty issue or another, usually counting few as colleagues but overwhelmed now, seeing them here.

"Sheriff said you'd a plan to bring 'im back alive" Mandano said, glancing at the draped body whose two pistol holes told all needful then back to meet Adam's gaze, "an' we respected your thinkin' for a day." Swiveling in his saddle for a look across those surrounding him, he faced Pike again, adding, "Seems patience wore thin mighty quick, them knowin' one of ours might use some help."

"Am grateful." Adam squeaked, staring into the sky to keep moisture in his eyes from showing, then offering a shake to one he'd never considered a friend.

Taking Pike's hand in his own large paw, Mandano nodded, lip twitching upward in what passed as a smile. "Folks all know, Pike, you made our town real, made our dreams real too, an' how it cost you. Without what you'd done, none here would have work or peaceful days an' they's grateful, too."

Adam pressed his lips together, jaw clenched as he fought to say what wouldn't come, finally settling for, "Good words, Mandano, and I'm appreciative of hearing."

With a bob of his head, he let loose Mandano's strong clasp, hearing then the man mutter with a rumbling chuckle, "Don' get used to it, Pike, likely never'll happen again." continuing with eyebrows raised, "Course, could be iffen you stop by with ideas for a new saloon I'm wanting to open down in that town of Larskpur you started down past Denver."

Laughing, Adam waggled his head as Step shuffled his horse around. "We wishful of talking all day or should we head in, get some work done?" he asked no one, setting his horse to a trot while the company of men fell in around either side and behind in classic protective formation. Nearing town, Pike watched as small groups broke off throwing waves as they did before he swept off toward Big Injun's livery while Step led his deputies to the Sheriff's office.

Walking the horses into the shadowed interior, he halted, sliding from the saddle while glancing around the seemingly empty building, still trembling from the reception received. Stooping, Pike untied Petra's hands and feet then grabbed the body, tossing it unceremoniously into the back of Big Injun's wagon, the Ute suddenly looming over him. One of the largest men Adam ever met, by far the biggest Indian and dwarfing Pike in height and girth, Big Injun had buried every person dying in Morale since before Pike first arrived.

"Unknown outlaw?" he grunted, assuming their usual graveyard label would apply.

Adam shook his head, muttering, "No." as he took the near empty pad from his pack. Scribbling quickly, pausing only to think back calendar pages to what he believed was Petra's birth year, he handed the paper to Big Injun.

Looking at it, the Ute mumbled unhappily, "Many words."

Pike shrugged, releasing Petra's saddlebags then felt a hard circle under the leather. Fingering the spot, he waggled his head, knowing immediately the form of a twenty dollar gold piece not believing for a moment that Petra had kept it all those years. With a shake of his head, he held a moment then slid his knife from its holder and carefully cut away stitches keeping the coin pouch closed. Releasing it into his palm, he pondered it a moment incredulously before tossing it to Big Injun.

Greedily snatching the gleaming coin from midair, Big Injun glowed until Pike said, "Bury it with him. Must have meant much to him to have carried it all these years."

"Bury?" Big Injun responded, crestfallen. "Is much coin."

Adam pressed his lips together, silently agreeing while placing Petra's bags on his own horse, turning when Big Injun asked with concern, "Bury east side?"

Tossing his friend a look, Adam responded quietly, "No, west." then inquired, "How long before he's planted?"

Mouth separating in what passed as a smile, Big Injun grunted, "Half hour." adding in answer to Pike's quizzical look, "Sheriff say you go. I dig. Know what end will be."

Adam chuckled despite himself, understanding Big Injun would have prepared the grave on the west side of their cemetery knoll guessing Pike chased an outlaw but a full name provided for the grave marker was used only for decent folks buried on the east. Glad the man didn't have to dig a second hole, Pike stepped into his saddle, gazing almost straight into Big Injun's eyes.

"Be sure to check his pockets. Likely some cash there." Adam instructed, "What you do with any or his horse and gear is your doing. I want none of it."

Face brightening considerably, the gear worth plenty, the horse some and cash always welcome, Big Injun shrugged. "Half hour." he said, grabbing a shovel as he turned, tossing it over the dead man.

Trotting through the wide door onto Morale's main street, blue splotches of sky visible to the south, Adam rode past the hotel, dismounting in front of the Elliot's small barber shop wishful of tidying up a mite before seeing his family. Entering, he sat in the leather covered chair, asking only for a shave and shampoo then said no more.

Refusing to permit thoughts into his head, Pike listened to sounds made as his hair was washed, liking for no reason the scraping noise telling him three days of whisker growth would soon be gone. Of all things he despised, being unshaven with dirty hair neared the top of the list, particularly during years as Marshal when, in his mind, he represented more than just himself to everyone he met. After, habits of a lifetime favoring cleanliness stayed with him both in respect for his upbringing and knowledge that he lived as the face of their _5PL_ brand, _Best Connected Cartage_ , the Packer-Pike Colorado Mine Company and a handful of other operations related to the family name.

Finished, his face wiped clean with a hot cloth and Elliot paid with a coin greater than the cost of his work, Pike stepped out to the boardwalk. Peering up at a big clock tower erected by the courthouse a year before, he was startled to see the day was still young. Partly to satisfy a desire for cleanliness, his visit to the barber was also to fill time until his children would be closer to ending their school hours. It was poor practice, he believed, to interrupt their study to satisfy his yearning to see them but this time he'd compromise.

Riding past four shops on First Street, named for being the original road leading off Main Street, he waved at several people walking or riding past then paused as Ezra Bouchard shuffled to the porch of his gunsmith shop, waving a spindly arm frantically at him. Dismounting, he hopped up next to the man whose teary face was carved with remorse.

"When they said men were needin' to help, Marshal" the man wheezed, "every inch of me was wantin' to from thanks for what ya' did but you're knowin' I ain't ridin' so well no more an' cain't shoot a long gun much neither."

Wrapping the elderly man in a kindly arm, Adam pulled him close, feeling tremors wracking his frail frame. "Ez" he answered softly, "you raising Mickey so well and being a good man for our town is all the thanks I'm needful having." holding him for a few moments longer before edging back, a warm sensation rising from the man's gleaming expression returned with a gentle squeeze on his shoulder.

Remounting, doffing his hat to Ezra and Mickey who watched through the store window, Adam spurred his horse to a loping run toward the school. Hopping from the saddle, he tossed the reins across the railing and stepped up to the door, pushing it open quietly hoping to cause no disturbance. Inside, Ray Hassan stopped speaking when Pike poked his head in, gleefully recognizing the man.

"Mr. Adam!" he boomed happily, "It is good to see you today."

"Excuse me, Mr. Hassan," Pike replied, grinning, his tone respectful, "but am needful of the Pike youngsters to come home." Lawson instantly leaping from his chair, squealing, "PA!" and launching up into Adam's arms. Close behind, Angela and Adele gathered books in packs as Step and Kate's children scrambled to leave as well, being Pike children equally, returning disappointed to sitting upon receiving a denying nod from Adam but displaying great happiness at seeing their uncle despite that. Reaching the porch as Pike finished swinging his son in two swirling loops, the twins gave hugs as Adam knelt, setting Lawson down, wrapping all three in a joyful embrace.

Standing, an arm encircling Angela with one hand on Adele's shoulder while mussing Lawson's hair with the other, he sparkled at them explaining, "Wishful of you heading home early today. Let Ma know I'm back and will be there prompt after one more doing here in town."

Angela smiled brightly. "We've still an hour of studies, Poppa." she reminded him, taking a jab on the thigh from Lawson who's two greatest pleasures, having Pa home and being released from school early were both satisfied. Gently pinching the boy's ear, punching his sisters or anyone other not being permitted, Adam nodded, wondering suddenly when Adele had grown a half inch taller than her sister and how it was Angela abruptly lost pudginess in her cheeks so had her mother's lean, high-cheekbone look. Through fresh eyes, he snuck a glance at Lawson, the boys muscled chest and arms seeming larger, more firm than he recalled and knew, whatever the weather or work duties faced, more of his attention and time should be given these three lest they abruptly become grown before he realized.

"I'm knowing, Ang, but Ma should hear prompt it's over so we'll make up learning time later." he replied, waving his band toward where the buggy and Brandy stood. "Adele" he continued, "when Ma mentions supper, ask if she's the makings of fresh biscuits and tell that I've a hankering for some if she does."

"Will ask, Poppa." the girl agreed, giggling when Lawson whooped, "Everything's better with biscuits, even Ma's cooking!"

Pike laughed, the youngsters knowing as he did that his wife's meals were said to be the best prepared in the Territory while never confiding that nothing she cooked tasted better than fluffy biscuits which reminded him so dearly each time of his own mother's kitchen. In his own saddle, he watched the three ride off through town as would now always be their way pleased his wife held them from school only one day, relying on 5PL riders to provide safety on the trip and believing fully in Adam's promise to resolve difficulties posed by Petra.

Leaving the school, Adam rode west past Big Injun's, stepping around mud puddles as he walked his horse up the lonely trail to the town's cemetery. He stopped at the entry, surprised to see a cast-iron archway with a short fence running off to either side. Town Council had talked long about getting such a decoration but he didn't realize they'd done it, wondering when it had been put up. Store bought, the archway was likely shipped from Denver on one of his own freight wagons but the sign was homemade, surely by the town smithy, declaring the town and its birthday.

"Morale, 1865" he read as he dropped from the horse and shook his head. They'd argued that point before and he'd lost then, too. In his mind, Morale had existed over two years when he arrived in '64 with Hutch, Kate, German, and Mandano already here and Big Injun's arrival date unknown by any including the man himself, having no calendar training and less interest in counting years. Disagreeing, others pointed out their State charter recognized the community in '65 and so it was.

Pike strode to the east side where decent, honorable people were buried. The first had been German's wife who passed shortly before Adam's arrival. He recalled hearing they discussed cemetery layout then with it suggested the west side be used to represent a setting sun of folks lives but German was adamant. "Dis las' day of life here is firs' day of life for her der' wit' her Lord," he declared. "We bury her on eas' side for da' risin' sun of her life der'" and so it was also.

Nearby her last resting place, Pike knelt by the grave of the first friend he buried here. Santos, who brought the original 5PL herd up from Santa Fe and nurtured it closely, had watched Adam's back and saved his bacon a couple of times until murdered by an outlaw rifle. Pike took a pebble from ones collected and held in his pocket, placing it among many others in the earth above Santos. A habit now, he began placing pebbles the day he buried the man in a reminder of Indian ways to honor a friend.

The two sites missing he was wishful to have were those of his parents, Ma and Jessup Pike. As they'd been buried back home and he expected never to visit them there, he had a bronze plate made giving their names and dates of their lives. This he set off to the side of the cemetery and now lowered himself beside, wondering like he always had if they would be happy with his life or proud of what he had become and done. He placed a pebble on the plaque atop a pyramid built over the years hoping, if not fully believing, they would.

Ignoring muddy ground, he knelt with one knee touching each corner of the plate honoring his parents and gazed around. A couple of other good men were buried nearby too, a pair of _Oxbar_ hands, killed in accidents so common on ranches and one _5PL_ hand, Carter. They worked out his horse spooked, maybe a snake or a varmint jumped up, and he'd lost his mount, head hitting a rock as he fell. They had found him the next day and buried him with proper readings and a sign declaring him 'A Good Hand'. All these men rode good trails, made decisions useful to them and their community giving rise in Adam wholesome feelings for having known them.

Every carved headstone here represented a man or woman willing to challenge fate, to move away from what security or safety they might have into lands unknown, dangerous in ways none could predict. German's wife accompanied him from Europe, trading persecution brought by principles her husband vowed to uphold for frontier country where few existed and lived almost long enough to see her dreams fulfilled. Santos swapped safe hacienda living for daring opportunities to earn wealth, his hope to become a Don and shape lives of others cut short by a man not a quarter as worthy of living.

Pike sighed. More would be here, some like Ezra Bouchard sooner, others later. Everyone ended their days somewhere like this but, for his effort and those of many choosing trails similar, fewer would be left as scattered skeletons lost to memory in canyons equally forgotten. Fewer still, he hoped and prayed, would arrive here because some gutless outlaw pulled a trigger during a robbery or hold-up. He believed, had believed for some time, those days were largely behind them now but knew deep inside they could and certainly would return if good men and women ceased being diligent in face of danger or chose trails which undermined justice instead of demanding it.

Rising, he edged lightly past another small iron fence, also new since his last visit, sitting with his back to a boulder facing the west, the Boot Hill side. At one time, all graves here were by his gun or fists, a few by noose he'd tied with his own hands. He used to count them and knew exactly how many there were but those days had passed, Adam having become tired of replaying each scene and testing them against a morality he believed should exist which never had.

Some here now were the work of others. Dane Hessledorn had put a few here as Sheriff. Step had also early in his time as Sheriff but none in years as Morale's reputation and Adam's own presence altered opinion of troublemakers dramatically. Even Mandano had several graves to his credit of men so foolish to think robbing his saloon would be easy or worthwhile.

A chill breeze blew over him and he shivered. Rain spit from grey clouds lowered again after a brief respite reminding him again that winter was near at hand, the season when all things die, awaiting rebirth with the coming of spring. His season, spring, would arrive but not soon enough and for all men buried anywhere, would never come again.

Adam's eyes passed over the many crosses erected, all looking the same from behind. On the front, the greatest number read simply "Unknown Outlaw" and a year as, at the first, he'd instructed Big Injun any he sent up for burial would receive no name honoring them or causing dishonor to their families, a practice maintained without exception until this day. Thieves and murderers, cowardly parasites feeding off the good and decent, they deserved no recognition for lives gone bad and Adam would assure they got none.

'What did cause some men to go bad?' Pike wondered. He did not believe, could never believe, that more than the fewest were born that way. Something in their upbringing, some queer quirk of mind turned them from being like other folks into what they became. 'What was missing from within them?' he puzzled, 'What hole were they trying to fill inside by stealing, robbing and killing?'

He did not know. Some hatful of resentment, perhaps, flamed to a consuming bonfire of hatred that drove them to evil. Or something, maybe, lacking in their soul, some godliness or compassion most have and never recognize was lost by these kind so compelled a lifetime of selfishness and greed, an overwhelming self-centered thinking that said taking lives or property was somehow justified or right.

He believed he would never know. The newest grave, Petra's, held a body not yet cold beneath earth not yet settled, the final home of a gifted but twisted man. Big Injun wasted no time in this misery inducing season getting the dead under and likely, as Adam sat, had already finished the grave sign so to get back to his warm fire quicker.

Petra was a capable man, by all accounts smarter than most and gifted physically as few others. He could have done well in many occupations, would have thrived in opportunities the West gave men of courage, daring and brains, all three which he had in abundance. Did his father's death so affect him that he became a murderer for money or was it just money? If Adam had let his father live, had found some other way, would Petra be laying here dead today? Or would others lay here years ahead of their time, murdered by a son of a murderer?

He shivered again but less from the wind than haunts in his own mind. Letting Demitri go was no answer, whatever consequences may have resulted. The man had robbed and killed; law required and a civilized society demanded action against those unable to live within rules and bounds. He had no choice then and no choice today; in both, he had but one trail, the right trail, to follow.

Not all trails were right to follow, he understood, nor was it always easy to tell them apart. With each trail a man takes, hundreds of others can no longer be taken but dozens new open to him. In life, every person makes decisions which allow future decisions or deny their possibility and the sum of those decisions equal the total of a man's life.

What if, in 1863, instead of meeting kindly Sheriff Rankin way back in Minnesota with his thoughtful guidance about Pike's boots and clothes, he'd met that oafish, filthy sheriff in Omaha who tried to take Adam's money, gear and his first and favorite horse Molly, to boot? What would he have done, given his quick temper and quicker gun? Would a single, rash decision have gotten him labeled an outlaw, leading him down a trail ending here on the west side under cold, clammy uncaring dirt long before his natural time?

What if, instead of the good men of the _Running BP_ , Bob Patterson, Tucker, Charlie and the rest, Pike had run up on Roy Hawkin's band? Hawk had been charismatic, a leader with a shrewd, organized mind keen to the ways of the times. Would Adam have fallen in with them, become an outlaw and, like them, left bleached bones up in the Bottoms where Pike left Hawkins?

He could not say. The line between being good and not seemed broad and bold when sitting at Ma's knee back home but here, in a world less obvious, it was often difficult to know. Many became outlaws by accident, some by a small decision made carelessly that led to consequences unseen. A few, a graceless few, seemed to have born for that life but a scarce few they were. The most, he believed and knew, lay here today from the smallest twist in the trail they followed and, knew too, he could as easily today be below ground as above.

More rain spattered as the wind became increasingly unpleasant. The heavy thud of a sledge on wood broke through Pike's thoughts and he looked to see Big Injun driving a marker at the head of the newest grave. He smiled. Like most men, Big Injun worked fast when motivated and little gave him more than money except cold rain. He walked over and read 'It Didnt Have To Be' written almost as instructed.

"Sorry, Pike, missed little mark." Big Injun smiled. "Soon too cold to post new sign. Is alright?"

Adam put his hand on the man's forearm and smiled. "Sure, Big Injun, is alright."

"Ground get hard. Soon freeze." the Ute observed. "Maybe no more dead 'til spring, Pike?"

"Maybe no more at all, Big Injun, least if I have my way." Adam answered solemnly, fishing a pair of dollar coins from his pocket and handing them over. "Good night, Big Injun. See you around."

Putting his horse to a canter so to beat the rain, Pike headed home where, like at other warm homes, smoke swirling above chimneys declared how a loving wife was preparing a fresh meal for him and their children, a woman wishful for his early return and who made biscuits for him because, they both knew, everything is better with biscuits.

Adam smiled at the aroma of biscuits not yet reaching him, satisfied he had ridden good trails.

Epilog

Pastor Samuel Perkins sat before a small ledger, huddled beneath a horsehair blanket against an early winter wind howling through gaps in plank walls, rain battering windows in a cacophony of mind numbing noise. Bowing his head against fingers intertwined, knuckles white in clenching desperation, he mouthed yet another prayer for guidance but opened his eyes to those same numbers and totals he'd seen for days that told of too few funds to continue.

Four years earlier, he'd been graced to open the Orphanage of Denver through a gift willed for that purpose by a wealthy congregant, an event greeted with great fanfare and grand accolades from the town's people. At a time when mothers often died in childbirth and men were killed by accidents in mines, on ranches or through the incessant, needless violence of their era, parentless children survived as best they could, passed between kinfolk if any or taken in by kindly neighbors when such good folks could. Too often, he knew, their benefactors were often madams or outlaws who used the young until they served no additional purpose then cast them aside.

He shivered through a blast of wicked cold penetrating seams in the window, giving a worried glance to the wall in front of him which shielded from view twenty-four boys bedded down on eighteen cots, concerned the small stove in the room's center was inadequate to provide any comfort, the night an early reminder of how vicious Rocky Mountain winters can be. Behind him, another thin pine barrier separated his seat from fifteen girls, the youngest but two and oldest only twelve. He pictured them huddled close together under thin blankets near an underfed stove to stay warm while calming the few whose nerves were always rattled by whipping winds shaking walls poorly built to stand against them.

Himself the child of a sickly woman who was called home to her Lord when he was but three and a drunkard father who met some unknown fate when Samuel was five, he'd been gifted with a new life by a kindly country parson whose family of seven already stretched meager resources but was raised despite that with love of people and of the Bible. Upon reaching adulthood, he heard the calling himself and learned the ministry, traveling between mining camps and small towns for three decades before a chance encounter led him to a small Denver congregation in need of a pastor.

The abandoned warehouse had seemed perfect for his mission of providing for God's forsaken young with ample space for their bedding and a tiny office able to accommodate a desk, his cot and a small reading chair. Through donations well meant a small kitchen was added where volunteers from community and church assisted youngsters living in the orphanage, teaching scripture and life lessons while doing so. For three and a half years, gifts from merchants, tithes received and what small income the older boys could earn had kept doors open and food in the pantry.

It wasn't until spring rains flooded Cherry Creek six months before that his real trouble began. He'd known, of course, that the river overran its banks most every year but believed the warehouse had been built up an incline sufficiently far to have no worry, thinking seemingly made sensible by history as the structure had lasted untouched fifteen or more years already. The last spring, however, had been exceptional, huge mountain snowpacks melting under a sun uncommonly hot for the season while rains in March and April continuing unabated brought unrelenting torrents of water surging into town, ripping away a large portion of the building's foundation.

That the Town Council deemed the building unsafe was, he knew, the proper decision and felt grateful they had given him the summer then fall to find another suitable for use. For those months, he combed the town with no success, the several buildings available being far beyond his ability to secure while other resources dried up in a searing hot summer that ruined many ranchers in the region so they had no more to give, their own families suffering as herds died of thirst or starvation on prairies baked dry and lacking life-sustaining flows from peaks denuded of snow too fast and too early.

From the merchants, Samuel was able to receive help for a time but soon enough their ability if not desire became limited. The same floods that ruined his building and the ranchers also washed out thousands of miners panning or digging for gold in canyons all about Denver, their loss translating to few sales for grocers and supply houses depending on the needs of those men for a livelihood. Even saloons and gambling halls suffered, many closing completely while the remainder struggled with few customers in what had been the town's greatest source of wealth for two decades.

Now, only weeks remained before the Council would insist he move the children elsewhere. A few good souls had offered to take the youngest but, for most sleeping around him this night, none had come forward so they would be turned out to fend for themselves. Such a dilemma for the town fathers was admittedly difficult but permitting the orphanage to continue in a structure where roof and walls would most certainly collapse from snow or wind they could not abide, reasoning Samuel understood even while disagreeing vehemently.

For himself, the failure was greater than just a building or the children. He had placed all faith in this service, given all he had to the Lord and this work and knew now it had not been enough. In some way he did not understand, his piety had been compromised and his humility lacking. He saw all honors given him when starting received with too much personal credit taken and too little given his Lord. Deep within, a wellspring of pride was the real source of crippling floods, washing away moral underpinnings in an erosive dripping of satisfaction over his accomplishments. Through pain inflicted on these innocent children, he would suffer eternal damnation for pride undeserved and arrogance toward his God.

Shoving aside the ledger, he bowed his head and prayed again, feeling his elbows against the rough wooden desk through cotton sleeves of a shirt worn too long to be decent. Interrupted in his plea by a growling stomach protesting against no supper, he raised his head and considered the thin slab of meat on bread left him by one of the young girls before deciding to save it to eat at breakfast. Dwindling supplies had to be kept for the children, his own slender frame becoming gaunt as he worked to keep them from deprivation. A few generous merchants had only reduced donations while others denied him new credit on accounts long overdue, knowing the orphanage would soon be forced to close and not willing to extend more without chance of repayment, leaving their larder almost barren.

Dark hopelessness settled over him. Shifting in his chair, he prepared to douse the smoky oil lamp and attempt to sleep, an effort sure to be futile with an empty belly and ravaging wind to keep him from comforting rest. Of late, even his slumber was agitated and disturbed, faces of children depending on him to protect rising up accusingly, demanding to know why his devout ways were so inadequate or pleading for him to rescue them from fates undeserved. He shuddered as images of each child worn and broken long before their years would suggest proper came to him, all attached to names known so well and loved so dearly.

Sighing sadly, his eyes fell on a small stack of mail delivered earlier and left untouched during his review of orphanage books. Despair came over him, each surely another heart-rending call for aid he could not give or notices of bills he could not pay, such that he wished to ignore them all and be spared the pain brought. Hesitating only a moment, unable by conscience to pass on duty required of him, he took the letters into his lap, staring at them bleakly.

Only three this day had arrived, the first pair being notes from merchants as expected while the other, addressed to him by name, contained a letter. Unfolding the top half, he read three words seen so often that he could not continue. "We desperately need" was a call to action for any man of the cloth but he had no action to take, no help to give, no Lord to share. Dropping all on his desk, he lowered his head to hands propped on his knees, mortified by shortcomings exposed in him. The adversity given by his God was absolute, proving him unworthy to preach the gospel or wear the garb of a minister.

Resolving at last to face truth, he knew his only choice was to resign from the church, surrender his claim to grace. The Lord had brought forth floods before as a test of men's faith, had done so again to test his and he had failed.

Reddened, exhausted eyes staring at the floor saw nothing then, beneath his desk, a small white envelope came to view. Samuel eyed it perplexed, certain only three were received that day, deciding after a moment it must have been delivered while he was out and been dropped. Curious, he reached for it, his arms almost too heavy to lift back to his lap.

Glancing at it, he was intrigued, addressed as it was only to Denver Children's Orphanage and in pen precisely written by a strong, masculine hand. Uncertain, nearly all his correspondence coming from women, often elderly with spidery penmanship, he studied it forlornly then slit it open. From inside, he withdrew a single sheet of paper and unfolded it, another wrapped within falling to his lap. Holding the note up to the lamp, he read:

" _Director of Denver Orphanage,_

Please find enclosed a bank draft issued to your organization to be used for housing and feeding your orphaned children.

The man whose money this was died an untimely death recently as a result of his violations of the laws of God and man with no kin to claim wealth gained through a lifetime of evil. As his mean work certainly caused several young people to live without a father, it seems fitting to place these funds to help others with none also.

You are trusted to use these funds for no purpose except aiding the orphans in your charge.

Sincerely yours,

Adam Pike, United States Marshal (Ret.)

Northern District of Colorado and Wyoming Territory"

Samuel read the letter twice, unbelieving, then peered at numbers on the accompanying bank draft, eyes widening in astonishment. He moved the draft close to the lamp to be sure, seeing positively the amount carefully inscribed was in fact sufficient for a new building and to support operations of the orphanage for many years ahead.

Dropping to his knees, tears flowing freely off his emaciated cheeks onto the paper, he bowed his head and gave thanks to his Lord and God.

Acknowledgements

The first and most important acknowledgement has to be given my loving wife Robin who, for so many years, has been supportive, helpful and a bedrock of sanity in a world seemingly less sane by the day. In addition to interminable hours listening to chattering, winding stories which became the _Western Settler Saga_ , she served most capably as our editor-in-chief, researcher-in-chief, good-idea-person-in-chief and, critically, encourager-in-chief. Without her endless help, Adam Pike and _Western Settler Saga_ might still have been written but would have been incredibly less fun to do.

As well, no writer can succeed without capable, competent and focused editing assistance. In that role none would believe, I recognize Scott Steinmetz, the Wasatch Wizard. His corrections, suggestions and lightning bolt wisdom delivered from on-high in the Utah peaks are central to our shared success.

Attentive readers, also, will note certain dialogue woven through _Western Settler Saga_ episodes evoke memories from a number of outstanding lyricists and songwriters our era produced. Throughout most of human history, grand composers were in one world and brilliant wordsmiths in another, coexisting but never crossing. It was not until the latter half of the 20th century, after a forty year gestation period, did these two universes unite into one, evolving into one of the universes most powerful forces for change and progress transmitted by radio, record albums and, later CD's. The influences of these grand artists on my thinking, behavior and beliefs has been profound and nearly immeasurable so they receive in the _Saga_ a sincere, if humble, thank you for the many ways their work improved our quality of life.

Among those honored here, in no particular order except at the end, are Neil Diamond; Woody Guthrie; Stephen Stills and Crosby, Stills, Nash; Carole King; Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel; Pete Seeger; Eagles; The Kingston Trio; Earth, Wind and Fire; Steve Winwood through all his many incarnations; The Grateful Dead; America; Joni Mitchell; Jim Morrison; Melanie; Pete Townshend and The Who; Billy Joel; Yes; the incomparable Boss, Bruce Springsteen; and the greatest non-violent revolutionary voice of reason in our times, Mr. Bob Dylan. To all, I express intense gratitude and unending appreciation for many ways you made our lives better.

...son of a South Dakota farm boy and a Tennessee lady lives with his wife and two dogs on a 34 acre farm in Lapeer, Michigan. While feeding good people with corn, soybeans and wheat, he shares life with rabbits, groundhogs, raccoons, chipmunk and deer, flocks of wild turkeys both feathered and not, hawks, doves, vultures, and odd varieties of fish (including pike) occupying a small 38 acre lake adjoining their land.

Raised in rural Michigan on our traditional American principles of honesty, thrift, hard work and self-reliance, he brings these time honored values to life through the words and deeds of Adam Pike and the cast of Western Settler Saga.

Gallen welcomes reader comments, suggestions and howdies by way of smoke signals and email at Gallen@westernsettlersaga.com.

