Free Devil's Canyon by Ralph Compton

moving wagon for some parting words with Collins.
    â€œI should catch up to you in a couple of hours,” Faro said. “I aim to ride back as far as I must to intercept those tracks and see where they lead.”
    Collins nodded, and Faro rode away, aware that Durham was taking particular notice of his going.
    *   *   *
    As a precaution—aware that the McCutcheon sisters were now part of the teamsters’ outfit—Slade and his companions no longer followed the trail the wagons had taken.
    â€œDamn it,” Hindes complained, “we don’t
know
that them females said anything about seein’ our tracks. This is a fool idea, ridin’ through the brush, with limbs swattin’ us in the face, and thorns rakin’ us over.”
    â€œWe don’t know that they
didn’t
tell of seein’ our tracks,” said Slade. “This way, we can find out forsure. If them teamsters suspect anything, one of ’em will be ridin’ along the back trail, lookin’ for our tracks.”
    â€œIf they
do
come lookin’ for us, it proves one thing,” Kritzer observed. “It tells us this is more than just a load of grub to get some settlers through the winter.”
    â€œDamn right,” said Slade. “There’s more at stake here than five wagon loads of grub, and Durham’s done somethin’ to arouse their suspicion. He got on the bad side of that pair of females in a hurry.”
    â€œMaybe he’s a ladies’ man, and they followed him from somewhere,” Withers said.
    â€œOh, hell,” said Peeler, “he’d have had to know them before he fell in with us. If he come from Amarillo, like he said, that means they follered him from there. How does a man
do
that?”
    Hindes laughed. “We missed out on the big money, gents. We should of stripped the varmint down, opened a freak show, and sold tickets.”
    â€œQuiet, damn it,” Slade said.
    Faro Duval reined up, listening. Each of the outlaws had quickly seized the muzzle of his horse to prevent a betraying nicker. They were downwind from the approaching rider, and they watched as Faro continued along the back trail.
    â€œThere it is, by God,” Slade said softly. “There’s a hell of a lot more to this than we can see, or they wouldn’t be scouting the back trail.”
    â€œHe won’t have any trouble findin’ where we moved off into the brush,” said Kritzer, “and when he finds the ashes of our fire, he can trail us from there. Let himlearn we’re ridin’ parallel to the trail the wagons is takin’, and he’ll
know
what we’re doing.”
    â€œYeah,” Hindes said, “and if they got any sand, they won’t wait for us to make our move. They’ll come
lookin’
for us. You got any ideas, Mr. Slade?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact,” said Slade, “I have. It’ll take him a while to find where we left the trail and figure out what we have in mind. We’re going to get ahead of the wagons. So far ahead, they won’t know
where
we are, and they won’t dare send just one rider to look for us.”
    â€œThat’s as good as tellin’ ’em we got an ambush in mind,” Hindes said.
    â€œThen you come up with somethin’ better,” said Slade, with a snarl.
    â€œBack off, Hindes,” Kritzer said. “That’s not a bad idea. We don’t know for sure just where these wagons are goin’, and until we have some idea, gunning everybody down in an ambush would be foolish. They’ll know an ambush is comin’, but they won’t know when or where. We’ll still have an edge.”
    â€œDepends on how you look at it,” Peeler said. “Somewhere ahead, there’s hostile Utes. I reckon
they’ll
have the edge.”
    â€œIt’ll be up to us to stay out of their way,” said Slade. “It ain’t often they get a