“Where are the other guards?” Mac whispered.
“I’m not sure, but it’s my guess that Austin ordered the wagon to have only two guards.”
“An open invitation to thieves,” Mac said.
“Thieves and murder.”
“Do you think the preacher’s body is on the other side?”
“I don’t see it,” Angus said, “but I’m sure it’s nearby, and I’d lay money on it that he’s been scalped. Austin would want people to believe that the Indians did it.”
Mac didn’t let his face show his shock at what Angus was saying. “Something like this could cause a war. The payroll is from the government. Do you think Austin would risk that just for a common girl like Betsy?”
“I think he likes to win whatever he wants and he’ll use whatever methods he can,” Angus said. “I’ll take Welsch and go that way, you take Connor and come in from the south. Be careful and make as little noise as possible. The killers have probably taken the money and run, but maybe they’re still around. Take no chances.”
Mac nodded, then went back to tell the men, who were standing behind them rubbing their sore legs.
Angus went down the hill quietly, concealing his body in the bushes that grew along the way. Twice, Welsch skidded on the loose gravel, and both times Angus scowled at him.
When they reached the bottom of the hill, Angus motioned for Welsch to stay there and wait, and he looked relieved. Angus stealthily made his way around the burned wagon, glancing quickly at the two men on the ground to see if they were dead. His guess was that they’d been there for at least a day and a half, and he hoped he was wrong about the boy. Maybe the robbers took the payroll, killed the guards, and kidnapped the boy. If that was so then they were in the wrong place. By now the boy—if he was still alive—was many miles to the west, just as Wellman had said.
Angus hid behind some trees and looked about him. If the men had been dead for over a day, then the wagon had only recently been set on fire. That meant that someone had been there since the murders.
When he saw or heard no one, Angus stepped out of hiding and began to look around the wagon. There were faint footprints leading south, where he knew there was a river.
Quietly, his moccasins making no sound, Angus went back to Welsch, who was still sitting under the trees and waiting. “No one’s here but I don’t trust this place,” he said softly. “Get the others and I’ll meet you over there. See that big oak tree?”
“I don’t know an oak from a daisy,” Welsch said.
“Ask Connor. Go there and wait for me, and stay out of sight.”
“Gladly,” Welsch said as he stood up on his stiff legs.
It was thirty minutes before Angus met the other men in the shade of the oak tree.
Mac handed him a hardtack biscuit. “See anything?”
“Someone got away. There were four men who attacked the wagon, and they wer
e all white. Indians walk lighter. There’s a bloody place where a wounded man lay for a while and it’s possible they thought he was dead.”
“Maybe he dragged himself off into the bushes.”
“I think so. You two ready to go?” Angus asked Welsch and Connor.
They nodded and minutes later the four of them were on horseback again, with Angus in the front. He was leaning over the saddle so far the other men didn’t see why he wasn’t unseated. He was looking at the ground, following the trail the wounded man had left behind.
“He’s going to the river,” Angus told them, and put his finger to his lips for them to remain silent. He dismounted, took his horse’s reins, and began to walk over the rocky path. In the distance, they could hear the water rushing.
In the next minute, Angus stepped out of the bushes, and what he saw so astounded him that he just stood there and stared. Curious, the other three moved to stand beside him.
Sitting on a big rock beside a small river was a tall blond young man. His face and shoulders were hideously covered with blood and he looked to be sewing his scalp back together.
Angus tied his horse to a bush and went to the man. “Need any help with that?”
“No. I’m fine,” he said, glancing at the other men who were close behind Angus. “I meant to go on and try to get to the fort, but my head wouldn’t stop bleeding and the blood got in my eyes so bad I couldn’t see.”
With every stitch the young man made, the others winced. His fingers were long and moved easily as he held the ridges of his scalp together and sewed.