Chapter 9 - The Collision at Dawn
We didn't have time to rest. By sunrise, Dutch and Morrison would discover the unlocked pen and trace our tracks straight down the dry creek bed to my camp.
While Zora tended to her brother’s bruised ankle with a poultice of crushed willow bark and spring water, I saddled the gray gelding and packed our meager supplies into the saddlebags. We needed to move into the higher passes of the ridge where horses couldn't easily follow and Morrison’s writs didn't reach.
Just as I tightened the final cinch on the saddle, the rhythmic thud of approaching hooves echoed up from the creek bed.
I drew the Remington from my holster and stepped in front of the canvas tarp, shielding Zora and her brother from view.
Three riders broke through the screen of cottonwoods. At the center sat Captain Morrison, his wide-brimmed black hat casting a deep shadow over his eyes. Dutch flanked his right, a repeating carbine resting across his saddle bow, while a second armed hand stayed back to cut off any retreat.
Morrison pulled his horse to a halt ten feet away, his gaze sweeping over our modest camp, the packed gelding, and finally resting on my face. He didn't look angry; he looked disappointed, the way a schoolmaster looks at a stubborn child who refuses to learn his lesson.
"You've been a busy man tonight, Miller," Morrison said, his voice carrying that familiar, maddening calm across the clearing. "Breaking into my barn, stealing my prisoner, and thinking you can walk away from a cattle charge."
"He was never your prisoner, Captain," I said, stepping forward with my hand resting steady on the butt of my revolver. "He was a hostage you took to clear the ridge. And I've got the papers from Mule Creek in my pocket that prove what you do when you want someone out of your way."
Morrison’s eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of Mule Creek, though his posture didn't change. "That paper is ten years old, man. No court in Texas is going to take the word of a wandering drifter over a respectable landowner."
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"Maybe not," I said, meeting his gaze without flinching. "But the federal marshal in Austin isn't a local judge. And he's been looking for discrepancies in the 1864 quartermaster accounts for a long time."
Dutch shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, glancing sideways at Morrison. The captain saw the hesitation in his foreman and realized the ground beneath his feet had shifted. For the first time since I'd ridden into Red Creek, the absolute certainty in Morrison's eyes wavered.
