the Empty Land (1969) by Louis L'amour Page B

wait for the coach right in the middle of the road.
    "Strawb'ry looked all right," Burke commented. "Uh-huh." Coburn was wondering about Dorset. He was quite a distance from the home ranch.
    Matt thought to himself that it was time he quit this business. He was getting jumpy. The necessity for continual alertness, the suspicion engendered by the work itself, these were changing him. He could feel it, and he did not like it; but he had the reputation and it was the best way he knew how to make a living.
    Often he had wondered why others did not quit; now he could see it was not an easy thing to change the pattern of one's life. He could quit and go East, but what could he do there? All he knew was the West, stage lines, freighter outfits, and cattle. Maybe a little about mining. But what they wanted him for was his gun and his knowledge of how and when above all when to use it.
    At the top of the rise, Burke drew up to let his horses catch their breath, and Pike Sides swung down, standing In the trail, looking forward, then back He looked up at Coburn, a curious grin on his face. "The worst of it is ahead," Pike Sides said. "You know that, don't your Matt shrugged. "Maybe." He had dropped to the road beside Pike.
    "Whatever happens between here and Carson," Pike said, "you can count me in. I'm riding shotgun, too." The two men walked ahead a little way.
    "For yourself?" Matt asked.
    "Let's just say I don't want to lose anything." He turned his hard, flat eyes toward Matt "Tm ridin' herd on more than you. An' more likely to get stopped."
    "Are you trying to tell me something? Or just talking?"
    "Lettin' you know that you've got another gun. A good one."
    "I know it's good," Matt said. "I've seen you work, and if you're riding shotgun on something, that's your business. I'll be glad of the help."
    Burke started the coach toward them, walking the team to keep them from stiffening. Matt Coburn stopped where he had a view of the road ahead, but only in glimpses as it curved around among the hills. The trail appeared to be empty. There was no dust.
    There would be none, of course. Anybody who wanted this coach would have been planted here hours ago, just waiting. He knew that and Burke knew it, and they only hoped, by moving fast, to come upon them before they were quite set and in position.
    The coach drew abreast of the two men and Sides caught at the open door and swung in. Matt noted that he sat facing the rear. Matt swung up, and after a moment he quietly told Burke what Pike Sides had said.
    Burke was as puzzled as Matt was . 'There's something here," Burke said, "something I don't read."
    He walked the team another quarter of a mile and then the downward grade steepened and he started them at a trot.
    "No whip, no yells," Matt cautioned, "unless you see them."
    "You think it will be Meadows?"
    "Maybe ... and if Pike's telling the truth we may get hit twice."
    Burke's face grew taut. "I don't like that, Matt. I don't like it at all."
    The coach picked up speed. Matt was thinking of the trail ahead. There were a dozen places, at least a dozen, where it might happen.
    As they raced down the long hill he was thinking of Dandy Burke. The stage driver accepted the idea that they might be held up, but that they might be stopped twice worried him. It was a matter of the odds, Matt supposed. You could win once or twice, but you could not expect to win them all.
    From the top of a ridge a watcher with field glasses had picked up Matt Coburn, and with a mirror he had flashed the signal to Harry Meadows.
    "Wrap it up, boys." Meadows said, and walked to his horse. "We're passing this one up."
    Scarf swore. "You're going to pass this one up? Are you crazy? A hundred thousand dollars?"
    "What's money to a corpse?" Meadows eyed him coldly. "I say the odds are wrong. I say we don't do it. As of this minute, Scarff, the job is yours if you want to do it I want no part of it, but if you go, don't come back. Not ever."
    Scarff hesitated, sorely