“There they come,” Robin pointed.
Two miles off a group of horsemen debouched from a hollow, riding slowly. Robin and Stratton loosed their mounts to a gallop.
On a horse led by Sam Connors and flanked by the J7 riders sat Tommy Thatcher. He was disarmed, hatless, his hands tied behind his back. A smear of blood streaked his face. He rode a J7 horse and the rider of that horse sat riding double behind another man’s cantle. The J7 men grinned widely at Robin and Robin stared at Thatcher.
“Lucky we were,” Sam Connors said. “We dropped his horse at long range an’ Mr. Man went down so hard he didn’t come to till we closed in on him.”
“I busted him one when he started to get gay,” said the rider who was mounted double, “so they made me give him my horse, they was so kind to him. I’d ’a’ made the skunk trot at the end of a lass-rope. What’ll we do with him, Tyler? Name your poison.”
Robin lifted his hat and ran his fingers through the mat of his curly hair. He didn’t speak to Thatcher. The man stared at him in dumb fear.
“First it was shootin’ cows to steal their calves. Then it was Tex Matthews. Now it’s me,” he mused. Aloud, he said:
“Bring him down into the creek.”
They plowed up the loose earth on the steep bank, gained the sage-gray bottom. Where the canyon from Cold Spring joined Birch Creek three gnarly old cottonwoods grew, a trio like the weird sisters. They stood within half a mile of where Mark Steele and Thatcher shot the Bar M Bar cows. Robin remembered those trees. He led the way until his riders were bunched in the leafy shade. Thick, crooked limbs spread from the rough-barked trunks fifteen feet above ground.
“Heave a rope over that branch,” Robin pointed.