He laughed at that one, for in this weather it surely was that—and only that sliver of momentary self-induced mirth kept him from spinning around and drilling that laggard plug between her foul walleyes. A homelier horse he’d never seen, and she came with a trudging gait to match. “Step it up, Methuselah, or you’ll be feeding crows and coyotes in very short order.” If the old girl had heard him, she gave no indication. Could be something was genuinely wrong with her, thought Haskell. Not a surprise, considering that she was Ace’s horse. And he was as useless as his horse. Speaking of useless, he thought, I should be coming onto Simp and Dutchy about any time now. Another reason he didn’t dare risk a shot yet. Didn’t want to tip them off that they were being followed. He’d rather give them the old surprise attack, if he could. All this dilly-dallying with the oafs had slowed him down by the better part of a day and he wanted to get to that cabin, rejigger his load, and wait out the posse.
