Red West II.

Chapter eight - Fruits of cooperation

The trees were already leaving the sad grey color of the wintertime behind, but they didn't reach the spring freshness yet. The sun was playing hide and seek with the soft clouds, illuminating the wild in one moment, and covering it with shadows in another. There were still some places, where the piles of ice-cold snow resisted the rising temperatures and made the air cooler than it really was.

The forest was peaceful and quiet in the manner, which calmed you down and made you believe that you were completely alone in the depth of nature, except the animals and some lonely birds, which didn't gather enough strength to sing out their joy from the upcoming spring yet.

The old north road was located quite far from the working mines and from the usual track used to access Leadville, so there was no disruption from the blasts or other travelers. The dusk was coming and the shadows under the roof of conifers were deepening slowly, but surely.

"It will be difficult to spot anything if they're late," Harvey, observing the road from their position on the top of a steep hill with small binoculars, grunted.

"You even know their time schedule?" Kame, crouching next to him behind a group of boulders, asked curiously.

"Trying to be smart now?" the hunter snorted. "Then what do you think? Will that famous leader himself show up here or not?"

"How should I know?" the younger one asked back, checking on Ukushi, who was waiting behind their backs.

"Well, if you know his brother, you may guess how the younger Akanishi could behave," Harvey suggested.

Kame stared at the man without a word.

"Come on... I know you don't trust me, but we're cooperating for now, aren't we?" the hunter reminded him grinning, but still focused on the view in his binoculars. "What's your opinion?"

The younger one changed the position of his legs, to prevent them from going numb, before he replied: "I doubt he'd have exposed himself so much, but if this is such a big delivery as you said..."

Harvey smirked in a way, which Kame didn't like much: "It's a big deal, you can bet. So we assume that Akanishi himself might take part in this ambush, right?"

"Probably," Kame admitted slowly. "If they appear at all..."

"They will."

"You're pretty sure of it."

The hunter just shrugged and didn't reply. The more time Kame spent with that man, the less he trusted him. He definitely had to stay on alert and switch sides before anything too bad happened. He really didn't intend to cause troubles for Jin's brother, no matter if the older Akanishi was with him already or not.

"And here they go..." his too-much-grinning companion murmured and put his observing tool aside.

Harvey was right; a small coach with strong wheels pulled by four stallions appeared in the curve of the road approximately half a mile away. Except two waggoneers, it was accompanied by two riders, who were dressed in ordinary clothes, despite the fact they expected soldiers; it was probably because of the secrecy. They were moving forward quite slowly, the guards observing the woods on their sides, with two more hours of ride to Leadville in front of them.

"They are slow; it won't be difficult to follow them," Kame assumed observing the coach rattling on the non-flat road.

"Let's go then," Harvey commanded, first on his feet.

*

Kame's anxiety grew with each mile the ugly coach rode on the narrow road. He and Harvey kept following the small company of guards through the woods, keeping their distance, covering themselves in the shadows of densely growing conifers. They had to move very slowly because of that, to avoid being spotted by the gunmen, but it was fast enough not to lose the heavily dragged carriage from their sight.