Hanging Fire

by Eric Red

  Cisco listened in from his place of concealment.

  The lawmen were talking. The tall canyons of the pass acted like an echo chamber as the acoustics of the deep gorge amplified their voices even though the men were speaking quietly and stood a good distance away. They had all dismounted now.

  The gunfighter caught snatches of words, snippets of sentences. Something about there being no sign and the marshal having left the trail and riding up into the mountains. Nods. Agreements. They were going to follow, it looked like.

  Then the sheriff was shaking his head.

  No, looked like they weren’t, after all.

  Bojack pointed up the trailhead carved out of the pass, a rideable route hugging the mountainside wending in a rough, dusty path ever higher up into the pine-crusted crags of granite scraping the clouds. More words. Curt orders. “It is faster that way,” the sheriff was saying, making some hand gestures that were plain enough: take the trail, get ahead of them, cut them off.

  Cisco pondered that. Maybe might make sense except this tough marshal for sure must have thought of that and had some other plan in mind. The posse staying on the pass was okay, though. This would help Cisco. Let them try to get in front of the marshal with the woman he was trying to get away from them. The marshal would be looking ahead, dealing with what was in front of him then, all his attention focused forward. He wouldn’t be watching his back, wouldn’t see old Johnny Cisco sneak up behind, and when he did it would be too late. The shootist’s plan was to pursue his quarry up into the mountains following his exact footsteps, shadowing him, then wait for his moment to shoot. He wouldn’t miss this time. Put one .44 Remington centerfire slug in the marshal’s back—maybe two more for good measure, because he was a big son of a bitch—then get his woman back.

  A hundred yards away through the trees, the four-man sheriff’s posse swung back up into their saddles and rode off at a brisk canter up the Teton Pass.

  Johnny Cisco was suddenly glad he hadn’t killed them, after all.

  CHAPTER 15

  It looked like the coast was clear, but they still had a long, hard ride ahead.

  Noose regarded the intimidating crags of granite massif ahead jutting up hundreds of feet into the sky. The pass was difficult enough to cross staying on the trailhead, but now he and his prisoner had left the road and were recklessly trying to make it up through the actual mountains themselves. Impassable steep, rocky slopes and vertiginous grades that ended without warning in knots of tree trunks that blocked the path. Horses had never been ridden here and the only creatures that passed were bears and cougars and deer. It was a hopeless fool’s errand getting off the trail, the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Forging forward was a step-by-step process, going a few feet at a time and being constantly, tensely vigilant of where the horses carefully put their fetlocks. One misplaced hoof would break a stallion’s leg and then it was all over, because one horse could not take two people through this fearsome terrain and they hadn’t brought a spare.

  Luckily for Joe Noose he was riding Copper, because a regular horse wouldn’t have stood for it and just stopped—stubbornly refused to budge or turned straight around. The average stallion wouldn’t have dared struggle up this mountainside, but Copper was no average steed—Noose’s tough, brave horse would do anything for him, and seemed to enjoy the challenge. The bronze stallion stared straight ahead with a determined, dogged gaze and kept pushing forward, deliberately and stubbornly taking the lead. Copper forging a path through the forest allowed Bonny Kate’s nervous mustang to follow its hoof tracks, showing the other, lesser horse that the passage was indeed possible.

  The problem was it was slow going—very slow going. The horses and riders were covering about a hundred yards every ten minutes and the people could have walked faster. Noose’s worry was that the men after them were going to catch up. He couldn’t hear or see them but for all he knew they had dismounted and, unhorsed, were catching up on foot. Truth be told, in their position that is precisely what he would do. Noose didn’t think the Arizona blood posse would leave their horses for a two-legged chase, this was his instinct, anyway, but the gunfighter might well be traveling on foot.

  Noose had considered abandoning the horses several times over the last hour, but something made him not leave Copper. Like it was bad luck. It felt like leaving a friend. No man, or horse, left behind.

  Looking over his shoulder, Noose saw his agitated prisoner looking visibly uneasy as she clung to her saddle. “How you managing, Bonny Kate?”

  “You sure about this?”

  “Nope. But it beats the alternative. It’s slow for us, it’ll be slower for them.”

  “If you say so.” She suddenly brightened and shot him a jaunty grin. “I ain’t in no hurry.” This woman changed moods like hats, it seemed.

  He couldn’t resist grinning back. “No, reckon you wouldn’t be.”

  “You know what they say, Joe Noose.”

  “What do they say, Bonny Kate?”

  “The best party to go to is the one they can’t start without you.”

  He laughed. “Fact.”

  “So what did you do before you was a marshal?” She made conversation as they rode to keep their minds off the horses’ struggle clambering up a treacherous arroyo below a huge cliff precariously laden with boulders that seemed like they might fall on their heads at any time.

  “I’m a bounty hunter by trade. Not really a marshal in the job sense, just a deputized one for this one job.”

  “So you’re an outlaw. Like me.” She smiled knowingly.

  “I ain’t an outlaw. Used to be, not now. Not for a long, long time. I chase legal, legitimate bounties. Only use my gun when I have to.”

  “Dead-or-alive bounties.”

  “A lot of the time.”

  “You bring ’em back dead, it’s the same price as you bring ’em in alive?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “How many men you killed?”

  “More than I wanted to. Like to think none I didn’t have to.”

  “But you are a bounty hunter. You do kill men for the reward money.”

  “No, I bring ’em back alive when I can,” Noose answered. “Most times I do bring ’em back alive, in truth. Once I get the drop on a man, they know I got ’em dead to rights, and most usually make the sensible choice, meaning surrender.”

  “I believe you, Joe. You ain’t the killer type. You ain’t got it in the eyes.” She thought for a second and an idea occurred to her, lighting up her gaze. “So you bein’ a bounty hunter and all, you must have heard of me.”

  “I think everybody’s heard of you, Bonny Kate Valance. You’re a famous woman.”

  “Notorious is the word most would use.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Reckon. I’m surprised our paths didn’t cross before with the big reward on my head. You ever hunt me for the bounty?”

  Noose shrugged. “No. I been working Wyoming and Idaho the last five years and when I got wind you was in Wyoming, before I could go after you for the reward, heard other bounty hunters already claimed it.”

  Those words drew an angry response from Bonny Kate Valance. Her eyes blazed in abrupt fury and she spat contemptuously onto the ground from her saddle. “Frank Butler and his dirty sons of bitches gang of vultures. Twelve against one. Me against all them. Yeah, those pigs got me, delivered me to the Jackson marshal like livestock. They don’t know how to treat a woman, that’s a truthful fact. Those is bad men, Joe Noose. You don’t want to meet up with ’em.”

  Joe Noose sat straight in the saddle and looked forward with a stony hard stare. His voice was low and gravelly, like rocks ground together when he said: “I did. I killed ’em.”

  A gasp came from behind him.

  “You killed Frank Butler?”

  He nodded.

  “The Frank Butler?”

  “And his men. The whole Butler Gang. Last month.”

  With a vicious whoop of savage joy and
a coarse, bitter laugh, Bonny Kate clapped her hands, rattling the steel shackles in a noisy clanking of metal. Noose shot her a narrow glance and pressed his finger to his lips, warning her to stop making so much racket. He pointed around them, indicating that people might be listening. She nodded back soberly and drew her finger across her own lips as if to seal them, whispering now. “Good for you. Goddamn good for you. Did you have a bunch of guys with you?”

  “Just me.”

  “Just you? One man against all of them?”

  “And Bess Sugarland, the Jackson U.S. Marshal, but she wasn’t then. I did most of the shooting but she helped. I’d have been dead if it wasn’t for her. That’s why I took this deputy job to help her out, ’cause she hurt her leg in those troubles with Butler and, well, ’cause I owe her.”

  “Yee-haw! Joe Noose, if you’d have ridden with my gang we’d have been unstoppable. We’d have taken over the whole damn West.” She whistled in admiration. “One man took down the Butler Gang. Hot damn.”

  “Wasn’t easy. They were a lot of trouble. A real handful. I got shot twice. Barely survived.”

  “But you did.”

  “I did. They were stupid. Plus, they were greedy. They were a pack of mad dogs and mad dogs get put down. Did get this horse out of it, though, Copper here. Took him off one of those boys. He likes me better.”

  “May I inquire what made you mix it up with Butler and his boys? What was in it for you?” she asked.

  “It was what was in it for them. Butler framed me for shooting Bess’s father, the marshal in Hoback, then tried to hunt me down for the reward.”

  “So you got the reward, then?”

  Noose gave her a screw-eyed, squinty glance. “You got a mind like a cash register, lady.”

  “I’m a woman. I keep my eye square on the bottom line. So you’re rich, right?”

  Noose just shook his head. “Change the subject.”

  “Joe Noose!”

  “Let’s talk about something else, I said.”

  “I’m gonna be dead tomorrow. I should damn well be able to talk about what I please my last day breathing living air.”

  “Not with me.”

  Suddenly, Bonny Kate hissed. “Shush! ”

  Quickly reining Copper to a standstill with the lead in one hand, Noose quick-drew his Colt Peacemaker from his holster and cocked the hammer, utterly alert, his gaze sweeping the forest around them.

  “You hear that?” Bonny Kate whispered.

  Brow furrowed, he looked her a question. Hard.

  Her eyes were wide and wild, fixed to his own, as she silently pointed to her left. Then she nudged in that direction with her jaw.

  He nodded imperceptibly. Noose adopted an attitude of intense listening.

  The woods were quiet—too quiet. The branches and leaves, dry as parchment, were still. There was no wind. The silence that descended was deafening.

  A crack. Faint but distinct.

  Perhaps fifty yards away, in the depths of a dry thicket.

  His eyes swiveled to Bonny Kate, who was holding her breath. Her face had a high color. The two of them sat stone still in the saddles, surrounded by thick trees and undergrowth on all sides. The two horses sensed the tension of the owners and remained absolutely stationary. Noose remained braced and alert, gun barrel held up beside his head, thumb on the hammer.

  Another snap, like a breaking twig beneath a foot. Closer this time, maybe forty yards distant, approaching.

  Bonny Kate shot him a glance. Her gaze landed on his pistol.

  His thumb was slowly cocking back the hammer, one notch at a time.

  A movement in the bushes.

  The Colt Peacemaker was fully cocked and Joe Noose levered his gun arm like a lowering boom to fiercely, directly aim his revolver at the source of the sound.

  A flurry of movement.

  He pulled the trigger.

  A rabbit suddenly charged out of the bushes up the hill in a blinding blur of motion.

  Noose caught the hammer with his thumb before it made contact with the shell, sparing the bullet and the noise it would have made.

  With a loud exhale of relief, Bonny Kate sagged.

  The loud gun discharge instantly followed at an earsplitting decibel in the amplified acoustics of the ravine—it came from the other direction and from below, Noose already swinging in his saddle and squeezing off two shots in the direction while roaring, “Get down! ”

  Heaving herself clean out of her saddle, Bonny Kate covered her face with her shackled hands as she flew from the stirrups and hit the ground hard, rolling over and over with a grunt to end up hugging the ground on her belly in a settling cloud of dirt.

  Lapping tongues of fire came from the cluster of dead pine trees below, where crouching figures of several men had rifles and pistols drawn, shooting up at them. The figures were concealed by branches and hard to make out. Noose swung Copper full around and loosed off several more wild shots down at them but he didn’t see any horses—Sheriff Bojack and his posse had abandoned their mounts to pursue on foot after all; it was why they had caught up so fast, as he had anticipated. Bullets whistled past Noose’s ears and flashed in his eyes as bright scintillating glints of metal. Rounds punched holes in trees nearby, showering chunks of bark. It was harder to hit a moving target so Noose got his horse moving fast, galloping straight for a tightly packed copse of pine trees clumped thirty feet away where he could dismount and keep Copper out of the line of fire for now the horse was a big and obvious target. Noose needed to be on foot and quick.

  As he rode charging past Bonny Kate—the lady outlaw was safely hidden flat in the grass and intact for now—he snatched her horse’s reins and hauled the second steed with him toward the cover of the trees. Seconds later Noose was unhorsed, his boots hitting solid ground, and in several swift movements he had lashed the reins of both animals to a branch while snatching his Winchester repeater and a bandolier of. 45 ammo from his saddle.

  In deafening fusillades of lead, the bullets from the dug-in Arizona lawmen below exploded everywhere, relentless strings of fire coming in staccato bursts with scarcely a pause to reload. Jets and geysers of dirt kicked up at his feet as Noose hurriedly departed the safely sheltered horses and ran in a swift, low crouch back toward Bonny Kate, levering and firing his Winchester rifle over and over down the hill in the direction the shots came from. He saw muzzle flashes in the branches below popping like a string of firecrackers. The air was already thick with a hanging haze of gun smoke. The bullets all seemed to be coming his way, Noose noticed, quickly realizing that the Arizona constabulary were trying to kill him first—because that vengeful sheriff would want to be the one to shoot Bonny Kate, not allowing her to die by a stray bullet. It was a strategic awareness that gave Joe Noose a slight advantage as he dove to the ground beside Bonny Kate and crawled into a good shooting position.

  Noose got his left elbow crooked on a ridge of dirt that gave him leverage for aiming his rifle as he slapped some fresh cartridges into the breech, cocked the lever, and began firing more discriminately this time.

  Other than feeling the sweet body heat radiating off her, Noose was paying no particular attention to the woman beside him so it came as a big surprise when he felt the fully loaded Colt Peacemaker snatched from his right holster before he could react . . . Noose snapped a fearsome glance over to see Bonny Kate gripping the revolver in a two-hand grip on the ground and taking careful, well-placed shots at the half-glimpsed posse below.

  “Gimme my damn gun back!” he snarled.

  “Shut up and shoot!” she snapped, blowing one shadowy deputy to his knees. Noose cocked an eyebrow, actually impressed. This was one woman who knew how to handle a gun.

  “For the last time, give me that gun!”

  She shot him a potent, loaded glare. “We’re outnumbered and outgunned, mister! Two guns are better than one! Let’s take care of these fools and when it’s over I’ll give you your damn gun back!”

  As a heavy-cali
ber round exploded an inch from his face, Noose had to admit she had a point: another knowledgeable gun hand in this sticky situation they found themselves in was clearly an asset. Glaring back at her as she returned her gaze to sighting down the barrel of her stolen Colt, Noose took aim with his Winchester and shot a piece off another deputy, who went down and flopped around, hollering a string of profanity.

  A hundred yards below the roaring guns of the tough marshal and his fiery prisoner defending their desperate position, the lawmen were advancing, even the wounded ones. Exchanging hand signals back and forth with seasoned professionalism, the determined posse gained ground and fearlessly came on in a deadly phalanx. Noose realized besides being disciplined, these Arizona men were tough sons of bitches because some had bullets in them and were still on their feet and not slowed down. Respecting them for this, it was with some regret Joe Noose realized he was going to have to kill each and every one, because that was the only way to stop them.

  At his side, Bonny Kate chose her shots wisely. She didn’t waste bullets. Seconds passed between each time she pulled the trigger as she carefully squinted and locked on a target. Four, then five shots sounded.

  Then the hollow click of a hammer on an empty chamber.

  “I’m out of bullets,” she said.

  “Good,” he replied.

  “Gimme more ammo. I need to reload.”

  Noose just grinned and shook his head. Bonny Kate grabbed his arm and jammed her face in his. “Listen to me, Joe. I have a plan. Load me up and let’s split up. Let me head left down that hill and you and me, we can flank them. They’re shooting at you, in case you ain’t figured that out yet. Bojack ain’t gonna let one of his men shoot me, he wants to do that, but he needs you dead first. Flank ’em is the smart play. From their position they won’t see me make my move. They’ll keep coming to you. Let ’em. You keep me covered and I’ll get down there and hit them from the side.”

  His heart pounded from adrenaline and something else he didn’t quite recognize. Noose looked in the mesmerizing whorls of Bonny Kate’s blue eyes for what seemed like minutes but was probably less than a second. “That’s a good plan,” he stated flatly.