Cutthroats

by William W. Johnstone

  “Ahhh, helllll!”

  The big man disappeared into a sudden explosion of lemony sunlight.

  Slash blinked against the light, blocking the glare with one hand. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the door had given way. In fact, it had totally disappeared.

  Along with Pecos himself.

  Slash crawled forward to poke his head out the tunnel’s back door, which opened onto the side of a ravine gaping thirty feet below. Pecos was on the slope directly below the yawning doorway, rolling . . . rolling . . . rolling down the slope until he piled up with a grunt at the ravine’s bottom.

  During the roll, he’d lost his rifle as well as the sawed-off shotgun that had been hanging down his back. He’d also lost the Russian, which rolled down the slope to land beside him now on the ravine’s floor covered with flood-scalloped sand, rocks, and sun-bleached driftwood.

  Jay shouldered up to Slash to poke her head out of the doorway.

  Gazing down at Pecos, she made a face and said, “I reckon I should have told you the door opened out over an arroyo!”

  Pecos sat up stiffly, grunting. Dirt and other debris clung to his long hair. In fact, it covered nearly every inch of his big frame. He shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs from his brain as well as the dirt from his hair, and glared up the slope at Slash and Jay staring down at him.

  “I might’ve broke my neck!” he said.

  “Oh, come on,” Slash said, grinning as he stepped gingerly out of the tunnel, placing one foot and then the other firmly down on the gravel-carpeted slope. “You couldn’t break that thick neck of yours with a sledgehammer!”

  He offered Jay his hand. “My dear?”

  “Why, thank you, kind sir,” Jay said, as though a royal gentleman were helping her out of a golden carriage. “Your chivalry knows no bounds.”

  She dropped the torch in a mound of sand, and the flame sputtered out.

  Slash led her down the slope, following the scuffed track that Pecos had carved with his body. Once on the canyon floor, where Pecos groaned and flexed each brawny arm in turn, working out the soreness and the stiffness, Slash leaned his rifle against the bank of the arroyo and then walked back up the slope, retrieving Pecos’s guns and hat.

  When Slash gained the arroyo floor again, Jay was standing over Pecos, massaging his shoulders while Pecos grunted and groaned and spat dirt and sand from his mouth.

  “Here you go, pardner,” Slash said. “You look a little worse for the wear.”

  Pecos glared up at him. “I feel a little worse for the wear!”

  “Now, don’t get your neck in a hump, ya sissy!” Slash stared up the slope, at the gray-black column of smoke unfurling against the sky far above. The gunfire had died. The bounty hunters likely figured their quarry had burned up in the cabin.

  Hardening his jaws, Slash picked up his rifle and loudly racked a cartridge into the action. “Time to hunt us some rats. Those rats we let shadow us here to burn Jay’s house down!”

  “I hear that!” The notion of revenge appeared to snap the big outlaw from his stupor. Pecos placed his hands on the ground, heaved himself to his feet, and shoved his pistol into its holster. He slung his double-barreled shotgun behind his back and picked up his Colt rifle. “I’m ready, dammit! Let’s go, Slash! You best wait here, Jay.”

  Jay grabbed Pecos’s arm. “Fellas?”

  “What is it?” Slash asked.

  “Before you go, you have to know something.”

  Slash turned to her, concerned. “What is it?”

  She kept one hand on Pecos’s arm and closed her other hand over Slash’s. She looked up at both men. “It wasn’t you who led those men here. I did.”

  “You?” Pecos said in shock.

  “What’re you talking about, Jay?” Slash asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to, of course. But I . . . I got careless.” Jay backed up a step, crossed her arms on her chest, looked away in shame. “I . . . got lonely. One day I was riding through the mountains and I came across the man who owns a ranch near here. I . . . I got to know him. From time to time, when I knew he was working in the area, I took him picnic lunches. Eventually . . . I . . . I brought him here. Cooked him meals. Sometimes . . . sometimes he didn’t leave until after breakfast. The next morning.”

  She hardened her jaw and shook her head in disgust. “Like a fool, I brought him here, to our hideout!”

  “You don’t need to explain, Jay,” Slash said gently.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t,” Pecos said. “You’re a pretty woman, Jay. Pete’s been dead nigh on five years. You’ve been livin’ alone up here for five years. No one could blame you for . . .”

  “That’s not the part I’m ashamed of. Of course, I was lonely. You two don’t come around all that often anymore, and since Pete died, you’re about the only two men I ever keep company with. I hardly see anyone at all between trips to town for supplies. I have no friends . . . except you two.”

  “The only part I don’t get,” Slash said, “is . . . how did you lead Penny here?”

  “I rode to town one day and I saw Ed—he’s the rancher I got to know, Ed Ritter—talking to a big, bearded man out front of one of the saloons. Ed didn’t see me—there was a lot of traffic on the street that day, but I had a strange feeling about the man he was talking to. Ever since that day—it must have been six weeks ago now—I’ve had the strange feeling someone has been keeping an eye on me and the cabin. When I’ve taken my horse out for rides around the mountains, I’ve sensed someone keeping pace with me, watching me.

  “One day, I saw someone from a distance. He was just a man-shaped shadow, watching me from some trees just below a ridgeline. I didn’t put it together until a few minutes ago, but I think the man who was shadowing me must’ve been one of Jack Penny’s men. I have a strong feeling that the man Ed was talking to in town that day was Penny.”

  “Penny is a big, bearded hombre for sure,” Pecos said to Slash.

  “Tall, lanky man with a ratty beard,” Slash said to Jay. He gestured toward his left eye. “With one wandering eye.”

  Jay nodded slowly, darkly. “That was him.” She drew a deep breath, released it slowly. “He probably knew that Ed Ritter ranched in these mountains, and that’s why he was talking to Ed that day. He probably offered Ed money for information about you two. He might’ve even offered him a cut of the bounty on your heads.”

  Jay paused, then added, “I haven’t seen Ed anywhere near the cabin since then. He’s been staying away from me out of shame, no doubt, for informing Penny where the cabin is.” She glanced at the dark smoke unraveling against the sky. “Was.”

  Slash thought about Jay’s story, then asked, “How would Ed have known you were connected to me an’ Pecos?”

  “He wouldn’t have. I certainly didn’t tell him. He just suspected, most likely. Suspicion based on rumors, probably, though he never let on to me about those suspicions. Those suspicions were likely confirmed when he spoke to Penny. After talking to Ed, Penny posted a spy to keep an eye on me and the place.”

  Jay’s cheeks colored with rising emotion as she shifted her angry gaze between Slash and Pecos. “They were setting a trap for you two. They were biding their time, waiting to spring it. The spy must have seen you two ride up here yesterday—he was probably well hid, on a distant ridge, no doubt—and then rode to town to inform Penny. His gang probably rode all night to get here. To spring their trap.”

  Jay grabbed each man’s arm again and squeezed. “I’m so sorry, boys! This was all my fault. It wasn’t you. It was me. I got careless!”

  “Good to hear,” Pecos said. “For a while there, I thought me an’ Slash were the only careless ones.” The big brigand kissed Jay’s cheek.

  Slash kissed her other cheek. “Pecos is right. That may be the first time in his life he was right about anything.”

  Pecos grunted.

  Slash set his rifle on his shoulder. “Stay here, Jay. We’ve got bounty hunters t
o hunt.”

  “No, I’m going with you.” Jay grabbed her own repeater from where it had been leaning against a rock. As Slash and Pecos began to object, she held up a hand to shush them both. “I’ll stay back when the lead starts flying. But I want to be close, in case you boys need tendin’.”

  Slash looked at Pecos and shrugged. “Good enough.”

  He swung around and began striding along the arroyo, Pecos and Jay falling into step behind him.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ten minutes later, Slash and Pecos climbed a rocky, brushy slope, Jay following from ten feet behind them, her red hair glowing surreal copper in the crisp, midday sunshine.

  Slash slid a glance around a low escarpment ahead and above him, and then pulled his head down sharply and gave a low hiss. He dropped to a knee, and then Pecos did, as well, the big man questioning Slash with his gaze.

  “Horses on the other side of the scarp,” Slash whispered.

  “Anyone with ’em?”

  “One man as far as I could tell.” Slash glanced at Jay, who dropped to a knee just down the slope from him and Pecos. Slash said, “You two wait here. There’s a man with the horses. I’m gonna take care of him.”

  “Be careful,” Jay whispered.

  Slash handed Pecos his rifle. Rising from his knee, he moved slowly up to the scarp and stepped around to its far left edge.

  He doffed his hat and then leaned his head forward, casting a glance around the scarp to where a dozen or so horses were tied to a long picket line in the pines about thirty feet up the slope. The man Slash had glimpsed was sitting on a rock to the right of the horses, nearly directly above the scarp.

  His back faced Slash. He was hunkered forward over his knees, and he appeared to be whittling. Slash recognized him by the grisly scar on his sun-seared neck, showing below his brown, ragged bowler hat and his close-cropped, gray-flecked hair.

  Rex Schmidt.

  When the no-account ex–mule skinner had been working with another, smaller team of bounty hunters six years ago, they’d set up an ambush against Slash and Pecos on the dry plains of western Kansas. They’d shot up the gang, killing four Snake River Marauders and wounding two others including the young man Slash had come to love as his son, Clayton Henry. Young Clayton had suffered badly from the two bullet wounds over the next two weeks until, when the gang had ridden clear down into southern Colorado, he’d finally died late one night, sobbing in Slash’s arms.

  Schmidt had been the only one of those three cowardly, back-shooting bounty hunters who’d made it away alive that day, fleeing hell for leather on a dapple-gray gelding, leaving a clear trail of blood in the bromegrass and sage. Slash had heard that Schmidt had been seen lately walking with a pronounced limp, and he’d assumed with satisfaction it had come from one of the Marauders’ own bullets that day of the bushwhack.

  That had made Slash smile. But it hadn’t been enough.

  He’d longed to avenge the cowardly killing of Clayton Henry.

  Slash smiled now as he slid his bowie knife from its sheath on his right hip, where it rode behind the holstered. 44 on that side, and took several quiet steps straight out from the escarpment. He glanced toward the horses cropping grass and switching their tails ahead and on his left, the sunlight glistening in their coats.

  A couple of the mounts had winded Slash. He could tell that one, whose ears were twitching, was about to whinny a warning to Schmidt, so he dropped to a knee and let it happen. The copper bay whickered as expected. Schmidt dropped the stick he’d been whittling and, rising and grabbing the rifle leaning at his side, quickly turned—awkwardly, due to his stiff left leg

  “Wha—huh?” he grunted, holding his pocket knife in one hand, the rifle in his other hand.

  “Hidy, Rex,” Slash said as he flicked the bowie from just behind his right ear, thrusting it forward.

  He watched in satisfaction as the twelve inches of tempered steel jutting straight out from the staghorn handle flew end over end, flashing in the sunshine filtering through the forest canopy.

  Rex saw the flashing bowie as well, and he grimaced suddenly, as though he’d swigged sour milk.

  Knowing he was doomed and there wasn’t one damn thing he could do about it, his eyes grew wide, crossing slightly as the bowie vaulted toward him, whistling softly, arcing upward and then downward before, just as the blade turned forward from the handle again, it disappeared into Schmidt’s chest with a resolute, crunching snick, splitting his breastbone and impaling his heart.

  Rex had opened his mouth to call out a warning to the rest of the bounty hunters, but words failed him. As the bowie sliced his heart in two, he only showed his teeth in an agonized grimace and stumbled straight backward, wobbling like a drunk.

  He dropped his pocketknife and his rifle and slapped both hands to the bowie’s blade. He tried desperately to pull the knife out of his chest, staring down at the silver blade in horror.

  But then he weakened. His arms dropped to his sides. He flopped backward against the ground.

  Slash straightened slowly, looked around. None of the other bounty hunters appeared to be in the close vicinity. Another horse whickered nervously but not loudly enough to alert the rest of the gang near the cabin, sixty or seventy yards beyond. Or so Slash hoped.

  He moved forward quietly and stared down at Rex Schmidt dying hard on the ground before him. Schmidt had a long, horsey, unshaven face from which all the blood had drained. He stared up in mute horror at Slash, his mouth forming a dark O between thin, chapped lips.

  Slash crouched over the man, smiling.

  “Hi, Rex. How you doin’, pard?”

  He placed a boot on Schmidt’s belly and jerked the bowie knife free of the man’s chest.

  “Not feelin’ too good, Rex?” Slash cleaned the bowie’s blade on Schmidt’s grungy broadcloth coat. “Yeah, well, Clayton Henry wasn’t feelin’ too good either, all those days he lingered with your lead in his back.”

  The bounty hunter’s mouth moved, but he only groaned as he stared up at Slash, his coyote-yellow eyes cast with both fury and raw terror.

  Slash glanced over his shoulder as Pecos walked up behind him, staring down at Schmidt, grunting with satisfaction when he recognized him.

  Pecos glanced at Slash. “Gonna finish him?”

  Slash shook his head as he continued to stare down at the shivering Schmidt. “Let him die slow. It’s better’n what he deserves.”

  “I hear that.”

  Jay came around from behind the escarpment, and Slash walked quickly over to her, taking her arm and leading her wide around the hard-dying bounty hunter. “You don’t need to see that.”

  Despite the warning, Jay looked around him at Schmidt and, as Slash led her ahead through the pine forest, she said, “You’re rather efficient—aren’t you, Slash?”

  “Schmidt and me got history.” As Pecos moved up behind them, Slash turned to Jay once more. “You wait here, now, Jay. Pecos and I are gonna go on ahead. If all goes well, we’ll fetch you in a few minutes.”

  “Should be able to take ’em by surprise,” Pecos said, gazing off through the pine branches as he held his rifle up high across his chest, his shotgun bristling behind him. “They’re prob’ly just waitin’ for the fire to die down so they can sift the ashes for our bodies. They’ll be wantin’ somethin’ to take to Bledsoe. Somethin’ he can identify.”

  Jay nodded. “I’ll stay here. Be careful, you two. You’re badly outnumbered.”

  “We been there before,” Pecos told her.

  Slash gave her a reassuring smile, then squeezed her arm. “Remember—stay here. No matter what you hear. If it ain’t us that comes back through these trees, you light out on one of them horses.”

  “I heard you the first time, Slash. I will stay right here. I promise.” Jay’s plump, red lips shaped a smile beneath the broad brim of her brown Stetson.

  “Okay.”

  Slash nodded at Pecos, and they moved off together through the pines.

 
As they approached the cabin’s yard, they split up, Slash angling left, Pecos angling right. Slash saw a large rock at the edge of the forest, abutting the clearing in which the cabin sat. As he headed toward it, tracing a meandering route between the trees, he could hear men talking and laughing.

  Anger blazed in him.

  He dropped to a knee behind the rock, which slanted sharply downward on one side, and peered over the slanting top toward the cabin that had all but collapsed in on itself. Only the left wall remained partly standing, flames licking up from its base. The fire still burned but it had already done most of its destructive work and was beginning to die.

  The old, dry timbers that the now-dead fur trapper had constructed it from offered the flames one hell of a feast.

  The sight of the old hideout diminished to flames and charred rubble sickened Slash. The men gathered around in front of it, passing bottles, talking and laughing, fueled his fury the way those old timbers had fueled the fire.

  His own inner conflagration burned even hotter when he saw one of Penny’s men urinating into the flames at the edge of the cabin, where the stoop had stood only a few minutes ago. Another man, obviously drunk, laughed and pointed out the urinating man to the others, holding a bottle in one hand, a rifle in the other.

  There were thirteen bounty hunters. They stood in three loosely bunched groups around the front of the cabin. They were talking and laughing like men at a barn dance who’d stepped out to get a drink and a smoke.

  Slash swept the rough bunch with his enraged eyes and picked out the big, fat, bearded Penny. Clad in greasy, smoke-stained buckskins and a calico shirt, the bounty-hunting leader stood to the far left of the bunch with a shorter man whom Slash didn’t recognize. Even from this distance of fifty yards, Slash could see the white around Penny’s wandering left eye as the man threw his arms up and tipped his head back, laughing.

  They were all reveling in the supposed demise of Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid along with the widow of Pistol Pete Johnson. To their minds, believing Slash and Rio dead, they’d cleaned up well. Several thousand dollars worth of well. Not to mention the prestige they’d acquired by taking down two of the West’s most notorious cutthroats.