Earlier, she had tied the rope to a tree on the other side of the trail. She had done her best to gauge what a man's chest level would be as it rose over the top of his mount's head and had tied the knot at the calculated height. She had hoped that the warning given by the string of bells would give her the proper amount of time to grab the rope, run with it to the side until it was drawn out in a straight line and knock an adversary right off his horse with it. It was what Nash would have called a crapshoot at best, but it was better than no plan at all.
As it drew taut, she couldn't even console herself with the knowledge she had been right that if she encountered anyone, it was certain to be someone who meant the supply wagon great harm. Off in the blackness, her ears caught the sound of the rider breaking through her warning system guarding the approach from Pine Bluff. Would he keep going or would he turn around and make another strafing run at the wagon?
Bitter that the rope trap had caught only empty air, she was about to drop it in favor of pulling her gun free to be ready if he did indeed seek to make another run at her when suddenly she froze. The sound of the retreating man’s horse made as it raced away should have been fading rather than growing louder as it now was. Suddenly the rope jerked in her hands. Immediately, her ears were met by the thunder of hoofbeats next to the wagon instantly followed by a strangled cry bursting from a man’s lungs. A second rider trailing behind whose hoofbeats had been masked by that of the first man’s! With satisfaction stitched across her face, she listened to the sound of a man’s body slamming to the ground out of sight on the far side of the wagon. Her mind only had a moment to register a flickering light suddenly illuminating the ground under the wagon coming from the other side where the man had fallen when she came under fire.
Her surprise at the second rider had momentarily displaced thoughts of the first man who had disappeared into the blackness down the pass, but the lead he was throwing her way meant she was forefront in his mind. In a fluid moment, she scooped up the bucket of dirt and dumped it on the small fire instantly extinguishing it as she planned should she need sudden darkness to prevent her from becoming an easy target.
As she heard the groaning of the man on the other side of the wagon, she ignored it. More concerned with his partner, McKenna filled her hand with her Colt and pressed herself flat against the side of the wagon. Behind her Cain was stamping about, whining nervously, and she couldn't blame her old mount. Now that she was shrouded in darkness, the assailant was firing blindly. Bullets whined hornet-like over the smothered fire pit until they abruptly stopped. She had been in enough gunfights alongside Nash to know the man was reloading, and she wasn't going to give him the opportunity.
Peeling herself away from the side of the wagon, she took a shooting stance, tightened her finger on the trigger, and fired in the direction the shots had come from. Equally disadvantaged by the darkness, she could only hope for the best. As the sixth and last of her bullets burst into the night, she was astonished to hear the sound of the man approaching on his horse. Her plan to stop him from reloading had worked, but now he was making a break for it.
McKenna had no illusion she would be able to reload before the man swept back past the wagon and vanished, but she knew she had a good shot at capturing the other man hopefully incapacitated on the other side of the wagon. As she lunged for her Winchester rifle that she had leaned up against one of the wagon wheels earlier, she heard a gruff voice yelling, “Get up and do what we came for, damn it!” A second later a voice tinged with pain called back, “Okay, but god dang it! I think I busted up something real bad down below when I fell from the horse!”
Her hand reached to seize the rifle, but her fingers bumped it instead and it fell flat on the ground. As she scrambled for it cursing silently, she became aware of the glow emanating from underneath the wagon suddenly vanished. Snatching up the rifle and cocking it, she raced around the end of the wagon, but she was too late. The man on the horse must have pulled his injured partner up behind him as she saw two darkened figures vanishing from view down the pass on a single horse. Her finger jerked back on the trigger and the Winchester barked. Her teeth ground together when the sound of a cry of agony failed to materialize. In its place was the sound of hoofbeats fading into nothing.
Suddenly a reprieve emerged in the form of the second rider’s horse. It had run off when he’d been carried away by the rope, but now it came trotting out from behind a boulder. If she could rein it in, there might be clues to its owner or perhaps someone could identify it. All hopes of doing just that evaporated as she became aware of the acrid smell of smoke.
Jerking her head upward and to the left, she saw flames dancing along the top of the supply wagon, illuminating the end of a rod-shaped item sticking out over the edge of the top. She caught her breath as it slammed home to her what she had been seeing earlier. The glow from underneath the wagon must have come from a torch the second man had been carrying. When the glow had vanished, it had been him retrieving it from the ground and heaving it on top of Markham's wagon before making his escape with his confederate. Burning the wagon to ashes had been their plan, and unless she acted quickly, they would still succeed despite her rout of them.
McKenna vaulted to the side of the wagon and climbed up on its side. She paused long enough to retrieve her knuckleduster revolver, slip her fingers through the brass knuckles and flip open the blade. Reaching up, she punctured the canvas repeatedly until she had damaged it enough to jam her fingers into the canvas through the holes to be able to pull herself up high enough to scramble on top of the canopy. On her knees, she stripped off her corduroy jacket and rose to her feet. Swinging one of her legs, she kicked the still burning torch into a spin propelling it off the roof.
The end of the canopy closest to the driver’s seat was fully involved since that was where the torch had landed when the outlaws had hurled it skyward. Frantically, she began to beat the flames with all her might. She was making progress halting the spread of the flames, but still, they burned. In a day filled with surprises, she was served up one final one as suddenly she was startled by the sudden appearance of a man next to her. If he was going to kill her, she didn’t even have time to drop her jacket and make a play for her gun.
Instead of harming her, however, the man also clutched a jacket and began to beat alongside her, and in the flickering light of the flames, her eyes widened in recognition. The man’s long dark hair swayed, and his muscles rippled as he labored. For a brief second, he turned his head to her and gave her a smile. Red Horse, the Indian carpenter!
Her mind whirled wondering how he came to be there, but there would be plenty of time for questions after the fire was put out. The combined efforts of the impromptu firefighters soon managed to stamp out the rest of the flames leaving only a smoky haze in the air. The pair climbed down from the wagon, and as Red Horse bent to pick up the still-burning torch, on the ground next to it, she noticed a quiver lying in the dirt with many arrows scattered from where they had fallen out of it. Lifting her eyes away from the ground, she used them to do a quick survey.
One half of the canvas canopy was damaged or destroyed, but what really mattered was the cargo. Climbing into the back of the wagon, she saw an ember here and there that she squashed with her boots. The good news, however, that despite a copious amount of ash covering the goods, nothing inside had been burnt, as they had managed to put out the fire before it burned down far enough to reach the shipment.
Jumping back down out of the wagon, she faced Red Horse, and at last able to breathe a sigh of relief, she smiled, reaching up to lay a hand on his shoulder.
"I don't know how the hell you happened to show up when you did, but I owe you one, Red Horse. Without you, all of this would have gone up in flames."
“Red Horse happy to help. Know these wagons, Markham’s wagons. Markham a good man, give me many jobs in the past. How this come to pass, McKenna?”
CHAPTER 22
DALTON’S CREEK
; In his parlor, Danforth J. Dalton sat stewing with his hands splayed out on his knees as he waited. Crockett paced back and forth behind the settee while Bryant leaned against the wall with his arms folded. All three men's heads swiveled toward the door to the stairwell at the thumping sound of a man racing up the stairs.
Bryant pushed himself off from the wall and jammed his thumbs into his gun belt and looked at the other two men.
“About time. I told you that you should have sent me down there to find out what happened.”
“And we told you it wouldn’t do to have one of the Peace Officers nosing around. The whole purpose of wanting to frame Riker was to distance ourselves from the deaths in case that drew any lawmen from afar,” Crockett barked.
“Well, there ain’t any deaths now is there! We can see from here the church is still standing!
At that moment Bill Jefferies burst through the door, panting heavily from his dead run down to the town hall building. He gulped in some air and looked at the trio.
"I heard what you shouted on the way up and you're wrong—there were deaths! On our side, that is!"
Dalton looked up at the barber, his eyes burning. With a small bag of gold dust, he had recruited the man as his spy some time ago in order to mingle with the other townsfolks to keep track of their efforts to thwart him. He had sent him to the church to find out what happened, and now his first words had caused a knot to blossom in his stomach, and he knew he wasn’t going to like hearing the rest of it.
“The stampede distraction at the Beckett ranch failed to keep that Riker feller up there. What’s more, he killed Farley Spencer whose damn fool mouth blabbed everything to the stranger spurring him on down into the town in time to stop the explosion!”
A sputtering sound came from Clyde Bryant as he took two steps forward towards Jeffries and seized him by the shirt. “Farley’s dead? And you’re talking ill about him?” he began to shake the man violently as Judge Crockett bellowed for him to stop to no effect. The haircutter began shouting to be let go, but Bryant only shook him harder.
Suddenly the blast of a derringer Dalton always kept in his breast pocket ended the melee as Dalton rose from the sofa and fired it into the ceiling.
“Enough!! Keep yourself in line, Mister Bryant! Let me hear the rest of it. What happened with the men that went with Spencer?” Bryant thrust Jefferies away and the man landed on the couch, looking back up at him angrily.
“Dunno. Probably ran off when Farley got himself shot by Riker. That’s the problem with hired guns like Bryant here, there’s always another job, and they are only loyal to the almighty dollar, which they probably figured you’d withhold when they botched it all up!” he scowled.
“So, Riker stopped the gun shop and the church from blowing sky high?” Crockett pressed.
“That’s right, Judge. From the drift I got, he and that Beckett bitch shot the rapids down the creek to get here in time. That’s the other death. The only thing that got blown up was the man you sent down there to take out the church!”
“Nate Clegg dead too?” Bryant asked in stunned wonder. “Also, at the hands of Riker? I tell you what there’s a fellow that needs a one-way ticket on the boot hill express!”
“Gets worse! Riker’s organizing a vigilante army against you and the Peace Officers carrying on how it’s either six-guns against you or surrender. At best they are going to run you out of office, at worst you’re heading for a necktie party, Mister Dalton!” Jeffries said, his words coming out in a rush.
A stillness fell over the room as Dalton put away his derringer and clasped his hands behind his back. Slowly the mayor walked over to the window and peered down the street. A few lanterns hung outside the different businesses, but the street was quiet for the most part. Finally, he turned back to the other three men that awaited his instructions.
“This Riker is becoming a real problem. Perhaps I was over-thinking it before. Maybe I should have just let him get to the meeting on time and die with the others. Now he’s riling up the whole town against me. But we are going to snuff out the notion of the birth of a vigilante militia leaving it a stillborn. Judge Crockett, Bryant, have our men assemble at dawn. There’s work to be done!”
CHAPTER 23
BLACK ROCK PASS
McKenna fell silent as she finished filling in Red Horse on the whole story starting from her meeting of Sam Belfry on the way to town and ending with the escape of the saboteurs into the night. Bathed in the torchlight, she saw the look of contemplation on the man’s face.
“Another dark cloud had fallen over Markham and his livelihood.”
Another? What had he meant by that? she wondered as she mumbled, “A dark cloud that’s going to lead directly to Pepper Hill and the Cape Girardeau’s mining operation, I’m almost certain of that.”
Before she could ask him what he had meant, the carpenter handed her the torch and looked around before striding away. McKenna watched as he picked up the shovel leaning against the side of the supply wagon and worked to clear the mound of dirt out of the center of the fire pit as she asked him what he was doing.
“We get hot fighting fire, but soon chill return. Red Horse build this fire up again.”
McKenna had no reason to protest, agreeing with the idea, and she handed him the torch which he drove into the ground. A short time later, the man had a roaring fire going in contrast to the earlier one she had made deliberately small in order to quickly extinguish it if need be. As Red Horse busied himself restarting the fire, she made a fruitless search in the vicinity for the bandit's horse, but it had long fled the scene while they were battling the blaze. Walking back towards the beleaguered Conestoga, she heard her companion call out the fire was ablaze.
When she joined him by the fire, she saw that he was examining one of the arrows he had plucked off the ground and was chuckling good-naturedly.
“I reckon the jasper I knocked off his horse dropped that. I suspect when the burned-out wagon was found in the morning, we were all supposed to think some of your people were responsible. You seem to find something amusing about the arrow. What would that be?” she pressed.
“If they try to blame Indians, they would fail. I know these. Have seen them in general stores like in Pepper Hill. I see some there when I was in buying nails for a job I did over there two moons ago. Merchants try to sell them to white eyes new to the West. Send back home to white man’s family and friends left behind as gift—so the shopkeeper’s signs say. Made by white man though, maybe fool white eyes to the east, but not a Paiute.” He held the arrow up before her eyes and pointed to the feathers on the end of it. “White man who make these use wrong feathers. I try and shoot one once just to see how bad he make it. With these feathers arrow fall short before ever reaching any target or game. Also, what you whites call ….” He paused for a moment as he searched for the word, then he smiled, “Flimsy.” With that, he grasped the arrow and easily snapped it into two pieces, discarding both ends into the circle of fire.
Soon, the pair sat side by side, their thighs touching as they both sipped out of tin mugs she carried in her saddlebags, enjoying her delayed pot of coffee that she had just brewed.
“Now this fire, good,” Red Horse quipped as she laughed and patted his broad shoulder with the side of her head. It was no random movement, as she wished to send a subtle signal to the man. She would have been grateful to anyone that had come by to help her put out the fire, but she was especially thankful that it had been this man—this very attractive man who had caught her eye earlier.
"What were you doing out here to come along when you did?" she asked, unable to escape the pang of contrition that she had been wrong in her belief no one would have any business out in the pass during the night time. Her only balm was that she had not sprung her trap against Red Horse! She'd like to think that if the Indian had tripped her warning bells, he would have made a slow, cautious approach towards the wagon, giving her enough time to assess he was not a threat. There was no use
in speculating on what-ifs, so she simply waited to hear what had brought him to Black Rock Pass.
"I finish early at the stables. Another job waits for Red Horse in Pepper Hill. No other carpenter wishes to take it now that fever has come to that town. It was my wish to be there first thing in the morning to start work, so I ride out tonight."
McKenna leaned forward, her brow creasing. In her dealings with the men at the freight company, she had heard no mention of any fever. Perhaps it was a very recent development. Red Horse confirmed this when she asked him about it saying he himself had only heard about it the night before when he had been in the Pepper Hill area on another job that had led him to get the one he would start in the morning.
“So, you travel from town to town? Wherever a job takes you?”
“Just in this area, McKenna. That is another reason leaving arrows would fail. Red Horse’s people leave these lands, crowded out by you white eyes and pony soldiers. None remain except me. This land, much love I have for it. Cannot leave—these jobs keep me here, but in the late hours of the night, that is when my heart grows heavy, missing my tribe, my younger brothers and sisters.”
A stillness fell between the two as McKenna just looked at him, her heart, too, feeling heavy for what it must be like for him. It was hard for her even to imagine what a permanent separation from her twin brother would be like. In the years that she was back east in school and Nash remained in California, it always felt a part of her was missing. Not knowing what else to say, she just looked at him and his gaze locked on her.
Six-Guns Or Surrender (Lincoln's Lawman Book 1) Page 14
