Hired Guns

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Find you how bad? What do you mean exactly?” Eagle wanted to know.

  “I took one through my stump.” Pettigrew chuckled dryly. Like both Luke and Barlow, he had wormed his way in behind some broken rubble big enough to hide his bulk. “I’d call that lucky, wouldn’t you? The dumb buzzards planted one in the part of me that was already half wrecked instead of taking out something that mattered. Went through the meaty part on the back side of my thigh, not even bleeding very much.”

  “Find something to tie around it if you can,” said Eagle. “It’s important to get it plugged. Even losin’ a slow dribble of blood will start to take a toll on you before long.”

  Pettigrew chuckled again. “Thanks for the concern. I already survived losing half of this doggone thing, I think I know it’s kinda important to take care of what’s left. But speaking of something to be concerned about . . . how did Ferris and those other polecats know where to find us anyway?”

  “Just pure dumb luck, is all I can figure,” said Eagle. “They must have been out searching, most likely looking for some sign of Jensen or me, who they’re always on the lookout for.”

  “That makes sense,” agreed Barlow. “It’s sorta like Jensen warned us when the kids went missing—how they were at risk for running into some of that bunch making a general search.”

  “Better us than the kids, I guess,” Eagle muttered. “I’m surprised Ferris has his wolves rangin’ over this close to the badlands, but blast it, I still shoulda been more alert than to let us get caught in an ambush like we did.”

  “You don’t have the only set of eyes and ears in our group,” Luke reminded him, “so don’t try to shoulder it all. What’s done is done. The thing now is to figure a way out of this fix we’ve landed in.”

  “With twelve guns out there staring down our pie holes,” said Barlow, “that’s going to take some fancy figuring.”

  “In the first place, I think that’s an exaggeration,” Luke told him. “Ferris would naturally want to lay it on thicker than is actually the case, aiming to make us squirm as much as possible. More like half that many would fit with the number of hombres left after my skirmish with them yesterday. Although, I’ve got to admit, I’m a little surprised that Ferris is even among them.”

  “He’s tough, you can’t sell him short on that,” said Eagle. “But I agree with Luke on the number of men he’s got out there with him. You all see that grassy hill where the shootin’ came from, right? The powder smoke haze is fadin’ now but you can still tell the spread of it. Ain’t wide enough for no dozen guns, not by my judgment. I’d agree with half, maybe one or two more.”

  “So only six or eight guns trained on us . . . That still leaves us a mighty long ways from being in good shape.” Barlow was fighting it, but there was a ragged edge of fear stabbing into his voice.

  “Take it easy,” Eagle told him. “We might be without horses, but it ain’t like we’re without guns of our own.”

  “And we’ve only got those other guns trained on us,” Luke added, “if we stay where they figure we are.”

  “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Eagle said.

  “Reckon so,” Luke answered.

  Pettigrew was quick to say, “Okay. How about filling in the rest of us? What have you got in mind?”

  “Mainly I got in mind to not hold still and let this play out the way Ferris just painted it,” said Eagle.

  “Him and his boys can’t charge us, not without coming down off that hill and exposing themselves in the open,” Luke pointed out. “They try that, we’d have the advantage of cover and we could cut ’em to pieces.”

  Barlow said, “You heard Ferris. He’s smarter than to try that. He’s gonna wait us out, let us bake and go thirsty and hungry until we’re ready to give up. In the meantime, he can send somebody off to get provisions to keep him and the others in fine shape.”

  “We’re only bottled up if we let ourselves be,” Luke insisted. “All you have to do is look over your shoulder, Barlow. There’s miles of rocks and hills and arroyos back there. All we have to do is fade back, lose ourselves in those badlands, and work our way out again, somewhere we no longer have gun muzzles staring us in the face.”

  “They’ll swarm after us!”

  “Not right away they won’t,” said Eagle. “We leave one man here to keep Ferris’s coyotes at bay while the other three slip away. If Ferris sends men out wide to curl in and follow into the badlands—well, once in those jagged rocks and twisty canyons, numbers won’t count near as much. One man could be as effective as twenty. With a little luck he could maybe start pickin’ off a few of the coyotes, one at a time, and possibly even turn the whole tide.”

  “That’s too risky,” protested Barlow. “That might be the kind of cat-and-mouse stuff you’ve been getting away with, but not everybody’s suited the same. A person could get twisted around in those badlands and wander for days. And even if one of us did work his way clear, what then? He’d still have no horse, no way to help anybody else or try to get back to the mountain camp.”

  “Come on, Whit,” Eagle snapped. “The whole valley is full of horses who’ve been left to roam free after all the ranchers and farmers got chased off their spreads. You ought to know that as well or better than anybody. Some of those horses runnin’ out there are yours. If anybody would have a good chance to catch one, it’d be you.”

  “No matter the odds, doing it like Tom is saying gives us our best chance,” said Luke. “If we stay here and play Ferris’s waiting game, there’s no guarantee he won’t still sneak some men out wide for the purpose of trying to flank us. They manage to work their way unseen into the rough and then close in on us from behind and to our sides, we’d be durned near helpless. I don’t intend to hold still for that.”

  “That don’t sound like anything I want to hold still for, neither,” growled Pettigrew. “What they’re sayin’ makes sense, Barlow. We’ve got to do whatever it takes, not just to save our own skins but for the sake of makin’ sure at least one of us makes it back to warn the others in the encampment.”

  A sudden volley of shots from the grassy hill silenced any further discussion for the better part of a minute. Bullets whined off the rocks concealing the four trackers, kicking up a cloud of chalky dust filled with wildly spinning stone fragments. The dull smack of more rounds striking the already dead horses could also be heard.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, the shooting stopped.

  A handful of seconds into this silence, Barlow thrust up from behind his cover and fired off four frantic return rounds as fast as he could squeeze the trigger of his handgun. “Yellow polecats! Show yourselves!”

  No sooner had he dropped back down than another volley from the hill heavily pounded his specific boulder.

  When silence again fell over the scene, Luke said, “Did that make you feel better, Barlow? Even if it did, it was a dumb play. All you accomplished was to pinpoint your exact position and waste some ammunition killing a few blades of grass. Boneheaded moves like that won’t do you or any of us a bit of good!”

  Nobody said anything more for a minute until Barlow responded, “You’re right, Jensen. You’re right.” His voice was a little ragged, fighting to regain control. “Look, I’m sorry I let myself get rattled. It won’t happen no more. And the notion of us fading back away from here and working our way clear out through the badlands, you and Eagle are right about that, too. It’s our only chance.”

  “Okay then. Now that that’s agreed on, the only thing left is decidin’ which of us stays behind to cover the other three,” said Pettigrew.

  “That’s easy,” Eagle was quick to reply. “I’m the one who’s snugged in here behind my horse. The rest of you have only got your handguns while I’ve got access to my rifle and canteen. That puts me in the best shape to stay here and make a stand.”

  Pettigrew emitted another of his dry chuckles. “I figured you’d say that, Tom. But you’re overlookin’ one little detail—me and
my gimpiness. I told you I’d be okay as long as I was on a horse. Well that ain’t the case no more and a one-legged man ain’t exactly built for scrambling around out there in that rough country. Plus, the more I work this leg the more I’ll agitate the wound and cause added bleeding. So, for once in my life, being handicapped makes me the one in the best shape for doing something—and that’s staying here and covering the front door.”

  Once again nobody spoke for several seconds.

  Until Eagle finally said, “You make a strong argument, Pettigrew.”

  “If my argument is strong, then that ought to be the end of it,” Pettigrew told him. “Look, I never talk about it much, but I lost the bottom half of my leg helpin’ defend Little Round Top at Gettysburg. So on top of everything else, I’ve got some experience holding the line under tough conditions. You leave me your rifle and canteen, I reckon I can hold out here.”

  There was another stretch of silence, this time broken by Luke. “Sounds to me like Pettigrew is the right man for the job. The best thing the rest of us can do is work our way clear and make his stand count for something.”

  Chapter 27

  One by one, with Pettigrew using Eagle’s Winchester to provide cover fire, Luke, Eagle, and Barlow edged back away from the spots where they’d initially taken refuge. As each made it deeper into the badlands, the rock outcrops grew larger and more frequent and their exposure to the rifle fire from the hill dropped dramatically.

  About two hundred yards in, they converged in a deep, ragged-walled gully. The sun overhead was climbing closer to its noon peak and both the air and the bare rock surfaces all around them were growing steadily hotter. All three men were already dripping sweat and caked with dust. From back near the front edge of the broken terrain, where Pettigrew remained, they could hear the shots he was exchanging with the men on the grassy hill growing more sporadic and farther apart.

  “So far so good,” Eagle declared. “Now it’s time for us to split up and finish makin’ this pay off.”

  “Do you know these badlands at all?” Luke said.

  Eagle shook his head. “Nobody does, really. Nothing in here worth spending time to learn about. I only know that it’s widest up to the north where it eventually feeds into the Spearpoints. To the south it’s narrower and eventually tapers off into some prairie once again. But by narrower, I mean it’s still dozens and dozens of trackless miles.”

  “That’s okay, I don’t aim to pass through it,” said Luke. “I’ll go ahead and split off, though—but only for a ways.”

  “What do you mean? Why only for a ways?”

  “Occurs to me,” Luke said, “that if Ferris didn’t already send some men to flank us before, he surely will now after seeing that some of us decided not to stay pinned down up front. That makes me change my mind how I mean to play my part of this. Instead of making a run for it, I’m going to hang around and do some hunting of my own. It’ll give me the chance to pick off some of those flankers and not only trim their overall number but also keep them off Pettigrew’s back.”

  “I like the sound of that part. Pettigrew won’t stand a chance if they get into these rocks and work their way around behind him.”

  “Why don’t we all stay and make a fight of it then—from here, deeper in the rocks?” said Barlow.

  Luke gave a quick, firm shake of his head. “No. Somebody still has to concentrate on getting all the way clear—if for no other reason than for the sake of the others in the encampment. You and Eagle know the valley to the north, right? If you can make it out of these badlands up that way, where some of the ranches and farms used to be, your familiarity with the area will give you the best chance for at least one of you to find water and shelter and eventually one of those horses running loose. Then you can make it the rest of the way.”

  “What about you?”

  Luke smiled a wolf’s smile. “Don’t worry about me. Those flankers won’t be coming around without guns and canteens. I got a feeling I’ll be acquiring all the water and ammunition I’ll need to get me through. Then, if I manage to keep me and Pettigrew alive until nightfall, I know a few more tricks.”

  Barlow eyed him with a mix of awe and uncertainty. “You’re not short on confidence, I’ve got to hand you that,” he murmured.

  “You never win by planning to fail,” Luke told him. “And even more certain is that nobody ever accomplished anything by squatting in an over-baked gully just talking about it.” He looked at Eagle. “You got anything to add?”

  Eagle held his gaze for a long count and then said, “Only this: Dinah Mercer would be mighty disappointed if you end up wastin’ all the attention she put into soothin’ those cuts and bruises of yours.”

  “In that case,” Luke told him, “I’ll try extra hard not to disappoint the soothing Miss Mercer.”

  * * *

  A half hour passed before Luke heard the sound of someone moving through the rocks not far from where he’d positioned himself. After Eagle and Barlow departed, Luke had also moved out of the deep gully. But he didn’t go far. Less than twenty yards away he spotted a rock formation that rose up about fifteen feet higher than anything else around it. He calculated its height and shape—that of a giant, lop-sided mushroom—would suit him well as a lookout point from which he could watch for the approach of the men he suspected Ferris would be sending.

  Once atop the outcrop, he found the surface there to be worn relatively smooth by the elements. Dropping to his belly and pushing close to the edge of the highest point, he was able to look out and down and see a good distance in all directions. He was almost able to see Pettigrew where he remained hunkered, continuing to trade sporadic shots with the ambushers on the hill beyond. While he couldn’t actually catch sight of the blacksmith, he spotted periodic puffs of powder smoke rise up when Pettigrew took his shots.

  For a brief time Luke had been able to track the withdrawal of Eagle and Barlow, but they quickly disappeared into the sea of sun-blasted humps and ragged cuts that stretched for miles to the north. In one sense this was a relief, seeing how easily they could lose themselves in the rugged terrain, but at the same time it served to remind him how easy it also would be for Ferris’s men to keep themselves concealed if they came slipping around like he expected.

  That was why the sound—the soft rattle of pebbles being dislodged by something brushing too hard against a rock face—was so welcome. It gave him at least a rough idea where to focus. Although the unevenness and twists of the rocky surroundings had a way of sometimes distorting the exact source of a noise, it nevertheless provided a general direction. In this case, it was off to Luke’s left.

  Turning slowly, cautiously, so as not to give anything away with his own movement, Luke shifted around in order to be facing more toward where he’d heard the sound. The bleached, sun-washed surface under him was hot and growing hotter, pressing through his clothes and threatening to blister his bare hands. But he willed himself to ignore the pain, to concentrate on matters more serious, matters upon which hinged life or death.

  More minutes ticked by. Silence again now, except for an occasional exchange of distant shots between Pettigrew and the ambushers on the hill. Luke was listening so hard, so intently, that he picked up the faint sigh of a breeze that he otherwise never would have noticed.

  “Ouch!” This exclamation from a man encountering some sudden discomfort as he slipped through the rugged terrain was involuntary and little more than the sound of a deep breath. But Luke was focused so sharply that it rang out loud and clear to him. What was more, he felt confident in being able to pinpoint with reasonable accuracy where the words had come from.

  His gaze settled on the same narrow, deep gully in which he, Eagle, and Barlow had briefly spent time earlier. The gully snaked crookedly below his present elevated position. And while he and the others had occupied it more to the west, whoever was down there now—the man who’d issued the short curse—was more to the east, deeper into the full badlands. It made sense that
he could have entered the cut farther back and then decided to use its deep cover to advance toward where Pettigrew was shooting.

  Everything was quiet again now. While he had yet to catch a glimpse of the skulker, Luke felt sure he was just a short ways back behind one of the sharp twists of the gully. He could imagine that, cursing himself for having been unable to hold back the sudden exclamation, the individual who’d made it was frozen very still, listening and hoping intently that his mistake hadn’t drawn undue attention. He would allow some time to pass to make sure and then, if he heard nothing as a result, he would advance again . . .

  And when he did, Luke would be watching and waiting.

  Chapter 28

  Poised, ready for the man in the gully to resume his advance, Luke’s attention was suddenly split by a new noise from a new location. The clatter of a falling stone, this time even louder and more distinct than the initial rattle of a few pebbles, reached his ear. Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of a man in a yellow shirt and a short-billed black cap ducking in behind a tall, cone-shaped rock. This individual was no more than a dozen yards off, perhaps even closer than the still unseen skulker down in the gully to the south.

  Luke bared his teeth in a bitter grin. All at once he had a wealth of would-be flankers to deal with.

  Not that he was complaining. He had two Remingtons, each with a full wheel. Luke slowly, silently drew the .44s and held one ready in each hand. His only concern was that, by opening up on the first skulker who clearly showed himself, he would be revealing his position to the remaining one.

  Luke swung his gaze back to the gully. He wondered if the hombre down there had heard the falling stone that signaled the nearness of his cohort. If he did, he’d likely stay frozen in place that much longer, waiting to see what came next.

  On the other hand, it seemed certain that the man behind the tall rock cone had no reason yet to be aware of anyone else being close by. If he was betting on the situation, Luke mused, odds would seem to favor the man behind the rock cone being the one to first reveal himself further.