He swung the revolver back and forth a few times to build up some momentum, then slung it across the chasm toward the top of the plank. He hoped to hook the revolver around the board and jerk it toward them so that it would fall across the opening in the cave floor.
That cast failed . . . and so did the next and the next and the one after that. John Henry felt frustration building inside him. He paused and took out his watch to check the time.
Almost three hours had passed since they had left their horses and entered the ravine. In another hour and a half the sky in the east would begin to grow bright with the approach of the new day.
“You’re gonna have to snag that board dead solid perfect,” Ezra warned. “If you don’t, it’ll just fall in the hole and be gone.”
“I know,” John Henry said. “It’s the only chance we’ve got, though.”
More important, it was the only chance the judge, Mrs. Doolittle, and Clarissa had. John Henry kept that thought foremost in his mind as he got ready to make another try.
Time seemed to race by with maddening speed. He had to force himself not to rush his throws.
He had been at it for so long that he almost didn’t notice in time when the Colt’s handle hooked around the plank.
John Henry’s instincts kicked in, galvanizing his muscles. He jerked on the strung-together belts. The gun remained caught on the plank and dragged it toward them.
Suddenly it was toppling toward the hole.
It was going to fall short, John Henry realized in a moment of near-panic. He yelled, “Hang on to me!” and lunged forward above the chasm, reaching out with his free hand, straining to get every inch from the desperate grab.
The men behind him planted their feet and shouted for others to grab hold of them. John Henry swayed out over the emptiness. The board fell toward his outstretched fingers . . .
And he caught the end of it, barely able to maintain the grip as it tried to slip away from him. He managed to pull the plank an inch or so toward him and carefully shifted his grip. When he thought he had the board secure, he said through gritted teeth, “Pull me back!”
His boot heels were planted at the very edge of the brink. Using them as leverage, the men who had hold of John Henry’s shirt lifted him. He dragged the board closer, took a step back as the men maintained their hold on him, and lowered the end until it rested on the floor on their side of the chasm. He took a deep breath and wiped away the beads of sweat that had sprung out on his forehead.
“That was a mighty near thing,” Ezra said.
“Yeah, but we’ve got a way across now.” John Henry took his gun loose from the belts and holstered it. He gave the belts back to the men they belonged to and continued. “We’ll go across one at a time. That plank looks pretty sturdy, but we won’t take any chances with it. I hope everybody has good balance. It would probably be a good idea not to look down while you’re crossing.”
“I don’t intend to,” one of the punchers said with such heartfelt fervor that it drew chuckles from some of the other men.
John Henry positioned the plank so that it was centered. “I’ll go over first.”
“Be careful.” The old frontiersman lifted the torch higher so that it would cast more light where John Henry would be walking.
Keeping his attention on making it to the other side, he shut out everything else. He took a deep breath, waited until his racing heartbeat had calmed some, then walked across the plank in a steady pace, never rushing but never slowing down.
Turning to face the others, he said, “Just like that. Nothing to it.”
“Yeah,” one of the men said bitterly. “Simple as long as you don’t miss a step.”
“I don’t intend to.” Ezra crossed the bridge in several easy, long-legged strides.
The other men all made it across, although a few of them swayed dangerously as they did so. The last man asked John Henry, “What do we do with the board?”
“We probably won’t be coming back this way—”
“I sure as hell hope not,” a man said under his breath.
John Henry ignored that and went on. “But we’ll leave it where it is, anyway, just in case we do. We might be in a hurry.”
They pressed on, with John Henry taking the torch back and soon lighting the third and final one he had brought. They had to be getting close to the ranch house, he told himself.
A short time later, Ezra said, “Look at the walls.”
“I noticed that, too,” John Henry said. “Somebody has worked them and widened them. This is more of a tunnel than a cave now.”
“We must be nearly there.”
“That’s what I hope.”
A few minutes later, they came to a blank wall with a ladder propped against it. A shaft led up toward the surface.
John Henry lifted the torch and saw a trapdoor about ten feet above their heads, just as he expected. He handed the torch to Ezra. “I’ll check it out.”
“Careful,” the old-timer cautioned. “You don’t want to open that and climb out into a roomful of owlhoots.”
“I’m just going to see if it’ll budge. I don’t plan to open it all the way yet.”
John Henry’s heart slugged in his chest as he climbed the ladder. When he was high enough, he reached above him and rested a hand against the bottom of the trapdoor. He pushed gently.
Nothing. The door didn’t move.
He pushed harder. The trapdoor still didn’t budge, and he could tell by the way it felt that it was bolted somehow on the other side.
He had expected that, too, but he felt a twinge of disappointment, anyway. It would have made things easier if he and his companions could have gotten into the house without any help from inside.
Now they would have to wait for Nick Mallette to carry out his part of the plan and let them in.
And hope that nothing had happened to the gambler.
Chapter Thirty
Nick Mallette leaned forward and asked tensely, “What are they doing now?”
Simon Garrett lowered the field glasses through which he had been peering. “Looks like they’re getting ready to break camp.” He turned to Mallette as the two men stood in the shadow of the massive, skull-shaped rock formation. “As soon as they start riding toward us, you go back to the house and let Lottie know. She’ll want to be here to watch this.”
Mallette nodded and tried to keep his face impassive. He didn’t want his expression to reveal that Garrett was playing right into his hands. He had wondered how he was going to get back to the ranch house to locate the opening to the escape tunnel, and now Garrett had given him that opportunity. Mallette wasn’t going to waste it.
It had been a long night, waiting for the morning and the inevitable dangers it would bring. All his life, Nick Mallette had taken the easy way out whenever he could, running away from conflict if at all possible, but now he was running right into it, figuratively speaking.
He had told John Henry Sixkiller the truth. If he didn’t come through this alive, at least he would have gone out trying to do something worthwhile for once in his life. That might not be enough to redeem him for all the bad things he had done, but it was the only chance in his grasp.
All along the rim of the bluff, members of the gang were posted. They would cover the men from Kiowa City as they approached.
Out on the flat, at the camp where they had spent the night, men were saddling their horses and getting ready to mount up. To the east, the first edge of the sun touched the horizon.
“I don’t like this,” Garrett said suddenly. “I just don’t believe they’d give themselves up this easily. Nobody throws away his own life for somebody else.”
“You’ve risked your life more than once to avenge your brother,” Mallette pointed out. “If you could have traded places with him on the gallows—”
“Don’t ask me that,” Garrett broke in sharply. “By God, don’t ask me.” He drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. This was my g
ang. Lottie was my woman. Henry took them over. I don’t hold it against him. It doesn’t make me want to avenge him any less. But . . .” His voice drifted off. “Oh, the hell with it. Here they come.”
Eleven riders started slowly toward the base of the trail leading up the escarpment.
“Go tell Lottie,” Garrett rasped.
Mallette turned to his horse. Quickly, he swung up into the saddle and prodded the animal into a run toward the ranch house.
Lottie was waiting on the porch. As Mallette reined in, he called to her, “They’re coming!”
“I knew they would.” She stepped down and went over to the horse that was tied, waiting for her. With a lithe grace, she mounted.
“I’ll be back out there in a few minutes,” Mallette told her. “I left my rifle in the bunkhouse.”
She all but ignored him, as he had figured she would. She was too anxious to see the impending drama with her own eyes. As she leaned forward in the saddle, she headed for the rim at a gallop.
Since Lottie wasn’t even looking back, Mallette didn’t bother continuing with his ruse. He just dismounted and ran into the ranch house.
The building wasn’t that big. There couldn’t be too many places where a trapdoor could be hidden. But as he hurried from room to room without finding what he was looking for, a sense of desperation began to grow inside him. His pulse hammered inside his head. Lottie might be too caught up in her lust for revenge to be thinking straight, but Garrett might start to wonder why he hadn’t come back from the house with her.
The entrance wasn’t there, he thought. Sixkiller had been so sure it would be. Maybe in one of the other buildings?
Not in the bunkhouse; he had spent enough time there to know that. And not in the smokehouse, either. The judge and the two women were locked in there. Lottie wouldn’t put prisoners where there was a way out.
The barn, maybe? Mallette discarded that idea. The cave was an escape route. If the ranch was under attack, the defenders would retreat to the house. That was where the escape route needed to be, for when it became obvious they couldn’t hold the place.
So it had to be somewhere in the house, he thought as he stood in the doorway of Lottie’s bedroom, staring at her bed.
Even as the thought formed in his mind, he leaped forward to put it into action and shoved the bed aside.
The door was there, fastened with a simple bolt.
Mallette was reaching for it when a man’s voice came from behind him. “I knew I was right not to trust you.”
He whirled, clawing for the gun on his hip, but he was too late. Simon Garrett stood in the doorway, Colt in hand. The revolver blasted deafeningly.
Mallette felt lead tear into him, knocking him backward. Pain filled his entire being—except for the tiny part of his brain screaming at him to fight back. His gun had cleared leather just as he was hit. Somehow, he found the strength to jerk it up and pull the trigger.
Garrett fell back out of the doorway, blood spurting from his neck.
Mallette rolled onto his side and peered toward the door. He couldn’t see Garrett anymore, but he didn’t know if it was because the outlaw was gone or because his vision was failing him. His strength was deserting him, that was for sure. The gun slipped from his fingers and thudded against the floorboards.
A sense of urgency warred with the pain washing through him and forced him to push with his feet, twisting him around toward the trapdoor. A fresh burst of agony made him press his hand against his chest where Garrett’s bullet had struck him.
After a moment, the pain subsided slightly. Mallette moved his hand and reached for the bolt. His fingers were coated with bright, slick blood, making them slippery as he fumbled with the bolt. He couldn’t seem to find the strength to draw it back, and he knew his life was slipping swiftly away from him. . . .
* * *
John Henry stiffened as he heard the shots close above him, on the other side of the trapdoor. He wanted to call out, to see if Mallette was up there, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t risk revealing that somebody was down in the escape tunnel.
There were only two shots, one following hard on the heels of the other. Then nothing except a faint scrabbling sound. John Henry took off his hat and lifted himself on the ladder so he could turn his head and press his ear against the door.
He heard a faint, raspy sound that he identified as labored breathing.
Then a metallic chink!
That was a bolt being drawn back, he realized as excitement made his pulse leap. He put his shoulder against the door and shoved upward.
The trapdoor flew up and back, open at last. John Henry scrambled out and drew his gun as soon as his feet hit the floor of what looked like a bedroom.
Nick Mallette lay curled on the floor beside the trapdoor, the front of his shirt soaked with blood. The gambler’s face was pale as a sheet of blank paper.
“Nick!” John Henry exclaimed.
Mallette’s eyelids fluttered open. A weary smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “John . . .” he whispered.
As John Henry dropped to a knee beside Mallette, he called down into the shaft. “Ezra! You and the rest of the men get up here!”
As the men poured out of the trapdoor one after another, John Henry turned back to Mallette. He wanted to check on the gambler’s wound and try to help him, but there wasn’t time. “Where are the prisoners?”
“Sm-smokehouse,” Mallette gasped. “I couldn’t . . . get to them. But they’re . . . all right.”
“We’ll take care of them.” John Henry’s voice was gentle as he added, “You did good, Nick. Really good.”
“Not . . . so good. Garrett . . . was here . . . I think he . . . got away.”
John Henry’s jaw tightened. If Mallette was right about that, Garrett would warn the rest of the gang. The rescue party had probably lost the element of surprise. That meant it would be a tougher fight, but nothing could be done about it.
John Henry leaned forward. “We’ll be back for you, Nick. Hang on.”
“A little . . . late for that,” Mallette said with a hollow laugh. “At least they won’t . . . hang me . . .” His head fell back.
John Henry came to his feet and turned to the others. “There’s a good chance the outlaws will know we’re coming, but we’ve still got them between two forces. Let’s go.”
Gripping their rifles, the rescue party ran out of the house. John Henry was in the lead. As he leaped down the steps, a bullet whipped past his head and smacked into a porch post behind him. More shots roared from the riders racing toward the house from the rim.
“Spread out and take cover!” John Henry shouted to his companions. He spotted the smokehouse. The building where the prisoners were being held was sturdy, with thick walls that would probably stop a bullet.
That was good, because plenty of them were already flying through the air, buzzing around like deadly hornets.
John Henry knelt at the corner of the porch and opened fire with his Colt as the outlaws swept up to the ranch house. One man flew out of the saddle as a pair of slugs bored through him. The deputy marshal pivoted and fired again, but just as he squeezed the trigger a bullet struck the porch railing near him and chewed splinters that stung his face as they flew through the air. It spoiled his aim.
One of the riders charged toward him, gun blazing. John Henry peered past the horse’s head and recognized the man in the saddle. Purcell had wounded him back at Packsaddle Gap, and the outlaw was bent on finishing the job.
John Henry’s Colt roared and bucked against his palm as he squeezed off another round. Purcell’s face dissolved into a crimson smear as the bullet smashed into it. He flung his arms out to the side and went backward out of the saddle, landing in the limp sprawl of death.
All around the ranch, men were fighting and dying. Ezra Jenkins was locked in hand-to-hand combat with one of the outlaws. The old frontiersman planted a razor-sharp bowie knife in his opponent’s belly and ripped to the side with
the blade, spilling the outlaw’s guts from the hideous wound. Ezra shoved the dying man away, then looked at John Henry and grinned. “Not bad for an old man with the rheumatiz!” he shouted, then plunged back into battle with the bloody knife in his hand.
“Saxon!” somebody bellowed nearby.
John Henry twisted and saw Simon Garrett standing on the porch stiff-legged. Blood was splashed over his shirt from a wound in the side of his neck. Mallette had winged him during their exchange of shots.
Garrett should have stayed to make sure the gambler was dead, John Henry thought. Either Garrett had been convinced that Mallette was done for or had wanted to get back to his men and warn them before he passed out from losing so much blood.
Either way, he hadn’t prevented the rescue party from reaching the ranch, and that was all that mattered.
The balance of power was about to shift. The men from Kiowa City were galloping in with a thunder of hoofbeats. The revolvers they wielded cracked and spouted fire as they slammed into the surviving outlaws. The area between the house and the bunkhouse was utter chaos filled with men, horses, dust, powder smoke, and death.
John Henry saw all that in the blink of an eye, and threw himself forward. He hit the ground as the gun in Simon Garrett’s hand boomed. Thrusting his weapon in front of him, he squeezed the trigger.
The slug drove into Garrett’s chest and knocked him back a step. Garrett swayed, but stayed on his feet. His arm sagged. With a visible effort, he struggled to raise it and get off another shot, but before the revolver came level, blood welled from his open mouth. His eyes widened and he pitched forward on his face.
John Henry surged to his feet, thumbing fresh cartridges into the Colt as he ran toward Garrett. The man’s gloved, crippled left hand was making twitching motions, inscribing meaningless patterns in the dust. His body spasmed, then lay still.
John Henry hooked a toe under Garrett’s shoulder and rolled the outlaw onto his back. Garrett’s eyes stared sightlessly into the dawn sky.
He was as dead as his brother.
“You hurt, youngster?” Ezra asked as he came limping up to John Henry.
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