That last comment bothered Lee. It had been so sincere, so final, as if Kemp knew something that he did not. Lee watched his back trail for over a mile, but there had been no hint of anyone skulking along behind him. Now he had covered two and a half miles, and nothing had happened—except for the hoofbeats.
Somewhere to the west a coyote yipped and was answered by another to the south. To the north an owl uttered the eternal question of its kind.
Stifling a yawn, Lee decided that his nerves were getting the better of him. He was looking forward to a night of cards and whiskey, to forgetting all about Allister Kemp and the storm clouds brewing on Diablo’s horizon.
Ahead grew an isolated stand of trees. Lee had passed them on the way out. Seven separate trunks, crowned by thick foliage. He did not recollect seeing any bushes among them, but as he drew nearer he saw that there was one, a big one, uncommonly dense, growing close to the bole nearest the road. Then the “bush” moved.
Lee’s first thought was that it must be a cow. Almost too late he registered the lean frame unfurling on top of it. Without delay he reined to the left.
An unseen force smashed into the southerner’s left shoulder and he was hurled from the saddle. The thunder of the shot rumbled off across the grassland as he crashed onto the hard ground and lay dazed, vaguely aware that the roan had snorted and bolted.
Flat on his back, his hat askew, his left side seared by anguish that caused him to gnash his teeth to keep from crying out, Lee struggled to overcome the shock of being shot. Someone bushwhacked me! pealed over and over in his brain. Although he had half figured on something like that happening, the reality numbed him. Gripping grass, he tensed his abdomen to roll over, freezing when he heard the clop-clop-clop of hooves and realized his ambusher was coming over to verify that he was dead.
“I knew I got him!” the man cried.
“We check to be sure,” said another.
“Shut up, you jackasses!” barked a third. “He might not be finished.”
So there were three, possibly more. Lee stifled an urge to leap up and bolt for cover. There was none to speak of, and they would cut him down before he took a dozen strides. Sliding his right hand across his hips, he groped for the Peacemaker, his relief unbounded when his fingers closed on the ivory grips.
Bile rose in Lee’s gorge, not due to his wound but due to Allister Kemp’s callous bid to eliminate him. Since he was still on the Bar K, the bushwhackers had to be some of the Englishman’s men. But the next comment he overheard absolved the cattle baron of blame.
“This wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be,” said the first man. “Kemp’s hands ain’t so tough.”
“Shut up, damn it!” ordered the one who appeared to be in charge.
Lee had no time to ponder the mystery. Their horses were so close that he could hear the animals breathing, and at any moment another slug might tear into his body. Flinging himself to the left, he winced against the pain as he heaved to his knees and extended his Colt. A pair of inky forms loomed out of the night, the foremost bearing a rifle.
“Look out!” that one cried.
Lee thumbed the hammer twice, the Colt spitting flame and lead. The rifleman was punched backward and toppled, his mount fleeing in fright as the roan had done. The second man produced a pistol and snapped off a shot that went wide even as he cut his animal toward the high grass to get away. Lee banged a shot after him and was rewarded with a shriek and the thump of a heavy body.
Near the trees fireflies blossomed as more guns boomed. Three of them, two rifles and a pistol. Lead buzzed like hornets past Lee’s head and shoulders. Replying in kind, he pitched toward the grass to the south, weaving unsteadily, his shoulder a dizzying quagmire of torture that would suck his consciousness into oblivion if he succumbed.
The trio charged, spreading out, the darkness molding rider and horse into a single blurred being. Their guns rocked the night, but they were hasty.
Bullets chewed the soil at Lee’s feet as he plunged into the grass, dropped onto all fours, and scrambled to the southwest. His left shoulder was next to useless, his arm and chest already slick with blood. He sucked in air, realized he was making too much noise, and breathed shallowly.
The riders pounded past the spot where he had entered the grass. They fired wildly, at shadows, and one of them bawled, “Where the hell did he go?”
Lee hugged the earth, its dank scent mingled with the pungent scent of his blood. Like most who were gun wise, as a rule he kept only five pills in the wheel. For safety’s sake, the chamber under the hammer was left empty. So he had only one shot.
Snorting and tramping, the three horses were moving in different directions. A bay trotted steadily closer to him. Lee stayed motionless, praying he would blend into the background. The man looked right at him, and Lee started to lift his Colt. Cursing, the rider reined to the left, zigzagging, moving farther off with each step.
Stifling a grunt, Lee rolled onto his side. He had to reload, but his left arm was useless. Wedging his thumbnail under the edge of the loading gate, he flipped it open. Replacing the spent cartridges one-handed when he couldn’t see what he was doing taxed his skill, but he had loaded his pistol so many times that he could do it blindfolded if he had to.
As the last cartridge slid home, the same rider hove out of the plain, head cocked as if he had heard something but was not quite sure what it had been.
Seething resentment lent strength to Lee’s limbs. Bushwhackers were the lowest of the low; they deserved swift and merciless retribution. Lurching upright, he sighted on the center of the black mass atop the saddle. His Colt cracked and kicked in his hand.
A gurgling death-screech wavered shrilly as the killer keeled off his mount. From out of the murk rushed his companions, rifles crackling. Lee sidestepped, squeezed off a shot, sidestepped, and fired at the other one.
Both veered wide. One hollered, “He got Winslow, too! I’m for gettin’ the hell out of here!”
A parting shot sizzled the air over the southerner’s head, then they were gone, their mounts’ hoofbeats receding into the distance until the only sounds were those of the rustling grass and Lee’s labored breathing. Plus one other: From the vicinity of the road rose blubbering moans.
Lee shuffled to the man he had shot last. A hole in the bushwhacker’s jugular spouted a dwindling geyser and his eyes were locked on the stars in mute astonishment at his own end. Lee searched his pockets, finding some loose change, a broken comb, tobacco, odds and ends, and a wad of bills, one hundred dollars in all.
Stuffing the money into his frock coat, Lee walked toward the man who was moaning. His shoulder throbbed. He held his right arm pressed to his side to reduce the torment.
The bushwhacker saw him. “Help me, mister! Please, for the love of God!”
“Don’t so much as twitch!” Lee warned.
“I couldn’t if I tried! Honest!” The man cried out, flooded by agony. “Oh, Lord, it hurts!”
Wary of a ruse, Lee carefully knelt, shoving the muzzle against the bushwhacker’s temple. The man was on his side. Evidently the slug had caught him high in the shoulder, shearing through flesh and bone into his back. A few feet away lay a small cap. “Who are you? Why did you try to kill me?”
The man whimpered, trembled, and said plaintively, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! We were told it would be easy!”
Lee grabbed him by the shoulder. “Who told you? Who are you?”
“Meers,” the man husked. “My name is Carl Meers.”
“Why did you jump me?”
“The money.”
Someone had paid them to dry-gulch one of Kemp’s men? “Who hired you?” Lee asked, shaking him without remorse. “What did they hope to gain?”
Meers gasped, his fingers clawing at empty air. “I can’t stand the pain! Do something, won’t you? Help me! Fetch a sawbones!”
“Not until you tell me who is responsible,” Lee fumed, shaking him harder. “I’m not one of Ke
mp’s hands, damn you. You ambushed the wrong man.” He leaned lower so he could see the would-be killer’s pale face better. “What are you, Meers? A hired gun?”
“Me?” Meers tried to laugh and spit blood instead.
“Hell, mister. I ain’t no damned gunman. I’m a miner. Or I was, anyway.”
“Who was it paid you? Abe Howard?”
Meers tried to respond, but only gurgling and groaning came from his froth-flecked lips. Rigid as a broomstick, he broke into convulsions that set his teeth to chattering. “I wish—” he bleated. “I wish—” Whatever he longed for was lost to posterity. Exhaling loudly, he gave up the ghost.
“Damn,” Lee muttered. Rummaging through the man’s pockets, he found another crisp wad that totaled one hundred dollars, exactly. Rising, he walked to the first man slain, a bearded, unkempt devil whose pockets contained a few paltry coins and that was it. On a hunch, Lee tugged off one boot, then the other. In the second was the blood money.
His head swimming, Lee shambled erect and trudged eastward. He had lost so much blood that he was growing weak. As he walked, he pondered.
Someone had hired the five miners to kill one of Kemp’s men. Had they been after someone in particular, or had they picked their victim at random? The latter seemed likely, since they had no way of knowing who would be going into town at any given time. In the dark they could easily have mistaken him for a cowboy, what with his wide-brimmed hat and all.
Who had done the hiring? Lee could think of only one person who hated Kemp badly enough and had enough money, the richest prospector in the region: Abe Howard. But would Old Abe stoop so low?
A wave of dizziness brought an end to Lee’s musing. His legs weighed a ton, his shoulder was aflame. He could still feel blood trickling down his side, despite the hand he pressed over the entry hole. If he lost too much more he might pass out, and he had miles to go yet before he reached town.
He fervently hoped that the roan had not run far.
It was as dependable as the day was long, and the few times it had given in to fright, it had soon recovered. Squinting to pierce a gray haze that blurred his vision, he sought some sign of the animal. Hundreds of yards he covered, and his legs were faltering under him when he spied an indistinct shape to one side of the rutted track.
In his condition Lee could not tell if it was his horse, a steer, or one of the men who had tried to kill him. He put his hand on his Colt, learning to his horror that he was barely strong enough to draw it. If that shape was an enemy, he would be cut down before he got off a shot.
A nicker preceded a flurry of hooves, and the roan rushed out of the veil to nuzzle him. Elated, Lee weakly patted its neck, gripped the bridle to keep from falling, and shambled to the saddle.
Mounting became a test of endurance. Lee hooked an arm over the saddle horn and tried to leverage himself up, but he could not bear his own weight. He slipped, and would have sprawled onto his face if not for his hold on the apple.
Marshaling his swiftly fading reserve of energy, Lee tried again. He had to boost his leg with his free arm to fork the stirrup with his toes. Then, every muscle taut, his shoulder hammering mercilessly, the world spinning madly, he struggled to gain the saddle.
His sole hope to survive was to reach Diablo. Should he collapse, he would lie there with his life-blood seeping into the soil until someone came along, and who knew how long that might be?
Unbidden, a groan escaped his lips. Clamping them tight, Lee surged higher, his face a wolfish statue of grim resolve, his muscles carved in marble. Panting, his whole body quivering, he rose high enough to slump across the hurricane deck. It took the last iota of strength he had to slide one leg over the other side.
Doubled over, an arm clasping the horn for dear life, Lee nudged the roan eastward.
The trek was a blur. A misty sheen seemed to hover over the grassland, a sheen so thick that he could not see much more than a few feet with any clarity. The plodding of the roan’s hooves was like the peal of his death knell, to which his shoulder throbbed in pulsing rhythm.
His sense of direction, the unerring instinct that had seen him safely across the Painted Desert and guided him in his many travels, deserted him. He worried that the horse would stray off the road and he would pass out in the middle of nowhere, to be found days or weeks later by roving Bar K cowhands.
An icy sensation crept over him. Beginning in his fingers and toes, it chilled him to the marrow, spreading slowly but inevitably up his limbs. His teeth chattered of their own accord, and he craved nothing so much as to be beside a roaring fire.
The cold settled in his chest, an icy fist that enclosed his heart and threatened to stop its beating forever. Lee shook himself like a stricken panther. He moved his arms as feebly as he was able. He even smacked his face a few times. The cold persisted, though, so that shortly, when delirium set in, he imagined that he was caught in a blizzard and that he was slowly but surely becoming a human icicle.
Dying time was near.
Somewhere—in the innermost recesses of his mind or the depths of his soul—he sensed that his time had come. In the extremity of the moment his thoughts congealed into the image of another’s face. It wasn’t his brother’s, or his ma’s or pa’s or that of any of his kin in Tennessee. It wasn’t that of a southern belle he had courted before he left home, nor that of a certain South American she-cat.
The image was that of a lovely young woman with flaming red hair and features as smooth and pure as snow. She was smiling and carefree, a beautiful vision, more angelic than earthly. He reached out to touch her but she dissolved before his fading gaze, breaking into tiny glistening shards that rained down around him like broken bits and pieces of a rainbow.
The grip of ice grew worse. Lee looked up just as the world went black around him. He blinked, and knew it was not the world but his eyesight that had gone. His hearing, too, for he no longer heard the roan. He felt himself falling, but there was nothing he could do. As he faded into a black chasm, he voiced the name of the angel.
“Allison!”
Chapter Twelve
From the depths of a bottomless well, Lee Scurlock looked up and saw a pinpoint of light. He flew toward it, literally, sailing upward as would a bird of prey soaring on air currents. How he was able to perform this miracle, he did not know. Arms wide, he soared higher and higher, the pinpoint expanding into a doorway that in turn widened into a blazing glare.
Suddenly Lee was awake, back among the world of the living. His eyes shifted. He was stunned to find that he was in his own room in his hotel, lying on his bed, covered with blankets. Someone had propped him on a pair of downy pillows. His right shoulder had been expertly bandaged. It flared with torment when he tried to straighten.
“I wouldn’t move around much if I were you, young man. You’re liable to open the wound.”
Startled, Lee swiveled his neck to the left. Seated in a chair in the corner was a heavyset man in a rumpled suit, spectacles perched on his bulbous nose. Pink cheeks lent him youthful vitality although he had to be in his sixties, judging by his silver hair.
“Who are you?” Lee croaked, his throat exceptionally dry and coarse.
“Dr. Franklyn, Mr. Scurlock. I’m the one and only sawbones in this marvelous town of ours.” The physician’s sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. From an inside jacket pocket he produced a silver flask. Opening it, he tipped the contents to his mouth and swallowed greedily. “Ahhhh,” he said, smacking his lips. “The elixir of the gods.”
Lee saw sunlight streaming in the window behind the doctor. It was the middle of the afternoon, at least.
“How do you feel?” Dr. Franklyn asked, lowering and capping the flask.
“I’ve felt better,” Lee responded. His clothes had been strewn at the foot of the bed. Lying on top of them were his gunbelt and Colt.
Franklyn chuckled. “I should think so. You’re most fortunate. Another couple of inches lower and you would be lying on Boot Hil
l.” He leaned toward the bed. “The angle of penetration was most propitious. The humerus sustained a slight nick—”
“Whoa, Doc,” Lee interrupted. “Don’t use those highfalutin words or you’ll lose me.”
“Very well. Your heart and lungs were spared, but one of your minor arteries was severed. That accounts for your large loss of blood. The lead grazed the bone that extends from your shoulder to the elbow as it exited your body, which will limit your mobility until it heals. All in all, I’d say you have a lot to be thankful for.”
“I’m alive,” Lee agreed.
Franklyn rose to inspect the dressing. “This should suffice for a few days, then I shall have to return and change it. We can’t let the wound fester or infection will set in.” He probed Lee’s arm, but gently. “You also sustained some damage to the deep fascia, the deltoid, and—”
It was Lee’s turn to chuckle. “You’re doing it again, sawbones.”
“Sorry. Old habits are hard to break.” Franklyn sat on the edge of the bed. “The bullet tore some muscle. If you want to regain full mobility, I’d advise you not to use your arm at all for the next two weeks.” He adjusted his spectacles. “In fact, I recommend complete bed rest for that period.”
“Two whole weeks?” Lee said bleakly. He had never taken to being cooped up for very long. Fourteen days flat on his back would be an ordeal in itself.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Dr. Franklyn said. “The choice is yours, but remember what is at stake.” Sighing, he rose and crossed to the chest of drawers. On top of it was a black bag. “It would please me greatly if you would comply. Too many of my patients do as they damn well please, with dire results.” He picked up the bag. “Just two weeks ago an older woman came down with a bad cold. Her lungs were horribly congested. I told her to drink a lot of warm fluids and to stay off her feet. But would she listen? No, she went on with her life as usual, and now her condition has deteriorated to the point of pneumonia. She might die.”
Lee did not want the physician to go just yet. “How did I get here, Doc? The last thing I can recollect is falling off my horse.”
Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 13
