"We understand," Cully responded. Just in case Wolfe might be playing some trick, he kept the rifle trained on the messenger.
"Roscoe wants that ransom. He'd rather not have to kill nobody else, so the deal's still on, long as you stay out of Elysium."
"There won't be any more attacks," Cully assured him grimly.
"All right. That ransom comes, you bring it on in. One man, remember?" The hardcase laughed harshly. "'Course, if what you sent in tonight is the best you got, then it don't really matter. But you'd best do what Roscoe says, anyway."
He turned his horse and rode away. Cully stood watching the man until he had vanished into the shadows of a grove of trees a few hundred yards down in the valley.
Slowly Cully lowered the Winchester and turned to look at the rest of the posse clustered behind him. Now that she knew her brother and sister were still alive Hannah had stopped crying. That they had not been killed was the best the posse could hope for, under the circumstances. As for the rest of it, Cully thought bitterly, we're right back where we started.
The crack of a gunshot made him spin around.
The sound had come from the trees where Wolfe's messenger had disappeared. As Cully stood listening tensely, he thought he heard a low moan of pain that was abruptly cut off. He muttered, "Now what the devil...?"
Angus moved up beside him. The Scotsman slowly shook his head and said, "I dinna know, lad. But it kinna be anythin' good."
"If Wolfe is up to something, I want to know about it," Cully said thoughtfully. "As shook up as they are right now, the men won't be taken by surprise. Angus, you and I better scout around, see what we can find out."
Angus nodded. "'Tis a fine idea." He held a rifle and lifted it to signal his readiness.
Cully chose two men to stand guard and instructed the rest to stay where they were and finish binding up the injuries. Then he and Angus slipped down the ridge on foot, moving quickly and using whatever cover they could find in the moonlight. Cully wished a cloud would come along to block the silvery glow that exposed them, but they weren’t that lucky. Still, no one shot at them, and Cully was thankful for that. Moving swiftly and stealthily, he and Angus reached the grove of trees and darted into the shadows.
Crouched in the brush, they waited in silence for a long moment, listening intently. Finally, Cully whispered, "You hear horses?"
"Aye," Angus said softly.
With their rifles ready, they catfooted through the trees. The thick underbrush made it difficult to move swiftly without making too much noise, and the slowness of their progress ate at Cully. He sensed that something important was happening, but so far, he had no idea what it was.
Abruptly Angus clamped a big hand heavily on his shoulder and forced him down. Both men sprawled on the ground and lay motionless. Cully squinted through the darkness as the sound of hooves grew louder. The earth vibrated under him as a fairly large body of riders moved through the night somewhere close by.
Suddenly, he sighted the men on horseback. They were dark, bulky shapes moving in the moonlight. Three men rode side by side, leading a party of at least another dozen men. All rode brazenly along, making no attempt to conceal their movement. Cully strained to overhear some of the conversation between the leaders.
"—hands on that fifty-grand," one of the men was saying.
"We'll have it soon enough," another replied. "Remember all that shootin' we heard a while ago? Wolfe won't be expectin' more trouble this soon."
Cully bit his lip to suppress a groan. Another band of outlaws after the money Wolfe had taken from the train...
"—you reckon that fella we shot was?" another voice asked.
"Probably one of Wolfe's scouts," the second man answered. "Wolfe probably sent him out to make sure whoever hit them earlier was gone."
"Think we should have questioned him 'fore we killed him?"
"What for? We know where Wolfe is, we know he's got that money. I've even heard tell he's got some girl with him that he's holdin' for ransom. We'll take her, too. Now come on."
The sounds gradually faded away. Cully and Angus waited for another moment, then stood up and faced each other. In the deep shadows of the grove it was too dark for Cully to see Angus's features, and he wondered if Angus looked as grim as he felt. Everything was going wrong!
"They're ginna attack the town," Angus rumbled.
"And Wolfe will think it's us. He'll probably think that we killed his messenger, since that fella won't be coming back."
"This time he'll kill the lass, tha' is for certain."
Cully nodded. "Unless we stop him."
"But wha' can we do, lad? The men are shot up and worn out. They're no match for either Wolfe's gang or tha' new band o' villains."
Cully's mind worked furiously. He turned toward the posse's camp and said over his shoulder, "Then we'll just have to get somebody else to do our work for us, won't we?"
Angus just frowned and shook his head. Then, as Cully broke into a desperate run, he raced after him.
16
Cully had his plan worked out by the time he and Angus had dashed through the brush and rejoined the posse. As the men gathered around him, he broke the bad news about the group of renegades that was preparing to attack Elysium.
"But Wolfe will think it's the posse!" Hannah exclaimed. "You heard what that man said. He'll kill Elizabeth and Roland!"
"I know," Cully said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. "That's why Angus and I are going to go in and get them out first."
A flurry of protests and questions burst spontaneously from the men, but Tom Brennan's voice cut them short. The federal marshal, his left arm in a makeshift sling and his shirt bulky with bandages, pushed the clustered posse members aside and went up to Cully. He moved a little unsteadily, but he didn’t look like a man who had suffered a fairly serious bullet wound only an hour or so earlier. His eyes burned intensely.
"Just the two of you, Cully?" Brennan said, his face an angry mask. "That's what you wanted all along, wasn't it?"
"I thought that was what we had agreed on in the first place, before you led half the posse into Wolfe's trap!" Cully snapped harshly. The anger in his voice exposed only a fraction of the deep outrage he felt. Brennan's burning desire for revenge on Wolfe, as understandable as it was, had created the dangerous situation in which they now found themselves.
"You really think you and Angus can pull it off?"
"Wolfe is going to have his hands full with that other bunch," Cully pointed out. "If we move fast enough, maybe Angus and I can be at the hotel in time to take advantage of the distraction."
Brennan took a deep breath. Cully watched as, after a long moment, the lines of anger in Brennan's face slowly dissolved. At last Brennan nodded and said, "You're right. It sounds like it could work. Sounds better than what I tried."
Cully didn’t know whether Brennan was trying to apologize or not, but there was no time to waste thinking about it, and he simply didn’t care. He turned to Angus and said, "Get your horse. Let's go."
A new voice broke into the conversation. "I'm going, too."
Cully glanced up to see Elliott Pannier pushing his way through the group of men. The lanky easterner had a pistol tucked in his belt and carried a Winchester. Cully shook his head and started to tell Pannier to forget it. Then he remembered the way the man had reacted under fire, the way he had overcome his lack of experience and ridden into that storm of bullets to rescue Brennan.
The deputy nodded abruptly. "Sure," he said. "I reckon you've got the right." Then he scanned the faces of the other men. "But everybody else is staying here. If we're not back in an hour, you pull out and head for Abilene. Understand?"
The posse-men nodded. They knew as well as Cully that this was the last chance they had to save Elizabeth Stockbridge. If this attempt failed, there would be no point in trying any more heroics.
During the frantic activity that had engrossed the camp since their return from Wolfe's hideout, no one had te
nded to the horses, and they were still saddled. Cully, Angus, and Pannier mounted up quickly. Brennan strode over and extended his hand to Cully. "Good luck, son," he said. "We may not have seen things the same way, but I still think you're a fine lawman."
Despite his anger with Brennan, Cully was touched by the older man's words. Brennan had been a star-packer for a long time and had seen plenty of good and bad lawmen. Cully nodded and said, "Thanks."
While Brennan was shaking hands with Angus and Pannier, Hannah moved silently among the shadows, her face solemn. She stopped next to Cully's horse and, with her face averted, patted the animal's flank. Without looking up, she whispered to Cully, "I'll be praying for you, Cully. For you and all the others."
He reached out and stroked her silky blond hair for a moment. "We'll be back," he promised.
She quickly looked up at him, tears shining on her face in the moonlight that slanted through the trees. "I know," she said.
With a last glance at her, Cully swung his horse around. He urged the animal into a trot and didn’t look back again. Angus and Pannier followed closely behind him.
The moon was in the western quadrant of the sky as the three men rode hard across the valley. The other men had quite a start on them, but the outlaws were a larger group, and there was always a chance that they didn’t know the territory as well. Cully was now pretty familiar with the trees, brush, and gullies of the trail to Elysium.
As they approached the town, Cully swung his group away from the trail, and they made their way around a small hill east of the settlement, which was now shrouded in darkness. This roundabout route took a little longer, but it enabled them to approach the hotel from the rear.
When they were still a couple of hundred yards from the buildings, Cully spotted some brush that would conceal them. Riding to it, he reined in, dismounted, and motioned for Angus and Pannier to follow. In a soft voice he said, "We'll leave the horses here and go ahead on foot. This is close enough. We can still get back to the horses in a hurry when we're ready to pull out."
Angus nodded and began tying his mount to a bush. Cully and Pannier did the same. When all the horses were secure, Cully drew his pistol and began silently picking his way through the brush toward the buildings.
He had been nervously awaiting the first blasts of gunfire for the last ten minutes, but so far all was quiet. Evidently the newly-arrived hardcases were taking their time about starting their attack. That was all right with Cully: The closer they were to the hotel when the shooting started, the better. They were about fifty yards behind the two-story building when the firing finally broke out.
"Come on!" Cully rasped, breaking into a run.
A flurry of shots came from the north end of town, near the spot where the bonfire had finally burned itself out. Some of Wolfe's guards must have spotted the newcomers and are challenging them, Cully thought.
No longer concerned with moving quietly, he lunged toward the building, concentrating on covering the ground between himself and the back door of the hotel as quickly as possible. He heard the pounding of Angus's boots close beside him and Pannier's hoarse breathing just behind him. The desperate sounds mixed with the beat of his own racing pulse and the now-steady hammering gunshots from the street.
There was a small porch on the back of the hotel, with several steps leading up to the door. Cully took the steps two at a time and hit the door with his shoulder, feeling the rotten wood splinter under the impact. It smashed open, and he all but fell through it into the hotel kitchen.
Shrewdly, Wolfe had posted a guard there, but the firing from the front of the hotel had drawn the man away. Cully saw him returning to the kitchen, probably to see what had caused the crash. With a surprised look, the man tried to jerk the rifle in his hands around.
Cully triggered his Colt as he held it out at arm's length. He was off balance, but his aim was true, and the bullet smacked into the guard's chest. He grunted, fell back against the doorjamb, and dropping his rifle, collapsed in a twisted heap.
Cully crossed the kitchen in several quick strides and leaped over the guard's body. Weapons ready, Angus and Pannier were close behind him as he went down the hall toward the lobby.
Another of Wolfe's men must have heard the shot in the kitchen, because he flashed into view toward the other end of the hall, a gun in his hand. He fired one wild shot before Cully's bullet punched through his throat and shattered his spine. Blood spurted from the wound, splattering the faded and peeling wallpaper in a vivid, gruesome pattern as the man collapsed to the floor.
Cully dove past the fallen gunman and launched himself into the hotel lobby. Landing in a crouch behind the old registration counter, he instantly took in the scene. There were several men at the front windows, firing steadily through the shattered glass toward the other side of the street. The men who had attacked the town must have taken cover in the buildings there.
Seconds later some of the men at the windows started to turn to meet the new threat, but just then Angus's rifle blasted from the hall, finding its target and knocking one of the outlaws backward. Cully began firing and dropped another man before he had to duck back behind the counter as bullets meant for him began to chew up the registration desk.
From the corner of his eye, Cully saw Elliott Pannier dart out of the hall and scan the lobby.
"Upstairs!" Pannier yelled. "Elizabeth!"
Instantly Cully realized that Pannier was probably right: It was likely that Elizabeth was being held prisoner in one of the second-story rooms. Pannier plunged behind the counter as a slug thumped into the wall close beside his head. As he scuttled along the floor toward Cully, the deputy twisted his head and started to say, "I'll go—"
"No!" Pannier cried. "You and Angus cover me!"
Before Cully could argue, Pannier was up and running again, vaulting the barrier at the other end of the counter and sprinting toward the stairs.
Cully knew he had to cover Pannier. Taking a deep breath, he stood up, abandoning the safety of the wooden desk. He squeezed the trigger of his Colt and began slapping the hammer back with the heel of his other hand. Fanning a gun was about the worst way in the world to hit something, but it got the bullets out in a hurry. In addition to the deafening roar of his own gun, he could hear Angus in the hallway, firing the rifle as fast as he could work the lever.
Abruptly glancing toward the man he was trying to cover, Cully saw Pannier reach the stairs and start up them. The easterner was moving so fast that he looked like an ungainly bird flying up the staircase. Then the hammer fell on an empty chamber in the deputy's Colt, and he didn’t have any more time to worry about Pannier.
Elliott Pannier felt a tug at his shirt as he went up the stairs. He assumed it was a bullet, but he ignored it and kept going. He was as frightened as he had ever been in his life, but the knowledge that Elizabeth was probably just a few feet away from him propelled him on irresistibly. He was going to save her if he could—and die with her if he couldn’t.
Unbalanced by the speed of his flight up the stairs, Pannier staggered as he reached the top. He looked frantically from right to left, wondering where to start searching. He knew he had only seconds.
Somewhere close by, a gun blasted. Pannier felt a blow on his left arm, and the stunning impact spun him halfway around, disorienting him. He jerked his eyes from side to side, vaguely aware that he had been shot, and finally saw a man standing in the corridor in front of the door to one of the rooms. The man had a gun in his hand, and he was pointing it at Pannier.
Well, I have a gun, too, Pannier thought. It would be rather foolish to just stand here and let that outlaw shoot me again.
Elliott Pannier yelled involuntarily as he brought up his pistol and pressed the trigger. The sound of the shot blended with another explosion from the hardcase's gun. Pannier saw the flame flash from the muzzle of the man's gun and expected to feel the bullet smash into him at any second. Instead, the outlaw went reeling back against the wall of the corridor, clutchi
ng his chest. The gun slipped from his fingers, and he suddenly pitched forward, falling onto the floor.
Pannier couldn’t feel his left arm now. He looked down and saw a red stain spreading from the wound in his upper arm. It didn’t hurt, so for the moment he decided he was going to ignore it. There had to be a reason the man had been standing guard in front of that door.
Pannier ran down the hall until he came to the room. Tucking his pistol behind his belt, he rattled the doorknob. "Elizabeth!" he called urgently. "Elizabeth, are you in there?"
"Elliott! Oh, my God, help me, Elliott!" a female voice shrieked from behind the door.
The voice was unmistakably Elizabeth's. The door was locked, but that wasn’t going to stop Pannier now. He braced himself, lifted a foot, and drove his heel against the door.
The flimsy wood around the lock shattered with the second kick, and the door slammed open. Pannier stumbled into the room and saw Elizabeth writhing on the bed. She was wearing only her shift, and her hands were tied together above her head, the rope lashed to the bed frame. She was thrashing around and throwing her head from side to side, obviously hysterical with fear. As he rushed to her side, she stared wide-eyed at him but seemed not to believe that he could be real.
Frantically clawing at the knots, Pannier discovered right away that they were too much for him to undo with his fingers. He fumbled desperately in his pocket, searching for the clasp knife he had bought back in Abilene. Opening it with one hand wasn’t easy; he had to use his teeth to hold the blade while he pulled it free of the handle. Then he slashed at the ropes that lashed her tied hands to the bedstead, sawing through the bonds in seconds. Elizabeth's hands were still tied together, but at least she could get up off the bed now.
"Come on, Elizabeth, come on," Pannier urged her. "We've got to get out of here."
Disheveled and wild-eyed, Elizabeth stumbled as she tried to stand up. She caught at Pannier's shirt and lifted wondering eyes to his face. "Elliott?" she almost whispered. "Is it really you?"
Rattler's Law, Volume One Page 57
