“I’ve been itchin’ for a crack at Conroy’s men,” he said. “This sounds like it’ll be the fastest, easiest way to get one. You want me to pick three more men, Buckhorn?”
“Sure, you know them better than I do,” Buckhorn said.
The three men Dowd selected were named Fleming, McHaney, and Weaver. They were as eager to tangle with Conroy’s men as Dowd was. In less than half an hour, all five men were mounted and ready to ride, Buckhorn on a fresh horse instead of his roan.
“I’d tell you to be careful,” Thornton said to the men, “but I don’t suppose it would do any good.”
“That word ain’t hardly one that we know, boss,” Dowd said with a grin.
A sigh came from Buckhorn as they rode away from the mine. Dowd looked over at him.
“You all right, Buckhorn?” he asked.
“I’ve put in a lot of miles in the saddle today,” Buckhorn replied. “Getting a mite tired.”
“Yeah, I expect you are. You don’t think it’d be safe to wait for morning, get a good night’s sleep first?”
“I’ll sleep a lot better once I know those folks at the C Cross aren’t fighting for their lives,” Buckhorn said.
CHAPTER 22
Once again Buckhorn circled around Crater City. It was easy for him and his companions to avoid the settlement since its lights sparkled brightly in the night, casting a welcoming glow into the sky that they ignored.
Once the town was behind them, they pushed their horses to a faster pace. After a while, the dark mouth of Gunsight Canyon loomed in front of them. Buckhorn drew back on the reins and slowed his borrowed mount.
“See that fire?” he said to Dowd and the other men as he pointed at a faint flickering. “That’ll be the surveyors’ camp.”
“They work for Conroy,” Dowd said. “Are they going to give us trouble?”
“I don’t think so, but better be ready just in case.”
“I always am,” Dowd said, and the other men grunted their agreement.
Buckhorn drew his Colt as they approached the camp. That evening’s campfire had burned down so that the flames were small. Shapes still moved around them, however, so not everyone in the party had turned in.
“Hello, the camp!” Buckhorn called as he and the others paused outside the circle of light. “All right to come in?”
“Buckhorn, is that you again?” The response came from Neal Drake. “Come ahead.”
Tension filled the air as Buckhorn and his companions rode into the camp. All of them had guns in their hands. So did several of the surveyors, who stood near the fire holding rifles.
Drake walked out to meet the newcomers.
“You brought company with you this time, Buckhorn,” he commented.
“Yeah, but we’re not looking for trouble. Just passing through.”
“This canyon’s a busy place tonight,” Drake said dryly.
Buckhorn stiffened and asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“Yancy Madison rode through with nearly a dozen men a while ago.”
Buckhorn bit back a curse. He hadn’t gotten a jump on Madison after all. There was only one place Madison and a group of Conroy’s gun-wolves could have been headed tonight.
The C Cross.
“Did Madison tell you to stop anybody who came through here?” Buckhorn asked.
“Not anybody. Just you. And those orders came directly from Dennis Conroy, or so Madison claimed.”
Buckhorn glanced at the armed surveyors.
“Do you intend to give it a try?” he asked quietly.
The tension in the air grew even thicker. Nerves on both sides were stretched so taut that the slightest move might cause them to snap.
Then Drake shook his head and stepped aside. He motioned for the other men to lower their rifles.
“Conroy has no cause to complain about the surveying job we’re doing,” Drake declared. “If he wants to dismiss us because we refuse to get involved in a shooting spree, then I’ll take him to court about it. Anyway, the money he still owes us isn’t worth dying over—and I’m pretty sure that’s what would happen if we tried to trade lead with this bunch.”
“You’re a wise man, Drake,” Buckhorn said. “How long ago did Madison and the others ride through?”
“Close to an hour, I’d say.”
Again Buckhorn stifled a curse. That was a good lead. Madison and his fellow hired killers would have had time to reach the C Cross headquarters by now, or they’d be close, at the very least.
“We’ve got to be moving,” he said. “So long. Good luck with Conroy.”
“We’ll probably need it,” Drake said as Buckhorn and the others heeled their horses into motion again.
“From what that fella said, we’re gonna be outnumbered,” Charlie Dowd said to Buckhorn as they rode.
“Yeah, but we’ll have the element of surprise on our side.”
“That only counts for so much.”
“It’ll have to be enough,” Buckhorn said.
* * *
Half an hour later, he called a halt to listen. Distant popping sounds floated through the night air. Buckhorn knew without a doubt what they were, and so did the other men. They had all heard more than their share of gunshots in their time.
“Sounds like a pretty hot fight,” Dowd commented. “Reckon that’s good in one way. It means Madison and his boys ain’t overrun your friends’ ranch yet.”
Buckhorn nodded.
“There’s no telling how long they can hold out, though. Let’s go.”
They pushed their horses hard again now. Time and distance seemed to drag by with maddening slowness. The Calverts, along with Lorna McChesney and her father, were fighting not just for their spreads but also for their lives. Buckhorn didn’t expect Madison to show them any mercy at this point.
After what seemed like an hour but wasn’t really that long, Buckhorn spotted tiny flashes in the darkness up ahead, like fireflies winking in the night. Those were guns going off. The fight wasn’t over yet.
The Calverts and their allies would be holed up in the house. Madison and his men probably had the place surrounded. They would be using the cover of the barn, the bunkhouse, and the other outbuildings. They likely wouldn’t be expecting anyone to threaten them from behind, however.
When they were within a couple hundred yards of the battle, Buckhorn reined in and motioned for his companions to do likewise. He swung down from the saddle and pulled his rifle from the boot.
“We’ll go ahead on foot from here,” he told Dowd and the other men. “Spread out and come up on them from behind. Maybe we can put quite a few of them out of the fight before they even know what’s going on.”
“You lookin’ to take prisoners, Buckhorn?” Dowd asked.
“Do whatever you have to,” Buckhorn said. “It might help if we were able to capture a few of them, though. That could give us some legal leverage against Conroy if they’re willing to testify that he ordered them to kill the Calverts.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Dowd promised. “Come on, boys.”
The men split up as they started on foot toward the ranch headquarters. Up ahead, guns still flamed and roared. Some of the shots came from the house and were directed at the attackers, which put Buckhorn and his allies in the line of fire as well. From time to time, Buckhorn heard a stray bullet whine overhead. He moved in a crouch but otherwise didn’t worry about it.
If one of those bullets had his name on it, even though he was trying to help the ranch’s defenders, there wasn’t a damned thing in the world he could do about it. A man who made a habit of walking into flying lead had to know he was going to come to a bad end sooner or later.
A large, dark bulk up ahead told Buckhorn he was approaching the barn. Shots came from the front corner of it as a man knelt there and fired at the ranch house. The back-flashes were visible to him.
Buckhorn stole closer. He couldn’t tell anything about the man he stalked, who was just a vague shape
in the darkness. As he came closer, he was able to make out the man’s hat, and that gave him a target to aim at as a sudden swift stride brought him within reach. He struck with the rifle, smashing the weapon’s brass butt-plate into the back of the man’s head.
Buckhorn grimaced in the darkness as he heard bone crunch. He had hit the attacker too hard. The man dropped his rifle and slumped limply to the ground. Buckhorn leaned over, took hold of the man’s leg, and dragged him away from the corner of the barn.
He rolled the man onto his back, checked for a pulse, found none. Starlight revealed a face that was slightly familiar to Buckhorn. He had seen the dead man in Crater City, he was pretty sure of that, but they had never been introduced. Still, Buckhorn had no doubt this was one of the hired killers who worked for Dennis Conroy.
He left the body where it was and circled the barn, figuring there might be a second gunman on the other side of the building. Sure enough, a man was posted at that corner, too. He wasn’t firing at the moment as Buckhorn came up behind him. Instead he was thumbing fresh cartridges through a Winchester’s loading gate.
Some instinct must have warned the man that he wasn’t alone. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Hey, you got any spare rounds? I’m about out here.”
Buckhorn recognized the man’s voice. It belonged to Jimmy, one of the guards he and Madison had relieved that first day they had ridden down to Gunsight Canyon, the day Lorna McChesney had opened fire on them from the rim. Buckhorn didn’t know Jimmy’s last name, but he was definitely one of Conroy’s men.
As Buckhorn moved closer, Jimmy said, “Hey, I asked you a—” He stopped short, then exclaimed, “That damned hat! You’re Buck—”
Before he could continue or swing his gun around, Buckhorn stepped closer and drove his rifle barrel into Jimmy’s midsection. The blow made the gunman double over. Buckhorn crashed a fist down on the back of Jimmy’s neck. That knocked him facedown on the ground. Buckhorn kicked him in the head for good measure.
Jimmy didn’t move or make another sound.
He was breathing, though, Buckhorn found when he rested a hand briefly on Jimmy’s back. He took out his knife, cut strips from the unconscious gunman’s shirt, and used them to bind Jimmy’s hands tightly behind his back. He cut more pieces of shirt and used them to tie the gunman’s ankles, then gagged him.
With that done, Buckhorn moved on, sliding through the night’s shadows like a phantom.
He couldn’t see Dowd or any of the other men who had come with him, didn’t know where they were or what luck they were having. He stopped for a moment when a flurry of fast shots erupted on the other side of the ranch yard, from the direction of the bunkhouse. The gunfire didn’t sound like it was directed at the main house. There was a good chance it came from a gun battle between a Conroy man and one of the men who had come with Buckhorn.
The shots fell ominously silent. But no one yelled in alarm, either, which was a good thing. Buckhorn and his allies still had surprise on their side.
Buckhorn found himself behind the blacksmith shop not far from the barn. A rifle cracked relentlessly inside the building. Buckhorn felt around until he located what he expected to find, a small rear door that could be opened to provide cross-ventilation and let the heat out when the forge was stoked up. He swung it open slowly, being careful not to let the hinges creak.
A man stood just inside the front door. He leaned around the jamb and fired three shots from a Winchester as fast as he could work the rifle’s lever. Against the orange glare of the muzzle flashes, Buckhorn caught a glimpse of a long, jutting beard. That was enough to identify the man as a burly gun-wolf named Jocko Flood. Buckhorn had seen him in Crater City and heard his name but hadn’t had anything to do with him.
Buckhorn had hoped to capture Yancy Madison himself, but so far he hadn’t seen the ringleader of the gunmen. He might come across Madison yet, but first he had to deal with Jocko Flood.
The bearded killer was too big to take any chances with. If Buckhorn tried to knock him out and failed, Flood might get those apelike arms around him, snap his ribs, and crush the life out of him. Buckhorn lifted his rifle as he ghosted a little closer. A bullet in the back of Flood’s head was his best bet.
Before he could pull the trigger, he heard a faint sound behind him. Buckhorn let his instincts take over. They jerked him to the side and twisted him around just as a man yelled, “Look out, Jocko!”
With a deafening boom, one barrel of a shotgun went off, spewing flame and buckshot from its mouth. The man wielding it was close to Buckhorn, but the frantic move he had made had taken him out of the path of the charge before it had time to spread out much. Buckhorn felt something pluck at his sleeve, but that was as close as any of the buckshot came to him.
His right hand dropped from the Winchester to the Colt on his hip. The revolver flashed up and crashed twice. Buckhorn saw a man of short stature drop the shotgun and fold up around the belly, where the two slugs from Buckhorn’s gun had punched into his guts. He screamed thinly.
From the doorway, Jocko Flood bellowed, “Walter!”
Buckhorn twisted his head in that direction. As he did, the gutshot man took him by surprise. From somewhere, the man found the strength and determination to tackle Buckhorn around the knees from behind. Buckhorn tried but failed to keep his balance. He toppled forward onto the hard-parked dirt.
“You shot Walter, you son of a bitch!” Flood roared. The ground itself seemed to shake underneath Buckhorn as the gargantuan gunfighter charged toward him like a stampeding buffalo.
CHAPTER 23
The wounded man still had hold of Buckhorn’s legs, but his grip was pretty feeble. Buckhorn kicked loose from him and rolled to the side. He had the Winchester in his left hand, the Colt in his right. He brought the revolver up to meet Jocko Flood’s attack.
The gunman was surprisingly fast and nimble for someone so huge, though. A booted foot lashed out and the toe cracked against the wrist of Buckhorn’s gun hand. The Colt went flying as Buckhorn yelled in pain and anger.
“I’ll stomp your guts out, you bastard!” Flood shouted. He tried to make good on that threat by lifting a big foot and bringing it down toward Buckhorn’s midsection.
Buckhorn knew he couldn’t hope to stop Flood by grabbing the man’s foot. The trampling blow had too much weight behind it to be turned aside. The best Buckhorn could hope for was to stay out of its way, so he rolled again. Flood’s foot crashed into the ground, barely missing him.
Flood surged after him, reminding Buckhorn more and more of a crazed buffalo.
Flood still had his rifle in his hands. He could have stopped and tried to shoot Buckhorn instead of stomping him. But the shout he had loosed about Buckhorn shooting the little man with the shotgun seemed to mean he took that personally. He was determined to avenge his friend’s death in the most brutal way possible.
Buckhorn came up against the forge, which was cold at the moment. He couldn’t roll out of Flood’s way any longer. As Flood closed in on him, Buckhorn reversed the Winchester, gripping the barrel instead of the stock. He swung it up, timing the move so that the stock went between Flood’s tree-trunk thighs and slammed into his groin. Flood grunted, then whimpered in agony. He went up on his toes, then toppled forward against the forge.
Buckhorn scrambled out of the way before Flood could collapse on him. Still gripping the rifle barrel, he surged up and swung the weapon like a club. The stock caught Flood in the back of the head and shattered, but the massive gunman went down like a poleaxed steer.
Buckhorn muttered a curse as he looked down at the huge, motionless shape. He had ruined his Winchester by breaking the stock over Flood’s head—but Flood had a perfectly good rifle of the same model lying there beside him. Buckhorn scooped it up.
He fished a lucifer from his vest pocket, then snapped it to life with a flick of his thumbnail. In the brief light, he saw that the gutshot man had writhed around quite a bit in the dirt and then died. Jocko Flood was
still alive, though. His skull was thick enough that it would take more than a wallop from a rifle stock to kill him.
Buckhorn tied and gagged Flood as he had the other man he had taken prisoner, being even more careful to make sure Flood’s bonds were tight and secure. He didn’t want the big man getting loose any time soon. Then he stepped over to the door of the blacksmith shop to look toward the ranch house.
The battle was still going on, but the shooting had slacked off some. That might be because Buckhorn and the men he had brought with him had knocked most of Madison’s men out of the fight, or it might be because the defenders were running low on ammunition and had suffered losses themselves.
Suddenly, during a lull in the firing, a familiar voice rang out in a shout.
“Calvert! You and that bunch in the house! You hear me?”
That was Yancy Madison. He still sounded healthy enough. His voice came from behind a building Buckhorn thought must be the cook shack.
“Calvert, you can’t win this fight!” Madison went on, obviously unaware that he had lost some of his men. “Come out of there with your hands empty and in the air, and we’ll hold our fire! You can still walk away from this without anybody else dying! All Mr. Conroy wants is the property he’s legally entitled to!”
From inside the house, a young voice replied, “You go to hell! The C Cross is ours and always will be!”
That was one of the older Calvert brothers, Tim or Finn. A fresh round of gunfire followed the defiant yell.
While that was going on, Buckhorn slipped out the rear door of the blacksmith shop and started toward the cook shack. He still wanted to get his hands on Madison.
Before he got there, another fusillade of gunshots erupted from the attackers, and a figure darted into view carrying a torch. The man took advantage of the covering fire and sprinted toward the ranch house. He drew back his arm, ready to throw the burning brand onto the roof.
Buckhorn couldn’t let that happen, since he wasn’t sure how many men Madison had left. There might be enough of Conroy’s gun-wolves still left in the fight to cut down the Calverts if flames forced them to flee the house. Buckhorn snapped the rifle to his shoulder, drew a bead, and fired before the man could fling the torch.
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