Even in his plight, the man saw it as a sliver of an opening he opted to take advantage of. Though still on his backside and not yet at a complete stop, his right hand darted to the back of his neck and from where it was tucked behind the knot of his neckerchief yanked a short-barreled, small-caliber five-shot revolver. He swung the hideaway gun forward and down, extending his arm to take aim at Luke.
The bounty hunter’s reflexes, even though he was bullet-creased and momentarily distracted, were too keen, too fast. Before the ambusher could trigger his little sneak shooter, both of Luke’s Remingtons roared and the slugs they discharged pounded into the center of their target’s chest. The man was dead before his body had completely ceased its downward skid.
Chapter 26
“So the lying dog meant to double-cross us all along. He never intended to honor any kind of bargain at all,” Marshal Burnett said through gritted teeth. “If that unexpected rock slide hadn’t offered him what he saw as a quicker opportunity, he’d have waited until we were on the trail or bunched up, and then gone to work with that hideaway peashooter to put down as many as he could.”
“Could be that was the way he saw it,” Luke allowed. “Then again, maybe he wasn’t such a liar after all.”
“How so?” Burnett demanded.
“He said right at the beginning that he didn’t figure he had a chance, so he might as well go out taking some of us with him,” Luke pointed out.
“But we gave him a chance. We offered him a bargain.”
“Uh-huh. A chance to cross Kelson and the rest of the Legion.” Luke’s mouth pulled into a tight, thin line. “I’m thinking he likely was more scared of that—crossing Kelson—than he was of anything we might do to him. So he decided to play it the way he did.”
“And I’m thinking you’re giving the varmint more credit than he deserves,” Burnett said, scowling. “But it’s all dust in the wind now. He’s one less Legion raider and good riddance for that, says I.”
The two men were standing on the front side of the wedge of high rocks, Luke having made his way back through the gap after dispatching the final ambusher. Russell was returning via a slower route, coming around the end of the western butte, leading the bushwhackers’ three horses that he and Luke had discovered hobbled in some scrub trees not far from the rear slope. Since two of their horses had been killed and the others were last seen fleeing from the gunfire, the posse was going to need replacement mounts as well as the means to chase down the scattered animals.
And given the way things stood, they were going to need all their horses more than ever. While they’d won this battle, the cost to the posse had been significant. Harry Barlow was dead. Whitey Mason’s leg wound wasn’t necessarily life threatening, not unless they couldn’t get the bleeding stopped, which was proving difficult to do. And Swede Norsky had, from all appearances, broken his back when he was pitched from the saddle after his horse got shot out from under him; he couldn’t move anything below the neck, and while he seemed basically pain free while lying still, any attempt to move him caused considerable discomfort. Luke’s shoulder wound was barely serious enough to bother with. Despite it having stopped bleeding on its own, Burnett still insisted on cleaning it and cutting a strip of bedroll blanket to tie over it under his shirt.
In short, the ambush had left things in a mess. And while Luke couldn’t argue that it was indeed “good riddance” for all of the ambushers responsible to have paid with their lives, at the same time he couldn’t help thinking how valuable it could have been if they’d first been able to squeeze some information out of at least one of them.
But, like Burnett had said, that was dust in the wind. They had a lot more pressing issues to deal with than fretting over what might have been.
As if reading Luke’s thoughts, Burnett said, “No matter if we had kept that skunk alive, I don’t see how we could have got much use out of him as far as leading us anywhere. Not now. We’ve got one man dead and two others badly in need of a doctor. Much as it galls me to say or even think it, it seems to me our days of giving chase as a posse are done with. We’ve got to get these injured men, as well as Barlow’s corpse, back to town.”
Before Luke could make any response, Whitey Mason spoke up from where he’d been laid out on a bedroll blanket near the boulder he’d been behind earlier. “Shovel that kind of talk with the rest of the horse flop. You can’t call this posse off now, Marshal. I sure as hell don’t want you doin’ it on account of me! There’s still those women to think of. You been sayin’ all along how this posse is the onliest chance they got.” He was propped on one elbow, his son kneeling beside him, and his right leg was heavily bandaged by what looked like somebody’s shirt. A spreading oval of blood had already seeped through it, however.
Burnett turned to him, his expression one of exasperation. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Whitey. But come on, you’ve got to see this changes everything. There’s no way you’re fit to saddle up and keep riding with us. You’ll bleed to death for certain. And what about Swede? He can’t even move, let alone sit a horse.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about me or Swede stickin’ with you,” Mason insisted. “I know we’re out of it. But that don’t mean the rest of you can’t continue on. All you need to do is build a drag litter for Swede and hitch it to a horse. Then put me on the horse and I’ll ride the both of us back to town while the rest of you go on with the chase. Poor ol’ Barlow can wait here covered in rocks until somebody can come back later to fetch him for a proper burial in the Arapaho Springs cemetery.”
“Pa, you’re talking loco,” his son said. “There’s no way I’m leaving you to fend for yourself with a bullet hole in you.”
“Blast it, boy! Don’t you argue with me.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Keith said stubbornly. “I’m just telling you how it ain’t gonna be.”
Luke spoke up. “I admire your grit, Mason. But your son’s right—you’re talking loco. You plant yourself upright in a saddle and try riding any distance, let alone all the way back to town, that bleeding will never stop. You’ll drain out before you make it halfway and you and Swede will both end up dead.”
“I can’t let you do it, Whitey. I just can’t,” added Burnett.
Mason cut his narrowed eyes back and forth between Burnett and Luke. “I’m an old man. Plenty damn old enough to say what’s best for me. I’ve had my years and they was mostly good ones. I buried a wife, God rest her soul, but for the time she was with me no man ever had a better woman by his side. She gave me three strong sons who are more than fit to take over and carry on the ranch I built up for them. They’ll make it bigger and better than ever.
“What I’m gettin’ at is that the sand in my hourglass is runnin’ low already. But those gals out there, they got a lot left to do. A couple of them are mothers with young ones yet to raise. A couple more are widows with families already missin’ a father. And then there’s the young ones—like your daughter, Marshal—with their whole lives still ahead of them. If I don’t make it back to town, then I’ve had my time and I got no kick. But those gals deserve more. And this posse contin-uin’ on is their only chance to get it.”
Unexpectedly, from where he still lay belly down as he’d fallen, his face turned to one side but otherwise unmoved, Swede Norsky spoke up. “I say with Mason. My life is already done. I know what becomes of a man who’s busted up like me. So if me and him try to make it and end up dying somewhere back on the trail . . . Hell, it won’t be that much of a loss. But those stolen women left to the treatment they’ll get at the hands of the Legion . . . that not only would be a terrible loss, it would be an unforgivable shame.”
An uneasy silence gripped the scene for several heartbeats. It was broken by the appearance of Russell, coming around the end of the west butte, leading the ambushers’ three horses. His eyes scanned the grim faces and he sensed the tension in the air. “What’s going on?” he asked no one in particular.
Burnett answe
red him, giving a quick rundown of the situation and what they were faced with regarding the injured men. A range of emotions passed openly over Russell’s face.
Before he could say anything, Luke took a step toward him and the horses whose reins he was holding. “No matter how we proceed, we’re going to need to round up our scattered horses. I suggest Keith and I take a couple of these mounts and tend to that. It shouldn’t take too long. I doubt they ran that far. The rest of you might want to keep trying to get Mason’s bleeding stopped. And, to go back to one thing the old man said that did make sense, you might also consider burying Barlow here in some rocks. Be a lot more convenient for somebody to come back for him later on than to haul him with us right now.”
“What about the rest of these dead men?” asked Pete Hennesy.
Luke gave him a look. “I don’t see them as being worth the time or the sweat. But that should be the marshal’s call.”
Burnett scowled at him. “Seems to me you have a strange way of deciding what is my call. But I don’t disagree. Rounding up those horses and working on Whitey’s wound is important. Bothering with the remains of those bushwhacking skunks sure as hell ain’t.”
As Luke reached for the reins of two of the horses, Russell set his jaw firmly and swept his gaze from Luke to Burnett and back again. “You two can make all the calls you want. But I’ll tell you one thing right now. I’m continuing on after Millie and the rest of those women even if I have to go it alone. I have all the respect and sympathy in the world for the two injured men, but one man more or less isn’t crucial to getting them back to town. I can appreciate the rest of you wanting to turn back for their sake, but I won’t. I can’t.”
Luke paused with two sets of reins gripped in his right hand. He held the young law clerk’s eyes for long moment and then cut his gaze to Burnett. “The kid might have hit on something. We can’t let Mason and Swede try to make it back to town alone, no. But neither is it necessary for all of us to accompany them. Two riders pulling drag litters could travel just as fast and have just as much chance to get them to Doc Whitney’s care in time. That would leave three men to continue on after the Legion.”
Burnett’s eyes widened and his expression instantly showed acceptance for the idea. “By God, you’re right. That would meet both needs.”
Hennesy wasn’t so quick to buy in. “But a three-man posse?” he said in a doubtful tone. “We were spread too thin as it was, Marshal. Look how badly we got cut down by running into just a handful of those heathens. For three men to go after the fifteen or so that are still out there, that’s . . . that’s . . .”
“You don’t have to worry, Pete,” Burnett told him in a tolerant voice. “You can be one of the riders who go back. It stands to reason that Keith will want to accompany his father, so you can pull Swede’s litter.”
Hennesy’s face took on a tortured expression. “Oh God, Marshal, you know how much I think of Miss Lucinda, how beholden I am to her for giving me a chance when everybody else thought I was nothing but a no-account drunk. But I . . . I . . .”
“It’s okay, Pete,” Burnett said. “You showed your sand and your devotion to Lucinda by coming as far as you did. And you’re right, three against the rest of the Legion is mighty poor odds. But Swede and Whitey don’t have the best odds neither, so there’s where you can do the most good. Get ’em back to Doc and help ’em beat the chips that are stacked against ’em.”
Keith Mason straightened up from where he’d been kneeling beside his father. “I don’t much cotton to turning back from the trail of those murderous coyotes. But you said it right, Marshal. My first duty has to be looking out for my pa.”
Burnett nodded. “You got nothing to explain, son. I understand.”
The marshal turned to look once more at Luke. “Russell made it plain where he stands. And me, it goes without saying. Since you’re the one who advanced the notion, I take it that makes you our third man?”
A corner of Luke’s mouth quirked upward. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter 27
It was well into the afternoon before they rode away from the wedge of high rocks. Luke, Burnett, and Russell would continue on north or wherever the trail of the Legion raiders led them. Keith Mason and Pete Hennesy headed back south, each pulling a drag litter loaded respectively with Whitey Mason and Swede Norsky.
The parting of the two groups was somber and rather abrupt. Each knew the other had a difficult task ahead of them, with no precious time to waste. Other than an exchange of “good-byes” and “good lucks,” there wasn’t much more to say.
* * *
The elderly Mason’s bleeding had been slowed considerably but not completely stopped. If it didn’t get worse again during the trip, he had a fair chance of making it. If it did get worse, things could be dicey. As for the Swede, they had cupped the underside of a saddle around his back and lashed it there to brace him as rigidly as possible before loading him faceup onto his litter. Doing the necessary positioning was excruciating for the big man, though once he was secure on the litter he seemed relatively comfortable.
In the time it had taken Luke and Keith Mason to round up the scattered horses, which was longer than anticipated because the frightened beasts had bolted a considerable distance in every direction imaginable, Burnett and Hennesy had covered Harry Barlow in rocks. While they were doing that, Russell had returned to the stand of trees on the back side of the buttes where he’d cut and trimmed six sturdy, wrist-thick saplings to serve for the drag litter poles. Only four were necessary at the start, two for each litter, with blankets secured between them to function as beds for the injured men; the additional saplings were spares in case one of the initial poles broke being pulled over the largely treeless prairie.
Riding away from the wedge of high rocks, Keith Mason and Pete Hennesy headed back south, each pulling a drag litter loaded respectively with Whitey Mason and Swede Norsky. Luke, Burnett, and Russell continued north or wherever the trail of the Legion raiders led them.
* * *
Within minutes of circling around the buttes and again picking up the trail of the Legion raiders, Luke spotted what they had been expecting yet hoping against . . . the tracks of the outlaws had split into two different sets. Nine riders continued on north; nine others swung out to the west. There were no distinguishing marks in any of the tracks to give Luke a clue as to who was riding in any particular bunch.
“So what do we do? Which set of tracks do we follow?” Russell said, his tone tinged with anxiety and frustration.
“Every reason to think they’re all headed to the same spot eventually,” Luke replied. “It’s just a matter of what route they take and how hard they work at fogging their trail. If we continue into more broken terrain ahead of the actual badlands, that will make it easier for them to do and harder for us to follow.”
“And once they’re in the badlands,” Burnett said glumly, “tracking them there will be damn near impossible.”
“Damn near isn’t all the way,” Russell stated firmly. “The harder it gets, the harder we’ll have to work at it, that’s all.”
Luke smiled fleetingly, liking the young man’s determination more and more all the time. “One thing for sure,” he said, “is that we can’t afford to waste time speculating on it. For the time being, we have tracks to follow. We just need to pick a set and get moving again.”
Burnett nodded. “Since we got nothing solid to go on as far as which bunch Millie or Lucinda might be in, our chances are equal with either one. So I say we stick with due north. I know that to be the general direction of the badlands and it’s the way everything has been pointing up to now, so why change?”
“Works for me,” Luke agreed. “No reason I can see to favor one or the other. Let’s ride!”
Chapter 28
With another evening closing in, Millie Burnett was feeling increasingly desperate. At first, when the raiders broke into two groups, she’d seen it as a hopeful thing. With fe
wer men to be on the lookout, she reasoned that ought to provide a better chance to escape. There were just two other women included in her group, and she further viewed it as a lucky break that one of them was Lucinda Davis, the only other captive who’d previously expressed a willingness to join in an attempt to try and break free.
But, as the day progressed, other considerations began to trouble Millie. For one, there was the fact that three of the raiders had been left behind at the wedge of high rocks to serve as a deterrent to anyone who came after the outlaws. That meant if her father was still alive and had managed to form a posse to follow on the trail of the raiders, they could end up riding straight into an ambush. That was a possibility too crushing to dwell on. All along, in spite of her doubts and her determination not to wait for rescue but rather to attempt an escape on her own if presented any chance, she had naturally wanted to believe her father had survived the slaughter back in town and was coming for her and Lucinda and the others. But if he’d survived initially only to be cut down later for her sake, that would be unbearable.
Furthermore, the realization had also sunk in that having fewer raiders around her gained little as far as improving her odds for getting away. Fewer eyes watching, true—but still nine sets and all of them watching, all of the time. And none more constant or hungrier than those of Sam Kelson, even throughout the night when they’d stopped and camped for a second time.
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