Legion of Fire

by William W. Johnstone

  “I didn’t take him lightly,” Kelson insisted stubbornly.

  “Okay, okay,” Craddock said, holding up his hands palms out. “The point I was gonna make was that you might find a little bit of consolation in knowin’ Jensen bought it plenty quick when the shootin’ started out there. He’s layin’ not far from where you and him was talkin’. I only wish I was the one who’d gotten the chance to drop that bastard.”

  “And I wish that I would have paid more attention to my hunch that the jinx was taking hold of us,” Kelson said bitterly. “If I would have listened to my instincts and accepted it right from the start, we could have begun making plans to pull our picket pins and light the hell out of here before it took losing Wymer and Pride and all those other good men.” He stopped suddenly and pinned Craddock with a hard look. “Are any of the others going to make it?”

  Craddock shook his head. “I don’t know . . . I don’t think so. There’s only a couple of left out there in any condition to put up a fight, and they’re takin’ pretty heavy fire. Plus one of ’em is Smith, the half-breed, and he’s hell-bent on pushin’ it to the limit.”

  “That sounds like Smith. Crazy damn ’breed,” Kelson muttered.

  Craddock licked his lips. “Listen. Old Man Crowley said you had a plan for when . . . well, in case things turned out like this. I think it’s pretty safe to say it’s gonna come down to you, me, and Crowley as the only ones left, so if you’ve got some kind of plan, I’d sure be obliged to be hearin’ it somewhere about now.”

  Chapter 44

  Luke was able to function again. He felt the sensation coursing through him, reaching his hands and feet like water flowing to the outer extremities of an intricate piping system. The wool was gone from inside his head and his breathing, though still somewhat ragged, was reasonably level. He was ready to rise up and join the fray of the gun battle still raging between Burnett and Russell, and the remaining Legion raiders still up in the rocks.

  Along with the awareness of his returning capabilities, Luke had also become keenly aware of the exposed, vulnerable position he was in. He lay on his stomach ten yards away from the boulder Kelson had been sitting on earlier. Replaying the rest of the setting in his mind, Luke visualized there was no nearer scrap of cover in any direction. If he were to suddenly rise up the way he wanted, the movement would likely draw attention and gunfire from raiders up in the rocks. Ten yards was a long way to scramble out in the open with bullets chasing you.

  Still, Luke was determined to join the fight. He’d lain there long enough not able to take action. Now that he had his faculties about him again, he damn sure wasn’t going to continue doing nothing.

  He risked turning his head slowly so that he was facing into the clearing, hoping it would reveal how the different shooters were positioned. Luckily, the view he gained was fairly complete. He could see where Burnett and Russell were shooting from, down at the opposite end of the oval clearing. They were well concealed and pouring a steady stream of lead at their foes. By canting his head just a bit more and rolling his eyes upward and to his right, Luke was able to locate the raiders returning fire. It only took a minute to determine just two Legion men were still involved, and both of them, fortunately, were up in the rocks on the same side of the clearing. The other side evidently had been cleared out by the explosions.

  Luke wondered why Burnett or Russell didn’t employ the use of some more dynamite to remove the final two men. Before leaving behind the pack animals they’d commandeered from Grogan and the Grimes cousins, it had been Marshal Burnett’s idea to take along a dozen sticks of the dynamite he’d found in one of the supply bundles. Once they’d seen how Kelson had the stage set for their arrival at the hideout cave, having the explosives at their disposal turned out to be extremely fortunate. Why neither of his comrades were opting to put more of it to use, Luke could only guess . . . and he wasn’t in the mood to waste time guessing.

  His appraisal of the scene quickly convinced him he was in a better position than he’d estimated. First, there were only two raiders left to deal with. Second, their attention was so focused on Burnett and Russell at the opposite end of the clearing that sudden movement by the bounty hunter, whom they’d apparently written off as already being eliminated, wasn’t likely to be immediately noticed. Especially if Burnett and Russell took note of Luke rejoining the fray and poured on an extra dose of hot lead to keep the men in the rocks occupied.

  Still unmoving, with his cheek pressed flat to the dirt, Luke made a final sweep with his eyes, calculating, getting himself tensed. The base of the rocks bordering the clearing to the west was between fifteen and twenty yards away. If he made it that far, there was plenty of cover for him to get behind. From there, the closest of the two raiders was another fifteen yards higher up and about twice that far down, to the south. If Luke made it into the rocks, even if his dash to get there was spotted, he could start closing in on the pair of Legion shooters. They’d be caught in a pincer between him and Burnett and Russell down at the south end of the clearing.

  Luke grinned wryly at the thought. If it worked out like that, for once he and the marshal wouldn’t be the ones pinned down.

  All that stood in the way was him making it to those rocks.

  * * *

  “My brother and I first discovered this cave when we were young men,” Kelson explained to Craddock. “Young enough and naïve enough to be duped into helping some men drive a herd of cattle that turned out not to belong to them. When the posse showed up, those scoundrels who hired us split for the tall and uncut and left us to fend for ourselves. Our flight took us into these badlands and to this cave. After that, even though we drifted east and south aiming to stay on the straight and narrow, we seemed to make a habit of somehow always ending up on the wrong side of the law.

  “The war came along and put a stop to that for a while, even though it turned out we ended up on the wrong side in that case, too. My brother didn’t live to discover as much, but I did. When the bugles stopped blowing and the shooting stopped, I found myself in Missouri. Not long after that, I found myself riding with some boys by the name of Frank and Jesse James. It was from them that I learned how useful big old deep caves could be for laying low and setting up hideouts.”

  Kelson paused as he stepped up and planted his feet in a wide-legged stance in front of the strongbox. In his free hand he held the key to the massive padlock. “When I decided to start my own gang out here amidst the growing cattle settlements, I remembered this cave. I brought Wymer and Elmer here with me. We explored every nook and cranny, and when we were in agreement that it was damn near perfect for a hideout and base of operations, we started stocking it with goods and gathering men to form the Legion of Fire.”

  “In those early explorations,” Craddock said, “I take it you found another way in and out. You know, in case of trouble like we’ve got now?”

  Kelson glared at him. “Hell, yes. That was the first thing we made sure of. You think I’d be stupid enough to put myself in an underground box with no back door?”

  After a moment, Kelson withdrew his glare and returned his attention to the strongbox. He leaned over and unfastened the lock, then threw back the chains. Before straightening up, he lifted the lid.

  Inside the cavity that yawned before them was an astonishing pile of bundled paper money with a few bits of jewelry and watches mixed in. Even Millie, who stood at the end of her tether looking on in dull subservience, drew an audible intake of breath.

  “There it is,” Kelson proclaimed. “More money than a man could spend in five lifetimes. Even divided among the others, though we hadn’t yet figured on being done, it would have made everybody rich beyond their dreams. But now . . .” He let his words trail off.

  After a moment his eyes shifted to Craddock. “You are one lucky man, mister. Just a handful of days riding with the Legion and you stand to pocket a huge share of what so many others rode hard, bled, and died for.”

  “You sound lik
e you begrudge me any of it,” Craddock said.

  Kelson’s gaze remained steady. “In a way, I guess I do. But what the hell . . . what other choice is there? I could kill you, I suppose. But to tell the truth, I’ve had my fill of having dead men around me. At least for the time being. Besides, there’s more money here than I can carry or ever imagine being able to spend on my own. So you and the old man loading up some of it . . . Like I said, what the hell?”

  “All that money is real nice,” Craddock responded. “But it won’t do much good if all we do is squeeze out of here and get hunted down all over again. This back door of yours—where’s it gonna take us?”

  Kelson smiled slyly. Then, lowering his voice so the women over in the stockade wouldn’t hear, he said, “To another cave a little over a mile from where we exit. That one is quite a bit smaller, but it’s already stocked with emergency supplies to last half a dozen people a week to ten days. Long enough, in other words, for any posse on the hunt for us to have long since moved on with their search before we ever come out of hiding.” The smile widened. “You see, I’ve thought of everything.”

  “Sounds like,” Craddock allowed. “But if Old Man Crowley is gonna be joinin’ us when we slip out the back, what’s to prevent that bunch outside, once they get past Smith, from coming boilin’ in here and then give chase out the back way practically right on our heels?”

  Kelson’s smile turned smug. “Because anybody who attempts to come boiling in here is going to find themselves slowed considerably by the blockage that will be filling a section of the entrance passage after we trigger the dropfall that’s going to pour in several hundred pounds of rocks and heavy timber.”

  Craddock didn’t say anything, but his expression displayed a clear lack of comprehension.

  “Those support timbers back in the passage where the old man is waiting? They’re mainly in place,” Kelson further explained, “to hold up a sort of platform we built overhead. Piled on that platform is a heap of small boulders and leftover timber sections. A couple of sledgehammer whacks to a key wedge at the base of one of those support beams will collapse the whole works and fill the passage with enough rocks and wreckage to halt a team of men for a full day or more before they’re able to dig through.”

  Craddock emitted a low whistle. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You do have things thought through mighty slick.”

  Kelson grunted. “Real touching that you approve. The thing now, as I see it, is not to waste any more time getting back to the passage and helping the old man go ahead with triggering that dropfall. Once we’re assured the passage is sealed off, we can return here, load up on money, and then make tracks out the back.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Craddock jerked a thumb toward the stockade. “What about the women?”

  “What about ’em? After the bounty hunters have dug their way in, let them worry about how to handle the women . . . all except this one.” Kelson pulled on the tether still cinched around Millie’s neck, jerking her closer to him. “She stays with me.”

  “With us,” Craddock was quick to amend, the undertone of a challenge in his words.

  Kelson regarded him. Tension between the two men weighted the air for a long moment.

  Kelson finally shrugged dismissively. “Go ahead and look at it that way, if it makes you feel better. For now, anyway. There’ll be time in the days ahead for us to sort it out.”

  Craddock dipped his chin in a curt nod. “Yeah, there will.”

  “In the meantime, let’s go take care of blocking that passage.”

  Chapter 45

  It was almost too easy. Luke pushed to his feet and covered the distance to the western rocks without a single shot being fired in his direction. He dropped in behind a weather-worn boulder and hunkered low, both Remingtons drawn and clutched in his fists.

  The exchange of gunfire continued, but none of it involved him . . . yet.

  Cautiously, he raised up and scanned the situation from his new perspective. It appeared that none of the four men trading shots had shifted their positions significantly from when he’d last looked. He could see for certain that neither of the raiders was looking his way at all. Luke had to believe that Burnett and Russell, since they were facing his general direction, must have seen him make his move. It hadn’t seemed like they laid down any heavier fire to cover him, but his maneuver was so quick and unexpected there wasn’t much time for them to react. Plus, with the owlhoots never even noticing, there really hadn’t been any call for the added distraction.

  The main thing was, Luke told himself, that he was in place to aid Burnett and Russell in finishing off the last two shooters so all three of them could turn their attention to getting inside the cave and doing whatever it took to end the Legion of Fire and rescue the women. He toyed briefly with the notion of leaving Burnett and Russell to handle things while he went ahead and plunged into the cave on his own. The idea didn’t last long, though. Their force was small enough as it was; to unnecessarily split it more wasn’t smart.

  Luke’s scan of his new location revealed a shallow, ragged-edged trough, a rain scour, running diagonally up from just above where he was crouched. It led to an even narrower but relatively flat ledge that extended toward and above the nearest shooter.

  Luke reholstered his Remingtons, paused no more than a second to make sure his target was continuing to face away, then hoisted himself up and bellied through the trough. Digging with fingers and toes, he began to ascend. The incline wasn’t very steep, but the confines of the trough were tight and the whole way was littered with loose chunks of rock, some of them containing sharp edges that chewed into his belly and thighs like the gnawing of small animals. He greeted several of the harder-biting critters with plenty of coarse muttering.

  Other than the bit of discomfort, everything went well all the way up to the ledge. At that point, however, things took a turn. Unexpectedly, for no discernible reason other than perhaps the kind of instinctive feeling a deer sometimes gets when a hunter is on the approach, the man Luke was closing in on suddenly twisted around and looked directly at him.

  Luke instantly froze. But it was already too late. The raider had clearly spotted him. Then the moment of misfortune took another turn. While Luke had ceased all motion on purpose, the man facing him did the same out of surprise and shock. When motion was again required to defend himself, the man was caught unable to react as quickly as needed.

  Such was not the case for Luke.

  With himself revealed and his target equally so, the bounty hunter didn’t hesitate to draw both of his Remingtons and plant a slug from each scarcely a fraction of an inch apart in the man’s chest. The raider slammed back against a flat slab of rock, twisted away, and then spilled forward over the lip of a sharply sloping cliff. Surprisingly, he had enough life left to emit a gargling scream for part of the way down.

  It was the scream that served to alert the remaining shooter in the rocks several yards ahead. The reports from Luke’s guns might not have sounded appreciably different to the second man, a copper-skinned, fierce-eyed half-breed by the look of him, if the varmint they’d cut down hadn’t managed a death scream. But he did, and the half-breed took notice.

  What was more, the ’breed did not allow himself to be frozen by surprise. Far from it, he spun back and away from the position he’d been maintaining and dropped out of sight from Luke as well as Burnett and Russell in positions farther down. Luke rapid-fired three shots at where the man had been, but that was as close as he got.

  Thinking the lone remaining raider would likely make a run for it, try to escape from continuing a fight with the odds stacked against him, Luke went in pursuit. He pushed himself forward, scrambling past the ledge and heading for where he’d last seen the half-breed. Peripherally, he noted that Burnett and Russell were also on the move, leaving their prior positions and moving with caution along the base of the rocks to the south, working in that direction. Keeping the pincer alive.

  But the hal
f-breed didn’t act as expected. He had no intention of abandoning the fight.

  A dozen feet above the spot he’d disappeared from, he thrust back into view with his rifle raised and ready. Rapidly firing and levering fresh cartridges into his Winchester, he sent two rounds sizzling toward Luke, forcing him to drop flat in order to avoid the bullets whistling mere inches above his head. Quickly, the ’breed twisted the other way and triggered three blasts down at Burnett and Russell before once again dropping out of sight.

  When Luke shoved up, intending to return fire, his target had already disappeared.

  Cursing under his breath, Luke quickly shifted to a different position, but he didn’t continue his advance. He crouched low and still, both pistols drawn and held at the ready. Down below, Burnett and Russell had also taken to fresh cover and were gone from Luke’s field of vision. He didn’t take time to worry about that, though. His eyes intently scanned the rocks up ahead, trying to anticipate where the half-breed might appear next.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  But the remaining raider had a trick up his sleeve. Rather than shifting to an altogether new spot, the bastard popped up out of the jagged pocket where he’d been initially. It was a clever ruse, and he almost got away with it. Luke had more or less been expecting him to show still higher.

  The crafty varmint made one careless mistake. Apparently still having Burnett and Russell in sight from his vantage point, he fired his first rounds down at them.

  That gave Luke all the time he needed to react and adjust his aim. The Remingtons spoke twice each and three of the four rounds blazing from their muzzles pounded into the ’breed. The impacts jerked him upright, spun him partway around, and the Winchester slipped from his grasp. He teetered, supported momentarily by the rocks tight around him. Luke was poised to trigger a finishing round when, very slowly, the ’breed slipped down and tipped out of sight.