Massacre Canyon

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke heaved a sigh that sounded relieved and let himself relax a little, as much as he could on the stone floor.

  “They’ve been trailing me and Mordecai Kroll,” he said. “I’m counting on them to help get us out of here now that I’ve found you.”

  “So four men—two of them prisoners—are going to take on the whole Kroll gang and win?”

  “That was the idea,” Smoke replied, and his voice held some grim humor as well.

  “Pretty risky plan, wasn’t it?”

  “Not really.”

  “How do you figure that?” Luke wanted to know.

  Carefully, Smoke shifted around until he could draw his legs up and maneuver himself into a sitting position with his back against the wall alongside Luke. He grunted in obvious pain.

  “Are you hurt bad?”

  “I think Mordecai cracked a rib when he kicked me,” Smoke said. “And then Galt did even more damage with that bear hug. And I reckon I mean that literally . . . Galt’s as big as a grizzly.”

  “He’s smarter than you’d give him credit for just by looking at him, too. In some ways, I’d say he may be the most dangerous one of the whole bunch.” Luke paused. “You still haven’t told me why you thought coming to rescue me this way was a good idea.”

  “It was the only way,” Smoke insisted. “I needed Mordecai’s help to find the hideout, and I wasn’t going to get it unless I fooled him into thinking that I was following Rudolph’s instructions and working alone.”

  “Then why didn’t you just have the army follow you, or even a big posse of US marshals?”

  “Too much of a chance Mordecai would spot a large group trailing us. I knew Preacher and Matt could do the job without Mordecai ever realizing they were behind us.”

  “Maybe so, but now that you’re here, there are only two of them to pull us out of this jackpot.”

  “You’ve heard about the two of them,” Smoke said, “but you’ve never actually met Preacher and Matt. I’ll take them over a posse or even the army. I’m sure they’re out there right now, figuring out a way to give the Kroll brothers a mighty unpleasant surprise.”

  Chapter 42

  Preacher was lost.

  It had been many, many years since that thought had crossed the old mountain man’s mind. There had been times when he didn’t know exactly where he was, of course. That was inevitable when you made a habit of going new places, and the unquenchable desire to see what was over the next hill had always been a part of him. But he had known where he was going, and usually that was all that counted. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get there.

  These Superstition Mountains were an unholy jumble, though. Riven by deep gullies, speared by rock pinnacles, bisected by looming cliffs.... A man could get lost in here mighty easy by daylight. Finding his way in darkness was damned near impossible.

  If anybody could do it, though, Preacher was the man.

  Or so he told himself.

  “Dog, I’m glad some o’ my old pards can’t see me now,” he told the big cur as he stopped to rest. “I’d be plumb mortified.”

  Dog whined quietly. He didn’t like clambering around through these badlands in the dark any more than Preacher did.

  They had left Horse back on the other side of the ridge where the notch was located. Even though it had taken hours for them to reach this spot, what with all the doubling back they had been forced to do, that probably wasn’t more than a mile away as the crow flies.

  Preacher and Dog had climbed to the notch, which was unguarded they discovered when they got there. The ascent had been a difficult one, if not quite bad enough to require a mountain goat as Matt had said. Preacher was a little surprised the gang didn’t have a sentry posted up there anyway. He supposed Rudolph Kroll thought any group of men large enough to pose an actual threat to them wouldn’t attempt such a climb.

  One man could make it, though . . . and Preacher had.

  One man and a dog, anyway.

  The terrain on the north side of the notch was almost as rugged, and to make things more difficult, Preacher didn’t really know what he was looking for. He knew he was east of the pass Smoke and Mordecai Kroll had used, so he worked his way in that direction. Then he had to backtrack, climb in and out of ravines, and circle around rock spires, until he wasn’t even sure which way he was going anymore.

  Fortunately, he had stars to steer by, and the brief moment of confusion soon passed. It was troubling, though. Preacher was as close to a man without fear as could ever be found, but there was one thing he was afraid of.

  He was afraid of getting too old to go adventuring anymore.

  He shoved that thought away and resumed his search. A three-quarter moon rose, and that helped. The silvery light that spilled over the landscape wasn’t as bright as day, but Preacher found his way around easier with it.

  Even so, the cliff almost fell out from under him with no warning.

  He reached down and dug his fingers into the thick fur on the back of Dog’s neck as he stopped on the brink of the sheer drop.

  “Hold on there, old feller,” he said quietly. “Take a look at that.”

  A canyon lay before him, a good-sized canyon surrounded on all sides by steep, unscalable cliffs. Preacher knew this had to be the Kroll gang’s hideout. Lights burned here and there, including one large cluster of them that was probably the headquarters. Preacher could barely make out the lines of some sort of big house.

  More than likely an old ranch house, he thought. The Krolls had moved in and taken it over, either finding it abandoned or killing whoever had lived here.

  Smoke and Luke were down there somewhere. Finding the hideout made Preacher feel a little better.

  The bad part was that he couldn’t see any way of getting down there to help them.

  But there had to be a back door, he told himself. As long as the Kroll brothers had been raising hell without the law catching up to them, it seemed unlikely Rudolph Kroll was dumb enough to establish his stronghold in a place where his enemies could close off one end and keep him trapped there until he starved to death.

  Preacher’s keen eyes searched the canyon below him for any clue where that back door might be. Then his gaze fell on a dark line that twisted toward the canyon’s northern end. Those were trees, he realized, and they had to mark the course of a stream. The little creek had to come from somewhere.

  Of course, the stream might come from a spring at the head of the canyon. But maybe it flowed in from outside. Preacher knew of only one way to find out. He began following the line of cliffs around the canyon.

  More than an hour later he came to a ravine that slashed through the cliffs like a giant knife had carved it out of the stone. The gap was about twenty feet wide and at least a hundred feet deep, so there was no way to get across it. Preacher listened and heard the roar of fast-moving water coming from the bottom.

  “This is where that creek comes into the canyon,” he told Dog. “Look at the way the ravine runs due north. We got to follow it and see if we can find a way down into it. Maybe we can float right into that dang outlaw hideout and get there in time to help Matt!”

  A low, heartfelt curse whispered from Matt’s lips as he glanced to the east and saw the glow in the sky. The moon was about to rise, charging into view in its constant chase after the sun. He had hoped to make it through the pass before that happened, during the dark gap between the fall of true night and the rising of the moon. His approach to the pass had taken too long, however. The trail had twisted back and forth too much as it made its way through the rugged landscape. Now he was liable to be caught out in the open as the silvery rays spilled over the pass.

  He had come too far to turn back. All he could do was go ahead and hope for the best.

  He had left his horse well behind him, knowing that he couldn’t take the animal through the pass without the hoofbeats echoing and alerting the guards. His passage through the gap had to be almost soundless in order to be successful. It
wouldn’t take much of a noise to cause a racket.

  In his jeans, dark blue shirt, and black hat, he figured he blended into the shadows fairly well for the time being. He had wrapped one of his blankets around the Winchester he carried so there wouldn’t be any reflection off the barrel or the action. Also, if he happened to bump the rifle against a rock or anything like that, the blanket would help muffle the sound. His Colt was blued steel, not nickel-plated, and the grips were walnut. The revolver wasn’t going to shine in the darkness, either.

  Matt was in the pass now, moving slowly and carefully, setting each foot down gingerly until he was sure he wasn’t stepping on a rock or about to do anything else that would make a noise. He eased forward, and as he did he heard the guards stationed in the rocks on the sides of the pass talking to each other as they tried to pass the long hours of their shifts.

  He paused as he heard one of the outlaws say “Jensen.” The name was all Matt caught at first, but then the man continued. “From what I heard, he plans to kill ’em both at dawn.”

  “He’ll make everybody get up to watch, too, won’t he?”

  “You know how Rudolph is. Runs the gang almost like an army company.”

  The second man laughed and said, “That’s all right with me. I can take a few orders if it means bein’ a rich man sooner or later. I was in the cavalry, you know.”

  “Naw, I didn’t know that,” the other man replied. “When’d you muster out?”

  That brought another laugh.

  “I never did! Just slipped away from a patrol one day and kept ridin’. That was five years ago and they ain’t caught me yet.”

  “As long as you’re ridin’ with the Kroll brothers, they probably won’t. Say, when do you think we’ll have the big divvy-up? I’m gettin’ a mite tired of the way Rudolph just doles out a little dinero to us. He’s got one hell of a lot of loot stashed by now. I want to get my hands on my fair share.”

  “Why don’t you go and suggest that to him?” the other man said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind takin’ your advice.”

  The response was another suggestion, but a profane one. The second outlaw went on, “I may grouse a little, but there ain’t no way I’m tellin’ Rudolph Kroll how he ought to run the gang. I’m still too fond of livin’.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Those two Jensens probably are, too, but they’re just plumb out of luck, come mornin’.”

  The other man changed the subject by saying, “Where do you reckon Rudolph has all that loot stashed, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Up there in the big house somewhere, I suppose. I’ll bet him and maybe Galt are the only ones who know for sure.”

  The men paused in their conversation for a moment. Then one of them said, “You reckon Rudolph will do anything to Mordecai for causin’ so much trouble in the first place?”

  “Naw. Rudolph’s mad, all right. I reckon he’d like to horsewhip the boy. But he won’t. Mordecai always gets away with whatever he does, you know that.”

  “Yeah. But one of these days bein’ so reckless is liable to catch up to him.”

  Matt hoped that day was today, or rather tonight, he thought as he resumed his stealthy trek through the pass. All the information he had picked up from the talkative sentries was interesting, but only one fact really mattered at the moment.

  Smoke and Luke were scheduled to die at dawn.

  So Matt had until then to make sure they didn’t.

  Chapter 43

  Despite the pain in his side and the threat of death looming over him and Luke, Smoke dozed off after a while with his back and head propped against the stone wall of the cell.

  He woke up to the sound of footsteps echoing in the corridor on the other side of the door. He opened his eyes, which were so gritty they felt like the eyeballs had been popped out, rolled around in a bucket of sand, and then shoved back into his head.

  Gloom still cloaked the cell, relieved only by the faint glow that came through the barred window in the door. Night and day had no meaning down here in the eternal twilight of imprisonment, Smoke realized.

  He heard Luke stir beside him and said, “You reckon it’s morning yet?”

  “Doesn’t seem like it should be,” Luke replied. “But I could be wrong about that. Maybe we’ll find out if they bring us breakfast.”

  “How’s the food in this place?” Smoke asked wryly.

  “Not as good as the steaks at Delmonico’s,” Luke said with a chuckle.

  Smoke was glad to hear that bit of grim humor. It proved that Luke hadn’t given up . . . not that Smoke would have expected him to do such a thing. Jensens had never been in the habit of hollering calf-rope.

  Their visitor wasn’t bringing them breakfast, however. Instead, the footsteps came to a stop outside the door, and Mordecai Kroll put his face close to the bars in the window and said, “Jensen! Both of you! Are you awake in there?”

  Neither Smoke nor Luke responded. Chances were that Mordecai had come down here to taunt them. Smoke couldn’t think of any other reason the younger Kroll brother would pay a visit to the dungeon. He didn’t want to give Mordecai the pleasure of a response, and obviously neither did Luke.

  “Go ahead and ignore me, both of you,” Mordecai continued. The faint slur in his voice testified that he had been drinking but probably wasn’t actually drunk. “I know you’re in there, and I know you can hear me. You can’t tell it where you are, but it’s about five hours until dawn. You know what that means?”

  Mordecai paused to increase the drama of the moment.

  “It means you’ve got five hours left until you die,” he said after a moment. “Come sunup, I’m gonna even the score with both of you bastards. It took some doin’, but I finally talked Rudolph into lettin’ me take a bullwhip to you. Listen up, bounty hunter. You’re gonna watch me whip your brother to death, and when I’m done with that, I’m gonna take the whip to you until I’ve cut you into little, tremblin’ pieces.” Mordecai laughed. “And I’m gonna enjoy every scream, every drop of blood that falls on the ground. You’re both done for. Simple as that.”

  Smoke still didn’t say anything, and neither did Luke. Both men had faced death so many times over the years that it held no particular fear for them. If his string was played out, Smoke would regret never seeing Sally again, never being able to hold her and tell her good-bye, but she was the strongest person he had ever known and he was confident she would be all right.

  He would be sorry, too, because if he died, that meant the Kroll brothers won, and that idea greatly offended his sense of justice.

  But Mordecai had said that it was five hours until dawn and their date with death, and a lot could happen in five hours, especially with Matt and Preacher on the loose somewhere.

  “All right, go ahead and be stubborn,” Mordecai said when they didn’t answer. “Sull up like a couple of old possums for all I care. You’ll be screamin’ soon enough when I’m usin’ that bullwhip to peel every inch of hide off of you!”

  Mordecai had brought his bottle with him. Smoke heard liquid gurgle as the outlaw took a long swallow of whiskey from it. Then his footsteps retreated from the door and eventually Smoke heard them ascending stairs, followed by the thump of another door closing.

  “He’s gone,” Smoke said.

  “Better make sure,” Luke said. “I don’t want the slimy son of a bitch eavesdropping on us.”

  He climbed awkwardly to his feet in the cramped quarters, shuffled over to the door, and peered through the window for a long moment before he said, “Yeah, Mordecai’s gone. But he’ll be back. You know the old saying about bad pennies. The Kroll brothers are just about the worst.”

  “That gives Matt and Preacher until then to make their move.”

  “You’ve got a lot of confidence in them. I’m not sure I ever put that much faith in anybody.”

  “Of course, I have faith in them. They’re family.”

  Luke grunted and said, “More so than me, I reckon, even though we’re blood r
elatives and they’re not. I turned my back on my family for fifteen years.”

  “You thought you had good reason,” Smoke said. “Anyway, blood’s important. But family is more than blood. Preacher was like an uncle to me almost as soon as I met him, and Matt’s the little brother I never had, sure enough. But that doesn’t make you and me any less brothers.”

  Slowly nodding in the gloom, Luke said, “That’s good to know. Even if we don’t make it out of this, we’re together now. Nothing Mordecai does can take that away from us.”

  “Nope. Just don’t give up hope.”

  “Not as long as there’s breath in my body,” Luke said.

  It took Preacher a maddeningly long time to find a place where he could descend into the canyon where the creek ran before it entered the canyon. When he finally did, the slope was too steep and rugged for Dog to manage it.

  “I’m gonna have to leave you here, old fella,” Preacher told the big cur.

  Dog whined deeply in his throat.

  “I know, I don’t like it any more than you do. But you can’t climb down there, and I got to find a way in so I can help Matt when he makes his move. Right now all we can do is hope that Smoke and Luke are still alive.”

  Dog ran back and forth along the canyon rim. He let out a quiet bark as Preacher lowered himself over the edge.

  “Hush, now,” Preacher told him. “Maybe you can find some other way down. If you do, I reckon I’ll see you in yonder canyon. Just don’t do nothin’ foolish.”

  With that warning, he let his weight down onto a foothold he had spied in the moonlight and began searching for the next one.

  The descent was harrowing. More than once, Preacher had to work his way to one side or the other for several yards before finding a route that took him lower again. The closer he came to the creek, the slicker the rocks became from spray rising, which added to the danger.

  After nearly falling a couple of times, at last Preacher dropped to the level surface of a ledge that jutted out just a few feet above the water. At this point in the canyon, the creek was about thirty feet wide and flowed swiftly, but not fast enough to describe it as rapids.