by P. A. Bechko
Amanda, too, had gained much from the weeks spent in the mountains. She had developed an ease of movement which blended her movements with her horse. A smooth accuracy with a gun had developed, and a strength of body and spirit that she had not known she could possess had surfaced.
Confidence, born of her weeks with Hollander, supported her and she understood now the desert’s harsh, unforgiving ways with the foolish or the inexperienced. Still, she had come to love it as much as her companion did though he never spoke of such things.
That was the one thing she understood clearly about Jake Hollander. He more than loved the land, he was a part of it. Amanda had a way to go before she would shed the feeling of being an outsider.
They pressed on until mid-afternoon when Hollander climbed down beneath the glaring rays of the sun to give the trail a closer look. What he saw he didn’t like. He snatched his hat from his head and slapped it against his thigh. The dust rose in a thick plume as Hollander began to curse softly.
Amanda stepped down to join him, no stranger now to the imprecations he uttered.
“They separated,” he announced, though he knew he didn’t have to. “Two of them heading southeast now, the other still heading due south.”
“What do we do now?”
Hollander slapped his hat back on his head. “Tracks are still fresh, not much more than an hour or two ahead of us.” He gestured toward the southeast. “We follow the pair.”
“Why?”
He grinned but there was no humor in it. “Gives us two chances instead of one.”
They were back in the saddle, moving more slowly when the tracks at their feet took a more meandering route. The pair up ahead were heading into a mountain range that rose up off the desert floor in a twisted, winding, seemingly impenetrable wall. But Hollander and Amanda wound their way in amongst them and pressed on. Hollander pulled up at the mouth of a canyon that enticed them with the sight of tall cottonwood trees rising from the wash cutting through the canyon floor ahead, and the faint, distant sound of flowing water.
Amanda waited while Hollander evaluated the situation. He looked for the world like a predatory animal with all senses on alert, turning his head slowly, body stiff and erect in the saddle, eyes sliding over everything near and far. When he shifted his weight in the saddle the creak of the leather seemed abnormally loud.
“Could be a trap,” he said quietly, eyes on the canyon mouth. “If they picked up on our dust or just have an itch that there’s someone after them the third one could’ve circled around.”
“I don’t think so.”
Still, Amanda was nervous. It was getting on toward dark. They wouldn’t have much time.
“I don’t either,” he agreed, then half turned to Amanda sitting astride Colorado close beside him. “Won’t be easy going in there after two armed men. I might have to kill one of them if there’s trouble. It’d be better if you stayed out here.”
Amanda pursed her lips and held him in the steady regard of her dusky green eyes, glowing with the reflected light of the day’s end, and shook her head slowly.
“I thought we settled this.”
Hollander shrugged, the eloquent gesture letting her know it would be a long time, or most probably never, settled as far as he was concerned.
“You’ve never taken a shot at a man before, and certainly not one that will be shooting back at you. If something goes wrong. If you get in trouble, don’t go whipping yourself about it. Just find a hole and climb in it. It ain’t uncommon for a man to freeze up first time he has to face gunfire and this is even newer to you. So, whatever else you do if that happens, keep clear of my line of fire.”
Amanda’s stomach tightened and she nodded, her hand drifting down to the six-gun in the holster at her hip, lifting the leather loop that held the gun in place from the hammer.
They walked the horses forward another hundred yards or so, then dismounted, tying the animals securely out of sight in a clump of twisted hackberry trees before continuing on foot. Hollander, rifle in one hand, and Amanda, followed the trickle of a stream back into the deeper, cooler reaches of the canyon. The further they went the broader the canyon floor became, finally opening into a broad, grassy, bench undulating between high rock ridges. Abruptly the wind gusted gale force, roaring through the leaves of the huge cottonwoods and canyon maples. Amanda jumped as the wind rattled the slender dagger-shaped sotol leaves beside her. Hollander paused, then they continued on.
The sun, orange and low in the western sky cast purple shadows when Hollander spotted signs of the outlaws’ camp. He motioned for Amanda to slip off to where she could get a better look while at the same time splitting the target they presented. They scaled a low, grass-covered bluff, veering off from the trail they’d been following, dropping down on its crest.
The outlaws’ camp below them, was set back from the stream. Hollander and Amanda heard the outlaws’ voices raised in anger, but the words weren’t clear. These were the men she had seen at the stagecoach.
Hollander appraised the camp.
“We have to be careful. It’ll be dark soon, and we want to take them alive. Won’t be any good to us dead.”
Nodding agreement, Amanda sucked in her breath. The last thing she wanted to do was to kill a man, or two of them, but she knew in her gut she could if she had to. Hollander still had his doubts and she hoped she wouldn’t have to prove her ability to him.
The tone of the voices below grew gruffer, the volume rising.
“Here.” Hollander handed Amanda the rifle he had brought with him. “Take this and work your way a little higher,” he pointed to the west where the rocky wall rose from the canyon floor. “Find a spot where you can see them, but they can’t get a clear shot at you. Give me some cover while I work my way down there and . . .”
Gunshots exploded in the half made camp below, echoing down the length of the canyon. Hollander swore. Amanda gasped. She half-rose, forgetting their exposed position. Her knuckles whitened on the rifle, and for a horrible instant it seemed she locked eyes with the victorious gunman below who stood over the other man prone on the ground.
Her partner was lightning fast on the uptake. He was up and moving, slipping and sliding his way across the brush and rock-strewn slope, already half way down.
Amanda gathered her wits enough to follow. Light on her feet, the boot-moccasins of Hollander’s creation provided her traction as she scrambled after him.
Gun drawn, muscles rippling beneath his shirt, the man was bounding over rocks, and dodging cactus and brush like a jack rabbit on the run. To Amanda’s amazement, he kept his feet and kept moving.
“Hold it!” Hollander bellowed the command, but he was only half braced against the slide he continued down the slope.
The outlaw left standing, a stocky, bull-headed man, grabbed the saddlebags from the ground and bolted for the still saddled horses. He gained the saddle, saddlebags slung before him, and wasn’t about to stop. For an answer the fellow twisted around while his horse danced lightly beneath him, and flung several shots in Hollander’s direction.
Amanda swallowed a shout as Hollander hit the ground in a dive that sent him skittering across the rocky, sandy ground on his belly, raising a cloud of dun-colored dust to mark his path. She couldn’t tell if he was hit, hell, she couldn’t tell anything from the dust rising from the steep slope of the bluff.
Sweat mixed with dust to form mud on her forehead beneath the brim of her purloined hat. Astride a big chestnut horse, the square-set outlaw was following Hollander’s dust cloud down the slope, aiming carefully at its base, pulling off his shots one at a time.
Amanda’s partner was down and pinned. She pulled herself up short, dug her heels in, and brought the rifle butt up to her shoulder pressing her cheek against its smooth, warm stock. She squeezed the trigger, felt it kick, and a plume of sand geysered at feet of the outlaw’s horse.
The animal whinnied, tossed its head with fear, and sidestepped causing the bullets
aimed at Hollander to go wild. So he changed targets, swinging the barrel of his gun Amanda’s way.
For an instant she panicked and froze. The shot went wide, but she dove for the ground then, hitting it in a headlong dive that carried her bruisingly over rocks and hard earth into a patch of blooming prickly pear, the sight of the gun barrel pointing in her direction etched on her mind’s eye.
More gunfire followed, but Amanda, sprawled face down in the dust, her left arm thrust out ahead of her for protection covered with cactus spines, dirt and blood stayed still. Sucking air in sharp gulps, and letting it out in a painful hiss, she levered herself upward using the butt of the rifle against hard-packed earth. Her arm hurt like hell, but the injury had to be minor compared to what Hollander faced. She tried to ignore the cactus spines stuck in her flesh in a stinging, burning path the length of her arm and swung the rifle up again, taking advantage of the small amount of cover the sprawling cactus provided to focused on the changing scene below. Nothing within her still meager experience told her what to do next.
Hollander was at no such loss for action. We was up again, farther down the slope, legs churning, in hot in pursuit of their quarry. The outlaw slapped his heels to his horse, the animal bolting like a spooked mountain goat.
Amanda tried another shot though at that distance she knew she stood little chance of hitting him. She was right.
Hollander vaulted astride the downed outlaw’s horse and took off after the first one at a dead run. He and Amanda had to have that man and the saddlebags he carried. The money and a live witness to clear themselves.
So he left Amanda behind, riding hard. Charging hell for leather, in pursuit of the high-line rider ahead of him. His quarry disappeared over the ridge. Hollander pushed the animal he rode harder as he strove for the ridge-top, racing the long, thinning shadows preceding the night.
When he topped out on the ridge where desert scrub again took over from the lush growth of the canyon below, Hollander pulled his horse up with a jerk. He’d lost him. In the bright light of day, the rock-strewn ridge would present hazards, but now, as the ridge plunged into darkness, it would be nearly impossible. He cursed roundly, torn between continuing and returning to Amanda to see if the other outlaw had survived.
The familiar prickle of nearby danger fluttered at the base of his neck and he moved his mount off the skyline as the last brilliant surge of the sun’s light illuminated the western sky. Then he heard the gunshot that rattled down the canyon.
* * *
Amanda watched helplessly as Hollander vaulted into the saddle and pounded off up canyon, but she kept moving, loose rock rolling from beneath her feet. The sounds of the rushing stream were louder now in her ears as she made her way to the body of the fallen man.
She kept the rifle at the ready as she moved toward him. His chest rose with the intake of breath. She broke into a trot as she neared the fallen man and forgot Hollander’s first rule, always keep the advantage. She didn’t bothering to muffle the sounds of her approach.
She was amazed to find him laying flat on his back, brown eyes sunk deep in a pinched face, gazing steadily up at her. Then, stupidly, she forgot Hollander’s second rule. Always disarm a downed man no matter how helpless he looks.
She was bending over the wounded outlaw when the brown, claw-like hand still holding a gun centered on her chest. She froze, a lump in her throat and a burning in the pit of her stomach, her eyes fastened on the six-gun pointing at her. She hardly breathed. The gun was at full cock.
“If you shoot me, I won’t be able to help you.”
A sly, cat’s curl of the lips brought deep creases to the wounded man’s weathered face and a shudder passed through his lanky frame.
“You can’t help me now, lady, even if you were of a mind to,” he said haltingly, his voice barely a pained whisper. “0l’ Ben, he gut shot me.”
Amanda’s eyes shifted enough to see the fallen man’s free hand pressed tightly against a spot just off center of his mid-section. Blood flowed steadily, but his gun remained fixed on her.
She looked into his eyes. They were cold, already devoid of life. He was the cat and she the mouse. He knew he was going to die, but now, he was in control, and he was waiting for the perfect moment to end this game.
“My friend and I were after you and the man who shot you,” Amanda spoke quickly. trying to divert his attention from killing her.
“Figgered as much.”
He drew a deep breath and grinned at her, the sight blood-chilling.
“We wanted to take you back to Phoenix for bank robbery and murder. You’re out of it now. Help us catch the man who did this to you. Tell me where he’s heading. We’ll find him and he’ll hang.”
The outlaw’s gun never wavered but he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Amanda beyond that.
“Couldn’t have a better pard than Ben ‘til he up and did this to me,” he rambled.
A gunshot cracked distance causing Amanda to jump.
The dying man sprawled on the ground gave a low chuckle that ended in a gasp. “Guess o1’ Ben got your pard. He’s a crack shot. You an’ me, we’re all alone now. Ol’ Ben’s gonna keep all that money and ride,” the words rasped from a dry throat. “You wanted to see me hang, so I guess I’m just going take you along with me.”
A knot of cold settled in Amanda’s stomach. Hollander had warned her repeatedly, the unexpected was to be expected. The worst that could happen, would.
“Just want to have me a nice long look at a pretty woman fore I go. Don’t you worry none. I’ll know just when to pull this here trigger.”
In silence the seconds ticked by while she remained unmoving, staring at him. She had to do something soon, or he would settle the matter for her with a bullet.
Aware of his eyes, hot and penetrating, upon her, of his every ragged breath, and the fading of the evening light into darkness, Amanda tried again to distract him from his determined intent to kill her.
“What’s your name? You’ll want a marker.”
The man’s lips curl upward again.
“Who you suppose is gonna leave one for me?”
His eyes darkened rapidly and a small tremor passed along his arm down to the hand clenching the gun. The knuckles of the dying man’s trigger finger whitened as he drew down upon it.
Amanda threw herself sideways, flattening out when she hit the dirt alongside him as the gun roared. A bullet whipped past her left arm just above the elbow, neatly plucking a hole in her sleeve and silence descended again.
Except for the uncontrollable shaking that rippled throughout her body Amanda couldn’t move. She tensed for the next shot that would not miss. Seconds crawled past and then, from close beside her, a long, breathless sigh, passed through the stillness. The stream still chuckled in its bed. The evening breeze stirred the leaves on the trees, the soft rustling in chorus with the burbling of the water. From somewhere nearby she heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs over rock.
Chapter 14
Hollander swore low and bitterly, turning the horse to start back. He’d lost the outlaw and the money. He couldn’t leave Amanda and their horses and supplies behind to risk a chase in the dark. And there was the slim possibility that the other man was still alive and could be of use to them. If not, they’d pull out at first light.
His thoughts were scattered when the single shot boomed, echoing off the canyon walls into the distance. Hollander abandoned cautious descent from the ridge in favor of slapping his heels to the outlaw’s horse and heading down the slope at break-neck speed toward the blood-chilling sound.
His horse stumbled, then splashed across the stream, and came to a stiff-legged halt when Hollander caught sight of Amanda just coming to her hands and knees and hauled back on the reins. She swayed like a wounded animal, then gave it up and sat back on her heels as he leaped out of the saddle, trepidation moving him faster than he figured he’d ever moved in his life.
Amanda sat there, just staring at
the body that lay on the ground close beside her when Hollander approached. She was still trembling, but back in control.
“You all right?”
Hollander’s voice was harsh, something Amanda had come to recognize as his own private kind of fear. That which one person might feel for another if he saw that person hanging on the edge of a cliff and could do nothing to help.
“You said if I lived long enough, I’d learn the reason behind everything you taught me. Well, I’m learning.”
He reached for her and she gave him her good hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. In the deepening darkness he could barely make out the fact that she’d been injured.
“Cactus,” she said simply, suddenly, sharply aware of the spines still sticking in her flesh.
“Holy mother of God! I thought he was dead.”
She gave him a weak smile. “Well, not quite.”
She returned the Henry rifle to him and was glad to be rid of it.
Hollander hefted the weapon, sighed and stepped back. He wanted to know everything, but now was not the time to ask.
Hollander nodded toward the dead man. “I’ll take care of him and get our gear. See if you can start a fire. We’ll take care of that arm as soon as I get back. I won’t be long.”
He picked up the body, draping it over the saddle, then vaulted up on the horse behind the anonymous outlaw. She watched him fade into the shadows of the dark before bending awkwardly to her task.
She was so grateful for the fire that she was able get it going despite her difficulties, then huddle near the crackling flames for comfort and warmth. She was pulling out some of the cactus thorns with fingers and teeth when she heard the soft, rustling sounds of Hollander returning. She moved back from the fire resting her hand on her six-gun.
