Sidewinders

by William W. Johnstone

  Bo heard the slug sizzle between him and Scratch after it ripped through the old-timer’s hat. His hand shot out, grabbed Chloride’s arm, and swung him deeper into the trees.

  “Hunt some cover!” Bo ordered.

  More shots roared. Bo couldn’t tell exactly where they were coming from, but at the moment that didn’t really matter. The only important thing right now was finding shelter from the lead flying through the air around them.

  Scratch snatched his hat off his head and slapped it across his horse’s rump, causing the animal to take off running. Bo’s horse and Chloride’s mule followed. That put their mounts out of the line of fire.

  But it also put the Texans’ Winchesters out of reach, because the rifles were still in their saddle boots. They had their handguns and the extra ammunition they carried in their shell belts and pockets, but that was all.

  Chloride had scrambled behind one of the tree trunks. Bo and Scratch hurried to find cover of their own as slugs whipped through the branches, chewed hunks of bark from the trees, and sprayed splinters.

  Scratch called over to Bo, “You hit?”

  “Nope. How about you?”

  “No, they didn’t wing me, either. Chloride?”

  “I’m fine,” the old-timer said. “But this is the second day in a row I been shot at, and I don’t like it!”

  A grim chuckle came from Bo. “Neither do we. What are we going to do about it?”

  “Did you see where those bushwhackers are holed up?” Scratch asked.

  “Not yet,” Bo replied. “I was too busy getting out of the way of those bullets.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “How about that deadfall on the other side of the trail?” Chloride suggested. “Just because they weren’t there yesterday, that don’t mean they ain’t today!”

  Bo considered the idea and said, “No, I don’t think so. We’ve been within a couple of hundred yards of that big log for at least half an hour, searching the place where the wagon crashed and then here in these trees. Nobody could have snuck up behind it without us noticing them.”

  “Maybe some Apaches could have,” Scratch said, “but those varmints shootin’ at us ain’t Apaches. And I reckon they couldn’t have been hidin’ there before we got here, because they didn’t have no way of knowin’ we were comin’ out here today.”

  Bo thought about that for a moment as the firing continued. “That’s not strictly true,” he said. “We talked to quite a few people in town about how we wanted to try tracking down that gang of thieves. This would be the most likely place for us to start.”

  “Yeah,” Scratch admitted, “but we only talked to folks at the various minin’ companies.”

  “Word could have gotten around. Or maybe the Devils are connected to one of the companies.”

  “Hell’s fire!” Chloride exclaimed. “That don’t make no sense. All the big companies have been hit at least once. The robbers couldn’t be workin’ for any of ’em.”

  “Unless that’s what whoever is behind the Devils wants everybody to think,” Bo said. He looked over at Scratch, who frowned in thought for a moment before nodding.

  “You might be on to something there, Bo,” he said. “But we won’t ever know if we get ourselves shot full of holes out here. Got any ideas about how we can turn the tables on them varmints?”

  Bo took his hat off and edged his head out far enough from behind the tree trunk to get a look at the terrain across the creek. Now was the time to figure out where the bushwhackers were hidden.

  That didn’t take long. He spotted tendrils of gun-smoke curling from behind some rocks about halfway up the steeply sloping side of the gulch. The riflemen could have ridden along the top of the ridge, then worked their way unseen through the brush and the trees until they reached the rocks.

  Bo told Scratch and Chloride what he had discovered. “Yeah, I see ’em now,” Scratch said. “Sort of long range for a handgun, but we might be able to get a little lead up there.”

  “That old cap-and-ball of mine won’t carry that far,” Chloride said. “It’ll blow a big hole through a fella at close range, but it ain’t much good over twenty feet.”

  “Scratch, toss one of your Remingtons over to Chloride along with some ammunition,” Bo suggested. “That way the two of you can keep them occupied.”

  “What’re you gonna do?” Scratch asked as he looked over at his old friend.

  Bo waved a hand toward Deadwood. “I thought I’d work my way downstream through the trees until the trail goes around the next bend. Then I can cross the creek and start back in this direction.”

  “Maybe get behind the varmints, eh?” Scratch nodded. “That might work. You know how to work one of these Remingtons, Chloride?”

  The old-timer snorted. “There ain’t a gun I can’t fire.”

  “Well, just be careful with it,” Scratch said as he gripped one of the revolvers by its long barrel and got ready to toss it over to Chloride. “I’m mighty fond of these hoglegs.”

  He made sure the hammer was resting on an empty chamber and sent the gun sailing through the air to land near Chloride’s feet. Chloride scooped it up. Scratch tied a dozen rounds in his bandana and threw them over to the old-timer as well.

  When Bo saw that his companions were ready, he said, “Space out your shots to make your bullets last longer. And if you could actually hit one or two of those bushwhackers, that would be good, too.”

  “You just tend to your part of the deal,” Scratch said as he drew a bead on the rocks with his remaining gun. “We’ll tend to ours.”

  The Remington roared as Scratch squeezed the trigger. A second later, the gun Chloride was using blasted, too.

  Bo darted out of cover and ran deeper into the grove of trees. The bushwhackers were still keeping up a steady fire. He heard several bullets thud into the trunks around him.

  He didn’t know if they could see what he was doing. If they spotted him, they would be ready for him when he worked his way back on the opposite side of the gulch. His only real chance was to take them by surprise, so he hoped they were just firing blindly into the trees on this side of the creek.

  Bo used every bit of cover he could find to conceal what he was doing. He moved swiftly but carefully, and the site of the ambush soon fell behind him. Scratch and Chloride might have been able to slip away like this, too, but the three of them would have been left afoot if they had done that, and if the men who wanted them dead had come looking for them, they would be easy prey.

  Besides, Bo wanted to get a look at the bushwhackers. He strongly suspected that the men were members of the Deadwood Devils. If he was lucky, he might even be able to take one of them prisoner.

  The sound of the firing diminished somewhat, although the reports still echoed back and forth between the walls of the gulch. The men at some of the mines in the area probably heard the shooting, but if Chloride was right about how spooked everybody was, they probably wouldn’t come to investigate. They would just think the Devils had struck again—and more than likely they would be right.

  The trees thinned out before Bo reached the bend in the trail. All he could do now was make a run for it and hope they didn’t notice him. He broke out from cover and ran around the bend. No bullets whistled after him, and he took that as a good sign. After splashing across the creek, he stopped to lean against a slab-like boulder for a second and catch his breath. Not for the first time, he thought that he was getting too old for dust-ups like this.

  He recovered quickly and started up the slope. From time to time he had to grab hold of a bush or a narrow tree trunk to help pull himself up. When he judged that he was about on the same level as the bushwhackers, he turned west and began making his way in their direction.

  He still heard a lot of rifle shots, but the distinctive booming of Scratch’s Remingtons had slowed. That probably meant Scratch and Chloride were running low on ammunition, Bo thought. He needed to make his move soon.

  He was almost in positio
n. The whip cracks of the rifles were close now. Bo drew his Colt and slid forward from tree to rock to tree. He could look across the creek now and see the place where his friends had taken cover.

  As he crouched behind one of the pines, he peered around the trunk and saw four men kneeling behind rocks and firing across the stream with their Winchesters. Bo was a little surprised when he saw that all four wore bandanas tied around the lower halves of their faces and had their hats pulled down low. They were taking pains to conceal their identities even now. He had good shots at a couple of them, but the others would be trickier. He had hoped to get the drop on all the ambushers and force them to surrender, but that wasn’t going to be possible.

  No shots had come from across the creek for almost a minute now. That meant Scratch and Chloride had run out of bullets—or that they had both been wounded, maybe killed. Thinking about that possibility caused a grim, angry cast to steal over Bo’s weathered face. He took a deep breath, gripped the Colt tightly, and swung out from behind the tree.

  He didn’t call out to the men and give them a chance to surrender. Bushwhackers didn’t deserve that sort of consideration. Instead Bo leveled the Colt and fired, squeezing off three quick shots. The first one smashed the arm of the closest rifleman, making him drop his weapon, pitch to the side, and howl in pain as he clutched at the injury. Bo’s second bullet struck a rock and whined off harmlessly. The third one ripped through the body of the other gunman he could see.

  The other two masked men wheeled around, thrust their rifles past the rocks they were using as cover, and opened fire on the unexpected new threat. The slugs whipping around his head made Bo duck behind a tree again.

  Across the creek, the two Remingtons again began to roar. Scratch and Chloride had been biding their time, waiting for Bo to get in position and launch a counterattack. Now they sent bullets ricocheting into the rocks where the bushwhackers were hidden. As Bo thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he heard one of the men bellow an angry curse, then order, “Let’s grab the others and get out of here!”

  Bo didn’t want them to get away. He knelt, leaned out from behind the tree, and sent a couple of rounds whistling past the rocks. A veritable storm of lead lashed back at him as one of the men started cranking off shots as fast as he could work his Winchester’s lever. The barrage forced Bo to hunker down and try to make himself as small a target as possible.

  When the shooting stopped a few moments later, he heard men forcing their way through the brush. A quick look told him the two men he had wounded were gone. The one with the busted arm might have been able to get on his feet and flee without any help. One of the other two men must have dragged the more badly wounded hombre away.

  Bo knew he could go after them, but he had already pushed his luck considerably by taking on four-to-one odds and he knew that, too. Even though he had wounded two of the men, he couldn’t be sure they were out of the fight. And even if they were, that would still leave him facing two would-be killers.

  It chafed him to let them get away, but right now, that might be the smartest thing to do. Sure enough, a few minutes later he heard the rattle of hoofbeats from somewhere higher on the ridge. It sounded like four horses were hurrying off into the distance.

  A tense silence that sounded odd after all the shooting had settled over the gulch. Bo waited it out for several minutes to be sure the bushwhackers really had fled and weren’t doing a double-back or setting another trap. When he was convinced they were gone, he called across the creek.

  “Scratch! Scratch, are you all right?”

  The answer came back immediately from the silver-haired Texan. “Yeah, me and Chloride are fine! How about you?”

  “I’m all right,” Bo told them. “Those hombres lit a shuck after I winged a couple of them!”

  “Lay low for now!” Scratch called back. “We’ll round up the horses!”

  Bo reloaded and waited while Scratch and Chloride emerged from the trees on the other side of the creek and hurried upstream. The horses and Chloride’s mule had headed that way when they ran off. Bo moved over to the rocks where the bushwhackers had hidden. He could see better from here. He kept an eye on the ridgeline, just in case the killers came back.

  Evidently peace had descended again on the gulch, though. Nothing happened as Scratch and Chloride returned with the three mounts a few minutes later. Bo made his way down the slope and waded across the creek to join them. His feet were wet and cold, so Scratch and Chloride stood watch while he took his boots and socks off, wrung out the socks, and spread them on a rock to dry for a few minutes. He rubbed his feet to warm them up.

  “Did you get a good look at any of the varmints?” Scratch asked.

  “Afraid not. They had bandanas over their faces and their hats pulled down low. There was nothing special about their clothes, either.”

  “See?” Chloride said. “Just like I told folks in town! Some of ’em didn’t believe me, but you seen the thievin’ buzzards with your own eyes!”

  “If they were part of the gang,” Bo said.

  Chloride snorted. “Who else’d ambush us to keep you from tryin’ to track ’em down?” he asked. “Them Devils are the only ones who’d have any reason to do that.”

  “He’s right,” Scratch said. “Question is, did they follow us out here from town, or did the big boss leave some of ’em here to keep watch and bushwhack anybody who came pokin’ around?”

  Bo shook his head. “I don’t know, but I reckon we ought to try to pick up their trail and see where it leads.” He started pulling on one of his socks. It was still damp, but he was too impatient to wait for it to dry fully.

  Horses couldn’t make it up the side of the gulch right here, even with their riders dismounted and leading them. The Texans and Chloride had to backtrack almost a mile before they came to a place where they could reach the top of the ridge. They retraced their path, looking down on the creek from high above now, until they reached the spot where the ambush had taken place.

  “The ground’s pretty rocky here,” Scratch observed. “It won’t be easy followin’ them, but we’ll give it a try.”

  With Scratch leading the way, they trailed the would-be killers into the rugged hills that bordered Deadwood Gulch. The going was slow. More gulches, many of them choked with brush, cut through the hills and formed obstacles. Finally Scratch reined in, sighed, and shook his head.

  “I’ve lost the trail,” he said. “We can back up and try to find it again, but it ain’t likely to do us much good. There are too many rocks, too many creeks, and too many places where a fella can hide his tracks. My hunch is that they’ve done given us the slip, Bo.”

  “Mine, too,” Bo agreed. “Let’s head back to those trees where they ambushed the wagon yesterday and try to follow that trail.”

  They spent several hours doing that as the tracks of the outlaw gang wound into the rugged area between Deadwood Creek and Whitewood Creek. This trail was a little easier to follow because there had been more riders, but eventually it petered out, too, as the tracks branched in different directions as Scratch had predicted they would.

  “Well, we didn’t find their rendezvous after all,” Scratch said as they sat on their mounts trying to figure out their next move. He glanced up at the sun. “Missed lunch, too.”

  “We might as well head back to Deadwood,” Bo said.

  “And do what?” Chloride asked. “How are we gonna earn any money if we can’t find those no-good skunks?”

  Chloride was including himself now as if they were partners, Bo noted. That was all right. He felt an instinctive liking for the crusty old-timer, and Chloride had handled himself all right during the battle with the bushwhackers. Besides, Chloride had a definite part to play in the plan that was forming in Bo’s brain.

  “There’s more than one way to find the Deadwood Devils,” Bo said as he smiled. “I think I know how we can make them come to us.”

  Scratch frowned and asked,
“Does this idea of yours have anything to do with us gettin’ shot at again, Bo?”

  “It just might,” Bo said.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Dadgummit, I ain’t a-gonna do it!” Chloride insisted as they rode along Deadwood’s Main Street. He had been arguing with Bo’s plan all the way back to the settlement. “I already lived through one of those holdups when nobody else has. You reckon I want to push my luck by trying to do it again?” The old-timer shook his head stubbornly. “Besides, I done told you and told you, the Golden Queen is a hoodoo outfit. Just plain bad luck.”

  “And it’s also the only mining operation that’s desperate enough to hire you as a driver,” Bo pointed out.

  He had tried that reasoning on Chloride before, and this time it drew the same sort of disgusted snort as a response. “The gal can’t pay no wages. She’s flat broke.”

  “She’s still feeding the men who work for her, and they have a place to stay,” Bo said. “Besides, if the Golden Queen is producing much ore, it’s probably piling up out there because there’s nobody to bring it to town. If Miss Sutton could get a shipment or two in the bank, I’ll bet her finances would look a lot better.”

  “Maybe,” Chloride allowed. “The problem is gettin’ it here.”

  “With you drivin’ the wagon and me and Bo guardin’ it, it’ll get here,” Scratch said. “You can bet that scroungy ol’ hat of yours on that.”

  “Don’t you go sayin’ bad things about my hat! Me and this hat been through a heck of a lot together!”

  “I believe it. It’s probably as old as you are.”

  They had reached the office of the Golden Queen Mining Company, so Bo reined in and said, “We can argue about Chloride’s hat later. Right now we need to go in and talk to Miss Sutton. Chloride, I’ll ask you again to come with us. It’ll be a lot easier getting the gold here if we have you along to drive the wagon. Otherwise one of us will have to handle that chore and there’ll only be one of us left to keep an eye out for trouble.”

  Chloride scowled and tugged on his scraggly beard. “You’re bound and determined to go through with this, ain’t you?”