Sidewinders

by William W. Johnstone

  The Texans had reached the doorway and crouched just inside it, using the jambs as cover while they battled with the outlaws. Bo caught a glimpse of Bardwell leading that riderless horse and knew the packs on the animal must hold some of the loot they had taken from the bank in Deadwood. Some of the other men were fleeing, too, including a couple who had hold of the reins attached to the horses carrying Sue Beth and Martha.

  Bo tried to line up a shot at them, but he held off on the trigger as he realized he couldn’t risk it. There was too great a chance of hitting one of the women instead. Grimacing, he switched his aim to one of the outlaws who was firing a six-gun at him and blew the man out of the saddle.

  The roar of the shots was deafening and seemed to go on forever, but in reality the battle lasted only moments. Bo and Scratch held their fire as they realized that five of the outlaws were down, and the others, along with Sue Beth and Martha, were already a considerable distance down the canyon and getting farther away by the second.

  “We gotta go after ’em!” Scratch said as he lowered his rifle.

  “Yeah,” Bo agreed. As he came out of the cabin he shouted, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

  Some of the troopers were still throwing lead after the fleeing outlaws and their hostages. As far as Bo had been able to tell, neither Sue Beth nor Martha had been hit, but he couldn’t be sure of that. The way lead had been flying around, it was a pure miracle neither of the women had been killed.

  Gustaffson bellowed for his men to stop shooting, too. As the firing finally died down, Bo and Scratch ran for the trees where their horses were hidden along with the other mounts. There was no time to waste.

  One of the cavalrymen who had been concealed in the trees was down, thrashing around. Another lay close by, motionless. Splashes of blood crimsoned the white snow around them. The third trooper knelt beside the wounded one, trying to help him. Bo wished he and Scratch could stop and help, but the lives of the two women were still at stake.

  They jerked their reins loose and swung up into the saddles. As they rode out of the trees, they saw Sergeant Gustaffson running toward them. “Wait a minute!” the non-com yelled. “Where are you going?”

  “After the Devils,” Bo said.

  “I’ve got wounded men—”

  “Then tend to them and guard the gold in the cabin,” Bo snapped. “We’re going after the Devils.”

  “Blast it, I’m coming with—”

  The Texans didn’t wait any longer. They thundered after the outlaws, leaving Gustaffson behind them with his mouth still open.

  “That was a hell of a bluff you came up with!” Scratch called over the pounding hoofbeats. “For a second there you almost had me believin’ we was about to get blowed up! That boss outlaw believed it, too!”

  “Yeah, I know!” Bo replied. “I just wanted to get the women out of the line of fire!”

  “Almost worked!”

  Yes, Bo thought, almost . . . but not quite. And for now, at least, that made all the difference.

  It was easy to follow the trail left in the snow by the fleeing outlaws and their prisoners. Bardwell must have decided to cut his losses. He had most of the loot the Devils had taken from the Deadwood bank, and he had a couple of hostages. Leaving behind the gold in the cabin must have been a bitter pill to swallow, but it was better than staying and getting shot.

  Bo wondered if a posse had followed the outlaws from Deadwood. If it had, there was a chance he and Scratch could catch the Devils between them and the townsmen.

  They reached the mouth of the canyon, where the trail swung to the left, away from Deadwood and deeper into the rugged hills. They hadn’t run into a posse along the way, so the possibility of closing the jaws of a trap on the Devils was gone.

  He and Scratch would continue the pursuit anyway, Bo thought. The Texans had faced long odds before and managed to survive.

  As best he’d been able to count in the heat of battle, seven of the outlaws had escaped. That would take some whittling down, Bo told himself, but he and Scratch could do it. It might have been better if they had let Gustaffson come along, maybe with a couple of troopers. The other cavalrymen could have been left to guard the gold in the cabin. But Bo had never been one for second-guessing himself, so he shoved those thoughts aside.

  The horses were starting to flag a little after the hard run down the canyon. Bo and Scratch reined them back to a walk. It was frustrating, knowing that the outlaws might be opening up a larger lead on them, but it would be even more disastrous if they ran their horses into the ground. A man who galloped his mount until it died underneath him usually stood a good chance of winding up dead himself.

  “Them Devils have been around here for a while,” Scratch said. “They probably know this part of the country better than we do right now.”

  Bo nodded. “More than likely. But with this snow on the ground, they’ll have a hard time giving us the slip. They probably know that, too, so we’d better be on the lookout for an ambush.”

  The trail rose steadily, climbing toward a rugged-looking, snow-covered mountain several miles away. There would be plenty of places for the outlaws to hide in the rough country around it. If they managed to give Bo and Scratch the slip, it might take another cavalry patrol weeks of searching to find any trace of them . . . and by that time, what was left of the gang would be long gone, taking the hostages with them.

  Either that, or they would leave the women behind, more likely dead than alive, Bo thought grimly. The best chance of saving Sue Beth and Martha was to catch up to the outlaws today. Every minute the women spent as prisoners increased the odds against them.

  Both Texans checked their back trail from time to time, out of habit. Scratch glanced back now and said, “Riders comin’ up fast behind us, Bo.”

  Bo reined in and turned to look. He saw the men Scratch had spotted. Half a dozen of them came across the snow-covered landscape, pushing their horses hard so that the powdery white stuff flew up around the animals’ hooves.

  “One of ’em’s wearin’ a uniform,” Scratch said. “Bet a dollar to a doughnut that’s Olaf.”

  “No bet,” Bo said. “But who are the others?”

  There was only one reasonable answer to that, and as the riders came closer, Bo saw that his hunch was right. He recognized the lean, hawk-faced figure of Sheriff Henry Manning and knew the lawman was leading a small posse from Deadwood.

  The identities of a couple of the other men were surprising, though. Reese Bardwell and Phillip Ramsey were riding with the sheriff. Bo stiffened at the sight of the big mining engineer. Bardwell’s brother was one of the men they were pursuing. Did Bardwell know that?

  “Son of a gun,” Scratch said. “The old-timer’s with ’em.”

  Bo nodded, having also recognized Chloride Coleman. The final member of the posse was Andrew Keefer, the superintendent of the Golden Queen mine.

  The Texans waited while the posse caught up to them. As the riders reined in, Olaf Gustaffson said, “I told you I was coming with you.”

  “Where’s the rest of the patrol?” Bo asked.

  “I left them at the hideout. I lost three men in that fight, and a couple of the others were wounded. I figured there needed to be two healthy men guarding that gold, at least.”

  Bo nodded. “You’re right. Have you filled in the sheriff on what happened?”

  “The sergeant told me about the fight with the Devils,” Manning answered before Gustaffson could say anything. “We ran into him at the mouth of that canyon where the hideout is located. We’ll go back there and pick up the gold once we’ve rescued the women and dealt with the Devils.”

  “You sound mighty sure about that, Sheriff.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” Manning demanded. “From what Sergeant Gustaffson tells me, the odds are about even.”

  “Yeah, but there’s something you don’t know.” Before any of them knew what was happening, Bo drew his Colt and leveled it at Reese Bardwell. “You’ve got one
of the Devils riding with you.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Bardwell stared at Bo in apparent shock. For a moment he didn’t seem able to speak. When he got that ability back, he burst out angrily, “What in blazes are you talkin’ about? By God, Creel, I’m gettin’ tired of you pointin’ a gun at me!”

  Coolly, Bo said, “You don’t have much room to complain, considering that just a little while ago, your brother and his men were doing their best to kill us. They did kill three of those troopers, and we don’t know yet if the women are still all right.”

  “My brother!” Bardwell repeated. “You’re crazy. My brother’s dead. He was killed in a shootout with marshals down in Kansas.”

  “Then you don’t deny he’s an outlaw?”

  “Why should I? Sheriff Manning already knows about it. He’s seen the wanted poster on Tom. I never lied about it to anybody who was man enough to come up and ask me.” Bardwell’s lip curled in a sneer. “Most people would rather just sneak around and spread gossip, though.”

  “Just how sure are you that Tom Bardwell is dead?”

  The ridge above Reese Bardwell’s eyes became even more prominent as he frowned. “I heard that he was badly wounded when a posse chased down him and his gang. He dropped out of sight after that, and everybody figured he was dead . . .”

  “But you don’t know that for certain,” Bo said when Bardwell’s voice trailed off. “I saw him with my own eyes this afternoon. He matches the description and the drawing on the wanted poster, right down to the missing finger on his left hand.”

  Bardwell grimaced. “You know how he lost that finger?”

  “I don’t have any idea,” Bo said.

  “I cut it off with an ax. I didn’t mean to. We were just kids, and I was trying to split some wood for the fireplace. I was havin’ trouble with it, so Tom went to grab the chunk of wood and steady it. The ax slipped . . . Lord, I never will forget seeing that finger go flyin’ in the air . . .”

  “Put your gun away, Creel,” Sheriff Manning said. “I believe Bardwell. Maybe his brother is the leader of the Devils, but if that’s true, Bardwell didn’t know anything about it.”

  Bo lowered the Colt but didn’t holster it. “You’re betting a lot on a hunch, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t you do the same thing sometimes?” Manning snapped.

  Bo had to admit that he did.

  Phillip Ramsey spoke up, saying, “Far be it from me to defend the man, but if you’d seen how he was carrying on when he heard that Marty had been taken prisoner, you’d believe him, Mr. Creel.”

  Bardwell’s head snapped toward Ramsey. “I’ve got just as much right to be worried about her as you do, Ramsey. What are you doing here, anyway? And don’t call her Marty.”

  Bo and Scratch glanced at each other in surprise. What they had just heard in that exchange was the unmistakable sound of two men who both were in love with the same woman. So Bardwell and Ramsey, both employees of Martha Sutton’s biggest rival, wanted to court her?

  Romance usually didn’t pay any attention to business or much of anything else, Bo reminded himself. A fella’s heart did what it wanted, sometimes to his great regret.

  Ramsey was saying, “I have just as much right to call her Marty as you do, Bardwell. A woman like that needs a man with culture and intelligence.”

  “I’m smart enough to run a blasted mine, and not sit around all day scribbling numbers in a book,” Bardwell shot back with a sneer.

  Chloride moved his horse over next to Bo and Scratch and said, “It’s mighty good to see you boys again. I reckon you’ve figured out by now them two are both moonin’ over the same gal.”

  “Yeah, and it don’t seem likely Bardwell would feel like that if he was mixed up with his brother robbin’ the gold wagons,” Scratch said.

  Bardwell looked at them and said, “I know we haven’t gotten along, but I give you my word, this is the first I’ve heard about Tom being anywhere in this part of the country. I was in Deadwood this morning, but I didn’t see the robbery take place. Even if I had, I might not have recognized him since he was masked. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other.”

  Scratch looked over at Bo and asked, “Are we gonna believe him?”

  Bo slid his revolver back in its holster. “I reckon. We ought to let the horses rest for a few minutes longer. While we’re waiting, how about somebody telling us exactly what happened in town this morning ?”

  “We’ve already wasted enough time,” Ramsey objected. “I think we should push on after them right now.”

  Manning shook his head. “Creel’s right. We’ve ridden hard all the way from Deadwood. I don’t like letting them get any farther ahead of us than you do, Ramsey, but if we kill these horses, the bastards will get away, and there’s no doubt about that.”

  “What about the robbery?” Bo prodded as they all dismounted.

  “They must have gotten into town just before dawn and broken into the bank somehow. The first anyone knew something was going on was when they blew the door off the vault. There was no way to hide that. I was in my office when I heard the blast. I grabbed a shotgun and headed toward the bank. Figured that was where the explosion had to come from.”

  “I was in my room at the boarding house,” Ramsey said. “I heard the explosion, too, and came out to see what was going on. I had to dive for cover a minute later, because when the outlaws came out of the bank, they came out shooting.”

  “How’d they wind up with the women?” Scratch asked.

  Manning said, “Some of them must have gone across the street to the Red Top earlier to grab some hostages. I had taken cover behind a parked wagon and was trading shots with them by then, but I had to hold my fire when they came out dragging Mrs. Pendleton and Miss Sutton.”

  One of Reese Bardwell’s hands clenched into a massive fist. “I saw that, too,” he said. “I rode into town last night to talk to Mr. Nicholson, and it was so late when we finished up, I spent the night on a cot in the back room of the office. The explosion and the shooting woke me up. I wasn’t armed then, so there was nothing I could do, but when I saw they had Marty, I wanted to charge them anyway.”

  “How gallant,” Ramsey said with a sneer.

  Bardwell turned toward him and might have swung that big fist if Manning hadn’t stepped between them. “Fighting each other isn’t going to accomplish anything,” the lawman said sharply. He turned back to Bo and Scratch. “Some of the townspeople had joined in the fight, but once the Devils had the two women as hostages, everyone had to hold their fire. They made it to their horses, stole a couple of mounts from a hitch rack for the women, and galloped out of town. I put together a posse and came after them as fast as I could, but it took a little while.”

  Bo looked at the five men and said, “No offense, Sheriff, but this isn’t much of a posse.”

  “People are still afraid of the Devils, some of them even more so now that they’ve dared to invade the town itself. I had more men with me when we left, but they dropped out during the day, one or two at a time, and headed back. It’s cold and it’s going to be dark after a while, and like I said . . . people are afraid of the Devils.”

  “But the trail went past the Golden Queen,” Chloride put in, “so me and Andy here joined up when the posse came through.”

  “You didn’t see that the outlaws had Miss Sutton with them?” Bo asked.

  “We didn’t actually see ’em,” Chloride explained. “Heard some horses this mornin’, but they were on the other side of the canyon, out of sight of the mine.”

  “We didn’t know what had happened until Sheriff Manning stopped to tell us,” Keefer added.

  “We followed the trail on up here, ran into Sergeant Gustaffson, and then caught up to you two,” Manning told the Texans. “Now you know as much as we do. We’d better mount up and get after them again.”

  Bo nodded. “You’re right, Sheriff. We don’t need to push the horses too hard, though. Save something for a hard run later if we nee
d it.”

  “Makes sense,” Manning agreed. “Let’s go.”

  They swung up into their saddles and set off after the Devils. The posse was seven men strong now, which matched exactly the number of outlaws who had fled from the hideout. It would be an even fight once they caught up.

  Except for the fact that the Devils still had two hostages, and as much as the members of the posse wanted the gold back and wanted to bring the outlaws to justice, they wanted to save the lives of Sue Beth Pendleton and Martha Sutton even more.

  The wind began to pick up late in the afternoon, which added to Bo’s worries. “If it starts to snow again, those tracks we’ve been following could fill up,” he said quietly to Scratch as they rode side by side just behind Henry Manning, who continued to lead the posse.

  “Yeah, I thought of that, too. We need to get in front of ’em somehow. I wonder how well Chloride knows this part of the country.”

  “Let’s ask him,” Bo suggested.

  The old-timer was bringing up the rear on his mule. Bo and Scratch dropped back, letting Gustaffson, Bardwell, Ramsey, and Keefer go past them, and fell in on either side of Chloride.

  He looked back and forth at them with narrowed eyes. “You boys got somethin’ in mind,” he said. “I can tell by lookin’ at you.”

  “You have any idea where those varmints might be headin’?” Scratch asked.

  “How should I know? Do I look like a bandit to you?”

  “We thought maybe you’d know a good place for them to set up an ambush,” Bo said. “They’ve got to have a pretty good idea that we’re on their trail, and they’re bound to want to get rid of us.”

  “Well . . .” Chloride scratched at his beard. “Back in my prospectin’ days, I wandered up and down a bunch of these canyons and climbed some of the mountains, includin’ that one it looks like they’re headin’ for. There’s a place called Wolf Head Rock that got the name because—”

  “It’s shaped like a wolf ’s head,” Scratch guessed.