He dropped down into the shallow wash, tripped over a rock, nearly fell, then got his boots beneath him once more and ran up the far ridge, glancing to his right, which was where the ambusher had fired from. He’d slip around behind the man and then come up behind him.
When he gained the ridge crest, breathing hard from the run, he stopped suddenly. A horse and rider had just bounded out from a patch of shrubs behind a low bluff ahead and on his right. The horse, a black and white pinto, whinnied. Hooves thudded and dust rose as the rider—the ambusher, Bear assumed—galloped off away through the gently rolling scrub country.
Haskell squinted his eyes against the sun, trying to make out the rider, who just then glanced over his left shoulder at the lawman. Turning his head forward again, he crouched low over the pinto’s neck and whipped the mount’s rear with his bridle reins. Because of the seventy-yard distance and the horse’s pitch, the rider was a mere blur.
“Goddamnit, you coward!” Haskell barked, gritting his teeth.
Horse and rider dwindled quickly into the distance, the broad arch of Wyoming sky swallowing them. Heading southwest, toward town, Haskell noted.
He cursed again, wishing like hell he’d been smart enough to grab his Henry off his horse. He followed the ridgeline over to where the shooter had fired from, wanting to make sure there’d only been the one. Also wanting to see if the man had left anything behind that might give some clue as to his identity.
Haskell found the spot on the ridge crest from which the shooter had fired, by the several scattered .44-40 center fire cartridges spilling down the ridge’s backside, sprinkled around a prickly pear and glistening in the noon sunshine. He crouched to retrieve one of the shells.
Nothing distinguishing about it. A simple forty-four.
Every saddle tramp in Wyoming carried a .44 Winchester in his saddle boot. Haskell himself carried nothing but .44’s, because no matter where he was, he knew he could always find ammo for the weapons, albeit rimfire as opposed to center fire.
He scouted the area carefully, not coming up with more sign than the cartridges. The man’s prints were too scuffed to be revealing. All Haskell could tell was that the bushwhacker had small feet. He made a mental note to check the size of Big Deal’s boots then inspected the horse’s prints, as well. The only distinguishing mark was a slight, curving, hairline fracture in its left rear shoe.
Bear made a mental note of that, as well, then cast another frustrated glance into the distance where the ambusher had fled. Nothing out there now but prickly pear and sage and the sun and heat blasting off the plaster-pale hills and haystack buttes. Nothing but one lone jackrabbit, that was, nibbling grass growing under one lone, wind-gnarled cedar thirty yards away and casting the human interloper quick, anxious glances, twitching its mule-like ears.
What had the ambusher been doing out here? Visiting the graves? Why? Inspecting his handiwork?
Haskell walked back up and over the ridge. He crossed the shallow dry wash and then the wash through which the freshet ran. He walked up to the two graves, pondering them once more, wishing he’d asked Big Deal who’d lived out here. Knowing that, he’d likely know who was nestling with the snakes under those two carefully shoveled graves.
Who had left the ring and the stones in the shape of a heart?
Haskell cursed as he studied the graves again, then reached into his shirt pocket for an Indian Kid. He bit off the end and struck a lucifer to life on his shell belt. Touching the flame to the cheroot, he thought, This mystery is growing way to many questions and not one goddamn answer!
He let the breeze douse the flame and tossed away the match. Puffing thoughtfully on his cigar, he walked back past the cabin to where he’d tied his horse to the cedar branch. He was just reaching for the reins when a bullet slammed into the tree a foot above his hand, sending chips of whitewashed wood into the air around his head.
The horse whinnied shrilly, reared, ripped its reins off the branch, and bolted.
Haskell swung around to face the direction from which the bullet had come, sliding his Schofield from its holster. Two more bullets plowed into the ground a foot in front of him, one after the other, spraying dirt and sand over his boots.
“Drop the hogleg, lawman!”
Haskell froze.
Five horseback riders were just now riding out of the trees and brush west of the cabin. They were forty yards away and closing but riding slowly, casually except for the fact they were all holding Winchester carbines on Bear. They were dressed like cowpunchers in weather-stained Stetsons, wool shirts, suspenders, neckerchiefs, and brush-scarred chaps.
The carbine of one of the riders curled a wisp of gray smoke from its barrel. The man holding it wore a clay-colored, weather-stained hat with a leather band trimmed with small, round turquoise stones. He had long, straight, yellow-blond hair and a broad, flat face with a badly scarred upper lip, so that his mouth was set in a perpetual sneer. He was the second rider on Haskell’s right, and he rode half of a horse-length ahead of the others.
“I said drop the hogleg, lawman!” He snapped his Winchester to his shoulder and aimed with menace down the barrel, pumping another cartridge into the breech.
Chapter Fourteen
Haskell cursed under his breath and tossed away the Schofield. He glanced to his right. The buckskin was already a hundred yards away and still going, trailing its reins along the ground.
“Your horse is long gone,” said the yellow-haired gent with the nasty-looking lip, chuckling. Spittle flecked out where his lip curved up. He rested his carbine across his saddle horn. “He didn’t want no part of this.”
“I don’t reckon he did,” Haskell said. “Can I help you fellers?”
The lead rider reined up about ten feet away from Haskell. The others stopped their mounts to either side of him. The lead rider leaned forward in his saddle and said, “You could have helped us by not ridin’ out here today.” He slid his small, washed out yellow eyes toward the burned out cabin.
“Why’s that? You know somethin’ about what happened to this place, do you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, what do you say?” Haskell said. “Who’s in those two graves back yonder?”
“Lawman, you ask too damn many questions—you know that?” barked the rider on the far left of the group. He appeared the youngest of the bunch, dimple-cheeked but with close-set eyes that flashed with emotion. An ash-smudge mustache mantled his girlishly plump upper lip, and a red pimple protruded from the side of his chin. He wore a pinstriped shirt under a ratty brown suit coat, and a tobacco sack hung from around his skinny neck. Three big pistols bristled on his waist.
“Pipe down, young ’un,” Scar Lip said, keeping his gaze on Haskell. “I got it all under control.”
The kid spat to one side in frustration.
Scar Lip said, “What do you suppose it’s gonna take for us to convince you that this ain’t none of your business and you should pull your nose out of holes it don’t belong in, and go on home?”
“I’m a deputy U.S. marshal,” Haskell said. “That makes Lou Cameron’s murder my business. That and the fact that he was a good friend of mine. Since he rode out here only a couple of days before he was drygulched, I’m thinkin’ this burned out ranch and those two graves are tied into his murder somehow. That makes this nasty business out here my business, too.”
All five riders stared at him over the twitching ears of their horses.
The kid turned to Scar Lip and said, “Ah, shit, he ain’t gonna listen to reason. Can’t you see that? We’re gonna have to kill him, Krantz.”
Scar Lip fired an angry look at the kid. “Yeah, well, now we sure are gonna have to kill him, Willie! Since you just called me by name, you damn fool!”
“It don’t matter!” Willie retorted. “We was gonna have to kill him anyway. He’s stubborn as a post. You can see that. He ain’t just gonna go on back to Denver and forget the whole thing because you threaten to kill him if
he don’t!”
“A smart man would,” Krantz said, gazing flatly at Haskell.
“Keep in mind he’s a deputy U.S. marshal,” said the man to Krantz’s left, a little timidly. “We sure we want a federal murder rap hangin’ over our heads for the rest of our lives?”
Krantz grinned, though because of his scarred lip it was hard to tell when he wasn’t, and said, “Whose gonna know?” He glanced to his right. “Jackson, Libby”—he unhooked the lariat from his saddle and tossed it to the man sitting off his right stirrup—“get down there and let’s hang us a lawman.”
The man took the lariat and chuckled. “Why not?”
He and the man sitting next to him stepped down from their saddles. Haskell stepped back, spreading his boots wide. There was no way he was going to let these cow nurses play cat’s cradle with his head. At least he wasn’t going to hang without a fight.
He considered running then finding cover from which to buy himself enough time to fish the Hopkins & Allen “Blue Jacket” out of his right boot well, but the odds were stacked against his success. These fellers all had their carbines out and ready. They were mounted, and he was afoot. They’d back shoot him before he could get ten feet.
The two men assigned the task of getting a loop around his neck walked toward him, grinning. The one with the lariat was forming a noose and a slipknot at the end of the rope. He swung the noose tauntingly at his side as he continued toward Haskell. The mounted men surrounded Haskell now, closing on him from all sides, hemming him in.
He was trapped.
The man with the rope chuckled as he tossed the noose toward Haskell. Haskell caught the noose in his right hand and pulled on it hard. The man with the rope stumbled toward him, caught off guard. Haskell hammered his right fist into the man’s face.
“Ufff!” the man grunted, staggering backward, blood oozing from his smashed mouth.
“Why you ... !” barked the other man, running toward Haskell with his own right fist raised.
Haskell deflected the man’s punch with his left arm and sunk his right fist deep into the man’s solar plexus. The man gave a great chuff of expressed air as he doubled over. Haskell buried his fist in the same place once more and then smashed the same fist into the man’s left ear. The man staggered backward, groaning and cursing.
He tripped over his own boots and fell.
One of the horseback riders tightening their circle around Haskell chuckled. Another one said tightly, “Get him!”
As Bear turned to dodge another attack, a coiled lariat smashed against the left side of his head, burning his left ear. Another coiled lariat struck the other side of his head. Then a horse’s wither smashed into him from behind, and he flew forward to hit the ground on his belly.
He could smell horses and leather and man sweat, hear the near thud of hooves. One of the horses whinnied. Another whickered. The riders were ominously quiet. Dazed, Haskell pushed up onto his hands and knees. As he lifted his head again, he saw the ugly bastard otherwise known as Krantz thrust his rifle toward him, butt-first.
The butt smashed against Haskell’s left temple.
Haskell’s head snapped back. Cracked bells rang with excruciating loudness in his head, and a massive cloud slid across the sun. His body felt heavy. He felt as though a rock had been tied around his neck, and that rock was pulling him to the bottom of a very deep, dark sea.
Vaguely, he was aware of his arms being jerked back behind him. Too late he realized a rope was being coiled around his wrists behind his back. Terror racked him, and he gasped as he tried to pull his hands free, but they were held fast by the rope.
He felt the rake of hemp against his ears then around his neck. He could smell the burning-weed smell of the rope. His blood turned cold and his heart hiccupped when he felt the noose pulled taught around his neck. The hemp prickled as it bit into him.
“Get him up! Get him up!”
Rough hands pulled him to his feet. Haskell opened his eyes and through a gauzy fog of semi-consciousness saw the five men surrounding him, their horses flanking them. The man with the smashed mouth sneered behind the others. Haskell head-butted the nearest man, who cursed sharply and stumbled backward. The kid, Willie, laughed shrilly. Another man buried his fist in Haskell’s belly.
Haskell jackknifed as the air rushed out of his lungs.
The rope drew even tighter around his neck, and they used the rope to pull him over to a stout cottonwood. He ran, staggering, trying to drop to his knees but a man on either side was holding him up by his arms. Fear and fury were a hot wash inside him. He thought of the Blue Jacket in his boot.
If only he could get one hand free, but his wrists were tied fast behind him ...
They stopped him. Willie had the rope now. He tossed it up over a low, stout branch of the cottonwood. Catching it as it fell back toward him, he gave Bear a wolfish grin. “Necktie party in your honor, Marshal sir!” He gave a mock, two-fingered salute.
“I’m gonna kill you, you little fucker!” Haskell raked out.
“Not in this life, Marshal sir!” Willie laughed.
Haskell bolted toward him. Willie screamed, dropped the rope, and ran. Krantz stepped in front of Haskell and buried the butt of his Winchester in the lawman’s belly.
That felled Bear to his knees again. He gasped trying in vain to draw air back into lungs that felt the size of raisins.
“You little coward!” Krantz shouted at Willie, who turned back, blushing sheepishly.
The kid pointed at Bear as he walked back toward him. “He’s a handful, that feller!” He laughed nervously.
“Pick up the rope and tie it to your saddle horn, Nancy boy!” Krantz ordered the kid.
“No need to call me names, Krantz!”
While Bear continued to fight air back into his lungs with only gradual and moderate success, Willie led his horse to the tree by its reins, picked up the end of the rope, mounted the gelding, and dallied the rope around his saddle horn. The other men swung into their own saddles.
Haskell’s head jerked up as Willie began to back his horse away from the tree. The rope cut into his skin, pinching off his wind. He fought it, rolling his shoulders and swinging his neck like the proverbial bear he’d been named for. Fury dropped a red veil over his eyes.
He locked his gaze on Willie, Krantz backing his own horse away beside the grinning youngster. The rope drew tighter and tighter, pulling Haskell up off the ground. Staggering, he got his boots beneath him, trying to put some slack back into the rope. He managed to do so, fleetingly, but Willie, grinning at his quarry, pressing his pink tongue to the bottom of his plump lower lip, continued to back his horse away.
Haskell’s head was pulled up farther.
Farther ...
“Ah, Christ!” he tried to say but it was only a strangling sound in his throat.
He heard the bones in his neck grind and pop as the line grew tighter and tighter and his heels rose from the ground.
Willie kept backing away, backing away, that taunting, delighted grin in place. Beside him, Krantz was grinning, too, as he talked with the others though Haskell couldn’t heard what they were saying because of the gelded boys’ choir screaming in his ears.
He knew they were mocking him. Mocking him as they lynched him ...
His body turned cold as his boot toes rose up off the ground. His spine was drawn so taut that he was sure it would snap like a dry twig. Now he was hanging, his chin pulled so far up that he was staring at the cottonwood’s leaves glinting like gold-minted coins in the sunlight. He felt himself jerk as the sky and the tree and its overhanging branches swung around him, though he knew that it was he himself who was twisting and turning at the end of the rope.
He tried to suck air into his lungs, but he couldn’t get anything passed the rope pinching his throat. His head felt swollen to twice its normal size. He thought his eyes would explode in their sockets. His tongue was like a shoe in his mouth.
As though from far away, his torm
entors laughed.
Gradually, Haskell’s head grew light. He became dizzy. The chill released its grip on him, and soothing warmth oozed into his veins. Only vaguely he could feel his body spasming, revolting against the lack of oxygen feeding it. His heart, which had been drumming like thunder in his ears, fell quiet.
That massive cloud again passed over the sky, darker than before.
The world went quiet.
Something large and unyielding slammed into the bottom of his boots, threatening to drive his hips up into his ribs. It was a savage, all-encompassing blow. That big solid, angry thing smacked his back and the back of his head, against his will jolting something awake in him. He’d gone to a peaceful place, a place where his misery had eased, and he didn’t want to be taken out of it.
His heart gave one loggy rumbling thud against his breastbone. He thought he could smell the earth and the hot grass.
Another voice reached his ears. Not a man’s laughing voice this time. Not a voice of one of his tormentor’s, but a woman’s voice.
Gradually, as the woman called to him, Haskell’s consciousness rose up toward her voice until she more clearly screamed, “Oh, damn you, Bear—if you’re dead I’m just going to kill you!”
Chapter Fifteen
A diamondback rattler of enormous strength was wrapping itself around Bear’s neck, digging into his skin and choking out his life.
He lifted his head with a horrified grunt, reaching up to pry off the snake with his fingers.
“Bear! Oh, no, honey—you’re fine!”
Suellen Cameron smiled down at him, the copper light of a small fire glinting in her hair. The fire was behind her. They were outside. It was dark. Looking up, Haskell saw a velvet sky full of twinkling stars.
“Where ... the ... hell ... are we?” he croaked out, his sore throat sounding froggy to even his own ears. He swallowed, wincing against the pain.
GUN TROUBLE AT DIAMONDBACK (Bear Haskell, U.S. Marshal Book 1) Page 11
