River of Blood

by William W. Johnstone

  “Just be careful,” Breckinridge told him. “Better keep your head down and eat dirt the whole way.”

  “I intend to, I assure you.”

  Morgan began inching backward. It was a long, tedious process, but at last he reached the pines and was able to roll behind one of the thick trunks. He stood up and leaned against the rough bark, his face pale from the strain except where the bloody streak ran across his cheek.

  It seemed to Breckinridge like the battle had been going on for hours, but he knew that wasn’t right. The position of the sun told him it had been less than an hour since the first shot was fired. He had enough powder and shot to keep going at this pace for quite a while yet, and he hoped the others did, too.

  Because this seemed like a standoff, and he didn’t really see any way of breaking it.

  A new concern began to gnaw at his mind. When he and Morgan had been pinned down the day before, their enemies had tried to flank them and then get behind them. Would these ambushers do the same?

  It was certainly possible that some of them could go upstream or down, cross the creek, and then work their way through the woods until they had Breckinridge and his friends trapped in a crossfire.

  “Morgan!” Breckinridge called into the trees when both of them were reloading. “Keep an eye out behind you. Some of ’em could be comin’ up that way.”

  “I already thought of that,” Morgan replied as he used the ramrod to tamp a patch-wrapped ball down on a fresh charge of powder. “I’m the only one who can risk moving around much, so I thought I’d fade back and do a little scouting.”

  “Be careful. If you do run into any of ’em, they’re liable to outnumber you.”

  “You’ll likely know it if I do.”

  Breckinridge knew what Morgan meant. He would hear the shooting.

  Breckinridge eased his rifle over the pile of pelts, waited until he saw a spurt of powder smoke on the other side of the creek, and fired at it. As usual, he couldn’t tell if he had hit one of the attackers or not, but he was confident that he had come close.

  Of course, close might not be enough to do any good.

  When he glanced toward the trees again, Morgan was gone. Breckinridge’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t really the praying sort, but he sent up a short plea that his friend would be all right.

  Then it was back to the grim work of loading, firing, and reloading. Acrid gray smoke hung so thick in the air it stung his eyes and nose, and the almost continual roar of gunfire made his ears ache.

  Back in Knoxville, there’d been a Revolutionary War cannon on the square, a monument to the men who had won the nation its freedom from the British. Breckinridge didn’t understand how men who were around artillery like that all the time could ever hear anything again. Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe that was part of the price they paid to defeat the enemy.

  Fulbright yelled and cursed. Breckinridge asked, “Are you hit, Amos?”

  “Not to amount to anything,” Fulbright replied. “Rifle ball just knocked a little hunk of meat off my arm.”

  “Little hunk of meat, hell,” Akins said. “You’re drilled, Amos, and you’re bleedin’ like a stuck pig. Let me see that arm.”

  Fulbright snapped, “You just tend to your own rat-killin’. I’ll be fine. Go back to shootin’ at those varmints over there.”

  “And let you bleed to death? I don’t think so. Now, let me see that arm, blast your ornery hide!”

  Grumbling and complaining, Fulbright allowed Akins to examine his wounded arm. Akins drew his knife and cut away some of the buckskin sleeve. From where Breckinridge was, he couldn’t really see the wound, but the blood was plain enough as it dripped down Fulbright’s arm.

  Akins was wearing a homespun shirt. He cut several pieces off the bottom of it, wadded up two of them and shoved them into the entrance and exit wounds, then used the other strip to tie them in place. That had to hurt like hell for Fulbright, but he didn’t make a sound and his face was impassive except for a faint scowl.

  “That ought to slow the bleedin’ down enough to keep you alive,” Akins said. “But that hole will need to be cleaned out good, and then some real bandagin’ ought to be done on it.”

  “We’ll do that,” Fulbright said, “assumin’ we all get outta this mess alive.”

  Breckinridge was practical enough to know they were in a bad spot, but he certainly hadn’t given up hope. His natural optimism told him they would come out of this alive. If they didn’t . . . well, he supposed that meant it was their day to die, and a man couldn’t really argue with that. There was no point in worrying about it, either. All they could do was just fight on, as hard as they could, for as long as they could.

  That thought was going through his mind when a sudden flurry of gunfire somewhere behind them made him jerk his head around. Breckinridge’s jaw tightened, and he muttered, “Morgan.”

  Somewhere back there, his friend had run into trouble, just as Breckinridge had feared would happen.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morgan Baxter’s cheek still burned like fire where the rifle ball had grazed him, but he tried to ignore the pain as he hurried through the trees, moving in a low, crouching run. His searching gaze flicked from side to side as he watched for any sign that the enemy was about to steal on them from behind.

  It wasn’t far to where a steep slope rose to form the first of the foothills that led to the mountains on this side of the valley. Morgan reached it without encountering anyone, and he began to hope that his and Breckinridge’s suspicions had been wrong.

  He could still hear the shots ringing out steadily from the camp, and he hoped Breck and the others were all right. There had been a time in Morgan’s life, not so long ago, really, when he hadn’t cared what happened to anybody else. The lessons he had learned since then had been hard but valuable ones.

  He just wished his father hadn’t died without seeing that his son had become a decent man.

  Those thoughts distracted Morgan. He almost didn’t see the man who leaped at him from the top of a boulder until it was too late.

  Morgan tried to twist out of the way, but the man slammed into him anyway, just not with full force. The impact was still enough to spin Morgan halfway around and make him lose his balance. He stumbled and fell to his knees.

  Two more men burst out of some nearby brush and brandished pistols. Morgan lifted his rifle and fired first. One of the men went over backward, knocked off his feet by the rifle ball that shattered his shoulder.

  The other fired his pistol, but Morgan was already diving aside. The ball cut through the air where he had been a second earlier.

  Morgan rolled and came up swinging the rifle by the barrel like a club. The attacker who was still on his feet flung up an arm to block the blow. Morgan heard bone snap as the rifle caught the man on the forearm. The man howled in pain.

  Brush crackled behind Morgan. He dived to the side again as two more shots blasted. The unlucky man whose arm he had just broken crumpled as one of the shots struck him instead.

  Feet pounded against the pine needle–littered ground as more men rushed in. One of them yelled, “Stop shootin’, you fools! Take him alive! He’s Wallace’s friend.”

  Morgan knew what that meant. They wanted to capture him and use him as a hostage so they could force Breck to do what they wanted. Surrender, more than likely.

  And if that happened, the men would then just kill all of them. Morgan wasn’t going to let that happen.

  He gripped the rifle’s long barrel and whirled it around and around his head as the men closed in around him. He walloped a couple of them and knocked them off their feet, but there were too many.

  A rifle butt drove into his back and made him cry out as he staggered forward. Another caught him on the right shoulder and made his arm go numb. The rifle slipped out of his hands.

  But his left arm still worked. He used that hand to pluck the knife from the sheath at his waist and slashed back and forth with the blade, feeling it rip thr
ough clothing and flesh. A man cried out again.

  Morgan wasn’t going to surrender. He would keep fighting until he forced them to kill him.

  That would be better than being captured and letting them use him as a weapon against Breckinridge . . .

  * * *

  In addition to the gunshots, Breckinridge heard yelling from the direction Morgan had gone. It sounded like a desperate battle was going on back there, and he knew that Morgan had to be badly outnumbered.

  It was all he could do not to leap to his feet and turn to race to the aid of his friend. Breckinridge knew that as soon as he did, though, he would be riddled with rifle balls from the men across the creek.

  With fear for Morgan’s safety gnawing at him, Breckinridge thrust his rifle over the pelts and fired again. Then, as he ducked down and started to reload, he heard more shots from across the creek than ever before.

  That wasn’t all. He thought his half-deafened ears heard men shouting in alarm, and then the pounding of hoofbeats.

  What in blazes was going on over there? he wondered.

  He wasn’t the only one who was puzzled. Akins risked a look over the top of the fire pit and then said, “Hey, I don’t think they’re shootin’ at us anymore!”

  “Sounds like somebody else might’ve shown up and taken a hand,” Breckinridge said. “I would’ve sworn I heard horses!”

  “Me, too,” Fulbright agreed. “But who’d come along and help us?”

  “I don’t know,” Breckinridge said, “but Morgan’s in trouble and I’m gonna go give him a hand. You fellas stay here and keep your heads down until you’re sure what’s goin’ on.”

  “Breck, wait—” Akins began, but it was too late. Breckinridge didn’t hear any shots hitting the fire pit or the pelts or whipping through the brush, so he was going to assume it was safe for him to stand up again.

  He surged to his feet and charged toward the trees where Morgan had disappeared. No rifle balls found him. None even seemed to come his way. Clearly, the attackers on the other side of the creek had their hands full right now. Someone had come along and turned the tables on them.

  Breckinridge charged through the pines with his rifle held at a slant across his chest. He weaved around tree trunks, hurdled logs, crashed through brush. He followed the sound of shouting and within minutes burst onto the scene of battle.

  Morgan was on his feet, slashing around him with a knife. A roughly dressed man had gotten behind him, though, and was about to brain him with a rifle butt. Breckinridge threw his gun to his shoulder and fired. The man flew backward with blood spurting from his throat where the ball had struck him.

  Breckinridge waded into the other men. He held his rifle parallel to the ground and plowed into two of them with it, driving them off their feet. A swift butt stroke shattered another man’s jaw.

  While Breckinridge was doing that, Morgan took advantage of the distraction to plunge his knife into the chest of another attacker. He ripped it free and whirled to look for another opponent, but Breckinridge already had all the others on the ground. Breck’s booted foot lashed out and crashed into the head of one man who tried to get up again. A sharp crack sounded as the man’s neck broke.

  “Is this all of ’em?” Breckinridge asked.

  “I don’t know,” Morgan said. “I thought there was another one, but I don’t see him now. Lord! Are all these varmints dead?”

  “They appear to be,” Breckinridge said. He hadn’t held back, and bones were no match for his massive strength when he had a weapon in his hands. Crushed skulls and splintered ribs had done for the men he had bowled over.

  “What about Roscoe and Fulbright?”

  “They were all right when I came after you. As best we could tell, somebody else came along and jumped those men who ambushed us.”

  “Who would do that?” Morgan asked with a frown.

  “I don’t know. I don’t hear any more shootin’, though. We’d best get back and find out what’s goin’ on.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Morgan said as he bent down to retrieve his rifle.

  * * *

  Fifty yards away, Harry Sykes paused and bent over, resting his hands on his thighs as he tried to catch his breath. His pulse hammered inside his head, and he felt a little sick at his stomach. He was a big man, and plenty tough, but he had never seen anything like Breckinridge Wallace. The man was like a cross between a whirlwind and an avalanche. He had killed at least three men in a matter of heartbeats.

  It didn’t matter, Sykes told himself. He would still do the job Richard Aylesworth had paid him for. Right now, though, he was the only survivor from the group of men he had taken with him to get behind Wallace and the others. That hadn’t worked out too well. Sykes needed to get back to his other men and regroup, come up with another plan for killing Wallace.

  Too bad there was no way to just drop a mountain on the son of a bitch. That might be what it was going to take . . .

  * * *

  When Breckinridge and Morgan got back to camp, they found strangers there again. A couple of men stood holding the reins of horses as they talked to Akins and Fulbright. One of them, who had a thatch of white hair under his broad-brimmed hat, turned a weathered face toward Breckinridge and grinned.

  “You’re the one Roscoe and Amos here have been tellin’ me about,” he said in a gravelly voice. “You’re Breck Wallace.” He stuck out a hand. “My name’s Powell.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “We’re on our way to the rendezvous,” Powell explained a short time later as he and his companion, a man he introduced as Harding, sat and shared coffee with Breckinridge, Morgan, Akins, and Fulbright. “Heard all the shootin’ and came to see what was goin’ on.” His lined face creased even more in a grin. “It sounded like the British had invaded and we were fightin’ the War of 1812 all over again.”

  “Just a bunch of thievin’ ambushers,” Akins said. “As best we can figure, they were after our pelts. This is the second try the bunch has made against us.”

  Breckinridge frowned slightly and asked Powell, “If you didn’t know what was goin’ on, how’d you know whose side to take in the fightin’?”

  Powell sipped from his tin cup of coffee and said, “Well, we could tell you fellas were outnumbered, so we just jumped in on the side of the underdog. Seemed like as good a plan as any.”

  “And it sure saved our bacon,” Fulbright said.

  By now Akins had passed a ramrod with a clean rag wrapped around it through the wound in Fulbright’s arm, packed both holes with a poultice made from moss, and bound up the arm as tightly as he could without cutting off the circulation. Fulbright had endured the whole process in stoic silence.

  “What happened to the men who ambushed us?” Morgan asked.

  He had washed the bullet graze on his cheek with creek water, but other than that it hadn’t required any medical attention. The wound was going to leave a scar, but in all likelihood it wouldn’t be a large, ugly one. As Breckinridge had said, it would just give Morgan some character and make him look dashing.

  “They put up a little fight when we hit them from behind,” Powell said, “but mostly they just ran like hell. We killed a couple, and there were already two men lyin’ dead over there, but the others got away. Half a dozen or so, I’d say.”

  “Maybe after this they really will leave us alone,” Morgan said.

  “You said you’re headin’ for the rendezvous,” Breckinridge put in. “Are you fellas trappers?”

  “Not really, although some of us have done some trapping before,” Powell answered. “Actually, we were thinkin’ about getting into the fur tradin’ business. Might even build a tradin’ post. There aren’t many of them this far west, from what I hear.”

  Akins nodded and said, “That’s true. Men have tried, but the Indians usually drive ’em out after a while.”

  “We’ve got a big enough party we don’t have to worry too much about redskins,” Powell said. “And the man we work for has e
nough money to provide plenty of supplies and trade goods and ammunition.”

  “You’re not the boss of your bunch?”

  Powell shook his head.

  “No, we all work for another fella.” He hesitated. “Call him the Colonel.”

  “This Colonel, where is he?” Breckinridge asked.

  “Back in St. Louis?”

  “Nope. He came with us. We left a couple of men with him and the wagon, aways back, when we came to find out what all the shootin’ was about. I sent a rider to let them know that everything was all right.”

  “I guess we’ll see you all at the rendezvous, then,” Morgan said.

  Powell drank the last of his coffee and nodded. “More than likely. We’ll be around, that’s for sure. You think you fellas will be all right now?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Akins said. “After all the damage that gang of thieves has suffered, this time they really will pull out, I’m bettin’.”

  Breckinridge thought that was likely, too . . . but he reminded himself that when they got up this morning, they had all believed they were in no real danger, too.

  That was one thing about life . . . trouble had a way of coming at you when you didn’t expect it.

  * * *

  After leaving the camp on the bluff, Powell and Harding rode back across the creek to gather up the men who had come with them.

  “The Colonel,” Harding said with a grin. “That was pretty fast thinking, calling him that instead of his real name. Wallace might have remembered that.”

  Powell grunted and said, “Remember the name of the kid he gunned down back in St. Louis? Yeah, there’s a good chance of that.”

  “Rory Ducharme was an arrogant, trouble-makin’ little bastard,” Harding said. “You’ve likely heard the same stories about him that I have. There’s a good chance Wallace had every right to shoot him. He might have been stopping Rory from killin’ him or somebody else.”

  “Doesn’t matter. His pa loved him and is willing to pay to avenge his death. That’s all that matters to us.”

  “Well, sure. But how come we didn’t just go ahead and grab Wallace and take him back to Ducharme?”