“Oh? Is that all it is?” Without thinking about what he was doing, Jason reached for the badge on his chest and unpinned it from his shirt. He slapped it into the palm of a startled Saul Cohen and said, “Hang on to that for me, will you?”
“Jason, you shouldn’t—” Saul began.
Jason knew he shouldn’t, but he had gone too far to back down. Besides, Matt didn’t give him the chance. Without waiting for Jason to turn around, Matt lunged at him, swinging a roundhouse right at his head.
Jason twisted as Matt’s indrawn breath and the scuff of his boots on the ground warned him. Just in time, Jason ducked so that Matt’s punch went over his head. He stepped in and hooked a short but powerful blow to Matt’s midsection. Matt grunted and moved back a step, his back hunched against the pain. He didn’t double over, though, and he was ready when Jason tried to follow the right with a left cross. He blocked it and shot out a left jab that landed on Jason’s jaw and rocked his head back. Jason’s hat fell off.
He caught his balance and struck swiftly, boring in to pepper Matt’s body with quick punches. Matt roared in anger and threw a looping right that would have taken Jason’s head off if it had connected. Instead, Jason was able to jerk back so that he felt the wind of Matt’s fist passing right in front of his face.
Even though Matt missed, he didn’t let that throw him off balance. He launched a kick at Jason’s groin. Jason twisted aside and took the impact on his thigh. It was hard enough to knock him backward. Matt lunged, taking advantage of the opportunity to tackle his opponent. His arms locked around Jason in a bone-crushing grip as he bore Jason backward.
Both young men went down, landing hard on the rocky ground. They rolled over and over. Since they were just about the same size and weight, neither had an advantage over the other when it came to wrestling. Matt had the edge in viciousness, though. He drove his knee into Jason’s belly. The blow sent pain blossoming through Jason’s body and forced the air out of his lungs. He gasped for breath, but before he could drag any air down his throat, Matt’s hands closed around it, choking off the life-giving air.
Desperation exploded in Jason’s brain as a red haze slipped down in front of his eyes. He balled both hands into fists and slammed them in the sides of Matt’s head. The blows must have made Matt’s ears ring and rattled his brain in his skull, because he shook his head and loosened his grip enough for Jason to break free. Heaving and arching his back off the ground, Jason flung Matt off to one side.
He only took the time to gulp down one big breath before he threw himself after Matt. As Matt tried to get up, Jason met him with a pile-driving right that sent him sprawling on his back. With an animal-like spring, Jason landed on top of him and hammered a blow into his face. Two more punches crashed against Matt’s jaw before Salmon Kendall and Alf Blodgett caught hold of Jason’s arms and hauled him upright. They dragged him back away from Matt’s now-senseless form.
“Take it easy, Jason,” Salmon said. “He’s an annoyin’ son of a bitch, I’ll grant you that, but you don’t want to kill him.”
“Don’t be . . . so sure about that,” Jason panted. He shrugged free of Salmon and Blodgett and dragged the back of a hand across his mouth, leaving a red smear on the skin from a bleeding lip. He stood there with his chest heaving as he glared at Matt.
Saul knelt beside the young man, took hold of his jaw, and moved it back and forth. “Doesn’t seem to be broken,” he announced. “I think he’ll be all right when he gets his wits about him again, except for a headache.”
Jason looked around at the others. “I meant what I said,” he told them. “I’m in charge of this posse. If you can’t abide following my orders, you need to leave.” He took another deep breath. “But I’ll tell you this. Stick with me and we’ll get those women back. I give you my word on it. And we’ll kill as many of those damned raiders as we get a chance to as well.”
That brought mutters of agreement and support. Nobody said anything else about wanting to leave or going against Jason’s decisions.
A couple of men helped Matt to his feet. Matt spat blood for a moment, then looked at Jason. “All right,” he said, his voice distorted a little by swollen lips and a sore jaw. “You beat me. But that doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“I don’t give a damn if you agree with me,” Jason snapped. “Just follow orders. That’s all I care about.”
“Fine, fine,” Matt muttered. He started looking around for his hat, swaying and stumbling as he did so.
Wash Keough chuckled. “If you boys’re through waltzin’ around and providin’ some entertainment, take a look at that.”
Jason turned and saw a three-quarter-full moon edging above the eastern horizon, spilling silvery illumination over the plains. The light was growing brighter by the second as the moon rose.
It was time to get back on the trail of the outlaws.
Chapter 22
As it turned out, Wash was able to follow the tracks by the light of the moon. They were so easy to see, Jason figured he could have followed them if he’d had to. That showed how confident Juan Alba and his men were about being safe from pursuit.
By morning, though, Wash was convinced that they hadn’t really cut into the gang’s lead by much, if any.
“Reckon they pushed on most o’ the night, just like we did.” Wash broke the news to the others when they stopped to let the horses rest and to refill their canteens at a creek that wasn’t much more than a tiny trickle of water winding its way across the mostly arid flats.
“Aren’t we still going south?” Matt wanted to know.
Wash shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”
Matt glared at Jason. “In other words, if we had pushed on when I wanted to, instead of waiting for the moon to come up, we might have closed in on them.”
Jason wasn’t going to dignify that comment with a denial or an argument. He didn’t have to, because Salmon snapped, “That didn’t cost us all that much time, Matt, and you know it. You just don’t like playin’ second fiddle to anybody, and some of us are gettin’ a mite tired of it.”
Matt flushed with anger. Saul moved between him and Salmon to forestall any more trouble, even though the hardware store owner was nearly a head shorter than both of them.
“Let’s just take it easy,” Saul suggested. “What do we do now, Jason?”
“Only one thing we can do,” Jason said, “and that’s push on after them.”
Wash said, “Well, see, now, that’s gonna be a problem. We stopped to let these horses blow several times durin’ the night, but they need more rest than that. We don’t have enough extra mounts for everybody to switch out and keep movin’ at the pace we have been. We need to stay here for an hour at least, maybe two.”
“Two hours!” Matt said. “That’ll let those outlaws get that much farther ahead of us.”
Jason shook his head. “Not necessarily. They won’t want to ride their mounts into the ground either. I’m betting that they stopped somewhere up ahead too.”
“It’s not your life you’d be betting. It’s Jenny’s and Megan’s.”
“And Mrs. Morelli’s and Miss Krimp’s,” Saul reminded him. “But I agree with Jason and Wash. We can’t do those ladies any good at all if we wind up afoot.”
Matt gave a snort of contempt. “What does a Hebrew storekeeper know about things like that?”
“It’s just common sense,” Saul said.
That was something that Matt MacDonald was sorely lacking, Jason thought, but he didn’t say it.
Ezra Dixon spoke up for the first time in this council of war. “We got ten extra horses that ain’t been ridden all night. Ten men could take them and push on, maybe close in on them bandits a mite.”
“Ten men can’t fight fifty,” Jason pointed out.
“No, but they can scout out the situation and see what’s what, so that when the rest o’ our bunch catches up, we’ll have it figured out what to do to rescue them women.”
Jason frowned in thou
ght as he considered the old rancher’s suggestion. Sending out a group of advance scouts wasn’t a bad idea. Something else occurred to him, and he said, “If five men took the ten extra horses, they could switch mounts from time to time and move even faster. And five men could do that job just as well as ten.”
Wash nodded. “I was just thinkin’ the same thing. And you never know, there might be a chance for us to Injun our way in there and grab the gals away without them bandits knowin’ what’s goin’ on, where a bigger bunch wouldn’t have a chance o’ doin’ that.”
“You’d be risking their lives to do something as chancy as that!” Matt protested.
“Their lives are already at considerable risk,” Jason said. “I like your suggestion, Wash. Question is, who’s going with us?”
“If you’re bound and determined to do this, I’m going to be one of the five,” Matt declared. “I have a right to be included.”
Dixon said, “It was my idea, so I reckon I ought to come along. Besides, I got a hankerin’ to kill some o’ those varmints. Might get my chance sooner this way.”
“We don’t want to get in a shooting war with them,” Jason cautioned. “Not if we’re outnumbered ten to one. We’ll wait for the rest of the posse to catch up before we try to rescue the prisoners, unless, like Wash says, a perfect opportunity presents itself.”
“Then who’s the fifth man?” Saul asked. “Me or Salmon?”
Jason shook his head. “Neither of you. I need both of you to stay with the main bunch, to keep everyone organized and moving as quickly as possible.” He looked around, studying the other members of the posse, and said, “Mr. Morton? How about you?”
Zachary Morton grinned. “I was sort of hoping you’d ask, Jason.”
“Him?” Matt said. “He’s an old man!”
“I ain’t no spring chicken myself, and neither’s Dixon here,” Wash said. “But don’t you worry about us, sonny. We can keep up and tote our share o’ the load.”
“Damn right,” Dixon put in.
Zachary just smiled, licked his thumb, and ran it over the front sight of the rifle he carried. Jason knew that Zachary was a crack shot, and the message in the old gunsmith’s gesture was plain—Zachary just wanted a shot at those bandits who had stolen the four women.
“All right,” Jason said with a nod. “Let’s get our saddles on those spare horses. Now we’re wasting time.”
* * *
He hated leaving Cleo behind, but the palomino had done valiant work during the pursuit so far and Jason didn’t want to ride her into the ground. He also didn’t like the idea of taking Matt MacDonald along as a member of the small group of scouts, but he knew that arguing with Matt would just be a waste of time, breath, and energy. Anyway, by taking Matt along, Jason could keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t ruin their chances of success through incompetence, impulsiveness, or sheer contrariness.
Jason wasn’t too fond of the idea of Dixon being a member of the group either. The rancher equaled Matt for arrogance and was used to giving orders, not taking them. Besides, it had only been a couple of weeks since Matt and Dixon had been trying their damnedest to kill each other. So far, they had seemed to call a truce during this emergency, but how long would it last before they blew up at each other again?
Dixon had one thing going for him that Matt didn’t, though—experience. Dixon had lived on the frontier for a long time. He had fought bandits in the past, as well as Apaches. You didn’t have to like a man to be able to depend on him in a fight. Jason knew he could depend on Dixon not to cut and run, no matter what the odds.
With each man riding one of the spare horses and leading another, the scouts moved out after only a short rest. None of them had slept any the night before, but they were all too keyed up to worry about that. Fear for the lives of the captives and hatred for the scavengers in human form that had descended on Fury would keep them going.
The temperature rose along with the sun. By mid-morning, they were baking as they followed the trail left by the outlaws. The vegetation had grown more sparse, and for the most part the landscape was an ugly gray, brown, and tan. Jason set as fast a pace as he dared. Under these conditions, extra care had to be taken with the horses.
Jason thought they were angling more toward the southwest now, and when he asked Wash about that, the old-timer confirmed it. Pointing to some rugged hills in the distance, he said, “Them’s the tail end o’ the Cimarron Mountains. Won’t be long now before we get to the border. You still figure on crossin’ it?”
“We’re going wherever Alba goes,” Jason replied without hesitation.
“Might be hope for you yet, boy,” Dixon commented. “A real man does what has to be did, without worryin’ all the time about rules and shit like that.”
Jason frowned. “I never said people shouldn’t follow rules. But sometimes you have to think more about what needs to be done.”
“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”
Jason didn’t continue the debate. He wouldn’t have anyway, but he was spared the necessity of doing so by Wash saying, “Take a look over yonder, Jason. See that dust?”
Jason saw it, all right. The plume of dust rising to the east was large enough to signify quite a few riders, but it was in the wrong place and not large enough to be coming from Alba’s band of thieves and killers.
“Who can that be?” Jason asked with a frown.
“We keep goin’, I reckon we’ll find out. Our trails are gonna cross ’fore too much longer.”
“What if they’re Apaches?” Matt asked.
Dixon snorted. “You won’t find that many ’Paches on horseback.”
“Could be that some of Alba’s men split off from the main bunch,” Zachary Morton suggested, “and now they’re comin’ back.”
That was a good example of why Jason had wanted Zachary to come along. The old man was cool-headed and had an insightful way of looking at things.
“What do you want to do, Jason?” Wash asked.
“We’ll push on,” Jason decided. “But if they’re Alba’s men, we’ll have a fight on our hands.” Grim-faced, he added, “We can’t afford to let any of them get away and warn Alba that we’re back here. We want him thinking that no one is pursuing him.”
“Kill ’em all, you mean,” Dixon said.
Jason nodded. “That’s what I mean.” It was a ruthless plan, but by raiding Fury as they had and carrying out such wanton slaughter, the outlaws had lost whatever right they might have had to any consideration. As far as Jason was concerned, they were mad dogs and had to be dealt with that way.
However, as the two groups of riders converged, it became obvious that a battle wouldn’t be in the offing. Wash pulled a spyglass from his saddlebags, pulled it out to its full length, and studied the other bunch. “I see blue uniforms,” he announced. “Them are soldier boys. Looks like a cavalry patrol.”
“That’s good news!” Matt said. “They can help us hunt down Alba’s gang.”
Jason’s instincts told him not to be so sure about that. With the other riders closing in from the east, he raised a hand in a signal for his companions to halt. They waited there for the cavalry to come up to them.
That took only a couple of minutes. The blue-clad riders emerged from the dust with the officer leading them calling a halt just as Jason had. He rode forward slowly and brought his mount to a stop about ten feet from Jason’s.
Without any preamble, the lieutenant said, “Who are you men, and what are you doing out here?”
“We’re part of a posse from the town of Fury,” Jason said. “I’m Marshal Jason Fury. We’re chasing a band of outlaws led by Juan Alba. They raided the town yesterday and kidnapped four women. The women are still prisoners, and we aim to rescue them.”
“Just the five of you?” the lieutenant asked.
“Another thirty men are coming up behind us. We’re advance scouts.” Jason looked at the fifteen troopers behind the officer. “We’d surely be pleased to ha
ve your help, Lieutenant. Your force and ours combined would a match for Alba’s gang.”
The lieutenant snapped, “I can tell you right now, Marshal, that’s not going to happen. We’re not going after Alba, and neither are you.”
Chapter 23
For a couple of seconds, Jason was so shocked that all he could do was stare at the officer. When he recovered his voice, he asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Before the lieutenant could answer, Matt MacDonald spoke up. “I could have told you you were wasting your breath talking to this stiff-necked little tin god, Fury. He doesn’t do anything unless it’s right by the book.”
The lieutenant gave Matt a thin, cold smile. “Mr. MacDonald, isn’t it? I recall how incensed you became when I refused to interfere in a purely civilian matter.”
Dixon glared over at Matt. “You tried to sic the cavalry on me?” he guessed.
Jason slashed the air with his hand. “Never mind about that now. Are you refusing to help us, Lieutenant? Because you can’t say this is a purely civilian matter. American citizens have been kidnapped!”
“That’s a matter for law enforcement, not the army.”
“Damn it, Fury was invaded! Alba’s a Mexican, and so are some of his men!”
“They don’t represent the government of Mexico, however, so their raid doesn’t qualify as an act of war requiring military intervention. As I said, this is something for law enforcement to deal with.”
“But you just said we couldn’t chase Alba either!”
“Not any farther, no.” The lieutenant turned his head. “Sergeant Halligan, how far are we from the border?”
The grizzled old sergeant seemed reluctant to answer, but he said, “About a mile, sir.”
The lieutenant turned back to Jason’s group. “So, I suppose that technically, you can pursue the outlaws for another mile, but then you’ll have to stop. You’re not allowed to cross the border into Mexico.”
“But they’ve got our women, for God’s sake!” Matt burst out.
A Town Called Fury Page 33
