Cato waited. Only the wind howled outside and only the senator’s breath hissing through his nostrils could be heard inside the cabin.
“Goddamn it! Where the hell are you? I tell you, feller, you don’t help us and the senator dies, I’ll see Duane knows you went off and hunted a warm spot instead of standin’ guard like you were s’posed to!”
Again he waited a long time, and he was about to call out again, in one final attempt to lure the guard to the door, when he heard a scraping sound as the man began to lift the bar. Cato swore silently. The guard had crept back stealthily, unheard, and had almost surprised them. Cato didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the blanket rope, hacked at it savagely with the blade, now dulled some from the work it had done on the weathered leather. It sawed through the strands of wool as he heard the bar slide back in its slot.
Then the rope parted and he heard the guard outside curse as he noticed the way the rear of the door sagged outwards. Cato released the rope and flung himself bodily at the door.
He crashed against the heavy woodwork with a wild yell but there was a wilder, though more muffled yell from outside as the door was smashed outwards. Slip tried to dodge, dragging at the Manstopper, as the heavy door came down on top of him. He lifted an arm protectively and screamed as the door crashed outwards and hammered him to the ground, pinning him from the waist down. He began to yell and Cato ran over the door, leapt down and stabbed with the knife. Slip convulsed as the blade sank into his heart and Cato, with the, strength of a madman, heaved the door aside.
He swiftly stripped off the gunbelt and his beloved Manstopper and buckled it about his waist. He searched the man fast and found only four shot shells in his pockets. He swore, ran back to the cabin where the senator was staggering out, stumbling to one knee. Cato grabbed his arm and yanked him upright, shivering already in the biting wind. The senator groaned in pain but Cato ignored it, urged him towards the trees.
“Come on! Run! That ranny’s yells might’ve been heard!”
He had hardly spoken before someone yelled twenty yards away, coming up over the rise that hid the cabin from the main ranch buildings and a gun crashed back there. Cato sent the senator stumbling into the trees and dropped to one knee. He saw three men pounding over the rise, guns in hand. His numbed thumb felt for the toggle on the hammer, jarred it into position and, as they fired and bullets spat past his head, Cato triggered the shot barrel. The heavy gun rode up in recoil as the thunder split open the night and two of the men spun about, lifted clear off the ground, legs kicking, screaming. The third man dived back over the rise and Cato leapt up and ran into the trees, thumbing the toggle back to normal .45 barrel. He found Locke hanging onto a tree for support and, hardly breaking stride, ignoring the man’s cry of pain, yanked him after him as they fled deep into the blackness of the timber-stand.
Before they had gone more than a hundred yards, they heard distant baying sounds behind them. Panting, sweating, staggering, they stopped, shivering as the wind howled around them. Cato saw the senator’s pale face turned towards him.
“Hounds!” Locke gasped.
“Yeah,” said Cato, feelingly. “Goddamn hounds!”
With the thought of this new menace driving them, they staggered off into the timber, climbing slowly up the mountainside.
In one way, the wind helped them; it shrieked and howled and froze the marrow in their bones, but it also stirred up the dust in the lower sections of timber. Above, far up the mountain peak, snow was streaming from the top, the permanent, powdery snow.
Locke was staggering drunkenly, stupid with the fatigue from his efforts at climbing up through the timber. He was leaning more and more on Cato and the small Enforcer’s breath barked in the back of his throat as he stumbled on, the baying of the hounds ringing in his ears. They were being forced up to the timberline by the pursuers and it was a place Cato would rather not go. With this wind blowing, and the snow streaming up there, it would be like going into a blizzard. While he and Locke were dressed warmly enough for the wind at the level of Wildcat Falls, he wouldn’t want to take any bets on the efficiency of their clothing above the timberline.
And the cold would weaken Locke even more. The senator had surprised him: he had plenty of guts. He was in obvious pain and his breath sobbed in agonized gasps, but he didn’t waste it complaining. He struggled on, helping Cato all he could, aware that he was slowing the Enforcer down. Again, he didn’t waste breath and time by trying to talk Cato into leaving him behind. For one thing, he was human enough not to want to be left to the mercies of Duane’s men; for another, he savvied that Cato had to try his damnedest to get him away. The smaller man felt he had fallen down in his duty by allowing Locke to be captured in the first place and Jonas Locke had seen enough of Cato to know the only way the man’s personal code would allow him to atone for that was to bust a gut in his efforts to get them both to freedom.
Or die trying ...
At first, Cato wondered why Duane’s men bothered with the hounds. He figured, if he had been one of them, he would have gotten his men mounted and on the trail of the escapees pronto. But going through the thick timber, with the wind howling, he realized it would be one hell of a job for a horseman to run their quarry to earth, especially at night. As it was, he cannoned off tree after tree in the dark in the thickest places and it was only where the timber thinned out that he could catch a glimpse of the mountain peak far above. He was able to use the paleness of the permanent drift snow up there as a direction: it silhouetted the trees, gave him some place to head for. He had tried striking out across the face of the slope for a spell but the pursuers were plainly coming straight up and it had put them too close to the baying hounds. He had decided not to waste any more time: they climbed as well as they could, straight up, heading for the timberline.
The senator fell and dragged Cato down to his knees. He had no breath left to urge Locke up, so simply changed his grip on the bigger man, dug in his boots and strained upright, lifting the senator and feeling the man fighting to keep his legs from buckling.
“Not—far—now!” he gasped, though the distance they had to go didn’t mean much. For sure, it didn’t mean safety. But it was something that might give Locke that shade extra drive to keep going just a little longer.
The hounds bayed excitedly downslope: they had obviously scented the tracks and Cato wondered what it was that had been used to give the hounds their scent. Likely some item of clothing they had left in the cabin. In any case, the hounds were coming and he feared them more than the men. Some of these backwoods hounds were little better than the wild timber wolves and would tear a man to shreds in seconds, terrible, agonizing seconds. The thought of being eaten alive sent the adrenalin surging through his aching muscles and he got a better grip on the senator and moved on, the slope becoming steeper now.
The timber was clearly thinning out. The trees were not so tall, either, and stunted bushes showed, and rocks with a powdery dusting of snow in the crevices. The wind was like a razor against their exposed flesh and sent probing fingers beneath their clothing. The senator’s teeth were chattering. Cato jerked his head back as something fluttered against his face, and then he realized it was a gust of snow.
There was a thin coating of snow underfoot and it lifted away to the thick white sheets covering the upper slopes of the Sierras. There were deep drifts in the hollows, silver, skeleton-like bushes with few leaves left on them at this height. The air was thinner and seared their lungs. Their eyes watered and the tears froze on their cheeks. Their ears felt as if they would snap off if touched and the ends of their noses were continually damp and numbed. Cato lowered the senator to the freezing ground, blew on his hands, and then eased the Manstopper in his holster, as he looked down the slope towards the timber.
There was a moving dot of light way down through the trees, hut it was difficult to estimate just how far down the slope it was. The hounds bayed and yapped and they seemed more distant than before, but that could simp
ly be the thinner air not carrying the sound as well, or the timber screening them. There was no reason why they should have lost ground. If anything, they should have gained, for there was nothing to hold them back.
Except the search for tracks, which wouldn’t be easy in the dark, but come daylight they would have little use for the hounds. They would simply have to follow the trail left by Cato’s and Locke’s boots across the peak’s snowfields.
So they had better get going pronto and see if they could find some place to hole up that would give them some protection from this wind. And the bullets that he had no doubt would be coming their way before too much longer. He wished he wasn’t so low on ammunition. He aimed to keep the four shot shells for the dogs. If the pack rushed them, he figured he could blast them with the buckshot and keep his meager supply of .45 cartridges for the men. He hoped it would work out.
Cato reached down and got the senator’s arm around his shoulders, keeping his right arm free so that he could get at the Manstopper should he need it. Staggering and, for one tense second almost losing his balance, Cato started off and Locke’s legs moved automatically, though leadenly. They would be lucky to find shelter tonight, Cato figured.
He tilted his head back and saw the swirling, gusting snow above them. Sure was blowing a pint sized blizzard up there. They had better keep away from that part of the peak. He started to turn across the face of the slope and then abruptly changed his mind, moved directly up the steep slope, heading for the gusting, freezing snow clouds.
It might freeze their tails off, but that snow would wipe out their tracks and screen them from the hunters. There was nowhere else they could go. So he headed for the blizzard, knowing their biggest enemy would be the cold up there.
But he was wrong. There was a sudden baying, long drawn howl over to his left that had Cato actually jumping, his heart leaping into his throat and pounding rapidly. By hell, the dogs couldn’t have gotten that far up the slope after them! It sounded as if they were on the same level or only yards below.
Then he saw them and he swallowed the sick fear that burned the back of his throat.
It wasn’t the hounds from Diamond-D. It was a pack of stalking timber wolves and they were coming across the snow towards him, fangs glinting, jaws slavering.
Six – The Packs Gather
Yancey had no intention of sleeping. He quietly moved his things out of the room with the broken window into the one next door, not even telling Hammond of his intentions. He grabbed some of the blankets and made them into a rough pile and covered them with the sheet and another blanket so that they resembled a man's shape lying in bed. Then he slipped out into the passage, forced the lock next door with his buckle knife and moved in.
After the fight with the man who had tried to knife him, Yancey figured maybe he could have gotten the drop on Duane and his men, but it would have been difficult to make them take him to the Diamond-D or wherever it was Duane was holding Cato and the senator. He figured Duane wouldn’t hang around town too long now: he knew Yancey was a hard hombre and looking for Cato and Locke. Most likely he would take his men and head back for his spread in the Sierras ... and get rid of the prisoners as quickly as possible. Likely Duane hadn’t figured on two Texas Enforcers coming after him and they were the elite of the governor’s personal trouble-shooters so he must know that there would be no letting up in the search if both disappeared in the same area.
Yancey would not be surprised if Duane sent a man to murder him in his bed first and rig it so that it looked as if the motive was robbery or something else that couldn’t be connected with Cato’s disappearance. So he sat by the bed in the second room with his Colt cocked in his hands, ears alert. He dozed a little, for it had been a long, rough trail into the Sierras, and then started awake, dropping off the chair to one knee, gun pointing to the door.
There were footsteps on the stairs leading up from the foyer. He cocked his ear again: they were going down. He relaxed slightly. Then he heard horses outside, horses lifted to a gallop swiftly, and he ran to the window, flattened against the wall beside it and eased the drapes aside with his gun barrel. Duane’s bunch were heading out of town to the north, riding fast. There was enough moonlight to recognize them. He counted five men.
Yancey grabbed his warbag, went out of the room swiftly into the passage, holding his gun ready. He hurried down the stairs across the darkened, deserted lobby and out into the street. His horses were in the stables behind the building, but he would not bother with the pack animal. He didn’t want to take the time to rig the saddles and packs, so he stuffed his saddlebags with whatever food and supplies he could cram in, dropped an extra carton of shells down the front of his jacket and then tossed his Texas saddle-rig over the sorrel and fumbled for the cinch.
A few minutes later he rode out of the stables and put the sorrel along Main Street, climbing onto the Sierra trail. He didn’t figure he would be able to follow Duane clear back to his spread tonight, but there would be tracks come daylight that he could use to lead him to the Diamond-D. Then he would be able to spy out the lie of the land before making his move.
The moon disappeared behind scudding clouds after he had been riding for maybe half an hour and Yancey cursed silently. He had been depending on the moonlight so that he might be able to spot Duane’s bunch from a high vantage point. He had spotted the jutting black silhouette of a ledge above the trail to the right and put the sorrel cautiously up the slope, picking its way between the rocks and fallen branches. The wind was cold and he shivered a little, figuring it would be a damn sight colder higher up the mountain. By the time he had reached the ledge, the moon had gone.
He looked at the heavy scudding clouds and the speed at which they were moving. There wasn’t a break in them and he figured the moon wouldn’t come out again this night. Fact was, it had all the signs of being a freezing, windblown night, likely with blizzards on the high peaks above the timberline. There was no sign of Duane’s bunch and the whistling of the wind through the pines and aspens prevented him from hearing any sounds they might have made. Looked like he had lost them tonight and he could ride around these hills all night without picking up any sign of them and, come morning, find himself hopelessly lost.
Warily, he let the sorrel pick its way down the slope to the trail again. He figured he couldn’t go wrong by riding along the trail for a spell, until he at least came to some place where he could camp for the night, somewhere that would be sheltered from the wind.
He found a place two miles farther along and up above the trail. Timber was thickening and he saw the bulge of a boulder clump on the hillside, with windblown brush around the edge. If ever a place looked like there was a cave somewhere in there, this was it, he figured. Yancey put the sorrel up there and found there was an overhang of a huge boulder that was as good as a cave. He spread his bedroll on a patch of spongy moss, built a fire in a rear corner so that the angles of the rocks reflected the heat onto his body and pulled the blankets up to his chin.
He might not be as comfortable as in a bed but he had sure spent more uncomfortable nights.
~*~
Cato and Locke weren’t going to make it, the small Enforcer decided as they floundered through the snow across the face of the peak. There were deep drifts that had them almost down to the waist and he was literally dragging the senator. He was nearing exhaustion and his lower body was freezing with the wet clothes clinging to him. The wind slashed at them, sending ice crystals into their faces like knives.
And, behind, staging, gathering for the rush in for the kill, was the pack of timber wolves.
The moon had disappeared behind the clouds and he didn’t know how many predators there were, but he knew only one needed to make the rush and draw blood and then the rest would be unstoppable. They knew the men were wounded; predatory animals had some sort of sixth sense that seemed to bring them unerringly to ailing prey.
Below, occasionally, he could hear the baying of the hounds, but they
had dropped well back now and he figured it was even possible that the Diamond-D men had camped for the night, below the timberline, and were waiting for daylight before moving in.
Way things were going, Cato thought, his mind reeling with fatigue, all they would find would be their wolf-torn bodies scattered amongst the bloody snow.
A wolf howled mournfully and Cato’s near-numbed skin prickled with goose pimples. Groaning, straining, he hauled the semi-conscious senator along, hoping his right hand wouldn’t be too numbed to hold the Manstopper when the wolf pack gathered for the kill and moved in.
~*~
Yancey was too cold to sleep very deeply and he awoke before full daylight and figured he might as well cook some breakfast and get along the trail. It was tempting to stay in his blankets, hunkered down over the built-up fire, but if he moved now, he might even come on the Duane bunch before they had broken camp and the smoke from their fire would give him a direction.
He hacked up some stiff and leathery sowbelly and dropped it into the skillet along with a hunk of stale cornpone. The fat would soften the bread, lend it flavor, and he would wash the lot down with coffee. He set the pot brewing at the side of the flames and turned the sowbelly in the skillet. Ten minutes later, he was eating the last piece of cornpone, wiping some of the grease from his chin, when the coffee pot seemed to explode and leap into the air, spraying scalding coffee over one hand.
As Yancey hurled himself flat, dragging his Colt out, he heard the slapping echoes of the rifle shot batting across the face of the mountain. He pressed into the earth as more lead spanged into his camp and ricocheted wildly from the boulders.
The sorrel whickered and reared, pawing the air. Yancey rolled as the hoofs came down, striking sparks from the boulder. His gun was in his hand and, as he twisted, he caught a glimpse of the killer’s gunsmoke out there in the mist. Halfway up the slope, behind a deadfall with a slight overhang of rock above; a mighty good position. And, unless Yancey moved pronto, he would be pinned down and unable to move a little finger without having it shot off.
Bannerman the Enforcer 11 Page 6
