Sidewinders:#3: Cutthroat Canyon

by Johnstone, William W.

Evangelina made the sign of the cross. “Do not even joke about it, Señor Morton. Without the two of you, we would have no chance to ruin Davidson’s plans and get our revenge on him.”

  Bo said, “I care less about revenge than I do about fixing things so that he can’t continue making life miserable for the folks in the valley. We’re going to make that more difficult for him anyway.”

  They ate tortillas and beans for supper, and Bo saw that their supplies were indeed running low. He suggested that if they had to stay hidden out in the mountains for much longer, he and Scratch might need to make some snares in an attempt to catch wild game. Shots would just draw the men who were bound to be searching for them.

  As soon as enough of the light had faded from the sky, Bo and Scratch took the crude bows and arrows, along with a Colt and a Winchester apiece, and set out toward Cutthroat Canyon. “Be careful!” Luz called after them.

  Scratch turned his head and grinned back at her. “See, Luz, you do care after all,” he said. “I’m touched.”

  She snorted. “Go touch yourself. I just don’t want anything happening to those guns. We may need them to get back to civilization.”

  It wasn’t long before the Texans were out of sight of the others. They followed the cleft through the rocks, and when they emerged from the narrow passage, Bo took the lead. He had committed the route to memory as Teresa explained it to him, and believed he could follow it, even in the dark like this.

  The two miles to the canyon took more than two hours to cover. The trails twisted and turned, and several times Bo and Scratch had to climb steep slopes, which wasn’t easy carrying the weapons. Eventually, though, they came to the rimrock above Cutthroat Canyon. Pausing there, they crouched behind some rocks to study the scene below them.

  They were across the canyon from the mine. Lights were visible in the windows of the headquarters building and the barracks used by the supervisors. The long building where the workers lived was dark. After slaving away inside the mine all day, those villagers wouldn’t want to do anything except eat their meager supper and then collapse on their bunks to sleep the sleep of exhaustion until early the next morning, when the brutal cycle would start all over again.

  Some of the workers were in the mine tunnel right now, Bo knew. In his greed, Davidson kept two shifts going, so that the mine operated twenty-four hours a day. That worried Bo. He hoped that the walls and ceiling of the tunnel had been shored up properly and that the support beams were thick and strong. That seemed likely—Davidson wouldn’t want to risk a collapse after all, since such a disaster would cut into his profits—but even so, the supports might not be strong enough to withstand what was coming.

  They would have to hope for the best, he told himself. At least there would be a little distance between the tunnel and the blast.

  “You want the powder shed or the headquarters?” he asked Scratch in a whisper.

  “I’ll take the headquarters buildin’,” Scratch replied. “You’re probably a better shot with a bow than I am…but I’m a better hand with a rifle than you.”

  “By the time they start coming out of there like rats from a sinking ship, I intend to be back down here with you,” Bo told him.

  Scratch nodded. “Good luck, amigo.”

  “And to you, too, pard.”

  With that the Texans split up, Bo heading up the canyon along the rimrock. It didn’t take him long to reach a spot directly opposite the shed where Davidson’s supply of blasting powder was stored. He had brought only one of the arrows with him, leaving Scratch with the other three, so he would have only one shot at the shed.

  Laying the Winchester on the ground beside him, Bo fished a lucifer out of the pocket of his jeans and snapped it into life with his thumbnail. He held it to the rag-wrapped head of the arrow, and the gunpowder paste ignited instantly with a sharp flare. Bo stood up as he nocked the burning arrow onto the bowstring, and as he did so he heard a yell of alarm from inside the canyon. As he had suspected, Davidson had posted guards at the shed, and they had spotted the flames.

  But those guards couldn’t stop the arrow as Bo sent it flying across the canyon. He dove to the ground as soon as he had loosed the shaft, knowing that the guards would open fire on him. Muzzle flame spurted in the darkness and bullets whined over his head. He snatched up the Winchester as he lay flat at the edge of the rimrock and started blasting away in return.

  The arrow landed on the roof of the shed and continued burning. As Bo paused in his rifle fire, he heard one of the guards shout to the other to climb up there and put it out.

  “The hell with that!” the second man shouted in terror. “I’m gettin’ out of here!”

  They dashed toward the mine. Bo sped them on their way with a couple of shots. As he did so, he saw more streaks of fire in the night as Scratch shot flaming arrows on top of the headquarters building and the supervisors’ barracks.

  The roof of the powder shed was on fire now. Bo scrambled to his feet and started retreating. He looked back and saw part of the blazing roof collapse among the stacked kegs of blasting powder. One of the falling timbers must have broken the lid of a keg…

  With an earth-shaking roar, the powder exploded.

  CHAPTER 25

  Bo felt the vibration from the blast through the soles of the rope sandals he wore, but it wasn’t strong enough to knock him off his feet. He knew the force of the explosion would be magnified as it traveled through the earth, but hoped that since a lot of it had gone up into the air, it wouldn’t be strong enough to shake down the roof of the mine tunnel.

  He broke into a run toward the spot on the rimrock where he had left Scratch. As he approached, he saw that the roof of the headquarters building was burning, as was the roof of the supervisors’ barracks. Scratch’s Winchester cracked steadily as he peppered the buildings with slugs, concentrating on the doors so he could keep the men inside pinned down as long as he could. They didn’t want Davidson’s men running outside to fight the fires.

  Bo came up beside him, dropped to a knee, and started shooting as well. Scratch paused to grin over at him and say, “Sounded like you made that one arrow of yours count, partner. That shed blowed up real good.”

  “Davidson won’t be using that powder in the mine, that’s for sure,” Bo said. “The flames have spread enough. Let’s hold our fire for a minute and see what happens.”

  Both Texans sprawled out on their bellies at the edge of the rimrock, where they wouldn’t present a target for anyone in the canyon. Down below, the flames had spread all the way across the roofs of both buildings, and the walls were starting to burn as well. No one would be able to extinguish the blazes now.

  Predictably, only a few more minutes went by before men began to dash out of the headquarters building and the barracks. No one wanted to be trapped in the sort of inferno that the buildings would soon become. Also predictably, they were shooting as they came, spraying lead into the air from pistols and rifles. They were firing blind, because they couldn’t be sure where Bo and Scratch were—or even who was responsible for the havoc that had descended on Cutthroat Canyon.

  The Texans thrust the barrels of their Winchesters over the edge of the canyon wall and aimed at the men trying to escape from the burning buildings. As they squeezed off shot after shot, they saw several men tumble to the ground. The leaping flames provided a garish light, but Bo and Scratch couldn’t tell who had fallen. They hoped that one of them had brought down Porter Davidson, or maybe Jim Skinner—preferably both of the varmints. The deaths of those two men would go a long way toward ending the troubles in the valley.

  They backed away from the edge of the canyon in a hurry as bullets began slamming into the rimrock. They had done about as much damage as they could hope to do for one night, so Bo said, “Let’s head back to camp. We’ll try to find out in the morning if we got Davidson.”

  “Or Skinner,” Scratch added. “I ain’t sure which of those two snakes is the most dangerous.”

  “David
son,” Bo declared. “He’s got the money. It’s a lot harder to pull his fangs.”

  They stayed low until they were well out of sight of the canyon. An orange sky loomed behind them, lit up by the burning buildings. Chances were, the headquarters and the barracks would burn to the ground. Bo hoped that the blaze would destroy the machine gun as well. He didn’t want to have to face it again. Going up against that devil gun once had been enough to last him the rest of his life.

  “You reckon Teresa and the others heard the blast?” Scratch asked as they made their way higher in the mountains, retracing the path that had brought them to the canyon.

  “I’m sure they must have,” Bo said. “They had to have heard it in the village, too.” He paused. “Maybe it gave them some hope.”

  Instincts developed over long years of living on the frontier kept Bo from getting turned around as he and Scratch moved through the rugged terrain toward the hidden camp. When they reached the cleft and started through it, the sound of someone cocking a gun made them pause.

  “It’s just us, Pepe,” Bo said quietly, guessing that it would be the big man standing guard.

  He was wrong, though, because it was Teresa’s voice that asked, “Are you both all right?”

  “We’re fine,” Bo told her. In the thick shadows that filled the passage he couldn’t see her, but he felt her hand brush his arm. “You heard the explosion?”

  “We heard it,” Teresa said. “That’s what I wanted to do a week ago, when I came back down here from El Paso. What about Davidson? Were you able to kill him?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Bo replied honestly. “We downed a few of them when they came running out of the buildings we set on fire, but I couldn’t tell if one of them was Davidson.”

  “Neither could I,” Scratch added. “I got my fingers crossed, though.”

  “I’ll stand guard here,” Teresa said. “Whistle when you get to the end of the cleft so Pepe will know it’s you. He’s waiting at the other end with a rifle.”

  Bo said, “We don’t mind taking our turns on watch.”

  “I think you two have done enough for tonight,” Teresa told them with a grim chuckle. “Even if you didn’t kill him, you’ve hurt Davidson more than anyone else has been able to in the past six months.”

  Bo heard the elation in her voice. He couldn’t bring himself to be that excited about what had happened. They might have won this skirmish tonight. They might have even succeeded in killing Davidson or Skinner.

  But Bo’s gut told him no matter how this battle had gone, the war was far from over.

  The glow in the sky finally faded, and by morning there wasn’t even any smoke rising from the ashes of Porter Davidson’s headquarters. None that Bo and Scratch could see anyway. Along with Teresa, they worked their way through the mountains to a spot where they could look down into the canyon from several hundred feet above it.

  Just as Bo expected, the two buildings Scratch had set on fire with the flaming arrows had burned completely, leaving only blackened piles of rubble. In the place where the powder shed had stood was a crater in the ground and a huge hole gouged out of the canyon wall.

  Men moved in and out of the mouth of the mine tunnel, so Bo assumed the operation continued normally there. He pointed that out to Scratch and Teresa and added, “I was worried that the explosion would cause a cave-in. I’m glad to see that it didn’t.”

  “I think the men forced to work in there might have preferred being buried in a cave-in to living as Davidson’s slaves,” Teresa said. “I know I would have.”

  The three of them were hunkered behind some rocks, being careful not to let the morning sunlight reflect off the rifles they carried. Scratch suddenly pointed and said, “Look yonder. Men ridin’ out of the canyon.”

  Bo squinted, wishing that he had a good pair of field glasses. He couldn’t make out who the men were, but he had a feeling the lean figure who seemed to be leading the group was Jim Skinner. When he said as much, Scratch agreed.

  “I was hopin’ we’d killed that skull-faced varmint.”

  “No such luck,” Bo said. “Is that the kid with him?”

  “I think so. Ain’t sure, though.”

  “Where are they going?” Teresa asked as in the distance the men rode out of Cutthroat Canyon into the valley.

  “Hunting,” Bo said. “That would be my guess.”

  “Hunting?” she repeated. “For what sort of game?”

  “Us,” Scratch said.

  Bo nodded. “Davidson knows we got away from the village the other day. He’s smart enough to realize that we were behind what happened last night. So he’s sending Skinner and some of his other men to track us down. They’ll try to pick up our sign on the rimrock where we were when we fired those flaming arrows.”

  “They will never find our camp,” Teresa said with an emphatic shake of her head. “It’s too well hidden.”

  “I hope you’re right, Señorita.”

  “Blast it,” Scratch said. “That’s Davidson, ain’t it? The fella pokin’ around the edges of what’s left of the headquarters building?”

  Bo studied the distant figure for a moment and then nodded. “I think so. And that’s Lancaster with him. Maybe they’re looking for what’s left of that Gardner gun.”

  After a few minutes, Davidson and Lancaster moved out of sight and didn’t come back. Bo, Scratch, and Teresa watched for a while longer. Then Bo said, “We might as well go back to camp. We know now that Davidson’s still alive, and so are Skinner, Lancaster, and the kid.”

  “I thought for sure we must’ve got at least one of ’em last night,” Scratch complained. “I never have figured out how come the worst varmints are so danged lucky.”

  “It just seems that way,” Bo said. “Justice catches up to them sooner or later.”

  “Can’t be soon enough to suit me where Davidson’s concerned.”

  The three of them started back toward the hideout. Despite what Teresa had said about the searchers not being able to find their camp, Bo wasn’t convinced of that. Skinner had a reputation as a killer and slick-draw artist, but Bo had no idea how good a tracker he was. The same was true of Douglas. Either of them might be able to pick up the trail, even though he and Scratch had been careful to leave as little sign as possible. It helped that so much of the ground around here was rocky and wouldn’t take footprints.

  Pepe was on guard at the entrance to the cleft this morning. “What did you see?” he asked eagerly when Bo, Scratch, and Teresa arrived. His expression fell when they told him that despite the physical damage to the mine buildings, Davidson was still alive, and so were his three remaining hired gun-wolves.

  They went on to the camp, where Evangelina and Luz were just as anxious to hear the news, and just as disappointed when they did.

  “What else can we do?” Luz asked. “That’s it. Davidson can rebuild the buildings and have more blasting powder brought in. He has won.”

  “No!” Evangelina said. “There must be some way to lure him out into the open where we can get our hands on him. Once Davidson is dead, the others will leave, and life in the valley can go back to normal.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Scratch told her. “The rest of those hombres know how much gold is in that mine, and they ain’t gonna give it up without a fight, whether Davidson is alive or not.”

  “They might fall out among themselves, though, without him around to hold them together,” Bo said. “That would make them easier to pick off.”

  “That’s what we’re gonna have to do. Injun ’em.”

  Bo knew exactly what his old friend meant. They were still outnumbered and outgunned, so they would have to whittle down the odds against them by picking off Davidson’s men one or two at a time. That meant hunting the hunters. It was a dangerous game, but the only one in which they could draw cards.

  He explained what he was planning and said, “The four of you will stay here while Scratch and I see what we can do about evening things up.
”

  “I can help you,” Teresa said immediately, which came as no surprise to Bo. The fiery young woman always wanted to be in the middle of whatever was going on, especially if it had anything to do with striking at Davidson.

  “And I as well,” Pepe added.

  Luz snapped, “You work for me, not these Texans.”

  “Our goals are the same,” Pepe pointed out. “We all want Davidson’s hold on the valley and the mine broken for good, so that he can no longer enslave these people.”

  “And so that we can get rich,” Luz said.

  Pepe’s massive shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “That, too,” he conceded.

  “Scratch and I are used to working together,” Bo said. “It’ll be easier for us if you folks stay here and keep an eye out for Davidson’s men.”

  “You mean so we won’t get in your way?” Teresa asked with an angry edge in her voice.

  “If you want to put it that way, yes,” Bo told her, not pulling any punches himself. “I don’t want one of us getting shot because we’re worrying about you instead of watching out for trouble.”

  “Fine,” Teresa snapped.

  “And that doesn’t mean you can wait until we’re gone and then sneak off and follow us, like you did before when we left you in El Paso.”

  She just glared at him and didn’t say anything.

  Bo went through their ammunition. They had enough so that he and Scratch each loaded fifteen rounds into their Winchesters, filling the magazines. They took fifteen cartridges each for their Colts, too. That left enough ammunition in the camp so that Teresa, Evangelina, Luz, and Pepe could put up a fight if they needed to—but it would be good if they could get their hands on more ammunition somehow, Bo thought.

  Of course, there was one good way to do that.

  Kill some of Davidson’s men and take it from them.

  CHAPTER 26

  The Texans left the camp a short time later. The temperature rose as the sun climbed toward its zenith, and Bo and Scratch both missed their Stetsons. The shade provided by the broad-brimmed hats would have been welcome.