A box canyon, Bloody Zeke The Younger had told him. But it widened after you passed through the defile. A man with a Winchester might be able to hold off an army there for a while. McMasters had no Winchester, just a double-barreled shotgun and two six-shooters. As for picking off men from ambush, hidden in the rocks, well, he was done with that. The man he had shot dead in the Superstitions was the last. He had killed too many men like that during the Civil War. Butcher and his men, the last he knew he would ever kill, he would face man-to-man, face-to-face, and to the death.
He didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, so unexpectedly.
He was easing the chestnut to his left and away from the entrance, when several men loped around the corner. McMasters took in the scene quickly, although some details would not register until later. He counted six men. It wasn’t until later, he remembered that there should have been seven of them.
At the moment, however, the only thing that mattered was staying alive.
He brought the Remington twelve-gauge up, and squeezed one barrel as the men pulled hard on their reins and reached for their own hardware. Someone answered the shotgun with a pistol report, and he heard his horse snort, cry out, and felt it beginning to collapse. Kicking free of the stirrups, he leaped to his left, triggering the second barrel of the Remington without aiming as he fell, landing on his elbows and knees, and coming up, leaving the Remington on the ground, reaching and pulling and cocking—all in practically one motion—the nickel-plated .44-40 revolver he had given to, and taken away from, Mary Lovelace.
His vision was blurred—his glasses had fallen off when he left the chestnut’s saddle—yet he could see enough.
One of their horses was bucking. Another wheeled, sending its rider crashing into the rocks, then turned around and raised dust toward the bend. McMasters touched the trigger on the Remington revolver without aiming. He tried to seek out the man who had to be Moses Butcher, or perhaps the outlaw’s younger brother, but couldn’t recognize either. Indeed, he could barely make out anyone’s features.
A bullet clipped a rock hear him. He touched off another round. Coming to his knees, he saw one of the men running, fanning his pistol as he charged ahead.
Someone screamed before he leaped off his bucking horse, but McMasters didn’t hear him because the. 44-40 kicked in his right hand.
“Miami! You damned idiot!”
McMasters heard that. The men were scattering, leaving their horses, heading for the bushes. One man managed to grab the reins to two of the horses, and he hurried toward a massive reddish brown rock. McMasters snapped a shot at him, saw the bullet scar a tree well to the right of his target. He swore, and felt a bullet slam into his thigh.
Down he went. Son of a bitch, he thought. I haven’t killed any of those killers.
He would not die empty-handed. He raised the Remington, thumbed back the hammer, fired.
And he kept firing, not caring, not even aiming, but the man who charged—the one called Miami—kept running, then spun around in a wild circle, dropping the rifle he had been levering and shooting as he sprinted toward McMasters. The Remington bucked again, and the man fell onto his face. He pushed himself up and staggered toward McMasters, who lifted the shiny six-shooter again. He cocked, did not have time to aim, and fired. The pistol did not kick. He thought he heard the hammer snap on an empty chamber.
He shifted the heavy, hot weapon, and threw it. Butt over barrel, he watched it sail. The man brought up his left hand, trying to deflect the tomahawking gun. He missed, and the Remington smashed into his chest. That staggered him, sent him reeling, and he could not recover. The man landed beside McMasters’s dead chestnut. He kicked once, and McMasters saw the man quiver, and lay still.
So . . . I’ve killed one of them.
He sat up, and saw his leg. The bullet had torn into his thigh, and he was bleeding badly. Another bullet split a rock to his left.
Get up. That he told himself, and kept telling himself. Another bullet ripped off the heel of his left boot. He staggered, almost fell to the ground, but came up with the shotgun. He looked ahead, saw a hill covered by rocks and brush.
Make that, he thought, and I might stand half a chance. The only way to the passage would be right past him. They would have to race right by him. And he had an equalizer—the 1894 shotgun.
A bullet burned his collar.
But first, he had to make it across those fifteen yards to that piece of cover.
Keeping the Remington shotgun in his left hand, he moved, staggering as each step sent a tremendous bolt of pain up his blood-soaked leg. His right held the Colt .45, With each step, he thumbed back the hammer and squeezed the trigger as he moved closer and closer to cover that could, perhaps, keep him alive until he bled to death. Or until they managed to gun him down.
Step. Cock. Fire.
Step. Cock. Fire.
Step. Cock. Fire.
Step. Cock. Fire.
Step. Cock. Fire.
Clump. Groan. Click.
Clump. Groan. Click.
He dived, feeling the brambles scratch his forehead and cheek, and knock his hat off. A bullet splintered a branch. He dragged himself up, found his hat, tossed it up the three feet. He saw his Colt, knew it was empty, as was his shell belt, and almost threw the revolver away.
No, a voice told him. You’ll need it.
He threw it up with his hat.
McMasters rolled over and opened the breech of the shotgun.
“Get him!” a voice shouted. “Kill that son of a bitch before he gets out of view! Kill him! Kill him!”
One of the men ran, working a repeating rifle.
McMasters shoved a shell into one hole, then filled the remaining void. The shotgun snapped closed, and the Remington came up. He pulled one trigger.
The man cried out, spinning around and dropping his rifle in the rocks. McMasters touched the second trigger and felt the explosion, heard the roar, and saw the white smoke. The man shouted something, and then he was gone, diving behind a fallen tree.
McMasters tossed the empty shotgun up and pulled himself up. He rolled over, caught his breath, and sat up.
First, he reloaded the Remington. He wasn’t certain how many shells he had left. Then he saw his thigh and frowned. He removed his bandanna and took the empty Colt, somehow fashioning a tourniquet above the blood hole in his leg.
His throat and mouth begged for water, but he knew he had none. The canteen was on his saddle on his horse, and his horse lay dead thirty feet away.
All right, he told himself. This is what you wanted. They have to come through you to get out of here, the damned fools. And all that gunfire. That was no little puff of a pistol. As many folks who’ve been on the roads and trails and washes in this country . . . someone must have heard this little set-to.
“Hold on,” he said to himself. “Hold on.”
Before he knew it, he was asleep.
* * *
He remained asleep until a voice called out, “Hola . . . hombre?”
Jerking awake, John McMasters opened his eyes.
CHAPTER 36
After he killed the Mexican bandit who had flashed the scarf McMasters had bought his oldest daughter, McMasters fell forward, covering his head with his arms as though they might protect him from the deadly hail of bullets.
Almost as quickly as the cannonade had started, it stopped, and the echoes finally faded. McMasters reached out for the shotgun in front of him. He reloaded it and snapped the breech shut. He did his best to wet his cracked lips. He tried even harder to block out the agony in his wounded leg. He looked through the thick brush.
The silence stretched on for several seconds, although it felt like a lifetime.
At last, a voice broke the stillness. “Mister . . . listen to me . . . the kid that killed your daughter in that wagon. He’s dead. I shot him myself. You got no quarrel with me, mister. Hell, I was in Bisbee when my brother robbed that coach.”
That’s Moses Butcher
talking, McMasters thought, realizing Butcher thought McMasters was the father of the girl who had killed herself after . . . after . . . He did not want to think about that. But if what Butcher said were true, and he had killed his kid brother, then that meant all he had to face was—he let out a silent laugh—four men.
“Mister?” The shout was louder, and it echoed. “That’s who you are, right? Pa . . . or kin . . . or what?”
McMasters peered through the openings in the brush. Butcher was trying to get him to answer, so they’d know where to concentrate their shots.
“Mister?”
He swallowed and finally answered. “Wrong girl, Butcher. I didn’t know that girl.” He wanted Moses Butcher to know who he was fighting . . . and why. He thought of something else. If Butcher had killed his brother . . . “And Ben didn’t kill her, though he sure as hell drove her to killing herself!” McMasters rolled over and dropped down into a small sinkhole.
Sure enough, bullets riddled the timber and leaves and whined off rocks. Butcher had to be thinking, wondering if his target was dead.
McMasters rolled onto his back, pulled the empty Colt, and laid it on the rocks. He tightened the bandanna as best he could.
“Mister?”
McMasters waited.
“Mister?”
Another voice. “Maybe we kilt that bastard.”
“Mister?”
“Yeah?” McMasters shouted. He felt safe in the depression surrounded by granite.
“Who the hell are you then? Some damned bounty hunter? Scout for the Army? We can pay you a hell of a lot more that they’re paying you. Mister?”
Pay me? McMasters shook his head. In bullets.
He raised his voice as loud as he could. “The name’s . . . McMasters.” He heard the echo, eerily bouncing across the canyon.
Another voice reached him. “McMasters . . . Who? . . . Oh . . . hell.”
A longer silence passed. Sweat dripped down McMasters’s forehead as he listened, watched, and waited.
Finally, the voice that had to be Moses Butcher yelled again. “McMasters. There’s only three of us left.”
He was lying, McMasters knew. There had to be four, possibly five.
“You want revenge for what we did to your family, well, why don’t we do it like men, not from cover, not like damned snipers? What do you say, you lousy bastard?”
Butcher had no choice. All that gunfire? Even the canyon couldn’t keep that noise from reaching all those posses scouring the country. If he wanted to get out of there, he had to make his play before the army came.
And McMasters knew, if he wanted to kill Moses Butcher, he’d have to move quickly, too.
“Wouldn’t that little redhead you married want that?” Butcher shouted. “Or that fine little catamount of a daughter?”
McMasters felt blood rush to his head, but he managed to force back the anger.
“Let’s do it like men, you craven coward! Meet in the open. Let’s one of us die like it was in the good days, not like it is in 1896.”
McMasters swallowed, knowing it would be some sort of trap. Yet he could not wait out those killers forever—even if the army never found this canyon. Stay up there, and he’d bleed to death eventually. Besides, he was getting what he had wanted, wasn’t he? To fight man-to-man, face-to-face, to put all those Civil War years behind him.
“Here, you yellow bastard. We’re stepping out. You want us. Come and get us!”
To his surprise, he saw three men come out from behind the rocks, and spread out. Slowly, they began walking.
It’s still a trap, he told himself. They know I have a shotgun and a pistol.
He watched. They carried rifles in their arms. They figured they would have the advantage against a man with a scattergun. He sat up, groaning from the pain, and opened the shotgun’s breech to withdraw the two shells of double-ought buckshot. He had bought something else in that store in Goldfield, and he reached inside his vest pocket and withdrew two rifled slugs. They were heavy, and he figured they would kick like a son of a bitch, but they’d also give him extra distance. Buckshot was effective at fifty yards at the most. The clerk at the store had said the slugs would go perhaps a hundred yards. The problem was they weren’t anywhere near as accurate as a rifle.
McMasters knew he had another problem. He had only two slugs. He had three, four, or five men he’d have to kill. But the slugs gave him a chance, an advantage, and he loaded the Remington, snapped it shut, and pushed himself forward until he slid down the embankment. He weaved through brush and cactus, and around another rock. Panting, he reached overhead, latched onto a stout limb, and pulled himself up.
They had stopped, likely surprised to find him willing to accept their offer.
He was surprised, too . . . that he could actually walk. He took a painful step toward the three men. He stepped again, grimacing each time, watching the three killers as they came toward him.
The bullet came from the rocks to his left, tugging on his collar . . . but also giving away where the fourth man was hiding.
Bitter Page missed, the worthless bastard. But it doesn’t matter, Moses Butcher thought. That old dude was already shot to hell. He had only a shotgun and they were eighty yards away.
The other three raised their rifles, and McMasters dived, hit the ground and cried out in pain, but tilted the shotgun and touched the trigger.
Butcher saw the puff of white smoke from McMasters’s shotgun, and he heard Milt Hanks scream. That spoiled Butcher’s shot, and he spun around as he levered another round into his rifle. Milt Hanks had dropped his buffalo gun and catapulted ten feet, landing in a sickening splat against the rocks behind him. He did not move.
Turning back to the man with the shotgun, Butcher dropped to a knee. McMasters shot the second round, and Butcher felt a roar of fiery air singe his right ear. He felt relief. That shot had missed. Butcher drew a bead on McMasters who pushed himself up and began reloading. Dirk Mannagan was sprinting toward the wounded man, shucking his rifle—he always said he was better with a short gun—and fanning the hammer as he fired.
We’ll get that son of a bitch now, Butcher said to himself. Suddenly, he heard a roar behind him. He turned to see Bitter Page tumbling out of the rocks and landing on his head. It was a sickening sight. A moment later, a big black man stepped into the clearing, aiming a rifle straight at Dirk Mannagan. Then two horses burst through the opening, and Mannagan slid to a stop.
Butcher snapped a shot at the black man, who ducked, and fired. Butcher turned back. A guy in a yellow vest had leaped out of the saddle and was running. . . and shooting . . . right at Mannagan. A tiny man had dismounted, too, only he was coming straight at Butcher. Rather quickly, Butcher understood it wasn’t a man. But a woman. A woman with red hair.
Mannagan fell. A bullet clipped Butcher’s earlobe. Shotgun pellets suddenly staggered him, and he turned, tripped, and felt blood pouring down his face. McMasters had somehow coaxed more distance from his shotgun than was possible. Buckshot had hit him, but at that range, had more of an effect of birdshot. Butcher rose, spit out blood, tried to see, and knew he had to run. Run. Run.
Something punched his back, and he fell to his knees. He tried to stand, but another bullet knocked him onto his face. His rifle? He couldn’t find it. He reached and drew the revolver, when another bullet hit him in the back.
Moses Butcher cried. He coughed, and rolled over. He tried to sit up, to fight, but couldn’t. He had three bullets in his back.
“Oh, God. How am I gonna explain this to Auntie Faye?”
The redhead stood over him. He lifted the gun, but her right foot came down on his wrist.
He felt the bone snap, and he sank back into the dirt.
“You?”
Brother Ben had been right. He should have killed that bitch back in the Superstition Mountains two years ago.
“Kill me,” he said. “Go ahead.”
She kicked his Colt away, turned, and left him there, bleeding to
death with bullets in his back.
* * *
McMasters had the Remington loaded, but the echoes of gunshots started to drift into the canyon. Mary Lovelace walked to him and dropped the rifle. McMasters stood and almost fell, but she caught him.
They turned, and he saw Marcus Patton leaning against a boulder, blood staining that yellow vest in two breast pockets. They saw the other killer, lying spread-eagle a few feet away from the gambler.
When they reached Patton, they knew it was hopeless. He must have known it, too, yet he smiled. “I told you”—blood trickled down his bottom lip—“I never lose.”
“Patton—” That’s all McMasters could say. He turned away, looking at the bandit who stared at the blue sky with vacant, dead eyes. McMasters sighed and looked back at Patton.
“Didn’t lose,” Patton said, his voice just audible. “That’s what . . . us gamblers call . . . a push.” His eyes closed, and he slumped over on his side.
“Can you walk?” Mary asked McMasters.
“Yeah,” he said, although he wasn’t sure.
They met Alamo Carter standing over Moses Butcher, who coughed, and groaned.
“Another one’s in the trees back yonder,” Carter said. “Had a bullet in his belly . . . and his throat cut from here to here.” He brought his finger from one ear to the other.
So Butcher had not lied. He had killed his own brother.
“You got that . . . shotgun,” Moses Butcher begged. “Use it.”
McMasters brought the twelve-gauge up. Butcher smiled and seemed to relax . . . until McMasters opened the breech and withdrew the two shells. Those he let fall to the ground then snapped the breech shut.
“I’ve used it enough . . . and you ought to suffer.” The Remington dropped to the ground, too.
Butcher pushed himself up. “I can’t die . . .” He groaned. “I’m back-shot. Don’t you understand? I can’t die . . . like this.”
But he did.
Alamo Carter picked up the twelve-gauge. “We best hurry. Army’s comin’ right behind us. But I think I can get you to Mexico.” The black man grinned. “I know this country better ’n most Apaches.”
Remington 1894 Page 28
