by Rory Black
As the town barricaded the streets leading to and from the bank, Denver had decided to teach Senora a lesson. It was a brutal and bloody lesson which saw his gang shoot and kill men, women and children with merciless wrath.
The townsfolk had naïvely thought they had managed to thwart the gang by bottling them up but Jody Denver and his followers were not so easily stopped.
They had been like three rattlers in a sack. The smell of freedom was enough for them to show their fangs and spit their venom. They had used practically every gun and rifle bullet to achieve their goal and escape from the barricaded streets of Senora.
As the three surviving outlaws had spurred their way out of the cattle town, more than fifty people lay either dead or wounded. The dry street sand was stained crimson by the blood that was spilled as Denver led McGee and Vance to safety.
There was no posse willing or able to follow the bank robbers as they fled. Senora had learned the hard way that it did not pay to lock horns with outlaws who would rather die than be taken alive.
The Denver gang had kept riding until they discovered the vast wooded hills and the perfect place in which to hold out until they were ready to resume their lethal activities. Jody Denver had expertly guided his gang into the depths of the abandoned logging area and located a shelter.
This was a perfect hideout, or at least it would have been if not for the strange sound that had caught all three men’s attention. There was no mistaking the sound of a stagecoach as it rattled along the stone hard trail road. Its powerful six-horse team fighting against the chains which kept them secured between the traces could not be mistaken for anything else.
Jody Denver was standing before the log cabin rubbing his neck thoughtfully as McGee and Vance returned with rabbits for the pot slung over their shoulders.
The pair of younger outlaws recognized the expression on Denver’s rugged face. The veteran bank robber could not hide his concern from the two men who had ridden with him for over eighteen months.
‘What’s wrong, Jody?’ Vance asked as he dropped the game on to the ground and rubbed the sweat from his temple. ‘You look like you seen a ghost.’
Denver glanced briefly at Vance and said nothing as McGee exhaled and dropped his own catch on top of the others. He looked at Denver and then turned and squinted into the dense trees to where the older man was staring.
‘What in tarnation are you looking at, Jody?’ he asked before squatting on a tree stump. He placed his rifle down beside him. ‘There ain’t nothing out here except critters.’
Vance moved to the side of Denver, ‘What you seen? I reckon I heard me a mountain lion last night. Is that what’s chewing at your craw? Have you seen a mountain lion?’
Denver turned on his heels and strode to the cabin. He reached inside and then produced his gun belt. He swung it around his lean girth and buckled it up.
‘There’s a stagecoach out there someplace, boys.’ He announced drily as he pulled his .45 from its holster and checked that it was in full working order.
McGee and Vance looked at one another.
‘A stagecoach?’ McGee repeated with more than a hint of humour in his tone.
‘That’s what I said,’ Denver flashed his cold eyes at both his men and then thrust the six-shooter back into its holster. ‘I heard a stagecoach.’
McGee got back to his feet and tilted his head as his eyes studied the seasoned outlaw. Denver never said anything that he did not firmly believe. ‘Are you sure about that, Jody?’
Denver gave a short nod of his head, ‘Yep.’
Vance shook his head, ‘That’s loco talk. What the hell would a stagecoach be doing out here in the middle of nowhere, Jody? That don’t make no sense. We ain’t on no stagecoach route and this forest is pretty deserted if you ain’t noticed.’
Denver stepped away from his men and continued to study the trees. ‘I know it don’t make any sense but I tell you I heard me a stagecoach.’
Both Vance and McGee looked troubled. They walked to where Denver was standing. Vance placed a hand on the shoulder of the older outlaw.
‘Think about it, Jody,’ he stammered. ‘Nothing ever comes up into these mountains any more. Nothing except varmints like us who want somewhere to rest up and hide for a while.’
‘This ain’t exactly Wells-Fargo territory, Jody,’ McGee shrugged.
Suddenly the noise of pounding hoofs and rattling chains returned to the small clearing around the cabin. It travelled on crisp mountain breeze over the trio of bank robbers.
Denver gave a knowing nod, ‘I told you so. If that ain’t a stagecoach I’ll eat my hat.’
‘It sure does sound like a stage, Jody,’ McGee admitted.
Vance gulped, ‘You’re right. That does sound like a stagecoach.’
‘Who the hell would be dumb enough to bring a stage up here?’ McGee asked out loud. ‘That just don’t make sense. What the hell is going on?’
‘Maybe we should find out,’ Denver turned, patted the cheeks of both his men and then grabbed them by their necks. He pulled them toward him and whispered drily. ‘Go get your six-guns and then we’ll find out who in tarnation is crazy enough to drive around this mountain.’
Vance and McGee ran into the cabin and emerged with their gun belts hanging from their hands. Denver scratched his chin as both men buckled their belts and checked their Peacemakers were loaded.
Vance hesitated, ‘Are we leaving the loot unguarded?’
Denver shook his head in frustration, ‘Close the cabin door in case a real greedy grizzly decides to rob us, Dan.’
Vance did as he was told and then started to move quickly back to where his cohorts were standing. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Likewise,’ McGee grunted.
Denver pulled the brim of his hat down to shield his eyes and then took a sharp intake of breath. His eyes darted between the men and then he jerked his head at them.
‘C’mon, boys,’ Denver sighed as his thumb stroked his holstered gun hammer. ‘I’m itching to find out who the hell is toying with my head. Some bastard is driving around up on the trail road and I intend finding out who.’
‘Ain’t we taking the horses, Jody?’ Vance asked pointing at their three well-rested mounts tethered to the side of the cabin. ‘It wouldn’t take long for us to saddle the critters up.’
Denver pointed in the direction of the high trail road. He glanced over his wide shoulder and kept striding toward the trees. ‘Where we’re going them horses would be more of a liability than a help. Come on.’
The three outlaws continued moving into the undergrowth with their hands resting on their guns. They began to climb the steep tree covered slope.
CHAPTER NINE
With the haunting sound of the nearby shots still ringing in her ears, Squirrel Sally eased back on the reins and abruptly stopped her muscular team on the precarious slope. The stagecoach rocked on its axle as she pressed her foot against the brake pole. This time the shots had sounded very close, Sally thought.
Too close for comfort.
‘That gunplay was way too damn close,’ Sally whispered into her cleavage as her small hand cocked the Winchester on her lap in readiness. ‘Let ‘em come though, I’m eager to kill something right about now. They’ll find out soon enough that it don’t pay to tangle with Squirrel Sally.’
Her blue eyes glanced through her wavy golden locks and studied the trees like a ravenous mountain lion seeking a glimpse of its next meal. She could hear movement in the ocean of tall pines and then spotted something that surprised her. A thin line of smoke was trailing up from the depths of the forest.
She sniffed the air.
‘That sure smells like a campfire to me,’ she reasoned before adding. ‘Or it might be smoke from a chimney stack.’
Both suggestions did not sit well in the young female’s fertile imagination. Sally sucked the last of the tobacco smoke from the pipe and blew it over the backs of her lathered up team.
She pulled the pipe
stem from her lips and rested it down beside her thigh. Then she caught the familiar scent of gunsmoke hanging in the crisp mountain air. Its acrid aroma filled her nostrils as she vainly glanced around the area in search of the gun-toting varmint who had fired the unseen weapon.
‘I’m getting mighty nervous,’ she purred. ‘And I’m damn dangerous when I’m nervous.’
Squirrel was more than just nervous. She was confused but refused to admit it even to herself as she vainly studied the sun-bleached trail road as it wound a route down through the vast trees.
Her heart was beating hard as she wondered who or what she was approaching. For the first time since she had left her family farm to be with her beloved Iron Eyes, she was actually frightened.
Sally could face anything as long as she could see it but whatever was out there in the depths of the forest was hidden from her keen eyes. Like most people who are deprived of a target to focus upon, her imagination was running riot.
The most alarming monsters are created in a terrified imagining. Since time first began the minds of people have always tended to do that.
The team were skittish and fought against their restraints. The chains which held them in check between the traces played a haunting tune as her tiny hands gripped the heavy reins.
Then a troublesome thought filled her heaving bosom.
What if it was Iron Eyes who was being shot at? Had she led him into the gun sights of his enemies? She rubbed the sweat from her temple and then tried to calm herself down. Yet girls cut from the same cloth as young Sally Cooke were not so easily subdued.
She realized if it were the famed bounty hunter on the receiving end of the nerve-chilling gun shots, he might need help.
Her help.
Sally had saved the life of Iron Eyes before. She lifted the hefty long leathers above her head and then thrashed them down across her six-horse team.
The horses immediately sprang into action and started down the steep slope again. This time the urgency burning inside the petite female overshadowed any thoughts of personal safety.
With no fear for her own safety, Sally drove the stagecoach at breakneck speed down the trail road at top speed in order to locate Iron Eyes. Every inch of her tiny frame was coming to his aid. Like a mother hen protecting her chick, she was willing to sacrifice her own life for the fearsome bounty hunter.
Sally steered the stagecoach along the severe gradient more masterfully than a full grown man. Her determination outweighed her small stature. The powerful team of matched horses galloped between the traces in blind obedience to her driving skill.
Then as she reached a stretch of level ground, more shots rang out to her right. This time she could see the bullets as they cut through the bushes and ripped branches from the pines.
The fragrant scent of resin drifted on the air as the branches fell in front of the horses. Sally did not know whether to stop or use her bullwhip and race away from the area. The six horses cantered as the tiny female squinted through her unruly golden locks.
Then as the echoes of the gunshots faded into memory she relaxed for a brief moment. She allowed the team to keep trotting as her keen eyes searched for any sign of Iron Eyes or anyone else that might have fired their guns.
Twenty yards ahead of her lead horse, she caught a glimpse of shadows. They were the shadows of at least three men close to the edge of the trail road. She pulled back on her long leathers and pressed her foot against the brake pole.
The stagecoach stopped.
She looped the reins around the pole and then picked up her Winchester and held it against her exposed flesh. She had heard their gunshots and seen their shadows but no matter how hard her eyes strained, she could not see the men themselves.
Sally licked her lips and then with the rifle gripped in her hands she rose and stepped up on to the roof of the coach and moved hurriedly toward the rear of the stationary vehicle.
Sally slid down the tarp covering the trunk of the stagecoach and landed on the ground. She crouched with her trusty carbine in her hands and looked under the body of the coach. Her eyes narrowed as they looked beyond the legs of the six horses but she still could not see the three men whose shadows she had seen on the road.
Sally bit her lip and slowly straightened up. She looked to both sides of the trail. She knew exactly where she had caught a glimpse of the shadows.
Then out of the blue a gunshot rang out. A bullet hit the back of the coach trunk sending hot splinters into the air. The small female swung on the balls of her feet and was about to dash for the almost black undergrowth when another shot rang out.
This time the lead came closer.
She ducked as more wood was carved out from the rear of the stagecoach. As she crouched near the ground her eyes darted to both sides of the trail. Whoever was firing at her was well hidden, she thought.
Then she heard boots. She looked along the length of the vehicle’s belly and saw the legs of a man heading directly at her lead horses.
‘Damn it all,’ she cursed. ‘I’m sure in a pickle and no mistake.’
As she rested on one knee wishing that she had a clear shot at the advancing man, she heard the unmistakable sound of a gun hammer being cocked behind her. She went to turn when another gun hammer was cocked. Sally raised her head and was staring straight into the smoking barrel of Bill McGee’s .45.
She blew the long curls off her face.
‘Drop the rifle, missy,’ Vance growled from behind her.
Sally gritted her teeth. Every inch of her crouched form wanted to rise and start shooting at the men who were coming at her from three different sides just as her beloved Iron Eyes would have done. But Sally was all too aware that she was not the lethal bounty hunter and would never get away with it.
Her small hands reluctantly released the rifle and allowed it to slide to the ground. Only then did she rise and rest her knuckles on her shapely hips.
As Jody Denver walked to the rear of the stagecoach to join his two companions, his expression suddenly altered at the sight before him. His eyebrows rose up into his furrowed temple as a lustful smile filled his whiskered face.
‘Now what have we here?’ he sighed.
Sally raised her head and glared through her entangled golden hair at the leader of the Denver gang. Her defiant eyes darted between all three of the outlaws as they each drooled at her.
‘You best not be getting any notions, boys,’ she warned them before carefully pulling the tails of her weathered shirt together and tying them in a knot over her belly button. ‘My man is coming looking for me and he don’t cotton to horn-toads.’
Denver grunted with amusement as he pondered her carefully. ‘Just who is your man, beautiful?’
‘Iron Eyes,’ Sally snarled.
Both Vance and McGee looked at Denver. His expression had changed just as theirs had done. Every scrap of lust had evaporated into the afternoon sun from the gang leader’s face.
Before either of his men could start talking, Denver silenced them with a wave of his hand. He stepped closer to the petite Sally and looked down on her fearless face.
‘How’d you know Iron Eyes?’ he growled.
‘I’m Squirrel Sall. I’m his woman,’ Sally boasted. ‘Now let me go and we’ll forget about this.’
Denver grabbed her mane of golden curls and violently raised it high so that her feet were barely touching the ground. As her clenched fists vainly tried to punch the veteran outlaw, Denver glared into her fiery eyes.
‘There ain’t no way that we can let you go, girl,’ he snarled at her. ‘You just told us that Iron Eyes is coming looking for you. When that stinking bounty hunter hears about me and the boys, he’ll come looking for us.’
Dangling like a fresh caught fish, Sally looked into the outlaw’s eyes. She was puzzled.
‘I don’t understand,’ she blurted out. ‘Why would Iron Eyes come looking for you?’
‘We’re wanted dead or alive, honey-child,’ Denver said before throw
ing her into the arms of his two companions. ‘I’ve heard that your man would crawl over hot coals to get his hands on bounty.’
Sally’s expression suddenly changed as the reality of her situation suddenly dawned upon her. She did not notice the wandering hands of the two outlaws who groped her. All she could do was stare at Denver in a bewilderment.
‘What you figuring on doing?’ she shouted feverishly at him. ‘Tell me.’
‘That’s plumb simple,’ Denver stooped, plucked her prized Winchester up off the ground and then turned. He paused and glared at the tiny tornado. ‘We can’t afford to have you take this stagecoach down the hill and let you tell Iron Eyes that you just bumped into three wanted outlaws, gal. The safest thing is for us to haul you back to our cabin and wait there for him to show up.’
Squirrel Sally wrestled against the two younger outlaws who held her in check but her entire attention was on the thoughtful Denver as he looked around the area.
‘It ain’t gonna work,’ she yelled furiously at Denver as she wriggled and kicked at the men restraining her. ‘Iron Eyes ain’t dumb enough to ride into your trap.’
Denver eyed her up and down. The bright sunlight danced upon her sweating figure. He shrugged and started to head back to their isolated refuge. ‘I sure would if I was Iron Eyes and you were the bait, gal.’
CHAPTER TEN
The massive well-nourished branches hung from both sides of the trail as the bounty hunter drew back on his reins and stopped the flagging stallion. A cloud of dust rose from around its hoofs and filtered into the blistering sunlight. Iron Eyes rubbed the grime from his horrific features and then looked all around him in search of anything that might give him a clue as to where the young Sally might be. The sound of the shots was now a distant memory but the gaunt horseman could not relax.
There was something haunting about this wilderness. He had travelled through many forests during his life as a hunter, but there was something different about this one. Yet no matter how much he dwelled upon it, he could not find any answers to the questions that continued to haunt him.
