“I figured you’d say that,” Scratch grumbled as he lined up his own shot.
The two of them opened fire, cranking off several shots as fast as they could work the levers on the rifles. The bullets slammed into the road in front of the masked riders, kicking up gouts of dust. The men were moving so fast it was hard to keep the shots in front of them, and in fact one of the bullets fired by the Texans burned the shoulder of a man’s mount and made the horse jump.
That got the attention of the outlaws. They reined in briefly as Bo and Scratch stopped shooting. It was their hope that the masked men would turn around and go the other way, but that wasn’t what happened.
Instead, the gang of desperadoes split up. Three of them dismounted, dragging rifles from their horses as they did so, and bellied down behind some rocks. The other seven took off again after the stagecoach.
“Well, hell!” Scratch said. “That didn’t work. We should’a killed a couple of ’em.”
“Come on,” Bo cried as he wheeled his horse. “They’re going to try to pin us down here!”
Sure enough, the three men who had been left behind by the rest of the gang opened fire then. Bullets whined around the heads of the Texans like angry bees, one of them coming close enough so that Bo heard the wind-rip of its passage beside his ear.
They heeled their horses into a run again, following the crest of the hill as it curved to the west. The outlaws continued firing at them, but none of the bullets came close now.
The hill petered out after about three hundred yards. Bo and Scratch started downslope again, angling toward the wide flats and the road that ran through them. They glanced over their shoulders, and saw that the three men who had tried to neutralize the threat from them had mounted up again and were now fogging it after the rest of the gang, which had carried on with its pursuit of the stagecoach.
In fact, the outlaws had cut the gap to about twenty yards, and from the way one of the men on the driver’s box was swaying back and forth and clutching his shoulder, he looked like he was wounded. The other man, who was handling the reins, looked back and appeared to be slowing the team.
“He’s gonna stop and give up!” Scratch shouted over the pounding of hooves. “Those owlhoots got their blood up! They’re liable to kill everybody on that coach!”
“They might at that!” Bo called in agreement. He had rammed his Winchester back in the saddle boot. Now he unleathered the walnut-butted Colt on his hip and said, “We won’t hold back this time!”
Scratch whooped. “Now you’re talkin’!” He drew one of the long-barreled, ivory-handled, .36 caliber Remington revolvers that he carried.
Both men opened fire as they veered toward the road. The hurricane deck of a galloping horse wasn’t the best platform for accurate marksmanship, but Bo and Scratch had had plenty of experience in running gun battles like this. Their flank attack was effective. A couple of the outlaws were jolted by the impact of the drifters’ slugs and had to grab for the horns to keep from tumbling out of their saddles.
Despite having a heavy advantage in numbers, the masked outlaws began to peel sharply away from the road. They threw a few shots at Bo and Scratch, but didn’t put much effort into it. The Texans slowed their horses as the would-be robbers abandoned the chase, picked up the three stragglers, and galloped off to the east.
“We goin’ after ’em?” Scratch asked.
Bo’s forehead was creased in a frown. “Have you gone loco? With five-to-one odds against us, I plan on thanking my lucky stars that they decided it wasn’t worth it to rob that stagecoach after all!”
“We winged at least a couple of ’em. I saw the varmints jump.”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, I did, too.” He inclined his head toward the coach, which had rocked to a halt by now, with thinning swirls of road dust rising around it. “Let’s go see how bad that fella on the stage is hurt.”
The wounded man was still conscious. They could tell that from the furious cussing they heard as they approached. The driver had climbed down and was helping the other man to the ground. As the hoofbeats of the Texans’ horses rattled up, the driver turned and pulled a gun.
“Hold on there, son!” Bo called as he reined in. “We’re friends.”
Scratch brought his bay to a halt alongside Bo’s dun. “Yeah,” he said. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re the hombres who got those owlhoots off your tail.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction that the gang had fled.
The driver nodded and holstered his gun. “Yeah, I know that,” he said. “Sorry. I’m just a little proddy right now.”
“You’ve got reason to be,” Bo said as he swung down from his saddle. “How bad is your friend hurt?”
The driver was a young man, probably in his mid-twenties. He wore a brown hat and a long, tan duster over denim trousers and a blue, bib-front shirt. A red bandanna was tied around his neck. His wounded companion was considerably older and sported a brush of bristly gray whiskers. He had lost his hat somewhere during the chase, revealing a mostly bald head.
He answered Bo’s question by saying, “How bad does it look like I’m hurt, damn it? Them no-good buzzard-spawn busted my shoulder!”
The right shoulder of his flannel shirt was bloody, all right, and the stain had leaked down onto his cowhide vest. Crimson still oozed through the fingers of the left hand he used to clutch the injured shoulder.
“Take it easy, Ponderosa,” the younger man told him. “Sit down here beside the wheel, and we’ll take a look at it. It might not be as bad as you think it is.”
“Oh, it’s bad, all right,” the old-timer said. “I been shot before. Reckon I’ll bleed to death in another few minutes.”
“I don’t think it’s quite that serious,” Bo said with a faint smile as he tied his dun’s reins to the back of the coach. Scratch had dismounted, too, and tied his horse likewise. Bo went on. “My partner and I have had some experience with gunshot wounds. We’d be glad to help.”
“Much obliged,” the young man said. “If you’ll give me a hand with him…”
Bo helped the driver lower the old man called Ponderosa to the ground. Ponderosa leaned back against the front wheel while Bo pulled his vest and shirt to the side to expose the wound. Under Ponderosa’s tan, the bearded, leathery face was pale from shock and loss of blood.
While Bo was tending to the injured man, Scratch glanced inside the coach and said to the driver, “No passengers, eh?”
“Not on this run,” the young man said with a shake of his head. “And not much in the mail pouch either. If those outlaws had caught up to us, they would have been mighty disappointed.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Gil Sutherland, by the way.”
“Scratch Morton.” As Scratch shook Gil Sutherland’s hand, he nodded toward Bo and added, “My pard there is Bo Creel.”
“And I’m Ponderosa Pine,” the old-timer said, introducing himself through gritted teeth as Bo probed the wound. “Given name’s Clarence, but nobody calls me that ’less’n they want’a tangle with a wildcat.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Bo said with a dry chuckle. “Good news, Ponderosa. That bullet didn’t break your shoulder. I think it missed the bone and just knocked out a chunk of meat on its way through.”
“You sure? It hurts like blazes, and I can’t lift my arm.”
“That’s just from the shock of being wounded. We’ll plug the holes to stop the bleeding, and I think you’ll be all right.” Bo looked up at Gil Sutherland. “How far is the nearest town?”
“Red Butte’s about five miles west of here,” Gil replied. “That’s where we were headed when they jumped us. This is the regular run between Red Butte and Chino Valley.”
“Let’s get Ponderosa here on into town then. He needs to have a real doctor look at that wound, just to be on the safe side.”
“That’s assumin’ there’s a sawbones in this Red Butte place,” Scratch added.
Gil nodded. “Yes, there’s a doctor. Don’t worry, P
onderosa. We’ll take care of you.”
“Ain’t worried,” Ponderosa muttered. “Just mad. Mad as hell. I’d like to see Judson and all o’ his bunch strung up.”
“Who’s Judson?” Bo asked as he used a folding knife he took from his pocket to cut several strips of cloth from the bottom of Ponderosa’s shirt. He wadded up some of the flannel into thick pads and used the other strips to bind them tightly into place over the entrance and exit wounds.
“Rance Judson is the leader of the gang that was chasing us,” Gil explained.
“Him and those varmints who ride with him been raisin’ hell in these parts for six months now,” Ponderosa added.
Scratch asked, “If folks know who he is and that he’s responsible for such deviltry, why don’t the law come in and arrest him?”
Gil Sutherland shook his head. “We’re a long way from any real law out here, Mr. Morton. There’s a marshal in Red Butte who does a pretty good job of keeping the peace there, but he’s not going to go chasing off into the badlands after Judson’s gang. That would be suicide, and he knows it. We all do.”
Bo finished tying the makeshift bandages into place. He straightened from his crouch, grunting a little as he did so. “Old bones are stiffer than they used to be.”
“Tell me about it,” Ponderosa grumbled. “And I’m quite a bit older’n you, mister.”
“Let’s get you in the coach,” Gil suggested. “It won’t be all that comfortable, but it should be better than riding up on the box.”
“Wait just a doggone minute! I signed on to be the shotgun guard, not a danged passenger!”
“I’ll ride shotgun the rest of the way,” Bo said. “Where’s your Greener?”
“On the floorboard where I dropped it when them polecats ventilated me, I reckon.”
Gil said, “I don’t think Judson and his men will make another try for us. You don’t have to come with us into town.”
“We don’t mind,” Bo said.
“Truth to tell, all this dust has got me thirsty,” Scratch added with a grin. “You got at least one saloon there, don’t you?”
“Several,” Gil admitted.
“Then what are we waitin’ for? Let’s go to Red Butte!”
Chapter Two
Once they had loaded the still-complaining Ponderosa Pine into the stagecoach, Bo climbed onto the driver’s box next to Gil Sutherland, leaving his horse tied at the back of the coach. Scratch mounted up and rode alongside as Gil got the vehicle moving.
“Used to be a Butterfield coach, didn’t it?” Bo asked as he swayed slightly on the seat from the rocking motion. He had Ponderosa’s double-barreled scattergun across his knees.
“How did you know?” Gil said.
“You can still see some of the red and yellow paint on it in places.”
Gil grunted. “We didn’t strip the paint off on purpose. The sun and the dust and the wind in this godforsaken country took care of that for us.”
“We?” Bo repeated.
“My father was the one who started the stage line. It runs from Cottonwood to Chino Valley and on over to Red Butte, where the headquarters are. There’s another line that runs from Flagstaff down to Cottonwood and then on south, but there was no transportation from Cottonwood west to the Santa Marias until my father came along. Chino Valley and Red Butte were growing fast because of all the ranching and mining in the area, so he thought it would be a good gamble that they’d need a stage line. He figured some other settlements might spring up along the way, too.”
“Sounds like a worthwhile gamble,” Bo said with a nod. “How’s it working out?”
Gil scowled and shook his head. “Not so good.”
“Because of those outlaws? Folks are too scared of being held up to ride the stage?”
“Well, it didn’t help when Judson and his bunch started raising hell, but that’s not all of it. Those other settlements never sprang up. There’s just Chino Valley and Red Butte. And the mines played out, for the most part. There’s only one still operating at a good level.”
“So there’s not as much business as your pa thought there would be.”
“That’s right. It’s been a struggle to make ends meet.” Gil’s voice caught a little. “It didn’t help matters when my father got sick and died.”
Bo looked over at the young man with a frown. “You’re running the stage line now?”
Gil shook his head again. “My mother’s in charge. I do what I can to help, just like when my father was still alive. I’ve got a younger brother, too, but he—” Gil stopped and drew in a breath. “Let’s just say that he’s not much for hard work and leave it at that.”
Bo didn’t say anything in response to that. Clearly, there were some hard feelings between Gil Sutherland and his little brother, and they might well be justified. But Bo knew it usually didn’t pay for a fella to stick his nose into family squabbles.
Gil drove on in silence for a few minutes, then said, “Thanks for pitching in back there. Judson’s bunch would have caught us in another minute or two, and there’s no telling what they might have done, especially when they found out they weren’t going to get much in the way of loot.”
“It looked like you were about to stop and let them catch up,” Bo said.
“That’s right, I was. I knew we couldn’t outrun them, and the way Ponderosa was only half-conscious and bouncing around on the seat, I was afraid he might get pitched off and break his neck. I was hoping they’d just take the mail pouch and let us go.”
“Is Judson in the habit of doing things like that?”
Gil shrugged. “They’ve killed a few men during their holdups, but only when somebody tried to fight back. Like when they hit the bank over in Chino Valley last month.”
“They’re not just stagecoach robbers then.”
“No, they’ve rustled cattle and run them south across the border into Mexico, they robbed the bank like I said, and they raided the Pitchfork Mine and stole an ore shipment that was about to go out. They’ve stopped the stage half-a-dozen times, I guess, even though they’ve never made a very big haul at it. Killed a driver and a guard, though, so nobody wants to work for us anymore. Ponderosa and I have been taking all the runs ourselves lately. Now he’s going to be laid up for a while, more than likely.” Gil sighed. “I don’t know what we’ll do. Shut down, I guess.”
Bo didn’t say anything to that either. He had some thoughts on the matter, but he kept them to himself for the time being.
The creek that Bo and Scratch had seen from the top of the hill turned out to be a narrow, shallow stream, not much more than a twisting thread of water in a gravelly bed. As Gil drove across it at a ford, he said, “This is Hell Creek. Not much to look at, but it’s the only water this side of the Santa Marias and it never dries up, no matter how hot the weather gets.”
“Spring-fed, I reckon,” Bo said.
Gil nodded. “That’s right. North of here, in the ranching country, it’s bigger.”
Bo sniffed the air. “Sulfur springs, too, unless I miss my guess.”
“That’s how it got its name,” Gil said. “From the smell of brimstone. Not very pleasant, but the water doesn’t taste too bad. You get used to it after a while, I suppose.”
The terrain began to rise a little once they were on the other side of Hell Creek. The slope was very gradual at first, but became more pronounced. More tufts of grass appeared, and even some small bushes. Bo saw trees up ahead, where the foothills of the Santa Maria Mountains began.
A little over an hour after they left the site of the attempted holdup, the stagecoach arrived at Red Butte. Bo and Scratch saw why the settlement had gotten its name. A copper-colored sandstone mesa jutted up from the ground about half a mile north of the town, which had a main street, half-a-dozen cross streets, and a couple of streets paralleling the main drag. The buildings were a mixture of adobe, lumber from the trees growing in the foothills, and brick that must have been freighted in from Flagstaff or some other big t
own.
“Not a bad-lookin’ place,” Scratch commented. “Wouldn’t exactly say that it’s boomin’, but it don’t look like it’s about to dry up and blow away either.”
“There are enough ranches along the Santa Marias, both north and south of town, to support quite a few businesses,” Gil said. “Throw in the Pitchfork, too, and folks do all right. They just don’t have much need of a stage line except to deliver the mail.” His mouth twisted. “And we probably won’t have that contract much longer.”
“What do you mean by that, son?” Bo asked, but Gil didn’t answer. The young man was busy bringing the stagecoach to a halt at the edge of the settlement, in front of a neatly kept adobe building with a wooden barn and some corrals behind it. Someone had planted cactus roses on either side of the three steps that led up to the shaded porch attached to the front of the adobe building. The bright yellow roses were blooming, providing a welcome splash of color in an otherwise drab setting.
The front door of the building opened while the coach was still rocking back and forth on the broad leather thoroughbraces that supported it, after coming to a stop. A dark-haired woman wearing a long, blue dress with tiny yellow flowers on it came onto the porch. She pushed back her hair from her face, and relief showed in her eyes as she looked at Gil.
That relief was fleeting, lasting only a second before it was replaced by worry. She looked at Bo, a sober, almost grim stranger riding with Gil, and at Scratch, another stranger who had reined his horse to a halt alongside the team. Then she asked anxiously, “Where’s Ponderosa?”
The old-timer swung the door of the coach open before Gil could answer, saying, “I’m right here, Miz Abigail—what’s left of me anyway!”
The woman cried out in surprise and lifted a hand to her mouth. Then she hurried forward. “For God’s sake, Ponderosa!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“Judson’s men again, Mother,” Gil said from the box. “They hit us about a mile the other side of Hell Creek.”
Matt Jensen: The Last Mountain Man Purgatory Page 24
