by Nathan Jones
“I do, son.” His friend shook his head, voice sorrowful. “But even if you could take out a dozen of them and walk away from it, would you want that many deaths on your head?”
Skyler looked away. He already had enough deaths on his head, including possibly two more tonight. And bad as Randall's gang might be, they weren't Sangue monsters.
He had enough memories to haunt his nightmares.
The older man rested a hand on his shoulder. “I wanted to try to warn them off before, and I still think it's the best option. Try to nip this trouble in the bud before it gets out of hand.”
With Jared possibly dying inside, it galled Skyler to think of just letting Randall and his bootlickers walk away from justice. Or vengeance, if that's what some wanted to call it. But at the same time this was Bob's ranch. Trying to keep things peaceable when the ruffians had already almost killed one of them might not be completely realistic, but the man might not be completely wrong in his reasoning, either.
Lisa was here, under threat of further attack. Trying to end the trouble without any more bloodshed might be the best option, for her sake.
Skyler grunted and turned away, making for the barn to fetch Junior. “Where you going?” Bob called after him, voice sharp.
He didn't slow or even look back. “To send them packing. Peacefully, if I can.”
With his stallion already saddled and ready to go, he was riding cautiously for the squatters' thicket in no time at all, with all the weapons and gear that had seen him through so many fights.
He didn't want to think of anything, wanted to focus solely on riding through the night to deal with the lowlifes who were threatening his friends, but treacherous thoughts came unbidden.
That gunshot wound to the chest Jared had suffered was the sort men died of. Skyler had seen it before, had even seen people succumb to less serious injuries. And while he hated himself for it, a weaselly little part of him couldn't help but think that if the ranch hand didn't make it, that would leave the way clear to be with Lisa after all. And there would be no need to feel guilty about it because circumstances had been out of his hands.
Growling in disgust at himself, Skyler squashed that thought and spurred Junior to dangerous speeds in the darkness.
However he felt about it, Lisa loved Jared. She was happy with him. Skyler would have to be a real piece of work to want to wish that sort of grief and suffering on his best friend for purely selfish reasons.
To say nothing of the fact that he was the one who'd taken the lead defending the ranch from the moment he'd gone out to talk to Randall's gang, and if Jared died it would be on his head. Lisa would never forgive him, and he'd never forgive himself.
Whatever his initial feelings about Jared, the man had taken a bullet defending the woman he loved. For that alone, Skyler would be proud to call him a friend. He couldn't do anything to help the man now aside from make sure Randall's gang didn't come back to finish the job, but he could do that.
And that was exactly what he was going to do.
Those murderous lowlifes weren't going to remain a danger to Lisa and her family, fiancé included, if he had anything to say about it.
Chapter Eight
The Camp
A thicket of trees, set in the lowlands along a stream surrounded by rolling hills leading up to foothills and then mountains, was nobody's idea of a defensible location. It spoke to Randall's complete contempt for his victims that he chose a conveniently close spot, with no care for how vulnerable it was.
Well Skyler also had complete contempt, for the man and his gang of ruffians.
That sentiment only grew as he approached the camp, after hiding Junior in a secluded stand of trees on the other side of a hill to the north. The closer he crept to the campfire glowing in the center of the thicket, the more obvious it was that the squatters hadn't even bothered to post proper sentries. As if they expected him and his friends to just cower at the ranch, waiting for them to come.
They were about to learn better.
He spent a few minutes scouting around the camp, finding the best firing position and planning fallback and retreat options. And all the while, down in the camp Randall's gang jeered about the pathetic ranchers they'd just fought, boasting about what they were going to do to them when they went back. And, as far as Skyler could tell, not seeming particularly upset about the man they'd lost or the few among them nursing minor wounds.
He'd seen it before, of course, but it still infuriated him to watch those men around the fire laughing and joking while their actions caused fear and suffering in kind, decent people. Was it all show, playing hard for their buddies? Did those men out there really feel no guilt, no shame, about stealing and killing? No fear that they might end up like their dead friend?
Skyler would say every life he'd ever taken was justified, necessary to protect himself or his loved ones, and the guilt for them still tore him apart. Would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
Were the bandits down there any different? In the darkness of their tents did they toss and turn over past actions? Or had they completely blocked off that part of their conscience, leaving them free to joke around the campfire before going out to steal cattle and murder anyone who tried to stop them?
He checked his position and gear one last time, then bellowed into the night. “Randall!”
Curses rang out in the camp, along with a couple gunshots that, as far as he could tell, came nowhere near him. He heard Randall shouting orders at his men, then the old man turned to face roughly in his direction. “Graham? You got a lot of nerve showing up here to talk after killing one of my men, wounding another, and shooting a horse out from under a third!”
Skyler bit back a curse. That was all they'd managed in that fight? In the confusion of a night battle it was often hard to tell just how much effect your shots were having, but he'd hoped they'd made more of an impression than that.
Although it had been enough to send this gang of ruffians packing, which was something. Speaking of which, he needed to continue in that vein. “Time for talking's past . . . I'm here to evict you!”
The bandits, still searching the darkness for him, raised their voices in jeers and taunts at that. “Even if a little pissant like you was up to the job, last I checked we're not on anyone's property!” their leader said, a hard edge to his amusement. “Hendrickson did a good job marking his boundaries.”
Skyler bit back another curse. So much for keeping Randall in the dark about who the ranch belonged to; either he'd had a chance to scout the place and gotten a good look at Bob or Lisa, or more likely he'd recognized the rancher's voice when Bob gave that warning at the beginning of the attack.
Well, now that the bullets had already flown with blood shed on both sides, he supposed it didn't matter much if the old man knew who he was fighting.
“Last I checked, you'd snuck onto the property of honest people to attack and rob them!” Skyler shouted back. “That brands you as bandits, and it's the duty of any law-abiding citizen to bring you to justice by rope or bullet. So I'm giving you one warning . . . get out, don't show your faces in Lone Valley again, or I start picking you off in the dark until you run or there's no one left!”
His ultimatum drew more derisive laughter in the camp. “Bandits, Graham, seriously?” Randall hollered. “Compared to Sangue I'm a standup guy. Compared to Trapper I'm a cuddly bunny!”
Skyler couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. “Do you think I'm a complete idiot? You just attacked us!”
“No, we snuck in under the cover of dark to rob you!” the old man shot back. “We would've taken what we wanted and left without harming a hair on anyone's head! You're the ones who made it a gunfight.”
Even the bandit leader's own men looked at him askance at that outrageous statement. Skyler shook his head. “Even if I was willing to buy that you didn't plan to murder us in our beds, you honestly expect to steal someone's property without getting shot at?”
“If you
folks want to pretend a few cows is worth a man's life,” Randall drawled. “You're trying to build me up as some kind of boogeyman. Probably telling yourself I'd do something sickening, like sneak onto that ranch and take your little girlfriend Lisa and have my way with her, then pass her around to my men.”
The fact that the man would immediately go to that sort of vile suggestion said a lot about him. “There's no place I know of where stealing livestock isn't banditry punishable by death!” Skyler shouted back. “You know it, which means you'd have to be willing to kill anyone trying to stop you before they can kill you. So yeah, I can believe you'd stoop to such a monstrous act with a girl you've known since her childhood. Which is why I'm here to send you packing.”
Randall spat off to one side. “This all could've been avoided if you'd just treated me with the slightest modicum of civility, instead of like I'm dung on your boot.” He sighed theatrically. “But if you really want it to go this way, it's your funeral. Even if you did have the stones to butcher men in the night, you think you can take on twelve of us?”
Skyler supposed if their situations were reversed, he would think it was pretty ludicrous as well. Although if he had eleven friends around him, they'd be people like Trapper and Brandon and Logan and Mer and Jenny. Skilled and courageous men and women who made these ragged ruffians look like the scum they were.
Although even then, his dad would warn him to never take a fight lightly, no matter how one-sided it seemed. Luck always came into it, and you could never tell how dangerous someone was.
As these bandits were about to find out.
“Ask the bloodies how they fared coming at me with those odds!” he called back. Then, talking done, he carefully eased out of his covered hiding place and shimmied along behind a log to the other position he'd picked out.
There wasn't so much laughter at that, at least until Randall started busting a gut. “You seriously want to pretend you fought Sangue, kiddo? You couldn't have been more than, what, thirteen? Fourteen?”
Skyler didn't bother to answer the renewed storm of jeers, focused on setting up in his new position and searching the camp through his scope.
A lot of the men were standing around with their guns pointed out into the thicket, but the smarter ones had huddled down behind cover, staying protected until the shooting started and they could home in on his muzzle flashes.
As if he'd make it that easy for them.
Randall, one of those behind cover, waited almost ten seconds for a response before calling out again; if he felt bothered by Skyler's complete silence he showed no sign of it. “Yeah, you were still discovering your fascination with boobies when the bloodies fled back south. The closest you ever came to Sangue was hiding outside Newpost while Trapper played hero.”
The bandit leader coughed in a way that sounded distinctly forced, then continued in a cheerful tone. “In fact, I bet you didn't even-”
Skyler saw it coming when the bandits all opened fire at nearly the same time while Randall was still talking, in the way they tensed and raised their weapons in a sudden “surprise” movement. Probably a countdown signaled by the man's fake cough.
Of course, they were all firing at the last place they'd heard him talking, shredding the log and the low hump of ground and the tree trunk. Even more accommodatingly, they'd decided to stay in the camp, lit by the fire, rather than scattering into the trees to make themselves harder to hit.
Stupid or arrogant.
Well, however Skyler might've felt about Bob's advice to warn the bandits off, with them shooting at him all bets were off. He settled the crosshairs of his trusty AK-47 on a man standing in the open, blazing away with a shotgun, and put two shots into his chest in quick succession.
The man fell with a strangled grunt, gun flipping out of his hands. His buddies might've been slow to seek cover at first, but they weren't complete idiots; as Skyler sought a new target the bandits all abandoned their positions and fled into the darkness beneath the trees.
Since nobody had thought to follow his muzzle flash and fire back at him, he felt safe in snapping off another quick shot at a ragged man diving behind a tree. He heard a bellow of pain and smiled grimly as he ducked down, shimmying away to another position.
Randall's voice rose over the swearing and noise of gunshots, thick with rage and disgust. “Beat it, boys! Back to the spot we stopped at coming in!” His tone took an ugly note as he continued. “We'll see how you do when you're not jumping us in the dark, Graham!”
Skyler bit back a curse as the bandits swarmed for their horses. They were tethered in the trees on the far side of the clearing, where getting a clear shot was already difficult enough. To make things even harder, Randall and his men simply broke the branches their animals' reins were tied to, disappearing into the trees with them before mounting up.
He would've preferred to set up in a position to be able to punish them for going for their horses, since that was the obvious move when under attack by a hidden enemy that had a good setup on their camp. But the animals were in the thin screen of trees between the clearing and the open area where he'd parleyed with Randall earlier. There was no position to be found where he wouldn't have been vulnerable to being pinned down.
He did his best to snap off shots where he found openings, but while one horse whinnied in pain he was pretty sure his bullet had just grazed it.
Before long Skyler heard the pounding of hooves as the riders escaped the thicket and fled, and with another curse retreated for Junior to give chase; it didn't sound like the bandit leader planned to leave Lone Valley and never come back, which meant his job wasn't done.
Unfortunately for him, ambushing enemies in the trees was one thing, but once they were out on the open grasslands his first shot would immediately give away his location, and he'd have no cover to hide behind or new position to retreat to.
He could trail the bandits as they fled, figure out where this fallback site of theirs was and see if he could hit them again. Also, there was no saying Randall's call to retreat wasn't another ruse, and the bandits weren't planning to regroup nearby and attack the ranch. Or even to try to circle the thicket and pin Skyler until they could finally get him.
Best to follow them and be sure.
On the plus side, at least Skyler had forced the bandits to flee their camp with just their horses and weapons. If he had a chance, he'd gather up the tents and other possessions they'd left behind, depriving them of necessities and making any sort of protracted siege against the ranch a less tempting prospect.
Junior was waiting patiently where he'd been hidden, silent and motionless like he'd been trained. Skyler untethered him and mounted up, guiding the stallion through the trees and up the slope towards a low hilltop that should offer him a view to the west.
There. To the west the hilly terrain formed an up thrust outpost of the distant mountains, in the form of a higher hill, almost a proper ridge, that ran parallel to the peaks a mile or so away. The nearby stream ran across the grasslands to cut through it in a modest gully a bit north of due west, and Skyler caught sight of several silhouettes disappearing into that narrow divide.
Men on horseback, retreating to their fallback position. A far more defensible one than the thicket they'd abandoned, the sort of place Randall would pull his people back to after retreating from an attack.
“Glad we didn't have to follow tracks in the dark,” he told Junior quietly. Although it was a reminder that he would be equally visible, so he paused for a few moments longer to search for the best approach to sneak up on the gully.
The stallion, more sensible than him, didn't make any noise in reply that might give them away.
The best route was to go south a bit, then cut straight west to the ridge between the cover of two low hills. Once there he could find a place to leave Junior behind, then climb the ridge to a spot where he could look down on the gully from above.
Assuming the bandits had stopped there; if not, he'd be wasting valuable
time scouting an empty spot while they did who knew what. Possibly even went back to the ranch for another attack, while he was sitting here like an idiot. That would be just his luck.
He doubted it, though; his gut told him Randall had gone to ground in the most defensible spot in the area. And his gut had a lot of experience to go on.
Although never unaware of the potential danger, Skyler felt comfortable moving through the darkness. He knew the night noises, knew the way shadows played over each other under moonlight and starlight, knew how to move so he looked and sounded like something that belonged, even to the wariest sentry.
Animals were harder to fool, of course, but he even managed that sometimes. Which felt like a particular achievement.
There was a nice hollow not far from the gully. No vegetation to hide Junior inside, but you'd have to be practically on top of it to see a horse in it. Especially a well-trained one who knew how to stand still.
Skyler scaled the ridge, creeping across the grassy slope with familiar ease. He'd never been here before, but in a lot of ways a mountain was a mountain; he could practically imagine he was back in the Utah Rockies near New Emery, trying to sneak up on Trapper without being discovered.
Although that always presented a real challenge. Meanwhile, he was still a good ways from the gully when he heard the racket of angry voices coming from down inside it. He paused at the noise, relieved that his instinct was correct and he'd found the bandits, but also wary in case he'd been spotted, and those angry voices were directed at him.
Well they were, technically. Although not because they knew where he was but because they were whining about how the night had gone, and the part he'd played in it. Skyler was able to get a better idea of what they were saying as he cautiously continued forward to peer over the gully wall, which afforded him a view of the scene below.
The gully broadened out into a green bowl a dozen yards in, which the bandits had established as their new camp. The horses were grazing among the rich grass, still saddled and ready to go, while at the mouth of the bowl a few men were at work lighting a fire as the rest stood around arguing.
