Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die

by Johnstone, William W.

  “First come, first served, Bill!”

  The Tombstone raiders spurred their horses onward into a gallop, landscape rushing by in a blur. They were outnumbered at slightly better than two-to-one by the foe.

  Sam shucked his rifle out of the saddle scabbard. The tomahawk was stuck in his belt at his hip. White-haired, white-bearded old Nando had told Sam about Dorado and the legend of the golden gun, how it had been forged from the gold mask of an Aztec death-god, how the curse on it protected its wielder from death by gunfire. Sam figured the tomahawk might come in handy for the showdown.

  From this distance, he’d let his Winchester do the talking first. Taking the reins between his teeth, Sam levered a round into place and fired.

  A rider in the lead of the Jones gang was knocked off his horse and lay where he fell, motionless.

  Bullets began whizzing through the air around the charging Tombstoners. Gunshots popped from the onrushing Jones men, puffballs of smoke forming at their gun barrels.

  The play had changed thanks to the raiders’ bold charge. It was no longer a case of lumbering wagons laden with helpless young women trying to outrun swift mounted pursuit. Now it was all speed, dash, and blazing gunplay on both sides. The seven kept on coming, making straight for Jones and friends.

  Black Angus didn’t like this so well. The charging foe were pouring plenty of lead into the air, streaming it at him and his men.

  A round from Sam Two Wolves’s rifle tagged Sime Simmons, riding on Jones’s right, their horses pretty much neck and neck. They were so close that Jones heard the thwack of the bullet tearing into Sime.

  A puff of dust rose up from Sime’s shirt where the bullet entered him. He swayed with the mortal hit and stopped shooting, but stayed upright, shirt turning dark red where he’d been hit.

  He sagged, slumping in the saddle like he was melting. The horse’s leaps and bounds caused him to fall sideways off the animal.

  Black Angus ducked down still lower, trying to cover behind his charger’s massive crupper and head, shooting around it with his six-gun. Carmen was on his left, outracing him, a gun in one hand blazing away.

  Like knights of old locked in a jousting match, the two lines of shooters rushed straight at each other on a headlong collision course.

  Sam’s rifle dropped Porgy Best, who went down off the back of the horse as if some giant invisible hand had brushed him off like a gnat.

  Matt Bodine, Ringo, and Curly Bill were grouped together, a triumvirate of six-gun fury. Riding like the wind, they blasted down foes like a whirlwind. Six-guns banged away in a riotous racket of noise, lines of fire lancing the Jones men. A volley of slugs sieved Sonny Boy Algar, shooting his middle to pieces.

  Rio Jordan tagged Curly Bill high on the left side, a hot iron creasing Bill’s ribs. Another shot took a chunk out of Bill’s upper left arm. Bill blasted away, shooting Jordan’s face off.

  Howling Jeff Howell howled his Rebel yell as his gun blasted away.

  Matt Bodine came in close with the reins clenched between his teeth and a gun in each hand, both blazing. He was a better shot with a pistol at long distances than most men were with a rifle.

  Two slugs burned down two of Don Carlos’s vaqueros who had joined Black Angus in his pursuit of the escaped captive girls.

  Ed Dane was pounded hard in the right shoulder by a round, rocking him in the saddle. The cantle behind kept him from falling backwards off the horse. The bullet drilled his upper arm, numbing it. The arm dropped to his side, useless. A gun was still in his hand, but he couldn’t lift it. His arm wouldn’t respond.

  Carmen Oliva had winged him, mahogany-red hair streaming behind her like the tail of a fiery comet.

  The two opposing forces met at last, riders coming face to face at point-blank range in a blistering mutual exchange.

  Jeff Howell’s horse collided with that of Slicker Dupree. Dupree had been enjoying himself until then, a broad grimacing grin of murder-lust contorting his face, baring lots of teeth.

  Came the crash, with a terrible sound of horseflesh slamming horseflesh, the horses screaming. Jeff catapulted from the saddle, flung headfirst into the air for some distance. Dupree stayed on his horse, but it went down, pinning him under it and then it was his turn to scream.

  Jeff’s horse somersaulted, breaking its neck. Jeff somersaulted, too, as the ground rushed up to meet him, but he had better luck. He went into a roll, tucking an arm under him, taking the impact on his shoulder and rolling, rolling and tumbling, going ass over tea kettle, taking a hell of a pounding. He was thumped, pounded, and slammed, thrown for a loop.

  Hal Purdy fired into Mort Donegan’s torso, so close that muzzle flares caused Donegan’s shirt to burst into flame.

  Not to be outdone by his rival, Ed Dane filled his good left hand with a gun, shooting at a vaquero.

  Carmen Oliva raced by, shooting Ed Dane between hat brim and eyebrows. His forehead exploded, hat flying off his head.

  Matt Bodine passed between Earl Calder and a pistolero. His left hand fired a shot into the pistolero and less than an eye blink later, his right fired a blast into Calder.

  Calder lurched, crying out, fighting to stay in the saddle.

  The two lines passed beyond each other, reining in and wheeling their mounts around for another pass, another murderous go-round.

  Dorado turned his horse tightly, sunbeams glinting off his golden gun. Hal Purdy was slower in turning his horse, not much slower but those fractions of a second meant the difference between life and death.

  Dorado put two quick shots into Purdy’s back. Purdy pitched forward, upper body bowing outward under the bullets’ impact as they shattered his spine and then he felt nothing, nothing at all.

  He fell off his horse and lay on his side, one side of his face pressing stony ground. He felt nothing below the neck, nothing. He couldn’t breathe, the great heaving bellows of his lungs was stilled.

  His field of vision took in Ed Dane laying nearby, dead. Well, that was something anyway, Purdy told himself, he’d outlived his rival, if only by a matter of seconds. Blackness gobbled him up and he was dead.

  The battlers kept at it, separated by less than the distance of a stone’s throw. They closed again.

  Jeff Howell stood on his knees, shaking his head to clear it. Quirt Fane charged him. Jeff’s hand plunged for his gun, encountering an empty holster—his gun must have fallen out when he took a tumble.

  Quirt Fane leaned over in the saddle to one side of the horse, arm extended, gun in hand, shooting. Jeff glimpsed his gun on the ground a man’s length away. He threw himself flat on the ground, rolling sideways away from the charge, Quirt Fane’s bullets tearing up the piece of turf Jeff had just quitted.

  Quirt flashed past. Jeff stopped rolling and snatched up his gun, heaving a heaping holler as he lined up the muzzle for a potshot at Quirt—

  Carmen Oliva came at him, firing. Slugs tore into Jeff, knocking him over.

  Carmen rode him down deliberately, trampling him. Jeff went under the animal’s iron-shod hooves. One struck his head, silencing him in mid-howl, and he knew no more, forever.

  The horse’s legs tangled on Jeff, tripping the animal up. It fell, throwing Carmen. She landed clear, shaken but unhurt, with nothing broken.

  Ringo reined in beside Curly Bill. Bill’s upper left arm and side stained his shirt red. “You all right, Bill?”

  “I ain’t hit bad, John—Look out!”

  Dorado charged, hand coming up to level the golden gun on Ringo and Bill. He figured he’d take them both out with one rapid-fire burst, they were so close. Ringo was turned away from Dorado and Curly Bill was slowed by his wound.

  Sam pulled the tomahawk from his belt and let fly, pinwheeling the war hatchet at Dorado’s outstretched arm with the golden gun held at the end of it. Reflected sunlight from the golden gun flashed in Ringo’s eyes, dazzling them.

  Dorado went to pull the trigger to burn down Ringo and Bill, but nothing happened. The gun was silen
t, refusing to fire. Dorado looked to see what was wrong with the golden gun.

  There was no gun, no hand either. Sam’s tomahawk blade had taken Dorado’s hand off at the wrist, severing it. The hand with the gun in its fist flew away into the air.

  Dorado stared stupidly at the empty space where his hand had been. There was a neat cut at the wrist. He could see the round-mouthed tubes of blood vessels and the oval ivory disks of wrist bones.

  After a beat, the wound began spewing blood, geysering the red stuff, a fountain of it. Dorado screamed.

  He looked back, searching frantically for what he’d lost. A few paces off, his hand lay in the grass among the weeds, still clutching the golden gun, the gun all a-glimmer in the sunlight, looking like it was made of molten metal.

  Dorado was still game. One-handed, he fumbled for the reins. The horse lurched; he missed his hold and fell off.

  Amidst the whirling melee, Matt Bodine and Quirt Fane found themselves face to face. Their horses milled side by side, shying clear of each other.

  Matt and Quirt opened fire, cutting loose with six-guns. Matt was a shade faster, his first round tore into Quirt, walloping him, knocking him off balance so that Quirt’s opening shot went wild, nicking a hole out of Matt’s hat brim.

  Matt plugged away, pumping lead into the other man. Quirt was still shooting by reflex as he toppled off his horse, shooting straight up into empty sky—

  Dead before he hit the ground.

  The wagons and their protectors had reached the safety of the north mountain pass. None of the Jones gang gave chase. Their charge had broken on the rock of the seven from Tombstone.

  Remy, Polk, Juan Garza, Pima Joe, Stebbins, Snyder, and even Geetus Maggard herded the girls to cover. Mountain man Vern Tooker lingered outside the canyon mouth, readying his Sharps, a big .50, long-rifle buffalo gun.

  It needed reloading after each single shot, but he knew how to make every shot count. Vern had keen eyesight, so he could make out the figure of Black Angus Jones from a long way off.

  He sighted on Jones and squeezed the trigger, unleashing a big booming blast. Fate took a hand in that split-second, causing a vaquero to ride in front of the outlaw chief and taking the bullet meant for him.

  It sounded like a rug hung up on the line being struck by a carpet beater, splattering Black Angus’s head and shoulders with a stinging shower of blood droplets.

  The vaquero was hit so hard it looked like he was yanked sideways out of the saddle.

  Vern Tooker swore softly under his breath and started to reload the big .50 Sharps.

  Jones knuckled his eyes, wiping them clean, blinking rapidly and repeatedly. The big-caliber shot coming seemingly out of nowhere spooked him, eating up what little fight he had left. The round had been meant for him, blind luck saving him. The Devil’s own luck. He couldn’t rely on that kind of crazy fluke striking twice.

  Black Angus’s last charge had taken him off to the side, momentarily out of the action. He looked around, and what he saw was not good. His gang was pretty much done for, along with the handful of vaqueros who’d attached themselves to him for the chase.

  Jones was whipped and he knew it.

  “Time to quit while the gittin’ is good,” he said to himself. He turned his horse away from the fight toward open space, out of there, away.

  Carmen Oliva was on foot, clicking the trigger of what she now learned was an empty gun. She and Jones saw each other. She shouted, waving the gun.

  Jones changed course, swerving toward her. He came on as she stood facing him. He leaned out of the saddle, long reaching arm curved like a hook. She dropped the gun, freeing both hands for the attempted save.

  Black Angus scooped her up, Carmen hanging on for dear life. He swung her up on horseback, planting her behind him. She hung on tightly, hugging Jones.

  He would have liked to grab another horse. There was no shortage of riderless horses around, their riders having been shot off them. But they were clustered in the wrong direction and he was not much minded to stop, not with that big buffalo gun somewhere out there. There was such a thing as crowding your luck too close, even when it was the Devil’s own.

  Away he rode, Carmen holding on behind. Two or three other survivors, vaqueros, also peeled off, arrowing away in different directions.

  Dorado’s nightmare world had dissolved to a single object, the golden gun.

  He crawled to it on hand and knees, each frantic heartbeat sending more of his lifeblood gushing from his truncated wrist.

  He was possessed by the conviction that somehow all would be well if only he could lay his hand on the golden gun. It was almost within his reach, inches away. He groped for it with his numb fingers fumbling.

  A booted foot stepped down on the gun and severed hand, pinning them to the ground, denying the gun to Dorado.

  Dorado straightened up, standing on his knees looking up at Ringo and Curly Bill.

  “You ain’t golden no more, hoss,” Bill said, shaking his head.

  Ringo picked up the gun and hand. The fist was closed tight around the pistol grip. He tried to shake it loose, to no avail.

  “That hand plain just don’t want to let go,” Curly Bill said, laughing and wincing. His bloody shirt was unbuttoned. His wounds looked worse than they were, spilling a lot of blood. He held a wadded bandana against the hole in his left arm. His creased ribs were bruised but unbroken.

  Ringo methodically opened the severed hand’s fingers one by one, prying them loose. The hand flopped to the ground.

  The golden gun was clean, unbloodied. It had ebony-wood plate handles on the grip. Ringo held the gun measuringly, weighing it in his hand. He liked the feel of it, its balance and heft. It felt right, like it had been made for him.

  Golden surfaces glimmered, alluring, hypnotic. Ringo could see his face reflected in it, distorted like in a funhouse mirror but golden—gold. He smiled.

  “Cursed gun, it has been the death of me,” Dorado breathed. “It will bring you no joy, Ringo.”

  “I’m feeling pretty good right now.”

  “May it bring you the same fate it has brought me, you—” He called Ringo a dirty name.

  “You killed Bob Farr,” Ringo said, deadly serious now, an executioner formally passing sentence.

  “Who?” Dorado rasped, genuinely puzzled.

  “Bob Farr. You don’t even know who he is, do you?”

  “I have killed so many I don’t bother to keep track of them—as will you, Ringo.”

  “You shot Bob Farr in the back at Cactus Patch,” Ringo pressed.

  “Oh, yes, I hardly recall it. It seemed so unimportant at the time,” Dorado said, voice growing faint, whisper thin.

  “If not for that I wouldn’t be here and you’d probably still be alive. At least, you’ll be getting it straight on instead of from behind.”

  “Shoot and be damned . . . And damned you will be, Ringo, damned by the golden gun.”

  Ringo fired, shooting Dorado through the heart. Dorado fell over, dead. Ringo stared down at the golden gun. It felt like a living thing in his hand.

  “You’d be safer holding a rattlesnake,” Sam said. “That gun is bad medicine.”

  “Bad luck, you mean?” Ringo asked.

  “Something like that.” Sam knew the golden gun was evil, a gun of doom. It protected its owner, perhaps, but at what cost? His soul? Aztec death-god magic, blackest black magic.

  Sam had beaten Dorado because instead of a gun he had used a tomahawk. The war hatchet had a blade of white man’s steel at its head, but its haft was made of wood cut from an ash tree in the Northern Range. The tomahawk had been ritually purified long ago with the smoke of burning herbs, steeped in the smoky mysteries of the sacred lodge of a Cheyenne medicine man. Cheyenne magic had checked Aztec magic.

  Sam knew that there was no explaining that to Ringo, their backgrounds were too dissimilar, so he said simply, “Yes, the golden gun is bad luck.”

  “What do you expect me to do, lea
ve it lay here or throw it away?” Ringo asked, not caring about the answer. His mind was made up.

  “I would,” Sam said.

  “I believe you would at that,” Ringo said, and did. But not he. He did not believe, or if he did, he did not care. He was already under the spell. He took an ivory-handled Colt from his right hip holster, putting the golden gun in its place and tucking the Colt in his belt.

  “I’ll take my chances. I’m not superstitious,” he said.

  Matt looked around at the bodies sprawled on the stony plain. “We took them, but at what a price: Hal Purdy, Ed Dane, Jeff Howell. . . . It’s a damned shame. Nothing for it but to load our dead on their horses and take them home for a decent burial.”

  This was done, fallen heroes tied facedown across their horses. Stray mounts were rounded up to add to the convoy’s string. Black Angus’s gang was left for the buzzards.

  “If they’ll have ’em,” Curly Bill said.

  “Their epitaph,” said Sam.

  They rejoined the others in the mouth of the pass and the convoy resumed its northward trek home.

  Black Angus Jones and Carmen Oliva were in a tight spot. They had gone east, leaving the gray stony plain behind. They were in a broken land of thin, dry, brown soil, gray-black rock outcroppings, and dry washes. No water in sight, except what Jones had in his canteen and most of that had to go to the horse, dribbled out by the palmful for the animal to thirstily lick from his hand. Not a trickling spring or water hole was in view.

  There was no going back to Pago, an unhealthy climate for slave hunters now that the power of Don Carlos was broken. That door was closed.

  The horse plodded on, laboring. It had had a hard run north out of Pago through the Espinazo, and the double load of Jones and Carmen it carried on its back wasn’t helping.

  “I know a little pueblo village about ten to fifteen miles from here,” Jones said, “that’s if Victorio ain’t wiped it out. They ain’t got much, but we can get another horse or mule and some food and water, especially water.”

  “Then what?” Carmen asked dully.

  “North, back across the border.”