The man who sat his horse a little in front of the others was a big hombre, tall and broad-shouldered with brawny arms. The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up over forearms matted with dark hair. More hair curled from the open throat of the shirt. A beard jutted from his belligerent jaw. A gray hat was cuffed to the back of his head. He wore a pair of pearl-handled revolvers. Cruel, deep-set eyes studied The Kid from sunken pits under bushy eyebrows.
The apparent leader was the biggest of the bunch, but the man who rode to his right was almost as large. His slablike jaw bristled with rusty stubble, and a handlebar mustache of the same shade twisted over his mouth. As he took off the battered old derby he wore and used it to fan away some of the dust that had swirled up from the horses’ hooves as they came to a stop, The Kid saw that the man was totally bald. The thick muscles of his arms and shoulders stretched the faded red fabric of the upper half of a set of long underwear he wore as a shirt. Double bandoliers of ammuntion crisscrossed over his barrel-like chest. He held a Winchester in his right hand.
To the leader’s left was a smaller man dressed all in gray, from his hat to his boots. His size didn’t make him seem any less dangerous, though. Those rattlers The Kid had killed hadn’t been very big, either, but they were deadly nonetheless. In fact, the dark eyes in the man’s lean, pockmarked face had a reptilian look about them. The Kid noted how the man’s hand never strayed far from the butt of the pistol on his hip.
The other three men were more typical hardcases, the sort of gun-wolves that The Kid had encountered on numerous occasions. He didn’t discount their threat, but the trio that edged forward toward him and the young woman garnered most of his attention. He’d kill the big, bearded man first, if it came to that, he decided, then the little hombre in gray, and then the baldheaded varmint. Once the three of them were dead, then he’d use what was left of his life to try for the others. He was pretty sure he’d have some lead in him by that point, though.
White teeth suddenly shone brilliantly in the leader’s beard as he grinned. “Been stompin’ some snakes, eh?” he asked in a friendly voice.
The Kid wasn’t fooled. The man’s eyes were just as cold and flinty as they had been before.
“That’s right,” The Kid said. “Looks like you’ve got some diamondbacks around here.”
The man threw back his head and guffawed. As the echoes from the booming laughter died away, he said, “Hell, yeah, we do. Why do you think they call this Rattlesnake Valley?”
“I didn’t know they did,” The Kid replied with a shake of his head.
“You’re a stranger to these parts, eh?” The man looked at the young woman. “You should’ve warned your friend what he was gettin’ into, Diana.”
“He’s not my friend,” she said. “I never saw him before until a few minutes ago.”
“Is that so?” The black-bearded giant sounded like he didn’t really believe her. His eyes narrowed. “And here I thought your uncle had gone and hired himself a fast gun.”
The woman shook her head. “He told you he’s a stranger here, Malone. Why don’t you let him just turn around and ride away?”
“Why, who’s stoppin’ him?” The man called Malone grinned at The Kid and went on in an oily tone of mock friendliness, “You just go right ahead and mount up, mister. We wouldn’t want to keep you from goin’ back wherever you came from.”
The Kid had a feeling that if he got on the buckskin and headed back west through the pass, he wouldn’t make it twenty yards before he had a bullet in his back. He said, “What if I want to ride on down the valley?”
Malone rubbed the fingers of his left hand over his beard. “Well, I ain’t so sure that’d be a good idea. We got all the people we need in the valley right now.”
“It’s a public road, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly. There’s supposed to be a marker here so folks will know they’re enterin’ Trident range, and they’d be better off turnin’ around.”
“That’s not true,” Diana said with a sudden flare of anger. “The boundaries of your ranch don’t extend this far, Malone. You’re claiming range that doesn’t belong to you.”
He turned a baleful stare on her. “I don’t like bein’ called a liar, even by a pretty girl like you, Miss Starbird.”
The Kid had noticed the brand on the horses the men rode. It was a line that branched and curved into three points. Now he said, “Neptune’s trident.”
That distracted Malone from the young woman named Diana Starbird. He looked at The Kid again and asked, “You know of it?”
“Neptune was the Roman god of the sea, and he was usually depicted carrying a trident like the one you’re using as a brand. The Greeks called him Poseidon.”
“Didn’t expect to run into a man who knows the classics out here in the middle of this godforsaken wilderness,” Malone said.
The Kid didn’t waste time explaining about his education. He knew that he and Diana were still balanced on the knife-edge of danger from these men.
And yet there was something about Malone, something about the way he looked at Diana, that told The Kid he didn’t want to hurt the young woman. The Kid’s own fate was another story, though. He had a hunch Malone would kill him without blinking an eye, if the whim struck him to do so.
“Is there a town in the valley?”
Malone looked a little surprised by the question. “Aye. Bristol, about fifteen miles east of here.”
“I need to replenish my supplies, and my horse could use a little rest before I ride on. I’m not looking for trouble from you or anyone else, Malone. Just let me ride on to the settlement and in a few days I’ll be gone.”
Malone frowned. “Are you sure Owen Starbird didn’t send for you?”
That would be Diana’s uncle, The Kid recalled. “Never heard of him until now,” he replied honestly.
“Well . . .” Malone scratched at his beard and hesitated as if he were considering what The Kid had said.
While that was going on, the little man in gray turned his horse from the trail and started riding around the area, his eyes directed toward the ground as if he were searching for something. After a moment, he found it. He reined in, dismounted, and reached into the brush to pick up the skull. He turned and held it up to show the others.
“Look at this, Terence.”
“My marker,” Malone rumbled angrily. “Part of it, anyway.”
The baldheaded man pointed toward the trail. “Only one set o’ fresh tracks comin’ from the west, Terence,” he said. “And the bones were there earlier. I seen ’em with my own eyes.”
Malone glared at The Kid. “That means you disturbed my marker, mister . . . What is your name, anyway?”
“It’s Morgan.”
Malone smiled, but his eyes were flintier than ever. “Like Henry Morgan, God rest his soul.”
Or like Frank Morgan, The Kid thought. But he didn’t mention his father, the notorious gunfighter known as The Drifter. He fought his own battles these days, with no help from anyone.
He recognized the name Henry Morgan, though. He had no doubt that Malone was referring to the infamous English buccaneer from the Seventeenth Century who had led a fleet of pirate ships against the Spaniards in the Caribbean and Central America and captured Panama City. The skull and crossbones that had been planted in the trail left no doubt about Malone’s interest in pirates and piracy.
“I’ve been known to let travelers use this trail, Mr. Morgan,” Malone went on, “if they can pay tribute. I’m afraid I can’t do that with you, though.”
“Just as well . . . because I don’t intend to pay you one red cent.”
Malone’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Destroyin’ my marker is like a slap in the face, Morgan, and I can’t allow you to go unpunished for that. You can go on down the trail . . . but you’ll have go past either Greavy”—he nodded to the small, gray-clad gunman—“or Wolfram.” A jerk of the bearded chin indicated the baldheaded man. “Guns or fists, Morgan.
It’s up to you.”
Wolfram held up his right hand and opened and closed it into a fist as he grinned at The Kid. He flexed those strong, knobby-knuckled fingers and chuckled.
Greavy’s face was cold and expressionless. He was clearly the fast gun of this bunch. The Kid was confident that he could beat Greavy to the draw, but if he did, that didn’t mean the others would let him pass. They might just use the shooting as an excuse to kill him.
But if he took on the bruiser called Wolfram and bested him in single combat, that might be different. The rest of them might be impressed enough by such a victory to let him go. More importantly, such an outcome wouldn’t expose Diana Starbird to the danger of flying bullets.
And the anger that was always seething not far below the surface of The Kid’s mind would have an outlet again.
The Kid looked at Malone and said, “I have your word of honor that if I defeat one of them, you’ll allow me to ride on to Bristol?”
“Word of honor,” Malone said. He looked at his other men. “You hear that? If Morgan lives, no one bothers him . . . today.”
The Kid caught that important distinction but didn’t challenge it. First things first. He added, “And Miss Starbird comes with me, either to the settlement or wherever else she wants to go.”
Malone frowned. “Diana knows I’d never harm a hair on her head, and none of my men would dare to do so, either. I think the world of her.”
“Then you wouldn’t want to hold her against her will, would you?”
Before Malone could answer, Diana stepped closer to The Kid and said in a quiet voice, “You don’t have to do this on my account, Mr. Morgan. I’ll be all right—”
“You don’t want to stay here, do you?”
She shot a glance at Malone and his men and admitted, “Well . . . no.”
“Then you’re coming with me.” His words had a tone of finality to them.
“It’s mighty confident you are that you’re goin’ to live through this,” Malone said. “Greavy is a talented man with a gun, and I’ve seen Wolfram break bigger fellas than you in half with his bare hands.”
“I’ll risk it,” The Kid said. He took off his hat and handed it to Diana, who had a worried look on her face as she took it. The Kid didn’t want to demonstrate his own gun-handling prowess just yet, since it might come in handy later if he needed to take them by surprise, so he unbuckled his gunbelt and handed it to the young woman as well. Then he stripped off his coat and dropped it on the ground. “I’ll take on Wolfram.”
The baldheaded man had already figured that out. Grinning, he slid the rifle he carried into its saddle boot and then swung down from the back of his horse. He didn’t wear a handgun, but he had a knife sheathed at his waist. He removed the sheath from his belt and tucked it into a saddlebag, then took off his derby and hung it on the saddlehorn.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,” he said as he turned toward The Kid, who was rolling up his sleeves while Diana stood there looking more frightened by the second.
“Bust him up good, Wolfram,” called one of the other men.
“Yeah,” another man added in a raucous shout. “Show him he can’t mess with us.”
Wolfram started forward, moving at a slow, deliberate pace as he approached The Kid. He was still grinning and flexing his fists. The Kid stood there, arms at his sides, apparently waiting calmly, even though his blood surged at the prospect of battle.
Wolfram charged without warning, swinging a malletlike fist at The Kid’s head with surprising quickness, and the fight was on.
Chapter Three
The Kid moved now with the same sort of speed he exhibited whenever he drew his gun. He ducked under the looping punch that Wolfram threw and sprang aside from the bull-like charge.
Wolfram’s momentum carried him past his intended victim. The Kid kicked out behind him as Wolfram went by, driving the heel of his boot into the back of Wolfram’s left knee. The baldheaded bruiser howled in pain and pitched toward the ground as that leg folded up beneath him.
The Kid whirled toward him, intending to kick Wolfram in the head and finish the fight in a hurry, but he saw to his surprise that Wolfram had slapped a hand on the ground and managed to keep from falling. A supple twist of the big body brought Wolfram upright again, facing The Kid. The lips under the handlebar mustache pulled back in an ugly grin.
“Well, now I know that you’re fast, you little son of a bitch,” Wolfram said as he began to circle more warily toward The Kid. He limped slightly on the leg that had been kicked. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
The Kid knew his chances of surviving this fight had just gone down a little since he hadn’t been able to dispose of his opponent quickly. But the battle was far from over. True, Wolfram had advantages in height, weight, and reach, but as Conrad Browning, The Kid had been a boxing champion during his college days.
More importantly, his vengeance quest as Kid Morgan and the wandering existence on the frontier that had followed it had taught him to do whatever was necessary to win when he was fighting for his life.
He didn’t hang back and let Wolfram bring the fight to him again. Instead, he launched an attack of his own, darting in to throw a flurry of punches. The blows were almost too fast for the eye to follow, and they were too fast for Wolfram to be able to block all of them. A couple of The Kid’s punches got through, hard shots that landed cleanly on Wolfram’s shelflike jaw and rocked his head back and forth.
Wolfram roared in anger and counterattacked, managing to thud a fist into The Kid’s breastbone with staggering force. The impact stole The Kid’s breath away and sent him stumbling backwards a few steps.
Wolfram bellowed again—obviously, he was one of those fighters who liked his battles noisy—and surged forward to try to press his advantage. As The Kid gasped for air, he saw the light of bloodlust shining in Wolfram’s eyes and knew his opponent thought the fight was just about over.
The Kid went low again, sliding under pile-driver punches that would have broken his neck if they had landed. He threw his body against Wolfram’s knees in a vicious block that cut the man’s legs out from under him. This time Wolfram wasn’t able to recover. He went down hard, his face driving into the dirt.
The Kid rolled and came up fast. He had gotten a little breath back in his lungs. His heart pounded madly in his chest and his pulse played a triphammer symphony inside his skull. He leaped and came down on top of Wolfram, digging both knees into the small of the man’s back as hard as he could. Wolfram jerked his head up and yelled in pain.
That gave The Kid the chance to slide his right arm around Wolfram’s neck from behind. He grabbed his right wrist with his left hand and hung on for dear life as he tightened the pressure on his opponent’s throat. He kept his knees planted in Wolfram’s back and hunkered low so that the awkward, frantic blows Wolfram aimed behind him couldn’t do any real damage. The Kid forced Wolfram’s head back harder and harder and knew that if he kept it up, sooner or later the man’s spine would crack.
Wolfram might pass out first from lack of air, though, and he appeared to know it. In desperation, Wolfram rolled over and over. The Kid felt the big man’s weight crushing him each time he wound up on the bottom, but he didn’t let that dislodge his grip. He clung to Wolfram’s back like a tick.
Suddenly, he felt Wolfram’s muscles go limp. Either the man had lost consciousness, or he was trying to trick The Kid into relaxing that death grip. The Kid wasn’t going to be fooled. The muscles of his arms and shoulders bunched. One more good heave would break the bastard’s neck—
A shot crashed like thunder. The Kid’s head jerked up. He saw that Malone had dismounted and now loomed over him, blotting out the sun as he aimed one of those pearl-handled revolvers at The Kid’s head. Smoke curled from the barrel as a result of the warning shot Malone had fired.
“Let him go,” Malone said. “You’re gonna kill him. Let him go, Morgan.”
“He would’ve . . . killed me . . . if he
could,” The Kid said between clenched teeth.
“I reckon that’s right, but I’ve got the gun, and I’m tellin’ you to let him go. We been partners too long for me to let you just snap his neck like that.”
“You’ll keep your word and let me and Miss Star-bird go on to Bristol?”
“Aye, go and be damned to you!”
The reluctance with which Malone uttered the words convinced The Kid that he was telling the truth. The Kid eased his grip on Wolfram’s throat, then released it entirely. The man’s head slumped forward into the dirt. He was out cold, all right, not shamming. But he was still alive. The Kid heard the ragged rasp of breath in Wolfram’s throat.
With an effort, The Kid kept his muscles from trembling as he climbed to his feet. He didn’t want Malone to see how shaky he felt at this moment. Instead he reached out to Diana as she came closer to him, took the gunbelt from her, and buckled it around his hips. The weight of the holstered Colt felt good to him.
“For your own benefit, you ought to keep movin’ instead of stoppin’ in Bristol,” Malone went on. “There’s no place in this valley that’ll be safe for you after today.”
“Then if I see you or any of your men again, I might as well go ahead and shoot on sight, is that what you’re telling me?” The Kid asked.
Malone’s lips twisted in a snarl, but he didn’t say anything else. He slid his gun back into its holster, then bent to grasp one of Wolfram’s arms. Without being told to, a couple of the hardcases dismounted and hurried over to help their boss hoist Wolfram’s senseless form back onto his feet. Wolfram began to come to, shaking his head groggily.
The Kid took his hat from Diana and put it on, then picked up his coat, folded it, and stuck it in his saddlebags. The sun was too hot for the garment.
He asked in a low voice, “Where’s your horse?”
She inclined her head toward the boulders where she must have been hidden as she watched him kick the skull out of the trail. He figured he hadn’t heard her ride up because the echoes of his shot had been rolling away over the hills at the time.
MacCallister: The Eagles Legacy Page 26
