The Gunhawks (Cutler Western #2)

by John Benteen

  “Sonoita,” Calhoon said. “After you left me afoot, damn you, I walked there and picked up the stallion.”

  “But how’d you know I was in Villa Hermosa?”

  “You dropped a letter . . .”

  “Damned lucky I did. I owe you thanks, Calhoon. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be standing there with my guts in my hands right now.”

  Calhoon pulled rein. “Don’t thank me too quick, Cutler,” he said, and there was a strangeness in his voice.

  Cutler drew up, looked at him.

  “I came after your ears,” Calhoon said. “I didn’t figure on taking ‘em off a corpse somebody else had cooled.”

  “So that’s why you bought in,” Cutler said quietly.

  “That’s why I bought in. You’re my meat, Cutler. Once we get clear of those jiggers, whoever they are, I aim to take you.”

  “I see,” Cutler said. He fingered the shotgun that lay across his saddlebow. “Well, there’s time to do it now, you got the notion.”

  “Not unless you want to push me. I figure the first thing is for both of us to get clear. Then I want it you and me, straight up, with Colts. But it don’t do me no good to kill you if those gunhawks back there get me before I can take your ears back to Wyoming.” He paused. “I figure this. A truce, until we’re in the clear. I’ll back you against them, you back me. Then, when we are both safe from them, we’ll come against each other.”

  Cutler hesitated. Then he said, “All right. I came here to do something and I want to get it done. You side me till I’m finished, I’ll give you what you ask for—a straight-up fight, no tricks, the kind of showdown you crave.”

  “Fair enough.” Calhoon put out his hand.

  Cutler took it.

  “Now,” Cutler said, “let’s do some riding. We got to find a place to hide.”

  It was midnight and their horses were winded when they hit the stump-dotted, brushy clearing where the village cut its wood. The pursuit was far behind, now, Cutler guessed, but it would come on, and come on steadily. As he pulled up, Calhoon checked the stallion and asked, “Which way now?”

  “Damned if I know,” Cutler said. “I’ve never been farther up into these hills than this. But the woods are thinner. Maybe we can . . .”

  Before he could finish, Big Red’s bark split the night. Cutler stared at the dog. It had whirled to face southward in the clearing, fur standing up. Cutler checked the dog’s noise with a sharp command, swung down, ran toward the clearing’s edge. He listened for a moment, then whirled, raced back, jumped into Apache’s saddle. “Damn it,” he rasped.

  “What is it?” Calhoon stared.

  “Another trail, a shortcut. They knew about it and I didn’t. When they saw which way we were headed, they musta split up . . . They’re coming now, and they’re not far off. It’s gonna be a race for it, or else a fight ...”

  “A race?” Calhoon looked down at his stallion, its flanks white with lather, then at Cutler’s bay, equally done in. Both horses had given what was demanded of them nobly, but they could go no farther without rest. “Cutler, we’ll never make it.”

  “Maybe we will.” Cutler rode Apache to the clearing’s edge, where the narrow notch that was the shortcut trail entered it. Calhoon followed, and the mules trailed. Cutler swung down again, what was left of the wire looped around his shoulder, the shotgun in his hand. “Calhoon. Change the saddles. Off the horses onto the mules. They’ve been carrying no load and they’re fresher and they’re both fast, though nothing like the horses. I’ll buy us a little more time, anyhow, while you do that.”

  Calhoon asked no questions, dismounted, began to loosen cinches. Cutler ran a short distance down the trail, nothing more than a notch wide enough for a single rider, in the jungle. It hurt to give up the shotgun, but it was necessary. Quickly he looped wires around its twin triggers, twisting them tight with pliers. Then he wired the gun to a tree, its muzzles pointing down the trail. He ran the trigger wires down the tree, under the crotch of a low-growing bush, then across the trail a foot from the ground, anchoring their farther end tightly to a tree. When the set-gun was rigged, Calhoon had the mules saddled, bridled, was swinging up on Kate. Cutler mounted Emma. Now the sound of men galloping in single file up the trail could be heard clearly. Cutler touched Emma with spurs, and the mule lined out across the clearing. Calhoon followed, the freed horses coming too, and the dog, at Cutler’s command, racing alongside.

  There was no trail out this way, only brush; and it was thick. The mules hit it hard, but vines and briars entangled them. Cutler longed for a machete, but had none. Desperately, they fought their way through it, progress painfully slow. They had made maybe a quarter of a mile into the woods when, behind them, the great thunder of two shotgun barrels fired simultaneously split the night. Then there was the screaming of horses and the crying out of men.

  Cutler’s mouth twisted. He regretted the damage done to the horses, but it was inevitable. Nevertheless, eighteen buckshot spraying straight down that narrow corridor in the woods could not miss; men would have gone down under those twin charges as well as animals. And they had gained a little more time. The question was, would it be enough?

  The mules plunged on through the tangle. Cutler learned soon enough that whatever time he had gained was insufficient. Give Gorman’s Gunhawks this; they were determined; and the shotgun had not killed them all. As he and Calhoon blundered along in darkness, they heard noise behind them; the survivors of Cutler’s stratagems had come together in the clearing and had picked up the trail of the fugitives. God knows, Cutler thought, the mess we’re making a blind man could follow . . . And the hell of it was, Gorman’s men had machetes. Once, when he reined in, he could hear them hacking. Judging from the sound they made, there were at least six of them left, maybe more. And their progress was twice as fast through all this tangle as that of Cutler and Calhoon.

  Still, Cutler thought, maybe we’ve got a chance. Maybe . . . Then they suddenly broke into a clearing, and he knew the hope was forlorn.

  “Hell’s fire,” Calhoon breathed. “We’ve had it now.”

  Cutler did not answer. He was staring at the sheer escarpment that rose on three sides around them. It was a natural box, hemmed in by cliffs more than a hundred feet high, its only entrance or exit the way they had come. It was a trap, and they had ridden straight into it. But, in the dark, there had been no way to avoid it.

  Cutler let out a weary sigh. So much running, so much effort, and now it came to nothing. There was no cover in the clearing; it was a sheet of solid rock, lava laid down in some great volcanic flow, the same eruption that had produced the slick cliffs that held them. “Well,” he said, “I guess we fight ‘em. Even if it’s three, maybe four, to one.”

  “Fight ‘em?” Calhoon’s voice rose. “From where? They got us like fish in a barrel. Not even a rock to hide behind. Like takin’ cover on a glass window pane ...”

  Cutler gestured. The men were closer now, in the jungle. Five minutes, he guessed, maybe ten, to get ready for the assault. “In the shadow of the cliff. We’ll use the animals for cover. That’s all we’ve got.” He spurred Emma into the pool of blackness that lay at the bottom of the great escarpment. Calhoon, the free horses and the dog, followed. Cutler swung down, pulled his saddle gun. “Anyhow, when they come out, we can open up, we’ve got that advantage.”

  “Yeah, that’s just fine,” Calhoon said bitterly. “And the minute they see our gun flashes they take cover in the woods and rake us. If direct fire don’t get us, the ricochets will.”

  Cutler said, harshly, “God damn it, you claim to be a fighting man. Quit belly-achin’ and get ready to use your gun. We can hold ‘em off ...”

  “Yeah, till sunrise. Then they can see us and we can’t see them.” But Calhoon levered a round into his Winchester, and suddenly he chuckled. “By God,” he said, “I’ll bet Jeff and Hosea never had a time like this.”

  Sheltered behind the animals, they waited. It was a long chance, Cu
tler thought, but maybe they could survive it. The horses, mules, and the dog would not, though. Apache, Kate, Emma, Big Red . . . They were all he had left, he thought, all. And now—

  He stiffened. Something hit him in the small of the back.

  He turned. “Calhoon, did you—?”

  Then it came again, a tiny pebble, and this time it bounced off his shoulder, from above. Cutler, pulse suddenly racing, looked up. Then he jerked up the Winchester, as another pebble fell.

  “Juan,” a voice said then in Spanish, low but far-carrying. “Don’t shoot.”

  Cutler stood rigid, a prickling in the short hairs at the back of his neck, as if a ghost had spoken.

  “Juan, it’s I—Hernando. This way, quickly.”

  Cutler’s eyes strained; then he saw it, the shadow of motion on the cliff, halfway down. It moved again, resolved itself into the figure of a man. “You have no time,” Fernandez’s voice—undoubtedly—came again. “Hurry. To your left. Where the rock face splits. There is a trail.”

  Calhoon said, “Cutler, what the devil—”

  “Shut up!” Cutler snapped. “Follow me!” A sudden exultation filled him. Hernando was alive. He jumped into Emma’s saddle, put the mule leftward at a walk.

  “There!” said Hernando’s voice from above.

  Cutler’s trained eye picked it out, then, the trail; but nobody who had not chased up and down mountains after game would have recognized it. Not a pathway, really, just a series of footholds horses or mules could negotiate, leading straight up the cliff. He heard a man, not too far away in the brush say, “Cut that goddam vine, Charlie!” Then, with no more hesitation, he guided Emma onto the tiny ledge that was the first step upward.

  “Jesus,” Calhoon breathed behind him, but Cutler paid no attention. The mule, surefooted, was climbing, and climbing fast; she discerned the trail, too. Jumping, scrambling, she ascended the rock wall swiftly. Cutler said, without looking back, “Give Kate her head, she’ll make it.”

  “Lord God Almighty,” was all Calhoon said, but Cutler heard the other mule scrambling after, and the gelding and the stallion following. The dog, he knew, would have no trouble, but what he feared was that one of the riderless horses might slip and fall.

  Then suddenly, halfway up the cliff face, Emma stopped. To all appearances, there was nowhere else to go. Fernandez appeared, a black silhouette, high above. “Spur her hard, make her jump!” he called. “She’ll grab.”

  Cutler had to trust that advice. Below him there was a sheer drop of seventy feet, ahead nothing that, in darkness, he could see. But he rammed in the spurs. Emma brayed, leaped upward. Then she was clawing with forefeet at a ledge, gained it, steadied. Cutler pushed her on to make room for Calhoon and the horses.

  They came, to Cutler’s relief. He had known Apache would follow, but was not sure about the stallion. It was the equal, however, of his gelding in every way. He heard Calhoon’s muttered word of gratitude as Emma made the jump, found footing, heard the other animals come behind. Then he realized that he was on a wider ledge, and the traveling was easier. He touched Emma lightly with a spur once more; she almost galloped; then, suddenly, she was over the rim, and on level ground. Calhoon, on Kate, scrambled after, and the stallion and the gelding crested the rim, too, panting. Big Red came after, limping, one of the jaguar-wounds on his flank opened up again. And at just that instant, below, the pursuers broke from the woods out in the open. Cutler heard a shout, “Hold up. They’re bound to be out there somewhere.”

  Instantly, Cutler swung down, to lower his silhouette, and Calhoon followed suit. Cutler looped reins around the muzzle of the mule to choke off any braying, and Calhoon did the same. A word to the dog made sure it would not bark. Then Cutler pinched Apache’s muzzle, and Calhoon got the stallion.

  Suddenly, below, somebody yelled, “Rake the cliff. Damn it, we’ll flush ‘em out!” Guns went off down there, and bullets whined off rock as the Gun-hawks sprayed fire all around the three sides of the trap. Under cover of the echoing racket, Cutler led the cavalcade forward quickly off the skyline, and then, as he passed a huge mound of lava, a dark figure leaped from behind it and embraced him. “Juan!” Hernando Fernandez whispered. “Juan, you have come at last.”

  Cutler hugged the thin, wiry old figure. Then the old man pulled loose. “This way,” he said quickly, and ran ahead. Cutler swung back into the saddle, followed. Fernandez led him to a clump of woods beyond the lava jumble. Up here, the trees were big, widely spaced, with fewer vines. In the blackness, Cutler almost fell into the ravine.

  It sliced down deeply, a narrow cut, and at its bottom a campfire winked. Below, the gun thunder and the shouts of men continued. Fernandez fell back, touched Cutler’s leg. “Let them shoot all they please; they will never find us here.” Then he led Cutler down a winding trail into the ravine.

  As they approached the fire, a man beside it put another log on it, then moved into the glaring light. He was short and stocky and dressed in tattered, dirty khakis and high laced boots. His face was square, lined and weathered, and his hair was gray. He stared at Cutler as Cutler reined in by the fire and swung down off the mule, while the gunfire went on below.

  “So you’re John Cutler,” he said, and he put out his hand. He spoke English and there was no doubt he was an American. “Thank God you’re here. I thought you’d never come, but Hernando said not to worry; he saw you coming in a dream. My name is Donald Hitchcock, and I hope to God you’ll help us take care of Gorman’s Gunhawks.”

  Chapter Six

  Even as Hitchcock spoke, the shooting below tapered off. Hernando Fernandez moved into the firelight, a bent man in his sixties, skin as dark as mahogany, hair gray, thin frame clad in the dirty white cotton of the campesino, the peasant. He had aged five, ten years, in the two since Cutler had last seen him, it seemed.

  “Listen,” he said. “They have quit wasting ammunition. Now they will search and soon they will leave, reporting to Gorman that you vanished in thin air.” He laughed. “Juan, I think you have finished some of them and made the chase costly to them. We heard the shotgun go off: a set-gun?”

  “A set-gun,” Cutler said. “I got your letter, went into Villa Hermosa, tangled with Gorman. Billy Calhoon here bailed me out. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.”

  “Your friend,” Fernandez said, “is mine. Senor Calhoon . . .”

  Calhoon, squatting wearily by the fire, said, “I’m no friend of Cutler’s.”

  “Let that ride, Billy, it’s a long story,” Cutler said. Before he could go on, Hitchcock leaned forward, eyes intent. “You were in Villa Hermosa. Did you see my daughter, did you see Sharon?”

  Cutler blinked, then remembered the girl in the cantina. “Red hair, green eyes?”

  “That’s her.” Hitchcock held his breath. “Is she . . . well?”

  “She’s with Gorman,” Cutler said. “Looks like he treats her rough, but she’s all right.”

  “Thank God . . .” Hitchcock looked into the flames. “If only you could have brought her with you.”

  “There wasn’t time,” Cutler said. “Look, Hernando, what the hell is going on here?”

  Fernandez said, “Very much indeed. Villa Hermosa has changed since you last saw it, Juan. And not for the better. Not since Gorman’s Gunhawks came. They call me a witch and say I have second sight, and they tried to burn me; but indeed, if I had known then what I know now, I would never have shown Senor Hitchcock the old mine.”

  “The mine?”

  Hitchcock drained his gourd of coffee. “Maybe I’d better start it, Cutler. It goes back a long way.” He stared at the fire. “Cutler, I was born and raised in the silver mining business. Years ago, when I was just a kid, before Juarez made his revolution, my dad ran a mine across the Sierra, near where Creel is now.” His mouth tightened. “The workers were ignorant mountain Indians and the way they were treated . . . worse than mine mules . . . By my own father ...”

  He set the gourd aside. “Anyhow, Juarez clea
red us out. I grew up back in the States, went to college, became an engineer, married Sharon’s mother, God rest her. I worked in big mines all over the country. But all that time, I had a dream.”

  “Which was?” Cutler asked.

  “To come back to the Sierra, find a mine of my own, and run it in my own way. Over on the eastern slope, the big mining interests with American backing have everything tied up, and they still work the Indians like slaves. But I knew that these hills here, near the Gulf, used to produce silver in the old Spanish days. And I thought if I could find one of those old mines . . . Anyhow, I came down here prospecting, and then I met Hernando . . .”

  He paused. “I had to convince him that I meant what I said. But when I finally did, when he understood that what I really wanted was to pay off an old debt for the lousy way my father treated those Indians, something I couldn’t get out of my head ...”

  “When I understood that,” Fernandez said softly, “I showed him a certain place I knew of. That is one reason, you see, I am known as a witch. Because I remember what I hear, and because I go places other people are afraid to go. And so I knew of the old Spanish mine that, for two centuries, had been closed ...”

  “He took me there,” Hitchcock continued, “and I opened up the shaft. The Spaniards pulled out because they’d lost the vein in hard rock; but the Spaniards didn’t have dynamite. It took me about five minutes to see what two powder shots could do to open up that fault and pick it up again. There was enough silver to . . . well, it was a fortune. So I hauled tail to Durango, then Mexico City, got all the authorities paid off and the title cleared to me, and I opened up the diggings and put the Villa Hermosa people to work. One third to me, two thirds distributed to them as wages. They were prospering, Cutler, under that arrangement; the village was getting rich. Then Gorman and his Gunhawks came in.”

  His mouth thinned. “The scum of America, drifted down below the border, gunmen and cutthroats and criminals he recruited into a private army. He just showed up in Villa Hermosa one day and came to the mine and told me he was taking over, him and his men.”