James Mann let out a soft curse. Then he let the. 50-caliber Winchester fall into the dirt. “Indians,” he said, before his voice box just quit working.
Camp Creek
The riders had spread out wide. The one in the center had donned a massive black hat and bandoliers crisscrossed his chest. Dust caked most of his clothes and his black beard.
Millard Mann rose behind the fire and studied the riders as they reined in. The one in the black hat with the bandoliers had a repeating rifle in the scabbard and two revolvers holstered butt forward high on his hips. A big knife was sheathed in his left boot.
To his left, a rawboned man with a wandering eye sat on a sorry looking horse. A fellow that skinny would be hard-pressed to keep his britches on his hips, and this one kept his up not with suspenders, but a piece of rope. Something moved in his long beard. Something alive.
Even from the fire, Millard could smell the thin man. The way Millard figured things, the man didn’t need that old revolver on his left hip. The stink alone would kill most people.
In the corner of his eye, Millard considered the third rider. Lean, leathery, wearing stovepipe boots. His red silk bandana danced with the wind, and he wore a linen duster over a black broadcloth coat. Like a circuit rider. Only a sky pilot would be dressed in that outfit in such heat, yet Millard knew the man did not preach the gospel of the Lord. His preaching came from the barrels of the nickel-plated, ivory-handled Remington .44s stuck inside a red sash.
“Evenin’,” the one in the red sash said.
“Howdy.” Millard was surprised to find he could even speak. It had been far too many years, yet he felt a calm overcome him The nerves faded like they had back in his youth, before marriage, before the railroad, before the children. He felt odd, as if Jimmy and Borden were standing beside him.
Standing with him.
He had to keep himself from glancing to his side to see if the ghosts of his dead brothers were there.
He knew better. To let one of those men out of his sight would mean his death.
The one with the bandoliers raised a hand—his right hand—and pointed at the small campfire. “Yer coffee,” he said, his accent a mixture of French and Spanish. “It smells inviting.”
Millard smiled. “Does it?” The pot hadn’t been on the fire long enough to emit any smell. All he could smell was his own sweat, and the stinking man’s foul odor.
“Been travelin’ quite a while,” the one with the fancy pistols in the red sash said.
“So have I,” Millard said easily. “Heading to Fort Smith. My brother works there.” Worked there, he thought sadly. “Deputy marshal for Judge Parker’s law.”
“Is that a fact?” Duster Man said.
The stinking man finally spoke. “We might know ’im.”
That caused the one with the bandoliers to laugh. Duster Man showed no emotion except his eyes hardened. He would be the one to watch. He was the deadly one. The other two were . . . well . . . idiots.
“You a law?” Duster Man’s jaw tilted at the holstered revolver resting on Millard’s bedroll, well out of Millard’s reach.
The one in the bandolier gave a quick wink and flashed a finger at the saddle where that piece of driftwood resembled the stock of a Winchester in the scabbard. At least, Millard hoped it would fool the three bad men.
He made himself chortle. “Hardly. Work for the railroad.”
“What brings you out here?” asked Bandolier Man.
“Got a leave.”
The one who stunk like a dead coyote straightened in his saddle. “You gets a leave . . . and you come”—his hand swept toward the barren prairie—“here.”
“It’s fine country.” So is Hell.
A long silence passed. Millard wiped his palms, suddenly clammy, on his trousers. He waited. It was a game of waiting, but the three men would not have much patience. It would happen. Soon.
Real soon.
Said Stinking Man, “Sure would fancy a cup of coffee.”
“And, we can pay,” added Bandolier Man.
Millard wasn’t in McAdam. Wasn’t in civilization. He was a long, long way from home. He shook his head. “No. I’ve never turned anyone away from my camp and I’ve never charged anyone for sharing coffee or grub. Come along.” He slid toward the fire, dropped behind it and the pot, and tilted his jaw toward Bandolier Man. “Light down. Rest a spell.” Some of us will be resting till Judgment Day before anyone thinks this coffee is fit to drink.
The tin cup lay on its side. He picked it up with his left hand, blew the dust out of it, righted it, and started for the coffeepot with his right, before shaking his head, laughing at his stupidity and looking at the three riders. “Liked to have burned my hand. Reckon I’m a mite green.”
The three riders stared at each other, but only briefly.
Bandolier Man grinned at Stinking Man and lowered his right hand to the pommel of the saddle. His left hand reached for one of the revolvers.
Green? Millard thought. Yes. But not stupid. He picked up the glove for his right hand as if to use it for a mitt as he reached for the handle of the blue-speck enamel coffeepot.
Bandolier Man gripped the butt of his revolver as Stinking Man began to laugh. Duster Man was the only one who seemed wary, as if he could read Millard’s mind.
“Don’t have any milk”—Millard laughed good-naturedly—“but do you take your coffee with sugar?” He grinned, and the deerskin glove came up. “Or just lead?”
That triggered the senses, the instincts, of Duster Man. He dropped his reins, and both hands darted down for the Remingtons. Millard swung the glove toward him and the deerskin leather exploded in smoke and flame.
E. Allen & Company made few of its 1st Model Derringers, patented just before the end of the Civil War, probably not even two thousand between 1865 and the early 1870s. Millard’s, probably manufactured back in 1871, had a barrel of no more than two and a half inches, probably a tad less. The grips were two-piece walnut, but he couldn’t feel them beneath the glove’s leather. He couldn’t even feel the hammer, but he had cocked it before he had dropped the derringer into the glove. The top was flat, the barrel a tad loose. Over the past twenty years, he had taken the .41-caliber rimfire out at Christmas only to clean. He hadn’t been sure it would even fire.
Of course, it did fire. He’d aimed from instinct, the way his father had taught him, not at Stinking Man or Bandolier Man with the pistol already palmed and coming up. Millard remembered to kill the deadliest one first.
As soon as the .41-caliber pistol fired, blasting his nostrils with the scent of gun smoke and scorched leather, he leaped over the saddle and ran toward the creek bed, diving just as a bullet whistled over his head.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The derringer shot hadn’t killed Duster Man—Millard had not expected to get that lucky—but the shot had startled all three men. Bandolier Man reacted first, popping two wild shots as Millard ran.
He landed hard in the soft sand, came up, and the Winchester rifle practically leaped into his hands.
The rifle had been a gift from the governor of Texas, back when Millard, Jimmy, and Borden had been much younger, much wilder—before Millard had become a family man and turned to the railroad for a steady, less dangerous life. A third-model that fired .32-caliber Winchester Center Fire cartridges, it had been manufactured in 1883, sporting a twenty-four-and-one-quarter-inch octagonal, blued barrel, walnut stock with checkering, and a hard-rubber butt plate. His name was engraved on the frame below a Lone Star flag. Also richly engraved with One of One Thousand, it was worth better than one hundred dollars.
The excellent weapon had come with a standard rear sight, the sporting style, but Millard had added one of Winchester’s midrange vernier tang sights behind the hammer. It weighed nine pounds. It held fourteen rounds. Charged by twenty grains of black powder, that Winchester had been made for killing deer or varmints.
The last man he had killed had been killed with that rifle.
<
br /> By the time Millard had the Winchester, Duster Man had dived off his horse, come up to a knee with the fancy Remingtons, and popped a shot that kicked up dirt in Millard’s face. All the while, Stinking Man was trying to keep from getting thrown off his wildly bucking mount.
Millard loosened one shot, heard a scream, and quickly ducked, levering another round into the Winchester. His rifle lacked the power and range of Jimmy’s old battered .44-40 carbine. A .32-caliber bullet and twenty grains of powder could affectively kill at maybe one hundred yards. These men were a lot closer.
In firearms parlance, the word grain did not mean gram weight or granules of powder. It had been used since the 1870s to measure the weight of powder and bullet, based on the weight of a grain of rice—and that type of measurement dated to the Roman era.
Two more shots rang out, hooves pounded, and the one who spoke in that mix of Spanish and French cursed in English. Millard sprang up quickly, fired, ducked, and heard the man still aboard the bucking horse scream out. The Remingtons answered.
Bandolier Man yelled, “Eddie!”
Duster Man said, “He’s done for. Kill that—” Screams, hooves, and gunshots drowned out the man’s curse.
Millard chanced a quick look, caught his breath, and made his heart stop beating so out of control. Stinking Man had been pitched off his horse, his left foot caught up in the stirrup. His badly frightened horse had taken off, dragging the man behind him as he galloped several yards up the creek bed, through the mud, gravel, and pieces of driftwood. Millard watched it leap up the far side, lunge up, and race off toward the east, carrying the dead man and his stink, far, far away.
That left two deadly killers.
Millard took off his hat, wiped the beads of sweat popping out on his brow, and moved along the bank, keeping his head down. He stopped and fed two more shells from his vest pocket into the rifle. For a moment, he looked at the bedroll, his gun belt resting atop it with the old converted Colt, and wondered if that had been a mistake. No, he decided, the Richards-Mason .44-caliber conversion had more power, but not the range of the .32 rifle. Besides, although a Colt felt natural on his hip, he had never been much of a hand with a short gun. Only Borden had ever shown much instinct with a six-shooter. Jimmy and Millard, like their old man, had always preferred their long guns.
Another shot kicked up sand above the bank where Millard had been. Again, he wet his lips and looked over at his horse, dancing around in its hobbles. He had been smart to use those hobbles on the chestnut’s forefeet. Providing, of course, the two outlaws did not kill the beast out of spite.
“Hey, gringo!” Bandolier Man called out. “Let us talk. This makes no sense. Quelle sottise! We come for coffee. You shoot at us. You kill Eddlie.”
Millard wished his horse would stop snorting and dancing so. He wanted to hear. Not what the man with the bandoliers was saying. He was listening for something else. He said nothing.
“Gringo? Talk to me. Ay, caramba, this is just a misunderstanding. Gringo? Gringo, are you dead? Mince alors! Did one of our shots kill you?”
The voice sounded as if it came from Millard’s left, so he looked to his right, listening, not answering, not making any sound, not even moving. Briefly, he glanced at the Winchester, felt his thumb on the hammer. It was cocked. He knew Bandolier Man didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to find out where Millard was hiding behind the bank.
The bank began to drop, leaving him with only about fifteen or twenty yards of cover. If he kept going toward the pistol and his makeshift camp, he would be caught in the open. The creek bed wasn’t wide, either, and cover was hard to find. If he tried for his horse, they’d gun him down.
So there was nothing to do . . . but wait.
To their advantage, the sun had been to the riders’ backs, making him stare at them into the sun, even as it had begun to sink. In the dark, that might help him. Slowly, softly he rolled to his back and raised the Winchester rifle. Once more, he wet his lips and kept waiting and looking.
“Amigo. Mon Dieu. Let us talk. We do not wish to harm you. We merely want coffee.” Bandolier Man laughed. His voice told Millard that the man was not moving.
The chestnut stopped dancing, but shook its head, snorted, and kept its ears flat on its head. He appeared to be staring up the bank. Millard decided Duster Man would be coming from there. Bandolier Man began talking again in French, Spanish, and English, but no longer did Millard listen to anything he had to say. He kept his eyes on the bank, but mostly on the ground. Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
The long shadow first appeared barely over the edge of the embankment, beyond the scrub where the creek turned to the south. It hung there for the longest while, then grew a bit longer, and stopped again. Bandolier Man kept on talking, screaming, no longer pleading, mostly cursing. Millard knew it was to keep him from focusing on the one in the duster, the one whose shadow moved again, just a bit, and stopped.
Patience.
That often proved the key to surviving a fight. Duster Man, he of the two Remington .44s, had the patience of an oyster.
Another inch the shadow lengthened.
“Amigo! J’en ai ras-le-bol!”
Suddenly, the shadow moved dramatically, and Millard followed it with his Winchester.
The black-clad man in the dirty linen duster sprinted the last few feet, leaping off the bank and firing the Remingtons in both hands—where Millard Mann had been earlier. He quickly realized his mistake, probably seeing Millard in the corner of his eye, and adjusted his aim. He was fast, quick, deadly.
Even before he hit the ground, he was raising both Remingtons, shooting the one in his left hand first, but that shot went wild.
His knees buckled as he hit the ground, but he did not fall. He came up, firing again with the .44 in his left hand. That slug slapped past Millard’s right ear.
Then the Winchester .32 boomed.
Millard was lying flat on his back, staring at the killer with the twin Remingtons.
Through the smoke, he saw the one in the duster flinch, but not fall. The Winchester barked again. He saw blood spurt from the man’s chest, and the slug drove him back against the cut of the bank.
Millard’s ears rang from the sound of the guns, he smelled smoke, and he tasted fear, but he was not afraid.
The horse danced and whinnied, fighting the tether and hobbles, but Millard could pay no attention to the gelding. He jacked another round into the rifle, and the Winchester spoke.
The bullet caught Duster Man higher, and his left hand dropped as he pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the foot, quite an ignominy for a gunman. Again, Millard pulled the trigger, and saw dust and blood fly off the man’s chest. The pistol slipped from the killer’s left hand, falling into the dust by his bloody, mangled boot, but he still held the other Remington in his right hand.
That might be a threat, but Millard knew he couldn’t focus on that man any longer. He heard those French curses and rolled to his knees, levering the rifle, bringing it up to his shoulder just as the man with the bandoliers appeared.
The big man’s gun roared, and Millard felt the shot graze his head, burning his hair.
As the outlaw thumbed back the hammer of his revolver, Millard fired the ’73.
The bullet split the bandoliers, and sent the burly man flying backward. Almost immediately, Millard turned again to the one in the duster. He had managed to bring up the Remington in his right hand and pulled the trigger, but that bullet didn’t come close to Millard.
Millard aimed, but did not fire.
The man didn’t have the strength to thumb back the hammer. The pistol weaved wildly in his right hand before it dropped into the dust. He leaned back against the wall of the bank, spit out froths of blood. Millard couldn’t hear what the man tried to say, but he could read his lips.
It was an insult to Millard’s mother.
He shot the dying man right between the eyes.
He didn’t bothe
r to watch the man crash to the ground. He came up, jacking the lever, moving to where the banks dropped off, and stepped up toward the big man with the massive hat—which the wind had blown off—and the bandoliers.
He lay spread-eagled on the ground, the pistol far from his hand, fingers curled.
Millard went to him, and slowly eased down the hammer of the smoking .32. Bandolier Man stared up at him, or rather, up at the sky, but those eyes did not see Millard. They saw nothing. At least, not on earth.
In another world, those eyes were probably staring at Lucifer.
Their horses had galloped off, not after the one carrying the stinking man, but north and west. Millard toed the burly man’s side with his boot, just to be sure he was indeed dead. Satisfied, he walked back down the creek bed, fishing out .32-caliber cartridges, which he quickly fed into the rifle as he approached the one in the duster.
He lay on his side. Millard didn’t have to toe him to make sure he was dead. That last shot had blown out the back of his skull, but he would have died anyway. The other bullets had been mortal, but he was one tough customer.
Millard considered burying them, but he had no shovel, and they would not have buried him had the outcome turned out differently. He walked back to the bedroll, lowering the hot Winchester and picking up the gun belt, which he buckled around his waist and adjusted the holster on his hip.
His horse had stopped dancing, sensing that loud gunshots would not be heard again. Millard certainly hoped that would be the case. He moved to the saddle, pried out the piece of driftwood from the scabbard and tossed it away. He was shaking. He held both hands straight out, and watched them tremble.
Twelve years had passed since he had done anything like that, back when James was just a kid. Thinking of his son did not steady his nerves. In fact, the thought made him shake even more, until he balled his fingers into tight fists, and steeled himself.
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