Ambush Valley

by Johnstone, William W.

  He had to give Fortson credit for one thing-the sher iff was stubborn as hell. All morning long the posse hung back there, half a mile or so behind the bounty hunters. Actually, Hoyt reflected at midday, he had expected them to give up and turn back by now. Evidently, Fortson wasn t going to allow that, though.

  Still, the inferior quality of the posse’s mounts gradu ally took its toll, and they dropped farther and farther behind.

  The heat in the middle of the afternoon forced a halt. Hoyt and the others found some shade in an arroyo and waited out the worst of it. Hoyt was beginning to worry that the bank robbers would make it to Ambush Valley ahead of them. In that case he would have a decision to make, whether to follow them into that hellish wasteland or give up. He took scant comfort in the knowledge that the fugitives had probably laid up for a while, as well, to escape the heat.

  Finally, Hoyt’s impatience goaded him to swing up into the saddle and growl, “Move out.” Several of the men l?oked like they would have rather waited until it was a little cooler, but they went along with what Hoyt said.

  Only a short time later, Escobar pointed and said “I see some dust ahead of us. That has to be them.”

  Hoyt urged his horse to a faster pace. “Let’s run them down,” he called to the other bounty hunters. The thrill of the chase had him fully in its grip now, and that excite ment soon spread to the rest of the group.

  They galloped up a long, shallow rise, and when they crested the top of it they could see for several miles ac.ross a huge stretch of rocky, arid ground. “See those cliffs on the other side of the flats?” Escobar shouted over the pounding of hooves.

  Hoyt saw them.

  “That gap is the entrance to Ambush Valley!” Escobar went on. “A canyon runs through there for about a mile and then opens up into the valley! I’ve been that far into it several times!”

  “Look!” Bardwell yelled. “I see them!”

  So did Hoyt. Eight tiny figures on horseback raced across the flats toward the gap in the cliffs, which jutted up sheer for a couple of hundred feet and ran as far to the north and south as the eye could see. Ambush Valley was the only way through without going miles and miles out of the way.

  Hoyt lashed his horse with the reins and leaned for ward in the saddle, urging as much speed as he could possibly get out of the animal. The horse responded gal lantly, stretching out into a hard run.

  Bartholomew Leaf pulled up alongside Hoyt and shouted, “I say, Abner, perhaps I could pick some of them off if I stopped and set up my rifle!”

  “Do it!” Hoyt shouted back, making his decision instantly.

  Leaf owned some sort of fancy English rifle that could shoot incredible distances when it was set up on its stand and sighted in. He peeled away from the rest of the gallop ing group and rode to the top of a little knoll where he would have a good field of fire at the fleeing bank robbers.

  Hoyt didn’t hear the shot, but a few minutes later he saw one of the outlaws suddenly pitch out of the saddle and flop lifelessly to the ground. He knew that Leaf must have brought him down. A moment later, one of the racing horses collapsed, its front legs going out from under it as if they had been jerked by a rope. Leaf’s second shot had hit horse instead of rider, but it was ef fective because the outlaw who had been on top of the horse went sailing out of the saddle and came crashing down on the ground with such force that he was stunned. The man had barely had time to recover before the bounty hunters were on top of him.

  He jerked his pistol from its holster and raised the gun, and that sealed his fate. Several shots rang out and the man tottered backward, jerking as bullets tore through him. He folded up like a rag doll … a bloody rag doll.

  That made two of the bank robbers who were done for.

  The others were drawing steadily closer to the cliffs, though, because they had good horses, too. Those mounts were tired from the long run from Tucson, but so were the horses ridden by Hoyt and his companions. It was a good, hard race, with the stakes being that ten thousand-dollar reward … and the lives of the fugitives.

  Hoyt saw a cluster of boulders at the mouth of the canyon that led to Ambush Valley. Six of the outlaws were still alive. If they reached those rocks and forted up in them, they might be able to hold off Hoyt’s group. In that case, Hoyt and the others would be caught out here in the open, with no cover for hundreds of yards. They would make mighty fine targets. They were risking their lives in this pursuit, too, he realized.

  But that danger sure as hell didn’t make him turn back or call off the chase. He wanted that reward. More im portantly now, he wanted to win. His blood was up. The smell of powder smoke was in his nose. At moments like this, he lived for battle.

  The outlaws had good horses … but the bounty hunters’ mounts were better. Slowly but surely, the man hunters closed in. Hoyt drew his revolver and leveled it at the fugitives. He was close enough now he could see the desperation on their faces as they turned their heads to glance back over their shoulders. Hoyt and his men began to fire as the cliffs loomed closer and closer, with Ambush Valley just beyond.

  Chapter 5

  Red rage swam before Cicero McCoy’s eyes. He couldn’t believe they had come this far, made it this close to their goal, only to have a damned posse catch up to them. He honestly hadn’t believed that anybody from Tucson could catch up to them before they reached Ambush Valley.

  But two of his men were down already, and the pursuit was closing in. As he looked back over his shoulder, McCoy’s lips drew away from his teeth in a furious gri mace. Only six or seven men! Damn it! If he had realized that the gang outnumbered the posse, he would have or dered them to turn around and make a stand, rather than running for the gap in the cliffs. Now he had lost two men and the odds were closer to even.

  McCoy didn’t want to run the risk of a battle, not when he was this close to sanctuary. The loot from the bank had been consolidated into three bags. McCoy had one, Cortez another, and the outlaw called Beck the third.

  That meant the three remaining members of the gang were dispensable.

  “Newton! Travis! Mulligan! Fall back and slow those bastards down!”

  McCoy’s shouted order caused the three outlaws he had named to stare at him in astonishment. He waved an ann at them and went on. “Do it now! Extra shares for you!”

  Their habit of following his commands-and the promise of extra loot-made the three men slow their mounts. They wheeled the horses around and yanked Winchesters from saddle sheaths. A few rounds of rifle fire might cause the possemen to think twice about their headlong pursuit.

  Meanwhile, McCoy, Cortez, and Beck continued gal loping toward the gap in the cliffs as fast as they could.

  Newton, Travis, and Mulligan began firing. Their horses were used to the sound of shots and stood fairly still, giving them a stable platform from which to shoot. The posse members blazed away at them, but the bullets fell short or went wide.

  Then Mulligan’s head jerked and blood sprayed from it as a bullet cored through it. He toppled out of the saddle, causing his horse to shy violently.

  “They got a sharpshooter back there somewhere!” Newton yelled. “I don’t care what McCoy said, I’m gettin’ the hell out of here!”

  He jerked his horse around and put the spurs to it. Travis didn’t hesitate. He followed Newton. As they pounded toward the cliffs, the other three riders reached the gap and vanished into it.

  Newton cried out and leaned forward as a bullet creased his shoulder. He managed to stay mounted and kept riding.

  McCoy was waiting for the two of them behind the clus ter of boulders at the canyon mouth. “Get behind those rocks!” he ordered. “You can hold ‘em off from there!”

  “I’m hit, Cicero!” Newton said as he clutched his bleeding shoulder.

  “That’s your left shoulder. You can still shoot!”

  Travis asked, “What’re you and Beck and Cortez gonna do?”

  “We’ll ride on into the canyon a little ways and cache the loot
, then come back to help you.”

  “We still get extra shares?”

  “Of course.”

  Travis slid down from his horse with his Winchester in his hand and said, “All right, but make it fast! I don’t know how long we can hold off those bastards!”

  “Lemme go with you, Cicero,” Newton said. “Leave Beck or Cortez here with Travis.”

  McCoy shook his head. “Just do what I tell you. You’ll be all right. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “But, Cicero—”

  “By God, do what I said!” McCoy roared. He swung his gun up. “Or I’ll shoot you myself! That posse’s getting closer all the time!” …

  Newton had no choice but to dismount and join Travis behind the rocks. “Don’t leave us here,” he said, a note of pleading ill his voice.

  “Hell, I never double-crossed you boys before, did I? We’re all in this together!”

  As Newton and Travis opened fire on the approaching posse, McCoy turned his horse and rode hard after Cortez and Beck. An ugly smile of satisfaction tugged at the corners of his mouth. He knew the two men would be able to slow down the posse. That would give him a chance to make it deep into Ambush Valley with Cortez and Beck … and the money.

  McCoy had made a rough count of the loot earlier in the day, when the gang was stopped for a few minutes to rest their horses. Upwards of eighty thousand dollars, he made it. That was an even bigger haul than he’d ex pected.

  He chuckled as he followed the twisting canyon. He’d told the truth when he said that he had never ‘double crossed any of the men he rode with.

  But he had never had eighty thousand good reasons to double-cross them, either … until now.

  A bitter taste filled Abner Hoyt’s mouth. So close … They had been so close to stopping the bank robbers before they reached Ambush Valley. Now the outlaws had made it to those boulders at the mouth of the canyon, and at least two of them had opened fire on the bounty hunters from the shelter of those rocks.

  “Spread out!” Hoyt shouted as a rifle bullet zipped past his head. “Hunt some cover!”

  Problem was, there wasn’t much cover to be had out here on the flats. All they could do was try to find some slight irregularity in the ground and sprawl out behind it. Failing that, they could pull their horses down and use the animals themselves for cover. That would-mean sac rificing the horses, but they could afford to do that be cause the posse from Tucson was coming up behind them. The posse didn’t have any extra mounts, but some of them could double up if they had to. And if Sheriff Fortson didn’t like it, that was just too damned bad. Come down to it, Hoyt and his men would just take what they needed, as they always had.

  Hoyt spotted a little hummock of ground and headed for it as more shots banged from the rocks at the canyon mouth. Powder smoke puffed from behind the boulders. Jerking his rifle from the saddle boot, Hoyt flung himself off the horse and dropped behind the hummock. Bullets kicked sand and grit into the air. He cursed as the stuff settled down around him. When the shots stopped for a second, he thrust the barrel of his rifle over the top of the little rise and opened fire, cranking off several rounds as fast as he could. The trick to dealing with enemies who were forted up in rocks like that was to pour in enough lead so that a ricochet stood a good chance of hitting one of the bastards.

  He settled down to a slow, steady fire, and glanced around to see what had happened to his partners. They were spread out over a hundred yards or so of open ground, but they had all found at least a little cover, as Hoyt had done. Shots came from all five of their loca tions, telling Hoyt that they were all right, or at least still capable of using their rifles. Several hundred yards to the rear, Leaf continued using his high-powered target rifle to pepper the rocks at the canyon mouth with lead.

  The conviction grew in Hoyt that only two men were behind the boulders. Three were down out here on the flats, more than likely dead. But that still left three of the outlaws unaccounted for, and Hoyt realized bitterly that those three had probably gone on through the canyon and were in Ambush Valley by now. No doubt they had the loot from the bank with them, too. They had left two of their bunch behind to slow down the pursuit.

  It was effectively slowed down, too. Hoyt had no doubt that he and his men could root the bastards out sooner or later, but it was going to take some time.

  Escobar was about twenty yards to Hoyt’s left, stretched out behind a rock that couldn’t have been stick ing up more than a foot from the ground. Hoyt called over to him, “Joaquin! You think if we covered you, you could circle around and get close enough to that cliff to work your way along its base?”

  “You mean so I could get at those hombres in the rocks?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Another worry crept into Hoyt’s mind. Night wasn’t more than an hour or two away. “If we don’t get rid of them, they’ll keep us pinned down out here until after dark. Then they can slip away.”

  Escobar didn’t sound happy about it when he called back, “I’d need a lot of covering fire.”

  “We’ll give it to you,” Hoyt promised. Bardwell was the next man to his right. Hoyt turned his head and called, “Bob! Joaquin’s going to try for the cliffs! When he takes off, pour as much lead as you can into those rocks! Pass the word to the other men!”

  “Right, Abner!” Bardwell replied. “Good luck, Joaquin!”

  Escobar was going to need it.

  The Mexican set his rifle aside. Carrying it would slow him down too much, and if he couldn’t do this job with his pistol and knife, it wasn’t going to get done anyway. He looked over at Hoyt, waiting for the signal to begin his desperate run.

  Hoyt waited until all the other men had acknowledged his order, then looked over at Escobar and jerked his head in a nod. He yelled, “Now!” and began emptying his Winchester at the rocks as fast as he could work the lever and pull the trigger.

  The other men opened fire, too, sending a storm of lead into the boulders. Even at this distance, Hoyt could hear the slugs whining viciously off the rocks. Maybe they would bounce around enough in that nest of stone to take care of the outlaws before Escobar ever got there. At the very least, the bastards ought to be hunkered down, unable to draw a bead on the Mexican bounty hunter who had leaped up from his meager cover and now sprinted toward the cliffs as fast as he could, angling away from the canyon mouth and zigzagging back and forth.

  It was maybe 150 yards to the cliff face. Escobar took between twenty and thirty seconds to cover that distance, and the time seemed longer. It must have seemed like an eternity to Joaquin, Hoyt thought as he saw slugs kick up dust around the man’s racing feet. Even with the barrage of rifle fire raining down on them, the outlaws were able to get off a few shots. None of them were accurate enough to hit Escobar, though. He reached the base of the cliff and sagged against the rock, his chest heaving as he dragged in huge breaths of air. The sprint had com pletely winded him.

  Hoyt smiled as he saw that Escobar had reached his goal safely. The bounty hunters’ guns were falling silent now as their bullets ran out. “Reload!” Hoyt called. “Let’s keep it hot for them while Joaquin catches his breath!”

  Within a minute or two, Hoyt and his men resumed their fire. Return shots still came from the rocks. The outlaws might have been wounded-there was no way to know about that yet-but they weren’t dead.

  Escobar began working his way along the cliff. He had only about fifty yards to cover, and it didn’t take him long. The two bank robbers holed up in the boulders had to know that he was coming, but there was nothing they could do about it. They couldn’t even see Escobar from where they were, let alone draw a bead on him.

  But there was one other thing they could do, Hoyt real ized as he heard the swift, sudden rataplan of hoofbeats.

  They could run.

  Escobar heard the horses, too, and froze where he was for a moment until Hoyt waved him on. He slipped into the rocks, gun drawn, moving warily in case this was a trick.

  It was no trick,
Hoyt knew when Escobar appeared in the canyon mouth a few minutes later and waved for the rest of the bounty hunters to come on in. The outlaws had fled.

  But before they’d cut and run, they had accomplished what they’d set out to do. They had slowed down the pur suit enough so that the rest of the gang was well on their way into Ambush Valley by now-with that stolen bank money, no doubt. Hoyt stood up and spat in disgust.

  The bastards had gotten away-for now. But sooner or later, Hoyt vowed, he would catch up to them.

  He wasn’t giving up on ten grand that easy.

  McCoy had told Newton and Travis that he and his companions were going only a short distance into the valley to cache the loot. McCoy didn’t slow down, though, as he and Cortez and Beck made their way deeper into the wasteland.

  The canyon ran for maybe half a mile through the cliffs, twisting and turning between sheer rock walls, before emerging into Ambush Valley itself. Two to three miles wide and more than fifteen miles long, the valley ran roughly east and west between two ranges of rough sandstone and granite peaks. The mountains petered out eventually, giving way to desert again, and when they did, Ambush Valley came to an end as well.

  Almost no vegetation grew in here. The landscape was an ugly, unrelenting mixture of brown and tan and red. In some places, razor-sharp rocks jutted up from the ground They would cut a horse’s hooves to ribbons if anybody tried to take a mount across one of those stretches. In other places, sandstone spires rose dozens of feet into the air, tapering to sharp points. Narrow, steep-walled ravines cut across the valley as if a giant knife had slashed them into the earth. Natural stone bridges transversed those ravines, but a traveler had to know where they were; oth erwise, he might ride back and forth for hours, search ing for a place to cross. Huge boulders balanced atop pinnacles, looking as if the slightest vibration might make them come crashing down.