Ambush Valley

by Johnstone, William W.

  “They’re gonna steal the whole safe!”

  Mantee jerked his head in a nod. “That’s what we got worried about. I left Jack and Ben there to keep an eye on the place. Figured I’d better round up you and the rest of the fellas, so we could get over there and put a stop to whatever’s about to happen.”

  “I don’t know where Joaquin is, but I reckon six of us can handle any trouble we run into.” Hoyt got Bardwell’s attention and jerked his head toward the door. Bardwell, as stolid as ever, maneuvered the senorita off his lap and motioned to Leaf, who gave the guitar back to its elderly owner and picked up his rifle instead. Quickly, the four men left the cantina and started down the street toward the store. In clipped tones, Hoyt filled Bardwell and Leaf in on what was happening.

  As they reached a shadowy doorway across the street from Cyrus Hinkley’s business, Mantee said, “Blast it, I left Jack and Ben right here to watch the place. Where’d they get off to?”

  “Maybe they were afraid the men who are after the safe were going to get away with it before we got here,” Bardwell suggested. “They could have slipped around to the back of the store to try to get the drop on them.”

  Mantee nodded. “Yeah, that must be what happened.” The whisper of steel against leather sounded in the dark ness as he drew his gun. “We’d better get over there and see what’s going on.”

  “Be careful,” Hoyt cautioned as they drew their guns and started across the street. “We want to be sure what we’re walking into.”

  He motioned for Leaf and Bardwell to go one way around the store while he and Mantee went the other. With militarylike precision, the men followed Hoyt’s orders.

  The building was dark; Hinkley had already closed for the night. He probably didn’t lock the doors when he left for the day. Most folks, even merchants, seldom locked their doors. That way, if somebody found themselves in need of supplies in the middle of the night, they could go in and take what they wanted and leave the money to pay for it. For a system that depended on people being honest and honorable, it worked remarkably well … although back East any storekeeper who did business that way would be cleaned out in a single night, more than likely.

  So the would-be thieves wouldn’t have any trouble getting in, Hoyt thought. The only difficulty they would encounter would be in lifting the heavy safe and loading it into the wagon. Then they could drive away with it and the eighty thousand dollars inside it.

  As he and Mantee catfooted along the alley beside the building, staying close to the wall, Hoyt listened for the sound of voices. He didn’t hear anything. He stopped at the corner and pressed his back to the wall. Not far away, a horse blew through its nostrils and stamped a foot. Somebody was back there behind the store, all right. Hoyt risked a look.

  A wagon with an open bed sat there, parked near the rear door. A team offour horses was hitched to the vehi cle. Hoyt could see them clearly enough in the light from the moon and stars. No humans were in sight, though, and the door into the store appeared to be closed.

  Where were the thieves? Already inside? Hoyt sup posed it was possible, but he wasn’t sure why they would have closed the door behind them. It made more sense to leave it open if they were going to haul out that safe.

  Hoyt put his mouth close to Mantee’s ear and said, “The wagon’s there, but I don’t see anybody.”

  “What about Jack and Ben?”

  “No sign of them, either.” Hoyt motioned with his gun. “Come on. We’ll take a closer look.”

  They approached the wagon slowly and carefully. Part of the way there, Hoyt spotted movement on the far side of the vehicle and stiffened. Then he heard a low whis-tIe, indistinguishable from that of a night bird, and knew it came from Bardwell. That meant he and the English man were closing in on the wagon from the other side.

  With Mantee a few feet behind him, Hoyt reached the wagon. It was empty except for some blankets thrown in the back. Hoyt frowned in puzzlement. He didn’t like mysteries, and he couldn’t figure this one out. Where were the men Mantee and the Coleman brothers had seen? For that matter, where were the Coleman brothers?

  “Go see if that safe’s still in the store,” he told Bard well, who nodded and disappeared silently into the building. The rest of them waited for a long, tense moment until Bardwell stepped out into the alley again.

  “It’s there,” he reported. “Right where we left it.”

  “No sign that it’s been disturbed?” Hoyt asked. “Nope.”

  “And there’s nobody around?”

  “I didn’t see anybody,” Bardwell said, and Hoyt knew that if there was anything important to be seen, Bardwell would have noticed it.

  Hoyt muttered a curse and jammed his Colt back in its holster. Bardwell and Leaf leathered their irons as well, and Leaf tucked the rifle under his arm.

  “Some of us should stay here and guard the safe while the others search for Jack and Ben,” Leaf suggested.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mantee said. “I know right where they are.”

  Hoyt started to turn toward him, saying, “I thought you said-” He stopped short when he realized that Mantee’s gun was pointed at him.

  At that moment, the blankets in the back of the wagon were thrown aside and the Coleman brothers sat up with revolvers already clutched in their fists. They had Bard well and Leaf covered before either of the bounty hunters could make a move. Even Bardwell’s usually impassive face looked startled in the moonlight.

  “Oh, hell, Deke,” Hoyt said.

  “Don’t try for your gun. Abner,” Mantee said. “I know you’re fast, but there’s no way you can outdraw a gun that’s already lined up on you.”

  “You three are the ones stealing the money, aren’t you? You brought the wagon back here to carry off the safe. There was never anybody else skulking around.”

  Ben Coleman said, “You’re a smart hombre, Hoyt. But not so smart that you can see there’s eighty grand here for the takin’.”

  “That’s not our money,” Bardwell said.

  “And we’ll be getting a reward, old boy,” Leaf added. Mantee snorted in contempt. “A reward!” he repeated.

  “A measly nine thousand dollars. There’s nine times that much in the safe!”

  “It’s not right,” Hoyt said. “That money doesn’t belong to us. We work for rewards, remember?”

  “You mean we risk our hides for a piddling fraction of what we recover.” Mantee shook his head. “Anyway, don’t go gettin’ high-and-mighty on me, Abner, I’ve ridden with you long enough to know that you’ll run roughshod over anybody who gets in your way when you’re after a bounty. You’ve bent the law more’n once.”

  “Bent it, maybe,” Hoyt allowed. “But I never broke it. Not like this. I never out-and-out stole.”

  “Oh, it gets worse than stealin’ ,” Jack Coleman said. “We’re gonna kill the three of you, too.”

  “We talked about it,” his brother put in. “We decided we didn’t want you boys trailin’ us. Only one way to make sure you can’t.”

  “That’s not sporting,” Leaf said. “Not sporting at all. You’re not giving us a fair chance.”

  Jack laughed. “I thought even a damn Englishman would know enough not to expect life to be fair.”

  If they were going to kill him and Bardwell and Leaf, Hoyt thought, they should have done it right away. Just gone ahead and pulled the triggers as soon as they had the drop on their intended victims. But since they hadn’t, Hoyt thought it might be a good idea to try to keep them talking a little longer.

  “You know, Deke,” he said, “just last night I started to wonder a little about you and these two, since you’d been spending so much time together lately. I never really trusted Jack and Ben.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t like you either, you son of a bitch,” Ben said.

  Hoyt went on as if he hadn’t heard the interruption.

  “But I put it out of my head and decided not to worry about it. You know why, Deke? Because I trusted yo
u. I figured we’d been riding together long enough that you’d never try to double-cross me, even if you were tempted.”

  “You figured wrong,” Mantee said, but the raw edge in his voice told Hoyt that he was under a strain. “It takes a lot to make me turn on a friend, but hell, Abner, eighty grand is a lot. More than twenty-five thousand apiece.”

  “Yeah, if those snake-blooded Colemans don’t decide to turn on you, too, as soon as they’ve got the money. They might plan on keeping your share as well as theirs.”

  “That won’t work, Hoyt,” Jack snapped. “Deke knows we wouldn’t do that. Hell, takin’ the money and killin’ you three was his idea!”

  Hoyt didn’t want to believe that, but Mantee didn’t deny it. Instead, the lean gunman just raised his revolver a little more. The slightest pressure on the trigger would send a bullet through Hoyt’s brain.

  “Joaquin will hunt you all down!” Hoyt said quickly.

  “He won’t let you get away with this!”

  Both of the Coleman brothers laughed. “We’re not worried about Escobar,” Ben said. “He’s dead. I put a knife in his gut fifteen minutes ago, before Deke ever came to the cantina to fetch you over here.”

  Hoyt felt despair well up inside him. It was an unfa miliar emotion, and it tasted bitter and sour under his tongue, the way defeat must taste.

  “Morgan will come after you,” he grated. “He’s already gone through hell to get that money back. He won’t sit back and let some no-accounts like you have it.”

  “That old man don’t scare us, neither,” Jack said.

  “He’s just a washed-up gunslinger. We can handle him. Shoot, Deke could take him.”

  Hoyt looked at Mantee. “Is that what you think, Deke? You reckon you can outdraw Frank Morgan?”

  “What I reckon is that we’ve all flapped our jaws more than enough,” Mantee grated. “So long, Abner.”

  That was it, then. All that was left was for Hoyt to make a desperate grab at his gun and try to get it out and squeeze off a shot before he went down. Dying might not be so bad if he could get some lead in that traitor Mantee first. …

  Like a burst of thunder, gunshots exploded in the alley behind Hinkley’s store.

  Even in his younger days, Frank hadn’t been much of one for carousing. He’d drink a beer or even a shot of whiskey every now and then, but for the most part he much preferred a good cup of coffee. That was what he had steaming by his plate as he finished up the meal he had or dered in the settlement’s only cafe, down by the church.

  The ordeal in Ambush Valley had left him famished, and it felt mighty good now to have a full belly. He sipped the strong black brew from the cup as he reflected on his plans, which for the immediate future included strolling back down to his room in the small adobe hotel, stretch ing out on the bed, and sleeping the sleep of the just for, oh, the next ten or twelve hours. Then, after a good break fast, he would be ready to start back to Tucson with Abner Hoyt and the other bounty hunters-and that bundle of loot that was now locked up in Cyrus Hinkley’s safe.

  Frank frowned a little as he thought about the money. Eighty thousand dollars made a mighty tempting target, and nearly everyone in town knew about it, knew it was being kept in the store for the night. Hoyt must have told some of his men to stand guard over it, Frank thought … but as he cast his memory back over the events of the evening, he couldn’t recall hearing Hoyt say anything about that.

  After emptying the cup, Frank laid a coin on the table to pay for his meal and stood up. It wouldn’t hurt any thing to take a walk down to Hinkley’s store and check on the money before he turned in for the night. That way he could be sure that nothing was going to happen to it.

  And if Hoyt hadn’t posted any guards, then Frank would find him and see that it was done right away. Frank had seen Hoyt going into the cantina earlier, and figured he was probably still there.

  Millions of stars glittered overhead in the clear air. The moon had risen over the mountains to the east, and now cast its silvery illumination over the landscape. Frank was tired and sore, but he was satisfied with the way things had gone, other than Cicero McCoy’s death. And Gideon’s, he thought, remembering the man who had befriended him inside Yuma Prison. He never had known for sure what Gideon’s crimes were, and it was possible the man had deserved to spend the rest of his life behind bars. But still, Frank wished that Gideon’s life hadn’t been cut so short.

  He was musing on that when a dark shape suddenly loomed up out of the shadows and staggered toward him.

  Frank’s instincts had the Colt out of its holster in less than a shaved whisker of time. He held off on the trigger, though, as a pain-wracked voice came from the figure in a weak whisper. “Por favor, senor … por favor … “

  The fella was asking for help. Still wary of a trap, Frank stepped forward and asked, “What’s wrong, son?”

  He could see now that the man had an arm pressed across his belly. The hombre stumbled again and almost fell as he gasped, “Senor … Morgan?”

  Frank used his free hand to grasp the injured man’s arm and steady him. “Escobar?” he said, recognizing the bounty hunter now. “What happened to you?” Warning bells went off in Frank’s mind as he asked himself if this could have anything to do with the loot in Hinkley’s safe.

  Joaquin Escobar clutched at Frank’s arm. “Senor Morgan … I have been stabbed!”

  “Who did it?”

  “B-Ben … Ben Coleman.”

  A shock went through Frank. Ben Coleman was one of the bounty hunters. Had he attacked Escobar in some sort of personal quarrel, or-

  “They … they are after the money!” Escobar said, as if he’d read Frank’s mind. “The Coleman brothers … and Deke Mantee.”

  Mantee was the lean, dark-faced gunman. Frank had seen Mantee watching him intently several times and recognized the look. Mantee had been wondering if he was faster on the draw than the notorious Drifter. Frank hadn’t intended to find out the answer to that question.

  Now it sounded like he might not have any choice in the matter.

  “You must … stop them, Senor,” Escobar went on.

  “I intend to,” Frank assured him, “but first we’ve got to get you some help.” He saw dark tendrils of blood snaking over Escobar’s hand from the wound in his belly. Escobar was probably doomed no matter what Frank did, but he wasn’t going to give up on the man.

  Yellow light showed through the windows of one of the nearby houses. Frank led Escobar over to the dwelling and pounded on the door. A man with a white spade beard jerked it open a moment later, with an ancient horse pistol in his hand. “What the hell’s goin’ on out here?” he demanded in an irritated voice. “Who’re you?”

  “This man’s hurt,” Frank said, steering Escobar toward the old-timer. “Take care of him. Make him comfortable and then go fetch Cyrus Hinkley for him.”

  “What … who … “the man sputtered. “Why, he’s a greaser!”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Frank said, his voice hard as flint. “Now do as I told you, mister.”

  Nobody in his right mind was going to argue with frank Morgan when he got that tone in his voice. The old-timer set his pistol aside and reached out to help Es cobar. Frank turned and ran into the night.

  He had to get to Hinkley’s store before Mantee and the Coleman brothers could steal that money. It had been stolen once already, and Frank wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  Not after everything he had gone through to bring it back.

  Chapter 23

  Nothing was going on in front of the store. The place looked quiet and dark and peaceful. But Frank knew that looks could be deceptive, so he slowed his run to a glid ing walk and moved silently along the wall of the build ing toward the rear. He heard voices, and detected the undertone of anger and menace in them. As he swung around the corner, his experienced eyes took in the scene instantly: Deke Mantee had his gun pointed at Hoyt, while the Coleman brothers stood in a wagon parked nearby, cover
ing Bob Bardwell and Bartholomew Leaf.

  Colt flame bloomed in the shadows as Mantee fired. Hoyt was moving even as Mantee squeezed the trig ger. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the bullet entirely; probably no one alive would have been. The slug hit him in the shoulder and slewed him halfway around. He fell to one knee as he continued trying to claw his gun from its holster.

  In the instant after Mantee fired, Frank shifted his aim to the two men in the wagon. The Coleman brothers hadn’t triggered their guns yet, but they had Bardwell and Leaf dead to rights. Frank’s Colt bucked twice as he smoothly squeezed off the shots. Even in this relatively poor light, Frank’s accuracy was astonishing. Jack and Ben Coleman went over backward as the bullets punched into them, toppling them from the wagon bed to the ground. Jack was dead before he landed, with a bullet in his heart. Ben took a few seconds to die, drowning in his own blood from the slug that had ripped through his lungs.

  Mantee whirled when he heard the pair of shots behind him. His reactions were fast, Frank had to give him that. Mantee’s gun blasted and sent a bullet whistling past Frank’s ear. Frank fired back at him, but Mantee was already moving. He lunged to one side, looped an arm around the neck of the wounded Abner Hoyt, and hauled Hoyt to his feet. Frank had to hold his fire, as did Bardwell and Leaf, as Mantee backed away. Frank couldn’t risk a shot as long as Mantee was using Hoyt as a shield.

  The barrel of Mantee’s gun cracked across Hoyt’s wrist and forced him to drop the gun he had finally suc ceeded in drawing. Hoyt cursed bitterly. He fell silent as Mantee ground the barrel of the gun against his head.

  “Drop it, Morgan!” Mantee shouted. He snapped at Bardwell and Leaf, “You, too!”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Hoyt said. The pain of his wound could be heard in his voice. “Shoot the son of a bitch. Shoot through me if you have to, but kill the backstabbing bastard!”

  Mantee laughed harshly. “They won’t do that, Abner, and you know it. Bardwell and Leaf are your friends, and Morgan’s not the type to shoot an innocent man.”