“Embry’s men wouldn’t have any reason to be sneaking around like that.” Frank reached a decision. “We’re going to follow them.”
“That’s what I figured,” Salty said with a resigned nod.
For the next few minutes, Frank and Salty trailed the two riders, gradually working their way closer. While they were screened by a thick stand of brush, Frank halted long enough to dismount, take a pair of field glasses from his saddlebags, and push some branches aside to create a gap through which to study the two men.
He didn’t recognize either of them. They wore range clothes, but neither man carried a rope on his saddle. That was a sure indication that they weren’t cowboys. The holstered revolvers on their hips were rather low-slung, too.
“Gunmen?” Salty asked in a raspy whisper when Frank returned his horse.
Frank nodded as he put away the field glasses. “That’s what they look like to me,” he said.
“And I reckon you’d know. Bound to be some of Baldridge’s men, up to no good.”
“That’s what I figure.” Frank swung up into Goldy’s saddle. “Come on.”
They started trailing the two riders again. As they rode, Frank became aware of a low roaring sound coming from somewhere up ahead. He saw a rocky bluff looming about fifty feet in the air, ahead and to the left. A narrow, silvery thread ran over the edge of that bluff and dropped straight down.
A waterfall, Frank realized, and it was responsible for the sound he heard. There were probably springs atop the bluff that fed the waterfall and a tributary stream that ran across the valley and into Loco Creek.
That was where the two mysterious riders seemed to be heading. They cut across an open pasture that bordered the thick band of pines running along the base of the bluff.
“If we go across that pasture after ’em,” Salty said, “all they’d have to do to see us is to look back.”
“They don’t seem to be paying much attention to what’s behind them anymore,” Frank said. “It’s like they’ve almost reached their destination, and they’re in a hurry to get there.”
“Yeah, I reckon that’s true,” Salty said as the two men disappeared into the trees.
“We’ll give them a minute and then go after them. Might be a good idea to leave Stormy and the packhorse here.”
They tied the reins of the two extra horses to trees, then started after the gunmen. Dog started to lope ahead, but Frank snapped his fingers and the big cur fell back to trot alongside them.
A tense few moments passed as Frank and Salty crossed the pasture, but nothing happened except that the sound of the waterfall got louder as they approached it. When they reached the trees, Frank signaled to Salty that they should dismount and go ahead on foot.
Frank couldn’t hear the hoofbeats of the other horses, couldn’t hear anything except the roar of the waterfall and the splashing as it plunged into the pool it formed at the bottom of the bluff. Then, through the branches, he caught sight of the horses they had followed. Their saddles were empty.
Frank slid his Colt from its holster. Salty followed suit. They crept forward, not worrying too much about any small noises they might make because the waterfall’s racket would cover them up. The two men they had followed were probably counting on that, too, as they snuck up on their quarry.
A bushwhacking was what those men had in mind, Frank thought. Somebody else was at that waterfall, and the two gunmen planned to slip up and open fire on them.
He didn’t have that completely right, he realized as he and Salty reached a spot where they could look down at the pool formed by the waterfall. A few yards in front of them, the two men they had followed crouched behind some rocks and stared intently at the pool.
Or rather, they were staring at the beautiful young woman who stood there stark naked, knee deep in the water as she let the spray from the waterfall cascade over her. Dark, wet hair hung down her back.
Salty opened his mouth to exclaim in surprise. Frank’s free hand clamped down hard on the old-timer’s shoulder, silencing him before he could say anything. Salty ducked his head, brought his mouth close to Frank’s ear, and whispered, “She ain’t got a stitch on! It ain’t proper us lookin’ at her!”
“I know,” Frank said. He had averted his eyes from the young woman’s nude form, too. He watched the two gunmen instead, who were nudging each other and grinning as they spied on her.
Frank figured they had more in mind than just being Peeping Toms. He was right. After a few more moments, the two men rose from the concealment of the rocks and walked out boldly onto the gravelly stretch at the edge of the pool. The young woman had her back to them and obviously had no idea they were there until one of them called, “Hey, missy!”
She let out a startled cry and whirled around. Instinct made her try to cover herself, without much success. The pool was too shallow to do a much better job of concealment, so she backed off quickly until she was completely under the waterfall. The thick spray obscured her form, even if it didn’t hide her completely.
“You men shouldn’t be here!” she shouted. “Go away!”
The two gunmen laughed, and the one who had called out to her said, “No chance of that, darlin’. Not until you come out of there and treat us friendly.”
In the trees and brush, Salty raised his gun and growled, “By God, I never backshot nobody in my life, but I’m fixin’ to start!”
“Hold on,” Frank breathed. “I don’t like what’s going on, either, but if we start shooting, the girl’s liable to get hurt.”
“We can’t just let ’em get away with this!”
“We won’t,” Frank promised.
He was every bit as outraged as Salty was. Western men were raised to treat respectable women with, well, respect. Most of the time a woman was safe around even the most hardened owlhoots.
But with gutter trash like these two gun-wolves, there was no telling what they might do if they got the chance. Frank knew he and Salty had to put a stop to this.
He was wondering, though, who the young woman was and how the men had known she would be here, bathing in this pool.
“Come on, sweet thing,” the second man urged. “We’ve already seen just about everything you got to show us.”
“Yeah, but we want a closer look at it,” the first man said. “A lot closer look.”
“My father and my brother will kill you!” the woman shouted from under the waterfall. “You’ll never leave the Boxed E alive!”
“Must be the Embry girl,” Frank muttered to Salty. “I had a hunch that might be her.”
One of the men confirmed that by saying, “Nobody knows we’re here, Miss Embry. You just go along with what we say, and we won’t hurt you. You got my word on that.”
Frank saw the sly look that passed between the two men and knew the one who had just spoken was lying. They couldn’t take a chance that Faye Embry would point them out later and accuse them of assaulting her. If that happened, both of them would wind up dancing on air at the end of hang-ropes, very quickly.
No, there was no doubt in Frank’s mind that they intended to kill Faye when they were through with her.
He wasn’t going to gun them down in cold blood, though. Instead he lifted his revolver, nodded to Salty, and stepped out of the trees. The old-timer was right beside him as they leveled their Colts at the two men and Frank said in a powerful, commanding voice, “Don’t move!”
Chapter 8
The men started to reach for the guns on their hips, but at the same time, Frank and Salty both drew back the hammers on their Colts. The distinctive sound of the weapons being cocked made both interlopers freeze.
“Go ahead and twitch, you varmints!” Salty said. “It’d be a plumb pleasure for me to ventilate your mangy hides!”
Neither man moved. They seemed carved out of stone now.
“Miss Embry, you stay right where you are for a minute,” Frank called to the young woman. “We’ll get these men out of here.”
“Don’t worry, I ... I’m not coming out!” she replied as the waterfall poured down around her. Frank could dimly see that she was hugging herself. Fed by snowmelt and springs from deep in the earth, that water was probably pretty cold. That was why Faye had been standing in the spray, not directly in the waterfall.
“I’ll cover them,” Frank said. “Salty, you get their guns.”
“Can I use their own shootin’ irons to plug ’em?” the old-timer asked. “Seems like that’d be, what do you call it, poetic justice?”
“I think you mean irony,” Faye called from under the waterfall.
“Shootin’ irony?” Salty said as he holstered his gun. “I never heard’a that.”
“Just get their guns,” Frank suggested.
“All right, all right.” Salty moved up closer to the two men, being careful not to get in Frank’s line of fire.
Faye said, “When my father finds out what you men have done, he’ll horsewhip you and then hang you! Then he’ll ride for the B Star and kill your boss and his gunslinging toady!”
“Settle down, miss,” Frank told her. “We’ll take care of these hombres, and if you want to press charges against them—”
“Press charges?” Faye broke in. “For what they threatened to do? It would be a waste of time, and besides, I don’t want to have to stand up in court and say that they ... they ...”
She couldn’t go on, but Frank knew what she meant. It would be a humiliating ordeal for her to have to testify that the two gunmen had spied on her and seen her unclothed. And in the end the two would probably be hanged anyway.
But Frank, despite the troubles he’d had with the law over the years, believed in at least giving the justice system a chance to work. All too often, it broke down and folks had to deliver justice on their own, but that had to be a last resort.
Salty reached out to pluck the gun from one man’s holster. “I wouldn’t want to be in your boots,” he said. “You fellas are done for.”
Pointing out the sheer desperation of their situation might not have been the best thing to do. The man Salty had just disarmed suddenly threw himself backwards and sideways, crashing into the old-timer. The hombre twisted around, grabbed for his gun, and tried to wrench it out of Salty’s hand.
As the two struggled, the other man took advantage of the distraction and whirled around as he clawed at the butt of his gun. Frank fired, but the bullet narrowly missed and smacked into the bluff instead. The gunman darted behind Salty and the other man as they staggered back and forth, fighting over the revolver.
Frank couldn’t risk firing again with Salty in the way. He slid to the side, trying to get a clear shot. The second gunman wasn’t worried about his partner. His Colt began to roar as he threw lead at Frank.
The first man finally succeeded in getting his gun away from Salty and smashed it against the old-timer’s head. That was the worst thing he could have done, because when Salty pitched to the ground, stunned, that put him out of the line of fire. The man tried desperately to swing the gun toward Frank, but he was too late.
Frank’s Colt blasted again. The slug drove into the man’s chest and flung him backwards. The upper half of his body landed in the edge of the pool with a big splash that threw shining water droplets high in the air.
Frank pivoted as a bullet burned past his head. The other man was making a dash for the trees where they had left their horses when they snuck up on Faye Embry. He triggered his gun as he ran, spraying lead across the clearing.
Dropping to one knee, Frank tracked his sights after the man and squeezed off a shot. The man spun around like a top as the slug bored through his body. He caught his balance and tried to keep running, but he was mortally wounded and stumbling now. After a couple of steps, he pitched forward to land limply on his face.
The man lying half in the pool was closer. Frank checked him first and saw immediately that he was dead. Streaks of blood discolored the water around him. He lay on his back with water covering his face. His sightless eyes stared up through the pool.
Frank was worried about Salty, but he had to make sure the second man was dead, too, before he checked on the old-timer.
The man was still alive, but from the raspy, bubbling sound of his breathing and the way blood welled from the holes in his body, he wouldn’t be for much longer. Frank picked up the gun the man had dropped when he fell, then hurried back to kneel beside Salty.
He was afraid that being pistol whipped like that might have resulted in a busted skull, but Salty was groaning and trying to come around. He had a bloody lump on the side of his head. Frank probed it with experienced fingers and didn’t find any real damage, although with that swelling it was hard to be sure.
Salty opened his eyes and groaned again. “I didn’t know any ... train tracks ran through here,” he said.
“Train tracks?” Frank repeated. Maybe the blow had addled Salty’s brain.
“Yeah. That was a ... locomotive ... that ran over me ... wasn’t it?”
A smile tugged at Frank’s mouth. He had a hunch Salty was going to be all right.
He slipped an arm around Salty’s shoulders and lifted the old-timer into a sitting position. Salty touched the lump on his head and winced.
“Got a damn ... goose egg,” he said. He looked up. “I’m sorry, Frank. I didn’t think I was close enough ... for that varmint to jump me like that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Frank said. He glanced at the second gunman and saw that the man’s bloody chest had stopped rising and falling. “They’re both done for. Now we can clear out and let Miss Embry get dressed.”
He had already spotted Faye’s clothes lying spread out on one of the big rocks around the pool. Even though he had been trying not to look at her and invade her privacy, when he spoke her name he couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the waterfall.
It was a good thing he did because she was crumpled there behind the cascading water, apparently unconscious ... or worse.
With alarm making his heart thud heavily in his chest, Frank leaped to his feet and charged past the dead gunman into the pool. Water flew up around his feet. Behind him, a startled Salty cried, “What in tarnation!” Then he said, “Oh, Lord! The girl!”
Water slammed down on Frank’s broad-brimmed hat as he reached the falls. He couldn’t worry about propriety now. He bent over and scooped Faye Embry into his arms. As he lifted her, he saw how her head lolled loosely on her neck. There was a raw streak on her forehead that started oozing blood again once she was out of the water.
Frank recalled how the second gunman had fired wildly across the clearing as he tried to flee. One of those stray bullets had struck Faye. The wound didn’t appear to be a bad one, just a nick that must have stunned her. But if she had fallen under the water while she was unconscious, she might be drowned.
Salty was on his feet by the time Frank splashed out of the pool with Faye in his arms.
“Is she alive?” the old-timer asked as Frank carried Faye to the stretch of grass between the pool and the trees.
“I don’t know,” he said as he lowered her carefully to the ground. “Looks like a bullet creased her, but I don’t see any other wounds.”
Proper or not, he let his gaze travel along her bare body, searching for bullet holes or other injuries. Except for the scratch on her forehead, she seemed to be unharmed.
And it was a mite embarrassing but pretty difficult to miss the fact that her chest was rising and falling as she breathed. If she had swallowed any water, it hadn’t been enough to choke her.
“Get her dress and spread it over her,” Frank told Salty, who hurried to obey. “She’ll probably come around in a few minutes, and we don’t want her waking up in a position like this. She’s going to be upset enough just by everything that’s happened so far.”
“Better to be upset than dead,” Salty said as he draped the gingham dress over Faye. “Those damn rannihans would’ve killed her when they were done with her, so she couldn’
t point no fingers at ’em later.”
“I figured that, too,” Frank said. The best thing to do for Faye now was to let her rest and wake up naturally, so he came to his feet and stepped back a little as he looked at Salty. “Are you all right? I wasn’t finished checking you over when I saw what had happened to the girl.”
Salty waved a gnarled hand dismissively. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’ll take more’n a wallop with a six-gun to dent this ol’ noggin of mine. I ever tell you about the time a mule kicked me in the head?”
“I don’t think so,” Frank said. “But I’m not surprised.”
“Yeah, that blasted jughead just hauled off and—Hey, wait a minute. What’d you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” Frank said with a faint smile. He looked down at his clothes. “Reckon I’m soaked to the skin.”
He took off his hat and slung water from it, then placed it on top of a rock to dry.
“I’ll go get the horses,” Salty offered. “You got some spare duds, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but not any extra boots. The sun’s pretty warm. Maybe it won’t take them too long to dry.”
He kept a discreet eye on Faye while Salty went to fetch the animals. He came back leading the four horses with Dog trotting ahead of him.
Frank got dry clothes from his saddlebags and went into the trees to change. When he got back, walking in sock feet and carrying his boots and a wadded mass of wet clothing, he saw that Faye still hadn’t regained consciousness.
A worried frown creased his forehead. She was taking longer to come to than he had expected.
“I thought she’d be awake by now,” he said as he spread the wet clothes on the rocks to dry.
“Reckon she’ll have to take her own sweet time about it,” Salty said. “You think we ought to drag these dead coyotes off so when she does wake up, she won’t have to look at their ugly carcasses?”
“That’s a good idea.”
Salty went to grab the feet of the man lying at the edge of the pool, but Frank waved him off.
“You need to rest,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”
Montana Gundown Page 5
