by Ralph Cotton
“Are you thinking Tinnis Mayes might be our benefactor, Ranger?” Thorn asked. He grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re about to give Mayes reconsideration.”
“He’s growing on me,” Sam said. “If he pulled us out of this blast, I’m liking him better every minute.”
“Here they come,” Sandoval said, rifle in hand.
Through the thick cloud of swirling, settling dust, the three saw the grainy outline of four riders stepping their horses cautiously onto the rock-and-pine-strewn trail.
At the head of the riders, a gunman named Bart Quill said to the three men flanking him, “I can’t see squat. All of yas spread out, so one bullet doesn’t wind up killing the lot of us.”
Even as the other three eased their horses away, one of them, a man named Hugh Jasper, said low under his breath, “What the hell did Metcalf mean blowing this up so soon? I was off the site using the jake. Next thing I knew I was scrambling for my saddle, one hand holding up my britches.”
“Don’t ask me, Jasper,” said Quill. “I just work here like the rest of yas.”
Jasper eased farther away, searching squint-eyed through the thick dust.
The other two men, Irv Stokes and Jimmy Creed, rode a little ways in opposite directions, then searched back toward each other until they caught each other by surprise. Creed almost fired a shot at a lurking figure in front of him. But he caught himself and said, “Damn it, Jimmy, let me know something out there.”
“I’m just as surprised as you are, ol’ buddy,” said Creed. “Maybe we ought to all be sticking together after all—”
His words fell short as a bullet from Sandoval’s rifle punched a hole in his left side and came ripping out his right side, leaving a fist-sized exit wound in its bloody wake. He let out a loud grunt and spilled to the ground beside his horse.
“Was that you, Jimmy?” Stokes asked, dropping quickly from his saddle, crouched, his Colt in hand, looking all around.
Hearing no reply from Creed, he jerked his horse along by its reins toward the cover of a downed and broken pine lying in a pile of rock and broken limbs. In the settling dust he saw the other two gunmen had dropped from their horses and managed to take cover out of sight.
“Good work, Sandy,” Thorn said quietly. “One down, three to go?” he asked the ranger.
“That’s what I counted,” Sam replied. “They’ve taken cover now.”
“We can’t afford to leave them dogging us on the trail,” Sandoval said.
Thorn gave the ranger a questioning look. “Shall we spread out and have after them, Ranger?”
“I’m with you, Captain,” said Sam, surveying the settling dust as the outline of boulders, tree lines and the littered trail came back into sight.
Chapter 16
From atop the cliff, Raymond Metcalf and Call Neely couldn’t clearly see the gunfight for the thick cloud of dust still looming above the sealed-off canyon trail. But what they heard was enough to make them nervous, not knowing if it was their men or the ranger and the bounty hunters who were getting the upper hand.
“What’re we going to do, Metcalf?” Neely asked, seeing only flashes of rifle fire back and forth through the thick dust.
“We can’t take a chance,” said Metcalf. He turned and walked to where the Gatling gun sat with its barrel tipped down in front. “We have to start shooting anything moving down there. If our men don’t get out of the way, that’s too bad for them. We can’t risk letting these three get up here past us and onto Big Aces’ trail. He’d kill us for it.”
“Now you’re talking!” said Neely. He ran under the cliff overhang and came back dragging a wooden crate filled with loaded ammunition clips. “Which are you going to do, feed or shoot?”
“I’ll do the shooting,” said Metcalf. “Get me loaded up good. I want to really chop this canyon trail all to pieces. We can’t let these three get up out of there alive.” He jerked on a pair of cavalry-style gloves as he stepped around behind the big mounted gun and raised its barrel a few inches.
“What do you want us to do, Ray?” one of the other two trail guards, a man named James Addison, asked Metcalf.
“You and Pembroke get the wagon horses hitched and ready, Jim. As soon as we see what’s left down there, we’re cutting out of here.”
“What about Delbert?” the trail guard asked, gesturing a nod across the dusty canyon.
“He was told to get away from here as soon as he shoved the plunger,” said Metcalf. “I expect he’s smart enough to see that his job was canceled.”
On the rocky trail below, Sam and Sandoval had dropped flat onto their bellies as two of the riflemen had targeted their muzzle flashes in the looming dust and unleashed a hail of rifle fire on them. But thirty yards away, Thorn had dropped behind the cover of a large broken rock and began returning fire on their behalf.
While Thorn kept the riflemen busy, Sandoval rolled away in one direction, the ranger in another, each mindful of the other’s position, lest they fire on each other. When they both suddenly began firing again, Irv Stokes took bullets in his chest and side simultaneously and fell to the ground, dead. Seeing Stokes go down, Bart Quill backed away. He stumbled in the blinding dust until his hands found his saddle horn; then he swung up into his saddle to ride away.
Yet before he could bat his heels to the horse’s sides, Thorn spotted his grainy outline and fired. The impact of the shot took both Quill and his horse to the ground. “Two down, two to go . . . ,” the older bounty hunter murmured to himself, levering another round into his rifle chamber.
Through the thick dust, Sam and Sandoval saw the horse and rider fall. As each of them rose from their positions into a crouch and moved away in the same direction, the Gatling gun began to throw down a blast of bullets from high above them, causing them to drop back onto their bellies as bullets riddled the rocky ground.
Sam heard one of the two remaining riflemen let out a scream as three of the big gun’s rounds stitched across his chest. Even as the Gatling gun continued to pound out blast after blast from the cliff high above them, Sandoval came crawling in beside the ranger, his bandanna pulled up against the swirling dust.
“Come on, they’re shooting blind,” the younger bounty hunter said, as if a bullet needed eyes in order to kill them. But as he crawled away, Sam followed.
“Where are you headed?” he asked, crawling up beside Sandoval.
“To higher ground,” Sandoval said beneath the repetition of the big gun. “That’s where we’ll find the captain, if he can get there.”
The big mounted gun began to settle into a firing pattern back and froth, left to right across the dust-choked canyon trail. Moving in the opposite direction, the two crawlers made it to the base of the hillside and collapsed, knowing they were at an angle the gun couldn’t reach.
After a moment of coughing and fanning their hats, Sandoval shook the ranger’s shirtsleeve. “Look at this.” As he spoke he raised his hat and waved it once slowly.
Along the base of the hillside, Thorn came toward them, crouched, but moving quickly, leading their animals at a trot behind him.
As the older bounty hunter spotted them and came to a halt beside Sandoval, the younger man turned to the ranger and said, “I told you he’d head for the higher ground.”
Above them the Gatling gun continued its repetitious firing, but the three heard its bullets striking and ricocheting off rock fifty yards from them. “The fourth man is either dead or afraid to stick his head up,” said Thorn. He handed the other two the reins to their horses. “This is a good time to ride out of here.”
“Our only way to go is up,” Sam said, standing in a crouch and taking the reins to his stallion.
“Yes, onward and upward,” said Thorn. He added with a thin smile on his dust-streaked face, “Now that we know they have a Gatling gun, I can’t resist taking it from them. What say you, Ranger Burrack?”
“It couldn’t hurt to have one where we’re headed,” the ranger replied. “But these
men will have the Gatling gun loaded and gone before we get there.”
“Do you know any shortcuts?” Sandoval asked.
“No,” said Sam. “By the time we follow a few dead trails and have to turn back, we’d be better off riding all the way around this canyon to begin with.”
“That could take a day or two,” said Thorn. “Shear won’t be there.”
“He’s not there now,” Sam said. “He was gone before the first shots were fired. This is nothing new for him. Brayton Shear knew the kind of hideout he had here when he set up this place. But that’s the hand we’re dealt.”
“There is no chance of us having the element of surprise on this man,” Sandoval commented.
“Not so, Sandy,” said Thorn. “What will catch Big Aces Shear by surprise is the fact that we’ve gotten past all the defenses he left behind himself, and are still standing, looking down his throat.”
Sandoval considered it, then said, “Yes, to a man like this, us getting there alive will be the last thing he’ll expect.”
Sam nodded his agreement. “I like the way you think, gentlemen,” he said. Gesturing toward the high cliff, he said, “This Gatling crew knows that if we’re alive we’ll be coming for their gun. But we won’t be. Instead, we’ll swing around them and be waiting for them. Let them run into us for a change. Then we’ll be dogging Shear with his own gun. That will make him realize he has to stop and fight us.”
Leading his stallion, Sam walked away along the base of the protective hillside, the Gatling gun still firing relentlessly above them. Thorn and Sandoval gave each other an approving nod and followed close behind him.
Atop the high ridge, Metcalf and Neely sat staring down, all around the looming dust still settling in the canyon floor. Addison and Pembroke had hitched the wagon horses to the gun wagon and had stacked their supplies and water casts in the wagon bed. They set the wagon brakes and walked down to the edge of the cliff, where Metcalf sat with one gloved hand resting on the gun’s iron crank, his other hand on the wooden handles. Beside him, Neely sat staring down, empty ammunition clips at his feet.
“We’re all hitched and packed,” said Addison.
“Good,” Metcalf said flatly, without taking his eyes away from the swirling dust.
Addison and Pembroke looked at each other.
“What I’m saying is, we’re ready to get the hell out of here,” Addison said.
“We’re not,” Metcalf said in a clipped tone. “So make yourself at home until I say otherwise.” He hadn’t looked up from the dusty canyon.
Beside him, Neely looked down at a watch in his gloved palm and said, “Ray, it has been two hours since we’ve heard a shot.”
“Can you see anything down there yet?” Metcalf asked, shooting him a quick glance, then turning his eyes back to the canyon floor.
“Not much,” said Neely. “But if there’s nobody fighting, I say it’s over.”
“I want to see who’s lying down there before we cut out of here,” said Metcalf. “If I tell Big Aces these jakes are dead, I want to know that they are dead.”
“Damn,” said Neely, “it could take all day for this dust to settle.”
“Have you got plans?” Metcalf snapped.
“No plans,” Neely said. He shrugged. Now the three of them looked at each other.
“Go boil a pot of coffee,” said Metcalf over his shoulder to Addison and Pembroke. “We’ll have some. If this dust hasn’t settled by the time we’ve finished the pot, we’ll pull out of here anyway. Fair enough?”
“Suits us,” said Addison on his and Pembroke’s behalf. The two walked away toward the wagon.
“Damn,” said Pembroke between the two of them, “I just packed everything away.”
“Then unpack it,” Addison said, sounding testy. “What do you want from me? I can’t make the sumbitch leave until he’s damn good and ready. We could be here for supper, for all I know.” The two walked on. . . .
An hour later, after two cups of strong hot coffee, Metcalf stood up, rubbed his eyes and slung coffee grounds from his tin cup. “Hell, this dust ain’t never going to clear out of here.”
Neely stood up beside him and sighed. “A hundred years from now, they’ll be saying, ‘Why is this canyon always full of dust?’ ” He chuckled to himself and shook his head.
“All right,” said Metcalf, “let’s get out of here. If the bounty men and the ranger are alive, they’ll be coming for us.”
“But we won’t be here,” said Neely, walking over and loosening the tall ammunition clip from the Gatling gun in order to carry it to the wagon.
On a steep winding path reaching upward toward the main trail, Sandoval stopped his horse and held up a gloved hand, cautioning the ranger and Thorn to stop five yards behind him.
“What’s this . . . ?” Thorn whispered, he and the ranger seeing the single rider across a narrow gorge from them, his horse climbing upward along a path running parallel to theirs.
“I’m betting it’s one of their men,” Sam said quietly, watching the rider continue until he rounded a jagged turn and disappeared from sight. The two looked down the steep trail behind the rider, noting the widening gorge.
“He had to be on the other side of the canyon when the explosion went off,” said Thorn.
“Yep,” Sam said, the two pushing their animals forward now that the rider was gone. “That means the trail he’s on must lead to the top quicker than this one.”
“This could be a good piece of luck for us,” said Thorn to both the ranger and Sandoval as the younger man rode back and slid to a halt to meet them. Gesturing toward the narrowing gorge ahead of them, Thorn said, “As soon as we can cross, we’ll cut our time in half.” He tapped his horse forward with the heels of his knee-high boots. Sam and Sandoval followed.
Two hundred yards farther up the narrow path, the gorge between the two trails turned into a rough, brush-filled gully. The three men dropped from their horses and led them across spilled and broken boulders left over from ancient landslides. On the other side, Sandoval looked down at the rider’s hoofprints in the dirt.
“Here’s some more luck, Captain,” he said. “His horse has thrown a shoe.”
The three studied the prints for a moment.
Sam reached over and slipped his rifle down into its boot. Drawing his Colt from his holster and checking it, he said, “Three sets of hooves are too easy to hear. Give me a ten-minute head start, then catch up to me.”
“What makes you so sure, Ranger?” Sandoval asked.
“He’s not sure, Sandy,” said Thorn, speaking for the ranger. “But he figures it’s worth the try.” He looked at Sam. “Ten minutes, Ranger. Good luck.”
“Obliged,” Sam said. He stepped up into his saddle and rode away at a quick, careful clip.
Before ten minutes were up, Sam rode around a turn in the steep trail and came upon an abandoned horse, limping and chuffing under its breath. “Easy, there,” he said to the limping animal. He stepped down, loosened the horse’s saddle and let it fall to the dirt, noting the empty rifle boot.
Raising the horse’s front foreleg, he examined the tender shoeless hoof. Stone bruise . . . , he decided, lowering the hoof gently. The horse would be okay if he could stay alive for a few days of convalescence here in the wild, desolate terrain.
Back in his saddle, the ranger rode on at a walk, knowing the gunman couldn’t have gotten much farther along on foot climbing the steep path.
Less than a hundred yards ahead, he heard the man’s gasping breath and then he saw him step into the middle of the trail, hatless, his empty hands held high, sweat pouring down both cheeks. Over at the edge of the trail, Sam saw the man’s rifle leaning against a rock. On the ground beside it lay the man’s rolled-up gun belt.
“All right . . . don’t shoot,” the man said, his breath heaving in his chest. “I’m . . . not used to . . . climbing like this. I give up. Whew, this could kill a man.”
“Who are you, mister?” Sam asked.
“I’m . . . Delbert Himes,” the man wheezed.
Sam studied him for a moment, noting the moon and star hanging from his watch pocket and a watch fob. His big Colt in hand, Sam nudged Black Pot a step closer and said quietly, “Does this trail run up to the gun position?”
“Yes . . . it does,” the man said. “But it’s a . . . hell of a climb . . . on foot.”
“How far?” Sam asked.
“Eight . . . nine miles at . . . the most,” the gunman said, his breath still labored. “Was that you . . . set off the charge?”
“No,” said Sam. “It wasn’t us. It must have been one of your own.”
“Huh-uh.” The man shook his head. “That was my job sealing . . . off the canyon. Somebody was . . . supposed to shoot one of you . . . Then I’d blow the charge.”
“It didn’t work out that way,” Sam said.
“I’ll . . . be damned,” the man said, looking disappointed.
“Turn around, mister,” Sam said.
The panting man looking surprised. “What . . . for?” he said. “Can’t you see that . . . I’m done in?”
“It would make me feel better,” Sam said, gesturing with the barrel of his Colt. “It lets me know right off how well we’re going to get along.”
“Damn it. . . .” The man stalled for a second, the look of a trapped animal coming over his sweaty face. Then he lowered his hands quickly, stuck his right hand behind his back as he let out a yell.
The ranger’s Colt bucked once in his hand just as the gunman snatched a big Smith & Wesson pistol from his belt behind his back and swung it around toward him. As the shot resounded back along the trail, the man hit the ground and lay dead, his blank eyes staring up at the sky.
Back where the two bounty hunters sat waiting on the trail before following the ranger, Thorn said, “Time’s up. Let’s go.”
