The Loner: Rattlesnake Valley

by J. A. Johnstone

  The shots had gotten louder and Diana was on the verge of panic from worrying about the old Indian. She was cool under fire when facing danger that threatened her, but whenever someone she cared about was in jeopardy, she had a harder time controlling her emotions.

  “Take it easy,” The Kid told her. “We won’t let anybody hurt the old man. Why would Malone go after him in the first place?”

  “I don’t know!” Diana said. “It doesn’t make any sense. Gray Hawk isn’t a threat to anybody. He just wants to live out his days in peace.”

  The Kid didn’t doubt that, but somebody sure seemed to think the Yaqui was a threat. Judging from the sound of the shots, half a dozen or more men were throwing lead at him.

  Assuming, of course, that Gray Hawk was the target of that gunfire, The Kid reminded himself. He and Diana didn’t know for sure yet.

  “Over there,” she said suddenly, pointing to a cleft that cut through a ridge. “That’ll bring us out below his cave.”

  The Kid reached over to grab her reins and pull her chestnut to a stop at the same time he halted the buckskin.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded as her face flushed with anger.

  “We don’t want to go charging in there without knowing what’s going on,” he told her. “How far is it from here?”

  “To Gray Hawk’s cave? About half a mile, I’d say.”

  The Kid nodded. “We’ll leave the horses here and go on foot through that ravine.”

  “That’ll take longer.”

  “Yeah, but we won’t ride right into a storm of bullets that way.”

  She couldn’t dispute that logic, so after a second she nodded. “All right. But we need to hurry.”

  They dismounted. The Kid tied both horses to a scrubby mesquite tree and took his Winchester from its sheath. He left the Sharps, thinking that it was unlikely he would need it.

  As they started through the cleft in the rock, The Kid motioned for Diana to stay behind him, and to his surprise, she actually did it. Sheer stone walls towered above them for seventy or eighty feet, close enough together that the sky was only a thin blue line. The passage twisted back and forth, and within moments they couldn’t see where they had left the horses. Nor could they see what was in front of them more than a few yards at a time. The possibility of danger lurked around every bend, The Kid supposed, but he didn’t allow that to slow him down.

  He couldn’t very well slow down anyway, not with Diana right behind him, urging him on at every step.

  Suddenly, The Kid heard a horse whinny somewhere not far ahead. He held out his free hand to stop Diana. Leaning close to her so that he could put his mouth near her ear, he asked, “What’s the terrain like where this ravine comes out?”

  “It opens into a flat stretch at the base of a slope. That slope runs up a couple of hundred feet to a cliff that rises straight above it. Gray Hawk’s cave is in that cliff, right where it meets the slope.”

  “Is there any cover down in those flats?”

  Diana nodded. “There are quite a few boulders and chunks of rock that have tumbled down from the cliff face over the years. Quite a few gunmen could hide behind them and fire up at the cave, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” The Kid told her. “Is Gray Hawk armed?”

  “He has a bow and arrow he uses for hunting antelope and mountain goats.”

  “That won’t do him much good against a bunch of hard cases like Malone’s bunch.”

  “And he has a Winchester,” Diana went on. “He’s an excellent shot with it, too.”

  The Kid smiled. “Well, that’s something in our favor, anyway. Stay here while I scout ahead.”

  “I’d rather come with you.”

  “Then if I get in trouble, there won’t be anybody to save my bacon.”

  She looked like she wanted to argue some more, but after a second she nodded in agreement. “All right. But be careful.”

  The Kid left her there and stole ahead. He slipped around a couple of bends and couldn’t see her any more when he glanced back. He hoped she would stay put, because he had a pretty good idea what he was going to find.

  The sound of horses moving around and stomping their hoofs warned him. He flattened against the stone wall to his left and edged forward cautiously until he could peer around the next bend. He saw a man holding the reins of half a dozen horses. Just like at the line shack, The Kid had come up behind his enemies.

  He recognized the man holding the horses. He had seen the hard case a few days earlier, when he’d first encountered Black Terence Malone not far from there. The horse-holder was one of Malone’s hired guns.

  The Kid could tell from the way the gloom had lessened that they weren’t far from the end of the ravine. It was probably just around the next bend past the spot where the horses were being kept. Stampeding the animals wasn’t going to work there like it had at the line shack. To see what the situation was he had to get past the horses.

  Which meant he had to get past the gun-wolf hanging on to their reins.

  The racket of the shots was louder than ever, and the way the blasts echoed through the ravine, bouncing back and forth on the stone walls, made it difficult to hear anything. The Kid was lucky that his keen ears had picked up the sound of the horses moving around and warned him. He relied on those echoes to cover up any small noises he made as he catfooted around the bend and approached Malone’s man.

  The hard case never knew he was there. The Kid struck without warning, slamming the butt of his rifle against the back of the man’s head. He eased up a little at the last second, not wanting to kill the man unless he had to. The hard case let go of the reins and pitched forward, out cold when he hit the sandy floor of the ravine.

  The Kid grabbed the fallen reins to keep the horses from bolting. He made soothing noises as he looked around for some place to tie the animals. He didn’t want them stampeding out of the ravine and warning their owners that something was wrong.

  The cleft was bare of vegetation. There wasn’t even a scrawny little bush he could have used, so he found a rock about the size of a man’s head, wound the reins around it, and set it on the ground so that it would hold the horses in place. Of course, they could pull loose without much trouble if they wanted to, but The Kid hoped they would stay calm enough—at least for a few minutes—not to do that.

  He stole forward again and just as he thought, right around the next bend the ravine came to an end, widening out into that open ground Diana had told him about. The flats were only about fifty yards across, and on the other side of them the slope rose to the cliff and Gray Hawk’s cave.

  Clouds of powdersmoke hung over the narrow flats. The Kid stayed back as far as he could and still get a look along the base of the slope in both directions. He saw the boulders and slabs of rock that had tumbled down from the cliff. Five men were scattered around behind them, all firing at an upward angle toward the black mouth of the cave that was visible where the slope and the cliff face came together. From down there, they couldn’t fire directly into the cave, but they could ricochet slugs off its roof and try to get the old Indian that way.

  Gray Hawk was still alive, though. As The Kid watched, he saw several more puffs of white smoke rising from the top of the cliff. That told him there was a natural chimney running all the way from the top down to the cave where the signal fire was located. Air currents sucked the smoke out of the cave and up that chimney.

  The smoke signals had done their job. They had brought help. It was up to The Kid to pull Gray Hawk out of the trap.

  He thought one of the gunmen was Greavy. Wolfram was nowhere in sight, nor did The Kid see Malone. He guessed the remaining four men were some of the hard cases Malone had hired when he came to Rattlesnake Valley to get his revenge on Owen Starbird.

  The Kid figured that since he’d be taking them by surprise, he could probably gun down two or three of them before they knew what was going on. But he couldn’t
hope to get all five of them before they returned his fire. There was no cover at the mouth of the ravine. He could pull back into it where they couldn’t hit him, but he wouldn’t have a shot at them from that spot, either.

  That meant he couldn’t take on all five at once. He had to whittle down the odds first. He leaned the Winchester against the rock wall and left it where it was. Then he stepped out of the ravine and dashed toward the closest of Malone’s men.

  The hired killer was on one knee behind a large slab of rock as he fired upward at the cave. The Kid approached from an angle rather than come at him directly from behind.

  He made it to within a few yards before the gunman spotted him. The man twisted toward The Kid and tried to bring his rifle around, but before he could fire, The Kid launched into a diving tackle that sent him crashing into the man.

  Both of them sprawled on the sandy ground. The Kid’s left hand closed around the rifle barrel and wrenched it to the side so his opponent couldn’t bring the weapon to bear on him. At the same time, The Kid hammered a punch into the man’s jaw that rocked the hard case’s head to the side. The man’s muscles went limp as The Kid knelt atop him.

  Moving quickly, The Kid rolled the stunned hard case onto his belly and used the man’s own belt to lash his wrists together behind his back. The Kid jerked the bandanna from around the man’s neck and crammed it into the man’s mouth. That made a crude but effective gag that would keep the hard case from yelling as soon as his senses returned to him.

  With that taken care of, The Kid knelt behind the slab of rock and studied the layout. About forty feet to his right, he saw another man standing behind a boulder. The Kid’s view of the gunman was partially obstructed, which meant the man couldn’t see him very well, either. The Kid took a chance and dashed toward the rock.

  Flattening against the boulder, The Kid slid around it with his back pressed to the stone. He pulled his Colt from its holster, reversed his grip on it, and moved swiftly around the boulder until he could see his quarry. The man opened his mouth to let out a yell, but before any sound could escape, the butt of The Kid’s revolver smashed down on his head.

  The man’s hat cushioned the blow a little, but not enough to keep the man from being driven to his knees. The Kid struck again, and the hard case toppled forward, out cold. Knowing that the man wouldn’t regain consciousness for several minutes, The Kid didn’t take the time to tie him up. Instead he crouched next to the rock and tried to figure out how to best approach the third man. He had cut the odds down, but they were still three to one.

  He didn’t realize he’d been spotted until a voice suddenly called out, “Freeze, you son of a bitch!”

  Chapter 20

  The Kid glanced to his left and saw Greavy stepping out from behind another slab of rock with a rifle in his hands. The Winchester was trained on The Kid’s head, and he knew it would take only the slightest pressure from Greavy’s finger to send a bullet through his brain.

  So he did the only thing he could. He froze.

  Greavy came farther into the open. “Morgan!” the little gray-clad gunman spat. “I knew you were gonna be trouble. Black Terence should’ve let me go ahead and kill you after you beat Wolfram.”

  “You could’ve tried,” The Kid said, letting his lip curl a little in contempt.

  That resulted in the effect he wanted. Greavy said, “I’ve heard about you, you bastard. You’re supposed to be fast.”

  “No supposed to be about it.”

  Greavy hesitated, but only for a second. “Holster that gun!” he snapped. “Careful! I’ll kill you in a heartbeat if you try anything funny.”

  The Kid lowered the Colt, shifted his grip on it, and slid it slowly into leather. Then even though Greavy had told him to freeze, he turned so that he faced the little gunman squarely.

  “What now, Greavy?” he asked. “You’re calling the tune.”

  “Damn right I am. We’re gonna settle this, Morgan. We’re gonna find out once and for all which of us is faster.”

  “You know,” The Kid drawled in apparent unconcern, hammering in the final nail, “I haven’t lost any sleep worrying about that.”

  “You’re about to have a long sleep, Morgan. The longest sleep of all.”

  Before The Kid could respond to that, one of the other gunnies called, “Hey, Greavy! What the hell’s goin’ on? Why’d you and Hainsworth and Douglas stop shootin’?” The question didn’t surprise The Kid, since he had noticed that all their guns had fallen silent.

  “Hainsworth and Douglas are out cold!” Greavy shouted back. “And I’ve got the son of a bitch who done it!”

  “What do you want us to do?” That question left no doubt that Greavy was in charge of the group of hard cases.

  “Keep that old redskin pinned down! If he shows his face, blast it!”

  The other man said, “I thought the boss told us not to kill him.”

  “Unless we had to!” Greavy said. “It’s up to me!”

  So Malone didn’t particularly want Gray Hawk killed. That was an interesting bit of information, The Kid mused. Maybe if he lived through the next few minutes, he could figure out what it meant.

  “I’m getting bored here, Greavy,” he said. “If we’re going to settle anything, let’s get to it.”

  Greavy snarled, and for a second The Kid thought he had pushed the weasel-like gunman too far. Greavy looked like he was ready to shoot The Kid with the rifle and be done with it.

  But then he lowered the Winchester. In fact, he set it aside, leaning the barrel against the rock beside him.

  “All right,” Greavy said as he straightened from doing that. “Count of three?”

  “Fine by me,” The Kid said.

  “One,” Greavy called, and as soon as the word was out of his mouth, his hand stabbed toward the gun on his hip.

  The Kid was expecting just such a treacherous trick. As soon as he saw Greavy’s hand start to move, he began his own draw. Greavy was fast, all right, mighty fast. His gun seemed to leap out of its holster and into his hand faster than the eye could follow. The barrel came up and leveled just as fast.

  But Kid Morgan was faster. By the time Greavy pulled the trigger, The Kid’s Colt had already blasted fire and lead from its muzzle. The slug slammed into Greavy’s chest just a shaved heartbeat before the little gunman’s revolver roared.

  That was enough to throw off Greavy’s aim. The Kid felt as much as heard the whipcrack of air as Greavy’s bullet rushed past his ear.

  Greavy was still on his feet, although the impact of The Kid’s bullet had forced him to take a step backward. His eyes widened with pain and surprise and horror at the fact that he was dying. His mouth opened but no sound came out as he struggled to raise his gun and fire again.

  The Kid shot him a second time. The bullet bored into Greavy’s forehead and smashed through his brain, causing the back of his skull to explode in a grisly crimson spray. Greavy fell, seeming to fold in on himself like a house of cards collapsing.

  Instinct warned The Kid to move. He spun to his left just as a rifle cracked and a bullet whistled through the space where his head had been a second earlier. He spotted the man who had shot at him, and as the hired gunman tried to work the lever on his Winchester, The Kid sent a shot in his direction that tore his throat out. The man dropped his rifle and staggered to the side as blood spurted from his ruined throat. He made a terrible gagging sound and pawed at the hideous wound for a second before falling limply to the ground.

  That left just one of Malone’s men unaccounted for, and he couldn’t reach his mount to flee. The Kid was between him and the horses. The Kid ducked behind one of the boulders as a shot blasted and the bullet chipped granite slivers from the stone.

  Suddenly, shots came from the mouth of the cave. Old Gray Hawk was taking a hand in the game. Diana had said that the Yaqui was good with a rifle. Gray Hawk proved it by peppering the rocks with lead where the remaining gunman had taken cover. Bullets ricocheted wildly. The Ki
d heard the hard case shout a curse, then the man stumbled into view as slugs kicked up dirt around his feet.

  The Kid could have killed him then without any trouble, but instead he drilled the man’s thigh. The gunman yelled in pain as he twisted around and fell. He tried to struggle back to his feet, but his wounded leg wouldn’t support his weight. He had dropped his gun when he fell, and as he stretched out his arm to grab it again, The Kid put a bullet into the ground just in front of the man’s reaching fingers.

  “Try again and I’ll stop wasting time,” The Kid called. “I’ll just go ahead and kill you.”

  The man pulled his arm back. “Don’t shoot!” he said. “Don’t shoot, mister. I’m done.” His voice was husky and strained from the shock and pain of his wound.

  The Kid thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt. He smiled. His gun had been empty when he made that threat. He snapped the cylinder closed and stepped into the open, keeping the revolver trained on the fallen man as he approached.

  “You gotta help me, Morgan,” the hard case said with a groan. “I’m gonna bleed to death here.”

  The Kid kicked the man’s gun well out of reach but didn’t holster his own Colt. He looked at the man’s leg and saw blood pumping steadily from the wound. The man really was in danger of bleeding to death.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. Give me your bandanna.”

  The man took off the neckerchief and handed it up to The Kid, who finally holstered his gun. Being careful not to get the Colt where the wounded hard case could reach it, he twisted the bandanna into a strip of cloth that he slid around the man’s upper thigh. There were no sticks lying around, so he couldn’t make a proper tourniquet, but he pulled the bandanna as tight as he could and tied it in place. Blood still flowed from the wound, but it slowed to a trickle.