As Stovepipe jumped into the shadows under the bulging rock, a huge shape loomed up out of the gloom. Spooked by the gun-thunder, Coolidge’s horse had bolted. Stovepipe barely had time to get out of the way as the animal charged out. As it was, the horse’s shoulder clipped him with enough force to knock him off his feet.
Stovepipe’s wrist slammed against a rock when he landed. The Colt slipped out of suddenly nerveless fingers and slid away. He grimaced in a mixture of pain and exasperation. His plan had been a good one, he knew, and should have worked, but it seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong was trying its damnedest to do so.
More shots crashed out from Wilbur’s rifle. Knowing his friend was giving him covering fire, Stovepipe came up on hands and knees and scrambled after his gun.
Before he could reach it, something crashed into his back. He landed hard on his face, the impact stunning him for a second, but instinct made his elbow drive back against the man who had tackled him. He wasn’t sure why Coolidge wanted to fight hand to hand instead of just shooting him, but Stovepipe was grateful he didn’t have a slug in him. He twisted and threw Coolidge to the side. As the gunman toppled, he grabbed Stovepipe’s shirt collar and hauled the range detective with him.
Up on the canyon rim, Wilbur couldn’t risk any more shots. Coolidge and Stovepipe were close together as they wrestled on the rocky ground.
Stovepipe caught a glimpse of a bloodstain on Coolidge’s right sleeve, matching the one on the gunman’s left arm. Wilbur must have winged Coolidge, Stovepipe thought, and forced him to drop his revolver. That explained why Coolidge had tackled him rather than ventilating him. Staying close to Stovepipe was the only way Coolidge could keep Wilbur from drilling him.
It was a desperate battle, there on the floor of the canyon.
Coolidge snarled in fury as he got a hand on Stovepipe’s face and tried to hook fingers in his eyes and gouge them out. Stovepipe hammered a punch into Coolidge’s throat, making the gunman gag and pull back. He clamped fingers around Coolidge’s wrist and jerked the clawlike fingers away from his eyes. Coolidge went for Stovepipe’s throat with his other hand. Stovepipe slammed another punch into Coolidge’s face before the man’s choking grip could lock in place.
Stovepipe heaved and bucked, and they rolled again. Coolidge snatched up a rock big enough to crush a skull and swung it at Stovepipe’s head. He jerked his head aside just in time for the rock to smash into the ground beside his ear. Coolidge brought it back to try again, but before the blow could fall, Stovepipe drove his knee into Coolidge’s belly. Coolidge gasped and turned pale.
Stovepipe laced his hands together and brought them up in a clubbing blow under Coolidge’s chin. The punch jerked Coolidge’s head far back and sent him sprawling on the ground. Not giving him any chance to recover, Stovepipe went after him and buried a fist in the midsection . . . where he had just hit him with his knee. Coolidge’s struggles were growing weaker.
The realization he was about to lose the fight caused Coolidge to summon up all his remaining strength. He grabbed the front of Stovepipe’s shirt and slung him to the side. Stovepipe landed on his shoulder and rolled. He came up and saw Coolidge about to stomp him in the face. He got his hands raised and caught the gunman’s boot, stopping it when the heel was only a couple inches away. Stovepipe heaved and Coolidge went over backwards again.
The will to fight was running out of him like water.
Stovepipe landed on top of him, straddling him with a knee on each side, and smashed a left and a right into the man’s face. Coolidge’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and he went limp.
Stovepipe stayed where he was for a moment, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. His cheeks stung where Coolidge’s clawing fingernails had left scratches. Battling the gunfighter had been a little like fighting a wildcat, Stovepipe thought. It had taken every bit of his own strength and determination to come out on top.
Sure Coolidge was out cold, Stovepipe pushed himself to his feet and looked around for the gun he had dropped earlier. Spotting it, he scooped it from the ground.
“Stovepipe!” Wilbur called from the rim. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. A mite battered and bruised, but nothin’ that won’t heal. Get the horses and bring ’em back around to the mouth of this canyon. I’ll tie up Coolidge, get him in his saddle, and meet you there.”
“What are we gonna do with him? Take him to Wagontongue and turn him over to the sheriff?”
“Not just yet,” Stovepipe said. “We’re headed for the Three Rivers, and Mr. Coolidge here is gonna answer a few questions first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Using a piece of rope from Coolidge’s own lariat, Stovepipe bound the gunman’s hands behind his back, then retrieved the runaway horse about a hundred yards down the canyon. He got the saddle cinched into place and lifted Coolidge onto the animal’s back. That was quite a chore, but luckily Stovepipe’s lanky frame was deceptively strong.
With another piece of rope, he tied the man’s feet together under the horse’s belly. Coolidge was starting to groan and mutter as he regained consciousness, but he couldn’t go anywhere.
Stovepipe picked up his hat, batted it against his thigh to get the dust off, and punched its crown back into shape. He had just settled it on his head when Coolidge started bitterly cursing him.
“You’re just wastin’ your time and breath, mister,” Stovepipe said. “I’ve done heard all them words before, and they don’t bother me none . . . but since there’s nothin’ else you can do, you go right ahead and cuss if it makes you feel better.”
“You’re a dead man,” Coolidge said as his lips twisted into a snarl. “I promise you that, Stewart. I’m gonna watch you die, slow and hard, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
Stovepipe ignored the threat, took hold of the reins, and led the horse with its captive rider toward the mouth of the canyon. By the time they got there, Wilbur was waiting for them, sitting on the roan and holding the reins of Stovepipe’s paint.
As Coolidge paused for breath, Wilbur grinned. “I could hear this fella ranting all the way out here. I don’t think he’s too happy with you, Stovepipe.”
“No, I reckon not.”
“You want me to gag him? We’re liable to get a mite tired of listening to his filth before we get back to the Three Rivers.”
Coolidge said, “You can’t take me there. Old man Malone’s crazy! He’ll shoot me on sight.”
“I don’t reckon he will,” Stovepipe said. “He’s as eager to find out who you’re workin’ for as we are.”
“Hell, is that all you want to know? I’ll tell you. I take orders from Mort Cabot.”
Stovepipe swung up into his saddle and squinted at the gunman. “You’re mighty quick to confess.”
Coolidge made a disgusted sound. “You think Cabot would cover for me if it was the other way around? You know good and well he wouldn’t. I haven’t killed anybody in these parts. I’ll take my chances with the law. Just don’t turn me over to that madman Malone.”
Wilbur said, “You tried to kill Rosaleen Malone yesterday when you started that fire.”
“So I started a fire,” Coolidge said with a sneer. “You can’t prove that was attempted murder.”
“What about shootin’ her horse?” Stovepipe asked.
Coolidge shrugged. “So I’ll do a couple years in the pen. That’s still better than dying.”
“You’ll repeat all this to Sheriff Jerrico if we take you to Wagontongue?”
“Sure, why not? Like I said, taking my chances with the law is better than the alternative.”
“I’ll think on it,” Stovepipe said. He took hold of Coolidge’s reins and led the gunman’s mount as the three of them started out of the hills toward Eagle Flats.
Now that Coolidge believed he had struck a deal, he stopped the torrent of profanity. The silence, broken only by the thudding of the horses’ hooves, was a welcome relief.
Fo
r his part, no matter what Coolidge thought, Stovepipe didn’t intend to deliver the man to Sheriff Jerrico in Wagontongue. Not just yet, anyway. He was still bound for the headquarters of the Three Rivers ranch.
They reached the flats and started out onto the sage-covered plain. Up ahead, the burned area was visible as a dark smudge. It had cooled enough that they didn’t have to go around it.
A couple hundred yards onto the flats, the whip crack of a rifle shot sounded somewhere behind them. At the same instant, Stovepipe heard the ugly sound of a bullet hitting flesh and jerked his head toward Coolidge.
The gunman had stiffened in the saddle and arched his back. His eyes were wide with pain and shock, and when he opened his mouth to say something, the only thing that came out was blood welling over his lips. He slumped forward and then toppled out of the saddle. With his legs tied under the horse’s belly, all he could do was slide to one side.
Stovepipe caught a glimpse of the back of Coolidge’s shirt and knew from the bloodstain blooming on it like a crimson flower that the gunfighter was done for. The bullet had gone straight to Coolidge’s heart.
Another bullet whipped through the sage and kicked up dirt only a few feet away.
Stovepipe dropped the reins of Coolidge’s horse and shouted to Wilbur, “Ride!”
He leaned forward in the saddle as he jabbed his boot heels into the paint’s flanks. There was no point in waiting around for the rifleman back in the hills to kill him and Wilbur, too.
It wasn’t the first time they’d had to make a run for their lives. They juked the horses back and forth, angling from side to side in an effort to make themselves more difficult targets. Stovepipe felt the wind-rip of another slug as it whipped past his ear. Another came close enough that it sounded like the hum of a giant hornet.
They spread out. More than fifty yards separated them. Stovepipe glanced at his friend. Bent in the saddle, the redhead seemed to be unhurt. He rode his galloping horse like he and the mount were one creature instead of two.
Suddenly, Stovepipe’s hat flew in the air and something smashed against the side of his head with stunning force. He grabbed the saddlehorn and managed not to fall off, but it took a supreme effort not to pass out. He felt a warm flood down the side of his face and knew he was bleeding badly.
His strength deserted him just as rapidly as his blood. The reins slipped out of his hand. Instead of dodging back and forth, the paint ran straight ahead. Stovepipe leaned forward until he was lying on the horse’s neck and grasped the paint’s mane with both hands to keep from toppling out of the saddle. He couldn’t see anything. A red curtain had dropped in front of his eyes, and it was being swallowed on both sides by encroaching blackness.
When those two waves of oblivion met in the middle, Stovepipe was gone.
* * *
As Wilbur jerked his head back and forth, he tried to watch everything around him. He had to keep an eye on the ground in front of him for any holes or other irregularities that might trip up his horse. Running at top speed, a fall could be fatal for both of them.
He checked on his friend to make sure he was still all right just as Stovepipe’s hat sailed into the air and blood flew from his head. “Stovepipe!” Fear exploded through Wilbur as he immediately veered toward his friend.
Stovepipe slumped far forward in the saddle. The bright red splash of blood on his face stood out plainly even at a distance. A bullet zinged past Wilbur so close he felt its heat against his cheek. The bushwhacker was one hell of a shot.
Wilbur had seen the same thing Stovepipe had. He knew the first shot had killed Dax Coolidge. What he didn’t know was if the killer had been trying to silence Coolidge and he and Stovepipe were just bonus targets, or if the man had set out to kill all three of them. He was sure as blazes making a good try at the latter.
None of that mattered at the moment.
Wilbur angled farther toward Stovepipe, trying to intercept the paint with the lunging strides of the roan.
He knew the paint was faster, though. They had argued about that in the past and even had a few races. Although Wilbur would always defend his roan, he knew Stovepipe’s mount possessed more speed.
Wilbur was able to close up the gap enough to see how Stovepipe lay stretched out on the horse’s neck with one side of his face covered in blood. The son of a bitch had drilled him through the head. The realization chilled and sickened Wilbur.
They reached the burned area. Clouds of dust, gray from the ashes mixed with it, rose from the horses’ hooves. Wilbur figured that would spoil the rifleman’s aim, but a second later his hat leaped from his head as a bullet bored through the crown. That slug had practically parted his hair.
There was nothing he could do for Stovepipe, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon his friend. As the paint veered away and began to slow, Wilbur rode harder and tried to catch up.
A bullet slammed into his left hip like a giant fist. The impact twisted him halfway around, but he didn’t fall out of the saddle. His whole left leg was numb, which threw him off balance. As he struggled to stay mounted, the roan began to slow. Another bullet plucked at the side of Wilbur’s shirt.
He had no choice but to keep going. If he stayed where he was, the rifleman was going to blow him out of the saddle. He heeled the roan into a gallop again and hung on for dear life as choking clouds of ashes and dust rose around them.
“Stovepipe,” Wilbur whispered in anguish at leaving his friend behind even though the lanky cowboy was already dead.
A couple more slugs whined past Wilbur’s head then he didn’t hear any more. He figured he was finally out of range. The bushwhacker must have been using a Sharps for the shots to carry that far, he thought.
He didn’t stop until he reached the far side of Eagle Flats. Feeling had returned to his left leg and it throbbed in agony with each beat of his heart. As he reined in, Wilbur reached down, expecting to find his pant leg soaked with blood, but instead it was dry. He moved his hand up to his hip and searched for the wound. He didn’t find that, either.
What he found was a rip in the thick leather of his gunbelt. To his amazement, Wilbur realized he hadn’t been wounded after all. The heavy slug had struck him a glancing blow that failed to penetrate the gunbelt. Even so, it had been enough to almost cripple him.
Despair welled up inside him. He turned his horse and looked back out across the flats, searching for Stovepipe and the paint.
They were gone. The paint had continued running and was out of sight. Wilbur had no way of knowing where they had gone. If he rode back out there to search, he would be putting himself right back in the sights of that bushwhacker.
With the bitter taste of ashes and defeat on his tongue, Wilbur turned the roan toward the Three Rivers headquarters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
When Stovepipe came to, he didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him. All he knew was that some blacksmith from hell seemed to be hammering out a horseshoe, and the anvil was the inside of his skull.
Something brushed against the side of his face and tickled. He moved his head to get away from whatever it was, and that imp of a blacksmith started whaling away harder with his hammer. Stovepipe groaned.
A moment later, something wet nudged insistently against his cheek. Despite the pain, he turned his head again, but whatever was bumping against him kept doing it.
Finally, the knowledge that he wasn’t dead soaked into his brain. He forced his eyes open and found himself looking up into the eyes of his paint.
The horse snuffled its lips against his cheek again and bumped its snout against him.
The paint was trying to wake him up, Stovepipe realized. How in blazes wasn’t he dead? That blasted bushwhacker had shot him in the head. Thinking about the bushwhacker jogged the rest of the memories back into place for Stovepipe. He remembered starting across Eagle Flats with Wilbur. Dax Coolidge had been their prisoner . . . until he had been shot in the back and killed. Stovepipe and Wilbur had t
ried to get away, but Stovepipe had been hit . . .
“Wilbur,” Stovepipe muttered. He wanted to know if his friend was still alive. The only way to find out was to get up and start moving around again, even if it hurt like hell.
With the paint still hovering over him, Stovepipe reached up and got hold of the horse’s headstall. The paint tried to pull away, but Stovepipe hung on tight and let the horse lift him. He got his feet underneath him, pushed up, and stood next to the paint. The smell of blood coming from Stovepipe seemed to make the horse more nervous than usual.
Stovepipe hung on for a few moments while his head settled down and the world stopped spinning crazily. As he got his wits back about him, he reached up to find out just how badly he was hurt and winced. In the hair just above his right ear, his fingertips explored a sticky gash on the side of his head. Just touching it made the mad throbbing inside his skull worse, but he realized the bullet had just grazed him. The heavy-caliber bullet had packed so much punch it had felt like his head was smashed to pieces.
He had bled like a stuck pig, too, he thought as he touched the drying blood all over the side of his face. Head wounds always bled a lot, even the nonfatal ones, and this one had been particularly gory. He figured he looked a pretty grisly sight but didn’t think he was going to die from it, so he wasn’t going to worry about the injury. He had more important things on his mind, like trying to find Wilbur.
Still leaning on the paint for support, Stovepipe looked around. He was still out on Eagle Flats but couldn’t see the burned area, which meant the paint had traveled for quite a distance before its senseless rider had finally fallen off . . . into a dried sage plant. That was what had been tickling his face when he woke up.
His searching gaze went from horizon to horizon without seeing any sign of Wilbur. Stovepipe’s heart sank. His friend might well be dead, cut down by the same drygulcher who had wounded him.
The pain in his head had subsided slightly, and he forced his thoughts into more productive channels. Studying the hills on both sides of the flats gave him a rough idea of where he was—a couple miles north of the area Coolidge had burned. If he was going to start looking for Wilbur, he needed to head south.
Hang Them Slowly Page 20
