Hanging Fire

by Eric Red

  If the sheriff had not been so blind in his own personal bloodthirsty vengeance, a smart lawman such as himself would have realized the folly of leaving his jurisdiction to chase the woman down. And the old lawman should have kept his voice down, talking about how Bonny Kate had been captured in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, his voice within earshot of the cell where the shootist could easily hear and savvy up a plan of his own.

  Sheriff Waylon Bojack had his reasons to come after Bonny Kate Valance but the shootist Johnny Cisco had much better ones, in his own mind, at least.

  Once a man saw that woman’s face, he never forgot it . . . Once a man kissed those lips of hers, he never stopped thinking about the sweet taste . . .

  She’d stolen his heart . . .

  And robbed something much, much more important. . .

  It was time to get it all back.

  Cisco had missed Bonny Kate Valance a lot. Couldn’t wait to see her now today.

  But the shootist was a patient man when he needed to be and didn’t need to ride down the pass to intercept her. No need. Cisco knew she would be riding this way soon enough.

  She would come right to him.

  He would wait for her here and do what he had to do. Plenty of time to roll a cigarette and smoke it, which he proceeded to pass the time with. Only after he had fingered a pinch of tobacco on the rolling paper and licked the paper did he remember not to smoke here. Almost forgot, and Johnny Cisco was not a man who made mistakes most of the time.

  The only things that bothered the shootist were the distant shots he had been hearing since he crossed the crest of the Teton Pass: rifle and pistol fire coming from the direction of Jackson. Who was doing the shooting? Did it have anything to do with Bonny Kate? That she had a lot of enemies was a certainty. Cisco had to entertain the possibility that Sheriff Bojack had beaten him to the punch and was chasing her right this very moment somewhere down the pass.

  Cisco had no doubt in his mind that a lawman with such revenge in his heart wanted his hand to be the one that took her life, not some hangman’s noose. The occasional shots still sounded down the trail off and on. That meant if it was Bojack, he hadn’t nailed her yet, which meant she was still coming his way. The shootist relished the idea of meeting up with that son of a bitch sheriff again because he had a score of his own to settle, but first he had to get Bonny Kate to safety.

  They needed to have a little talk, she and him.

  Would she be surprised to see him? Johnny Cisco wondered idly. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  Cisco saw the distant movement a quarter mile down the Teton Pass and sat up. His eyes were that good.

  A few seconds later, the two horses and riders appeared between the trees on the steep, sheer grade of the rock-and-gravel-rough trail traversing the side of the gorge. He would recognize the red color of her hair anywhere.

  Bonny Kate was astride the second horse.

  Riding out ahead was a big fellow who looked as wide as he was tall, like a tree with legs. Metal glinted. A badge on his chest. Yes, he sure was big, all right, but that suited the shootist’s purposes.

  The lawman would make an easy target.

  Settling in against the big rock he slid into position behind, the man from Arizona raised the Sharps rifle and cocked the stock against his shoulder, peering through the circular sight. He touched the bolt out of habit but there was already a .40-44 cartridge jacked in the breech.

  It took but a second or two to get the crosshairs of the sight fixed on the broad chest of the large marshal, who rode forward with his hat tipped over his eyes, shadowing his face. His pistols were in his holsters.

  Slowly, carefully, the shootist thumbed back the hammer of the rifle with a quiet click-cla-click.

  He licked the tip of his trigger finger and felt the slight wind from the west on his moistened fingertip.

  Then Johnny Cisco placed that damp finger on his cold trigger. Adjusting his aim an inch up and to the left of the distant marshal’s badge for trajectory in the southeasterly wind, he calculated for windage, elevation, and bullet drop as he felt the chill metal of the trigger resistance against his forefinger.

  Cisco was patient when he needed to be.

  So long, friend. Nothing personal. You were only doing your job. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time . . .

  Hi, Bonny Kate. Hi, honey. Sure did miss you. But I’m here now . . .

  Cisco had the marshal dead to rights in his crosshairs.

  He pulled the trigger and the deafening explosion shattered the silence, obliterating the stillness with a turbulent discharge of fire and smoke.

  * * *

  Exactly sixty seconds before the bullet was fired, Joe Noose had been on his horse, scanning the winding trail gouged into the pass ahead and wondering how the hell they ever got wagons across in the winter, as he had been told they did—the going was treacherous enough during the dry heat of summer, the way the narrow trailhead bent and curved at a forty-to-ninety-degree angle right at the edge of the cliffs plunging hundreds of feet into the gorge on the left. Granite boulders and slanted spokes of fifty-foot pines formed a porcupine quilt over the precipice. If a horse put his hoof wrong once, over horse and rider would go straight down to oblivion. Noose looked up and saw the Teton Pass rising monolithic against the sky above and ahead.

  A glint of sunlight on steel.

  Noose saw it for a split second yet in that millisecond of time instantly recognized the gleam off the rifle barrel for what it was.

  Already Noose was leaping out of his saddle and throwing his entire body in flight across the two horses, wrapping his arms protectively around Bonny Kate Valance as a body shield as his physical mass propelled her out of the stirrups off her horse, rotating his body around in midair during the fall so he hit the ground on his back with a grunt before rolling on top of her as the heavy-caliber slug meant for him obliterated the leather pommel of her saddle instead even before the long, sharp crack of the rifle shot sounded. Long before the echo of the gun blast faded, amplified in the acoustics of the towering wooded ravine, Noose had his Colt Peacemaker out, dragging the startled woman off the trail, behind some boulders before the next shot came.

  He had a few seconds, he knew.

  That shot came from a Sharps—Noose recognized the distinctive report—and its owner would need three seconds to reload.

  Whoever he was.

  * * *

  The smoke cleared from the crosshairs.

  Johnny Cisco saw right away he had missed. The two horses’ saddles were empty and the marshal had hauled Bonny Kate off her horse onto the ground behind the rocks.

  Already reloading, the shootist cocked back the bolt and fingered in a fresh cartridge, was in the process of slamming the bolt into the breech when the bullet from below blew a shower of sparks and stone fragments by his head as it slammed home a foot from his face.

  That son of a bitch marshal was either a lucky shot or a damn good one, and Cisco didn’t believe in luck.

  * * *

  A half a mile down the pass, Sheriff Bojack also heard the shots and knew two things right away.

  That wasn’t just the sound of the marshal’s gun.

  And the man who fired that other shot was not one of his Arizona deputies.

  Which meant the equation had just changed.

  * * *

  The sun’s reflection off the metal rifle not only warned Joe Noose just in time but pinpointed the shooter’s exact position so Noose had been able to return fire with accuracy, though he missed. Now, hunkered behind the cover of the granite rock, the big cowboy peered up the pass at the dense tree line from where the shot had originated. While he couldn’t see any movement right at this second, he knew the rifleman was still there, likely lining up his next shot.

  Were there more men with guns up there? Noose couldn’t tell.

  Who was the shooter?

  There’s no way that sheriff pursuing him below could have got
ten men ahead of himself and his lady prisoner—the pass was a narrow trail with a mountainous, perpendicular ridge to the right and a deep, yawning crevice to his left. The distance was too great and difficult to cross to overtake him, plus Noose would have seen them because he’d been keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of the posse.

  The only thing he could figure was that the sheriff behind him had one or more deputies in front, reinforcements who had come over the Teton Pass in the Idaho direction—a flanking maneuver planned way in advance. And a smart one. Noose was now boxed in, facing guns both in front and behind and squeezed between overwhelming firepower.

  Swinging a glance to Bonny Kate huddling safely a few feet away, he saw the anxious woman looking a question at him: What were they going to do? Noose dropped his gaze to his Colt Peacemaker. It would not be a sufficient weapon to engage with a shooter at this distance, not one clearly armed with a long-range rifle.

  His own rifles were on his horse he had just dismounted, which was the problem.

  Out in the open twenty feet away, Copper stood with steely nerve on the trail, mindless of being in the line of fire and probably figuring correctly whoever was shooting wasn’t shooting at horseflesh. The clever stallion had taken a few steps to stand beside Bonny Kate’s mustang, keeping it company and calming it down, as that horse was high-strung and visibly unsettled from having a piece of its saddle shot off. The Henry and Winchester rifles sat in Copper’s saddle holster.

  Noose whistled.

  His horse perked its ears and casually trotted over, taking a few short steps on its hooves to appear nonchalant to the unseen gunman, then when Copper was out of the immediate line of fire the horse charged forward in a burst of speed and got right beside Noose behind the cover of the rock. The stallion timed its move perfectly because as soon as it took off, a single rifle crack sounded and the nearby rocks exploded in a geyser of dirt and stone fragments.

  Definitely a Sharps rifle. With certitude, a long-range weapon.

  Well, Joe Noose had one of those, too, and knew how to use it.

  Patting his good horse approvingly on the flank, Noose reached out a long arm, grabbed the stock of the Henry, and slid it quickly out of the saddle holster with a sound of scraping leather. Bonny Kate was watching his every move, he felt without looking. Noose had seen the puff of smoke through the branches of the distant pines jutting like steeples on a slope three hundred yards ahead, close to where the first shot had come, so the shooter was dug in.

  The rifleman was well positioned and wasn’t moving. Noose and his prisoner were pinned down and couldn’t move. This exchange of gunfire was likely going to continue for a spell. They were going to be here awhile.

  At least until the sheriff and his boys, who could obviously hear the shots, showed up and then Noose was going to be in serious trouble.

  “Bonny Kate!”

  The voice of the unseen shooter echoed across the canyon.

  “Bonny Kate! It’s me!”

  Throwing a glance to the female outlaw, Noose was quite surprised to see the blood suddenly drain from her ruddy features, turning her face the pale color of sour milk with purest raw terror and shock. “Oh no,” she whispered in a hoarse stammer.

  “I’m here to get you out of this, Bonny Kate! I’m gonna rescue you, honey! ” shouted the voice in the trees.

  She uttered again, “Oh no.”

  “Heard you the first time,” Noose said. “Who is that up there? You know him, don’t you?”

  Bonny Kate nodded faintly, turning paler yet. When she spoke his name she could barely get the words out. “C-Cisco. His name is Johnny Cisco.”

  Noose saw her face flush with color and took her meaning. “You’re full of surprises, ma’am.”

  “You can’t let him get me, Joe.”

  “I don’t aim to. But I’d think you’d want him to rescue you.”

  “You don’t understand. Johnny was supposed to be in jail. Back in Arizona. The sheriff caught him. Cisco, he was the one shot Bojack’s boy.”

  “You don’t say. Everybody knows each other shooting at one another this fine day. Hell of a reunion, I’d say.”

  “It ain’t no joke, Joe. That man is crazy. He’s lovesick obsessed with me and always says if he can’t have me, nobody can. I’d rather be hanged than have him get me.”

  The loud, rangy voice projected from somewhere up the Teton Pass, carrying directionlessly through the trees of the forest. “Your lover boy’s here to save your pretty fanny, Bonny Kate! You don’t worry about a thing now. Johnny Cisco’s here, come to your rescue!”

  * * *

  Was he, now?

  A quarter mile away down the trail, Sheriff Bojack could hear Johnny Cisco, and cussed beneath his breath. He knew the voice. It was Cisco, all right. That villain was supposed to be his prisoner back in Phoenix, locked up in his jail. Son of a bitch. His being here could mean several things, all of them bad.

  Cisco had escaped from Bojack’s custody—another black mark on the sheriff’s ever-more-tarnished record. Worse, if Cisco had escaped, he had likely killed the deputies left guarding him or wounded them bad, because no way those tough young kids would have let their prisoner out of there unless they had been overcome and incapacitated in one way or another.

  The Arizona posse was still reeling from the shocking sight of one of their own, Deputy Billy Joe Shaker, plunging over the edge of the cliff, his bloody, bullet-riddled body smashed to pulp on the rocks below like a shattered rag doll—the second of their group to die under the deadly guns of the Wyoming marshal. That had been barely a half hour ago. For five minutes, the lawmen had just stood witness, crossing themselves, saying prayers for their dead comrade, biting back tears. The bodies of Shaker and Hodge had to be buried, taken back to Arizona, reclaimed when this was all over, but all Sheriff Bojack and his surviving deputies, Jed Ransom, Fulton Dodge, and Clay Slayton, could do right now was leave the bodies where they lay, to rot in the sun, while they gave chase to the woman who had brought them all this trouble.

  Looking to his side at the three agitated deputies cradling their weapons right now, Sheriff Bojack saw the questions and doubts flicker in his men’s eyes and knew they were figuring it like he was: He’d screwed everything up. Overconfident and distracted, the old veteran lawman had been. There had been no communication with the Arizona office the whole two months the sheriff and his men had been on the trail and the lawmen should have checked in, should have not taken for granted Cisco wouldn’t try an escape. All Bojack had been thinking about was flaying Bonny Kate Valance and stripping her hide from her skeleton, and now things had gone from bad to worse . . . he’d been making a string of brutally bad mistakes that were costing his men’s lives.

  His fault. No one to blame but himself. Only one way to make things close to right now.

  He had to kill Bonny Kate. Then he would do the same for Johnny Cisco.

  He hoped that marshal wouldn’t get in the way.

  CHAPTER 9

  The clock on the wall of the Jackson U.S. Marshal’s office struck noon and Bess Sugarland hauled her behind out of her chair. Noon was the time five days a week she had made it a habit to take a ride around the town and keep an eye on things, all part of her peacekeeping duties. She was sure there was nothing doing, there rarely was, but it would do her good to get some fresh air. The walls were closing in on her. Sitting around and stewing about Joe Noose with that slut outlaw wasn’t doing her a damn bit of good and besides it was making her leg hurt. With a grunt from her aching wound, the woman marshal rose to her feet and with a jingle of spur stepped out from behind the desk.

  Grabbing her Winchester repeater, Bess braced the barrel against the floor and slung her right armpit over the stock, using it as a crutch. On her way to the door, she again considered writing a letter on official U.S. Marshals Service stationery to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in New Haven, Connecticut, telling Whom It May Concern about what an effective crutch the rifle made in addition
to its other virtues as a damn fine weapon—if you got wounded, not only could you shoot the other bastard after you did, you could use the rifle to hobble the hell out of there. Bess guessed the gun manufacturer might appreciate her sense of humor even less than those Arizona boys did—men lost their sense of humor when a woman told the joke—but she might send that letter anyway.

  Marshal Bess took her Stetson hat from the rack and screwed it on her head, but left her coat because it was hot outside and her seven-star badge was there for everyone to see on her shirt. Pistols cleaned and loaded and slung in her side holsters, Bess Sugarland, the law in Jackson Hole, stepped through her front door to greet the fine day.

  The air was clean and refreshing and felt like drinking mountain water, so she breathed it in deep. Her bosom rose and fell with respiration. Taking a look up and down Broadway, the marshal saw a few folks she knew on the dirt street. They waved to her and she waved back with a grin. It was a damn nice town, and time to take a ride around the six streets that comprised the growing settlement at the base of the valley. She locked the door behind her, not that she was worried about anybody stealing anything because most local folks left their doors unlocked, but just so people knew she was out doing her rounds.

  Using the crutch, Bess walked stiff-legged down the steps and hobbled across the yard to the corral. Her horse stood blinking in the sunshine, chewing hay, already saddled. Grabbing a good purchase on the oaken buck-and-rail with her left hand, Bess stuck the Winchester repeater into her saddle holster and used her good leg to clamber up on the fence and shimmy into her saddle. Two months after being shot in the leg, Bess was getting pretty good at this, she had to admit. Reaching down to swing open the gate, the woman marshal gave a short whistle to her horse and gave it a little spur, and the cooperative mare trotted out onto the street.