The Black Hills

by William W. Johnstone

  His ears rang from the blow. He fell forward. After a good thirty seconds of trying to draw air back into his battered lungs, he managed to suck down a teaspoonful of the stuff and push up onto his hands and knees.

  He shook his head, trying to clear the lambs-tail clouds from his vision.

  A bullet screamed off a rock not two inches from his right hand. Half a blink later a Winchester’s rocketing belch resounded from the ridge crest above.

  Hunter jerked his head up, and as enough clouds cleared from his retinas, he saw Stillwell down on one knee beside a wagon-size boulder maybe ten feet down the slope from the top. His horse stood on the ridge above him, near Nasty Pete, who was back on all fours and calmly grazing despite the bad tumble he’d taken.

  Hunter was vaguely aware that Bobby Lee was nowhere in sight. The coyote, being no fool and always a fair judge of the odds, had taken cover.

  Smoke and flames stabbed from the barrel of Stillwell’s Winchester again, the bullet curling the air over Hunter’s left ear. Hunter reached for his LeMat, but the pretty popper wasn’t in its holster. He must have lost the gun when Pete had fallen. He wouldn’t have been able to use it, anyway, for just then the rock he’d found himself perched against suddenly gave way.

  He pitched over backward bellowing, “Ohhhh shiiitttttt!” just before he hit the slope on the back of his head and shoulders and continued rolling ass over teakettle.

  Again, he rolled . . . rolled . . . and rolled.

  Suddenly, he was weightless again. The world became a chalky gray and fawn-colored blur with a glint of sunlight reflected off tea-colored water.

  Water?

  As if to answer the question, he hit the stream with a cold plunge, dropping quickly beneath the surface to hear the gurgling of water closing over him and seeping into his ears. He remembered that a stream, dry most of the year, ran along the base of Black Mountain. That stream, likely fed by recent mountain rains, had found him now. The most Hunter could say for it was that it was cool and refreshing and it had broken his fall, though it couldn’t be much over three or four feet deep.

  Lying belly-down in the water, he shoved his splayed fingers into the gravelly bed. Coughing water from his lungs, he shoved up on his hands and knees, the water streaming off of him, his long hair hanging in dark wet bands over his face. The sliding water of the stream was up to about halfway between his elbows and shoulders.

  He remained there, more stunned than sore, though he knew he’d be feeling the soreness soon, when the sound of several sets of galloping hooves reached his ears. He whipped his head up, and his thudding heart jounced.

  Four men were galloping toward him along the stream’s left bank, which was nearly even with the floor of the narrow gorge. Its right side was banked by the steeply looming ridge down which he now saw Stillwell leading his horse, following a cautious, slanting course, both horse and man taking mincing steps.

  Hunter jerked his head back to his right when he heard splashing. The riders were galloping into the stream, heading straight toward him.

  “Get that Grayback son of a mule skinner!”

  CHAPTER 32

  Hunter automatically slapped his holster, but of course the LeMat wasn’t there. He’d dropped it on the ridge.

  The four riders galloped toward him, closing fast, whooping and hollering, water splashing up high around them, the beads glittering like diamonds in the sunlight. Hunter swung around and ran, looking for cover. There were trees and rocks up the bank to his right, but he’d never reach them before his pursuers were on top of him.

  He tripped over a submerged rock and fell, the water closing over him once more. Hot dread pooled in his belly when he looked up to see the horses stepping around him, circling him. Two more men rode toward him from behind the others. In their brush-scarred leggings and billowy neckerchiefs, they had the look of local tough nuts. So did one of the four men circling Hunter now, moving in close.

  But three of the others weren’t merely local troubleshooters. They had the cold, dark eyes and grim mouths of professional, wide-ranging cold-steel artists. Their guns attested to this as well—the number of them and the way they were positioned on hips or thighs, in oiled holsters, for quick draws. These three wore large knives as well.

  The biggest man appeared the leader of these three. He had blond, curly yellow hair oozing out of a shabby black Plainsman hat, and muttonchop whiskers of the same color framed his long ugly, amber-eyed face. He fit the description of the notorious regulator, Dakota Jack Patterson.

  That meant the other two hardtails were likely Patterson’s partners—Weed Zorn, small and poison-mean, and Klaus Steinbach, a tall, slender, black-bearded man with flat cobalt-blue eyes dressed in a long, black duster and high, black boots. He wore two big pistols on his hips and held a Winchester Yellowboy across his saddlebows.

  Slowly, Hunter climbed to his feet, his soaked clothes hanging heavily on him. He stood crouched slightly, holding his hands away from his sides. They had him boxed in, trapped, but he wasn’t a man who’d give up until he’d exhaled his last breath. He looked at the guns glinting in the sunlight around him, bristling on the four men surrounding him, and felt the palpable urge to get his hands on one of those hoglegs.

  The blond man sat facing Hunter straight on from the back of a steel-dust stallion, the horse bobbing its head anxiously, champing its bit. Dakota Jack spread his thick lips in a grin. He raised his own Henry repeating rifle one-handed, clicking the hammer back with his thumb.

  The others were also aiming their rifles at him, staring at him darkly, a cold delight in their eyes, like wolves that had run down their quarry and were eager for its blood.

  “Bye, bye, Rebel-boy,” said Dakota Jack.

  “Hold on, Jack!” This from Stillwell, who was near the bottom of the ridge, leading his horse by its bridle reins. “Hold on! Hold on, now, Jack!”

  Dakota Jack. Sure enough.

  Jack was said to be like a shadow in the night. But here he was in broad daylight, grinning with bald menace now at Hunter as he aimed that deadly Henry one-handed, gloved thumb resting on the cocked hammer.

  “Jack!” Stillwell barked. “Hold on, Jack. Not so fast!” Stillwell had found a relatively gentle incline on the grade, and now he led the horse down off the incline and into the stream, the claybank sagging back on its rear legs and loosing sand and gravel in its wake.

  Once in the stream, Stillwell climbed up onto the clay’s back.

  Dakota Jack glanced behind him at Stillwell. “You want the honors, I s’pose—eh, Frank?” He chuckled wryly. “S’pose you deserve it.” He glanced around at the others, who swallowed their laughter.

  A small log slid downstream to nudge Hunter’s right leg. It careened over to bounce off the leg of the horse standing to Hunter’s right. The mount gave a start, whickering and sidestepping. The man in the saddle raised his rifle to grab the reins with both hands. As he did, Hunter moved quickly, taking two quick lunging strides toward the rider on the startled horse.

  He rammed his right shoulder against the side of the horse. The horse whinnied as it sidestepped again and, getting its feet tangled beneath it, began to fall, hooking its head around toward Hunter and loosing another, furious whinny.

  “Whoa, there!” bellowed Dakota Jack. “Check your horse, Weed!”

  When the horse was halfway to the water, the rider cursing and jerking back on the reins, Hunter grabbed the barrel of the man’s Winchester rifle with his left hand and easily jerked it out of the man’s hands, which had a stronger grip on the reins.

  Hunter fell backward against the side of the horse as well as against the rider’s left leg. But as he did, he swung around, taking the Winchester in both hands and working the cocking lever, ramming a cartridge into the action. He raised the rifle, curled his index finger through the trigger guard, and started to aim it.

  Dakota Jack bulled his big steel-dust straight into Hunter, throwing him backward over the flailing rear legs of the horse ben
eath him. The rifle flew up in his arms and he inadvertently triggered the shot skyward.

  And then he hit the water, stunned by the merciless force of the bulling steel-dust. The flailing horse beneath him kicked his right side as it scrambled back to its feet, adding an extra, agonizing ache to the whole nasty ordeal.

  Hunter found himself belly-down in the water again. Quickly, the fight still in him since a breath of life was still in him, he thrust himself up off his hands and knees, sucking air down his throat as water cascaded off of him. He was vaguely aware of something dropping down over his head.

  He looked down just as the loop of a lariat was drawing closed around his chest. Panicking, he thrust his arms up and out of the noose, but before he could then grab the noose with both hands, to thrust it off of him, someone behind him drew it painfully taut against his upper torso, just beneath his shoulders.

  It ground against him, a burning, grinding misery.

  A horse whinnied loudly.

  “Let’s go, Mort!” he heard Frank Stillwell bellow. “Time to give this damn Rebel a Dutch ride over rough rocks!”

  Hunter raged as he was pulled savagely straight back off his feet. His hands were free so he was able to somewhat cushion his fall back into the water. But the slack was quickly taken out of the lariat with a jerk and he found himself being pulled violently through the water, head forward.

  He was pulled past two riders, one to each side of him, both men laughing and watching as he was dragged downstream on his back, the water pushing against the top of his head to curl over his face, threatening to drown him.

  Kicking his legs and gasping, Hunter twisted around, turning belly-down in the water but keeping his head raised above its surface. The rope ground up against his armpits, and he gritted his teeth against not only that misery but the misery of being pulled through the water, the water splashing back over his face with more being kicked up by Stillwell’s claybank’s galloping hooves.

  Stillwell howled and laughed, giving his own mocking version of a Rebel yell as he spurred the claybank up the stream bank and onto dry land, pulling Hunter along behind him. Hunter reached up and grabbed the taut rope before him, trying to ease the pressure under his arms.

  Meanwhile, sage clumps and rocks and stiff tufts of buck brush came up to rake him mercilessly. He was thrust askance against a large clump of wild currant. The shrubs punched him over onto his back until he managed to heave himself back onto his chest and belly, so he could see what was coming and maybe avoid having his neck snapped.

  He gripped the rope with both his burning hands, squeezing his eyes shut as dirt and sand flew at him from the clay’s hooves. The ground raked against him with a steady, unrelenting violence, clawing at him, burning him, gouging him, hammering his knees and hips. A sudden plunge over a mound of gravelly ground ripped off his cartridge belt, which was a relief since the ground was grinding the buckle against his belly.

  Dirt and gravel and bits of grass were forced down behind the waistband of his buckskin breeches. His shirtsleeves were torn to ribbons. Blood oozed from dozens of scrapes and cuts. Pain-racking bruises bit him deep. He felt as though he’d been hammered with tomahawks.

  Bobby Lee shot out of the trees to Hunter’s left and ran along beside Stillwell, barking angrily and leaping up as though to nip the sheriff’s leg.

  “No, Bobby,” Hunter raked out through gritted teeth. “Get away!”

  Stillwell palmed his pistol and fired two shots at the yipping, snarling coyote. Bobby Lee yelped and then turned and ran back into the trees.

  “You mule fritter,” Hunter said. “You better not’ve shot my coyote, you low-down dirty dog!”

  He put his head down and endured another twenty or thirty raking, hammering yards.

  Suddenly, mercifully, he stopped moving.

  He let his head sag forward, knocked silly by the pummeling, choking on the dust that had been forced down his throat.

  “You still kicking, you Grayback devil?”

  Hunter looked up to see Stillwell grinning down at him, the clay’s dust catching up to him. The man and the horse were only a few feet away. The rope hung slack against the ground.

  “So . . . you’re human, after all.” Stillwell laughed. “I thought after you escaped the mine you might’ve been a ghost!”

  Hunter cursed under his breath, through the dirt and mud and bits of grass and sand clinging to his lips. He tried to climb up onto his hands and knees, intending to make a run at Stillwell and possibly pull him off his horse. But his head was swirling.

  He felt drunk. Sick. He felt as though he were still in motion.

  Stillwell was breathing hard with excitement. “You’ve got game, I’ll give you that. Let’s have another go-round. What do you say? The boys are waiting back at the stream.” He paused. “But don’t you die on me, you son of a Rebel bitch. You hear? I don’t want you to die ’til I get you back to town. I’m gonna hang you from that cottonwood growing out in front of the lumberyard. Dead center of Tigerville! I’m gonna hang you right there . . . for all to see!”

  The sheriff gave a grunt and then kicked savagely at the clay’s flanks with his spurs.

  Hunter gave a howling cry of outrage, bracing himself, as the clay galloped out away from him. Suddenly, the slack was jerked out of the rope. Hunter screamed again as the noose bit him hard against his armpits, and then he was being raked once more against the ground, through the valley outside of the gorge in which the stream curled.

  Through the dust and gobs of turf the clay’s hooves were throwing at him, he could see the brown water at the base of the stony ridge maybe a hundred yards away. The other men, five or six of them, sat their horses in a line along the stream, at the gorge’s mouth, watching the entertainment.

  Stillwell gave another raucous Rebel yell, laughing at the tops of his lungs.

  Finally, Hunter came to another grinding halt, breathless, his body on fire.

  He let his face sag against the ground. He coughed and groaned, writhing.

  Hooves clomped up close to him. He could hear a man breathing hard, a saddle squawking as that man, Stillwell, leaned out from his saddle to get a good look at the victim of his torture.

  “Hell, he’s still in good shape,” the sheriff said. “Let’s have one more run an’ then we’ll head to town for the necktie party!”

  “Horn toad,” Hunter said with a groan, lifting his head and shaking his mud-caked hair from his eyes. His entire body was on fire with raking burns.

  The other men, whom he glimpsed sitting their horses straight ahead of him, laughed. A couple were smoking. Dakota Jack sat with his right leg hooked around his saddle horn, like a man enjoying a Fourth of July rodeo parade.

  Stillwell laughed, then swung his claybank around.

  “You ready, Grayback?” he asked Hunter, grinning over his shoulder at him and dallying his end of the riata around his saddle horn.

  Hunter glared back at him. As he did, he saw a moss-stained rock poking up out of the ground about ten feet ahead of him and slightly right. Blond grass poked up around it. It appeared to be solidly set.

  Hunter shifted his gaze back to Stillwell, and, despite the rusty railroad spikes of pain grinding into every bone socket, feeling as though three layers of skin had been scraped off of him, he somehow got his lips twisted into a smile. “Sure. Why the hell not? That all you got, Stillwell, you nancy-boy coward?”

  Hunter glanced at the other men astride their horses ahead of him. “You fellas should have heard how Stillwell screamed like a little girl with her pigtails on fire when I stormed into his office the other day!”

  The others laughed. Most laughed uneasily. All except Dakota Jack. He threw his head back on his shoulders and roared.

  Stillwell glared at Hunter over his left shoulder. A russet flush rose into his dusty cheeks. He slid his eyes toward the other men, then returned that flat, ominous gaze to Hunter. The sheriff tightened his jaws and whipped his head forward.

  He
stabbed the clay with his spurs.

  CHAPTER 33

  Hunter had made the decision to make his next move while not really believing he had the strength to attempt it. But just as the clay lunged off its rear hooves and shot back out across the valley, quickly taking the slack out of the riata, Hunter heaved himself to his feet with a great, raucous Rebel yell fairly vaulting out of his strained lungs, and ran ahead and to his right.

  His feet were heavy and numb, and his bones seemed to clatter together without benefit of cushioning cartilage.

  Stillwell and the claybank barreled forward. Only a little slack in the rope remained.

  “What the hell . . . ?” bellowed one of the men sitting their horses behind Hunter as they all jerked up their rifles.

  Hunter dove over the rock, hitting the ground on the other side of it and quickly, aware that the rope was nearly taut, wrapped the fast diminishing slack around three sides of the rock. As the rope jerked taut as a bowstring, Hunter screamed as it cut into his sides, crushing the air out of his lungs. It held fast to him and the rock, which quivered a little but held. For a few seconds, Hunter thought the loop would cut him in two.

  A high, wailing shriek was wrenched out of the claybank. The horse jerked sharply to its right, twisting its long neck to the left. Stillwell screamed and threw his left arm up and out like a rodeo rider. The horse dropped back onto its right hip, screaming shrilly, and then onto its side . . . and onto Stillwell’s right leg.

  Again, the sheriff screamed.

  There was enough slack in the rope now that Hunter, gaining his knees, lifted it up and over his head, tossed it away.

  “Get him!” shouted one of the men sitting their horses behind him.

  He heard Dakota Jack roar again with laughter. Hooves thudded behind Hunter as he lunged to his feet and ran toward where Stillwell lay pinned under the clay’s right side while the horse flailed around, trying to rise and only increasing Stillwell’s agony. Hunter wanted to get his hands on Stillwell’s rifle. He wasn’t going to be able to kill all of these men, but by God he wanted to kill Stillwell before he himself became crow bait.