by Gene Curry
I woke the others and we headed out, right at the time of day we should have been resting in the shade. Etta looked sullen but said nothing. We led the horses and went as fast as the worn-down condition of the animals allowed. That wasn’t a lot. We weren’t in as bad a shape as the animals. Just the same, we were getting there. Pearl started to look more like a kid than at any time since I’d seen her—a pretty kid who had strayed into bad company and was wondering what she was going to do next.
I dropped back for a while but saw nothing. The sidewinders were smarter than we were. They were under rocks. So was everything else. I caught up to the others and told them my findings.
“See! I told you,” Butch said, trying to grin in spite of his blackened lips. “All you done is ruin our rest, Saddler.” He held up his hand. “All right, for Christ’s sake! We’ll do it your way for now, but I tell you they ain’t coming.”
“Somebody is,” I answered.
“You’re pretty sure of that?”
“Pretty sure.”
Butch didn’t like what he couldn’t explain, or couldn’t see. Men of reckless courage are often like that. So long as it’s something they can kill they aren’t the least bit afraid of it.
“You think some old desert rat is waiting for us to die so he can steal our guns and saddles?” Butch asked.
“White men don’t live in this kind of desert. What you call desert rats don’t wander that far from water.”
Butch frowned in bewilderment. “Some crazy Injun cast out by his tribe?”
“The same answer as before,” I told him. “Nobody lives in country like this.”
Butch exploded into anger. “Goddamn it, Saddler! You’re the one said the Pinks have turned back.”
By then my own temper was just as edgy. I had a bad feeling about what I had seen. I couldn’t explain it either. As I had told Cassidy, the Pinkertons were just detective agency operatives who worked for wages. They wanted Cassidy, but they wouldn’t die to get him—or the reward money. It was a strict agency rule that none of them could accept or claim rewards of any kind. They got bonus money when they did a good job—that was all they got.
“Go to hell, Cassidy,” I said. “If you want to find out so bad, why don’t you start back the way we came? Do that and I guarantee you’ll find out for sure. You’re the big, tough desperado who’s afraid of nothing. Why don’t you start back?”
The Kid eased his way into the argument before we could trade any blows, not that either one of us was in shape for fisticuffs. I’ll say this for the Kid, he always stayed cool.
“Best thing to do is find a place with a clear field of fire behind it,” he said. “A bunch of rocks to give us elevation. Then if whoever he is shows up, we’ll nail him with our long guns.”
I nodded agreement: I had been thinking the same thing before Cassidy started running off at the mouth. We still had water, not a lot of it, but we weren’t dying yet. We would lie in wait and see what we could see. But even as I thought about it the bad feeling came to me again. When you have faced danger for most of your life you develop a sense of it. And in my experience, that sense of danger was wrong only when it wasn’t strong enough. Right then it was very strong. So strong it was close to being a smell. It’s not crazy to say that. Danger, real danger, has a smell.
“We’ll do it when we find the right place,” I said. A few miles ahead a pile of great rocks stood up from the floor of the desert. Between where we were and the rocks there was nothing except low creosote bushes. “Even if he crawls we’ll be able to see him from there.”
Etta spoke for the first time. She stared at me with dark eyes. “Unless he comes in the night,” she said.
That had been another of my thoughts, one I didn’t like. We could move on through the night, but so could the man who was tracking us. We could move on until we were too tired to walk another step.
We made our way to the line of rocks and went past them, and when we were out of sight we turned the horses back into what shade we could find. The women and the old man stayed with the horses while we eased our way up into the rocks, which were blistering hot to the touch. I could feel the water draining out of me in blobs of sweat. The rocks gave us good cover because we were as gray as they were. We took up our positions, rifles ready, and waited. The sun beat down on us and still we waited.
“You see anything?” Butch asked.
I’d never met a man who found it so hard to be quiet. Instead of speaking, I shook my head. Butch was counting on our rifles to get the job done. I wasn’t. A man ready to face the desert alone wasn’t likely to be foolish. More than a little crazy, yes, but not foolish.
I felt like hell because I hadn’t had any sleep at all, not that the others had had very much either. Fine sand blew in the hot wind. I hate everything in the desert, but I hated that stinging sand most of all. You can be all muffled up and still feel it gritting against your skin. It clogs your nose and burns your eyes. You wonder what you’re doing in such a god blasted place.
Far out in front of the rocks a clump of barrel cactus provided the closest cover. The man following us could be in there by now. We all had Winchesters, long guns that wouldn’t shoot that far. He would have to get closer if we had any chance of killing him.
Then we all saw the black shape and our rifles jerked to our shoulders. I think he wanted us to see him. Just the shape of a single man beyond rifle range. He didn’t have a horse. He stood for an instant, then disappeared behind the cactus.
“He’s coming,” Butch whispered. A split second later a heavy caliber bullet splintered rock close to his head. Butch cursed as the rock slivers cut his face. Blood ran down his face.
“No, he’s not,” I said. The man tracking us was carrying a long-range rifle. Suddenly I knew who he was, or thought I did. “He’ll be along, but not right now.” Sundance nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s Tom Horn out there.”
Butch just gaped. “That’s crazy,” he said. “You’re both crazy. That’s just some Pinkerton with a big rifle. A lot of them carry big rifles. Mickey Dwyer from Denver always brought along a Buffalo Sharps on his big jobs. I ought to know. He shot at me with it one time. Damn near killed me with that cannon. I was hiding behind a barn door. You’d think a door that thick would stop any bullet. Like hell! Mickey knew I was in there and let fly with the Buffalo Sharps. Those big bullets tore right on through and came close to cutting me in two.”
“Mickey Dwyer’s been dead for two years,” the Kid said quietly. “The Banner boys killed him in Leadville, Colorado.”
“All right, Mickey Dwyer’s dead. What about Mendoza, that foreigner with the waxed mustache? He’s been known to carry a big English rifle. They use them for shooting elephants or something of that nature. Why couldn’t it be Mendoza?”
“You don’t keep up with things,” the Kid said. “Mendoza keeps to the Chicago office these days.”
“Then who the fuck is it?” Butch didn’t seem to want to come up with the obvious answer. He knew who it was, but he didn’t want to face it.
For that matter, neither did I.
Fourteen
“It has to be Tom Horn,” I said, keeping my head well down. “You told me the Pinkertons were trying to hire him back. There he is in the flesh. They must have rushed him to Mansfield by special train right after the robbery. Or maybe he was already on his way.”
Cassidy’s face took on a strange look. The thing he feared most—maybe the only thing—had finally happened. The most feared tracker in the West was after him. The man who never gave up was on his trail. I didn’t feel any better about it. Tom Horn was a merciless killer, but he was a lot more than that. He was about the best scout and hunter the army ever had. His reputation as a Pinkerton agent was known to every outlaw in the West. Far from being a regular Pinkerton operative, he worked by none of the rules set down by the agency. He broke all the rules and they let him break them because he was the best. Tom Horn was the best at everything—an
d now the Pinkertons had him back. So the bad feeling in my gut hadn’t been wrong.
We were in a standoff, but the standoff was all to Horn’s advantage. Over the years he had trained himself to endure hardships that would kill the toughest Apache. They said he could go for days without food or water. Well, of course the going for days without water was just dumb talk. Every man has to have water, if only a little. I guessed Horn needed very little. It was said that he didn’t drink or smoke, and that figured. We had done nothing lately but lie around in the Hole in the Wall soaking up whiskey and eating a lot of heavy, greasy food.
The Kid said quietly, “Horn must have been the one who figured we’d go across the mountains. That’s how the posse got on us so fast.”
I nodded. “He led the posse in, but he didn’t need them. All the time he was fixing to work alone.”
“The way he always does,” the Kid said. “He thinks we won’t get out of the desert. That’s why he left his horse behind with the others. You think we’re going to get out of this desert, Saddler?”
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s time to move on.” I turned on my back on the safe side of the rock and pointed to the country ahead. The desert out that way wasn’t flat anymore. As it ran toward the mountains it was broken and rocky. There would be some cover there for us—and for Horn.
Butch said, “If he gets here before we make the next cover he can pick us off with the long-range rifle. If he has a scope on that rifle he can fix us like a pin. What do you want to do?”
“I’m for moving on,” I said. “If we go now maybe he’ll hang back just long enough. He’s got a lot of ground to cover between there and here. Three Winchesters could get him quick if he gets close enough. I’m betting he’ll wait awhile.”
“Let’s go then,” Cassidy said. “But if he moves out sooner he’ll have us cold.”
What was there to say? It was possible that Horn could head for the rocks at a dead run. If he got there fast enough, we’d be fish in a barrel.
We slid down from the rocks and got the others started away from there. Pearl quivered with excitement when she heard Horn’s name. Etta’s eyes got that death look again. Etta was beginning to spook me with that look. I got the feeling that she was ready to welcome death with open arms.
“Walk the horses fast as you can,” I said. “If he sees dust I’m still betting he’ll hang back. We could be leaving one or two behind to cover our back trail.”
We moved out with all the energy of people going to be hanged. We were tired people with tired horses, and with a relentless killer not more than a mile behind us. Not far from where we started, the old man fell and snapped his peg leg in two. He lay in the blistering sand and kicked at Cassidy with his good leg as Cassidy tried to lift him. He kicked with the stump, too.
“Leave me be,” the old man groaned. “I can’t go on now, no matter what you do.”
“Come on now!” Butch tried again and got a kick that sent him staggering.
The old man gave a cry that was more a sob than a shout. He closed his eyes and reached out his hands, the fingers trembling. “Kill me, Butch. Horn uses the knife on men when he takes them alive.”
I didn’t know about that. Maybe Horn used a knife when he needed to get information. Eyes still shut tight, the old man reached out again.
“A last good turn for an old friend, Butch. Kill me now!”
Cassidy’s face twitched. His hand reached for his belt gun, then dropped away. I got between Cassidy and the old man. Valuable time was being used up. I drew my gun and cocked it. Pearl looked away, but Etta didn’t. The old man’s body stiffened at the sound of the pistol being cocked.
“God bless you, Butch!” he moaned.
I shot him in the head. One bullet was all it took.
We moved on, expecting to get one of Horn’s bullets in the back at any moment, and when one finally came we were just about out of range. Horn fired just once. The bullet missed me by a foot. Horn didn’t fire again. He was testing the range.
Just before we made it to the next cover I looked back and Horn was standing up high in plain sight on top of the rocks we had left. He was a real showman, that feller. I guess he was crazy, but like I said, he wasn’t foolish. Among the lot of us we didn’t have a gun that could reach him. '
Throughout the long day we moved like that, always finding cover just in time. My guess was that Horn wasn’t trying all that hard. I guess for him there was no special hurry. We were like a boxer in a losing fight. Still game but still losing. Every time we showed fight he knocked us off balance one more time. Maybe he was even enjoying himself. For the natural-born hunter the chase can be more important than the kill. Of course it was that goddamned big rifle that gave him the edge. That long range made all the difference. It could reach out and kill at five hundred yards in the hands of a man who knew how to use it. I couldn’t tell what kind of rifle he was using. It could be the biggest caliber Sharps they made, or a Remington hunter. Or even one of the new Schuyztens. It didn’t matter much, so long as he had it.
I looked up at the sky. It was beginning to darken and the wind was rising. The sand blew harder in our faces. All the signs were there—we were in for a sandstorm, a big blow. It started before we reached the next cover, but it would be a while before it gusted up to full force.
Staggering against the force of the wind, I yelled at Cassidy. “Head for cover and dig in best you can.” I grabbed my saddle blanket and shook it out. It flapped in the rising wind.
Ducking his head, Cassidy yelled back at me. “What the hell are you going to do?”
I fought to get the blanket under control. “Dig in here. Go on now.”
“But you’re only halfway to cover,” Butch yelled through the bandanna that covered his mouth.
“Halfway to Horn’s rifle,” I yelled back. “If he doesn’t spot me, this will get me close enough. Get out of here, Butch. Get the hell out of here.”
“You’re crazy,” Cassidy yelled, but he did what he was told. The wind blew him about as he followed the others. Soon he was lost in the blowing sand.
The sun darkened over as the fury of the sandstorm increased. It glowed dull red through the sand-filled sky. Then there was no longer any light. Bracing myself against the gale, I wrapped myself and my rifle in the blanket and lay down in the sand. The wind blew harder, howling like a demon, and I could feel the sand piling on top of me. I sucked in sand and air until black spots danced in front of my closed eyes. The storm howled on for I don’t know how long. In a sandstorm all sense of time is lost. At times you think you’re dead.
Maybe the storm lasted for an hour. All I knew was that I was encased in sand. The wind began to lose its force, and it was time to get set before the storm blew away completely. I was taking one hell of a chance, but I didn’t know what else to do. If I didn’t stop Horn, he was going to stop us.
I had to be careful not to disturb too much of the sand that covered me. I moved the blanket carefully so I could get at my rifle. It was loaded, the muzzle plugged with a rag. I wasn’t sure it would shoot. I guessed that I’d know pretty soon.
Keeping the muzzle plugged, I scooped sand from the pile in front of me. I hoped I looked like just another hump of wind-shifted sand. As the storm blew itself out, I was able to see the last cover we had left, a bunch of cactus and rock. In a few minutes the wind died and the sun came out in all its rage.
Nothing happened for a while, and I felt like a man in an oven. If Horn didn’t kill me, the heat would finish me before another hour had passed. I don’t think I was sweating anymore, and that’s the worst thing that can happen in the desert. My strength was going fast and if I didn’t get water soon I wouldn’t have the energy to pull the trigger. I had to force myself to keep watching our last cover.
Tom Horn came out in the open. I was close enough to make out a fairly slight man, not even tall, holding a big rifle. I was close enough to see him pretty well. He was, close enough to kill me at will if he spotted
me. For a moment I thought he was looking my way. Maybe his wary eyes were just moving about. Then I realized he was looking past me, staring at the place where he knew the others had to be holed up.
I unplugged the muzzle of my rifle as Horn began to do the same thing. My fingers quivered as I cleared the muzzle. A shell was in the chamber ready to be fired if the mechanism wasn’t fouled. The sun glare burned my eyes and I was lightheaded. I sighted along the barrel, but Horn seemed to dance up and down. I just couldn’t hold my aim steady. I tried again and then I fired.
Tom Horn dropped under the impact of the bullet. I think I hit him in the thigh. I raised my head, but couldn’t see him. I jacked a shell and waited. Five minutes passed and I crawled out from under the weight of sand. If he wasn’t finished, now was the time to do it.
I was raising up with the rifle when a bullet touched the lobe of my left ear. I fired back at nothing and dropped to the sand. Another bullet sang at me, spattering sand in my eyes. I waited, but there was no firing after that. I thought I’d hit him, but maybe I hadn’t. A man like Horn would throw himself flat at the sound of a bullet. It could be he had done that, yet there was something in the way he had dropped—the suddenness of it—that convinced me that he’d been hit.
I lay there expecting to get a bullet. Staying still was my only chance of survival. Minutes dragged by and he fired again, but the shot was way off. I knew then that he had to be wounded, to shoot like that. But wounded or not, he had cover and I had none. There was no way I could crawl up on him. If I crawled close enough, he could brace the rifle and blow me apart.
Staring at the place where Horn was, I thought my eyes were dimming out when I realized that it was getting dark. The sand in front of me was turning a red color. I waited for more bullets. None came as dark descended on the desert. When it got dark enough I started to crawl the other way.
I don’t know how I made it to where Cassidy and the others were. I was fairly close when a loading lever clacked. Other gun noises came after the first one. I raised my head from the sand and told them not to kill me. What I said came out as a croak.