Worse yet, since he was facing away from the dog, he couldn’t even raise his hands in any defensive manner. Feeling hot blood gush up over the back of his neck as the animal’s teeth ripped into his shoulder, all he could do was cry out in pain and rage.
This time it was Eagle’s reach that saved them. Even though pinned partially under Luke, the former sheriff still had a limited view and one arm free. Extending the latter as far as he could, he managed to seize the handle of the Bowie knife he could see jutting up from where it was sunk in the corpse—Luke’s Bowie, the one he had thrown to kill the stalking gunman in the first place—and yank it free.
From there, in a desperate, blind lunge, he thrust his arm upward and slashed viciously when he felt the blade sink deep into the chest of the ridgeback on top of Luke. With a gurgling howl of surprise and agony, the dog rolled away, flailing wildly, taking the knife with it as it flopped to the floor of the gully. An arc of blood rose high as it gave its final kicks and then became totally still.
* * *
Once again, Parker Dixon had reined his horse to a sharp halt. Scowling ahead across the barren, foreboding landscape, he said, “What was that? Shots? Did anybody else hear the sound of shooting?”
Standing in his stirrups, also deeply scowling, Asa Patton said, “That’s sure what it sounded like. Did any of those handlers have guns?”
“No. They’re frightened just being around guns,” Dixon replied.
“How to explain it then? There’s not much reason for anybody else being in this broken country, and it certainly doesn’t seem possible for Jensen or the half-breed to have gotten their hands on a gun out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Not far to the rear of this discussion, a sudden bolt of sickening fear ran through Hack Ferris. The realization hit him that no, such a thing wasn’t so impossible. In fact, he knew exactly how and . . . with a sinking feeling of dread . . . where the fugitives might have gotten their hands on some weapons.
Looking with alarm in all directions, Ferris inwardly cursed these badlands. An ocean of twisted, grotesque rock formations and shapes, no two exactly alike yet somehow always looking the same. At least that’s how it seemed to Hack. Where had this insane chase led them? Were they indeed somewhere close to where that blasted Jensen had cut down Dog DeMarist and those others just yesterday? Ferris had meant to send somebody out to retrieve the bodies first chance he got, but after the raid last night at the Elkhorn Saloon in Hard Rock and then Dixon showing up today and this hunt being set in motion so fast . . .
If he told Dixon and Patton now what he had failed to mention before—no matter that it was partly their fault for taking off on such short notice and not allowing him even a chance to think—it was bound to go hard on him. As increasingly crazy as Dixon was proving himself to be and backed by these new gun toughs on top of that steely-eyed Patton, it might go so hard as them killing him.
Ferris wanted out. Running men down with killer African dogs had almost been the last straw to begin with. Now possibly facing his own demise due to a simple oversight—a demise maybe even delivered by the same horrible dogs—was definitely too much. He didn’t deserve it. Not only was he unwilling to risk facing the ire of Dixon, neither did he want to risk another encounter with Jensen and Eagle. They’d already wiped out nearly his whole crew, maybe it was time to take the hint and steer clear of them while he was still able.
“Ferris! Blast it, what are you daydreaming about?” The sharp words coming from Dixon shook Ferris out of his doomed thoughts. “I asked you, did you hear those shots?”
“Uh, yeah,” Ferris answered. “Leastways, I heard something that might have been shots. You gotta remember, out here amongst all these rocks sound sometimes does strange things. I don’t see how anybody up ahead of us could have got hold of a gun out of thin air.”
“No, me neither,” Dixon said, his eyebrows pinched tight together.
“It’s got to be Ngamba or one of the handlers,” said Patton. “One of them must have had a pistol under his shirt and took a pot shot at a coyote or maybe another rattler.”
Still brooding, Dixon responded, “It must be something like that. In any event, we’ve got to continue ahead and find out. Come on, everybody stay sharp and proceed with caution.”
As the others started out, Ferris abruptly nosed his horse to one side and swung down from his saddle. “What’s the matter? What are you doing?” Roland Dixon asked him.
“My nag is steppin’ funny. Must’ve picked up a pebble in one of its shoes,” Ferris answered without making eye contact. “Shouldn’t take but a minute to find it and dig it out. Go on along, I’ll catch up . . .”
Chapter 48
Neither Luke nor Eagle had felt moved to harm the dog handlers. They were, after all, basically innocents in a strange land caught up in a cruel game they may not have even fully understood. They’d certainly understood the death of their precious dogs, however, and all three had fallen to their knees beside the bodies, mournfully wailing and lamenting the loss.
So that’s how Luke and Eagle left them. Ideally, they would have preferred not leaving them behind to give any warning or explanation to the others who would be showing up. But there was no time to deal with them in any effective way short of shooting them, too, and the shooting already done—two rounds to kill one of the dogs and another to break the handcuff chain linking the two fugitives together—had already given sufficient warning to Dixon and the rest.
The best use of the time the pair of battered, exhausted men had before the remainder of their pursuers arrived was to gather up the guns and ammunition from the other two bodies they would find close by. With his bearings now established and feeling somewhat rejuvenated by having the sense of a fighting chance, Luke quickly led the way to the dead men. After stripping them of all useful items, including two mercifully full canteens, they fell into the shade of the tall, mushroom-shaped rock formation Luke had used before, and slaked their thirsts while hastily formulating their next move.
“I got no more run left in me. I vote we pick a spot right here close and make a stand against ’em,” Eagle said, quickly summing up his feelings.
“I agree,” Luke said without hesitation. “But with one provision.”
“What’s that?”
“We don’t just make a stand—we wipe ’em out. I hate ambushes,” the bounty hunter said grimly, “but we’ve got no choice. If we get into a prolonged shoot-out or running fight, we’re right back where we’ve been. They can hold out indefinitely by sending men to drop back and re-supply, we can’t. We’ve got to end it and end it quick if we want any chance to survive.”
Eagle looked at him with eyes that had grown bloodshot from stinging sweat and lancing sunlight. “Like you said back there in the gully—we didn’t come this far to end up as dog food. Nor to end up under the boot heel of Parker Dixon, either.”
Luke tipped up his canteen and drank some more of its warm, stale contents that under the circumstances tasted better than the finest wine he’d ever sampled. Lowering it, he said, “About Dixon . . . as far as those claims he made saying I betrayed his brother and was part of stealing that Confederate gold shipment near the end of the war—”
Eagle cut him off. “If you’re gonna tell me he had it twisted around all wrong, don’t bother. You’d be insultin’ me by suggestin’ that, after knowin’ you, I’d have to be told you wouldn’t be part of anything like that.”
Luke gave a short nod. “Thanks.”
“What you can tell me,” Eagle said, after a quick glance skyward, “is what you got in mind for how we’re gonna set up to greet Dixon and his bunch in order to leave ’em as buzzard pickin’s . . .”
* * *
There was nothing elaborate about the plan they came up with. It was simple and cold-blooded. They decided to hit Dixon and his followers as soon as they reached the spot where the dog handlers were still wailing over their slain dogs, before there was too much chance for Ngamba to try and
provide an explanation or for the new arrivals to get over their surprise and shift to a more defensive approach.
The terrain immediately on the north side of the gully, where the gun toughs would be riding in, was a rare stretch of flat, open ground covering a semi-circular pattern over several yards. This made it well within range for a rifleman up on the flat top of the mushroom-shaped rock formation slightly to the west, the same perch Luke had used earlier—a position Eagle now assumed, armed with a pair of Henry rifles he had taken from the dead men.
A short way to the east of the open area, a low, ragged spine of rocks thrust up and ran along the north rim of the gully. Looping wide around to make sure he was unseen by the dog handlers, Luke squirmed in and crouched among the diminutive peaks, armed with two Colt .45 revolvers and a Winchester rifle.
Between them, Luke and Eagle had over fifty rounds of ready firepower without ever needing to reload.
They didn’t have long to wait for the opportunity to use it.
Luke barely had time to get in place before they saw the dust cloud approaching and heard the clatter of horses’ hooves on the hard, rocky ground. With Dixon and Patton riding at the head, the group of horsemen slowed when they came within sight of the dog handlers and saw the motionless shapes they were kneeling beside. Then, unable to hold back a half-choked curse, Dixon spurred forward and Patton kept pace. The others lagged only slightly before following, keeping grouped fairly closely together.
Ngamba rose to his feet and began jabbering excitedly with a flurry of hand gestures as Dixon and Patton both hurriedly dismounted and strode toward him. The others crowded up close and halted their horses, spreading out somewhat in accordance with the semi-circular pattern of the flatter ground.
Luke sucked a quick breath, let out half, then held it. There wasn’t going to be a better time. By agreement, he was to start it off . . .
And so he did.
Rising up with a Colt in each hand, he said, “Welcome to hell, boys!” and cut loose. A second after his Colts discharged simultaneously, the first report of Eagle’s Henry boomed down from the mushroom rock and lead and blood began filling the air.
The way they’d planned it, due to the angles and proximity of their different firing positions, was that Eagle would sweep from the front into the middle of the pack, Luke would work from the back inward. And that’s the way they executed it—execute being a grimly appropriate term. Few, if any, shots from the skilled ambushers missed. Men threw up their arms and toppled from their saddles, screaming horses reared and wheeled this way and that, trying to bolt away, and still more men fell. A few managed to draw their weapons and a handful even got off shots, but all were wild, desperate guesses as there was no real chance in the wild melee for the targets to establish where the incoming rounds were coming from.
It was over quickly. By the time Luke had emptied his revolvers and took up the Winchester, there was no one left to use it on. The only ones still alive were Ngamba and one of the dog handlers. As before, Luke and Eagle had intended no purposeful harm to these men but a stray bullet, ricocheting off something, had taken its toll regardless.
Also, by design, Roland Dixon was left alive. The ambushers had decided ahead of time to allow this, if possible. In the absence of his father, they calculated he would make a useful negotiating tool when they returned to the Gold Button.
As for the power- and revenge-crazed Parker Dixon, he was the first one Eagle had killed. “Not only without regret, but with extreme pleasure,” he would say later. The second man to fall under the former sheriff’s sights, due to his competence making him a significant threat, had been Asa Patton. When Luke walked among the dead after the shooting was over, he paused for a moment over Patton’s corpse and did feel a pang of regret. Not because the scoundrel was dead, but because he hadn’t had the chance to face him straight up and do the job himself.
Chapter 49
The celebration at the mountain camp that night was inhibited only by the battered, exhausted condition of the two men whose return was the very cause for the celebration.
Nevertheless, while Luke and Eagle were bathed, salved, bandaged, and then fed and wined to near bursting, the joyous mood in the camp was at full pitch. The mere fact they’d shown up still alive would have been plenty of reason for this, but the promise they brought that some sense of normalcy might actually be in store for the valley—by virtue of Parker Dixon being dead and his son Roland in custody—added all the more.
Not even the temporary presence of Roland in their midst was enough to dampen things, especially after he let it be known he was willing to sign back all property deeds throughout the valley and meet any other demands that would allow his safe return to Helena in order to take over the helm of Dixon business interests there, and strictly there. It was still deemed prudent to keep him bound and under watch, but for his agreeableness, he was given food and drink and not abused in any of the manners that several present had threatened to do at their sight of him.
As for Ngamba and the other dog handler, whose name was M’Botu, they also were given food and drink and generally welcomed and treated with respect. They accepted this and expressed their gratitude yet remained, understandably, reserved and uncertain about all they had seen and been part of. Luke and Eagle had tried to explain to Ngamba why they’d had to do the things they’d done, killing the dogs and then staging the ambush and all, but it nevertheless seemed overwhelming and a bit too frightening for him to fully comprehend. Among his promises, Roland had sworn he would take the pair back to Helena with him and arrange return passage to their homeland.
Later, when things had begun to wind down some, Luke and Dinah Mercer found a few minutes to be alone together. As before, it had been she who’d administered mostly to his battered condition when he first arrived. He was so sore and sunburned and worn down then that even her light touch had caused him to wince sharply a few times. But not so now, when she reached to gently caress his face.
“This must be getting awfully tiresome for you,” he said, “patching me up only to have me come back the worse for wear and requiring it all over again.”
“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
“You’re not the complaining type.”
“I’m just glad that you’re able to come back. Especially this time,” Dinah replied. “I hate to admit it now, but we weren’t holding out much hope of ever seeing you or Tom again. Not after Red Baker’s report on how things had gone at the last there in the Elkhorn Saloon.”
“Yeah, things were looking pretty bleak for a while,” admitted Luke. “But giving up was never in the cards, not for me or Eagle either one.”
“No, you’re not the type. Just like you said I’m not the complaining type. Especially when I get compensated so well for my time.”
At these last words, her eyes flicked meaningfully to her sewing basket. It was there, stuffed deep into the rest of the paraphernalia it contained, that Luke had, before leaving the previous night, stuffed his wallet and all the money it held.
Luke’s eyebrows lifted now. “So you found it.”
“I could hardly have missed it. I happen to use that basket for purposes besides just stitching you back together.”
“I meant for you to discover it without too much trouble . . . in case I didn’t make it back.” Luke shrugged. “After all, it wouldn’t have done you much good if you’d never come across it.”
Dinah arched a brow. “You know, there’s a name for women who take money from men who have visited their quarters . . . and for men who leave such payments.”
Luke felt the heat of a flush pour over his face. “Hey, now wait a minute! You can’t think I meant for that to be—”
Dinah put a finger to his lips and shushed him. “Calm down. I was just teasing. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, given how sunburned your face already is, for it to turn any redder.”
Luke leaned back and groaned. “Don’t remind me. That blasted sun and al
l those hot rocks—I got blisters in places I never knew I had places before. But that salve you put on sure helped. At least I can lean back against something now. As a matter of fact, I feel like I could lean back here right now and sleep for about a month.”
“And you’ve certainly earned the right to.” Dinah regarded him as he allowed his eyes to drift shut. “But you can’t, can you? It’s not over yet. Not until you take Roland back to the Gold Button and finish up there. Isn’t that right?”
Without opening his eyes, Luke said, “Yeah. That’s where all the deeds and other paperwork are, the stuff Roland needs to sign back over.”
“And those remaining gun toughs Dixon brought with him will also be there.”
“Roland is our shield against them. That, and the fact that Parker Dixon isn’t around to pay them anymore. They’re the kind of men who only fight for money. When that dries up, so will they.”
Dinah laid her head against his chest. “I hope you’re right. I hope something about this valley and all its problems finally starts to work out easier for you.”
“Either way,” said Luke, “it’ll keep until tomorrow, and I’m not going to worry about it until then.”
Moments later, Dinah could feel his chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths and pretty soon he was issuing soft, exhausted snores.
* * *
They approached the Gold Button two hours past sunrise, Luke and Eagle riding close on either side of Roland. The latter had his hands tied behind his back and two leather thongs were looped around his neck, one leading off and tied to Luke’s saddle horn, the other to Eagle’s. In addition, each of the outside men held a twelve gauge shotgun braced on his hip, barrel angled so that the twin bores were aimed at Roland’s head from less than a foot’s distance.
This was how they rode in, past Roland’s private cabin, and up to the front of the mess hall. Curiously, there was no activity in evidence anywhere on the grounds.
Reining in their horses, Luke called out, “Hello, Gold Button! Somebody? We’ve got some business to conduct here!”
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