Nobody else came after him as he raced across the plains. He tried to keep an eye on his back trail, but after a while that got to be too much effort in his weakened condition. He was in and out of consciousness as he rode.
After what seemed like hours but might have been only minutes, he started trying to rein in the big gray. John Henry was weak, though, and after being given his head and running for so long, Iron Heart didn’t want to stop.
Gradually the horse slowed, and at last John Henry was able to bring him to a halt. Staying in the saddle, he looked around to make sure there was no pursuit.
He didn’t see anything except an endless vista of rolling prairie and arching blue sky. He couldn’t even see the hills that formed Packsaddle Gap, so he didn’t know if he had been going the right direction or not.
First things first, he told himself. Carefully, hunched to the side against the pain, he climbed down from the horse’s back.
He dropped the reins, knowing that Iron Heart wouldn’t wander off. In fact, since his legs were weak and unsteady, he leaned against the gray for support as he pulled up his bloody shirt and explored the injury with his fingertips.
John Henry closed his eyes in relief as he realized that the bullet had gone in and out cleanly, and not very deep, at that. It hurt like blazes, and he had lost a chunk of meat and a good deal of blood.
But the wound wasn’t going to kill him unless it festered. It needed medical attention, but he settled for taking a flask of whiskey from one of his saddlebags.
Some people made a joke out of carrying liquor “for medicinal purposes,” but in John Henry’s case it was true. He didn’t drink other than the occasional beer.
He used his teeth to pull the stopper from the flask and poured whiskey into his cupped hand. He splashed it on the entrance and exit wounds, groaning and gritting his teeth against the liquor’s fiery sting.
Better than nothing, he thought. He put the flask away and went to mount up again.
His strength deserted him, completely and unexpectedly. He felt himself reeling backward and tried to catch his balance, but it was lost.
So was everything else. He hit the ground, out cold.
Chapter Eighteen
Simon Garrett was still seething by the time he and the other members of the gang reached the Silver Skull late that morning.
Three of them—Currier, Hillman, and Palmer—came in draped facedown over their saddles, dead from wounds they had suffered in the battle. Several others were wounded, including Purcell, who had a nasty gash on his head where that traitor Saxon had clouted him with a rifle butt.
Every one of those deaths and injuries could be laid right at the feet of John Saxon.
Garrett muttered a curse every time he thought the man’s name. No matter how Lottie felt about Saxon, Garrett had never trusted him, not one damned bit. That was why he had told Purcell to keep an eye on him.
Unfortunately, that precaution hadn’t done any good. Saxon had still managed to betray the rest of them and ruin the carefully set-up ambush. Jed Montayne had gotten away, and Garrett had lost three good men.
Saxon would pay for that . . . if he was still alive. Purcell had wounded Saxon as he was getting away. Part of Garrett hoped that Saxon was already lying on the prairie somewhere, dead from that bullet hole, but another part hoped that Saxon had survived being ventilated.
Garrett wanted to settle the score with him personally.
Lottie stepped out onto the porch to greet the men as they rode up to the ranch house. She wore mannish garb again, including her gun belt and the hidden bowie knife that dangled from the rawhide choker around her neck.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked over the group of riders. Her voice lashed out. “I don’t see Montayne.”
“He got away,” Garrett said bluntly. “Saxon double-crossed us and fired some warning shots just as Montayne and the rest of the J/M bunch were about to ride right into our trap.”
A sharply indrawn breath caused Lottie’s breasts to lift dramatically under her shirt. Under other circumstances, Garrett would have enjoyed that view, but not at the moment.
“Saxon did that? You’re sure?”
“Damn right I’m sure. He knocked out Dave Purcell before he did it, too.”
“What about Mallette?”
Garrett jerked his head at some of his men, who moved their horses aside to reveal a dispirited Nick Mallette sitting with slumped shoulders on his mount. An ugly purple bruise discolored the gambler’s jaw.
“Looks like I was wrong about him,” Garrett admitted. “He tried to stop Saxon and got walloped for his trouble.”
Mallette lifted his head. “I didn’t know what John was going to do, Miss Dalmas, I swear it. I still don’t understand it. I don’t know why he . . . what he thought he was—”
“That’s enough,” Lottie snapped. She looked at Garrett again. “So Saxon got away?”
“Yeah, but he was wounded. Purcell managed to wing him. I don’t know how bad he was hurt.”
“You didn’t go after him?”
The tone of disapproval in Lottie’s voice made Garrett flush with embarrassment and anger. “Montayne and his crew had us outnumbered almost two to one. It was all we could do to fight a running battle with them and get out of there. Like I already told you, we lost three men doing it.”
Lottie didn’t seem to care about that. “You didn’t mount a search for Saxon?”
“By the time Montayne gave up the chase, Saxon could’ve been anywhere. But as soon as they get some fresh horses, some of the men are going back out to look for him.”
“See that they do,” Lottie said. “And then come inside.” She turned and stalked into the house.
Garrett bit back the words of anger and frustration he wanted to shout after her. Wearily, he turned to the other men and called the names of three of them. “You gents get fresh horses and see if you can find out what happened to Saxon. You ought to be able to pick up his trail at Packsaddle Gap.”
“It’s a damned long ride all the way back there, Simon,” one of the men said.
“And we’ve already been in the saddle for what seems like a week,” another outlaw added.
Garrett bristled. He might not be able to let his temper get away from him where Lottie was concerned, but he wasn’t going to have his orders questioned by the likes of these men. “I said go find Saxon, damn it,” he growled as he fixed them with a cold, angry stare. His ungloved right hand wasn’t far from the butt of his gun.
“I’ll go,” Nick Mallette said.
Garrett turned his head to glare at the gambler.
“What did you say?”
“I said I’d go,” Mallette repeated. He touched the bruise on his jaw. “I’d sort of like to ask John a few questions about what he did . . . assuming he’s still alive, that is.” Mallette’s voice had a tone of hard, flat anger in it.
Garrett grunted. “Maybe I misjudged you, Slick.”
“It’s—” Mallette stopped short and didn’t bother to finish correcting Garrett. He let out a little chuckle instead.
“All right, you can go, too. But if you find Saxon alive, I want him to stay that way until you get him back here. I want to hear him howl before he dies.” Garrett waved a hand toward the barn. “The rest of you put up your horses, and tend to mine, too.” He swung down from the saddle and stepped up onto the porch, intending to follow Lottie into the house.
“What about Montayne?” one of the men asked. “Are we still going after him?”
“He still owes blood for what he did to Henry,” Garrett answered harshly. “Damn right he’s going to pay.”
But first he needed to discuss the next move with Lottie, although he wasn’t going to admit that in front of the men. It was bad enough that some of them already seemed to believe that Lottie was in charge. He wasn’t going to confirm that assumption for them.
When he went in, she was standing stiffly beside the fireplace with a drink in her hand. She tossed it
back. “You let me down, Simon.”
Garrett couldn’t keep his anger completely contained any longer. “It wasn’t my idea to trust Saxon when we’d only known him for a few days,” he shot back at her. “That was all your doing, Lottie.”
“When a man’s that fast on the draw, you’ve got to try to put him to good use.”
“Well, he was either playing a game of his own all along . . . or else he’s a damned lawman,” Garrett said. “He was never what he was pretending to be, though, that’s for sure.”
She went over to a sideboard and picked up a bottle to splash more whiskey into her glass. She half turned and held up the bottle to ask him if he wanted any.
Garrett nodded. He took the glass that Lottie handed him and downed the shot, letting the fiery liquor brace up his body and spirit, both of which had grown weary. “Carson won’t be happy when he finds out that Montayne got away from us.”
“I don’t give a damn about Carson. I’m not happy that Montayne got away.” Lottie sighed. “But at least nothing that happened in the past twelve hours points to us. If anything, Montayne will blame Carson for the rustling and the ambush, since they’ve been feuding with each other for years. So maybe Montayne won’t be on his guard when we strike at him again.”
“When will that be? Right away, so he won’t be expecting it? That would keep Carson happy.”
“I told you, I don’t care about Carson. I’ve decided we’re going to shake things up. We’re going after the fruit at the very top of the tree.”
Garrett frowned. “You mean . . . ?”
Lottie reached behind her neck, under the thick auburn hair, and drew the bowie knife from its hidden sheath. She ran her left thumb along the razor-sharp blade until a tiny drop of blood appeared, standing out redly against her tanned flesh.
She pressed that thumb against her lips and sucked on it for a second. “We’re going after the arrogant man who passed that death sentence on Henry. We’re going after Judge Ephraim Doolittle.”
* * *
John Henry came to with Iron Heart nudging his shoulder. The big gray prodded his nose against the lawman until John Henry began to stir.
As he opened his eyes, he winced at the sunlight that seemed to stab into his brain like a knife.
Even that slight movement was enough to set up an annoying clamor inside his head. He did his best to ignore it as he lifted his head a little and looked around.
The sun was barely above the horizon, so he figured he hadn’t been passed out for long. The ambush at Packsaddle Gap had taken place shortly after dawn.
Something struck him as being wrong. He frowned as he tried to puzzle out what it was. In his condition, thinking was hard.
The answer came to him with stunning force. The sun wasn’t in the same place it had been earlier. It wasn’t newly risen.
It was about to set.
He had been lying on the prairie, unconscious, all day.
A bitter curse welled up his throat. It was the white man half of him; Indians seldom cursed and didn’t even have many words in their tongue for such things.
The opportunity to capture Lottie Dalmas was long gone. The battle at the gap had been over for hours, and he had no idea how it had turned out.
He knew he was lucky none of the outlaws had come along and found him, though. If they had, he wouldn’t be alive, that was for damned sure. So in that respect, the pain in his side and his head was a good thing. It meant he was still on the right side of the great divide.
He got his hands underneath him and pushed himself into a sitting position. His head spun crazily for a few seconds, but soon began to settle down.
The pain from the bullet wound in his side was a dull, throbbing ache. At least it wasn’t bad enough to keep him from moving, he told himself.
Iron Heart nosed his shoulder again.
“I know, I know. I need to get up and get out of here.”
Where was he going to go? He frowned as he pondered that question.
Returning to the Silver Skull seemed out of the question. Injured like he was, he wouldn’t stand any chance of getting in and out of there alive. More than likely at least some of the gang had survived the battle with the J/M and would have limped back there.
After the way he had double-crossed them, there was nothing the outlaws would like better than to get their hands on him. His death would make what had happened to Charles Houston and Lucas Winslow seem like a Sunday picnic.
His job was far from over, though. If he could make it back to Kiowa City, he could reveal his true identity to Sheriff Mike Rasmussen and get some help from the local lawman. Plus he could get the bullet holes in his side patched up properly, so they wouldn’t fester and kill him. He couldn’t finish his assignment from the grave.
After a few minutes of muddled thoughts brought him to the conclusion that he ought to head for Kiowa City, he reached out and caught hold of the stirrup that dangled near him. “Hold steady, Iron Heart.”
The pain and effort of climbing to his feet brought more groans and curses from him, but finally he was upright again. He stood there for long minutes, resting and trying to catch his breath, before he was ready to attempt getting into the saddle.
The blazing sun was halfway down by the time John Henry was mounted. Using it to orient himself, he turned the gray southeast, knowing that direction ought to take him to the vicinity of Kiowa City.
If nothing else, eventually he would hit the railroad and could follow the tracks to the settlement. Assuming, of course, he was thinking straight enough to turn in the right direction.
With that thought putting a grim smile on his lips, John Henry nudged Iron Heart into motion.
The big gray’s gait was the smoothest of any horse he had ever ridden, but even so, each step was enough to send a fresh throb of pain through John Henry’s side.
He would just have to put up with it, he told himself. He sure couldn’t walk back to Kiowa City. That would hurt even more.
The sun went down, but an arc of golden light lingered in the western sky, which faded to a pale blue streaked by lines of thin clouds turned orange by the sun. It would have been beautiful, if he had been in more of a mood to appreciate it.
The view would have been more appealing, too, if it hadn’t suddenly been marred by two figures on horseback coming over a rise to his left and galloping toward him. He heard their shouts, followed by the bark of guns as they charged.
Chapter Nineteen
The men were too far away for John Henry to recognize them. There were really only two possibilities when it came to their identities, though.
Either they were a pair of Jed Montayne’s men who had taken him for one of the bushwhackers . . .
Or they were two of the outlaws who were looking for the man who had double-crossed them at Packsaddle Gap.
Either way, their goal would be to put a bullet in his hide.
John Henry pulled Iron Heart’s head to the right, kicked the big gray into a run, and leaned forward in the saddle to make himself a smaller target. The range was pretty long for handguns, and the light was already uncertain. The odds of the gunmen being able to hit him were small, but it made sense to decrease those odds.
Iron Heart responded gallantly, as always, stretching out into a smooth, ground-eating stride that had man and horse flashing across the landscape. The pursuers had a good angle on him, but John Henry was beginning to think that Iron Heart could outrun them.
Suddenly, two more riders appeared . . . in front of him.
John Henry groaned. The excitement of the chase had made him forget for a moment that he was wounded, but the pain in his side wouldn’t be ignored for long.
On top of it, he had a fight on his hands. The two men in front of him forced him to turn more to his right, so that he was almost galloping back the way he had come from.
He needed to break through them somehow—not easy to do, the shape he was in. At least he still had his Colt. His Winchester had been l
ost when he dropped it back at Packsaddle Gap, after Purcell shot him.
He drew the revolver, but didn’t waste bullets by shooting it. His pursuers would have to get closer, as they did steadily with one group turning him toward the other. The first two riders had cut in behind him and he was trapped.
If he was going to survive to finish his job, he would have to fight his way out.
John Henry turned the gray and made a dash in a different direction, thinking he could squirt between the two groups.
Each pair split up, completely surrounding him. He had to rein in to keep himself out of their gunsights.
As he brought Iron Heart to a halt, the four pursuers slowed as well, coming to a stop about fifty yards from him, each at a different point of the compass. They holstered their handguns, and John Henry realized they hadn’t really been trying to hit him.
They were just herding him, like he was a dumb animal. That knowledge was a bitter pill to swallow.
The men pulled rifles from their saddle sheaths, but only one raised the weapon to his shoulder. “Throw your gun down, Saxon!” he shouted.
That answered one question, anyway, John Henry thought. Montayne’s men wouldn’t have known the name he’d been using, so they were members of Garrett’s gang.
In fact, one of them looked particularly familiar, even in the fading light.
“I said throw down your gun!” the spokesman yelled again. “If you don’t, I’ll shoot that horse right out from under you!”
Anger boiled up inside John Henry. He brandished the Colt and shouted back, “Come on! It’s four against one! Aren’t those odds good enough for you? Come on and fight!”
“We’re not gonna kill you, Saxon, but we’ll put you afoot and lasso you if we have to! You’re going back to the Silver Skull! I reckon Garrett and the Flame have special plans for a no-good double-crosser like you!”
So that was it. They were supposed to take him back to be tortured to death. Well, that came as no surprise, knowing the terrible things that Lottie Dalmas had done already in her quest for vengeance.
Beautiful or not, the Flame had a cruel, bloodthirsty streak inside her. Simon Garrett wasn’t much better.
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