Deadly Shadow

by Paul Bedford

  ‘We can’t stay behind these trees ’til nightfall, ’cause he’s bound to get lucky and pick some more of us off. So we’re going to spread out and run full chisel for those rocks. If we fire as we move, it should keep his head down until we overwhelm the bastard. Any questions?’

  A nervous voice piped up a few yards away, ‘Well, yeah, what’s overwhelm mean, boss?’

  Not for the first time did Taw rub a meaty hand over his face in frustration. ‘Jesus H. Christ, why do I put up with. . . ?’ The outlaw leader stopped abruptly as he realized that he had been unconsciously talking to his friend and deputy, Clay Bassett and a deep sadness came over him. ‘It means, just shoot the bastard, savvy?’ Again, without waiting for a response, he then called over to Cathy, ‘Get flat to the deck and stay there. We’re coming through!’

  Taw waited until his men had drawn their weapons and then he gave the signal. In unison, they all leapt out from behind cover and raced pell-mell towards their enemy. Once past Cathy and Clay, they fired into the rocks. With their chests heaving from the unaccustomed exertion, accuracy was impossible, but the cumulative effect apparently served to prevent any return fire. Even though his legs were leaden and his lungs parched, Taw felt a surge of exhilaration as they drew nearer. They were actually going to make it!

  ‘Oh my, will you look at that?’ cried Liam as he stared down at the rousing sight. ‘Those silly bastards think it’s Gettysburg all over again.’

  His companion had to admit that their ruse was working well, but he had something else on his mind. ‘Why the hell doesn’t she make a break for it? There’s horses a-plenty and no guards.’ John Clemens wanted to scream out to her, but had to settle for merely shaking his head in disbelief. ‘We’ll be having words when this is all over,’ he added ominously.

  ‘Never mind that,’ hissed Liam urgently. ‘You’ve got some more targets down there.’

  Nodding his acknowledgement, the deadly sharpshooter slightly altered position to his left and emptied his mind of everything other than the task at hand. After a minor adjustment of the ladder sight to compensate for the reduced range, he was ready.

  Unused to life out of the saddle, the twelve men were almost dead on their feet, but quite remarkably they had covered the distance without having once been shot at. As they closed in from all sides, Taw bellowed out, ‘Blast him,’ and they did. A dozen revolvers repeatedly spat bullets and for a moment or so a dense cloud of powder smoke obscured their front. Then it cleared and they all whooped for joy. Their unknown foe had been thrown back by the sheer weight of lead and could no longer harm them.

  ‘That’s him paroled to Jesus,’ Vance crowed happily.

  ‘Yeah, we sure dished him,’ Jed agreed, as he clambered over the intervening boulder.

  Then Taw swore bitterly and they all froze with shock. The same corpse that he had gratuitously blessed with a headshot, prior to it being hurled into the freezing cold Missouri River, had returned to haunt them all. Punctured with fresh bullet holes, it now possessed skin that had turned waxy grey and a peculiarly macabre grimace that was emphasized by a complete lack of teeth. Its ‘rifle’ turned out to be a tree branch trimmed to size.

  ‘By Christ, we’ve been stalking a dead man. Someone’s going to answer for this,’ Taw vowed angrily.

  The man next to him abruptly jerked forward and coughed blood. Even as a distant gunshot rang out, the latest victim helplessly dropped to his knees. Taw momentarily steadied him, so as to check on the entry wound. With the trajectory direction confirmed, he reluctantly allowed the man to fall to the ground and yelled out, ‘We’ve been suckered. Get round here behind these rocks.’

  As all eleven men did so, their leader simultaneously withdrew his spyglass from a pocket in his buckskin jacket. He was fleetingly distracted by the sight, directly before him, of their comrade twitching in his death throes. With an effort of will, Taw dragged his gaze away and wedged the glass in a crack between two rocks. Desperately, he began to scan the nearest high ground for any signs of movement. He continued with this for a few minutes, during which there were no further shots.

  ‘Where the hell is he, Taw?’ whined one of the men impatiently. ‘He can’t be a ghost.’

  Ignoring him, that man gradually extended his search further out until finally he happened upon a tower like butte about 600 yards away. Panning up the side of it, he suddenly recoiled with astonishment at the sight of a rifle muzzle seemingly aimed directly at him. Ducking down, he exclaimed, ‘Damn, but he’s good!’

  Myriad thoughts passed through the outlaw’s mind as he anxiously tried to weigh up their limited options. One thing was for sure: superior numbers counted for nothing in their situation. At length, he came to a decision and it was not one that he relished.

  ‘Our shooter’s atop that butte, over yonder,’ he improbably announced. Ignoring their cries of disbelief, he remorselessly carried on with, ‘I glimpsed one other man with him, which would tie in with what Vance said yesterday. Only now they’re not fighting each other anymore. They’re after us. And at such a distance we’ve no chance of hunting them down without our horses, so we’ll have to leg it back to camp. With just these belt guns, we can’t even attempt covering fire. It’s every man for himself, boys.’

  As his men huddled miserably behind their rocks, they recognized that there really was no other choice. Jed, mean-looking at the best of times, spoke for them all when he stated, ‘All this running and hiding shit don’t sit well with me, Taw. There’d better be some pay back.’

  ‘There will be,’ their leader agreed. ‘But for now, let’s just get the hell out of here. On my command. Three, two, one, go!’

  As they again leapt from cover, every single man knew that there was a reloaded rifle aimed at someone in the scattered group. But as in time of war, each of them prayed that the bullet would have another name on it. As Jed lurched into action, the unaccustomed exercise painfully jarred his ankles, but it was nothing to the searing agony that suddenly engulfed his right thigh. Accompanied by the distant gunshot, blood welled up through the rent in his trousers leg and the scavenger uncontrollably tumbled to earth.

  Out of all the frantically running men, Taw was the only one to stop. Even as he viewed Jed’s distress, the reason for the none-lethal wound instinctively dawned on him. The hidden assassin was testing their courage and resolve by intentionally burdening them with another wounded man. Even whilst acknowledging the cunning in such a plan, rage began to build within him. He and his men were being treated like rats in a trap!

  Steeling himself for what he knew had to be done, Taw slowly and deliberately walked over to the stricken outlaw and aimed his revolver at the horrified individual. Then, for what seemed like an age, he just stood there ignoring Jed’s pitiful cries and gazed over at the butte’s occupants. It was almost as though he was inviting death. Daring the bastard to shoot him, whilst at the same time hinting that he might well finish off his own man in cold blood. Taw was playing a dicey hand, but in the heat of the moment he just didn’t give a damn.

  ‘Why the hell don’t you pop a cap on him?’

  Clemens’s eyes never left the audacious, buckskin clad figure as he replied, ‘He’s a very brave man, but that’s not a good enough reason to let him live. No sirree. But he’s got me curious as to what he’ll do and because of that I’m thinking he must be their leader. And if he’s what’s keeping Cathy in one piece, it might be better to let him live . . . for a while. Until I’ve whittled his men down a bit more.’ His strangely cold eyes suddenly settled on Liam’s. ‘Don’t you think?’

  His companion shrugged uncomfortably. There was a chillingly cold-blooded aspect to the man hunter that was beginning to make him nervous. The excitement of the chase was definitely losing its attraction.

  ‘If you say so,’ he reluctantly managed. ‘But I thought we were here to get your wife and my horse back. Not murder all those men in cold blood.’

  Clemens slowly eased the hammer down and then g
lanced back at the audacious outlaw. He nodded thoughtfully, as the big man heaved his wounded companion on to his shoulders and staggered off towards the river.

  ‘They shouldn’t have taken what was mine. Did you know that I once killed over a hundred buffalo in one day? If the skinners could have kept pace with me, I’d have slaughtered way more. Those dumb creatures just stood there and dropped, one by one. Kind of like those fellas are doing!’

  Chapter Seven

  Despite the chill air, sweat was pouring from Taw by the time he got back to the river. As he thankfully lowered Jed to the ground, he was aware that some of his men were regarding him sheepishly. Not one of them had turned back to help him and that only served to fuel the anger that was burning inside.

  ‘Looks to me like his leg’s broke. Cut some splints and see to him. You can do that, can’t you?’

  Two of them scurried off to comply and were glad to do it. Their leader was a fearsome sight when his blood was up. A man called Davis finally plucked up the courage to ask the question that was on everyone’s lips.

  ‘What we gonna do now, boss? We can’t just hide in these trees forever, like god damn squirrels.’

  Taw squinted at him fiercely. ‘No. No, we can’t. But so long as that cockchafer sits up on the butte with his festering buffalo gun we can’t attack him, either. On foot we’d be too slow and on horseback we’d make too big a target.’

  A soft voice behind him brought him up short. Remarkably, he had completely forgotten about Cathy.

  ‘I heard you say buffalo gun. My husband has a Sharps rifle. He used to be a buffalo hunter. I think that’s how he earned the money to buy our place.’

  The big man’s eyes widened. ‘Tell me his name again.’

  ‘John Clemens,’ she hesitantly replied. ‘Some folks in Chinook told me he used to be famous.’

  The outlaw boss stared at her incredulously, even more colour flooding into his already flushed features. ‘Sweet Jesus. With shooting like that it must be him. And who’s he likely to have with him? For sure he’s not alone and then there was that other freak that we threw in the river.’

  The young woman shrugged nervously. ‘John kept pretty much to himself. He isn’t too good with people. Maybe it’s someone else you’ve upset.’

  Despite the parlous situation, Taw erupted into laughter. ‘Well, that don’t narrow the field much. We’ve upset folks in nearly every state and territory of the Union.’

  Before she could comment, there came a tremendous whinnying from over by the horses, followed by a distant and all too familiar gunshot. As everyone turned to watch, one of the animals keeled over, blood pouring from its belly.

  ‘Well, that’s no surprise. He’s after the horses now,’ the outlaw boss remarked with bleak acceptance. ‘Round ’em up, boys, pronto. If we’re left afoot out here, we’re finished.’

  Nobody needed any urging. A horse, saddle and firearms were all most of them had in the world. Desperately they raced over to the nervous animals, but even as they did so, another high-powered cartridge discharged on the butte. The agonizing death of a second horse enraged the scavengers. Some of them had had the wit to grab their repeating rifles and they now halted and loosed off a hail of lead at their tormenter. A dense cloud of sulphurous smoke was soon drifting over the meadow, but that was all that their wild shooting achieved.

  ‘Save your powder,’ Taw bellowed. ‘There’s nothing we’ve got that has the range.’

  Cursing impotently, his men untied the hobbles and leapt on to the surviving animals. Another shot resounded over the Breaks, but a combination of movement and smoke mercifully ensured that it went wide. Digging heels into their horses’ flanks, the men charged back to the temporary safety of the Cottonwoods. Behind cover again, a couple of hotheads renewed their pointless shooting, until Taw offered them better advice.

  ‘If you’ve just got to pop some caps, use them on those poor creatures and put them out of their misery,’ he ordered, pointing at the two wounded beasts. Then, as his men complied, he turned towards Cathy. ‘How’s Clay?’

  ‘Still clinging to life,’ she replied. ‘He must have tremendous willpower.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Taw allowed. ‘Or maybe he’s just terrified of dying like the rest of us. Either way, we can’t tend to him over there. We have to get him back into the trees.’

  ‘Use me,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘If I stay between you and John, he won’t risk a shot. And after watching you bring that man back, I don’t think you’re scared of any living thing.’

  The big outlaw regarded her curiously. ‘Just what’s occurring here? Why would you want to help us? That murdering son of a bitch is your husband, remember? He’s here to rescue you.’

  Even though very conscious of the many eyes suddenly on her, Cathy seemingly took an age to reply. What she finally said stunned Taw and those others straining to hear. ‘Perhaps I’m just not ready to be rescued . . . yet. I don’t know. When you took me from my home, I wanted to hurt you, but now . . . Well, what John is doing just doesn’t seem right. He’s deliberately making you and your men suffer. I guess I’m seeing a nasty streak in him that doesn’t sit well with me.’

  Taw shook his head in amazement. ‘Jeez! You really are full of surprises, lady. I thought you’d be jumping for joy at all this bloodshed on your behalf.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because you don’t know me very well.’

  Taw’s brow furrowed deeply as he edged closer. He felt slightly breathless at the apparent possibilities in her remark. ‘I can’t think of anything more I’d like to do,’ he quietly replied. ‘But right now we need to get over to Clay. And seems to me it might look better if you were under my gun. Savvy?’

  She nodded her understanding as they stood up together. Drawing his revolver, he gently wrapped his left arm around her neck and placed the muzzle against her right temple.

  ‘No shooting,’ he sternly informed his men. ‘I don’t want to provoke that bastard into chancing a shot. The fact that he missed with his last one at least proves that he’s human like the rest of us.’

  Very slowly, the two of them emerged from the trees. They stood for a moment to allow Clemens to size up the situation and both of them felt the sudden tension brought on by their total vulnerability. Then, at Taw’s command, they moved steadily towards the fire. He was very conscious of her body pressing against his, but that pleasurable sensation swiftly departed as they closed in.

  Kenny’s dreadfully charred body lay next to the dying flames. Cathy had managed to drag it out of the fire, but not before his features had been terribly disfigured. Unbelievably, Clay Bassett was still alive and Taw was in no doubt about what needed to be done.

  ‘This is going to hurt him, but there can be no help for that. I’m going to get him under his armpits and drag him back. That way I can point my gun at you and still keep you between me and that butte.’

  Bracing himself against both the effort and Clay’s reaction, Taw allowed her to move away from him. Reaching down, he took a firm hold and heaved. Every man in the trees heard the resulting scream.

  John Clemens stared fixedly through his spyglass. He had to admit that the big outlaw had brains as well as grit. He had ensured that Cathy remained between the sharpshooter and his target at all times. And yet, as before, Clemens harboured a vague suspicion that things were not all they seemed. His wife displayed no visible restraints and she had had ample opportunity to leap on a horse and hightail it out of there.

  ‘I think we’ve been up here long enough,’ his companion suddenly announced. ‘Sooner or later those lowlifes are going to surround this lump of rock. If nothing else, they could seize our horses and starve us out.’

  ‘You think we’ve been up here long enough,’ Clemens mimicked scornfully.

  ‘What would a Montana settler know about long range man killing? I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re going to stay right where we are until nearly dark and then we’ll close the distance. They can’t
go anywhere in daylight with two wounded men and in the meantime, I might just be able to pick off something else.’

  It was the persistent scavenger Davis who finally said what most of his cronies were thinking. ‘This young filly might be real purdy, but she ain’t worth dying for. I say we put her on a horse and send her back to that scum-sucking husband of hers. Then, just maybe, he’ll stop blowing holes in us.’

  Taw regarded him balefully for a moment. ‘Is that so? And what if getting her back ain’t enough for him? What if he’s out for revenge no matter what and happens to have a taste for killing? Where would we be then without this young filly? With no hostage and us as buzzard bait, that’s where! And besides, we got three dead and two wounded by that cuss. Seems to me we’re due a reckoning.’ He paused a moment to let that sink in, before demonstrating that he had been doing some thinking of his own. ‘So this is what’s going to happen. I want two travois built and ready for nightfall. Once it drops dark, everything changes and that god damned Sharps counts for doodly squat. Some of you will head south through the Breaks with the wounded. Those that want some pay back can stay with me.’

  He sensed rather than saw Cathy flinch next to him and lowered his voice. ‘You and me will have to talk. You’ve got a big decision to make before dusk. Because, one way or another, that John Clemens is going to bleed!’

  Things were moving too quickly for Davis. ‘Just how the hell are we supposed to get two wounded men across that river? That’s why it’s called the Missouri Breaks, ’cause the Missouri runs through it,’ he added sarcastically.

  ‘You build the travois and I’ll show you why I’m still the boss of this outfit,’ replied Taw sharply.