Echoes of the last of the shots had not yet faded out before we were thundering down the road, taking no further pains to mask our arrival. We were still a couple of hundred yards from the slight dogleg in the trail that would dump us at the edge of the clearing, close beside the barn. We were greeted by Neufeld, on horseback, shaking his head as he rode up hard. He glanced over his shoulder every few seconds.
“You heard?”
Scribley nodded. “The shots, yes. Where is Dibbs?”
“Yah, dead, I think, sir. I could not stop him. By the time I made it here he had already ridden out and begun himself a shooting match with them. That foolish boy did not make it very far across the meadow.”
Scribley gritted his teeth. “Dammit all to hell.”
He turned in his saddle. “Riley, Swain, you split the men as you see fit, though I suggest sending men toward the river. I want a group to the east, another along the west edge. Keep to the tree line for cover. We’ll do our best to surround them. No shooting unless you have no choice—I want answers before we kill them off. Plenty of time for that later.” He turned back, glanced at me. “I brought my rope.”
I said nothing, aware Scribley’s rage was now justified and personal. I nodded at Jack. “We’ll work from the barn toward the house as we can. We’re familiar with that route.”
Jack grinned. “Yeah, it worked out so nice last time.”
“What about me?” It was Thomas, who’d nudged his horse to the front of the line.
“You’re going with me,” I said, not showing him a smidgen of kindness in my eyes. I wanted to keep the jackass in sight and out of danger.
“No. No, I think not,” he said, no doubt sensing my anger. “I’ll ride with Mister Scribley.”
The rancher offered one curt nod. “Then get to it.” He shifted in his saddle, looked at me. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
The comment did little to ease my worry about Thomas. He was a greenhorn and the rancher was a thin-skinned brute with a sizable personal ax to grind in the matter. I had no illusions that Scribley would soon forget all else in favor of laying to waste the gunmen and the two inside the house.
“See that you do,” I said, and urged Tiny Boy forward, Maple Jack falling in alongside.
“What’s the plan, then, Roamer?” he said when we were out of earshot.
“My only ambition is to keep Thomas safe and steal our gear back. The rest of it, Thomas’s deed included, is gravy and little consequence to me.”
Jack nodded. “Me, I don’t want to end up dead like that poor fool kid, Dibbs.”
We made it to a cluster of pines adjacent to the barn. From there we saw much of the meadow and, to our left, far off and upslope, two thirds of the log house was visible. Stillness hung over the scene like a sopping quilt.
“Seems we were expected,” whispered Jack, sliding from Ol’ Mossback. He tied the beast beside Tiny Boy, well within the tree line.
The thick-trunked trees provided decent cover should someone be watching us from the safety of the barn. There were two four-pane glass windows facing us, but frost had clouded them. Good, if we couldn’t see in, they weren’t seeing out. We drew our revolvers and each quick-peeked around our respective trees.
“How’s the shoulder?” asked Jack in a low voice.
“What? You ask me that now?”
Jack chuckled. “Like to know the condition of the folks I’m relying on to save my hide from further perforation.”
“Truth be told, I’m amazed at how good it feels, compared with how poor I expect it should feel.”
“Answer like that, I may have to think on it some. Why don’t you leave off those books and talk like regular folks?”
I ignored him, as I always do when he pretends to look down his nose at what he calls “book learning.” Truth is, Jack is as learned as any man I’ve met. His tall stack of knowledge was gathered and added to from no less a master than life itself. He pays more attention to a day’s moments than most folks do to a year’s. Then he stuffs each detail into his mind, to be dragged out and used when opportunity arises. It’s a simple trait I admire and try to emulate.
“Barn looks safe,” I said. “I’m headed over. Cover fire at anything you see flinch—except me.”
“Yep.”
I did my best to cat foot over to the barn, made it without incident. Then I slid in half-frozen muck right before the barn wall and spun, wrenching my game shoulder and slamming myself back against the building. The noise was impressive.
“You about through?” hissed Jack from the trees.
I waited for an expected fusillade from inside, but heard nothing. I waved Jack over, covering his more dignified stomping run to the other side of the door. The windows flanked us, the double door between us, with the inside single door close to my side.
I reached for the latch, the same one I’d fumbled for in the dark but two nights since, my mind conjuring an unsettling flash of déjà vu. I never got the chance to lift the latch.
We heard a shout to our right, toward the river. Then another shout dissolved into a scream.
“Somebody got a knife to the ribs.” Jack bent low and leaned out to peer around the corner of the barn. He was rewarded with a cheek full of splinters and powdered wood as a shot punched through barn boards. “Gaah!” He pawed at his face and his palm came away bloody. “Vicious sons-a-bitches!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Can you see?”
He nodded. “Just stung up a little. Now we know they’re not set to invite us for tea and cake.”
“We also know that scream had to be one of Scribley’s men. Likely he blundered in and got himself killed. I’ll hope for a better outcome than that for him, but it’s not likely.”
“Best we can do is learn from his mistake. These five newcomers, if that’s all there are, know what they’re doing. Until I find out to the contrary, I will assume they’re working for the heathens in that shack.”
While Jack spoke and picked wood out of his cheek, I risked a peek around the corner closest to me. One quick look, then I pulled my head back. No shots. I bet a second glance wouldn’t turn out so lucky. I didn’t need one. I had seen what I expected—the humped form of what had to be Dibbs. He looked like someone had dared him to make like a scared turtle, head tucked in and bunched up.
He had been kneeling, then pitched forward, and there he huddled, not moving, in an awkward pose no living man could hold for long. I bet a dollar with myself that the fool kid was dead, at least one shot to the heart or gut, maybe more. It was a stacked bet, as I’d also seen a messy frayed hole, brownish in color, sprouting from the top of his back.
Far to my left, back in the woods but up a ways toward the ridge behind the house, I heard irregular sounds, branches cracking, a quick word then a hushing noise from someone else. If Scribley and his men stomped any louder they might as well break out the brass bugles and play an army ditty.
“Fools,” said Jack from behind me. He glanced once back over his shoulder at the shot-up corner. “I’m heading inside.” And with that, Jack lifted the latch, and crouching, jumped over the low board at the bottom of the doorway and disappeared into the barn.
I tensed, gritting my teeth. No barrage from waiting gunmen. That was a relief, though I should have been the one to go in first. I made up for it and ducked on in. The smell of the barn was warm and musky and welcoming.
The stable was darker than outdoors, motes drifted in muted shafts of light from the frosted windows. My breath clouded into the same light. I moved my head, quieted my breath, bent low, hugged the wall. “Jack?”
“Yeah, okay.”
He hid off to my right, at the open end of the barn, where the buggies and tack were kept. To my left, stalls lined the wall. I heard other breaths, big sounds, horses. A whicker from one, nervous—about us or someone else?
I stood, hugged the wall, angled over along the face of the stalls, one arm out ahead of me. Rounded cribbed wood was splintery
beneath my fingertips. No other sounds save for the feathery crunch of my feet in the straw—never quiet. I dropped low once more, some unknown feeling of dread spurred into action by instinct, animal urge to survive, call it what you will, but it’s served me well in the past.
Above my head, the whisper of air rushing, something slammed into the stall door, clunking hard and jingling, and knocking my hat to the floor. That same animal instinct drove my arms upward, revolver butt ramming hard into whatever was up there.
I knew somehow it was no horse. But it was a man who was now in an awkward pinch, bent at the waist over the door. My guess was confirmed by a rush of breath followed by a quiet coughing, gagging sound. I smelled coffee, tobacco—a man’s breath. My gun butt had not rendered him anything more than dazed, but that was enough.
I clawed at him, my shoulder wound screaming. I figured I’d opened it again, for the fourth or sixth time, who knows? Something under my clothes separated, and a warm wetness leaked down my arm. I didn’t care and I didn’t stop dragging that ambusher downward.
“Roamer?”
I heard Jack, though was in no spot to reply. The dazed man I struggled with only put up half a fight, but there was something odd about him. What was that clinking sound? Were his arms bound by chains? I stood, dragging him with me, and with a heave launched him backward, arcing through the dim light up and over me. He came down with gathered speed, his back driving down on a saddle rack too hard. I heard a popping sound and it wasn’t the wooden rack.
I still had hold of his right arm and his coat, bunched in my fist, in a wad of cloth beside his left ear. He hit the rack and his weak shout of surprise stunted off with a gagging cry. He sagged limp.
As I let go of him and dropped low once more I felt for his wrists, for manacles, but found none. Instead I found a length of logging chain dangling from one fist. He had intended to wrap that chain around my neck. I swallowed, jutted my chin out. I like my neck as it is, stalky, thick, and doing a fine job of holding up my blocky head. And most of all, as yet uncollapsed.
“Roamer!” Jack appeared out of the shadows.
“Yeah, Jack. I’m okay.” I jerked my chin. “He isn’t.”
We peered down at the man.
“His face ain’t familiar,” said Jack.
“Nor to me.” I kept low, scanning the shadowy barn. Jittery horses pawed and nickered, blowing and agitated. They are intelligent creatures, as with most animals, and possess an instinct that humans seem hell-bent on carving away from ourselves.
They smelled the man’s death. As to that, so did I. His innards had let go and the sudden stink of his leavings mingled with the rank tang of blood and urine layered atop the dusty barn smell. When this was over I would open this barn wide and get these animals outside. But not yet.
Jack checked for a heartbeat, though I knew it wasn’t possible. The man’s back had snapped with a final sound that left no doubt. I’ve laid a few men low and never once, not even with the foulest, most deserving of them, did I take pleasure in the deed.
“Well, he had it coming,” said Jack, pawing the man’s waist for his gun rig. He unbuckled it and held it up to me. I shook my head. My waist was bigger than most and the man was slender. Jack strapped it on beneath his paunch, grunting it into place. “Any other scurvy, rotten devils in here?” he said in a bolder, louder voice.
No response, not that we expected one. But if there had been only five hired men, that left four, not counting any prisoners Scribley and his men may have taken, though on that score I was not hopeful. It felt as if we were making no progress at all in this frustrating venture, as if we were wading through waist-deep snow in the middle of a blizzard.
Jack made a few more scuffling, grunting sounds, and emerged out of the shadows to my right. “Nothing over there,” he whispered, “except dust, an old barouche, and a work wagon with no wheels.”
“Unless the rest of these stalls hold critters other than horses, I’d say we’re safe.” As I said it I stepped like a hefty toe dancer along the front of the stalls, peering in from the corners. There were still ample shadows for them to hide in should someone else be in there, but it was doubtful. Being only five strong, they likely wouldn’t post more than a single man in the barn.
Shots cracked, thin and quick, from down by the river.
“Sounds like something’s cooking,” said Jack. “Come on, we’ve already dallied in here long enough. We have to get to that house.”
“That’s the problem, it’s open all around it.”
“I know,” he said, “but we knew that before.”
“And we didn’t have a plan then, either.”
“Back to back?”
I nodded, but then had an idea. “Help me with this stall door. It should be thick enough.”
“Shield?”
“Yep.”
The end stall was empty, and I swung the door open. It was four feet wide and maybe five tall. The steel strap hinges were loose and the door fit oddly, sagging as it creaked open. I slipped inside the stall. It was darker in there, smelled dusty, and there was little on the floor save for dirt and dents from some horse’s feet of years before.
“Close it,” I told Jack. “Then stand away.” I drove the flat of my boot bottom, heel first, at the spot the top hinge sat. The blow echoed, whomped, echoed again, kick after kick, six or so, but it was paying off.
“Roamer, you’ll tucker yourself out before we get started!”
I said nothing but gave it one more go and the top hinge splintered free, sagging the door. The bottom hinge was quick work, and in another few seconds we had our shield.
We must have looked like a comedic stage troupe with elaborate props as we sidled out of the barn and made our slow way toward the house. The door’s original strap-leather handle gave me a suitable grip to carry it by.
I held the door up in front of us, my revolver, gripped in my weaker arm, cocked and ready. His back to mine, Jack walked tight against me, a gun in each hand. In this manner we made our way across the span of meadow toward the house. I stuck to the worn path, as there was no reason not to. It’s not as if we were taking pains to hide ourselves.
Soon enough the door proved its worth and justified the trouble of dismantling it. I heard glass shattering, then shots seared in from the house, plunking into the wood. Two more furrowed dirt before me. They were trying to shoot my feet, which were visible when I stepped. There was no way I could hunch lower and still shuffle forward.
Other shots whistled in. I saw puffs of smoke from along the river indicating where the shots came from.
“Hey, now! Hey!” Jack barked those and other cackling sounds as he cranked off shots to either side of us, then a few over my head toward the house. The man is talkative, even in grim situations. In this manner we made our slow way to the log house. I wanted to get close enough to hug the outer wall, then decipher a way in from there.
There wasn’t nearly as much gunfire from our flanks or rear as I expected. Even Jack seemed disappointed. “Where in the hell did everybody go?”
“Don’t fret,” I said. “Bound to be more than the two of them in the house.”
“Look at that!” said Jack, nodding toward the meadow beyond the house.
I shifted the door and peeked. Three of Scribley’s men, on foot, with the rancher himself close behind, chased a limping man across the brown grass. Shots barked, whistled by, then one of the men shouted to the others and made way for Scribley, who ran well for his age.
He pushed past his men and jerked to a stop, shouldered a shotgun, and triggered one barrel, then the second. The first caught the pursued man high on the shoulders, pitched him forward. The second sliced into his legs as they whipped upward from the impact of the first blast. It was vicious and final, and horrific to witness.
More shots echoed from the river, this time not at us but toward the rancher and his men. I didn’t see Thomas among them and hoped Scribley had given him a stern talking to and left him b
ack in the woods. We were still out in the middle of the action with our drawers down and flapping.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” I said.
“Waitin’ on you, boy!” Jack ripped off another shot toward the tree line by the river.
“You see somebody?”
“Nope, just lettin’ ’em know Maple Jack’s still dancing!”
Three strides closer—we were about sixty feet from the foremost corner of the house—and two rifles opened up on us. The stall door rattled and pinged as bullets chewed their way into the shredding planks. We were close enough now that they began making their way through the wood. I jammed the door to the grass and we crouched lower, waiting out the barrage, not keeping too close to the wood erupting in finger-size holes before us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Can’t take much more of this,” said Jack.
“When they stop to reload, let’s rush it.”
“Lead the way,” said Jack with a grin.
And that’s what we did, right up to the house. We hugged it close, too close for those in the house to crank off a decent shot at us without leaning out the windows. I didn’t think they’d do that, for then they would be easy targets themselves.
Far down the meadow, one of the strangers had his back pinned against one of those fancy fences, trapped like a mountain lion cornered in a box canyon. Must have been the man who had been hiding along the river, likely the one who had taken a shot at Jack and splintered his face up.
The man had visible wounds, and no visible guns. And Scribley and his boys closed in fast. They stopped about six feet from him, three of the four ranch hands held drawn, aimed revolvers, the fourth a rifle. As before, Scribley walked up behind them, another of his men behind him.
I didn’t know as I had an accurate count of how many men he had, but I seem to recall seeing nine, ten with the rancher himself. That left half of his men elsewhere. Maybe still up above the cabin in the woods. From that distance, none that I could see looked like Thomas.
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