by Jory Sherman
“Eat another coffee bean, Ben. You’re plumb delirious from lack of sleep.”
“Hell, I’m just conversin’, Johnny, making light of the situation.”
John opened his mouth to say something clever or cruel, but something caught his eye and he held up a hand, reined in Gent, slowing the horse down.
“Hold up, Ben.”
“Huh?”
John pulled his horse to a halt. He stared across the road, fixed on a rocky outcropping some five hundred yards or so distant.
“I thought I saw something,” John said.
“On the road?”
“No, a hundred yards or so off to the left. See those spires yonder? That jumble of something that looks like rocks? Off there in the flat, with nothing much else around it?”
Ben swept the land with his gaze, his head turning slightly. Then he stopped.
“I see something. Rocks, I reckon. Can’t make out much else. What’d you see, Johnny?”
“I don’t know. Might have been nothing.” John’s voice was very soft, almost a whisper.
He closed his eyes, squeezed them tight with his muscles, then opened them again.
He stared at the rocks, the thin reddish spires jutting up, making a visible silhouette.
“There,” John said. “See it?”
“What?”
“A glint. Like something silver or gold. A flash, just to the left of that rocky spire sticking up like a petrified stick.”
They sat there, both staring at the same place.
Several seconds passed as the sun rose higher in the sky. The land glowed with its light and the rocks stood out in stark relief. A light breeze blew warm against their cheeks.
Then a flash of light struck their eyes, and another, as if the sun’s rays were glancing off a pair of mirrors.
“Shit, oh shit,” Ben murmured. “Right there in them rocks. Somebody’s a-settin’ there, just waitin’ for somebody to pass by. Ooooohhhweee. Just a-settin’ there pretty as you please.”
“Wish I had a pair of binoculars,” John said.
“Hell, you don’t need ’em. I can see pretty good. There’s at least two jaspers hidin’ behind them rocks, and that sparkle was right off a couple of rifle barrels.”
“Hobart?” John breathed.
“Hobart, I don’t know. But whoever’s there ain’t huntin’ jackrabbits. We better light out, John, fast as we can git.”
“No, they’ve likely seen us.”
“We got a good head start. We ride east and put a hell of a lot of distance between us.”
“No. Hobart wants a showdown, we’ll give him one.”
“Are you plumb crazy, John? We’re out in the open. They got them rocks for cover.”
John thought about it. He surveyed the terrain, assessed their chances. He didn’t know how many men they were facing,but at least two, maybe three or four. His empty stomach felt queasy.
He had a decision to make and their lives hung in the balance.
Neither man spoke for several minutes.
Quick spurts of dazzling lights shot from the rocks. Not quartz, not mica, not embedded gold. Rifles.
“John?”
“I’ve made up my mind, Ben. We can do it.”
“Do what?”
John didn’t answer right away. He was still mulling over the skeleton of a plan. Seconds ticked by as he worked over the last details, went over every action in his mind.
The stillness was as loud as thunder in his ears. His mouth was as dry as desert dust.
He waited as his nerves stretched tighter and tighter like a thin wire holding a metal basket filling up with anvils, the basketgetting heavier and heavier, the wire tautening until it was as thin as a strand of the finest hair.
14
JOHN TURNED HIS HEAD AND LOOKED AT THE EASTERN HORIZON. Then he held up a hand in front of his eyes, closed off all but three fingers. He held the three fingers up to block off a space just above the horizon.
“What’re you doin’, John?” Ben asked.
“A little trick Pa showed me when we were hunting,” John said.
“Holding up three fingers?”
“We did it mostly at the end of the day, just before sunset.”
“I don’t want to sound stupid,” Ben said, “but what the hell for?”
“Each finger is roughly fifteen minutes. If you hold your hand up just under the spot where the sun is, you can tell how long it’ll be before sunset.”
“Does it really work?”
“Every time,” John said.
“So this is morning.”
“I want to see how long it will take the sun to rise above the horizon so that it shines directly into the eyes of whoever is laying for us behind those rocks.”
The sun was just barely above the horizon. It glowed with an orange flame, shimmered with a blinding brilliance.
“And how long do you figure?” Ben asked.
“A little over fifteen minutes should be about right.”
“You don’t aim to ride straight into them guns?”
“I sure do,” John said.
“You’re plumb crazy. We ought to just hightail it and ride east in a big old loop.”
A quail piped a solitary lyric somewhere to the north of them. In the thin, still air, the sound carried a long way. Nothingstirred nearby and John kept staring at the rocks. Every so often, he saw a glimmer of light.
“They’d be on us like hair on a bear, Ben. We’d run our horses to death trying to stay ahead of them. No, I’ve got a plan that might work. A little risky, but the odds are in our favor.”
“You a gambler now?” Ben’s voice was thick with sarcasm.
“We’ve got the sun at our backs. If we start riding toward them real slow, they’ll sit tight until we’re within a certain range.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. We get within a hunnert yards and they’ll pick us off like turtles on a swamp log.”
“We’re going to ride toward those rocks single file, Ben. Me in the lead. We’re both going to hunker down so we don’t give them a target until we get close to a hundred yards from them. Then, when I say the word, we’re going to put the spurs to these horses and ride like hell, pistols cocked. If I zig, you zig. If I zag, you zag.”
“Suicide, that’s sure as hell what it is, Johnny.”
“I’m counting on those bushwhackers to get all rattled when we charge in on them. By the time we get within pistol range, they’ll have empty rifles and wet pants.”
Ben slid his hat back and scratched his forehead.
“That’s the craziest idea I ever heard,” Ben said.
“Maybe, but it’s the only idea I have.”
“It might work.”
“They won’t expect us to ride straight at them.”
“No, ’cause they’re probably not loco.”
“That sun’s going to blind them for fair.”
“If we time it right, it might play hob with their eyes, all right.”
“We can cover a hundred yards at a gallop faster than they can figure out what we’re doing, I think.”
“Still, we’re out in the open. They got rocks to pertect ’em.”
“My guess is they’ll step out and try to pick us off with their pistols. Once we’re close enough, I’ll yell and you break off from behind me and start spitting lead at them. First bullet they hear coming, they’ll dive for the dirt.”
“You think.”
“Well, I have to figure they’re not just going to stand there with empty rifles or try to stuff cartridges in the magazines.”
“You give this a heap of thought, did you, Johnny?”
John looked at the sun again, a quick glance so he wouldn’t burn his eyes. More of the blazing disk had slid up over the horizon, and more was coming.
“Let’s start now,” he said to Ben. “You fall in right behind me and hunker down low. Stay as close as you can and just watch Gent’s rump.”
“Not an appetiz
in’ sight, Johnny.”
“It’ll keep you alive, Ben.”
“So you say.” Ben spat and reined Dynamite in behind Savage.
John took one more measurement with his fingers, then touched the blunt spurs to Gent’s flanks. They started moving toward the rock pile. Now, Savage thought, he would have to tick off seconds in his mind. Keep track of time and hope he was right. The timing was everything, and still, he knew he was taking a big chance. He didn’t know how many men he was facing, but he figured at least two. And it could be Hobart and that Delgado woman.
He kept his eyes on the rock spires, kept Gent on a straight line. His stomach knotted up as the distance shrank. He still couldn’t make out how many rifles he was facing, but he was looking for movement. Whoever was behind those rocks must be wondering what he was doing riding straight at them. Maybe they were counting their chickens before they were hatched, thinking he was just curious.
He sat straight in the saddle. When he looked at Ben out of the corner of his eye, not moving his head very much, he saw that Ben was hugging his horse’s neck, flattened out on the saddle like a griddle cake.
He had to figure time and distance. He measured the distancewith his eyes, hoping he was right. He would soon know. They were still at a walk and the rocks looked closer. Were closer. He figured they were less than four hundred yards from the rifles by then. And none of the bushwhackers had moved from their hiding place.
He expected one of them might lie flat next to the rocky outcropping to steady himself for the first shot. So far he was only seeing those blinding glints of sunlight bouncing off rifle barrels.
Three hundred yards, John figured, and his hands were sweating. His pistol was still in his holster, but he was ready to draw and cock whenever it was time.
Two hundred yards and closing, he thought. Perspiration dripped down from his armpits, soaking through the back of his shirt. He wiped his forehead and hunkered down slightly, peering past Gent’s neck straight at the outcropping.
He heard Ben clear his throat and then spit again.
It was quiet except for the soft thud of the horses’ hooves on dry ground, or the crunch of a twig, the rustle of sage. Even the quail were silent, and there wasn’t a bird or a hawk in the sky.
The mountain shadows rose higher and higher and John could measure the sun’s height just by looking beyond the rocks.
When he thought he was close to a hundred yards from the site of the ambush, John drew his pistol.
“When I start running, Ben, you stay right with me.”
“We’re gettin’ mighty close, I figger.”
“You might hear one of them shoot.”
“I hope this works.”
“So do I,” John said to himself.
How long were they going to wait before they took a shot? John wondered.
A hundred yards. He could almost feel the sights of a rifle on him. He lowered himself until his head was directly behind Gent’s neck.
The rocky spires and the stones stood out red and clear in the full blaze of sunlight. Behind the rocks, shadows. Movement.
He saw the snout of a rifle slide alongside one of the spires, its muzzle pointed straight at him.
“Now,” John shouted and dug his spurs into Gent’s flanks.
The horse rocketed beneath him and leaped into a full gallop,his head stretched out, ears flat, lips peeled back to brace the wind. John hugged the horse’s neck, his head resting gentlyon its shoulder.
He drew his pistol, cocked it, held it tight against his leg. Below him, the ground blurred past. Beneath the pounding hoofbeats he could hear the thunder of his own heart, feel his throbbing pulse in his ears.
Next, he heard a loud crack!, like a bullwhip snapping the air.
Over his head, John heard the hiss of a bullet as it passed a foot above him.
Then there was another rifle shot and a bullet thudded into the earth below him, between Gent’s legs, plowing a foot-long furrow before it struck a rock.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ben and Dynamite, a half-length off to his left. Dynamite was tearing up the distance,eyes rolling wide open so that the whites gave him the look of madness.
Thirty yards they covered, John figured, then forty, and three rifles boomed in less than three seconds. A bullet sizzled past his ear like an angry hornet and his throat went dry. He looked toward the rocks and saw how close they were.
Repeating rifles, he thought. A Henry, maybe a couple of lighter Winchesters, all .44s, each bullet with enough lead to smash a man’s heart to a pulp, flatten like a hammer when it struck bone, splintering a man’s ribs into slivers.
The men behind the rocks stepped out, rifles at their shoulders.
John saw them, judged them to be less than thirty yards away. He raised his pistol, took aim, and fired at the man most in the open.
His bullet went wild, but all three men crouched and fired at him or at Ben.
He heard the bark of Ben’s pistol and saw a chunk of rock break off one of the spires. There was a glimmer of red dust as some of the particles disintegrated into powder.
“Get the bastards!” a man shouted.
“Kill ’em,” another yelled, jacking a cartridge into his rifle’s firing chamber.
John swung his pistol on another man who had his rifle to his shoulder. He squeezed the trigger, felt the pistol buck in his hand.
Bullets whined as they skidded off rocks as Ben and John fired as fast as they could cock and pull the triggers of their pistols. The acrid smell of exploding gunpowder filled the air.
John knew he was ten or twelve yards from the rocks where the bushwhackers had waited for them.
Smoke wafted from the rifles and pistols.
He saw one of the men buckle as a bullet smashed into his midsection.
He heard a thunk and saw Ben’s horse falter, stagger, and drop to its knees. Ben vaulted over the horse in a somersault and hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of reddish dust.
As one of the men swung his rifle to bear on Ben, John shot him. He saw his head explode like a melon, spraying blood and brain mush onto one of the spires. The man went down like a sack of lead sash weights.
One rifleman still stood there, his body partially concealed behind a rock.
That man, Roscoe Bender, swung his rifle toward Savage and took deadly aim.
John reined in Gent, pulling the bit so tight he knew he must be cutting the horse’s mouth. The horse skidded to a stop and John bailed out of the saddle.
The sky, the mountains, the rocks, and the land twisted in a blinding blur. All time seemed to stop on the brittle cusp of eternity. He felt his feet hit hard ground and a shock went through his body. His legs went numb as he waited for a .44 slug to blow out his brains and obliterate all thought, all memory,all breath, all precious, fleeting life.
15
Even though john’s senses were scrambled, spinning like a whirligig, and his brain jolted off its axis, he brought his pistolup and leveled it at the head of Roscoe Bender.
“Mister, you either lower that rifle or I squeeze this trigger.”
John knew it was a bold statement. The man’s face was just a blur to him. The man had three heads, none of them in focus. But John held his front blade sight on the center image and it would take only a tick of his finger to bring the hammer down on a loaded .45 cartridge.
Bender’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the pistol in Savage’s hand. He saw the glitter of silver on the barrel, the rich bluing, the steady hand, the cocked hammer.
“You-you won’t shoot me?” Bender stammered.
“Not if you lay your rifle down real quick.”
John heard a groan from Ben, but he did not look to see if his friend was all right. He concentrated on keeping his arm straight and steady and holding an unblinking gaze on the man with the rifle. He had no idea if the other two men were dead or alive.
Slowly, the rifle began to drop away from Bender’s shoulder.
“Just l
et it drop to the ground, mister,” John said. “Then step away.”
Bender hesitated.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” Bender said.
“I’m the only one you can trust. Better do it now. I got a hair trigger on this pistol and I just have to hiccup and you’re a dead man.”
Bender lowered the rifle another six inches.
John’s jaw tightened and his eyes widened until they were as black as the twin barrels of a shotgun.
Bender eased the hammer down to half cock and dropped the rifle on the ground. Then he slung an arm up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the blazing sun at John’s back.
“Now step away,” John ordered. “I won’t shoot you.”
Bender took two steps away from the fallen rifle.
“That damned sun,” Bender said.
John heard a low groan and his gaze shifted to one of the men on the ground. Kerrigan was doubled up, both hands holding his stomach. His hands were drenched with blood. He writhed in agony, his eyes closed against the glare of the sunlight.
“Who’s that?” John asked.
“Name’s Kerrigan.”
“Your name?”
“Roscoe. Roscoe Bender.”
“Who put you up to this, Bender?”
Bender did not answer.
John stepped closer to Bender. Roscoe’s eyes were fixed on the pistol in Savage’s hand.
“If you live long enough, you can give Ollie Hobart back whatever he paid you. Not that it’ll do him any good. He’s goingto Boot Hill.”
“Me, too, I reckon,” Bender said.
John gave Bender a look of contempt. The man was wettinghis pants.
“No, you’re going to have to live with yourself awhile longer, Bender.”
Ben was sitting up, holding his head with both hands.
“Cripes,” Ben said, his voice a rasp in his throat.
“You all right, Ben?”
“I’ll live, I reckon. Poor Dynamite. I think his leg’s broke.”
Ben crabbed over to his horse. Dynamite was lying on his side, holding a foreleg up. The leg and hoof were bloody. A black hole oozed blood just below his kneecap.
“You owe that man a horse, Bender. Maybe yours if he likes it. Where did you hide them?”