Massacre Canyon

by William W. Johnstone

  “Hold on there, Jesperson,” Smoke grated. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  The guard had finally realized what was going on. He ripped out a curse and stepped toward Smoke, lifting his club as he did so.

  “Don’t do it!” Smoke warned. “I’ll put a bullet through your boss’s skull.”

  “If you do that, you’ll be dead a second later,” Jesperson said in a shaky voice. “My sharpshooters are bound to have you in their sights right now.”

  Smoke smiled faintly and said, “If their eyes are good enough for them to be sharpshooters, they can see that I’ve got the trigger tied back on this gun. My thumb on the hammer is all that’s keeping it from splattering your brains all over this yard, mister. So you better tell them not to get itchy trigger fingers, because they can’t kill me without killing you, too.”

  That part was true, so Jesperson had to hope that his men were willing to follow his orders. Smoke wasn’t going to come in here with an unloaded gun, not when he had to deal with an animal like Mordecai Kroll. He had confidence that as long as he was alive, the gun in his hand wouldn’t go off unless he wanted it to.

  “Hold your fire!” Jesperson shouted. His voice shook with anger and fear. They had passed the point of no return now, so this escape or rescue or whatever anybody wanted to call it was pretty much real.

  Mordecai still looked confused, but he had perked up at the sight of Smoke’s gun pressed to the superintendent’s head.

  “Go on and kill him!” he urged Smoke. “Blow the bastard’s brains out!”

  “If I do, there’ll be so many bullets flying around before Jesperson even hits the ground that you and I both won’t make it out of here alive, Kroll,” Smoke said. His voice was hard as flint. “And I need you alive, you damned fool.”

  Mordecai’s face twisted in anger, but he didn’t take it out on Smoke. Instead, he whirled around, moving faster than a man who had just come out of the dark cell should have been able to manage, and grabbed the bludgeon from the startled guard. Before Smoke could say anything, Mordecai slapped it across the guard’s head and drove the man to his knees. Blood welled from a gash the blow had opened up.

  “Stop it!” Smoke said as Mordecai drew the club back to strike the guard again. The first blow hadn’t done much real damage, but another one might prove fatal. “I swear, Kroll, you kill that man and I’ll leave you in here.”

  Mordecai sneered at Smoke.

  “You can’t do that, padre,” he said jeeringly. “You already told me you need me alive.”

  “You can live with a bullet through the knee.”

  Mordecai thought about it, Smoke could tell that, but then he tossed the club aside and said, “Ah, hell, it ain’t worth it. You say Rudolph sent you to rescue me?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it later,” Smoke said curtly. “Get over here next to me and the superintendent.”

  By now the prison was full of noise. A few prisoners had been in the yard when Smoke made his move, but the other guards had herded them back through metal gates into the alleys that ran among the stone cell blocks. That didn’t stop them from yelling to other inmates that a prison break was going on. The shouts that went back and forth raised a real tumult.

  So did the clanging of an alarm bell. The racket had to reach the nearby town. Smoke knew some of the local badge-toters might rush to the prison to help and he didn’t need that added complication, but he would just have to deal with that if it happened.

  Mordecai crowded up next to Smoke and Jesperson. Smoke could smell the man’s stench. He said, “Stay close. We’re going to walk out of here.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Jesperson blustered. “You won’t make it out of the prison before someone shoots you both.”

  “You’d better hope that’s not true, mister,” Smoke told him coldly. “Come on.”

  They started toward the sallyport at a shuffling walk. The guards on this side didn’t have a key to the gate, so the outer guards could still call his bluff and there wasn’t a blasted thing he could do about it. If that happened, the whole plan would collapse.

  In that case, Smoke would have to try to persuade Mordecai Kroll to reveal where the gang’s hideout was located. That was a real longshot. Smoke wouldn’t have any leverage to force Mordecai to talk.

  That was why it was so important that Mordecai believe what was happening now was real. As long as he thought the rescue was genuine and that Smoke had done it solely in an attempt to free Luke, Mordecai would be best served by cooperating. Once they got out of here—if they got out of here—everything Smoke told Mordecai would be the truth.

  He just wouldn’t tell the outlaw the whole truth, which included Matt and Preacher trailing them to the hideout.

  As they drew closer to the sallyport, Smoke pressed harder against Jesperson’s temple with the gun barrel.

  “Order those boys outside the gate to unlock it,” he said.

  “They . . . they won’t do it,” Jesperson said. He was really scared now, Smoke could tell, scared that everything would go wrong and he’d wind up dead.

  “You’d better hope they do.”

  Jesperson swallowed hard and called, “Unlock the gate!”

  One of the guards inside the gate said, “Mr. Jesperson, you know how we handle these things. We can’t—”

  “Unlock the damned gate! Can’t you see this madman’s going to kill me?”

  The guard gave them a long, hard look, then turned his head and nodded to one of the men outside. Smoke heard the key scrape in the lock. It was a very welcome sound.

  So was the squeal of hinges as the gate swung back.

  Still moving at a shuffling walk, Smoke and his companions moved through the sallyport. Then they were in the outer yard. Smoke’s gray eyes flicked toward the main tower. He saw the riflemen up there pointing their weapons at him and the other two men. But they held off on the triggers, and Smoke steered Jesperson and Mordecai Kroll toward the buggy that was waiting for them.

  “You’ll have to ride out with us, Jesperson,” he said. “Get that other gate open.”

  Guards armed with rifles and pistols stood at a discreet distance, waiting to see what was going to happen. Jesperson told one of them, “Go open the outer gate, Cramer.”

  “Sir, are you sure—” the guard began.

  “Just do it!”

  The guard nodded and trotted off to follow the order. After this, Jesperson would have some work to do to repair his reputation as a tough, hard-nosed prison official. But once he revealed that he had been acting under orders from the governor, that would go a long way toward clearing things up.

  The outer gate was opened. Smoke said, “Kroll, you’ll have to drive. You can handle a buggy team, can’t you?”

  “Just watch me!” Mordecai said.

  “Jesperson, in the backseat with me. Come on, up you go.”

  They all climbed into the vehicle. It wasn’t easy for Smoke to keep the gun to Jesperson’s head as they did so, but he managed. Once they were in the buggy, Mordecai grabbed the reins, yelled at the horses, and slashed the trailing ends of the lines across their rumps. The team took off fast enough to push Smoke and Jesperson back against the rear seat.

  Mordecai wheeled the buggy around and sent the horses through the gate at a gallop. The buggy bounced and rocked behind them. Unable to see the passengers because of the black canvas cover over the seats, the guards couldn’t risk shooting through it. There was too big a chance they would hit the superintendent.

  With Mordecai continuing to whip the horses and yell at them, the buggy careened into the trail that ran north along the river into an area of largely arid wilderness broken by occasional small ranges of low mountains. The Gila River was up there, too, but there was a ferry across it and Smoke already had plans for that.

  “Shoot that son of a bitch now that we’re outta there!” Mordecai called over his shoulder.

  “Just keep driving!” Smoke replied over the hoofbeats of t
he running team. “They’ll be sending Apache trackers and a posse after us! We need to put some distance between us and them!”

  Actually, they wouldn’t be sending out a posse . . . or rather, they would, but it wouldn’t get very far. Jesperson would see to that. As far as Mordecai Kroll was concerned, though, he and Smoke would give the slip to any pursuit.

  When they had gone about a mile, Smoke whispered in Jesperson’s ear, “Are you ready?”

  The superintendent gave a small, nervous nod.

  “Slow down!” Smoke shouted to Mordecai.

  “What? Slow down? Are you loco?”

  “Just for a minute. Do it, Kroll!”

  Smoke still had the only gun, so Mordecai hauled back on the reins and slowed the team. Smoke lifted the Colt and struck with it, appearing to smash it down on the back of Jesperson’s head.

  In reality the blow just grazed Jesperson’s upper back, but it would look real enough if Mordecai glanced back, which he did. Jesperson went limp, and Smoke shoved him out of the buggy. He crashed to the ground and rolled over a couple of times.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Mordecai yelped. “He was our hostage!”

  “We don’t need him anymore, and he’d just slow us down in the long run. Keep going! Whip up those horses again!”

  Mordecai obeyed the command, although he still looked angry. He had a man with a gun at his back, though, so he had to do what Smoke said.

  Jesperson would lie there as if unconscious until the buggy was out of sight, then get up, brush himself off, and wait for the posse to catch up. That was when he would reveal what was really going on and call off the pursuit.

  Pretty soon, the only ones following Smoke and Mordecai Kroll would be Matt and Preacher.

  And that was just the way Smoke wanted it.

  Chapter 30

  After a few minutes Smoke looked back and saw a dust cloud hanging in the air behind them, as if the guards from the prison were giving chase. Smoke figured by now they probably had come upon Jesperson and discovered that the superintendent had been a willing participant in the scheme. They could ride around in circles for all Smoke cared, as long as their horses kicked up that dust and made things look realistic.

  Mordecai Kroll saw the dust, too, and said over his shoulder, “They’re after us! I told you we should’a hung on to Jesperson!”

  “We’ll be all right,” Smoke told him. “We just have to make it to the Gila.”

  “What good’s that gonna do us?”

  “You’ll see,” Smoke said.

  “Mister, who in blazes are you? I know damned well you ain’t really a priest!”

  Smoke laughed and said, “You never saw a gun-toting padre before?”

  “Maybe there’s been a few, but you ain’t one of ’em,” Mordecai insisted. “You said my brother sent you. Did he pay you to get me outta there? Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “Just keep driving,” Smoke ordered. “All your questions will be answered in due time.”

  Mordecai obviously didn’t like being told what to do, or being kept in the dark, but he slapped the reins against the horses’ rumps and called out to them again. The buggy kept rolling fast over the northbound trail.

  They passed through some rolling, brushy hills as they approached the Gila River. The trail veered away from the Colorado. By the time they came in sight of the Gila, the confluence of the two rivers was about a mile west of where they were.

  Up ahead, a rope-drawn ferry crossed the stream, which was about sixty feet wide at this point, with a fairly strong current. A horse could swim from one side to the other, but the crossing would be risky.

  The ferryman had a shack on the southern bank; there was nothing on the northern bank except the landing that stuck out a few feet into the river. The thick rope that was attached to the ferry looped around a capstan on both sides. A mule was harnessed to one of the poles that stuck out from the capstan on the southern bank and provided the power for the ferry, which at the moment was at this end of the rope.

  A stocky, gray-haired man came out of the shack as Mordecai drove the buggy up to the landing. As he walked toward them, he said, “Don’t get many buggies goin’ across the river. Mostly just prospectors with their mules and outfits—”

  The garrulous ferryman stopped short at the sight of Mordecai in his prison garb. Being this close to Yuma, he had to be familiar with what the inmates wore. His eyes widened and he started to back off.

  “Say, I can’t—”

  Smoke hopped down from the buggy and leveled the Colt at the man.

  “Sure you can,” he said easily. “Let down the bar on the ferry. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  The gray-haired man swallowed hard. He moved to the ferry and let down the bar that closed it off.

  “Drive on there,” Smoke told Mordecai, who eased the buggy onto the big raft with a railing around it.

  Smoke stepped onto the ferry, too, and reached into the buggy to withdraw a Winchester he had placed on the floorboard before he ever drove out to the prison. He worked the rifle’s lever and pointed it at the ferryman.

  “Just in case you get any ideas about stranding us in the middle of the river,” Smoke said. “I promise you I can knock you down with this repeater before you could make it back to your shack.”

  “Padre, I believe you,” the ferryman said fervently. “I never knowed a priest to lie yet.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Smoke had to make an effort not to chuckle.

  The ferryman fastened the gate, then went to the mule and grasped its harness. He pulled on it and said, “Come on, you jughead. If you get me shot, I ain’t never gonna forgive you.”

  The mule began plodding in a circle. That turned the capstan and pulled the rope. The ferry lurched out away from the landing and started across the river. As it neared the middle of the stream, Smoke felt the current tugging on it, but the sturdy rope held easily and the crossing continued.

  Smoke kept the rifle trained on the ferryman, who didn’t know anything about the escape plan and had to assume that Smoke was really helping Mordecai Kroll get away from the prison. Believing his life to be in danger, the man followed orders and kept the capstan turning until the ferry reached the landing on the north side of the river.

  There Smoke unlatched the gate and stepped off first so that he could cover Mordecai with the rifle, too. He backed away a few steps while Mordecai drove the buggy across the landing onto the bank.

  “Hold it right there,” he said. He walked to the buggy and took out an ax he had concealed in the back along with the rifle.

  Most men would need both arms to swing an ax like Smoke did then, but he accomplished it one-handed while he held the rifle in his other hand. With a few swift, accurate strokes, he chopped through the rope. When the first stroke landed, the ferryman shouted indignantly, “Hey!” but Smoke ignored him.

  Mordecai laughed when he saw what Smoke was doing.

  “Whoever you are, mister, you’re pretty smart,” he said. “That posse won’t be able to cross the river after us now. They ain’t likely to try swimmin’ their mounts across, anyway.”

  “That’s the idea,” Smoke said. He grunted and swung the ax one more time. The keen edge bit through the last strands of the rope. It collapsed into the water.

  The ferryman howled in anger at the destruction.

  The damage could be repaired, Smoke knew, and anyway, he intended to see to it that the man was compensated for his trouble. It was all part of the price of saving Luke’s life. This ought to finish the job of convincing Mordecai that the escape was genuine.

  Leaving the ferryman yelling curses at them, Smoke swung up into the buggy and said, “Let’s go.” Mordecai got the team moving again.

  “You still haven’t told me who you are, mister. You sure as hell ain’t Father Hannigan.”

  “Keep driving,” Smoke told him. “Putting the ferry out of commission will stop any pursuit for a while, but
a posse could always go upstream and find a ford somewhere else.”

  “Not for a good long ways,” Mordecai said. “I know this part of the country. By the time they can get on our trail again, we’ll be so far ahead of them they won’t be able to catch up.” He laughed. “I’m free, damn it! Free!”

  Smoke had seen Mordecai eyeing his guns more than once. He knew what was going through the outlaw’s mind now that they were well clear of the prison. If Mordecai could get his hands on a gun, he could kill his rescuer and set off on his own. That would simplify matters.

  Besides, Mordecai wouldn’t like owing a debt to anybody. There was too big a chance they would want something in return. Easier just to accept a benefactor’s help . . . then kill him.

  Smoke wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Mordecai drove for several more miles. The farther they got from the river, the more arid and rugged the landscape became. Smoke finally pointed to a canyon formed by twin buttes that jutted up from the ground and told Mordecai, “Drive up in there.”

  “What for?”

  “I want to rest the horses, and that looks like a spot where nobody will be likely to see us.”

  Mordecai shrugged as if that made sense to him. He steered the buggy into the canyon, which was about twenty yards wide.

  Smoke, Matt, and Preacher had scouted out this spot a day earlier. It was where Matt and Preacher would pick up their trail, rather than having to follow the buggy all the way from the prison. Smoke’s plan was to leave marks along the way to make trailing them easier, without Mordecai noticing what he was doing, of course.

  A couple of small cottonwood trees grew at the base of one of the mesas, and marked the location of a tiny spring that wasn’t much more than a trickle. It was enough to keep some grass growing there, however. That grass provided graze for the four saddle mounts Smoke had picketed here.

  Mordecai saw the horses and grinned.

  “You planned out this whole thing, didn’t you?” he said. “I was afraid we were gonna have to keep using this buggy.”