Dead Man Walking

by William W. Johnstone

  Retreating hadn’t even crossed his mind. Even if he survived, that would have cut him off from where he needed to go.

  Besides, the Good Lord hadn’t put much backup in John Henry Sixkiller’s nature. His instincts always kept him moving forward.

  He leaned forward in the saddle as Buck’s hooves pounded the trail. John Henry watched the ground in front of them. A misstep would be fatal for both man and horse.

  But from the corner of his eye he saw the rocks coming closer and closer. Already some of the smaller bits of debris that had been thrown into the air by the blast were raining down around John Henry. Running at top speed, Buck could get them clear of the avalanche’s main path in a little less than a minute.

  John Henry didn’t think they had that much time, though. He leaned forward even more and urged Buck on, as tons of rock swept toward them with breathtaking speed.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  John Henry had found himself in life-or-death races before, but never one as urgent as this. Larger rocks, some as big as boulders, began to crash onto the road only a few yards behind the madly galloping buckskin. John Henry saw one looming right beside him and ducked, flattening out on Buck’s neck. He felt the rock brush against the back of his coat. If he had reacted a split second slower, it would have knocked him out of the saddle and he would have fallen to his death.

  A big slab of rock hit the trail about ten yards in front of them and gouged a hole out of it before continuing to plummet toward the canyon below. That left a gap some eight feet wide. A narrow ledge remained against the cliff, and if John Henry had had time to dismount, he could have led Buck along that ledge without much trouble.

  But there was no time, and anyway, Buck was going too fast to stop. John Henry had no choice but to jab his heels into the horse’s flanks again and lift Buck’s head with the reins. Buck reached the gap and sailed into the air, soaring over the empty space in a magnificent jump. He landed on the far side with a teeth-rattling jolt and lunged ahead, never breaking stride.

  Thanks to the big buckskin’s strength, stamina, and speed, they were almost clear, John Henry saw. Just a few more yards, and while they wouldn’t be completely out of danger the main body of the rockslide would be behind them. With John Henry urging him on, Buck seemed to reach down inside himself and find a last surge of energy. They reached the end of the level stretch. Buck lunged up the now-sloping trail as the avalanche roared on behind them, filling the air with ear-wracking noise and choking clouds of dust.

  John Henry hauled back on the reins and slowed Buck to a gradual stop. The horse’s sleek hide was covered with sweat, and his sides heaved. His gallant heart had to be hammering at an incredible pace, John Henry thought as he slipped from the saddle. He hoped that in saving his own life, he hadn’t killed Buck in the process.

  He stood there watching the devastation behind him and stroked the horse’s shoulder, murmuring, “Good boy, Buck, good boy. You saved my life, big fella. Good boy.”

  Buck’s head hung low, but he didn’t seem to be breathing quite as heavily now. John Henry began to hope that with some rest, the horse would be fine. He led Buck higher up the trail so that no stray rocks tumbling down in the wake of the avalanche would endanger them.

  They had climbed about fifty yards and the echoes of the rockslide were beginning to die away when John Henry heard more rocks rattling above them. This wasn’t the same sort of menacing rumble as before, but it served as a warning anyway. He looked up and saw the sun glint on metal along the rimrock.

  That could mean only one thing.

  A second later, as John Henry lunged toward the cliff and dragged Buck with him, a rifle cracked and a bullet smacked into the trail where he had been standing.

  Dynamite and several tons of rock hadn’t done the job of wiping him out, so now whoever wanted him dead was making another effort with a rifle.

  John Henry figured the man must have used all the dynamite he had, or else the varmint would have tried again to blow the mountain down on top of him.

  “Be thankful for small favors, eh, Buck?” he said wryly to the horse.

  As long as they stayed where they were, pressed against the rock face, the rifleman couldn’t get a good shot at them. The angle was wrong for that.

  John Henry began working his way slowly along the trail, leading Buck. About a hundred yards ahead of him, the trail took a bend to the left, around a jutting pinnacle of rock, and John Henry knew that if he could reach that bend, it would shelter him from the would-be killer hidden above him.

  Unless the rifleman was able to change his position and move along the rimrock until he had a clear shot again. The gun fell silent, and John Henry had a feeling that was exactly what was going on. The man wasn’t going to give up that easily.

  Or woman. It was remotely possible that was Penelope Smith up there with a Winchester. He wouldn’t put it past her. He thought it was more likely to be Clive Denton or Nick Prentice or even Ignatius O’Reilly himself, though.

  Whoever it was, they were mighty stubborn about wanting John Henry dead.

  With Buck following him, John Henry edged around the bend in the trail. The rock spire towered high above him. While he was sheltered by it, he swung into the saddle.

  “I know you just made a hard run, big fella, but I’ve got to ask you to do it again. Let’s go.”

  John Henry urged Buck into motion. The gelding took the slope in front of him in great, lunging strides. Horse and rider emerged from the shade of the pinnacle.

  John Henry heard the crack of a rifle and knew the bushwhacker had just taken another shot at him. He didn’t feel the impact of a bullet, though, and Buck didn’t break stride, so he was certain the shot had missed.

  Ahead and above them, the trail entered an area littered with massive boulders. John Henry knew those rocks would provide plenty of cover if he could get among them.

  Something whipped past his head. Another bullet, but as long as it missed, it didn’t matter how close it came.

  The giant slabs of rock loomed just ahead of him. A splash of gray suddenly appeared on one of them where a slug splattered against it. A heartbeat later Buck dashed along the trail where it entered a gap between two of the giant rocks, and once again he and John Henry were protected from the varmint trying to ventilate them.

  John Henry slowed Buck to a walk again. The trail led through the rocks all the way to the crest of a ridge. He figured they would be relatively safe until they got there. He didn’t know what he would find on the other side of that ridge, but he would deal with that once he got there.

  That avalanche was going to play hell with people wanting to travel into and out of the mountains, he thought. It would take a while to clear away all the fallen rocks and repair any damage to the road, such as that gap Buck had leaped over. There were other trails in the Sierra Nevadas, but anybody in the mining towns where he was headed would have to go a long way around if they needed to reach the Central Valley, and vice versa.

  He reached inside his coat and pulled out the map he had drawn in Dunleavy’s office, unfolded it, and took a look at it. The first settlement he would come to was named Copperhead.

  That was an ominous-sounding name, John Henry thought, and he figured the original settlers wouldn’t have named the place after a venomous snake unless there were plenty of the scaly critters around. He resolved to keep his eyes open. It wouldn’t do to survive everything he had gone through already and then die from a blasted snakebite.

  He kept an eye on his back trail, too, not wanting that bushwhacker to come up behind him and make another stab at killing him. The rugged landscape seemed to be peaceful again now, but John Henry knew how fast that could change with little or no warning.

  He reached the top of the ridge and rode over it before stopping, so that he wouldn’t be skylighted. Once he felt like it was safe, though, he reined Buck to a halt and took a minute to look out over the little valley spread before him.

  The terr
ain wasn’t as rugged on this side of the ridge, although the slopes were still fairly steep. They were covered with trees instead of giant boulders and outcroppings of rock. The clean smell of pines was strong in the air. Down below, a couple of miles ahead of him, a good-sized creek brawled its way along the valley floor. Back in the Gold Rush days, a lot of dust had probably been panned out of those cold, rushing waters.

  The miners who were left had sunk shafts in the hillside. As John Henry scanned the landscape, he saw piles of tailings here and there, marking the location of the mine shafts. Chimney smoke rose into the blue sky in a few places.

  Off to his right lay the town of Copperhead, built on both sides of the creek. He took his field glasses from one of his saddlebags and studied the settlement. Most of the buildings had been constructed of either logs or roughly planed boards sawed from trees felled in the area, but he saw a few more-impressive structures of stone or brick. There were still some tents pitched around the town, too, as there must have been during its days as a rough-and-ready mining camp, along with shacks made from tin, tar paper, and canvas. The layout didn’t have much rhyme or reason to it, either, as a hovel might sit right next to a respectable-looking house. That was common in places that had grown quickly, fueled by some sort of boom.

  A few people were moving around the streets of Copperhead, but it seemed to John Henry that there ought to be more folks visible in the middle of the afternoon like this.

  Nor would he have been surprised to see a group of men from the town on their way toward him. That avalanche had been so loud the citizens must have heard it, and he would have thought that some of them would want to find out what had happened. After all, the settlement depended on the road to get goods and people in and out.

  He could see the trail as it wound down into the valley, though, and no riders or wagons or buggies were moving along it.

  That was puzzling, but there might be a logical explanation for it, he decided. The best way to find out would be to ride down there and see what was going on in Copperhead.

  He had high hopes of catching up to Penelope Smith here. She couldn’t be that far ahead of him now, and the next settlement was a good distance farther on, too far to reach before nightfall. That meant there was an excellent chance Penelope had stopped in Copperhead to spend the night . . . and to pass more of her counterfeit money, as well.

  Well aware that whoever had tried to kill him could still be on his trail, John Henry put away the field glasses and nudged Buck into motion again. As they started down the slope toward the valley and the town, John Henry told the buckskin, “Keep your eyes peeled for snakes, big fella . . . the sort that slither on the ground, and the two-legged kind, too!”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The first buildings John Henry came to were a stamp mill and the offices of the Copperhead Mining Corporation. The mill wasn’t working at the moment, which again came as a bit of a surprise. A CLOSED sign hung in the office window.

  Maybe the vein that the Copperhead Mining Corporation had been working had played out. If the mines were failing, that might explain why the settlement wasn’t very busy. Without the mines, Copperhead would have no reason for existence. If all of them closed down, more than likely the place would turn into a ghost town within a year.

  He passed an assay office, also closed. Across the street was a livery stable. Its double doors were open, and a stringy man in overalls, a flannel shirt, and a battered old felt hat stood in the opening, his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of the overalls. John Henry angled Buck in that direction.

  “Howdy,” he said as he approached the liveryman.

  The man didn’t return the greeting. He just asked sharply, “You come up the trail from Sonora, mister?”

  “That’s right,” John Henry said.

  “I ain’t surprised. Guess they ain’t got word yet.”

  “Word of what?”

  The liveryman didn’t answer the question. Instead he asked another of his own.

  “What was that big ol’ racket on the other side of Cougar Ridge a while ago? Sounded like an earthquake, but I didn’t feel the ground shakin’ any.”

  “Cougar Ridge is the one the road from Sonora comes over?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m a stranger here,” John Henry explained. “I don’t know the names of all the landmarks.”

  “Reckon I knowed you was a stranger. What about all that noise?”

  “Avalanche,” John Henry said.

  The liveryman’s eyes narrowed in his leathery old face.

  “Thought I heard somebody doin’ some blastin’, too,” he commented.

  “So did I,” John Henry said. He didn’t add that the explosion and the resulting rockslide had been directed at him.

  Nor did he haul out his badge and identify himself. Something had started gnawing at his nerves, a vague, indefinable feeling that things weren’t right here in Copperhead. He decided that it might be better to keep the fact that he was a deputy U.S. marshal under wraps for a while, until he found out more.

  “You see this here avalanche for yourself?” asked the liveryman.

  “I did. I was lucky not to get caught in it.” John Henry patted Buck’s shoulder. “This big fella got me out of the way of it.”

  Whatever was bothering the liveryman, he forgot about it for a moment as he studied Buck appreciatively, with the eyes of an experienced judge of horseflesh.

  “That’s a mighty fine-lookin’ animal you got, mister. I’d plumb admire to take care of him tonight. That is, if you weren’t gonna be turnin’ around and lightin’ a shuck outta Copperhead just as quick as you can.”

  “Why would I do that?” John Henry asked. “I just got here.”

  “You won’t want to stay.” The liveryman changed the subject again by asking, “What happened to the road? That rockslide wipe it out?”

  “I’m afraid so. Some of the men from town need to get out there and see about clearing it off and repairing the damage. It’s liable to take a few weeks.”

  The liveryman turned his head and spat into the dust.

  “Take longer than that,” he said glumly. “Nobody in these parts is gonna feel like goin’ and movin’ rocks.”

  “Why not?” It took an effort for John Henry to keep his feelings of frustration and impatience reined in.

  The liveryman shook his head.

  “I’ve said too much already. Take my advice, mister. Turn around and ride out. You ought to be safe if you don’t ride any farther into town.”

  “Safe from what, blast it?”

  The liveryman didn’t answer. He turned and walked into the barn, disappearing into its gloomy shadows.

  Short of going after the man and trying to beat some information out of him—which, as a lawman, John Henry wasn’t supposed to do—he didn’t see any options other than trying to find somebody else in Copperhead who could give him answers that made sense.

  John Henry turned Buck and rode slowly along the settlement’s main street. He passed a blacksmith’s shop, a gunsmith’s, a lawyer’s office, a couple of general stores, an apothecary, a grocer’s, a butcher shop, and a newspaper office. A bank, one of the buildings in town made of brick, loomed up on his right. Across from it was a doctor’s office. On the next corner was the local marshal’s office and jail. Across the street on the other corner was a two-story frame hotel.

  The street was empty now. A few people had been in it or moving along the boardwalks when John Henry rode into town, but they had all disappeared, almost as if they were hiding from him. One by one they had vanished into the buildings as he made his way up the street.

  He felt eyes watching him as he rode past. He even saw faces in windows here and there. The citizens of Copperhead weren’t actually hiding, he realized. They didn’t care if he knew they were there.

  They just didn’t want anything to do with him.

  He couldn’t figure out why they would be so hostile, but maybe the local peace officer
could tell him. John Henry brought Buck to a stop at the hitch rail in front of the marshal’s office and swung down from the saddle. He looped the reins around the rail and stepped up onto the boardwalk.

  The door of the marshal’s office creaked open before John Henry could reach it. He stopped. He didn’t see anybody inside. It was almost like the door had opened by itself.

  John Henry didn’t spook easily. Nobody in his line of work could if they wanted to stay in the law business for very long. But something about this whole situation made a cold shiver go along his spine, like somebody with icy fingers was tickling it.

  The door hadn’t opened by itself. A man spoke from behind it. But what he said in a strained, hollow voice didn’t make John Henry feel any better.

  “Better get back on your horse and ride out, mister,” the unseen man advised, “while you still can.”

  John Henry ignored the warning and asked, “Are you the town marshal?”

  “That’s right, and I’m tellin’ you to git.”

  “No offense, but I reckon I outrank you.” It looked like he was going to have to reveal his identity after all if he wanted to get any answers. “I’m a deputy United States marshal, name of John Henry Sixkiller.”

  For a long moment there was only silence inside the local lawman’s office. Then the same strained voice said, “Trust me, Marshal, you don’t want to be here.” The man moved around the door so that John Henry could see him. “Turn your horse around and leave. I been watchin’ you. You ain’t been close enough to anybody yet to catch it.”

  John Henry stiffened in the saddle in response not only to the words but to the sight of the town marshal as well. The man was tall and lean, or at least he would have been under normal circumstances. Right now he was hunched over as if in pain. He had graying brown hair and a close-cropped, grizzled beard. A tin star was pinned to his vest.