Outlaw Pass (9781101544785)

by West, Charles G.

  Rawhide stood peering up the steep ravine with its narrow sides lined with pine trees. “Boys,” he announced, “this is where we best start watchin’ ourselves.”

  “Rawhide’s right,” Cruz said. “We’d better leave the horses and take it real slow from here on up. There’s too many places for a bushwhacker to sit just waitin’. Go ahead and lead out, Red Blanket.”

  Red Blanket hesitated. “My job’s trackin’, and I done that. I found ’em. Somebody else can go up first to draw fire.”

  “Shit fire,” Cruz said. “I thought you Crow Injuns was supposed to be brave.”

  “Brave, yeah,” Red Blanket replied. “Stupid, no.”

  “Hell,” Rawhide scoffed, “Buster ain’t scared to go up that ravine, are you, Buster? Go on up there and we’ll be right behind you. You can be the leader.”

  The suggestion pleased the simpleminded manchild. “I’ll be the leader, Rawhide. I’ll lead us up there to get ’em.” He started up the ravine immediately.

  “Sure you will,” Rawhide said. “I knew we could count on you.” He turned to Cruz and remarked, “They’re probably long gone by now, anyway.”

  “Maybe, but there don’t seem to be many ways to get up and down this gulch, and there ain’t no tracks comin’ down but that one set Red Blanket saw. I’m bettin’ they’re still up there somewhere.” In a single file, they started climbing after the oversized brute, each man with his eyes peeled and darting from side to side of the foreboding gulch. Unnoticed by any of the five, a solitary figure rose from a laurel thicket, high up the stream, and faded into the leafy background.

  Lacey dropped the pan she was filling in the stream when she looked up to see the Indian spring from the edge of the pines. She screamed and fled toward the shelter. Bonnie rushed out of the shelter but halted abruptly when she discovered the Bannock warrior running toward her, his bow in hand, yelling something she could not understand. Like Lacey, she took flight, but unlike the frightened girl, she ran to fetch her carbine. Recognizing his name being called, Adam appeared in time to keep Bonnie from shooting Black Otter. “Stop!” he ordered. “He’s callin’ me!”

  “Adam Bain!” Black Otter repeated, mispronouncing the last name. “White men come! You come quick!”

  In need of no explanation beyond that, Adam reacted immediately. Snatching his rifle up, he cocked it and ran to where Black Otter beckoned. “Where?” he asked. Black Otter motioned toward the stream and Adam understood at once. He wasted no time moving to a large boulder beside the stream at the edge of the waterfall, and looked below to the five men the Indian pointed out. They were still more than a hundred and fifty yards below him, making their way cautiously up the steep streambed. There was not much time to think, but fortunately he had given the possibility of this occurrence some thought before, so he did not hesitate to act. There was no quick exit from his camp. The only way out was up and around the mountain. The first and foremost problem was the time it would take to saddle the horses and load the packs on Finn’s mules.

  In those initial rapidly ticking seconds, he took a hard look at the five men laboring to lead their horses carefully up the steep slope. There was no doubt in his mind who they were and what their intent was. They couldn’t be anyone but more of Plummer’s men. He wasn’t going to wait to ask them. “Bad men?” Black Otter asked.

  “Yeah, bad men. Thank you, my friend, for warning us.”

  “I help you fight,” Black Otter said, holding his bow up before him.

  Adam hesitated for a moment, thinking that Black Otter had a wife waiting for him somewhere on the other side of the mountain, but the precarious situation he found himself in made it difficult to turn down any offered help. “Again I thank you,” he said. With no time to dally, Adam then called Bonnie to come to him. She was carrying her rifle with the cartridge belt slung over her shoulder, and she hurried to answer his call. “There’s at least five men that I can count comin’ up the stream. Looks like they’re still trailin’ us. In just about a minute, I’m gonna start throwin’ some shots down this hill, and I think I can buy us some time. I need you and Lacey to saddle the horses and load the pack mules. Can you do that?”

  “I’ve saddled a horse before,” she replied confidently, “and I guess Finn can tell me how to load the packs.”

  “Good,” Adam said. “Go to it, then. Just saddle the horses we’re ridin’. Leave the extra horses. Ain’t no need for me to tell you we’ve got to get outta here.”

  “You’re right about that,” the spunky woman replied, and was off to do his bidding.

  Adam turned his attention back to the execution party inching its way up the stream. He rested his rifle in a notch in the boulder, aimed at a spot where the stream took a sharp turn around a cluster of rocks, then waited for the huge man leading to reach it. He glanced over at the Bannock warrior and Black Otter nodded solemnly, notched an arrow, and waited for Adam to start the volley.

  When the first shot rang out, Cruz dived for cover behind a log lying close beside the stream. He looked up to see Buster staggering, struggling to stay on his feet. He could see an arrow protruding from the big man’s chest, but he figured there was a gunshot wound that he couldn’t see. Indians? Was it possible? The trail they had followed from the Ruby led right up this stream. Had they run into an Indian camp? And how many were there? Behind him, he heard Rawhide yell for Buster to get down, but the mindless brute continued to stand on unsteady feet as two more shots rang out. Buster took two more steps up the stream before he finally dropped facedown, like a giant cottonwood, falling across the middle of the water. “Damn it!” Cruz yelled out. “What are you waitin’ for?” He took aim on the boulder above him and sent a rapid-fire volley to cause Adam and Black Otter to duck behind the rock. Following his lead, Rawhide knelt in the water behind Buster’s body, using it for protection, while Seeger and Red Blanket scurried over behind some rocks across from Cruz. Their concentrated fire forced Adam and Black Otter to seek better positions to shoot from.

  For a while, all of the firing came from the four outlaws below, but as soon as any one of them made a move to advance farther up the stream, Adam cut loose with a rapid series of shots from his Henry and Black Otter loosed another arrow, effectively keeping the outlaws at bay. In between the short volleys, he took quick looks at the camp behind him. It was not encouraging, for it appeared that the women were having trouble loading the mules. When their efforts seemingly became fruitless, Bonnie broke away and ran to join him behind the boulder. “The horses are saddled,” she gasped breathlessly, “but me and Lacey can’t lift the damn gold sacks and tie them on the packs. Finn’s tryin’ to help, but he’s more in the way than helping.” When Adam looked perplexed, she suggested, “I can’t lift the sacks, but I can sure as hell shoot this carbine. You go load the mules, and me and the Indian will keep the bastards pinned down.” She flashed Black Otter a confident grin, which he acknowledged with a solemn nod.

  Adam felt no need to question the wisdom of her suggestion. He backed away from his position at the edge of the boulder so she could slide in and take his place. “Mind you keep your head down,” he cautioned her. “You’re gettin’ too damn handy to lose.” She smiled, pleased with his comment.

  Adam quickly backed away from the boulder and ran to the shelter where Lacey, with a one-armed attempt to help from Finn, strained to lift a heavy sack of gold dust up high enough to lace it on the pack frame. Behind him he heard the sharp snap of Bonnie’s carbine as she opened up on the threat below. He immediately grabbed the gold sack and hefted it up to be tied down, then going to the next in line until, in a few minutes, the mules were loaded. He then took a quick look in the shelter to make sure nothing they needed had been left behind. “All right,” he said, “you’re ready to get outta here.”

  “Where?” Finn asked, staring at the thick belt of pines above the camp. “Which way?”

  It hit Adam at that moment that he had not really determined the best escape route, since the
re had been none obvious. His only plan, in the event escape became imperative, was to flee into the dense forest and look for a way around the mountain as best they could. “Wait,” he told Finn.

  Hurrying back to the boulder where Bonnie was sending round after round down upon the outlaws huddled below, he grabbed her ankle and yanked it a couple of times before he was able to break her concentration on her target. “Slide on outta there,” he said. “You’ve got to lead Finn and Lacey outta here.” He turned to Black Otter then. “You know these mountains. Will you lead my friends away from here, somewhere they’ll be safe?”

  Black Otter nodded. “I take them to my camp.”

  “Good. Thank you, my friend,” Adam replied. “I’ll keep these boys right where they are till you’re long gone.” Black Otter nodded again and started to back away. “Where is your camp?” Adam remembered then to ask.

  Black Otter pointed to the north. “That mountain, go round, next mountain, go round. My camp by big stream near bottom.”

  “Good,” Adam said. “I’ll be seein’ you.” He watched the Bannock warrior for a second before turning back to the four pinned down below him.

  Approaching the two women and the wounded man, Black Otter addressed Finn, who was standing holding the reins of his horse, although still on unsteady feet. “Adam say you follow me,” Black Otter said. “I take you safe.”

  Finn agreed without hesitation, eager to escape with his treasure, but Lacey was leery of leaving Adam behind. “What about Adam?” she asked. “We can’t go without him.”

  As had become the usual practice, Bonnie took control of the situation. “Adam knows what he’s doing,” she said. “He’ll hold them till we’ve got a good start. Then he’ll come after us. What he wants us to do now is to get the hell outta here, so let’s get moving.”

  Black Otter stood, watching impatiently as Bonnie directed Lacey and Finn to form the animals in single file. When they were ready to march, he walked up to Bonnie and, without warning, suddenly thrust his hand up between her legs, receiving a sharp angry rap across his forearm, which encouraged him to immediately withdraw the hand. His reaction was no more than a satisfied grunt and a solemn nod. Then, his curiosity satisfied, he turned and signaled with his hand. “Come.”

  “You crazy damn savage!” Bonnie swore in stunned anger. Then she glared at Finn, who was chuckling in spite of their dangerous situation.

  “He just wanted to see for himself if there wasn’t really any male organs up there,” Finn said between chuckles. “You had him wonderin’.”

  At a later time, she might appreciate the humor, but for now, with the sound of rifle fire at their doorstep, she was not amused. “Get going,” she ordered Finn, then hustled Lacey along behind him, and they filed into the pines behind Black Otter.

  “This ain’t doin’ us no good,” Cruz complained loud enough for his three partners to hear. “They can keep us pinned down here all day.” The rifles up above clearly held the advantage, and he could only hope they would give out of cartridges before he did. He was no longer worried about Indians. Judging by the scant number of arrows, and the fact that they all seemed to come from the same place, he decided there were not enough to make a difference. It was the Henry and the carbine that held them pinned down.

  “We got to draw back from here and find a way to circle round ’em,” Rawhide said, crouching low behind Buster’s body, a carcass by then displaying a couple more arrows protruding as well as a fair amount of weight in lead slugs within.

  “Shit,” Seeger commented. “Look around you. You see any way to circle around? This damn gulch is the only way up I see. You’d have to be a damn spider to climb up the sides of it. How we gonna get the horses up?”

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” Cruz said. “That’s for damn sure. Whaddayou say, Red Blanket?”

  “Seeger’s right,” Red Blanket answered. “Only thing to do is go back down to the bottom and go around this mountain to see if we can find another way up to that waterfall.”

  With no better suggestions forthcoming, Cruz said, “All right, let’s back outta here, then.” He pushed back from the log and slid a short way on his belly until he felt it safe to scramble down farther on his hands and knees. Following his example, Red Blanket and Seeger left the rocks in the same fashion. Only Rawhide elected to rise to a crouch and make a run for it down the stream. His mistake cost him his life as a bullet from Adam’s rifle caught him squarely between his shoulder blades. The other three hurried to safety, no one of them inclined to stop to check on Rawhide’s condition, and the only comment made was Cruz’s pronouncement when he looked back to see Rawhide drop in the middle of the stream. “Damn fool.”

  Above them, Adam rose high enough to peer over the top of the boulder. The one clear target that Rawhide had offered was the only opportunity he had to thin out his attackers. He was certain by this time that there were no others but the five he had seen before the shooting started. Now the odds were improving, since the number had been reduced to three, and they had withdrawn, giving up the siege for the time being. But Adam knew it meant no more than a temporary lull in their attack. At least, he now had time to make his escape after the others, so he left the boulder and hurried to the shelter where his horse was tied. Taking the bay’s reins, he led him into the pines above the camp. The floor of the forest lay thick with pine needles, but the trail was not difficult to follow because of the many hooves of horses and mules that had just preceded him.

  Near the base of the mountain where the outlaws had left their horses, the three remaining members of the search party were already squabbling over the horses that had belonged to Rawhide and Buster. “I expect the only fair thing to do is to odd-man-out for ’em,” Seeger said. “We can cut the cards and the low card don’t get no horse. The high card takes his pick, and the next-highest card gets the other one, that piece of crow bait that Buster rode. I got a deck of cards in my saddlebag.”

  “I don’t trust no deck of cards you own,” John Red Blanket said.

  “What the hell is wrong with you two?” Cruz demanded. “There’s enough gold up there to buy a herd of horses. We need to find a way to get up to that camp, and you two are arguin’ over two horses. And Rawhide and Buster’s bodies ain’t even cold yet.”

  “Well, Lord have mercy on their souls,” Seeger replied sarcastically. “I know you’re really gonna miss’em. They was always goin’ everywhere together, so now I reckon they’re on the stagecoach to hell about now.”

  “That damn hired gun is pretty damn handy with that Henry rifle of his,” Red Blanket said. “I’m tellin’ you, Cruz, you shoulda seen that posse from Bannack. He cleaned ’em all out. There was dead men lyin’ all over that riverbank.”

  “And now he’s already took care of two of us,” Seeger reminded them needlessly.

  “So what are you sayin’,” Cruz asked pointedly, “that we should just let ’em go and ride on back to Virginia City—tell Plummer we quit on ’em ’cause they was shootin’ at us? Maybe you ain’t rememberin’ they’re totin’ a helluva lot of gold dust with ’em, but I aim to claim my share of it. If you two ain’t got enough gizzard to go after that son of a bitch with the rifle, then get on your horses and turn tail and run. And you can take them two extra horses with you, but the packhorse stays with me.”

  “Ain’t no need to get your bowels in an uproar,” Seeger said. “Nobody wants to quit on you. Ain’t that right, Red Blanket? Hell, we want our share of that gold dust, same as you. Just sayin’ the bastard can shoot don’t mean we ain’t goin’ after him.”

  Cruz glared at Red Blanket then, and the Indian shrugged his indifference. “All right, then,” Cruz said, “let’s find us a way up to that camp.” He turned his horse to the south and started out around the base of the mountain. They had gone a couple of hundred yards when he said, “Leave Rawhide and Buster’s horses here. We can come back for ’em later.”

  Chapter 11

  The fugitives had not gone
far before the rugged climb became too much for Finn’s weakened body. The gritty Irishman tried to keep up the pace, but it was apparent to Bonnie that he was not going to make it much longer. She finally called for Black Otter to stop, and together they lifted Finn up on his horse. “I can walk,” he protested feebly.

  “Like hell you can,” Bonnie said. “You’re just slowing us down, you and those damn mules.”

  “Maybe so,” he said gamely. “But if it comes to a choice to leave one of us behind, I’ll wager it won’t be the mules.”

  “Looks like you’re thinking straight,” she said with a chuckle. “You just worry about hanging on to that saddle. If you fall off, you won’t stop rolling till you reach the bottom of the mountain—and we don’t have time to go down to get you.”

  Finn couldn’t help grinning at the aging prostitute’s bluster. He had seen enough of the tough-talking woman to determine that she was not all talk, and he was well aware that their little party would be a lot worse off without her courage. Her warning to stay in the saddle was not wasted upon him, however, for the barren rocky slope they had encountered above the tree line was a lot safer on foot than perched on a horse. Black Otter led Finn’s horse, with his mules on a line behind, followed by Bonnie and Lacey leading the other horses. It was easy to envision the catastrophe that could result from the slip of a hoof and the chaotic scene of a tangle of horses, people, and mules careening down the mountainside. The spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and the valley far below them were consequently wasted on the party desperate to escape with their lives. With no choice but to trust the Bannock warrior, who had mysteriously come to their aid, they trudged across the rugged shoulders of the mountain, their destination unknown. Every quarter hour or so, Lacey looked back behind them, hoping to see Adam appear until Bonnie finally told her to watch her footing and forget about Adam. “He can take care of himself,” she assured the young girl, but she was not without concern for the safety of their solemn protector.