Ryan gently levered a shell into his Winchester. Plowright flanked him, holding his own rifle high across his chest in his thick, beringed hands.
Ryan glanced toward another large chunk of rock jutting from the slope about thirty yards ahead and also aproned with scree. He glanced at Plowright. “Doc, head on over yonder. If I miss the old dog from here, you’ll get another shot at him from over there.”
“I thought we wasn’t supposed to kill him.”
“I don’t intend to kill him,” Ryan said. “Just wing him, get him off his horse. Hurry, now, goddamnit, before he shows!”
“I don’t take orders from you, Red. I don’t believe your name is either Clell or Stanhope, but seein’ how I see you got a point on this one, and I’m a big enough man to say so, I’ll do your bidding.” Plowright offered a bitter smile. “This time. But you’ll be buyin’ me a beer and a whore in South Pass City.”
“The hell I will,” said Ryan, his own eyes shining with acrimony. “I don’t owe a goddamn thing to no Missouri fool with shit between his ears. Now, git, Doc, before you make me mad.” He edged his rifle barrel slightly toward Plowright’s chest.
Doc looked at the rifle, licked his lips, and flared his nostrils. “This ain’t over, Red.”
“For now it is.”
Plowright tugged on the brim of his filthy hat, from which thick, tangled brown hair tumbled over his torn coat collar, and walked away, crouching down to keep out of view from the canyon. Ryan gave a caustic chuff. Nothing quite like bedeviling that heel-squattin’ Missouri trash. Ryan himself hailed from Kansas, though he’d hightailed it when he was only twelve. If he’d been going to pull on teats the rest of his life, it sure wouldn’t be cows’ teats! He pressed a shoulder against the sandstone, peered out around the side of it and into the canyon.
He could hear the creek chiming over the rocks, the rising and falling sigh of the breeze, and a distant crow cawing. That was all. The only movement was the breeze-brushed willows and the occasional lifting of dust along the trail, well churned by prospectors’ wagons.
He looked straight across the slope. Plowright was just now moving out from behind a hump of rock and dropping to one knee behind the boulder that Ryan had directed him to. Plowright glanced at Ryan, made a lewd gesture, then turned his head to stare down into the canyon.
Ryan grinned, then jerked his head back suddenly behind the large chunk of sandstone when he heard the clomping of horse hooves. Snapping his rifle to his shoulder, he dropped to a knee and aimed down into the canyon.
The thuds of the shod hooves grew louder. A horse appeared, trotting along the trail. Ryan gritted his teeth and tightened his finger on the Winchester’s trigger, then slackened it. The horse had no rider. Its reins were tied to its saddle horn, the stirrups bouncing freely.
Just as Ryan’s heart kicked up nervously, “Hold it,” sounded from close behind him. A gravelly, raspy voice pitched low.
Ryan froze though his heart went wild, beating erratically.
The man behind him kept his voice down as he said, “You call out, Red, and I’ll blow your head off.”
Ryan looked across the slope toward where Plowright knelt, aiming his own rifle down into the canyon but staring toward Ryan. He was too far away for Ryan to see the expression on Doc’s face, but he knew the man was wondering about the riderless horse—the horse whose rider was now somewhere behind Ryan himself, likely not more than ten or fifteen feet away.
“Shrug, Red.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me,” said the man behind Ryan. “Shrug to your friend over there. Do it now, or I’ll blast you into little bits—won’t be enough left to send home in a croaker sack.”
Ryan stretched his arms out and hiked his shoulders. He hoped Plowright would see the tense look on his face, but his partner merely turned to stare down into the canyon, then straightened and moved around to the other side of the boulder. Ryan could hear his boots clacking on the slide rock.
“Move back toward me, Red,” said the man behind him.
Ryan sighed, considered making a try with his rifle.
“This your day to die, Red?” asked the man behind him, as though it were a serious question.
Ryan stepped back behind the boulder, then turned around to see Spurr Morgan on one knee atop a flat-topped boulder, about five feet behind and above Ryan’s own cover and out of sight from Plowright. Ryan’s and Doc’s horses milled in the shade of the rocks beyond Morgan, switching their tails and twitching their ears.
Spurr stared down the barrel of his old-model Winchester, narrowing his aiming eye so that Ryan could see the blue of the orb just over the rifle’s fore and rear sights. The lawman’s bearded face was as weathered as an old, abandoned barn, but the eyes looked alert, calmly menacing. A stubby mole grew out of one of his grizzled brows.
Ryan felt the heavy weight of a fool descend on him like a blacksmith’s anvil. He’d let the geezer get the drop on him by using the oldest trick in the West. How had the old lawbringer seen him and Plowright climb the ridge from that far away?
“Seen your dust, Red,” Spurr explained, reading the would-be bushwhacker’s mind. He chuckled. “These peepers still got some seein’ left in ’em. Now, why don’t you go ahead and ease the hammer down on that rifle and lean it against the base of my rock here.”
Ryan sighed again, more raggedly this time, as he saw the cold stare the old man was giving him down the barrel of his cocked Winchester. If Red Ryan couldn’t figure a way out of this, he was done. The thought was as raw as the chafing from a new pair of denims on a long, hot ride through rough terrain. Maybe Doc could do something, once he figured how the old lawman was playing them. If he ever did, that was.
Ryan set the rifle aside.
“Now them pistols.”
Ryan held his hands shoulder high, fingers curled toward the palms. “Why should I, Spurr? You got the drop on me, but I might could snap off a shot before I give up the ghost.”
“You might could,” Spurr agreed, not blinking as he stared down his rifle barrel. “But prob’ly not. You’ll just die, Red. Back to the dirt from whence you come.”
“Hell, I’m dead, anyway.”
“Who are you—god?”
“Ah, Christ!”
Ryan winced as he turned his head to stare back in the direction of Plowright. But he couldn’t see his partner from this angle behind the large chunk of sandstone. Spurr had him. The thought of dying right now, right here, was a hard, cold rock in his belly. Before he knew what he was doing, he was sliding his three pistols from their sheaths and tossing them into the brush growing up around the base of Spurr’s boulder.
“You old mossyhorn,” Ryan said with supreme frustration. “Ain’t you ever heard of retirin’?”
“Retire? Hell, Red, retirin’s just a sad, slow way to die.” Spurr rose to a crouch, glanced toward Plowright, then, keeping his rifle aimed on Ryan, sat down and dropped his legs over the edge of the boulder. He took his rifle in one hand and pushed himself off the rock, dropping straight down to the ground in front of Ryan, bending his knees and cursing with the impact.
Ryan jerked forward, intending to take advantange of the lawman being off balance for a second.
“Uh-uh,” Spurr said, jerking his rifle back up and clasping his left hand around the walnut forestock. “Eyes still got some seein’ left, the old legs still got some jump in ’em. Step back if you don’t want an extra belly button.”
“What about Doc?”
“That’s Plowright over there? Well, hell, I reckon I’m gonna have to go over and say howdy-do shortly.” Spurr recognized all the Vultures from their wanted dodgers, much in circulation over the past five or six years. “Wouldn’t be polite not to.” He kept back just out of quick-lunging range of Ryan, his Winchester aimed straight out from his right side at the big redhead’s rounded belly. “Where’s the rest of your gang headed?”
Ryan smiled without mirth, shaking his head. “Can’t tell you th
at, Spurr.”
“Where’s your hideout, Red?”
“Now, I sure as hell can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“If you don’t kill me, Stanhope will. Slower.”
“To hell with ya, then.” Spurr lurched forward and before Ryan could do more than widen his eyes in shock, smashed his rifle barrel across the big killer’s left temple, bending his hat brim down over his forehead.
Ryan’s chin dropped and his knees buckled. He fell hard at Spurr’s feet, out like a blown lamp.
A rifle barked three times in quick succession. The reverberations batted back and forth between the canyon ridges. Spurr lurched forward, stepped over Ryan, and peered down the steep, talus-slick slope to see Doc Plowright crouched about halfway down the ridge, aiming a rifle into the canyon and back along the trail a ways, in the direction from which Spurr had sent Cochise.
Keeping his cheek pressed against his rifle’s stock, Plowright shouted, “Come on out of there, Spurr, or the woman dies!”
TWENTY-FOUR
Spurr cursed and looked down the slope. On the canyon floor, Erin Wilde’s steeldust was spinning in a flurry of rising dust. The woman was on the ground on the far side of the trail. As the horse swung around once more, mane flying, it pointed itself up trail, whinnied shrilly, and galloped off in the direction in which Spurr had sent Cochise.
When he’d climbed the ridge through a sloping trough, he’d left the woman in the canyon, hidden behind a bend in the northern wall. She must have gotten restless and ridden out into the canyon to see what had become of Spurr.
Well, now she knew, damnit.
Spurr bit his lower lip as she pushed up onto her elbows and peered up the slope through the still-wafting dust at Doc Plowright bearing down on her with his Winchester. Plowright triggered two more quick shots. The woman twisted around and lowered her head, shielding herself with an upraised arm, as two more bullets blew up dust and gravel within a foot of her.
“I got her dead to rights, Spurr!” Plowright shouted, casting a quick glance up the slope at the lawman flanking him, as Doc savagely levered a fresh cartridge while ejecting the spent one. It clinked and rattled briefly on the scree.
He pressed his cheek up against the stock once more, steadying the rifle on the woman, who was now looking up over her arm.
Spurr chuffed in disgust. “Goddamnit.”
His old heart chugged as he slid his glance between Plowright and Erin Wilde. She stayed down on the trail, knowing that if she tried to run the gunman would kill her. Spurr measured his chances at drilling Plowright before Doc could kill the woman. The brigand seemed to read his mind, as he cast a cool glance toward the lawman and showed one eyetooth between his thin lips mantled by a brushy brown mustache.
“You kill her, I’ll kill you, Doc!” Spurr set his sights on the side of the rifleman’s head, just above his ear.
He wanted to take the shot. But there was a good chance that Plowright would trip his own trigger and drill a round through Erin. He didn’t know what else to do, however, so he tightened his trigger finger. The faint ching of a spur sounded behind him. His blood chilled, remembering Red Ryan.
A rifle cracked. For a quarter second, he thought he’d fired his own Winchester but then he felt the bullet burn along the side of his head, just over his right ear. The jar spun him around on his heel, and he whipped his rifle around to see the hatless Ryan staggering toward him, his rifle aimed out from his hip, blood smeared across his left temple.
He ground his teeth and lowered his cocking lever but before he could rack a shell, Spurr triggered his Winchester, knocking Ryan back against the boulder from which Spurr had first gotten the drop on him. Ryan screamed as he rammed the cocking lever up against the underside of his rifle and, screaming again, triggered the rifle down low, blowing the toe off his left boot to reveal a bloody nub poking up out of his white sock.
That bullet blew up shale a foot in front of Spurr.
Down on his butt, Spurr raked out another frustrated curse, brushing his hand against the side of his head, and ignoring the blood on his glove, twisted around to gaze down slope. Plowright was running down the slope toward the canyon, howling like a crazed coyote. Erin lay where she’d fallen, propped on her elbows and looking dazed behind the screen of her mussed hair.
Spurr raised his rifle and fired while lying on his hip. Both shots were long, striking the canyon trail beyond Plowright. One came close enough to cause the outlaw to lose his footing on the scree; one of his boots slipped out from beneath him, and he hit the ground hard on his ass.
Spurr fired again too quickly. His bullet blew the hat off Plowright’s head. The outlaw left his rifle on the ground, palmed one of his pistols, and snapped a quick shot toward Spurr, the bullet twanging off scree to Spurr’s left.
Then Plowright heaved himself to his feet and set off running down canyon toward Erin. Spurr climbed to a knee and, ignoring the burn of the bullet across the side of his head, aimed toward the running cutthroat. He removed his finger from the Winchester’s trigger and raised the barrel. Plowright was in line now with Erin, and Spurr was liable to hit the woman with a ricochet.
He knelt there, staring in dread.
On the canyon floor, propped on her elbows, Erin watched the crazed desperado running toward her, howling. Near the foot of the slope, his boots slipped out from under him again, but he quickly regained his feet, dropped onto the trail running along the base of the ridge, and ran toward where Erin had been deposited by her horse.
He was the man whom she’d heard called Doc. He was the one responsible for the cut over her left brow. He’d smacked her while he’d lain between her legs for no more reason than he’d wanted to inflict as much pain as possible.
Fifteen feet away, Plowright stopped suddenly, boots skidding in the dust, throwing his arms out for balance. He stared in shock down at Erin, recognizing her. He held his pistol negligently in his right hand.
“Well,” Plowright said, chuckling softly under his breath. “I’ll be damned.”
“You got that right, mister.”
Erin wrapped her right hand around the pistol wedged behind her belt, and slipped the gun out from behind her waistband. Plowright regained his shocked look and snapped his pistol toward her. Erin took her own revolver in both hands and steadied it. Plowright fired, his slug screeching past her ear and thumping loudly into the ground beside her. Erin centered her pistol’s sights on the man’s chest, but she must have nudged the gun high at the last quarter second.
At the same time that the pistol roared, nearly leaping out of her aching hands, Plowright twisted around, lower jaw hanging, blood blossoming from his left cheek as blood and white bits of teeth blew out the other cheek and onto the trail.
“Gnaahhh!” the desperado cried. It was like a gargle, and it caused more blood to spew out onto the trail.
Erin bit her lower lip as she raked her revolver’s hammer back with both thumbs and steadied the gun on the outlaw. She fired just as Plowright gave a garbled curse and jerked toward Erin, and her bullet blew off his right earlobe before spanging off a rock a few feet up the canyon slope.
Plowright’s shot sailed far wide as he screamed again, twisted around, and dropped to one knee before lunging back to his feet and staggering off up the trail. He started howling again but not with victory; he was howling now like a dog with its ass peppered with buckshot.
Erin gained her feet, ignoring the ache in her twisted left ankle, and stumbled forward, gritting her teeth, remembering the hard, taunting, sadistic look in the man’s eyes as he’d pounded against her. She thought of Jim—poor Jimmy, probably used as a slave by these cutthroats to gather wood and tend their horses.
The image of her poor son amongst these killers jerked an exasperated scream out of her throat, and she stopped suddenly about ten feet behind the stumbling Plowright and raised the revolver. She thumbed the hammer back. Doc must have heard the ratcheting click of Erin’s pistol becaus
e he stopped and turned half around, eyes widening when he saw the gun.
“No!”
His cry was punctuated by the revolver’s belch. The slug punched through his collarbone, sending him staggering back and dropping his chin to watch the blood oozing from his shoulder. He fell on his butt and lay flat on his back, shaking his bloody head and grinding his heels in the trail. He was no longer yelling, just whimpering and staring at the sky as though for help that wasn’t likely to come.
Meanwhile, Spurr had worked his way down the ridge. He walked over to where Erin stood a few feet from Plowright, holding the gun straight down in both hands, sobbing.
“Good,” Spurr said, placing a hand on her shoulder while gazing grimly down at Plowright. “You done real good, Erin.”
She looked at him, sniffed, then turned full toward him and frowned. She placed her hand hand against the side of his head. “Spurr…you’re…”
He took her hand in his, lowered it. “Cut myself worse shavin’.” He gave her a reassuring smile and then, spying movement in the willows along the creek, shoved her aside and raised his rifle, loudly racking a shell into the chamber.
“Come on out of there!”
His heart twisted and lurched. If the other Vultures were part of Plowright and Red Ryan’s ambush, he and Erin had likely come to the end of their trail.
The willow branches bobbed and swayed around a broad, round face sheathed in a white beard streaked with gunmetal gray. Two eyes blinked beneath a leather hat brim.
“Why, I’ll be hanged!” the lurker said as he pushed up out of the brush, sort of stumbling toward Spurr and Erin, the mule ears of his high-topped boots buffeting. He was clad all in buckskins, with dyed porcupine quills adorning his big-front buckskin tunic. If he was one of the Vultures, he was one Spurr didn’t recognize—and one even older than Spurr himself. The graybeard said, “Should have known if there was gunwork around, ole Spurr Morgan wouldn’t be far behind!”
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