by John Benteen
She had come to the lean-to again last night. He had been sober and in good shape, and had taken what she offered him without reservation. He then had repeated his instructions and received again her promise to carry them out.
He pouched the glasses, squinted at the sun. An hour’s light left. His hand stroked the shotgun sling. They would come tonight. Somehow he knew it; he could smell it in the air, the way a wild animal could smell an approaching storm long before it hit.
“There’s nothing out there now,” he said. “But after dark, there will be. Let’s move along and check everything out.”
They rode the high rim, headed north to where it merged with a mountain peak. When the mountainside towered above them, too steep even for mules, they tethered the animals in one of the clumps of juniper that made superb cover all along the inner slope of the barrier. Gunmen could hole up in those juniper thickets and using smokeless powder rain fire on the settlement below and remain wholly invisible. Such positions were the ones Gordon would seek out for his men, the ones Fargo wanted him to have.
Canfield looked at the juniper dubiously. “I still say, you git men in them thickets, they’re gonna be powerful hard to find.”
Fargo grinned. “No harder than bears or panthers in those laurel hells up in the smokies.”
Tom was serious; then he grinned, too. “Maybe ye’re right. Maybe we’ll have us one good hunt, anyhow, before we head for the border.”
On foot, they edged around the hump of the mountain. On his first morning in Black Valley, Fargo had spotted the deep draw that cut across it. Part of his trade was reading, learning terrain and turning it to his advantage. Now, when he and Tom entered it, they found it full of Canfield men, armed to the teeth. The barrels of long muzzle-loading rifles glinted in the dying sun; the bandoliers of cartridges for the Sharps buffalo guns winked brassily and clicked with every movement. So did the belts of the shotgun shells, for the big twelve and ten-gauge hammerguns they carried. Except for the four on guard duty at the pass, every Canfield fighting man over the age of fifteen was here.
“Fargo says they’ll come tonight,” Roaring Tom announced. “Everybody ready hyar?”
“Ready, brother,” answered Mac, in charge of this detail. The muted whining of many dogs was background to their conversation. Further up the draw, the Canfield hounds, two dozen enormous, cold-jawed brutes, strained at leashes, unable to bay their impatience because of the rawhide thongs tied around their muzzles to silence them. Tom grinned as he and Fargo walked among them. “Thar’s three things a Canfield dog will purely eat alive. Bears, wildcats and strangers. Hit’s a good thing ye’re wearin’ them ole clothes of mine thet smell like me, Fargo, or they’d bust them muzzle-strings to git thar teeth in ye.”
“That’s why I asked you for them,” Fargo said. He kept moving among the dogs, letting their scent rub off on him, fondling them, talking to them softly, making sure that all knew him.
“Well, if ye’re sure they’ll come this evenin’, I reckon we might as well stay up hyar with the rest.” Roaring Tom sat down, looked to his weapons: the squirrel gun, a shotgun slung over his shoulder, the Navy Colt. Mac came to hunker on his heels beside Fargo and his older brother.
“Let me see if I got this straight. Thar’ll be shootin’ at the pass tonight. But we don’t do nothin’ about thet. We jest set tight all night and wait ’til daybreak. When dawn comes, we’re to be all spread out up that—” He gestured to the slope just below the rim. “But we don’t take our positions ’til an hour before daylight. Then, when Gordon’s men open up on the settlement, thet’s when we cut loose our wolf.”
Fargo grinned coldly. “Not your wolf. Your hounds.”
Mac answered him with another grin. “By God, if this works, hit’s the slickest trick I ever heerd of. Hit’ll be better’n a b’ar hunt and a turkey shoot put together.”
“Just remember,” Fargo said, “once it gets dark, everybody’s got to be dead quiet. The whole thing has to be carried out in absolute silence. You bushwhackers ought to know how to take your positions without even making a rock roll.”
Roaring Tom spat. “Ain’t a man hyar ain’t learned how to move through mountains like fog hitself. Thar ain’t no room fer noise when ye’re huntin’ squirrels in the big timber—or stalkin’ or bein’ stalked by another fambly in a blood feud.”
Fargo leaned back against a rock. “Then let’s get some sleep,” he said.
He closed his eyes. He was gambling everything on being right. But there was no worry in him, no fear that he was wrong. He knew Lin Gordon, and how Gordon would come at the Canfields; and Gordon did not know he was here with that knowledge.
He slept and then awakened for a supper of dried meat and water and a swig or two of Canfield corn. He went to sleep again until the gunfire from the pass awakened him at nearly midnight.
~*~
It exploded in a sudden roar, from the hills above and the outside valley floor below. Even from this distance, two miles away, the flashes were visible in the clear night air. It sounded as if more men were firing than really were. The Canfields on the rim had instructions to use what repeating weapons were available in the clan’s armory and to keep the bullets flying. Gordon’s men, creating a diversion before the pass to draw Canfield guards off, would be using the same tactics, simulating an attack in force.
Fargo sat up tensely. But Gordon would be too wise to concentrate his main attack on the pass. A handful of defenders up there could mow down his men like wheat. He would do what Fargo had done—the unexpected: move the bulk of his forces across the valley on foot, climb the wall far from the pass, where its slope gentled, cross the rim in darkness, come down the other side white the Canfields were distracted by the diversion, and take cover in the juniper, within fair rifle range of the settlement below. He would pour a terrific fire into those cabins down there, with little fear of retaliation, of being seen in the superb cover of the juniper thickets. When the defending force had been softened up, he would make his charge. Fargo’s lips peeled back as the shooting at the pass intensified, ebbed, roared again. Everything was going according to plan. If only he could hold the Canfields back until just before dawn.
Because they were restless, itching for a fight, itching to run to the sound of the guns. They seemed to plunge against invisible tethers, eager for battle, like the big hounds in the draw above that plunged against their real tethers. Fargo, Tom and Mac moved among the men, sternly warning them to silence and to patience.
The shooting at the pass went on a long time, then dwindled to a crackle and ebbed entirely.
“That means they’re over the rim, now,” Fargo whispered to Tom. “Gordon’s bunch at the pass has done its job, pulled back. They’ll want you people to think they’re whipped, giving up. Tomorrow, when the real fight starts, they’ll try to come through again. Your men up there know to let ’em, don’t they?”
“I’ve drilled ’em all in yer plan, over and over,” Tom said. He looked at the stars. “Damn, hits a long time to day.”
It did seem so. Even Fargo was restless, knowing that the juniper thickets down there on the valley’s inside slope were crawling with Lin Gordon’s armed men. And Lin himself, he thought eagerly, would be in there somewhere. Maybe this time they would find out which one was best...
Everything was graveyard still. Then, down in the settlement, a Canfield rooster crowed.
Tom and Mac looked at Fargo.
Fargo nodded. “Now,” he said.
The men stirred, making hardly any sound. The big dogs were untied, taken in hand, each man holding one on a leash. From the draw, the Canfields, with Fargo in the lead, fanned out around the mountain and then to the rimrock, keeping just below its edge lest they skyline themselves and give their plan away.
Fargo marveled at their skill and silence as the mountaineers dispersed themselves. Thirty men, drifting like fog across the slopes. Moving in behind Gordon’s men, who would be farther down in the brush, setting
the trap that would be sprung at daylight. If, Fargo thought ... if everything went according to plan.
He himself made no sound as he moved Indian fashion across the slope. He found position in a fragrant juniper thicket exactly halfway between the pass and the mountain. Roaring Tom, holding a huge black hound on tight leash, moved in beside him. Fargo had already put a round into the Winchester; now he pulled back its hammer to full cock.
Tom kept the dog tight-gathered, one arm around its neck, a big hand on its muzzle-thongs, the loaded squirrel gun across his knees, powder horn and shot pouch at hand, the steerhorn trumpet close by.
The sky began to gray. Night peeled back from the slope below; the rising sun flooded it with tentative light. The clumps of juniper swam into definition; silent, apparently uninhabited, not a target showing in any of them. Nor would there be; Gordon’s men would know how to use their cover to the best advantage.
The light moved down the valley wall. Now the settlement came into view. Roosters were crowing, their clarion sounds echoing from mountainside to mountainside. Nothing stirred on the slope below, no sign of life revealed itself.
And then, like the breaking of a sudden storm, gunfire erupted from the juniper below them, across a wide front, all aimed at the cluster of cabins on the valley floor. Fargo grinned. He’d been right. Gordon’s men were there, okay! They’d infiltrated under cover of darkness, taken up their positions and—
The roar of shooting was thunderous as a tremendous rain of fire was poured down the valley by Gordon’s force. Still, Fargo held a restraining hand on Tom’s shoulder. Then the counterfire came, white smoke blossoming from slits and firing ports, as the women and children barricaded in the cabin followed Fargo’s instructions. They sent a hail of lead back up the slope, but they deliberately shot low, taking no chances of hitting their own men higher up.
To Gordon, though, it must have looked as if all the Canfield fighting men were in that house, returning fire. His force’s attention would be riveted on it, now—any thought of surprise from behind erased.
And so it was time. Fargo looked at Roaring Tom. “Cut loose your hound,” he said.
Tom picked up the steerhorn trumpet. He blew a long, winding note that rang above the gunfire. Then, quickly, deftly, he whipped the muzzle thongs loose from the big dog’s jaws. It snarled; Tom slipped its leash.
Like a rocket, an arrow loosed from a bow, it shot out of the juniper thicket and bounded down the hill, savage from confinement and restraint. And on the steerhorn’s signal, twenty-three more just like it broke from cover, the scent of strangers already strong and infuriating in their nostrils. The whole pack coursed down the slope, and suddenly the valley rang with their hollow, bell-like baying. Black and tan and big as yearling calves, they flashed down the hill, eating up the distance with long legs moving so fast they were a blur. Their keen noses guided them; before Gordon’s men knew what was happening, the great dogs were on them in the thickets.
The barrage of firing slackened. Suddenly there was yelling, mingled with snarls and howls and roars. There was also the cough of handguns, the yelp of wounded dogs.
Fargo had kept his eyes on the dog Roaring Tom unleashed. In seconds it had covered two hundred yards, three, four. Then it disappeared in a clump of juniper, and like bears breaking cover, the gunmen who hid in it were suddenly visible as they were attacked without warning by a hundred pounds of snarling hound and sought to fight it off. A red shirt flashed among the trees; Fargo, ready, snapped off a shot with the Winchester. He heard a man scream, and then another broke from cover and ran low across the slope with the dog ravening at his heels. Roaring Tom yelled something, a kind of a war cry, raised the squirrel rifle, tracked the gunman for two seconds. Then the old rifle thundered, powdersmoke obscured vision; when it cleared, the man lay sprawled, while the dog worried his body savagely for an instant and then bounded on.
And that was the way it was happening all across the slope. The hounds went surely, accurately, to each clump of cover in which gunmen were hidden. Not even the most seasoned fighting man could lie still to ward off such an assault; Gordon’s crew, in singles, twos and threes, sprang to their feet to combat the dogs. And when they did, the sharpshooters on the hill, men used to dropping squirrel-sized targets with one well-aimed shot, took them. All along the slope, muzzle-loaders and Sharps coughed and roared. A huge fog of white powdersmoke rolled down the hill, making an effective screen.
Roaring Tom had reloaded his long rifle with dazzling speed; the dog had left the corpse, it ran, and flushed out another gunman. A man in a khaki shirt sprang from a swale in which he’d taken shelter, the dog ripping at his left sleeve. Oblivious to the rifle fire above, he drew a Colt automatic, put it to the hound’s head, pulled the trigger. The dog fell, dead at once. It was the last shot the khaki-shirted man ever fired. Roaring Tom dropped him with a rifle ball through the head, and his body slumped across the dog.
Other hounds were dying, as Gordon’s men, recovering from surprise, fought back. But the big dogs were tricky targets, bounding and dodging; and more of the gunmen’s shots missed than hit.
But the mountain men did not miss; nor did Fargo. The hillside below swarmed with targets, now, and Fargo grinned, levering round after round into his Winchester, firing, finding another target, firing again. The screams of dying men and moans of wounded dogs mingled with the howling, baying and snarling of the undaunted, maddened bear hounds still alive and the shouts and yells of their victims. And still the muzzle-loaders and Sharps did their deadly work.
Now, thought Fargo, it was time. He nudged Roaring Tom, sprang to his feet, slung the Winchester. He whipped the shotgun loose, thumbed extra rounds from his bandolier. Roaring Tom scrambled up, discarded the squirrel rifle for an ancient double-barreled twelve-gauge. He raised his trumpet to his lips, blew three short bursts. Then, at his signal, the hill men charged.
They poured down the slope with shotguns and pistols, and they sent before them a deadly rain of lead. Buckshot raked the juniper clumps; sought running men who broke cover, trying to escape. As they closed the range, the fire increased. Now, demoralized, Gordon’s men broke, ran down the hill.
Then a voice rose above the melee—one Fargo recognized. “Damn it, turn and fight! It’s your only chance! Stand fast and fight!” Fargo swung his head just in time to see Lin Gordon, crouching in a nest of boulders, pop back under cover. He was shooting uphill as fast as he could lever a Winchester. Near Fargo, Roaring Tom grunted, went down. Fargo hesitated. “Go on!” the old man bellowed. “I jest caught it in the laig!”
Fargo changed direction, shotgun up. He ran hunched low, heading for the nest of boulders. Then Gordon saw him coming, and his voice rose again. “Fargo! Damn you, Neal, I mighta known!” He threw away an empty Winchester, whipped both Colts from their holsters. Fargo saw them come into line; he landed hard, skidding on his chest, as the slugs raked over him, fired the shotgun as he hit. Its right barrel sent a spray of slugs screaming off the rocks and Gordon dodged back unhit. His men had rallied, now, and were pumping rounds uphill toward the charging mountaineers, who were firing steadily and shattering the air with high, eerie rebel yells and hunter’s calls. The dozen dogs still left alive were doing terrible work among the gunmen. Fargo saw one bowled over as a hound hit him from behind. Before he could recover, the dog’s jaws were in his throat. Then a hound ran past Fargo, headed straight for the boulder where Lin Gordon crouched. With his eyes on Fargo, Gordon could not possibly see it coming.
The dog flashed behind the rock, a leaping blur of black and tan. Fargo scrambled to his feet, thumbing in a fresh round as he ran. He was within forty yards of the rock when Gordon, the dog’s jaws fastened on his left arm, scrambled out, dragging the hound with him. He whipped the Colt in his right hand around, fired; the dog fell, kicked once, and was dead. Then Gordon whirled; he saw Fargo coming on.
His face twisted. “You ruined it, Neal!” he yelled, blood streaming from his left forearm where t
he dog had mangled it. “You ruined it all! Even the showdown I had planned. But—” His teeth gleamed in his cadaverous face as he swung down the Colt and pulled the trigger.
Fargo rolled aside, loosed both shotgun barrels. Even as he did so, he heard the whine of Gordon’s slug as it passed between arm and body. Then Gordon screamed, but it was cut off abruptly. Fargo broke the shotgun, staring in awe as he crammed in more shells.
There was almost nothing left of Gordon. The right barrel must have contained one of the chain shot shells he’d got from Roaring Tom. The left had held one of the rounds packed with birdshot in addition to the buck. At that range, all that lead and wire had chopped into Lin Gordon, and what fell limply bore no resemblance to a man. The head was half sliced off by piano wire.
“Judas,” Fargo whispered. Then he had slugged in more rounds, snapped closed the gun, whirled just in time to punch the right barrel off at a gunman running toward him, trying to escape the hound pursuing him. The man went down, and the blood-maddened dog attacked his body. Suddenly, the valley was still except for a sudden spattering of fire from the direction of the pass, and the baying of the hounds.
Fargo let out a rasping breath, trying to fight off the battle-daze that gripped him. He blinked, looked around. The slope was littered with the bodies of men and dogs. He walked over to what was left of Lin Gordon. He stared down at it. “Well,” he said quietly, “now we’ll never know who is best.”
He turned away. The gunfire at the pass had died now. The guards had let that contingent through, then had taken them from the rear. It was over. Fargo went up the slope, to where Roaring Tom Canfield was coolly wrapping his shirt around his thigh to stop the flow of blood.
Up and down the slope, the dogs were flushing out the wounded and defeated, who came out with hands up, under the guns of the mountaineers. Fargo was glad to see that some had survived; their testimony would be needed. He looked down at Roaring Tom.