Luke's Gold

by Charles G. West

  At a standoff then, Slater held his hand up to keep his men in check, realizing that what Cade promised was very much possible. “Get off my land while you’ve still got the chance, Hunter,” he spat. “You’re askin’ for trouble comin’ here in the first place. Ned Appling had a lot of friends. They ain’t gonna be too happy when they find out Ned was murdered. If I was you, I’d get the hell outta this territory before one of ’em catches up with you.”

  “Yeah,” Cade replied, “ol’ Ned’s got a lotta friends now that he’s dead. How many did the back-shootin’ son of a bitch have while he was still alive?” He and Slater glowered at each other for a long moment before Cade asked what he came to find out. “I had no quarrel with the man. You sent a paid gunman to call me out. Now, suppose you tell me why you sent him after me. There ain’t no reason for you to be gunnin’ after me, but if it’s got anythin’ to do with the fact that I’m a friend of Elizabeth Walker’s, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought—and a miserable excuse for a man.”

  “Goddamn you!” Slater roared. “If you didn’t have that rifle on me . . .” Enraged that Cade would bring up the girl’s name to make him look foolish in front of his men, he pushed his heavy coat back to free his holster, provoked to the point of almost drawing the weapon. Thinking better of it when Cade raised the rifle, preparing to fire, he dropped his hand to his side again, his dark eyes burning with the fury surging through his body. Clenching his teeth, he growled, “Get off my land.” Another gust of wind swirled the snowflakes around the fire, and swept Slater’s long, black hair from his shoulders, for a moment revealing an ear with the very tip of it missing.

  The shock slammed Cade’s entire system like chain lightning. Stunned almost to paralysis for a second, he could only blurt the words, “Lem Snider!” In the span of that one jarring instant, it suddenly hit him why something about Slater’s looks had troubled him from the beginning. The man’s appearance had fooled him—the long hair and the absence of the bushy beard, but the clipped ear was no coincidence. The look on Snider’s face when his name was called verified it. He was the man who had murdered Luke Tucker, and that explained why he wanted Cade dead. Snider must have recognized him as the man he had left in the river for dead.

  Though only a few seconds passed while Cade was rendered incapacitated by the face-to-face encounter with the man he had vowed to kill, it was enough time to encourage Joe Stover to act. Seeing Cade’s rifle waver slightly, Stover reached for his revolver. Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, Cade’s reflexes came to his aid. He whipped the Winchester around and cut Stover down before his pistol cleared the holster. The action that followed that shot happened so fast that Cade would have difficulty remembering afterward exactly how he had escaped with his life.

  When Cade had been forced to turn and deal with Stover, Snider dived inside the barn door behind him while everyone else scattered for what cover they could find, scrambling to draw their guns in the process. Bonner was able to get to his pistol and get off one shot that passed under Loco’s neck, causing the horse to bolt and Cade to hang on. Another shot from the barn barely missed Cade’s head as his horse took off in a gallop. Realizing the horse had more sense than he did at that explosive moment, Cade laid low on Loco’s neck and retreated under a hail of gunfire.

  As he bolted across the tiny stream and raced across the prairie grass, now white with a frosting of snow, he looked behind him to see one of the men jump on Ned Appling’s horse—it being the only one saddled—and give chase. Looking for the right spot to wait for him, Cade picked a low swale in the prairie. Though it offered little cover, he nevertheless pulled Loco to a sliding stop and leaped from the saddle. Cocking the Winchester, he knelt on one knee, aimed at the pursuing rider, and waited for the shot. Ignoring the wild pistol shots that creased the snow on either side of him, he continued to wait until the rider was within a hundred yards. Then, without haste, he slowly pulled the trigger, knocking the man from the saddle.

  Safe for the moment, he had time to think about what to do. His brain was still reeling with the shock of finding Lem Snider right under his nose, and he had not been prepared for the confrontation. Had he known, he would have, without hesitation, shot the murdering thief as soon as he stomped out of the cabin. Like flashes of lightning, past images raced through his mind. He thought about the morning when Snider arrived suddenly with an offer to escort Elizabeth to Deer Lodge. There was something about the man that triggered a sour feeling in his gut right from the start. He should have paid more attention to what his instinct was telling him. And later, he should have known that jealousy was not the sole motive for sending a killer to challenge him.

  The more he thought about it, the more obvious John Slater was. According to what he had been told when he came to work at the Bar-K, no one really knew much about Slater. Newly rich, it was said he had acquired a fortune as a miner. No one had the means to thoroughly check his story out, even if anyone had cared enough to do so. Cade thought about Luke Tucker’s blood-encrusted body, pumped full of holes, the source of Slater’s wealth, and he felt the fire burning in his veins anew. The sensation was followed at once by the sickening thought of Lem Snider calling on Elizabeth Walker. One thing he knew to be a fact, if nothing else, was that Lem Snider was a dead man.

  It was time to slow down his racing brain and think coolly about his course of action to rid the world of the evil presence of this wanton killer. He thought about the location of Snider’s ranch buildings underneath the brow of the rocky ridge. That would be the best approach, from the ridge above the ranch. There was no more time for planning the assassination, however, for some motion on the prairie caught his attention at that point. He looked out beyond the horse with the empty saddle, now standing motionless about fifty yards away from the body lying in the light covering of snow. Three riders were bearing down on him, and not sparing the horses. Snider had not waited for him to call.

  “Kill the son of a bitch!” Lem Snider had roared as he ran from the barn and emptied his revolver after the galloping horse. Bonner and Bob Plummer were already emptying their weapons at Cade, but not one shot counted. Knowing he could not afford to let Cade escape to reveal his identity, he yelled, “Saddle the horses! We’ve got to stop him before he gets back to the Bar-K.” When Plummer stopped to help Joe Stover, Slater roared, “Leave him, dammit!” and shoved Plummer ahead of him as he ran to the corral to saddle his horse. His face twisted with rage, he charged out of the corral, hoping Pete, ahead of them on Ned’s horse, would catch up to Cade before he was able to find a place to hide. In a matter of minutes, the horses were saddled, and they took off across the white prairie after Pete.

  After a short ride, they came upon Ned Appling’s horse standing idly near a clump of sage. “Yonder!” Jim Bonner yelled, pointing to a body lying in the snow-covered grass.

  The sight of Pete Johnson’s corpse only served to further infuriate Lem Snider, and he whipped his horse unmercifully. “Get after the son of a bitch!” he roared. “I want him dead!” Galloping past the body, they suddenly were forced to pull up short when a series of rifle shots singed the air around them. No one was hit, but it was enough to cause them to draw back out of range until they spotted Cade at the foot of a narrow ravine that led back up the mountain behind him.

  Satisfied that they had at least caught him before he could get back to the Bar-K, Snider calmed his rage enough to think about the situation. “All right,” he said, “it’s gonna be hard to get a shot at him where he’s holed up.” He thought about the man he’d already left for dead once. This time, he told himself, I’ll make damn sure. I’ll cut his damn head off and see if he comes back from that. At that moment, he couldn’t remember hating a man more—not for Cade’s ability to come back from the dead, but because the irritating young man threatened to explode his new image as a successful rancher. The jealousy over Elizabeth’s apparent interest in the younger man was just a minor reason to rid himself of this nuisance.r />
  His rage under control at last, Snider looked at the two men awaiting his orders. It was a manhunt now, and the odds were in his favor. Looking over the terrain that separated the three of them from their lone adversary, he concluded that to charge the ravine where Cade was holed up would amount to nothing less than suicide. “He thinks he’s in a good spot to sit tight and pick us off if we try to rush him,” he said. “But he ain’t got no way outta that hole if we keep him pinned down. Bob, you’re a better shot with a rifle than either one of us, so you see if you can’t get up a little closer—maybe there.” He pointed to a rise in the prairie about one hundred yards ahead. “You make sure he stays in that ravine. Me and Bonner will work up behind him on that mountain and flush him outta his hole. One of us is bound to get a shot at him.”

  Bob hesitated for a moment, looking out across the open expanse of grass between where they now stood and the slight rise in the prairie floor. “That ain’t much cover, even if I do get across that open space,” he complained. He glanced up to meet Snider’s smoldering gaze and quickly added, “I reckon I can make it, though.”

  Snider nodded his head slowly, eyeballing Bob intently before he spoke. “You can make it. Hell, you’ll still be just barely in range of that Winchester he’s usin’.” He paused a moment, waiting for Plummer to move. “Get goin’, dammit! I ain’t got all day.”

  They waited until Plummer had safely reached the designated spot behind the rise before pulling back and circling around to pick a place to start up the mountain behind Cade. The mountains west of Deer Lodge were a rugged range with the lower slopes dense with fir and pine. Snider was confident that he and Bonner could work their way down upon their target and surprise him. As they climbed on their horses and rode off toward the mountain, they heard the crack of Bob Plummer’s rifle behind them.

  Cade heard the bullet thud into the ground a few feet short of the edge of the ravine, but chose not to return fire. He had seen one of Snider’s men driving his horse hard to reach a low rise in the prairie, dismount, and scramble for cover. Cade had not bothered to shoot at him, knowing the range was too great to expect any success, and he was mindful of the number of cartridges he had left. He couldn’t afford to be wasteful. A long-range shoot-out would soon deplete his ammunition.

  Seeing that only one of the three had advanced to the position behind the rise, it was not difficult for him determine the strategy they had decided upon. He turned to look at the steep mountainside behind him, a thick maze of trees and rocks. He decided right away that if the roles were reversed, he would definitely pick the high ground. The thought caused him to question his initial wisdom in picking the spot in which he found himself. He squinted out along the base of the ridge, trying to see if he could spot the other two riders, but they had evidently disappeared behind the point of the ridge directly behind him.

  It was a question now as to how long it would take them to get to a killing position above him. He decided that his best chance was to find another spot to take on the three of them. Crawling back from the rim, he got to his feet and went to the bottom of the ravine to get his horse. Stepping up in the saddle, he gave Loco his heels, and the big horse sprang into action. Up over the edge of the ravine he bolted, hooves pounding the ground beneath the light covering of snow. Cade heard the shots ring out, both slugs impacting with a hard thump, one in the gray’s neck, the other just behind the girth cinch in the horse’s belly.

  Loco’s scream of pain was unlike that he had ever heard from a horse before. In the panic of the moment, Cade did not have the time to think about it, but it would return to haunt him later on. The horse tried to run, but staggered for a few steps before crashing to the ground and sliding several feet in the snow. Cade came out of the saddle and tumbled over and over before coming to rest a few feet from his horse. His first reflexive action was to recover his rifle. Then, although Bob Plummer was firing shot after shot at him, he tried to help his wounded horse. It took but one quick look to realize that Loco was finished. To spare the suffering horse further agony, Cade put a bullet into his head. It was the second time he’d had no choice but to put down a horse. This time, it seemed more difficult than it had with Billy.

  With the sobering sound of stinging lead still flying around him, there was no time to mourn the faithful horse. With no other options from which to choose, he hastily grabbed the few extra cartridges from his saddlebag, crawled back to the ravine, and rolled over the edge. As soon as he disappeared from sight, the rifle fire stopped. Sitting there, listening, he suddenly realized his throat was dry, and he wished he had taken his canteen from the saddle horn. He thought about going back for it, but as soon as his head appeared above the edge of the ravine, Plummer opened up with the rifle again. He’s moved a lot closer, Cade thought. He was forced to duck down again. No more time to sit around.

  Knowing that Snider and the big fellow that Cade had seen back at Snider’s ranch were most likely already working their way along the slope above him, he knew he had to get out of this hole. His decision made, he hesitated no longer. Running at a trot, he followed the ravine up through rocks and fir trees, intent upon positioning himself higher than the two who were coming to surprise him. As the slope steepened, he pushed on, laboring under the effort, until the forest of firs began to thin out, giving way to solid rock out-croppings and a small mountain meadow. Satisfied that he was surely above Snider and Bonner, he dropped down behind a rock to catch his breath. As his breathing became more regular, he waited and listened.

  It was not long before he heard the sound of two horses plodding softly along the ground under the trees below him. Although he could hear them, he could not see them through the dense branches. Heading for the sound, he cautiously made his way back down the mountainside, being careful to expose his body as little as possible, gambling on the idea that their attention would be focused below them.

  Again entering the band of trees that ringed the mountain, he stopped frequently to listen. Continuing on down through the dense growth, he stopped again when he came upon the signs of scuffed-up needles where the two had led their horses. Now with a trail to follow, he moved more quickly, but the steepness of the slope caused him to exercise caution lest he stumble and go sprawling down the mountain. Making his way around a sizable boulder, he suddenly caught sight of them. Raising his rifle to fire, he was a split second too late, for they took a turn straight down the slope. Since they were leading their horses, this put the horses between them and Cade and effectively shielded them from his line of sight. Every shot had to count, since he only had the cartridges in the magazine plus a handful of extras, so he lowered his rifle, and continued his careful pursuit.

  Guessing that Snider and Bonner had most likely reached the top of the ravine where he had been holed up, he tried to hurry to catch them before they realized he had deserted the spot. He was a few moments too late, for he heard a shout from the bottom of the ravine. “He’s lit out!” Bob Plummer yelled. “I got his horse! He’s on foot and back up behind you somewhere!”

  The warning was enough to cause both men to quickly react and take cover behind their horses. Straining to search the forest above him, Lem Snider peered out from under his horse’s neck. Seeing nothing, he ordered, “Get up here, Bob.” He and Bonner continued to scan the trees and rocks higher up the slope while they waited for Plummer to catch up to them. “Spread out,” Snider ordered when Plummer climbed up beside them. “We’ll move up this slope. He can’t have got far. We’ll flush him out.”

  Some seventy-five feet above them, Cade waited, his rifle resting in a crevice between two rocks. For several long minutes, there was no sign of the three men stalking him, then suddenly the branches parted below him to his right. He only got a glimpse of a shirt as the man cautiously pushed the branches aside, but it was all he needed. The Winchester bucked, and the cry of pain that immediately followed told him he had hit his target. He ejected the spent cartridge and swung his rifle around, ready to shoot a
gain.

  Knocked to the ground by the rifle slug in his chest, Bob Plummer rolled partway down the slope before being stopped against a tree trunk. “I’m shot!” he wailed in agony. Snider moved quickly over toward him, darting carefully from tree to tree. “I’m shot,” Bob moaned again, holding his hands over the hole in his chest. “I think I’m dyin’.”

  Snider gave him no more than a casual glance. “Where is he?” he asked, more concerned with getting a shot at Hunter than worrying about the wounded man. When Plummer did not answer right away, Snider called out to Bonner, “Jim! You see where that shot came from?”

  “No, but I think he might be up behind that big split rock straight up from where you’re standin’,” Bonner called back. Then he asked, “How bad is Bob hurt?”

  Snider took another quick look at the suffering man. “Hell, he’s a goner. See if you can climb up to them trees just below that rock, and I’ll cover you.” He pulled Plummer’s rifle from the dying man’s hand, ignoring the pleading eyes that stared up at him.

  Jim Bonner was far from being an intelligent man, but he didn’t have to think that one over before replying. “It’d be a whole lot easier for you to climb up there. You’re right below him. He’d have an angle on me, and I’m a helluva lot bigger target than you are.”

  “Dammit! I said I’d cover you. You ain’t yeller, are you?”

  “I ain’t yeller,” Bonner came back. “I ain’t stupid, neither.”

  Snider fumed over the situation for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. Hunter had the upper hand at this point. Snider had planned to use Bonner to draw Cade’s fire, possibly giving him a clear shot at Cade. Thanks to the big man’s reluctance to sacrifice himself, Snider was going to be forced to take a bigger risk. He didn’t like taking risks unless he knew he had no choice. Hunter had to die. Snider had too much to lose if people knew the truth about John Slater, a man he had invented. “All right,” he called over to Bonner, “we’ll go up together.” When Bonner didn’t reply, he called out again. “All right?”