by Lou Cameron
“You sure are a good tracker, and I’ve seen you draw, Stringer said. “I reckon you’d better use your left hand to unbuckle that gun rig and let it fall natural, Slim.”
“You owe me, Stringer,” the gaunt gunslick replied. “If you was any sport at all, you’d holster your own gun and let us settle the matter fair, like friends.”
“No offense, Slim,” Stringer said, “but you wasn’t pointing that Winchester friendly at that door across the yard just now.”
“I wasn’t aiming to bushwack nobody. We wasn’t even sure you was in there. I was just covering all bets until the kid I sent for help could get back here with the others, see?”
“I do now,” Stringer said. “I thank you for warning me that our stay here must be short and sweet. Now I got to tie you up. I got a fathom of canteen thong in a hip pocket as ought to do the job for us. But first I want that sidearm of yours on the ground.”
“I don’t want to be tied up,” Slim said. “Put your own hardware in its holster and let’s start even. You ain’t afraid of me, are you?”
Stringer sighed. ‘There’s a doc in Vienna town who might say you turned bad because you like to scare folk, Slim. I don’t have to prove anything. So about that buckle…”
“I won’t do it,” Slim insisted. “You go ahead and shoot if you have to.”
“Damn it, Slim, do I look like a cold-blooded murderer to you?”
“Nope,” Slim said. “I was sort of banking on that. Ain’t this fun?”
Stringer didn’t think it was. He scowled as hard as he could at the grinning lunger as he tried to figure out what on earth he could do about their impasse. If he’d had more time to work with, he might have come up with something. As it was, all he could do was mutter, “Have it your way, then,” and holster his own gun.
Slim nodded. “Thanks. That makes us even no matter how it turns out.” Then he slapped leather.
Stringer was braced for it, and it was still close. As he drew and fired in one motion, Slim’s gun went off to raise a geyser of dust between them. Then Slim was staggering backward, dropped his own gun, and fell flat on his back like a puppet whose strings had all been cut at once.
Stringer walked over to him to see what was left. Slim opened his eyes and murmured, “I thought I could take you. But, you see, I’ve been sick.” Then he coughed twice and stopped breathing forever.
As Stringer hunkered down to get Slim’s gun belt and ammo, the big blonde appeared in her doorway, naked, to yell fool questions at him. “Get dressed,” he called back. “Now. We got to get out of here, if it’s not already too late!”
CHAPTER NINE
Slim had left a spunky-looking roan tethered among the aspen a hundred yards or so north of Tanya’s spread. Horse apples and other signs told Stringer that Slim’s fellow scout had beelined back toward Kid Curry’s canyon hideout. Stringer hoped that meant the main body of the gang was still there. By the time he got the pony back to the cabin, Tanya had put on her boots, a split riding skirt, and a man’s work shirt.
He told her to put on Slim’s gun, helped her aboard, and handed up her twelve-gauge before he said, “All right, you take the lead and get us to town. I’ll try and keep your treasures safe from the rear. But for land’s sake, watch where we’re going.”
She waited until he’d mounted up with Slim’s Winchester across his thigh, and they were off. He saw she was following a two-rut wagon trace that led south from her spread in line with the valley drainage. They hadn’t ridden far when he noticed the sign of two ponies going down the trail ahead of them.
“This isn’t going to work,” he called out. “That rain we had night before last has tidied up this trail to where even I can see where your two cowhands and nobody else passed this way since then. Do you know of another trail that’s not as easy to read?”
“I do,” she answered. “Lots of slick rock and gravel. But it’s out of our way if we’re still in a hurry.”
“We’re in a hell of a hurry,” he said. “But it’s still better to get there slow than not to get there.” So she swung off and they forded the stream to ride through grass a spell. As they topped the first rise, he looked back and saw that sure enough they were leaving sign in the wind-cured stubble her damned cows had left.
“Swing a mite north,” he called out, “so’s they’ll think we’re doubling back on them foxy or, with luck, take us for some of their own.”
She did as she was told. They punched through some trees, went across more grass and water, another line of trees, and now that she had him turned around total on her rugged range, she pointed south again. “The nearest town is thataway.”
She couldn’t prove it by him. But as he followed her, he felt cheered by the fact he couldn’t see any trail they were following. They were moving over slick rock with both ponies sliding and bitching about it some.
“Hold on,” he called out. “You’re pushing too fast. Do you recall a notch ahead where we have to ride through a mess of big old rocks?”
When she said she did, he replied, “It’s time I took the lead, then. I know where we are now. I came up this trail going the other way with that poor cuss I just had to shoot. I thought at the time what a handy place those rocks would make for an ambush and, no offense, I suspect I may be harder to ambush than you, you pretty little thing.”
As they rode on south, he saw no reason to tell her just how he and poor little Opal had explored the possibilities of those rocks ahead. Unlike a lot of women he’d met, Stringer never felt compelled to list each and every former lover who’d used and abused him. Even if he had been, old Tanya would no doubt want to get used and abused the same way if he told her it was possible. The notion of her big blond body lining that rocky nest Opal had found for them was inspiring him too much for comfort as it was. But no matter how much a man liked women, a real man had to show some common sense about the subject.
They topped a lesser rocky rise to spy the notched hogback ahead. He reined in outside of rifle range and stared morosely back and forth along the natural wall of rock. There had to be a way around. There were two ends to the Great Wall of China if you wanted to ride far enough. But they didn’t.
“There’s just no way to scout that rocky hogback safe,” he said. “But hang back at least fifty yards, and if anybody blows me out of this saddle, ride like hell. I don’t think they’ll follow you forever if they get me. You don’t know as much about them. Even Kid Curry ought to be able to figure that out.”
She started to argue. He told her not to, took a deep breath, and rode across the shallow draw fast to make himself a tougher target or get it over with if that didn’t work.
But nobody was staked out amid the rocks ahead. He made sure by dismounting and climbing to yet another hollow, topside. Then he stood up against the sky and waved Tanya in with his Winchester.
By the time she’d ridden into the cleft, he’d climbed down to rejoin her. He remounted. “I know the way back to civilization from here,” he told her, then noticed the way her dapple-gray was favoring its near forehoof, and added, “Hold it. I fear your pony picked up a pebble with his frog.”
But then Stringer saw the hoofprints Tanya had left in the dust and muttered, “Oh, boy. You’ve thrown a shoe.”
“I know,” Tanya said. “It was back on that slick rock. Old gray, here, was about due to be reshod. I meant to have it done the next time I went shopping in town. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
Stringer stared soberly north at nothing much. “I wish you’d told me sooner. Do you remember just where that shoe might be right now, honey?”
She said she wasn’t sure. He swore softly. “Never mind. I’m sure someone will find it. Let’s move down the slot a piece so they can read it wrong when you switch saddles without dismounting.”
She waited until he’d led her around a bend of the notch before she asked what on earth he was talking about. He reined in to explain. “That gray can likely carry your belongings the rest
of the way, limping some. He can’t carry you as well. So I want you to ride this roan and lead the gray.”
“What will you be riding, then?” she asked.
“Nothing. When and if anyone trails us this far, they’ll see they seem to be tracking the two of us and that one of us is riding a pony with a shoe missing. That ought to encourage ‘em in more ways than one. Such a trail will seem a snap to follow, and even better, nobody aboard a limpsome pony could hope to outrun ‘em all the way to the railroad line. As I recall with some dismay, it’s over twenty miles from here to there, right?” She said she’d never counted the miles but that she figured it six or eight hours, walking her mount most of the way.
He thought about that. “Yeah, it evens out if you beeline. You won’t be taking all those zigzags Kid Curry did to leave the law a twisted trail. Try to avoid that abandoned mine to the south. They use it as a way station.”
She said she didn’t know what mine he was talking about.
“Never mind. I should have guessed the regular trail was less twisted than Kid Curry’s head.”
Then he got his left foot back out of its stirrup, reached out to step on a handy boulder instead, and swung out of the saddle with just the Winchester and a canteen Slim had hung on the roan. Handing the reins to Tanya, he told her, “Swing aboard. Hand me that shotgun first.”
She didn’t. The big blonde was as good aboard horses as aboard a bed, and made the switch easy enough. But she was crying as she told him, “You can’t stay here alone and afoot, you fool. They’ll kill you for certain.”
“They weren’t able to do that when I was afoot with just a slingshot,” he said soothingly. “Now I’ve got a rifle and sidearm. So you just vaya con Dios, you pretty little thing, and I’ll make sure you’re not followed.”
She dimpled and asked if he really thought she was a pretty little thing, adding, “Most men find me sort of awesome.”
He laughed, told her that was what a gal got for messing with shrimps, and then slapped the roan’s rump with the barrel of the Winchester. Tanya was off before she could argue about it anymore.
By the time she’d have made it out the far side of the slot, Stringer was atop the rocks, looking about for a place to fort up. He found another sandy hollow that, while not quite as cozy as the one he’d shared with Opal somewhere to the south, covered the trail from the north just right. Wanting to let them guess where he was instead of spotting him, Stringer flopped down in the sand, removed his hat, and propped the Winchester through a handy cleft in the pillow-shaped granite rimrocks.
A million years or at least an hour went by without so much as a bird chirp to distract him. It had to be past high noon, but not enough to keep the sun from trying to fry him in the pan of rock he lay prone in. The thin mountain air dried his sweat as fast as it leaked out of him. The water in Slim’s canteen tasted warm and tinny. The only thing to be said for his discomfort was that it kept him awake. Thanks to Tanya and the little sleep he’d had since leaving the Wild Bunch, his bones, at least, felt weary as all get out.
Another million years went by. The bright sunlight was playing tricks with the air currents above that lower rise to his north. He paid no mind to the dark rocks that seemed to float in air up yonder until he noticed they were getting even higher. Then he snapped to full alertness and saw they weren’t rocks, but more like heads and shoulders. Then there were eight riders lined up on the rise, the legs of their mounts cut off at the knees by the shimmering mirage. One was pointing right at Stringer with what had to be a horseshoe in his free hand. Stringer knew they were more than likely just talking about the trail through the notch to his left.
“A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing,” he growled. “You boys just come within range and we’ll see how smart it was of you to find that loose shoe.”
They did. Being wild and in a bunch, the Wild Bunch riders no doubt felt more than a match for any two riders, even if they’d failed to guess that one was a woman. It wasn’t easy, but Stringer waited until they were more than halfway across the draw between them, then let his breath half out, held it, and squeezed off the first round with his sights trained on the lead rider.
The results were gratifying. Stringer had never fired that particular saddle gun before, but as he’d hoped, old Slim had sighted it right. The first owlhoot he fired it at did a backward somersault off his pony, spooking it considerable, and then Stringer was levering round after round into the milling mass of spooked riders and the dust they were raising as they all tried to be somewhere else without knowing exactly where that ought to be.
A voice that sounded like Kid Curry’s shouted, “Back to the canyon! There’s too many of ‘em!” as Stringer emptied a couple more saddles and tried to figure which of the bastards could be the leader he really wanted the most. Then they were out of range, the sons of bitches, save for the four he’d put on the ground.
“That’ll learn you,” Stringer said as they vanished over the far rise. Then he checked to see how many rounds he had left in the Winchester’s tube.
He had four. That was better than none, but he still wished the gun belt he’d taken from that other train robber had been stuffed with .44-40’s instead of .45 shorts. He knew that was the reason a lot of the old-timers still wore pistols chambered for the same rounds as their Winchesters. The size of the hole one punched in a bastard didn’t matter half as much as one’s ability to punch lots of them. You’d think men riding with the Wild Bunch would pay attention to such details. But on the other hand, anyone professional enough to think ahead worth spit had no business riding with such a wild bunch.
It was getting easier to see why so many of the original Wild Bunch had dropped out of it of late. Putting all the outlaws in the area in one basket for the law had never struck Stringer as a great notion in the first place. The world was getting just too modernistic for such notions. What with the country out here more than half mapped in fair detail, a man had to study some before he took to the owlhoot trail. The day was about done when a boy could dream of being a bandit when he grew up and just go on and do it. At the rate things were going, it was going to take some book learning to be a crook. Some lawmen were already reading books about catching, crooks. Over to France a lawman called Bertillon had even worked out ways to identify crooks who tried to change the way they looked, and some Englishman named Galton had convinced Scotland Yard that nobody in the world had the same fingerprints. He’d figured it out in ‘91, just three years too late to catch Jack the Ripper with the newfangled notion.
Stringer waited, hot and itchy, and then after a while a crow came down to walk around one of the bodies out there a couple of times before it went for the eyes. That encouraged some more old crows to come down and join their scout. It hardly seemed likely even crooks would just sit there and watch crows savage dead comrades. But Stringer still waited until the crows were acting just awful before he eased down from his ambush and gingerly moved out across the open battleground. Nobody pegged a shot at him from the rise to the north. He waved his hat at the crows and the nasty birds flapped off a few yards to cuss at him. He helped himself to both .45 and .44-40 ammo, along with such money as he found on gents in no condition to spend it. Then he told the crows the rest was all theirs and legged it back to the rock cleft.
He decided old Tanya had a good enough lead by now. The ones he’d chased the other way would hardly be dumb enough to ride the same way again, whether he was covering the cleft or not. But the way. he’d do it, if he was Kid Curry, would be to work around to the far side and move along atop the rocks himself to see who was acting so mean in these parts. So, either way, it was no doubt time to leave these parts entire.
He was, damn it, afoot again. But at least he had two guns and plenty of ammo now, and thanks to the way he’d helped himself to more than one train robber’s share, he no doubt had more money to show for that robbery than anyone who’d robbed the fool train. It had been all very well to tell Tanya to beeline it. She
knew this country. Stringer didn’t. So he was forced to backtrack the only way he knew, along the crooked route the crooks had led him. A lot of it was downhill, and he and Opal had led the ailing Slim most of the way at a walk. So while horses took bigger steps than even a man Stringer’s height, he figured he was making about the same time by jogging down slopes and walking up them. He forced himself to sit down and rest a few minutes at least once an hour. There’d been some discussion about that when he’d been covering an infantry outfit in Cuba once. Some crusty old-timers held that it was best to stay on one’s feet the length of a forced march because once you were off ‘em, it seemed harder to get back up again. But the army had made scientific studies, marching one outfit against another it couldn’t compare notes with, and decided that while it was a close call, it did seem men who took trail breaks made up for the lost time by managing to walk instead of stagger the last few miles.
It still took hours for Stringer to notice he was moving down into that abandoned mining area. He was still high on the north slope of the valley when he spotted the half-dozen ponies tied up in the shade of the ruined stamping mill. The afternoon shade was getting darker and longer now. He hunkered down in the tall grass, squinted hard, and still failed to make out any human form down around the mine. But ponies hardly ever tethered themselves to anything. The afternoon sun, though lower, was hotter than ever. The riders had no doubt sought shelter in the mine itself.
That didn’t mean any number of ‘em couldn’t pop out of the adit like armed cuckoo birds at any minute of any hour. Since he had no way of knowing which side of the law they might be on, he figured it would be best to sort of work around them. That part seemed easy enough. But, damn, he was sure tired of walking, and any one of those tethered mounts would fix him up just fine.
He could see they were lined up within easy view of the mine adit, and whether their riders were law or outlaw, they had to be smart enough to have someone posted as lookout. There had to be a better way. For all he really knew, the rascals holed up in the mine were posse riders, and he was in enough trouble without a charge of horse stealing to explain. The state of Colorado still hung horse thieves.