He heeled his horse into a walk and started down the slope toward the ranch house. In the moonlight, he was making himself a clear target for any rifleman who wanted to draw a bead on him. But just as clearly, he didn’t care about that. He wasn’t worried. An air of supreme confidence hung over him. Like a conquering general with his army right behind him, he rode down the hill.
And from the west, with a swift, sudden rataplan of hoofbeats, riders swept toward Sandeen and his men, the guns in their hands spouting flame. Sandeen whirled his horse, saw the small number of men attacking him and his forces, and knew that the posse from San Remo had arrived.
But they could be destroyed as easily as anyone else who dared to oppose him.
“Kill them!” Sandeen howled. “Kill them all!”
Chapter Thirty-one
Horn cursed as he saw the imperious rider high-stepping his horse down the hill toward the Lazy F headquarters. Even though he had never seen Ed Sandeen before, there was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at the former outlaw and rogue cattleman. Accompanied by a small army of gunfighters, Sandeen had come to claim what he thought of as his rightful prize.
And Horn had less than a dozen inexperienced townies to stop him.
It would have been easy at that moment to turn and ride away. Horn even considered the idea—for about two seconds. He knew he had a growing reputation as an amoral bastard. But there had been a time when he was an honorable man, and for damn sure nobody had ever accused him of being a coward. He just wished he was a little better with a short gun.
He drew his pistol anyway and looked over his shoulder at the tense faces of his unofficial posse. “Let’s go,” he said, and he spurred forward before any of them had a chance to argue with him. The gun in his hand bucked against his palm as he fired the first shot of the battle.
Thankfully, he wasn’t charging Sandeen alone, as he had worried for an instant that he might be. More shots blasted as the men from San Remo spread out in a line and galloped toward the gunmen on the hillside. Even over the roar of guns, Horn heard somebody shouting orders. That would be Sandeen. Horn kept his eyes fixed on the man and rode straight toward him, holding his fire for the moment until he got closer. If he could kill Sandeen, the rest of that murderous gun crew might not be inclined to fight quite so hard.
Suddenly Horn felt a shiver go through his horse as a bullet thudded into the animal’s body. The dun’s front legs folded up, and as the horse collapsed, Horn was catapulted into the air. Only the fact that he had instinctively kicked his feet free from the stirrups as soon as the horse was hit saved him from having the dying animal roll over on him. Instead he slammed into the ground several feet in front of the horse, losing his hat to the impact. He rolled over and came to his knees, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Somehow he had managed to hang on to the revolver in his hand.
It might not do him much good, though, because as his eyes widened, he stared at the line of killers charging toward him, flame geysering from the muzzles of their guns. Bullets sang around Horn’s head.
It was pretty much a toss-up, he thought grimly, whether they would shoot him or trample him first.
But either way he would die fighting. He jerked the gun up and fired.
* * *
Buckston tried to struggle up from the divan as he heard the shooting, too. “Wh-what—” he gasped.
Laura held him down. “Stay there, Jeff,” she said. “You’re in no shape to fight.”
“Damn it, Laura—” She was right; his strength deserted him, and he sagged back against the cushions, weak as a kitten, his head spinning madly.
She stood up and lunged toward the table that held the lamp. A quick puff of breath extinguished the flame and plunged the parlor into darkness. She didn’t want the two of them showing up as plain targets through the front windows. Spinning back toward the divan, she picked up the gun and crouched beside Buckston, ready to fight if need be.
His hand reached out in the darkness and brushed her sleeve. Feebly clutching it, he said, “L-Laura, is it . . . Sandeen?”
“That’s right,” she replied. “He’s come to take the ranch. But he’s not going to do it.” An edge composed of equal parts of anger, determination, and hysteria crept into her voice. “He’s not!”
As she waited there, she slipped her injured arm out of the sling. It was still stiff and sore, but she could use it. She stripped the sling from around her neck and then wrapped both hands around the Colt.
“Come on, Sandeen,” she breathed through tightly clenched teeth. “Just try to come in here, you son of a bitch.”
* * *
Stormy stretched his legs and pulled ahead of the horses ridden by the Lazy F punchers. They trailed well behind Frank as he and the Appaloosa almost flew over the trail. It wasn’t far to the ranch, but the shooting was fierce and he didn’t know for sure what was happening. His best guess was that Horn had made it back from San Remo with a posse and gotten to the Lazy F just about the same time as Sandeen.
But the chances were that Horn and his companions would be heavily outnumbered, and Sandeen’s men might wipe them out in pretty short order—unless Frank and his bunch got there in time to turn the tide of battle.
Just as on the previous night, Frank raced through the trees and came out on the ridge overlooking the ranch. In the wash of silvery moonlight, he saw the gang of killers that had been bound for the Lazy F. Those gunmen, led by Ed Sandeen, had swung toward their left flank to meet the charge of a much smaller group. That would be Horn and the men from San Remo, Frank thought. As he galloped down the hill, he looked for the special deputy, but didn’t see him.
Then his eyes were drawn to the fallen horse and the man kneeling on the ground nearby, gun in hand spouting orange flame as he fired at the charging killers. Frank recognized Horn and knew the man had only seconds to live unless something distracted Sandeen’s men.
Looked like it was up to him to provide that distraction.
Shots slammed from his Colt as he attacked the gunmen from the rear. He saw one man fall, knocked out of the saddle by a bullet. Other riders reined in and whirled their horses to meet this new threat. Bullets began to whistle around Frank’s head, but he never slowed down.
Instead, gun blazing, he plunged straight into the heart of chaos.
* * *
“It’s Morgan!” Sandeen exclaimed as he saw the lone rider racing toward them from the rear, snapping off shots as he came. “But he’s by himself, the damned fool!” Sandeen forgot about the posse from San Remo for the moment as he jerked his mount around. They could be dealt with easily. It was that bastard Morgan he wanted. And if Morgan was crazy enough to attack by himself—
“Wait!” Mitch Kite cried from where he rode beside Sandeen, reaching out to grab his boss’s arm. “Look up there!”
More riders had just topped the hill and now began to gallop down the slope toward the ranch headquarters. Spurts of flame winked in the darkness as they started shooting.
Sandeen had no idea who these newcomers were, but he realized that their identity didn’t really matter. What was important was that suddenly he and his men were caught between two opposing forces, and they were being raked by a deadly cross fire. They might still outnumber the ranch’s defenders, but their position was no longer nearly as strong as it had been only moments earlier.
There was only one answer. Power lay in the ranch house. Whoever captured it was going to win this battle because that was where Laura Flynn was, and with Laura in his hands, the Lazy F men would have no choice but to surrender. Sandeen whirled his horse yet again and cruelly jabbed his spurs in its flanks. “Come on!” he shouted to Kite. “Let’s get to the house!”
Trailed by several of the gunmen, they headed for the Lazy F ranch house.
* * *
All of a sudden, Tom Horn wasn’t facing the charging killers by himself anymore. The members of the posse caught up to him and swung down from their saddles to form a skirmish line, as d
irected by powerfully shouted orders from Willard Donohue. Horn was shocked by the authority and command in the trampish-looking man’s voice, and wondered fleetingly if Donohue had once been an officer in the Army. He sure sounded like it.
But there was no time to ponder that. Horn came to his feet, flanked once again by Culverhouse and Donohue, and added his shots to the volley after volley ripping out from the men of San Remo. The storm of lead scythed through Sandeen’s men and knocked several of them from their saddles. Some of the horses collapsed as they were hit, and riders flew through the air or screamed as the fallen horses rolled on them, breaking bones and crushing organs.
Not that the posse was escaping unscathed. A couple of men fell as Sandeen’s men returned the fire, and two more staggered but stayed on their feet and kept fighting. The hammer of Horn’s gun clicked on an empty chamber. Coolly, he punched fresh shells from the loops on his belt and began to reload, paying little or no attention to the slugs whistling around his head. A man’s time was up, or it wasn’t, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it. Horn snapped the Colt’s cylinder closed, raised the gun, and started firing again.
* * *
The Lazy F punchers slammed into Sandeen’s force from the rear. Guns blared, muzzle flashes lit up desperate faces, horses collided, and men grappled hand to hand. The big cur called Dog, who had been brought to the ranch by the posse from San Remo, flashed here and there, pulling down gunmen and savaging them with his teeth until they screamed and curled up into a ball. Sandeen’s “army” was split, trying to cope with danger from two directions at once, and as more and more of them fell, the odds drew closer to even.
Frank spotted Sandeen and several other men making for the house and gave chase. He knew that Laura, Buckston, and Acey-Deucy were probably still in there. Despite the fact that Sandeen’s men were disorganized and perhaps fighting a losing battle, everything could change in the blink of an eye if Sandeen got his hands on Laura Flynn and used her as a hostage. Frank had to prevent that.
Stormy leaped through the hellish fighting, hooves barely touching the ground. Frank leaned forward over the Appaloosa’s neck and shouted, “Sandeen!” A couple of the rogue cattleman’s companions whirled around, but Sandeen kept going.
Frank recognized Mitch Kite, who ran the Verde Saloon in town for Sandeen. The gun in Kite’s hand spurted flame as he triggered a couple of shots. Frank heard the wind-rip of the bullets as they passed by his ear, and then his own Colt blasted. Kite cried out as the slug tore into his chest and lifted him from the saddle. He thudded to the ground, pawing at his chest as blood welled between his fingers. Then Frank and Stormy flashed past him.
Another of Sandeen’s men took Frank by surprise by jerking his horse directly into Stormy’s path. The Appaloosa tried to dart nimbly aside, but there wasn’t time or room to completely avoid a collision. The horses slammed together and both went down. Frank tumbled from the saddle and rolled across the ground, coming to a stop on his stomach. Bullets kicked up dirt as they thudded into the ranch yard only inches away from him. He tipped up the barrel of his gun and fired twice, the Colt barking savagely as he triggered it. Both of the other men who had been with Sandeen jerked under the impact of the well-placed bullets and pitched from their saddles.
Frank scrambled up, biting back a curse as he saw that Sandeen’s horse was at the porch of the ranch house, its saddle empty. That meant Sandeen had to be inside. As he ran toward the house, Frank thumbed fresh cartridges into his empty revolver.
Then suddenly, just as he reached the steps, a shot rang out inside.
* * *
Laura brought up the gun as the figure loomed menacingly in the doorway. She was ready to pull the trigger, but at the last second her resolve betrayed her. She couldn’t see the man’s face, and suddenly realized she didn’t know for certain who he was. She might be about to shoot a friend, perhaps even Frank Morgan. So she cried, “Stop! Don’t move—”
The man leaped forward, arm swinging. His hand crashed brutally against Laura’s head and drove her to the side. The gun flew out of her hands as she fell to her knees.
“You damn bitch!” a voice that she recognized as Ed Sandeen’s grated above her. “I would have given you everything! Now, because of you, I have to take what I want!”
On the divan, Jeff Buckston forced himself to roll onto his side, even though his limp muscles still didn’t want to work and agony pounded through his skull and the world spun crazily around him. He thought he had heard something strike the floor beside the divan, and instinct made him reach down with a shaking hand and search for whatever it was. His fingers brushed something smooth. He realized a second later it was the walnut butt of the gun Laura had been holding.
Buckston glanced toward the spot where she had fallen when Sandeen struck her. Sandeen still loomed over her, reaching for her with one hand while the other held a gun. Buckston found the strength somewhere deep inside him to close his hand around the Colt and lift it. He swung the barrel toward the two figures across the room. Sandeen had hold of Laura now, and she was struggling desperately against him.
“Sandeen!” Buckston rasped.
Sandeen froze for a second, then viciously shoved Laura away from him, sending her skidding across the floor. He took a step toward the divan. “Buckston?” he said. “You’re still alive, you bastard?” The gun in his hand started to come up. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
“So am I,” Buckston said, and he pulled the trigger.
* * *
Frank bounded onto the porch as the echoes of the shot fired inside the house died away. He came to a tense stop there at the top of the steps as a dark figure loomed in the front door. The man stepped forward, gun in hand, and as he came into the slanting moonlight, Frank recognized Ed Sandeen.
The two of them fired at the same instant, flame lancing from the barrels of their guns and almost touching. Sandeen’s shot missed, but Frank’s bullet crashed into the man’s body and drove him backward. Frank’s brain caught up to his instincts then, and he realized that there had already been a dark stain on the breast of Sandeen’s shirt before he pulled the trigger. Sandeen was already wounded, maybe even dying, but sheer hatred had driven him on to take one last shot at The Drifter.
But now Sandeen lay on his back in the doorway, his gun slipping from limp, nerveless fingers at his side, and as his final breath rattled grotesquely in his throat, the threat that he represented to the Mogollon Rim country came to an end.
“Mr. Morgan!” Laura cried from inside the parlor. “Mr. Morgan, is that you? Look out for Sandeen!”
“No need,” Frank said as he stepped over the corpse in the doorway. “He’s dead. Are you all right?”
A match scratched into life, its glare lighting up the room. Frank saw Laura standing by the divan as she lit a lamp. Buckston still lay there, but he was conscious now, propped up a little on one elbow. He held a gun in his hand, and Frank knew the foreman of the Lazy F had fired the first shot to strike Sandeen.
“We’re all right,” Laura said breathlessly. “Jeff . . . Jeff saved us.”
Frank smiled and nodded curtly. “Good to see that you made it, Buckston. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to shoot me. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m on your side, not Sandeen’s.”
“Yeah,” Buckston said in a weak voice. “I reckon I can see that. And I think I’ve . . . done all the shootin’ I can do . . . for now.” He let the revolver slide from his fingers to lie on the divan beside him.
Frank turned back toward the porch, and as he stepped out he realized that the battle was over. Bodies littered the ranch yard, but most of them belonged to Sandeen’s hired gunfighters. Some of them had realized that the odds were turning against them and had surrendered. They stood now in a dispirited group, surrounded by a mixed force of Lazy F cowboys and armed citizens from San Remo.
Tom Horn limped toward the house, a dark stain on the right leg of his trousers. Jasper Culve
rhouse and Mayor Donohue were with him. Donohue’s left hand clutched his right arm where a bullet had torn through it. Frank grinned as he saw that Dog was with them. The big cur was licking his chops, as if he had just feasted on a bad hombre or two.
“Everybody all right in there?” Horn asked as he nodded toward the house.
“Just fine,” Frank said. “Except for Sandeen. He’s dead.”
Horn grunted. “So are most of his men. He rode over here tonight for a cleanup, but he’s the one who got cleaned.”
Frank gestured toward Horn’s leg. “How bad are you hit?”
“Aw, hell, this is just a scratch. Nothin’ to worry about. The mayor got ventilated worse’n I did.”
“A mere flesh wound,” Donohue proclaimed. “I’ll be fine.”
Horn turned toward him. “The way you were shoutin’ orders and movin’ men around, it sounded to me like you’ve got some military experience, Mayor.”
“Him?” Culverhouse snorted. “He was just a Union general back durin’ the Civil War and won a few medals for it, that’s all.”
Frank laughed. Donohue had told him once not to judge him entirely by appearances. That had certainly turned out to be good advice.
Dog nuzzled Frank’s leg. Frank reached down and petted him, roughing up the fur on the wolflike cur’s head.
“Looks like I’m gonna have my work cut out for me the next few days,” Culverhouse went on. “Lots of coffins to build and plenty of buryin’ to do.”
“Maybe so,” Frank said, “but when the sun comes up in the morning, it’ll be shining on a lot more peaceful range than it went down on tonight.”
Chapter Thirty-two
The menace that Ed Sandeen had represented to this part of the territory had not been ended without paying a price. Two more of the Lazy F punchers were dead, as were Alonzo Hightower and Ben Desmond from San Remo. Several men from both groups had been wounded, a few of them badly. It would take a while for everybody to get over what had happened, Frank knew.
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