Slaughter

by William W. Johnstone

  After a couple of seconds that seemed much longer, Linderman got his fingers in a crack in the rock. He nodded to let Frank know that he was all right. Frank let go of him and continued edging on toward their goal.

  They had come far enough, he decided a moment later. When he had both feet and one hand in secure holds, he used the other hand to point downward. Linderman nodded again in understanding.

  Before they could begin their descent, though, one of the guards who were now almost directly below them said, “Here comes that little runt. Wonder what he wants.”

  Frank twisted his head and saw that the door into one of the cabins had opened. Two figures strode toward the fire. Frank couldn’t make out any details at first, but as the men came closer he saw that one was short, slender, and dressed in a brown tweed suit and derby hat. The other wore the rough range clothes of one of the gunmen.

  Frank had never seen the dude before. He was sure of that. But it was more important that the dude not see him now. So far neither of the newcomers had looked up as they walked toward the guards.

  But if they did, there was a good chance they would spot the two men splayed out against the rocky face of the bluff.

  If that happened, those hired killers could stand down there and just about take target practice. They wouldn’t need more than a minute or two to shoot Frank and Linderman plumb full of holes.

  Chapter 30

  So far, though, the two men hadn’t looked up. The dude’s attention was on the three guards, and the man with him was following his lead.

  “Damn it, Warner, what did I tell you about getting drunk?” the dude asked angrily as he strode up to the cavelike area under the bluff.

  “Sorry, Mr. Mitchell,” one of the guards replied. “We’re not drunk, though, I can promise you that. Just takin’ a little nip ever’ now and then to help us stay awake.”

  Mitchell snorted as if to demonstrate how ridiculous that sounded to him.

  “Anyway,” one of the other guards put in, “you can see for yourself that Meskin bitch ain’t gone nowhere. She’s right there.”

  “And lookin’ mighty fine, too,” the gunman called Warner added. “When can we start takin’ turns gettin’ to know her better, Boss?”

  “I’ve told you, I’m not the boss,” Mitchell snapped. “But I speak for him and he’s given firm orders that Señora Montero is not to be harmed unless and until he says so. Is that understood?”

  “Sure, sure,” Warner answered sullenly. “You can’t expect a fella not to notice how pretty a woman is, though.”

  “You can notice all you want. Just keep your hands off her.”

  “Fine.”

  After a second of silence, the dude called Mitchell spoke again. “Señora, I apologize for this ordeal you’re having to go through. You should have cooperated when Mr. Magnusson first approached you.”

  “So you work for that bastard Magnusson, you little weasel,” Dolores said. “That doesn’t surprise me. I never trusted him.”

  Up above, though, Frank wasn’t so quick to accept Mitchell’s words at face value. Mitchell and the other members of the gang would still be maintaining their pose of working for Magnusson while they were around Dolores, just in case she managed to get away somehow, no matter how unlikely that seemed.

  If she did escape, though, she would blame Magnusson for her kidnapping instead of the man who was really behind it.

  “What do you want?” Dolores went on. “Do you want me to sign some sort of agreement with Magnusson that will let him drill for oil on my range?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. You’ll have to relinquish all claim to Salida del Sol.”

  “Relinquish all—” A burst of rapid, furious Spanish came from Dolores. “You’re loco!” she said in English. “Magnusson’s loco! Give him my ranch? Never!”

  “We’ll see,” Mitchell said calmly. “Perhaps you’ll regard things differently by tomorrow. I’ll bid you good night and let you think it over. I warn you, though, Señora, your time is limited.”

  “It doesn’t matter how long you give me to think it over! I’ll never give up my ranch!”

  Mitchell just gave an infuriating chuckle, then turned and walked off, accompanied by the hardcase who had brought him out here to talk to Dolores.

  Neither man looked back.

  Frank didn’t heave a sigh of relief until Mitchell had mounted one of the horses tied near the cabins and ridden off toward the canyon entrance. He was going back to wherever he had come from, probably Los Angeles. The outfit he wore was a town suit if Frank had ever seen one.

  The other man went back into the cabin and shut the door. Then and only then did Frank glance over at Linderman and nod. They began edging their way down the rock face.

  All the cabins were dark except the one from which Mitchell and his companion had emerged earlier. The yellow glow of lamplight was still visible in its window. Most of the members of the gang had turned in for the night, though.

  If Frank and Linderman could dispose of Dolores’s guards without firing any shots, they stood at least a chance of being able to hustle her out of the canyon before the rest of the gunmen knew what was happening.

  Then, if they could reach the horses, they would head for Salida del Sol and hope to outrun any pursuit.

  The glow from the fire grew brighter around the two men as they climbed down the bluff. The ceiling of that cavelike area underneath the overhang was about eight feet high, Frank had estimated when he was studying it from a distance. When he and Linderman were no more than ten feet off the ground, he paused, slipped his gun out of its holster, looked over at Linderman, and nodded.

  The foreman drew his own revolver and returned Frank’s grim nod.

  Then both men pushed off from the wall and dropped through empty air toward the sandy ground, their hats flying off as they fell.

  The second that it took them to land seemed longer to Frank. But then his feet smacked the ground and he staggered to catch his balance.

  Directly in front of him, no more than two feet away, one of the gunmen gaped at him in openmouthed amazement. Frank lashed out with the gun on his hand, smashing it into the man’s face. He heard and felt the hardcase’s jaw shatter. The man went down without a sound.

  Linderman had gone to one knee when he landed, unable to stay upright. From that position, he launched himself forward in a diving tackle aimed at one of the other guards. His arms went around the man’s waist and the impact of the collision bore the guard over backward.

  Frank went after the third and final guard, who opened his mouth to yell as he clawed at the gun on his hip. Frank could have shot him down, but that would have defeated the purpose. Instead, he grabbed the man’s gun wrist with his left hand and slashed at his head with the Colt in his right hand.

  The man threw his left arm up and blocked the blow. The shout welling up in his throat was about to emerge when Frank lowered his head and butted the man in the face with it. Blood spurted as the guard’s nose pulped under the impact.

  That shut him up, but only for the moment. He was big and brawny and strong, and Frank had his hands full wrestling with him. He hoped that Linderman was taking care of his man, but he couldn’t check to see how the foreman was doing. At least, there hadn’t been any shots or yells yet.

  Frank thrust a foot between the man’s ankles, throwing him off balance. But at the same time, the guard clamped his free hand on Frank’s throat, so that when he fell, The Drifter was pulled to the ground, too.

  The two men rolled over and over on the sand. The hardcase tried to drive his knee into Frank’s groin. Frank twisted at the hips to take the blow on his thigh. He couldn’t get any air past the brutal grip on his throat, and a red haze was beginning to descend over his eyes.

  He jabbed a short punch to the other man’s throat. That made the man gag as his eyes widened in pain. When he continued to choke and his face started to turn red, Frank knew he must have damaged the man’s windpipe.
>
  That injury just made the hired killer fight all the more desperately. He knocked Frank’s gun aside. The Colt slipped out of Frank’s fingers and slid away over the sand.

  With both hands now free, Frank cupped them and slammed them against his opponent’s ears. That did some damage, too, but again it seemed to infuriate the man and rouse him to greater heights of frenzy. He started slamming punches at Frank’s head.

  Frank rolled away from the attack and kicked the hombre in the side. A rib broke with a sharp snap. Frank laced his fingers together as he came up on his knees. Clublike, he swung both hands and drove them into the guard’s face as the man tried to struggle up.

  The hardcase went over backward, twitched a couple of times, and then lay still. Blood oozed from his mouth, nose, and ears. A strangled sigh came from him as well, and then his chest ceased rising and falling. The injury to his throat had finally choked him to death.

  Frank was a mite out of breath himself as he pushed to his feet and looked around. A few yards away, Linderman was getting up as well. The man he had been struggling with lay there unconscious.

  As soon as Linderman was on his feet, he ran over to Dolores and dropped to a knee beside her. She hadn’t said anything so far, but she was looking at Frank and Linderman like they were guardian angels that had dropped down unexpectedly from heaven.

  That must have been what it seemed like when they suddenly appeared, Frank knew . . . although nobody had ever accused him of actually being angelic, he thought wryly.

  “Are you all right, Señora?” Linderman asked Dolores while Frank picked up his gun and checked the man whose jaw he had broken. The varmint was out cold.

  “I . . . I’m fine, I guess,” Dolores answered. “Pete, is . . . is it really you?”

  “It’s me, all right,” Linderman told her. He pulled a clasp knife from his pocket and opened it. “Let’s get those ropes off of you.”

  Frank looked in the barrel of his Colt to make sure it hadn’t gotten any sand in it when he dropped it. Satisfied that the weapon was all right, at least for now, he pouched it and said, “We’ve come to get you out of here, Señora. We’ve got some horses outside the canyon. You feel up to doing some riding?”

  Dolores tossed aside the bonds that Linderman had cut from her wrists and began rubbing her hands together to improve the circulation in them. “Just stand back and watch me ride, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “Unless you have an extra gun for me, in which case I think we should go teach those bastards who kidnapped me a lesson.”

  “There’s too many of ’em for that, Señora,” Linderman said. “We need to get you outta here while we’ve got a chance.”

  “Of course. Did the two of you come alone, or is the rest of the crew waiting outside the canyon?”

  “It’s just us, ma’am.”

  Frank and Linderman pulled their boots on; then the three of them started along the canyon wall, moving fast but not making any more noise than they had to.

  Dolores whispered, “What happened at the ranch? How many of the men were hurt?”

  “I don’t know for sure about that,” Linderman told her, “but the barn burned down.”

  “We can build another barn. I’m worried about the men. Magnusson will pay for this.”

  “Magnusson’s not to blame for it,” Frank said.

  “What?” Dolores paused and turned to look at him. “Of course he is. That little bookkeeper or whatever he is said so!”

  Frank shook his head and said, “We’d better keep moving, señora. I’ll try to explain as we go along.”

  Keeping his voice low, he laid out the theory he had formed about a third party hiring the gunmen to provoke open warfare between Salida del Sol and the oil drillers. “Magnusson lost three of his wells tonight,” he told her, “and then the same bunch raided your ranch and carried you off.”

  “You have to be mistaken,” Dolores insisted. “Who else but Magnusson would benefit from ruining me and my ranch?”

  “Somebody who wants the ranch and Magnusson’s drilling operation both,” Frank said. “That’s the big boss Mitchell is really working for.”

  “What Morgan says makes sense, Señora,” Linderman put in. “I didn’t want to believe it at first either, but I reckon he’s probably got it right.”

  “I don’t know . . . I’ve been blaming Magnusson for everything for so long . . .”

  “That’s exactly what the fella behind this was counting on,” Frank said. “As well as Magnusson feeling the same way about you.”

  “All right, maybe it’s true,” she admitted grudgingly. “What do we do now?”

  “Get you back to the ranch where you’ll be safe, or at least safer. Then I want to see if I can find Mitchell. I’ve got a hunch he’ll talk if I can ever lay hands on him.”

  With an angry toss of her head, Dolores said, “If he won’t, let me ask him the questions for a while. He’ll talk.”

  The savagery in her tone was a reminder that she came from a long line of proud people who could be ruthless when they needed to be. The old Californios had been plenty tough.

  Right now, though, the first objective was to get out of the canyon before anyone discovered that Dolores was missing. When they found that she was gone and saw what sort of shape the three guards were in, they would know she’d had help getting away. She couldn’t have handled those hardcases like that by herself.

  They had to worry about the sentries posted along the canyon walls, too. Frank thought they were getting close to the spot where the lookouts had been earlier when he and Linderman were sneaking in. From here on, they would have to be as silent as possible, which he indicated to his two companions with gestures.

  But the need for stealth disappeared suddenly, heralded by an outbreak of gunshots from behind them and a bellowing voice. “The woman’s gettin’ away! Stop her!”

  “Move!” Frank said as he grabbed Dolores’s shoulder and propelled her toward the canyon mouth. “Run straight out and then turn to the right. You’ll find the horses in some trees about a hundred yards in that direction!”

  “But what about you and Pete?” she gasped.

  “Don’t worry about us, Señora!” Linderman said as he drew his gun. “Just do like Morgan says and get out of here! We’ll be right behind you!”

  Dolores nodded and broke into a run. Frank and Linderman spread out to either side of her to cover her escape. The canyon mouth loomed not far ahead of them . . .

  But then dark shapes ran out to block their escape, and a harsh voice yelled, “Hold it!” When they didn’t slow down, muzzle flame blossomed in the shadows like crimson flowers, and Frank heard the sinister song of a bullet whistling past his ear.

  Chapter 31

  Frank’s gun was already in his hand. It came up with blinding speed, roaring and bucking against his palm. He aimed above and to the right of the muzzle flash, and his instincts were true. The sentry yelled in pain as Frank’s slug bored through his body.

  More shots came from the left. Linderman returned that fire. He grunted and stumbled, and Frank knew that he’d been hit.

  Dolores realized that, too, and cried, “Pete!” She slowed and started to turn back toward him.

  “Go on!” Linderman told her. “I’m fine!”

  “You’re hurt—”

  “Damn it, Dolores!” Linderman roared. “Get out of here!”

  She still hesitated, but only for a second before picking up speed again.

  Frank veered toward Linderman and grabbed the foreman’s arm with his left hand to steady him as they ran. “You elected?” he asked.

  “Just . . . nominated,” Linderman replied through clenched teeth. “Slug knocked a chunk of meat out of my leg, but feels like it missed the bone. I can keep movin’ as long as my boot don’t fill up with blood.”

  A Winchester cracked and another bullet whined between Frank’s head and Linderman’s. Both of them fired at once, and saw the shadowy figure of a guard go spinning off his feet as their slug
s tore into him. They hurried past the bullet-riddled hombre.

  Frank thought they were past the sentries now, but the rest of the gang would be coming after them in a hurry. They had to reach the horses and start putting some distance between themselves and the canyon.

  Up ahead, Dolores ran through the canyon mouth and turned right, as Frank had told her. Frank and Linderman were about twenty yards behind her. As they made the turn, more rifles opened up behind them, but the gunmen were a long way back and were probably firing blindly. Some of the bullets chipped rock splinters off the canyon wall as Frank and Linderman hustled past.

  Then they were out in the open again and headed for the horses. Frank saw that Dolores was already mounted and had the reins of Goldy and Linderman’s horse in her hand. She hurried to meet the two men with their mounts.

  “That dog of yours almost scared me to death when I came up, Mr. Morgan,” she said as she handed down the reins. “I thought he was a wolf !”

  “A lot of people make that mistake,” Frank said. He gave Linderman a hand getting into the saddle, then swung up onto Goldy’s back. “Come on!”

  They turned their mounts and kicked them into a run. Goldy was the biggest and fastest of the three horses, and even though he had been ridden the hardest today, his competitive instincts made him want to pull out in front. Frank held the stallion back so that he could bring up the rear and fight a delaying action to protect Dolores and Linderman if he had to.

  He knew it wouldn’t take long for the gunmen to throw their saddles on their horses and come after him and his companions. They would want to recapture Dolores, or failing that, kill her. As far as they knew, her death would send the cowboys from Salida del Sol off on a vengeance quest against Magnusson’s men and finally set off the bloody war they had been trying to provoke for weeks now.

  Maybe the tables could be turned on them, though. Frank thought for a second, and then edged Goldy up alongside Linderman’s horse.