by Lee Lejeune
Seven riders came jogging along. They were obviously in no particular hurry.
‘Well, my boots and buttons!’ exclaimed Jordan Rivers after they’d passed. ‘Did you see who that was?’
‘We saw good and clear,’ Jeremiah Gibson said. ‘That was James Cutaway and his sidekicks.’ He looked at Sunshine. ‘What I’d like to know is: where are they headed?’
‘They could be headed for the Bartok spread,’ Sunshine speculated.
‘So, what do we do now?’ Jordan asked.
For the first time Jeremiah Gibson looked confused. The men turned to Sunshine and he considered their options. Either they could follow the James Cutaway bunch or they could continue on to the Sheffield place to establish the truth about Bart Bartok.
‘I think we should go on,’ Sunshine said. ‘The Cutaways aren’t going to harm those ladies and if we can find out where Bart is we have an ace in the hole.’
Jeremiah nodded solemnly. ‘I think you’re right on that, son,’ he said.
They continued on for a mile or so. Then Jeremiah held up his hand and again they drew to a halt.
‘Now, boys,’ he said. ‘The Sheffield place is some piece ahead. So I suggest you boys take a rest here while I go on and take a looksee. Then I’ll come back and, depending on what I’ve found, we can decide on our next move.’
‘Either that,’ Jordan said, ‘or we can leave our hosses here and go forward on foot.’
‘I think that might be the best idea,’ Sunshine said.
So they tethered their mounts in a shaded glade where they could crop the grass and rest. Then they fanned out and made their way cautiously towards the Sheffield place, keeping off the faint track. From time to time Jeremiah Gibson went back to the track and bent down to examine the signs.
‘This is the way, sure enough,’ he said quietly. ‘Lookee here. These are the hoofmarks. Two men on horses. This is the way they came.’
‘Yep,’ Jordan said, ‘this is definitely the way to the Sheffield place.’
They got off the track again and made their way through the trees cautiously until Jeremiah waved them down again.
‘Now, boys,’ he said, ‘get down on your bellies and edge forward through the trees. Keep as quiet as the dead.’
The ‘boys’ got down and slid forward from cover to cover. Then Jeremiah waved them to a halt again. He produced his spyglass and stood behind a tree, peering at a building some fifty yards ahead. Sunshine saw immediately that the dilapidated building was occupied. There were several horses grazing on the pasture and a thin spiral of smoke ascended from the broken-down chimneypot. Sunshine counted the horses.
‘Those two moustachioed gents are there,’ he said quietly, ‘They’re easy to pick out. But there are other horses in the corral too. I count three. That means those two gents are not alone.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Jordan asked.
‘Well, one thing’s for sure,’ Sunshine said, ‘we can’t just blunder in and hope for the best. If Bart’s being held in there that’s about the worst thing we could do.’
Jeremiah Gibson agreed with that. ‘What we do is we wait to see what’s gonna happen next,’ he said.
Jordan made a tut-tut noise. ‘If we do that, Jeremiah, we might be setting down on our arses doing nothing much at all until Doomsday and we can’t leave the horses back there for ever, can we?’
The boys growled in agreement. Sunshine took the point. After all, he reasoned, they didn’t yet know whether Bart was being held in that ramshackle cabin, did they?
Then suddenly Fate took a hand. Slim Savage said, ‘Listen, boys, I hear horses coming.’
The boys all froze and held their weapons ready.
‘Don’t do a thing,’ Jeremiah warned. ‘Just keep yourselves still and watch.’
They didn’t have to wait long. Two riders rode up the trail to the cabin and dismounted. The door was opened by someone, who greeted them.
‘Well, bless my belt and buttons!’ Jordan Rivers exclaimed. ‘Can I believe my eyes?’
Sunshine was peering between the branches and he did believe his eyes.
‘Jed Cutaway and Sheriff McGiven,’ he breathed.
‘What in hell’s name are they doing here?’ Jeremiah asked in astonishment.
Sunshine grinned. ‘Well, one thing’s for sure. It seems Jed isn’t working with his brother James at all, and the sheriff is in cahoots with Jed. Which is very interesting indeed.’
‘So, this is kind of puzzling,’ Jeremiah opined. ‘It’s kind of difficult to know what to do next.’
Sunshine was still grinning but he wasn’t happy.
‘Jed Cutaway and the sheriff must be here for some reason. I think we should wait for developments. Then we’ll know why they’re here.’
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the door of the cabin was thrust open abruptly and a whole bunch of men spilled out: Jed Cutaway, Sheriff McGiven, the two moustachioed gents and four other men, one of whom had his hands tied behind his back,
‘By Jehosophat! I was right,’ Jeremiah exclaimed. ‘That there’s Bart Bartok.’
Sunshine peered between the branches and held his Colt Peacemaker steady as the men forced Bart on to a horse. He saw that Bart Bartok was no more than a youth, quite slim and reedy, and he looked pale and terrified. Jordan pulled himself up.
‘We’ve got the edge on them. Why don’t we just rush in and free Bart? They won’t know what’s hit them until after it’s hit them, will they?’
Sunshine shook his head.
‘Hold on, I don’t think we can do that, Mr Gibson. I’m wondering why Jed Cutaway and Sheriff McGiven rode up like that and why the whole bunch of them are hitting the trail so hard.’
‘Well, we’ve left it too late, anyways,’ Jeremiah Gibson said, ‘ ’cause they’re riding off real fast like bats out of hell.’
He was right; the whole bunch were riding lickety split away from the Sheffield place as though they had forks of fire prodding their tails.
‘You know what that means?’ Slim Savage said. ‘It means they’re expecting another bunch to come riding in.’
‘Well, that’s real puzzling,’ Gibson said. ‘What d’you think we do next, Mr Shining?’
Sunshine paused for a moment, allowing his thoughts to settle into a theory.
‘I guess the two Cutaway brothers are split on this. What I’ve just seen tells me that Jed and his sidekicks are holding Bart, and that James Cutaway and his bullyboys have found out where Jed and the others have been holding him and they’re about to strike the Sheffield place. So Jed and his boys are hightailing it pronto.’
‘So what do we do?’ Jordan Rivers asked.
‘Well, we can’t do a whole lot without our horses, can we?’ Sunshine said, ‘So I guess we should walk back and mount up.’
But before they could get themselves up off their butts there was a further development.
‘Keep still, boys,’ Jeremiah Gibson said hoarsely, ‘and hold your guns ready.’
They took cover behind the trees and watched as the riders rode down the trail towards the Sheffield place.
‘My Gawd! You’re right, boy,’ he said to Sunshine. ‘That’s James Cutaway and his bunch we saw on the trail back there!’
They stood among the trees and watched as James Cutaway and his men rode towards the Sheffield place. They heard James Cutaway give an order, then all his men drew rein and came to a halt.
‘We’re too late,’ James Cutaway shouted. ‘They’ve got clean away. All the horses have gone.’
‘Why don’t we take a looksee?’ one of his sidekicks suggested. ‘They can’t have got far. Maybe they left Bart Bartok in there.’
Two of the men dismounted and ran to the cabin. The door was already swinging open.
‘Nobody at home,’ one of them yelled.
‘Must have known we were on our way, boss,’ another man shouted.
‘Stop wasting time,’ James Cutaway told them. ‘We’ve gotta
get on their tails. They can’t be far ahead.’
The whole bunch rode off hell for leather in pursuit of Jed Cutaway and his crew.
‘Well, at least we know where they’re headed,’ Jeremiah Gibson said. ‘So what do we do?’
‘We walk back for our horses and follow,’ Sunshine replied.
The men had got their bits firmly between their teeth, so they hit the trail and ran. Some of them were in better condition than the others, but Sunshine outstripped them all. When they reached the horses, Gibson was breathing so hard he had to sit on a fallen tree to get his breath back.
Chingalong gave Sunshine a sidelong glance as if to say, What happens next, you crazy man?
‘Mount up and keep together, boys,’ Sunshine called. ‘My guess is there’s going to be gunplay ahead and we have to keep away from flying lead. As long as we rescue Bart Bartok that’s all that matters.’
‘Well, there’s no love lost between those two brothers, that’s for sure,’ Jordan said.
Gibson grunted in agreement. He was still trying to recover his breath, but he could now swing on to his horse’s back. When he was mounted he looked a whole lot happier.
‘Now, boys, like Mr Shining says, what we have to do is rescue that boy. We don’t need to get tangled up in a gunfight, if we can avoid it.’
‘That’s a real pity,’ Jordan said. ‘I’d be more than happy to take a pot shot at either of those Cutaway boys after what they done in this part of the country.’
‘Yes, but which one, that is the question?’ Slim Savage asked.
CHAPTER TEN
As they rode on there was a sense of scarcely suppressed excitement. Nobody said much but they were all listening intently and wondering what would happen next. Sunshine was apprehensive. How would this bunch of hillbillies react when the chips were down? He knew Jeremiah Gibson had been in the recent war and that he could track like a native, but what would happen when the gunplay started? he wondered.
Then the shooting did start and the party came to an abrupt halt.
‘Did I hear gunshots?’ Jordan asked, somewhat over-eagerly.
Jeremiah turned his horse and held up his hand like a general addressing his troops at Gettysburg.
‘Now, men, we need to play this like a hand of poker. You know what I mean? We don’t just rush in like mad bulls.’
Jordan grinned. ‘What are the choices, General?’ he piped up.
‘Well, my guess is Jed and his bunch were just waiting for Jed’s brother James and his buddies to come riding along the trail.’
‘Brother against brother? That don’t seem hardly right, do it?’ Slim Savage said.
‘Blood’s a lot thinner than water when it comes to greed,’ Jeremiah Gibson affirmed piously. ‘Look at what happened between Cain and Abel in the Good Book.’
‘Jacob and Esau too,’ Slim Savage added.
There was no time for further exchanges because at that moment the shooting started in real earnest. It was unexpectedly close. Sunshine cocked his head on one side, taking in the picture. James Cutaway and his buddies were down on the trail; his brother Jed was on a slight rise to the right. Sunshine could even hear them shouting abuse at one another as they fired. But where was Bart Barkok? That was Sunshine’s main concern.
‘So what do we do now, General?’ Jordan asked again.
‘Well. . . .’ Jeremiah was stroking the bristles on his chin. ‘There’s a slight rise just along to the right here. What we do is we keep to the high ground so we come out just above it, where we can look down and judge what to do next.’
Jordan gave a contemptuous snigger; he clearly had his own views about how they should proceed.
‘OK, Mr Gibson,’ Sunshine said, ‘why don’t you lead the way?’
Gibson led them in a wide loop away from the trail and then up a steep rise back towards the trail again. They could hear the shooting diminishing and then gaining strength again.
‘OK, boys,’ Gibson said. ‘If we leave our horses here we can look over the edge and see what’s going on. But don’t look over too far in case a stray bullet comes in to take your hat off . . . or your head for that matter.’
‘Which would be a danged shame for the head involved,’ Jordan added with a chuckle.
They tethered their horses to stunted cottonwoods and made their way forward, keeping low. When Sunshine peered over the crest his admiration for Jeremiah Gibson’s bushcraft skills increased tenfold. They were just above the place where Jed Cutaway and his men were shooting down at Jed’s brother James and his men. But James and his men were no longer on the trail; they were above, concealed among the trees. On the trail lay a dead horse and a man who was trying to crawl for cover.
There was no sign of Bart Bartok.
Then the shouting began. A voice roared from the trees:
‘What the hell’s going on here? Why are we shooting at each other like this?’ Sunshine recognized James Cutaway’s voice. Then Jed Cutaway spoke from immediately below him.
‘We’re gunning down on you because you’re yellow-bellied rattlers that have no more good faith in you than the Devil himself.’
‘That sounds promising,’ Jordan growled. ‘They’ll be sending out wedding invitations next.’
Sunshine was watching the wounded man as he crawled for cover. It made him feel sick to his stomach. Then James Cutaway spoke again.
‘Why can’t we talk this over instead of shooting the guts out of each other? We all want the same thing, don’t we?’
‘Maybe we do,’ Jed shouted back. ‘The difference is you want to kill for it and I want to talk about it.’
James laughed; it wasn’t a pleasant sound.
‘Is that why you’re holding that boy Bart Bartok?’ he shouted.
‘You don’t need to worry none about him’ Jed yelled back. ‘We’re feeding him up fine and he’s as happy as a pig in shit. Ain’t that so, boy?’
There was no audible reply, but Sunshine had heard enough to judge where Bart was being held.
Now the wounded man had crawled to the edge of the trail. He raised his head and bleated like a sheep at the slaughter. Then his head dropped forward and he stopped moving.
‘Well, that’s one less to shoot,’ Gibson muttered, somewhat unkindly.
‘Another thing,’ James Cutaway shouted from the trees, ‘and this is for Sheriff McGiven. I guess you must have worked out by now that you’re finished, boy. You might just about become the sheriff of Hades if you can stand the flames. So I hope you’re ready to be burned up in those fires, ’cause that’s where you’re headed.’
‘Sounds like war in heaven,’ Slim Savage said, his knowledge of scripture being somewhat limited. Sunshine turned to Jeremiah Gibson.
‘Listen, Mr Gibson, I’m going down there to rescue that boy.’
Gibson turned to him in amazement. ‘You can’t do that. It’ll be like sticking your head in the lion’s mouth.’
‘Well, Mr Gibson, I figure I have to take a chance on that.’
‘Are you plumb crazy, boy?’
‘Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. I’d be obliged if you could cover for me, Mr Gibson, and I’d prefer not to get a bullet in my back. So pass the word along.’
Jordan chuckled again. ‘You might be plumb crazy, man, but I think I’ll come down there with you.’
Jeremiah Gibson almost threw up his hands in despair.
‘Well, if that’s what you want, I guess that’s the way it has to be. If I remember right there’s a kind of animal track off to the right here. If you slide down there they might not notice you until it’s too late.’
Sunshine grinned. ‘Thanks for the advice, Mr Gibson. That’s the way we’ll go.’
Gibson stretched out his hand. ‘You might be crazy, boy, but you’ve got cojones. So good luck – and call me Jerry.’
Sunshine took the offered hand and squeezed it hard.
‘Thank you, Jerry.’
Sunshine and Jordan crawled to the right; sure eno
ugh there was an animal track that led down towards the trail. Generations of deer had probably been using it from time immemorial, so it was well worn. Jed Cutaway’s men might have used it to outflank James Cutaway’s men if they had known about it. Sunshine would have been happier on his own but Jordan had insisted on coming with him.
‘OK,’ Sunshine said to Jordan, ‘no shooting unless it’s really necessary. I want that boy out alive.’
‘I’m with you,’ Jordan said. ‘You know something? That boy Bart knows me. He might have thought you were one of the Cutaway outfit.’
That was a point Sunshine hadn’t considered.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
As they crept down the animal track there was a sudden outbreak of shooting and cursing, mainly from the James Cutaway side. Bethany Bartok’s land must be awful precious if brothers will fight to the death over it, Sunshine thought to himself. He hadn’t got more than halfway down the animal track before Jordan suddenly touched him on the back.
‘Stop where you are!’ he hissed.
Sunshine stopped and looked back at Jordan. Jordan mouthed at him and jerked his thumb over to the right. Sunshine froze and listened. He heard rustling to the right of the track. James Cutaway’s men might not know about the animal track but some of them were crawling towards it from the right, hoping to enfilade the enemy. The sudden outbreak of shooting had been a diversion.
Before Sunshine had time to realize what that implied the foliage to the right of the track parted and a revolver poked out, followed by the face of a man. The man saw the track and smiled. He looked to the right, where James Cutaway’s men were firing, then to the left, where he came face to face with Sunshine and his Colt Peacemaker.
Sunshine could have shot the man through the eye; instead he brought the Peacemaker down on the man’s head. The man rolled over sideways and fired his gun. The bullet went harmlessly into the air.
Before Sunshine could stop to think another man reared up; his gun was pointed directly at him. Hell’s bells! Sunshine thought, I’m going to die. But before the man could pull the trigger there was a flash; the gunman reared back and fell.