Pitchfork Pass

by William W. Johnstone

  A horned moon rose and cast a beam of light into the cell and on top of the mesa prowling coyotes yipped their hunting song. Louise whispered into the darkness. “Jane?”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Do you really believe that your son can save us?”

  Along, drawn-out pause, and then, “If anyone can, it would be Samuel.”

  “Jane, I’ll say a prayer for him.”

  “When you’re at it, say a prayer for all of us.”

  “Jane?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m very scared. I’m only sixteen and I don’t want to die.”

  “I’m scared, too, Louise.”

  “Sam will save us,” the girl said. “I just know he will.”

  “Yes, Louise, go to sleep with that thought uppermost in your mind,” Jane said. “Sam will save us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Brand gazed out on the dusty Fort Defiance parade ground, where fifty men had formed up in a single, shambling rank. Under his great dragoon mustache, the soldier’s lips were curled in contempt. “Damn my eyes, Senator, but I hate mercenaries,” he said. “I hate seed, breed and generation of them.”

  “Better Janowski’s rabble get killed than your own men,” Senator Adam Flood said. “The colonel says he expects to lose half his force in the assault on Balakai Mesa.” Flood smiled. “Win or lose.”

  “Damned impertinence, if you ask me,” Colonel Brand said. “If I’d been asked, I would’ve told General Elliot that I could take the mesa with a single infantry company.” He glared at Flood. “But I wasn’t asked.”

  “With his enemies looking for any excuse to attack him, what the president doesn’t need right now are casualty lists of dead American soldiers appearing on the front pages of the newspapers,” the senator said. “Let the mercenaries do the job. They’re expendable.”

  “Damned impertinence,” Colonel Brand said again.

  “You have the mountain howitzers?” Flood said.

  “Yes, and the mules and the damned observation balloon. I said it during the war and I say it again, battles are won on the ground, not by madmen in balloons. Now what the deuce is that Polish lunatic doing? He’s got my Gatling gun, the scoundrel.”

  “Colonel Janowski is to be given whatever he wants, that’s our agreement with him,” Flood said. “And that’s why I’m here, to make damn sure that his demands are met.”

  The Gatling opened up, a distinctive, rattling fire that sounded like a brass bedstead being dragged across a knotty wooden floor.

  “Damn him, he’s trying to shoot his own men,” Colonel Brand said, louder to be heard above the din.

  Flood stepped to the window. Janowski’s mercenaries were on their bellies, crawling toward him as he fired over their prone bodies. The senator smiled. Shouting, he said, “The colonel’s training methods are quite unorthodox. Rather, shall we say, dramatic.”

  “A true soldier doesn’t fight on his belly, sir,” Brand said. “He stands tall and proud in—” The firing had abruptly ceased and the colonel realized he was still shouting. He dropped his voice and said in a quieter tone, “He stands tall and proud in the ranks and exchanges volleys with the enemy. That’s how it was done in the war and that’s how it will be done a hundred years from now.”

  Flood said, “For regular armies, perhaps, but not for guerilla fighters.”

  “Guerilla, you say,” Colonel Brand said. “The very sound of the word makes my skin crawl.”

  Flood stepped to the office door and opened it wide. “Colonel Janowski, a word, if you please.”

  A moment later, leaning heavily on his cane, the mercenary walked inside. “What can I do for you, Senator?” he said.

  “Please be seated,” Flood said. “You seem quite out of breath.”

  Colonel Brand didn’t try to conceal his disdain as he procured a chair for Janowski and then, good manners overcoming his dislike, he said, “A whiskey with you . . . ah . . . Colonel?”

  “Please, Colonel Brand,” Janowski said. “You are very kind.”

  After he saw the Pole settled with a whiskey and a cigar, Flood said, “When can you move your assets west, Colonel?”

  “Tomorrow morning, we join the train at Cooper’s Junction and from there to Flagstaff. I expect to have my force in position at Balakai Mesa by the sixteenth of the month.”

  “Let’s see, that’s four days from now,” Flood said. “You can do it that quickly?”

  “Yes, sir, but it all depends on the reliability of the train.”

  “The train will get you to Flagstaff on time,” Brand said. “You have my assurance on that.”

  “Then my mind is set at rest,” Janowski said, instantly going up several points in Colonel Brand’s estimation. Only a gentleman accepts the word of another gentleman without question.

  “Colonel Brand, I beg your pardon, but could you leave us for a while?” Flood said. “We have some matters to discuss of a private nature.”

  “Of course,” the soldier said. “I have inspections to carry out.” He bowed to the senator and said, “Your obedient servant, sir.”

  After Brand left, Flood leaned forward in his chair and said, “Colonel, this must be a clean operation, no residuals left behind. Jacob Hammer must be eradicated and his assets expunged. I mean to the last man. At your fancy, you may choose to spare the lives of women, if any, and children, if any, but every male bearing arms will be expunged. Understand? Clean, Colonel, make it clean. There must be no prisoners.”

  Janowski nodded. “That can be accomplished quite easily.”

  “Now then, and I only mention this because the Army Corps of Engineers asked me to . . . try and keep artillery damage to the mesa to a minimum, since after this action it will be secretly restored to its original condition so that no questions are asked.”

  “That very much depends on the whereabouts of this man Jacob Hammer,” Janowski said. “If he lives on top of the mesa then extensive shell damage to the plateau will be an unfortunate reality. However, if he and his band of rogues live within the mesa, harm to the outward structure can be kept to a minimum.”

  “Very well, splendid. I’m sure the engineers will work it out,” Flood said. “The main thing is that you succeed, Colonel. The president will brook no failure.”

  “Senator, you may inform the president that my men and I will not fail. I will remove the Hammer albatross from around his neck.”

  “Then, a word of advice, Colonel,” Flood said. “Should you, God forbid, not succeed in this endeavor it would be better for you that you save the last bullet for yourself. You have your mercenaries and your cannons but be not proud, Colonel Janowski. Remember that men of action are but the unconscious instruments of men of thought and are thus expendable.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sam Flintlock knew that he’d lost, lost badly, but now wasn’t the time to throw in the towel, not with his mother in Jacob Hammer’s clutches. He had to do something, anything, to strike back against the man’s evil empire.

  The question was how.

  Flintlock had spent a wakeful night beside O’Hara’s grave, but he could not look to the dead for help. There was only himself. He had it to do. He drank water from the pond, filled his canteen and then saddled the buckskin. Flintlock had no plan. His hope was that as he rode toward Balakai Mesa inspiration would come to him.

  He avoided Pitchfork Pass and approached the mesa from the west and dismounted in a stand of mixed piñon and juniper where he could not be seen from the summit. Flintlock rubbed the rough stubble on his jaw and bleakly stared up at the vast bulk of the plateau that soared seven thousand feet above the flat. The wind that rustled in the trees felt cool on his neck and streamed the buckskin’s mane. His hoped-for inspiration had not come to him but for one treacherous thought . . . maybe there was nothing he could do . . . not a damned thing . . . David against Goliath, only this time the Philistine had won.

  Flintlock loosened th
e buckskin’s girth and then fetched his back against a tree. The wakeful vigil beside O’Hara’s grave finally caught up with him and he closed his eyes and slept . . .

  The sun rose to its highest point in the sky and then dropped toward the west and Flintlock dreamed of fern-shadowed ponds where O’Hara lay surrounded by green frogs that jumped from his naked body and plopped headfirst into dark water.

  He woke with a start and rose quickly to his feet. His horse grazed on bunchgrass and the wind still stirred the trees. Nothing had changed but the fading light.

  Acting more on instinct than inspiration, Flintlock took up his Winchester and prowled the base of the mesa. About a hundred yards from where his horse stood he found a point where there was a bowed drop in the caprock, and the shingled slope swept gradually upward. Flintlock studied the incline for several minutes, scratching his chin, thinking. Then his inward voice prodded him . . .

  Damn it, man, you’ve no chance of rescuing your ma . . . but at least do something.

  Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he began to climb.

  * * *

  The slope was steeper than it had appeared from the ground, and Sam Flintlock’s progress was slow. His rifle hindered him but he resisted the temptation to ditch it in order to use both hands to dig into the shingle and haul himself upward. Something told him he may have need of the Winchester once he gained the crest.

  In that, as events would show, he was correct.

  It was almost full dark when Flintlock reached the top. His hands were scraped bloody and the knees of his pants were torn, the skin underneath grazed. In the distance, maybe two hundred yards away, a fire winked in the darkness. Sentries. He should have anticipated such, but had not. The question was how many. And what would be gained by confronting them?

  Flintlock got down on one smarting knee and considered the situation. He answered the questions in his mind. It didn’t matter how many because once again he had a chance to hurt the Old Man of the Mountain. Besides, what did he have to lose except his life? Right now, defeated as he was, that counted for little.

  Flintlock rose and on cat feet walked closer to the blaze. At one point, he bent low and crossed a rough wooden bridge that spanned a narrow point of Pitchfork Pass. Then, stopping frequently to merge with the night, he listened, trying to gauge how many of Hammer’s gunmen were around the fire. Judging by the voices, he thought three, but there could be a few more that were not talking men. He moved forward again. The night was cool and soon the moon would rise. The sky was bright with stars, stretching to the horizons like diamonds strewn on purple velvet, and the air smelled of drifting woodsmoke. Flintlock heard a small clink, a metal ring on the side of a bottle. Good. The gunmen were drinking and that would slow them and give him an edge, a small edge to be sure, but if he hoped to get the drop that night, he needed all the help he could get.

  Flintlock closed the distance. The three men by the fire were intent on their conversation and the whiskey bottle. Closer still. Moving a little faster now. Damn it, he was close enough. He racked the Winchester and said, “Howdy, boys, fine night, ain’t it?”

  The three gunmen scrambled to their feet, panic in each face.

  “How the hell did you get here?” one of the men, a burly, bearded fellow said.

  “I walked,” Flintlock said. “You with the wart on your nose, I wouldn’t.”

  The wart man let his hand ease away from his gun.

  “You one of the boss’s new hires?” the bearded man said. “Did Mr. Hammer send you up here?”

  “Nope,” Flintlock said. “Right about now I’m his worst enemy.”

  Firelight flickered on the face of the third gunman, younger, tougher, with reckless eyes. “What do you want with us?” the youthful gunman said. “Speak up now. State your intentions.”

  The shabby man with the tattoo on his throat had come out of the darkness and well and truly had the drop . . . and three gunmen didn’t like that one bit.

  Then Flintlock had a moment of inspiration. “You boys came up this mesa, so you know the easy way down. You’re coming with me.”

  “What the hell for?” the bearded man said.

  “I’m going to do some swapping with Jacob Hammer, you three for the prisoners he’s holding.”

  “The boss ain’t gonna dicker with you, saddle tramp,” the youngster said. “Be on your way and we’ll let you live.”

  The bearded man said, “Hey, I know you. You’re the ranny with the big bird on his throat. There’s a reward on your head.”

  “And you aim to claim it, huh?” Flintlock said.

  The man’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “That is my intention.”

  His hand dropped for the draw, fast and practiced, a shootist for hire out of El Paso who was acknowledged to be among the very elite of his profession.

  But Sam Flintlock’s trigger finger was faster by a heartbeat.

  His bullet hit the bearded man’s chest dead center. It shattered through the breastbone, destroyed his heart and exited just below his left shoulder blade. It had been the work of a moment . . . and now Flintlock was in a gunfight.

  The kid with the reckless eyes drew as Flintlock racked the Winchester and both men fired at the same time. The kid had hurried the draw and his first shot missed badly, whining off the caprock between Flintlock’s boots. He didn’t get a chance to thumb off a second. Flintlock shot him in the belly, knew it was a killing wound and didn’t wait to see the youngster fall. He swung on the third gunman, who was obviously not in the same class as the other two. The man had two-handed a Colt to eye level and now he shoved the revolver out in front of him and cut loose, working the hammer with his left thumb. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Three shots very fast, all of them misses. An icy coldness in him, Flintlock closed on the man, cranking and shooting the Winchester as he advanced. The gunman staggered, blood in his mouth, dropped his gun and fell on his back.

  From somewhere down below men’s voices yelled questions into the night. Flintlock looked behind him into darkness and saw no one. Then the realization hit him that the shouts came from his right. Holding the Winchester ready, he stepped in that direction. Ahead of him was a circular patch of darkness that he took for a depression in the caprock, but as he drew closer he saw that it was a cavity about twenty feet across. Flintlock walked to the edge and peered into the hole, expecting to see only blackness, but to his surprise he saw below him the glimmer of burning torches and yelling men scurrying around like ants. For a few seconds Flintlock took time to study the pit. Pitchfork Pass carved across the mesa from north to south and its floor rose gradually as it followed the contours of the limestone substrata. At its widest spot the pass had been enlarged with dynamite that had blown a hole in the caprock and created a large hollow. Flintlock couldn’t see, but he guessed that beyond the clearing the pass had been blocked with rubble to prevent access from that direction. It was a considerable feat of engineering and it must have cost Jacob Hammer a small fortune.

  But Flintlock did not have time to dwell on Hammer’s finances. In the distance, he heard men calling out to one another and one overly excited rooster cut loose a couple of shots. It was Flintlock’s cue to leave, but the devil was in him and he wouldn’t let it go. He shouldered his rifle, levered off a few rounds down into the chasm, and then, his voice echoing in the stone shaft, he called out, “Hey, Hammer, I got presents for you, three of them!”

  One by one Flintlock dragged the bodies of three gunmen to the rim of the crater and tossed them over and one by one they hit the courtyard with a terrible, crunching splat.

  The angry voices were closer now and Flintlock feared he’d left his escape too late. He sprinted for the bridge, crossed, his boot heels thudding on the timbers, and then, visible in the dim starlight, he ran for the place where he’d climbed the slope. As bullets split the air around him, Flintlock didn’t hesitate. He reached the rim of the caprock and launched himself into space.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Af
ter what seemed an eternity hurtling through thin air, Sam Flintlock hit the mesa slope hard, feetfirst, and then tumbled forward onto his chest and shoulders . . . and began to cartwheel. He rolled down the incline head over heels, heels over head, grunting in pain every time a rock gouged into him or gravel raked across his back and shoulders. He slammed onto the flat so violently that it knocked the breath out of him, and then a shower of shingle cascaded over his head and added to his misery.

  For a moment Flintlock lay stunned, gasping for air. Bullets kicked up Vs of dirt around him, unaimed probing shots fired from the top of the mesa into darkness, but rounds were nonetheless dangerous and could score a lucky hit. But of more immediate concern to Flintlock was the sound of pounding boots as gunmen spilled out of the pass and ran alongside the mesa, hunting him.

  Flintlock staggered to his feet and made his way back to his horse, stumbling through malevolent trees that seemed to reach out to snag him in their branches. The firing had made the buckskin jumpy and it took Flintlock several tries before he tightened the girth. He swung into the saddle and was surprised that his Colt was still in his waistband, but the Winchester was still somewhere on the slope and it was a grievous loss. But the Hammer gunmen were closer now and he’d no time to go back for it. He slapped spurs to his horse and rode away at a gallop, allowing his mount to pick its own route to safety. Flintlock’s concern now was to put distance between himself and his pursuers and the direction of his flight was of little concern. For a few moments bullets followed him, but they were wild shots and none came close. Suddenly the buckskin’s hooves drummed on flat, treeless rock, running between a pair of parallel sandstone bluffs, and Flintlock was in the clear.

  At least for now.

  * * *

  Jacob Hammer was beyond anger, his blind rage burning like scalding acid in his belly. He stood beside the three broken bodies of his gunmen, tilted back his head and screamed his terrible wrath. Men rushed to him, some of them buckling on gunbelts as they ran. Hammer turned on them, his face devilish with hate.