“No offense taken. And no way. This is my fight, Pops. Besides, I need you to send out cover shots while I go. I make it up there, you use the same route before they catch on. I’ll cover you from you there.”
“Okay, but I say I should go first.”
Rollie looked him in the eye and shook his head. “See you soon, pard.”
“Oh, Rollie?”
Finnegan sighed. “What?”
“Take a leak for me while you’re in there, okay? All that coffee’s working on me.”
Rollie smiled and shook his head once more, then shoved himself backward. In a few moments he’d managed to make it to the blunt end of a wide plank, another staggered joint to its neighboring plank not far away. Perfect. He pried open the short blade of his folding Barlow, and managed to pry up the near plank enough to wedge his fingers beneath.
I will never again complain about Nosey not seeing a task through, he thought. He quickly decided that was a promise he couldn’t keep. Parker was a good kid but he wasn’t deserving of that much slack.
Rollie worked up the plank high enough to slide it onto and past the next. With that next plank, he did the same, creating a gap wide enough that he slipped into it with little sound, save for soft scraping and grunting. His gun belt fetched up a moment, then he was freed and dropping down below the floor.
His knees hit the hard ground sooner than he’d hoped, which meant he wouldn’t have much space to crawl on his belly toward the back of the building. Good thing he didn’t have much of a slop gut.
Pops saw the top of Rollie’s head sink below the floor and turned back to face the street once more. “Okay then, let’s get to it.” He thumbed back the hammer on the Colt and, eyeing down the barrel, saw something across the street from the bar shift slowly, no more than a shadow. It was right where he thought one of the shooters might hunker behind the north end of the big rock they all used as a morning meeting spot. “Far, but worth”—Pops raised the barrel a hair and squeezed the trigger—“a shot.”
A puff of powder rose up and Pops knew, despite his effort, that he’d nicked the big rock. But the reaction from the shadowed spot was immediate and brought a smile to Pops’ gray-stubbled face. “Damn,” he said as whoever he’d shot howled and brayed and carried on from behind the rock.
“Shut up!” a hard voice shouted from southward and uphill, in roughly another of Pops’ guessed spots. And definitely too far for him to waste a lucky shot. But then again, what did he have to lose? He had to keep up the firing to distract the would-be killers from paying attention to Rollie’s progress.
Whoever he’d hit didn’t take the advice of his fellow gunman. His howling grew louder. Pops got an even bigger surprise. The yowling man behind the rock stood up and staggered forward, around the end of the rock and into the street.
“I’ll be . . .” said Pops, aiming once more with the convenience of seeing his target.
The man held his hands to his head, and Pops saw blood leaching out between his fingers, on the right side of his face. He figured he’d grazed the man’s scalp deep, maybe even to the skull bone, which would darn sure account for the blood and the frenzy the man was in.
“Gaaah!” The man shouted over and over, “Help—oh, oh, aaah!” as he lurched in no particular direction. He wagged his elbows like a flustered chicken and lost his balance once, dropped to a knee, then popped up again.
He bent at the waist and shouted something that sounded to Pops like, “My head!” but could also have been, “I’m dead!” as blood flecked from his bleeding pate.
“So now the man’s a fortune-teller,” said Pops.
“Shut the hell up!” shouted the voice from the hill once more, but louder. The big, full, deep voice ragged its rage at the wounded man.
“Stop that dancing, you fool,” muttered Pops, sighting along the Colt’s barrel once more. He had Lil’ Miss Mess Maker with him, but she was for close-in work, not distance shots. Not that a revolver was any better, but he got lucky once. Why not again? He tracked the man and was a breath from triggering a fresh shot at him when a rifle thundered from the hillside.
Pops saw the bleeding man jerk into his final dance. The rifle shot—a big caliber, judging from the sound and the force it delivered—caught the bleeder high in the chest as if he’d been punched by some mighty cosmic fist.
The man’s arms flew outward from where they’d gripped his head, jerking like tree branches caught in a sudden, hard wind. His body snapped upward, his boots whipped higher than his head and kept right on going, arcing in a backward somersault, the boot toes catching up with the shower of blood and bone that pinwheeled high, spraying the sky, then the street.
The moment looked to Pops as if it had been slowed by time. The blood splashes drizzled outward into spatters, then droplets, then spray, skylining against a backdrop of sparse, broad Ponderosas reaching high into the blue of a day the dancing man would never again enjoy. The moment sped up and Whap! the man slammed hard on his chest into the graveled and dung-riddled street, his head bent forward.
Even from his distance, Pops heard the carrot-snap sound of the man’s neck breaking. The man was still. His head bent beneath his chest, raising his body up slightly, looking as if he was fixed on gnawing at his own chest.
It was a chest that was all but missing, judging from the hole in the man’s back where the mighty bullet had clawed its way out. Maybe the dead man was trying to see that pretty blue sky, one last time, through his own back.
Pops whistled low, forgetting for the moment to shoot at the cloud of smoke rising up off the hillside, the spot where the shot had come from. “Must have been a Sharps.” He turned and did his best to send a bullet back where the killer had been.
He was not rewarded with a shriek and felt like a fool for giving himself away. An answering shot came from the same spot, but it sounded like a carbine. Pops returned fire, but it did occur to him that it was likely the same man who’d sent his own compadre to hell using a buffalo gun, notorious as a long-range weapon which, if handled by someone who knew the worth of a dead buffalo for eating, was likely good with the sights.
If that was the case, Pops was a sitting dead man. “Hope you’re ready, Rollie,” he muttered, “because it’s time I vacated these premises.” He dropped low once more and glanced back to see where Rollie had built his impromptu trapdoor. Pops began shoving himself backward across the floor on his belly toward the hole.
With the Colt in his right hand and Lil’ Miss Mess Maker in his left, he’d gone a couple of feet when the world exploded around him. Jags of pine showered the air above him, right where his head had been moments before.
Splinters of the raw wood drove into Pops’ forehead, his scalp, his cheeks and ears, and through his shirt into the meat of his shoulders and neck. He let out a low, quick moan, then shut himself up. No worse than the lash, he told himself. He’d tasted its sting plenty in the past.
He kept shoving backward until his toes slipped into the gap. He felt the warmth of blood trickling through his hair, down his cheeks, in his eyelashes, and on his shoulders, but he shoved harder and dropped his knees into the hole in the floor. Only then did he look up and see the fist-size pucker hole in what had that morning been nothing more than part of the front wall of The Last Drop.
It was a bullet-hole-riddled mess, bright morning light piercing the pine planking. Pops blinked back blood, licked his lips, then hawked a mouthful of blood and spit. “Clean that up later,” he said, and triggered a shot with the Colt back through the ragged hole and in toward that devil-pocked hillside. Then he dropped down into the meager crawlspace, spun around, and dragged himself toward the rear of the new building, hoping like hell Rollie was safe.
And if he was, then he’d best commence with some cover fire of his own, “Because,” Pops muttered, “I’m coming on through, like it or not.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The dirt beneath the raised platform they’d built for the new version of The L
ast Drop was as dusty as the rest of the dirt in Boar Gulch, but at least it was somewhat smoothed out and even between the pilings they’d sunk. Rollie had Nosey to thank for insisting they cuff the dirt flat before building on it.
Rollie dragged himself forward, expecting any second to feel the drilling, exploding heat of a choice shot sent his way. Surely somebody had seen him inching backward and then dropping from sight. The walls of the half-built saloon were full of gaps at best, and mostly missing.
He heard a gunshot from Pops. A loud shot. Somehow the wood transferred the sound down through the thick floor planking and made him grit his teeth tighter. He heard Pops mumble something and he swore he could hear screaming. Too far off to be Pops. Could his partner have hit someone? With a revolver? Maybe whoever it was had ventured closer.
Rollie rammed his elbows in harder and clunked his head for the second time on a log stringer. The bark was sharp, raw, and made him growl. “Ow!” He looked ahead. For the first time he saw how little daylight was between the very back end of the timber platform and the ground. Enough gap there to jam an arm through, but definitely not enough to crawl through.
The screams and shouts from the direction of the street got louder and odder as he glanced to his left and right. He was nearly in the center of the floor. Choose a side and hope like you’ve never hoped before that no one who knows there’s a price on your head is looking that way. He spat grit and gravel, glanced left once more, then crawled hard and fast to his right.
He reached the edge of the space and heard a thunderous boom from across the street, far to his right. It was sudden and sounded to him like the singular pounding of a buffalo rifle. He didn’t hear anything scuffle and groan and thrash from above, so Pops hadn’t been the target. Yet. But thankfully the infernal screaming and yowling and moaning from the direction of the street had ceased. Interesting.
Rollie knew that as soon as he snaked his head out from under The Last Drop, he could be sniped. But it was too late to turn back. Not for the first nor would it be the last time that day, Rollie Stoneface Finnegan growled low and deep in his chest, pulled in a deep breath, and checked his weapons. Time to fight back.
He shoved himself out through the gap between the earth and the log forming the side floor joist. He shot a quick look to his right at what he could see of the hillside, but didn’t slow his pace. He had to make it around the back of the saloon, behind the outhouse, and then up the hillside before the attackers circled back there. It wouldn’t be long until they did. They were on horseback.
The good news was that in order to stay out of gun range of whoever might shoot at them from town—Rollie and Pops—they would have to cut a wide trail to get in a position of surrounding the small cluster of buildings that formed Boar Gulch.
It was that slim chance that Rollie hoped hadn’t passed him by. That he hadn’t been shot at from the hillside behind the bar gave him hope. He lurched and heard a gunshot at the same time he shoved off with his boots and tucked and rolled onto his right shoulder, ending in a heap behind the near angled corner of the tent. Scant cover, but he was closer to the outhouse. He rolled up onto his already-aching knees and shoved off once more, running low and tight for the backside of the outhouse. No shots followed him.
He straightened to full height behind the narrow structure and wrinkled his nose. Even early like this the thing was a ripe spot. He’d have to do something about that. Glancing uphill he decided to head slightly to his left, toward a jut of gray ledge that would provide decent cover. From there it would be a wide-open run of at least two hundred feet when he’d be exposed for the world to shoot at. Then he’d be up on the top berm and close to the trees. Then what? he asked himself as he dug in his boot soles, zigzagging upward toward the boulder.
He heard a cracking sound at the same time his left foot whipped outward, driving his knee into the slope. He pushed of to his feet again, the thought that he’d been shot flitting behind him. He didn’t feel any pain from it, but that could come any second. He was capable of continuing on upslope, and that’s all he cared about. He reached the boulder and dove behind it. He had to start firing back, sending out cover fire so Pops could get out through the back of the building.
He also had to confirm that the invaders hadn’t reached the hilltop above him yet, and had to somehow tell Pops the way was clear. But first he had to check his left foot. Sure felt to him as if he’d been shot, the way his boot kicked out to the side like that.
Turned out the stacked leather heel of his boot became a victim of a bullet. It was half-gone, blown off, and the bit that was left flapped like a chewed tongue, cobbler’s nails poking from the wagging bit. Rollie gritted his teeth and bit back a curse. He liked those boots, dammit.
“Hey!”
Rollie looked up. Who was that?
“Hey . . . it’s Pops! I’m comin’ up!”
“No—too dangerous!”
“Too dangerous? Too bad! Cover me, man!”
Rollie cursed and peered low around the edge of the boulder in time to see Pops’ bowler bob into view.
He shook his head once quickly, then said, “Okay,” and began sending rounds high across the road into the far hillside, all the while keeping an eye on the terrain to either side. He could do little about whoever might be behind him. A man can only do so much, he reminded himself.
He felt something hit him in the back. Before he could turn, it happened again right away. He bent low and spun, sneering and leveling his revolver, expecting to see a stranger bent on killing him.
Instead he saw Pieder Tomsen, the blacksmith, who’d been tossing rocks at him. The man’s black curly hair and thick, beard topping his daily garb—a scorched, stained, thick leather apron from chest nearly to his boots. He was bent low and cradled a single-barrel shotgun.
He eyed Rollie and pointed over his own left shoulder, then held up two fingers. He pointed over his right shoulder and did the same—two invaders. Four in all.
Rollie knew Pieder was somewhat safe where he was. Atop the hill was a depression a couple of feet deep. But he wouldn’t be able to fend off four men for long. Likely he’d been driven from his blacksmith shop or had seen the invaders coming and knew they were up to little good.
Shots rained across the street and chewed their way into the gravel beside Pops. It didn’t go unnoticed by Rollie that whoever fired them could likely have made them more effective, not that he wanted them to. What was their game if not to kill them off?
Bounty, of course. Might be they wanted him alive. But for who? Rollie shook his head. No need to worry about that yet. The day was young, and he and Pops were alive—so far—and they had ammo. And a quiet but tough-asan-anvil blacksmith backing them. Literally.
“Get up here, old man!” growled Rollie. That’s all it took for Pops to grind harder and faster up the last twenty feet. Another bullet zinged in, nicking the boulder. Rollie ducked out of instinct as Pops piled in beside him behind the boulder.
“Who are you calling old . . . old man?”
Pops was about to speak again when Rollie jerked his head behind them. “Tomsen’s above us in that gulley. Two men to either side back there. I’d say beyond his shop but converging fast. They’d have to be blind to not know where we are by now.”
“Then we traded one fire for another,” said Pops. “At least from here we can see them coming. And Pieder will work on them, too. I assume he has that single-barrel of his?”
Rollie nodded. “But I don’t want to sit here pinned.”
“No other place to go. I say we lay low, cover each other, try to inch up to Pieder in the gulley. We could cover the top and this downslope from there.”
“Yep,” said Rollie. “Thing is, I bet Cap’s first-born that they want me alive. You, too, for some reason.”
“Cap’s a gelding, Rollie.”
“I know.” He grinned and dropped to his belly. “I’ll go, and I’ll keep an eye to the left as I crawl. You try to look to the right.”
“Try? You know I will.”
As he wriggled forward, hampered by the awkward firearms, Rollie spoke low but clearly to the blacksmith. “Pieder, we’re coming up to you. Me first, then Pops.”
He was about six feet from the rock when the bullets began again. They drilled closer, and when he felt one stab through the floppy cloth of his upper right sleeve, Rollie doubted his theory that they wanted him alive. He crawled faster.
As he crested the slight hump at the edge of the gulley, he saw Pieder Tomsen grinning at him—first time he’d seen the sooty-faced, bearded man smile—and his thick arm swung over and grabbed Rollie by the collar and dragged him forward toward him as another bullet sizzled in, popping up a cloud of dust from the dry slope.
Rollie rolled into the ditch and caught his breath. “Obliged,” he said. He was pleased to see that in addition to his shotgun, Pieder wore a revolver tucked into the thick leather belt around his apron.
The quiet blacksmith nodded once, then resumed scanning the terrain behind them. In the distance his shop and small attached home sat empty, a thinner trail of black smoke than usual rising from the central chimney in the midst of the open-sided shop.
Two work wagons stood before the shop, creating another layer of shadow, deeper in shade the farther Rollie’s eyes had to travel, until the recesses of the shop sat in near-blackness.
Pops searched the same view. “Pieder, either you have a helpmate back there or somebody’s lurking deep in.”
The blacksmith grunted and squinted at his shadowed shop.
“I take it you are as alone there this morning as you were yesterday when you fixed that ladle for me.” Rollie didn’t have to hear the taciturn man speak to know the answer. Somebody was in there. Pops’ eyes wouldn’t lie. Rollie looked to the right and left. No telling how many or what they were up to.
The three men, in silent consensus, kept watch out of the gully in each direction. Nothing moved save for the infrequent swish of a horse’s tail down by Horkins’ Hardware.
By the Neck Page 23