by Tabor Evans
Ki rammed his knees into the other's groin. Joe groaned with pain, but only tightened his grip.
Ki felt his vision funneling down to a small circle of sight. He kicked at Joe's bare legs, but those two massive limbs resisted the kicks the way columns of stone resist a chisel. Ki had no time left to continue hacking away at his enemy by inches…
Joe straightened up, lifting Ki off of the ground. Now, ironically, the only thing keeping Ki's rib cage from being crushed and splintered was the barrier of the bow between the two men.
"As I saluted you in life, I now salute your death," the Apache grunted. "I will carry your bow to remember you."
Ki's face was pressed against the sheath of the bowie knife hanging from the man's neck. If only his hands were free! His face was slick with his own sweat and the sweat that ran down Joe's bare chest and belly.
"The bow will be yours," Ki whispered. "Alive or dead, you shall have my bow!"
Joe heaved Ki up to get a better grip on his twisting, kicking, sweat-slippery body. Ki used the momentum imparted to him by the Apache to add to his own strength as he butted hard with his forehead against Joe's nose. The Indian gagged in agony as his nose was flattened by the force of the impact. Blood squirted down out of both of his nostrils. Ki butted him again, this time smashing Joe's front teeth. The Indian's bear hug loosened. Ki wiggled free, and then back-pedaled away.
Joe soundlessly wiped away the blood and spittle from his ruined face and attacked once again.
Ki, wobbling on his feet, waited until the last possible instant and then turned sideways, to present the tip of the bow toward his onrushing foe, as if it were a spear.
Which it was!
Ki braced himself, then sprang sideways toward the big Indian. The bow's tip caught the Indian's belly, puncturing through his flesh with an initial crunch, followed by a long, wet, sliding sound. Before Joe could stop himself, he'd run himself through. The bowstring stretched on the curved wooden bow only deepened and extended the wound, sawing it wide.
Joe's chest actually touched Ki's shoulder. His bleeding belly was flush against Ki's side. The bow had come out his back, tent-poling the Apache's vest.
Joe's mouth opened to speak, but he no longer had the strength to form words. His eyes, only inches from Ki's, asked his silent question.
"The bow's tips are of sharpened steel, camouflaged by a thin leather covering," Ki said.
The Apache's legs buckled beneath him. Ki braced himself and twisted to withdraw the bow as Joe's lifeless body fell away.
"Alive or dead," Ki repeated, "you shall have my bow, and now you have." He stared down at the corpse. Steam rose from the gaping crimson slit in the Apache's belly.
Ki, having regained his breath, stood a moment in concentration, and then began to flex the muscles of his back. Moments later the string broke. He caught the flexing bow before it could fall to the ground.
His muscular contractions and expansions had set his own wounds bleeding again. His bow was also bloody. It would have to be cleaned.
He wandered toward where Joe had tossed his quivers of arrows. The few that had kept him bound seemed all right. He would restring the bow — he always carried an extra string — and then find a place where he could rest and regain his physical strength and spiritual equanimity.
"Joe, I am sorry you had to die," Ki addressed the Apache's body. "Tonight, many of my kills will be made in your name. I beseech your Kami to wait and watch, and see what your little brother can accomplish!"
He dragged the corpse between two large boulders and piled smaller stones upon it, hiding it as best he could. Ki doubted that any passing sentry would find it before morning, and by then it would not matter.
Gathering up his possessions, he hurried away to find a place where he could safely rest for a few hours. Soon it would be time to begin the final attack.
Chapter 19
"What time do you reckon it is?" Longarm asked.
"About fifteen minutes later than the last time you asked," Jessie remarked, amused. "Calm down. You've been pacing back and forth like a tiger in a zoo." She was sitting on her folded jacket, leaning against a wall, doing her best to relax and rest.
"I know we're supposed to wait until just before dawn," Longarm growled, "But I've had enough of being cooped up. Besides, I want to take a look around to make sure those Brader guns really are in that old powder shack. I've got to put those guns out of action if we're going to stop Danzig."
Sighing, Jessie climbed to her feet. She put on her jacket and raised her skirt to draw her derringer. "Let's do it," she said, smiling.
"Let's do it," Longarm repeated. He took her in his arms to kiss her once. Then he went to the door of the cell. From his hatband he removed the hairpin Jessie had given him. "I think I'll keep this in my hat from now on," he said as he went to work on the padlock. "It's a handy little thing to have around."
It only took him a few moments to pick the lock. He set it aside and removed and then rewrapped the short length of chain so that it would fall smoothly from its position with just a shove on the door. Next he reset the padlock, but only through one link.
"That will fool the guard for the moment we'll need," he said, evaluating his work.
"There are two of them out there," Jessie pointed out.
"Well, all we can do is hope only one will come in," Longarm said. He stretched out on the floor. "If both come in, do your best to keep them both covered. I'll only need a second."
He and Jessie exchanged looks.
"Ready?" he asked.
She nodded. "Guard!" she called. "Help!"
Presently the door to the shack opened, and a man stuck his head in. "What's going on?" he demanded.
"He just fainted dead away," Jessie whimpered, pointing down at Longarm's still form. "I think his head is hurt bad."
Laughing, the guard sauntered into the shack. Jessie, her heart in her mouth, watched the building's door, hung crookedly on its hinges, swing slowly, slowly closed.
"What do you want me to do about it?" the guard asked. He stepped up close to the wire mesh in order to peer down at Longarm.
"He needs a doctor!" Jessie demanded, approaching the guard from her side of the mesh.
"No doctor here, lady," the guard said, and began to turn away.
Jessie jammed the derringer up against the mesh so that it was aimed point-blank at the shocked guard's head. "That's too bad," she hissed. "Because if you make one sound, you're going to need a doctor right quick!"
Longarm was already pushing against the cell door. The chain snaked to the floor. Coming around behind the guard, Longarm drew the man's Colt out of his holster and tapped him behind the ear with the weapon's barrel. He caught the man beneath the armpits before he could slump all the way to the floor. He half carried and half dragged the unconscious guard into the cell, then hurried out.
"What's next?" Jessie asked, at his heels.
"Wait here for a minute. I want to take care of that other guard."
Longarm crept to the door and slowly inched it open. The remaining guard was sitting on a crate, with his back to the shack. He was huddled over a small campfire, and was wrapped in a blanket against the night chill.
Longarm left the shack and walked directly up to the guard. He made no attempt to quiet his footsteps. His hope was that he would assume it was his partner, returning to the comfort of their fire.
"What was the trouble back there?" the man muttered over his shoulder. "Everything all right?"
"Just fine," Longarm said, and hit him over the head with the butt of his revolver.
As the guard fell back, Longarm caught him and dragged him back to the shack. Inside, he handed Jessie the guard's gun, and chose the corner of the cage area farthest from the door of the shack to prop the man up. Next he put the first guard beneath the other's arm, and wrapped the blanket around both. He tipped their hats down over their faces and stood back to survey the scene.
"Are they supposed to be us?"
Jessie giggled as she, reholstered her derringer and checked the load in the revolver.
"They might fool somebody who only bothered to glance in through the shack's door, or a window," Longarm shrugged. "Come on!"
They locked the guards in the cell and then left the shack. They kept to the sides of the buildings and hid in the shadows, but were fortunate in the fact that most of the men not on sentry duty on the surrounding slopes were, it seemed, sleeping in the bunkhouse.
"Lead the way to that powder shack," Longarm told Jessie. He had his gun at the ready, but was depending on staying out of sight of any stray guards. If they had to fire a shot, the whole camp would come down on them.
"This way," Jessie whispered. She tugged him toward the center of the compound, close to the other campfires.
Longarm dug in his boot heels. "Are you sure?" he demanded suspiciously. "Damn! Why don't we just drop in on Danzig for a shot of schnapps, or whatever? I'd think the stonecutters would have kept their explosives on the outskirts of the compound, in case…
"Oh don't be a mule!" Jessie scolded, exasperated. "They kept their powder where they could keep an eye on it, against thieves!"
Longarm stared at her. "Oh." He nodded. "Well, then, let's get going!" he demanded.
"Men!" Jessie seethed. "I had to fall in love with the most bullheaded…"
"You get what you deserve," Longarm cut her off. He peered around the corner of the cookshack. "The coast is clear. Let's move!"
They scurried across the dark open space, and were halfway to the shack's door when, from around the building's corner, there came strolling a shadowy figure. The man struck a match to light his cigar. Its flare made Longarm and Jessie's eyes ache.
"Stay here!" Longarm hissed, and strode toward the man. He repositioned his stolen gun in the hip pocket of his trousers, angling the butt to make it seem as if he were wearing his gun in a high-cinched holster. Longarm's hope was that the fellow would glimpse his silhouette — a man in a hat, with a gun on his hip — and assume he was just another recruited gunslick.
"Who is it?" the man growled as Longarm approached. The match winked out as it fell to the ground.
"Hold that light!" Longarm called. "Oh, shit. Got another match, old son?"
"Sure," the man replied. His hand was still splayed over his own revolver's butt, but he had not drawn. Now he relaxed as he saw that Longarm's gun was still "holstered." He pulled an another match from his shirt pocket, and struck it against the sole of his boot.
Longarm waited for that blinding flare, and for the gunslick's eyes to be fixed on the flame as he brought it up, cupped in both hands, to light Longarm's cigar.
"Where's your smoke…" the man began.
Longarm drove his left fist into the man's belly, just above his belt buckle. As the man grunted and doubled over, the wind knocked out of him, Longarm connected with a right cross, catching the man on the tip of his jaw, just below his ear. The gunslick fell to his knees, then slumped.
"We ought get him out of sight," Jessica whispered, coming up behind Longarm.
"I know that," he said. "It's a question of where. I guess we'll just dump him behind the shack." He pulled the man behind the building, relieved him of his sidearm, and left him there.
When they reached the door of the shack, they found it locked.
"Well, that's no big surprise," Longarm said. He reached into his hatband and withdrew Jessica's hairpin. He inserted it into the lock and turned it. He felt some resistance in the lock's mechanism and applied more pressure. The pin broke off in his hand.
"That's no big surprise, either," he said. "What now? I could likely kick the door in, but I don't reckon that would be a very good idea, and I don't want to be out here much longer."
"Come on," she said. Grasping his hand, she pulled him around to the back of the shack, explaining as she went, "I told you Ki and I used to explore around here. Well…"
She knelt down and pulled at one of the vertical planks that made up the walls of the building. It moved to one side, not much, but enough for a person to crawl through and get into the shack.
"Woman," Longarm said, "you've come through again. Let's go. Ladies first."
He held the board aside and let her crawl in first, then he followed. It was a tight fit, and he had to go in feet first so he could hold the board aside. He might not have made it, but Jessica grabbed the seat of his pants and pulled, and he squeezed through with a startled curse.
"Where'd you get muscles like that?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "Just leverage," she replied.
Longarm struck a match.
"Where'd you get those?" Jessie asked. "Oh, from that man you knocked out, of course."
"Of course," Longarm said absently, looking around as the match's tiny fire inched toward his fingers. "There! A candle stub. On that shelf. See it?"
"Got it!" Jessie tilted the candle's wick into the sputtering match's flame. It caught.
"That fellow only had the one match," Longarm sighed. He looked around the interior of the shack. Several piles of stacked wooden crates, half-covered with canvas tarps and old. motheaten woolen blankets took up the center of the floor. Leaning against the windowless walls were the "coffee grinders." Longarm counted twenty. That meant four of the weapons were being carried by guards outside. Longarm's count assumed that the one carried by Lucas Conrad was even now beginning to rust somewhere back in that pecon grove, the site of the decoy ambush.
Piled in one corner of the shack were several wooden crates of .25-caliber rounds. Other boxes held fully charged magazines for the Brader guns.
"They're all here, except five," Jessie said excitedly.
"Except four." Longarm explained what had taken place earlier in the evening. "Now all we have to do is figure out a way to destroy them." There was a prybar standing against the wall, and he used it to lever up the lid of the crate containing the bullets. "It's going to take a while, but I guess we can build up a charge by emptying the rounds and gathering up the gunpowder."
"Longarm." Jessie called softly. "Here's a box filled with powder!"
Longarm hurried over. It was true. Brader had stockpiled loose powder, ingots of metal, and bullet molds to make his own ammunition.
"Why would he bother to go to all this trouble?" Jessie mused out loud, staring down at all the reloading paraphernalia.
Longarm thought about it. "I seem to remember that one problem concerning Gatling guns is that a soft lead-nosed bullet can get bent out of whack, jamming up the gun's firing mechanism. If Brader's guns work on the same notion — and from what he's told us, I suspicion they do — he can't depend on finding store-bought ammo to suit his needs. He's got to hand-load his own rounds for the 'coffee grinders.'"
Jessie set to work tearing a strip from one of the old wool blankets. "Do you think this cloth will burn?"
"Well enough," Longarm remarked. "I'll tuck one end of the strip into the powder by poking a hole through one of the waxed-paper sacks it's in. And I'll leave just enough sticking out to give us time to get away from here." He sprinkled some gunpowder onto the wool fibers to insure a good burn. "It's not the most dependable fuse in the world." he shrugged. "But it's the only fuse we've got."
"And now we wait," Jessie said. "We've got another hour until Ki attacks."
"If Ki is even here," Longarm added.
"He's here…"
"Assuming that he is, how will we know when he's started?"
Jessie smiled. "We'll know," she chuckled. She set down her gun and shrugged out of her jacket.
"Well, all we can do now is wait," Longarm said, his voice growing thick. He watched Jessie take off her hat and toss it to the floor. She kept her big green eyes on him as she removed the pins remaining in her hair. Then she gave her head a toss, to let down her shimmering mass of copper-gold tresses. Next she unbuttoned her blouse and took it off. Her breasts jiggled with newly found freedom. Her nipples swelled erect in the cool air. She unbuttoned her skirt and s
tepped out of it, to stand before Longarm entirely nude, except for her boots and that holster high up on her thigh.
"It's a shame to waste this time we have together," she murmured seductively. She patted the top of the crates piled up in the center of the floor. "All these tarps and blankets make a nice, soft little bed for us."
The flickering candlelight emphasized and delineated the lush curves and swells of her magnificent body. Longarm rushed forward to gather her up in his arms. Their tongues entwined as his hands felt the heat her flesh was generating.
"Oh, Custis, you're the only man I've ever loved," she whimpered, twisting in his embrace to rub her hips against the taut tweed of his fly.
Longarm picked her up and plopped her down on the cushioned tops of the crates.
"I think you better keep your boots and that holster on," he said. "Keep that gun handy, just in case." He gestured toward the door, then began to undress himself. He took off his shirt and hat, but only lowered his trousers and cotton longjohns until they were bunched around his boot tops. He set his revolver down beside Jessie's head, where it would be within his easy reach in case of a sudden intrusion.
"I'm sorry about being only partway undressed," Longarm began, "and about leaving that gun there, but I've got no holster, an…"
Jessie reached out to tickle his jutting member with her fingernails. "Yes, you have, darling," she said, spreading her legs.
Longarm wasted no time. He was hard as stone and dying to slide into her. He hopped up onto the crates, stretched himself out over Jessie, and penetrated her deeply, to his full length. He withdrew teasingly, until he and she were linked only by the merest kiss of their flesh, and then slammed fiercely into her again.
Jessie bit into his shoulder to keep from crying out in delirious ecstasy. Longarm wanted to prolong the sensations, but he could not keep from hurrying. The constant danger of discovery spurred him on, and truth to tell, he found making love surrounded by all those long, gleaming gun barrels downright inspiring.
Beneath him, Jessie shuddered and let out a tiny birdlike cry. She wrapped her legs around his waist and thrust herself up to meet him. When he came, it was like all those Brader guns going off at the same time.