Bushwack Bullets
Page 18
Avoiding the sprawled corpse of Everett Kingman, the two gripped hands and hurried toward the tunnel opening, the odor of burnt gunpowder sickening their nostrils.
The cool, moist smell of the Rio Grande greeted them as they rushed out of the cavern in the Cliff's base and plowed through the whippy willows and cottonwood thickets to gain the muddy rim of the river.
Then, even as Hap Kingman turned with the intention of sweeping the girl into his embrace in thanksgiving at finding her alive, the cowboy froze.
Coming at him not a dozen paces away was Russ Melrose and the towering Mexican, Juan Fernandez.
Flinging the girl away from him, Hap dropped into a crouch and fired a single quick shot through the end of his holster.
The speedily aimed bullet caught Fernandez in the pit of the stomach, and it was only the Mexican's sidewise lurch that saved Kingman's life in the next instant.
The gun in Melrose's hand was leveling out for a point-blank shot, but Fernandez's toppling form tripped the lawyer's headlong rush and Melrose went down, sprawling in the mud.
Anna Siebert screamed as she saw Hap Kingman leap forward, kicking the smoking .45 out of the lawyer's grasp as Melrose struggled to regain his feet.
Then, as Melrose reared erect, the two men met in primitive hand-to-hand combat.
Locked in a grapple, they wrestled furiously across the slippery brown mud on the river's edge.
With a strength born of desperation, Russ Melrose smashed out damaging blows which fought him clear of Kingman's grasp.
Disarmed and berserk with fear, the desperate lawyer raced out into the water, his slogging boots knocking sheets of muddy spray in all directions.
Anna Siebert froze in terror as she saw Hap Kingman disdain to use his own guns for a shot at the fleeing outlaw.
Instead, the cowboy lowered his jaw and raced out into the swirling water in hot pursuit.
Melrose turned, swinging a wild haymaker at Kingman.
But the cowboy ducked, and his shoulders slammed under Melrose's whizzing fist to knock the lawyer off his feet.
Rolling over and over as Kingman sought to throttle his foe, the two reared to their feet in a surge of foam and, standing in hip-deep water, squared off for their final desperate onslaught.
The current gripped them, and Hap Kingman felt Melrose's crushing grasp about his body as they went under the surface and were swept out in the deep channel of the river.
Grimly, Kingman kept his chin down to prevent Melrose's choking fingers from sinking home into his windpipe.
The tug of the current left them, as they settled down into the sludgy depths of the Rio Grande.
Hap's lungs were bursting for air, but he maintained his crushing grip on Melrose's threshing wrists as they struggled on the muddy river bottom.
Then Kingman felt the lawyer's struggles subside. A burst of bubbles tore from Melrose's straining lips, as river water surged into the outlaw's lungs.
Black oblivion threatened Kingman, as the bulk of the drowned lawyer threatened to pin him to the mud. Gasping river water into his lungs, the cowboy broke free of Melrose's entwining legs and lashed out for the surface.
He dragged life-giving air into his chest as the current swept him into the shallows.
Retching like a landed trout, Hap Kingman pulled his way to the bank, reached out to seize Anna Siebert's extended hand.
"Oh, Hap! Thank God—"
He hold her close in the moonlight for a moment, as they both stared at the foam-padded surface of the Rio Grande. But the water-logged corpse of Russ Melrose remained in the depths.
With an impulsive gesture, the cowboy jerked Dev Hewett's cedar-butted .45 out of its mud-smeared holster.
With a grimace of mingled distaste and relief Hap Kingman threw the misplaced six-gun legacy out into the pool, saw it sink with a gurgling chug to join Russ Melrose on the bottom.
Then the cowboy turned back to the girl at his side and for a moment they stood there, each drinking in the full ecstasy of what they read in the other's eyes.
Kingman started to speak, but this was no moment for words. Anna Siebert moved closer into his arms and lifted her lips to meet those of the man she loved.