.45-Caliber Deathtrap
Page 6
As several more rifles barked around him, kicking up dirt and gravel and chewing pieces from the wagon, Cuno leapt left off the wagon. He landed on a flat-topped boulder a few feet down the creek’s ravine, turned a quick glance back toward the road. Three men were hunkered down behind rocks ahead of the wagon, crouching behind boulders and cedars a third of the way up the canyon wall.
Cuno fired three quick shots, saw a bushwhacker grab his shoulder and fall behind his cover, dropping his rifle. As the road agents returned fire, Cuno leapt from the boulder into the aspens and ran and slid down the slope toward the creek, loosing clay and gravel in his wake.
Damn fool, he chided himself. So busy thinking about Wade’s killers, wondering how to make up the road time, that he hadn’t realized he’d entered Long Draw, which all eastern slope freighters knew had recently become a favorite haunt of road agents.
At the edge of the water, Cuno hunkered down behind a cottonwood. He doffed his hat, threw it down to his feet. Keeping his head and cocked rifle back behind the tree trunk, he waited, listening.
Footsteps sounded. A rustling of brush, the clatter of rock. Pressing his back to the rough cottonwood bark, he glanced to his right. A shadow moved along the bank, scuttling across the adobe-colored stones.
Moving quickly, he snaked the rifle around the right side of the trunk and fired. The man, who’d come halfway down the bank, gave a surprised grunt, staggering back. Regaining his balance, he raised his revolver and fired, the shot plunking into the cottonwood. Cuno flinched, rammed a fresh shell into the Winchester’s chamber, and returned fire, the .44 round blowing up sand between the bushwhacker’s boots.
Cuno bolted out from behind the tree as the man scurried back up the bank, moving sideways and up toward the road and a small cottonwood copse. Gritting his teeth, Cuno took aim, fired two more quick shots, blowing up dust at the buchwhacker’s feet. The third shot sliced between the man’s scissoring legs as he gained the crest, smacking the inside of his left thigh.
The man groaned and hopped sideways, dropping his pistol and clutching his left leg. He dropped onto the road and out of Cuno’s line of vision.
“Simms!” a man shouted.
Thrashing rose from the road, the scuff of boot heels. A pinched voice: “He’s down by the river!”
Cuno saw two more heads and rifle barrels moving along the road, on the other side of the trees. Dusters flapped back like devils’ wings. Cuno scrambled out from behind the cottonwood, moving left, upstream, toward a deep cleft in the bank. Over the cleft was a slight ledge, where falling rock had hung up against old tree roots.
He scrambled into the cut, which was high enough that he could stand and only bow his head slightly. He was hidden from anyone descending the bank either upstream or down. Slowly, stretching his lips in a wince, he levered another shell into the firing chamber. He leaned the rifle barrel up against the bank beside him, unholstered his Colt .45, and checked to make sure all chambers showed brass.
He holstered the .45, picked up his rifle, and waited.
Voices rolled down from the road. A few minutes later, stones rolled down the bank to Cuno’s right. A few plopped into the water, the splashes drowned by the stream’s tinny rush.
A shadow flashed on the gold-dappled stream. Cuno pressed his back as far into the cleft as he could, looking to both sides, making sure he cast no shadow on the bank.
Minutes passed. He was about to risk a peek along the bank, when sand dribbled off the ledge just above his head. It sifted down near the squared toes of his low-heeled boots.
He lifted his eyes to the ledge, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. A cunning light entered his eyes, and he almost sneered. He took a breath, squeezed the rifle in his hands, then took one step away from the cleft, moving toward the river before swinging around toward the bank, raising his rifle.
Another bushwhacker stood atop the cleft, one boot resting on a thickly knotted root jutting from the ledge—a tall, latigo-tough hombre with pale hair falling down from his coffee-colored Stetson, a Winchester carbine in his beringed hands.
He saw Cuno too late. His eyes snapped wide, and he began moving his carbine down. Cuno’s Winchester barked. The man dropped his rifle to grab his lower chest with both hands, his cheeks bulging, eyes pinching.
Cuno reached up with his left hand, gave the man’s right leg a tug. The man tumbled off the ledge and hit the ground in a cloud of puffing dust and falling stones. Cuno picked him up by his collar, feeling the man’s death spasms through his wrist, and threw him into the stream.
The body skidded off a couple of water-polished rocks, then turned onto its back, the boots still kicking, the water roiling red. The body turned this way and that before the current caught it and hauled it, bobbing and rocking, hands flung out, palms up, downstream.
Rip Webber was hunkered in the cottonwoods near the wagon, his rifle resting across his thighs, when he saw something floating down creek. He squinted his eyes. A deer maybe—a small doe or fawn that had fallen and drowned when trying to cross the stream.
Then he saw the man’s body—Liddy Lewis—twisting and turning, the water red-tinged around it before it swept over a small beaver dam and shot headfirst downstream. It turned a semicircle before disappearing around a bend.
“Christ,” Webber said, running his eyes upriver. Seeing no more signs of the driver, he rose and walked up the road.
Donny Simms was still writhing around in the middle of the trail, trying to knot a neckerchief around his thigh. Joe Zorn was making his way down the ridge on the other side of the trail, cupping a bloody hand to his shoulder, holding his rifle low along his fringed right chap. His hatchet face was set grimly beneath the broad brim of his hat.
Stopping near Simms, Webber looked up the road. Fletcher Updike was hunkered behind a boulder, peering into the river cut, squeezing his Spencer rifle as though trying to ring water from a soaked towel.
“You see him?” Webber called.
Updike turned his round face toward him, shook his head.
Webber glanced at the river, ran a hand across his jaw, feeling foolish at having been hornswoggled by a mere freighter—the freighter he and his four partners had themselves intended to hornswoggle—then turned again to Updike.
“Let’s get the wagon and light a shuck.”
“What about that son of a bitch down there?” Updike called. “I think he killed Liddy.”
“He did kill Liddy, you tinhorn.” Webber’s thick nostrils swelled. “We go after him, he’ll kill us too. I know when I’m beat, and when to light a shuck, and I been beat here, so I’m lightin’ a shuck.”
Joe Zorn leapt from a rock to the road, grunting painfully. “At least we got the wagon. Who was that son of a bitch anyway?”
“Some freighter that don’t like givin’ up his load,” Webber said as, walking toward the wagon, he ran his gloved hand over one of the mule’s backs, appraising the beast. He could get a hundred and fifty for the mule over at Lyons. “Help me get the wagon unstuck, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Trying to push himself up on his good leg, Donny Simms shouted, “Give me a hand, goddamnit!”
Ignoring him, Webber walked to the rear of the wagon. He cast his glance over the covered load, and removed one of the ropes tied over the tarp. “Gonna have me a look inside, see what that short-trigger freighter done donated.” He chuckled, cast another nervous glance into the creek gorge, then removed another rope.
When Zorn had removed the ropes hooked to steel eyes on the far side of the wagon box, the men each took a side of the tarp, lifted it, and peered over the tailgate.
KAA-BOOM!
Joe Zorn’s head instantly vaporized, blood spraying behind the wagon like red paint.
“No!” shouted Webber.
KAA-BOOM!
The blast took him through the chest, lifting him straight up in the air and six feet straight back. He hit the ground, arms and legs spasming, his eyes already glassy.
He’d just lifted his head above the road’s crest when a man ran past him from left to right, heading for the wagon fifty feet away.
Cuno crouched and leveled his Winchester. “Hold it!”
The man skidded, stopped, and swung around with his Spencer. Cuno drilled him twice through the chest, then flinched as a bullet sliced across his own left temple.
He whirled, saw a slumped figure in the road, and triggered the Winchester twice more. One round smacked through the man’s left hand resting on the ground before ricocheting off the rock beneath it. The second plunked through his right cheekbone and smashed him straight back on the trail, flopping like a landed fish.
Cuno ejected the smoking shell casing, levered another into the chamber, and swung the Winchester’s barrel around, looking for more shooters. The mules were braying and bobbing their heads, trying to plunge forward through the rocks, but to no avail. The wheels held fast. The animals and a single, high-hunting hawk made the only sounds, the only movements.
“Oh, Christ!” A man’s voice rose from the wagon. There was a dull thump and a wooden clatter, as of something hitting the ground. “Mercy!”
Staying to the opposite side of the trail, Cuno ran down the side of the wagon, stopped, and aimed the Winchester toward the back. The tailgate was open. Lying twisted and groaning on the ground beneath it, clutching his left knee with both hands, was Serenity Parker. His shotgun, both barrels smoking, lay over the leg of one of the two dead men.
“Christalmighty, Parker, what in the hell are you doing here?”
“Flyin’ whores!” Parker gritted his teeth. “Hurt my knee.”
“Can you stand?”
“Give me a second.” He clutched the knee for a time, slowly released it. Even more slowly, he stretched the leg out, then glanced at Cuno. “Give me a hand.”
Cuno took the Winchester in his left hand, offered his right to the old man, gingerly helped the man to his feet. Parker stood, testing his weight on his right knee, then gently flexed it.
“Think it’ll be all right now.”
“What the hell were you doing in my wagon?”
The old man looked sheepish, but as he glanced around at the two men he’d nearly obliterated with his gut shredder, he gained a look of surprise and admiration. “I reckon you could call me a stowaway.”
“If you wanted a ride somewhere, you could have asked me for one. You didn’t need to hide under the tarp.”
The old man walked around, limping, testing the knee. He walked over to Webber, stooped with a grunt, trying to bend only his left knee, and picked up the shotgun. He wiped the blood-flecked stock on his thigh.
“I reckon I ain’t really goin’ anywhere. I mean, I’m goin’ where you’re goin’.” He broke open the shotgun, plucked out the spent wads, and fished two more out of the breast pocket of his worn flannel shirt, nudging aside a suspender strap.
Cuno squinted one eye and grunted, “You’re going where I’m going.”
“I’m goin’ after those killers, same as you,” the old man said, shoving the fresh wads into both shotgun barrels. “I didn’t do right by ole Wade. I froze up. Damnit, I peed my pants!” He stopped, pursed his lips. A tear rolled down from his right eye. “I just stood there inside my saloon and watched through the doors while they looted his wagon and shot him like a damn dog on the boardwalk.”
He looked up at Cuno, both eyes shiny now, his gaunt, bearded face crimson with rage. “I’m goin’ after ’em, same as you, and I’m gonna give ’em my two cents’ worth.” He closed the gun with a metallic snap. “For Wade.”
Cuno held his gaze. “How far were you going to ride in the back?”
“Till we were far enough from Columbine you wouldn’t send me back afoot.”
Cuno turned, set his rifle on the open tailgate, and walked around the right side of the wagon, scrutinizing the wheels that stood nearly as tall as he. The back one looked all right, but the right front would need its rim reshaped when he found a blacksmith. The felloe might be cracked, but he’d worry about that when it gave out. He hoped it didn’t give out on the down side of a steep hill, but he could have thrown a wheel and busted an axle pin and lost a day making repairs.
The old man stood beside the trail, cradling his shotgun in his arms with a defiant expression. Cuno dragged Webber and Zorn across the trail, and kicked them both into the ravine, their bodies rolling down and splashing water at the edge of the stream. When he’d disposed of the other two bodies, he settled the mules down with handfuls of cracked corn, then backed them slowly out of the rocks and onto the trail.
The back wheel turned smoothly. The front one gave a slight thump as the bent rim hit the ground, but the felloe held.
Cuno checked the straps and buckles, then grabbed his shotgun and climbed into the driver’s box. He released the brake and looked over his left shoulder. The old man stood regarding him from the shade of the cottonwoods, his defiant expression tempered with wariness.
“Well?” Cuno said.
The old man pursed his lips, adjusted his suspenders with a shrug of his shoulders, then walked around behind the wagon and slid his shotgun onto the floor of the driver’s box. He gingerly climbed the wheel, and sat in the seat beside Cuno.
He stared straight ahead. “How come you ain’t balkin’?”
“’Cause it’s too damn far from Columbine to turn out an old fool.” Cuno clucked to the mules, shook the reins.
The mules leaned into their collars. The wagon rolled forward.
8
LATE THAT SAME day, when the sun had fallen over the Front Range and cold shadows bled down from the high peaks, “The Committee” rode into the little river-crossing settlement of Danger Ford.
Danger Ford Creek was far from dangerous this time of the year, long after the spring rains that often made it so. And the piano clattering in the sprawling whorehouse called Heaven’s Bane, atop a bluff on the creek’s south side, cast a downright gay ambience over the steep-walled canyon.
The chill air, bespeaking fall, was perfumed with pine smoke from the whorehouse, the miners’ shacks and tents sheathing the creek, and the mountain diggings up and down the gorge. There was also the usual mining-camp fetor of trash heaps, privies, and butchered deer and elk carcasses.
As The Committee crossed the broad plank bridge over the rushing creek, the horses’ shod hooves clattering like cannon blasts, two young boys, fishing along the creek, jerked their worms from the water and, casting frightened looks over their shoulders, ran toward a stone hut crouched in hemlocks and cedars.
Whooping and howling like wolves, the gang climbed the shelves rising to the bluff upon which the whorehouse sat, its windows glowing yellow against the purple twilight. Riding at the head of the group, Waco and El Lobo triggered pistols into the air. The big black man, Ed Brown, guffawed at some joke the man riding beside him, Ned Crockett, had told.
When Clayton Cannady had pulled his horse up to the hitch racks before the broad front porch set atop high, wide steps, he turned to regard the group gathering in the yard behind him. He ordered Waco and El Lobo to holster their pistols, to quit acting like tinhorns, and to stable the gangs’ mounts in the barn.
As he began to dismount, he cast a glance back the way he and the others had come, and froze, staring. Sunflower Paxton rode slowly up the last rise, the young Chink girl riding wedged between the blond hard case and his saddle horn. The girl’s head sagged between her shoulders. She was half-asleep, terrified and exhausted from travel.
Cannady’s voice was sharp. “Paxton, I thought I told you to give that girl the send-off and toss her in a ravine. She’s slowin’ you down.”
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As the lathered, hang-headed horse approached the group, Paxton shrugged. “What’s the hurry, Boss?”
“That roan is tired. Look at him. He ain’t big enough to carry double, even a girl small as her. Now, grow some sense, will you, or I’m gonna give you the send-off just for actin’ stupid.”
“Ah, come on, Cannady. I ain’t had her yet, and you know I’m partial to slanty-eyes. Besides, after I’ve had my fill of her, I’ll sell her to one of these lonely prospectors, make some extry cash.”
The Indian, Young Knife, walked over to Paxton’s horse, reached up to brush the girl’s hair back from her face, and roughly grabbed the back of her neck to stare into her eyes. As Li Mei howled and tried to pull away, the Indian grinned, his black gums showing.
“Shit, you might sell her to me, Sunflower. I like skinny women with slits for eyes.” He rubbed his belly and laughed. “Most Injun women very fat!”
“With big asses too!” said Ned Crockett, chuckling and tossing his horse’s reins to Waco, who had gathered a good half dozen already.
“There, you see, Boss?” Paxton said to Cannady. He slipped down from his saddle and turned to the gang leader still sitting his own stallion. “This girl’s in high demand around here.”
“Why bother with her?” said the old graybeard called Whinnie. Having dismounted and turned his horse over to El Lobo, he was brushing dust from his brush-scarred chaps, his necklace of dried human ears—the ears of a posse that had once trailed him—flopping around his hairy, naked chest. He wore only a thin deer-hide vest, with no shirt underneath, and two big, stag-gripped pistols jutted high on both hips. “Shit, once we get our hands on that mine money in Sundance, you won’t—”
The graybeard clipped his sentence when Li Mei kicked her left slippered foot into Paxton’s throat, shrieking like an Asian witch. As Paxton staggered back, she reached down, grabbed the reins, slid back in the saddle, jabbed her heels into the roan’s ribs, and screamed, “Gooo!”