The Killing Blow

by J. R. Roberts

  The heavy weapon turned end over end one complete rotation before slamming into the wall next to Clint’s head. Although he was able to draw his Colt and take aim, Clint knew he would have been dead if Crow had intended on targeting his head rather than that wall.

  “You won’t bring that animal from these woods,” Crow declared. “He will die for what he’s done and he will die in these woods.”

  “And where’s the justice for the others Ordell killed?” Clint asked as he kept his gun at hip level. “You three get to avenge your losses, but what about the other folks and their losses?”

  Crow’s eye twitched and he slowly brought up his right arm. The tomahawk he carried was slightly smaller than a hatchet and had a narrower blade. The handle was carved and smoothed down to allow it to cut through the air almost as well as the blade cut through everything else.

  “If you thought I was such a danger, you would have killed me with that first throw,” Clint said.

  “He may be swayed by your words,” Three snarled. “But I am not.”

  “This is your chance, mister,” Howlett said as he held an arm out to keep Three from making another move. “Leave now and stay the hell out of our way. If we cross paths again and you try to keep us from doing what we need to do, you’re a dead man.”

  Three gritted his teeth and started to bring his shotgun up once more. He wasn’t able to take his shot before Mark Ordell took his.

  The sound of the rifle was unmistakable. It exploded through the air like a crack of thunder and sent its round past the heads of all four men as it tore a loud path over Howlett’s shoulder, past Three’s nose and between the faces of Clint and Crow.

  The four men ducked low and looked in the direction from which the shot had been fired. All they saw was the thick tangle of trees between the cabin and the river.

  Another unmistakable sound was Ordell’s own voice. “Fer a bunch of damn killers,” he shouted, “you sure do a lot of talking!”

  Three looked like an enraged wolf as he bared his teeth and fired his shotgun toward the sound of Ordell’s voice. Even as he ran and fired a second time, Three was digging fresh ammunition from a pouch on his belt.

  When Clint glanced toward the sound of movement beside him, he found Crow standing less than a few inches from his face. He reflexively brought his Colt around, but stopped short of pulling the trigger. Crow met Clint’s eyes and retrieved his tomahawk from where it had been lodged in the side of the cabin. After that, Crow let out a sharp cry and headed into the bushes.

  “Hot damn,” Howlett said with a grin. “Looks like the hunt is on.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Clint rushed to pick up his rifle before charging after the other three. He could hear the Indians’ war cries echoing from the direction of the river, followed by a few shots taken here and there. Even though he couldn’t see what was going on, Clint knew well enough that those shots were wild and probably didn’t hit a thing.

  Although he didn’t think Howlett and the Indians would catch up to Ordell right away, Clint knew those men had spread out far enough to keep Ordell from circling back to the cabin right away. Ordell’s taunt had been like a spark against kindling, which meant the hunter wanted a chase. Clint wasn’t in the mood to disappoint him.

  As he bolted down the narrow path leading to the river, Clint tried to think a few steps ahead of Ordell. What surprised him the most was how quickly he was able to put himself into the hunter’s frame of mind. After the last few days, Clint had learned some hard lessons from Ordell. Now was the time to put them to use.

  Crow ran with his body leaning forward and low. His hands were wrapped tightly around his tomahawks and his arms were swept back against his sides like a raven’s wings. As he leapt forward, he looked three steps ahead for any trace of the man he was after.

  In his ears, the Indian could hear the screams of his family as they were killed and maimed by the butcher he pursued. In his mind, Crow could imagine what Ordell had done after hunting those innocents down like so many rabbits.

  He didn’t have to imagine the fear in his family’s eyes when their time had come. He’d seen it plenty of times in his nightmares.

  Crow caught sight of something that didn’t belong. It was a length of root that was stretched perfectly straight from one bush to another and it was too high off the ground to have grown there on its own. Even though he recognized it as a trap, Crow was moving too swiftly to avoid it. At the last second, he hopped up and over the snare without so much as grazing the false root.

  A few steps later, Crow felt something tug against his ankle and then snap. It must have been another snare, but Crow hadn’t seen it. He felt the bite of something slicing into his leg, however, and heard something moving swiftly toward him through one of the nearby bushes.

  Crow was still running at full speed and his feet were digging into the ground to try and push him faster. He caught sight of the branch swinging toward him and knew instantly that it was one of those same traps that he and Howlett had found along the way to the cabin.

  Since the branch was on his right side, Crow swung that arm forward and twisted his wrist to give his tomahawk a bit of extra power. He felt his blade smack against something immediately and kept his arm moving despite the sting he felt in his shoulder.

  A sharpened stake dug into his flesh and ripped a gouge in his right bicep. The gouge was shallow, however, since Crow managed to deflect the branch before it did any real damage. When he took his next step, his tomahawk cut all the way through the branch and he felt the stakes bump against his leg as it fell.

  Knowing that traps like these were the reason Ordell had been so bold, Crow smiled and kept running. Ordell was going to have to do much better than that if he intended on winning this battle.

  Howlett didn’t bother looking straight ahead. Instead, he kept glancing to the trees on either side. He didn’t bother looking for the traps, since he already had seen how good Ordell was at hiding those damned contraptions.

  Instead, he looked for odd shapes connected to those trees or even a patch of leaves that were just a bit too thick on their trunks. Those were the traps themselves, and Howlett didn’t have to see any more than that to know which trees were safe and which to avoid.

  The moment he spotted one of those traps, he dodged to the side and slowed his pace just to make sure he wasn’t about to kill himself. He might not have kept up with the Indians, but Howlett’s slower pace was good enough to catch sight of Ordell.

  It seemed the hunter was banking on everyone running at him the same way. After lighting the fuse, Ordell seemed to have stepped to one side so he could watch the explosion. Howlett was shocked to see the other man so quickly. Judging by the look on Ordell’s face, he was just as shocked.

  Both men swung their guns to their shoulders and took aim. With all the commotion going on around them and with both men moving on their own, it would have taken a small miracle for them to aim properly. As he’d figured, Howlett’s shot punched through a tree trunk while Ordell’s whistled through the air overhead.

  Howlett grinned, knowing that Ordell’s relic of a gun should take at least double the amount of time than his to reload. While working the lever of his rifle, Howlett stopped and took a moment to aim. Since Ordell didn’t have the sense to move, it seemed as though the hunt might be over sooner than Howlett expected.

  Before Howlett could squeeze his trigger, another plume of black smoke erupted from Ordell’s barrel. When he saw that smoke, Howlett was certain it would mark his last moment on earth. He was wrong.

  When he blinked again, Howlett saw Ordell pointing his rifle straight up into the air. Crow was directly beside Ordell with one tomahawk still lodged on the underside of the hunter’s rifle.

  Since there wasn’t any time to think about how close he’d come to dying, Howlett took a breath and lowered himself to one knee. If he was going to repay Crow for saving his life, now was a good time.

  Before Howlett could take ai
m, however, he heard a shot from the woods nearby.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Even as he felt the rifle get knocked out of one hand, Ordell managed to keep hold of the trigger and grip. The rifle roared and spat its shot into the air before Ordell finally saw the hand that had knocked it loose. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled while taking hold of the rifle once more and pulling it down.

  Crow stared up at him defiantly from a low crouch. One of the Indian’s hands was still sweeping upward after forcing the rifle up. His other hand was sweeping around in a tight semicircle to send his other tomahawk through Ordell’s stomach.

  As his fingers started to curl around the rifle’s barrel, Ordell brought the stock down and around to viciously crack the Indian in the head. His fist clenched tightly around the barrel and began a second swing when another rifle shot blazed through the air and tore through his cheek just a few inches shy of a killing blow.

  Ordell reeled back, but instinctually managed to keep hold of his rifle. It was also instinct that brought his rifle up just in time to block an incoming swing from Crow’s tomahawk. Ordell caught the tomahawk right under the blade, lifted the rifle over his head and yanked the weapon from Crow’s hand.

  The tomahawk pitched through the air and Crow watched it just long enough to see where it might land. He then swung his second tomahawk, but only sliced through empty air before the butt of Ordell’s rifle caught him in the temple. After that, Crow was too dizzy to chase anyone.

  As he ran, Ordell hunched over and held his rifle like a spear. A shotgun blast ripped through some trees to his left, telling him exactly where that second Indian was. Ordell grinned to himself and pointed the rifle barrel toward the ground.

  After a few more steps, Ordell felt his rifle barrel scrape against wooden planks that had been hidden beneath a layer of leaves and branches. He leapt over the boards, pulled himself down low again and ran doubly fast.

  “I saw him!” Three shouted as he sent another shotgun blast toward the spot where Ordell’s head had popped up.

  Howlett had seen him, too, but didn’t bother taking a shot. Instead, he quickened his pace to try and catch up to Ordell rather than waste ammunition shooting at fleeting glimpses. He knew he was on the right track when he heard leaves rustling directly in front of him. The next thing he heard was a loud series of snaps, which was made by something much heavier than branches. In fact, it reminded him of a roof caving in.

  Howlett was running at close to full speed when he heard a sickening thump followed by a loud scream.

  Everything in Howlett’s mind told him to stop running. His legs dug into the dirt, but his momentum carried him another few feet before sending him right over the edge of a pit roughly the size of a door.

  Howlett let out a surprised curse as he felt his feet slide into the pit. He threw his rifle away and desperately scrambled with both hands to grab hold of anything at all that would stop his slide. One set of fingertips dug into the earth and wrapped around a clump of weeds. His other hand managed to clamp onto the ground itself and dig in with every bit of strength he had.

  His eyes were clenched shut and his teeth were gnashing together as he waited to slip and fall. Although his boots were scraping against something below him, he wasn’t about to slide another inch. He was grabbing onto the ground so tightly, it would have taken a team of oxen to pry him loose.

  Now that he’d come to a stop, Howlett sucked in a few breaths to gather up the strength to pull himself out of the pit. Between breaths, he could hear a wet gurgling sound along with what sounded like a whimpering animal.

  Howlett twisted to look behind and beneath him and saw Three lying at the bottom of the pit. The hole itself looked to be as deep as a grave. Considering the fact that the bottom was littered with sharpened stakes, a grave was exactly what it had become.

  The Indian lay wedged among those stakes. A few of them were jabbing into his stomach and chest, but there had to be plenty more that were wedged in so deeply they couldn’t even be seen.

  “You all r—” Howlett cut himself off before asking one of the stupidest questions of his life. Forcing himself to look at Three’s face instead of his grievous wounds, he asked, “Are you alive?”

  Three sucked in a breath and let it out with another agonized groan. He tried to talk, but could only let out a gasp that trailed off into silence. The best thing Howlett could hope for was that the Indian was already dead.

  Kicking against the tops of those spikes, Howlett pulled himself up and strained every muscle in his arms and shoulders in the process. As he was bringing his legs back over the edge, he heard someone rushing toward the pit.

  “Slow up!” Howlett shouted. “It’s a trap.”

  The steps stopped immediately and were replaced by a slow, deliberate rustle. A few seconds later, Crow’s face emerged from the bushes. The instant he saw Howlett, he rushed forward and helped the man back onto solid ground.

  “Where’s Three Eyes?” Crow asked.

  Howlett glanced over his shoulder and said, “He’s in there. He’s dead.”

  Crow looked anyway. His face darkened as he saw the body. When he looked back again, it seemed another ghost had taken residence behind his eyes. “Where did Ordell go?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t even know,” Howlett gasped.

  “And the other white man?”

  “If he’s still alive, I wish him luck. He’s sure as hell gonna need it.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Clint didn’t even bother trying to run through that thick tangle of trees and bushes. If Ordell was going to go through the trouble of announcing himself to a bunch of armed men intent on killing him, there was no reason to assume those trees weren’t even more dangerous than the ones where Clint had almost been impaled.

  Still, thinking like a hunter wasn’t enough. Clint knew Ordell wasn’t just a hunter. He was a hunter who reveled in the kill. That small detail was enough to give Clint an idea of where to look for his own prey.

  Clint stuck to the one spot where most trackers wouldn’t think to look for a man like Ordell. That spot was the trail that led back to the river and it was out there on an open stretch of road that Clint caught sight of the very man he’d been looking for.

  Emerging from the trees like a badger, Ordell was hunched over to half his size and scuttling forward in a quick waddle. The smile on his face made it seem like he was in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek.

  Half a second before Clint could do anything, Ordell turned and squeezed off a round from his rifle. Knowing all too well what that rifle could do in the right hands, Clint jumped to one side and then dove behind a tree. The shot cut through the air over Clint’s shoulder, coming amazingly close to drawing blood.

  “That you again, Clint? I was hoping you weren’t the one that landed in that pit.”

  Clint leaned from behind the tree and saw Ordell scurry into the bushes. “What is it you want to accomplish, Ordell?” Clint shouted. “You don’t really think you’ll make it past all these men, do you?”

  “I’d say I got a better’n average chance. ’Specially since there’s at least one less man to worry about. Just listen to him scream, Clint. When a man’s at the bottom of a pit full a spikes, it’s hard for him to sound much like a man anymore. Sounds more like a woman to me. Maybe he caught a spike or two in a tender place.”

  Clint ducked back and forth behind his tree, taking quick looks for Ordell without staying exposed for too long. Sure enough, he could hear the screaming Ordell was talking about. And, sure enough, he couldn’t tell who it was that had gotten hurt. One thing he knew for certain was that the man was hurt awfully bad.

  “Come on, Clint. Come after me,” Ordell taunted as if reading Clint’s mind. “Come after me so you can brag to those bleeding men how you snagged the big prize.”

  Clint could still hear the screaming, but now he could hear Howlett’s voice as well.

  “Slow up!” Howlett shouted. “It’s a trap.”

&
nbsp; When he spoke again, Ordell already sounded as if he were farther away. “Come on, Clint! Let’s finish this up proper!”

  At times, Clint had wondered what the hell would cause a man to kill the way Ordell had killed. The fact that Ordell had committed those terrible things of which he was accused wasn’t even a question any longer. But there was no more time to think about what made a man do what Ordell did. All Clint thought about now was making the man stop.

  Pulling in a breath, Clint jumped out from his cover with the rifle pointed directly in front of him. Keeping the pained screams behind him, he fired at the first thing that moved in front of him.

  He fired, levered in another round and fired again. Clint stuck to the road and fired at anything big enough to make a noise or move a branch. His hands worked at a blistering pace until it seemed that the rifle in his hands wouldn’t be able to keep up.

  Clint could feel the heat pouring from the rifle’s barrel as he fired and fired until the last round had blazed into the trees. After tossing the rifle away and drawing his Colt, he stood his ground and waited for another target.

  Once the thunder of those gunshots had cleared, Clint couldn’t hear anything else but the dwindling cries of whoever had been hurt. At that moment, Clint made his choice and decided to help who he could help instead of playing more of Ordell’s game.

  He kept his Colt ready as he made his way through the trees. Clint had no trouble finding the spot where the others were, since there was plenty of motion and noise to draw his attention. Before he got close, Clint made sure to announce his arrival by speaking loudly and clearly.

  “Hold your fire. It’s Clint Adams.”

  Even after that, Clint was nearly cut down the moment he stepped into Howlett’s and Crow’s sight.

  “Where’s Ordell?” Howlett asked. “Did you see him?”

  “I saw him for a second or so, but that’s it.”

  “Then why the hell didn’t you go after him? If that ass-hole gets away, all of this will be for shit!”