Gun (A Spur Western Book 8)

by Matt Chisholm

  He worked his way north, knowing that though the brush could hide him, it couldn’t stop a bullet. Movement was the only thing that could keep him alive. He had to get the men on the slope under fire so that they would draw away from those above. One thing he had attained already—these men now knew they had an enemy behind them. A man didn’t attack too well knowing he had a gun behind him. One good shot, one man down and he could change the whole situation. These men didn’t look to be killed any more than any other man did.

  He came to a break in the brush and this turned him west toward the ridge. He crawled rapidly. He heard a man shout ahead of him and that gave him a location to work on. He came on two horses tied in the brush and one of them snorted at the sight of him. He at once changed direction again and went south-west, knowing that the animal had given his position away. He was sweating.

  He thought he heard the distant sound of shots and knew that could be Juanita, Ben and Inaki starting in the other valley. The high rifle slammed once.

  Spur lifted his head.

  He saw a man stumbling down the hillside, crouched, holding an arm.

  Spur raised his voice.

  ‘Charlie, is that you up there, Charlie?’ Silence. ‘This is Spur, Charlie. We have them surrounded.’

  A shout came back. Somebody up there waved an arm. A crackle of rifle fire rang out. Spur saw movement above him and fired. The wounded man halted and started shooting down at him. Spur shot him through the body. The man drove his shoulder into the hillside and somersaulted over and over to the bottom of the hill. A light wisp of dust rose and then there was a kind of appalled silence.

  Charlie Doolittle let out a wild Comanche yell.

  Spur laughed in sheer relief.

  There was a man running. He was heading for the horses. Spur thought: What the hell? He’s out of the fight. There was a crushing of brush and then a horse went east at a flat run. There was rifle fire from the top of the ridge, but now Charlie was shooting into the other valley. Spur rose and went forward. Two men were accounted for, were there more?

  He heard a girl’s voice, screaming a warning. He knew it was Netta. He raised his eyes and saw her. She was pointing to the south.

  ‘Madder,’ was the only word he caught.

  He looked that way along the ridge and in that second the man fired. Spur headed for the rocks as a second bullet sang his way. He got into cover and cursed the fact that the man was above him. The thing in his favor was that most likely if the fellow had any sense he now wanted out. He would try to break for his horse and ride.

  He was wrong. Madder was after him. The little man was a fighting man and he didn’t like to be beaten. He also had an instinctive hatred of lawmen. He bawled his challenge to Spur.

  ‘Come an’ get me, Spur. I’m goin’ to kill you.’

  The man was standing plainly in view on a ledge some hundred feet above Spur, rifle in hands. Spur stood up and didn’t rightly know why.

  Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, the little man dropped into cover. The next moment there came the sound of his shot. Spur was moving. Something clipped his left shoulder viciously and he thought: Goddammit, I’m hit.

  He heard the high rifle then and raised his head.

  Holy Madder stepped from cover and automatically Spur raised his rifle for a shot. But he knew that another shot wasn’t necessary. The man was dead on his feet. Charlie Doolittle had settled his hash. Madder stepped out into space and dropped like a stone.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Charlie Doolittle’s voice roared out: ‘That’s it, Sam. Come on up, boy.’

  Wearily, Spur rose to his feet, whistled the mare and started to climb the steep slope. Now, he thought, this was going to be worse than the fight. He had to face a rejected woman and Netta wasn’t one to be scorned lightly. He kept his eyes on the rocks above, waiting for her to appear, dreading the sight of her.

  They came out of cover when he was halfway up the slope. He saw that Charlie was holding one of her hands. As he came nearer he thought he had never seen two people who had been in the shadow of death look less the worse for it. He had to recognize the fact that they glowed. He saw Charlie look at the girl and he saw her look at Charlie.

  Holy mackerel, he thought.

  He was damned if Charlie didn’t put his arm around her. Sure, they had been holed up together here and they had shared mortal danger, but hell ... then he remembered Juanita. A man could sure get himself confused over women.

  Netta looked tired to the bone. And she glowed.

  Charlie managed to get his arm from around the girl and took time off to shake Spur’s hand. Then Spur turned to Netta. He didn’t know what to say.

  Netta giggled and that floored him.

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ she said, ‘if you could only see your face.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Charlie, ‘God knows it’s no oil-painting at the best of times, but right now ...’

  ‘Netta,’ Spur said. He saw that her hand was back in Charlie’s.

  She said: ‘You don’t have to say anything, Sam. Charlie told me.’

  Spur looked at Doolittle and the man was grinning all over his homely unshaven face. Spur was so relieved that he couldn’t believe his luck. He kissed Netta and he shook Charlie by the hand till the lank man thought that member would come loose from his arm.

  Netta said: ‘Charlie says this young lady of yours is mighty beautiful, Sam. She must be wild with worry with you out on the trail after Maddox.’

  ‘The young lady,’ said Spur, ‘is up in the rocks yonder shooting the butts off Maddox and his boys. We’d best go to her before she comes huntin’ us with a loaded gun.’

  They went over the ridge together and looked at the scene below them. Spur could see Juanita riding across the valley, urging her horse forward. She was sticking to her word and was coming fast. Down below Cusie Ben stood in his longjohns, gun hanging from his right hand. The Basque was walking to join him. The three of them went down the valley side with the mare walking behind them. When they reached the bottom, they found that a man lay at Ben’s feet. A bullet had taken him between the eyes and he was as dead as a man could be. It was Maddox. Netta clung to Charlie’s hand, but she didn’t faint or anything like that. This wasn’t her first fight by a long shot. A short way off, Wayne Gaylor sat on a rock looking like a completely defeated man. That pleased Spur. At least he would have one of the escaped men to take back to Sunset. He mustn’t forget that he was a career lawman.

  Juanita pounded up on her horse and jumped from the saddle. She rushed to Spur and threw her arms around him.

  In Spanish, she cried: ‘You are hurt, my heart.’

  Spur just grinned foolishly and patted her, saying: ‘I was never better in my life.’

  She took her head off his chest and stared at Netta. Then she looked at Spur. She didn’t miss Netta’s hand in that of Charlie Doolittle.

  ‘So?’ she said.

  ‘You can see,’ Spur said.

  She laughed.

  ‘Goin’ to marry me,’ Charlie said, looking as foolish as Spur.

  Juanita danced a little, then she kissed Netta.

  ‘Samuel,’ she said, ‘she is beautiful.’ She could admit that now she was safe. ‘You show poor taste in choosing me.’

  Spur said: ‘Honey, I know, but it’s somethin’ I have to live with.’

  Cusie Ben said: ‘I’m goin’ to wear me that Gaylor’s pants. It’s only right. This kinda thing ain’t decent in the company of ladies.’

  They spent some time persuading him that it wasn’t decent for Gaylor to be without pants either under the circumstances, but he put up a stout fight. He wanted justice. Inaki Cilveti after he had wrung his boss’s hand a hundred times hunted through the rocks for a dead man and returned with his pants and shirt for Ben. The Negro garbed himself and said to Spur:

  ‘Jest shows, boy, we can get by without that durned Kid.’

  Spur laughed.

  He said: ‘I ain’t too sure if we’re
in Mexico or Arizona, but my vote says we search those horses for grub. I don’t know if it’s love or fightin’ makes you hungry, but I could sure eat a horse.’

  Ben grinned.

  ‘Folks,’ he said, ‘I’m about to illustrate that I ain’t jest a pretty face an’ I have other talents beside shootin’ and ridin’. I hate to boast, but I sure is the best durned cook this side of Kansas an’ I aim to prove it.’

  Spur sat down. He had to. He had never felt better in his life, but his legs refused to hold him.

  ‘I’ll vouch for that,’ he said.

  He looked at Charlie Doolittle and the man grinned at him. He looked at Netta, but the girl was looking at Charlie. Spur felt something in his hand. He looked down and saw that it was Juanita’s.

  ‘Your daddy,’ he said, ‘is sure goin’ to be mad at me lettin’ you traipse the desert country this way.’

  She laid her cheek against his arm and said: ‘Samuel, by the time we reach Sunset, he will have no right, for you and I will be married.’

  Corralled at last, thought Spur, and pressed the hand in his.

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