by Eric Red
“That’s right.” Noose jammed the muzzle in Butler’s cheek, smearing a bloody crease in his salt-and-pepper whiskers. Then he shot a fierce glance to the gunmen drawing down on him with an army of firepower. “I said, lower them guns or I kill him! Now!”
Confusion and alarm flickered across the bounty killers’ faces, wearing dangerous expressions that ranged from wary to stupid. The sound of the crickets in the area seemed to rise in a savage drone.
Frank Butler just laughed with the pistols in his face and looked Noose square in the eye. “That’s your plan? Take me in, tell the law I killed the marshal? Your plan is crap. I got eleven boys here swear it was you.”
“Ten.”
“Well, you got lucky with that one.” Butler’s eyes glinted with mirth and he cut his gaze to his men holding their guns on Noose. “Slade wasn’t worth spit anyway.” He said to Noose, “You shoot me, they shoot you. Nobody gets paid. We’re in it for the money, mister, ain’t personal. Not yet anyways. I’ll make a deal with you. Go on and drop your pistols and we’ll leave off you. For now. Say we give you another hour head start.”
Noose said, “You boys first.”
Nobody moved.
Noose jammed the pistol muzzles harder under Butler’s jaw. Butler’s bullet black eyes didn’t blink. “Boys, just kill him and be done with it,” he snarled.
The bounty killers tightened their fingers on the triggers of the guns aimed right at Noose’s head.
Noose whistled loudly.
A gallop of hooves.
The gang of badmen were caught off guard as Noose’s horse charged into the gully. Noose threw Butler to the ground and knocked the men out of the way as he swung up into the saddle, escaping on horseback in a firestorm of bullets. Butler and his bounty killers ran to their horses and gave pursuit.
Noose rode for his life up the rocky arroyo. He looked over his shoulder to see the gang of men and horses charging after him in clouds of dust. They were still two minutes behind. Muzzle flash after muzzle flash appeared as bullets exploded around Noose’s horse’s hooves.
His hand reached for a roll of sharp barbed wire he had in his saddle . . .
CHAPTER 9
The bounty hunters rode hell-for-leather onto the empty ridge at full gallop.
A length of barbed wire was suddenly snapped taut at saddle level at the entrance to the ridge.
The last bounty hunter, T-Bone, rode into it at full gallop.
The sharp wire sluiced through the flesh of his throat and his spinal cord like a knife through butter.
His head was severed.
The gunman’s face was frozen in an expression of dumb surprise as his head spun through the air in a spray of blood jetting from the neck stump.
The decapitated body, guns and all, toppled over the edge of the ridge. His horse traveled on with a blood-soaked empty saddle.
T-Bone never had a chance to scream, just gurgle, and Frank Butler and his men didn’t notice his absence until the leader pulled his horse up to look around the empty ridge and did a quick head count. “Where the hell is T-Bone?” he growled.
One of his men pointed grimly at the riderless horse.
Butler stared coldly at the bloody saddle.
“Now it’s hundred thousand dollars split ten ways. Ten thousand each,” he stated coldly with a trace of a smile.
It was sounding better to the greedy bounty killers every minute.
T-Bone’s headless corpse lay at the base of the ridge.
Noose’s hands smoothly removed the man’s pistols, rifle, and bandoliers.
Then his fingers closed the eyes of the severed head lying nearby.
Frank Butler’s black bullet eyes blinked. The bounty killers stared around them at the massive expanse of empty, desolate granite cliffs and pine forest.
Noose spurred his horse on toward the canyons and rode for it.
He looked over his shoulder to see the gang a mile back, gaining on him in a mushroom cloud of dirt.
Noose dismounted his horse.
He slapped its rear and sent it on its way, unmounted, into the canyons.
He ducked into the rock formations.
Butler reined his horse in the flats. Put up his hand. The bounty killers stopped. Butler smelled the air, handlebar mustache twitching—a human bloodhound. His head rotated like a gun turret as he scanned the canyons a half mile away, cutting sign.
He pointed with a black-gloved finger. “There.”
They rode. Butler and his gang galloped into the low canyons, following Noose’s horse’s tracks.
The bounty killers rounded a bend.
Noose’s horse was standing there, saddle empty.
“He’s behind us!” Butler roared.
Before they could react, Noose leapt up behind them and shot a fat bounty killer named Sweet clean out of the stirrups. Half his face had been blown off. The dead man’s gun went off into his saddle, crippling his horse. Noose ducked down and whistled for his own horse.
Frank Butler blasted Noose’s horse with both barrels of his shotgun, killing it instantly. The horse collapsed where it stood and the bounty hunter was thrown from the saddle.
“Damn!” Noose cursed.
He leapt down a rocky incline, skidding on the heels of his boots to get away. Then he lost his balance and toppled face-first. Noose somersaulted head over heels down the hundred-and-fifty-foot ridge, bouncing off rocks and boulders. He hit the bottom. Staggering to his feet, he scrambled away.
Butler shot a savagely triumphant glance to his men. “He’s on foot now.”
The leader reloaded and reseated his shotgun quickly and regarded Sweet’s corpse under his lamed horse. “Hundred thousand cut nine ways. Eleven thousand ’n change each.” The bounty killers exchanged avaricious glances. “Let’s go get it.”
They rode down the trail.
On the canyon floor, the nine bounty killers cantered on horseback to ledges at the base of the butte. They patrolled on full alert, riding past the spot where Noose landed.
Butler’s eyes searched the area, machinelike.
They rounded a bend.
Noose jumped off a ledge above them, shotgun blasting, blowing the bounty killer Snake right out of his saddle. The corpse landed in a heap in the dirt with two huge steaming craters in his chest. Noose flew through the air, landed in the empty saddle, and spurred the horse onward.
Butler raised his pistol and drew a bead. He fired once.
Noose was hit in the shoulder.
He fell out of the saddle of the fast-galloping horse.
His boot caught in the stirrup.
Noose was brutally dragged across the rocks and tundra.
Bullets whined and exploded around his ears as the pursuing gang of bounty killers fired upon him. He tried to shoot back, but was smashed up as he was dragged by the hard-charging galloping horse. Painstakingly, amid volleys of rifle and pistol rounds, Noose sat up as he was dragged, and pulled himself hand over hand on the stirrup trapping his leg toward the saddle as he was jounced over the hard ground. With his last ounce of strength, the cowboy climbed back into his saddle and spurred the horse, escaping from his pursuers into a deep ravine.
Butler reined his horse. He put up his black-gloved hand for his gang to stop. Butler watched Noose disappear in the distance, and chuckled.
“Now, that, boys, is how to sit a horse.”
He regarded his gang with his bullet black eyes full of fury.
“Hundred thousand split eight ways. Twelve thousand each.”
The gang of killers masticated on that.
“Reload.”
They did.
Butler’s eyes darkened as he watched the cloud of dust that was his quarry melt into the waves of heat. The badman knew his prey was badly wounded, but that didn’t change things. Because right now:
It was four, zip.
CHAPTER 10
If you are reading this I am dead. My body has been turned in by bounty killers run by Frank Butler and you have fo
und this letter in my clothes. I swear I am innocent of the killing of the U.S. Marshal the reward has been put out for me on. Butler murdered the marshal in order to frame me and collect the money. Proof of this will be the bullets in the marshal’s body are from Butler’s own gun, not mine. These words are God’s truth. Signed, Joe Noose.
Noose sat in the saddle writing the letter.
Finished, he folded the wrinkled, blood-splattered paper and stuffed it inside his coat.
Safe for now, he slumped in his stirrups and let his horse rest at the stream, where it drank thirstily.
Grimacing in agony, Noose unbuttoned his shirt and fingered the oozing bullet wound in his shoulder. The slug had gone clean through but he had broken a few ribs getting dragged by the horse. The bullet hole had started to throb and was soon going to hurt like hell.
Noose was messed up. That was a fact.
His clothes were covered with blood, mostly his. In disgust, he wiped off some skull and brain fragments from the killer he shot with his own guns, rearming himself. The two Colts he confiscated were in pretty good condition and both loaded. Noose took quick inventory of his weapons and ammo: besides those two guns, he had the two Remington Peacemaker pistols, Winchester rifle, and bandolier belts filled with bullets taken from the second bounty killer he had killed with the wire. It was enough firepower to put up a fight and he was going to need it. Every last bullet.
Looking over his shoulder, Noose saw no sign of his pursuers but they were out there, maybe licking their wounds a moment but not far behind. And damn pissed.
Ironically, the more of the gang he killed, the greater was the share of the reward the survivors would split; the more bounty killers he took out, the more motivated the ones left alive were to kill him. Once they got him, these vultures would probably shoot one another in the back to get more money.
It was bad odds. He was still outnumbered. There were a lot more of them and sooner or later they would get him.
He needed a plan.
Jackson Hole was thirty miles away. Thirty miles of hard terrain lay between here and there. Noose knew he had to ride for town. It was his only option. If he could make it there in one piece, he could get to the marshal’s office and tell his story and at least get out of the crosshairs of these bounty killers. There would at least be a trial and witnesses and evidence could be presented. He was an innocent man. It was a good bet that Butler and his thugs’ reputation preceded them and doubtless some of that gang had warrants out for them. That was what Noose would do and was all he could do: ride for his life and make for Jackson.
Trouble was the town lay west and that meant turning around and heading back the way he came.
A bounty for the murdered U.S. Marshal would be serious money, probably a hundred thousand dollars. If he made it to town maybe he would take down all these bastards and collect the reward for himself.
Now, there was a thought.
It was the first time Noose smiled all day.
CHAPTER 11
The sun burned like a white bullet hole in the barren sky.
In a wash, the gang were watering and resting their horses.
Butler stood staring out at the gigantic pine forests and granite canyon breaks towering all around them in the Hoback wilderness.
His right-hand man, Sharpless, walked up, awaiting orders.
“He’s not going far. We’ll pick up his trail easy enough,” Butler said without turning. “We need to kill him quick now. That marshal telegraphed he was organizing a posse tomorrow to catch him if we don’t, and the clock is ticking on this reward.”
“Where you figure he’s heading, Mr. Butler?”
“Jackson Hole.”
“But that’s clear back the other way.”
“He’ll double back to Jackson directly. Try to turn himself in to the law before we get to him, tell his story, take his chances they’ll believe him. That’s his only move. Hell, it’s what I’d do.”
The leader glared at his man and spat in the dirt.
“It’s on us to make sure that don’t happen.”
* * *
Bess Sugarland caught up with the bounty killers just before noon.
Now as she reined her horse and looked down at the gang of eight riders grouped in the wash, she noticed there were fewer of them than there were an hour ago. On her ride to catch up, Bess had heard the explosive reports of gunshots and screams of agony echoing through the canyons and wondered if the bounty killers had run into an army because it sure sounded like a damn war had broken out.
From all the blood everywhere, it had: she had ridden past the corpses of four bounty killers getting here.
One individual had killed all those dangerous men.
Bess felt a twinge of admiration for the wanted man but then hated herself for finding any virtue in the man who killed her father. If she saw the murderer again and had the chance herself to shoot him, her finger wouldn’t hesitate on the trigger.
A few short hours ago the young woman couldn’t have imagined she’d have a crack at her father’s killer given how fearsome a first impression the gang of twelve men had made, but so far they had been bested.
Thinking maybe these bounty killers weren’t all they were cracked up to be, Bess suddenly felt less intimidated by the manhunters and rode down into the wash to talk to them.
* * *
A twig snapped outside the camp.
Butler and the bounty killers quickly drew their guns in a symphony of cocking hammers. “Show yourself!” the leader demanded—his gloved hand was up, telling his men not to fire because he already knew it wasn’t Noose.
The figure appeared, flashing a marshal badge gleaming in the sunlight.
It was that damn uppity girl deputy!
“Easy, boys. It’s me,” she said. “Acting Marshal Bess Sugarland, from back in town.” The girl stepped out into the clearing, hands held open in front of her.
Butler was dumbfounded. He had not expected this. “Lower your weapons,” he grumbled.
The gang did. The fierce leader gave the nervy young woman the stink eye. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Bess walked into camp, nervous but bearing up bravely. “The marshal was murdered by that man you’re after. The law needs to be involved. Right now, that’s me.”
“That’s you. I see.” Butler regarded her blankly.
“I was his sworn deputy and now the marshal’s gone, I’m in charge.”
“You’re in charge,” Butler said mockingly.
“Yes, sir, I am, yes, I am in charge,” Bess responded firmly, holding his gaze.
Butler’s eyes glinted with mirth and he turned his back on Bess, huddling with his men and rubbing his hands. “Okay. She says she’s in charge.” He cut his eyes from man to man.
They all chuckled.
Bess went off and tied her horse to a tree across the wash, out of earshot. Behind her, the bounty killers whispered among themselves in a crouched circle that resembled a malignant kettle of vultures.
“How old is she, fifteen?” One smirked.
“You see the ass on that little bitch?” Another one leered.
“And them high, firm titties,” added another bounty killer.
Across the clearing, Bess heard the mumbles and snickers—she knew they were talking about her and could guess what they were saying. Her back was to the bounty killers because Bess didn’t want those men to see she was suffering an anxiety attack that froze her face into a taut mask. The sudden tension left Bess paralyzed and unable to breathe. Her sober realization of being one woman alone with ruthless armed men who could rape or kill her out here where nobody would ever know made her want to puke her guts out. Bess struggled to settle down. Truth was, she was scared spitless. But she had mettle and soon pulled herself together. Bess told herself she was a daughter who meant to have the man who murdered her father brought to justice and that trumped her fear. And she was the marshal now with the responsibility that came along with the b
adge. Her father had raised her that way and his strength came to her now. The anxiety attack passed as abruptly as it came on and Bess felt herself again.
The men kept whispering, out of earshot.
“We’s gonna do her and kill her. Right, boss?” asked a scurvy killer taking a swig from a bottle of whiskey. “Each of us gets a turn, right?”
“Out here won’t nobody never find the body,” his equally scabrous friend seconded.
Frank Butler agreeably regarded his shootists and picked his teeth. “Reckon.”
Bess piped up across the gully. “Just letting you men know before I left Hoback, I telegraphed the U.S. Marshal’s office in Jackson Hole I was coming along with you to catch the marshal’s killer, so they’ll be expecting to see me when we bring him in for the reward.”
Butler’s eyes darkened. Foiled. For now.
“Relax, boys,” he muttered. “She won’t even be able to keep up.”
CHAPTER 12
A few miles away, the wounded bounty hunter Joe Noose was cleaning his wounds. His shirt was off and his exposed chest and arms were horribly bruised and smeared with blood from the fresh bullet holes in his shoulder. The process was painful, but slowly he was getting his injuries cleaned. The part that was really going to hurt was soon to come.
Noose had put in by a burbling brook in heavy forest he had ridden deep into that the cowboy hoped would provide adequate cover from the posse on his tail—at least for an hour or so, allowing him to rest his horse. The freshwater would be useful. His own wounds were seriously in need of treatment or else he was going to be in worse trouble than he already was.
The tall pine trees crowned a steep switchback and mountain ridge overlook, affording a good view of the terrain below he had just traveled and from where the pursuing bounty killers were likely to follow. For the last few miles Noose had ridden in a zigzag pattern to elude them, traversing in and out of scattered patches of woods, attempting to throw Butler and his men off his tail. Soon enough, he would see how well that evasion tactic had worked.
It seemed safe enough here for now.