Dusty knew this could not go on much longer. Despite the fact that Kiowa was twenty years older, he was simply the stronger of the two. Then, an idea occurred to him.
Dusty suddenly stepped back, and as suddenly pulled the knife downward. The arc of the knife brought it down and into Kiowa’s own abdomen, and Kiowa’s strength drove the knife in deeply, burying the blade to the hilt.
He looked at Dusty, his eyes wide with surprise. He opened his mouth to say something, but all he could manage was a gasping groan.
Dusty curled his fingers about the hilt of the knife, and pulled it free, the blade dripping with crimson. Sam had told him years earlier if you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to use a knife on a man, never leave it in him. Pull if free so he can bleed more freely. And many a mortally wounded man can be full of life right up until the last second, and Kiowa could possibly, though not likely, pull the blade free himself and use it on Dusty.
Kiowa sank to his knees, a blood stain growing about the hole the knife had made in his shirt. Dusty figured he was not only bleeding out through the knife wound, but internally as well. Kiowa’s eyes rolled back, and he fell face down into the grass.
Loggins hurried forward rolled Kiowa over, and lowered his head to press an ear against Kiowa’s chest. He then looked to Falcone. “He’s dead.”
Falcone looked to Dusty and nodded with approval, a smile breaking onto his face. “Well done.”
“Hold it,” the one called Stew said. “Where’s the other one?”
Falcone glanced quickly about, realizing for the first time Josh had disappeared. His brows dropped. “Yes. Where is he?”
Stew had been cradling a scatter-gun throughout the fight. He now brought the twin barrels to face Dusty. “Don’t you move a whisker until we figger out what’s goin’ on, here.”
Dusty raised the knife and let it fly in one quick motion. The steel blade sunk into Stew’s throat, and he fell backward a couple of steps, dropping the gun to clutch the knife handle protruding beneath his chin.
Dusty raised one foot and drove the toe of his boot into the jaw of Loggins, who was still kneeling by the body of Kiowa.
Dusty then turned and sprinted for the cabin door as Falcone drew his pistol.
Falcone squeezed off a shot, but his aim was high and the bullet buried itself into the wood of the door as Dusty pushed the door open and charged inside.
He didn’t slow his pace as he crossed the floor toward a window, which was no more than a three-by-three foot hole cut into the wall, with a small shutter that was at the moment open. Dusty raced toward it, raised his arms out before him, and dove through the opening, one shoulder grazing painfully against the corner of the window. His body cleared the cabin, and he rolled head-first onto the grass outside to break his fall. His momentum carried him back to his feet, and he resumed running.
A thick grove of short pines stood thirty feet from the cabin, and he knew if he could reach them without being shot from behind, he might have a reasonable chance of escaping this canyon.
He wasn’t as quick afoot as Josh – a little taller and more heavily muscled – but he stretched his legs to their limits.
He charged into the thick boughs of the pines, and a gun fired from behind. He felt the breeze of the bullet as it passed inches from his left ear.
He dropped to the earth as more shots erupted from the cabin, the bullets cutting through the pines, snapping off branches and tearing off strips of bark. The shots were from a pistol, Dusty could tell by the sound of each report, and he figured it was Falcone who had followed him into the cabin was now firing from the window.
There was a slight pause, but Dusty remained on the ground, out of sight of the window. Falcone might very well have a second pistol. And that proved to be the case, as more shots exploded, Dusty counting six, tearing into the trees.
Then, when the shooting ceased again, he sprang to his feet and started running again, now blocked from the view of the cabin by the pines, but knowing it wouldn’t be long before Falcone had reloaded and would resume firing, or he and Loggins took up pursuit.
Dusty ran along a wooded decline that led to a stream, which in turn led to the water hole that served as the water supply for Falcone and his men, and where the women did their bathing. The stream was too large for Dusty to clear with one leap, but he found a spot a few yards downstream where a rock rose above the water part-way across. With a running start, Dusty leaped, stretching one leg toward the rock.
His foot landed on it to push away from it toward the far bank. The leather sole of his boot slipped on the rock, however, and he lost some of his momentum. The earth at the very edge of the stream was soft, and it was there that he landed, burying one heel and creating a footprint that would show Falcone and Loggins he had passed here.
The print could be covered, Dusty knew, by scooping some mud from the stream bottom to fill in the print with, and the current would quickly smooth the gouge this would create in the stream bed, but there was no time. At any moment Falcone or Loggins would appear with a gun aimed at him. He would simply have to be more careful.
This side of the stream formed a wooded incline, rising toward the canyon wall, which from the other side of the canyon had appeared to be sheer rock. Yet, scaling that wall seemed to be his only course of action. To hide from men like Falcone and Loggins indefinitely within the confines of this canyon would be impossible. And they would be watching the pass into the canyon too closely for him to have a chance of using to escape.
However, could he scale the wall before they located him, and came within shooting range? A chance he would have to take. His only chance, he figured.
And at least they were chasing him, and not Josh.
He resumed running, stepping as carefully as he could along the pine needle laden forest floor so that he wouldn’t leave any noticeable boot prints. He stepped around any fallen branches, as even a broken twig could indicate to men like Falcone and Loggins that he had passed this way.
He emerged from the trees to find maybe three hundred feet of open ground, covered with light grass and choppy with outcroppings of bedrock, separating him from the canyon wall. Damn. Even more of a chance for one of his pursuers to get off a good shot at him before he could completely scale the wall.
He was huffing for breath. He had spent most of his years in a saddle and not afoot, and it now showed. His legs felt wobbly, and sweat was streaming down his face. A couple chugs from a cold canteen, he thought - what he wouldn’t give for that right now.
But he had no time to waste. He charged across the uneven ground, expecting at any moment for a gun to fire from behind and plant a bullet in his back. But he ran without looking back. To look back would cause him to break stride, and maybe lose a valuable second. A second that might make the difference between life and death.
The wall was maybe twenty feet of bedrock, not as sheer as it had appeared, being corrugated with rough edges and small shelves. Lots of hand and footholds, he thought. But rising at almost a perfect right angle from the canyon floor.
He noticed a crack at one point that was jagged like a lighting bolt, and it was here that he began his climb.
One leather sole slipped on the rock, but he held on with both hands and kicked around to regain his footing.
He scraped a finger, which would probably bleed, but only if he could get to the top of the wall before anyone shot him from down below. Dead men don’t bleed.
The crack in the rock ended eight feet from the canyon rim, and Dusty didn’t not have much room from which to jump. Immediately overhead was a small pine, leaning over the edge of the wall, and this would be Dusty’s goal. He knew if he missed the tree, there would be nothing between himself and a thirty foot fall to the canyon floor. And even if he managed to obtain a firm grip on the tree, its roots might not be strong enough to hold him for more than a moment or two.
He drew a breath. He needed all of the strength he could muster. Even had he been
well rested, he wouldn’t have wanted to bet on making this jump, but now, with his legs wobbly and his energy nearly spent, he had a feeling this jump might be the last thing he would ever do.
A bullet zinged at the rock near one hand, kicking off a chip of stone, and a moment later, the crack of gunfire from down below reached him.
He allowed himself a glance back and down over one shoulder. Falcone and Loggins had both emerged at the edge of the trees. Loggins had obtained a Winchester. He had been the one shooting, because Dusty was still out of pistol range.
Loggins was already jacking the rifle, chambering a round for another shot. Dusty turned his eyes back to the pine overhead, and sprang upward. He wrapped the fingers of his left hand about the slender trunk of the small pine. It bent under his weight, but the roots held. Dusty found himself dangling above the canyon.
With his right hand he grasped at the top of the wall, finding the earth soft. He managed to find a handhold, as a second bullet caught the shoulder of his shirt, tearing away some buckskin but missing his flesh. He let go of the pine, and grasped frantically at the canyon rim with his left, then began pulling himself upward until his shoulders were above the edge of the canyon.
Then the earth gave way, and he found himself slipping backward and down. He scrambled with his feet against the rock facing of the wall to slow his descent. His fingers clawed out at the earth frantically, but he could find no firm hand-hold.
Suddenly, a hand reached out from above, and gripped his right. It was a huge hand entirely enveloping his. He looked upward to see the bearded face of Hunter.
With his free hand Dusty clamped onto the top of Hunter’s big paw, and using only one hand Hunter pulled him upward and free of the canyon, as a third shot was fired from below.
And there was Zack Johnson, a few yards from Hunter, kneeling at the edge of the canyon wall, Pa’s Sharps buffalo rifle pressed against his shoulder. He was drawing a bead on the men below.
Zack squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked against his shoulder with a loud boom, and Loggins, still at the edge of the trees, was caught squarely in the chest. Despite the distance, the force of the shot lifted Loggins into the air and dropped him backwards to the earth.
“Even the old man himself couldn’t have done better than that,” Johnson said, a small smirk decorating his face, and he slid the action open, pulled out the empty cartridge, and dropped in another one.
The sling he had been wearing around his left arm was now gone. He said, “Good thing it wasn’t my right shoulder that took that bullet. It could never have taken the kick this rifle has.”
Beyond Johnson was Josh. And beside him was the girl, Temperance. Dusty was about to ask what she was doing here, but then he decided he didn’t need to. The answer was obvious.
Zack jacked open the action and pulled out the empty cartridge, then inserted a fresh one and closed the action. He brought the rifle to his shoulder, and began sighting in on Falcone. Vic, whose survival instinct was one of the greatest Dusty had ever seen, turned and ran back into the trees as Zack squeezed the trigger. The bullet tore away a chunk of bark from the trunk of a pine.
“Damn,” Zack said.
“Should we hunt him down?” Josh asked.
Dusty shook his head. “We’ll never catch him. He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen at finding a way to stay alive. By the time we can get back down and into that canyon, he’ll be long gone. But I have a feeling we’ll see him again, one of these days.”
Dusty turned to Hunter. “I have to admit, I’m sure glad to see you too. But, a little surprised too.”
Hunter said, “Aunt Ginny told us where you had gone. We saddled up and followed. The way we see it, we’re all family, and we couldn’t let you ride after them alone. We’ve been a day behind you all the way, and camped out up here since yesterday, trying to figure a way to get the two of you out of that canyon.”
Zack rose to his feet. “Come on, let’s ride. Fred’s waiting back there with the horses.”
“Hunter,” Dusty said, extending his hand. “Thank you.”
Hunter’s huge hand wrapped around Dusty’s. “Don’t mention it.”
“If there’s every anything..,”
“Like I said, don’t mention it.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to let me start paying for my beer now?”
With a big smile, Hunter said, “Not a chance.”
EPILOGUE
Dusty stepped into the kitchen. His destination - the coffee pot.
He wore a blue shirt he had bought at Franklin’s, tucked into a new pair of levis. He and Josh and the others had gone back down into the canyon to retrieve the horses, and Josh and Dusty’s guns. Dusty’s Peacemaker was once again strapped down to his right leg.
He had also pulled the knife from the corpse of Stew. The knife that had the initials V.T.F. engraved in the side of the blade. A memento, he supposed. It was in his room upstairs.
Aunt Ginny had cleaned the knife wound on Dusty’s forearm, following Pa’s old method of washing the wound with whiskey. It was a pain worse than anything Dusty had experienced fighting Kiowa. The wound was now wrapped in strips torn from a bedsheet to form a makeshift bandage, and was healing nicely.
Josh was leaning against the counter, a cup in one hand. His gun was also buckled on.
The sky outside was light with early morning gray. It wouldn’t be long before Aunt Ginny and Bree would be fixing breakfast. And then, Dusty and Josh would have a full day of work ahead of them. Fifteen hours, which was normal for a working day on the McCabe ranch. And it wouldn’t be long before Pa would be joining them again, Dusty figured.
Temperance was also helping with the household chores. She was staying with the family, at least for a while, finding a sort of comfort in settling into the duties of maintaining a household, working alongside Aunt Ginny and Bree. Josh had raised no complaint at all about this, or the inconvenience of having to give up his room and share one with Dusty, sleeping in bunk beds he and Dusty had been called upon to fashion out of two-by-fours.
Dusty believed Josh was falling in love with Temperance. Even though Josh wouldn’t talk about what was going on in his heart, Dusty could see in the way Josh looked at Temperance that the concern he had shown her back at the canyon was much more genuine than Josh would admit. And there was something in the way she looked back at Josh that told Dusty what her heart held, also.
Josh was a good man, Dusty had come to realize. A little head strong, and a little hampered by feeling he lived so much in Pa’s shadow. But a man to ride the river with, as Sam Patterson would have said.
Josh said, “Aunt Ginny told me you’re thinking about riding on.”
Dusty nodded, as he filled a cup with coffee. “I’ll be staying for a while, to help out until Pa is recovered enough to go back to work. But then, I’ve got to be going. I’ve got some unfinished business in Oregon.”
Josh knitted his brow. “Oregon? What’s there?”
“A girl. Named Haley. Last I knew, she and her father were heading there. I might take a little ride and make sure they arrived all right.”
“And then, what’s after that?”
Dusty shrugged. “I don’t really know.”
Josh dropped his gaze. “Dusty, I don’t quite know how to say this. But..,”
Dusty shrugged. “I’ve always thought the best way to say something is just to say it.”
“Well, it’s just that Pa and Aunt Ginny and Bree have grown awfully fond of you, and don’t want you to leave.”
“Is that it?”
Josh nodded. “And..,”
He looked Dusty in the eye. “It’s hard for me to say this, but..,”
He paused. Dusty gave him the time he needed.
“Oh, hell. I don’t want you to leave. I’ve gained a brother I never knew I had. I’ve just started getting to know him, and I don’t want to lose him now. Once you’ve finished in Oregon, whether you find this Haley or not, I hope you come ba
ck. And Jack hasn’t met you yet.”
“I don’t know if I belong here, Josh. A place in a family isn’t given to you. You have to earn it. I know that, now. Families are built over time, with love that develops over years. That’s one thing I learned from you all. I rode in here wanting to be a part of all this, thinking the blood and the name made me one of you. But I’ve realized I can never quite be a part of the family, not the way you are. You were born and raised a McCabe.”
“I guess you haven’t quite learned yet what a family is, have you?”
Now it was time for Dusty to knit his brow out of puzzlement.
“A family isn’t built by time, Dusty. It’s built by love, alone. Good, honest, unconditional love. You’re my brother. Unconditionally. And nothing is ever going to change that. You fought alongside me, helping us defend our home. You rode with me to go after the men who attacked it and almost killed Pa, and you risked your life so I could escape. That sounds like unconditional love to me.
“Let us give some of that back to you. At least, once you’re finished in Oregon, come back and give yourself a little more time to find out what a family is really all about. You belong here, not anywhere else.”
Dusty nodded, and took a plug of coffee. “Thanks, Josh. I’ll think about that.”
A voice spoke from the doorway to the parlor. A man’s voice. “You got about six more weeks to think about it.”
Pa was standing there, standing strong. Four weeks had already passed since he had been shot, and though he wasn’t quite strong enough yet to sit in the saddle, you wouldn’t find a sign of weakness in his step. The gauntness and the grayness his face had taken on during those first few days, when he had been so near death, were now gone like they had never been there. His hair was pulled back into a tail, he was freshly shaven, and he wore a range shirt and jeans. Buckled about his hips were his ever-present guns.
The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1) Page 40