“It just ain’t fair, the way you fellas are treatin’ us,” Jim Elam complained.
Scratch said, “From what I’ve heard of your checkered career, son, bein’ fair ain’t something you’ve ever worried about much. It ain’t fair to rob people of money and property they’ve worked hard for.”
“Hell, the gub’mint does it all the time, don’t they?”
“That don’t make it right,” Scratch said.
In his rumbling voice, Dayton Lowe said, “If you ain’t tough enough to hang on to what you got, you don’t deserve to have it.”
“Well, there might be somethin’ to that, but this here is what you call a civilized society. We ain’t barbarians.”
Lowe glared at him and said, “A man’s either a barbarian inside ... or he’s fodder for them that are.”
Scratch sighed. Danged if he knew why he was standing around arguing philosophy with a couple of outlaws and mad dog killers. He didn’t say anything else, and after a few minutes, Elam said, “I wish them other two would hurry up and get back with Cara. I need to visit that outhouse.”
“They’ll be here when they can,” Scratch said. Voices drew his attention. He stepped back and saw that a couple of roughly dressed men armed with six-shooters had come out of the trading post. They stood on the front porch, talking.
Scratch tensed. He didn’t know Hank Gentry or any of the other members of Gentry’s gang by sight. It was possible these were two of the owlhoots, and they might be planning on trying to free Elam and Lowe.
Instead, one of them took a silver flask from under his jacket and unscrewed the cap. He lifted it to his lips and took a healthy swig of whatever was inside, then offered the flask to his companion.
“Whoo-eee,” the first man said. He wiped the back of his free hand across his mouth. “That’ll sure warm you up on a cold day. Try it, cuz.”
Scratch could see a faint resemblance between the men now, so he could believe that they were cousins. Not that it was any of his business, he reminded himself, as long as they didn’t bother him or the prisoners.
The second man took a long drink from the flask, belched, and handed it back to the first man.
“You’re right, that’s prime corn,” he said.
The first man nipped at the flask again, then capped it and put it away. The two of them came down the steps, a little unsteady on their feet.
Just a pair of country boys who were drunk already, even though the sun was directly overhead, Scratch thought.
But at the same time, he continued to be wary. They could be putting on an act. They headed toward a couple of horses tied at the hitch rack, and Scratch hoped they would just mount up and ride away.
Instead, the first man hesitated and looked over at him. He nudged his companion with an elbow, then came toward Scratch with a leering grin on his face.
“You belong to a medicine show, old man?” he asked.
“What makes you say that?” Scratch said.
“Them fancy clothes you got on. Or is there a circus comin’ and I just ain’t heard about it yet?”
“You boys better just move on,” Scratch advised.
The second man stumbled after the first. He waved a hand toward the wagon and asked, “What’s in there that you’re guardin’? You got a bear or somethin’ locked up in that wagon?”
“I’ll bet it’s one o’ them tigers,” the first man said.
“Or maybe some whores,” the second man suggested. “Fella dressed that fancy could be a whoremonger.”
Scratch was getting annoyed by these fools.
“Go finish gettin’ snockered somewheres else,” he told them. “Leave a man to do his job, why don’t you?”
Suddenly, from inside the wagon, Jim Elam cried, “Help us, boys! Get us loose! Kill this old man and we’ll make it worth your while!”
Alarm bells had never stopped going off inside Scratch’s head, so he wasn’t surprised when the two strangers dropped the pretense of being drunk and swept back their coats to claw at the holstered revolvers on their hips.
Bo barely had time to exclaim, “Brubaker, look out!” before three men on the back porch had their guns drawn. He didn’t know who they were—members of Hank Gentry’s gang, come to rescue their friends, more than likely—but it didn’t matter.
Any time a man slapped leather, Bo left off wondering and commenced shooting instead.
The man on the end at Bo’s right was the fastest of the three. He had his gun out of its holster, and flame was spitting from its muzzle by the time Bo brought his rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
The Winchester cracked. The slug that flew from its barrel punched into the gunman’s chest and flung him back against the wall behind him. Before the man could even fall, Bo had already worked the rifle’s lever and swung the barrel toward the second man.
He had heard that first bullet whistle past his head and thud into the outhouse wall behind him, and he didn’t want to give the other two a chance to have better aim. He fired again before the second man could get off a shot and drilled him cleanly through the body.
But before Bo could fire again, Cara LaChance managed to throw herself forward, despite the chains burdening her. She rammed a shoulder into Brubaker’s back. The deputy had whirled around to meet the threat of the three gunmen, and turning his back on her was a mistake.
The impact sent Brubaker stumbling into Bo just as the Texan squeezed the Winchester’s trigger a third time. Being jostled like that threw off his aim. His shot went over the head of the third man, who sprayed lead at them as fast as he could jerk the trigger of his revolver.
Bo flung himself forward on the ground as slugs whipped through the air above him. From the corner of his left eye, he saw that Cara had bellied down, too, to make herself a smaller target while the bullets flew. Brubaker had dropped to his knees. Bo spotted blood on the deputy’s face.
There was no time to see how badly Brubaker was hurt. Bo heard shots blasting in front of the trading post, too, and knew that Scratch was probably in danger, but he couldn’t go to his trail partner’s aid right now, either.
The third gunman back here still had to be dealt with. From his prone position, Bo fired again. Not surprisingly, the shot went a little low. It clipped the third man’s thigh. Blood flew, and the slug’s impact was enough to spin the man halfway around and drop him to one knee as the wounded leg went out from under him. He dropped the gun he had emptied by now and used that hand to grab a porch post and steady himself while he yanked another pistol from behind his belt.
He and Bo fired at the same time. The gunman’s bullet smacked into the ground about five feet in front of the Texan, kicking dirt into his face and momentarily blinding him.
Bo had already sent a slug ripping through the gunman’s neck, though. The man rocked back as crimson gore fountained from his ruined throat. His gun roared again, but it had sagged toward the ground right in front of the rear porch. His fingers slipped off the porch post, and he pitched forward to land on the ground, where the blood welling from his throat quickly formed a dark red puddle in the dirt.
Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, Bo shoved himself to his feet and levered another round into the Winchester’s chamber. He was fairly confident that all three gunmen were dead, but he kept them covered anyway as he glanced over toward Brubaker. The deputy had collapsed, and he was either dead or passed out.
And Cara LaChance was trying to crawl away, dragging her chains after her.
The two men in front of the trading post had made a mistake by getting as close to Scratch as they had. As they went for their guns, the silver-haired Texan lunged forward and rammed his Winchester’s barrel into the belly of the nearest man as hard as he could.
That brutal blow made the man double over, retching, and he forgot all about trying to draw his gun. The next instant, the butt of Scratch’s rifle slammed into the side of his head and sent him sprawling on the ground at his companion’s feet.
&nbs
p; The second man had to dart aside to avoid tripping over the man Scratch had knocked down, and that slowed his draw by a split second. That was long enough for Scratch to swing the Winchester toward him and fire.
The heavy bullet smashed into the man’s chest and knocked him backward. His finger jerked the trigger of his gun just as he cleared leather. The shot tore downward through his own boot, probably blowing off a toe or two.
That injury was the least of the man’s concerns. He pressed his free hand to his chest as he tried to stay on his feet and struggled to lift his gun. Blood bubbled over and between his fingers. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he went down in a slow, twisting collapse.
The first man had regained his senses enough to draw his gun and fire up from the ground at Scratch, who jerked aside just in time to avoid the two slugs as the man triggered twice. Both shots went through the open door of the wagon and drew frightened shouts from Elam and Lowe.
Scratch hoped the stray bullets hadn’t hit either of the prisoners, but he didn’t have time to worry about them. He swung his leg in a kick that sent the gun spinning from the hand of the man who had just tried to kill him.
Scratch stepped back quickly and leveled the rifle at the man on the ground.
“All right, mister, get up,” he ordered. “But don’t try anything else or I’ll ventilate you.”
The man was still pale from the pain and shock of being hit in the belly by Scratch’s rifle and then getting clouted on the head. He groaned and then gasped, “You ... you killed Cousin Bob!”
“You’re lucky you ain’t dead, too,” Scratch told him. “Now get up.”
During the ruckus, he had heard shots coming from behind the trading post, quite a few of them, in fact, and he was worried about Bo. Obviously the two who had played drunk and tried to get the drop on him that way hadn’t been acting alone. Their partners had gone after Bo and Brubaker.
The shooting had stopped now, and Scratch wanted to go see if his old friend was all right. First, though, he had to do something with this varmint.
A horrified cry erupted from inside the wagon. Jim Elam screamed, “Oh, my God! Dayton’s hit! There’s blood all over the place! Somebody help him!”
Instinctively, Scratch turned in that direction, just for the barest instant.
That was long enough for the man on the ground to surge to his feet and lunge at Scratch, the midday sunlight winking off the long, heavy blade of a Bowie knife he had drawn from under his shirt. He swung the knife up, aiming to plant the cold steel in Scratch’s belly.
CHAPTER 9
Bo stepped over to Cara and reached down to grab hold of the trailing chain.
“Hold it,” he told her. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She rolled onto her side and started cursing him. He ignored her and used the chain to drag her back the few feet she had managed to cover. That made her howl even more obscenities. He knelt beside Brubaker and took the padlock from the deputy’s coat pocket.
While he was this close, he rested a hand on Brubaker’s back and felt it rising and falling. Brubaker had passed out, but he wasn’t dead. That was a relief, but Bo was still considerably worried about Scratch.
He used the padlock to fasten Cara’s chain to the handle of the outhouse door. She might be able to pull the handle off the door or the door off its hinges, but that would take quite a bit of time and Bo intended to have things squared away by then.
He set his rifle well out of Cara’s reach—not that she could do much with it while her hands were chained behind her back—and grasped Brubaker under the arms. Bo dragged the deputy out of Cara’s reach as well.
He had already figured out it was best not to take any chances with her.
Then he picked up his Winchester and loped toward the front of the trading post.
He heard Jim Elam yelling something about blood inside the wagon. As he swung around the vehicle, Bo’s keen eyes spotted a man leaping toward Scratch with a knife in his hand. There wasn’t much room to get a shot off without risking hitting his friend, but Bo didn’t have a choice. Another second and that varmint would bury the blade in Scratch’s body.
Bo lifted the rifle and fired, letting instinct and experience guide his aim.
The slug shattered the man’s shoulder and drove him off his feet. He dropped the knife and rolled on the ground, screeching in agony. Scratch kicked him in the head to stun him and shut him up, then looked over at Bo and nodded.
“Much obliged,” he said. “I might’ve been able to get out of the way of that Bowie, but it would’ve been close. Where’s Forty-two?”
“He was hit when they jumped us back there by the outhouse,” Bo said. “Don’t know how bad he’s hurt. How about you?”
“I’m fine,” Scratch assured him. “Not so sure about the prisoners. Where’s the gal?”
“Chained to the outhouse.”
Scratch grinned for a second.
“Seems fittin’, considerin’ the filth that comes outta her mouth.” He turned toward the wagon and covered the two men inside. Elam had stopped yelling. “Anybody really hurt in there, or were you just tryin’ to distract me?”
Neither of the prisoners answered.
“All right, go ahead and bleed to death,” Scratch said. He slammed the door closed. “We got work to do out here.”
The man he’d kicked in the head was still unconscious. Scratch checked the one he’d shot and grunted.
“Dead, all right. How about the ones out back?”
“Pretty sure they’re dead,” Bo said.
“You didn’t find out?”
“I came to see if your mangy old hide had any holes in it.”
Scratch grinned again.
“And I appreciate that,” he said. “But you better go make certain-sure the others are buzzard bait.”
Bo kept one eye on the trading post as he hurried behind the building again. The five men who had jumped him and Scratch accounted for the saddle horses tied up outside, but the buggy and the farm wagon told him that at least a few other folks were still inside. They might not represent any threat, but he didn’t want to take a chance on that.
He knew the man he’d shot in the throat was dead. Nobody could lose that much blood and survive. Quickly, he checked the other two men and found that one of them had crossed the divide, as well. The third man was still breathing, but as Bo bent over him, a breath rattled grotesquely in the man’s throat and then his chest ceased its movement. He was dead now, too, without ever regaining consciousness after Bo shot him.
Brubaker groaned. Bo trotted over to him as the deputy struggled to sit up. Bo grasped his arm and helped him. He saw an ugly red welt on the side of Brubaker’s head. Blood had leaked from it and run down the deputy’s weathered face.
“Wha ... what happened?” Brubaker asked.
“Looks like a bullet creased you and knocked you out,” Bo told him. “How do you feel?”
“Head hurts like blazes,” Brubaker snapped. “How the hell do you think I feel?” His eyes widened as he looked around frantically. “The prisoners—!”
“They’re all accounted for. Miss LaChance is all right. I don’t know about Lowe and Elam, but I have a hunch they are, too.”
“Help me up,” Brubaker muttered. “I gotta go check on ’em. They’re my responsibility.”
Bo assisted the deputy in getting to his feet. Brubaker was a little unsteady when he started off, but his steps strengthened. As he passed the bodies of the three dead gunmen, he looked down at them impassively.
“Recognize any of them?” Bo asked. “I thought they might be members of Gentry’s gang.”
Brubaker started to shake his head, then winced as the motion must have made throbbing pain shoot through his skull.
“I never saw any of ’em before,” he said. “They’re not part of Gentry’s bunch.”
In that case, Bo wasn’t sure why the men had jumped them, but unless the man he’d shot in the shoulder had bled to deat
h, they had a prisoner they could ask about it.
When Brubaker reached the wagon, he drew his revolver and jerked the door open.
“Either of you make a funny move, and I’ll smoke you both down,” he threatened as he climbed onto the step. “Are you hit, either of you?”
“We’re all right,” Lowe answered with obvious reluctance. “Except I don’t think Jim here needs to visit the outhouse anymore. Havin’ bullets flyin’ around sort of took care of that for him.”
“Shut up,” Elam muttered.
“I didn’t think they were hit,” Scratch said, “but I wasn’t sure.”
Brubaker backed off the steps and closed the door.
“Is that the only one still alive?” he asked as he nodded toward the man with the bullet-busted shoulder.
“Appears to be,” Bo said.
“Morton, keep an eye on him. Creel, come with me. I want to get the gal back in the wagon before we do anything else.”
A man in overalls appeared on the trading post’s front porch, edging tentatively through the door. Scratch told him, “Better stay right there, mister, unless you’re lookin’ for trouble.”
The man gulped, making his prominent Adam’s apple jump up and down.
“No, sir,” he told Scratch. “I’m sure not lookin’ for trouble. Just seein’ if all the shootin’ was over.”
“It is,” Scratch said. “For now, anyway.”
A short, portly, white-haired man in a dark suit and hat emerged from the trading post as well, followed by a bald, lanky individual in an apron. Scratch figured the gent in the suit went with the buggy, while the apron-wearer was probably the proprietor of the trading post.
“What is all this?” the man in the suit demanded. The blustering tone of his voice told Scratch that the fella was a pompous windbag. “Someone could have been killed!”
“Somebody was,” Scratch said, nodding toward the dead man on the ground. “More than one somebody, in fact.” Something occurred to him. “Any of you happen to know these hombres who jumped us?”
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