Bo took his hat off and soaked it in the creek, then draped it over his face, which he lifted out of the water so he could breathe. He was starting to gasp. He had heard about men dying from breathing smoke, and also because the fire burned up all the air. The wet hat trapped a little air right over his face, but he didn’t know how long it would last.
The creek water was cold, and that helped because the heat of the flames was intense. Even with his ears underwater, Bo heard the inferno’s roar. His eyes were squeezed closed, but red sparks shot across his vision anyway. He felt the world start to spin crazily around him and knew he was on the verge of passing out.
“So ... long ... pard,” he managed to whisper, and he prayed that wherever Scratch was, he heard that farewell.
“Wait!” Cara screamed as they were about to make their desperate, doomed run. “Look! Up there!”
Scratch looked where she was pointing, and hope leaped in his chest. This was a different section of the ridge from the one where the gang’s hideout had been located, but the dark blotch on the side of the slope could only be the mouth of another cave.
“Come on!” Gentry yelled. “Bring those packhorses!”
Just like an outlaw, Scratch thought with a grim chuckle. Even caught in the middle of a hellish nightmare like this, Gentry wanted to save the loot.
The nearness of the fire made the horses more skittish than ever. The riders had to fight to control them and send them in the direction of the onrushing flames. They managed to do it, though, and climbed slowly but steadily toward the cave.
It wasn’t really much of a cave, Scratch saw as they came closer. It was more of an overhang with a sheltered area underneath it. But the whole area was rock, and that meant there was nothing there to burn.
Right now, that was mighty welcome.
The heat and smoke combined to make every breath searingly painful. Floating ashes filled the air and stung bare skin when they landed on it, as well as charring holes in clothing. If by some miracle he lived through this, Scratch thought as they crowded into the cavernlike space, he would never look at a campfire the same way again.
The area under the overhang was barely big enough for seven men, one woman, and ten horses. The panicky animals presented the biggest problem.
“Whatever you do, hang on to those packhorses!” Gentry ordered his men. “Let your saddle mounts go if you have to, but don’t lose that loot!”
Scratch found himself pressing his back against the rock wall at the rear of the protected space. The burly, gray-haired outlaw named Ryan was to his left. To his right were Gentry and Cara. The leader of the gang looped one arm around the blonde while he used his other hand to hang on to the reins attached to their horses.
Smoke drifted through cracks in the rock around them and made it hard to breathe. Coughing, Cara said, “Hank, I ... I have to know something. What made you ... come out here ... to the hideout ... instead of tryin’ to rescue me?”
“I was going to rescue you,” Gentry insisted. “You know I never would’ve let you hang, sweetheart. I planned to save Dayton and Jim, too, while I was at it, but you’re the one I really care about.”
“But Brubaker was takin’ me to Tyler! That’s more than ... a hundred miles east of here. And you weren’t followin’ us ...”
“I sent men to the crossings along the Red River, once I realized that lawman was cutting across Indian Territory,” Gentry explained. “I had to find out where you were.”
“I know ... about that. We ran into some kid named Nesbit.”
“Early Nesbit,” Gentry agreed. “He was working for me, Cara. I planned to go back and check with all those spies and find out which way you’d gone.”
“That’s what the kid said. But it doesn’t make sense, Hank. Even if you’d doubled back after you got the loot, you wouldn’t have had time ... to find us and get us away from that lawdog ... before we were locked up in Tyler!”
So she had figured it out, Scratch thought. Well, he wasn’t surprised. Cara was loco, but she was smart, too, and especially cunning when it came to saving her own hide.
And she had to realize now that Hank Gentry hadn’t had any intention of trying to rescue her and Lowe and Elam from the law. Oh, maybe at first that had been his plan, Scratch mused. Gentry might have even been sincere when he sent Early Nesbit and those other would-be owlhoots to keep an eye on the Red River crossings.
But sometime since then, he had decided that it just wasn’t worth the time and trouble. He had come to the conclusion that it would be better to let the three prisoners stand trial and hang while he and the rest of the gang lit a shuck for their old hideout, recovered the loot stashed there, and then shook the dust of this part of the country off their boots. Scratch had no doubt that if the fire hadn’t interfered with their plans, Gentry and the other outlaws would be riding west right now, headed for California.
A nervous tone had crept into Gentry’s voice as he said, “Don’t worry about any of that, Cara. We’re together now, and that’s all that matters. We were lucky enough to find this place, and as soon as the fire goes on past us, we’ll get out of here. Folks around these parts will be too busy trying to recover from this disaster to worry about us. We’ll be out of Texas before you know it.”
“Maybe,” Cara said, but Scratch thought she didn’t sound convinced.
All the outlaws were coughing now. Ryan suggested, “Better get your bandannas out and soak them with water from the canteens. Then tie ’em around your face and breathe through ’em.”
That was a good idea, Scratch thought. He soaked his bandanna and tied it on, and that helped with the smoke. The others really looked like outlaws now with their faces masked, and he supposed he did, too.
This cavelike area was about fifty feet up the face of the ridge. Down below, the flames had reached the valley. The grass and the trees and the brush were burning furiously, sending even more smoke into the air. Scratch’s lungs burned and ached. His hope now was that the wind would keep blowing as hard as it had been all day, because then the fire would move on quickly and burn itself out behind the leading edge of the flames, once all the dry vegetation was consumed.
Right now, though, it was still pretty bad out there. If Cara hadn’t spotted this sanctuary, they would all be dead by now.
Gentry suddenly exclaimed, “Cara, what are you—”
“Shut up, you lyin’ son of a bitch!” she screamed.
Scratch’s head jerked around. He looked over to see Cara holding a revolver in both hands and pointing it at Gentry. Gentry’s holster was empty, which told Scratch that Cara had snatched the weapon from it.
He had been pretty sure that Gentry hadn’t sweet-talked Cara out of her suspicion of him, and what was happening now confirmed that.
“Cara, stop it!” Gentry said. “Put that gun down, damn it.”
“No,” she said. “You double-crossed me, Hank. I never would have believed it of you, but you did. I kept tellin’ Creel and Morton and Brubaker that you’d be comin’ after me, and I knew with all my heart that you would. I knew you’d never let me hang.” Even with the heat from the fire making it almost unbearable under here, her voice was as cold as ice as she went on, “But you would have. You didn’t care if they hanged me, as long as you got your money.”
She had moved away from him a little and had her back pressed tight against the rock so that nobody could get at her. Gentry held out a hand toward her and said, “Cara, you’re not thinking straight. You know I love you. I’d never let any harm come to you.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t have made a beeline for that loot,” she snapped. “You’d have come after me, instead. You’re a son of a bitch, Hank. I don’t like it, but it’s true.”
Gentry’s lip abruptly curled in a sneer.
“You think I couldn’t find a dozen more women like you, you little harlot? With my share of this loot, I could get a hundred women like you!”
“You’re wrong, Hank,” she sai
d, her voice little more than a whisper now. “You don’t know how wrong you are, but you’re about to learn.”
Gentry looked around at the other outlaws and said, “Somebody take that gun away from her.”
Nobody made a move toward Cara.
“I don’t hold anything against these other boys,” she said. “They were just doin’ what you told ’em to. But you, Hank, you were supposed to come for me, and you didn’t. You let me down, and now you’re gonna pay for it.”
Gentry laughed wildly.
“You can’t fight all of us!” he said.
“I don’t have to.” Cara tossed her head defiantly, like Scratch had seen her do a dozen times before. “I’m the boss of this gang now. Ain’t that right, boys?”
Bouchard said, “All we want is our share, Cara.”
“You’ll get it,” she promised.
“You bastard!” Gentry screamed at Bouchard. He looked over at Ryan. “Chet, don’t let them get away with this!”
“I’m startin’ to wonder if we might not be better off workin’ for Cara,” Ryan said. “She planned most of our jobs anyway, didn’t she, Hank?”
“You ... you ...” Gentry looked and sounded flabbergasted, as well as outraged.
Scratch just watched. Whatever happened now, it was out of his hands.
Cara jabbed the gun toward Gentry.
“Get out of here,” she ordered. “I can’t stand the sight of you anymore!”
“But there’s nowhere to go!” Gentry protested. “The whole world’s on fire out there!”
“That’s your problem. Back away from me, Hank. I swear, if you don’t I’ll shoot you dead where you stand.”
Gentry looked around desperately and tried one last appeal.
“Fellas, I’ll give up my share. You can split it among you, just stop this crazy bitch.”
Bouchard smiled thinly and said, “I think you’re giving up your share anyway, Hank.”
Gentry backed toward the edge of the area under the overhang. He stared at the blonde and said, “Cara, you can’t do this. Not after all we’ve meant to each other. Please.”
Cara took a deep breath and said, “Oh, hell.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Gentry’s mouth. He believed that he had won her over at last, Scratch thought.
He found out a second later just how wrong he was as Cara lowered the barrel of the gun a little, squeezed the trigger, and blew his right knee apart.
CHAPTER 32
The blast was deafening in the close confines under the overhang. Gentry screamed in agony as his wounded leg folded up underneath him. Blood welled like a crimson river from the shattered knee. Somehow he pushed himself to his feet and said, “Cara, please—”
The gun in her hands roared again as she blew his other leg out from under him.
Bone and blood sprayed in the air as the bullet demolished his left knee. Screeching from the inhuman pain, Gentry went over backward. The slope was steep enough that he started to roll, out of control as he bounced and plunged.
He landed in the middle of a stretch of blazing brush.
Scratch wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Gentry’s screams grew even louder as the flames engulfed him. Like a tortured soul trying to escape from the pits of hell, Gentry used his burning arms to pull himself forward since he couldn’t stand up on his destroyed legs. His clothing was ablaze, and his hair was on fire. He kept screaming.
Ryan muttered a curse. Holding his rifle, he stepped forward and asked, “Cara, you mind?”
Cara had moved up to the edge so she had a better view of her former lover’s torment. She lowered the gun as she stared raptly at Gentry.
“He had it comin’,” Scratch heard her say quietly. “He let me down, and he had it comin’. But I reckon he’s been punished enough.”
She looked over at Ryan and gave him a curt nod.
The burly man lifted the rifle to his shoulder, took a second to make sure of his aim, and then fired. Gentry’s head snapped back as the slug drilled cleanly through his brain, putting him out of his misery.
Cara turned to face the other men, obviously putting Gentry behind her for good.
“Anybody have any objection to me runnin’ things from now on?” she asked. They could all hear the defiant challenge in her voice.
“We never did have any objection,” Bouchard said. “As far as we were concerned, you and Hank were always both in charge of this bunch.”
“All right,” she said. “We’ll wait until the fire dies down, and then we’ll head west.”
Mutters of agreement came from the men.
“Scratch,” Cara went on, looking at the silver-haired Texan, “you’re welcome to ride with us if you want to.” She glanced around at the others, again challenging them to disagree with her. “Ain’t that right?”
Nobody spoke up.
The last thing Scratch wanted to do was join up with an outlaw gang, especially one ramrodded by a beautiful but pure-dee loco blonde.
He had a hunch that if he said that, though, she’d just shoot him, too.
So instead he grinned and said, “I’m much obliged for the invite, Cara.”
She smiled at him, and when she did, she appeared as sweet and innocent as ever.
Until you looked past her down the slope and saw the smoking husk of Hank Gentry.
For now, Scratch thought, he had to play along with her. But Bo might be out there somewhere, and Scratch intended to find out what had happened to him.
Until then he would do whatever he needed to in order to stay alive.
Bo kept slipping in and out of consciousness, aware only of the heat, the cold water and mud in which he lay, and the shortness of breath that made his lungs ache. Finally it was water going up his nose that brought him back to sputtering, flailing awareness.
He saw a streak of blue overhead, and it seemed to take him an hour to figure out what he was looking at.
The smoke was thinning. That was a strip of blue sky up there above him.
That meant ... he struggled to hold the thought ... that meant the fire had moved on.
And he was alive.
Coughing and hacking, he rolled onto his side. His hat had started to float away on the creek. Without thinking too much about what he was doing, he reached out to snag it. Then he lifted his head and looked around.
Jake Brubaker was still lying in the little stream, too. At first Bo thought the deputy was dead, but then he saw Brubaker’s chest rising and falling and knew that he had just passed out, the same way Bo had.
He pulled himself through the mud until he was lying next to Brubaker. Putting a hand behind the lawman’s head, he dipped up some water in his hat and splashed it in Brubaker’s face.
Brubaker thrashed and shook his head violently. He shoved himself up on his elbows and looked around like he was searching for someone to fight.
“Take it easy, Forty-two,” Bo told him. “You’re all right. We both made it through the fire.”
“Wha ... what ... Creel? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” Bo said. “We’re both alive. The smoke’s thinning out overhead. The fire’s moved on.”
With Bo’s help, Brubaker managed to sit up. The clothes of both men were soaked and covered with mud.
Brubaker declared, “We look like a couple of hogs in a wallow.”
A grin stretched across Bo’s muddy face.
“At least we’re not a couple of dead hogs,” he said.
“Yeah.” Brubaker hunched over and coughed. “Feels like my insides are blistered.”
“Yeah, mine, too,” Bo said. His voice sounded odd to his ears because it was so hoarse. “We both breathed too much smoke. It’ll be a while before we get over it.”
“That won’t keep me from tryin’ to find those varmints we’re after.” Brubaker shook his head. “We should’ve just taken those prisoners to Tyler and been done with it.”
In hindsight, that was probably right, Bo thought. But Cara’s a
pproach to Scratch had given them the chance to recover that missing loot, so he had thought it was a gamble worth taking.
Not all bets paid off, though.
And this one might have cost Scratch’s life.
That thought made Bo’s face settle into grim lines. As he climbed to his feet, he said, “We need to see if we can find Scratch and the others.”
“The fire’s bound to have gotten them,” Brubaker said with a shake of his head. “Nothin’ could’ve lived through that inferno.”
“We did,” Bo pointed out.
“That was just a stroke of blind luck. If we hadn’t found this creek, we’d be dead now.”
“Maybe they had some luck, too,” Bo said. “We have to find out.”
“I don’t know how we’re gonna do that without horses.” Brubaker sighed. “But I guess the first thing to do is climb out of this gully, ain’t it?”
Bo helped Brubaker to his feet. Both men clapped their dripping hats on their heads and picked up their rifles. They kept sliding back down as they tried to make their way up the bank, but eventually they reached the top and crawled out of the gully that had saved their lives.
They found themselves looking at a landscape out of a nightmare.
Except for the patches of blue in the sky, all the color appeared to have been blasted out of the world. There was nothing but gray and black as far as the eye could see. Ashes covered the ground. Gaunt black skeletons of trees jutted up here and there. The brush was just a tangle of charred limbs, and in some places it had burned all the way to the ground, leaving sharp little stobs sticking up.
“Good Lord,” Brubaker muttered. “I ain’t never seen anything like this before.”
“I have,” Bo said. “Scratch and I rode through the Yellowstone country a while back after they’d had a big fire like this one that was probably started by lightning. It looked about like this. Miles and miles of nothing but destruction.” Bo summoned up a smile. “But it grew back. The next time we were there, you couldn’t even see any signs of the fire unless you looked for them, and even then it was hard to find them. New growth had come along and repaired all the damage. Nature’s like that.”
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