Tom stepped out of his tent. He had a Winchester carbine in one hand, and walked over. “Got any more coffee? I can’t sleep. Too much on my mind.”
There was an extra tin cup kicking about, so Matt turned it upside down to dump out any old coffee and dirt, and filled it with hot coffee for him.
Johnny told Tom their plan for the following day.
Tom said, “Will you be all right?”
“There are never any guarantees,” Zack said. “But we’ve been through this kind of thing before.”
Johnny said, “A few times.”
Tom said to Johnny, “About that talk we had. About choices when there’s no clear-cut right answer and you have to choose the one that’s the least wrong.”
Johnny nodded and waited for him.
Tom said, “I’ve made my choice. That’s why I have this rifle. No one’s going to hold a gun to Lettie’s head again, or threaten my daughter.”
Tom was dead serious. Johnny knew by the look in his eye that he could do it. Tom had asked Johnny to essentially teach him how to be a gunhawk. Johnny thought Tom might have just graduated.
Matt said, “You know how to use that rifle. Just remember everything I taught you when you were a kid.”
Tom said, “Father. Things were so different then, between us.”
Matt nodded. “I know. I have a lot of regrets about that.”
“Well, it’s just that, I wish I had known you like you are now.”
Matt gave his son a long look. “That means a lot to me.”
Tom took a sip of coffee. “Want me to go scout the perimeter?”
“No,” Johnny said. “I think I’d like you right here, in case shooting starts. But it’s been quiet so far tonight. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
There was a sudden bellow from the herd, followed by a chorus of bellows. Then a gunshot. And then more bellows and a sudden rumble.
“Looks like you spoke too soon,” Zack said.
Matt said, “They’re stampeding the herd!”
He went to run for a horse, but Johnny said, “No! Stay here!”
Matt looked at him like he was out of his mind.
Zack said, “The wagons are the target. The stampede is just a diversion. We can round the cows up in the morning. We’ve all got to stay here right now.”
The rumble was growing louder. Johnny shouted so he could be heard. “Sounds like the stampede is coming right at us! Get the women and children out of those tents and under the wagons!”
“I’ll do it!” Tom called out.
“Zack. Matt. At my side.”
The ground was rumbling and the braying of the steers was loud, and everyone was already coming out of the tents. Tom ushered them under wagons and they didn’t complain. Jessica gave Johnny one quick look. He didn’t see fear in her eyes. What he saw was be careful and don’t take any prisoners. Then she grabbed Cora and with the rifle in her hands was under a wagon.
Zack stood a moment, listening, then said, “They’re driving the cattle right at us!”
There were gunshots. Some probably from the men trying to stampede the herd, but Johnny knew the men with the herd wouldn’t let it happen without a fight. He heard a blast that he knew wasn’t from a pistol or a rifle. More of a boom than a pow. It was from Joe’s scattergun.
Johnny ran toward a wagon for cover, but the panicking steers were already on them. Charging through the camp. Panicking horses, kicking up dust and panicking the horses. Johnny ran for cover behind a wagon, but the wagon was hit by a cow and driven a couple of feet forward. Women and children under the wagon were screaming, and the wagon hit Johnny and knocked him forward. His rifle flew from his grip and his head struck something.
He rose to his hands and knees, choking on the dust. In the light of the campfire he saw a tent collapse and land on top of Matt, and then cows were charging over the tent. Then the firewood was scattered by hooves and fire was catching on the grass out beyond the small fire pit they had dug, and then the fire was extinguished by more crashing hooves.
Johnny wondered about Jessica and Cora. And Dusty and the others. His brothers. Matt was most likely dead. He had lost sight of Zack.
And then a steer charged between the wagons where Johnny was on the ground and slammed into him and sent him rolling over and over in the dust like he was falling downhill. And then he came to a stop. He tried to rise to his hands and knees but the world about him seemed to be falling into blackness, and he collapsed back to the ground.
35
A gunshot was the first thing Johnny heard when he gained consciousness. He didn’t know how long he had been out. Dust was thick in the air, and he could taste it in his mouth. All was dark, but then he blinked a few times and could see shapes moving about in the moonlight. The light was muted, hazy, because of all the dust in the air.
Horses were picketed a little ways out beyond the wagons and men stood there. One was grabbing Jessica by an arm and pulling her out from under the wagon. One man was on the ground, and the one grabbing Jessica yanked the rifle from her hands.
“You killed him!” the man shouted, and gave Jessica a backhand slap that sent her sprawling.
Johnny pushed himself to his feet, reaching for his gun. That man was going to die. But Johnny found his gun was gone, and someone pushed him back to the ground. He realized his head was pounding and his neck hurt. His left shoulder hurt. One leg didn’t feel right.
“Don’t move, gunslinger,” a man said from above him, “or I’ll put a bullet in the back of your head.”
Johnny quickly put what he saw together to make a picture. Jessica had shot the man on the ground before she was overpowered.
Johnny looked about quickly, for Zack and Matt. He couldn’t see the tent that had collapsed on top of Matt because of the limited visibility, and Zack was nowhere in sight.
“All right,” the man above him said. “Get to your feet.”
Johnny did so, but found both legs were a little shaky. His head had taken a beating when the wagon smashed into him and his neck hurt. He turned his head to one side, the way he had seen his Shoshone teacher do to a warrior who had injured his neck in battle, and a joint in his neck snapped like a stick and then his neck pain was gone. But his shoulder still hurt and his head felt like he had just come off of a three-day bender. And one knee hurt and felt weak. He had to step gingerly to keep it from collapsing.
“Bring him out here,” a man said. Johnny recognized the voice. It was Wells. Johnny had the brief thought that he should have shot the man back at Tom’s house. Johnny showed him mercy and was now regretting it.
“Get moving,” the man behind Johnny said, and Johnny stumbled his way out and away from the wagons.
Wells was indeed there. He was dusty and dirty and his left arm was in a sling, but he was smiling. He had a pistol in his hand.
He said to one of his men, “Line ‘em up right here. The women and the children. I want to see who we got.”
While this was being done, he looked at Johnny. “The big and bad Johnny McCabe.”
Wells aimed his gun at Johnny’s right eye. Wells said, “You don’t feel so almighty big and important now, do you? Huh? Guess what? There’s gonna be a new page added to the legend of Johnny McCabe. The name Gideon Wells, Marshal of Greenville, California, is gonna go down in history as the man who gunned you down.”
Johnny said, “Shooting down an unarmed man won’t put you in the history books, except maybe as a man facing the gallows.”
“Oh, no,” Wells was grinning. A wide grin showing jagged, broken teeth. Johnny figured he had been hit solidly in the mouth once. “According to my men here, you died with your gun in your hand. You just couldn’t handle me. I killed you fair and square.”
“All right, marshal,” one of the men said. “We got ‘em all lined up.”
They were there. Jessica, now once again on her feet. Cora. Lettie and Mercy and Peddie. They all looked dusty and a little ragged, but they didn’t seem hurt.
“Well, well,” the marshal said. “Ain’t you a ragged-looking crew?”
As Johnny stood there, he wondered where Tom was.
The eyes of Wells landed on Lettie. “It’s sure good to see you again. You and me got some unfinished business.”
Wells walked up to her. “Weren’t we gonna have some fun back in town? And then we got interrupted by the livin’ legend over there.”
Wells reached up to her and moved some stray strands of hair from her face.
“Oh, you ain’t gonna die,” Wells said to her. “At least not yet. And if you play your cards right with me, you may not have to die at all.”
Then Tom spoke from behind them. “Get away from my wife or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Tom was standing at the edge of the camp with his Winchester to his shoulder and aimed at Wells. Tom was covered with dust and had a serious bruise on one cheekbone. His hair was flying wild and one sleeve had been torn clear to the elbow. But he was standing strong and was holding the rifle like he knew how to use it.
Wells laughed. “Preacher man. Here we are again. Me and your wife are gonna have some fun and there’s nothin’ you can do about it. And don’t count on the gunfighter there to help you this time. He can’t even help himself. Now put down that gun before you hurt somebody.”
“Get away from her or I’ll put a bullet in you.”
“Now, preacher man, we both know you don’t have what it takes to do that. You don’t even have that gun jacked.”
“I chambered a round already.”
Wells began walking toward him. He holstered his pistol and drew a bowie knife from his belt. “You know what I’m gonna do to you? I’m gonna stick this knife in your belly and make you scream like a little girl. And then while you lay there dyin’ I’m gonna take your wife. How’s that set with you, preacher man? You like that?”
Tom squeezed the trigger. The gun went off and the bullet slammed into Wells’ chest, stopping him in his tracks. He looked down at the bullet wound and then up and Tom, but Tom was already jacking the action to chamber another bullet.
One of the men fired at Tom, catching him somewhere in his left side. Johnny thought it might have been his shoulder but couldn’t be sure. Tom spun around but retained his bearings and fired from his hip and took the man out.
Johnny, despite his injured leg, dove at a third man and pulled him to the ground. The man’s gun went off and into the darkness and Johnny drove a fist into the man’s face. The punch wasn’t one of Johnny’s best, but it was enough to stun the man and this gave Johnny the moment he needed to grab the pistol.
Johnny drove the handle of the pistol into the man’s forehead, then rose to his knees and began to squeeze off shots, taking out one of Wells’ men, and then another. Just like shooting at those Comanches that had been charging at him years earlier. Despite how much his head hurt, he felt a strange but familiar calm that the heat of battle often brought. The men were shooting at him, the bullets kicking up the cold, December dirt around him, and one bullet tore into the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder. But he didn’t feel panic or fear. He felt centered and steady. He got a third man, he then a fourth fired at him and missed, and Johnny put a bullet in him. The man was still on his feet but then a bullet from Tom got him and he went down.
Tom had dropped to one knee and was firing from his hip, jacking the gun and firing again. He missed with one shot, then with the other he caught a man in the chest.
Wells was still on his feet. He let the knife fall from his fingers and then drew his pistol. But then Tom put another bullet into him, and Wells was knocked backward to the ground and lay there, still.
Then it was quiet. Five men had been in camp with Wells. Five men, including Wells, were now down. The man Johnny had taken the gun from was stirring, so Johnny got to his feet and aimed the gun at him. Johnny thought the gun was probably empty, assuming there had been five bullets in it. The gun had gone off when Johnny jumped the man and then Johnny had fired four times. But there was no need for the man to know the gun was empty.
“Don’t move a muscle,” Johnny said.
The man said, “I ain’t movin’.”
Johnny looked at Tom, who was rising back to his feet. There was blood on his shirt, under his ribs. Where the bullet had struck him.
Johnny said, “You’re hit.”
Tom nodded. “It dug into me but went through. Just grazed my ribs. I’ll be all right.”
There was some shooting from out in the darkness. Johnny guessed the shots to be some distance off. Then there was more shooting, then all was silent.
Jessica was at his side, wanting to make sure he was all right. Cora was crying so Johnny took her in a hug.
“Everything’s gonna be all right, Sweetie,” he said.
They tied the one surviving man who had ridden with Wells to a wagon wheel. Officially, he was a lawman. He wore a badge pinned to his vest. He was maybe Dusty’s age, and was long and thin with fine whiskers decorating his chin, and a black eye from where Johnny had punched him and a gash on his forehead where Johnny had hit him with the gun.
Johnny reached down and pulled the tin star from the man’s vest. “You don’t deserve to wear this.”
Johnny’s knuckles were roughed up from where he had punched the man, and one knuckle was bleeding. One finger had made a snapping noise when he delivered the punch, but it wasn’t broken. The knuckle had snapped the way knuckles will. It felt a little sore, though.
Lettie was at Tom’s side. Lettie was fussing about the blood on Tom’s shirt, but this didn’t stop Tom from lifting Mercy and giving her a hug.
Johnny looked at him and Tom’s eyes met his, and Johnny nodded. Tom nodded back.
Peddie was standing in an open area of camp. The tent that had fallen on Matt was there, but Matt was not.
She said, “Has anyone seen Matt?”
There were more shots from the darkness, these ones closer to camp.
Jessica said, “We’re not free of this yet, are we?”
“I don’t know,” Johnny said. “Get the women and children back under the wagons.”
She did so.
The gun in Johnny’s hand was a forty-four Colt, so he was able to reload from the bullets in his own gunbelt. Tom’s Winchester was a .44-40, so Johnny handed him some cartridges and Tom pushed them into the rifle, then they stood side by side while they waited for whatever might be waiting for them out in the darkness.
“I’m not a drinking man,” Tom said. “But I see why Father and the rest of you like whiskey so much. I could use a shot of it right now.”
“You never want a drink before a fight like this. It might steady the nerves but it also takes away from your accuracy. And you don’t seem to need anything to calm your nerves. You handle this like you were born to it.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
They waited. Then someone started coming toward the camp. They could see him in the moonlight. He was on foot. Hobbling, Johnny thought. Favoring on leg. He came closer, and Johnny could see the white mustache and he knew it was Matt.
“Father,” Tom said.
Matt came closer. Peddie went running toward him and threw her arms around him.
“Easy, woman,” he said. “I’ve been trampled by a steer and shot.”
“You want me to stop?”
“Never.”
He looked over her shoulder at Johnny. “Got two of ‘em. My gun’s empty, though.”
Johnny said, “How bad shot are you?”
“I’m on my feet. I gotta stop getting shot, though. It hurts.”
“You better reload. This may not be over yet.”
Matt did so, then went to stand beside Johnny and Tom.
Matt said, “Are you all right, son?”
“Strangely,” Tom said, “yes. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“In a situation like this, it’s a go
od thing.”
They waited. And then riders came toward them from the darkness. Matt cocked his pistol. Tom jacked a cartridge into the chamber of his rifle. Johnny’s pistol was already cocked.
One rider was Zack. The other was Dusty.
“We got three of ‘em,” Dusty said.
Dusty’s hat was hanging from the chin strap and he was covered with dust. But he looked all right. Zack was holding right arm tight to his side, and held a pistol in his left. Zack had always been able to shoot with either hand, something Johnny had never been able to manage.
They quickly compared notes. Zack and Dusty had been caught by surprise when Wells’ men stampeded the herd. Dusty had been thrown from his horse, but from the ground he shot one of the attackers out of the saddle and then took that horse. Zack’s horse had reared and he found himself on the ground with a wrenched right shoulder, but he could shoot with his left and took two of them out of the saddle.
“I must be getting old,” Johnny said. “I just didn’t think they would try an attack like that. Not with so many gunhawks here, and the reputations we have.”
Jessica said, “You can’t be perfect. You can’t always be on top of every situation.”
Johnny nodded agreement just because he didn’t want to talk about it any further at the moment. But these men looked to him for leadership and he felt he had failed them. He had made the mistake of underestimating his opponent. Must be getting soft, he thought. Too many years in the remoteness of Montana, he supposed. Too many years away from the line of fire. Aside from the attack on the ranch a couple of summers ago, he hadn’t been shot at in years.
Dusty said, “I think we got ‘em all.”
Joe was still missing, as was Ben Harris. Ches rode into camp after a little while. Despite having one arm in a sling, he had ridden along with the herd, trying to head them off before they had a chance to scatter. His horse tripped on a rock in the darkness, though, and sent him sprawling, and he had just found it a short while ago.
“Afraid I missed all the action,” he said.
Johnny said, “You’re allowed. You’ve seen more than your share of it over the years.”
Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3) Page 32