Ambush Valley

by Johnstone, William W.

  “I know it,” Frank said.

  “You could turn around and head east with it. There’s nothing I could do to stop you.”

  “And all I have to do is let you go, eh?”

  “Eighty thousand dollars,” McCoy repeated. “That’s a hell of a lot of money. Enough to keep a man living in high cotton for the rest of his life.”

  “A dishonest man, maybe.”

  “Hell, you’re a gunfighter!” McCoy burst out. “Don’t go getting all high-and-mighty and moral on me! How many men have you killed in your life?”

  The total was higher than Frank liked to think about, way higher. But he was able to say honestly, “None who didn’t force me to it, in one way or another.” The truth of that answer was the reason he was still able to sleep peacefully at night.

  McCoy gave a bark of contemptuous laughter. “You’ve hired out your gun plenty of times. I’ve heard about you, Morgan. You’re nothing but a low-down killer. And now you’re doing Browning’s dirty work. You’re just a hired gun for your own son.”

  Frank told himself not to honor that statement with a response. But he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “You’ve got that wrong.”

  “The hell I do. So take the payoff, Morgan. Take the eighty grand. It’s all yours. Just ride away, and you won’t ever have to see me again.”

  A weary sigh came from Frank. “Give it up, McCoy,” he said. “What you’re talking about isn’t going to happen. You’re going back to prison where you belong.”

  “Well, you can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

  They reached the end of the ravine and rode up the slope leading out of it. Frank looked at the arid, rocky wasteland that surrounded them and realized that he wasn’t sure which direction they needed to go. McCoy had been here in Ambush Valley before and knew the way out a lot better than Frank did.

  McCoy realized that, too, and laughed. “What are you going to do now, Morgan?” he asked. “Maybe you can find the way out and maybe you can’t. Could be we ‘II wander around in here until we starve or die of thirst. Just don’t expect me to help you.”

  Frank thought he had a pretty good idea where to find the trail. Anyway, as long as they were moving in a gener ally westward direction, sooner or later they would come to the end of the valley. It might take longer if he had to hunt around for the way out, but they would get there.

  “That way,” he said as he pointed with his gun. “Get moving, McCoy.”

  “Sure,” McCoy replied with that ugly grin of his. “If you’re certain that’s the right direction.”

  Frank wasn’t certain, but he was willing to risk it. He and McCoy rode between a couple of towering spires of rock and through a field of scattered boulders that were nearly as big as houses. The landmarks looked familiar to Frank, and his feeling that they were going in the right direction grew stronger as they rode up a slope and then down from the ridge into another boulder-dotted flat. The green of vegetation was nowhere to be seen in this part of the valley, but there were plenty of other colors the red, brown, and tan of sandstone, the gray of granite, even stretches of volcanic rock that were a deep black. Arching over all of it was a pale blue cloudless sky dom inated by the brassy orb of the sun, which beat down with increasing heat and strength.

  McCoy was starting to look a mite nervous as he glanced back at his captor. The bank robber knew that they were on the right trail, Frank thought. McCoy’s final chances to escape were slipping away.

  “Eighty thousand damned dollars!” McCoy suddenly cried in ragged tones. “That’s almost a hundred grand, you stiff-necked son of a bitch! Take it! Just let me loose. I won’t go back to Yuma.”

  “Yes, you will,” Frank said, his voice calm. Sweat darkened his shirt, as well was McCoy’s. Some of the salty beads were about to drip into his eyes, so he sleeved them away from his forehead.

  McCoy reined in, turning his horse so that he faced Frank. The gun in The Drifter’s hand came up, and his eyes narrowed. “Whatever you’re thinking, forget about it, McCoy,” he grated.

  McCoy shook his head. “I told you I wouldn’t go.

  You’re going to have to kill me, Morgan … because if you don’t, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands. I’m coming for you, you bastard.”

  Frank wondered if he could just wound McCoy. In the bank robber’s weakened condition, and in this murder ous heat, even the shock of a bullet might be fatal, even if the wound wouldn’t be a mortal one under normal conditions. But if Frank had to, he would shoot, and to make sure McCoy understood that, he warned, “Stay back, mister. Don’t make me pull this trigger.”

  McCoy laughed. “You’ve known all along you’d have to do it. After all … you’re a hired killer, remember?”

  McCoy stiffened and lifted his reins. He was about to send his horse plunging at Frank’s mount, and Frank was going to have to shoot him out of the saddle.

  It might have happened that way, too … if at that moment a furious volley of gunshots hadn’t blasted through the scorching air of Ambush Valley as if a war had just broken out.

  Chapter 21

  Abner Hoyt and the rest of the bounty hunters had made camp within sight of the entrance to Ambush Valley the night before. As usual, Hoyt made sure that a couple of men were standing guard all night. The fastest way to get killed out here on the frontier was to be taken by surprise. Hoyt didn’t like surprises.

  That was why he was glad when the night passed qui etly. The next morning, as he hunkered next to a small fire and sipped scalding hot coffee from a tin cup, he peered toward the place where the mountains petered out and Ambush Valley began.

  “Are we going in there, Abner?” Leaf asked from the other side of the fire. The Englishman had tea instead of coffee. He carried his own supply of the stuff wherever he went, along with a special pot for “brewing up,” as he called it.

  “Not unless there’s some need for us to go in,” Hoyt replied, “and I don’t reckon that’s very likely.”

  “What if Morgan needs help?” Bob Bardwell asked.

  Hoyt shook his head. “Morgan didn’t strike me as the sort of hombre who’d need help with one man, even if that man is an ornery son of a bitch like Cicero McCoy.” He took another sip of Arbuckle’s and added, “But if we hear any shooting in there, I reckon we’ll have to go take a look. If we ride into the valley, can you find our way back out again, Joaquin?”

  Escobar nodded. “Sf, don’t worry about that, Abner. We won’t get lost.”

  Hoyt grunted and said, “Never figured we would.” Time passed slowly that morning. Hoyt had never liked waiting for anything. He was an impatient man by nature, even though his perilous profession had taught him to be less so. Sometimes, being able to just wait without making a move or a sound was what it took to save a man’s life.

  Especially a manhunter’s life. There was no more dan gerous quarry in the world than a human being.

  Jack and Ben Coleman spread a blanket on the ground and played cards. Deke Mantee joined them. Deke had been spending a lot of time with the brothers lately, Hoyt thought with a slight frown when he noticed the game going on. Mantee was a good hombre and had been with Hoyt longer than any of the others except Bardwell. Hoyt didn’t particularly like the Colemans, although he re spected their abilities. They were good men to have on your side in a fight. But something about them rubbed him the wrong way.

  Bartholomew Leaf found himself a shady spot in the lee of a rock and sat with his back against the boulder while he read a book that he took from his saddlebags. Leaf was a great one for reading.

  Bardwell and Escobar kept their eyes on the mouth of Ambush Valiey. When and if Frank Morgan and Cicero McCoy emerged from the valley, they wanted to know it as soon as possible.

  Somebody should have been watching the other direction, Hoyt realized late in the morning when he glanced, to the west and stiffened as he saw a dust cloud boiling up from the desert. “Somebody’s coming,” he snapped as he came to his feet and took a qui
ck step toward the horses. As he took a pair of field glasses from his saddlebags, he added, “Looks like it might be a lot of somebodies.”

  Everyone in camp was instantly alert. The Coleman brothers and Mantee put away the cards and forgot about their poker game. Leaf marked his place in his book and picked up his rifle instead. Bardwell and Escobar turned away from the mouth of Ambush Valley and looked out at the desert instead.

  Hoyt brought the glasses to his eyes and peered through them. It took him a moment to locate the group of riders at the base of the dust cloud. As he focused on them, a chill tingled along his backbone despite the sti fling heat.

  “Those Apaches are back,” he said. There was no mis taking the colorful shirts and headbands, which were vis ible through the field glasses.

  “That’s a lot of dust for a dozen riders to be kicking up,” Bardwell said, his voice taut.

  Hoyt drew in a deep breath and then let it out in a sigh. “That’s because there are thirty or forty of the sons of bitches.”

  “The ones who ran off yesterday must’ve gone back to fetch some friends,” Mantee drawled. “We’ve got a fight on our hands now, boys.”

  Hoyt lowered the glasses and snapped, “Yes, and we can’t take them on out here in the open. Throw your sad dles on your horses. We’re heading for Ambush Valley.”

  There was no time to waste. The Indians would be on top of them in five minutes or less.

  As Leaf saddled his horse, he asked, “Would you like me to stay here and pick some of them off while the rest of you skedaddle, Abner?”

  Hoyt knew that the Englishman was offering to sacri fice his own life to give the rest of them a better chance. “No need for that,” he said. “We’ll find us a place to fort up in there, and then you can potshot those redskins to your heart’s content, Bart.”

  Leaf nodded as he tightened the cinch on his saddle. “Very well.”

  There was no sense of panic about the bounty hunters, although Jack and Ben Coleman sent several glances toward the charging Apaches as they saddled up. The rest of the men just concentrated on the task at hand, their movements smooth and efficient. Within two minutes of Hoyt giving the order, camp was broken, the horses were saddled, and the men were ready to ride. “Let’s go!” Hoyt called as they galloped toward the mouth of Ambush Valley.

  Hoyt figured the Apaches were still at least a quarter of a mile away. He and his companions would have time to reach the valley. Once they got there, they would have a tough fight facing them, no doubt about that. The odds against them were steep.

  But not overwhelming. If they could find some good cover, they had plenty of food, water, and ammunition. They could stand off the renegades for a long time, and Hoyt was confident that with each attack he and his friends would do more damage to the Apaches. Even with a big war party like this, the Indians might decide the price they’d have to pay to kill these white men was too high.

  The bounty hunters had good horses, big, strong ani mals that possessed both speed and stamina. They were well cared for, too, although the long ride from Yuma had taken something out of them, as it had the men who rode them. Still, they reached the mouth of the valley well ahead of the pursuers. As they galloped between the rugged mountains toward the scorching wasteland of the valley, Hoyt began looking around for a good place to take cover.

  They didn’t have the luxury of a long search, though, because guns began barking from the heights to the right and left of them. Hoyt didn’t hear the shots at first over the pounding hoofbeats, but he saw the spouts of dirt kicked up by the bullets as they plowed into the ground, and when he glanced up toward the rocky slopes, he saw puffs of gunsmoke scattered across them. A curse ripped from his mouth. He knew instinctively what had hap pened. While he and his men slept the night before, Apache warriors had crept past them and into the valley to take up positions on the heights. Then the rest of the reinforced war party had attacked this morning, right out in the open where they were plainly visible, and because of that Hoyt and the rest of the bounty hunters had waltzed right into the trap set by the renegades.

  Ambush Valley was living up to its name once again, Hoyt thought as he heard the wind-rip of a bullet past his ear.

  And just like ten years earlier, unless some sort of mir acle occurred, there was going to be a slaughter here.

  The sound of shots from not too far away took both Frank and McCoy by surprise, but that didn’t last very long. McCoy yelled as he lunged his horse toward Frank.

  Frank held off on the trigger and wheeled his mount aside just as McCoy leaped from the saddle at him. He lashed out with the gun and felt the barrel thud against the outlaw’s skull. McCoy’s momentum carried him on into Frank, anyway. The collision knocked Frank out of the saddle. Both men fell to the ground, landing hard

  McCoy was stunned from the blow to his head. Frank rolled away, came up on a knee, and pointed the gun at the bank robber. All the fight had been knocked out of McCoy, he saw. In fact, McCoy was unconscious.

  Frank knew that wouldn’t last long. He leaped up and hurried to McCoy’s side. Holstering his gun, he bent down and tore McCoy’s belt from the loops on his denim trousers. Then Frank jerked McCoy’s hands behind his back and quickly lashed his wrists together with the belt.

  He could come back for McCoy later, he thought, after he had found out what all the shooting was about. But just in case something happened to him and he wasn’t able to return, he bound the outlaw loosely enough so that McCoy would be able to work his hands free sooner or later. Frank wouldn’t condemn even a man like McCoy to a slow, lingering death in this hellhole by tying him so tightly that he couldn’t get loose.

  Once that was done, Frank caught his horse and swung up into the saddle. He had his Colt and McCoy’s revolver and his Winchester. He made sure that all of the weapons were fully loaded before he set off toward the battle, following the sound of the shots.

  His route led him past several other landmarks that were familiar from the journey into the wasteland Frank was confident that he was headed toward the end of the valley. The shots became louder and he saw a haze of powder smoke floating in the air ahead of him. He was getting close to the battlefield.

  He rounded a bend in the trail and saw the long straight stretch that led between half-mile-long, finger like ridges to the desert. This was the mouth of Ambush Valley.

  And the slopes overlooking it were dotted with gunmen hidden behind rocks and scrubby clumps of brush. As Frank reined in, he caught glimpses of bright red and blue here and there and knew that the men on the ridges were Apache. More renegades, these on horse back, were milling around at the end of the valley.

  Trapped between the ridges, pinned down by gunfire and bottled up by the Apaches at the mouth of the valley, were Abner Hoyt and the other bounty hunters. Frank saw several of them crouched behind rocks as they tried to return the fire of the bushwhackers above them. Some of their horses were down, obviously shot out from under them, but Frank didn’t see any human bodies.

  It was only a matter of time, though. Hoyt and his men were in a bad spot.

  None of them-white, Mexican, or Apache-had spotted Frank yet. He wheeled his horse around and rode back out of sight. He looked down at the bundle of loot tied to the saddle horn by the excess rope wrapped around it. McCoy was his prisoner-all he had to do was ride back and pick him up-and he had recovered the money stolen from Conrad’s bank. The Apaches proba bly didn’t know that he and McCoy were even in Ambush Valley. If he stayed out of sight and waited, the renegades would wipe out Hoyt and the others and then ride away, more than likely, satisfied with the massacre they had carried out. Then Frank and McCoy could make a run for Hinkley, and Frank could find a place there to lock up the bank robber until he could get word to the authorities about what had happened.

  It took perhaps a heartbeat for those thoughts to run through Frank Morgan’s mind-and less time than that for him to discard the idea of abandoning Hoyt and the other bounty hunters to their fate.
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  He dismounted and left his horse tied to a jutting rock. Then, carrying both rifles, he began working his way toward the top of the ridge on the north side of the valley mouth.

  The sun beat down powerfully. The heat from the rocks came through the soles of his boots until it felt like his feet were blistering. Every time he had to put a hand down to catch his balance during the arduous climb, the rocks were almost too hot to touch. The sweat dried on his shirt, leaving great white rings on the cloth. After a few minutes, Frank stopped sweating, and he knew that was bad. One of the canteens was looped over his shoul der. He stopped and took a short drink from it. If he passed out from the heat, he couldn’t do the bounty hunters any good.

  The firing continued as Frank made his way through the rocks and up steep slopes. From the sound of it, Hoyt and the others were putting up a good fight, and that was encouraging. Most of them were still alive. If he could help even the odds a little, they might have a chance to get out of this trap.

  He finally reached the top of the ridge and moved along it until he could see most of the Apaches who were hidden up here, pouring fire down at Hoyt and his men. Frank paused long enough to study the situation and pick out the order of his targets. Chances were, the Indians wouldn’t notice the extra shots, and if he took them from highest to lowest, they wouldn’t see their fellow warriors falling. He knelt, set one of the Winchesters beside him, and rested the barrel of the other one on a rock as he drew a bead. A moment later he squeezed the trigger, and the crack of the rifle was followed by the sight of the renegade highest up on the slope jerking under the impact of the bullet in his back and then folding up in death.

  Some people would call what he was doing murder, Frank thought as he worked the rifle’s lever and shifted his aim. He didn’t hate Indians, never had. But he couldn’t stand by and let them slaughter Hoyt and the other bounty hunters, either. Came a time when a man had to pick his side and do what was necessary to WID. Frank Morgan had made his decision, and he knew that like most of the others he’d made over the years, he wouldn’t have much trouble living with it.