Blood and Bullets

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Hadley leaned out of the recessed doorway to see what was going on. He did so too eagerly, without taking adequate precaution—and it damn near earned him a bullet to the skull.

  Standing wide legged in front of the bank, with his gun drawn, Romo Perlison was ready for the big man to pop back into view. He’d had a hunch the English ox hadn’t been satisfied with the story he’d been fed and might be lurking to cause trouble. When he saw him lean out of the doorway with a gun in his fist, that gave him his proof and he didn’t hesitate to trigger two rounds meant to splatter the troublemaker’s brains.

  Hadley’s reflexes—amazingly quick, especially for a man his size—along with Romo’s hurried aim, combined to keep him alive. One bullet sizzled through the air exactly where his head was a fraction of a second earlier; the other splattered against the doorway’s wood frame a half inch too high even if he hadn’t ducked.

  Hadley threw himself back into the recess, slamming hard against the door. He immediately dropped into a low crouch in case more bullets came. They did. Two more pounded in at an angle, hitting at the same height as before. Chewing wood, rattling window glass.

  “Stop wasting bullets unless you’ve got a sure target!” somebody shouted.

  Then other shouts began to ring out from other places up and down the street.

  “Bank robbery!”

  “They’re hitting the bank!”

  “The bank’s being robbed!”

  Risking that the first shout to not waste bullets had come from one of the robbers and that it wasn’t just a ruse, Hadley poked his head out at knee height for another quick peek around the edge of the doorway. His first glimpse, before Romo’s slugs drove him back, had been startlingly brief yet enough to brand certain images into his senses—images he fervently hoped were mistaken. Unfortunately, what he saw now, with this second look, was confirmation they were not.

  In the midst of the bodies emerging hurriedly from the bank and scrambling to the waiting horses, there was one that did not belong, was most definitely not part of the robber gang . . . Rupert Shaw! He was being roughly jerked and shoved by a tall, lean man with a pencil mustache. The same man—clearly the leader of the gang—barked more commands. In his free hand he held a long-barreled revolver, and he frequently waved its muzzle so it pointed at the captain’s head.

  Hadley didn’t need to see any more to know with gut-wrenching certainty that he was looking at his captain being grabbed for a hostage. Any shred of doubt was erased a moment later when the man with the pencil mustache hollered loud and clear, “We got us a hostage here. Any of you fools try to stop us, I guarantee Fancy Dan will be the first to die!

  “You sonsabitches stand clear and let us ride out of here. A posse comes boiling out too sudden or too close, the first thing they’re going to catch up with is Fancy Dan’s corpse. They give us some breathing room, on the other hand, we’ll let him go unharmed after a day or so. Make sure your law dogs understand that loud and clear.”

  By the time Pencil Mustache was done talking, his gang—including, shockingly, a curvy, attractive woman in a yellow dress whom Hadley at first took for another hostage until he saw her waving around a gun with the rest of them—was mounted. The captain, his arms tied painfully behind his back with the cloth from his sling, was thrust onto a fifth horse being led by the leader.

  “If you ever want to see Fancy Dan alive again, remember everything I said!” Pencil Mustache shouted as a final warning.

  Seconds later, the group had wheeled their horses and were thundering away in a cloud of dust. As they passed the jail building, they peppered it with a random volley of shots, blasting away chunks of adobe and riddling the thick wooden door.

  As the gang rode off, Hadley stepped out of the hat shop doorway. Along with a handful of others along the street, he watched the robbers disappear in a dust haze. That was all anybody could do. The big Englishman was squeezing his pistol so hard it had cut into the ball of his thumb. Yet he hadn’t dared to raise and fire it for fear of risking the captain’s life.

  CHAPTER 41

  Beartooth came running down the middle of Trail Street,. 45 in hand, from the direction of the rodeo arena. But he was too late, had been too far away to arrive in time to do any good.

  After making an early pass through the whole town shortly after the stores and shops had opened for the day’s business, Beartooth had returned to where yesterday’s rodeo had been held because he’d sensed trouble possibly brewing when he was there the first time. A handful of wranglers from different brands had closed down the saloons the previous night and then had used what meager slice of night was left to catch a couple hours’ sleep in their bedrolls before rising to get headed back to their respective ranches. Trouble was, a number of them had woke up hungover and belligerent, and some jibes about who’d done well and who’d made poor showings in yesterday’s events ended up being traded. Beartooth was on hand to keep things from getting out of hand when tempers flared. But a little while later, when he looked back and saw that not all of the wranglers had departed yet, he returned to make sure things weren’t heating up all over again. That’s what he’d been involved in when he’d heard shots fired from far up the street, and his attention was drawn only in time to see the robbers pouring out of the bank and making their getaway.

  By the time Beartooth reached the area in front of the bank, the street was filled with excitedly jabbering citizens. Some shouted questions, others clamored to tell what they had seen and heard. Unfortunately, all of this was happening at once and as a result the deputy was getting bombarded with noise that was impossible to make much sense of.

  Suddenly a pair of shots split the air and everybody went silent, many of them ducking away in alarm.

  Oberon Hadley stepped forward. People in his way scattered aside. Lowering the pistol he had raised above his head to fire the shots, he said, “For the love of sanity, ye bunch of nattering nits! Give the man some breathing room and let him hear one person at a time.”

  From the boardwalk in front of the bank, a harried looking Jason Trugood wailed, “My bank has been robbed—cleaned out! A posse needs to go after the scoundrels!”

  “That’s right,” a voice in the crowd agreed. “We need to get saddled up and ride out pronto. What are we waiting for?”

  “What about the hostage?” argued Mabel Grant, who ran the bakery across the street. “We all heard what would happen to him if a posse gave chase too soon.”

  “What’s this about a hostage?” Beartooth wanted to know. “Who was taken and what was said about what would happen to him?”

  Once again everyone started clamoring in unison.

  This time Beartooth cut them off himself, shouting, “Quiet down, dammit, or I’m never gonna get the straight of this!” He swung his gaze to Hadley. “What about it, big fella? Did you see what happened?”

  “Enough,” Hadley answered curtly. He gave a quick, concise rundown of everything he had seen and heard, including rough descriptions of the robbers and the fact the hostage they’d taken was none other than Rupert Shaw. When he was done, he said, “Does that sound like the work of any gang who’s operated before in your area?”

  Beartooth shook his head. “Can’t say it does, no. Especially not the part about a woman. That’s a new wrinkle for sure, leastways not one I ever heard tell of.”

  “What difference does it make who they are and whether or not anybody ever heard of them?” Trugood demanded. “They’re bank-robbing scum, that’s all you need to know! And you should be taking out after them, not just stand here talking!”

  Beartooth backed him up with a flinty look. “You’d best take it easy, Trugood. I’ll decide what I need to know, along with what action I’ll take and when.” He gestured to the employees flocked around the bank president. “Get him back inside and try to settle him down. Get a shot of bourbon in him. Where’s Ezra Ballard?”

  The old bank guard edged forward. He wore a tormented expression. “I’m right her
e, Beartooth,” he said meekly.

  “What happened inside, Ezra?” the deputy asked. “Give it to me straight and quick.”

  “It all went so fast,” Ezra answered. “They came in like nothing special. The woman first, the two men a couple minutes after her. Then all of a sudden they whipped out their guns. The woman, too. She had hers jammed in my face before I . . . there was nothing I could do to stop them.”

  “What made them settle on Shaw as their hostage?”

  “I’m not sure. The Englishman . . . was that his name—Shaw . . . ? He put up a fuss when they made everybody lay on the floor. I guess that made the leader of the gang mad. Once they’d gathered up the money, they yanked Shaw back to his feet and ripped his sling off, used it to tie his wrists behind his back. They drug him out that way.”

  Beartooth cast a sidelong glance over at Hadley. “Your captain seems to have a winnin’ way with folks wherever he goes,” he said wryly.

  “Aye,” Hadley said tersely. “But he’s still my captain. That means I have to do something to try and save him. What about you?”

  “Nobody robs a bank in my town and rides away free, if that’s what you’re askin’,” Beartooth told him. “But what do you make of the threats against the hostage’s life?”

  “If they were issued by honorable men,” Hadley replied, “it might mean something. Since that was hardly the case, I believe—and I suspect you do, too—they’ll only keep him alive as long as he might be useful. The likelihood of them turning him loose unharmed, no matter how long pursuit is delayed, is less than zero. The only chance for the captain to make it out of this still breathing is if we go take him away from them.”

  “You’d go along with attemptin’ that?”

  “Try and stop me.”

  Beartooth eyed him for a long count. “No, I don’t believe I’d care to. But tell me . . . A few hours out on the trail are you and me gonna have to stop and fight that stupid duel?”

  Hadley shook his head. “The duel is off. Permanently. You have my word on it.”

  “What if we save Shaw’s hide and he says different—still insists on goin’ through with it?”

  “In that event,” Hadley said with a cocked eyebrow, “I will personally stuff him in a steamer trunk and not let him out until we’re on the ocean halfway back to England.”

  Beartooth set his jaw and tipped his head in a quick nod. “That’s good enough for me. Let’s start puttin’ together a posse.”

  CHAPTER 42

  The drastic transition to the harsh, broken land they found once they’d crossed the border made the attempt by Firestick and Moosejaw to pick up the trail of their quarry even more difficult than they’d anticipated. Wearing grim, determined expressions, they doggedly set about scouring for fresh sign.

  With the sun climbing higher and hotter overhead, they pursued the plan Firestick had laid out of riding to a point that was as far as they estimated the abductors and the women could have reached. Then the former mountain men began fanning out in wide sweeps, looking for either a trail or a campsite where those they were after had spent the night.

  Unlike the gently rolling prairie up north, the terrain here was so chopped by arroyos and ridges and stands of rock that might offer suitable shelter, the necessity to explore each one was frustratingly time consuming. At first, there were numerous ground depressions holding pools of water from last night’s rain that kept the horses well slaked through this tedious process. As the day wore into afternoon, however, either the relentlessly beating sun or the thirsty land had dried up all of these—all but a few stubborn, secluded tanks lurking in deeply worn pockets hiding in the perpetual shade of the tallest rocks.

  Upon reaching one such spot, Firestick signaled a halt. The horses were weary. The pounding sun and the precarious, punishing slopes had combined to take a toll on them. Nor were the men, no matter how rugged and determined, left unscathed.

  After cooling the horses and then watering and securing them with feedbags hitched over their snouts, Firestick and Moosejaw laid up at the base of a rock column where the wind had sand-scoured a smooth-edged cutout, like an open mouth, within which lay a welcome slice of shade.

  “Hard to believe, ain’t it?” Moosejaw mused as he gazed up at the rocks looming over them after lowering his canteen once he’d taken a long gulp of the cool tank water with which he’d just filled it, “that some year this little sand cut will wear deep enough to topple that whole mighty wall.”

  Firestick lay on his back beside him, hat tipped forward over his eyes. “Long as it don’t come tumblin’ down until we’re gone from here,” he mumbled, “I can’t say as I particularly care. I just don’t want to have to move sudden-like any time soon.”

  “I hear that,” Moosejaw agreed. “I think all the quick is tuckered out of me right at the moment.”

  Firestick thumbed back his hat. “Jesus. How long have we been badge-toters in Buffalo Peak? Goin’ on about three years now, right? Have we softened up so much from town livin’ in that short amount of time? Used to be we could hike and climb the high mountain trails for days on end without hardly drawin’ a quickened breath. Now look at us. We been on horseback most all day and here we sit puffin’ like we was the ones carryin’ saddles on our backs.”

  “That blazin’ sun don’t help any,” Moosejaw pointed out. “Back in the mountains, we was used to trees and shade and cooler air. And much as we might hate to admit it, we was a sight younger then, too.”

  Firestick shoved himself up on one elbow. Scowling, he said, “That only matters if we let it. We catch our breath here for a minute or two longer and then, when we start out again, our second wind will kick in. We can’t let up.”

  “Never said nothing about lettin’ up. Just wishin’ for maybe a cool breeze and a fresh whiff of youth if there was any floatin’ around, that’s all.”

  “While you’re at it, wish for some fresh tracks to follow. That’d give us all the boost we need,” Firestick declared. “We might not be as spry as we used to be, but we can still follow sign with the best of ’em. We just need a few scratches on the ground to get us started again, dammit.”

  Moosejaw eyed his friend of many years. He could sense the anxiety and worry in him, deeper than he’d ever seen before even though they’d been in plenty of tight spots together in the past. But a woman one of them was in love with had never been part of it before. That was the difference, and Moosejaw had no trouble appreciating it. All he had to do was picture Daisy as one of the abducted gals they were after.

  “Don’t worry, pard,” he said now, making his tone as reassuring as he could. “Their sign is out there. It’s just a matter of time before we cut it.”

  “I know,” Firestick said. “I just keep thinkin’ how that time is draggin’ by for us . . . and I can’t help but wonder how it must be for Kate.”

  “She knows you’ll be comin’ for her,” Moosejaw told him. “No matter how tough she has it, that will keep her goin’.”

  * * *

  It was well into the afternoon before they at last found the cavernous half dome where the abductors and the women had camped the previous night. They would have weathered the storm in relative comfort here. What was more, there were again signs—discarded empty tins that had once held canned peaches and stewed tomatoes, ground markings indicating bedrolls separating those of the women from the men, a latrine dug in a private spot, and so forth—that indicated the women had been fed well and treated decently.

  What was most intriguing of all, however, were some scratchings they came across that had nothing to do with a trail leading away. On a patch of sand near the latrine—possibly scratched there at the last minute before the group rode away—were these words: BRIGHT ROCK NW.

  “What do you make of it?” asked Moosejaw after bringing it to the attention of Firestick. “I took a long gander around and I don’t see no bright rock or shiny rock or nothing that seems to fit—not to the northwest or no other direction, neither.” />
  “Bright rock NW,” said Firestick, reading the words out loud. “I got to believe it was put there as a message to us, either by Kate or that Cleo gal. But I’m blamed if I can cipher what it’s meant to tell us.”

  The two men walked out from the cavern and together took another look around, to the northwest and every other direction. But they saw nothing that seemed to fit the words.

  “The tracks away from here lead off to the northwest. That’s one thing,” said Moosejaw.

  Firestick frowned. “Yeah, but we’d’ve seen that much regardless. Those words were meant to tell us something more.” He paused, then said the words again, as if repeating them would somehow help them make sense. “Bright rock . . . Bright rock NW.”

  “They were fresh-scratched in that patch of sand, so it ain’t like they were left by somebody else using that cavern some earlier time,” Moosejaw mulled, thinking out loud.

  Abruptly, Firestick lifted his chin. “Wait a minute. Hold on. I recall hearin’ some old-timers back in town talkin’ a few times. There was some town off to the west of Buffalo Peak, quite a few years back. They hit silver in the hills nearby and a community sprung up fast, a boomtown. But then the silver died out and so did the community. It’s abandoned now, a ghost town. But wasn’t the name something like Bright Rock?”

  Moosejaw’s eyes went wide. “No, it wasn’t ‘something like’ Bright Rock—that’s exactly what it was! I’ve heard stories about it, too. Yeah! And west of Buffalo Peak would be roughly northwest from where we’re standin’.”

  The two men locked eyes for several beats, a silent excitement building between them.

  Finally, Moosejaw said, “That must be it. Right? The abductors let on they were headed for Bright Rock and one of the gals left it as a clue for us.”

  “Seems that way,” Firestick said.

  Now Moosejaw frowned. “But why ride clear the hell down here into Mexico only to turn around and go back up there?”