It was fear more than courage that drove the bounty hunters into the teeth of that deadly hail of bullets, for with three of their number already dead they realized retreat would be suicidal.
So they came on in a headlong, full-blooded charge and the crouching Ketchell’s Winchester pumped, spat death, and pumped again. St. John’s horse went down in a mad tangle of hoofs and harness and Cash Pickett’s bullet-riddled body left the saddle and arced over the rolling St. John’s head.
The bounty hunters’ fire was laced with panic and sprayed wildly—with the exception of Fargo’s. A slim shape crouched behind the head of his big gelding, Fargo worked his flaming six-gun skillfully and was finally rewarded by the sight of Ketchell staggering, then going down on one knee.
That was also the sight that greeted Brazos and Benedict as they came storming around the talus shelf. Unable to hear their approach above the crash of guns and hoofbeats, the downed Ketchell was lifting his weapon to fire at the bounty hunters again when Benedict’s down swinging gun barrel crashed against the top of his skull and laid him out.
The next moment Benedict was hurling himself headlong behind a huge stone as a bullet howled close. Gaining cover at his shoulder, Brazos gave a roar:
“Hold your fire, damn it!”
Few of the oncoming riders heard his cry, and those who did ignored it. There was no reason left in this chaotic night. The bounty hunters had seen their numbers decimated in a handful of seconds, and to them this was a kill-or-be-killed situation. Their guns flamed as they pounded over the last fifty-yard stretch. With lead howling close, Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos had no choice but to return the fire.
Todd Essex pitched lifeless from his saddle as the big Colts flamed together, and moments later Jimmy Lee’s paint pony fell beneath him. Rogan St. John was on his feet in the background, limping forward with a shotgun cradled in his hands, screaming orders that nobody could understand.
Suddenly a racing horse loomed close before the crouched figures at the base of the butte. The rider was Fargo. Lips skinned back from his teeth, his big Colt flaming, the killer drove a slug between Brazos’ arm and his body. The next instant he fell back and out of the saddle, as dead as a man could be, with .45 bullets in head, throat and heart.
The sight of Fargo plummeting from the saddle finally halted the forward progress of the last mounted bounty hunter, Alvin Page. Seeing Page turn, Jimmy Lee spun on his heel and start running back the way he had come.
“Keep at it you yeller bastards!” St. John roared. When this failed to halt them, he sent a warning shot ripping into the earth before Alvin Page’s horse.
Page’s reaction was that of a man in total panic. He fired twice from the hip and Rogan St. John buckled over his shotgun and hit the ground on his face as the horseman stormed past. Away to Page’s left, bullet-headed Jimmy Lee sprinted after a wild-eyed, riderless horse. The animal propped when it came to Todd Essex’s body, and Lee bounded over its rump, snatched the reins and kicked.
Though dazed by the carnage, Brazos and Benedict immediately turned and hurried back to check on Ketchell as the horsemen raced off.
But Ketchell wasn’t there. He had left his killing rifle and a great deal of his blood on the sun-bleached stones, but of the man they had taken such fearsome risks to bring to justice there was no sign.
Chapter Nine – Will to Live
TWO LARKS FLEW up before the wagons, arrowing straight at the dawn sky with startled cries. The sun had just peeped over the east rim, daubing the sky with burnished gold.
Haggard-faced, the travelers pushed into the new morning. The clatter of hoofs and the grind of wagon rims rang loudly in the day’s hush.
Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos had spent the night circling the slow-moving train, on guard against an attack by Ketchell or the bounty hunter survivors. Now they drew together to confer where the old trail topped a broad brown hill. It was agreed that daylight had dispelled the threat of danger, and they decided it was time to call for a rest.
Nobody objected. Following the slaughter at Red Feather Springs and the night-long journey, horses, mules and humans were at the point of exhaustion. As the men sluggishly unharnessed the mules and rubbed them down, Hambone whipped up a quick meal that attracted few takers. That was more than enough to trigger off the temperamental cook’s temper, and he was noisily banging tin plates and cutlery into his wash pan as Brazos and Benedict walked past on their way to Hurble’s wagon.
There had been no time to afford the wagon master anything more than a sketchy explanation of the circumstances behind Ketchell’s attack last night. After a quick search had failed to reveal any trace of the killer at battle’s end, Brazos and Benedict had decided that their prime duty lay in protecting the women rather than continue the hunt for Ketchell. Now they felt that Hurble deserved a full explanation as to why his expedition had become entangled with murderous Kain Ketchell.
Seated on his wagon tongue sipping Hambone’s terrible coffee, Hurble heard them out in silence, then proved his real caliber with his response:
“Reckon if I’d knowed what you fellers was up to, I’d’ve still let you come along.” When he saw how they looked at each other, he explained: “It’s true I’m obligated to get all my gals across in safety, gents, but I’m thinkin’ I’d have been willin’ to risk even that to help bring a murderin’ varmint like that to book.” He grimaced down at his pannikin and emptied the contents on the ground. “Too bad you didn’t nail him.”
“He could well be dead, Keef,” said Benedict, taking up a position where he could watch their backtrail and Libby Blue taking breakfast simultaneously. “I put at least one bullet in him—Brazos says it was in the shoulder. And when that bounty hunter shot him, he seemed to go down hard.”
“But he got up again, didn’t he?” Hurble said.
“That he did,” agreed Brazos, tenderly massaging his bruised jaw, one of many painful portions of his big body this morning. “But he had leaked a heap of blood, Keef, and the fact that he left his sawn off rifle behind means he had to be powerful sick.”
Hurble considered this, then he nodded in the direction of Libby. “What’s she think? I reckon she knows Ketchell better than anybody.”
“I had a word with Libby when we halted,” said Benedict. “She’s convinced that Ketchell is dead or dying.”
“Could be she’s just sayin’ that to cheer herself up,” Hurble opined. He shook his head. “That butcher must sure want her dead awful bad to take such risks to get at her.”
“That he does,” said Brazos. He licked a cigarette into shape and felt for his matches. “To hear Ketchell tell it, Libby is just like him, only about twice as mean.”
That drew a sharp glance from Benedict. “You sound almost as if you swallowed some of that, Johnny Reb.”
Brazos’ blue gaze was steady on Benedict’s face. “He sounded mighty convincin’, Yank.” Then, catching the glint of anger in Benedict’s eyes, he put on a grin. “But I ain’t about to take the word of a Ketchell about anything, so you needn’t bother gettin’ yourself in a twist. The thing to figure right now is how we play out the rest of our hand.”
“What do you mean, Hank?” asked Hurble.
“Well, do we go lookin’ for water or do we push on hard for Tarbuck?”
Hurble made a face. “We need water bad after missin’ out at Red Feather Springs. Like I mentioned to you yesterday, there’s water across at Red Gulch, but that’s about ten miles out of our way.”
Brazos stared at the Winding Stair Mountains. “How long do you figure it would take to make Tarbuck from here if we whipped ’em up real good and to hell with water and rest, Keef?”
“Well, we’re about sixteen or seventeen miles off the foothills now, so I guess a day and a half or two days.”
“Or we could make it tonight if we didn’t rest more’n ten minutes or so at a time? And we could send somebody ahead to alert the town and they could send out an escort to bring us in by dark?”
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“Make it tonight? Glory, Hank, I don’t know if we could ...” Hurble’s voice faded as he grew aware of the sober expression Brazos was wearing. After a silence, he asked quietly, “You think we ought to try for it tonight, don’t you, Hank?”
“Reckon so, Keef.”
“Then that must mean you don’t believe Kain Ketchell is dead.”
“Don’t you?” Benedict asked as Brazos went on staring at the mountains.
The Texan took the cigarette from his lips. “He should be croaked or croakin’, going by the punishment he took back there at the springs. But I saw that varmint up close and got a good, powerful whiff of him. He’s ringy, that Ketchell. He’s the breed that does everythin’ hard, even dyin’.” His blue eyes roamed out over the sun washed surround. “I reckon he could still be alive, and if that’s so then he’ll keep tryin’ for what he come after. That’s how I see it ...”
Benedict and Hurble eyed each other for a long moment. Then the wagon master heaved himself off the wagon tongue and spoke decisively:
“In that case, I say we push on and to hell with the hardship. What do you say, Duke?”
Benedict shrugged. “I inevitably defer to my rustic associate in matters mundane, Keef. If he says we should force-march to Tarbuck, then presumably he believes the animals can handle it. So why not?”
“Done then,” said Hurble. “I’ll get them roused up again and tell Brunk Doolin I want him to ride into Tarbuck. I reckon Big Rosie can handle his wagon as good as him anyway.”
“Better would be my guess,” Benedict drawled as Hurble walked away. He smiled as he slipped into a broad, Irish accent. “Drive a team of mules, Mr. Hurble? Faith now, I was for worryin’ you was about to ask me to try somethin’ hard, like bringin’ a breath of Christianity to the dark soul of Mr. Benedict, for instance.”
Brazos’ smile was fleeting. “Yank,” he said awkwardly, “I reckon I’ve been too occupied to say so afore, but I’d like you to know I appreciate what you did back there last night. That took brains and a hell of a lot of sand.”
“I’ve already put that down to a fit of temporary insanity,” Benedict replied, fastidiously adjusting the heavy strapping Mrs. Hurble had put around his shoulder. Duke Benedict invariably found it difficult to express gratitude, and he was just as awkward in accepting it. “Now I’m sure I can leave you to ready our horses for the trail, Texan, for there is somebody I wish to see.”
Watching the tall figure move between the wagons, Brazos smiled. Regardless of how much Benedict might try to make light of it, his play last night had taken a mighty dose of the kind of courage a man finds only in a true friend.
His smile faded when he saw that Benedict had gone directly to Smiley Dunn’s wagon to talk with Libby Blue. Until last night, Brazos had shared with Benedict the belief that Libby was just a sweet, innocent girl who had become entangled with Ketchell by accident. But that was before he’d sat on the broken butte and listened to the killer talk about his old sweetheart in a voice that dripped with hatred but held the sure ring of conviction.
Was Libby a wide-eyed innocent, or was she a girl of such a dangerous nature that even Ketchell was forced to admire her?
Suddenly he shook his head. Turning, he headed for the horses. Too much brain work was no good for a man, old Joe Brazos had always said ... and Brazos guessed his old man had been right.
Heavy cloud had rolled down from the Winding Stair Mountains at sundown and the night was moonless and starless. Kain Ketchell was sure he’d never seen a night so dark as he staggered over the sand. But it wasn’t just the darkness that hung heavy upon him.
He’d seen the redskins just on dusk—two motionless silhouettes away to the east as he’d trudged doggedly towards the mountains. He knew those Cheyenne bastards. They were like buzzards. They could smell blood and weakness.
Forced to rest, he stretched out beneath a jutting slab of stone. The pain was bad, but pain was an old and familiar enemy. What bothered him more, was his weakness. He had to have strength to make it to Tarbuck, to finish what he had set out to do. Too bad he hadn’t been able to pick up a horse back there at the springs. But he had taken guns from the dead and two water canteens. He could make it, providing his weakness didn’t get worse. He must have leaked a gallon of blood. That damned dude!
What was that?
His finger tight on the trigger of the gun against his chest, he listened intently. He waited a long time, perhaps half an hour, before he saw the dark form drift past a towering cactus. Ketchell fired at once, point-blank. The figure seemed to spread in mid-air. It fell hard. A screech owl burst from its burrow close by and went shrieking into the night. The Indian on the ground didn’t move. Ketchell rose in a half crouch and ghosted away until he reached a depression in the earth. Again he waited. He heard nothing. He rose again and circled until he smelled the horse.
Ketchell froze, facing the direction of the odor. After a time he heard a sound like that a horse makes pulling on its tether. The killer dropped belly-flat and inched his way in that direction, gun at the ready. Then he saw the horses. They stood erect. Two Indian ponies. There was no sign of the second Cheyenne, but he had to be close—Ketchell could smell him.
Again came the long, painful wait that would have exhausted the patience of almost any other white man. Ketchell turned his head at the whisper of moccasined feet and fired at a blur of movement near the horses. The buck leaped high, shrieking. Ketchell drove two more slugs into the body before it hit the ground, then he got to his feet and lunged at the ponies as they jerked wildly at their tethers.
One horse broke free and went careening away, but Ketchell seized the second animal’s lead just as it was poised for flight. The pony fought him and Ketchell had to lock his teeth against the agony of exerting his strength. He let the pony drag him over the sand, knowing that if he fell he would lose him. He was almost unconscious when the horse finally stopped and fixed him with a hostile eye.
He didn’t know how he climbed onto the brute’s back. But the feel of the pony between his legs gave him strength. Knotting the rope around his wrist, he pointed the pony’s head in the direction he hoped was south, then he slumped gratefully across its thick neck.
Chapter Ten – The Eternity Trail
IT WAS AFTER midnight, and every passenger on the wagon train was fast asleep when the red-eyed drivers looked along the winding foothill trail to see Brunk Doolin riding towards them with a dozen mounted miners hard behind.
“Glory be, we’re safe at last!” Keef Hurble breathed fervently. He turned and banged his fist on the splashboard. “Agatha, the miners are here!”
His only response was a snore. Agatha Hurble was deep in an exhausted sleep, as was every girl who shared their wagon. The drive had extracted a heavy toll, and though they had been eagerly anticipating their first meeting with their prospective husbands for weeks, the women looked as if they mightn’t be in a fit condition to face their mail-order men for days.
“Better let ’em rest some more, boys,” a relieved Hank Brazos suggested as the miners eagerly poked their heads through wagon flaps looking for their Peggy, June or Sue. The miners reluctantly obeyed, and the brides-to-be were left to sleep on until they reached Tarbuck just before sunrise.
Tarbuck was wide awake and fully prepared, thanks to the news Doolin had brought about the wagon train’s arrival. The twisted little main street of the mountainside mining town blazed with lights and there was a big sign hung between the Lucky Strike Saloon and Miners’ Rest Hotel that said:
WELCOME TO THE WOMEN!
The mayor was on hand to give the historic event the right note of dignity, and the Tarbuck Town Band blasted out the Wedding March with little harmony but impressive volume.
Not even the dead could have slept through the Wedding March played by the Tarbuck Town Band, and suddenly sleepy heads were peering from wagon flaps, then a great welcoming cheer broke from the ranks of miners lining the street.
Feeling a lit
tle out of things as miners and girls surged about them, Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos moved to one side to finally relax a little. The great burden of the last thirty-six hours had rested mainly on their shoulders. Now, relieved of their responsibility, they felt utterly spent. But their attention was suddenly diverted by a familiar voice close by:
“You’re Tommy Riley?”
They turned to see Big Rosie standing before a man who almost dwarfed her. At least six and a half feet tall, he was as broad as a door and looked as if he might life a stagecoach as light exercise.
“Sure and I am,” the giant replied. “And you’d be Rosie. My, but you’re a fine big lump of a colleen and no mistake.”
Rosie’s eyes twinkled girlishly and Hank Brazos heaved a mighty sigh of relief. He grinned at Benedict, then realized Duke was staring fixedly at something behind him.
Turning, he saw the handsome couple arm in arm, seemingly oblivious to everything around them. Libby Blue was staring up into the eyes of a tall, reckless looking young man.
“Libby?” Benedict called as they moved past, heading towards the hotel, but she didn’t seem to hear. Benedict watched them go out of sight, then without a word he started across the street. Following with a sigh, Hank Brazos wasn’t about to hand himself any prizes for guessing that his partner was on his way to the Lucky Strike Saloon. He had seldom known Duke Benedict to look more in need of a drink.
They closed the Big Dipper Mine that morning when just two of the twenty-man workforce showed up. The Sister Fan and the Medusa didn’t even bother opening. It was soon obvious to all that this sunny Thursday was destined to be a public holiday, and by ten that morning the only business houses still operating were the bank, the hotel—and, of course, the saloons.
There were three saloons in Tarbuck—the Lucky Strike where the main celebration party was taking place to the accompaniment of music from the Town Band occasionally punctuated by exuberant gunshots into the ceiling; the skinny Blue Moose, patronized by a smaller but no less zestful crowd; and the Crying Shame on Frontier Street.
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