“Yes, dear,” Beans said, just as a bullet from an outlaw’s gun knocked a pane of glass out of the window.
Before Beans could sight the rider in, Parnell’s sawed-off blaster roared, the charge lifting the man out of the saddle and hurling him to the ground, his chest and throat a bloody mess.
“Give ’em hell, baby!” Rita shouted her approval.
“You curb that vulgar tongue, woman!” Parnell glared at her.
“Yes, dear,” Rita muttered.
From the bunkhouse, Ring was deadly with a rifle, knocking two out of the saddle before a round misfired and jammed the action. Ring turned just as a man was crawling in through a rear window. Reversing the Winchester, Ring used the rifle like a club and smashed the outlaw on the forehead with the butt. The sound of a skull cracking was evident even over the hard lash of gunfire. Ring grabbed up the man’s Colts and moved to a window. He wasn’t very good with a pistol, but he succeeded in filling the night with a lot of hot lead and made the evening very uncomfortable for a number of outlaws.
Smoke and the Reno Kid had grabbed up rifles and bandoleers of ammunition and raced to the barn and corral, knowing that if the outlaws succeeded in stampeding their horses they were doomed. Reno climbed into the loft, with Jake and Corgill. Fitz, Willie, and Ol’ Cook stayed below, while Smoke and Gage remained outside, behind watering troughs by the corral.
The outlaw, Hartley, who was wanted for murder down in the Oklahoma Nations, tried to rope the corral gates and bring them down. Smoke leveled his pistol and the hammer fell on an empty chamber. Running to the man, Smoke jerked him off his horse and smashed the man in the face with a balled right fist, then a left to the man’s jaw. He jerked Hartley’s pistol from leather and rapped the outlaw on the head-bone with it. Hartley lay still in the dirt.
Smoke stuck both of Hartley’s pistols behind his belt, reloaded his own .44s, and climbed onto Hartley’s horse, a big dun. He would see how the outlaws liked the fight taken to them.
Smoke charged right into the middle of the confusing dust-filled fray. He saw the young punk gunslick Twain and shot him out of the saddle; one of Twain’s boots caught in the stirrup. Twain’s horse bolted, dragging the wounded and screaming young punk across the yard. His screaming stopped when his head impacted against a tree stump.
Smoke stayed low in the saddle, offering as little target as possible for the outlaws’ guns. He slammed the horse’s shoulder into an outlaw’s leg. The gunny screamed in pain from his bruised leg and then began screaming in earnest as the horse lost its balance and fell on him, breaking the outlaw’s other leg. The horse scrambled to its feet, the steel-shod hooves ripping and tearing flesh and breaking the outlaw’s bones.
Cat Jennings rammed his big gelding into Smoke’s horse and knocked Smoke to the ground. Rolling away from the hooves of the panicked horse, Smoke jumped behind a startled outlaw, stuck a pistol into the man’s side, and pulled the trigger. Shoving the wounded man out of the saddle, Smoke slipped into the saddle, grabbed up the reins, and put his spurs to the animal’s sides, turning the horse, trying to get a shot at Cat.
But the man was as elusive and quick as his name implied, fading into the milling confusion and churning dust. Smoke leveled his pistol at Ben Sabler and missed him clean as the man wheeled his horse. The bullet slammed into another outlaw. The outlaw was hard hit, but managed to stay in the saddle and gallop out of the fight.
“Back! Back!” Lanny Ball screamed, his voice faint in the booming and spark-filled night. “Fall back and surround the place.”
Smoke tried to angle for a shot at Lanny and failed. Jumping off his horse, Smoke rolled behind a tree in the front yard of the main house, and with a .44 in each hand, emptied the guns into the backs of the fast-retreating outlaws. He saw several jerk in their saddles as hot lead tore into flesh and one man fell, the back of his head bloody.
Smoke ran to the house. Jumping on the front porch, he saw the body of Willie, draped over the porch railing. On the other side of the porch, Holman was sprawled, a bloody hole in his forehead.
“Damn!” Smoke cursed, just as Cord pushed open the screen door and stepped out.
Cord’s face was grim as he looked at the body of Willie. “Been with me a long time,” the rancher said. “He was a good hand. Loyal to the end.”
“Man can’t ask for a better epitaph,” Smoke said. “Cord, you take the barn and I’ll run to the bunkhouse. Tell the men to fortify their positions and fill up every canteen and bucket they can find.” He cut his eyes as Liz and Alice came onto the porch. “You ladies start cooking. The men are going to need food and lots of it. We might be pinned down here for days.”
Cord said, “I’ll have some boys gather up all the guns and ammo from the dead. Pass them around.” He stepped off the porch and trotted into the night.
“Larry!” Smoke called, and the hand turned. “Get the horses out of the corral and into the barn. Find as much scrap lumber as you can and fortify their stalls against stray lead.”
The cowboy nodded and ran toward the corral, hollering for Dan to join him.
Smoke and Parnell carried the bodies of Holman and Willie away from the house, placing them under a tree; the shade would help as the sun came up. The men covered them with blankets and secured the edges with rocks.
Snipers from out in the darkness began sending random rounds into the house and the outbuildings, forcing everyone to seek shelter and stay low.
“This is going to be very unpleasant,” Parnell said, lying on the ground until the sniping let up and he could get back to the house.
“Wait until the sun comes up and the temperature starts rising,” Smoke told him. “Our only hope is that cloud buildup.” He looked upward. “If it starts raining, I plan on heading into the timber and doing some headhunting. The rain will cover any sound.”
“Do you think prayer would help?” Parnell said, only half joking.
“It sure wouldn’t hurt.”
* * *
There were seven dead outlaws, and all knew at least that many more had been wounded; some of them were hard hit and would not live.
But among their own, Corgill and Pat had been wounded. Their wounds were painful, but not serious. They could still use a gun, but with difficulty.
Smoke and Cord got together just after first light and talked it out, tallying it up. They were badly outnumbered, facing perhaps a hundred or more experienced gunhandlers, and the defenders’ position was not the best.
They had plenty of food and water and ammunition, but all knew if the outlaws decided to lie back and snipe, eventually the bullets would seek them out one by one. The house was the safest place, the lower floor being built mostly of stone. The bunkhouse was also built of stone. The wounded had been moved from the upstairs to the lower floor. Beans, with his leg in a cast, could cover one window. Charlie Starr, the old warhoss, had scoffed off his wound and dressed, his right arm in a sling, but with both guns strapped around his lean waist.
“I’ve hurt myself worser than this by fallin’ out of bed,” he groused.
Parnell had gathered up a half dozen shotguns and loaded them up full, placing them near his position. The women had loaded up rifles and belted pistols around their waists.
Silver Jim almost had an apoplectic seizure when he ran from the bunkhouse to the main house and put his eyes on the women, all of them dressed in men’s britches, stompin’ around in boots, six-guns strapped around their waists. He opened his mouth and closed it a half dozen times before he could manage to speak. Shielding his eyes from the sight of women all dressed up like men, with their charms all poked out ever’ whichaway, he turned his beet-red face to Cord and found his voice.
“Cain’t you do something about that! It’s plumb indecent!”
“I tried. My wife told me that if we had to make a run for it, it would be easier sittin’ a saddle dressed like this.”
“Astride!” Silver Jim was mortified.
“I reckon,” Cord sai
d glumly.
“Lord have mercy! Things keep on goin’ like this, wimmin’ll be gettin’ the vote ’for it’s over.”
“Probably,” Parnell said, one good eye on Rita. There was something to be said about jeans, but he kept that thought to himself.
“Wimmin a-voting’?” Silver Jim breathed.
“Certainly. Why shouldn’t they? They’ve been voting down in Wyoming for years.”
The old gunfighter walked away, muttering. He met Charlie in the hall. “What’s the matter, that bed get too much for you?”
“’Bout to worry me to death. Layin’ in there under the covers with nothing on but a nightgown and wimmin comin’ and goin’ without no warning. More than a body can stand.”
“Where are you fixin on shootin’ from?”
“I best stay here with these folks. Come the night they’ll be creepin’ in on us.”
“Gonna rain in about an hour. My bones is talkin’ to me.”
“Then Smoke is gonna be goin’ headhuntin’. Preacher taught him well. He’ll take out a bunch.”
“You reckon some of us ought to go with him?”
“Nope. You know Smoke, he likes to lone-wolf it.”
“He’s been diggin’ in his war bag and he’s all dressed up in buckskin, right down to his moccasins. He was sittin’ on a bunk, sharpenin’ his knife, when I left.”
Charlie’s grin was hard. “Them gunhandlers is gonna pay in blood this afternoon. Bet on that, old hoss.”
“Who’s gonna pay in blood?” Cord asked, walking up to the men.
“Them mavericks out yonder. Smoke’s fixin’ to go lookin’ for scalps come the rain.”
“Sounds dangerous to me,” the rancher shook his head.
Silver Jim laughed. “Oh, it will be.” He jerked his thumb toward the hills. “For them out there.”
TWENTY-SIX
The sky darkened and lightning began dancing around the high mountains of the Little Belt, thunder rolling ominously. Then the sky opened and began dumping torrents of rain. With his rifle slung over his shoulder with a strap, hanging barrel down, and his buckskin shirt covering his six-guns and a long-bladed Bowie knife sheathed, Smoke slipped out into the rain on moccasin-clad feet. He kept low to the ground, utilizing every bit of natural cover he came to. He moved swiftly but carefully and made the timber and brush without drawing a shot.
Once in the brush, he paused, studying every area in his field of vision before moving out. He had shifted his long-bladed knife to just behind his right-hand .44.
He froze still as a mighty oak at the sound of voices. Clad in buckskins, with the timber dark and gloomy as twilight, Smoke would be hard to spot unless he was right on top of a man.
And he was just about was!
“I shore wants me a crack at that Sandi McCorkle,” the voice came to him very clear, despite the driving rain and gusts of wind.
“We’ll use all them pretty gals ’fore we kill them,” a second voice was added. “You see anything movin’ down yonder?”
“Naw. They all shet up in the buildings.”
“I be back, Tabor. I got to . . .” His words were drowned out by a clap of thunder. “. . . Must have been somethang I et.”
Slowly Smoke sank down behind a bush as a red-and-white checkered shirt stood and began moving toward him. The pair must be Tabor and Park. Two thoroughly tough men. When Park passed the bush, Smoke rose up like a brown fog, his Bowie in his right hand. He separated Park’s head from his shoulders with one hard slash, catching the headless body before it could come crashing to the ground and alert Tabor.
Easing the body to the wet earth, Smoke picked up the head and placed it in a gunnybag he’d tucked behind his belt.
Then he went looking for Tabor.
Circling around to come in behind the Oklahoma outlaw, Smoke laid his bloody-bottomed sack down on a rock and Injuned up to Tabor, coming in slowly and making no sound.
Tabor never knew what happened. The big-bladed and heavy knife flashed in the stormy light and another head plopped to the earth. That went in the sack with Park’s head.
Smoke moved on through the rain and spots of fog that clung low to the ground, swirling around his moccasined feet, as silent as his footsteps.
Someone very close to him began firing—not at Smoke, for at the sound of the hammer being eared back, Smoke had bellied on the gound—but at the house. More guns were added to the barrage and Smoke added his .44 to the man-made thunder, his bullet striking a gunman in the head.
“Hey!” a man shouted, his voice just audible over the roar of rifles. “Pete’s hit!” He stood up, an angry look on his face, sure that someone on his side was getting careless.
Smoke shot him between the eyes and the man fell back with a thud that only Smoke could feel as he lay on the ground.
Smoke worked his way back into the timber, climbing up the hill as he moved. Behind a thick stand of timber, he paused for a break and squatted down, the bloody sack beside him. He hadn’t made up his mind what to do with the heads, but an idea was formed.
He ate a biscuit and cupped his hands for a drink of rainwater. He did not have one ounce of remorse or regret for what he was doing. He knew only too well that to fight the lawless, one must get down and wallow in the muck and the crud and the filth with them, using the same tactics, or worse, that they would use against an innocent. To win a battle, one must understand the enemy.
Rested, Smoke moved out, staying above the positions of the outlaws. He circled wide, wanting to hit them at widely separated spots, wanting them to know they had not been alone and had been attacked by someone who had walked among them with the stealth of a ghost.
A hard burst of gunfire came from the house, the bullets hitting the rocks and the rain-soaked earth several hundred feet below Smoke’s position. As the outlaws returned the fire, Smoke leveled his Winchester and counted more coup, his fire covered by the outlaw’s own noise. The lone outlaw—Smoke did not know his name and did not recall ever seeing him before—slumped forward, his rifle sliding from lifeless hands, a bloody hole in the man’s back.
Smoke slipped down to the man’s position and left the bloody bag of heads by the dead man’s side. He added his ammunition to that he’d gathered from the others and moved on.
He had planned on sticking the heads up on poles but decided this way would be just as effective.
He continued his circling, which would eventually bring him out on the north end of the ranch complex. He caught just a glimpse of the Hanks boys. Bellying down, he started working his way to their position, freezing log-still as two gunslicks, wearing canvas ponchos, stepped out of the timber and headed in his direction. They were so sure of themselves they were not expecting any trouble and were not checking their surroundings. Smoke could catch only a few of the words that passed between them.
“. . . Never thought them boys would do it . . .”
“. . . Didn’t like my old man, but I don’t think I’d have had the . . . kill him with a shotgun.”
“. . . Be gettin’ ripe layin’ up in that bed . . . Sonny pulled the trigger, I reckon.”
“. . . All three of um’s crazy as a bessy-bug.”
The outlaws moved out of earshot and Smoke lay for a moment, putting some sense into what he’d heard. The Hanks boys had killed their father with a shotgun, probably as he lay sleeping in bed.
Smoke broke off his headhunting and began making his way back to the ranch. If the news was true, and he had no reason to doubt it, for the Hanks boys were as goofy as their father, that meant that part of the outlaws’plans had been accomplished. And everyone at the Circle Double C had to die for the outlaws’ planned takeover to succeed.
Smoke moved quickly, always staying in the brush and timber. As he was approaching the ranch complex, he heard a horrified shout from the hills and knew that the bag of heads had been found . . . either that or the headless bodies of the outlaws.
Smoke began moving cautiously, for at this point he w
as open to fire from either side. Closer to the house, he began a meadowlark’s call. Charlie waited for a moment and then returned the call. When a human gives a birdcall, a practiced ear can pick up the subtle difference, no matter how good the caller is.
Smoke ran the last few hundred feet, zigging and zagging to offer a hard target. But if the outlaws saw him, they did not fire; probably they were too busy searching the ridges for the unknown headhunter. On the back porch, Liz and Alice had towels for him, a change of clothes—Cord’s long underwear and jeans and shirt—and a mug of coffee, for Smoke was soaked and cold.
Smoke broke the news to a horrified audience.
Liz shook her head but shed no tears for her husband or sons. And neither did Rita.
“Killed their own father!” Cord was visibly shaken by the news. “Good God!”
Parnell was the first to put the upcoming horror into words. “Then we—all of us—have to die if their plans are to succeed.”
The women looked at each other. They knew that for them, it would not be a quick bullet. They would be used, and used badly, until the outlaws tired of them. Only then would death bring relief.
“Reno comin’ at a run,” Charlie said, looking out the window. “He’s been out eyeballin’ the situation close to home.”
The gunfighter was as soaked as Smoke had been. The women shooed him into a room and handed him towels and dry clothing. When he emerged, they had coffee waiting for him.
He took a gulp of the strong hot coffee. “They blocked off the road leading south and have men waiting in the passes. They have so many men it was no problem to seal us off. Any bust-out is gonna be difficult, if not downright impossible.”
“And walking out will be tough with the wounded,” Smoke added. “But if we stay here, they’ll eventually overrun us by their number. Or they’ll burn the buildings down around us. Beans is gonna have to be carried out of here. Pat and Corgill can walk out with him. I’m going to suggest that the women leave with them.” He looked at Parnell. “Parnell, you and Gage, Del and Bernie will spell each other with the litter. Me and Reno will make the litter right now. You people pack some food and blankets; make a light backpack and get ready to move out at dark. Let’s do it.”
Live by the West, Die by the West Page 19