Chapter 2
I’d no way of knowing what those shots meant, but I didn’t want to just sit there and let trouble come to me a second time.
Rising, I tightened the girth on the paint, then swung into the saddle. I’d forgotten the saddlebags!
I stepped down, threw them onto the back of the saddle and mounted again.
An eighteen year old makes his share of mistakes, and as things turned out, I’d sure roped the wrong steer by taking along those saddlebags. But that was something I wouldn’t discover until later, when it was way too late.
The shots had come from the north, and I swung around the base of the hill and rode up a wide gully, splashing across a deep, swift-running creek with tall cottonwoods the color of smoke growing on both its banks.
After I cleared the creek, the gully widened out, hemmed in by a series of low red sandstone mesas, their bases thick with cedar and juniper.
I followed the gully for a couple miles, riding tense and alert, my 44.40 Winchester across the saddle horn. There was no sound but the rustle of the wind through the grass and the steady, hissing counterpoint of the driving rain.
The day had gotten grayer still, and I saw no sign of life anywhere.
But when a man rides wild country, it’s wise for him to pay attention to his horse. As I rode into a grassy valley dotted here and there with cedar and clumps of sagebrush and bunch grass, the paint’s ears pricked forward and his head came up real fast. He snorted, and the bit in his mouth jangled.
I leaned over and patted the paint’s neck, whispering to him to take it easy. This seemed to calm him down some, but he was still up on his toes, dancing nervously to his left, his head tossing, not liking what he smelled in the wind.
I fought the horse for a few moments and finally got him turned and urged him deeper into the valley. About half a mile ahead, a steep-sided bluff jutted like a redbrick wall into the valley floor and from where I was I couldn’t see what lay beyond.
My hat did little to shield my face from the rain, and water kept running into my eyes. I wiped the oilskin sleeve of my slicker across my face and peered ahead.
Nothing moved.
The land was empty and bleak and it seemed whoever had fired those two shots was long gone.
A hunter, I thought, trying to convince myself that was the case. But who would hunt in a pounding rain when all the animals were taking shelter?
I had no answer for that and decided to let it go. It was time I got back to the cave, picked up my bits and pieces and hit the trail south, away from these silent, threatening hills.
All things considered, I’d be real glad when I got back to Texas and handed Ma Prather her money. After that, I could live a normal life again and start seriously courting pretty Sally Coleman with an eye to making her my wife.
I was in the act of swinging my horse around when something caught my eye, just a flicker of movement at the base of the bluff. I stood in the stirrups and studied the area—and saw a horse walk slowly from the bluff then stop and begin to graze.
It was a big, rangy buckskin and it could only be Luke Butler’s horse. But where was the bandit’s body?
Curiosity has always been one of my failings, and now like a complete fool I gave in to it.
I rode toward the horse, keeping my rifle close to hand. For the first time I saw where the wet grass had been trampled flat by the passage of Kennedy’s mount and the dead man’s buckskin. As far as I could make out, the tracks led to the edge of the bluff, then swung wide around its slanting base.
The rain was even heavier now, fair hammering down, and I reckoned the creeks that cut between the hills would soon flood their banks. The branches of the red cedars were heavy with water, drooping for lornly almost to the ground, and fast-running rivulets poured down the rusty sides of the surrounding buttes and mesas, bringing with them white streaks of gypsum.
The buckskin raised his head when he saw me coming, studied me for a few moments, then, unconcerned, went back to his grazing.
Where was Butler’s body? And where was Clem Kennedy?
That second question was soon answered.
Kennedy lay half-hidden in the grass about fifty yards from the bluff. He was lying on his back, his eyes wide-open, a soundless scream frozen on his gaping mouth, teeth long and yellow against the stark gray of his face.
I swung out of the saddle and kneeled beside the man’s body. Kennedy had been shot three times, once by me, and twice more by a person—or persons—unknown. One shot had merely grazed his neck, but the second, deadlier bullet had crashed smack into the middle of his forehead.
I stood and looked around. There was no sign of Kennedy’s horse or anything else for that matter, just the grazing buckskin, the hills and the gray clouds and the streaming rain.
Clem Kennedy was an ill-natured man who had made his share of enemies. But why kill him all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere in a pounding rainstorm?
Unless . . .
Had his killer heard the gunshots from back at the cave and believed Kennedy had already robbed me of the money I was carrying? That was a real possibility. And since the bushwhacker hadn’t found the saddlebags on Kennedy’s horse, he must know I still had them.
I held my Winchester in both hands at the high port as I prepared to walk back to my paint, the hairs at the back of my neck rising.
Was the killer still here? And was I already in his sights?
I had no time to answer that question . . . because I’d not taken three steps when the sky fell on me.
Chapter 3
I didn’t hear the report of the rifle, but I felt the smashing impact of the heavy bullet that crashed against my head and felled me to the ground.
I lay there stunned, unable to move. The shot had paralyzed me. I couldn’t feel my arms and legs but I tasted the smoky tang of blood mixed with rain as blood ran down my face and into my mouth.
My eyes were just half-open slits, but they were open wide enough for me to see four men leave the base of the bluff and walk toward me. As they got closer, I saw a tall man, long yellow hair spilling over his shoulders from under his hat, leave the others and sprint toward me.
“Yee-ha!” the man yelled, grinning from ear to ear, punching into the air. “Lookee here, boys! I nailed him right through the head.”
Despite the scarlet haze of blood pouring into my eyes, I made out the .50-90 Sharps rifle the man was carrying, some kind of brass telescopic sight running the entire length of the barrel.
“Lafe, does he have the money?” another man asked.
“Hell, he wouldn’t be carrying it on him,” the yellow-haired man said. “Search them saddlebags on the paint.”
There was a few moments’ silence; then I heard a man’s exultant yell: “It’s here, Lafe! Every damn cent of it.”
“Lemme see that,” Lafe said.
Through stinging eyes that I could barely hold open, I saw the four men gather around the saddlebags.
“Hell,” Lafe whispered, “I ain’t seen that much money in all my born days.” He threw the saddlebags over his shoulder. “Right, let’s get out of here. And I want that paint. Hell, he must go sixteen hands if he’s an inch.”
Only money, a lot of it, would have brought these men into the wild hill country. So far the trail I had taken from Dodge had led to blood and death . . . and unless they killed me, I vowed this wouldn’t be the end of it.
