Sam moved the Winchester around to his back again and resumed the climb, once more proceeding on hands and knees. A few minutes later, he saw the end of the crack not far above him.
His first impulse was to climb out right away, but he stopped where he was instead and listened intently. He heard the shots coming from the other side of the mesa, but he heard something closer as well: a man clearing his throat.
He’d suspected that the rustlers might leave a man over here on guard, in the area where they had seen him last. If he just poked his head up without being careful about it, he would probably get a bullet through the brain.
Sam looked around and found a fist-sized chunk of sandstone. The guard was to his right, so he drew back his arm as much as he could in the narrow confines of the crack and threw the rock in that direction. It sailed up and out and came thudding down on the ground atop the mesa.
Sam followed the rock, moving fast.
As he emerged from the crack with the Winchester cradled in both hands, he threw himself forward on his belly. About twenty feet away, a man in range clothes was turning toward him. The rock had done its job and served as a distraction, causing the guard to take his attention off the crack for a second.
The rustler held a rifle, too, and it spat flame and lead as he hurried a shot at Sam. The bullet hit the ground well to Sam’s left.
Sam fired more deliberately, and his aim was true. The .44-40 round punched into the rustler’s midsection and doubled him over. The man dropped his gun and howled in pain as he clutched himself. He staggered to the side.
That took him too close to the edge. He let out a sudden scream as he toppled off into empty air. The scream continued for the couple of heartbeats it took him to fall all the way to the rocks next to the mesa.
As Sam scrambled to his feet, he heard the soggy thud of the rustler’s landing. That grim sound ended the scream.
He ran toward the other side of the mesa. With all the other shooting going on, the rest of the rustlers might not have noticed the shots Sam had traded with the guard, but he couldn’t count on that. He had to move fast while he still had the chance.
As he had suspected, the mesa had some grass growing on its top and even a few small bushes. Off to Sam’s right was a basin where the top of the mesa had sunk, creating a rock-lined pool that held water from the occasional rains.
Gathered around that pool were the cattle that had been stolen from John Henry Boyd’s ranch. They didn’t need to be fenced in. They wouldn’t get far from the water, and anyway, where would they go?
Beyond the pool was a rope corral made from a couple of lassos and some stakes pounded into the hard ground. Four horses were inside the corral. Since Sam had already killed one man, that meant there were three more rustlers up here.
He got instant confirmation of that a second later when three men emerged from behind the horses and charged toward him, guns blazing.
Chapter 30
Sam was outnumbered and the scrubby vegetation atop the mesa offered no protection.
So he angled toward the only cover he could find, the cattle clustered around the pool.
Bullets sang around him. He returned the fire as he ran, working the Winchester’s lever and snapping shots toward the rustlers.
One of the cows let out a bellow as a stray slug struck it. Sam ducked between two of the beasts. One of them swung its head and nearly hooked him with a horn. He bounced off the sturdy flank of the other cow.
Sam kept his head down as one of the rustlers shouted, “Where the hell did he go?”
“He’s in amongst the cattle!” one of the other men answered. “Spread out! We’ll circle them!”
Sam couldn’t afford to let that happen. He yanked his hat off his head and slashed right and left with it, swatting the rumps of several cows. At the same time he fired his Winchester one-handed into the air and let out a howl like a panther.
The cattle reacted as he hoped they would. The normally stolid beasts around him spooked at the racket and at being swatted, and in a herd of cattle, when one cow panicked, they all panicked.
The herd surged away from the pool in a full-on stampede, straight at the rustlers.
Even over the pounding of hooves, Sam heard the frightened yells that came from the three men as they tried to get out of the way.
He had his own scrambling to do, since he was in the midst of the cattle when they began to run. He leaped from side to side to avoid the lumbering beasts, but he was still pummeled.
If he fell, he would never get up again. The cattle would trample him to death. Sam knew that. He dropped his rifle, willing to lose the Winchester if it would save his life, and used both hands to grab the horns of a steer charging past him. The steel-spring muscles in his legs vaulted him onto the animal’s back.
Sam hung on for dear life.
With his legs clamped around the steer’s neck, Sam used his grip on the horns to twist the beast’s head. That forced it toward the edge of the stampeding herd.
He had lost track of the three rustlers, but he had more pressing worries at the moment. The steer began to buck.
Sam had heard that down in Texas, cowboys had started to have what they called rodeos, competitions that centered around ranch work. One of them was bull-riding, or so he had been told.
This was a steer, not a bull, but the ride was a thrilling and dangerous one anyway. Sam thought a couple of times that the steer was going to throw him off, but he managed to stay on until the animal reached the edge of the herd.
