He recovered quickly and started up the slope. From time to time he had to grab hold of a bush or a narrow tree trunk to help pull himself up. When he judged that he was about on the same level as the bushwhackers, he turned west and began making his way in their direction.
He still heard a lot of rifle shots, but the distinctive booming of Scratch’s Remingtons had slowed. That probably meant Scratch and Chloride were running low on ammunition, Bo thought. He needed to make his move soon.
He was almost in position. The whip cracks of the rifles were close now. Bo drew his Colt and slid forward from tree to rock to tree. He could look across the creek now and see the place where his friends had taken cover.
As he crouched behind one of the pines, he peered around the trunk and saw four men kneeling behind rocks and firing across the stream with their Winchesters. Bo was a little surprised when he saw that all four wore bandanas tied around the lower halves of their faces and had their hats pulled down low. They were taking pains to conceal their identities even now. He had good shots at a couple of them, but the others would be trickier. He had hoped to get the drop on all the ambushers and force them to surrender, but that wasn’t going to be possible.
No shots had come from across the creek for almost a minute now. That meant Scratch and Chloride had run out of bullets—or that they had both been wounded, maybe killed. Thinking about that possibility caused a grim, angry cast to steal over Bo’s weathered face. He took a deep breath, gripped the Colt tightly, and swung out from behind the tree.
He didn’t call out to the men and give them a chance to surrender. Bushwhackers didn’t deserve that sort of consideration. Instead Bo leveled the Colt and fired, squeezing off three quick shots. The first one smashed the arm of the closest rifleman, making him drop his weapon, pitch to the side, and howl in pain as he clutched at the injury. Bo’s second bullet struck a rock and whined off harmlessly. The third one ripped through the body of the other gunman he could see.
The other two masked men wheeled around, thrust their rifles past the rocks they were using as cover, and opened fire on the unexpected new threat. The slugs whipping around his head made Bo duck behind a tree again.
Across the creek, the two Remingtons again began to roar. Scratch and Chloride had been biding their time, waiting for Bo to get in position and launch a counterattack. Now they sent bullets ricocheting into the rocks where the bushwhackers were hidden. As Bo thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he heard one of the men bellow an angry curse, then order, “Let’s grab the others and get out of here!”
Bo didn’t want them to get away. He knelt, leaned out from behind the tree, and sent a couple of rounds whistling past the rocks. A veritable storm of lead lashed back at him as one of the men started cranking off shots as fast as he could work his Winchester’s lever. The barrage forced Bo to hunker down and try to make himself as small a target as possible.
When the shooting stopped a few moments later, he heard men forcing their way through the brush. A quick look told him the two men he had wounded were gone. The one with the busted arm might have been able to get on his feet and flee without any help. One of the other two men must have dragged the more badly wounded hombre away.
Bo knew he could go after them, but he had already pushed his luck considerably by taking on four-to-one odds and he knew that, too. Even though he had wounded two of the men, he couldn’t be sure they were out of the fight. And even if they were, that would still leave him facing two would-be killers.
It chafed him to let them get away, but right now, that might be the smartest thing to do. Sure enough, a few minutes later he heard the rattle of hoofbeats from somewhere higher on the ridge. It sounded like four horses were hurrying off into the distance.
A tense silence that sounded odd after all the shooting had settled over the gulch. Bo waited it out for several minutes to be sure the bushwhackers really had fled and weren’t doing a double-back or setting another trap. When he was convinced they were gone, he called across the creek.
“Scratch! Scratch, are you all right?”
The answer came back immediately from the silver-haired Texan. “Yeah, me and Chloride are fine! How about you?”
“I’m all right,” Bo told them. “Those hombres lit a shuck after I winged a couple of them!”
“Lay low for now!” Scratch called back. “We’ll round up the horses!”
Bo reloaded and waited while Scratch and Chloride emerged from the trees on the other side of the creek and hurried upstream. The horses and Chloride’s mule had headed that way when they ran off. Bo moved over to the rocks where the bushwhackers had hidden. He could see better from here. He kept an eye on the ridgeline, just in case the killers came back.
Evidently peace had descended again on the gulch, though. Nothing happened as Scratch and Chloride returned with the three mounts a few minutes later. Bo made his way down the slope and waded across the creek to join them. His feet were wet and cold, so Scratch and Chloride stood watch while he took his boots and socks off, wrung out the socks, and spread them on a rock to dry for a few minutes. He rubbed his feet to warm them up.
“Did you get a good look at any of the varmints?” Scratch asked.
“Afraid not. They had bandanas over their faces and their hats pulled down low. There was nothing special about their clothes, either.”
“See?” Chloride said. “Just like I told folks in town! Some of ’em didn’t believe me, but you seen the thievin’ buzzards with your own eyes!”
“If they were part of the gang,” Bo said.
Chloride snorted. “Who else’d ambush us to keep you from tryin’ to track ’em down?” he asked. “Them Devils are the only ones who’d have any reason to do that.”
“He’s right,” Scratch said. “Question is, did they follow us out here from town, or did the big boss leave some of ’em here to keep watch and bushwhack anybody who came pokin’ around?”
Bo shook his head. “I don’t know, but I reckon we ought to try to pick up their trail and see where it leads.” He started pulling on one of his socks. It was still damp, but he was too impatient to wait for it to dry fully.
Horses couldn’t make it up the side of the gulch right here, even with their riders dismounted and leading them. The Texans and Chloride had to backtrack almost a mile before they came to a place where they could reach the
