CHAPTER 13
In the sudden burst of flame, Bo caught glimpses of several men in long coats, bandana masks, and pulled- down hats. The Devils of Deadwood Gulch had come to call, seeking revenge for having their plans ruined the past two days. Bo heard a gun roar, saw the muzzle flash, and felt the wind-rip of the bullet going past his ear.
“Keep your heads down!” he shouted to Scratch and Chloride. More shots blasted as he ducked back and kicked the door closed. Bo realized that the outlaws were giving him and his companions a choice: stay in here and burn, or flee through the door and be riddled with lead.
But there was a third option, Bo thought, and he liked their chances better with it.
He whirled toward Scratch and Chloride, who were grabbing up as much of their gear as they could carry. Flames were already licking up the front wall and one of the side walls, casting a garish light on the interior of the old cabin.
“Come on,” Bo said. “Out the back!”
“But there ain’t no back door!” Chloride protested.
“There’s about to be!”
Bo lowered his shoulder, got as much of a running start as the close confines of the cabin would allow him, and rammed into the rear wall as hard as he could. The rotten old lumber, the tarpaper, and the flimsy tin was no match for his hurtling weight. With a splintering crash, he burst through the wall, lost his balance, and sprawled on the ground.
Scratch was there beside him a heartbeat later to reach down, grab Bo’s arm, and hoist his friend back to his feet. Somewhere nearby, Chloride’s old cap-and-ball pistol boomed.
Bo still had his Colt in his hand. In the nightmarish glare cast by the burning building, he snapped a shot at a masked figure he spotted near the cabin. The man bellowed, “They’re back here! They got out!”
“Head for the trees!” Bo ordered. Pines grew thickly on the wall of the gulch, all the way down to the base of the slope. The Texans and Chloride retreated toward them, backing away and sending bullets spraying around the cabin from Bo’s Colt, Scratch’s twin Remingtons, and Chloride’s old horse pistol. The burning cabin itself gave them some cover because the Devils had to come around it to get a shot at them, and every time one of them stepped into sight, Bo or Scratch or Chloride sent a bullet his way.
They made it unscathed to the trees and got behind some of the thick trunks to continue the battle. Bo didn’t expect the fight to last very long, and sure enough it didn’t. The cabin was fully ablaze by now, but even over the crackling roar he heard the thud of hoofbeats as the outlaws took off into the night.
The cabin was close enough to Deadwood that somebody in the town was likely to spot the orange glow in the sky and know that something was burning. Nothing scared people on the frontier like fire. Deadwood had several volunteer fire companies already. Some of the citizens were sure to come hurrying up the gulch to see what was going on.
“Hold your fire, Chloride,” Bo called to the old-timer. “They’re not shooting at us anymore.”
“Yeah, they’re gone,” Scratch agreed. “Took off for the tall and uncut when they saw we weren’t gonna cooperate with them killin’ us.”
“The hydrophobia skunks!” Chloride raged. “They burned down my cabin! The dang no-good weasels!”
Bo thumbed fresh rounds into his Colt. “We got our guns and most of our gear out of there,” he said. “Lost our bedrolls, but we can replace them. I see that a couple of poles on the fence around the shed and the horse pen are down, so I reckon our horses spooked and busted out when the fire started. They’re probably still around somewhere.”
“Bound to have lost our saddles, though,” Scratch said. “We’ll have to ride bareback into town.”
Bo grunted as he holstered his gun. “Won’t be the first time, will it?”
Scratch chuckled and said, “Not hardly. When I was a kid, I reckon I must’ve rode a thousand miles before I ever knew what a saddle was.”
“Yeah, well, we ain’t kids no more,” Chloride pointed out. “None of us.”
“No, but I’ll bet Marty Sutton will advance us the money to buy new saddles and tack,” Bo said.
“Folks comin’,” Scratch said.
It was true. Bo saw the bobbing glow of lanterns coming up the gulch toward them. When he was able to make out one of the fire wagons from Deadwood, along with a crowd of men, he and Scratch and Chloride left the cover of the trees and walked toward the cabin. The roof had fallen in, and now the walls were collapsing as well. Showers of sparks climbed into the cold, black night sky. It would have been a pretty sight in a way, if not for the destruction it represented.
One of the men from town spotted them and shouted, “There they are!” A group hurried forward to meet them.
“What happened?” another man asked. “Are you fellas all right?”
“We’re fine,” Bo answered. “And as far as what happened . . . some of the Deadwood Devils came to pay us a visit.”
“With a can of coal oil,” Scratch added.
“Good Lord!” the townman muttered. “They tried to burn down the shack around you?”
Bo nodded. “That’s right. We got out just in time and swapped some lead with them, but they got away.”
“Three times!” one of the men exclaimed. “That’s three times the Devils have gone up against you Texans, and you’ve come out alive every time!”
“Hey, what about me?” Chloride demanded. “I got away from ’em that first time, when they held up the Argosy gold wagon.” He thumped his chest. “I reckon I’m the champeen Devil-buster around here!”
