Of course, it was Salty’s life he was betting…
“If you do that, you’ll have a bullet through your brain before the old-timer hits the ground,” Frank said.
Salty yelled, “Shoot him anyway, Frank! Shoot me! A Winchester round’ll go right through me and get him!”
“It appears to be your play, Frank,” the bearded man said with grim amusement.
Frank didn’t like what he had to do next, but he called, “Yeah, that’s right.”
Then he shot the bearded man’s horse.
He had a clear shot. The bullet drove deep into the animal’s chest. The horse screamed and went down, its front legs collapsing so abruptly that Salty and the bearded man were thrown forward over its head.
The collision with the ground broke loose the man’s grip on Salty. The old-timer reacted with surprising swiftness for his age, rolling away from his captor.
Frank saw the other men reaching for their guns and sent another shot whistling over their heads.
At the same time, Meg acted, driving an elbow backward into the belly of the man holding her. That must have taken him by surprise. His grip slipped, as well, and Meg dived off the horse. No sooner had she hit the ground than Salty was there beside her, reaching down to grab her arm and haul her to her feet.
“Kill him!” the bearded man bellowed, adding a spate of French words that had to be curses.
That order put things on a different footing where Frank was concerned. Before, he had been willing to give the men a little benefit of the doubt.
No longer. He worked the Winchester’s lever and fired again at the man he had just set afoot.
The bearded man flung himself to the ground, making Frank’s shot miss by a hair. Frank swung the Winchester and fired again. This time his target was the man who had been leading their horses and pack mules. The man howled in pain and let go of the reins as he clutched at a bullet-busted shoulder.
Meg and Salty ran for the trees. One of the men swung his rifle toward them. Frank drilled the man through the body, knocking him out of the saddle. A second later, Meg and Salty reached the shelter of the pines.
The other men concentrated their fire on the deadfall behind which Frank crouched. He had to duck lower as slugs slammed into the log and sent splinters and chunks of dead bark flying.
When he risked a look again, he saw that one of the other men had spurred over to the bearded hombre. He reached down, grasped the bearded man’s wrist, and hauled him up.
“Let’s get out of here!” the bearded man shouted.
The men who were still mounted wheeled their horses and galloped toward the cliff, turning still more to race along parallel to the rocky face. They must have known where a trail was, because moments later they vanished into the trees that grew almost to the base of the cliff.
Frank kept his rifle trained on the spot where they had disappeared as he listened to the hoofbeats fade. It sounded like they were really lighting a shuck out of here, but he suspected a trick.
“Frank!” Salty called.
“Stay where you are!” Frank replied. “Don’t come out until we’re sure they’re not doubling back! Are the two of you all right?”
“We’re not hurt,” Meg called back. “How about you?”
“I’m fine,” Frank told her.
After a moment he couldn’t hear the horses anymore. He waited another fifteen minutes just to be sure before he stood up behind the deadfall.
“All right,” he told Salty and Meg. “I’m pretty sure they’re gone now.”
The two of them emerged from their hiding places in the pines. Salty went to gather up the horses and mules while Meg hurried over to join Frank as he went to check on the man he had shot off one of the horses.
The man was dead, his eyes staring lifelessly at the sky. Frank had never seen him before.
“I’m sorry,” Meg said. She pointedly avoided looking at the corpse. “They were on top of us before we knew what was happening. We tried to convince them to go on about their business, but they jumped us.”
“What is their business?” Frank asked as he reloaded the cartridges he had burned in the Winchester. “Did they say?”
Meg shook her head. “No. They seemed to have some idea that Salty might be a lawman, though. That’s what it sounded like from some of the talk I overheard.”
“I used to be, you know,” the old-timer said as he came up leading the horses and the mules. “Range detective, anyway, and unofficial deputy a time or two.”
Frank said, “If they were worried about star packers, that means they were likely up to no good.”
Salty nodded. “I reckon you could bet a hat on that.”
“Do you think they have anything to do with Palmer?” Meg asked.
Frank frowned as he thought about it. After a moment, he said, “I don’t see how they could. But there are things going on out here that we obviously don’t know anything about.”
“Dang mountains is downright crowded,” Salty said.
“The same thought occurred to me. And it’s worse than you think, because I found those men you and I heard earlier, Meg.”
