'Please help me,' Ken called. 'I'm hurt real bad. I don't think I can move....'
Harry wanted to make sure his legs would move as he made his way back down the slope. He said nothing, closing his ears to Ken's cries.
He could hear Ken choking. Under better circumstances he would have offered his brother some assistance, but not now. He knew with certainty that his life was at stake if he made the wrong choice.
'Where're you at, Harry?' Ken shouted. 'You gotta come help me.'
Harry squatted behind a tree with his rifle ready. His belly wound was bleeding badly.
Moments later he felt himself losing consciousness, and when he looked down at the snow around him it was red with blood ... his blood.
He fell over on his chest and took a shuddering breath, wondering about his brother.
* * * *
Dog led Frank over to two bloody bodies stretched out in the snow. Both men appeared to be dead. Dog growled and looked down the slope, a sure indication that someone else was close to the spot.
Buck came up behind Frank, making almost no noise in spite of the new-fallen snow.
'I got one more, maybe another,' Buck told him.
'I heard them yell,' Frank said. 'I still haven't found the bastard wearing the bowler.'
' Last I saw of him was down yonder.'
'Yeah, but he isn't there no more.'
'Maybe you got him, Morgan.'
'I missed. I saw bark fly off a tree when I had my best shot at him.'
'Heard his shotgun go off twice, then a pistol.'
'He's had plenty of time to reload.'
'I'll make a circle. I'll be off to your left, so don't take a shot at me.'
Frank closed his eyes when a wave of fresh pain from his shoulder raced through him. 'Don't worry, Buck. I won't shoot unless I know what I'm shooting at.'
The old man moved off into the woods.
Frank spoke to Dog. 'Find him for me, Dog, but be real careful about it.'
Dog padded away from the pine trunk with his tail in the air, his nose lifted for scent. Frank hid behind the tree, wondering how many more men Pine and Vanbergen had with them in Ghost Valley.
'We've already taken on a small army,' he whispered to himself.
Frank watched Dog move lower. Then suddenly the animal stopped.
'There he is,' Frank whispered, and moved away from the ponderosa as silently as he could.
* * * *
He found the man he'd been looking for ... the gunman's derby lay in the snow behind his head. But what puzzled Frank most was the crude arrow sticking in the gunslick's ribs.
'What the hell is this?' Frank asked himself softly, taking a closer look at the feathered arrow, and the circle of blood around the dead man.
He gave the trees around him a closer examination. Only an Indian, perhaps one of the Old Ones, could have killed the gunman coming after him with an arrow.
'I thought Buck said they were peaceful.'
Frank moved away when Dog gave no indication that anyone was close by.
Taking quick stock of his situation, he crept farther down the steep descent with his rifle ready when he felt sure it was safe to continue. A quarter of a mile away, on the valley floor, he saw snow-clad buildings, the ghost town where his son was being held for ransom.
--------
*Twenty-nine*
Victor Vanbergen took a peek out the door of the shack. 'I heard that rifle fire twice,' he said to Ned Pine. 'I'm tired of sittin' here. That bastard Huling will doublecross us if he gets a chance. That could've been his gun, an' now he's got his hands on all that money. He's got a rifle booted to that saddle of his. Wasn't no shotgun I heard a minute ago, but it damn sure coulda been Huling's rifle.'
'What do you aim to do?' Ned asked.
'I'm goin' up there myself to kill Morgan. Or Cletus Huling, if he's tryin' to steal our money. A man can't trust a bounty hunter like Huling. Hell, he killed his own partner, Diego Ponce, on the way up here. You can't trust a sorry son of a bitch like him.'
'Maybe Ken an' Harry got both Huling an' Morgan in a cross fire. That coulda been the shots we heard just now, if you think about it.'
'I ain't leaving nothin' to chance. You boys keep an eye on that kid. Somethin' don't feel right this mornin'. When I get an itch that don't scratch right, I feel it all the way down to my bones.'
'Be careful, Vic,' Ned warned. 'Morgan's got hisself a partner. We already know that, so don't take no
