they could.”
“Shoot him down in the dark?”
“Hell yes.” Jack began to wonder about all the strange questions, and he looked over his shoulder again. “Who the hell are you anyways, an’ how come you’re askin’ so goddamn many dumb questions?”
“My name doesn’t matter. What
A chilling tingle went down Jack’s spine when he realized he’d been talking to an enemy, one of the shooters from down below. With his rifle aimed in the wrong direction, it would take luck and perfect timing to get out of this alive. “I didn’t quite hear what you said, mister,” he replied, just as he made a springing dive forward toward a smaller tree trunk a few feet in front of him.
A gun roared while Jack was in mid flight. Something snapped between his shoulder blades… it felt like his backbone had been broken. He landed on his face and chest without feeling any pain, and when he tried to move his arms and legs to crawl to the tree, his limbs refused to obey his commands. He lay there a moment, wondering what was wrong.
“I’ll tell Evans what you said, that he oughta call this off,” the voice behind him said.
Tiny tremors began in Jack’s hands and feet He saw a circle of light and he began moving toward it despite the fact that his legs were motionless. Somewhere in the night a cricket chirped, the last sound he heard before he was surrounded by an eerie blanket of silence.
Smoke began working his way toward a dark grove of trees to the west of Chisum’s house, the logical place for men to take up firing positions if they were bent on killing whoever was inside.Twenty-five
Jessie whispered softly to Bill Pickett, “Wonder what the hell is keepin’ Billy?” He’d sent Billy Morton to find out what fool was shooting a pistol from hills north of the ranch, when all his men had brought rifles. Nobody with good sense would shoot a pistol from that distance, yet the distinctive sounds of a .44 had come fairly often… not always from the same spot.
“I told you somethin’ was wrong,” Pickett replied, keeping his rifle trained on a shattered window of the house where rifle fire exploded now and then. “They was ready for us. Some son of a bitch warned ’em we was comin’. I figure it was that little coward Barlow, after you ran him off. He probably rode over here an’ offered to throw in with ’em, tellin’ Chisum we was on the way.” Pickett glanced north. “The way I got it figured, one of ’em slipped around behind them Arkansas boys an’ now he’s takin’ potshots at ’em with a pistol. If they’re as good as they claim to be, one of ’em will kill whoever it is. That last pistol shot was five or ten minutes ago. Maybe the bastard is already dead if one of them farmers got him. Come to think of it, there ain’t been no shootin’ at all comin’ from them hills lately.”
Jessie felt his anger rising. “If I find out that little bastard Barlow warned ’em, I’ll kill him myself. I still can’t figure what’s takin’ Billy so long to get back here.” As he said it, he saw Billy coming up a draw behind them, moving in a crouch to avoid flying lead. “Yonder he is…”
Morton hurried up to Jessie as best he could, keeping down like he was. He sounded out of breath when he spoke quietly to Jessie. “Big trouble, boss. Somebody’s sneakin’ ’round up in them hills, killin’ off them pig farmers from Arkansas. The one-eyed Johnson brother is dead, an’ so is the young skinny one. I found that big redheaded guy with the top of his head blowed off, an’ it damn near made me sick to my stomach. His brains was all over the place, only the big bastard was still breathin’. I left him layin’ there. I got the hell outa there quick as I could, to bring word down to you. At least one of ’em got behind us, maybe more.”
“This has to be Barlow’s doin’,” Jessie growled. “They was ready for us. Hell, they was already spread out all over creation soon as the first shot was fired. I swear I’m gonna kill Barlow. It ain’t my way of doin’ things to pull away from a fight, but if some of ’em got behind us, we’re caught in a cross fire. Spread the word to pull out. Tell Tom to warn the boys over to the south to clear out now.”
Pickett turned away from the tree with a disgusted look on his face. “Far as I can tell, we ain’t shot nobody tonight. It was them who done all the killin’.”
“We rode into a trap,” Jessie said, heading for the draw as exchanges of gunfire lessened even more. Keeping his head down, he ground his teeth together while they made for their horses. A double-crossing son of a bitch had done them in tonight… he was sure of it.
Pickett seemed reluctant to leave, glancing over his shoulder, scowling in the moonlight. “Wish I’d had the chance to kill at least one of ’em,” he whispered. “Don’t seem like it’s askin’ too much to be able to kill just one. I ain’t smelled no blood in so long I plumb forgot what it smells like.”
“We’ll get another chance,” Jessie promised. “Lopez told me there’s at least a dozen more
They reached their tethered mounts just as Pickett said, “I reckon that Jensen feller was all talk. Every one of them yellow bastards kept their heads down so damn low there wasn’t nothin’ to shoot at. The only thing they did smart was puttin’ a few men behind us, an’ they couldn’t have done that ’less Barlow warned ’em we was comin’.”
Jessie mounted, thinking about the warning Victor had brought them from Smoke Jensen, whoever the hell he was, about how if one more bullet flew, he was planning to kill them all, including Jessie. “Like you said, just big talk is all it was. Maybe he got lucky killin’ those
They were a few miles from the Chisum ranch when Tom Hill, Billy Morton, Ignacio Valdez, Pedro Lopez, and three more riders caught up with them at a hard gallop. Pedro was the first to speak, after jerking his horse to a halt.
“I see this hombre, Senor Jessie. I only see him one time. Then I hear gun,
