suspect in Aurora's troubles.
The volley of shots that ripped out of the trees to his right drove those thoughts from his mind and replaced them with the need for sheer survival. The bullets drove him from the saddle too, as one of the slugs ripped across his back, plowing a shallow furrow in the flesh and clipping his left shoulder blade. With a cry of pain, he twisted and tumbled from the roan's back, barely thinking to kick his feet free of the stirrups as he fell.
The roan bolted forward, breaking into a startled gallop. Longarm heard the pounding of its hoofbeats mixed with the sharp crackle of gunfire as he thudded heavily to the ground. Even hurting as he was, he kept his wits about him and rolled toward the far side of the trail as fast as he could. He was aware of bullets smacking into the ground around him, but as far as he could tell, none of them struck him. So far, the wound he had suffered in the first volley was his only injury.
Of course, that was enough, he thought as he slid down the narrow grassy verge along the edge of the trail. The crease across his back burned like blazes, and pain shot through his upper torso every time he moved. Still, he knew he had to hunt some cover in a hurry, or within a few moments he wouldn't be hurting at all. He'd be too dead for that.
A deadfall lay some ten yards away. Longarm palmed out his Colt, which thankfully had not fallen from its holster when he tumbled off the horse, and began triggering as fast as he could as he came up in a crouch. The shots were directed toward the blank face of the woods across the trail, where the other shots had come from. He had no real hopes of hitting anything; he just wanted to distract the sons of bitches while he scampered for some shelter.
The strategy worked. A couple of shots came his way as he dashed for the fallen tree, but neither of them were close. Longarm threw himself forward and sprawled behind the log. The tree had been a good-sized one, with a trunk several feet in diameter. None of the bushwhackers' slugs were going to reach him as long as he stayed behind the deadfall.
There was more than one hidden rifleman this time. Longarm was convinced of that. He had heard the sound of at least three separate rifles. He grimaced as he began thumbing fresh shells into the Colt. Even though he was safe enough for the moment, they still had him in a damned bad spot. If they had plenty of ammunition, they could wait him out. Or some of them could just work around behind him and catch him in a cross fire. He was pinned down good and proper.
The gunmen were still firing--he could hear the crack of their rifles and the thud of bullets hitting the log--but their attack was more desultory now. They wanted him dead, but they weren't in any big hurry about it.
Longarm felt the sticky wetness of his blood soaking the shirt on his back. He didn't think he was losing blood fast enough for that to be a real concern. Chances were, the bushwhackers would get tired and rush him to get it over with before he ever had a chance to bleed to death.
He looked around, searching for something that might offer him a way out of this dilemma. The bushwhackers had picked the spot well for their ambush. In many places along this trail, the woods came almost right up to the path, so that a rider could have reached out and brushed his fingers along the rough bark of the trunks. On the other side of the trail, where the riflemen lurked, that was the case. On this side, however, there was a clearing behind the spot where Longarm lay. The edge of the pine forest was a good twenty feet away. If he tried to stand up and run into the shelter of the trees, or even attempted to crawl across the clearing, the would-be killers would have no trouble picking him off. It was pure luck that they hadn't done worse than wing him so far.
With nothing in his surroundings offering any hope, Longarm turned his attention to the thing closest to him: the log.
The tree had been well over a hundred feet tall when it was alive, and he was lying near the base of it. Craning his neck, he looked along the length of the fallen tree and saw that the far end was rotten and collapsed on itself. Disease had claimed this giant, not the woodsman's ax. That was why it had been left lying here. No doubt it was rotten clear through, useless for lumber. In fact, there was a good-sized hole in the trunk a few feet from him, and as Longarm looked at it, an idea began to form in his head. He crawled over to the hole, wincing as the squirming motion made his wounded back spasm in agony. The opening in the trunk was only about a foot wide. Longarm grasped the edges of it and crumbled them away in fist-sized pieces. As he had thought, the tree was mostly rotten. When he had widened the hole enough for him to stick his head into it, he took a deep breath and did so, twisting his neck so that he could look toward the far end of the deadfall. Light. He saw light. Small animals had gotten into the tree and hollowed it out at some time in the past, making a den of it. Longarm could still smell a faint, gamy odor, a legacy of whatever creature had made its home here. The varmint could still be up in there, he supposed, but with all the shooting going on, that was doubtful. Any critter with sense would have already headed for the tall and uncut. No, there was probably nothing in that log except grub worms and other crawling varmints. The thought of joining them made the skin on the back of Longarm's neck prickle uncomfortably. He might not have any choice, however. If those bushwhackers had a lick of sense, they would be working their way around behind him even now.
He dug his clasp knife out of his pants pocket and unfolded the blade. Then, with the knife and with his bare hand, he began enlarging the hole in the log. It would have to be pretty big to accommodate his broad shoulders. Ignoring the pain in his back, he worked feverishly. The hidden riflemen wouldn't have as much time as he had first thought, he realized. Those shots might be heard at the logging camp, and some of Aurora's men might come to investigate.
Unless those bushwhackers worked for Aurora Mcentire.
Longarm didn't want to think about that possibility. It was never pleasant to ponder that a woman he had recently bedded with such pleasing results for both of them would try to have him killed, but it had happened before and could again. Suspicion was just an occupational hazard, like getting shot at, but that didn't mean he had to like either one of them.
When he judged that the opening was large enough, he wiggled his head and shoulders inside. His shoulders scraped a little on the sides, but they made it. Using his hands and his toes to push himself along, he began making his laborious way toward the irregular circle of light that marked the far end of the log.
He wasn't the only thing crawling in this log, as he had expected. Gritting his teeth, Longarm ignored the many-legged touches of the insects that scampered over him. Ants stung him until he thought he was going to bellow in a combination of anger and fiery pain. His wounded back dragged against the top of the log, and he knew he was damaging it even worse.
The price he was paying might well be worth it, though, because when he was a little more than halfway to the far end of the log, he heard a voice yell, 'Hold your fire! He ain't over here!'
A grim smile plucked at Longarm's mouth. As he had expected, at least one of the bushwhackers had circled the deadfall and come at it from the other direction, from the clearing. And as far as they could tell, their intended quarry had vanished.
