stood perched on the narrow path and waited.
“How far back does it go!” Longarm called.
“About thirty feet,” Oakley shouted between his legs as he disappeared into the darkness. “I wanted to pick a deep cave so that animals or kids wouldn’t go all the way back and then destroy or steal my money.”
Longarm waited. And waited. Finally, he yelled, “Okay, you’ve had long enough. Come on out! The game is over!”
“Coming!” Oakley yelled. “Here I come.”
Longarm heard his prisoner grunting, and pretty soon he could be seen crawling back out, face first.
“There must have been more room in there than I thought,” Longarm said, “if you could turn around.”
“There was,” Oakley said. “See these saddlebags? They got the money!”
Longarm was really surprised to see Oakley pushing the bags along through the dust in front of him. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “You were telling the truth.”
“Why, sure!” Oakley said as he came into full view. “Here, reach in and take ‘em!”
Longarm reached for the bags, but Oakley must have planted a six-gun with his bounty because, the very next thing that Longarm knew, he saw a muzzle flash and felt his left arm go numb. He jumped back from the mouth of the cave, lost his balance, and dropped off the cliff, arms windmilling.
Longarm struck the water on the flat of his back and sank to the muddy bottom, then kicked back up to the surface. Maybe that was a mistake because Oakley had dragged himself out of the cave and was firing right down on him.
A bullet plinked a small geyser of water in Longarm’s face, and he raised his gun but it didn’t fire. Oakley began to laugh, and when another bullet grazed Longarm’s scalp, he dove back down and swam like hell for the cover of some nearby trees. Longarm knew that Oakley would either be waiting for him to surface so that he could take aim and kill him, or else would already be on his feet and trying to scramble down the cliff to be the first to reach Longarm’s rifle, the shotgun, and the horses.
Longarm dropped his useless gun and swam for all his might. He was sure that, if Oakley reached their camp first, the game was over and he was going to be the loser. He swam underwater until his breath was fire, and then he swam some more until he reached the trees. Surfacing, he tensed, half expecting Oakley to shoot him in the head. But there was no shot and when he looked up, he saw the outlaw trying to navigate the path as fast as possible. Trouble was, the path was narrow and had a lot of switchbacks.
Longarm jumped to his feet and splashed out of the river, running as hard as he could for the camp. Oakley spotted him and began to fire. Longarm ran a zigzag pattern and didn’t dare waste even a second to look back. He knew that he had to get to the camp first and put a rifle in his hands.
Oakley must have realized that too. In a rage of frustration and when he was still a good ten feet above the river, he jumped. Longarm heard him strike the water, and then he heard another shot. Apparently, the outlaw’s gun was still functioning.
During the last few yards to the camp, it felt to Longarm as if he were running through a sea of quicksand. His legs were made of stone and he had no wind. Staggering into their camp, Longarm reached the horse with the rifle scabbard and tore the Winchester free. He levered in a shell and fired with Oakley halfway out of the water. His bullet struck the outlaw in the chest and knocked him back into the river. Feebly, with blood spilling from his lips, Oakley made a final attempt to kill Longarm, but coughed his last bullet up at the rising sun. Then the man sank into the river and his body disappeared. Longarm stood beside the water and watched until he saw Ford Oakley’s body bob to the surface far downriver.
Oakley had dropped the money-filled saddlebags on the footpath before he’d jumped into the Humboldt in his desperate attempt to reach the camp first. Longarm retrieved the saddlebags, and he was very pleased when he opened them and saw that Oakley hadn’t been lying after all.
“Three thousand, nine hundred,” he announced after counting the money.
Satisfied with the way things had gone, Longarm tied the saddlebags to his saddle, then led his three horses down to where Oakley’s body had run aground in the shallows. It took every ounce of his strength to hoist the big man over a spare horse and tie him down so he wouldn’t slip off and spill into the brush.
“Custis!”
Longarm twisted around and was amazed to see none other than Molly Bean, Sophie Flanigan, and even Bert riding hard toward him. Close on their heels were four riders.
Nobody had to tell Longarm that his friends were being pursued by the last of Ford Oakley’s gang. Levering another shell into the breech of his Winchester, Longarm took a bead on the first rider, who was huge with a shock of wild red hair. Longarm squeezed the trigger and saw the giant slap his chest, then tumble into the sage.
Longarm shot the next man, who was equally large, before he could saw his horse around and retreat in the face of the deadly rifle fire. The last two got away and disappeared over a ridge.
Molly dismounted and threw her arms around Longarm’s neck, but only after making sure that Ford Oakley was finally dead.
“You’re my hero!” she cried, giving him a big hug and then a kiss.
Sophie grabbed a fistful of Oakley’s wet hair and twisted his ugly face up so that she could spit into it. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” she hissed.
“Yes,” Molly agreed. “Custis, we knew you’d finally run out of patience and kill this big sonofabitch!”
“He was bound and determined not to go to prison,” Longarm said. “He just had to go out fighting.”
Sophie slipped her arm around Bert’s slender waist. “I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that Bert and I are going to be married.”
Longarm stared at Bert. “You are?”
“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “We’re returning to the Ruby Mountains to work my mine until the gold is all gone.
