Wolfe nodded and began sighting over the rifle, getting the feel of the new weapon.
Caleb turned to Reno. «How quiet are you on a stalk?»
«He’s better than most and not as good as you,» Wolfe said before Reno could answer. «But then, neither am I, and I was raised among the Cheyenne.»
Caleb grunted. «Reno, you can stay up here with your rifle or you can come part of the way with me and we’ll find out how slick you really are with that six-gun.»
Reno smiled wolfishly. «I’ll be stepping on your heels every bit of the way.»
He was talking to himself. Caleb was already moving. Stalking human game took time, and they had damn little of that left before Slater came back into camp.
WILLOW looked out from behind her screen of hair, saw that the horses were still being walked, and went back to trying to get out of the ropes that bound her. Desperate to be free, yet worried about attracting attention from her guard, she jerked and yanked at the bonds under cover of her long hair. Pain raked up from her wrists. Fear helped her to ignore the hurt. She never wanted to see the cruel promise in Slater’s eyes again. TheComanchero Nine Fingers had made her feel unclean.
Slater horrified her.
Despite Willow’s efforts, the ropes felt no looser now than they had when she first began twisting her wrists until the skin was rubbed raw. Fighting the despair that threatened to overwhelm her, she jerked first one wrist, then the other, hoping if she made herself bleed, her wrists and hands would be slippery enough to evade the tight bonds.
A glance at the guard told Willow that he must have finished hacking at his fingernails. He was lying on his back, his mouth open, dead asleep.
Willow began yanking openly on her bonds, taking advantage of the guard’s midday nap.
«Don’t move, honey. I don’t want to cut you.»
For an instant, Willow thought she had gone mad and was hearing things. Then she felt her bonds giving way and had to bite back a cry of relief and joy.
«Ease your ankles around to the right,» Caleb said in a voice that was barely audible.
There was a soft rustling sound as Willow inched her feet around toward the back of the stump. For a moment she felt a sensation of pressure on her ankles, followed by a slight rocking motion. The rope at her ankles fell away.
«Back up slowly until you’re behind the stump. No! Don’t watch the camp. That’s my job. You watch what you’re doing.»
Willow scooted in slow motion until the stump was between her and the camp. Caleb was lying on his stomach, his body flat to the ground.
«Lie down real slow and crawl like a snake past me toward that little crease in the grass. See it?»
She nodded, lay down, and began wriggling along Caleb’s length. When her head drew even with his chest, he gave her more terse directions, his voice so low she wondered if she was really hearing the words at all.
«The crease leads to a gully that’s about a foot deep. Go left and keep snaking along uphill until you get to the rocks. Your brother is on the left, behind them. Whatever youdo, keepdown. Reno and Wolfe will have to shoot over us if we’re spotted.»
Willow wanted to ask questions, but a look at the bleak yellow clarity of Caleb’s eyes closed her throat. She ducked her head and pushed herself forward on her stomach, feeling as exposed as an egg on a fence rail. Each time she looked up to see how far she was from the gully, it seemed that she had made no progress at all. But if she started to go faster, Caleb’s hand clamped around her ankle, forcing her to go so slowly she wanted to scream with frustration and fear.
When Willow finally reached the gully, she discovered that it provided scant cover. Less than a foot deep, with wide, shallow, gently sloping sides, the gully was little better than grass when it came to hiding Willow and Caleb. The rocks he had mentioned were more than a hundred feet away. Willow put her cheek dose to the ground and pushed herself along with arms that were trembling from the strain of moving so slowly and so awkwardly.
They were fifty feet from the rocks when one of Slater’s men glanced over and discovered Willow was missing.
18
The shout of discovery was cut off in mid-cry when Wolfe opened up with Caleb’s rifle, raking the camp with bullets. Caleb threw himself over Willow, protecting her in the only way he could. Fifty feet up the ravine, Reno began firing his six-gun. The bullets came so rapidly it was hard to separate the sound of each shot. Other shots came from the camp, pistols and rifles all mixed together in an unholy barrage.
Flattened against the earth, frightened, barely able to breathe, Willow felt Caleb’s big body jerk and heard him curse. More shouts came, more gunfire, bullets whining and thudding into the ground nearby, but she could see nothing, for Caleb covered her completely.
Abruptly, Reno’s six-gun fell silent. The repeating rifle didn’t. It continued to lay down a withering hail of bullets.
«Run for it!» Reno shouted.
The words had barely registered on Willow when Caleb yanked her upright and half-carried, half-dragged her toward the rocks. Reno was crouched to one side of the shallow gully, slamming a second, fully loaded cylinder into his revolver. Willow and Caleb hurtled past Reno as the repeating rifle finally fell silent.
Immediately, Reno opened fire once more, giving Wolfe time to reload. This time the shots came more slowly as Reno coolly picked off men who were foolish enough to stick up their heads to see what was happening. The range was extreme for a handgun, but Reno was extremely good with the weapon.
«Up that ravine,» Caleb said curtly to Willow as he stood behind her and pointed her toward a dry watercourse that angled away from the ridge where Wolfe was. «When you reach the trees, go about a hundred feet, then get behind some cover and stay there until we catch up. Nowrun.»
Willow scrambled forward just as the repeating rifle began firing once more. Caleb waited to see if she would keep going as directed. To his surprise, she did. He turned and started giving terse orders to Reno.
«I’ll keep them down while you reload,» Caleb said, «but you damn well better be able to do it on the run.»
«You’re wounded,» Reno said without looking away from the camp. «I’ll stay.»
«It’s not my shooting arm. Get going.»
Reno spotted a man’s boot poking out from among the supplies in the camp. «All right. Get ready.»
While Caleb drew his six-gun, Reno sighted on the nearly hidden boot. He squeezed off his last shot, turned, and began shucking spent cases from his six-gun as he ran up the ravine after Willow.
Caleb had already chosen his target. As soon as Reno turned toward the ravine, Caleb opened fire. The bullet sent one of Slater’s men scrambling for a better hiding spot. From the far side of the camp, someone opened up on them with a rifle. The rapid barking of the shots told Caleb it was a repeating rifle. Bullets whined and sang off the rock just below him. Instantly, return fire came from Wolfe’s position, forcing the other rifleman to keep his head down.
Another rifle opened up. It, too, was a repeating rifle. Caleb squeezed off two more shots and counted the times the other rifles fired without pausing. Eight for one, nine for the other. They weren’t the same model or kind as his own rifle, which meant Slater’s men carried less in the magazine and were much slower to reload.
«Ready!» called Reno.
Caleb turned and ran as fast as he could up the ravine. He didn’t bother trying to reload while he went, for his left hand was slippery with blood. He passed Reno, went on another hundred feet, reloaded, and yelled at Reno to withdraw. Working together smoothly, both retreated into the cover of the trees.
Willow was nowhere in sight.
«Find her and get her over the rise,» Caleb said curtly to Reno. «It opens out on the other side. Wolfe will be able to bring the horses right to you.»
