Somewhere back behind him—about at the top of the ridgeline, he guessed without actually seeing—he heard the dull, belated report of a muzzle blast. The sound was partially muffled by the rain and the moist, heavy air the rain caused, but Longarm had no trouble figuring out that some son of a bitch was back there shooting at him.
With no long gun to return the fire, Longarm was in what could best be described as a piss-poor position.
Turning around and charging uphill into the teeth of a rifleman with a solid rest to shoot from and a constantly diminishing range did not seem an especially bright idea to him.
And while he had nothing whatsoever against running the hell away, that option would only expose his back to continued attempts by the rifleman to plant a bullet in the vicinity of Longarm’s spine. That choice was not particularly enticing either.
Longarm picked the third choice. He rolled off the horse’s back and into the water.
At which point he discovered that he had been completely wrong about something.
It was possible to get wetter than he’d already been.
The creek wasn’t just wet, it was almighty cold.
A second bullet came buzzing in just as Longarm came up spitting and sputtering and gasping for breath after momentarily disappearing beneath the water’s surface.
White spray flew about two feet to Longarm’s right, and the horse tried to pull away.
It was only then, actually, that Longarm noticed he still had a grip on one of the leather reins. The horse reared in terror and tried to bolt.
The hell with that. It might be a little tough on the horse, but that nine hundred pounds or so of hide and flesh was all the cover there was for several hundred yards in any direction, and Longarm wasn’t about to turn loose of that rein.
He came to his feet, dripping water and shivering with cold but not really concerned about that at the moment. He hauled the horse back down on all four legs and turned it so that the animal was between him and the rifleman somewhere up there on the ridge.
The ambusher helped Longarm’s spotting skills by firing again. A puff of white smoke bloomed high atop the crown of the ridge, and seconds later Longarm felt the horse flinch.
Longarm had only his revolver to return the fire, and there was little chance he could score a hit at a distance of a hundred fifty yards or so.
On the other hand, just making the asshole nervous would be a help.
Longarm steadied his hand across the saddle and took careful aim, lining his sights on a point about a foot above where he thought the rifleman should be. He cocked the hammer manually and took a deep breath, let half of it out, and then slowly, gently applied just the least lick of pressure to the trigger of the big .44.
The Colt rocked in his hand and let out a satisfying bellow.
Mud and rock chips flew a good three feet wide of Longarm’s mark and a couple feet low. So much for long- range marksmanship in the rain.
“Shit,” he complained.
He stood there, huddled close behind the body of the horse, waiting for another telltale puff of gunsmoke to mark a target for him.
There was no other shot, however, and after several minutes it occurred to Longarm that he was having to hunker lower and lower in order to stay behind the horse.
The animal was sinking slowly to its knees. After a while the last of its endurance waned, and it rolled over into the creek with a huge splash.
“Shit,” Longarm repeated.
He shoved his Colt back into its holster and stood over the dead horse, wondering if the sonuvabitch of a rifleman was still up there on that ridge waiting to pot him, wondering where his hat had floated to, wondering why in hell someone wanted to shoot him in the first place.
He didn’t have answers to any of those questions, and after a bit he gave up wondering and turned to walk the rest of the way back to Tall Man’s lodge.
Chapter 26
Longarm woke as completely as if he’d been doused with water cold from the creek. He had no idea what time it was. In the middle of the night, he suspected. The evening fire had burned down to coals with their red heat hidden beneath layers of dark ash. The lodge was dark, and all around him Longarm could hear the soft, slow breathing of people in sleep.
He sat up on the buffalo-robe bed and clutched his blanket close around his shoulders. He felt awkward and uncomfortable with no clothes, not even his drawers, on underneath the blanket.
Yellow Flowers, with Tall Man smirking in the background, had demanded that he shed everything down to the skin before they went to bed.
Longarm had protested. But only a little. His unwanted dip in the creek, to say nothing of the rain before it, had left him soaked and chilled and rather thoroughly miserable. He wanted to dry out as badly as Yellow Flowers insisted that he do, so, after a token refusal he’d given in and handed over the clothing. All of it. Now his things were hanging on cords of twisted wild grass stems suspended along the inside wall of the lodge.
He reached over to feel of the nearest piece, and found it was not quite dry yet. He supposed that information should have told him about what time it was. But somehow he’d missed out on calculating time from the speed with which laundry dried.
Late, He was sure it was late. Beyond that he hadn’t a clue. He slipped on a pair of elderly and too-big moccasins of Tall Man’s that Yellow Flowers had given him. His boots too were going through a drying-out process,
