“Here!” Luther yelled, his voice pain-filled. “The bastard shot me in the knees. Oh, Jesus, man. It hurts.”
The outlaw’s buddy came running, staying close to the timber’s edge.
Ben slipped forward, his big Bowie knife in his hand. “Here, asshole,” Ben called, then moved to one side.
The man slid to a halt, his shotgun raised, the muzzle pointing toward where Ben had been. “Come out and fight like a man, you sneaky son of a bitch!” the outlaw said, panting and gasping for breath.
Ben came up behind the man and drove the big blade into the man’s skull, the blade penetrating halfway through the man’s brain.
Ben see-sawed the blade out and ducked back into the timber. He looked out into the small clearing. Those outlaws remaining had given up the fight and were running across the clearing, heading out.
The taste for battle had left this bunch. They wanted no more of Ben Raines.
Ben squatted in the mud and snow. His battle-tested and proven grin was still firmly locked in place.
Chapter 36
“Take your campaign and shove it up your ass, Jake!” the big outlaw’s second-in-command told him bluntly. “I’ve had it!”
“All right,” Jake said calmly. “Carry your asses on out of here, then.”
More than half of Jake Campo’s men-those that were left-walked to their vehicles and pulled out.
“We’re leavin’, Red,” Texas Red’s second-in-command told him. “Right now.”
The warlord nodded slowly. “OK. Just don’t ever let me see any of you again, though. “Cause I’ll sure kill you if n I do.”
“Screw you, Red!”
The battered and hobo-looking base camp of the outlaws became quiet as the men began pulling out. Jake Campo and Texas Red looked around them at the men remaining.
Jake had fifteen men left. Texas Red had ten who had elected to remain with him.
“There’s a pattern to Raines” movements,” Jake said. “I been thinkin’ about it. And the circle keeps gettin’ smaller.” He looked at a tattered and greasy map. “They ain’t too far from this river,” he said, poking at the map with a big, dirty finger. The others gathered around. “Our boys was ambushed here, here, here, and here. Then right here.” He jammed a hole in the map in his frustration. “You boys get some food and rest. We’ll take him tomorrow, for sure.”
Ben knew Jake was not stupid. Texas Red was the next thing to a cretin, but Jake was intelligent. Ben guessed, and guessed accurately, that Jake would have very nearly pinpointed the cabin. Ben began removing and resetting his traps. He spent all the rest of that day relocating the bear traps, tearing down and rebuilding the swing traps, removing and resetting tripwires.
He spent that night some four miles from the cabin, then used part of the next morning finalizing his trap locations. He guessed, and once more guessed accurately, that most of the outlaws would be hightailing it out of the state by now. At best, Ben felt, Jake and Texas Red would be able to fluster no more than thirty-five to forty men.
By noon, he was finished and standing on the small porch of the cabin.
“Getting down to the wire now, isn’t it, Ben?” Rani asked, looking at him.
“They’ll be here in three or four hours, probably. I’m going to clean up and take a nap. By this time tomorrow it’ll be all over.”
Once again, Rani was astonished at the calmness of the man. There was no more emotion in his voice than a man discussing the price of apples.
Jake looked at the boot print in the mud. It had frozen in place during the night, and had thawed under the heat of the winter sun. It was the fifth track the outlaws had found, along with a few broken branches, a carelessly moved small log, and a wrapper from emergency food rations.
The obvious signs did not fool Jake. He knew Ben had deliberately left them; was deliberately leading them straight to him.
And Jake knew-knew -Raines was going to win the final battle.
Well, the man thought with a suppressed sigh, at least it’ll be Ben Raines killing me. Not some goddamned housewife with a shotgun.
“More sign up here, Jake!” the call echoed through the woods.
Jake walked up to the man and looked, a small smile creasing his ugly face. But it was not a smile of victory; more a smile of resignation.
Raines had deliberately stepped into a muddy spot and walked for ten or fifteen yards.
Jake sat down on a log and took a can of beans out of his jacket pocket. Using a military can opener, he opened the can and began calmly spooning beans into his mouth. His men looked at him, not knowing what to make of this.
“Better eat while we can,” Jake said. One last meal, he thought bitterly. Should have stayed east of the Mississippi, he thought. Should have never set Cowboy Vic up to kill that punk kid. That’s what all this is all about. All this shit is about that skinny little kid. Raines has destroyed everything I built over that one goddamned little kid. Christ! What kind of man is he, anyway?
Ben opened his eyes and swung his feet off the bunk, pulling on his boots. “Get some rest,” he told Rani. “I’ll wake you in an hour. Go on. We might not be able to sleep tonight.”
While Rani slept, Ben munched on biscuits and sat looking out the one window of the cabin. Soon, he thought. They’ll be here soon.
Ben cut his eyes to look at the sleeping shape of Rani. I feel something for this woman. Something I thought I would never feel again. When this winter is over, and we’ve been alone for several months, I will know if this woman is the one I choose to spend the rest of my life with. I think so. Even now, I believe she is the one. Those eyes can hold me; she has an inner strength that I find appealing. Maybe, just maybe, this is the one.
He shook those thoughts away and returned his attention to the window.
The sound of a trap springing shut slammed through the quiet air. The horrible howling of a man with a crushed leg ripped the afternoon.
Rani came off the bunk, grabbing her rifle, coming to Ben’s side.
“Goddamn, Jake!” a man yelled. “Lookee there. A damned cabin built into that rise.”
“They’re here,” Rani said.
“I believe that would be an accurate statement, dear,” Ben replied.
Chapter 37
“We’re gonna blow you out of there, Raines!” Jake’s voice came through the timber. “This time, we got explosives.”
“But first you have to get close enough to use them,” Ben said to Rani.
“You hear me, Raines?”
“Yeah, I heard you, fat-ass,” Ben shouted. “Don’t stand out there and brag about what you’re going to do-do it!”
Jake flushed. He turned to his men and said, “Charge the fuckin’ house. Stay in the timber; it leads all the way up there.” He turned to Texas Red’s men. “You boys lay down a covering fire. Now go!”
Jake and Texas Red had indeed brought several cases of grenades with them. But grenades are useful only if one gets close enough to throw them. And what none of the outlaws knew was that Ike had stashed several crates of deadly Claymore mines in the cave behind the cabin-and Ben had brought enough wire to battery-activate them from the house.
That smile was on Ben’s lips once more as he sat behind the shuttered window, looking through a peephole, the detonator box in his hand. The shadowy figures of the outlaws flitted from tree to tree, approaching the cabin.
Ben pushed the switch activating the THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY mines. The TSTE warning had always amused Ben.
The Claymores were not amusing to the outlaws. Before the reverberating sounds of the explosions had died away, the mangled bodies of half a dozen outlaws lay on the ground. Ben hit the second switch, and Jake was
