“Bo!” Scratch exclaimed in a half-whisper. He leaped forward to reach for Bo’s arm.
The water didn’t come all the way up over Bo’s head, but when he stopped sinking he was up to his neck in the creek. Its icy grip enveloped him, shocking him so that he wasn’t able to move. He knew better than to start floundering. That might just cause him to sink even more.
Scratch’s free hand closed around Bo’s wrist and hauled up. Bo’s boots slid in the mud, but with Scratch’s help he was able to get out of the hole. Trying to keep his teeth from chattering, he said, “B-b-b-better circle around this spot.”
“Bo, we gotta get you out of here and into some dry clothes!”
“Not yet,” Bo said. “We’re c-c-c-c-close now.”
It was true. The shots from the cabin sounded like they were only a few yards away. The Texans moved on a short distance and then Scratch pulled himself a few inches up the bank.
“I can see the roof!” he whispered to Bo.
They were back in knee-deep water now. Bo was shivering. He told Scratch, “You’ll have to light the torches. My matches are soaked.”
“Sure. Let’s get ’em ready.”
Bo held out one of the torches. Scratch used his teeth to pull the cork from the jug, then tipped it just enough to let the clear liquid inside soak into the blanket strips wrapped around the end of the branch. He got them thoroughly wet without spilling much of the whiskey. The stuff would evaporate quickly, so they didn’t waste any time as they soaked all three torches.
Then Scratch set the jug on a little shelf of earth that jutted out from the creek bank and dug a tin of matches from his shirt pocket. He snapped one of them to life with his thumbnail and held the little flame to each of the torches in turn.
That was all it took. The whiskey-soaked rags caught fire immediately and blazed up. Scratch took one of the torches from Bo and said, “Let’s go!”
They scrambled up the bank, carrying the burning torches. The cabin was about twenty feet away. The window in the wall facing them was a dark hole. Nobody was looking out.
Fighting off the terrible chills that ran through him, Bo drew back his right arm and let fly with that torch. It spun through the air and landed cleanly on the cabin’s roof. Scratch’s torch bounced and looked like it might fall off, but then it caught on the rough shakes and came to a stop. Bo’s second torch landed close to it. All three continued to burn.
But even though the wooden shakes on the roof quickly started to char and smolder, they didn’t actually catch fire. And the flames on the torches were beginning to die down. They looked like they might burn out before they caught the roof on fire.
Scratch cursed and whispered, “Now what?”
Being half-frozen hadn’t slowed down Bo’s brain any, at least not yet.
“Hand me the jug,” he said.
“What are you—Oh, hell,” Scratch said as he realized what Bo had in mind. “That ought to do it, all right, but you’d better let me heave it. We’ll only get one try, and you’re shakin’ to beat the band.”
“T-t-t-toss it good,” Bo urged.
Scratched reached back down and snagged the jug. He gave it a shake.
“Probably half full,” he said. “Ought to be enough.”
“Let it rip.”
Scratch left the cork in the neck of the jug, hooked a finger through the little handle, and drew back his arm. He swung it forward and sent the jug arching through the air toward the top of the cabin.
For a second Bo thought his old friend had thrown the jug too hard. It looked like it was going to go clear over the roof’s peak and fall on the other side.
But then it dropped, its weight carrying it down with enough force that when it struck the roof it seemed to explode, spraying moonshine in all directions, including over the still-burning torches.
With a mighty
CHAPTER 18
With that added fuel, there was no question now that the cabin roof was going to catch on fire. It did so in a matter of seconds as Bo and Scratch slid back down the creek bank and their feet splashed in the water. A fierce crackling filled the air as the wooden shakes began to burn and black smoke billowed up.
The Texans heard alarmed yelling from inside the cabin. Scratch leaned closer to Bo and said, “I hope there were no womenfolk or kids in there with those outlaws!”
“Me, too,” Bo agreed with a nod, “but if there are, none of the f-f-f-fellas up on that knob will shoot them when they come out.”
“You’re gonna freeze to death if we don’t get you in some dry clothes soon.”
“I’ll be all right,” Bo insisted. He drew his Colt from its soggy holster. “We b-b-b-better be ready in case any of them come this way when they run.”
Scratch slid his Remingtons from leather.
“Yeah, you’re right about that. With that window on this side, they’re liable to.”
The shooting continued as the lawmen peppered the burning cabin with slugs. Bo and Scratch waited tensely to see if any of the outlaws were going to flee in their direction. That window in the back wall of the cabin would be easy enough to climb out of.
They didn’t have to wait very long. A panting, cursing figure appeared, clambering and sliding down the bank about fifteen feet from the spot where the Texans had drawn back and pressed themselves against the slope.
Another man came close behind the first one, saying bitterly, “Damn it, Nat, you claimed they’d never chase us this far!”
The first fugitive, who had to be Nat Kinlock, didn’t look back as he said, “Shut up and run, Chester!”
Both of them started to splash across the creek. Bo and Scratch stepped out with leveled guns. The silver- haired Texan shouted, “Hold it right there, boys!”
Neither of them really expected the fleeing outlaws to surrender, and Kinlock and Chester didn’t disappoint. The two men twisted around and clawed guns from underneath their long coats.
But they couldn’t outdraw guns that were already drawn, and they were no match for the coolheaded accuracy of the drifters from Texas.
Half-frozen Bo might be, but the trembling that had shaken his body disappeared entirely when he had the butt of a Colt in his hand. Flame stabbed from the weapon’s muzzle as he fired. Beside him, the twin booms of Scratch’s Remingtons filled the air and echoed back from the creek banks.
Kinlock and Chester didn’t get off a single shot. Bo’s bullet drove into Chester’s body and knocked him backward. He landed full-length in the creek with a huge splash that threw water high in the air.
A few feet away, both of Scratch’s slugs bored through Nat Kinlock and twisted him around so that he fell face-first in the icy water. The creek was just deep enough that he began to float with his arms splayed out as the water around him took on a reddish tinge from the blood leaking from both outlaws.
“You sons o’ bitches!” someone bellowed from the top of the creek bank. Bo and Scratch turned their heads to look in that direction and saw an old man in overalls leveling a double-barreled shotgun at them. Bo had time to realize the old-timer was probably George Kinlock, Nat’s grandfather.
He realized as well that he and Scratch had nowhere to take cover and they were about to be shredded by that double load of buckshot.
George Kinlock lurched forward and arched his back just he jerked the Greener’s triggers. That pulled the twin barrels up just enough that the blasts went over the heads of Bo and Scratch and tore into the opposite bank instead. The old man dropped the empty shotgun and fell to his knees. He pitched forward and slid head-first down the bank, coming to a stop with his head just above the water as his overalls snagged on a protruding branch. There was a growing bloodstain in the middle of his back.
“One of those fellas on the knob must’a drilled him,” Scratch said.
