CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Johnny Teague had thought things through and had reluctantly decided to join Luna Talbot and the others for their attack on the Rathmores. But as he stood in the gray predawn light drinking coffee, he was already second-guessing his decision.
“I got burned, you see,” he said to Luna Talbot. “Puts a sight of caution in a man.”
“I know it does.” She smiled as she took a cup of coffee from Arman Broussard. “Mr. Teague, if it doesn’t set right with you, I won’t hold it against you if you cut a trail away from this.”
Teague shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’d show yellow, a bad thing in my profession.”
“You’re not yellow, Johnny,” Juan Sanchez said. “If I thought you were, I’d have killed you by now.”
Teague stared at the breed, surprised. “I never expected to hear that from you.”
“Well, now you heard it,” Sanchez said.
“You think I’m yellow?” Teague said.
“I just told you that you are not.”
“I wanted you to hear you say it again,” Teague said. “I got burned, Sanchez. Arch Storm and them burned me. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Mr. Teague, I’m sure we all know you won’t be stampeded by anyone,” Luna said. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.”
“I’ll stick.” Teague angled a look at Sanchez. “I figured to stick all along.”
“We knew you would,” Townes Pierce said. “Slim, Dave, didn’t we know Johnny would stick?”
“Damn right,” Dave Quarrels said. “You got burned, Johnny, but there’s no backup in you, and that’s a natural fact.”
Teague glanced at the dawn lightening the sky to the east. He threw away the dregs of his coffee and said, “Enough of this damned talk. Let’s saddle up and get it done.”
Luna rose to her feet and said to Crystal Casey and Daphne Loveshade, now Dumont, “You ladies stay right here until the shooting is over. If you see anybody but us come out of the arroyo, light a shuck, and I mean, get away from here fast.”
“Good luck, Mrs. Talbot,” Crystal said.
“Thank you,” Luna said.
“Yes, good luck,” Daphne said. “I wish I could come with you.”
“Maybe another time,” Luna said.
Broussard brought her saddled horse. “Are we ready? Then let’s—”
Gunfire erupted in the arroyo and shattered the quiet morning into a million shards of sound.
* * *
Dave Sloan led the charge into the arroyo and shot one of the drowsy guards and then he was past and galloping deeper into the arroyo. The second guard was shot by Anse Dryden and several others. Rafter-K bullets pounded the man against a wall, his body jerking in a mad jig as he was hit a dozen times.
Malachi Rathmore was busy exploring Papa Mace’s throne room when he heard the gunfire. He grabbed his Winchester and ran outside into the clearing and into path of a charging horseman. Malachi instinctively raised the rifle and snapped off a fast shot. The mounted man was hit and reeled in the saddle, but his lips peeled back in a wild grin and the Colt in his fist roared. Malachi took the bullet in his left shoulder just under the clavicle and it exited horribly an inch above the top of his shoulder blade. It was a devastating wound, sustained by a half-starved body unfit to endure it, and Malachi screamed and fell on his back. Dave Sloan pumped two more bullets into the shrieking man, silencing him, and then, hit hard himself, slumped over in the saddle.
Dryden and the rest of the Rafter-K riders rode into the clearing, the big foreman’s eyes going to the slumped Sloan. The gunman held a hand to his chest that was covered in blood.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” A man dressed only in a loincloth and crude leather sandals ran toward the riders, his hands waving in the air. Ten men shot at Zacharias Rathmore, the youngest of Papa Mace’s sons, and all of them scored hits. The man went down under a hail of lead and would never rise again.
Moments later, five women and a dozen children, all of them underfed, dirty, and ragged, emerged from hiding places among the rocks and stood silently watching the riders, the children’s eyes as big and round as dollar coins.
Dryden ignored them and rode beside Sloan. “Dave, you’re shot through and through.”
“I’m killed,” Sloan said. “I wish . . .” The gunman went silent, fighting the approaching darkness.
“What do you wish, Dave?” asked Dryden, a man much inclined to kindness.
“I wish it could’ve been somebody else that killed me, somebody the history books will remember.” He turned his ashen face to Dryden and smiled. “Wes Hardin, maybe. Or Bill Longley . . .” He shook his head. “Dave Sloan had his suspenders cut by a white savage in a breechclout . . . well, don’t that beat all . . .”
Blood welled into Sloan’s mouth and then slowly . . . with agonizing slowness . . . he fell from the saddle. Dryden tried to stop his fall but could not.
One of the most feared gunmen in the West died with his beard in the dirt and an expression of wonder on his face.
“Boss, what do we do with the women and their brats?” a puncher said.
“Line them up over yonder with their backs to the rock,” Dryden said. “Then you boys line up facing them and shuck your rifles.”
“The kids as well?” the puncher said.
“All of them,” Dryden said, his face gray, devoid of expression.