CHAPTER 14
Johnny Cisco was closer than Noose imagined.
Somewhere in his bloody and storied career the dangerous gunfighter Cisco had picked up the nickname The Ghost because he moved like one—a tricky killer whose movements were invisible. The sobriquet stuck; you never saw him coming and he usually came up from behind. Cisco’s trademark was shooting men in the back, because he always found a way to get behind his target. This wasn’t cowardice on Cisco’s part so much as pragmatism: it was safer to kill a man putting a bullet in his back where he couldn’t face you and draw down on you. The mathematics of the fearsome tradecraft of the shootist were to stay alive and make sure your opponent didn’t, as Cisco understood the basic equation. Honor and fair play had never entered the gunfighter’s thinking—he considered those niceties he couldn’t afford when there wasn’t anything nice about killing a man with a gun to begin with; the killer had no intention of playing the game by different rules now. Stick with what works, was his motto.
An hour ago, as soon as he saw the marshal ride off the trailhead of the pass up into the untamed wild elevations with the woman—a smart move by a capable lawman—Cisco’s respect was growing, for as he grew to realize he had to watch out for this one. Figuring out their plan was to cut straight up the mountain, the outlaw had abruptly backtracked. He began riding hard west and as straight south back up the mountain across the rugged terrain as his horse could manage, thereby closing the space between him and his quarry the quickest way possible. In a quarter mile Cisco would have to cross the pass into the northern elevations the two people he was after had ridden up into, and the southern side of the mountain merged with the trailhead soon.
Cisco double-checked the loads on his guns with his skinny, skeletal, and callused fingers as he perched in the saddle, watchfully surveying the area and keeping his sharp ears alert for any sound of irregular movement. The going was tough, his big brown stallion having trouble clambering up the steep hill over the roots of the tightly packed pine trees, but the rider and his horse were making steady progress and covering ground. He didn’t think the Wyoming lawman would see him coming from his right because he was watching his rear mostly . . . Cisco’s guess was that this marshal was more worried about Sheriff Bojack and his deputies than he was of Cisco.
Just one thing gave Johnny Cisco pause. He’d counted only three deputies a short while ago. Yet he had seen five ride off with the sheriff back in Arizona. Somehow Cisco doubted two of the lawmen had turned back or quit; these were dedicated individuals and the sheriff was a hard-ass tyrant. Cisco had clearly heard crackling reports of gunshots in the distance over the previous hours so it was simple math that two of the deputies had been gunned down by this fearsome marshal already. Cisco figured he had better watch his ass and not underestimate this Wyoming stud who had his woman under escort . . . the heavily armed ape was good.
But Cisco knew he was better—had been up against tougher, gone up against the very toughest, and still lived to tell, which told the whole story.
But something else stuck in his craw. Despite the badge, this Wyoming marshal didn’t look the usual lawman with his wild, unkempt appearance. Instead, he looked like an outlaw himself. Truth be told, Cisco was smart enough to admit he didn’t know anything about Wyoming law enforcement or what breed of individual it employed. About the only thing he knew about the place called Jackson Hole was Butch Cassidy had once hid out here.
Play it careful, play it smart, he told himself repeatedly as he rode across the mountainside, on the lookout with his guns at the ready. With his narrow, saddle-worn face and austere, bony physique, Johnny Cisco looked like a raggedy scarecrow astride his stallion, and his passing scared away a few crows that took flight into the bleached, lowering skies punctured by parched trees that looked like rows of brown arrowheads.
Presently, as he approached the nearing trail of the Teton Pass, the dry forestation thickened and the shootist dismounted with a rusty clank of spurs and led his horse on foot. Ducking down a ravine, sidestepping, his weathered boots kicking loose pebbles and dirt, Cisco made for the trailhead. The ground was uneven and tightly packed with trees and bushes. Prickly, spiky brambles caught and snagged on the loose, stinking clothes on his wiry, lupine frame. Thorns sliced his flesh, drawing drops of blood. Undeterred, still he kept his clench on his big, fully loaded Sharps rifle and forged ahead. Using the weapon’s wooden stock, the gunfighter beat back branches that got in his way and gradually covered the distance. Through the branches, he saw the rugged, excavated dirt road of the pass about three hundred yards ahead. Shouldering through the trees, he strode past some large boulders and made out a clearing between the tree line where he could reach the pass itself.
He was almost there.
Then they were. Ducking down quickly, Johnny Cisco took urgent cover below a pile of rocks just as the four horses of the Arizona posse of lawmen rode up around the bend. Their sudden appearance had been concealed behind a large massif of a granite wall on one of the many sharp bends on the trailhead in the eastern direction leading back down to Jackson. From where Cisco hunkered with his gripped rifle locked and loaded, listening hard, he detected no change in the tempo of the horses’ hoof steps so the sheriff and his deputies likely hadn’t spotted him. Looking up, he brushed a sweaty lank of long black hair from his stinging brown eyes and swept a wolfish gaze over his surroundings. There were titanic conifers on all sides, branches thickly meshed, and he had cover.
The horses stopped. He didn’t hear the sound of their stepping fetlocks anymore. Deciding he had suitable cover, Johnny Cisco carefully risked a cautious glance over the edge of the rock to scope out the enemy.
A hundred yards west, the posse had come to a standstill as the gunfighter had surmised, and weren’t looking in his direction. A swift glance at the barricade of branches and leaves he stood behind told Cisco they couldn’t see him from their vantage point even if they were looking straight at him.
Instead, the deputies’ gazes were focused on their boss, who was getting his fat ass out of the saddle and struggling with his stirrup as he dropped to the ground.
Sheriff Bojack in plain view. In killing range. The shootist could easily drop him with his long rifle. It was too damn good to be true. For a few brief, impulsive seconds, all thoughts of Bonny Kate Valance vanished from the gunfighter’s mind, replaced by a red haze of murderous rage that filled his skull.
Johnny Cisco raised his Sharps rifle to his shoulder, leveled his aim using the boulder for leverage, then stuck his finger through the trigger guard to touch sweet, sweet curved steel.
Take the shot.
Boy, was it tempting. He had that fat old bastard right in his crosshairs. For a moment Cisco didn’t move a muscle, the weapon socked to his shoulder, its long, heavy barrel unwavering in his sure and steady heft. His only movement was the infinitesimal twitches in the touch of his forefinger on the trigger, applying the tiniest smidgen of pressure, just enough to feel the trigger depress a fraction of an inch, one click, a hair away from firing. Down the barrel, between the gunsights, a hundred yards away, Sheriff Waylon Bojack stood beside his horse he had just dismounted, looking up at the rise of sheer, steep mountain topography leading up off the trail. The old lawman was completely unaware of being under the gun whose owner had already adjusted for trajectory and wind velocity and had him dead to rights and a bullet with his name on it aimed right at his head. Cisco wanted to blow Bojack’s brains out—or his head clean off, which was more likely with this caliber at this distance—he wanted to so much he could taste it.
But Cisco was a careful man measured in his deadliness, who would wait until just the right moment to strike and when he did, it was without hesitation or remorse and fatal as a scorpion. Moments passed as the tarnished Sharps rifle remained trained on the Arizona lawman, muzzle tipping slightly as the heavyset sheriff knelt to check the trailhead of the pass for sign, tipping up again as he rose and looked up at the mountainside above, rubbing his jaw in thought. Cisco’s finger never left the trigger and his aim never wavered off his target.
But there were those three other deputies.
He knew and hated their faces, too, but if he took the shot he’d have to take them on. Cisco did some swift mental calculations: there wouldn’t be time to reload the Sharps before their guns came out, but his own twin Remington 1875 .44 caliber pistols would be out of their holsters and he figured he’d drop one of them before the sound of the rifle shot faded and Bojack hit the ground dead. His position was safe and secluded behind the rocks amidst the copse of trees but there would be an extended exchange of fire as the last two of the Arizona posse took cover and he engaged them. Let’s say he plugged them without incident. Cisco figured he probably would. But there would be a lot of chaos and that damned marshal protecting his woman would no doubt exploit it to his advantage. Might even sandbag Cisco, knowing the shootist was pinned down. No, there were too many damn variables. Johnny Cisco stayed put. And he didn’t shoot.
He dropped the gunsight to resist temptation.
Cisco kept his attention focused on the posse, knowing he could see them but they couldn’t see him.
Did you feel me, Sheriff ? Did you just then feel the hand of death touch your shoulder like some kinda cold breeze? Because you don’t know how close you just come to meeting your Maker. You got no idea in hell, and hell is where you’re going . . . ’cause me, Johnny Cisco, is gonna send you there soon, real soon. Just got some business to take care of first.
Cisco listened in from his place of concealment.
The lawmen were talking. The tall canyons of the pass acted like an echo chamber as the acoustics of the deep gorge amplified their voices even though the men were speaking quietly and stood a good distance away. They had all dismounted now.
The gunfighter caught snatches of words, snippets of sentences. Something about there being no sign and the marshal having left the trail and riding up into the mountains. Nods. Agreements. They were going to follow, it looked like.
Then the sheriff was shaking his head.
No, looked like they weren’t, after all.
Bojack pointed up the trailhead carved out of the pass, a rideable route hugging the mountainside wending in a rough, dusty path ever higher up into the pine-crusted crags of granite scraping the clouds. More words. Curt orders. “It is faster that way,” the sheriff was saying, making some hand gestures that were plain enough: take the trail, get ahead of them, cut them off.
Cisco pondered that. Maybe might make sense except this tough marshal for sure must have thought of that and had some other plan in mind. The posse staying on the pass was okay, though. This would help Cisco. Let them try to get in front of the marshal with the woman he was trying to get away from them. The marshal would be looking ahead, dealing with what was in front of him then, all his attention focused forward. He wouldn’t be watching his back, wouldn’t see old Johnny Cisco sneak up behind, and when he did it would be too late. The shootist’s plan was to pursue his quarry up into the mountains following his exact footsteps, shadowing him, then wait for his moment to shoot. He wouldn’t miss this time. Put one .44 Remington centerfire slug in the marshal’s back—maybe two more for good measure, because he was a big son of a bitch—then get his woman back.
A hundred yards away through the trees, the four-man sheriff’s posse swung back up into their saddles and rode off at a brisk canter up the Teton Pass.
Johnny Cisco was suddenly glad he hadn’t killed them, after all.