Thirteen

 

Dan Fenton and Bill Draper rode hard at the man they had run to ground. Off a ways, Ed Maring was coming in at another angle. This sudden advantage surprised the outlaws. The fight up to that point had been a confusing series of ambushes that flared up then faded away. No apparent pattern followed the gunfighting. Only sporadic bursts of bullets from different directions came their way.

But now they had spotted one of their opponents dismounted and very vulnerable. The whirling uncertainty of the gunplay kept them from knowing how they’d gotten this sudden advantage, but they were determined not to let it slip by. The three figured the stranger had about two more minutes of life left as they closed in for the kill. Draper whooped with excitement and Fenton answered him with a cheer.

The man fought back with quick shots, but there was no way he could stop them. Still yelling in cheerful ferocity, the three rustlers charged in to finish the fight.

Then another gunman seemed to mysteriously rise out of the ground. He galloped straight toward them, firing fast and furiously. His bullets came in damned close, zinging around them. Now the outlaws worried if more interlopers were about to descend on them. Their whooping came to an abrupt halt as they glanced all around to see if more riders were attacking.

Maring was the first to give up the fight. “To hell with this shit!” he yelled aloud, turning as he pounded toward the south like the devil himself was on his tail. Fenton and Draper reined in and quickly dismounted under the shower of slugs spraying in their direction. They found cover close to each other in a depression in the ground.

When they rose up to fire, they found that both their adversaries had disappeared from view.

It was quiet for a few moments, then a bullet slapped a boulder poking out of the ground and zinged off into the air.

“Son of a bitch!” Dan Fenton ducked lower.

Bill Draper raised his head to take a look at the men they had been chasing. He was rewarded with a couple of slugs zipping through the air above his head. “Hey!” he hollered over to Fenton. “Can you see anything?”

“Naw!”

“Can you tell how many of them they are?” Draper asked.

“Could be two or three dozen for all I know,” Fenton answered.

“Yeah. But if they was a big gang, they’d rush us, wouldn’t they?” Draper pondered.

“Who knows?” Fenton replied.

“The way this ground dips and rolls, them bastards has got lots o’ cover, Draper said.

“Well, shit! That means we do too, right?” Fenton asked.

“Sure,” Draper said. He crawled forward a few yards, keeping low. Taking a deep breath, he rose up to fire but could see nothing. Fearfully, he dove back to the ground to conceal himself.

“What happened?” Fenton asked.

“Nothing,” Draper answered.

“So how come you went back to cover like a scared rabbit?”

Draper sneered. “So how come you ain’t up soaring like a brave ol’ eagle?”

“I ain’t stupid,” Fenton said. “I don’t like this kind o’ fighting.”

“Me either,” Draper agreed. “It don’t make no sense a’tall.”

“It’s like fighting Injuns,” Fenton said. He paused. “You want to rush ’em together?”

“I would if I knew where they was,” Draper answered. “Or how many they was.”

“Where’s the rest of the boys?” Fenton asked. He looked back. “I wonder if Ed went back to bring ’em here.”

“I think he just skedaddled,” Draper said.

“You could be right,” Fenton said. “I sure as hell don’t see none of ’em.

“They’re coming up slow,” Draper answered. “You can bet on that. Zach ain’t gonna give up that herd. But, y’know, it makes me nervous when Zach puts us out in front like this. Remember when he made us go into that bank in Nogales first?”

“Yeah,” Fenton answered. “We damn near didn’t get out o’ that one, did we?”

“Sometimes I think Zach set us up to get plugged on that job,” Draper said in a complaining tone.

“Say, we ended up all right, didn’t we?” Fenton remarked. “That was a good haul.”

“We was lucky,” Draper said.

“Maybe,” Fenton allowed. “Zach might be mad if he catches us just sitting here.”

“Yeah,” Draper said. “Fin at least gonna make a run up toward ’em. Keep an eye out.”

“Sure,” Fenton said. “Go for it.”

Draper took a deep breath then leaped to his feet. He went a half dozen paces before a rifle shot exploded out of the distance.

“Oh, Gawd!” Draper screamed. He disappeared from view.

“Hey, Bill!” Fenton yelled. “What’s the matter?”

“They got me!” came back a sobbing whimper.

Fenton listened as the rustle of grass sounded out in the front. Then Draper appeared crawling toward him. Fenton looked nervously around until the other rustler, his shirt front soaked in blood, finally reached him.

Draper wheezed, “You coulda come out and helped me.”

“You wasn’t that far away,” Fenton said. He looked at him. “You’re gutshot.”

“I’m bleeding bad,” Draper said.

“Does it hurt?” Fenton asked with an expression of shock on his face.

“I’m kinda numb,” Draper said. “I can’t feel nothing.”

“That might be a good sign,” Fenton said.

“Good sign? You dumb bastard, I been hit in the belly,” Draper retorted in self-pity. “That ain’t never a good sign.”

They heard the sound of riders approaching. Fenton looked up and could see the other six members of the gang. He moved back to an area where he could safely stand. He motioned to the others to come to a stop and dismount.

The first one to join them was Zach. “What the hell’s going on? What are you two doing sitting back here for?”

“Great day, Zach!” Fenton complained. “We damn near got killed and here you go yelling about us taking cover. Anyhow, Draper is hit.”

“How bad?” Zach asked.

“Bad enough,” Fenton said. “And we don’t know how many of ’em there is.”

“Well, maybe you done what was right by not going blind into an ambush,” Zach replied. “Maring came riding back like a bat out o’ hell. He figured you two was done for. Where is Bill hit?”

“He caught one in the belly,” Fenton said. “But they didn’t get me. I was too smart for ’em.”

“Let’s go on up and take a look at Draper,” Zach said. He signaled the others to follow.

Fenton led them back to where Draper lay on his back, moaning softly.

“How many o’ the bastards is out there?” Zach asked peering through the grass.

Fenton shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“I’m hit bad, Zach,” Draper said.

Zach knelt down and pulled his shirt open. “They shot you clean through the middle. Blood’s oozing out o’ you like shit out of a goose.”

“Get me to a doctor, Zach,” Draper pleaded weakly.

“There ain’t no doctors around here,” Zach said.

“Then take me to a town,” Draper said. “I’m starting to hurt and feel funny. Kind o’ cold like.”

Clint Tarbell joined Zach and examined the wounded man. “Hell, Draper, you ain’t gonna make it.”

“All I need is a doctor, boys,” Draper said.

“Goddamn it! I told you there wasn’t no doctor around here,” Zach said. “So quit your bellyaching!”

Tarbell laughed out loud. “He can’t, Zach! He’s been shot in the belly!”

The others thought it a good joke too and joined in the laughter.

“C’mon, fellers,” Draper begged. “I could make it if you only took me to a doctor. Or a town or a farm or someplace where somebody could help me. At least bandage me up.”

“Lay quiet and shut up,” Zach said. “I’m going out there to see what we’re facing here.” He motioned to the others. “I want ever’body to get a place to hide along this cut. There’s plenty o’ brush, so you won’t have no trouble. If I got to hightail it back here, I want to be covered, get it?”

Clint Tarbell said, “Don’t worry, Zach. We’ll keep ’em off your ass.” He motioned to Doak Lyman and Gil Borne. “We’ll take the east side there.”

Fenton, Maring and Capper moved to the west while Draper weakly raised his hand in a gesture of entreaty. But he was ignored.

Zach kept low as he crawled forward. Rather than go straight toward the area where Fenton had said the shooting had come from, the gang leader worked his way around to one side. An expert frontiersman, hunter, and gunfighter, he had developed skills of silent movement years before. He now put those abilities to work during his slow progress through the grassy, uneven terrain.

Each time he stopped, he spent several long moments motionless. Then, as deliberate as a rattlesnake, he raised his head to see if he could catch sight of something.

A half dozen times nothing out of the ordinary appeared in the wild country. But the nest attempt at a sighting showed a quick reflection off to his right. He figured it to be the glint of the sun off a gun barrel.

Zach decided to move toward it, his six-gun ready for a close encounter.

Once again, edging forward and stopping periodically, he inched toward his objective. Finally he heard a voice. Zach turned a bit, then eased himself along another ten yards before stopping again.

Silence.

A less patient man might have become anxious and made an unwise, hasty movement. But not Zach Medford. He relaxed a bit, letting every nerve in his body tingle with awareness as his hearing drank in the slight natural sounds of the prairie.

The voice again.

Only a couple of words, but enough to almost give him the exact location of his quarry. Zach crawled some more, then he stopped. The rustle of movement ahead sounded. It wasn’t much, and that meant whoever was doing it, meant to be damned quiet about it.

Quiet once more.

Zach spent a quarter of an hour in the spot. By then he knew the originators of the disturbance were gone. They had made a near-silent withdrawal and were out of the area. Zach pushed backward, still keeping low in case someone else might observe him. When he reached his original route, he began making his way back to the spot where the gang waited for him.

Dan Fenton spotted him first. “Hey, Zach!” he said in a loud whisper.

Zach gave a wave, then hurried on over to them in a crouch. When he arrived he squatted down. I reckon whoever was up front has pulled back. But that don’t mean they ain’t got others waiting for us farther back.”

“Do you know how many of them there are?” Capper asked.

Zach shook his head as Tarbell joined him. The gang leader shrugged. “It could be a coupla wild bastards or a whole damn cattle crew.”

Tarbell pulled a cigar from his vest and bit off the end. “What I want to know, is how come they picked your herd? They was a half dozen out there on the grazing ground at Junto.” He lit the cigar.

“How the hell should I know?” Zach remarked angrily. “All I know is that I want it back.”

“Me and the boys was over there talking while you was out on your scout,” Tarbell said.

Zach, knowing what was coming, said nothing. “We remembered that when you hired us on for this job, you said one gunfight for fifty dollars,” Tarbell said. “We been riding and shooting and ducking for quite a while now.”

“Just cut to the grit of what you got to say,” Zach told him.

“We was just taking note of how you want this herd back real bad,” Tarbell said. “And o’ course, them fellers that got it now, seem to have their hearts dead set on keeping them cattle.”

“That ain’t too surprising, is it?” Zach remarked with a snort.

“We been watching the trail, Zach,” Tarbell said. “As near as we can figger, there ain’t much more’n a coupla dozen longhorns in that herd.”

Zach remained silent again.

“We want a cut o’ this action,” Tarbell said. “And we want in on the whole story. Or we’re taking our fifty dollars and going back to Junto.”

At that point, Zach knew he was going to have to level with the professional gunmen. “That’s a valuable breeding herd, Clint. I got a deal with a Mexican rancher to deliver ’em to him.”

“Now I understand,” Clint said. “We want a piece o’ that pie.”

“How big a piece?” Zach asked.

“Fifty-fifty,” Tarbell said.

“You go to hell,” Zach said. “We were the ones that rustled them longhorns.” He stretched the truth a bit. “And six of us was killed getting ’em. Seventy-thirty. That’s what you get.”

“I want to be there when the Mexican pays you so there ain’t no funny business,” Tarbell said.

“Done!”

Fenton interrupted them. “Draper died, Zach.”

“I ain’t surprised,” Zach said. “You can’t expect him to get on with a hole clean through his middle.” He looked at Tarbell. “That’s four of my boys done in now.”

“You must be powerful riled,” Tarbell said.

“Enough that when I get that herd back, I’m gonna kill ever’ goddamn one o’ them jaspers that took it.”

“I’ll go along with that,” Tarbell said. “I ain’t exactly happy with ’em either.”

Zach said, “It appears we got a strong agreement there.”

“I’d say we do,” Tarbell said.

Zach grinned in satisfaction. “Then let’s ride and kill.”