CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Jake heard them before he saw them.
Five men on horseback, pushing their mounts, could be heard from a distance. The dust cloud they were generating could also be seen. Doubly warned of their approach, Jake was ready with his Winchester ’76, sighting along the barrel and waiting . . .
Earlier, Garfield had decided to finally try to take some sort of control. He rode up alongside Seaforth.
“I think it’s time for you to drop back,” he said.
“What?”
“Ride drag with me, Sea,” Garfield said. “If you’re riding point, he could take you out with the first shot.”
“From ambush?” Seaforth said. “He’s not going to ambush us, Gar. Not Big Jake Motley. That old codger’s got too much integrity.”
“Humor me, Sea,” Garfield said. “Keep me company in the rear for a while.”
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Seaforth turned to Walker.
“You stay on point,” he said, “I’m going to drop back for a while.”
“Yessir.”
Garfield and Seaforth slowed down until they were riding behind Walker and the other two men . . .
Jake spotted the five men in the distance and, momentarily, had second thoughts about the ambush. He could’ve just let them ride by, and then head south again and forget all about the matter. By the time they realized they’d lost him, he would be far enough away for it to be all over and would never again encounter Seaforth’s Raiders.
But they would still be out there, wreaking havoc on their little part of Texas, unpunished for the shooting of Chance McCandless.
The moment passed . . .
I don’t like this,” Garfield said.
“What?” Seaforth asked.
“We’re too vulnerable,” Garfield said, scanning the horizon ahead of them. “Every so often there’s a place he could hide.”
“Hide?” Seaforth said.
“He could hide himself and ambush us,” Garfield complained, “or he could hide himself and let us ride by, double back again. Then we’d never catch him.”
“Not that old man,” Seaforth said. “He’s not going to give up. He’s not going to hide, or ambush us. He’s going to want to kill me face-to-face.”
“He may have started out wanting that, but he’s not going to get it to be just him and you. The odds are going to be against him every time. I’m telling you, he’ll have to change his tactics.”
“Tactics?” Seaforth said. “You make it sound like we’re going up against a soldier, not a rancher.”
“Face it, Sea,” Garfield said. “The man’s outsmarted us twice. First with the herd, and then back in town, with the dynamite.”
“I won’t face that!” Seaforth snapped. “And if you’re going to keep talking that way, I’ll go back and ride up front with Walker.”
Only, as he urged his horse on faster, the first shot came, and there was no more Walker . . .
Jake let them get inside a hundred yards . . . seventy-five yards . . . fifty yards . . . in fact, he allowed them to almost draw abreast of his position and then started to fire his Winchester as fast as he could lever fresh rounds into the chamber.
The lead man went down under the first volley. His horse screamed as the rider fell to the dirt. The two men behind him froze just long enough for Jake to fire another volley into them. Forty-five-70 slugs tore into their chests, yanking them both from their horses. The animals reared and twirled, unsure of which way to run off. As Jake set down his rifle and picked up the second, the three riderless horses turned and finally decided to head back—and right into the other two riders.
As their own mounts collided with the panicky horses, both Garfield and Seaforth were knocked from their saddles. They both landed on the dirt hard, but the next volley of shots passed over their heads. Falling from their horses had saved their lives.
Jake saw the collision, realized his shots had missed the two men who were now on the ground. He recognized one of them as Seaforth.
While they scrabbled around on the ground looking for some kind of cover, he reloaded both rifles. By the time he was ready, one of them had shot one of the horses, and they were now crouching behind the carcass.
An ambush!” Garfield said. “He’d never ambush us, right?”
“Jesus!” Seaforth said. “You shot my horse.”
“We needed the cover,” Garfield said. “And, it kept him from running off with the others, so we’ve got this.” He reached over and pulled Seaforth’s rifle from its scabbard.
“One rifle,” Seaforth said. “It sounds like he’s got a dozen.”
“He’s got two,” Garfield said. “Fifteen rounds each, Probably Winchesters.”
“You counted?” Seaforth asked.
“I guess so,” Garfield said, looking up over the horse. “He’s up in those rocks.”
“He’s gone crazy, ambushin’ us like this,” Seaforth said.
“You think he’s lost his integrity?” Garfield asked. “We tried to steal his herd, killed his friend, and now he’s got a bullet in him? That pretty much changes a man, don’t you think?”
“Why don’t you shut up,” Seaforth said, “and figure out a way to get him down from there?”
Garfield looked around. There wasn’t much cover for them. Motley had picked a good spot for his ambush. He looked over at the other three men lying on the ground, obviously dead. The only good they would do was if he and Seaforth could reach them and grab their guns. But still, they only had one rifle, and handguns weren’t going to do much good in this situation, unless they could get closer.
Which they couldn’t do because there was no damn cover!
Jake watched.
It was all he could do at the moment. The next move was going to have to be theirs. The other three were dead, the horses were gone, Seaforth and his man probably had one rifle between them. He looked back down at his own horse, to make sure he was still there and hadn’t pulled himself loose amid all the shooting. The sorrel looked back up at him calmly.
Jake’s shoulder ached from firing the rifle. He levered and pulled the trigger with his right hand, but had to keep the left extended, firing the whole time, and now it was aching. He looked inside his shirt to see if he had started bleeding again. There seemed to be some seepage, but not much.
He hadn’t known when he started shooting exactly where Seaforth was. Now he realized the man had been riding drag, and when the riderless horses panicked and ran, they pushed Seaforth back farther. It looked like his and his man’s position behind the dead horse was about twenty yards away. Their only logical next move was to try to get to the base of the rocks, where Jake couldn’t see them. At that point, they would have him trapped up on top, and they would have his horse.
If they both broke from cover and ran for the rocks at the same time, he might get one of them. If he did, what would the other one do? Grab his horse and ride? Or wait for a chance at him when he came down?
You want to what?” Seaforth asked.
“Run for those rocks,” Garfield said.
“Right toward him?”
“That’s right.”
“And what’s that going to accomplish?”
“Listen,” Garfield said, “you go right, I’ll go left. He can’t get both of us.”
“But of the two of us, which one do you think he’ll try for?” Seaforth asked.
“What does that matter?” Garfield asked. “If we’re fast enough, he won’t get either of us.”
“He wants me,” Seaforth said, “and you’re the one who shot his partner.”
“Because you ordered me to,” Garfield said. “Besides, he doesn’t know who I am.”
“You’re obviously my segundo,” Seaforth said.
“But he doesn’t know my name,” Garfield said. “And I bet if I stand up and walk away, he’ll stay where he is and wait for you.”
“You would do that?”
“I don’t want to,” Garfield said. “I want the two of us to take him, bring him down off his perch.”
“By running right at him.”
“Yes,” Garfield said, “with any luck we’ll surprise him, and he’ll freeze with indecision just long enough.”
“Okay, how do you want to play it?” Seaforth asked.
“Handguns,” Garfield said, taking his from his belt. “We fire as we run. They may not be as accurate as a rifle, but we might throw some stone chips up into his face. We get to the base of the rocks, where he can’t see us, and work our way around. I’ll bet his horse is there, and that’s where he climbed up from.”
“And where he’ll have to come down.”
“Yes.”
“And if he happens to kill one of us?”
“Then the other has a choice,” Garfield said. “Take his horse and run, to possibly fight another day, or stand and fight, man-to-man.”
Seaforth looked around them, could see no other cover. The only other option would be standing and running back the other way.
“What’s the nearest town?” he asked.
“Probably San Antonio,” Garfield said, “but too far to walk.”
And if a man ran long enough, heading south, eventually he’d be on foot in the Texas brush.
Seaforth looked around again, this time hoping to spy a horse that might not have run off so far. There were none in sight.
No matter how long he waited, or how hard he tried, he could not come up with a viable, alternate plan to what Garfield proposed.
“Well?” Garfield asked. “What’s it going to be?”
Seaforth looked at his segundo and said, “On the count of three?”