CHAPTER 31
“Whoah!” Nate said, staring wide-eyed at Jackson’ ear.
Another bullet came whistling in from somewhere above and to Angus’s right, up higher on the escarpment. The slug spanged off a rock just behind where Davis knelt beside Jackson, gazing in disbelief at what was left of his partner’s ear. Angus glanced up the escarpment just as the shooter, perched in a niche in the rocks roughly a hundred feet away, and owning the high ground, racked another cartridge into his rifle’s breech.
“Down, boy!” Angus yelled and threw his wiry old body at Nate, grabbing the boy around the waist with his arm and rolling with him under a stone overhang, out of view from the shooter above.
As he did, Angus silently opined the shooter had likely been on guard duty, watching the canyon which was the only access to the remote cabin.
Jackson and Davis cursed loudly as they scrambled with their rifles under the stone overhang with Angus and Nate, Jackson to Angus’s right as they sat with their backs to the stone wall behind them, and Davis to Angus’s left, on the other side of Nate. Angus had left his Spencer leaning against a rock at the lip of the scarp, where he’d been when the first shot had pulverized half of Jackson’s ear. Now as another bullet buzzed like an angry hornet from above, and blew up sand and gravel two feet in front of Angus’s right foot, the old Confederate said, “Stay here an’ stay down, Nate! Gotta fetch my long gun!”
“Grandpa!” Nate cried.
Too late.
Angus made a mad dash with far more fleetness than he thought he had left in his withered old body, grabbed the Spencer, and made another mad dash back under the overhang just as another bullet plumed gravel only inches from his right boot heel. He sat back down between Jackson and the boy and ran the sleeve of his wool-lined denim jacket—it was cool this high in the Hills—across his forehead to mop sweat from his brow.
He was breathing hard, raspily. He felt an ominous pull in his chest.
Don’t sit here and have a heart attack, you damn fool, he chastised himself. Not here. Not after you’ve come all this way. Not in front of the boy who loves you more than you deserve.
Nate placed his hand on Angus’s leg. “You all right, Grandpa?”
Angus nodded, again wiped more sweat from his forehead. His chest rose and fell sharply, achingly.
Meanwhile, Jackson held a handkerchief over his ruined ear and was cursing under his breath, showing his teeth beneath his thick dragoon mustache, like an angry cur. He glanced at Jackson, who was leaning forward and twisting around, trying to get a look up the ridge behind them.
“That’s Thayer,” Jackson said. “It’s Robbie Thayer. I know it is.” He choked out a bitter laugh. “They knew we’d come. Eventually.”
“Yeah, they were waitin’ for us,” Davis said, and cast Angus a hard glare. “Good scoutin’, old-timer. Led us right into that rifle!”
“Go to hell,” Angus said, trying to catch his breath. “My job was to get you to the cabin. What you do after that is up to you. Me an’ the boy”—he shook his head—“we want no part of it.” He returned Davis’s hard look with one of his own. “You’re one o’ them.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the cabin. “What’d they do—double-cross you. Run off with the loot after you robbed the train?”
“Shut up!” Jackson said.
He leaned forward like Davis had done, cupped his right hand around his mouth, and shouted hoarsely, furiously, “Robbie, I know it’s you up there. You damn near shot my ear off, you rancid spawn of a dirty old whore. When I catch you, I’m gonna cut both of your ears off, an’ I ain’t sharpened my Bowie in a month of Sundays!”
Again, he laughed raucously, mirthlessly.
Another bullet came whistling in to pound into the small clearing just beyond where Jackson had poked his head out from under the overhang. The bullet was followed by another rocketing report. Jackson pulled his head back quickly, still cupping his bloody handkerchief against his bloody ear.
“Hah!” came an odd-sounding laugh from above. “It ain’t Thayer that shredded your ear for you, Bryce. It was me!”
Another loud, odd-sounding laugh. At least, odd-sounding for a man.
But not for a woman.
“It’s Frannie from San Francisco, you double-dealing card cheat, you double-crossin’, back-shootin’ worthless son of a—”
“Frannie!” Jackson shouted, sharing an incredulous glance with Davis. “You blew my damn ear off, sweetheart! An’ in case you’ve already forgotten, you, Robbie, and Bull are the double-crossers!”
“Only ’cause you had it comin’, my love,” said the young woman’s sarcastic, jeering voice from above.
Another bullet slammed into the sand and gravel just outside the overhang. It was followed by the rifle’s angry whip-crack.
Nate flinched. He looked at Angus, a big question in his wide, brown eyes.
“Got no idea, boy,” Angus said, his heart still pounding, sweat dribbling down his cheeks, soaking his beard. It was a cold sweat. “Got no idea. Just know”—he glanced from Jackson to Davis then back to Nate—“we got ourselves led into a whipsaw. Between friends,” he added with his own sarcasm.
“Yep, you did,” Davis agreed.
He looked across Nate and Angus at Jackson. “What do ya say we go get her?”
“She’s pretty damn good with that rifle.”
“You scared of the little lady? Your little lady, Bryce. Until you cheated on her with that showgirl from Tulsa! You’re the one who got us into this mess.”
“I don’t know she how she found out,” Jackson said with a bewildered air.
“Oh, hell, they always find out!”
Nate glanced at Angus. “Find out what?”
“Never mind, boy. Grown up stuff.” Angus glanced at Jackson and wrinkled his nose distastefully. “So, you two-timed the girl, and she threw in with the other two owlhoots.” He smiled. “If the boy weren’t involved, I’d admire the justice in that. Hope that ear don’t hurt too bad!”
“Shut up, you old grayback!” Jackson looked back at Davis. “I saw a sheltered way up the rocks on this side.” He canted his head to his right. “You try to find one from your side. We’ll meet at the top of the scarp . . . at little Miss Frannie from San Francisco.”
“If I get her in my sights . . .”
“Shoot her,” Jackson said. “Just don’t kill her.” He thumbed himself in the chest. “I wanna do that!”
Davis racked a round into his Winchester’s action and said to Jackson, “I’ll cover you. You go first then cover me an’ I’ll go.”
Jackson glanced at Angus and the boy. “What about them?”
“The old man isn’t goin’ anywhere. He’s not lookin’ so good.”
“Right.” Jackson set himself to make a run for it. “All right!”
Davis bounded out from under the overhang, twisted around, and fired the Winchester three quick times toward the top of the scarp. Jackson bounced out from the overhang, as well, disappearing around the corner to Angus’s right. Davis fired two more rounds. When Jackson started firing from above, Davis disappeared up the scarp on Angus’s left.
More shooting, then a lull.
Jackson and Davis were either dead or reloading.
Nate looked at Angus. He unknotted his red neckerchief, folded it into a pad, and swabbed Angus’s forehead with it. “You ain’t lookin’ so good, Grandpa.”
Angus winced. He felt as though a fish were nibbling his heart from behind. “I’ll be all right. Just a little high here’s all. Got a knot in my chest. It’ll loosen soon.”
Nate gave Angus’s forehead another swab then ran the cloth through the sweat dribbling down his cheeks. “So, they’re all bad, ain’t they?”
“Yep, they’re all bad. I got sold a bill of goods.” Angus looked at the boy, who looked sunburned, weary, and worried. “Sorry, boy. I was so enthused about another ride high in the Hills again, I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. The fact is, I’m old. An’ stupid. Never shoulda hauled you up here, got you into this.”
“I’m glad I came.”
“You are?”
Nate nodded. “I belong with you. I mean, I love Hunter an’ Annabelle an’ all. But I like bein’ with you. You an’ me are a lot alike, I think.”
“Oh?” Angus laughed. “How’s that?”
Nate smiled. “We like adventure.”
Again, Angus laughed. He reached across his lap to tussle the boy’s sandy hair with his hand. “We do, don’t we?” He leaned back, drawing deep breaths, trying to fend off that toothy fish nibbling his old ticker. “Well, we’ve had that!”
He coughed, winced at the pain in his chest, which he pounded with the end of his clenched fist.
Suddenly, more shooting erupted on the scarp above and behind Angus and Nathan. Several loud, angry shots.
The men shouted.
The girl screamed.
A voice that Angus recognized as Davis’s cursed several times, shrilly.
The girl laughed her raucous, unladylike laugh.
Silence.
After nearly ten minutes, Angus heard a rock rolling down more rock. The rock rolled down from above, to Angus’s right, and rolled to a stop just beyond where he and Nate had remained under the overhang. He wished he could have gotten Nathan out of here, but he didn’t think he had the strength. He needed to rest awhile.
Now it was too late, anyway. Shadows moved on his right and then a girl gave an indignant yell and suddenly appeared, stumbling down the rocks and falling in the clearing near the blood splatters from Jackson’s ruined ear.
She sat halfway up and cursed at Jackson and Davis coming down out of the rocks, as well—Jackson leading, Davis following, limping badly and holding his left hand against the bloody wound in his left thigh. Davis shouldered Jackson aside, limped over to the girl, stooped slightly, and slapped her left cheek with his gloved, bloody right hand. Called her a name a gentleman should never call a woman—especially with an impressionable boy present.
She cried out as the blow jerked her head back and to one side, her hair covering her face.
“Hey!” Angus said. “That’ll be enough of that!”
The girl, not much over twenty if that, Angus observed, raised a hand to her cheek and glared up at Davis. “You had it comin’. If I didn’t shoot you, you woulda shot me!”
Dropping down against a rock, wincing and clutching his thigh with his hand, Davis shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I was gonna leave you to Jackson!”
He gave a humorless laugh, reached into a pocket of his wool coat, and pressed a handkerchief down hard against the wound.
Jackson turned, dropped to a knee, and gazed over the rocks at the cabin in the canyon below.
“Yeah, you’d best worry about Robbie an’ Bull,” the girl spat at him, her amber eyes aglow with rage. Her short, curly, dark-red hair caught the late-day sunshine and fluttered in the breeze. She had a pretty, heart-shaped face, lightly tanned, and with a wide, full, expressive mouth. Maybe a tad too expressive for Jackson and Davis. “They’re on their way. I’m sure!”
Jackson glanced at her. It looked to Angus that he’d nearly gotten the blood from his ear stopped. “Which one’d you throw in with, Miss Frannie from San Francisco? Bull or Robbie?” He gritted his teeth and flared a nostril. “Or both?”
“Go to hell!”
“Please! Your language!” Angus admonished. “A child is present, dammit!”
The girl turned to him and the boy, both still sitting under the overhang. Angus’s chest was still tight, and he was sweating. He was still having trouble getting his heart to slow down. It was as though the girl saw them both for the first time.
“What’re they doin’ here?” she asked Jackson.
“Shut up.” He was on his knees, staring over the rocks toward the cabin, leaning on his rifle, which he held barrel up in his right hand. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Where are they—Bull an’ Robbie?”
“Prob’ly on the way up here to blow your lights out!”
“She might be right,” Davis said, pressing down hard on his thigh, stretching his lips back from his teeth in misery. He held his rifle in his right hand, angled across that leg and aimed at Little Miss Frannie from San Francisco. “I’m gonna need a doctor, I do believe.” He glared at the girl sitting between him and Jackson. “You, though—you ain’t gonna need one. I’m gonna drill you one so deep—”
“Shut up!” Jackson said.
“Don’t tell me to shut up!” Davis returned. “Look what she did to me!”
Jackson whipped another hard glare at his partner over his shoulder. “I said shut up!”
Davis looked astonished. “Why . . . you’re still sweet on her, ain’t you? Why . . . I can’t believe it. She put us through this hell, you know—throwin’ in with Bull an’ Robbie after you—”
Jackson whipped full around to face the wounded outlaw. “Don’t you understand English?”
“I understand it just fine,” the girl said, saucily, lowering her head then tossing it back to throw her curly hair out of her face. “What’re you gonna do, Bryce? Gonna be dark soon. Best make up your mind.”
She was right. The light was fading fast, the forest to the west sliding long shadows across the escarpment. Birds piped in the trees behind the escarpment and in those fronting it, between the scarp and the canyon in which the cabin sat.
“Best make up your mind, Bryce,” Davis said, his chest rising and falling sharply, the salmon light glistening in the sweat streaking his unshaven cheeks. “Meanwhile . . . I do believe I’m gonna need a sawbones.”
Staring into the canyon, Jackson said, “Yeah, well, I’ll just grow a pair of wings and fly down to Tigerville and fetch one up here pronto.”
Davis seemed to find that amusing. He chuckled. The chuckle was broken off abruptly by a pain spasm. He gritted his teeth and threw his head back, sucking air through gritted teeth.
Angus turned to Nathan. “Boy, go down yonder, fetch my medical pouch out of my saddlebags. Haul it up here then go back down an’ tend the horses while there’s still light.”
“All right, Grandpa.”
Nate crawled out from under the overhang and gained his feet.
“Hold on, hold on,” Jackson said, raising his rifle. “Where’s he goin’?”
“To fetch my medical bag,” Angus raked out at the man, his fury at this trio doing nothing to make his heart settle down. “In case you hadn’t noticed, your partner’s about ready to bleed dry. That wound needs to be cleaned and wrapped.”
“That’s not gonna save him,” Jackson said. “Bullet prob’ly broke his damn leg.”
“You go to hell!” Davis shot back, aiming his rifle at Jackson now. He glanced at Nate standing over him. “Do it, boy.”
As Nathan turned to start clambering down the rocks toward where they’d left the horses, Angus said, “Bring my canteen, too, boy.”
Nate threw up an arm in acknowledgement and continued down the rocks.
The girl turned to Angus. “Handsome young man. He need a girlfriend?”
“No,” Angus said with a wan half-smile. “But I do.”
The girl laughed and turned to Jackson who’d returned to studying the cabin. “I like him. Where’d you find that one-armed rack of old bones, anyway?”
“This rack of old bones, honey, was the only one stupid enough to guide those two up here. Three before Dutch got taken down by a nightmare.”
“Oh.” Again, the girl turned to Jackson. “I thought he might’ve just taken a pill he couldn’t digest. You know, to make the dividing up of the loot a little more lucrative. Fewer players . . .”
“That’s right.” Jackson fingered his ear gingerly. “And we’re about to be less two more.” He looked over his shoulder at the girl again. “Possibly three.”
“What do you mean ‘possibly’?” Davis said, sliding his rifle barrel toward Frannie once more. “I’ll shoot her right now.”
Frannie laughed. “What? You think he’s gonna let you live? If that bullet in your leg doesn’t kill you, he will.” She tossed her pretty head toward Jackson.
Nate just then climbed up out of the rocks and dropped to his knees so he wouldn’t be seen from below. “Here you go, Grandpa.”
He held a large burlap pouch and a canteen.
“Set up down by him, boy,” Angus said, nodding toward Davis. “Go down an’ tend the horses. Looks like we’ll be spending the night right here.”
Angus crawled out from under the overhang, opened the pouch, and withdrew a flat, brown bottle. He popped the cork and handed the bottle to Davis.
“Have you a few swallows of that. Ease the pain a bit.”
“Whiskey!” the girl intoned. “Now, we’re talking. Let’s build us a campfire and have us a party.” She clapped her hands.
Jackson crawled over to the backside of the scarp and yelled, “Boy, fetch the rope off my horse!” He turned to Frannie. “Gonna tie you tight an’ go down there an’ kill your double-crossin’ trail mates.”
While Angus used a small scissors to cut away Davis’s pants and underwear from around the bloody wound, Davis said, “I’ll kill her right now. Get it out of the way!”
Jackson reached down and pulled the Winchester out of the wounded man’s hand. He tossed it under the overhang. He pulled both the man’s pistols and knife belt scabbards, and tossed them under the overhang, as well. “Not yet.” He glared at Frannie. “Let her wait on it. If anyone kills her, it’s gonna be me!”
“What?” Davis said through another grimace as Angus worked on his leg. “Double-crossin’ us an’ two-timin’ with Robbie is worse than shootin’ me in the leg?!”
Jackson kept his eyes on the girl, who stared up at him defiantly.
“Yes.”
When Nate brought the rope, Jackson wrestled the girl down, tied her ankles together and her hands behind her back. He tossed the excess rope away and turned to Angus who was cleaning Davis’s wound with a cloth soaked with whiskey and water.
“You leave her tied like that, old man, or there’ll be hell to pay when I get back!”
“I got no dog in this fight,” Angus said.
“Yeah, you do, an’ you know it.”
He was right. And Angus knew it.
“Should be back with those two nitwits’ heads in a sack shortly,” Jackson told Frannie.
She cursed him.
He laughed.
Then he was off, clambering down the rocks toward the fast-darkening canyon below.