CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Clay Kyle and Dave Shannon were awake before first light, surrounded by coughing, cursing men struggling to keep the windblown fire alight enough to boil coffee. Kyle was not a talking man in the morning, and he and Shannon checked their guns in silence as their fellow outlaws bustled around them. None seemed concerned about the fight to come. James Duran had made it clear what they faced and they agreed that clearing out the nest of vigilante rubes would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Duran had mentioned Clint Cooley as their most dangerous gun, but at least half of Shannon’s men had fought in bloody range wars and had multiple kills to their credit. One man with a vague duelist’s rep didn’t trouble them in the least.
After coffee and several cigarettes, Shannon glanced at the dawning sky and gave the order to saddle up. The mountains were still deeply shadowed, and the timbered sky islands were dark, waiting for the sun. The north wind was relentless, wild, and blustery, and Shannon commented that he’d never known such a gale in the five years he’d spent in the Sierra del Carmen.
“I’ve faced hot desert winds that blistered my lips and chafed my skin,” he told his men. “But never anything like this. Damn strange if you ask me.” Then after a few moments, he said to Kyle, “What time does the Stanton woman expect you back?”
“I told her noon,” Kyle said.
“I don’t want to lose that girl, Kyle,” Shannon said. “If she dies, you die.”
“I’ll be back in plenty of time,” Kyle said. “You heard Duran. We’re facing a bunch of rubes. It will be all over in ten minutes, maybe less.”
“Duran says there’s a woman with the vigilantes,” Shannon said. “Be nice to add two ladies to my camp.”
“Then tell your boys not to shoot at the woman,” Kyle said.
Shannon turned his head, grinning, and said, “You hear that, boys. There’s a woman with the vigilantes, so don’t shoot her unless it’s very necessary.”
“She got big tits?” a man asked to a chorus of ribald laughter.
“Hey, Duran, does the vigilante woman have big tits?” Shannon said.
“Of course she does,” Duran said.
“Then we’ll be sure to recognize her,” Shannon said to more laughter.
Kyle smiled. “I got a feeling this is going to be a crackerjack morning.”
Shannon nodded. “It’s sure shaping up that way.”
The north wind blew even stronger, and up on the mountain slopes the green pines tossed their heads and whispered secrets to the new aborning day.
* * *
Dave Shannon’s first attack fared badly, even though it caught the vigilantes by surprise. They were breaking camp and saddling their horses when Shannon’s mounted men appeared at the bottom of the hill. The outlaws, Shannon and Clay Kyle in the lead, came on at a trot and then spread out into line-abreast. The horsemen drew rein and stared up at the scampering vigilantes with undisguised contempt.
“They’re lighting a shuck,” a man cried out. “Look at them scoot!”
“All right, boys, let ’em have it,” Shannon yelled. He grinned, showing his bared teeth. “Get them!”
His men charged, a few of them howling the rebel yell.
But Shannon’s initial maneuvering had taken time . . . time enough for Dan Caine and the others to take cover behind scattered boulders and thick brush. To Dan’s surprise, the Kiowa kneeled beside him, his Colt up and ready.
“The white men aiming to kill you will sure as hell kill an Indian,” he said.
The charge was uphill across ground muddy from the recent heavy rains, and that made the going heavy and slowed the horses. Worse for the attackers, Shannon’s grasp of cavalry tactics extended only as far as using horses to expedite his escape from angry townsmen who’d just seen their bank robbed. He ignored the lesson so painfully learned during the War Between the States that it’s folly to attack entrenched infantry with light cavalry . . . he and Kyle learned that lesson now.
Stonewall Jackson once said that a cavalry horse must be a bit mad, its rider completely so, but Shannon’s horses and men were the direct opposite. Outlaws with a strong instinct for self-preservation, they ran into a hail of lead that shocked the hell out of them. Clint Cooley and the Kiowa laid down the heaviest and most accurate fire, but Dan, Fish Lee, and Holt Peters scored hits and Estella worked her rifle well. Cornelius Massey, aware of his deficiencies as a marksman, sprayed puny rounds from a small, pearl-handled revolver.
The fire from the defenders was devastating.
Wounded, screaming horses and men went down, cartwheeling into the mud as the charge staggered, and then broke like an ocean wave on a rock.
James Duran and a couple of others drew rein and managed to return fire, but Shannon stood in the stirrups and waved his revolver. “Back!” he yelled. “Back!”
Clay Kyle was stunned and hadn’t fired a shot. He sat his horse, staring in horror at the carnage around him.
James Duran rode up to Kyle and yelled, “Wake up, you damned fool!” He grabbed the man’s reins and pulled him away, forcing him back down the hill as bullets split the air around them.
In a few moments of hell-firing fury, Shannon had lost about half his men. He joined the survivors at the base of the rise and yelled, “Dismount! Damn their eyes, we’ll take them on foot. Kill them all, boys. Kill them all!”
“It ain’t gonna be easy,” one man said.
“Hell, starve them out,” said another.
“Do as you’re told or by God, I’ll kill you myself,” Shannon said.
In the middle of the carnage on the slope, a man screamed in pain, probably gut shot, and a horse limped down the incline, favoring a shattered foreleg.
Some grumbling followed, and Clay Kyle’s face was stiff with shock. “Wait until dark, Dave,” he said. “We can injun up there unseen and then rush them.”
“Go to hell,” Dave Shannon said.
* * *
When he saw the attackers break and run, Dan’s inclination was to cheer, but the sight of Fish Lee down and bleeding sobered him. He took a knee beside the old man and said, “Fish, are you hit bad?”
“Shot all to pieces,” Fish Lee said. His face was gray, his entire chest covered in blood. “Dan . . . listen,” he said.
“I’m listening, Fish,” Dan said.
Estella kneeled and laid the old prospector’s head on her lap.
“Deputy Caine,” Fish said, “take care of Sophie. When you can afford it, give her oats now and then. She loves oats but never got them too often.” He smiled. “Helluva fight, huh?” He then closed his eyes and died.
Dan looked into Estella’s tearstained face. “Who’s Sophie?”
“His burro,” the young woman said. “When we get back to Thunder Creek, I’ll make sure she gets all the oats she wants.”
Clint Cooley said, “Looks like they’re arguing down there.”
Dan laid a hand on Fish Lee’s forehead and then got to his feet. He stared downhill and said, “Now they’re trying to figure out the best way to kill us.”
“Wait long enough and we’ll all die of thirst or starvation, whatever comes first,” Cooley said. “If I was Kyle, that’s what I’d do.”
* * *
Harried by random bullets from Shannon’s men, they buried Fish Lee under a tomb of rocks, a long, arduous task that took several hours. Estella Sweet’s father read to her from the Bible every night of her life, and she said good words over the grave. The rest said, “Amen,” and then it was done.
* * *
It’s strange that Fish Lee’s last resting place can no longer be found in the Sierra del Carmen. Only the mountains know what happened to the rock grave . . . and they keep their secrets.