‘Everybody all set?’
The question was superfluous, but Sam answered the marshal anyway. ‘Yup.’
‘Already they’re coming,’ Eduardo called out softly.
Sam couldn’t hear a thing, but he already knew better than to challenge the elder of the Spalding boy’s hearing. ‘Everybody get set,’ he called out in response.
Out of sight along both sides of the road he heard rifles chambering rounds. Hammers clicked back to full cock. Boots soles scraped against rocks. Clothes and leather rustled in the semi-darkness of early dawn. Then all fell silent.
Sam heard it then. The distant thunder of three dozen horses, coming fast.
‘Sure enough in a hurry,’ the marshal muttered beside him.
‘What’dya bet we slow ’em down some,’ Sam responded.
In the growing light, the galloping company hove into view around a bend of the road. When they were directly between the two hidden halves of the welcoming committee they were unaware of, Sam and the marshal stepped suddenly out from behind the boulder each had waited behind.
The marshal barked, ‘Stop right where you are!’
The startled group hauled back on their reins, skidding their horses to a surprised halt.
‘Throw up your hands!’ the marshal ordered. ‘I have a warrant for Lance Russell’s arrest, and I mean to have all your guns.’
Russell spit out his response in a burst of profanity. The marshal ignored it. ‘You men are surrounded. Throw down your guns.’
In response, men stood on the banks that rose along both sides of the road, showing themselves.
Instead of surrender, Russell’s band of gunmen dove from their saddles, as if at some prearranged signal. They hit the ground firing at those above them, and diving for cover behind rocks and brush.
Russell and the man riding beside him wheeled their horses and jammed spurs into their sides, leaning forward tightly on to the pommels of their saddles, making themselves as small a target as possible.
Bullets rained down around them, but it was impossible to tell if either was hit. The men on the ground were not so fortunate – in minutes, every man among them was dead or wounded. Those able to do so threw aside their weapons and raised their hands.
At the first response of Russell, Sam and the marshal had ducked back behind rocks, from where they directed a withering fire from ground level. The marshal was unscathed.
Oz was not so fortunate. He fell victim to one of the first shots fired from the gunmen. No sooner had the surviving members surrendered than Bart called out, ‘Sam! Oz is down.’
Sam sprinted to his friend, panic rising in his throat. His first glance confirmed his worst fears. Oz’s breath came in short gasps. A bright froth ringed his mouth. He reached up a hand to grasp the one Sam reached out with. He started to say something, but had no breath to make it audible. It died in his throat as his body relaxed. His head lolled to one side, eyes staring at nothing.
Tenderly Sam reached out and closed his friend’s eyes. Oz’s words whispered in his mind. ‘I always sorta wanted to go out layin’ in a soft bed with my hands folded nice an’ peaceful across my chest.’
‘Didn’t even get his last wish,’ he muttered, fighting the waves of grief surging up within him.
As he stood, Bart said, ‘You’re hit too.’
Sam nodded. ‘No big deal. Clipped my arm. I’m goin’ after Russell.’
‘I will ride with you,’ a voice at his shoulder declared.
Sam turned, surprised to find the statement had come from Lafe Sorenson. ‘Two of us will ride faster and not be as obvious when we get there,’ he said.
His tone of voice sounded totally foreign to the lanky homesteader Sam had come to know. It also conveyed an unmistakable message that it was he, not Sam, that was now in charge.
Sam simply nodded and retrieved his horse. ‘Bart and I will ride with you,’ Eduardo announced. Sam shook his head. ‘The marshal will need you boys’ help with the prisoners and the wounded. We’ll take care of Russell.’
It was little more than an hour later that the pair rode slowly into the yard of Russell’s ranch. It seemed eerily deserted. Not even the usual dogs had come to greet their arrival. Their eyes darted around the yard, probing every possible hiding spot for the ambush they would have bet waited for them.
They stepped off their horses. Sam noted with concern how stiff his right arm had already become. His shirt and jacket sleeve were soaked with blood. The blood had run down on to his hand, making it, he realized suddenly, too slick to grip his gun firmly and surely.
Just then Lance Russell and another man stepped out from behind a shed. Sam barely heard the slight grunt of recognition from Sorenson as he and the homesteader turned to face the duo.
‘You ain’t got no smarts at all, Heller,’ Russell announced, ‘comin’ here without your army.’
Ignoring him, the man at his right addressed Sorenson. ‘Didn’t expect to find you here, Frank.’
‘Long way from Laredo, Clint,’ Sorenson responded.
‘I always did wonder if I could beat you,’ the gunman responded.
Puzzled, but refusing to be distracted, Sam addressed Russell. ‘The marshal has a warrant for you from New Orleans,’ he announced. ‘I aim to arrest you or leave you dead.’
‘Do you think just two of you can do that?’ Lance challenged.
‘It’s over, Russell,’ Sam countered. ‘You boys drop your guns.’
As if that were the signal they awaited, both Russell and the man Sorenson had called Clint whipped their guns from their holsters.
Sam recognized the signal in Russell’s eyes, even before he saw his hand move. His hand was already gripping his own pistol. As he lifted it, he felt his blood-soaked hand slip on the grip. He tightened his hold, knowing even as he did that the extra effort would slow him down far too much. Both of the men he faced were far, far too fast for him to survive that much delay in his own draw.
At his left, Sorenson’s gun roared just as Clint’s gun cleared its holster. It roared a second time so swiftly, the second report blended into the roar of the first shot.
Sam finally got his own gun out and leveled, trying desperately to sort out all the signals and information assaulting his senses.
Time stood still. Four men stood motionless, facing each other. Each man held a gun in his hand. Smoke trailed lazily from only one gun barrel.
One right behind the other, the guns slipped from the fingers of the man called ‘Clint,’ then from Lance Russell’s hand. As if in slow motion, both men collapsed forward, falling on the guns they had already dropped into the dirt.
Sam turned to face the homesteader at his left. Sorenson calmly thumbed the spent cartridges from his gun and replaced it in his holster. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood,’ he observed. ‘We need to get that arm wrapped up some.’
Sam frowned at the man, trying to make sense of what he had seen and heard. ‘Who are you?’ he asked finally.
‘It don’t matter,’ Sorenson replied. ‘The name’s Lafe Sorenson. That’s all.’
‘He called you Frank.’
Sorenson looked at Sam a long moment. Finally he said, ‘Sam, sometimes a man learns things he really hadn’t oughta know. Things a friend would sure appreciate him forgettin’. We rode in here today, and even though you had a hole in your arm, you out-gunned Russell and his gunman, while I was tryin’ to get my gun outa the holster. That’s how I saw what happened today. I’m askin’ you as a friend, to let it stand like that.’
Sam struggled through the haze of his blood loss, fatigue and pain, to make sense of the man’s assertion. It finally sunk in. Sometimes a man needed to know his past wouldn’t catch up with him and prevent him from building a new life. He understood what was being asked of him.
He took a deep breath. ‘I wouldn’t want to brag none,’ he said, ‘so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention how slick with blood my hand was when I had to outdraw them two fellas while some sodbuster was tryin’ to haul his gun out.’
Sorenson almost sagged as the tension left his sparse frame. He recognized full well the sanctity of the unspoken promise Sam has just given. ‘I’ll try not to blow it up big enough to embarrass you too much,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get that arm tended to.’