Chapter 8

As Stenck’s men led James through the batwings and onto the front stoop, James gathered himself for an imminent move. He was badly outnumbered, hands tied, so he’d most likely die, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t do some damage before he set sail for Glory. The man with the eye patch rammed his Henry’s butt hard against James’s back, and he stumbled down the steps and into the yard.

He was about to turn and lift a vicious kick to an unprotected groin, but stopped, staring straight ahead of him. The three men behind him must have seen it, too—the thin shadow of a man sitting a horse a little ways out from the parked wagon. All three froze, one giving an incredulous wheeze. There was another horse behind the rider’s horse, and just as James recognized his chestnut rabicano in the silvery darkness, a familiar voice said, “Down, Jimmy!

James dropped to his knees in the dirt, and ducked his head. A gun flashed and roared atop the lead horse before him. It roared two more times, the echoes of the blasts dwindling and falling beneath the groans of the riflemen now twisting and dropping behind James.

James recognized the shrill report of Crosseye’s Lefaucheux, and grinned. “You crazy catamount!”

“Haul your skinny ass over here, ye shaver!” Crosseye’s horse, a big Western-bred roan he’d traded his mule for, curveted.

James lifted his head and squared his shoulders, working against his tied hands as he heaved himself to his feet with a grunt. Hearing men yelling in the saloon behind him and the others continuing to groan and gurgle where they’d fallen, two on the stoop, the man with the eye patch on the steps, James ran over to Crosseye and swung around. The old frontiersman leaned down, and James felt the tugging of the knife blade sawing through the rope binding his wrists.

“Let’s go!” the older man rasped when the cut rope dropped.

“I’m right behind you!” James bolted forward and grabbed his cartridge belt and holstered Griswolds off the steps, where the one-eyed man had dropped them. He also grabbed the sleek Henry repeater before sprinting over to his chestnut that pranced in place, reins dangling.

Crosseye swung his big roan around to face the direction from which he’d come, the lights of Denver winking dully across the black sloping plain, then stopped once more behind James’s chestnut. His Lefaucheux roared, flames lapping from the barrel, the twelve-millimeter slugs plunking into the front of the saloon, one on either side of the batwings, sending another of Stenck’s men wheeling back through the doors with a yelp.

“Let’s go, Jimmy!” Crosseye screeched as James hurled himself into the saddle from the off-side.

The chestnut whinnied shrilly and buck-kicked as James swung it around, then ground his cavalry heels into the horse’s flanks. With another whinny, the chestnut leaped off its rear hooves and flew off in the direction of Crosseye’s jostling shadow, hooves thudding loudly on the hard-packed trail.

Beneath the rataplan James could hear Stenck’s shrill voice shouting orders. The captain from Texas would not let him go without more of a fight, he knew. Stenck had brought him there to kill him, to keep him from continuing to ask around about the McAllisters, and he’d try his damnedest to accomplish the task. Stenck might have run from one war, but this one was just his size. James had to assume he had more gun hands than the small number he’d seen tonight.

James crouched low over his chestnut’s buffeting mane as the horse galloped down a gradual grade, following the trail that was a curving pale line in the darkness. Crosseye was about thirty yards ahead, starlight glinting off his hat with its turned-up front brim, and off his saddlebags flapping like small wings. They dropped down into the brush-bottomed canyon, and Crosseye stopped his horse, curveting the blowing, prancing mount.

“How’d you find me?” James asked the old frontiersman.

“I saw the whole thing from the flophouse window, but by the time I got down to the street, they was rolling you off in that wagon. So I went and saddled our hosses and shadowed you.” Crosseye spat, and chaw splashed on a rock beside the trail. He wiped his fur-covered chin with the heel of his hand. “Who were them polecats, Jimmy?”

James glanced along their back trail, sensing more trouble galloping toward them. “Later!” He booted the chestnut on past Crosseye, clacking across the rocks of the dry creek bed, then starting up the opposite slope.

He galloped about a quarter mile back the way he’d come in the wagon, then turned the chestnut off the trail’s south side and into the sagebrush. A low, rocky escarpment humped darkly ahead of him. When he reached it, he swung down from the chestnut’s back.

Crosseye galloped up behind him, then checked down the roan, the horse’s eyes flashing wildly as it chomped its silver bit. “How bad’s their tails twisted, Jimmy?”

“You mean do I think they’re comin’? Uh-huh!” James left his cartridge belt and .36’s hanging from his saddle horn and raised the Henry, running an appreciative hand down the long barrel. “Leastways, I’m hopin’ they are.” He looked up at Crosseye as he worked the Henry’s cocking lever, racking a cartridge into the chamber and absently enjoying the smooth, solid sound of the sixteen-shooter’s action. “And when they do, I want one of ’em kept alive.”

“Just one?”

“Yeah, one’ll do.”

James led the chestnut around to the far side of the scarp, tied it to a piñon branch, then climbed the rocks, moving quietly, carefully in the darkness. A cool breeze blew, rasping amongst the brush growing out from between the jutting rocks, and a coyote howled—an eerie sound to a Southern man who’d only recently started hearing such forlorn cries.

James found a niche at the top of the scarp, from which he had a good view of the trail, and hunkered down, doffing his gray kepi. Wheezing, Crosseye climbed up behind him and settled down beside him. James could smell the familiar, reassuring fragrance of the older man’s sweat, buckskin breeches, and chewing tobacco. Crosseye was breathing hard, but James knew the oldster could keep up with him in a long, hard climb, because he’d seen him do it at Kennesaw Mountain. His potbellied old carcass and broad, fleshy face with its scraggly beard sheathed the heart of a true Southern renegade.

Neither man said anything for over a minute. Then Crosseye, hearing the loudening thuds of oncoming riders, whispered, “Bushwhack ’em?”

“Hell, yes.”

Crosseye gave him a skeptical look.

“I didn’t ask for this fight,” James bit out.

They waited. James stared up the trail curving down a grade to the west. Finally, three riders appeared strung out in a shaggy, single-file line dropping down the slope as they hunkered low in their saddles, wary of just what James and his partner were intending. James extended the Henry over the top of the rock and sighted down the barrel.

The lead rider jerked his horse hard left and angled into the brush up-trail from James and Crosseye’s position, shouting, “Ambush!”

James cursed and eased the tension on his trigger finger. Starlight must have flashed off his rifle barrel. “These Texans are smarter than they look!”

The other two riders swerved into the desert, all three swinging wide of the scarp, trying to get around behind James and Crosseye. Lights flashed amidst their jouncing silhouettes as they cut loose with pistols. The bullets plunked into the rocks around James, who opened up with the Henry just as he had that night on the bridge, shooting and levering, shooting and levering, the beautiful piece leaping and roaring in his hands. He watched his targets tumble off their mounts, the horses whinnying and rearing and galloping straight west of the scarp—all three riderless and trailing their reins.

James glanced to his right at Crosseye. The oldster hadn’t fired a shot. He shrugged and looked at the smoking Henry. “What the hell you need me for when you got that sixteener?”

“Play your cards right, maybe I’ll steal you one someday.”

“If you run into any extra jingle, you can buy me a woman.” Crosseye raked in a breath and brushed a fist across his chin. “Ain’t had me one now in weeks and my rocks is gettin’ heavy!”

“Shut up, you old hound dog!”

Keeping his head down, James stared west of the escarpment, where the three riders had fallen. He couldn’t see them amongst the widely scattered shrubs and rocks, but he could hear one groaning softly. “Looks like I mighta left one alive. Stay here and cover me.”

“Hell, my old eyes can’t see shit out there!”

“Give it a try!”

James dropped to the gravelly ground. Holding his new rifle straight out from his right hip, and keeping the darkness of the scarp behind him, he began walking out in the direction his quarry had fallen. He found the first man about forty yards out—the would-be killer’s neck twisted awkwardly, obviously broken, glassy eyes staring at his bloody hand flung out beside him.

On one knee, James looked around. The groaning he’d heard from atop the scarp had fallen silent. He hoped the wounded man hadn’t died. He wanted one alive to tell him what the hell was going on with Stenck and the McAllisters. Doubtless, Stenck wasn’t one of the three out here. He was likely still tucked safely away in the saloon with his whiskey bottle. He’d leave the fighting to his inferiors.

Raking his tongue across dry lips, James continued forward, swinging his head from left to right and back again, scouring the dark ground with his eyes. There was a raspy sigh to his left. He swung his head that way, saw starlight glint on steel. He threw himself to his right. The pistol flashed. The bullet screeched through the air where James had been standing a moment before, and spanged off a rock, echoing. James rolled onto his elbows and fired the Henry three times quickly.

He heard two slugs kicking up gravel. A third made the telltale whomping sound. He’d found flesh.

Slowly, looking around for the third rider, James gained his feet.

Crosseye’s voice cut the night: “Behind ya, Jimmy!”

James wheeled. A figure lurched out from the shadow of a giant boulder. James tried to get the barrel of the Henry up too late. A knife flashed starlight as it careened in a downward arc toward his throat.