AFTER THEY GOT ABOUT A MILE from Kentville, Stan rearranged the caravan so his prisoners were in front of him. This made it so he could keep an eye on his charges, but it also slowed them down. He retied their hands in front of them but ran a line from both men back to his saddle horn. The prisoners were in no hurry to get to Fort Hurley and Stan had to snap a lariat on the rear of their horses to keep them moving at a decent pace.
“Hey, Marshal. I need to piss,” Carlos McElroy complained after they had been riding for four hours.
Stan stood in his stirrups and looked around. They were in a small ravine surrounded by rocks and boulders with a few trees and brush, about a half a mile from the Fort Hurley junction.
“Okay, we’ll take a break here.” Stan dismounted and wrapped his reins around a low branch, then loosened the line on Carlos. “You can go one at a time.”
The prisoner slid off and Stan stood by holding the line.
“What’s up, Marshal? You some kind of sissy boy that you gotta watch us piss?” Carlos sneered.
“I can fix it so you can piss in your pants, if that’s want you want.”
“Yeah, yeah, you bastard.” Carlos took care of business and then climbed back on his horse.
Stan retied the line and loosened the rope on Reece. “Okay, your turn.”
Reece got off his horse. “I need some more line.”
“Piss right there.”
Look, bunghole…” Blood and lung blew out of Reece’s chest before he could finish. In the second it took for Stan to realize that Reece had been shot, another bullet smashed into Carlos’ leg. He dropped off his horse screaming a string of curses in Spanish.
Stan jumped behind his horse just avoiding a hail of gunfire. The horse danced wildly from side to side but Stan managed to grab his rifle. With one quick move he sliced the line tied to Carlos, took hold of the downed outlaw’s arm and pulled him toward the nearest boulder. A torrent of snapping bullets and ricochets bouncing off the ground raised a choking dust. Bullet fragments sprayed rock shards as Stan dragged Carlo’s dead weight around the boulder. He stumbled.
“Damn!” Stan said under his breath. He looked at his side and saw the blood oozing through his shirt.
“Son of a bitch!” Carlos grimaced as he squeezed his hands around his blood-soaked thigh. “How could those bastards miss you and hit me and Reece?!”
“Because they’re shooting at all of us.” Stan fired at a puff of gun smoke.
Carlos’ eyes grew wide. “That no good, goddamn, bunghole!”
Stan shot toward the ambushers but couldn’t tell if he hit anything. “Who?”
“The governor, that’s who. Give me a gun so I can shoot back!”
“I don’t think so.” Stan fired several more shots hoping to keep the attacker’s heads down.
“Then we’re goin’ to die.”
“I guess we all gotta go sometime.”
Stan was trying to keep the attackers at bay but he knew they were closing in. He looked at Carlos and could see the fear in his eyes. For a fleeting moment he thought about giving him a gun but then he thought of Coy, his murdered deputy, and thought better of it. He loaded his last eight rounds into his Henry rifle.
“This is bullshit, Marshal.”
Stan saw a man flanking on the right side, drew a bead and fired. The man collapsed.
“I finally nailed one!”
He saw two coming at him from the left but suddenly one dropped hard and a gunshot reached his ears. Then he heard more shots and Indian war cries.
“Well, well, Carlos. I think we just got some help!”
Black Feather sounded a war hoop and galloped toward the ambush. A gunman turned towards him but before the man could aim his pistol, Black Feather’s shot tore through his face blowing half of it into a bright red spray. Another turned to run and Black Feather shot him in the back, sprawling him against a boulder.
Wind Runner charged into the middle of the attackers’ position. One man jumped on a horse and Wind Runner used his own horse as a ram, knocking the other horse to the ground. The warrior jumped down and sank his tomahawk into the other rider’s skull. Then within a breath he leapt over a large rock toward a man raising a rifle at him. Wind Runner knocked the gun aside and grabbed the last man by the hair. The scream trying to come out was cut short by the hack that almost cut the man’s head off.
They heard a galloping horse and turned to see a man wearing a brown hat and black vest riding away. Claw Of The Eagle took a few shots from his high ground position but the rider was too far away.
Wind Runner started for his horse.
“No, Wind Runner. We must see if Stan Barstow is all right.”
Stan wrapped the bandage he tore from Carlos’ shirt around the prisoner’s thigh. He looked up when three riders leading a fourth horse came around the boulder. Relief released the breath he’d been holding. “Many thanks, Black Feather. I didn’t think we were going to make it there for a minute.”
Black Feather slid off his horse. “You are wounded, Stan Barstow.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right.” Stan tried to stand but his knees hit the ground and the air left his lungs with a grunt. “Be still. We will bandage you and take you to Fort Hurley.”
Stan was thinking it might be a good idea to take Black Feather’s advice. “What are you men doing out here?”
“Looking for Fire Hawk.”
“Fire Hawk?”
“You know him as Jasper Lee. He is our brother.”
“Your brother! That Jasper Lee sure is an interesting man.” Stan grimaced as Black Feather worked on his side. “Jasper’s in jail in Kentville, standing trial for murder.”
“And that’s a bunch of bullshit!” Carlos yelled.
“What do you mean, Carlos?” Stan frowned.
“It’s a rigged deal, set up by the governor to take the heat off of his nephew.”
“How do you know this?”
“Who do you think ordered me and Reece to kill Delton?”
Stan felt his face flush.
“Sorry about your deputy, Marshal. He really didn’t deserve to die but he was doing his job too well and Reece wasn’t right in the head…a natural born killer, Reece was.”
“Carlos, if you’ll testify about this I’ll recommend leniency from the court.”
“For what? Life in prison? No thanks, Marshal. I’ll testify just for payback on that son of a bitch, Norris. I can give the goods on a bunch of others, too.”
Black Feather put his hand on Stan’s shoulder. “How much time do we have to get to Kentville before they hang our brother?”
“Since they’re doing a trial probably a couple of days,” Stan answered. “But that’s not for sure. I’m thinking trying to take all the governor’s men with just the four of us isn’t very smart. We need to get to Fort Hurley and see what help we can get but I need one of you to ride to Arlington and tell your brother’s wife he’s in the Kent County jail.”
“I’ll go.” Claw Of The Eagle mounted his horse and galloped off.
Stan’s side burned like fire but he was feeling better when Black Feather helped him to his feet. “Let’s ride then.”