Die by the Gun Read online

  Mac took back the reins after flexing his hands for a minute or so. Desmond gave them back, glad to be freed of the responsibility but at the same time surly because Mac hadn’t told him he’d done a good job.

  Then a powerful invisible hand lifted the wagon straight into the air and dropped it down with a thud as if it hit solid ground.

  “What do you think about that?” Desmond shouted over the roar of the water. It took him a moment to realize he was alone in the wagon. “Mackenzie? Mackenzie! Where’d you go?”

  Frantic, he hunted for the cook. Mac was nowhere to be seen. He had been washed over the side of the wagon and carried away by the dark river. This startled Desmond so much, he almost didn’t think to grab the wet reins that lay at his feet.

  But those reins represented his only chance for survival, he realized. He knew he would die if he followed Mac into the river. His only chance to keep on living lay ahead. He had to get the team to pull him from the Pecos.

  Desmond snatched up the reins and drove in a half crouch, controlling the team as he had never done before and using his shifting weight to counter the roll of the wagon. After an eternity, he realized the force of the river had diminished against the wagon because all four wheels were miring down in river bottom mud as he neared the shore.

  “Pull, damn you! Keep going!” He whipped the tired horses. They saw dry land ahead and struggled to pull forward to reach it. Before he fully grasped what was happening, the horses were dragging the chuckwagon over dry ground and up an incline near the river.

  Out of the river!

  He stomped on the brake and set it, using the reins to hold it in place. Standing, he let out a wild whoop of glee. Then he collapsed to the bench seat, his legs the consistency of stewed okra. His insides were liquid and weak. Not a muscle worked right for him. He shook all over as if he had the ague.

  Desmond sat up when he heard the rattle of another wagon.

  “Mac!” a guttural voice called. “You made it, Mac! We celebrate, eh?”

  He peered around the side of the wagon and saw Kleingeld driving up in the supply wagon. Their eyes locked. The German’s faced melted into horror.

  “Where is he? Where is Mac?”

  “He got washed overboard,” Desmond said. “Served him right. He was showing off. I had to drive the wagon the rest of the way.”

  “He is in the river? We must find him.”

  “You mean you’re going to hunt for his body. As fast as the current is, he’ll be halfway across Texas by now.”

  “Go. You go and hunt for him! I will tell the others!”

  “What do they care? They have the cattle to tend. That’s all that’s important. The damned longhorns.” Desmond let his bitterness gush forth. Kleingeld and the others would never have mounted a search if he had been the one dumped into the river. More than likely, they would have celebrated. He knew it because they all hated him so. Hiram Flowers would be the one doing the most cheering over his death.

  Desmond jumped down and walked slowly around the wagon. He blinked in surprise when he saw one of the floats had been ripped off. He had never noticed. Working with fingers that felt five times too big, he untied the remaining floats and tossed them into the back of the wagon.

  As he stared inside, his mouth turned dry. He poked around and found the crate with the whiskey in it. Mac had been such a spoilsport about using it for anything but medicine. He picked up the bottle and held it.

  His shaking went away at the touch of the smooth, cool glass against his palm. He pulled out the cork and let the fumes drift up to his nose. His nostrils flared, and his mouth turned drier than the Chihuahuan Desert. A single sip. That’s all. He had sneaked a few drinks and Mac had never known. Now that the cook was gone, he had the bottle all to himself. Lifting it to his lips, he paused. Another deep whiff. Then he put the cork back in and carefully packed the bottle in its crate again.

  “Later,” he muttered to himself. He’d sample the whiskey later, to celebrate.

  He finished bailing out the water inside the wagon, mopping up what he could. By now the sun had risen a good way and made it easier to hang out cloth and get the tarps hung up to dry. The sound of the herd kept him company. Nobody else came by, nobody else cared.

  “I’ll show them. I’m as good as any of them.”

  Those words had barely left his lips when he heard a loud hoot of glee. He turned and saw Hiram Flowers riding in his direction. For a moment, it didn’t penetrate to Desmond’s fatigue-dulled brain that someone came up alongside the trail boss, on foot.

  Mackenzie. A broad grin stretched across the cook’s muddy face.

  “Desmond!” Mac shouted. “You saved the chuckwagon!”

  “Of course I did,” he said. Had there ever been any doubt?

  “I knew you could do it.” Mac thrust out his hand. Desmond started to shake, then pulled back.

  “Like hell you did. Why’d you leave me stranded in the middle of the river?”

  Mac shot a look at Flowers, who shook his head.

  “I’ve got a herd to bed down. There’s a storm coming, mark my words.” The trail boss put his heels to his horse’s flanks and trotted off.

  “Him and his weather sense,” Mac said. “He’s for certain sure we’re in for a storm.” He looked around. “I don’t see it.”

  “You don’t see much of anything,” Desmond snapped.

  Mac’s lips thinned, but he held back any sharp words.

  “Thanks for tending the wagon.”

  “It’s still there.”

  Mac frowned slightly. “What’s still there? I know we lost a float, but that doesn’t matter. There aren’t any more big rivers to cross like this.”

  “The whiskey, damn it. I didn’t touch a drop of your precious whiskey.” Desmond spun and stalked off. Mac said something, but he didn’t try to understand. The cook had it in for him and would lie about the liquor. He’d probably drink it himself, then claim Desmond had drunk it.

  He should have gone ahead and taken the whole damned bottle. Stomping to the top of a hill, he looked back over the river. If the Pecos wanted to really mock him, it would be all calm now.

  The swollen river still sloshed against its banks, at flood level. He marveled at how he had driven the chuckwagon across such swollen, racing water and lived to tell about it. A thought crossed his mind that he ought to ask if everyone else had made it. Mac had, in spite of being washed out of the wagon.

  Then Desmond decided it didn’t matter one whit. If any of the cowboys had drowned, nothing would bring him back. And if they had all made it just fine, what did he care? They didn’t like him. Why should he bother about them?

  “Hey, Desmond!”

  He saw Flowers waving to him. Reluctantly, he hiked down the hill to see what the trail boss wanted.

  “Grab a horse and go out to the north side of the herd. Keep ’em all together. When the storm comes, it’ll be a whopper. Get a slicker. Everybody’s gonna get mighty wet before we hit the trail again.”

  “You putting everybody out riding herd or just me?”

  “Doesn’t concern you what anyone else is doing, but the answer’s simple. I’m sending as many out as I can because the storm’s going to break before sundown. Now get your ass on a horse and get to work.”

  Desmond watched him ride off, shouting orders to others. So much for gratitude, for saving the Circle Arrow’s chow, utensils, everything that kept the drovers fed and happy. No matter what he did, they never appreciated it. No matter what.

  He found a decent horse, saddled, and went out. At least being alone kept the others from mocking him all the time.

  * * *

  Desmond nodded off as he rode, then jerked awake. It wasn’t right keeping him out here this long. Flowers had given him a break to eat supper and sent him back out without any sleep. Crossing the river had been enough for any given day, but riding herd the rest of the day while the cattle milled around irked him. They could have made another couple of
miles, but Flowers insisted on bedding down not a quarter mile from the river.

  He drifted off to sleep again, only to be awakened by a sharp crack. He thought someone was shooting at him. The cattle began making noises like they were afraid. Singing to them to soothe the stupid animals was beneath his dignity, but he worried that calming them wasn’t possible any other way.

  A new rumble caused him to look at the sky. The sunset had been spectacular, but what did he care about that? Clouds. Lots of them. But these coming up from the southeast now were dark, their leaden bottoms filled with flashes. The lightning in those storm clouds was still miles off, but the rain promised a long, wet night.

  “Wet again.” Desmond sighed. “Just when I dried out from getting across the river.”

  A single heavy, cold raindrop spattered against his hat brim. He turned his face up and caught another drop just under the right eye. He flinched. Flowers had doomed him for another terrible night. Licking his lips, he almost tasted the whiskey he had put back. The bottle would have gotten him through this miserable night.

  The cattle moaned and began to stir as even louder thunder rolled over the land. The promise of more rain made Desmond twist around and fumble in his saddlebags for the slicker Flowers had told him to bring. That wouldn’t make the night any better, but it kept him drier than he would have been without it.

  As he kicked one foot from the stirrup to get a better reach, a lightning bolt tore through the sky directly overhead, well ahead of the storm as such things sometimes were. The violent electrical display startled him and terrified his horse. The animal bucked, hit hard, then reared. In his contorted position, Desmond couldn’t keep his seat. He grabbed for the saddlebags to stay astride. The horse bucked again, sending him flying through the air. Desmond landed with a hard whack.

  The fall stunned him for a moment. He climbed to his feet, every bone in his skeleton aching from being thrown. In his hand he clutched the yellow slicker.

  “I may walk back to camp, but I won’t get too wet,” he grumbled as the horse tore off into the distance, thoroughly spooked. As he started to slip into the slicker, he felt the ground under his feet quiver and shake. He looked up and saw the dark mass of the herd shift. The cattle began to move.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, no!” Desmond turned and ran away from them, but the storm had spooked the biggest steers along the edge of the herd. They began to run. The others followed.

  Stampede.

  Heart pounding crazily, Desmond staggered along, his legs not working right. The herd snorted and let out a terrible sound that chilled him all the way to the soul. There was nowhere to run. Flowers had bedded the herd down in a shallow bowl away from the river. Desmond wished the cattle had stampeded toward the Pecos. Let them all drown. They came toward him instead, running away from the riverbank.

  “Hang on, I’m coming!”

  He looked over his shoulder, trying to see who called to him. The sun had set. Twilight should have let him see better than this, but already the onrushing storm had turned the evening pitch black. He tried to keep running. Whatever he heard might have been his imagination.

  Then he saw the flashing hooves of a horse rush past him. The rider spun around and blocked his way, reaching down to help him up.

  “Mackenzie!”

  “We’ve got to get out of the way. Those cows aren’t going to stop running for a month of Sundays. That’s how scared they are.”

  Desmond started to reach up but held back. Mac would never let him hear the end of this, how he had pulled his fat from the fire, how he had saved the boss’s son just like he had plucked him from a Fort Worth whorehouse.

  “Damn it, get up here!” Mac looked behind Desmond. “Too late.”

  Desmond’s heart threatened to explode. He saw the cook was right. The charging herd was too close to them. They couldn’t get clear. In seconds they’d be goners.

  Mac leaped off the horse. “What are you doing?” Desmond demanded. For a second he thought Mac had dismounted to give him the horse, but then the cook yanked the yellow slicker from his hand.

  He began waving it around. The motion drew the herd’s attention. The deadly cattle changed direction, but not much. Then Mac did something that confused Desmond. He yanked on his horse’s reins, stuffed the slicker under the saddle and gave the horse a solid whack on the rump. Its eyes were rimmed in white with fear from the stampede. It galloped away, the slicker flapping behind.

  “What are you doing?”

  Mac didn’t answer. He grabbed Desmond and threw both of them to the ground.

  “Stay down. Keep your head down. These rocks might not be enough to protect us, even if the cattle chase after the horse.”

  Desmond looked up. The horse frantically tried to escape the cattle as it galloped away. It quickly became evident the race was not to the swift but to the frightened.

  He heard the horse die. He couldn’t see it because of the rippling mass of beef between him and the doomed animal.

  Mac grabbed his collar and held him down. Desmond thrashed around, trying to get away, then stopped. The cook was right. They huddled behind rocks poking up from the ground. Not more than a couple of feet high, but enough. Maybe enough.

  The stampede broke over their heads, deadly hooves whistling through the air only inches away.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Get up,” Dewey Mackenzie said after what seemed like an eternity of being surrounded by roaring, pounding, certain death. “We’ve got to get away. There are still longhorns out there willing to trample us.”

  He grabbed Desmond by the coat collar and lifted. The young man’s legs buckled. Mac supported him until he stood upright under his own power. If he hadn’t realized the trouble they were still in, Mac would have felt the same. The closeness of death frightened anyone with an ounce of sense.

  “You’re bleeding.” Desmond reached out and touched Mac’s arm.

  “A hoof caught me. Just missed my head.” He took off his battered black hat and looked at it. Part of the crown had just vanished as the longhorn kicked past. “If it rains much more, I’ll drown if I wear this.”

  Desmond snickered. Then he laughed harder. Hysteria hit him, and he doubled over guffawing at the bad joke. Mac didn’t begrudge him this, either. They both knew how close they’d come to being killed. Finally as the paroxysms of laughter died down, Desmond straightened and stared at him.

  “You saved my life. You didn’t have to do that. You could have let me die.”

  “No way would I do such a thing,” Mac said, shaking his head and regretting it as pain jabbed into him. That hoof hadn’t just kicked away part of his hat. It must have grazed his skull. He pressed his fingers into the top of his head. They came away sticky with blood. “Flowers would never let me forget it. He might even dock my pay.”

  “We lost a horse,” Desmond said.

  “Two. And you lost your slicker.”

  That set Desmond off again, but the laughter died faster this time. Mac took him by the arm and guided him away from the herd and up a hillside. From here they had a better look at how the cattle had stampeded away from the river. In that, Flowers had had a touch of luck, but most of the longhorns were still running as the rain pelted down on them and lightning stabbed across the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud. If it ever flashed downward to blast apart a tree or even a cow, there’d be no stopping the stampede.

  “How long can they run?” Desmond’s voice sounded small, subdued.

  “As long as they’re scared. I heard tell of a stampede along the Chisholm Trail that lasted a week. They had to chase the beeves more than a hundred miles before they wore themselves out. What you have to do is get the leaders to turn back toward the center of the herd, get them to mill, to spiral around. That breaks their forward run.” Mac heaved a sigh. “Of course, that causes other problems.”

  “They trample each other.”

  Mac looked at Desmond. He hadn’t expected an answer. His own fear was running out like san
d through an hourglass, but he babbled rather than laughed.

  “Not only that, they generate so damned much heat pressing together that it’ll burn a cowboy riding close by.”

  “You’re joshing me. That’s not so.”

  “God’s truth,” Mac insisted. “They get all bunched together. Animals that big and frightened generate a lot of heat. Then there’s the hooves pounding on the ground, hitting rocks. Never heard of a cowboy who got blisters from being too close by, but it’s as bad as being out in the desert sun. Hotter than hell.”

  “You want me to put a tourniquet on your arm?”

  Desmond stared at the steady flow of blood down Mac’s left arm. It was a deep wound, but not as bad as it looked. Mac bunched up his coat and pressed it down hard. The blood turned sluggish and soon stopped flowing as it clotted over. It was his head hurting like a thousand wasps had built a nest in it that bothered him more.

  “You two, are you all right?” The urgent shout came from down the slope.

  “Up here, Mister Flowers,” Mac called. “Me and Desmond. We dodged the worst of the stampede.”

  “Son of a bitch, Desmond, you got yourself caught in it,” the trail boss said as he rode up the hill toward them. “I bet Mac here had to pull you out. Isn’t that so?”

  “I—”

  “We lost two horses, Mister Flowers,” Mac cut in. “It was a small price to pay for both of us getting away. I had to fasten his slicker to my horse and let it lead the cattle away from us.”

  “You’re hurt. You two get back to the supply wagon.” Flowers jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Messy can patch you up. He’s handy with needle and thread, if you have cuts needin’ stitches. He said that he’d worked for a tailor when he was a young sprout.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Flowers grumbled under his breath as he turned his horse, but loud enough for both men to hear. “He’s bound and determined to get himself killed. Mercedes would blame me for sure.” He rode away to rally the cowboys and get the herd under control.