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  “You damn betcha we will, Whitey,” Burnett told him. “You just hang on.”

  His reply drew another slug pounding down onto Burnett’s boulder, followed by a crowing taunt from one of the ambushers. “Well, go ahead and get to it then, Marshal! If you’re gonna back up your big talk and do something about us dry-gulchin’ skunks, you’re gonna have to do more than just keep hidin’ behind that big ol’ rock!”

  Luke could see Burnett reddening with rage and frustration. Luke felt it, too. No matter how badly the marshal wanted to make a move or how badly Luke wanted to help him, right at the moment the lawman had little choice but to hold tight to the cover of his boulder. There was simply too much open space between where he was and the base of the high rocks for him to attempt getting in any closer. To try would be suicide.

  If that wasn’t enough, another taunting voice called down. It came from the ambusher located off to the west. “Hey, Marshal! That kid with the wounded daddy ain’t telling you the whole story! Ask him about your other posse man over that way—the big fella whose horse I shot out from under him. Either I got him, too, or maybe he busted his leg or something in the fall. He did an awful lot of flopping around to get in behind a boulder and then he ain’t done much of nothing since.”

  “What’s he talking about, Keith?” Burnett called to young Mason. “Is Swede okay? Can you see him?”

  “I can see him, yeah. It looks like he’s hurt, but I . . . I can’t tell how bad,” Keith called back. “I can make out he’s breathing, but he’s not moving. I don’t see no blood or nothing, though.”

  “Whooee, Mister Marshal,” crowed the first ambusher, calling down again. “Things are really goin’ to hell for you, ain’t they? What’s left of your horses all scattered to Hades and gone, three of your men down—one plumb dead, two others on the way . . . Oh yeah, and the town you’re supposed to protect? Robbed clean and left behind in a pile of ashes. Appears to me, Mister Marshal, sir, you ain’t worth a damn at your job.”

  “You cowardly scum! You wouldn’t dare talk so bold if you had the courage to come out and face us!”

  This response came not from Burnett, but rather from Russell Quaid. And then, to the shock and surprise of everyone, he followed it up a moment later by bursting out from behind his boulder and racing full out toward the base of the eastern butte. He leaned forward as he ran, his head and shoulders hunched down, Henry rifle clutched in his left hand while his right arm was raised high as he triggered shots blindly up in the direction of the ambushers. Stunned into only a fraction of a second’s hesitation, Burnett, Luke, Hennesy, and Keith Mason began providing him cover by unloosing a rapid-fire barrage at the raiders on the jagged rim who were trying to fix their sights on Russell’s daring dash.

  The ambushers managed to get off just a handful of shots before they were driven back from the rim by the fierce hail of lead pouring up at them. One of the men on the eastern butte held his ground a moment too long, however, and paid for it by taking a slug at an upward angle just above his Adam’s apple. This caused his head to snap back like it was on a hinge, even as his knees buckled and the rest of his body sagged forward. With the bullet exiting the top of his head and his hat sailing in a spray of gore and skull fragments, he dropped over the edge and fell limply, soundlessly to the rubble below.

  The stricken raider hit the ground at nearly the same second Russell reached the base of the butte, throwing himself safely in behind a fingerlike extension of rock fifteen yards to the west of Luke’s position.

  The latter recognized the accomplishment of the young man, especially combined with the elimination of one of the ambushers, as a tide-turning development. Though all he could do was fire blindly up at the rim where he saw powder smoke, blasting away chunks of rock to make it hot for the shooters there, Luke lacked even a glimpse of a true target. It was time, he decided, to move to a spot where he would have a chance at an actual target.

  Motioning for Burnett and the others, including Russell, to cover him during another brief lull in the gunfire as the ambushers took time to reload and possibly reconsider how to proceed in light of losing one of their number, Luke darted out of the seam into which he was lodged and ran west toward the gap between the two buttes. He stayed tight against the flat face of rock, clambering over fallen rubble. In order to move faster and quieter, he left behind his somewhat cumbersome rifle, making his left hand free to grab and help balance while he brandished a Remington in his right.

  The gunfire started up again, lead burning the air, flying back and forth between the ambushers and the posse men. The rider up on the western butte was in the best position to spot and try to halt the break Luke was making. But he still had to lean out and dangerously expose himself in order to do so. In desperation, he made one attempt, his hurried shot smacking nothing but rock a foot above Luke’s head before cover fire from Russell and Keith Mason drove the man back. A second later, Luke was ducking into the gap between the two buttes.

  Higher up, the opening was maybe ten or twelve feet across. But at ground level it was barely wide enough to accommodate the span of Luke’s shoulders, largely because it was filled with gravel and pieces of rock fallen from above. For a second, Luke feared that his plan to pass through the gap and work his way up one of the buttes from the back side might be blocked. But he was determined. He might make it through by climbing and shoving aside some of the smaller toppled boulders.

  The challenge then became the speed with which he would be able to do so. Since at least one of the ambushers, the man on the western rim, knew he had made it to the gap, there wasn’t much doubt the man would shift his position to make good on his attempt to stop whatever Luke was up to. If the gunman made it to the lip of the gap, back away from the front face of the butte, he would be out of sight of Burnett and the others, making it near impossible for them to threaten him with cover fire for Luke. If the outlaw got in position before Luke made it all the way through the gap, the black-clad bounty hunter would be trapped like a fish in a barrel.

  Realizing this, Luke clambered and scrambled frantically over the jumble of rocks that blocked his way. He’d pouched his Remington and was clawing and pitching aside broken, ragged-edged chunks with both hands as he fought his way forward. Sweat stung his eyes and dust filled his mouth with bitter grit.

  He didn’t take time to look upward. If one of the ambushers appeared above him, he’d know it soon enough by the bullet plowing into him. That itch he’d felt between his shoulder blades upon first sighting the wedge of rocks was there again, stronger than ever. But he didn’t allow himself to worry about it. He concentrated everything on clawing his way over the rubble and through the gap.

  Not far ahead he could see the opening start to widen as the back sides of the buttes tapered off in contrast to their high, flat faces. The lack of tall sides signaled a diminished amount of fallen rubble. The pieces of rock Luke was shoving away were becoming smaller and the heap of gravel his feet were churning over began to slope away and down. He was almost through! Only a few more feet . . .

  A dribble of small stones and fresh gravel dropping from above was Luke’s only warning. He knew he had little or no chance. Those falling pebbles could only mean an ambusher was on the rim above, leaning over, taking aim.

  Luke Jensen wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He shoved himself back and to the right, twisting his upper body onto his shoulders as his left hand clawed for the Remington holstered on that side. His fingers wrapped around the grips, but before he could perform one of the lightning draws that seldom failed him, a rifle crack filled the gap and a slug punched down and struck Luke’s shoulder. His fingers spasmed, losing their grip on the Remington.

  And then, only a second later, a rifle cracked again, the sharp report interrupting the flat, dull echo of the first.

  Luke flinched, expecting the impact of another bullet, truer this time, probably fatal. But none came. What came instead was a Winchester rifle falling as if from the s
ky and clattering onto the rocks only a couple of feet from where Luke lay.

  For the first time, he got a clear look upward. He saw the head and limp arm of a man dangling over the butte edge directly above him.

  Swinging his gaze back down, his eyes came to rest on a second shape—Russell Quaid—kneeling in a shooter’s crouch at the mouth of the gap. Russell’s Henry rifle was angled upward in the direction of the dead man on the rim above, a haze of bluish powder smoke still encircling his lean face and the anxious expression it wore.

  Chapter 25

  “When I realized what you were up to,” Russell said in a rush, as soon as he’d worked his way in to where Luke was, “I also realized that if one of the ambushers got above you before you made it through the gap, you could be in serious trouble. So I hurried low across the face of the butte, just as you’d done, and tried to get here in time to cover you. I’m sorry I didn’t quite make it before that snake got off his shot.”

  “No need to apologize, kid. You saved my bacon,” Luke told him. By then the black-clad bounty hunter had pushed himself to a sitting position, slightly favoring his left arm.

  “How bad are you hurt?” Russell wanted to know.

  “Not very,” Luke answered. “The slug only creased the corner of my shoulder. Tore through some meat, but missed the bone. I’ll be sore and stiff for a couple of days, nothing worse.”

  “You’re losing blood, though.”

  “Not enough to worry about right now. First things first, and that means circling around on that remaining ambusher before he shows up while we’re still in this box. From the sound of it, he’s still busy with the fellas out front and maybe hasn’t even realized he lost another partner.”

  While they’d been talking, sporadic gunfire had continued between the raider up on the eastern butte and Burnett and the others down behind the outlying boulders.

  “Come on. Follow me,” Luke said, shoving once more into motion. “Keep a few yards’ distance between us, though. And listen for a change in the pattern of the gunfire from above that might signal the varmint up there is turning his attention our way.”

  Russell nodded silently and fell in step behind Luke. In a matter of minutes, they were out of the gap and circling around to the sloping back side of the eastern butte. As they paused there momentarily, scanning the rocky slope for a good point of ascension, the lone ambusher’s shooting faltered and they heard him call out, “Palmer! Where you at, Palmer? You hurt?”

  It was clear that the lone remaining raider had realized there were no more shots coming from atop the western butte. The slight crack in his voice as he issued the last of his words indicated recognition was also setting in that he might suddenly be on his own.

  Motioning for Russell to find cover and crouch down, even as he did so himself, Luke craned his neck and called up in a loud voice, “You’re damned right he’s hurt. Your partner’s hurt permanentlike. You’re on your own and you’re surrounded! Your only chance is to give it up or end up like the other two skunks who started out with you!”

  “To hell with you!” came the voice from above. “I ain’t givin’ up to no bunch of posse hounds. You’ll just plug me the minute I step in the clear anyway— so I might as well go out takin’ a couple more of you with me!”

  “Have it your way,” Luke responded. “We’ll be happy to burn the cartridges on you, but if you’ve got a lick of sense and you stop to think a minute, you ought to see you’ve got a bargaining chip that could help keep you alive.”

  “To hell with you!” the lone raider hollered again. “I don’t make bargains with posse hounds. How crazy would it make me to ever consider trustin’ you?”

  Faintly, from the front side of the butte, came Burnett’s voice. “Let the stubborn bastard do what he wants, Jensen! I got no stomach for bargaining with the likes of him in the first place. But I’ve got a powerful appetite for burnin’ him down in his tracks!”

  Luke couldn’t be sure, but he suspected the marshal was going along with his ploy and trying to add pressure on the raider by pretending not to be willing to make some kind of deal. Either way, it was time to make it clear to everybody just what Luke had in mind as far as a bargain that could prove beneficial.

  “What I’m thinking,” he called loudly, “is that if we take this owlhoot alive, he might be willing to save his skin by telling us where the rest of the Legion of Fire is headed and how we can get there.”

  Before Burnett could say anything, the raider responded. “Oh yeah, that’s a deal I’m really gonna jump at,” he said sarcastically. “I tell you where to find Kelson and the Legion and then you burn me down in my tracks! Here’s what I’ll tell you instead—how far up you can stick an offer like that!”

  “There’s your answer, Jensen,” Burnett called. “I say we give the mouthy piece of vermin exactly what he’s asking for—nothing but lead and plenty of it!”

  “You’re the marshal,” Luke replied, wanting to reinforce that fact with the raider. “You make the decision, the rest of us will be obliged to follow your lead.”

  Abruptly, the raider showed signs of changing his tune a little. “Wait a minute . . . just wait a minute.” Then, addressing strictly Burnett, he said, “If you’re a for-real marshal, you can’t allow nobody goin’ against the law by shootin’ another body down in cold blood. Ain’t that right?”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Burnett allowed. “But you’ve got to remember that I’m a long way out of my jurisdiction. Way I see it, that sort of leaves me quite a bit of leeway.”

  Luke smiled wryly. He was certain Burnett saw the value in trying to take this skunk alive but was playing his part just to add pressure and make the man squirm.

  “Now hold on a minute!” the raider protested. “You swore an oath or some such, didn’t you? Don’t that make you bound to it, no matter where you’re at?”

  “Way I remember it, what I swore an oath to was to rid the state of scum and lowlifes like you,” Burnett told him. “But that was quite a while ago. Thinking back, I’m sorta fuzzy on all the rules and particulars I’m supposed to follow.”

  “Aw, come on now! That can’t be so,” the raider said, his voice growing more desperate. “If I was to consider a bargain like this other fella—Jensen, is it?—was suggestin’, you’d be bound to not only spare me but to protect me from Sam Kelson. Ain’t that right? Anybody crosses Sam Kelson, they’re markin’ themselves for a terrible death as payback, and that’s for certain. I’d have to have a promise of protection from that if I was to consider takin’ a deal.”

  Burnett’s voice took on a hard edge that was no part of any act. “Where I intend to send Sam Kelson when I catch up with him, he’ll be long past delivering payback to anybody.”

  A long, tense quiet followed, except for the low moan of the wind that had turned inconsequential during all the gunfire but reaffirmed its presence like a cold sigh passing over the jagged rocks.

  Finally, the raider spoke again. “If I just tell you where to find Kelson and the rest of the Legion, I ain’t convinced I can trust you not to kill me after you get what you want. And neither could you be sure I was tellin’ you straight. But if you spare me and let me lead you to ’em, then I’ll know you’ll have to keep me alive and you’ll know I’m not steering you false. Is that a bargain you’re willin’ to make?”

  Luke gave a faint, involuntarily nod, grudgingly acknowledging the man’s craftiness. Fact was, the terms he was suggesting made the most sense for both sides. But Luke made no comment, leaving the final say up to Burnett.

  After some consideration, however, the marshal tossed it right back. “What do you think, Jensen? You want to give it a try that way?”

  Luke made no pretense of having to think it over. “Sounds reasonable to me. I say yes. All he needs to do to seal the deal is throw down his guns and then show himself with raised hands. Russell and I have his way down covered here on the back side. We’ll have two guns trained on him the whol
e way.”

  “You heard it plain, hombre,” Burnett called. “If you’re ready to go through with it, just do like the man said. And make sure you do exactly like he said. You heard the part about the two guns that’ll be trained on you. Any funny business, guaranteed they’ll do more than just point at you.”

  “I got the message clear, Marshal,” replied the man atop the butte. “Here come my guns . . .”

  There was a moment of silence, at least from where Luke and Russell were positioned.

  Than Burnett called, “Okay, he’s thrown his rifle and handgun over the edge on this side. He’s turning and heading your way.”

  Out the corner of his mouth, Luke said, “Stay sharp and behind some cover, kid. As soon as he shows, set your gunsights on him and never take ’em off. Watch for any tricks.”

  Following his own advice, Luke resumed his crouch behind a large split boulder. Both Remingtons were drawn and held at the ready. Ten yards to his left, Russell crouched in a similar fashion with his Henry angled expectantly upward.

  It took a minute, but then the lone ambusher appeared at the top of the slope and began making his way down from the crown of the butte. He was a sandy-haired man of medium height and build, thirtyish, dressed in standard trail clothes showing the dust and wear of considerable miles. For the most part he held his hands at shoulder height but, as he ascended the rugged, uneven slope, now and then he had to suddenly thrust out one arm or the other in order to balance himself when his feet skidded on loose gravel. Each time this happened, his hand quickly snapped back to its raised position as soon as he’d righted himself. The gun muzzles of Luke and Russell never wavered as the man steadily, carefully worked his way down.

  When he had only a few yards to go, the ambusher’s feet hit a jumble of melon-sized rocks that suddenly broke loose from the bed of soft, sandy soil into which they’d been shallowly lodged. The man’s feet went out from under him and he landed on his rump. At the same time, the loosened rocks spilled down, taking more rocks with them and creating a minor slide that carried the ambusher with it for six or eight feet. Some of the rocks from the slide bounded out ahead and came clattering close to Luke and Russell. For a moment, as they were being pelted by these bits of debris, their attention was diverted from staying strictly focused on the skidding, struggling ambusher.