Hired Guns Read online

  “But what other direction are they going to go?” Pettigrew asked. “We’ve already ruled out them trying to cross the badlands. And if they all of a sudden swing west, they’re going to run smack into the Flathead Mountains. The only thing that leaves, short of turning around and going back home, is to continue on south . . . don’t it?”

  “Be nice to think they’d do that—turn around and go home,” Eagle said somewhat wistfully. “But I can’t see that happenin’. Leastways not yet. They’ve got their minds made up and they’re plowin’ ahead real determined-like. Take a lot more time or miles, I think, for them to get discouraged enough to turn back.”

  “So that goes right back to them sticking with south and us being able to count on it. Certainly as far as Balfour Gap,” said Barlow. “Getting off the main trail to Helena might be open to them after that, but I can’t think of anything that’d make sense before then. And if we ride hard and they keep picking their way over rough ground, trying to fool us, we surely ought to be able to beat them to the gap.”

  “What’s this Balfour Gap?” Luke wanted to know.

  “Basically, it marks the southern edge of our valley,” Eagle explained. “It’s where the badlands reach in the farthest on one side, before they start to taper off altogether, and where some long fingers of heavily forested ridges and hills stretch out from the Flatheads off to the west. The gap, as the name says, is an opening in between that has become heavily used as part of the main route for freighting ore and travel in general. You must have come through it on your way here.”

  Luke nodded, vaguely remembering an area that fit the description. “Like Barlow says, then, it seems pretty likely that’s where Belinda and Heath are headed.”

  “I guess so,” Eagle said somewhat reluctantly. “The only possible wrinkle might be—since Heath is so bent on throwing us off—if they didn’t actually use the gap. Those wooded ridges to the west are passable, it’s just that they’re obviously harder to go over than usin’ the flat, open gap. Was I in the position of those kids, though, thinkin’ somebody was on my tail, that’s exactly the way I’d do it. Once over those ridges, then they’d have a fair amount of other options that could keep them totally off the main trail.”

  Luke studied him, one eyebrow lifting. “You almost sound like you’re starting to pull for those kids.”

  Some deepened color crept up Eagle’s neck. “That’s ridiculous. Why would I be pullin’ for my daughter to make good on runnin’ away? She’s lucky she’s past the age for a good old-fashioned spankin’ when I do catch up with her. In the meantime . . . Okay, doggone it, I’ll admit that the spunk and determination those two are showin’ is . . . well, I kinda admire it. But that don’t mean I intend to hold off runnin’ ’em down. For their own safety, we have to keep in mind, as much as anything.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Luke. “And something else you might want to keep in mind is that when we do catch up with them and you get them back home, in addition to being too old to spank, maybe it’s time to start realizing that your daughter is grown up in other ways as well.”

  “Maybe so. But comin’ to grips with that is gonna be a lot harder than trackin’ her down, I can tell you that,” Eagle muttered.

  “Yeah, and I reckon I got some new feelin’s to come to grips with, too, where my boy is concerned,” admitted Pettigrew. “But before we’re faced with dealing with any of that—”

  His words were cut off by a sudden onslaught of sounds that were far too familiar to Luke. The wind-rip of bullets slicing close through the air was unmistakable once you’d heard it, and it was something Luke had heard too many times. It was unsettling enough on its own, but what was even worse was the accompanying thud of slugs striking meat and bone. Suddenly, both of those sounds were taking place all about them as a volley of lead came pouring down on the four men. The boom of distant rifles followed belatedly but by then the horses were already shrieking and rearing up in panic and trying to twist away as bullets pounded into them.

  Eagle’s mount crumpled under him and the half-breed barely managed to kick out of his stirrups and roll free to keep from getting pinned. Barlow, the best horseman of the group, sprang nimbly clear of his bay as soon as he felt the animal jerk and start to go down from the rounds striking it. Pettigrew went toppling off the back of his horse as the animal reared wildly and tried to bolt as slugs slammed into its shoulder and neck. It was able to lunge for one or two long strides before its legs buckled completely and it crashed heavily to the ground.

  As the only one not in his saddle, Luke immediately let go of the paint’s reins and, seeing what was happening, swatted it away with his hat. “Run! Git!” he shouted. The paint wheeled and sprang off. As far as Luke could tell, it escaped being hit. He had only a fraction of a second to make that assessment, however, before he was turning in a spin of his own and then diving to the ground, scrambling to get in behind some of the larger rocks strewn along this outer edge of the badlands. As he did so, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye from the other three, causing him to shout again, “Stay low! Find cover!”

  Chapter 25

  From behind a fringe of thick grass topping a low hill some two hundred yards west of the four trackers, Hacksaw Ferris called for a halt to the shooting. “Hold it! Hold your fire. We did what we needed to, we’ve got ’em set afoot. They got nowhere to go and no way to get there. We can take our time finishin’ ’em.”

  Along the crest of the hill to either side of Ferris, the seven men accompanying him did as he’d ordered and quit triggering their rifles. Immediately to Ferris’s right, Dog DeMarist cackled gleefully.

  “Ain’t you glad you listened to my idea about making a sweep across the valley north of town, looking for sign of that Jensen varmint in case he wasn’t so quick to take off south like you figured? Paid off pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I got to hand it to you, it sure did,” Ferris allowed. “We not only ran across Jensen but we caught him in the company of that blasted Tom Eagle. There’s a double stroke of luck I never would have counted on in a month of Sundays! How they hooked up together, I don’t know.”

  “What about the other two with ’em? You recognize them?”

  “One of’em I think I recognized as the gimp who used to be the town blacksmith. The other was one of the ranchers or farmers I thought we ran off. But it don’t matter. Whoever they are, it’s too bad for ’em they threw in with Eagle and Jensen.”

  “Bad for them but plenty good for us,” DeMarist crowed. “Only why ain’t the curs even botherin’ to shoot back?”

  “Because now that we’ve ceased fire, they got nothing to shoot at and they’re too smart to burn up ammunition with no glimpse of a target,” Ferris answered. “Make sure everybody keeps their head down, though, ’cause I’m sure they’re itchin’ to take a shot if they do get a target.”

  Stretched out on his belly beside Ferris, DeMarist was a long, lean individual dressed in a buckskin shirt and striped pants tucked into high boots. The planes of his narrow face all angled forward in a kind of wedge that ended on an oversized hook nose with a small slash of a mouth below it and beady eyes set too close on either side. Underneath his weak, backward-sloping chin, in the center of his scrawny neck, was a lump of Adam’s apple almost as big as his nose.

  To the other side of Ferris, one of the commandeered miners, a man in a black and red plaid cap, said, “I think I also caught a piece of one of the men—the husky one who fell backward off his horse when the animal was taking its own bullets.”

  “Just as long as nobody hit the hombre in black. I told you all how we got to take him alive,” Ferris was quick to caution. And then, after a moment’s consideration, he added, “Come to think of it, it would suit me right down to the ground if we could take that ’breed alive, too. After all the aggravation he’s caused and the ways he’s made us look foolish over these past couple months, I got some personal reasons for wantin’ to have a little fun with that buck befo
re he dies. Just snuffin’ his wick out with a bullet would be too quick and easy on him.”

  DeMarist cackled again. “Puttin’ an Injun through some torment before you do him in, I like the sound of that. Everybody knows how plenty of good white men was put through hell by red devils like him before they was finally allowed to die.”

  “That’s ancient history. I’d be doin’ this strictly for myself,” Ferris said through gritted teeth. “But before we get to countin’ our chickens, let’s remember we still got some moppin’ up to do. Both Jensen and Eagle have proved themselves pretty slick in the past, and I don’t aim to let either of ’em slip through my fingers again.”

  “Whatcha got in mind?” DeMarist wanted to know.

  Without answering him, Ferris turned to the man in the plaid cap. “Nils, who would you say is the best rider in this bunch of fellas Mace Vernon lent to me?”

  “That’s easy. Ol’ Tucker right here next to me. He used to be a bronc stomper all down through Wyoming and Nebraska.”

  Ferris craned his neck and called to Tucker, a grizzled, gray-whiskered old gent in a slouch hat. “Tucker, you know how to find Balfour Gap?”

  “Reckon I do, yeah,” came the answer.

  “Good. I want you to slide back to where we left our horses, grab a good one, and hightail it as hard as you can ride to the gap. You’ll find some more of my men waitin’ there. One of ’em’s named Paul Grimsby, good-sized fella with bushy white sideburns.”

  “I know Grimsby.”

  “Tell him we got both Tom Eagle and Luke Jensen pinned down and I want all the guns I can get to help flush ’em out and make sure nobody squirts away from us. You got that?”

  “Easy enough.”

  “Hop to it, then. Pound out there as hard as you can, bring ’em back here on the double.”

  Tucker snapped a quick nod and slipped away wordlessly.

  When he was gone, DeMarist said, “Is that it? We gonna just wait here until Grimsby and the others show up?”

  “Not quite,” answered Ferris. He turned again to the plaid-capped man on the other side of him. “Nils, how good a shot are you?”

  “Above average, I’d say,” came the reply. “I grew up in the Wisconsin jack pines shooting squirrels with my grandpa’s old muzzleloader. These newer repeating rifles”—his eyes flicked momentarily to the Winchester in his hands—“are more accurate and give you more rounds to throw. Fella’d have to be pretty poor not to bring down what he set a bead on with one of these.”

  “Who’s another good shot from the other men with us?”

  Nils looked thoughtful for a moment. “Don’t exactly know about everybody. Shooting isn’t something we usually have need or time for back at the Gold Button. But young Smiley Buchner, down there on the end, I do know that he goes out for fresh meat every now and then and never comes back with an empty game sack.”

  Ferris called down the line and summoned Buchner. He came slipping along the rear of the other men, showing himself to be a twenty-year-old of average build with lank, straw-colored hair, pock-marked cheeks from childhood measles, and a very earnest expression. When he dropped into place so that he, Ferris, DeMarist, and Nils were grouped close together, making sure to keep back from the crest of the hill, Ferris explained what he had in mind.

  “We got those troublemakin’ rascals pinned down good,” he said. “With no horses to try and ride clear on and us holdin’ the front door shut with lead, the only chance they got to get away is to snake backwards into the badlands. I don’t think they’re gonna be in a hurry to try that, but before too long I figure they might see it as their only way. Short of surrenderin’ to us, that is—which I can pretty much guarantee they ain’t gonna be willin’ to do.”

  “We keep ’em pinned down long enough for ’em to start gettin’ hungry and thirsty,” DeMarist said, “their willpower might weaken considerable.”

  Ferris shook his head. “No, I don’t see ’em waitin’ that long before they try the back door. I don’t want to drag it out that long myself.” He swept his eyes over Nils and Buchner. “That’s why I want you two to hold here and keep poppin’ to make it hard for ’em to move. Don’t pour it on too steady, but enough so’s they know you’re here. And keep shiftin’ back and forth along this crest to try and make ’em think there’s more than just two of you.”

  As the two miners nodded, DeMarist said, “What are the rest of us gonna be doin’?”

  “Like I said, I don’t aim to drag this out any longer than necessary,” Ferris told him. “That’s why the rest of us are gonna drift back a ways. Then, you take two men with you to the south and I’ll take the remainin’ man with me to the north, and we’ll swing out wide until we reach spots where we make our own way into those badlands. That way, whether they stay where they are or try to snake out the back, we’ll be able to tighten in on ’em!”

  “I like it!” exclaimed DeMarist.

  Ferris grunted. “Whether you do or don’t, that’s the way it’s gonna be. Spread the word for the others to get ready to move out. Tell ’em we’ll be leavin’ our horses behind. The clop of a horse’s hooves in all those rocks would announce us about like a marchin’ band. Gather up any extra cartridges you can, so we can be sure to leave these two boys with plenty. But before you do that, hold on a minute. I’m gonna call out to them jaspers, give them a chance to surrender. I know they won’t, but I want to let ’em know who and what they’re up against. Let it work on their minds as the mornin’ ticks on, make ’em think we’re fixin’ to just wait ’em out.”

  While the others eyed him, Ferris hitched up a little closer to the crest and hollered out, “Hey down there! Jensen! Eagle! I don’t know how you two managed to hook up, but if you thought it was gonna bring either of you any luck, it sorta backfired, didn’t it? I want to thank you, though, for bein’ so obligin’ to me. Instead of havin’ to chase down the two of you separate, I got you both bottled up tidy as can be!”

  There was a slight pause before Tom Eagle’s voice called back. “Is that you, Hacksaw?”

  “You know good and well it is, ’breed! It was just a matter of time before your sneaky hit-and-run games backfired on you, just like all the other stupid Injuns.”

  “Nothing’s over ’til it’s over, you blowhard bag of guts!” Eagle sneered. “You say you got us bottled up? Whyn’t you come on down and have a sip out of our bottle, see how the taste suits you?”

  Ferris gave a nasty snort. “I’ll be down in due time, don’t you worry. I’m gonna let you and the others simmer for a while as all those bare rocks you’re nestled in start to heat up. With your horses dead or gone and a dozen guns trained on your little hidey holes, just hopin’ for an obligin’ head to pop up, you sure ain’t goin’ nowhere. Unless, that is, you’re willin’ to show some smarts for a change and do this the easy way. Toss out your guns, step forward with your hands raised, and it can all be over painless-like.”

  “Yeah. Painless except for the bullets waitin’ for us.”

  “Aw, ’breed, you got no imagination,” Ferris clucked. “I wouldn’t ask these fine fellas to gun you down in cold blood and have that on their consciences for the rest of their days. For you, especially, I look forward to a little time just the two of us. And as for your new pal Jensen, he ought to have it figured out by now that Mr. Dixon wants him alive—at least until Mr. Dixon has a chance to spend his own brand of time with the man in black.”

  A new voice, Jensen’s, called back. “That sounds real inviting. Bring your Mr. Dixon on down here. I would very much enjoy a conversation with him!”

  “Enough of this!” Ferris spat. “Be stubborn, the both of you. I expected nothing less, but I gave you your chance. So stay there, enjoy a few hours bakin’ in the sun. We’ll see if you sing a different tune after all the sweat is boiled out of you and your dried-out tongues are swollen in your mouths!”

  Edging back once more from the crest of the hill, Ferris motioned to DeMarist. “Go ahead, get the other men
ready and scare up some spare cartridges for these two, like I said before.”

  As DeMarist peeled off to do as bidden, Ferris again focused on Nils and Buchner. “Okay, I’m countin’ on you two fellas. Mainly remember to keep your heads down and not to shoot that hombre in black. Also, in case something starts to get out of hand somehow, I want you to fire off five rapid-fire shots. Then reload as quick as you can and fire off five more the same way. That’ll be a signal to me and the others that you’re in trouble and we’ll quick-like double back this way. Got it?”

  Young Buchner’s head bobbed again. “We got it, sir. We’ll hold here and give you all the time you need to do what you have to out there.”

  Ferris scowled. “If Tucker makes it back with Grimsby and the other men, do the same thing but in a series of only three shots. That’ll let me know they’re here and, depending how things stand out there in the rough, how I’ll want to respond. When Grimsby gets here, tell him to just hold on until he gets some kind of signal from me.”

  Chapter 26

  Luke Jensen swore under his breath. He was blasted sick of being ambushed and, as a result, forced to eat dust and crawl on the ground behind rocks like some kind of lizard!

  On the other hand, the calmer portion of his brain reminded him, such activity, unpleasant though it might be, was definitely preferable to being successfully ambushed and dropped into a puddle of his own blood.

  “Okay, what’s our situation—anybody hit?”

  The question came from Tom Eagle after things quieted down following the exchange with Hacksaw Ferris. Instead of scrambling to the rocks, Tom had rolled in tight behind the carcass of his fallen horse.

  “I’m okay, just scraped up a bit,” answered Luke.

  “Same for me,” spoke up Barlow.

  After a slight pause, Pettigrew responded, “I’m okay, too, but a slug from those dirty bushwhackers did manage to find me.”