Slaughter Read online

  The canyon began to widen again. Within a few hundred yards, it had spread out until it was a quarter of a mile across. It was a box canyon, though, Frank realized, ending in a fifty-foot-tall stone wall that completely enclosed the large, parklike area.

  He crouched in some brush to study the hideout. A couple of crude log cabins were next to the far wall, which thrust out enough so that its overhang created a cave of sorts underneath it.

  That was where a large campfire was located. The rock ceiling deflected and dispersed the smoke from the fire, making the hideout even more difficult to find.

  A pole corral for the gang’s horses had been thrown up near the cabins. For water, a little stream trickled out of the rock wall, ran across the clearing for a couple of hundred yards, and ended in a small pond.

  About fifty head of cattle grazed along the banks of the tiny creek. Those were the only cows Frank saw.

  He knew that more than that had been rustled from the ranchers in the valley, so he figured the others had already been sold off. The little jag being held here now would be the spoils from the gang’s most recent raid.

  Frank tried to count the horses in the corral, but could only estimate them as being between thirty and forty. Even assuming that some of the men might have more than one mount, that meant the gang was pretty big.

  Somebody had to be paying out a considerable amount of money to hire these hardcases. That meant the stakes they were playing for in the valley had to be high.

  A few men were moving around the cabins. At this distance, Frank couldn’t see them well enough to recognize any of them, but he knew their breed. Hard-bitten killers whose guns were for sale to the highest bidder . . . the sort of men that all too many people took him to be when all they knew about him was his unasked-for reputation.

  He had what he needed—the location of the hideout and proof that these men were really the ones causing the trouble in the San Fernando Valley. The county sheriff might not want to accept Frank’s word for it, but Stafford ought to be able to push the man into bringing a posse out here to see for himself, Frank thought.

  It was time now to get back to Goldy and head for Los Angeles.

  Frank cast a glance at the sky above the canyon and realized that the sun was no longer visible. It had dropped down below the walls of the canyon and shadows had already begun to gather.

  Night would come on quickly now. Frank didn’t mind because the gloom would help him get past the guard without being spotted. He turned to head in that direction.

  Loud voices stopped him. More men were coming out of the cabins now, he saw as he swung back around. They headed for the corral and began cutting out and saddling horses.

  Frank stiffened and crouched lower in the brush. The gang was about to pull out. Not for good obviously, because those rustled cattle were still here.

  But the fact that they were saddling up to leave didn’t bode well. They were probably headed out to raise more hell in the valley. Frank had already figured out from the violence of the past two days that things were starting to rush to a conclusion, possibly because his own presence had spooked the mastermind into speeding up the plan.

  So even though the gang had already caused that ruckus between Magnusson’s men and the Salida del Sol crew, now they were setting out on more deadly mischief.

  And the only thing between them and whatever they had planned was The Drifter.

  Chapter 25

  For a moment, Frank considered opening up on the men with his Winchester as they rode past him. Even in the fading light, he was confident that he could drop half a dozen of them before they knew what was going on.

  But then the rest of the gang would charge him, and even though he knew he would be able to kill several more of them, the survivors would gun him down. He wouldn’t be able to cut their numbers by more than half, if that much.

  That wasn’t worth trading his life for, even though it went against the grain for him to lay low and avoid trouble. He could do more good by biding his time and hoping to bring the whole gang to justice later.

  The question now, he thought as approximately twenty-five men thundered past him on horseback, was whether any of them would spot Goldy and Dog near the entrance to the canyon. If they did, they were likely to realize that someone was scouting for their hideout, and they might just turn around, figuring that they had the interloper trapped in the box canyon.

  Which, of course, was the truth. If that happened, Frank would have no choice but take as many of the bastards with him as he could.

  But he had run head-on into trouble too many times in his life to go borrowing any extra. He stayed where he was in the brush, watching the hardcases ride by in the fading light.

  It didn’t take long. Frank heard someone call out a farewell to the sentry, who was evidently going to remain on duty in the canyon, as they went past that spot.

  Then they reached the canyon mouth and disappeared as they veered away from the opening, leaving nothing behind but a slight haze of dust that blew away quickly in the twilight breeze.

  Frank waited as the rumble of hoofbeats faded. Finally, he couldn’t hear them anymore. That meant the gunmen hadn’t spotted Goldy and grown suspicious.

  The only obstacle Frank had to avoid now was the guard. He was sure he could handle one man if he needed to, but he didn’t want anything to alert the gang that their hideout had been discovered. They would jump to that conclusion if they came back and found the guard missing or dead.

  With the same sort of stealth that had carried him into the canyon, Frank catfooted his way back out. The guard was singing softly to himself this time as Frank crept along beneath him. Frank couldn’t help but grin as he listened to the bawdy lyrics about a saloon girl and a camp full of miners. This fella was one of the worst sentries he’d ever run into.

  At least some of the outlaws were tough and smart, though. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to get away with their deviltry for as long as they had.

  Frank trotted out of the canyon a couple of minutes later, and headed toward the spot where he’d left Goldy. The big stallion nickered a soft greeting as Frank approached. Dog came out of the shadows, too, to nuzzle Frank’s hand.

  “You critters did a good job of staying out of sight,” Frank told the animals as he slid the Winchester back into its sheath. He jerked the reins loose from the sapling and swung up into the saddle. “The night’s work isn’t over, though.”

  He wasn’t sure where the outlaws had gone, and it was already too dark to trail them. Once the moon rose, there might be enough light to spot some tracks, but Frank didn’t want to wait that long.

  He rode through the foothills, and then headed straight across the valley instead, toward Salida del Sol. Most of the trouble seemed to revolve around Señora Montero’s ranch, so Frank figured it was a good bet that would hold true tonight, too.

  Leaning forward in the saddle, he urged Goldy into a run. Would the outlaws attack the ranch two nights in a row?

  Anything was possible, but it seemed unlikely to Frank. After the raid the previous night, Pete Linderman and the rest of the crew would be alert for more trouble. The gunmen had to know that.

  Maybe this time the strike would be directed at Magnusson’s oil wells. The gang probably wasn’t aware yet that Frank had figured out what was going on and had persuaded the two sides to call a truce. If they attacked the wells on horseback, yelling and whooping, they would figure that Magnusson was likely to blame the ranchers.

  That tactic had been working so far, but Frank was determined that it wouldn’t again.

  The last crimson vestiges of sunset had faded from the western sky by the time Frank reached Montero range. The stars were out, pinpricks of light against a sable backdrop, but the moon had not yet risen. Thick black shadows cloaked the landscape.

  He reined Goldy to a halt and listened intently, searching the night for gunfire or any other sounds that were out of place. He heard the distant clank and clatt
er of drilling rigs, but that was all.

  Moving at a slower pace and letting the sounds guide him, Frank rode toward the wells. He didn’t know if he would find Magnusson at one of the rigs, or if the oilman had gone back to the rented mansion in Los Angeles. Either way, he intended to warn the drillers that they might be in for trouble tonight.

  Frank figured he was still half a mile or so from the cluster of wells where the battle had taken place earlier in the day when he heard a sudden flurry of shots. He wasn’t given to profanity, but he bit back a curse now.

  The hired killers had had too big a lead on him. They had gotten here first and launched their attack, just as he had suspected they would.

  Frank heeled Goldy into a run now that he knew where hell was a-poppin’ tonight. He pulled his rifle from the saddle boot as he leaned forward in the leather.

  As Goldy pounded around a curve in the trail, Frank spotted spurts of muzzle flame in the darkness up ahead. He pulled the stallion to a stop long enough to study the situation for a moment, trying to trace the movements of the outlaws by following the muzzle flashes from their guns.

  It appeared that the gang had the wells, the sheds, and the oil storage tank surrounded. They were riding around the place like Indians ringing a circled wagon train, back in those savage days that didn’t seem all that long ago to Frank. Guns roared as they poured lead in on the defenders.

  Their marksmanship couldn’t be that accurate, though, not with them firing from the backs of running horses in bad light. They were just trying to keep the drillers pinned down, Frank realized, while they worked their way close enough to do something else.

  Frank didn’t know what that something else might be, but he was sure of one thing.

  It wouldn’t be anything good.

  “Dog, stay!” he snapped. He didn’t want the big cur following him where he was going, right into that storm of lead. There was too great a chance that Dog would get hit by a stray bullet. Goldy would have to run the risk of that, as would Frank himself, because there was no way he could reach the wells otherwise.

  He didn’t know if one more defender would make a difference, but he intended to find out. He wanted to know if Magnusson was there, too.

  And on the way in, he would do as much damage to the gang as he could.

  As he rode closer, he picked out the muzzle flashes that came from the sheds and the derricks as the drillers tried to defend themselves. They were outnumbered and outgunned, though, and despite being bruisers who could handle themselves just fine in any sort of hand-to-hand brawl, they probably weren’t any match for the deadly skill of gun-wolves like the men they faced tonight.

  The Drifter was, though. This sort of fight was his meat.

  Guiding Goldy with his knees, Frank charged into the fight. He snapped the Winchester to his shoulder and began firing as fast as he could work the repeater’s lever. A couple of shadowy figures cried out in pain, threw up their arms, and toppled from the backs of their galloping horses as Frank raced by.

  It didn’t take long for some of the gunmen to realize what was going on. One of them shouted, “They’ve got reinforcements comin’ in! Get those sons o’ bitches!”

  One man hardly qualifed as reinforcements, Frank thought, but he was firing so fast that the outlaws might think there were three or four of him. Colt flame licked out from gun muzzles as the men turned their fire on him, but Frank bent low in the saddle to make himself a smaller target, and Goldy leaped forward with blinding speed.

  They broke through the ring of killers and thundered toward the wells. Now there was another problem for Frank to worry about—the defenders might easily take him for one of the bushwhackers and turn their guns on him.

  “Hold your fire!” he shouted as loud as he could. “It’s Morgan! Hold your fire!”

  A bullet whistled past his head, and this one came from one of the derricks. Several more slugs screamed through the air around him before he heard Victor Magnusson bellowing, “Cease fire! That’s Morgan!”

  Grateful that now he only had twenty or more hardcases who wanted to fill his hide full of lead instead of the outlaws and the drillers, Frank rode around one of the sheds and dropped from the saddle. He slapped Goldy on the rump and sent the stallion racing off into the night. Goldy would get himself out of harm’s way, but stay close enough to hear Frank’s whistle if he was summoned.

  Frank dropped to one knee, lifted the Winchester, and drew a bead on one of the racing gunmen. The rifle’s sharp whipcrack was followed by the target pitching limply from the saddle as the steel-jacketed .44-40 round bored through his body.

  The sound of heavy footsteps beside him made Frank twist around and swing the Winchester toward a potential new threat.

  But it was Magnusson who had run over to him, Frank realized as the oilman called, “Don’t shoot, Morgan! It’s me.”

  Frank levered the rifle. “Figured you’d have gone back to town.”

  “I wanted to know if you’d found anything, and I thought you might come back by here this evening.” Magnusson had lost his hat somewhere, and his thatch of long, fiery hair was disheveled. “Then those bastards came out of nowhere and started shooting at us.”

  “Not nowhere,” Frank said. “I found their hideout.”

  “They’re not Montero men?”

  “Not hardly,” Frank said, although in truth he couldn’t be positive of that. He hadn’t gotten a good look at any of them after all. But he couldn’t imagine any of Dolores’s punchers hiding out in that isolated canyon on the far side of the San Fernando Valley. They wouldn’t have any reason to do that.

  “Then who do they work for?” Magnusson demanded.

  Frank ducked as a bullet smacked into the shed wall a foot or so above his head, chewing splinters from the wood.

  “I don’t know yet, and this isn’t exactly a good time to be trying to figure it out,” he told Magnusson. “I think they want to do more than just ride around and take potshots at us, though.”

  “What do you think they have in mind?”

  “Don’t know.” Frank took another shot, but didn’t know if he hit anything this time. “But I reckon we’ll find out . . . if we live long enough.”

  In the back of his mind, he hoped that whoever was riding nighthawk for the Montero spread would hear the shooting and bring help from the ranch. That was a longshot, though, and Frank knew they couldn’t count on it.

  “How many men do you have here?” he asked Magnusson.

  “There were sixteen men in the crew before the two were killed this morning. I sent one man back to town with their bodies in a wagon, so that leaves thirteen.” Magnusson’s voice was grim as he added, “I don’t know if any of them have been killed yet tonight.”

  So, thirteen defenders, Frank thought, plus Magnusson made fourteen and he was fifteen. Against maybe twenty hired killers, because the gang had suffered some losses, too. Those odds weren’t terrible, but they weren’t very good either.

  “How many horses?”

  “None but mine! I told you, I sent the wagon back to town. The crews come and go in it, not on horseback.” Magnusson’s voice hardened. “Anyway, I’m not going to cut and run, if that’s what you’re thinking, Morgan. These are my men and my wells, and by God, I’m not going to abandon them!”

  “I was thinking more of trying to get a rider out to go for help to the Montero ranch,” Frank said.

  “I’d be glad for somebody to use my horse, but it won’t be me.”

  Magnusson drew a bead and fired his Winchester past the corner of the shed, as if to punctuate his declaration.

  “I doubt if anybody from the Montero place would come to help us anyway,” Magnusson added, “even with that so-called truce in place.”

  Frank wasn’t so sure about that, but a second later he realized that they didn’t have time to send a rider for help. He spotted a sudden flare of light in the darkness, about a hundred yards away. It wasn’t a muzzle flash this time. It burned steadily
and grew brighter, and he realized after a moment that it was the leaping flame of a torch.

  “Magnusson,” he said, “I reckon that big wooden tank’s got oil in it, doesn’t it?”

  “What? Of course it does. All three of these wells have come in and are steady producers. We store the oil there until it can be put in barrels and taken to the refinery. The tank’s at least half full, maybe more.”

  “It’d probably be a good idea then,” Frank said as he saw several more torches blaze into life, “if we kept those hombres away from it.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Magnusson yelled as he realized what Frank was talking about. “Stop them! Shoot them!”

  The men carrying the torches were being covered, though, by the continued gunfire by the circling marauders. The drillers tried to shoot at them, only to be forced to dive back behind cover by a hail of lead.

  Frank dared that fusillade and so did Magnusson. Both men stepped out into the open and leveled their rifles. Frank emptied the Winchester as bullets sang around him. He dropped the empty rifle and drew his Colt, began running forward to cut the range as he fired. Magnusson was beside him, also using a handgun now.

  A couple of the torches went spinning through the air as the men holding them toppled from their saddles. The torches fell harmlessly to the ground and went out, well short of the oil storage tank.

  A horse screamed shrilly as a bullet found it and its front legs folded up underneath it. The rider sailed over the head of the falling horse to crash into the ground, and his torch guttered out as it hit the earth, too.

  That left one man, though, and he had almost reached the tank. He was close enough, in fact, that Frank could see him by the light of the torch as the man stood up in his stirrups and flung the burning brand high in the air.

  The torch was still spinning through the night sky as the man who had thrown it yanked his mount around and rode hell-bent-for-leather away from there.

  Frank watched the torch, which seemed to be moving in slow motion now as it climbed. It reached its zenith and then dropped down, down toward the waiting oil, thousands of gallons of the stuff.