An Arizona Christmas Page 3

  The hammer of Matt’s Colt fell on an empty chamber with a resounding, frustrating click. With no time to reload, he bit back a curse, jammed the gun back in its holster, and grabbed the shotgun from the floorboard at his feet. Since he couldn’t fire the shotgun one-handed, he had to let go of the seat and hope he wouldn’t go flying off the next time the wagon hit a big bump in the trail.

  A man with a bandanna tied over the lower half of his face stood up from behind a slab of rock, leaped on top of it, and fired several rounds toward the wagon as it careened closer. Matt lifted the Greener and touched off one barrel.

  The load smashed into the robber’s chest, shredded clothes and flesh, and flung him backwards off the rock. That was one of the sons of bitches Matt wouldn’t have to worry about anymore. He swung the shotgun toward another outlaw.

  The hombre wasn’t foolish enough to stand out in the open, but he had raised up too much from his cover. The charge from Matt’s second barrel shattered his jaw and tore off his right ear. He fell back, howling and spraying blood.

  Matt broke open the Greener, dumped out the empty shells, and thumbed in fresh ones from a pocket in the long duster he wore. He snapped the shotgun closed just as the wagon bounced so hard he flew up off the seat.

  He let out a startled yell. A second later he came down on the back of the seat and rolled over it to land on the ore shipment, latching on to the tied-down sheet of canvas that covered the ore. He still had hold of the shotgun with his right hand.

  A bullet tore the canvas near his head and whined off the ore. Matt rolled onto his belly and splayed out his legs to steady himself and keep from falling off. He propped himself up on his elbows so he could use both hands on the Greener.

  A bullet thudded into the wagon’s sideboards. Matt raised the shotgun’s twin barrels and fired one of them toward another masked man crouched beside a boulder.

  Between the booming of the shotgun and the rattle of the wagon’s wheels, Matt couldn’t hear much, but he heard Buckshot Taylor’s startled oath. Luke turned his head to look toward the seat.

  Up ahead on the slope to the left, dust rose. Buckshot whipped up the team and shouted, “The low-down sons o’ polecats started a rockslide!”

  Matt understood the strategy. The bandits had set up the ambush along the mountain trail hoping to kill him and Buckshot and grab the silver ore. But if the wagon successfully ran the gauntlet of bushwhacker lead, the outlaws were ready to cause an avalanche that would block the trail.

  Since the falling rocks might bury the wagon, too, making it more difficult for the thieves to dig out the loot they were after, that method was used only as a last resort.

  The time for last resorts had arrived, Matt supposed. “Can you beat it?” he shouted to Buckshot.

  The old-timer threw a startled, wide-eyed glance over his shoulder. “Beat it? We gotta stop!”

  “We do that and they’ll be swarming all over us! They’ll kill us, anyway! Make those mules run, Buckshot!”

  Buckshot muttered something but started using the whip with more enthusiasm. The mule team leaped ahead.

  More bullets zinged around the wagon, but the real threat came from the tons of rock tumbling down the slope. Some of the smaller stones, bounding out ahead, flew through the air and smacked against the wagon. Matt ducked his head and put his arms over it . . . although what good that would do if the avalanche caught them, he didn’t know.

  The rumble grew into an overpowering roar that slammed painfully into Matt’s ears. He couldn’t withstand the impulse to raise his head and look up. The leading edge of the slide was practically on top of them, pushing out a cloud of dust that rolled around the racing vehicle. The stuff was choking and blinding.

  At least if he was about to be crushed, he wouldn’t be able to see that grisly fate coming. That was mighty cold comfort.

  They broke out of the swirling dust as the rocks swept down behind them. A boulder that must have weighed several tons missed the back of the wagon by scant inches. More of the smaller stones pounded down around them, but Buckshot kept the team moving and suddenly they were in the clear.

  Matt pushed himself up on the ore shipment and let out an excited whoop. “You did it, Buckshot! You beat that damn avalanche!”

  Buckshot glanced back over his shoulder again. Blood seeped from a cut on his cheek where a flying rock had nicked him. “I sure as blazes don’t see how we did it! It’s the most flabbergastin’ thing—” He let out a sudden grunt, rocked back, and twisted on the seat in obvious pain.

  Matt spotted a crimson flower of blood blooming on the front of the old-timer’s shirt. “Buckshot!”

  Matt clambered forward and threw himself over the back of the seat as Buckshot sagged toward the edge. Matt grabbed him to keep him from falling off and pulled him more upright. The bloodstain was still spreading. No rock had done that.

  Buckshot had been hit by a bullet, and it had come from somewhere ahead of the wagon.

  Matt looked down the trail and saw three riders spurring up toward them. Powder smoke and flames jetted from their guns as they fired.

  The back of a running horse was no place for accuracy, and the way the wagon was swaying back and forth made it an even more difficult target. The gap between the wagon and the would-be killers was closing by the second, but that wasn’t the only danger.

  The wagon kept veering perilously close to the edge of the trail. If the wheels on the right side slipped off, the vehicle would tip and roll toward the valley a couple hundred feet below, pulling the mules down with it. Matt and Buckshot would be smashed to pieces and likely crushed as well.

  Matt looked around for the reins Buckshot had dropped when he was hit. Grimacing, he saw that the reins had trickled off the floorboard and fallen down alongside the wagon tongue.

  Rolling along on flat, level ground, Matt might have slid down to the wagon tongue and retrieved the reins or even jumped on the back of one of the mules and taken control of the team that way. Up on the rough mountain trail, either of those things would just get him killed.

  Of course, once those three bandits closed in, they’d probably shoot him to doll rags. So what would he be risking, really?

  Before he could attempt anything, the wagon’s rear end came around some and the vehicle began to slew sideways. They were going over.

  “Son of a—” Matt grabbed Buckshot again.

  The wagon’s right rear wheel broke apart under the pressure and dropped the heavy bed on the edge of the trail, snapping the rear axle. With a grinding sound, the wagon tilted and slid along the trail, its back end sticking out over empty air. That caused the harness to jerk back heavily against the mules and they came to a staggering halt.

  The wagon stopped, too, half on and half off the trail.

  Matt and Buckshot were still on the seat. Somehow, they hadn’t been thrown off by the violent crash. More dust coiled around them, making Matt cough.

  A bullet whined past his ear.

  The three outlaws were still coming, their guns blasting as they closed in. Matt had the shotgun in his left hand. He swung it up to his shoulder and fired the remaining barrel. The charge swept down the trail and struck the two outlaws in the lead, as well as their horses. Men and animals went down in a bloody welter of flailing limbs.

  “Here,” Buckshot gasped out. “Take . . . this!” He pressed into Matt’s hand the butt of the old cap-and-ball pistol he carried.

  Matt dropped the empty shotgun and raised the percussion revolver with its long, octagonal barrel. His thumb looped over the hammer and drew it back, and as soon as the sights settled on the chest of the third bandit, he squeezed the trigger.

  The gun went off with a dull boom, almost like a cannon, and recoiled heavily against Matt’s hand. Smoke from the black powder coiled from the muzzle. The heavy ball smashed into the chest of the outlaw and drove him back out of the saddle. He flew through the air, arms and legs flinging out in four directions.

  One of the men who�
��d been downed by the shotgun blast made it back to his feet and triggered a couple shots at the men on the wagon seat. Matt returned the fire with Buckshot’s old hogleg, hitting the man in the shoulder. It packed so much punch, the ball almost blew the man’s arm off his body. It wound up hanging by a few strands of muscle as blood fountained from the wound. The outlaw crumpled, screaming as his life pumped out.

  The other man was still down, so Matt hoped he was out of the fight.

  A couple slugs thudded into the sideboards to Matt’s left. He jerked his head around and saw a couple men climbing over the rocks heaped on the trail. They carried Winchesters and paused to throw more lead at Matt and Buckshot.

  “We gotta get . . . off this wagon!” Buckshot grated.

  “If we do, it’s liable to slide the rest of the way off the trail.”

  “Don’t matter . . . We’re sittin’ ducks here!” The old-timer was right about that.

  “You jump one way. I’ll jump the other.”

  “Better . . . make it quick!”

  “Go!” Matt leaped to the left while Buckshot quit the wagon seat to the right. The wagon slid another foot or so and Matt thought it was going over, but it ground to a halt again.

  Matt wound up on his knees with bullets kicking up dust around him. He lifted the old pistol and thumbed off a couple rounds. Neither found their target, but they came close enough to make the two outlaws dive for cover among the rocks left by the avalanche.

  Matt surged up and ran around the mules to put them and the wagon between him and the bandits. Buckshot sat on the ground, bloody but still conscious.

  Matt dropped to a knee beside the wounded man. “How bad is it?”

  “Don’t rightly know, but I reckon I’ll live a while longer, anyway.”

  Matt handed the revolver back to him. “Here, you may need this.”

  “What about you?”

  Matt glanced down the trail. The horses he had wounded had managed to get up despite their injuries. The third man’s mount hadn’t fallen in the ruckus. Rifle butts stuck up from saddle scabbards on all three horses. “I’ll be back. Hold those varmints off!”

  “Damn right I will.” Buckshot grabbed hold of the front wheel and started pulling himself upright.

  Matt dashed down the trail toward the outlaws’ horses.

  The animals were spooked and skittish, but as they danced around he was able to leap and snag one of the rifles. As he dragged it out of the saddle boot, he hoped it was loaded.

  Buckshot’s old iron boomed a couple times as Matt turned back toward the ore wagon. As he lifted the Winchester to his shoulder, he yelled, “Keep your head down, Buckshot!” then cranked off several rounds as fast as he could work the lever.

  One of the bandits trying to climb over the rockslide reared up and dropped his gun to paw at his bloody throat where a .44 slug had ripped through it. He collapsed, twitching.

  The other outlaw whirled around and tried to scramble for cover as the bullets flew around him. Matt hesitated only long enough to make sure of his aim, then he drilled a slug into the bandit’s back. The man threw out his arms and flopped forward on his face.

  Matt lowered the rifle slightly and waited as the echoes of the shots bounced back and forth from the slopes of the surrounding peaks. No more shots sounded. He didn’t know how many of the gang were left alive, but evidently they had decided to cut their losses and had given up on the ore shipment.

  Either that or they were working their way around for another try from a different direction now that the wagon was crippled and stranded.

  CHAPTER 4

  Matt hurried over to Buckshot, who was leaning against the wagon and fumbling with the revolver as he tried to reload it—not as easy with a cap-and-ball weapon as it was with a more modern revolver.

  “Let me do that for you,” Matt offered.

  “I can reload my own damn smoke pole,” Buckshot said.

  “Yeah, but you’re hurt.”

  “This?” Buckshot looked down at the bloody front of his flannel shirt. “Ain’t nothin’ to worry about. I reckon what hit me was a ricochet, ’cause I could tell it didn’t have as much punch as a reg’lar round. Chewed up some meat and spilled some blood, but it didn’t go far enough in to do any real damage.” A wry grin stretched across the old-timer’s face. “Reckon havin’ a nice thick layer o’ fat comes in handy sometimes.”

  “Yeah, you can hibernate in the winter like a bear.” Matt turned his head to search the slopes around them. “I don’t see anybody moving.”

  “The rest o’ those ol’ boys lit a shuck, I’ll betcha. They just didn’t know what a pair o’ ring-tailed terrors they’d be takin’ on when they decided to jump this wagon.”

  “You might be right about that. But even if they’re gone . . . how in blazes are we going to get this ore to Virginia City? We can’t repair this wagon by ourselves, especially with you hurt.”

  “I told you, I ain’t hurt all that—” Buckshot stopped short, swayed, and had to grab the wagon seat to hold himself up. “Well, maybe I lost a little bit too much blood. I’m feelin’ a mite lightheaded.”

  “Sit down,” Matt told him. “But don’t lean against the wagon. It could still slide over. I’m going to unhitch the mules just in case it does. No point in letting them get killed for no good reason.”

  “Durn right. They’re stubborn ol’ jugheads, but they done a good job of pullin’ this wagon for a long time.”

  Matt had a hunch that he and Buckshot might have to abandon the wagon and its cargo and ride a couple mules on into Virginia City, which had been their destination when they’d started out from the Double Slash Mine early that morning. Buckshot would argue about that, claiming he had a responsibility to see the load through, and even though he’d be right, Matt still wasn’t going to let the old-timer bleed to death. He would tie Buckshot onto the back of a mule if he had to.

  As it turned out, by the time Matt finished unhitching the team, he heard the sound of hoofbeats floating up from somewhere lower on the mountain. The way the trail twisted around, he could see bits and pieces of it a few hundred feet below, and as he watched he spotted a group of half a dozen riders coming in his direction.

  He thought one of the men was Ambrose Macauley, the owner of the Double Slash. No surprise, since Macauley wasn’t just a rich man who owned a mine. He was also an engineer and supervised a lot of the operation himself. It wasn’t unusual for him to ride up to the mine with some of his assistants and a handful of guards.

  “I think maybe help’s on the way,” Matt told Buckshot, who was sitting cross-legged on the trail.

  “Good to hear. I’m feelin’ a mite puny.” The old-timer spat. “How many o’ them thievin’ scoundrels did you kill, anyway?”

  Matt thought about it. “Six or seven, I calculate. Wasn’t time to keep count while the ruckus was going on.”

  “And there wasn’t a one of ’em but what had it comin’.”

  * * *

  A half hour later, the group of riders from Virginia City reached the stranded wagon. By then, Matt had rounded up the three horses that had belonged to the dead outlaws, reloaded the Winchester, and filled his pockets with .44-40 cartridges from the thieves’ supplies. He had refilled the cylinder on his Colt and had slid fresh shells into the Greener.

  If the newcomers weren’t friendly, they would find a mighty warm reception waiting for them.

  The rider in the lead was unmistakably Ambrose Macauley. Matt would have recognized the mine owner’s broad, florid face and thick black mustache anywhere. Macauley cut a fancy figure at the balls he threw in his Virginia City mansion, but up in the mountains on the way to the Double Slash, he wore a brown corduroy jacket and trousers and a round-crowned brown hat. He reined in at the sight of the dead outlaws, the crippled wagon, and the rock-covered trail. “Was there a war?”

  “Close to it,” Matt said with a weary grin. “Buckshot’s hurt.”

  Macauley motioned curtly to a couple of
his men. “See to him,” he ordered, pointing to Buckshot. “Patch up that wound as best you can and then get him to the doctor in town.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” one of the men said.

  “It ain’t as bad as it looks, Mr. Macauley,” Buckshot said.

  “We’ll let the doctor make that decision.” Macauley told the other men to see if the wagon could be repaired, then to Matt, he went on. “Obviously, someone tried to hold you up.”

  “Eight or nine somebodies,” Matt said.

  “How many of them got away?”

  Matt shrugged. “A couple, I’d say.”

  Despite the grim subject they were discussing, Macauley threw back his head and guffawed. “I knew I was doing the right thing by hiring a Jensen to ride herd on my ore shipments. I’m going to hate to lose your services.”

  “Lose my services?” Matt repeated with a frown. “You’re not firing me because the wagon got wrecked, are you?”

  “Not hardly.” Macauley reached inside his jacket, felt around in the pocket, and brought out a folded envelope. He leaned down slightly from the saddle to hand it to Matt. “This letter came for you. It was sent from Big Rock, Colorado, and that’s where your famous brother lives, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Smoke’s ranch, the Sugarloaf, is near there,” Matt replied as he took the envelope from his employer. “But just because he sent me a letter doesn’t mean I’ll be leaving these parts.”

  “Unless he needs something. In which case, I know you’ll waste no time rattling your hocks out of here.”

  “That’s true, I reckon.” When one member of the Jensen family sent out the call for help, all the others answered. And all the Jensens gathered together were a pretty formidable bunch.

  As Matt opened the envelope, took out the letter, and began to read, a grin slowly appeared on his face.

  “So it’s not trouble after all?” Macauley asked.

  “Nope, not exactly. Smoke wants me to meet him down in Tucson for Christmas. He says he’s trying to get in touch with our other brother, too, and this old mountain man who’s sort of our adopted uncle.”