Comanche Gold (17 page)

Tucson staggered back under the impact, but
he managed to keep his feet. Slipping his hands up inside the dog’s
forelegs, he sank his fingers deep into the rough fur cloaking its
throat. On its hind legs, the dog was almost as tall as Tucson, and
it was heavy. It took all of Tucson’s strength to keep its snapping
fangs away from his face while he applied the necessary pressure to
strangle it.

As man and beast struggled in the darkness,
Tucson was painfully aware that he was running out of time. The
dead guards could be discovered at any minute and his advantage of
surprise would be lost. Feeling the dog weakening, he made a last
herculean effort and lifted it up into the air, swung its body out
to the side, then slammed it down onto the ground on its back.

Tucson dropped his knee onto the dog’s chest
with all of his weight behind it. There was a sickening crunch as
its chest was shattered from the impact and shards of broken bones
were driven like daggers into its lungs. Keeping up the pressure he
was applying on its throat, Tucson watched as the dog’s eyes glazed
over and the vicious snapping of its jaws began to slow.

Then, as red froth bubbled up from its
crushed throat and flecked its fangs, the beast finally stopped
thrashing and lay still. Tucson held on for another minute to make
certain the dog was dead, then he released it and sank down to the
ground beside it, breathing heavily from the exertion.

Gazing regretfully at the dead carcass, he
ran his hand over its rough coat. “Sorry, boy,” he whispered, “but
you left me no choice.”

Then he stood up, brushed off his hands and
moved on toward the porch.

Keeping to the outer edges of the porch
stairs, Tucson went up them without making a sound. He paused at
the door and pressed his ear to the panel, but heard nothing.
Trying the knob, he sighed with relief as it gave easily beneath
his hand. Well-oiled hinges made it easy to slip noiselessly inside
and close the door behind him.

He found himself in the kitchen, and the
aroma of cooked food reminded him that he hadn’t eaten all day.
Creeping to the door on the opposite wall, he opened it and slipped
into a hallway. Male voices could be heard coming from the left;
there was an open doorway where light spilled out into the
hall.

Tucson pulled both guns, thumbed back the
hammers to full cock then glided like a phantom down the hallway.
He pressed his shoulders against the wall opposite the door and
looked through into the room where Prince and Ed Thompson were
sitting sharing a bottle of whiskey. Ed was slouched down on a
leather couch facing toward Tucson, with his hat off and his bald
head glistening in the light. Prince sat in a chair against the
opposite wall, angled away from Tucson with his legs crossed,
holding his glass in his hand.

The bottle of whiskey sat on a low table
between them.

There was other furniture in the room, and
decorations on the walls, but Tucson only had eyes for the two men.
Almost casually, he stepped into the room, covered them both with
his guns and called out pleasantly, “Howdy, gents...”

For a moment Ed Thompson and Prince sat
frozen, both men staring at Tucson as if they were seeing a ghost.
Then Prince leaped to his feet and spun around, threw his glass at
Tucson then went for his gun. At the same time, Thompson slid up
and over the back of the couch and dropped from sight on the other
side.

Prince's gun was half out of its holster when
Tucson's bullet caught him square in the chest, exploding it in a
crimson cloud of blood and bone. Then the impact lifted him off his
feet and threw him backward over the chair. Landing on the floor
like a rag doll, he slid across the polished boards for several
feet, then he lay still.

In an attempt to catch Thompson before he got
away, Tucson snapped off a few rounds with his left-hand gun into
the back of the couch, but there was no response and Tucson decided
that the rancher must have escaped through a door on the left.

Grimacing at the lost opportunity, he
shrugged and moved to the right, heading for a rack in the corner
where Prince's yellow duster hung. Then Thompson's head and the
barrel of a gun appeared over the back of the couch. Tucson dove
for the floor as the muzzle flashed and a slug bored a hole in the
pine-wood paneling an inch above his head.

The windows rattled from the deep roar of
gunfire, and the dark cloud of powder-smoke made it hard to see or
breath. Flat on his stomach on the floor, Tucson fired into the
couch, hoping to get lucky and hit Thompson. But the rancher was
scuttling back toward a doorway leading into another room, shouting
for his men as he crawled.

Tucson heard stamping feet and shouting
voices coming from the bunkhouse. The whole crew had been roused by
sounds of the gun-fight, and they were racing to Thompson's
rescue.

Tucson had just run out of time.

Staying down, he reached the coat-rack and
put his hand into a pocket of Prince's duster. He sighed with
relief as his fingers closed over the familiar rosewood grips of
his .45. Then he pulled the .32 from the second pocket. Tossing the
other guns aside, he took precious moments to check the rounds in
the chambers and test the firing mechanisms to satisfy himself that
they hadn’t been jammed with dust from being dropped in the
dirt.

Renewed confidence surged through him as he
slid them into their holsters.

Tucson ran in a crouch back to the door,
passed out into the hall and sprinted down to the kitchen then
stepped outside onto the porch. Pausing in the darkness, he put his
fingers to his lips and blew a sharp whistle, then leaped to the
side. He wasn't a split-second too soon, as the roar of gunfire
split the stillness; the night exploded into day from the flash of
twenty flaming muzzles.

Squatting down beside the porch, it seemed to
Tucson that he had leaped into a hornet's nest. Hot lead popped and
sizzled in the air around him, while splinters from the chopping
slugs hitting the porch and wall snarled about his head.

Ed Thompson's harsh voice rang out in the
night. “Half o' you men git on around to the other side o' the
house. We need to come at the Kid from both sides. The rest o' you
hombres keep pullin’ them triggers—don't give 'im time to
breathe.”

Tucson pushed back his sombrero and wiped the
sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Then he heard the
sound of a horse's hooves pounding the hard ground. Fearing the
stallion would run into the gunfire, he called out, “Stay back,
boy! Stay back...”

Tucson had no time to lose. In seconds the
other gunmen would round the corner of the house and he would be
caught in the cross-fire. With both guns blazing, he leaped from
behind the porch, rolling over the ground, dodging, kneeling, and
rolling again as he fired.

The roar of the guns was deafening; slugs
threw up showers of dirt all around him and he felt them nip and
tug at his clothes. When he neared the stallion, he stopped firing
so his muzzle-flashes wouldn't betray his position and put the
horse in danger.

The gunmen rounded the corner of the house
and called out to the others not to fire in their direction. Some
were shouting, now that Tucson had stopped shooting, asking if he
had been hit. Gunfire slowed as the men approached cautiously to
investigate.

“Be careful, men,” Thompson shouted. “The
Kid’s as slick as a coyote. He could be waitin' out there for us to
git within range.”

Hearing the soft nickering of the stallion,
Tucson leaped into the saddle without touching the stirrups.
Unwrapping the reins from the saddle horn, he nudged the stallion
with his heels then bent low as it bolted into a gallop and took
him away from danger.

Behind them, the night lit up as the gunmen
realized what was happening and opened fire.

Then Ed Thompson's voice rose above the din.
“Gawdammit!” he bawled in exasperation. “Quit shootin' an' go git
your hosses, boys. We gotta ride if we're gonna catch 'im!”

* * * *

While Ed Thompson and his crew of gunmen ran
for their horses, Tucson headed out around the cattle pens. Once
past the corrals, he lay along the stallion's neck and urged it on
to greater speed. The stallion responded, stretching out its long
legs and settling into a mile-eating gallop. The moon was sinking
below the horizon, and the stars swept across the sky like a river
of sparkling light. Tucson experienced the prairie as a shadowy
blur of brush and cactus, with an occasional butte looming up out
of the darkness like a giant roused from slumber.

Once on the open prairie, Tucson knew that
the cow ponies of his pursuers could never catch the stallion. Now
was when all the care he lavished on the horse paid off. The
stallion could easily keep up this pace all the way back to Howling
Wolf. Tucson's mind began moving ahead to what he would do once he
arrived back in town.

The stallion found its own way as Tucson gave
himself over to his thoughts. This was the way Tucson habitually
rode; he pointed the stallion in the direction he wanted it to go,
then he let the horse pick the best way to get there. His
relationship with the stallion was a partnership; the horse knew
what was expected of it, and did its part as if it enjoyed it.

They were about half-way to the Old Spanish
Trail, when Tucson spotted a lone rider ahead. He was coming on at
a walk, with his head down as if he were studying the ground. After
a few more paces, the rider raised his head and Tucson recognized
young Tom McMannus.

Tucson bit his lip then headed for the
boy.

“What're you doing out here?” he shouted as
he reined in, the stallion rearing back on its hind legs and pawing
the air.

“Jeezus, Tucson!” McMannus was wide-eyed as
he looked Tucson over. “You didn't come in last night, so I did
what you told me to do and started trailin’ you to make sure
nothin’ bad happened.” He glanced along Tucson’s back trail, then
asked, “How come you're ridin’ so hell-for-leather?”

Tucson glanced over his shoulder and pointed
at the heavy cloud of dust that was moving swiftly toward them.
“You see that? That's Ed Thompson and his gunmen, and they're after
me.”

“What for...?” McMannus cried in alarm.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Tucson
rasped, with another anxious glance back. “Get on out of here
before you get killed.”

The boy’s chin came up stubbornly. “If you're
in trouble, Tucson, I'll stick it out with you.”

“Don't be a fool, Tom...!” Tucson insisted.
“Get out now.”

“No,” McMannus shook his head. “I'm
stickin’!”

With no time to argue, Tucson stopped talking
and nudged the stallion back into a run. Tom McMannus whirled his
mount around on its hind legs, sank in the spurs, and the two men
rode on together.

It didn't take long for Tucson to realize
that it wasn't going to work. McMannus' mount was game, but it just
couldn't keep up with the stallion—in fact it was already
faltering. A glance behind revealed that Thompson and his men were
gaining fast. Soon they'd be within firing range.

For all his concern for Tucson, McMannus'
stubborn insistence on staying with him had put both of their lives
in danger. Without the boy holding him back, by now Tucson would
have far outdistanced the pursuing riders. The stallion was still
running easily; it hadn't even begun to dip into its reserves of
power.

Tucson thought of riding off and leaving the
boy, but he knew that Ed Thompson would kill Tom when he caught
him. Misguided or not, McMannus was risking his life for his hero,
and Tucson couldn't let him go down for it.

With a sinking feeling in his guts, he reined
the stallion in until McMannus came abreast of him. “Is there any
place around here where we can make a stand?” he shouted.

McMannus thought for a second. “There's an
arroyo about half a mile south o' here,” he called back. “We might
be able to make it.”

“Is there a way into it?”

McMannus nodded.

“Okay,” Tucson shouted. “You lead the
way.”

McMannus veered south and Tucson turned after
him, glancing behind him as he rode. Ed Thompson, riding a huge
white horse, was out in front of the band of gunmen, and they were
coming on fast. One of the men let loose with a shot, but they were
still out of range and it fell harmlessly short.

Then Tucson bent low in the saddle and
concentrated on staying with McMannus in the dark. The boy’s horse
was lathered with sweat and was beginning to blow. Probably
McMannus had been riding most of the night trailing Tucson, and his
mount hadn't had any rest or feed.

Then a gunshot popped the air by Tucson's
ear, and he knew Thompson was in range.

“How much farther?” he called to
McMannus.

“Just a ways...” the boy called back,
pointing ahead.

Tucson wrapped the reins around the saddle
horn and pulled his Winchester from its scabbard beneath the
stirrup. Twisting around in the saddle, he levered off a series of
shots to remind Thompson that he still had teeth. He was gratified
to see one of the gunmen topple from his saddle, and the other
riders reined back.

Then McMannus shouted and Tucson turned
around to see a steep ravine open up on their right. It was a black
serrated gash in the prairie; Tucson couldn't see the bottom.
Another quarter of a mile and McMannus reined to the side and
started down a trail leading along the canyon wall. Tucson, still
unable to pick out any landmarks, followed him blindly, letting the
stallion find its own way.

Halfway into the arroyo, Tucson reined the
stallion to a rearing halt and called to McMannus to stop. Then he
leaped from the saddle, still holding the rifle, and climbed on
foot back up the slope. Throwing himself down just below the crest,
he raised his head until his eyes just cleared the lip and looked
over.