Chapter 20
Matt flung himself to the side as he heard the whipcrack of another rifle shot. He didn't know where that bullet landed, but it didn't hit him. He hit the ground on his shoulder and rolled quickly toward the nearest boulder blocking the trail. The shots were coming from the hill on the south side of the road. The big rock would give him some cover.
As he came to a stop, he glanced over and saw Sheriff Blocker crouched behind the other boulder. The lawman had his gun in his hand, but he wasn't trying to return the fire. Matt understood why. The shots sounded like they came from a pretty good distance up the hillside, which put the bushwhacker out of effective handgun range.
“You all right, Sheriff?” Matt called as he climbed to his feet but stayed low behind the rock.
Before Blocker could answer, a slug spanged off one of the boulders and ricocheted with a high-pitched whine. It was a nerve-wracking sound that Matt had heard all too many times in the past. This was hardly the first time he'd been ambushed.
“Yeah, I'm not hit,” Blocker answered. “But we're pinned down.”
It was true. Blocker had let go of the horses' reins when the shooting started, and both animals had run off down the road. Matt's horse was accustomed to gunfire, so he hadn't spooked as badly, coming to a stop about fifty yards away to crop at the grass growing along the side of the trail.
Matt looked at his Winchester sticking up from the saddle sheath and wished he could get his hands on it. That would have helped even the odds.
“At least they're not on both sides of us,” he told the sheriff. “If they had us in a crossfire, we'd be in a bad fix.”
“Yeah, but whoever it is can sit up there all day, and if we take a step out from behind these rocks, he's got us.”
Blocker was right. Matt knew that if he hadn't leaned forward just when he did, that first shot might well have blown his brains out. It hadn't missed by much.
Matt lifted his hand and placed a couple of fingers in his mouth. He gave a piercing whistle that made his horse jerk its head up. The horse turned to look toward him, and Matt whistled again.
With a shrill whinny, the horse tossed its head, then broke into a gallop and headed back up the road toward them.
The hidden rifleman changed his aim and started shooting at the horse. Bullets kicked up dust around the animal's flashing hooves.
Matt burst out from behind the rock and dashed as fast as he could toward the slope. The bushwhacker must have realized that the horse was just a distraction, because he opened up on Matt again. Matt felt as much as heard a slug rip past his ear, and then he left his feet in a dive that carried him into a small stand of scrubby pines.
The tree trunks gave him enough cover that the odds of the bushwhacker hitting him were low. Also, he was at a slightly worse angle now for the hidden rifleman to draw a bead on.
That didn't stop the bushwhacker from trying. Bullets thudded into the trees near Matt.
The duller boom of a six-gun came from the road, telling Matt that Sheriff Blocker was getting in on the fight, even though the odds of him hitting anything were small. The shots served as another distraction, though, as Matt began working his way up the slope.
He used every bit of cover he could find, including trees, rocks, and clumps of brush. After a few minutes, during which time he climbed probably a hundred feet, he paused and looked back down. He could see the boulders in the trail and realized with a slight shock of surprise that Blocker was looking around the side of one of them at him. The sheriff motioned toward Matt's right.
Matt took that to mean the bushwhacker's location was more to his right. He nodded and angled in that direction as he started moving again.
The pace of the rifleman's shots had slowed considerably, although a slug still ripped through the brush on the hillside now and then. The man was firing blindly, Matt thought. Not only that, but the shots also gave him something to steer by. He could tell that he was getting closer and closer to the gunman.
He came to an open stretch where there wasn't any cover. As he knelt at the edge of the brush, he heard another shot and saw powder smoke rising from behind a jagged upthrust of rock about twenty yards above him. He was within revolver range now but couldn't see his enemy from where he was.
Forcing himself to remain patient, Matt waited. After a few minutes he saw movement as a rifle barrel was thrust over the top of the rock. It tracked toward him and he crouched lower, thinking that the bushwhacker had spotted him.
The rifle stopped. Flame erupted from the muzzle as another shot cracked. Matt knew then that the bushwhacker hadn't seen him. The man was still firing blindly, sweeping the slope with lead in the hope of hitting something.
Matt calculated the odds of leaping from cover and charging up the slope before the rifleman saw him and adjusted his aim. They weren't very good, he decided. He needed something to buy himself more time.
After a moment of looking around, he found a broken piece of pine branch about as long as his arm from the elbow to the wrist. It was fairly thick and heavy. He balanced it in his hand for a moment and decided it would do. Straightening quickly, he drew back his arm and threw it. The broken branch spun through the air, rising above the rocks where the bushwhacker was hidden before it dropped back down among them with a loud clatter.
Matt launched into a run while the branch was still in the air. He heard the racket as it landed, and then a sudden flurry of shots broke out. None of them came toward him, though. He could tell that from their sound. The bushwhacker had heard the branch fall and jumped to the conclusion that someone had snuck up behind him, which was exactly what Matt hoped would happen.
But that bought him only a couple of seconds. He counted them off in his head as he bounded up the slope, then jerked to the side and kept running. Another shot cracked. Matt weaved the other direction. Another leap brought him to the side of the rock. He caught a glimpse of a man's leg and fired on the run.
The bushwhacker yelped in pain. Gravel clattered as he moved hurriedly. Matt angled in toward the rocks. The rifle barrel jabbed into view, but he was ready and fired twice more, sending the slugs sizzling past the Winchester. The rifle flew into the air as its owner pitched backwards.
The man landed on the far side of the upthrust and rolled down the slope. Matt dropped to a knee and covered him, but he had a pretty good idea that the bushwhacker was no longer a threat from the loose-limbed way the man's body was moving.
When the bushwhacker came to a stop and didn't move again, Matt circled behind the rocks where the man had been hidden, just to make sure no one else was back there. The hillside was empty except for the empty shell casings that littered the ground. The bushwhacker had fired more than fifty rounds without scoring a hit. Some of that was due to Matt's skill and experience, but good luck had been on his side, too.
“Matt!” Sheriff Blocker called from the road below. “Matt, are you all right?”
“Yeah, this fella's done for, Sheriff!” Matt shouted back. But just in case that wasn't true, he kept his Colt trained on the sprawled bushwhacker as he carefully approached the man.
The rifleman had come to rest lying on his back. Matt was close enough now to see the pair of bloodstains on the man's shirt, as well as the one on his leg where Matt's first shot had struck him in the thigh. The man's eyes were wide open, staring sightlessly at the morning sky.
Matt had never seen him before.
He recognized the type, though, from the hard-planed, beard-stubbled features. He had swapped lead with enough owlhoots to know one when he saw him.
Blocker came puffing up the hill, still holding his gun. When he reached Matt and the dead man, he stopped to catch his breath.
“You know this varmint, Sheriff?” Matt asked.
Blocker studied the man for a moment, then said, “I don't know his name, but I've seen him around the settlement.”
“Any particular place?”
Blocker shook his head.
“Not that I recall. In the saloons, more than likely, maybe in the hash house. But I couldn't say that he hung around any one place. You think he's a member of the gang that's been holding up those stagecoaches?”
“That's the most likely explanation,” Matt said. “Could be that the gang left a man here to keep an eye on the scene of the latest robbery to discourage anybody from trailing them.”
Blocker grunted and said, “He was tryin' to discourage us pretty permanent like, seemed to me.” He looked around. “We'd better find his horse and take him back to town.”
“He's not going anywhere,” Matt said. “We ought to see if we can pick up the trail of the rest of them.”
“You mean leave him here for the buzzards and the wolves?”
“Only until we're on our way back to town anyway.” Matt's voice had a hard edge to it as he added, “When somebody tries as hard to kill me as this fella did, I don't worry too much about what happens to him.”
“No, that makes sense, all right,” Blocker agreed. “We'll see if we can find the signs left by the rest of the gang.”
That proved to be a futile effort. Matt and the sheriff ranged all over the pass and the area around it but failed to find any tracks they were sure had been left by the gang's mounts. The road was just too well-traveled, and the surrounding countryside was too rocky.
Not only that, but the first shot that had gone past Matt's ear had struck the ground right where that partial bootprint he had seen was located, obliterating it.
That didn't really matter, he told himself. The way that print looked was etched in his mind, and he would know it if he saw it again. Of course, there was no way to be sure the boot that had left it belonged to one of the stagecoach robbers, but at least there was a chance.
Other than surviving the ambush, they hadn't really accomplished a thing. The incident had stiffened Matt's resolve, though, and by the time they got back to Buffalo Crossing at midday, leading the bushwhacker's horse they had found tied at the top of the hill, Matt's mind was made up.
The bushwhacker's body was lashed facedown over the saddle, and Matt left the sheriff to take the dead man to the undertaker's while he rode toward the stagecoach station. Bringing in a corpse like that caused quite a sensation in town, but the crowd followed Sheriff Blocker and left Matt alone.
Emily Hanrahan was behind the desk in the office when Matt walked in. She must have heard the commotion in the street outside, but she had ignored it. Several ledgers were open on the desk in front of her, so Matt figured she had been going over the station's accounts and didn't want to be distracted from the task.
He distracted her anyway, his entrance causing her to look up from the ledgers. A long lock of auburn hair fell appealingly in front of her face. She brushed it back and asked with a note of impatience in her voice, “What can I do for you, Mr. Jensen?”
“If that job offer's still open,” he said, “I'm ready to ride shotgun on that stagecoach of yours.”
Chapter 21
Emily set aside the pencil she'd been using. Matt could tell she was surprised by his decision, but she controlled that reaction and sounded only mildly interested as she asked, “What made you change your mind?”
“I rode out to Tomahawk Pass with the sheriff this morning.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Just to take a look around and see if we could pick up the trail of those robbers,” Matt said. “We didn't . . . but we did get ambushed.”
Emily couldn't keep a look of concern off her face. She asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Matt told her.
“What about Sheriff Blocker?”
“He wasn't hit, either. We got the bushwhacker, though. The sheriff's taking him down to the undertaking parlor.”
“Then that was the commotion I heard a few minutes ago.” Emily leaned back in her chair. “The man's dead, I suppose, or he wouldn't be going to the undertaker's.”
“I would have preferred capturing him so we could ask him some questions,” Matt said with a shrug, “but there wasn't really time to worry about that while he was trying to kill us.”
“Did the sheriff recognize him?”
“Only as somebody he'd seen around town a few times.”
“You mean the outlaws have been coming right into town? That's pretty brazen.”
“I reckon they figured it was safe enough.”
Emily nodded slowly and said, “Several of the survivors from the holdups mentioned that the bandits wore masks and had their hats pulled low. They knew it was unlikely anybody would recognize them. I ought to go down to the undertaker's and have a look for myself, though.”
“Are you sure that's a good idea?”
“I've seen dead men before,” she snapped. “A couple of them just yesterday who were friends of mine, remember?”
Matt nodded and said, “It won't hurt to take a look, but I don't expect you'll recognize the fella.”
He didn't say anything about the boot print he had seen. He wanted to keep that to himself for the time being. Besides, at this point he didn't know if it really meant anything.
“So that ambush is what made you decide to accept my offer?” Emily asked.
“I don't like it when somebody starts shooting at me,” Matt said. “That bushwhacker won't ever do it again, but I'd like the chance to meet up with some of his pards. I reckon riding shotgun will give me that chance.”
“Well, I don't know what to hope for. I don't want them holding up any more of our stagecoaches, but at the same time I'd like to see them brought to justice for what they've already done. I think you're the best chance for that to happen, Mr. Jensen.”
“Call me Matt,” he told her with a smile.
“All right, Matt. And I suppose you can call me Emily, as long as it doesn't give you any ideas.”
“You've made it pretty plain that I'd be wasting my time if I did get any ideas.”
“Yes, you would.” She stood up. “Come on. Let's go tell my father. It looks like he's going to be driving the stage.”
“I'm not sure how he'll take the news,” Matt said. “He doesn't like me very much.”
“He'll like you better once you're sitting on that driver's seat next to him with a shotgun.”
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As Matt predicted, Seamus Hanrahan was cool to the idea of him going along on the stagecoach's next eastbound run, but Emily said, “You put me in charge of running things, Seamus, and I'm hiring Matt.”
Hanrahan didn't argue with that, although it was evident from his expression that he wanted to.
A couple of days passed without much happening. Matt spent some time in the station office talking to Emily, and while she seemed to warm up to him a little, she still kept her distance emotionally. That was fine with Matt. He was looking for outlaws at the moment, not romance.
He also spent some time in Hanrahan's saloon and took advantage of the opportunity to get to know the crusty saloonkeeper better. He hadn't forgotten about Nicholas Radcliff's accusations against Hanrahan.
The big Irishman got more voluble when Matt worked the conversation around to his early days in New York.
“Aye, it was a rough time there in Hell's Kitchen,” Hanrahan said as he leaned an elbow on the bar and talked to Matt. “When I was but a wee lad, the gangs put me to work runnin' errands and carryin' messages for 'em. My da was dead, and 'twas the only way I could help me poor old ma. I shudder to think about some of the things I saw in them days. There was this fella called Big Bill, and since he worked as a butcher he always had this meat cleaver with him, and one time he . . . No, never you mind, I don't want to even think about it.
“When I got older and married Emily's ma, God rest her sainted soul, I was runnin' a tavern that the gang had set me up in, but I knew I had to get out. That was no place to raise a family. As it turned out, Emily's the only family I had, since her ma departed this world bringin' her into it. That just made me more determined to leave New York. I saved up enough to get us train tickets and some left over to start a business out here.” Hanrahan waved a beefy hand at their surroundings in the saloon. “And ye can see the results. I started off small, with barely a hole in the wall, and expanded as the years went on.”
“You've done well for yourself,” Matt said.
“Aye. It hasn't been easy. And goin' into the stagecoach business . . . well, 'twas quite a risk, let me tell you, lad.” Hanrahan heaved a sigh. “If I have to forfeit me contract with the line, I don't know what it's gonna do. I might lose everything.”
“Maybe if there were fewer saloons in Buffalo Crossing, you wouldn't have to worry about that,” Matt suggested.
Hanrahan let out a derisive snort.
“The competition doesn't worry me. No other saloon in these parts can hold a candle to mine. No matter what happens, we'll muddle through somehow, Emily Anne and me. I'll do whatever it takes to make that true.”
Matt could tell that Hanrahan was making an effort to sound confident, but the man actually was worried. The question was how far he would go to protect his businesses.
While he was waiting for the stagecoach run, Matt also kept an eye open for a boot heel with that peculiar gouge out of it. He couldn't go around asking men to show him their boots, not without arousing a lot of suspicion and getting some unwanted questions, but anytime he saw a man with his feet propped up somewhere, he took an unobtrusive look at the heels of the hombre's boots.
So far that effort hadn't paid any dividends, and he didn't really expect it to. The chance that he might find the man he was looking for was a longshot at best, but it didn't cost him anything to try.
Sheriff Blocker looked Matt up a couple of days after the ambush and reported, “I went through all of my wanted posters and didn't find that fella who jumped us. That doesn't really mean anything, though. There are plenty of owlhoots out there who don't have paper on them. Or maybe he does and I just never got that particular reward dodger.”
“He wasn't shooting at us by mistake, that's for sure,” Matt said. “He couldn't have missed that sheriff's badge of yours, shining in the sun the way it was.”
“I'm just glad he didn't use it for a bull's-eye,” Blocker said.
The day that the eastbound stage from Rock Springs was scheduled to arrive at eleven o'clock, Matt was at the station early, carrying his Winchester.
Emily looked at the rifle and said, “We've got a shotgun for you to take along.”
“I know that and I'll be glad to have it,” Matt told her, “but I'm taking this repeater of mine with me, too.”
“When there's a chance you'll run into outlaws, you can't have too many guns, I suppose.”
Emily was visibly nervous. Matt asked, “The gang hasn't hit two runs in a row before, have they?”
“No, but that doesn't mean they won't. Things are getting pretty desperate for us, Matt. If we're held up again, the company might go ahead and cancel our contract, especially if there are significant losses. They had to make good on the bank shipment from the last time, and they weren't happy about it.”
“So there
was
money in that strongbox.”
Emily was standing at the window, looking out. At Matt's question, she turned and nodded.
“That's right. You're working for us now, so I guess it's all right to admit it. Mr. Farnsworth, the bank president, was having some cash shipped in from Laramie.”
“Is there going to be anything like that in the strongbox this time?”
“I don't know,” Emily said. “Nobody's told me anything about it if there is, but it's possible.”
Seamus Hanrahan came in a short time later. The big man had traded his usual tweed suit for gray wool trousers and a butternut shirt. He was hatless, but he had a huge, long-barreled revolver tucked in the waistband of the trousers.
He fastened a glare on Matt and said, “If ye be thinkin' of tryin' a double-cross, boyo, know that the first shot from this old hogleg o' mine will blow a hole right through ye.”
“Seamus, we decided to trust Matt, remember?” Emily said. “We have to trust
somebody
.”
“How come you call him Seamus?” Matt asked. “He's your father.”
“Well, I called him Da when I was little.”
“'Tis because she's a rebellious, thankless child,” Hanrahan said, “and that's her way of showin' her disrespect for her poor ol' da.”
“Ha! Just look at him. How could anybody call a big, hulking brute like him Da?”
Matt grinned. The deep affection these two felt for each other was obvious, no matter what they called each other or how many sharp words they exchanged. That was just their way, he understood.
Old Ezekial, the hostler, came into the office and said, “I see the dust from the coach outside of town. She'll be here in a few minutes.”
They all went outside to wait. Matt saw the dust cloud rising west of town, too. In a moment, a dark shape was visible at the base of it, and that shape quickly resolved itself into a Concord stagecoach being pulled by a team of six horses. The coach attracted the usual attention from the townspeople as it rolled to a stop in front of the station.
Emily coughed a little as the dust cloud swirled over the four of them waiting in front of the station. When it blew away, Matt saw the driver and the guard climbing down from the box.
“Any trouble, boys?” Hanrahan asked them.
The driver shook his head and said, “Nary a bit. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary, Mr. Hanrahan.”
“May the Good Lord let it stay that way,” Hanrahan said. “Jake, give that Greener to Jensen here.”
The guard handed the double-barreled weapon to Matt and asked, “You're ridin' shotgun from here to Pine Knob, friend?”
“That's right,” Matt said.
“Better you than me!”
The driver looked just as relieved as the guard to be leaving the stage. Both men took off their hats and slapped dust from their clothes.
Emily opened the coach door and said, “There'll be a ten-minute stop here, folks, while the teams are changed. You'll find hot coffee in the office, if you'd like a cup.”
So there were passengers on this run, Matt thought. He watched with interest as a couple of men and a woman climbed out to stretch their legs. All three were well-dressed. The two men bore a definite resemblance to each other. Father and son, Matt decided. Judging by the possessive way the younger man took hold of the woman's arm as they went into the station, she was his wife.
The older passenger looked at Hanrahan and said, “I know you, don't I?”
“That ye do, Mr. Baxter. I'm Seamus Hanrahan. I'll be handlin' the team between here and Pine Knob.”
“I thought you owned a saloon.”
“I do. But me daughter's the manager of this station, so I'm helpin' out by drivin' the coach.”
The man sniffed.
“You'd better keep us safe. We've heard that road agents have been stopping these coaches. If my son and I didn't have to be in Laramie on business, I wouldn't be making this trip right now.”
“Ye'll be perfectly safe, sir. I guarantee it.”
Baxter gave him a curt nod and went on into the station. Hanrahan turned to Matt with a shake of his head.
“'Tis a bit of bad luck,” he muttered. “Claude Baxter is a rich man. Owns a piece of several gold mines. And 'tis well-known in this part of the country that he always carries a lot of cash on him. If those bandits know somehow that he's on this coach . . .”
Hanrahan didn't have to finish the sentence. Matt knew exactly what he meant.
Claude Baxter might be too tempting a target for the outlaws to resist, not just because of the money he might be carrying, but also for the ransom he would bring if they kidnapped him, his son, and his daughter-in-law.
The run to Pine Knob had just gotten even more dangerous.