Showdown at Gun Hill (24 page)

The Ranger and Jim Purser both pulled their horses back and swung them off the trail when the rifle shot zinged past their heads and kicked up dirt on the hard trail behind their horses' hooves. Before the shooter could get a fresh round levered and get another shot off, Sam swung his dun off the trail, Purser right beside him. With only enough short rock cover for themselves, they shooed their horses and the spare away and ducked down.

On a ledge only fifty feet above the trail in front of them, a second shot rang out. They hugged the ground as the bullet chipped fragments of rock into the air. A puff of gray smoke billowed atop the cliff, revealing the shooter's position.

“Stay here, Purser. Don't try to leave,” Sam said, rising into a low crouch.

“Leave?”
Purser said, his voice shaky. “Where
else
am I going to go, Ranger?”

Sam didn't answer. He took off his tall sombrero and rose just enough to look around and find another low rock closer to the trail. He knew once he sprang into
sight, there was no turning back. He'd have to be ready to turn a dangerous move into an opportunity. As he waited, another shot rang out.

Here goes. . . .
He leaped up, running forward, his rifle against his chest in a flat port arms, the barrel pointed toward the cliff where more gray smoke drifted sidelong on the air. Atop the cliff the rifleman sprang up, seeing his running target. But as he took aim, certain the Ranger would keep racing toward cover, to his surprise, Sam came to a fast, sliding stop, his rifle springing up to his shoulder, his head cocked over to his right, taking quick aim.

The shooter, having given his running target some lead, the way a hunter would give lead to a fleeing elk, suddenly realized his rifle sights had jumped ahead of the halted Ranger by three yards.
Uh-oh, this is no elk!
He jerked his rifle sights back onto his target just in time to catch the Ranger's bullet in the center of his chest. Sam saw the man fall away as a shot from his rifle exploded and thumped into the ground five feet to the Ranger's right.

Sam ran on to the rock and dived behind it as another rifle reached out over the cliff and fired down at him.

Two riflemen up there?
Looking up, he saw a man hurrying upward, hand and foot, along a steep, rocky path to the next terraced level ten feet higher up. Sam started to take aim, but before he could he saw the man's boots go out of sight up over the edge.

“Get up here, Purser. You're covered, but hurry,” he called back over his shoulder.

“Yes, I will, Ranger,” Purser called out sharply. He sprang up and raced forward, sliding down into the dirt beside the Ranger.

“There's another one up there,” Sam said.

“I know,” Purser said. “I saw him take off.”

Sam looked all around, farther along the trail and up the side of the rocky hill right behind them.

“These old Spanish mule-cart trails are going to stay switchbacks until they get up to the mine paths,” he said.

“I thought you've never been here,” Purser said.

“I haven't,” Sam said. “But I've been to some just like it. The Spaniards laid all these old mining sites out the same way.” He nodded up the bare stone hillside to where the open mines appeared to glare down on them. “A man could die quick searching from one mine opening to the next with a Gatling gun breathing fire down on him.” He paused, then said, “It's up there somewhere, watching, just waiting for us.”

“What are we going to do?” Purser asked with a pale worried look on his face. “We leave the horses here, the Indians will have them and be gone before we can get back down and stop them.”

“We're going on up the switchbacks until we get to the first mine,” Sam said. “I'm leaving you and the horses there while I find the big gun.” He studied Purser closely, seeing the wheels starting to turn in his mind.

“All right, I got that,” Purser agreed, nodding. But he paused and then asked, “What if the gun starts shooting at us while we're headed up the switchbacks? What will we do then?”

“We'll get out of its way,” Sam said flatly.

*   *   *

Anson and Siedell had traveled down through the mine shaft to a fork where another shaft led them out onto the switchbacks three levels down the hillside. When they stepped out onto the trail, Anson spotted the Ranger and Purser leading their horses up the trail toward him. Pulling Siedell back out of sight into the mine shaft opening, Anson peeped around an edge of stone and watched the two walk inside the first dark opening a quarter of a mile downhill from him. He glanced up atop the hillside to where he knew Ape was waiting with the Gatling gun ready to fire.

“It's all going my way.” He chuckled to himself.

Inside the first mine shaft, Sam and Purser tied their horses' reins around the iron wheel spoke of an ancient upturned ore cart.

“All right, Ranger,” said Purser, sounding more than happy to be left behind with two saddled horses at his disposal, “good luck up there. I'll be waiting right here—rooting for you, you can count on it.”

“I know I can,” Sam said. He reached out and snapped a handcuff around Purser's wrist. As Purser stared in stunned surprise, Sam snapped the other cuff around the same iron wheel spoke the horses were hitched to.

“Hey, what the—” Purser said. He jerked his cuffed hand back and forth as if testing the cuffs. “You can't leave me handcuffed here. What about all these Indians? They'll cut my throat and take these horses.”

“These hill dwellers are peaceful folks,” Sam said. “But you're right about them taking the horses.” As
he spoke he pulled the big Remington from his gun belt and stuck it down into Purser's empty holster. Purser looked down at the gun, started to put his hand on the butt. “Touch that Remmy while I'm still here and you'll feel life make a sudden stop,” Sam warned.

Purser pulled his hand up from the gun butt as if it were red hot.

“What if you don't come back, Ranger?” he said.

“I'll be back,” Sam said, “especially knowing you'll be right here ‘rooting' for me.” Facing Purser, he backed out of the shaft opening, rifle in hand, and started walking up the trail. He kept close to the stone facing of the hillside, moving steadily but cautiously from one shaft opening to the next, expecting at any moment to hear the Gatling gun exploding and see its rapid flashes light up the blackness.

At the entrance to the mine shaft where Anson and Siedell stood out of sight, Anson gave his handcuffed prisoner a shove farther back inside. Siedell stumbled backward and sat down hard on a large rock.

“You stay right there until I finish this,” Anson said. The blackened torch that he had extinguished leaned smoking against a wall. Anson knew Siedell had no matches, and he knew the man wouldn't attempt to go back inside the black meandering mine shaft without a light in his hand. “Make any noise, I'll start carving off fingers and toes,” he warned.

Siedell sat staring, seething at Anson for having put hands on him.

*   *   *

Sam had only made his way up past the next two mine openings when suddenly Bo Anson jumped onto the trail in front of him. Anson fanned three rapid shots and jumped back out of sight fast as Sam's Colt streaked up from its holster. Instead of swinging his rifle up into play, Sam kept his Colt cocked, raised and ready, and started to hurry along the trail toward the gun smoke Anson left hanging in the air. Yet something stopped him in his tracks. Why had Anson done that, jumped out and revealed his position? It was a careless, stupid move, fanning three shots—
Uh-oh!
Three shots were a signal.

He stopped himself in midthought and dived off the trail into the nearest shaft opening as bullets kicked up dirt and rock all around him. From atop the cliff fifty yards above him, the Gatling gun's operator had heard Anson's signal and brought the big gun to life. Sam, realizing he had no cover other than the mine shaft opening he'd left a dozen yards behind him, tried to ball down behind a short rock and wait it out. He'd have to make a run for it, back to the mine shaft opening, when the gun stopped to reload.

But even as he considered his position, a rifleman straight across from the next hill line sent a bullet pinging off the rock he lay behind. Sam couldn't get a shot off without chips of rock and dirt pelting his face from the Gatling gun's fire. Across from him the rifleman fired again. Pinned down, Sam knew it was only a matter of time until the two guns chopped him to pieces. But in a second, the big gun fell silent above him.

What now?

In the silent pause, Sam heard two pistol shots ring out from the direction of the Gatling gun. He heard a pained yell as he glanced up and saw a man sailing down off the top of the cliff. Every few feet the flailing man bounced off the stone wall and narrow terraced cart paths on his way down. Even as the man fell, Sam wasted no time. He took aim across the hill line. As the rifleman rose enough to get another shot off, Sam's rifle bucked against his shoulder and sent the man flying backward out of sight, a red mist hanging in the air behind him.

Sam watched as Anson sprang out of the mine's opening so he could see the silent gun's position.

“Give it up, Anson,” Sam called out, emerging into sight, chips of rock and dirt peppered all over him.

But Anson only spun toward him.

“Go to hell, Ranger!” he shouted; he fired a wild shot and raced back inside the shaft. But only a second later he came staggering backward and turned a full circle on the trail, blood running down from his black-smudged forehead. He tried to raise his gun toward Siedell, who stalked out of the shaft toward him, gripping the stub of the broken torch handle in both hands, ready for another swing.

Before Anson could fire, a bullet from Sam's rifle lifted him off his feet and sent him flying out over the edge of the terraced trail. Siedell stood staring at the Ranger as if not believing his ordeal was over. Sam lowered his rifle and stared up at the top of the cliff where Sheriff Sheppard Stone stood with his rifle butt propped on his hip.

“Coming down, Ranger,” Stone called out.

Sam looked at Curtis Siedell. Siedell tossed the broken torch, looked down at Ape's body lying in the trail and spat on it. He looked back up at the Ranger and said in an arrogant tone, “Any reason you couldn't have gotten here sooner?”

“None that I can think of,” Sam said coolly. He had started to lower his rifle when a voice behind him said, “Go on and drop it, Ranger. You're all through here.”

Sam saw Siedell's face turn pale at the sound of the voice. Turning around slowly, rifle still in hand, Sam saw Max Bard and Mallard Trent facing him, Bard with his long revolver out at arm's length, cocked and ready.

“I won't tell you again, Ranger,” said Bard. “None of your gun tricks, and no talking. Make a move on me and you're dead.”

Sam could tell he meant it.

Letting the Winchester fall to the ground, Sam took a step back in silence, letting his arms drop to his sides. He kept his right hand away from his Colt, giving no sign of being poised to reach for it. He knew that Bard had no interest in killing anybody here other than Curtis Siedell—and that intense vengeful hatred was going to have to be his downfall, Sam decided.

“I've got you, you rotten son of a bitch,” Bard said, stepping forward slowly, his eyes now riveted on Siedell. “I can't tell you how long I have waited to open your belly and watch you suck air like a fish!”

There it is,
Sam noted, watching as Bard took another slow step. His hard stare at Siedell seemed to have shut
out everyone else around him. Sam saw his gun hand tighten on the big revolver.
Here it comes
.

Before Bard's finger pressed the trigger, Sam shouted, “Bard!” The vengeful gunman swung his revolver just enough toward Sam to take his aim off Siedell. That was what Sam needed. His Colt streaked up from his holster, firing on the upswing. His first shot sent Bard staggering backward, Bard's gun flying from his hand. The second shot sent him over the edge of the terraced trail onto the rocky hillside. Almost before Bard fell out of sight, Sam swung his Colt toward Mallard Trent and saw him raise his hands chest high away from his gun.

“Don't shoot,” said Trent. “I'm not one of his men. I was riding with him until I saw a chance to get away.” He nodded at Siedell. “I work for Curtis Siedell. Just ask him.”

“He works for me, Ranger. He's a tracker,” Siedell said. As he spoke he took out his last cigar from inside his coat and stuck it between his teeth. “You're through here. Obliged for your help, but you can go now. Trent and I have things under control. We're quite capable. . . .”

Sam just stared at him.

Having heard the two pistol shots, Sheriff Stone hurried down the hillside and slid through loose gravel onto the trail, his Colt out and cocked.