Silver City Massacre (20 page)

“What the hell?” Tatum shouted, bolting upright out of a sound sleep.

“The horses!” Strong yelled. “Somebody's after the horses!”

Tatum didn't hesitate. Grabbing his Henry, he ran out the door, looking frantically from right to left. His eyes found the man on horseback aiming a rifle at him a split second before the muzzle flash and the solid impact of the bullet when it entered his chest. He ran half a dozen steps farther before crumpling to the ground, dead.

“Hold on!” Strong barked when Larkin started to follow Tatum. “He's sittin' out there, waiting for us to come out.”

“Damn it!” Zach swore. “He's got us trapped in here!”

“Just hold on a minute!” Strong ordered. “He might be waitin' for us to run out, but he can't come in without gettin' his ass blown off. There ain't nothin' we can do till daylight. Then he's gonna have to back off, 'cause there ain't no place to hide out there.” He looked around him then to see what their situation was. There was a window in the back between the two stalls, and one on the side facing the house. “One of you get on that window in the back,” he directed. “The other'n take that window on the side. I'll watch the door. He'll play hell comin' in here after us.”

“What about the horses?” Zach asked as he ran to the back of the barn.

“We'll have to worry about runnin' them down after daylight,” Strong said. “There ain't nothin' we can do about 'em now.”

Outside, still seated on his horse where the corner of Boone's front porch used to be, Joel continued to watch the open door of the barn while keeping a sharp eye in case one of them slipped out of one of the windows. After a while, when it appeared that they were choosing to hole up instead, he decided that his work was done for that night. There was very little chance that he could successfully storm the barn without giving one of them a clear shot at him.

Although his need to complete his quest for revenge was still strong, he knew he could not fight all three of them out in the open. So he contented himself with the knowledge that his enemies were now reduced to three, plus the man responsible for all of the killing, Boss Beauchamp. He would continue to catch them one by one until he had extracted full payment for Boone's and Riley's deaths as well as the execution of the women. So he turned the gray's head away from the house and loped up through the pine trees toward the back of the mountain. He was hungry and he needed sleep.

Tomorrow I'll find them again,
he thought.

•   •   •

There would be no more sleep that night for Strong and his two remaining gunmen. First light of day found them still watching warily for a new attack. When it was finally light enough to see, they decided it best to take the precaution of going out the back window, in case McAllister had sat waiting all night for someone to show his face. Still, there was no one of the three eager to expose himself outside the barn, until finally Tom Larkin volunteered.

“To hell with it,” he snorted. “I'll go. We can't stay here in this barn all day. I've got to find my horse.” So, with a boost from Zach, he went out the window, landed on his shoulder, and immediately rolled over, ready to fire. When there were no shots fired, he got to his feet and made his way along the back of the barn until he reached the corner. Peering cautiously around the corner, he waited several minutes with no sign of anyone in the yard between the barn and the house. So he walked around the empty corral to the front of the barn. There was still no sign of anyone, so he decided McAllister had gone.

“Hey,” he called out, “you two lily-livered gunslingers can come out now. He's gone.”

Strong was not so sure. He considered the possibility that Joel was hidden somewhere, and was waiting to lure all three of them out in the open. So he hung back to let Zach go out the door before he did. When there was still no sign of attack, he cautiously followed Zach, relieved when there was no shot fired. Larkin walked over to look at Tatum's body.

“He hit him right square in the chest, right in the heart, I expect,” he said. Then a thought occurred to him and he started checking Tatum's pockets, knowing that, like all the men, he was carrying a large cash bonus for the “Indian raid.” He found the money in an inside vest pocket and started to put it away, but Strong saw him.

“What the hell do you think you're doin'?” Strong demanded.

“Well, hell, he ain't gonna need it where he's gone to,” Larkin replied.

“We'll be splittin' that money three ways,” Strong told him.

Overhearing, Zach went over to Slow Sam's corpse by the cabin wall, intending to search his pockets as well. “I reckon this here's the reason we didn't hear no noise when that son of a bitch was scatterin' the horses,” he said as he looked at the half-breed's slashed throat. “I wondered what happened to him. I thought he mighta run off.”

Before doing anything else, they counted the money found on their late partners and divided it three ways. Only then was there any thought about what they should do about the fact that they were on foot. “They most likely didn't go very far,” Larkin said, “if we just knew what direction they run off in.”

“He mighta rounded up them horses and drove 'em off somewhere where he's got 'em hid,” Zach suggested. He shook his head slowly and said, “It's a helluva long walk back to Blackjack Mountain, especially carryin' a saddle.” His comments were sobering to his two partners, who had not considered that possibility to that point.

“We need to take a look along the creek on the other side of those trees,” Strong said, assuming the horses would naturally go to water. He was not at all enthusiastic about walking down this mountain and hoofing it seven miles to Beauchamp's ranch at the base of Blackjack Mountain.

All three knew that they were of little use on foot, hunting for McAllister, or running from him, so they threw their saddles on their shoulders and started up through the trees to look along the stream. It was a fruitless search. They saw not one of the five horses, and soon were at a loss as to where to look further.

“We'd best give up on the horses and start walkin' before that bastard comes back and catches us out in the open,” Strong finally decided.

So they started on a line as straight toward home as they could figure. It was their misfortune that only one man had seen the direction their horses had been driven from the corral, and he was shot dead before he could tell anyone. In fact, the horses had fled in the opposite direction from the stream where the three men had searched, running up through the trees at the far end of the meadow where Boone McAllister had built his home. They had not gone far into the trees, and wandered back to the barn later in the morning.

•   •   •

The sun was well up when Joel returned to his brother's home and sat his horse inside the tree line while he took time to look the scene over. By all appearances, it seemed that the three men were no longer there, for their horses were milling about the barn and the yard, still unsaddled. And the two bodies of the men he had killed the night before were left where they had fallen. After a wait of approximately fifteen minutes more, he decided that they were really gone, so he nudged the gray and the gelding walked slowly out of the cover of the trees toward the barn.

With his rifle out and ready to fire, he watched the door of the barn carefully, still alert to the possibility that he might be riding into a trap. But there was no one waiting in ambush as he rode right up to the barn door. Taking a brief look inside, he saw three saddles that had been left behind. Since there had been six of them when they had come up the mountain the day before, that told him that the three had left on foot, carrying their saddles. Evidently they had looked for their horses in the wrong direction.

It didn't take much looking around to discover the trail left by the three where they crossed the open yard between the barn and the belt of pines behind. With a cautious eye, he followed the tracks left by the frequent scuffing of their bootheels on the floor of the pine forest. They led him to a fork in the stream that flowed back to Boone's house below. The tracks were not so easily followed at that point, but he was able to surmise by some broken branches of laurel bushes that they had thrown their saddles down at one point while they apparently searched up and down the stream. It took him some time after that before he was able to find where they had left the trees and set out across an open meadow.

They're heading for home now,
he thought as he sighted along the line they had started on. He set out after them.

•   •   •

Tom Larkin stumbled, almost falling, on a shale-covered slope. Cursing, he complained, “These damn boots ain't made for walkin'.” He was not as stout as Strong or Zach, and his saddle seemed to have acquired a good bit more weight during the several hours he had carried it.

Neither Strong nor Zach had complained about the load on his shoulders, although they were getting tired as well. Neither man wanted to admit to a weakness.

“I reckon we could set 'em down for a little while and give you boys a rest,” Strong said. “Maybe when we get to that pile of rocks down yonder.”

“I don't need no rest,” Zach boasted, although he was glad someone had finally called for a break.

They continued down toward the large outcropping of rocks that Strong had indicated. When within a dozen yards of the rocks, Larkin stumbled again, but this time he went down and a rifle shot was heard immediately after.

“Run!” Zach yelled, not waiting for Strong to follow.

Running as fast as he could to gain the protection of the rocks, he felt the impact of a second bullet when it smacked into the saddle he carried on his shoulder. It caused him to run even faster.

Gasping for breath, the two men dived behind a finger of rock that jutted out beyond the boulders. Fearing for their lives, they dropped the saddles and pulled their rifles out of their scabbards.

“Up there!” Strong shouted, and pointed to a large boulder that sat on a flat rock base with another boulder behind it. “We'll have cover from both sides up there.”

Zach moved immediately without questioning. He wanted something solid between himself and the determined avenger, and the boulder looked to be the best place to be at this moment. He was only a step ahead of Strong as they scrambled up over the smaller rocks to squeeze in between the two larger boulders. Back-to-back, they were confident they could handle an attack from either side.

“Let the bastard come on now!” Zach bellowed, once he felt the security of the rock protecting him. He rose a little in an effort to spot the shooter. “Come on down here now, you son of a bitch!” he shouted out. He was immediately answered by a bullet that glanced off the boulder a foot from his head, causing him to drop down on his knee before the next shot came. “Damn!” he muttered, knowing the next one might have his name on it. His sense of bravado having been corralled, he pressed Strong. “We're in a helluva bind in these damn rocks. What are we gonna do? That bastard's got us pinned down here.”

The question was already troubling Strong's mind, and he couldn't see an answer that was satisfactory. “Nothing we can do right now,” he said. “He can stay up there above us all day if he wants to. Our only chance is to sneak outta here after dark.” It was an option, not a good one, but better than the other remaining one—charge out in the open to take him on in a shoot-out.

“It's a helluva long time till dark,” Zach complained, “and I ain't got much water left in my canteen as it is.”

“You'd best scrape up some of that snow between these rocks, then. But I'll tell you, dyin' of thirst ain't your main problem right now.”

He dropped to his knees and crawled a few feet to the side in an effort to see where the shooter was. A small space between the curved bottom of the boulder and the flat shelf it rested on afforded him a tiny window to look through. After a few minutes of scanning back and forth across the slope above them, he suddenly snapped his gaze back to a low clump of laurel a few yards below the crest of a ridge.

“I got him!” he exclaimed excitedly. “He's up there behind some scrubby little bushes. Move over to the other side of this rock and you can see what I'm talkin' about.” Zach moved at once, and when he reached a space where he had a view of the ridge above them, Strong gave him directions. “See them two little bent-over pines on the right side of where that ridge slopes up on the right? Now come on over to your left to that little clump of bushes. He's behind the biggest one right in the middle.”

Zach followed Strong's directions and located the bush. “I see where you're talkin' about,” he said. “But I don't see nobody. How do you know he's behind that bush?”

“I just saw it movin' about a minute ago. He's behind it, all right. He's just settin' up there waitin' for one of us to stick our heads out. And that ain't no protection a'tall, so if we fill that bush up with lead, we stand a damn good chance of gettin' him.”

“Might just be another marmot,” Zach said, remembering the last time they had massacred a bush. “But, hell, I don't see any better place he could be up there.” He shifted his position to a point where he could aim his rifle through the small opening between the rocks and waited for Strong's signal.

Seeing that Zach was in place, Strong slid his Henry into the gap under the large boulder. “All right,” he said, “let's give it to him.” Both men opened fire, cranking out spent cartridges as fast as they could.

Strong's hunch proved to be a good one, for Joel was caught by surprise, suddenly finding himself amid a hailstorm of rifle slugs shredding the leaves of the laurel and kicking up dirt beside him. The risk he had taken turned out to be a bad one, and the only reason he was alive to regret it was the fact that he had moved over to a smaller bush. Even then, the bullets were landing all around him. He had no choice other than to make a run for it, and it didn't take him long to decide. His carbine in hand, he scrambled out from behind the bushes and sprinted toward the top of the ridge, almost making it over before a rifle slug slammed him in the back, knocking him down. When he hit the ground, he was close enough to the top to continue rolling over and over until he had the protection of the ridge.