Slaughter's way (14 page)

Even as he fired. Slaughter went sideways from his saddle. The charge of buckshot from a shotgun at his right ripped through the air over his falling body, for Gosse was not a brave man and in his panic jerked on the gun's triggers and tilted the barrels of his scattergun upwards just as he cut loose. Slaughter fell to the

ground, jerking loose his rifle from its boot with his left hand as he went down. Twice he fired under the belly of his horse, throwing the shots into the bushes which hid Gosse. The fat marshal had chosen discretion as being more advisable than valor and was already on the run, discarding his shotgun the instant he saw he had missed his mark. One bullet biuned a crease in his rump as he bounded off and for a fat man whose only exercise for some time had been walking around town collecting bribes, he siu'e turned on a fair turn of speed.

With Sully and his cousin out of the game, Gallagher knew he must stand or fall alone.

Letting out a screech like a drunken Sioux coming to a povrwow, Gallagher kicked his horse into movement, sending it barreling down the bottom of the wash. He figured Slaughter had only one bullet left at most in his revolver, and possibly not that for most men only put five beans in the wheel as a matter of safety. He reckoned that he ought to be able to sink some buckshot into the Texan long before Slaughter could lay lead into him with one shot from a Colt.

Too late Gallagher saw his mistake. He had not seen the withdrawal of the rifle when the move was made. Desperately he threw the ten gauge to his shoulder and sighted it, although he was a good hundred yards away. However, the charge ought to spread just right for some of the buckshot to hit its mark, and even one 00 size ball could affect a man s shooting skill.

Slaughter held his rifle in the left hand and there was no time to make a swap. However, a lever-action Winchester could be handled just as well from left or right, which no bolt-action weapon ever could. He let the Colt drop from his right hand, gripping the Winchester s foregrip and nestled the butt against his left shoulder and his right eye closed. Sighting quickly, but without getting flurried. Slaughter fired. His bullet beat Gallaghers shotgun to the punch by just enough, striking the big man in the body and deflecting his aim just as he squeezed the trigger of the right-hand barrel. A charge of nine buckshot belched out of the gim, but it

ripped harmlessly into the bushes at the side of the wash.

Yet Gallagher was not done. He let the shotgun fall from his hands and jerked out his right-hand gun. Setting the spurs to his Palomino's ribs, he sent the horse charging down at Slaughter and as he came, he came shooting.

While the Winchester was a real fine medium-range fighting weapon, with a good magazine capacity and the advantage of being able to pump out its lead at a fast rate; it was not the best type of weapon to be fired from a prone position due to the awkwardness of working its lever to reload while lying on one's stomach. To add to the diflSculty, Slaughter handled the rifle from the left side and although he had used his Winchester from the left enough to be able to shoot accurately, his speed at reloading left something to be desired under the present trying circumstances.

Sand erupted into the air as buHets from Gallagher's Colt slanted down in Slaughter's direction. The bullet spurts drew closer, but he twisted on his side, worked open the lever to eject the empty case and slapped it back into place under the butt, feeding a loaded bullet into the chamber. Sighting up, Slaughter fitred once more. This time his aim was true.

The .44.40 bullet tore upwards, cutting into Gallagher s face and bursting out at the back of his sladl. Down dropped the revolver from a lifeless hand. Then Gallaghers body slid sideways from the Palomino's saddle and fell. For a moment after the body struck the ground its left foot hung in the stirrup, but it sMd free and the horse ran on, leaving its ov^nier sprawled out and spreading his Hfeblood on the sandy ground of the bottom of the dry-wash.

Coming to his feet. Slaughter levered another bullet into his rifle's chamber. He held the rifle one-handed as he bent and picked up his Colt, bolstering the revolver. Changing the Winchester to his right hand. Slaughter went forward cautiously toward the clump of white-flowered bushes. He did not need more than one

glance at Gallagher to know the man would give him no further trouble. Nor would Sully. The gunman lay sprawled on his back, a shotgun still clutched in his dead hand, and two bullets in his diest.

Slaughter walked back to where his big black stallion waited. Carrying the Winchester imder his right arm, he pumped the empty cases out of the Colt's cylinder and replaced them with loaded bullets.

A shape rose from the bushes at the eastern end of the valley, but Slaughter showed no alarm at the sight. It was Burt Alvord, who had been up there from dawn, long before Bitter-Creek Gallagher and his two men arrived to set the deadly gun-trap into which Slaughter was supposed to blindly ride.

*'Go get your horse, Burt,'' Slaughter ordered. "Ride into Devil City and tell the storekeeper what's happened. He'll know what to do."

The news, when carried to the storekeeper, was received with joy and as Slaughter had said, the man knew what to do. Drawing out his hidden store of arms, he gathered his friends and they chased Gallagher's demoralized gunmen out of town. From that day on, the citizens of Devil City never again mentioned or thought of anything as foolish as ordinances banning the sale or ownership of firearms.

From the start, Slaughter had been suspicious of Gallagher's challenge and suspected a trick. To check out his suspicions. Slaughter had sent Burt Alvord to reconnoiter the area. On arriving. Slaughter halted his horse, apparently to study the layout of the wash, but really to hear Alvord's report of the gun-trap laid for him.

The selection of the bushes with the white flowers had not been a conscious error of tactics on Sully's part He picked the spot so that Gallagher could teU where the ambushers hid and would Imow when Slaughter reached them. Due to Alvord's presence, the bushes offered a marker for Slaughter too. From Alvord's description of the two men with Gallagher, Slaughter recognized that Gosse would be the one hidden on the right side. So he fired to the left first, cutting down the

more dangerous member of the opposition. Then he went over the left side of his horse, collecting the rifle as he fell, dislodged Gosse and wrote finish to Gallagher s town-boss career.

Even knowing that two men lay in wait to loll him. Slaughter rode into the dry-wash alone. When he accepted the challenge from Gallagher, he said he alone would face the man. So he rode right on in and kept his word; for that was Slaughter's way.

PART 3

Hernandezes Little Toy

Of all the meanest, orneriest, most out-and-out miserable, gut-wrenching, back-breaking work a cowhand riding trail herd found himself doing, tailing up downers during a spell of dry driving was the worst.

John Slaughter s herd of something over three thousand head of longhomed Texas cattle were headed toward Fort McClellan, an Army base just north of the Mexican border and beyond the Arizona Territory line; and there would be used to feed Apaches in the hope that a full belly made a peaceable Indian. Life went on a whole heap safer and happier when the Apache warriors stayed on the reservations and kept off the war paint.

Before Slaughters herd could reach its destination, the cattle had to be taken across that hot, dried out, miserable, ugly and misnamed land called the Paradise Basin. At any time of the year such a crossing would have been bad enough even for a very small party. Slaughter was crossing during an exceptionally dry spell, which in the Paradise Basin meant very damned dry indeed. Nor did he have a small party. Along with him went slightly more than three thousand head of cattle, over fifty horses as a remuda, a dozen mules and twenty-three assorted varieties of men. There was nowhere near enough water or grass to satisfj^ the needs of such a large party; but the way to Fort McClellan lay through the basin, unless Slaughter wished to make a two-hundred-mile detoiu:.

So Slaughter thought the matter out in his quiet way and made his decision. Some trail bosses might have consulted with their segundo, or even asked the

hands for an opinion, before reaching a decision; leaving them with someone to share the blame if things went wrong. That was not Slaughter's way. He owned the herd and any deciding about its handling must come from him and him alone.

Which did not mean that Slaughter went blindly and pigheadedly forward. He took out his borrowed Army maps and studied the ground he must cross if he elected to take the Paradise Basin route, learning aU he could of the lie of the land. Only one thing persuaded Slaughter to risk his valuable herd on the basin instead of making the long detour. Roughly halfway across the basin lay a waterhole, and an area where he could allow his cattle to drink their fiU, spend a day or so grazing and so build up their flagging strength for the remainder of the trip.

According to the Army maps, his herd would find all it needed at Central Springs. Fed by water from an underground river, an area of about a square mile out in the center of the basin had been irrigated to bloom into as neat a strip of range country as a man could ask for—^if he did not mind looking all round it at land even gila monsters and homed toads did not regard as a desirable residence. For all that he rode in the gray and under the Stars and Bars during the War Between the States, Slaughter trusted the U.S. Army's surveyors and knew them to be eflBcient men and accurate in their findings. So he reckoned he cpuld chance taking his herd aross the arid, barren, near-desert land, relying on being able to fill up with water and food at Central Springs, then pushing on to where the Came River marked the basin's western boundary.

For four days now the cattle had been on the basin, plodding along through the weary long hours of poor grazing and not enough water. Already the longhoms were showing the strain. They acted nervous, spooky, just one short jump ahead of bursting off in wild stampede. Through the daylight hours the hands watched the herd, ready to leap tiieir horses into action at the first sight of panic. Not two, but four men rode the night herd. Through all that time the cattle remained

so wild-eyed and tense that one of the hands allowed a man on night herd to ride a good mile clear of the cattle happen he wanted to cough, spit or even breathe extra hard.

Never the smartest of animals, the longhoms were showing their usual cussed, awkward and loco habits. The fitter-stock up at the swing and point wanted to break back to where they last had decent food and water, even though they would never make it now they were so far into the basin. Showing no better sense, the weaker animals at the drag, the rear of the winding column, took another line. They just figured it best to lie down and die.

That made the drag the most important section of the drive at the moment. On some trail drives the boss, thinking to save money, hired a poorer and cheaper type of man to ride the drag. That was not Slaughter s way. He allowed that any man who could not ride point, swing, flank and drag was not worth hiring. So normally all his hands took turns in riding the various sections of the herd.

The weaker stock, forced to the rear, needed careful handling, and had for the past two days. In the chumed-up ground of the herd's passage, a good half of Slaughter's men rode with their bandanas drawn up over their nostrils and mouths in an attempt to keep out the swirling dust. The men worked among the cattle, shoving the strongest aside so the weaker animals might have a chance at such grazing as might come along. When one of the weakened animals started to go down and die rather than carry on struggling, a cursing trail hand would ride forward, lean down out of his saddle, grip the root of the downers tail and haul it back to its feet.

A man who had taken four hoiu-s of that kind of work felt relieved when his spell on the drag ended and he could ride along the line to take his place at the relatively easy flank or swing and breathe in air that was only a quarter Paradise Basin dust as opposed to the fifty-fifty mixture inhaled at the drag.

While the men changed every four hours, John Slaughter had spent almost the entire two days eating dust and tailing up downers in the drag. His Stetson and clothes were all the same dusty shade now. Even through his bandana, the black beard and moustache had been changed to a tint which matched his ginger eyebrows and hair. Only his gunbelt, which hung just right for the swift withdrawal of the ivory-handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker in the contoured holster, showed signs of being cleaned. That was a simple precaution. A man might forget cleaning his clothing in the stress of dry driving, but he would never neglect to keep his armament clean and working. Not if he wished to live to be all old and ornery.

There were men in the trail-drive crew who topped Slaughter s five foot nine by two or three inches, and who outweighed him by several pounds. Yet not one of them could truthfully claim to have outworked his boss in the drag.

Of all the men in the crew, the pair riding the point had the best of it. All they needed to do was ride flanking Big Bill, the lead bull, aiming him to the desired direction. The point men were free of the rising dust, although they would be returning to it and taking their fair share of the drag soon enough. Tex Biuton, the drive segundo, and the regular point man, Talking BiU, were in the lead. Neither of them spoke much. Talking Bill never wasted words, and Burton had no wish to chatter. Not even the appearance of a small cloud of dust on the horizon made them start talking, although both saw it coming. The distant dot changed, took shape as a fast-riding man. Both the point men recognized the rider and, while they felt curious, neither chose to discuss with the other what emergency might be bringing the herd's scout, Burt Alvord, back to them in such a hurry.

Turning in his saddle. Burton waved a hand to attract the attention of the first of the swing riders.

"Head back and tell Texas John that Alvord's com-ingl'' Burton yelled.