CHAPTER 16
Bo whirled around as another slug smacked into the rock nearby, flattening this time instead of glancing off. The attackers were in the trees behind the group of lawmen. Bo flung himself aside as he heard the wind-rip of yet another bullet past his ear. He wedged his body into a gap between boulders.
The killers couldn't draw a bead on him, but from where he was, he couldn't get a shot at them, either. The futility of that stand-off, along with the anger he felt at Duck's death, gnawed at him. He suppressed the urge to lunge out into the open and start blazing away at the trees. That would just get him killed in a hurry and wouldn't help the others at all.
Now it sounded more than ever like a small war was going on, as shot after shot rang out from all directions. Bullets whined and zipped menacingly. Clouds of powder smoke rolled through the air and stung men's eyes and noses.
The stony gap in which Bo had taken cover was narrow enough that he thought he might be able to work his way upward between the two slabs of rock. He braced his back against one side, his feet against the other. When he shoved himself upward, his progress was maddeningly slow, but eventually he was high enough that he was able to pull himself on top of one of the slabs.
From here he could fire at the trees where the attackers were hidden, but his position also left him exposed to the man on top of the bluff. He rolled to his left as a bullet spanked off the rock only a few feet away from him. That put him behind a hardy bush that had forced its way through a crack in the rock in its eternal quest for sunlight.
The bush didn't offer much real cover, but at least the man on top of the bluff couldn't see him as easily now. Bo stayed as low as he could and took advantage of the respite to study his situation.
He seemed to be the only one on this side of the trail. Scratch and the others had taken cover in a small stand of trees to the left of the path. The gunmen who had come up from the rear were in some other trees on the same side of the trail as Bo. The bluff was on the opposite side.
So he was directly between the two forces, he realized, on an imaginary line that cut across the trail at an angle. Scratch, Brubaker, and the Cherokee Lighthorsemen were slightly off to one side but still effectively caught between two fires.
If there was some way for him to eliminate the man on the bluff, Bo speculated, then Scratch and the others could turn all their attention to the threat from the rear and would have a better chance of fighting them off. Bo parted the branches a little and squinted toward the bluff.
There was no way of knowing how long the boulders along the edge of the bluff had been perched there. Probably quite a while, Bo thought, judging by the way the earth was undercut beneath them, worn away by the elements. Sooner or later some of those big rocks would topple.
Why not today?
The odds of him being able to accomplish that were slim, he knew, but he couldn't see any other options. If things continued like they were, eventually the attackers would pick off him and all of his friends.
He thrust the Winchester's barrel through the brush and waited for the man on top of the bluff to fire again. Bo wanted to pinpoint the ambusher's location.
After a few seconds he spotted another jet of powder smoke from up there. The bullet rattled through the branches above his head, but he ignored that. Marking the exact site of the smoke, he was able to tell which boulder the rifleman was using for most of his cover.
Bo drew a bead on the bluff at the base of that rock and squeezed off a shot.
Dirt flew in the air as his bullet smacked into its target. The would-be killer probably believed Bo had just missed badly. He was probably smirking up there, Bo thought, or maybe even laughing.
Bo worked the rifle's lever as fast as he could and sent shot after shot into the same place. He emptied the Winchester in what must have sounded like a futile expression of the frustration he felt.
He expected that when he paused to reload, the ambusher would take some more potshots at him. Instead, the man seemed to be concentrating his fire on the trees where Scratch and the other men had taken cover. He must have decided that Bo wasn't a threat to be bothered with anymore.
Bo could only hope that the varmint was making a bad mistake about that.
The Winchester held fifteen rounds. Without rushing, Bo made sure of his aim and sent all fifteen shots, one after the other, into the same spot at the base of the boulder. He waited to see if it was going to move.
The big rock didn't budge.
Bo had never been the sort of hombre to give up. If he had been, despair might have welled up inside him at that moment. He was convinced that his idea was a good one and would show some results sooner or later ... but would he have to lie here and keep shooting all day, firing off hundreds of bullets, before they did any good?
By that time, he and the others would probably all be dead.
He didn't let that knowledge stop him. Instead he reloaded, reminding himself that while he had several boxes of cartridges in his saddlebags, he would have only a few more rounds in his pocket after he emptied the Winchester this time. That fact right there was enough to emphasize that he was running out of time.
They all were, he told himself grimly.
He aimed the Winchester at the bluff and started firing again. His shoulder was starting to get a little sore from the rifle's recoil. He ignored that and continued shooting.
The boulder shifted. At first he didn't notice and even squeezed off another shot before he saw what was happening. The big rock tilted forward, and once its mass shifted, that was all it took. Bo's slugs had dug out enough dirt underneath it to destroy its balance.
The boulder toppled off the edge of the bluff, fell twenty feet or so to the slope, landed with a crash, and started to roll, taking brush, dirt, and smaller rocks along with it.
Bo didn't pay any attention to the rock slide he had caused. Swiftly now, he centered the Winchester's sights on the surprised man who suddenly was exposed as he knelt there where the boulder had been.
Bo triggered three more shots as fast as he could work the Winchester's lever.
His aim was as deadly as ever. The slugs ripped through the ambusher's body. He jerked to his feet, lurched to one side, and dropped his rifle as he clapped his hands to his bullet-riddled torso. For a second longer, he swayed there at the edge, and then he pitched forward and followed in the wake of the rock slide, bouncing and flopping like a rag doll as he tumbled down the face of the bluff.
From the trees on the other side of the trail came an unmistakably Texan whoop. Scratch must have seen the man on the bluff fall.
The attackers must have seen that, too, and now that their quarry was no longer pinned down, the odds appeared to have shifted. Bo swung around. He still had some shots left in his rifle, so he started spraying the trees where the men were hidden. That turned the tables even more.
When Bo ceased fire, he heard pounding hoofbeats. They were headed west, paralleling the trail but keeping the screen of trees between them and the lawmen.
Bo cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hold your fire! They're lighting out!”
The shots died away. After a moment, Scratch called, “You all right up there, Bo?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. How about you fellas?”
“Couple of nicks, but nothin' to speak of.”
Brubaker emerged from the trees carrying his rifle.
“Blast it, we've got to get after that wagon! Creel, where's your horse?”
Bo wasn't just about to turn over his horse to Brubaker. He said, “Hold on!” and slid down the rock to the ground.
He cast a regretful look at Duck Forbes's corpse, then caught his horse's dangling reins and swung up into the saddle. Duck's mount still stood there, too, so Bo led it out of the rocks and handed the reins to the eager Brubaker.
The deputy had the decency to ask, “What happened to the fella who was ridin' this animal?”
“He was the first one hit,” Bo said. “He didn't make it.”
“Duck Forbes, right? Damn it, I liked that boy, what little I knew of him.” Brubaker hauled the horse's head around. “Come on!”
He galloped along the trail with Bo close behind him. They raced past the bluff where the ambusher had lurked, then rounded a couple of bends before abruptly reining to a halt.
The wagon was stopped as the team cropped grass at the side of the trail. As Bo had expected, the horses had run for a short distance and then forgotten to be scared anymore. All of them appeared to be unharmed, including Brubaker's saddle mount that was still tied to the back of the vehicle.
“Well, it didn't wreck, anyway,” Brubaker said. “That's something to be thankful for.” He drew his gun. “Be careful, Creel.”
Bo could see that the door at the rear of the wagon was still fastened with the big padlock.
“They can't have gone anywhere,” he told Brubaker.
“No, I reckon not, but I still don't trust 'em.”
Bo didn't, either, but he didn't see any way the prisoners could have gotten free. He drew his Colt, too, as he approached the wagon alongside Brubaker.
“Hey, in there!” the deputy yelled. “Sing out and let me know you're all right!”
“You don't care whether we're all right!” Cara replied through the ventilation slits. The thick walls of the enclosure muffled her voice a little. “You want us all dead!”
“I want you all to hang after a legal trial,” Brubaker replied. “There's a big difference.”
“Not to us, you no-good, stinkingâ”
She continued with a vile tirade directed at Brubaker, his ancestors, and anybody he had ever known. Brubaker looked over at Bo and shrugged.
“Well, she sounds like she's all right, anyway,” he said. He dismounted and approached the wagon. Reversing his gun, he rapped on the wall with the revolver's butt and bellowed, “Shut up in there, woman! I want to know if Lowe and Elam are all right, too.”
“You damn near got us killed!” That was Elam's familiar whine.
“Who was doin' all that shootin'?” Lowe asked in his rumbling voice. “Couldn't have been Hank and the rest of the boys.”
Brubaker gave Bo a nod, indicating that he was satisfied all three prisoners were alive. He didn't answer Lowe's question. Instead he handed the reins of Duck's horse to Bo and said, “You can lead this one back to the others.”
He holstered his Colt and climbed to the driver's seat to swing the wagon around. That wasn't an easy job in the narrow trail, but Brubaker managed.
Bo led the extra horse, and Brubaker followed with the wagon. By the time they reached the scene of the ambush, Scratch and the Cherokee Lighthorsemen had emerged from the trees.
Some of the men had fetched Duck's body from the rocks. It was laid out now at the side of the trail. The young man's face was oddly peaceful.
“That had to be Nat Kinlock and his bunch who jumped us,” Charley Graywolf said. His face was darker than ever with fury. “Stinking murderers.”
Bo said, “You told us Kinlock has relatives in this area, so you must have a pretty good idea where to find him.”
Graywolf nodded. “That's right. And he knows it, too. That's why he set this trap for us. He figured he had to stop us. But if we move fast enough, we might be able to corner him and the others at his grandfather's farm.”
“Then mount up and go on,” Bo said.
Graywolf shook his head.
“We have to bury Duck.”
“We'll take care of that,” Scratch said. “Then we'll catch up with you fellas and see if we can give you a hand.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Bo added.
Brubaker scowled. “Wait just a chicken-scratchin' minute,” he said. “We got our own job to do. I reckon we can take the time to lay this poor young fella to rest, but after thatâ”
Bo interrupted by asking Charley Graywolf, “Where's this farm you mentioned?”
“About five miles west of here,” the Cherokee lawman replied. “In a valley between a couple of ridges that run east and west. Massasauga Valley, the one I mentioned earlier.” He nodded toward Brubaker. “Forty-two knows where it is.”
“Pretty much the way we were already goin', sounds like,” Scratch said.
Graywolf shrugged and nodded.
“Now, listen hereâ” Brubaker began again.
“Marshal, we promised to help you deliver those prisoners, and we will,” Bo declared. “But giving Charley and Walt and Joe a hand isn't going to delay us very much, especially since we're already headed in that direction.”