Men killed each other all the time and Ordell was just another one. He killed and one day he'd probably be killed. No matter what Clint did about it, that same story would repeat itself with other names filling the leading roles.
Those thoughts lasted just about as long as the one that had told him to shoot Ordell in the back and be done with it.
Clint knew he didn't have much of a chance of making everything right but he did have a chance to set this one thing straight. So long as he did what he could when he could, he knew he'd be able to meet his maker with a clear conscience. After taking a few minutes to catch his breath, Clint got up, dusted himself off and got his mind back on track.
Right about then, like a reminder that no good deed went unpunished, Clint heard the sounds of men approaching from every direction besides the one in which Ordell had gone.
Clint positioned himself at the front of the cabin with his back to a wall so he could watch as many of those directions as possible.
The first one to emerge from the trees was the Indian known as Three. He glared at Clint with pure death in his eyes.
“Well, well,” Howlett said as he stepped forward. “Looks like you showed your true colors after all.”
THIRTY-ONE
Clint was on his feet and ready for anything by the time the second Indian stepped out of the trees. All three men took a position around Ordell's cabin and didn't seem too disappointed to find Clint there instead.
“If you're looking for Ordell,” Clint said, “he just left.”
“We'll find him,” Howlet replied. “But you'll do just fine for now.”
Clint steeled himself and took a closer look at the other men. There was something different about them somehow. They had a meaner look in their eyes as if crawling through the dirt and hunting like animals had made them into animals themselves.
Then again, perhaps that look was in their eyes because they saw those same things in Clint.
“One man already got killed for jumping the gun like this,” Clint said. “There's no need for you men to force my hand again.”
Howlett planted his feet and narrowed his eyes. “Or maybe we didn't jump the gun. Finding you here, waiting for your friend Mark Ordell has made me feel like a fool for letting you get away the last time.”
“He's not my friend. I was damn near killed in one of his traps.”
“You look fine to me.”
“I guess if you found me nailed to one of those trees, you would've believed me?” Clint let out a sigh and waved off the other men. “Forget it. I'm too tired to argue with another hardheaded mountain man.”
Both of the Indians looked back and forth as if they were waiting for the first shot to be fired. Crow had a tomahawk in each hand and Three carried a shotgun with a charm and some feathers tied to the barrel. Those weapons were gripped tightly and slowly brought up in preparation for whatever came next.
Howlett, on the other hand, lowered his rifle. After that, he started to laugh. “You do look tired, I'll give you that. But why the hell should we think you ain't working with Ordell?”
“I don't know,” Clint sighed. “You could always start off with the fact that I'm sitting here rather than tramping around the woods right along with him.”
“Are you a lawman?”
“Do you see a badge pinned to me? Or a posse, for that matter?”
“Then what the hell are you doing out here?” Howlett asked.
“I'm bringing Ordell in to answer for what he's done. If you men lost so much because of him, you'd do well to help me instead of trying to stop me.”
“No,” Three said. “The man who killed my people must die. White man's laws do nothing.”
“There's plenty of dead men who've swung from a noose that would disagree with you,” Clint replied.
“Then why not just kill him ourselves rather than string him up so a bunch of townsfolk can watch?” Howlett asked.
“Because that's the proper way it's done.”
Until now, Crow hadn't moved more than the swaying branches of the trees behind him. When he moved more than that, it happened quicker than a bowstring snapping forward after being let go. The Indian's left arm snapped back and then out again to let one of his tomahawks fly through the air.
The heavy weapon turned end over end one complete rotation before slamming into the wall next to Clint's head. Although he was able to draw his Colt and take aim, Clint knew he would have been dead if Crow had intended on targeting his head rather than that wall.
“You won't bring that animal from these woods,” Crow declared. “He will die for what he's done and he will die in these woods.”
“And where's the justice for the others Ordell killed?” Clint asked as he kept his gun at hip level. “You three get to avenge your losses, but what about the other folks and their losses?”
Crow's eye twitched and he slowly brought up his right arm. The tomahawk he carried was slightly smaller than a hatchet and had a narrower blade. The handle was carved and smoothed down to allow it to cut through the air almost as well as the blade cut through everything else.
“If you thought I was such a danger, you would have killed me with that first throw,” Clint said.
“He may be swayed by your words,” Three snarled. “But I am not.”
“This is your chance, mister,” Howlett said as he held an arm out to keep Three from making another move. “Leave now and stay the hell out of our way. If we cross paths again and you try to keep us from doing what we need to do, you're a dead man.”
Three gritted his teeth and started to bring his shotgun up once more. He wasn't able to take his shot before Mark Ordell took his.
The sound of the rifle was unmistakable. It exploded through the air like a crack of thunder and sent its round past the heads of all four men as it tore a loud path over Howlett's shoulder, past Three's nose and between the faces of Clint and Crow.
The four men ducked low and looked in the direction from which the shot had been fired. All they saw was the thick tangle of trees between the cabin and the river.
Another unmistakable sound was Ordell's own voice. “Fer a bunch of damn killers,” he shouted, “you sure do a lot of talking!”
Three looked like an enraged wolf as he bared his teeth and fired his shotgun toward the sound of Ordell's voice. Even as he ran and fired a second time, Three was digging fresh ammunition from a pouch on his belt.
When Clint glanced toward the sound of movement beside him, he found Crow standing less than a few inches from his face. He reflexively brought his Colt around, but stopped short of pulling the trigger. Crow met Clint's eyes and retrieved his tomahawk from where it had been lodged in the side of the cabin. After that, Crow let out a sharp cry and headed into the bushes.
“Hot damn,” Howlett said with a grin. “Looks like the hunt is on.”
THIRTY-TWO
Clint rushed to pick up his rifle before charging after the other three. He could hear the Indians' war cries echoing from the direction of the river, followed by a few shots taken here and there. Even though he couldn't see what was going on, Clint knew well enough that those shots were wild and probably didn't hit a thing.
Although he didn't think Howlett and the Indians would catch up to Ordell right away, Clint knew those men had spread out far enough to keep Ordell from circling back to the cabin right away. Ordell's taunt had been like a spark against kindling, which meant the hunter wanted a chase. Clint wasn't in the mood to disappoint him.
As he bolted down the narrow path leading to the river, Clint tried to think a few steps ahead of Ordell. What surprised him the most was how quickly he was able to put himself into the hunter's frame of mind. After the last few days, Clint had learned some hard lessons from Ordell. Now was the time to put them to use.
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Crow ran with his body leaning forward and low. His hands were wrapped tightly around his tomahawks and his arms were swept back against his sides like a raven's wings. As he leapt forward, he looked three steps ahead for any trace of the man he was after.
In his ears, the Indian could hear the screams of his family as they were killed and maimed by the butcher he pursued. In his mind, Crow could imagine what Ordell had done after hunting those innocents down like so many rabbits.
He didn't have to imagine the fear in his family's eyes when their time had come. He'd seen it plenty of times in his nightmares.
Crow caught sight of something that didn't belong. It was a length of root that was stretched perfectly straight from one bush to another and it was too high off the ground to have grown there on its own. Even though he recognized it as a trap, Crow was moving too swiftly to avoid it. At the last second, he hopped up and over the snare without so much as grazing the false root.
A few steps later, Crow felt something tug against his ankle and then snap. It must have been another snare, but Crow hadn't seen it. He felt the bite of something slicing into his leg, however, and heard something moving swiftly toward him through one of the nearby bushes.
Crow was still running at full speed and his feet were digging into the ground to try and push him faster. He caught sight of the branch swinging toward him and knew instantly that it was one of those same traps that he and Howlett had found along the way to the cabin.
Since the branch was on his right side, Crow swung that arm forward and twisted his wrist to give his tomahawk a bit of extra power. He felt his blade smack against something immediately and kept his arm moving despite the sting he felt in his shoulder.
A sharpened stake dug into his flesh and ripped a gouge in his right bicep. The gouge was shallow, however, since Crow managed to deflect the branch before it did any real damage. When he took his next step, his tomahawk cut all the way through the branch and he felt the stakes bump against his leg as it fell.
Knowing that traps like these were the reason Ordell had been so bold, Crow smiled and kept running. Ordell was going to have to do much better than that if he intended on winning this battle.
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Howlett didn't bother looking straight ahead. Instead, he kept glancing to the trees on either side. He didn't bother looking for the traps, since he already had seen how good Ordell was at hiding those damned contraptions.
Instead, he looked for odd shapes connected to those trees or even a patch of leaves that were just a bit too thick on their trunks. Those were the traps themselves, and Howlett didn't have to see any more than that to know which trees were safe and which to avoid.
The moment he spotted one of those traps, he dodged to the side and slowed his pace just to make sure he wasn't about to kill himself. He might not have kept up with the Indians, but Howlett's slower pace was good enough to catch sight of Ordell.
It seemed the hunter was banking on everyone running at him the same way. After lighting the fuse, Ordell seemed to have stepped to one side so he could watch the explosion. Howlett was shocked to see the other man so quickly. Judging by the look on Ordell's face, he was just as shocked.
Both men swung their guns to their shoulders and took aim. With all the commotion going on around them and with both men moving on their own, it would have taken a small miracle for them to aim properly. As he'd figured, Howlett's shot punched through a tree trunk while Ordell's whistled through the air overhead.
Howlett grinned, knowing that Ordell's relic of a gun should take at least double the amount of time than his to reload. While working the lever of his rifle, Howlett stopped and took a moment to aim. Since Ordell didn't have the sense to move, it seemed as though the hunt might be over sooner than Howlett expected.
Before Howlett could squeeze his trigger, another plume of black smoke erupted from Ordell's barrel. When he saw that smoke, Howlett was certain it would mark his last moment on earth. He was wrong.
When he blinked again, Howlett saw Ordell pointing his rifle straight up into the air. Crow was directly beside Ordell with one tomahawk still lodged on the underside of the hunter's rifle.
Since there wasn't any time to think about how close he'd come to dying, Howlett took a breath and lowered himself to one knee. If he was going to repay Crow for saving his life, now was a good time.
Before Howlett could take aim, however, he heard a shot from the woods nearby.
THIRTY-THREE
Even as he felt the rifle get knocked out of one hand, Ordell managed to keep hold of the trigger and grip. The rifle roared and spat its shot into the air before Ordell finally saw the hand that had knocked it loose. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled while taking hold of the rifle once more and pulling it down.
Crow stared up at him defiantly from a low crouch. One of the Indian's hands was still sweeping upward after forcing the rifle up. His other hand was sweeping around in a tight semicircle to send his other tomahawk through Ordell's stomach.
As his fingers started to curl around the rifle's barrel, Ordell brought the stock down and around to viciously crack the Indian in the head. His fist clenched tightly around the barrel and began a second swing when another rifle shot blazed through the air and tore through his cheek just a few inches shy of a killing blow.
Ordell reeled back, but instinctually managed to keep hold of his rifle. It was also instinct that brought his rifle up just in time to block an incoming swing from Crow's tomahawk. Ordell caught the tomahawk right under the blade, lifted the rifle over his head and yanked the weapon from Crow's hand.
The tomahawk pitched through the air and Crow watched it just long enough to see where it might land. He then swung his second tomahawk, but only sliced through empty air before the butt of Ordell's rifle caught him in the temple. After that, Crow was too dizzy to chase anyone.