The Old Wolves (18 page)

The echo of the shot hadn't finished bouncing off the surrounding ridges before another rifle thundered, adding its own echoes to the dying ones of the first shot.

“Greta, you stay here!” Spurr shouted, and he booted Cochise along a deer path hugging the trees lining the steam.

As the shooting continued, the old lawman slipped his Schofield from its holster but wished like hell he had his Winchester.

TWENTY-TWO

As Spurr trotted Cochise up the trail, holding the Schofield against his right thigh, he glanced behind. Greta was staying put for now, curveting her horse in the trail and staring after him.

Good. Maybe she'd follow his orders and keep out of harm's way. He didn't think he could take another young lady dying on him.

Chances were the shots were fired by hunters laying in meat for the long mountain winter, but he had to tread carefully while he investigated.

As he rode, tension climbed his spine. The shots increased until he thought he could hear three rifles and at least one pistol. The shooters weren't hunters. Somewhere ahead men were swapping lead.

He followed the game trail along a southern bend in the trees and the stream, which hugged the base of the southern ridge. He reined up just before the stream straightened out and deadheaded south between tall, craggy peeks, and swung down from Cochise's back, moving heavily and tenderly, his ribs balking at every strain.

Judging from the loudness of the pistol pops and rifle cracks, the shooters were within a hundred yards, kicking up an angry din. Spurr led the big roan back into the forest and tied him to the up-jutting branch of a deadfall tree. Walking south through the aspens, he quartered back toward the clearing and the game trail.

The shots seemed to be coming from the far side of the trail and ahead maybe fifty, sixty yards.

Spurr could hear men yelling back and forth, the echoes of their angry voices joining the reverberations of their rifles and the sporadic pops of the pistol. He followed the din through the woods, staying out of sight of the far side of the trail. He'd just spied the cabin sitting in a little clearing to the east, tucked into the scattered aspens and firs, when a nearby horse whinnied shrilly.

He turned to see three horses tied to branches about thirty yards ahead. Startled by the gunfire, they sidestepped and jerked at their reins, their latigo straps dancing freely beneath their bellies.

Spurr moved slowly to the horses, gripping his pistol in his right hand, holding his left hand palm out, reassuringly. He whistled softly as he approached the nearest horse, a pinto, tied with its head away from Spurr. The horse sidestepped, looked at the stranger sidelong, and gave another ear-rattling whinny.

Spurr stopped, holding his left hand up higher and gritting his teeth as he looked through the trees on his left, toward the cabin around which smoke was puffing as the shooting continued. Spurr had spied a saddle ring pistol dangling from the pinto's saddle. He wanted that gun but he didn't want the horses giving his presence away to the shooters.

A voice in his ear told him these three horses belonged to Drago's former gang. And that the men now shooting at the cabin were Keneally's boys. Which meant Spurr could use another pistol if not a rifle. Hell, he could use a whole damn arsenal, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

He continued to ease up to the pinto, whistling soothingly. The horse's muscles were tensed, neck arched. It stared at Spurr with white-ringed eyes, but it let the old lawman sidle up to it. Quickly, Spurr slipped the knot on the leather cord tying the pistol to the saddle, and stepped back away from the dancing mounts. He looked at the gun in his hand—a .44 Colt Army Model in good condition and with six in the wheel. He spun the cylinder, shoved the popper down behind his cartridge belt, and moved to the edge of the trees.

He sidled up to a birch and dropped to a knee, staring across the game trail and into the clearing at the stout log cabin roofed with tightly woven, sun-bleached aspen saplings. There were a few dilapidated outbuildings and skinned log corrals behind the place, dwarfed by the granite mountain rising behind it.

Smoke issued from a tin chimney pipe. The cabin's shutters and halved-log door were closed.

A man was hunkered down behind a small boulder in the sage-stippled front yard, to the left of the path leading to the front door. His back faced Spurr.

The man lifted his carbine to his shoulder. The Winchester leapt and barked in the man's hands. The bullet hammered the front door with a loud
whap
, carving a dogget out of the wood. The bullet did not appear to have penetrated the heavy door, which was probably constructed of sturdy timbers.

The shutter left of the door swung open quickly. A shadow moved in the window, a pistol was thrust through the opening. It belched smoke and flames twice quickly, and the man in the front yard ducked down behind his covering boulder as both slugs hammered the rock's far side.

The man behind the rock laughed loudly and slid his head around the boulder's right side as he shouted, “Close one, Drago—but you missed me! Hah! You can stay in there all day and all night. Hell, we don't care! We got plenty of ammo, and when you're all out, we're gonna come in there and drag you out and shoot you through both ears!”

Spurr's heart thudded heavily, anxiously. He'd recognized the voice of the Texas gunman, Curly Ben Williamson. That meant it was indeed Boomer Drago holed up inside the cabin.

At least three of Keneally's bunch had him trapped like a rat in a privy. Spurr could tell that there were two other shooters—one flinging lead from the woods on Spurr's right, and one shooting from a corral behind the cabin. From his vantage, Spurr could see the smoke plumes of both shooters' weapons.

As the shooters' horses continued to nicker nervously in the woods behind him, Spurr slid his new Colt from behind his cartridge belt and looked around carefully.

Where were the other gang members? Obviously, they weren't here or they'd be on the cabin like a cat on a baby robin. But, having heard the fusillade, they could be headed this way.

Spurr took a minute to think over his options, deciding he really had only once course of action. To kill these three sons of bitches—back-shoot them if he had to, for they deserved no better—and pull Drago out of there. He no longer cared about hauling the old outlaw to justice. He now had bigger fish to fry—namely, the running to ground of the rest of his gang and delivering some vigilante justice for Greta, his badge be damned.

“Ah, shit,” he said, hefting both pistols in his hands and returning his gaze to the cabin. “I'm startin' to sound as crazy as Greta!”

Spurr looked at the man straight out ahead of him—fifty yards away. He recognized the long deerskin duster and the black hat beneath which Curly Ben appeared to have a white bandage knotted around his forehead. The bandage glowed in the bright sun.

Spurr looked at the infrequent smoke plumes rising from the wood on his right. There wasn't much cover between Spurr and Williamson, so he'd have to move as quickly as he could, keeping low, lest the man in the woods should pink him before he could beef the dooryard shooter.

Spurr raised both pistols in his hands, scrubbed his right wrist across the tip of his sore nose, and started running, meandering through the gray-green mountain sage. He hadn't run ten yards before the man in the woods on his right shouted, “Curly Ben—behind ya!”

Spurr stopped, dropped to a knee, and extended his right-hand pistol as the man ahead of him turned to face him, pressing his back against his covering boulder. Spurr aimed carefully, squinting one eye, and fired his Schofield at the same time a slug tore up dirt and sod two feet right of his right boot.

Curly Ben screamed and lurched back against the boulder, clapping a gloved hand against his right shoulder. Spurr dropped to a knee and shot the man once more—this time through the dead center of his chest—and flinched as another bullet hurled out of the woods to curl the air in front of his nose.

Spurr dropped to a knee and started to turn toward the woods on his right when hoof thuds brought him up short.

With a sick feeling, he glanced to his left. Greta was galloping her paint toward him along the deer trail that hugged the woods. She leaned forward over the gelding's outstretched neck, and she was ramming her heels against the mare's flanks, urging more speed.

“Oh, Christ,” Spurr heard himself mutter as he turned toward the fool girl. “Greta, get back! Get back, damnit!”

But then she'd passed him and was flying down the trail toward the south. She wasn't heading directly toward the man in the woods south of the cabin, but she was making herself a clear target for him.

Spurr cursed and ran toward the cabin, shouting, “Drago, it's Spurr, damn your eyes! I'm here to help you, so you best not shoot me you ugly, one-eyed son of a bitch!”

“
Who's
that?” Drago shouted from inside.

“Spurr Morgan!”

“I can't hear fer shit—my ears is ringin'! Did you say
Spurr
Morgan
?”

As Spurr pressed a shoulder against the front of the cabin and glanced first into the woods south and then toward the corral behind the place, he shouted, “Shut up and hold your fire!”

Smoke puffed in the woods south and in the corral behind the cabin. Spurr jerked his head back behind the front wall as one slug hammered into the cabin's south wall while the other one, triggered by the man in the corral, hammered the corner, spraying silver wood slivers in all directions.

Spurr dropped to a knee and triggered three rounds toward where he'd spied the smoke plume in the southern woods. When he turned toward the east, he saw the third shooter running toward him from the corral, a green neckerchief billowing down around his black vest and red-and-black calico shirt. As the man stopped and raised his rifle, Spurr triggered a wild shot at him.

The man's rifle lapped flames, and Spurr drew his head back behind the corner of the cabin just as the slug tore into the near logs with an angry
whump
.

Spurr jerked his head and his Schofield around the corner once more. The third shooter was running toward him again. Spurr triggered one shot at that man and then, as another slug came hurling out of the woods, he fired two more shots toward the second shooter, pleased to hear an agonized yelp amidst the frantic crackling of trampled brush.

Spurr glanced behind the cabin. The third man was down on one knee, cursing, holding his rifle in one hand as he clutched the bloody knee of his outstretched leg with his other hand. He'd lost his hat and his long, brown hair hung in thin strands around his face and shoulders.

Tio Sanchez.

Spurr grinned. Sanchez gave a wild yell and, placing both hands on his rifle, raised the gun to his shoulder.

Both of Spurr's own pistols spoke, and Sanchez was thrown straight back, triggering his Winchester at the clear, blue sky a quarter second before he hit the ground on his back and lay rolling from side to side, howling.

Spurr glanced toward the southern woods as he pressed his back against the front of the cabin. He set down the smoking Colt, flicked the Schofield's loading gate open, and began reloading. He could see no movement in the trees or along the trail in the direction he'd last seen Greta.

The old lawman said, “Where in the hell . . . ?”

A man's scream rocketed out of the southern woods.

It was followed by a girl's scream.

Spurr slid the loaded Schofield into its holster, picked up the Colt, and glanced back toward where Tio Sanchez still lay shouting and mewling like a gut-shot puma. Spurr began reloading the Colt as he strode quickly toward the southern woods, stepping around sage shrubs and rocks.

An eerie silence had followed the girl's scream but now the silence was relieved by another scream from the man.

“You pay me, you bastard!” Greta shouted so shrilly that her voice was breaking and quivering.

Spurr increased his pace, staring into the pines peppered with aspens, now seeing a commotion in the trees about fifty feet in from the edge of the clearing. He popped the last pill into the Colt, spun the cylinder, and held the pistol straight down in his right hand as he jogged into the trees and stopped suddenly.

“You pay me, you bastard!” Greta screamed again, extending her hand to the burly man sitting on his butt before her. The man's bloody left arm hung slack. Blood was dribbling down from a nasty welt on his forehead, as well. Spurr saw the bloody rock in Greta's left hand, which she squeezed threateningly and shook in the man's face while extending her other hand, open-palmed.

“I don't give it away for free, you son of a bitch!” Greta screamed at the tops of her lungs, bending forward.

“Get away from me, you crazy bitch!” shouted the outlaw Spurr now recognized as Bryce Hannibal, who was as bald as an egg though his ginger beard was as thick as wool. He cast his horrified eyes at Spurr. “Get her an' that damn rock away from me, lawman!”

“You pay me!” Greta screamed again, cocking her right hand and jerking it forward, hurling the rock at the man's head.

The rock hit its mark with a solid thunk and bounced down between Hannibal's spread thighs. The outlaw howled and cupped a hand to his left temple.

One of his two holsters was empty, but a revolver jutted from the second one. His rifle lay in the brush behind him. As Hannibal reached for the gun, Spurr leaned forward and grabbed the pistol out of its holster.