Trackdown (9781101619384) (21 page)

“You…you…” Clearly she was struggling to find something bad enough to call him.

“Careful now,” Tatum warned with a smile. “You may not realize it, but I’m just about the only friend you’ve got.” He lifted himself in the stirrups to ease his muscles, then waved the others forward. “Come on. We can make the hideout by nightfall.”

Bill hauled back on the reins and brought his horse to a stop. Beside him, Josiah Hartnett did likewise. Behind them, Jesse Overstreet and the rest of the posse followed suit.

Crossing his hands on the saddle horn and leaning forward to peer into the distance, Bill asked, “What the devil is that?”

“Got to be Castle Rock,” Hartnett answered with a smile. “I’ve never laid eyes on it myself until now, but I’ve heard about it. I don’t know what else a thing like that could be, out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Neither did Bill. He had heard that there were some pretty spectacular rock formations out in west Texas, but he had never seen them. In the part of Texas where he had grown up, there were some good-sized hills here and there, but the countryside was mostly flat and grassy, much like Kansas in the area around Redemption.

“That’d be the badlands on the other side of those rocks?” he asked Hartnett.

“Yep. It’s pretty rugged country. Folks don’t think of there being anything like that in Kansas.”

Bill certainly wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t been forced to chase those outlaws up here. It made sense that they would choose the most rugged terrain they could find for their hideout.

Overstreet brought his horse up alongside Bill’s mount and said, “Looks like the tracks run straight at that thing.”

“Yeah,” Bill agreed.

“You don’t reckon they’re hidin’ behind it, waitin’ to jump us, do you?”

Bill frowned in thought and looked over at Hartnett.

“Is it big enough for that?”

“Like I told you, I’ve never been here, either,” the liveryman replied. “And from this distance, it’s hard to tell exactly how big it really is.”

“Maybe we should swing wide around it.”

“We could do that,” Hartnett said, “but the way it looks from here, the gap leading into the badlands is right behind it, so we’d just have to come back.”

Bill studied the layout for a moment and then nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “But I don’t like the idea of ridin’ right past it without doing some scouting first. The rest of you stay here. I’ll ride on ahead and see if the way is clear.”

“You mean ride right into an ambush if there is one?” Hartnett asked. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You got a better one?”

“I do,” Overstreet said. “Let me go.”

“I don’t know—” Bill began.

“Didn’t we have this talk before, Marshal? You’re in charge of this posse, and in charge of law and order for a whole town as well. I’m just a shiftless cowboy. If I get killed, the posse can still go on.” Overstreet grinned. “And you’ll know for sure that it’s a trap, won’t you?”

“I won’t ask any man to do something I won’t,” Bill insisted.

Overstreet pulled his horse to the side, snatched his hat off his head, and said, “You ain’t askin’ me, I’m volunteerin’!”

With that, he slapped his horse on the rump with his hat and sent the animal lunging forward into a gallop.

Bill bit back a curse.

“Not very good about followin’ orders, is he?” Hartnett said.

“Texans usually aren’t,” Bill said. “Come on. We’ll close up behind him. Those rocks are at least a mile off. We can stay out of easy rifle range and maybe still be close enough to give him a hand if he gets in trouble.”

The posse rode toward Castle Rock at a slower pace. Overstreet steadily drew out farther in front of them. Bill didn’t watch the young cowboy. He knew what Overstreet was going to do.

He kept his eyes on the rock formation instead, searching for any sign of an ambush.

That alertness was why he saw something: a flash of color, a glint of late afternoon sunlight on something shiny and metallic. The spires that formed Castle Rock were a dull, chalky grayish white. The sun wouldn’t be reflecting on them.

Bill threw up a hand in a signal to stop and then reached for his rifle as his horse skidded to a halt.

“What is it?” Hartnett asked.

“The spire in the center,” Bill said. “There’s somebody up there!”

Moving quickly, he pulled his rifle from the saddle boot, worked the lever, and lifted it to his shoulder. The posse was still half a mile, maybe a little farther from Castle Rock, but Jesse Overstreet was closer, well within rifle range. Bill raised the barrel of his Henry, angling it up in hopes of gaining more distance.

He saw a puff of smoke from the center spire.

Overstreet toppled off his horse.

Bill pulled the trigger.

With a whipcrack report, the rifle kicked back hard against his shoulder. He worked the lever again and called to Hartnett and the rest of the men, “Open fire on that rock in the center!”

The men spread out and did so, sending a rain of .44-caliber rounds toward Castle Rock. Bill figured most of the bullets fell short, but some of them might carry that far. Mainly he was just trying to distract the men who had waited in ambush up
there, maybe make them duck their heads and hold their own fire for a few minutes.

He cranked off several more rounds as fast as he could jack the rifle’s lever and squeeze the trigger, then rammed the Henry back in its sheath.

“Keep pourin’ it on ’em!” he told Hartnett. “Advance and fire!”

“What are you going to do?” Hartnett asked over the roar of gunfire.

“See if Jesse’s still alive!”

Bill kicked his horse into a run.

He leaned forward in the saddle, holding the reins with one hand while he pressed his hat to his head with the other to keep it from flying off. Overstreet had landed in some tall grass, so Bill couldn’t see him anymore, but he knew about where the young cowboy had fallen. Overstreet’s horse, obviously badly spooked, had galloped off in the other direction.

Bill glanced up at the rock formations as he rode. He didn’t see any more gunsmoke rising from the one in the center, but that didn’t mean anything. The bushwhackers could still be firing down at him. But he hadn’t felt or heard any bullets, so he didn’t swerve from his course.

Suddenly, as he neared the spot where Overstreet had pitched from the saddle, an arm thrust up from the grass and waved. Bill veered his mount closer. Overstreet leaped up and ran to meet him. Judging by the way he was moving, he didn’t seem to be hurt too badly.

Dirt jumped in the air as bullets struck the ground just behind the running man. The bushwhackers were still alive up there.

Bill slowed his horse and reached down as Overstreet reached up. The two men clasped wrists. Bill hauled up as hard as he could, swinging Overstreet onto the horse behind him.

After that he didn’t hesitate. Turning around and trying to rejoin the posse was just about the worst thing he could do. So instead he sent the horse pounding hard toward the base of the massive spires.

“That’s good thinkin’!” Overstreet yelled as he hung on
for dear life. “We get close enough and they won’t be able to fire down on us!”

That was the way Bill saw it, too.

It took only a couple of minutes for them to cover the rest of the distance to Castle Rock, but those were a long two minutes to Bill, never knowing from one second to the next when a bullet might smash into him, end his life, and end any chance he had of rescuing Eden. All he could do was keep going, though.

Keep going and hope.

When they reached the base of the spires, Bill reined in and dropped out of the saddle, pulling his rifle out again as he did so. Overstreet slid down from the horse and joined him. They crouched next to the chalky rock face that rose almost straight up.

“How’d they get up there?” Overstreet exclaimed. “They must’ve flown like damn buzzards!”

Bill figured the rock had to be rough enough in places that a man could climb it with a rifle slung on his back. He put that matter aside and asked Overstreet, “How bad are you hit?”

“I’m not hit,” the cowboy replied.

“How come you fell off your horse, then?”

“I didn’t fall, I jumped! Those fellas had the range and the elevation on me. I knew if I stayed on my horse they’d be able to pick me off. There’s no real cover out there for a man on horseback. So I jumped off and got down in that grass where they couldn’t see me anymore.”

That was pretty smart, thought Bill, and he was glad that Overstreet wasn’t wounded. But they had other problems now. He waved his rifle over his head to let the other members of the posse know they were all right and then motioned for them to back off and spread out.

Hartnett must have understood what Bill meant. The men peeled back, splitting up as they did so. They turned and raced away from Castle Rock, not stopping until they were out of easy rifle range again.

“If we’d just ridden up bold as brass, they would have shot
half of us out of the saddle before we knew what was happening,” Bill said.

“I’m surprised they didn’t wait until I was closer so they could be sure of drillin’ me, anyway,” Overstreet said.

“They might have if I hadn’t spotted the sun reflecting off a rifle barrel or something else up there. When they saw me pull out this Henry of mine, they knew we weren’t gonna waltz right into their ambush. That’s when they opened fire on you.”

“They came mighty close,” Overstreet said with his easy grin. “I swear I heard a bullet whistle past each ear at the same time. That’s why I think there are two of ’em up there.”

Bill tilted his head to look up.

“As long as they’re up there, the posse can’t get past,” he said.

“But as long as we’re down here, the bushwhackers can’t get away.”

“That’s right.”

“Then it looks like we got us a Mexican standoff.”

That was true, Bill thought, but it meant something else as well.

While the posse was stuck here, the rest of the outlaws were getting farther into the badlands…and taking Eden with them.

A few more scattered shots rang out from the top of the spire, then silence fell over the prairie except for some fading echoes.

“They figured out they’re just wastin’ ammunition,” Overstreet said.

“Yeah,” Bill agreed. He was still studying the rock formation that towered above him.

Overstreet frowned and said, “You’re not thinkin’ about climbin’ that damn thing, are you?”

“They got up there somehow.”

“Yeah, but I’ll bet by now one of them’s coverin’ their horses and the place they climbed up, just in case we decided to do it, too. We wouldn’t have a chance in hell, Marshal.”

“I know. I never was much of one for climbing, anyway. I’d rather wait and let them climb down.”

“Why would they do that? Then
we
could pick
them
off without any trouble.”

“That’s right. They won’t budge from up there unless they think we’re gone.”

“Why would they think that?”

Bill glanced at the sky and said, “Because as soon as it starts to get dark, we’re lightin’ a shuck out of here.”

“You mean we’re givin’ up?” Overstreet sounded like he couldn’t believe that.

“No, but that’s what I want them to think.” The plan continued to form in Bill’s head. He put it into words because that helped him think it through. “When it’s too dark for good shooting but still light enough that they can see a little, we’re going to head back to the posse, riding double on my horse. They’ll probably take some shots at us, but I’m countin’ on the poor light to make them miss.”

“That’s a pretty big gamble,” Overstreet said.

“I know, but it’s the best I can come up with.”

“So we go back to the posse—”

“No, you go back to the posse,” Bill said.

“But you just said—”

“We’ll leave together, but when we get a few hundred yards out, where they won’t be able to see us, I’ll drop off the horse. Then I’ll use the grass and the darkness to cover me while I crawl back here. You’ll go on, riding hard so they can hear you the whole way, and join up again with Josiah and the rest of the posse.”