Authors: J. A. Johnstone
Brutal Vengeance (17 page)
Chapter 28
Tom Lame Deer’s directions turned out to be good ones. The Kid found the blind canyon without any trouble, and at the far end of it, just as Tom had told him, was a narrow trail that led up a steep, rocky bluff.
The sure-footed buckskin climbed the trail without The Kid having to dismount. They descended the ridge on the other side and came to the well-defined trail Tom had mentioned. It ran almost due east and west. The Kid turned east.
He hadn’t ridden along it very far when he heard gunfire in the distance. The Kid stiffened in the saddle, his heart pounding hard in his chest.
A lot of possible explanations for somebody shooting flashed through his mind, but his gut told him none of them applied except one. The members of the posse were battling for their lives against Warren Latch’s gang of ruthless killers.
Already moving at a pretty good pace, The Kid heeled the buckskin into a run and leaned forward in the saddle to urge more speed out of the horse.
The buckskin responded with its usual gallantry, stretching its legs and eating up the ground. Even over the drumming hoofbeats, The Kid heard the gunfire getting louder. Riding around some rocks, he saw that the trail merged with a smaller trail from the northwest. That was the route the others had been following, he realized.
Tom Lame Deer had been wrong about getting ahead of Latch’s gang or the posse. Obviously, they were still ahead of The Kid.
Not for long, though. He followed the trail through a couple more bends and spotted puffs of powdersmoke coming from behind small boulders and brush along the base of a bluff to his right. He reined in for a quick assessment of the layout.
To the left was a much thicker stand of trees, and shots were coming from that direction, too. The sight of several men and horses lying motionless on the ground told The Kid what had happened.
Latch’s men had hidden in the trees, and the posse had ridden right in front of them like targets in a shooting gallery. Those who were still alive were pinned down in sparse cover against the bluff, and it was only a matter of time until the outlaws picked them all off.
The Kid pulled back behind some rocks, hoping none of Latch’s men had spotted him. He might be able to work around behind them and catch them in a crossfire. Another possibility was circling to the top of the bluff. It would give him the high ground and a better angle for firing at the men hidden in the trees.
Either way, the odds were against him and the posse. As many as half a dozen men had been cut down in the ambush.
Lace hadn’t been among the victims. He would have spotted her red hair if she had been hit. Hoping she was still all right, he figured it was just a question of keeping her that way.
Trying to reach a quick decision on his best course of action, time unexpectedly ran out on him. With a burst of fresh shooting, men on horseback suddenly emerged from the rocks and charged straight toward the trees where the outlaws were hidden.
The unmistakable figure of the heavily bandaged Vint Reilly was in the lead.
The Kid bit back a groan of dismay. The posse men never had a chance. Guns roared and cracked, and a wave of lead scythed through the suicidal charge. Men and horses fell, spouting blood from their wounds. It wasn’t a fight anymore.
It was murder.
And exactly the sort of foolhardy, revenge-driven stunt The Kid had expected Reilly to pull. The man was too crazed by his need for vengeance to think straight. He was willing to charge right into the guns of Latch’s men for a chance to kill some of them, and somehow he had convinced the other men in the posse to go along with him.
Or some of them, anyway. The Kid didn’t think all the men had followed Reilly. He still hadn’t seen Lace or Nick Burton. Maybe they were taking cover in the rocks and brush along the base of the bluff.
If that was true, they were in a bad spot. The outlaws would probably try to wipe them out.
All the men who had charged the gang were down. A few were only wounded and tried to scramble back to cover, but their bodies jerked grotesquely as more slugs thudded into them. They slumped back to the ground, either dead or dying. A few futile shots came from the members of the posse who hadn’t joined the charge, but they weren’t enough to provide any cover for their wounded companions.
No bullets had come The Kid’s way, so he thought there was a good chance he hadn’t been spotted. He wheeled the buckskin and raced back the way he had come, searching for a way to get to the top of the bluff.
He found a path a moment later and sent the buckskin plunging up it. Quickly, the slope became too steep for the horse. The Kid leaped out of the saddle, dragging the Winchester with him, and started up the rest of the way on foot.
Reaching the top of the bluff, he hurried along it, staying low so he wouldn’t be skylighted. He stopped at a spot above where the remaining members of the posse were huddled behind the skimpy cover. The Kid went to his belly and thrust the rifle over the edge of the bluff.
He couldn’t see the outlaws in the trees, but an occasional glimpse of movement was enough to give him their general locations. Sighting on one, he pumped three rounds from the Winchester, working the rifle’s lever with eye-blurring speed between shots.
Without waiting to see the results of his burst, he shifted his sights and fired three times at another spot where something moved. He did that twice more, leaving him with three rounds in the Winchester. He had fired twelve shots in about as many seconds.
Heavy return fire angled up at the top of the bluff. The Kid pulled in the rifle and scooted back a couple feet. Rocks, dirt, and dust flew in the air where bullets chewed up the rim. Latch’s men could shoot like that all day without touching him.
While waiting for the outlaws to get tired of wasting ammunition, The Kid took fresh cartridges from his pocket and thumbed them through the Winchester’s loading gate. When the Winchester was fully loaded again, he slid forward, came up on a knee, and swung the rifle from left to right, spraying eight rounds into the trees before he threw himself back out of the line of fire again.
That was enough for the outlaws. A few moments later, The Kid heard a swift rataplan of many hoofbeats across the way. He risked a look and saw dust boiling up on the far side of the trees as the gang fled.
He wondered for a second if it might be a trick, then decided it wasn’t. There were too many horses for that. Latch had hit the posse with all the men he had left, and they were all lighting a shuck out of there.
Sliding and bounding, The Kid hurried back down the path to the spot where he had left the buckskin. He swung up into the saddle and headed for the trail that led in front of the bluff. The Winchester was out and ready to fire if he needed it.
As he trotted the buckskin toward the rocks at the base of the bluff, two men ran out from behind them. The Kid swung the rifle toward them for a second before he recognized them as Thad and Bill Gustaffson.
“Mr. Morgan!” Thad exclaimed as The Kid reined in. “Are you the one who ran those varmints off?”
“You know it had to be him, Thad,” Bill said. “Who else could it have been?”
The Kid dismounted and let the buckskin’s reins dangle. “We’d better check these men. Some of them might still be alive.” He started toward the members of the posse who had fallen during the ill-fated charge.
That wasn’t the case with the first half dozen he came to. When The Kid rolled Abel Gustaffson onto his back, both of the man’s sons groaned at the sight of their father’s blood-soaked shirt and sightless eyes. He had been shot at least three times in the chest.
“We told him not to ... not to go out there,” Thad said in a choked voice. “But Reilly said it was the only way, the last chance to settle the score for everything we’d all lost.”
“Pa said he didn’t care anymore,” Bill added. “He just wanted to kill some outlaws. Now he ... he’s ...”
The Kid left them to their grief and moved on to some of the other men. They were dead, too, some of them from Fire Hill, others cowpunchers from the M-B Connected.
But he still didn’t see Lace or Nick.
He swung around and sharply asked the Gustaffson brothers, “Where’s Nick and Miss McCall?”
Bill dragged the back of his hand across his eyes to wipe away some of the tears he couldn’t hold back. “Latch has got ’em, I reckon.”
The Kid drew in a shocked breath. “Latch?”
Thad nodded. “The posse got scattered when the shooting started. I saw Nick’s horse go down, and so did Miss McCall’s. I don’t think they were hit, though, just thrown clear. Some of Latch’s men came out of the trees and got them while the rest of the bunch laid down covering fire. They dragged them back into the trees.”
The Kid didn’t need any more explanation than that. Latch had seen the opportunity to grab a couple hostages. and had seized it. He might not have even realized at the time that Lace was a woman, and he certainly hadn’t been aware that Nick was the grandson of a wealthy rancher.
All the luck seemed to have swung back around to Latch’s side.
“How many men do we have left?” The Kid asked grimly.
Thad turned and waved toward the rocks. “Come on out, fellas!”
Three men emerged from cover. Two of them were M-B Connected hands. The third man was Ed Marchman, which came as a surprise to The Kid. He’d expected to find Marchman among the dead men. He had already seen Clyde Fenner and Jack Hogan, both of them shot to ribbons.
The Kid started to say something, then decided to let it go. Marchman might not be much good, but at least he was a warm body and another gun.
“Let’s round up some of the horses that weren’t hurt in the shooting,” The Kid ordered. “We don’t want Latch to get too far ahead of us.”
“My God!” Marchman exclaimed. “You’re still going after him? There are only six of us! He probably has three times that many men!”
“I don’t care,” The Kid said in a hard, flat voice. “He’s got Lace and Nick, and I’m not going to let anything happen to them if I can stop it.”
“You’re crazy,” Marchman insisted. “Let’s just go to San Antonio and tell the law there what’s happened. Let them handle it. That’s their job.” The storekeeper looked gaunt and haggard. “We’ve ridden more than a hundred miles, and what’s it gotten us? Just a bunch of dead men!”
“It was your decision to come along,” The Kid snapped, “ just like it was your decision to throw in with Reilly after Culhane was wounded.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Marchman blustered. “What would you have done differently?”
“I wouldn’t have paraded right in front of Latch’s guns without doing some scouting first, for one thing.” Disgust welled up inside The Kid as he shook his head and turned away. “Forget it. It’s too late to change anything now. All we can do is go after Latch and try to rescue those prisoners.”
“I won’t do it, I tell you! I’m going ... home ...” Marchman’s voice trailed off as he realized he didn’t have a home or a business to go back to. Warren Latch had seen to that.
The Kid wasn’t going to waste time arguing with Marchman. “Do whatever you damn well please. I’m going after those outlaws, and any of you who want to can come with me.”
“We’re with you, Mr. Morgan,” Thad said.
“Damned right,” Bill added.
“So are we, Morgan,” one of the cowboys said. “The old man would have our hides if we didn’t bring Nick back to him safe and sound.”
The Kid didn’t make any promises.
Bill Gustaffson went on. “Do you reckon we can ... bury our pa first?”
The Kid shook his head. “Sorry, but there’s no time. Not if you’re riding with—”
He stopped as a groan came from somewhere among the bodies littering the trail. Swinging around swiftly, he looked for the man who was somehow still alive among the welter of death.
He was shocked to see Vint Reilly pushing himself up on an elbow. Reilly shook his head as if trying to clear it.
Without knowing how he got there, The Kid found himself standing over Reilly, booted feet widespread, the Winchester in his hand pointing down at the bandaged man. Blood seeped from the bullet graze underneath the torn bandage on his head. Reilly had been wounded in the charge and fell unconscious. The outlaws hadn’t shot him again because they thought he was dead. The Kid could see all that plain as day.
Reilly looked up and saw the intention in The Kid’s eyes. Giving a hollow laugh, he rasped, “Go ahead, Morgan. You think I ... give a damn anymore?”
Chapter 29
“Don’t do it, Morgan,” Ed Marchman said. “It’d be murder!”
“Murder?” The Kid repeated. “After the way he led all these good men to their deaths? Sounds more like justice to me!”
Thad said, “It might not be murder, but I bet you’d regret it, Mr. Morgan.”
“This ain’t the kind of thing you do,” Bill added.
For a long moment, The Kid stared down at the defiant Reilly. Then he sighed, muttered a curse under his breath, and turned away. As much as he wanted to blow a hole in the loco son of a bitch, the others were right. If he did, he’d regret it later.
Without turning back around he jerked his head toward Reilly. “Somebody help him up.”
Marchman hurried to Reilly. “Let me give you a hand, Vint.”
Reilly stubbornly ignored him. In obvious pain, he hauled himself to his feet, felt around inside his pockets and produced the little brown bottle of painkiller. “Ahh.”
Reilly must have brought several bottles with him, The Kid thought. He couldn’t have been nipping at the same one during the entire pursuit.
Taking hold of the buckskin’s reins, The Kid mounted up. “I’ll catch some of those horses that scattered during the ambush. Get as much ammunition as you can carry and maybe some extra guns.”
“Scavenge from the dead, you mean?” Marchman demanded in an outraged tone.
“I can’t think of anything better to do with their bullets than using them on the men who killed them,” The Kid said.
“Morgan’s got a point there,” one of the cowboys said. “Come on.”
It didn’t take long for The Kid to catch six horses and bring them back to the survivors of the ambush. Seven men now, including him, against nearly three times that many.
Oh, well, he mused, the odds had never been good in this pursuit.
“They’re less than an hour ahead of us, but they’ll be moving fast,” The Kid told the men as they rode out. “We’ll have to move faster.”
They picked up the trail on the other side of the trees where the outlaws had hidden. After a half mile or so, the tracks curved back to the main trail, which soon ran into an actual road.
“I think this is the road between Bandera and San Antone,” Thad said. “I remember coming this way once, a few years ago.”
“I think you’re right,” Bill agreed.
“They’ll make better time now.” The Kid’s hopes of catching up to the outlaws before they reached San Antonio were sinking. The posse could push the horses only so hard without riding the animals into the ground, which would allow Latch and his men to get away for sure.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about what Tom Lame Deer had said earlier ... about what he should have said to Lace before they parted.
The Kid hadn’t been a praying man for a long time, but at that moment he was praying that Lace was still all right.
“Squirm a little more, why don’t you, darlin’?” Slim Duval told the redhead who was riding double with him. “I don’t mind at all.”
His arm was wrapped around her waist as she perched on the horse’s back in front of the saddle. From time to time his arm slid up far enough to feel the warm pressure of her breasts.
She cursed him with the intensity and creativity of a bullwhacker and added, “Sooner or later I’ll kill you, mister. Count on it.”
Duval laughed. “I won’t hold my breath waiting, if you don’t mind.”
Latch had already told him he could keep the redhead once they reached San Antonio. The youngster was a different story. Foolishly, he had let slip that he was the grandson of the rancher whose money the gang had stolen out of the stage station safe at Fire Hill.
They had already taken a considerable amount of old Marcus Burton’s money. There was no reason they shouldn’t have more of it, in the form of ransom for the boy, Latch decided.
Of course, even if the old man paid the ransom, the boy was doomed, Duval knew. Latch would take particular pleasure in blowing the whelp’s brains out, probably with one of those fancy foreign guns of his.
The boy was riding in front of one of the other men, looking stunned. As well he should, Duval thought. He was in deep trouble, whether he knew it yet or not.
Duval hadn’t been sure about the idea of setting up another ambush for the posse after the previous attempts to wipe them out had failed. But Latch had been insistent, and of course there was no use arguing with him.
And it had worked. A few of those stubborn bastards might still be alive, but not enough to come after Latch and his men. Whoever was left of the posse could limp back to the ruins of their homes and try to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives.
Duval would have liked one more shot at the man on top of that bluff who had forced them to light out before the massacre was complete, but he supposed that in the long run, it didn’t really matter. By the end of the day, whoever was left of the gang would be in San Antonio, and the chase would be over.
And he would have the redhead to amuse himself with for a while, until he grew tired of her and sold her to the madam at one of the houses along the river.
Alongside Duval, Latch startled him a little by saying, “You see, Slim, it’s just a matter of proper planning. That’s what it takes for a successful operation.”
Duval felt a surge of anger. He knew Latch blamed him for the previous failures, but the boss didn’t have to rub his nose in it. But all he said was, “You’re right, Warren. That ambush you set up went off slick as it could be.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Too bad we didn’t manage to kill all of them.”
Latch waved a hand as he rode. “It doesn’t matter. There can’t be more than two or three of them left alive. They’re no threat to us.”
Duval felt a little shudder go through the woman he held so tightly. Maybe her lover had been among the men who’d been killed back there. He hoped so. He didn’t mind a little spirit in a woman, but if she knew nobody was going to come after her, she would be easier to handle.
Making good time, the gang moved at an easy lope over the road. As they came around a bend, however, Latch abruptly raised a hand to signal a stop. Several hundred yards ahead of them, moving slowly along the road, were a dozen freight wagons.
“Well, well,” Latch said as a smile curved his thin lips. “What’s this?”
“Nothing we need to bother with, Warren,” Duval said. “We can leave the road and get around them. They’ll never even see us.”
Ignoring his second-in-command’s suggestion, Latch took a pair of field glasses from his saddlebags and lifted them to his eyes. “Those wagons are empty,” he reported a moment later. “Just as I expected since they’re on their way to San Antonio. The drivers have already made their deliveries ... and collected the money that was due for the goods they carried.”
“Which can’t amount to much, compared to the loot we’ve already got,” Duval pointed out. “Holding them up would be a waste of time, Warren, not to mention running a risk that we don’t need.”
Latch’s head snapped around toward him. “You think I’m afraid of a bunch of teamsters?” His voice dripped scorn. “I was
born
to lead men into battle.”
born
to lead men into battle.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Duval argued. “Hitting those wagons would be a waste of your time and talents. It’s beneath you, Warren.”
Latch turned in his saddle to look back along the line of men, less than half as many as had started out a couple of weeks earlier. Their faces were impassive, and none of them said anything. They all knew Latch was half loco. They would do whatever he told them to do.
“Fortune has begun smiling on us again,” Latch said. “It wouldn’t be wise to turn our backs on fortune’s smile.”
Crazy as an outhouse rat, Duval thought. Latch was probably hearing voices in his head again.
But he was the boss, no doubt about that.
“You want to hit those wagons, we’ll hit ’em,” Duval said.
Latch smiled as he stowed away the field glasses and drew his left-hand Mauser. “We’ll take our time until we get closer.”
“Then we’ll hit them, and hit them hard.”
“You’re gonna die,” the redhead said under her breath to Duval.
His arm tightened around her. “Maybe, but you’re going to be right in front of me, honey child.”
The Kid let the men stop and rest their horses for a few minutes every now and then, but for the most part he kept them moving as fast as he dared.
His eyes constantly scanned the wooded, hilly terrain around and in front of them. He didn’t think Latch would attempt another ambush so close to the gang’s goal, but if this remnant of the posse rode into a trap, that would be the end of them, no doubt about it.
Their only chance was to take Latch and his men by surprise and kill enough of the outlaws in the first strike to make the odds closer to even.
So when The Kid heard gunfire up ahead, it surprised him. He had figured Latch’s bunch wouldn’t slow down until they reached San Antonio. But every instinct in his body told him they were responsible for those shots.
The Kid reined in and paused long enough to pull his Winchester from its saddle sheath. He motioned for the other men to do likewise.
“That’s got to be Latch. Maybe the gang ran into some trouble. If they did, it’s a break for us. We’ll see if we can’t turn the tide against them. But be careful ... They’ve still got Nick and Miss McCall with them.”
Unless Latch had decided to kill the two prisoners and dump them somewhere along the way, The Kid thought bleakly. With a man as crazy as the outlaw leader seemed to be, anything was possible.
Reilly said, “Don’t worry about ... those prisoners. Just kill ... as many outlaws as you see.”
“Mister”—Thad turned in his saddle toward Reilly—“why don’t you just shut the hell up!” The young man exploded. “You think you’re the only one who suffered? The only one who lost somebody? My brother and me lost both our folks and our sisters! And
you’re
the one who got my pa killed! You and your beatin’ the drums for revenge all the time!”
you’re
the one who got my pa killed! You and your beatin’ the drums for revenge all the time!”
“Take it easy, Thad,” Bill said.
“Easy? Easy! Reilly’s as loco as Warren Latch is! We shouldn’t have even brought him with us. He’ll find a way to get us all killed!”
“No, he won’t,” The Kid said. “If he tries, I’ll shoot him myself. You hear that, Reilly?”
“I ... hear you. And you don’t ... scare me, Morgan. You can’t ... hurt me.”
“We might just see about that,” The Kid snapped. He pulled the buckskin around impatiently. “Come on. We’re wasting time.”
All seven of the men pounded down the road toward the sound of the gunshots.
Several minutes later, they came in sight of a line of freight wagons stopped along the road. Gunsmoke spurted from the backs of the wagons where the teamsters had taken cover behind the thick sideboards. They were firing at men on horseback who raced back and forth, blazing away at the wagons like Indians attacking a train of immigrants.
“That’s ... them,” Reilly grated. Digging his heels into his horse’s flanks, he sent the animal lunging forward.
“Mr. Morgan!” Thad yelped.
The Kid lifted his Winchester. “For once Reilly’s done the right thing. Let’s get ’em!”
He urged the buckskin into a pounding run behind Reilly. The other men strung out behind him. The outlaws had their attention focused on the wagons and didn’t see the new threat approaching rapidly from behind them.
They had Latch’s men in a trap.
The Kid’s eyes searched for a flash of red hair, but didn’t find it. He didn’t see Nick Burton, either. The two of them had to be there somewhere, he told himself. The alternative was unthinkable.
Until he could find them, The Kid could gun down those outlaws without having to worry about hitting the prisoners.
Ahead of him, Reilly opened fire with his pistol before he was in good range, his desire for revenge getting the better of him again. The Kid brought his rifle to his shoulder and sprayed three shots into the gang of outlaws. Even though firing from the back of a running horse played hell with a man’s accuracy, he still brought down one of them.
Finally realizing the trouble they were in, some of the outlaws whirled and fired at the charging riders. The Kid snapped two more shots and saw another man throw up his hands and pitch from the saddle. Close enough for handgun work, he jammed the Winchester back in the saddle boot and palmed out his Colt.
The teamsters had put up a lot stouter defense than Latch had expected. They had downed some of the outlaws already, and as dust roiled and shots roared, The Kid and his companions brought down more. The fighting was fierce, but not without paying a price. The Kid saw Vint Reilly jerk in the saddle as a bullet punched through his burned body. He stayed on his horse and charged straight toward two outlaws, still firing as he thundered toward them. He was hit again and then again, but he kept going. The outlaws finally broke in fear of the bandaged apparition coming toward them with a roaring gun in his hand.
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