Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series) (27 page)

On the edge of the trail below, Sergeant Goodrich saw the dead trooper facedown in the trail; he saw the riflemen firing heavily on Rourke’s position—Rourke not firing back at them.

He called out to Trooper Trent, who sat firing from behind a rock ten feet away.

“I fear the corporal is wounded up there,” he shouted. “Give him some help!”

As Silas Dooley and the Dog kept up a merciless barrage of rifle fire, the sergeant and Trent turned their fire up along the high ridge long enough for Rourke to get himself into deeper cover and return fire himself. Between shots, he pulled a dusty bandanna from around his neck, wadded it up and stuffed it inside his coat onto the bleeding collarbone wound.

Captain Boone and Trooper Lukens had moved along the hillside, traveling upward diagonally until they reached a thick stand of rocks at the edge of the trail. The driverless wagon sat a few yards away.

Crouched down behind the wagon, unable to turn the wagon horses or the wagon’s single stuck wheel back onto the trail, Grolin and Swank returned fire relentlessly. But they found themselves pinned down by rifle fire coming from above them and down the edge of the trail. Beside Grolin, Bobby Kane sat leaning back against the wagon wheel without a care in the world. As shots pinged and thumped and whistled past the wagon, Bobby raised his rifle backward and gazed curiously down its dark barrel.

“God almighty!” Grolin cursed in disgust, seeing Bobby grin dreamily. He grabbed Bobby’s loaded rifle and handed Bobby his empty, smoking Winchester.

“Here, load this,
idiot
!” he shouted. “You’ve got to be good for something.”

“Will do,” Bobby said calmly, the side of his face still purple and swollen from the Giant’s backhanded slap. Seeing smoke rise from the Winchester’s barrel, he stirred his finger around in it, watching it swirl.

As soon as the fighting started, Rochenbach had rolled away from the tree onto all fours and crawled over to Casings. Stray bullets whistled overhead, thumped into pines and ricocheted off rocks.

“We’re heading straight down this path,” Rochenbcah said, nodding toward a thin break in the trees. “The horses are hidden down there.”

“You’ve got to be crazy, Rock, staying behind with this going on,” Casings said as Rochenbach unlocked his handcuffs and dropped them to the ground. “Change your mind, before somebody lands a bullet in your head.”

“Forget it, Pres,” Rochenbach said as bullets zipped overhead. “We’re not going through all the reasons again. Both of you need to get to a doctor, before you start bleeding out again.”

“Want me to backhand him, Pres, carry him over my shoulder?” said the Giant. His big eyes widened as he saw Rock stand crouched before him with a long boot dagger in his hand. “Just joking,” he said.

“I know,” said Rochenbach. Leaning in, he slipped the blade under the rope holding the huge man to the tree. One slice and the rope fell away.

“Jesus!” said Casings. “You’ve been carrying that around? Didn’t anybody search you?”

“Yes, but not that good,” Rochenbach said.

“When were you going to use it?” Casings asked, seeing Rochenbach run the blade under the rope on the Giant’s wrists and make one swipe through it.

“When it came time to cut somebody loose from a tree,” Rock said, hefting the knife on his palm, then slipping it down his boot well. He stared at Casings as he turned to the hidden path. “Now come on, follow me, get yourselves out of here. I’ll meet you at the doctor’s in Dunbar.”

“The doctor in Dunbar is a drunkard and an opium smoker,” the Giant said.

“So?” Rochenbach responded.

“Nothing,” said the Giant. He shrugged. “Just thought I’d mention it.”

Casings shook his head and fell behind Rochenbach on the narrow path.

“Come on, Giant,” he said, “I know when I’m not wanted.” He grinned, holding the bandanna to his wounded side.

“Me too,” said the Giant, turning to follow Casings. A stray bullet zipped past and opened a seam on the shoulder of his coat. The impact of the shot startled him. “Whoa, let’s get out of here!”

When they’d reached the horses, the Giant looked back and forth, deciding which horse would be strong enough to carry him down off the trail and
into Dunbar. Bullets continued to slice through the treetops.

“Take two, Giant!” Casings said, getting impatient. As he spoke, he pulled the reins to three horses loose from a rope hitch line tied between two trees. He handed two sets of reins to the Giant.

“I want to leave a good horse for you, Rock,” the Giant said.

“Don’t worry about me, Giant,” Rochenbach said. “My horse is standing right there. You’re the one needs medical attention.”

Climbing into the saddle, Casings spun his horse toward Rochenbach and pointed a finger at him.

“Dunbar, Rock,” he said. “Don’t make us come back looking for you.”

“I’ll be there before you are if you don’t get going,” Rock said. He slapped the horse’s rear. Casings galloped away, the Giant right beside him, leading a spare horse for himself.

Halfway down the trail, both men slowed their horses a little and looked back toward the raging gunfire.

“What the hell is Rock up to?” the Giant asked.

“I have no idea,” said Casings. “Whatever it is, he wants to handle it himself.” He shrugged and booted the horse forward. “He’s been straight with us. This is what he wants, this is what he gets.”

“Dang it, I’m starting to bleed all over again,” the Giant said.

Casings looked him up and down, seeing fresh blood on his wide chest, his sides, running down the back of his hand from under his sleeve.

“So are you, Pres,” the Giant said, gesturing toward the fresh blood soaking through the shoulder of Casings’ coat.

“Yeah, I know,” Casings said. “Got to get to that doctor in Dunbar.…” He booted his horse forward, back up into a gallop.…

With the two wounded men out of sight, Rochenbach jerked his horse’s reins free from the hitch line and stepped up into his saddle. The big dun grumbled and chuffed and slung its head back and forth before Rock collected it with a strong draw of the reins.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said wryly to the horse. He booted the big, restless dun onto another thin path leading diagonally up the hillside toward the fighting.

As he neared the edge of the trail, he swung the dun wide to his left, avoided the fighting and climbed up a steep rocky path as far as the spirited horse could take him.

Jumping down from the saddle, he wrapped the dun’s reins around the saddle horn and slapped its rump, sending it back down the steep path toward the trail. He reached down and jerked the knife from his boot well.

Ten yards to his right, slightly above him among a stand of rock, he saw gray looming smoke and heard steady rifle fire raining down on the soldiers below.

A good place to start,
he told himself.

Shoving the knife down behind his belt, he stepped over onto a foothold in the rocky hillside and climbed hand over hand until he reached the edge of a cliff.
He rolled onto his hands and knees on a narrow ledge and stopped for a moment to look around quickly.

Twelve feet away, at the far end of the ledge, he saw Lyle Myers staring down his rifle barrel, firing round after round, the rifle bucking repeatedly in his hands.

Rochenbach snatched the knife from his waist and sprang forward, coming up off all fours like a mountain cat. Myers saw his attacker coming from the corner of his eye. He swung his rifle around to meet him, but he was too late. Rock blocked the rifle with his forearm as he brought the steel point of the blade up between Meyers’ ribs and buried it in his heart.

Myers’ rifle fell from his hands at Rock’s feet. He rose onto his toes as if to get away from the sharp bite of the blade, but there was no escaping it. His mouth and eyes opened wide. Rochenbach’s arm slipped around his shoulders and embraced him like an old friend. He held Myers in place until the weight of him fell forward, lifeless against him.

Jerking the blade from Myers’ chest as he fell, Rock stepped back and to the side. Then he wiped the blade across the dead man’s back and quickly picked up the smoking rifle. He checked it and looked farther along the ridgeline as he slipped a big, bone-handled Colt from Myers’ hip and stuck it into his empty belly holster.

Standing in a crouch, he picked up a bandoleer of ammunition and slung it over his shoulder. Below him the fighting raged. Along the ridgeline stretched out before him, he saw two separate clouds of looming gray smoke. He heard the endless explosions of gunfire.

“One down, two to go,” he murmured to himself.

He climbed a steep footpath to the spot where Lyle Myers’ horse stood hitched to a scrub juniper. He snatched the horse’s reins free and slipped up into the saddle. Rifle in hand, he booted the blaze-faced chestnut out along the rocky ridgeline.

When he got to the next gunman’s position, he saw the man’s horse reined to a stand of rocks. While the gunman stood looking down over the edge of the trail, his full attention focused on firing madly down at the soldiers, Rock slipped from his saddle and reined the chestnut next to the other animal. As the two horses nosed each other’s muzzles, Rock slipped over to the edge in a crouch and stared at the gunman from twenty feet.

As if suddenly realizing someone was watching him from behind, Frank Penta turned around, smoking rifle in hand, and looked at Rochenbach through a haze of gun smoke. Seeing that Rockenbach had him cold, the rifle in Rock’s hands pointed, aimed and cocked at him, Penta gave him a strange, tight grin.

“Some fight, huh, Rock?” he called out above the roar of gunfire, sounding as if the two of them had been close friends.

“Yes, it is,” Rock agreed. His right eye fixed down the rifle sights, he squeezed the trigger. Penta dropped his rifle and clasped his chest with both hands as he staggered backward. He caught himself at the edge of the cliff for just a second. Then he fell off the cliff and bounced down the steep, rocky hillside.

Rochenbach looked toward the next looming cloud of smoke thirty yards away. He levered a fresh
round into his rifle chamber and walked back to the horses. Before stepping into the saddle, he dropped the saddle and bridle from Penta’s horse and slapped its rump. As the horse bolted away, the chestnut tugged at its hitched reins, trying to run alongside the freed animal.

“Not you,” Rock said to the chestnut. “Not yet anyway.”

Looking along the ridgeline, he heard one shot fire at the trail below. Then he saw Dent Spiller scramble over the edge of the cliff and run to his waiting horse. The gunman grabbed his horse’s reins, jumped into his saddle and raced away, not giving Rochenbach so much as a glance.

Rock raised his rifle to take aim, but Spiller disappeared over a rise on the hilltop and thundered down the trail. Lowering his rifle, Rock turned and stepped up into his saddle. Noting that the firing below had waned over the past few minutes, he gave the chestnut a tap of his boots and rode away.

Realizing they’d been caught in a trap, Grolin and Swank leaped atop their horses and fled the trail as soon as the rifle fire from their men above the trail came to a stop. As they beat a hasty retreat around the turn in the trail, Swank looked at the reins to Bobby Kane’s horse in Grolin’s hand, Kane riding along close behind him.

“Why are you keeping that idiot alive?” Swank shouted at him.

But Grolin didn’t answer. He kept his head down and rode hard toward Dunbar.