To Hell and Back (15 page)

“I thought we settled this.”

Hollander shrugged, the eloquent gesture letting her know it would be a long time, or most probably never, settled as far as he was concerned.
 

“You’ve never taken a shot at a man before, and certainly not one that will be shooting back at you. If something goes wrong. If you get in trouble, don’t go whipping yourself about it. Just find a hole and climb in it. It ain’t uncommon for a man to freeze up first time he has to face gunfire and this is even newer to you. So, whatever else you do if that happens, keep clear of my line of fire.”

Amanda’s stomach tightened and she nodded, her hand drifting down to the six-gun in the holster at her hip, lifting the leather loop that held the gun in place from the hammer.

They walked the horses forward another hundred yards or so, then dismounted, tying the animals securely out of sight in a clump of twisted hackberry trees before continuing on foot. Hollander, rifle in one hand, and Amanda, followed the trickle of a stream back into the deeper, cooler reaches of the canyon. The further they went the broader the canyon floor became, finally opening into a broad, grassy, bench undulating between high rock ridges. Abruptly the wind gusted gale force, roaring through the leaves of the huge cottonwoods and canyon maples. Amanda jumped as the wind rattled the slender dagger-shaped sotol leaves beside her. Hollander paused, then they continued on.

The sun, orange and low in the western sky cast purple shadows when Hollander spotted signs of the outlaws’ camp. He motioned for Amanda to slip off to where she could get a better look while at the same time splitting the target they presented. They scaled a low, grass-covered bluff, veering off from the trail they’d been following, dropping down on its crest.

The outlaws’ camp below them, was set back from the stream. Hollander and Amanda heard the outlaws’ voices raised in anger, but the words weren’t clear. These were the men she had seen at the stagecoach.
 

Hollander appraised the camp.
 

“We have to be careful. It’ll be dark soon, and we want to take them alive. Won’t be any good to us dead.”

Nodding agreement, Amanda sucked in her breath. The last thing she wanted to do was to kill a man, or two of them, but she knew in her gut she could if she had to. Hollander still had his doubts and she hoped she wouldn’t have to prove her ability to him.

The tone of the voices below grew gruffer, the volume rising.

“Here.” Hollander handed Amanda the rifle he had brought with him. “Take this and work your way a little higher,” he pointed to the west where the rocky wall rose from the canyon floor. “Find a spot where you can see them, but they can’t get a clear shot at you. Give me some cover while I work my way down there and . . .”

Gunshots exploded in the half made camp below, echoing down the length of the canyon. Hollander swore. Amanda gasped. She half-rose, forgetting their exposed position. Her knuckles whitened on the rifle, and for a horrible instant it seemed she locked eyes with the victorious gunman below who stood over the other man prone on the ground.

Her partner was lightning fast on the uptake. He was up and moving, slipping and sliding his way across the brush and rock-strewn slope, already half way down.

Amanda gathered her wits enough to follow. Light on her feet, the boot-moccasins of Hollander’s creation provided her traction as she scrambled after him.
 

Gun drawn, muscles rippling beneath his shirt, the man was bounding over rocks, and dodging cactus and brush like a jack rabbit on the run. To Amanda’s amazement, he kept his feet and kept moving.
 

“Hold it!” Hollander bellowed the command, but he was only half braced against the slide he continued down the slope.

The outlaw left standing, a stocky, bull-headed man, grabbed the saddlebags from the ground and bolted for the still saddled horses. He gained the saddle, saddlebags slung before him, and wasn’t about to stop. For an answer the fellow twisted around while his horse danced lightly beneath him, and flung several shots in Hollander’s direction.

Amanda swallowed a shout as Hollander hit the ground in a dive that sent him skittering across the rocky, sandy ground on his belly, raising a cloud of dun-colored dust to mark his path. She couldn’t tell if he was hit, hell, she couldn’t tell anything from the dust rising from the steep slope of the bluff.
 

Sweat mixed with dust to form mud on her forehead beneath the brim of her purloined hat. Astride a big chestnut horse, the square-set outlaw was following Hollander’s dust cloud down the slope, aiming carefully at its base, pulling off his shots one at a time.

Amanda’s partner was down and pinned. She pulled herself up short, dug her heels in, and brought the rifle butt up to her shoulder pressing her cheek against its smooth, warm stock. She squeezed the trigger, felt it kick, and a plume of sand geysered at feet of the outlaw’s horse.

The animal whinnied, tossed its head with fear, and sidestepped causing the bullets aimed at Hollander to go wild. So he changed targets, swinging the barrel of his gun Amanda’s way.

For an instant she panicked and froze. The shot went wide, but she dove for the ground then, hitting it in a headlong dive that carried her bruisingly over rocks and hard earth into a patch of blooming prickly pear, the sight of the gun barrel pointing in her direction etched on her mind’s eye.

More gunfire followed, but Amanda, sprawled face down in the dust, her left arm thrust out ahead of her for protection covered with cactus spines, dirt and blood stayed still. Sucking air in sharp gulps, and letting it out in a painful hiss, she levered herself upward using the butt of the rifle against hard-packed earth. Her arm hurt like hell, but the injury had to be minor compared to what Hollander faced. She tried to ignore the cactus spines stuck in her flesh in a stinging, burning path the length of her arm and swung the rifle up again, taking advantage of the small amount of cover the sprawling cactus provided to focused on the changing scene below. Nothing within her still meager experience told her what to do next.
 

Hollander was at no such loss for action. We was up again, farther down the slope, legs churning, in hot in pursuit of their quarry. The outlaw slapped his heels to his horse, the animal bolting like a spooked mountain goat.

Amanda tried another shot though at that distance she knew she stood little chance of hitting him. She was right.
 

Hollander vaulted astride the downed outlaw’s horse and took off after the first one at a dead run. He and Amanda had to have that man and the saddlebags he carried. The money and a live witness to clear themselves.

So he left Amanda behind, riding hard. Charging hell for leather, in pursuit of the high-line rider ahead of him. His quarry disappeared over the ridge. Hollander pushed the animal he rode harder as he strove for the ridge-top, racing the long, thinning shadows preceding the night.
 

When he topped out on the ridge where desert scrub again took over from the lush growth of the canyon below, Hollander pulled his horse up with a jerk. He’d lost him. In the bright light of day, the rock-strewn ridge would present hazards, but now, as the ridge plunged into darkness, it would be nearly impossible. He cursed roundly, torn between continuing and returning to Amanda to see if the other outlaw had survived.

The familiar prickle of nearby danger fluttered at the base of his neck and he moved his mount off the skyline as the last brilliant surge of the sun’s light illuminated the western sky. Then he heard the gunshot that rattled down the canyon.

* * *

Amanda watched helplessly as Hollander vaulted into the saddle and pounded off up canyon, but she kept moving, loose rock rolling from beneath her feet. The sounds of the rushing stream were louder now in her ears as she made her way to the body of the fallen man.
 

She kept the rifle at the ready as she moved toward him. His chest rose with the intake of breath. She broke into a trot as she neared the fallen man and forgot Hollander’s first rule, always keep the advantage. She didn’t bothering to muffle the sounds of her approach.
 

She was amazed to find him laying flat on his back, brown eyes sunk deep in a pinched face, gazing steadily up at her. Then, stupidly, she forgot Hollander’s second rule. Always disarm a downed man no matter how helpless he looks.
 

She was bending over the wounded outlaw when the brown, claw-like hand still holding a gun centered on her chest. She froze, a lump in her throat and a burning in the pit of her stomach, her eyes fastened on the six-gun pointing at her. She hardly breathed. The gun was at full cock.
 

“If you shoot me, I won’t be able to help you.”

A sly, cat’s curl of the lips brought deep creases to the wounded man’s weathered face and a shudder passed through his lanky frame.

“You can’t help me now, lady, even if you were of a mind to,” he said haltingly, his voice barely a pained whisper. “0l’ Ben, he gut shot me.”

Amanda’s eyes shifted enough to see the fallen man’s free hand pressed tightly against a spot just off center of his mid-section. Blood flowed steadily, but his gun remained fixed on her.
 

She looked into his eyes. They were cold, already devoid of life. He was the cat and she the mouse. He knew he was going to die, but now, he was in control, and he was waiting for the perfect moment to end this game.
 

“My friend and I were after you and the man who shot you,” Amanda spoke quickly. trying to divert his attention from killing her.

“Figgered as much.”

He drew a deep breath and grinned at her, the sight blood-chilling.

“We wanted to take you back to Phoenix for bank robbery and murder. You’re out of it now. Help us catch the man who did this to you. Tell me where he’s heading. We’ll find him and he’ll hang.”

The outlaw’s gun never wavered but he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to Amanda beyond that.

“Couldn’t have a better pard than Ben ‘til he up and did this to me,” he rambled.

A gunshot cracked distance causing Amanda to jump.

The dying man sprawled on the ground gave a low chuckle that ended in a gasp. “Guess o1’ Ben got your pard. He’s a crack shot. You an’ me, we’re all alone now. Ol’ Ben’s gonna keep all that money and ride,” the words rasped from a dry throat. “You wanted to see me hang, so I guess I’m just going take you along with me.”

A knot of cold settled in Amanda’s stomach. Hollander had warned her repeatedly, the unexpected was to be expected. The worst that could happen, would.
 

“Just want to have me a nice long look at a pretty woman fore I go. Don’t you worry none. I’ll know just when to pull this here trigger.”

In silence the seconds ticked by while she remained unmoving, staring at him. She had to do something soon, or he would settle the matter for her with a bullet.

Aware of his eyes, hot and penetrating, upon her, of his every ragged breath, and the fading of the evening light into darkness, Amanda tried again to distract him from his determined intent to kill her.

“What’s your name? You’ll want a marker.”

The man’s lips curl upward again.

“Who you suppose is gonna leave one for me?”

His eyes darkened rapidly and a small tremor passed along his arm down to the hand clenching the gun. The knuckles of the dying man’s trigger finger whitened as he drew down upon it.
 

Amanda threw herself sideways, flattening out when she hit the dirt alongside him as the gun roared. A bullet whipped past her left arm just above the elbow, neatly plucking a hole in her sleeve and silence descended again.

Except for the uncontrollable shaking that rippled throughout her body Amanda couldn’t move. She tensed for the next shot that would not miss. Seconds crawled past and then, from close beside her, a long, breathless sigh, passed through the stillness. The stream still chuckled in its bed. The evening breeze stirred the leaves on the trees, the soft rustling in chorus with the burbling of the water. From somewhere nearby she heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs over rock.

Chapter 14

Hollander swore low and bitterly, turning the horse to start back. He’d lost the outlaw and the money. He couldn’t leave Amanda and their horses and supplies behind to risk a chase in the dark. And there was the slim possibility that the other man was still alive and could be of use to them. If not, they’d pull out at first light.

His thoughts were scattered when the single shot boomed, echoing off the canyon walls into the distance. Hollander abandoned cautious descent from the ridge in favor of slapping his heels to the outlaw’s horse and heading down the slope at break-neck speed toward the blood-chilling sound.

His horse stumbled, then splashed across the stream, and came to a stiff-legged halt when Hollander caught sight of Amanda just coming to her hands and knees and hauled back on the reins. She swayed like a wounded animal, then gave it up and sat back on her heels as he leaped out of the saddle, trepidation moving him faster than he figured he’d ever moved in his life.

Amanda sat there, just staring at the body that lay on the ground close beside her when Hollander approached. She was still trembling, but back in control.