Twisted Hills (16 page)

“We'd better get a move on if we're going to pin Jones down and find out where the money is,” he said.

“First things first,” said Kelso. “Let's get off this blasted desert and into the rocks ourselves. We make too good a target out here with our backsides exposed.” He looked all around as he spoke, recalling the last time on the desert floor and what the sound of gunfire had brought down on him.

“Why don't we hit Jones head-on from right here?” Hazerat asked. “Get it over with.”

“You need to talk to your brother, Charlie Ray,” Kelso said. “He's starting to sound like a damn fool.”

Charlie Ray turned to face Hazerat.

“As far as we are from Jones, he can pick us off one at a time in a head-on rush. Besides, we need to pin him down and catch him alive if he's going to tell us anything. Wouldn't you agree?” he asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, I agree,” Hazerat replied with equal sarcasm, “since you put it that way. I was just asking, is all.”

The three turned their horses to the hills and gigged the tired animals out across the desert floor.

When Sam arrived up on the hillside where Lilith had taken the wagon behind the shelter of a large boulder, he slipped down from his saddle and hurried to her. She sat against a rock, holding a cloth against a bullet graze across her forearm. She looked up at him with a slight smile and tried to play off her wound.

“Look at me,” she said. “If my father was here, he would chastise me for being such a clumsy duck.” She held her forearm up for him to see.

Sam kneeled. He leaned the French rifle against a rock and took her arm in his hand.

“Are you all right?” he asked, ignoring her critical remark. “Are you hit anywhere else?”

“No, I am fine, Joe,” she said, taking her arm back from him. “How about you? Are you all right?”

“I'm good,” Sam said. He took the cloth from her forearm. She watched as he tore a long shred down one edge the length of the bloody cloth. He folded the rest of the cloth, held it on the shallow bullet graze and tied it down in place with the shredded length.

“You appear to be good at this,” she said, watching him work deftly, tying the bandage, making sure it wasn't too tight on her arm.

“We learn as we go,” he said, revealing nothing of his past that might lead her to his true identity. He let her lower her arm to her lap.

“If these are Segert's men,” she said, “it will not be long before Dolan and the others will arrive.”

“Yes, I figure as much,” Sam said. “Only this has nothing to do with Dolan and his pals dragging me out of town. This is over a whole other thing that happened out on the desert. Preston Kelso thinks I have some bank money buried out here.”

“Bank money?” said Lilith. She pulled her arm back from him. “You robbed a bank?” she asked quietly as she worked her hand a little to test for any stiffness from the bullet graze.

“No, nothing like that,” Sam said, not liking the disappointed look she gave him. “Kelso thinks I did, though. In his mind, that's enough to make him want to come after me and force me to show him where the money is.”

“Oh. I see,” she said. But Sam saw that she only half believed him. That was all the explanation he could give her, regardless of what it caused her think of him.

“This is not the time to talk about it, Lilith,” he said. “The whole thing isn't true. But Kelso thinks I know where the money is hidden. He wants to take me alive and try to get it out of me. If you're with me, it's likely he'll think that I'll talk instead of allowing you to be hurt.”

She looked puzzled. “But you say you don't know—”

“That's right. I don't,” Sam said, cutting her off. “But that only makes it worse. I can't tell him anything, no matter what he would do to me, or to you either.”

She looked frightened by his words.

“Then—then what will we do?” she asked.

“You'll stay down, Lilith,” Sam said, clearly, calmly. He reached around and took the French rifle in hand. “If this Gruen is as good as it's supposed to be”—he lifted the long-distance sights atop the rifle chamber and stood it up in place—“I'll get them in my sights and kill them.”

Lilith gave a little gasp.

Sam stopped adjusting the rifle sights and shot her a grave, serious look.

“I'll kill them before they kill us,” he said. “Because in the end, that's what Preston Kelso intends to do.”

“No matter what you tell him?” Lilith asked in a shaky tone.

“Yes, we will die, no matter what I tell him,” Sam said with finality. “Now, stay under cover while I get us out of this,” he added as he stood and cradled the French rifle in the crook of his arm.

Behind the boulder where the wagon sat, and where he'd tied the dun's reins, he took the pouch of rifle ammunition from his saddlebags. Slipping the pouch strap over his shoulder, cradling the Gruen in his arm, he climbed the iron rungs up the rear of the wagon. Atop the wagon, he stepped over onto the rough sloping surface of the large boulder and walked upward in a crouch to where a thin broken stone shelf offered natural footing for a man wielding a long-range rifle, and deadly intent.

He located the largest boulder out there and decided that would be where they had left their horses. They were on foot now, no doubt about it, he told himself. He laid the cartridge pouch on the rock and adjusted the French rifle down onto it, making himself a good solid shooting foundation.

These men knew he and the woman were ducked down in the rocks; they had seen no long rise of dust on the pathway leading up the hillside. They knew roughly where to find him, he thought, having been in this same situation many times before. What they would do now was skirt along on the hillside, behind cover, rock to rock, until they could pin him down and decide when to rush him. Once they did that, they would try their best to take him and the woman alive. And then the games would begin, Sam told himself grimly.

He flipped the yardage sight up on the rifle barrel and aimed it at a stone standing in the settling trail dust they'd left behind. They were in the rocks now, headed this way, he decided. He sighted the French rifle in and waited, scanning back and forth among the larger rocks in the afternoon sunlight.

Nothing moved or stirred on the hillside in front of him. But he knew they were there. On the desert floor to his left, now that the wavering heat had subsided enough for him to see a little more clearly, he eyed two bodies lying sprawled in the sand. Even with his naked eyes, he could make them out as the scalp hunters, Montoya and Fain. Not far from Montoya stood his lone horse, an afternoon breeze lifting at its mane. Fifty yards away stood Fain's horse. By dark the two horses would be standing together against the coming night and what it brought down from these rocky slopes.

Another few moments passed without event. Then, as he continued scanning down the rifle barrel, he saw a scrawny jackrabbit streak from behind an upstanding stone and race away skittering over rock and barrel cactus until it vanished somewhere down near the desert floor.

Here we go,
Sam alerted himself, locking in on the rock cover the rabbit had given up. No rabbit headed to the open desert this time of evening. In the afternoon heat, even a rattlesnake would only send the creature moving a few grudging yards out of striking range. Huh-uh, Sam decided. Only man caused this much disturbance. He waited, ready and aimed.

A moment later, the French rifle snug to the pocket of his shoulder, his eyes focused down the long-range sight, he spotted his target. The gunman, this one Charlie Ray Hooke, rose in a crouch and moved forward quickly from the cover he'd taken over from the rabbit to a newer, closer spot ten feet in front of him. But, moving in a line facing the Ranger, he didn't make it. Before he could swerve in behind his next rock, he stopped, bolted upright onto his toes and flipped sidelong and backward onto the rocky ground.

Sam's long-distance shot resounded as Charlie Ray hit the ground. A string of blood followed him backward, splattering wide on his chest, his face. On the ground beneath him, a spray of blood pointed out along the dirt behind him.

From his position, Sam heard Hazerat crying out to his brother.

“Charlie Ray! Charlie Ray!” Hazerat shouted, suddenly grief-stricken. His voice echoed, following Sam's rifle shot off across the hills and desert floor.

One down, two to go,
Sam told himself, ignoring the cries of Hazerat.

He levered out the smoking cartridge and levered a new round into the rifle chamber. He raised the rifle to his shoulder again and began scanning the hillside near the spot where Charlie Ray lay dead in his own blood. What Kelso and his pals didn't know, he told himself, was that he had an advantage. These men thought they were fighting one of their own. They were wrong. They were fighting a lawman—and it made a difference; he was certain of it. As he scanned the rocks, he caught sight of Hazerat Hooke standing up in a crouch behind a waist-high rock and looking over toward his brother's body. Sam took quick aim and fired again.

•   •   •

Behind the boulder, Preston Kelso reached up and pulled Hazerat straight down beside him. As Hazerat hit the ground, a shot from a long ways off along the hillside ricocheted off the rock and zinged away wildly in the air.

“Stay down, you stupid son of a bitch!” shouted Kelso. He swung his rifle around and poked it into Hazerat's chest. “Make another move like that and I'll kill you myself!”

“That's Charlie Ray lying out there!” Hazerat shouted. “I aim to go get him, pull him back here! He might still be alive!”

“Yeah,” said Kelso. “And he might be lying there scratching a galled ass, but I find it hard to believe.” He looked around quickly, then back to Hazerat. “This Jones fellow is a good long shooter. But he can't see any better than we can in the dark. Soon as the sun's gone down, we're going to slip in and rain hell on him. He'll do what we tell him to once he sees some cold steel along the peddler woman's neck.”

“As soon as the sun's down,” Hazerat said, “I'm going to get Charlie Ray and drag him behind a rock. Dead or alive, I can't leave him lying out there like that.”

“All right, all right,
damn it
!” said Kelso. “Soon as it's dark, you drag him behind a rock, for all the good it'll do you. But you'd better be ready to back my play when the time comes.”

“I'm ready,” said Hazerat. “After what he's done to my poor brother, I won't rest until I see him dead.”

•   •   •

Atop the boulder, Sam shouldered the ammunition pouch and cradled the French Gruen. Feeling the chamber warm against his forearm, he stepped down the side of the boulder onto the wagon top, then climbed down the iron rungs to the ground. He hurried over to where Lilith huddled against the rock where he'd left her.

“See?” she said nervously. “I stayed right here, just like you told me to.”

“Good,” Sam said, seeing the worried look in her eyes.

“Are you—? Are you all right?” she asked, sounding dry-mouthed and frightened.

“I'm good,” Sam said, looking back across the hillsides as he spoke. “I got one, but the other two will keep moving in closer on us every minute.” While he spoke, he picked up the canteen, uncapped it and held it to her. “Here, drink some water. Try to settle yourself down. We've got a long night coming.”

She accepted the canteen and took a short sip. When she finished, she handed it back to Sam.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“While we've got this big boulder hiding us,” Sam said, “we're going to ease up the hill and find ourselves another trail before it gets too dark. We're going to stop the wagon and drop back along their trail and ambush them when they come looking for us.”

“We are . . . ?” She seemed uncertain about his plan.

“Yes, we are,” Sam replied with confidence. He reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Don't worry. We got one, we'll get another. We'll get both if they keep coming.”

They both hurried. When they left the cover of the large boulder, Sam rode his dun at the rear of the wagon. With Lilith at the wagon reins, they moved up the winding trail as the sun dropped out of sight over the jagged twisted hilltops. By dark, they had turned left onto a trail that reached around the rocky hill and led down into a narrow canyon. At the point where the trail began to angle down, Sam circled the wagon and rode beside her a few yards, looking all around.

“Stop here,” he said finally. Around them the shadows of night had begun to creep down the hillsides and cast them purple-black against the darkening sky. The trail behind them became obscured by the grainy evening light.

Lilith brought the team of horses to a jolting halt.

“Set the brake and tie the reins good,” Sam said. “We're going to leave the rig here.”

“But what about Andre and the new horse?” she asked.

“They'll be all right,” Sam said. “They'll be here. We'll be back there.” He gestured toward the trail behind them. “I'll find a place where they'll have to moonlight themselves to us. With any luck, we'll end everything right there.”

“All right,” Lilith said. She hurriedly set the wagon brake and tied the reins around the tall brake handle. Standing, she searched herself quickly, almost frantically. “Do you still have my pepperbox? Will I need it?”

Sidling close to the wagon, Sam reached a hand over to her.

“
Yes
, I still have it,” he said, “and,
no
, you won't need it. Let's hope not, anyway.”

Taking his hand, she stepped over from the wagon seat and lowered herself behind him on the dun.

As he put the dun forward at a walk, they heard a hard eruption of gunfire from the trail, somewhere near the boulder where they'd been taking cover.

“Sounds like we left at the right time,” Sam said to her over his shoulder.

Two more shots exploded on the trail below them.

“Yes, yes, you were right. They were coming right then to kill us, these evil men,” she said. Sam felt her shake her head back and forth against his back. “I'm glad it's you with me,” she said softly. He felt her tighten her arms around him. “Do you mind if I hold you this way?”

“Be my guest,” Sam said. He touched his boots to the dun's sides. They rode forward along the winding trail.

When they neared the run in the trail that led back down toward the large boulder, Sam stepped the dun over onto the hillside and they both slid down off the horse's back. There were tracks they'd left riding back from the wagon, but there was nothing he could do about them now. He had kept the horse as close to the rough edge of the trail as he dared without risking that the animal would twist a hoof or slip and fall in the loose gravel. This would have to do, he told himself.

They walked up the steep rocky hillside among boulder and stone ledges, and through sparse growth of pine and ironwood until they reached a shallow overhang with a thick short wall of stone lining its front edge. Inside the overhang, Sam led the dun downward over a sunken boulder and stood it in the darkness. Then he hurried back up to where Lilith sat against the front stone wall.