Written in Time (39 page)

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The .45-70 Marlin with its flip-up Vernier-style tang sight was capable of considerably greater range than the pistol caliber saddle rifles and carbines—probably .4440s—in the possession of Jack’s would-be ambushers. He had spied Winchester ‘73s and Model 92s, but noticed not a single of the heavier framed rifle caliber 1894 Winchesters, nor any of their Marlin counterparts. So long as he could keep the distance between the muzzles of their long guns and himself at well over a hundred yards, he would be in little if any real danger except from what would—to him, at least—be an incredibly unlucky shot at the hands of a fine marksman.
 

In his younger days, he’d become friends with the great American marksman Art Cook, who had won/would win a Gold Medal in the 1948 Olympics. Jack couldn’t even approach such skills, but hitting center-of-mass required considerably less talent and discipline than clustering holes into a tiny bullseye. And with the .45-70’s impressive bullet weight and energy, one hit somewhere in that comparatively large target area would do the job.
 

As Jack settled in for his first shot, he congratulated himself on his common sense. Had he attempted a silent approach on these men, as one of the characters in his many books would have done, the endeavor would have proven suicidally useless.
 

Ellen realized full well that the pathetic sight of the bloodied and cruelly bound Helen Bledsoe was bait for a trap, a trap intended to be sprung on her husband. She also realized that, somehow, no matter how illogical that seemed, she had to have passed Jack, reached this spot before him. Otherwise, the jaws of the trap would have already closed. Either that, or Jack lay in ambush somewhere himself, ready to use his long-range Marlin rifle.
 

As Ellen replaced her binoculars in their case, she sighed. Jack would never allow her to do what she was about to do, but she felt that she had no choice.
 

Clambering up into the saddle again, her back more than stiff, her butt a little sore, she pushed her hat down from her head, letting it hang on its stampede cord. She shook her hair free. It was important to Ellen that the heartless shits who had done this to Helen Bledsoe would know that a pissed-off woman was coming to kill them, if she could. She positioned her gun belt so that it would be easier for her to reholster when her first revolver was emptied and draw the second one. John Wayne might have been able to handle a horse holding the reins in his teeth with a Winchester in one hand and a Colt in the other, but she could not.
 

The reins to her mount gripped tightly in her left fist, drawing a revolver with her right hand, Ellen screamed, “All right, you motherfuckers, let’s see what you’re made of!” And she dug her heels into her horse’s flanks.
 

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
 

Jack heard the words but couldn’t believe his ears. There was no time for doubting his eyes. He’d caught a fleeting glimpse of his wife riding down from the rocks on the opposite side of the depression, her horse streaking toward where the ambushers waited.
 

“Shit,” Jack snarled, squinting his eyes shut for a microsecond, then catching his breath as he opened his eyes and retook his sight picture on the most alert-seeming of the desperados. Three things happened simultaneously: the resounding crack of the .45-70 cartridge launching its bullet toward the target, the butt of the rifle punching his shoulder and the Marlin’s muzzle rising slightly.
 

His ears still rang from the sound of the shot; despite that, Jack could hear pistol fire. That had to be Ellen firing at the ambushers. He didn’t take time to look, a fresh cartridge already levered into the Marlin’s chamber, his right eye picking up a target through the peep aperture of the tang sight. When he had a man’s center of mass floating over the front sight, Jack fired again.
 

This time, as soon as he verified he’d hit his mark, Jack looked to his right and down into the depression. Ellen was swapping revolvers, still riding toward the ambushers.
 

It was almost a relief when the long-gun-armed men sheltered in the rocks at last returned fire. The first fusillade of gunfire poured down toward Ellen, clumps of earth and large pieces of gravel exploding on all sides of her, but neither she nor her mount seemed to be struck by a bullet.
 

While he’d watched the scene unfold, Jack had crammed two more rounds through his rifle’s loading gate. Levering the action, he fired again. He caught one of the ambushers as the man stood, bringing a Winchester ‘73 to his shoulder. The impact of Jack’s shot sent the wannabe murderer flying back against another of his fellows. That man’s rifle discharged into the air. As it did, Jack levered another round into his own rifle’s chamber and fired. He struck the second man somewhere in the chest.
 

Jack scanned the terrain to his right. Ellen was taking heavy fire from the remaining ambushers. Her horse, struck, collapsed under her. She jumped clear, landing hard, it looked like, as her horse raised its head once, then died.
 

Four of the ambushers were either dead or, at least, out of the fight; four remained.
 

It was time to draw their fire away from Ellen. Jack broke from cover, packing two more rounds into the rifle as he ran toward the next suitable spot where he could take shelter from enemy fire. He fired a wasted shot toward his enemies, baiting them to return fire. They did. The rocks just ahead of him seemed to explode with bullet impacts, but the range was still too much of a reach for anything but a lucky shot or a fine marksman.
 

Jack caught a glimpse of Ellen. She was slowly rolling onto her back. One of the outlaws was on his horse, racing down out of the rocks toward her, a revolver in his hand, firing.
 

Jack snapped off a shot, missed.
 

A man was riding down on her, his six-gun blazing. Ellen could barely breathe. Every bone in her body ached, but nothing felt broken. The revolver still holstered on her gun belt was empty, but the one she’d dropped as she fell from her horse had three rounds left in it. Her eyes swept over the ground, searching for it.
 

Ellen spotted the Colt Single Action Army half obscured under her dead horse, near where the cinch strap crossed the animal’s belly.
 

By dint of willpower more than strength, she scrambled to her feet, half hurtling, half falling toward her dead horse, her right arm at maximum extension, grasping for the revolver. Her hand closed around it. Jerking it free, Ellen looked up.
 

The mounted killer was so close she could see the front sight of his six-gun and the flecks of yellow in his squinted green eyes. A bullet impacted the right hind leg of her dead horse, inches from her own left leg. Ellen stabbed the revolver toward her assailant and did the only thing that made sense: shot at the largest and easiest target, firing the Colt’s remaining three rounds into the chest of the killer’s oncoming mount.
 

The horse pitched forward, its knees buckling. As the animal rolled into an awkward-looking somersault, the green-eyed killer launched over his mount’s neck and head.
 

Ellen scrabbled for cartridges from her gun belt, knowing that there wouldn’t be time to reload if the fall hadn’t killed or injured the man.
 

As she glanced toward him, a sick feeling chilled her stomach. He was unsteady, but he was on his feet, his right arm fully extended, the first finger of his right hand drawing back to trigger a round. Ellen snarled, “Fuck you!”
 

There was a click. The revolver’s hammer fell, but no round discharged.
 

“Damn bitch,” the man hissed. He let the revolver drop from his hand, then reached for the one holstered crossdraw. He drew it, cocked the hammer. Ellen threw the empty revolver at him, missing him but making him dodge.
 

There was a loud shot, then another. The killer’s body twitched, then lurched back, falling spread-eagled to the ground.
 

Ellen raced toward him, picked up the still-cocked single action, which had fallen from his hand, then spun around.
 

“Jack!”
 

“Get down, kid! Behind the horse, just like in the movies!”
 

There were still more men in the rocks above them.
 

Bullets tore into her horse’s body as she flung herself behind it. Jack was beside her in the next instant. He rolled onto his back, smiling at her as he reloaded his big rifle, pulling the cartridges out of a belt slung crossbody from his right shoulder to left hip.
 

As if reading her mind, Jack told her, “Three of them. All with rifles and revolvers. And horses. Hopefully, they’ll use them—the horses—and ride off.”
 

“What about Helen, Jack?” Ellen Naile saw the Bledsoe girl rolled up almost into a ball less than what she judged to be a quarter of a city block away from them. “If one of those guys up there decides to be a real schmuck, they’ll shoot her just for spite.”
 

“I’ve got plenty of .45-70s left, Ellen. If you can do this fast enough, we can make it.” He took off his Stetson and shrugged out of the bandolier, then replaced the black hat, pulling it down low over his eyes. There was a spare revolver stuffed in his trouser belt; he drew it, rolled it in his hand and offered it to her butt first. “You keep them busy, like they used to say in the old westerns. Keep ‘em pinned down. I’m going to go get the girl to cover.”
 

Ellen warned him, “She’s tied up in barbed wire.”
 

“It won’t cut up my hands so badly that I can’t shoot.”
 

“You bringing her back here?”
 

“Only place that’s close enough. Fire the rifle once, then throw a few pistol shots at them while I run toward her. Save the rest of what’s in the rifle until I’m on my way back with her. Only four shots total in the magazine. And remember, keep the butt of that rifle tucked tight into your shoulder or you’ll hurt yourself.” He drew the one remaining of her original revolvers from its holster and loaded it as he said, “This may also flush them out, which means they may rush us.”
 

“Why did you leave me the cartridge belt with the rifle ammunition in it?”
 

Her husband smiled. “Just in case.”
 

“You are not going to get yourself killed. Do I make myself clear, Jack!?”
 

Jack tipped his hat as he responded, “Yes, ma’am. But I wasn’t exactly planning on doing that anyway.”
 

“Jack?”
 

“Yeah?”
 

“When this is all over, are you going to make some profound literary reference, some quote, like Richard Boone always did on TV?”
 

Jack laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.” He kissed her, scrunched his hat down tight and low, drew his special long barreled Colt and ordered, “Fire that rifle shot now!”
 

Ellen brought the rifle to her shoulder, worked the lever and fired. The recoil slammed into her, and the rifle barrel rocked upward from where she’d rested it across the body of her dead horse. Why would anybody want to shoot something that hurt so much? she asked herself.
 

She looked behind her.
 

Jack had already started to run, keeping to a low crouch. He turned around once and snapped a shot toward the three bad guys in the rocks above them as he skidded to his knees beside the Bledsoe girl. He fired another shot, holstered his revolver and swept the girl up into his arms, running with her. Ellen fired out one of the revolvers, put it down, brought the rifle to her shoulder and fired, fired again.
 

As she prepared to fire a fourth shot, Jack was beside her, Helen Bledsoe between them. “Chamber a round yet?”
 

“No.”
 

Jack grabbed the rifle from her hands, worked the lever and fired. Ellen Naile heard something that sounded like a man’s scream of pain.
 

“Two left,” Jack said flatly. It was when Jack turned around to reload the rifle that Ellen noticed his hands, covered in blood. His shirt was cut, blood oozing through in spots. “Lucky we’ve all had tetanus shots recently. She’ll need one.”
 

Jack seemed about to say something else, but a flurry of shots from the two men still up in the rocks interrupted him. Blood splattered them both as bullets thwacked into the body of her dead horse.
 

“Stay down!” Jack commanded.
 

Ellen did as she was told, but was able to peek around the neck of the dead animal. She spied two riders, barreling down from the rocks above, revolvers firing wildly toward Jack and her. Ellen looked to her left as Jack’s rifle boomed, then boomed again, then again.
 

One of the riders tumbled from his saddle. Jack’s rifle fired a fourth time. The last of the desperados fell from his saddle, but sprang to his feet like some sort of Hollywood stuntman. He reached for the pistol worn crossdraw at his left side. “Jack! Look out!” Ellen Naile shouted.
 

There were two shots, almost simultaneous.
 

The bad guy’s knees just seemed to buckle, and he fell backward in a heap.
 

Ellen looked at her husband, his gleaming long-barreled Colt revolver held at full extension of his right arm.
 

As he holstered the gun, in his best deep voice, Jack intoned, “A wet bird never flies at night’—da-da-dadum.”
 

For a moment, Ellen Naile just stared at her husband, and then she started to laugh so hard that she almost pissed.
 

“Load your guns,” Jack told Ellen, already loading his. He set his rifle down and, without missing a beat, set to work freeing Helen. Ellen joined in a moment or so later. “So, you guys were able to repel them when they came against you at the house?” Jack asked Ellen in a measured, conversational tone. The Bledsoe girl was whimpering with every movement as they began to free her of the barbed wire with which she was bound.