.45-Caliber Deathtrap (14 page)

Cuno stared at him. Suddenly, the .45 was in Cuno's right hand, the hammer cocked. He shot the man on the rock through the bottom of his left foot, shredding the big toe. The man gave a hoarse scream and fell off the rock, grabbing his foot.

“Hey!”
cried the man farther out in the river, awkwardly trying to stand.

When Cuno's .45 spoke again, the man stumbled back, clutching his right arm around the bicep.

Cuno turned the barrel slightly right, dropped the barrel a half inch. The man closer to shore was up and running toward the boulder ten feet upstream from Cuno, where several cartridge belts were coiled. Cuno let him get within ten feet of the guns, then snapped a shot through the man's left thigh.

As he grabbed his leg in mid-stride, his feet slipped out from under him, and he fell with a splash and the dull snap of breaking bones.

Grimacing and holding his foot with one hand, the man with the shredded big toe lifted his head and raged,
“What the fuck you think you're doin', you son of a bitch?”

Cuno shot his left earlobe off.

When the man farther out had gained his feet and was running feebly toward the opposite bank, Cuno stopped him with a .45 slug through the back of his left calf. The man dropped and lolled in a knee-deep pool, gritted teeth flashing white.

The man nearer shore crawled to his hands and knees, blood mixing with the water sluicing off his left thigh. He didn't say anything, only stared with animal fear and fury at Cuno. Splintered bones protruded from his right forearm.

Cuno blew a hole through the man's right elbow. The man screamed and slumped over that hand, smacking his face on a half-submerged rock. He pushed up on his good hand and threw his head back, raging.

Cuno turned.

The stocky, redheaded woman stood fifteen feet behind him. The other women and girls flanked her. All stared agape into the stream, where the three hard cases lolled, raging and bleeding.

Cuno holstered the .45 and climbed into the saddle. He turned the roan back the way he'd come, and pinched his hat brim at the women. “They're all yours, ladies.”

He rode on past the staring women, angling back toward the main trail. He passed several old men and a few youngsters moving toward the stream with curious, fearful frowns on their faces.

When Cuno mounted a knoll fifty yards upstream, pistol shots echoed behind. Laughter rose on the breeze.

He turned in his saddle. The women were lined out along the river, several aiming the hard cases' revolvers toward the water, taking target practice. Cannady's men stumbled around the shallow river—bleeding and clutching their wounded limbs as they dodged the shots and begged for mercy.

Another pistol cracked, and one of the hard cases dropped.

The women laughed and cheered.

Cuno grinned and put the roan into a gallop.

IT WASN'T HARD
to cut the killers' trail sign. They were among the few horseback riders to have taken the wagon trace in recent days. Judging by the depth and distance of their horses' shod prints—and by the number of times they halted along the trail—the gang was in no hurry.

In fact, the evening of the day he'd left the sacked prospectors' camp, Cuno caught up to them.

They'd bivouacked in a box canyon off the north fork of Destiny Creek, which ran cold and fast off the slopes of Renegade Pass. The mountain loomed in the southwest, its bald slopes mantled with fields of dirty snow. On its northern shoulder sat the booming mining village of Sundance, too low and far away—a good twelve miles—to be seen from this vantage. The water filled the air with the smell of wet grass and rock, water-logged deadfalls, moss, ferns, and mushrooms.

In a chill rain and under a fragrant spruce canopy, his buckskin's collar pulled to his neck, Cuno sat atop the slot canyon's northern rim, a half mile down the canyon from the renegades. Through breaks in the rain and fog settling low over the canyon, he could make out their horses tied to two separate picket lines near the stream on the gorge floor.

Blue camp smoke ribboned skyward through the evergreen canopy, which was so thick that Cuno caught only fleeting glimpses of the gang themselves, milling about the fire—hatted silhouettes in heavy coats or rain slickers.

In spite of the light rain, the air was so quiet he could occasionally hear their voices rising above the stream's roaring descent to Destiny Creek farther below and east.

As he sat scrutinizing the camp and wondering how he was going to get down to the girl—if she was still alive—he saw two men climb the steep walls of slick, black granite on either side of the canyon. Both men carried rifles. The sentries would no doubt spend the night on the ridges overlooking the canyon. Earlier, he'd spotted two men heading down to cover the canyon's narrow mouth.

Damn. They weren't going to make it easy.

He considered waiting until the next day. It was doubtful, though, there'd be an easier place or a better time to spring the girl. In fact, the box canyon's walls might work to his advantage, once he had Li Mei in hand, that is.

He wasn't sure why he was risking his neck. The girl was Kong's worry. But then, in spite of the Chinaman's proficiency with an Indian bow, he seemed so blasted helpless—a black sheep in a foreign land, his daughter taken captive by killers…

Cuno might even be able to kill a few of the gang before he got out of the canyon. But then, why push his luck? He'd nab the girl and get her back to her father before running down the gang, preferably one by one or two by two. These were cold-blooded killers, and more than a couple were probably as good with a hogleg as Cuno was.

When he'd considered the best way into the canyon, he hunkered back against the slope and pulled his hat brim over his eyes. Might as well grab some shut-eye. His horse was tethered in another, shallower canyon a half mile north, saddled and ready to split the wind when needed.

He dozed, waking twice. He dreamt of July, and was awakened by the shots that had killed her, his head snapping up so fast that his hat tumbled off his left shoulder.

He looked around, his heart slowing gradually. The darkness pressed close. Through the pine bows, stars made a milky, speckled wash across the heavens. No moon. Just enough light to get him down the canyon wall.

He doffed his hat and grabbed the rope he'd carried in his war bag. It was only twenty feet, but it should take him down the sheerest part of the drop. He'd left his Winchester, too clumsy for climbing, with the horse. He wasn't carrying a spare pistol this trip, so the .45 Colt would have to do.

Nudging the pistol's butt compulsively, he walked slowly up the canyon, keeping away from the lip so the stars wouldn't outline him. A dull orange glow appeared forty yards ahead, around a slight curve in the canyon wall. He stopped and dropped to his haunches. The small, round glow brightened for a second, then, dimming, arced toward the ground.

The picket on this side of the canyon was enjoying a smoke as he strolled along the wall. He seemed to be staying close to the camp.

Cuno moved forward at a crouch, skimming the trees on his left. When he found the route he'd scouted before, he tied the rope around a stout pine. Grabbing the hemp in his gloved hands, he backed slowly down the scaly stone surface of the ridge, weaving between shrubs and blocky chunks of granite and weather-gnarled trees thumbing out from the wall.

When he came to the end of the rope, he leapt to a shelf, landing and bending his knees to absorb the fall. He froze, crouching against the black granite, listening, hoping the thump of his boots hadn't been heard below.

Except for the creek's rush and an occasional owl hoot, silence.

He turned. The stream was a pale silver line twisting through the middle of the gorge. On Cuno's side of it, the fire was a red, flickering smudge below and left, ghostly smoke puffs wisping through the pines. The fire was down, which meant the men were probably asleep. It was a slim chance that the picket on the canyon's other rim could see Cuno against the black granite.

Still, the freighter moved quickly, wanting to be on the wall as briefly as possible.

From the ledge, he climbed down easily, as the grade gentled slightly and there were more pine trunks to break his descent. He appraised each feature of his trail, committing it to memory for when he returned with the girl.

When he reached the canyon floor, he leapt a small rivulet gurgling out from a spring, crossed a deadfall aspen, and stepped on a dry twig.

Crack!

Hissing through his clenched teeth, he stopped and dropped, pressing his chin to the cool, damp ground.

To his ears, the breaking branch had sounded like a rifle shot. Apparently, it had gone unheard in the camp. The killers probably couldn't hear much above the stream's roar. Besides, they were probably relying on their horses and the pickets to warn them of trouble.

Cuno pushed himself to his knees, glanced around with one hand on his pistol butt, then straightened and headed across the canyon toward the creek. The water's thunderous rush should cover any other noises he might make on his way to the camp. There was no breeze to betray his smell.

He pushed quietly through the forest. Gaining the creek, he headed upstream, moving faster now that the water covered the sound of his movements. He spied six of the renegades' horses tethered to his left. Not sensing him, they remained asleep on their feet, statue-still.

Five minutes later, Cuno lay hunkered down in the brush near the water, between a spruce and a mossy boulder, staring into the clearing where the hard cases lay spread out around the dying fire. Their snores were nearly as loud as the stream to Cuno's right.

It took him another five minutes to pick out the girl—or what he thought was the girl—hunkered on the far side of the fire, under an overarching spruce bow. The small, dark figure, curled under a blanket with no saddle or saddlebag to pillow her head, had to be her.

He retreated ten yards, froze when one of the men called out in his sleep for Margot. The dreamer snickered devilishly. A couple of snores stopped, then started up again. Someone sneezed and smacked his lips.

When he was sure the renegades were asleep once more, Cuno continued to the roiling creek, feeling the refreshing humidity and the spray against his face, then circled around and crabbed toward the girl from the opposite direction.

Under an aspen tree, he paused to stare at the small bundle before him, under a pine bough, trying to figure out which end was her head. Spying a lock of straight, black hair falling from a blanket fold, he crawled even closer. When his face was six inches from her rising and falling shoulder, he rose up on his knees, snaked an arm over her body, and pressed the palm of his hand down hard across her mouth and nose. At the same time, he slid his other arm beneath her slender waist.

The girl was instantly awake, tense in his arms, struggling.

Cuno's own heart pounded as he pulled the blanketed bundle straight back with him, back-crabbing the way he'd come, keeping his left palm taut to the girl's mouth. He gritted his teeth as the girl opened her mouth beneath his palm, expelling muffled screams.

When he was beyond the aspen, he stood and, still clamping one hand across her mouth, lifted her to his waist and dragged her through the brush toward the head of the gorge. He moved swiftly, his own heart racing, lungs burning.

Twenty yards from the camp, he gentled her down to the ground and, keeping his palm over her mouth, knelt before her. She thought he was trying to rape her. Her black eyes blazed panic as she stared up at him, trying to bite him and work her head free of his grasp.

“Easy, damnit!” Cuno whispered. “I'm here to help.”

He placed a finger to his lips and eased the pressure on her mouth.

She stopped struggling.

A cautious, befuddled light entered her eyes as she stared up at him, her body slowly relaxing. He removed his hand from her mouth.

“No more screams,” Cuno whispered. “I'm gonna get you outta here—back to your father.”

He whipped the blanket off her body. She wore denim pants, a torn, gray shirt, and moccasins similar to her father's. Her ankles were tied, her wrists tethered behind her back.

Quickly, keeping his ears pricked for sounds from the camp, Cuno unsheathed his knife and cut the ropes. He sheathed the knife and looked at her. “Can you stand?”

She rolled over, placed her hands on the ground, tried to push herself up. No good. She turned her frightened face to him, her eyes beseeching, a wing of hair across her mouth, as she rubbed her right wrist.

He'd had a feeling that, having been tied for so long, she wouldn't be able to stand, much less run.

“That's all right.” Cuno grabbed her arm, bent his knees, and eased her over his shoulder. “It'll be faster this way anyway.”

Moving quickly, he headed back the way he'd come, pausing near the creek to give the camp a quick study. The renegades were still asleep, the creek's roar covering their snores.

So far, so good…

He made it back to the canyon wall without incident, carried the girl up the wall, crouching and gritting his teeth against the grade. She grunted and groaned, but otherwise remained silent. He knocked his knee against a rock once and nearly had to set her down, but only gritted his teeth against the pain and kept going.

At the ledge, he eased her down against the rock face.

He kept his voice low as he asked, “Any feeling in your hands and feet yet?”

She flexed her hands, reached down to rub her feet through the moccasins. She lifted her face, the eyes hopeful, even eager. “Some.”

Cuno grabbed the end of the rope hanging just above the ledge. Casting a quick glance into the canyon, spying no movement, he pulled the girl to her feet, looped the rope around her waist, and slipknotted it.

“I'm gonna climb to the top and pull you up.”

He lunged at a rock a foot above his head, got a grip, and pulled himself up, then reached for another rock, and pulled himself another five feet. He dug his fingers and the toes of his boots into any nook or cranny he could find, relieved to grasp the occasional hidden shelf in the darkness.

As he was hoisting and pulling, his breath came hard, his heart pounding.

Keeping his chin up, he blinking against the sweat stinging his eyes as he climbed. He swiped a hand against his gun butt occasionally, making sure it was there, as he swept the rocks above with his eyes, climbing toward the stars capping the ridge crest.

He climbed for ten minutes, then cast another look toward the ridge. He was closing on it now. Ten feet away.

Adrenaline spurred him onward, and he gripped a gnarled cedar root, planted his boot on a slight lip to his left, then pulled at the root and kicked off his left boot heel. His head was a foot beneath the ridge crest when cigarette smoke filled his nostrils.

A second before he'd identified the smell, his heart leapt.

He edged his eyes above the lip and stared through small rocks and stage tufts.

A man's silhouette sat before him, holding a quirley to his mouth. The quirley glowed, dimly lighting the man's narrow, unshaven face, hawk nose, and the underside of his soiled hat brim. Bandoliers crisscrossed his chest.

The man blew out cigarette smoke as he lifted his rifle in one hand, aimed the barrel at Cuno, and laughed.

“Lookee what I found here!”

The rifle boomed, stabbing flames.