Shadow River (21 page)

A gunman appeared at the top of a long set of stairs and shouted down to Madson.

“Boss, make 'em get going,” he said. “Soldiers are moving around back, taking positions!”

“You heard him, men,” Madson said. “Grab a saddle and get out of here. Wait for us at the top of the trail a half mile out. Keep us covered if they're on our backs!”

Burke and Montana rode their horses through the bank, gunfire slicing through the air all around them. They met Dan Crelo, who had led his horse to the back door and stood looking out warily.

“Yeehiiii!”
shouted the Montana Kid, racing past the cautious gunman.

“Get on your horse and get your knees in the wind, you cowardly cur!” shouted Burke, his horse almost knocking Crelo down as he raced past him, out the back door.

“You arrogant son of a bitch!” shouted Crelo, leaping up into his saddle. “I'll kill you if it's the last thing I ever do!” He booted his horse out the door and raced along right behind them.

The rear of the building was still scarcely manned as Burke, Montana and Crelo pounded along a narrow alleyway toward the top of the hill trail down to the desert floor. At a rushing stream, they slid their horses to a halt, turned the excited animals and looked back at the sound of rifle fire starting up at the rear of the building. Through the gunfire they saw Manning Wilbert coming toward them at a full run, his face masked, duster tails flapping out around him.

“One question,” said Crelo, his Colt up in his hand, cocked and ready beside him. “If Madson gets chopped down, do we get to keep all this gold?”

“Good point,” said Burke. “We'll be sure and ask him next time, tell him you brought it up.” Their nervous horses spun in place beneath them.

“I'm joshing, damn it, Clyde!” Crelo said.

“You look like you're joshing,” Burke replied as Wilbert came pounding across the last few yards to the stream bank. He gestured at the well-dressed gunman. “You got blood on your vest,” he said.

“Don't worry about my vest,” said Crelo. “We're still going to settle up, you and me,” he warned.

“I'd like that, Dan,” Burke said mockingly. But then his eyes darted to a large pine only ten yards away, seeing a soldier jump behind it. “Watch the tree, Kid!” he said.

The three turned in their saddles and pelted blistering gunfire at the large pine as Wilbert slid his horse to a halt and turned it back facing the alleyway.

“Bejesus!” he shouted at the others. “You like to scare the hell out of me.”

From behind the pine a young soldier raced away, rifle in hand, and dived into a thick stand of brush as Montana sent a shot over his head.

The four spread out and kept their horses moving all around the edge of the stream as Madson and the rest of his men raced in one and two at a time.

The next two arriving were Jon Ho and Bell Madson. They stopped and turned, jerking bandanas down from over their noses.

“Jenkins and Adams are holding them back,” Madson said.

“Damn shame, them two,” said Wilbert.

“Yeah, I know,” said Madson.

“What about all them soldiers?” Crelo asked. “Will they be dogging our trail?”

“They will as soon as they can,” Madson said, seeing two more gunmen on horseback racing toward them along the alleyway. He gave a dark chuckle. “Last I looked, they were chasing their horses all over the street.”

More soldiers on foot began forming out around them in a half circle as the two gunmen rode in. Gunfire still resounded heavily from the direction of the bank building. Madson turned in his saddle and fired into the brush where soldiers were slipping in and taking position.

“Keep them pinned down, men,” he said. As he fired, he said through the cloud of smoke looming over them, “What the hell is keeping Allison and Brooks?”

“They're right behind us, boss,” said Crelo, his voice sounding excited.

“Here they come,” Wilbert said. Even as he spoke, rifle fire resounded from the sparse trees and thick brush surrounding them.

Madson and his gunmen returned fire as the last two men came pounding along the alleyway.

“It's about damn time,” said Madson, firing steadily from within the cloud of gun smoke. “Get across this stream and meet us down at the desert floor.”

“Let's go,” Burke said to Montana, turning his horse to the swift, shallow stream. He looked at Crelo. “You best come with us, Dan,” he said. “They catch you alone, they'll hurt your feelings something awful.”

“Son of a bitch!” Crelo snarled under his breath.

“Stop jawing, get going—!” said Madson, rifle fire growing heavier from the brush. His words stopped as a rumble rippled down deep in the bowels of the earth. “Whoa,” he said, his horse swaying a little beneath him. “We don't need none of that right now.” He steadied the animal until the rumble fell away and the quaking earth made its hard-slamming halt. Rifle fire ceased, but only for a moment.

The men turned and rode away across the shallow stream as gunshots started up again.

At the bottom of the trail, they stopped and gathered up around Madson and Jon Ho.

“All right, we'll keep moving like they're on our trail whether they are yet or not,” Madson said, taking an uncapped canteen that Jon Ho held out to him. He took a long swig of tepid water and passed the canteen back to Jon Ho. “Now we ride straight to our relay horses and keep moving, like Sherman over Georgia.” He grinned, yanked off his hat, waved it and slapped it back on his horse's rump.

“We've done it!” shouted Wilbert, slapping a hand back on the bags of gold hanging behind his saddle.

•   •   •

At gray dawn, Sam had moved out of the high-cut walls of Rocky Mesa and ventured back to his campfire, which lay empty and darkened. Down from his saddle, he looked around, noting that even the lantern light from inside the cave was gone. The firebed on the ground that he had left blazing, visible for the desert floor, was now black and lifeless, and had been throughout most of the night.

The horses—supply horse, lead rope and all—were gone, as if they had all vanished up into the sky. On the ground at his feet, Sam saw unshod horses' hooves running in every direction.

Pretty smooth
 . . . , he told himself, looking all around.

He had expected the horses to be gone—he'd even planned on it.

But he found it surprising that listening from his position in the rocks above the camp, except for the yipping and howling of coyotes, he heard not a sound from either man or beast throughout the night.

He felt almost like telling the Apache “obliged.” Stealing the relay horse had gotten him off the spot. Nobody could be blamed for losing horses to desert Apache. He'd managed to get rid of the animals and free himself from any complicity in Bell Madson's bank robbery. Now he needed to reconnect with Madson long enough to kill him and Jon Ho and break up the gang. Then back to Nogales, he reminded himself, stepping back into his saddle, turning the dun onto a partially hidden trail leading down from the southern side of Rocky Mesa.

When he reached the bottom of the mesa, he found the prints of the Apache, their unshod horses leading the relay string. They had come down from the rocks owing to the deep tremors. With this much valuable horseflesh in their possession, they weren't going to take a chance on watching them all fall into the ground or slide down the side of the hills in a huge spill of tumbling rock.

Sam followed the prints until he crossed a short stretch of flatlands. Seeing the prints run on along the edge of the desert floor, he turned the dun onto an uphill trail and rode along two hundred feet up along a long hill line until he spotted the Apache resting the horses around a water hole on the lower slope of hillside. Needing the water for the dun and himself, he sat in the cover of rock and rested the dun and watched and waited for the Indians to leave.

At length he saw the braves gather the string of horses and move out along a short trail back down onto the desert floor. As they turned left and rode along the edge of the sand, in the distance ahead of them, visible to him from his position on the long hillside, he caught sight of a large roil of trail dust moving along toward them from the opposite direction.

Uh-oh. . . .

Realizing that the odds of the dust belonging to anyone other than Madson and his gang were slim, he mounted the dun and moved along the trail slowly, keeping watch, seeing how this was going to work out before venturing down any closer. Beneath him the dun jerked its head in the direction of the water. But Sam rubbed its withers, settling it.

“Don't worry. I'm taking you down there,” he said. “First, let's sit here—see what this is.”

•   •   •

At the front of the riders, Bell Madson and Jon Ho rode abreast, each with two bags of gold tied behind his saddle. Beneath them the horses were winded and weakening, having spent half the day traveling at a hard pace in the scorching desert heat. But Madson had it all planned out in his mind before they'd started. All they had to do was make it to Rocky Mesa.

There were horses there for them. Jones had them there, rested, watered and waiting. And according to Burke and the Montana Kid, these were good-looking horses, he reminded himself. Whatever ground any pursuing
federales
might have gained on them earlier, they would lose once he and his men got to Rocky Mesa. What did the
federales
have waiting for them out here?

Nothing, that's what
, he told himself.

He whipped his tired horse forward. Fresh horses out here meant the difference between life and death. He grinned, looking back over his shoulder. His men would soon have them, the
federales
wouldn't and that was that. Riding beside him, Jon Ho, the half-Mexican, half-Chinese gunman, sidled close, reached over and nudged his shoulder.

“What the hell, Jon Ho?” Madson said above the sound of their pounding hooves, looking around at him.

Jon Ho pointed at rising dust around an upcoming turn in the trail.

As the two drew their horses to a halt, the men bunching up and stopping behind them, Madson stared straight ahead at the turn around a twenty-foot-high edge of rock. A puzzled look came to his face.

“Who travels these flats in the heat of the day?” he asked quietly.

Jon Ho sat in silence beside him, staring straight ahead at the rise of dust, judging the riders to be less than a mile away.

“No white man,” he said as if in warning.

“No 'pache neither,” said Clyde Burke, nudging his horse up on Madson's other side. Montana reined his horse up beside Burke. The other men sat watching, listening, starting to hear the rumble of hooves beyond the edge of rock.

“Jon Ho,” said Madson, “maybe you best go take us a little look-see.” He raised his rifle from across his lap and sat holding it propped up, its butt on his thigh.

Jon Ho only gave a short nod and booted his horse forward. As the Mexican-Chinese rode forward and out of sight around the edge of rock, Burke raised his Winchester from across his lap and checked it and held it ready. Montana did the same beside him. So did the men behind them, the sound of the hooves growing stronger.

“I don't like the sound of all this,” Madson said, his tone growing wary.

“Neither do I,” Burke said, staring straight ahead. “Whoever's coming knows about us, same as we know about them.”

“Want us to spread out, boss?” Dan Crelo asked, sitting his horse a few feet behind them.

“Yeah . . . no . . . I mean, wait a minute,” Madson said as if mesmerized by the sound of hooves. “Let's hear what Jon Ho says—”

No sooner had Madson spoken than the sound of the hooves grew louder, pounding faster. Jon Ho came racing back around the turn in the trail only a second ahead of over a dozen thundering, war-whooping Apache warriors and the string of horses.

“Holy Moses!” said Montana, recognizing the white barb by the supply pack hanging half off its back. “The savages have got our relay horses!”

“Damn it,” said Burke. “It's got to where you can't do nothing for these devil sons a' bitches!”

“What are you waiting for? Give them hell, men!” Bell Madson shouted. He saw no time to do anything but charge forward into a roiling dust cloud filled with thundering hooves, yelping warriors, firing rifles and swinging war clubs.

“Jesus,” said Montana, booting his horse forward. “We're all dead.”

Burke let out a rebel yell and charged forward, prompting Montana, Madson and the others to fall in around him. The riders fired rifles and pistols repeatedly while pounding forward at a full run. Burke fired his Winchester until the barrel was hot and smoking, neither of his hands on the horse's reins. When the rifle was empty, he held it by its hot barrel like a club and drew his Colt with his other hand. He charged into the Apache firing the Colt and swinging the rifle butt at anything that got in front of him.

Five feet to Burke's left, the Montana Kid fired two Colts. Preferring the Colts for close fighting, he'd shoved his rifle down into its saddle boot for later. He rode with his horse's reins wrapped around one of his hands beneath the butt of his gun. Charging Indians flew backward from atop their horses as the distance between the two forces shortened.

Beside Montana, a wildly fired bullet nailed Clarence Rhodes center forehead. His blood and brain matter splattered on Montana's face and chest. But Montana only tried wiping his face sidelong on his shoulder and plowed ahead into the Apache front riders as bullets and arrows whistled past him.

The relay horses were no longer strung together by rope. The unwitting combatants charged forward into the melee, eyes wide, bulged with terror, their whinnying turned to screams for mercy. On the outer edge of the charge, the barb loped along like some ridiculous element of a
comedia carnaval
caught up in someone else's nightmare. Its supply pack had gone askew, yet it clung to its side. Tins of food and wrapped packages of jerked meat worked loose from the supplies and rose one and two items at a time and flew back and bounced along the sand in the horse's wake.

“Don't stop! Ride through them!” Madson shouted above the din of screaming horses and raging gunfire. In another relentless instant, the two forces clashed head-on. Bullet, arrow and club in force, both sides appeared to rise and spill back each onto itself like powerful waves at sea.

At close quarters the battle raged, both sides flying down from their horses' backs like wild creatures born in tree boughs and hurled to earth for man's decimation. Burke and the Montana Kid fought back-to-back like ancient gladiators given a promise of freedom.

Both gunmen and Apache alike shot and stabbed and choked, poked and bludgeoned. Blood flew, bones snapped. Scalps ripped away; limbs plopped to the ground. Horses reared and trampled, kicked and bit with bared teeth like wild dogs and whinnied long and loud, protesting at having been brought in on this against their natural will.