The Loner: The Bounty Killers (14 page)

The Kid and McCall reined in sharply and exchanged glances.

“Whoever that is, they don’t seem to be shooting at us,” The Kid said.

McCall nodded. “And it’s none of our business, either.”

Both riders recognized the sound of several pistols creating the burst of gunfire. A moment later, a rifle cracked a couple times, followed by more revolver shots.

“Somebody’s putting up a fight,” The Kid commented.

“Still not any of our business,” McCall replied with a stubborn shake of her head.

“Unless Pike’s mixed up in it somehow. Maybe he and his men jumped somebody they thought was us. Could be innocent people being shot at over there.”

The Kid nodded toward the Mogollon Rim. The reports from the rifle and the handguns were mixed together, coming from that direction.

McCall glared at him. “You’re a fugitive from the law. Men like you aren’t usually worried about what might be happening to innocent people.”

The Kid smiled thinly. “That’s just one more indication the charges against me are a mistake.”

“Still scraping out that tune on your fiddle, are you?” McCall blew out her breath in an exasperated sigh. “All right, we’ll go take a look. But that’s all. We’re not getting mixed up in any war unless it can’t be avoided.”

They turned their horses and rode toward the rim, which was nothing more than the southern edge of the Mogollon Mesa and the massive Colorado Plateau. In his days as Conrad Browning, when he took an active interest in a number of railroad lines, he had studied dozens of survey and topographical maps and knew the geography of the western states.

The rugged limestone and sandstone cliffs of the rim rose a thousand feet or more above the pine-dotted flats that stretched off to the south. Trails ran to the top, so the rim wasn’t an impassable barrier, but it was a definite dividing line that ran through the midsection of Arizona Territory. There were a lot of ranches in the area, and more than a few mines in the canyons that nature had cut into the rim.

The shots got louder as The Kid and McCall approached the dark, looming cliffs. McCall motioned for The Kid to slow down as they reached the edge of a stand of trees. She dismounted, and The Kid followed suit.

They stepped forward to where they could look across a clearing that stretched for a couple hundred yards to the base of a cliff. A rough log cabin squatted at the bottom of the cliff. A short distance to the right of it was the mouth of a narrow, steep-sided canyon.

It appeared to be choked with brush, but when The Kid looked closer, he saw that someone had built a gate across it and camouflaged that gate by tying branches to it. Somebody had closed off the canyon on purpose but tried to conceal what they had done.

Probably the same person holed up in the cabin, The Kid thought.

A puff of gunsmoke came from a loophole cut into the log wall every time the rifle cracked. The shots were directed at half a dozen men crouched behind boulders that had fallen from the cliff face in ages past. They littered the area in front of the cabin and served as cover for the gunmen. The range was a little long for Colts, but they acted like they had plenty of ammunition to spare as they continued peppering the cabin with shots.

One thing was certain: if the man inside the cabin were to step out, he would be riddled with lead in a matter of seconds. The besiegers had a grim determination about them, a resolve to wipe out the man they had trapped.

“That’s not Pike and his bunch,” McCall said quietly.

The Kid agreed. The gunmen were hardlooking individuals in range clothes, but they weren’t the bounty hunters.

“So I was right, this is none of our business,” McCall continued. “Let’s go.”

The Kid had been watching the cabin. The lack of return fire from other loopholes told him the defender was alone. “Six to one odds aren’t what I’d call fair,” he said.

McCall looked over at him in surprise. “You want us to take a hand in this game? I told you, it’s none of our business.”

“Sooner or later, they’ll root out whoever’s in the cabin and kill him.”

“Do you know who it is?”

The Kid shook his head. “I don’t have any idea.”

“Then why do you care? For all you know, he’s a son of a bitch who deserves whatever he’s got coming to him.”

The Kid couldn’t deny that. But he said, “I still don’t like it.”

“And I don’t give a damn what you like or don’t like.” McCall put her hand on the butt of her gun. “Climb back on your horse. We’re getting out of here.”

She hadn’t been tying his hands the past couple of days. Evidently she believed his pledge to accompany her to Santa Fe, but that didn’t mean she had forgotten he was her prisoner. He was unarmed, and she always kept some distance between them so he couldn’t jump her and overpower her.

The Kid didn’t want to ride away from the ruckus, but he didn’t see what choice he had. He was about to nod and reluctantly get back on the buckskin when he heard something else. “There’s a wagon coming,” he said as his keen ears identified the sound.

McCall lifted her head and listened. “You’re right,” she said after a couple seconds. The hoofbeats of a team and the creaking of wagon wheels grew louder. “Let’s get these horses out of sight.”

They took hold of the reins and led the animals deeper into the trees, leaving them there along with the dog. The wagon moved up on their left, obviously following a trail they hadn’t seen as they approached the scene of battle.

The wagon stopped before it left the trees. A moment later, a man called, “Make the old bastard duck, and I’ll bring the stuff out to you!”

Immediately, the men behind the boulders increased their fusillade, aiming high so the bullets would carry farther. As slugs thudded into the front wall of the cabin, a man darted from the trees carrying a small wooden crate.

The Kid’s jaw tightened as he recognized the markings on the crate. “That’s dynamite,” he told McCall. “They’re going to blast the man out of there.”

For a second, McCall didn’t say anything. Then, “That’s pretty raw. It’s bad enough when you outnumber somebody six to one without resorting to dynamite.” She shrugged. “But still—”

“None of our business,” The Kid finished for her.

“Yeah. That’s exactly right.”

“You can ride away from seven hardcases trying to kill an old man?”

“How do you know he’s old?”

“The one who brought the dynamite called him an old bastard.”

“Could be just a figure of speech,” McCall said.

“Or it could be an old-timer in there. Somebody’s grandfather.”

“Yeah, well, my old man was somebody’s grandfather, and he was the sorriest son of a bitch to ever walk the face of the earth.” McCall’s voice was thick with bitterness. “We’re leaving, Morgan. I’m getting tired of arguing the point.”

The man with the crate of dynamite had reached the rocks. He bent and put the crate on the ground before prying the lid off.

“He’s lucky he didn’t trip and fall while he was carrying that stuff,” The Kid said. “Might’ve had quite an explosion if that had happened.”

“I thought you had to set dynamite off with blasting caps,” McCall said with a frown.

“That’s the normal procedure, but it’s notoriously unstable. Men who handle it are usually more careful than to run around with a box full of it.”

“Maybe that fella doesn’t know that. And how come you do?”

“I’ve spent time in several railroad construction camps while my companies were building spur lines.”

McCall stared at him. “What?”

“Never mind,” The Kid said with a wave of his hand. “McCall, we can’t just stand by and let them blow somebody to kingdom come.”

She glared at him for several seconds before shaking her head and saying, “You’re right. Damn it. What do you think we should do?”

The Kid’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re asking me?”

“I figure if you were able to break out of a place like Hell Gate Prison, you must be able to come up with some pretty good ideas.”

“All right,” he said. “How good a shot are you with a rifle?”

She snorted. “I’ve lived this long. What do you think?”

“Fine. See the fella who brought out the dynamite? He’s tying three sticks of it together. He’s going to throw it at the cabin.”

“I see him. What do you want me to do?”

“When he draws back to let fly with it, see if you can drill his arm.”

“Make him drop the stuff, you mean?”

The Kid nodded. “If you can do that, I guarantee the rest of them will scatter like the Devil himself is after them . . . because that’s pretty much what it’ll amount to.”

“What about the one I’m supposed to wing?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you to shoot him in the leg. He’ll still be able to run.”

“You don’t think they’ll turn around and come after us?”

“I think they’ll be too spooked to do that,” The Kid said, “but if they do, at least they’ll be scattered. We can take them on one or two at a time.”

“That’s assuming I give you a gun,” McCall said. “That’s a mighty big maybe.”

“We’ll worry about that later.” The Kid nodded toward the boulders. “Looks like he’s getting ready to light the fuse. It’s time for you to make up your mind, McCall.”

She glared at him, but she lifted the rifle she had taken from her saddle. There was already a round in the chamber. She brought the weapon to her shoulder, snugged the butt against it, and nestled her cheek on the smooth wood of the stock so she could peer over the barrel.

“You know, there’s no guarantee I can make this shot,” she said. “It won’t be easy.”

“I never said it would be,” The Kid replied.

She muttered something, squinting slightly as she settled the sights on the man who had scratched a lucifer to life and was about to hold the flame to the end of the twisted fuse dangling from the bundle of dynamite.

The Kid saw sparks fly as the fuse caught. The man drew his arm back high above his head as he prepared to throw the dynamite at the cabin.

McCall squeezed the trigger, and the whipcrack of the Winchester’s shot filled the air.

Chapter 19

The man screamed as the .44-40 round tore through his arm. The three sticks of dynamite slipped from his fingers, fell to the ground, bounced once, and rolled to a stop, leaning against the side of the crate that held the rest of the dynamite.

It was a hell of a shot, The Kid thought, but the results were going to be more spectacular than he had intended.

The gunmen yelled in alarm and scattered, just as he had thought they would.

At the same time, he turned and grabbed McCall’s arm to shove her deeper into the stand of pine trees.

“Move, move!” he told her. “We’ve got to get farther away!”

She turned and ran. So did The Kid. Glancing over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the wounded man leaning over the crate and the dynamite he had dropped. He pawed frantically at it with his uninjured arm, trying to pluck the fuse away from the blasting caps.

He was too late.

The ground jumped up for a second under The Kid’s feet as a thunderous roar filled the air and echoed from the cliffs of the Mogollon Rim. The man bending over the dynamite disappeared in a sheet of flame.

The Kid stumbled and fell as what felt like a giant hand slapped him in the back. Pine needles blown off their branches showered down around him. He pushed himself up and twisted his head to look back again.

A huge, rolling cloud of dust filled the open area in front of the cabin. The force of the explosion most likely crumbled the boulders to pebbles.

He climbed to his feet and looked around for McCall. She lay a few yards away where the blast had knocked her down. She sat up, shook her head groggily, and said something.

The Kid saw her mouth moving, but couldn’t hear a word. He couldn’t hear anything except an eerie, whispering hush, and realized the explosion had temporarily deafened him.

His hastily conceived plan hadn’t included the whole crate of dynamite going off. At least one of the men had been killed for sure, and some or all of the others might not have gotten far enough away to escape the deadly force of the blast.

It would probably be a good idea to find out about that as quickly as they could, he thought. He bent and caught hold of McCall’s arm again. He helped her to her feet and put his mouth close to her ear. “Can you hear me?” he shouted.

She nodded. She had lost her hat when she fell, and her short auburn hair was tangled around her head. “I’ll take a look!” she shouted into his ear.

“I’ll come with you!”

She didn’t waste any breath arguing with him. Together, they moved to the edge of the trees. The dust cloud was starting to thin, but choking masses of the stuff still hung in the air here and there. The Kid peered through the gaps and saw the boulders were still there, although it looked like the one closest to the site of the explosion had been toppled on its side.

A pit five feet deep and twenty feet wide had been gouged out of the ground by the blast.

Suddenly, a man came out of the dust, the gun in his hand spewing flame and death. McCall twisted toward him and fired the Winchester from the hip, cranking off three rounds as fast as she could work the weapon’s lever. The man stumbled and dropped his gun as the slugs ripped through him. He collapsed with his hands pressed to his bloody midsection.

As she faced that threat, McCall’s back was turned toward another man who appeared out of the dust with no warning. His gun was swinging up toward the bounty hunter when The Kid tackled him from the side and drove him off his feet.

They sprawled on the ground as they were pelted by chunks of rock and dirt clods that had been thrown high in the air by the blast.

The Kid got a hand on the man’s wrist and wrenched his arm aside just as the man tried to turn the gun toward him. The man’s other hand flashed up, clenched into a fist that slammed into the side of The Kid’s head.

Ignoring the pain The Kid put his hand on the man’s neck, digging fingers in to cut off his air. The man thrashed under him and hammered at his head, but The Kid raised his shoulders, hunkered down, and continued to ignore the pain of the blows. He had to keep the gun pointed away from him and maintain his death grip until the man died or passed out, whichever came first.