Snake River Slaughter

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning

Cooter climbed up onto a rock from which he could see for nearly two miles back across the desert. A small rise hid everything beyond that point.

“See anything?” Mole asked.

“Nothin’ but sand and rock,” Cooter answered.

Mole, a short, hairy man with gray eyes and a pug nose, took the last swallow from a whiskey bottle, then tossed it against a nearby rock. The bottle broke into two pieces.

“Damn, I shouldn’t of broke that,” Mole said. “I wasn’t thinkin’, I guess. I could of got myself a penny for it back in town.”

“A penny,” Cooter snorted. “A penny ain’t no money. Not compared to what we’re goin’ to be gettin’ for this job.”

“Yeah, well, if you remember, we tried to kill this feller once before and it didn’t work out all that well,”

Mole said. “What happened is Logan got hisself kilt. That’s what happened.”

“That’s ’cause we didn’t know who we was messin’ with then. Logan didn’t tell us nothin’ about him, so we wasn’t ready for him when he snuck up on us like he done.”

“I don’t intend to let ’im sneak up on us this time,” Mole said. “You might not of seen nothin’ yet, but he’s close. I know it.”

“How do you know it?” Cooter asked.

“’Cause I can feel it in my gut, that’s how I know it. He is out there, and he’s close.”

Cooter climbed down from the rock and walked over to his horse. He slipped his rifle out of the saddle holster.

“What are you fixin’ to do?” Mole asked.

“If he really is comin’ and he’s all that close, like you say he is, I don’t aim to let him get any closer than a rifle shot.”

“Yeah,” Mole agreed. “Yeah, now that’s the best idea you’ve had yet. We’ll just shoot the son of a bitch down, soon as he comes into range.”

The two men, with rifles in hand, climbed back up onto the largest rock that afforded them, not only a good view of the approaching trail, but also some cover and concealment. They checked the loads in their rifles, eased the hammers back to half-cock, then hunkered down on the rock and waited.

“Let ’im come up to no more’n about a hundred yards,” Cooter said. “That way, he’d more’n likely be out of pistol range.”

“What if we miss?” Mole asked. “A hunnert yards is a pretty long shot.”

“It ain’t all that long a shot, and with both of us shootin’, one of us is bound to hit him.”

“What if we don’t?” Mole asked. “What if all we do is just let the son of a bitch know that we’re here. Next thing you know, he’ll be on us like a fly on a horse turd, just like he was back at the canyon. And there won’t be nothin’ we can do about it.”

“The thing to do is not to miss,” Cooter said.

“I don’t know. I’m beginnin’ to think we shouldn’t of took this job,” Mole said.

“You ever had five hundred dollars before?” Cooter asked.

“Hell, you know damn well I ain’t never had that much before. I ain’t ever even seen that much money before,” Mole answered.

“Then shut up your yappin’ and just do what has to be done. Anyhow, we got all the advantage. He’s out in the open, and we got good cover here, what with the rocks and all. Besides which, he don’t have any idea we’re even here at all.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mole agreed.

“Damn right, I’m right.”

At that moment, a rider came into view over a distant rise.

“Son of a bitch! It’s him!” Mole said. “I told you he was close!” He raised his rifle to his shoulder.

“Hold it!” Cooter said, reaching out to pull Mole’s rifle back down. “Be patient. You shoot now and you won’t do no more’n spook him. Let him get close, like I said. Besides, you was the one sayin’ you didn’t think you could hit him at a hundred yards.”

“All right,” Mole said, nervously.

They waited as the distant rider came closer, sometimes seeming not to be riding, but rather floating as he materialized and dematerialized in the heat waves that were rising from the desert floor.

On he came: a mile—half a mile—a quarter of a mile—two hundred yards. Cooter raised his rifle and rested it carefully against the rock, taking a very careful aim. “Just a little closer,” he said, quietly. “A little closer before we fire.”

Mole shifted position to get a better aim. As he did so he dislodged a loose stone, and the stone rolled down the rock, right into the largest, unbroken piece of the whiskey bottle. The stone pushed the glass out into the sun.

As Matt approached the ridgeline ahead of him, a sudden flash of light caught his attention, and he stopped, looking toward the flash.

“What the hell did he stop for?” Mole asked.

Looking down, Cooter saw the sun flashing off the broken whiskey bottle. “You dumb bastard, when you pushed that whiskey bottle down like you done, it commenced to flashin’ in the sunlight. You just gave away our position!” he said angrily. He raised up and fired his first shot.

“I didn’t do it of a pure purpose,” Mole said. “You got no call comin’ down on me like that.”

“Where is he, anyhow?” Cooter stuck his head cautiously over the rock and looked down where the target had been. “Where is he? I can’t see him.”

“I don’t know,” Mole admitted. “I seen him get behind that rock, but I ain’t seen him since.”

“There’s a dry creek bed down there. I seen it when we come through,” Cooter said.

Mole looked toward him. “A dry creek bed? Damn, he could be right on us before we even knew it.”

Cooter shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It curves away a long time before it ever gets up here.”

No sooner were the words out of Cooter’s mouth than there was a puff of smoke and the bark of a rifle from a clump of bushes not too far distant. The bullet hit the rock right in front of them, then hummed off, but not before shaving off a sliver of lead to kick up into Mole’s face.

“Ow! I been hit, I been hit!” Mole called, slapping his hand to his face. “I been shot right in the jaw!”

Cooter looked at him, then laughed.

“I’d like to know what the hell you think is so funny?” Mole complained.

“You are. You are funny,” Cooter said. “You ain’t been hit. That ain’t nothin’ but a little ole scratch.”

Two more bullets hit the rocks then and chips of stone flew past them.

“I don’t like this,” Mole said. “He’s gettin’ too damn close.” Mole fired a couple of shots toward the bush just below the puff of gun smoke.

“Hey, Mole, look down there,” Cooter said. “Ain’t that his horse comin’ back up the road?”

“Yeah,” Mole said. He giggled. “This is great! Shoot the horse! We’ll just leave the son of a bitch afoot.”

Both men started shooting at the horse, but the animal was still a couple of hundred yards away and slightly downhill. As a result, it wasn’t hit, though the bullets striking the ground nearby caused the horse to turn and run toward the shelter of a bluff, a quarter of a mile away.

“Damn it! We missed!” Mole said.

Another bullet hit the rock, very close beside them.

“Come on, Cooter, let’s get the hell out of here!” Mole shouted. He started running for his own horse.

“Mole! Mole, come back here!” Cooter called, chasing after him.

Seeing the two men start to run, Matt tracked them with his rifle, firing at the second man. That man went down, but the one in the lead made it to his horse. He kicked his horse into motion and in just a few seconds was behind a rocky ledge, out of the line of fire.

“Don’t leave me, you bastard!” the one on the ground shouted. “Don’t you leave me!”

Matt approached the man on the ground, holding his weapon pointed toward him. Seeing him, the man sat up and threw up his hands. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” he cried out. “I’m shot. You can see that I’m bad shot.”

Matt picked up the rifle Cooter had been using, jacked all the bullets out of it—there were only three left—then threw the rifle over the edge of the hill so that it landed more than a hundred feet below.

“Mister, that rifle cost me sixty dollars!” Cooter complained.

“Give me your pistol,” Matt said, holding out his hand. “Butt first,” he added.

“You ain’t goin’ to throw it away too, are you?” Cooter asked as he complied with Matt’s request.

Matt stuck Cooter’s pistol down into his waistband.

“Your name is Cooter?” Matt asked.

Cooter looked surprised. “Yeah, it is. How do you know my name?”

“This is the second time you’ve tried to ambush me, Cooter,” Matt said. “I remember you from before, when you were with Logan. Then, you said Logan paid you. But Logan is dead, so who is paying you now?”

“You got to get me to the doctor,” Cooter said, without answering Matt’s question. “If this wound ain’t treated, I could wind up losin’ my leg.”

“Yes, I suppose you could,” Matt said laconically. Kneeling beside Cooter, he tore the trouser leg away and saw the entry wound. The bullet was still in the leg and the wound was still bleeding.

“Take off your belt,” Matt ordered.

“What do you mean, take off my belt?”

“You want to bleed to death?”

“No.”

“Take off your belt. I’m going to use it to make a tourniquet.”

Cooter took off his belt, and Matt looped it around the leg above the entry wound, then cinched it down tight.”

“Ouch, that hurts.”

“Does it?”

“Do you know what you’re a’ doin’? I ain’t never heard of nothin’ called a tourniquet.”

“It’ll keep you alive, and more than likely let you keep your leg,” Matt said.

“I need a doctor.”

“This will do for now,” Matt said.

“What do you mean, this will do for now? You ain’t no doctor.”

“Who paid you to ambush me?”

“Nobody. We just done it ’cause you kilt our friend a few days ago.”

“Mister, if Sam Logan was your friend, all I can say is, you have a piss poor choice of friends. Now I’m going to ask you again. Who paid you to ambush me?”

“Why the hell should I tell you that?”

Matt pulled his gun and put the barrel of his pistol to Cooter’ forehead.

“Because I will shoot you if you don’t.”

“You’re bluffing.”

Matt cocked his pistol. “When you get to hell, say hello to your friend, Logan, for me,” he said, matter-of-factly. His finger twitched on the trigger.

“No, wait!” Cooter screamed.

Matt eased the hammer down on his pistol.

“Who paid you?”

“You got to understand that if I tell you who paid me, he’ll kill me.”

Matt shook his head. “Cooter, have you ever heard the term, first things first?”

“No.”

“Well, let me tell you what it means. It means that you need to take care of the problem you’ve got now, before you start worrying about any problem you might have in the future. You are worried about someone killing you if you answer my question. But that is in the future. I am right here, right now,” Matt said. “And if you don’t tell me who paid you to ambush me, I am going to kill you, right here, and right now. Do you understand that?” Once again, Matt cocked the pistol.

“No, no!” Cooter shouted, crossing his arms over his face. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I’ll tell you.”

Cooter was quiet for a moment.”

“I’m listening.”

“It was Poke Terrell.”

“Now, that wasn’t all that hard, was it?” Matt asked. Once again he eased the hammer down on his pistol, and this time he put his pistol back in is holster. Then he walked over to Cooter’s horse and started to mount.

“Hey, wait a minute! What are you doin’? You’re takin’ my horse again, aren’t you?” Cooter asked. “This ain’t like the last time, when I had two good legs. I can’t do no walkin’ on this leg.”

“I’m going to use your horse to ride down and get mine,” Matt said. “You may recall that you and Mole tried to kill my horse. I’ll be back.”

When Matt rode down to retrieve his horse, he saw Spirit standing quietly behind the ridge he had run to when Cooter and Mole began shooting at him.

“Hey, Spirit,” Matt said, speaking soothingly to his horse. Matt looked around at the ridge, then nodded. “Yeah, you’re a smart horse,” he said quietly. “This was a good place to get out of the line of fire.”

Spirit whickered, and nodded his head.

“Yeah, I know, we do seem to be getting into a lot of trouble here, lately,” Matt said. “But I told you that when you signed on with me.”

Matt got off Cooter’s horse then mounted his own. He started back with Spirit, leading the animal he had borrowed.

Shortly after Matt had ridden away on Cooter’s horse, Cooter saw a pistol lying under a mesquite bush. At first he didn’t know how it got there, but when he picked it up, he recognized it. It was the one Logan had given Mole on the day they tried to ambush Matt Jensen the first time. Mole must have dropped it when he ran and, in his panic, didn’t even notice that it was gone. Of course, even if he had known it, he wouldn’t have come back for it.

“Well, Mole, you yellow livered coward,” Cooter said under his breath. “I thank you for leavin’ me a gun like this, even if you didn’t know you was doin’ it. Now, I’m going to take care Matt Jensen and go see Poke to collect my money, then I’m going to take care of you for runnin’ out on me like you done.”

Cooter picked up the pistol, checked the loads, then stuck it down his waistband behind his back.

“All I have to do now is wait on Mr. Jensen,” he said.

He waited.

“Damn! What if he don’t come back? There ain’t no way I can walk all the way back to town on this leg.”

He waited a few more minutes, then, when he was convinced that Matt Jensen wasn’t coming back, and just when he was about to panic, he heard the strike of hooves on rocks. Raising himself up, he saw Matt Jensen coming back, riding his own horse and leading Cooter’s horse.

“I was beginnin’ to think you had forgot me,” Cooter said.

“I thought about it,” Matt said. “Get mounted, we’re going into Medbury.”

Cooter mounted with some effort, his face grimaced with pain.

“I know damn well it’s not hurting you that much,” Matt said. “So you can quit the show, I’m not believing any of it.”

“That’s ’cause you ain’t got a bullet in your leg,” Cooter said.

Matt could have told Cooter that he had a knife slice on his side that was rib deep, but he said nothing.

Matt was correct in his belief that Cooter was faking more pain that he was actually feeling. Cooter was playing for time, waiting for the right opportunity, and when he saw Matt turn away from him, he was positive that the opportunity had presented itself. Reaching around behind, he pulled Mole’s pistol from his waistband, then he brought it around and aimed it at Matt’s back.

“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch!” Cooter yelled, pulling the trigger at the same time he yelled.

Cooter should not have yelled. He did not count on Matt’s phenomenal reaction time because, even as Cooter was yelling and pulling the trigger, Matt was falling off his horse. The bullet whistled just over Spirit’s empty saddle, passing through the exact spot Matt’s spine had been but a split second before.

The contact with the ground was hard and painful, doubly so because it slightly reopened the wound on Matt’s side. Halfway down to the ground, Matt pulled his pistol. But by the time Matt actually hit the ground, he had brought his gun to bear, and pulled the trigger.

Matt’s bullet caught Cooter in the chest, causing him to let out one, large, expulsion of air.

“How the hell did I miss?” Cooter asked, his voice racked with pain. He raised his pistol and tried to shoot it again, but the gun began wobbling in his hand, then he dropped it and grabbed his chest, then fell.