Texas Bloodshed

CHAPTER 15

Bo caught a glimpse of the puff of powder smoke from the top of the bluff, but he was already turning to look at Duck. The stocky Cherokee, his eyes wide with pain, swayed back and forth in the saddle as he pressed a hand to his chest. Blood welled between his splayed-out fingers, telling Bo that Duck was badly wounded.

Everybody in the group had heard the shot and knew they were under attack. Brubaker yanked back on the team’s reins, bringing the wagon to a halt as he shouted, “Everybody spread out!”

At the same time, Charley Graywolf yelled, “Take cover!”

Both of those commands sent the riders scattering for the closest rocks or trees.

Bo leaned over and grabbed the reins of Duck’s horse. The tribal policeman had dropped them when he was shot. Clinging tightly to the reins, Bo led Duck’s mount behind him as he galloped toward a cluster of boulders. He hoped Duck could manage to stay in the saddle.

More shots came from the bluff. Bo didn’t know where the bullets went, but he reached the rocks without being hit. When he was safely behind the boulders, he dismounted almost before his horse stopped moving and sprang to the side of Duck’s horse just as the young Cherokee toppled off the animal. Bo caught him and eased him to the ground.

Duck’s mouth opened and closed several times as he looked up at Bo. He seemed to be struggling to say something. He couldn’t get the words out, though. The only sound that came from him was a cross between a wheeze and a whistle ... and that came from the hole in his chest.

Bo knew that sound meant the bullet had penetrated one of Duck’s lungs. He ripped Duck’s shirt open and saw the bullet hole still welling bright, frothy blood. Tearing off a piece of Duck’s shirt, he wadded it up and shoved it into the opening as hard as he could. That would serve two purposes. It would slow down the bleeding and also close the wound temporarily, which would help Duck breathe.

Duck’s distress seemed to ease slightly, but he still couldn’t say anything.

“Take it easy,” Bo told him. “Try not to move around any. You’ll see those oceans and deserts yet, Duck.”

Bo wasn’t sure of that at all, but he wanted to give Duck some hope to hold on to. When a man was badly wounded, despair was often fatal, but stubborn determination and a fighting spirit could bring him back from the brink of death.

Bo ran to his horse and pulled his Winchester from its sheath. The shooting still continued, and he could tell now that the members of Charley Graywolf’s posse were returning the ambusher’s fire. He figured Scratch and Brubaker were getting in on the action, too. He crawled up a huge, slanting slab of rock so he could get a look at the trail and the bluff where the hidden rifleman was located.

Several shots from a clump of trees on the other side of the trail drew his attention. He caught a glimpse of what looked like Scratch’s cream-colored Stetson and watched until he got a better look at his old friend. Scratch poked the barrel of his rifle around a tree trunk and squeezed off a shot. When he drew back, Bo called, “Scratch!”

The silver-haired Texan looked over, grinned, and waved. Bo returned the wave. Confident now that they were both all right, he turned his attention to the man on top of the bluff.

Large boulders lined the edge of that outcropping. The rifleman was probably firing through a narrow gap between a couple of the rocks, which meant it would be almost impossible for their return fire to hit him. He could sit up there and keep them pinned down all day.

Evidently that wasn’t his goal, because he shifted his aim to the wagon and started peppering it with slugs. Cara screamed and Lowe and Elam bellowed curses, making Bo wonder if some of the bullets had gone through the ventilation slits and whipped around the heads of the prisoners. That was possible, considering the angle from which the ambusher was firing.

Scratch must have been worried about the same thing, because he yelled at the wagon, “Cara! You and those boys get down as low as you can!”

The fact that the prisoners were being endangered probably meant that the man on the bluff wasn’t trying to free them. Indeed, he didn’t seem to care if he killed them. That ruled out Hank Gentry and his gang.

The most likely possibility was that the men being pursued by the Cherokee Lighthorse had left someone behind to slow them down. In that case, the man wouldn’t know who Bo, Scratch, and Brubaker were, nor why the wagon was traveling with Charley Graywolf and the others. But to him, they would all be enemies, anyway.

The bullets were coming too close to the team. The normally stolid draft horses finally spooked and lunged forward against their harness, desperate to be out of the line of fire. They bolted, taking off along the trail and pulling the wagon behind them. The prisoners inside the vehicle howled even louder.

Jake Brubaker yelled in alarm and broke out of the trees where he had taken cover. He ran after the wagon, ignoring Scratch’s shout of warning.

“Forty-two, no!”

“Let them go, Marshal!” Bo shouted from the other side of the trail.

Brubaker’s hat suddenly flew off his head, plucked from it by a bullet. Even more than the shouts from the Texans, that had to make him realize that he was out in the open ... and that was a bad spot to be in right now. Another bullet kicked up dirt at his feet as he whirled toward the side of the trail and threw himself behind a log that was lying there. Chucks of bark and splinters of wood flew in the air as slugs chewed into the fallen tree.

Bo opened fire on the bluff as the rest of the group resumed shooting. Brubaker was still in a bad spot. If they could keep the bushwhacker occupied for a few moments, it might give the deputy time to reach some better cover.

Brubaker surged up into a run. He made it behind some trees and rocks, where he slid to the ground. Bo watched him lie there panting heavily. As far as Bo could tell, the lawman wasn’t hurt.

The wagon careened around a bend in the trail and vanished from sight.

Bo wasn’t worried about the prisoners getting away. The runaway horses would slow down and stop as their panic wore off. The prisoners’ chains and the lock on the door were secure. The biggest problem was that the wagon might overturn and crash before the team came to a stop. If that happened, the prisoners might be injured, or even killed in the wreck.

Bo wondered if there was any way to reach that bluff, work his way up to the top, and take the ambusher by surprise. Even as he considered the idea, he saw that it wouldn’t work. The bluff commanded too broad a field of fire.

Knowing that his rifle wasn’t going to make a difference in the fight, he slid back down to the bottom of the rock and hurried to the spot where Duck Forbes lay. Dropping to a knee beside the wounded man, Bo leaned over to check on his condition.

The Texan’s face took on a hard, grim cast as he saw the way Duck’s eyes were staring sightlessly into the blue sky. He rested a hand on Duck’s chest to make sure and found that it was motionless. While Bo was up in the rocks trading shots with the man on the bluff, the young Cherokee Lighthorseman had crossed the divide.

“I’m sorry, Duck,” Bo said quietly. “If I can, I’ll settle the score for you. You have my word on that.”

For all the good it did now. Bo couldn’t stop that bitter thought from edging into his mind. Whoever was up there on the bluff had chosen the perfect spot for an ambush. He could keep them pinned down until dark ...

But why just keep your enemies pinned down, Bo suddenly asked himself, when you could close the jaws of a trap on them? Scratch and the others were all concentrating on the danger in front of them, when something even worse could be coming up from behind.

That thought had just gone through Bo’s head when a bullet whistled past his head, struck one of the boulders, and ricocheted off with a whine like the wail of an evil banshee.