Texas Bloodshed

CHAPTER 28

As soon as Leander Staley opened his mouth, Bo recognized his voice from their previous encounter in Indian Territory. So he knew right away this was trouble, and Brubaker must have, too, because the deputy didn’t wait, didn’t try to talk Staley out of anything.

No, Brubaker just hauled his gun out and commenced to shooting.

Bo had no choice but to follow suit, since Staley and his two companions clawed their irons from leather and returned the fire. As Bo’s Colt began to roar and buck in his hand, he angled to his left, away from Brubaker, who was lunging to the right. Splitting up like that kept their three opponents from concentrating their fire.

Behind Bo, the hostler let out a screech. Bo hoped the old man was just scared and not wounded, but he couldn’t check on the hostler now. Besides, he hadn’t called this tune, Leander Staley had, and the vengeful Staley was the one ultimately responsible for whatever happened.

Staley and his partners were spreading out, too. One of them stumbled and clapped a hand to his side as a bullet ripped through him. That gave Brubaker the chance to put a well-placed slug through his head. The man went down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Bo dropped to one knee behind a post holding up the stable’s hayloft. It was meager cover but better than nothing. He ducked as a bullet smacked into the post above his head and sent a chunk of wood flying into the air. The Colt in his hand blasted again. The other younger man doubled over as Bo’s bullet punched into his belly.

That left Leander Staley still on his feet, and the vengeance-seeking old man was hit. Under his open coat, blood stood out on his flannel shirt like bright flowers in a couple of places.

But he wasn’t going down easily. The hatred he felt for Bo and Brubaker kept him upright. He was even able to stalk forward, still triggering his gun. Bo and the deputy fired at the same time, flame spouting from the muzzles of their guns, and that pair of slugs hammering into Staley’s chest was finally enough to knock him down. He went over backward.

Even when he was on the ground, though, Staley struggled to raise his gun and fire again. Brubaker, who was crouched near a parked wagon, straightened and strode over to him. Staley rasped a curse.

“You ... killed my boys!” he managed to say as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“They had it comin’,” Brubaker said. He kicked the gun out of Staley’s hand. “And so do you.”

Brubaker lined his gun on Staley’s face and clearly was about to pull the trigger again when the old man gasped and arched his back. When he relaxed a second later, the breath came out of him in a death rattle.

“You’d be wasting a bullet, Forty-two,” Bo said from behind Brubaker.

“Yeah, I know.” Brubaker let out a disgusted curse. “And now we’re gonna have to waste time talkin’ to the local law. They’d better not hold us until we can’t catch up to Morton and that gal!”

Bo didn’t think that was likely. Brubaker’s deputy U.S. marshal badge would smooth over any ruffled feelings the local star packers might have about this shoot-out in their bailiwick.

But any delay might prove costly, Bo thought, and he couldn’t forget that Scratch was risking his life just by riding along with Cara LaChance.

Scratch and Cara camped on a high ridge that gave them a view of the countryside for several miles around. Scratch built a good-size campfire that sent smoke climbing upward. He didn’t know if Bo was already in these parts, but if that was the case, he might spot the smoke and realize that was Scratch sending him a signal.

Things had changed by the next morning. The wind had been from the south the day before, continuing the warming trend, but by morning it had turned around to the west. On the ridge it was particularly strong, snatching Scratch’s Stetson from his head when he went to saddle the horses. He had to run after the hat and catch it, which made Cara laugh at him.

Scratch pulled the Stetson down tighter on his head and frowned at her.

“You won’t think it’s so funny when that dang wind blows you off your horse,” he told her.

“That’s not gonna happen,” she said. She grew more serious as she went on. “We’d better have a cold camp this morning. With the wind blowing like that and as dry as everything is, it wouldn’t take much to start a wildfire.”

Scratch knew she was right about that. The grass, the brush, and many of the trees were dead, which meant the whole countryside was tinder-dry. Charley Graywolf had warned them that the drought in Texas was bad, and obviously, the Cherokee Lighthorseman had been right.

“I’ll miss my coffee,” Scratch said, “but maybe we can find a place later where we can risk a little fire. Like inside that cave of yours where the loot’s hidden.”

Cara nodded and said, “Yeah, that ought to be all right. Let’s get on the trail. We’ve still got some jerky. We’ll gnaw on that and call it breakfast.”

The wind was cold in their faces as they rode west. Not icy, as it might have been, and the bright sunshine helped warm things up a little, but Scratch felt the chill in his bones, anyway.

Cara didn’t seem to mind. She was excited at the prospect of arriving at the hideout and claiming that stash of loot before the day was over, and she wasn’t going to let some wind bother her, even a howler like the one blowing today.

By the middle of the day, the terrain had grown rougher and they had to slow down their pace as they fought their way past gullies choked with dry brush, up rocky slopes where their horses’ hooves slid on loose pebbles, and around rugged bluffs that were impossible to climb. At times they made their way along dark, narrow valleys that seemed to be trying to close in on them. Atop the ridges on either side, the bare branches of dead trees waved in the wind and reminded Scratch of skeletal fingers clawing at the empty sky. He didn’t know why such a grim thought crossed his mind, but once it did, he couldn’t shake that ghastly image from his brain.

“Is any of this startin’ to look familiar to you?” he asked Cara around midday.

“It all looks familiar to me,” she replied, “but things weren’t nearly as dry the last time I was here. Another couple of hours and we’ll be at the hideout. We’ve actually made pretty good time.”

Scratch supposed that she knew what she was talking about. He tugged his hat down, lowered his head, and rode on into the wind.

Sometime later—he wasn’t sure exactly how long—he lifted his head and sniffed. Cara, riding beside him, had her head up, too.

“You smell it, don’t you?” Scratch asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice growing taut with worry. “Smoke.”

They were down in a hollow and couldn’t see very far. Scratch heeled his horse into a faster pace, and Cara did likewise. The smell of smoke grew stronger in the air as they trotted toward a rise about a quarter of a mile away.

By the time they reached the top of that rise, Scratch wasn’t surprised to see clouds of gray smoke billowing into the air in the distance. Both riders reined in sharply, and Cara exclaimed, “Damn it!”

“I reckon that was the way we were goin’?” Scratch asked as he nodded toward the smoke.

“That’s the right direction,” Cara said. “What I can’t tell is how far away the fire is. I think it’s on the other side of the hideout.”

“Maybe so, but the wind’s blowin’ it this way mighty fast. You reckon we can get to the cave and get out before the fire reaches it?”

“I don’t know,” Cara said, “but I sure as hell intend to try.”

She leaned forward in the saddle, jabbed her boot heels into the flanks of Bo’s horse, and sent the animal lunging forward in a gallop.

“Cara!” Scratch shouted after her. “Dadgum it, come back here!”

She ignored him and kept riding. For a second, Scratch pondered pulling out his Winchester and trying to shoot the horse out from under her. He decided against it because he wasn’t going to do that to Bo’s horse, for one thing, and for another it wasn’t easy to hit a target moving that fast. He might kill Cara with the shot instead.

And maybe she was right, he thought. It was difficult to judge distances where smoke was concerned. That blaze could be fifteen miles away, maybe even more. They might be able to reach the hideout, retrieve the loot, and then flee ahead of the flames. It was worth a try, at least until he had a better idea how close the fire really was.

With that decision made, Scratch sent his own mount galloping after Cara’s.

She was a good rider, and she maintained the short lead over him as she raced along draws, over ridges, and around jutting piles of rock. The pillar of smoke in the distance had climbed high enough into the sky that it was visible even when they were riding over lower terrain. The gray column stood out in sharp, menacing contrast to the bright blue sky. Scratch thought it was a little wider, too, which meant the leading edge of the fire was spreading out and growing broader.

The air was so dry it tasted like dust in his mouth. That, combined with the high winds and the dead vegetation, was a recipe for pure, unadultered hell.

Up on the Great Plains, Scratch had witnessed a number of prairie fires, and they could be awesome in their destructiveness. Nothing was a match, though, for a Texas wildfire with its sheer deadly speed. The only natural disaster Scratch could think of that was close to a wildfire’s equal was a tornado, and even those usually weren’t as bad because their paths of devastation weren’t as broad.

As they came out on the lip of a rise overlooking a valley, Cara hauled back on the reins and drew her horse to a stop. She leveled an arm and pointed at the long, rugged ridge on the other side of the valley, a couple of miles away.

“The cave is in that ridge,” she told Scratch. “And the fire is still on the other side of it.”

She was right. The spreading smoke was beyond the ridge, but it was impossible to tell just how far away the fire really was.

“We can get the loot,” Cara said. “Then we’ll head east, away from the fire.”

“Until it overtakes us,” Scratch warned. “That wind is blowin’ faster than these horses can run.”

“We can make it,” she insisted. “Come on!”

She kicked the horse into a gallop again, taking the downward slope at a breakneck pace. Scratch rode after her. He couldn’t help but keep casting glances at the steadily advancing smoke.

Those two miles or so across the valley seemed a lot longer with the threat of the wildfire looming over them. Eventually, though, they reached the ridge and Cara started following a winding trail that twisted and turned its way upward. The face of the ridge was such a jumble of boulders that Scratch could understand how the entrance of a cave could be hidden up here. They probably wouldn’t be able to see it until they were right on top of it.

He had caught up to Cara and was right behind her when she suddenly reined in. She jerked Bo’s Winchester from the saddle boot.

“What is it?” Scratch asked as he brought his mount to a stop alongside hers.

“I saw somebody above us,” she said tensely. “Riders comin’ down this way.”

“Folks tryin’ to get away from the fire, more than likely,” Scratch guessed.

“Maybe, but we’re close to that cache now, and I don’t trust anybody.” She jerked her horse toward a cluster of rock slabs that had slid down the face of the ridge in ages past. Over her shoulder, she told Scratch, “We can hole up over here and bushwhack whoever it is!”

Scratch wasn’t of a mind to bushwhack anybody, but there was no point in arguing with Cara right now. Once she saw that those riders she had spotted weren’t any threat to them, they could go on with their own business.

Scratch coughed as he followed Cara into the rocks. The smoke was getting thicker in the air. You didn’t just smell it; now it irritated the nose and eyes and throat. The horses didn’t like it, either. They were getting harder to control.

Scratch and Cara dismounted where they could watch the trail leading down from the ridge without being too noticeable themselves. Scratch hadn’t seen the riders, but he trusted Cara’s eyesight. His own eyes were starting to water a little from the smoke.

He listened intently for hoofbeats, and for the crackle of flames as well that would warn them the wildfire was almost on top of them. He didn’t hear that telltale crackling, but after a moment he caught the steady thud of hoofbeats. Someone was coming down the trail, all right.

Cara lifted the Winchester. Her hands were tight on the weapon.

“Whoever that is, they better not’ve got into that cache,” she said. “I’ll kill ’em before I let anybody steal my loot.”

That struck Scratch as funny, but he didn’t have any laughter in him at the moment, not even a dry chuckle. Instead he waited in silence, holding the reins of both horses while Cara edged forward beside one of the massive slabs of rock to get a better look at the trail.

One by one, half a dozen riders came into view. As they drew closer, Scratch studied them intently. They were all rugged-looking, well-armed hombres. The man in the lead wore a flat-crowned black hat and a black vest over a white shirt. He had a hawklike face and a dark mustache.

Close behind him rode a burly man in a buckskin jacket. He was bare headed and had a wild shock of long gray hair. The next man was lean, with red hair and a face like a fox. The other three were typical hard cases, roughly dressed and with several days’ worth of stubble on their faces. Each of those three was leading a packhorse.

Scratch had never seen any of the men before.

That wasn’t the case with Cara, though. A shock went through him as he realized that she was staring at the men in stunned recognition, especially the man riding in the lead.

Then she cried out, “Hank! Over here! Hank!”

The words were barely out of her mouth when she swung the rifle in her hands toward Scratch and pulled the trigger.