Black Hills (9781101559116) (44 page)

The lay of the land can best be learned from the shadows at different times of the day, and Cormac wanted to scout the area in the morning and at least part of it again in the afternoon. Once the shooting started, he needed to know the lay of the land. After getting camp set up the way he liked, he made up a survival bag with some flour, part of the little sugar he had left, and coffee in a bag along with extra cartridges for the Smith & Wesson and some bullets, cap and powder charges for the Colt, a pan and metal cup, and then as an afterthought, added a clean shirt that could serve as bandages along with an unopened bottle of whiskey. He stashed the bag in a safe place that he hoped would also be a dry place to leave the Colt's powder bags nearer the bottom of the mountain and the water seep. It would serve as his survival bag, if such became necessary. Living on sugar and flour with the help of wild nuts, berries, and onions would be uncomfortable, but survival isn't about comfort.

“Now, let's go forth and seek justice,” Cormac told the horses, borrowing another line from the dime novel. The first order of the day was to have a look at the L-Bar, then learn the lay of the land and search out Lambert's location.

Looking down at the L-Bar from an overlooking mountain to the south, Cormac was impressed. Lainey had done very well; he was proud of her. He, on the other hand, had accomplished nothing. Located beautifully in a large valley that looked to be about twenty to twenty-five thousand acres, the ranch was guarded on three sides by mountains: an impressive spread with a tremendous amount of thick grazing grass naturally irrigated by God.

From above, several mountain streams coming from the Sweet River were easily visible wandering across the valley. There appeared to be another valley to the north that would provide some protection for the stock from the winter's north-winds and snow. It brought to mind Dakota winters with nothing between them and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence, and as his pa had been fond of sayin' when the winter winds were howling around the eaves, somebody must have left the gate open.

He spent the rest of that day and the better part of the next half-circling the flatland side of the L-Bar, searching for passes, streams, trails, or any other way of approach, but mostly getting to know the land and looking for tracks that might lead him to Lambert. On the second day, he heard gunfire, but it was too far off to determine the likely cause. Finding tracks turned out to be no problem; there were many. The problem was like in one of his pa's stories where a man had been searching in witch country for a particular witch, but she turned out to be a twin and one witch looked so much like the other witch, he couldn't tell which witch was which.

There was no way to tell the difference between the tracks of Lambert's men and those of L-Bar riders. Fresh tracks of five horses that had been moving toward the L-Bar turned abruptly and dug in. The horses were running east . . . why? The L-Bar was to the north. Shots fired from that direction answered his question. Cormac loosed the reins and clucked his tongue, and Lop Ear broke into a run.

There were more shots that led him a short distance up a trail into the mountains. They rounded a corner and stopped on a small plateau overlooking a box canyon. In the canyon, two punchers he took to be Lainey's riders were hunkered down in a cluster of boulders. Through the process of elimination, the attackers had to belong to Lambert and were spread out, fan-shaped, behind other boulders that had bounced down the side of the mountain about a gazillion years before. The L-Bar riders were sewn up tight. Well, maybe GERT could do a little unstitchin'.

He checked her load and crawled to the edge of the plateau, where he could fire from a prone position, and laid out a half dozen cartridges close to hand. She was a single shot, but the action was fast and easy to reload. His pa would have called the distance, “a fur' piece,” but Cormac thought GERT could make up for the distance.

As his first target, he lined up on the man in position to be the most effective against the L-Bar riders and squeezed the trigger. He always made sure to pull the rifle stock tightly against his shoulder, but the kick was still impressive. GERT had quite a kick to her, GERT did.

He slid a new shell into the chamber as the first man slumped to the ground. A bullet from behind splayed rock chips across his face. Cormac had been so intent on following the sounds of the shots, that he had paid no attention to his own back trail. That's the kind of mistake men usually don't walk away from. There was no two ways about it, he had been lucky.

Before the sound of the shot died, he had let go of GERT, rolled to the left, coming out with his waist pistol on the roll: it would already be pointed downward toward his feet and in the right direction. Anyone following him would be close; there had been no time for the shooter to get above him. A second shot kicked up dust where Cormac's head had just been. The shooter had been over-confident and walked out onto the plateau before firing his first shot and was standing in plain view. Cormac put two bullets into the center of the gunman's chest, and he quit shooting at Cormac. Actually, he quit doing anything at all.

Cormac rolled back to the edge of the plateau to resume the original chore and found the situation had changed. The man he shot was still dead, but the other four were trying to leave, and Lainey's men were making it difficult. Two of the attackers managed to get mounted, but one of them was immediately shot out of the saddle for his effort. One got away, giving Cormac someone to follow.

He crawled away from the ledge before getting to his feet; those L-Bar boys could shoot, and although it was unlikely their rifles had the power to reach him—he was above them—he thought it prudent to not test that theory. Prudent.
How do you like that word, Mother?

To give Lop Ear a break, Cormac changed the saddle to Horse and then backtracked to find a way down to the floor that didn't expose him to fire from Lainey's men, if they were still there. The tracks of the escaping rider weren't hard to find. He was riding hard and straight to put as much distance as possible behind him as quickly as possible. Cormac let Horse choose a comfortable pace and followed at a lope.

About a mile farther, the tracks became erratic and wavering: the trail of a horse being guided by a rider swaying back and forth in the saddle, pulling the reins as he did so. A short distance later, there was blood on the ground. The tracks led into an arroyo and Horse stopped short, almost stepping on the body of the man he had been following. He was just a kid, not more than nineteen years old. Cormac shook his head. Too bad, but he should have been more selective of the company he kept. Cormac stepped down to confirm what he already knew . . . the boy was dead. Like he said, those L-Bar boys could shoot. Lainey had hired well, but they sure played hob with his plans to follow the trail back to Lambert. They surely did.

Until they were all accounted for, Lainey Nayle always waited nervously for her men to return. She hated that every time they rode out they were riding into danger for her. She did not understand the mentality of criminals; why could people not just live in harmony? Why were there always people wanting to take what belonged to others, or force their wants on others? Both her real parents and her adopted parents were hard working and God fearing; they would never have even considered taking something that did not belong to them.

The West was still in a state of growth, and civilization was sporadic with settlers and developers still very much responsible for setting and enforcing the law. But someday, laws would be spelled out and equally enforced across the country. Citizens would be able to live in peace without fear: renegades and gangs would no longer be allowed to exist. Shank was right. Until that day, she had to accept the fact that people such as herself must have the courage to stand up for what was right; that meant relying on men such as Shank and Candy and the others.

Lainey was nervous and could not remain inside. She was sitting on the small porch when Shank and Candy rode up just after dusk. Relieved, she stood up, eagerly waiting for their report. She was impatient when they stopped to discuss something. Then, taking Shank's horse, Candy rode toward the stable and Shank walked the rest of the way to where she was standing.

“Hi, Miss Nayle,” he said, stepping up beside her. “How are you?”

“The question is how are you? I was beginning to worry about the two of you. Did you learn anything today?”

“Not as much as I would have liked. We found a lot of tracks from riders scouting us. I think they're waiting for something before making a final assault, more men maybe. We had a bit of a problem around mid-day, but got out of it with the help of some mystery man.”

“Mystery man?”

Shank removed the metal cup from the hook on the side of the water bucket that was sitting on the porch awaiting anyone with a thirst. He took a little water in the cup, swiveled a few times to rinse it out, threw the rinse water into the dirt, and took a full cup more. Rinsing his mouth, he spit into the same dirt and then drank. Lainey waited impatiently without speaking. His pauses for effect had bothered her at first, but she had become accustomed to them. He returned the cup to its hook and pulled the sack of Bull Durham from his shirt pocket and began to build a smoke.

“We was comin' down out of Saddle Pass when we got jumped by five riders comin' from the south. There was no place for us to go but into the box canyon. We made it to the rocks, but they had us pinned for fair. They spread out, and unless they done somethin' stupid, it was just a matter of time. We had been there maybe about twenty minutes and had just about decided to try a run through the middle of them. It sounded better than being sitting ducks and getting picked off one at a time. We was just gettin' ready to make a try for the horses when someone up on the plateau fired what sounded to be a small canon. He nailed one of our attackers.”

Shank struck a wooden match on the porch upright and lit his smoke.

“There were some more shots from up there, but I don't think they were meant for us. I think someone snuck up on whoever fired that first shot. The last four made a run for their horses, and me'n Candy got two before they made it and one more just as he got mounted. One got away, but Candy thinks he got lead into him before he was out of range. I don't think he was goin' far. We would have looked for him, but we had just been sprung from one trap and had no desire to maybe find another.

He went on. “We did go up on the plateau though, and found where someone had sprawled out on his belly to shoot. We found his toe marks and where his elbows dug in: he's a big guy. The guy that blew up the dynamite was also a big man, probably the same man, from the looks of things. I looked over the edge, and that was one heck of a shot, and that's a heck of a rifle he's got there. From the imprint of it in the dirt, it looks to be nearly as long as one of them Tennessee Long Rifles. I've heard it said that according to Davy Crockett, with a Tennessee Long Rifle, he could shoot a wart off a Tennessee mountain frog from his front porch in Washington, and I don't believe he's got a thing on our boy right here, whoever he is.

“There was an imprint where he dropped the rifle and rolled over to shoot his ambusher with a six-gun from his waist belt. It would have been the fastest as it was already pointed in the right direction. Whoever snuck up on him learned the hard way not to do that again; he was still there with two bullet holes in his chest close enough together to cover with half of a playing card.”

Lainey didn't know what to make of it.

“Who do you think it was, Shank?”

“Like I said, it must have been whoever it was that blew up the dynamite. It's the only thing that makes sense, but I have no idea who that might be, Miss Nayle. We haven't been able to get out of this valley to tell anyone our predicament; I doubt anyone else but Lambert's men know what's happenin'—I don't even know anyone who can shoot like that. I'm a fair hand with a rifle, and Candy's a real wizard, but I doubt either of us could have made that shot even with that rifle . . . or the shot in the pass, as far as that goes. Our rifles won't even shoot that far. I've heard of a new rifle called a Henry that's said to do some extraordinary shootin'. Maybe he has one of them.”

They talked about it a little longer while Lainey fixed some supper for them and Candy. She had fed the other hands earlier, but had been too nervous to eat herself. They voiced various scenarios over fresh-butchered beef and thick gravy poured over fresh bread, but no explanations were apparent.

After eating, they walked outside and knocked it around some more while Shank and Candy smoked before turning in. Shank's tobacco of choice was his beloved Bull Durham; Candy, on the other hand, preferred foul-smelling cigars. They called it a night in agreement that whoever had fired the shot was more than welcome.