Bloody Trail (22 page)

The first bullet whined past Derrick’s head,
catching Rob low in the right side. The impact knocked him from the
saddle. The sudden, ferocious pain as the lead tracked through his
flesh, into his body, surprised him, and he yelled as he fell. The
breath rushed out of him as he hit the ground.

“
Take cover!” Goodson called out,
but his order was unnecessary. The others were off their horses,
scrambling for the brush as bullets sang around them, kicking up
dust and chipping rock.

As Derrick hit the ground he pulled his rifle
from his saddle scabbard, snagging his canteen in the same motion.
In spite of their circumstances, he had to smile, and in the next
instant utter a curse. By the weight of it, it was
half-empty—again.

He looked around from where he’d taken cover
behind a raised outcropping of rock. He couldn’t see any of the
others except Charley, who’d been riding close to him when the lead
had begun to fly. He crouched to Derrick’s left.

Charley was looking at something over
Derrick’s head, and when Derrick looked up the trail on the left
side, he saw the top of a light-colored straw hat.

Charley raised the scarred Yellowboy
carefully, sighting down the barrel and squeezed the trigger. The
hat disappeared, and a sharp cry of pain came from the same area
where the man had been.

A frenzied volley of bullets erupted from the
outlaws’ guns. Derrick waited, careful about his shots. In the
shimmering heat of the rocks and crevasses of these mountains, it
was difficult to see. He only hoped the Wolf Creek posse was hidden
from sight as well as Danby’s men were. He reached up to wipe the
sweat out of his eyes. In the distance, he could hear Rob whimper.
Derrick knew that sound well. When he glanced at Charley, the black
man shook his head.

“
I hoped to God I wouldn’t be
hearin’ that today,” Charley muttered.

“
Who’s with him? Can you
see?”

“
Looked to me like Sweeney was
helpin’ him, last I saw. They was riding close.”

“
Goodson? Marshal Goodson! Is that
you?” a voice called from near the brush where Charley had shot
earlier. It wasn’t the man he’d hit, Derrick felt certain. The way
he’d cried out was also a familiar sound—the sound of a man being
mortally wounded, and realizing it the moment before he
died.

“
You bet your sweet runnin’ scared
ass it’s me!” Goodson replied from a few feet behind where Charley
and Derrick squatted. “Who’m I talkin’ to?”

“
Reckon I’m the leader of this
outfit, Marshal. Jim Danby.”

“
Well, Danby, I’ve brought some
help with me, and we’re prepared to take you in—see that y’all get
a fair trial.”

Danby laughed. “How ’bout we ride on our
separate ways? You all mosey on back north, and we’ll go on up into
these here mountains. We’ll maybe tangle another time. Right now,
we’ve got us some money to divvy up and figure out how to spend.
And we want to thank all the good people of Wolf Creek kindly for
that.”

“
Don’t be so hasty, Danby. Some of
those ‘good people’ have ridden a long way to see you brought to
justice—one way or the other. How many men do you have?”

“
Enough,” came the curt reply.
“An’ I do believe I seen one of my men in your midst earlier. How
you doin’ Derrick? Last I saw of your sorry ass, you was bleedin’
like you was gonna die.”

“
Yeah, but I didn’t, Jim,” Derrick
answered.

“
My mistake. I should of done it
myself instead of givin’ it to Davis to do. Maybe we can fix that
today.”

“
I don’t plan on that, Danby,”
Derrick responded. He glanced at Charley. “I wish to hell we could
get around back of them,” he told the scout.

“
I don’t see how,” Charley said
softly. “They know where we are, even how many of us there
are—”

“
Once it gets dark, it’s all
over.”

Charley nodded.

They were truly at a standoff. For the Wolf
Creek men to make a move directly up the trail would be suicide.
Going around from this point, would be impossible due to the lack
of cover. Danby’s men held the advantage of having the higher
ground.

Just then, the sound of a scuffle behind an
outcropping of shale sounded at about the point where Danby’s voice
had come from. Charley and Derrick looked at one
another.

“
What the hell?” Derrick
muttered.

In the next instant, a shot rang out and Danby
gave a startled yelp, then fell out into the open from behind the
scrub brush where he’d been concealed. His body rolled a few feet
and then came to a stop, sightless eyes staring heavenward, a
fountain of red bubbling out from his chambray shirt to stain the
rocky ground beneath him.

“
That’s for Wolf Creek, you son of
a bitch!”

“
Satterlee,” Derrick
breathed.

Charley’s smile was wide. “Well, let’s give
him some help!”

Satterlee’s repeater was already blazing from
his vantage point, forcing some of Danby’s men to have to choose
death at his hands or scramble for better cover, coming out into
the open as they ran.

Goodson’s Henry and Sweeney’s Austrian joined
the blasts of Derrick and Charley’s to lay down a deadly barrage of
bullets.

Suddenly, one of the outlaws stood up from
where he’d been hiding—no more than thirty feet from where Sweeney
and Gallagher had taken cover.

Blood covered his chest and trickled from his
mouth. He pitched forward onto the ground, a surprised look on his
face. His hat fell beside him, revealing a head of red hair.
Derrick and Charley were both instantly on their feet, running
toward him. They pulled him back into the shelter of the bush,
where only Sheriff Satterlee was behind them.

“
You bastard!” Charley exploded.
He quickly drew his long blade from its sheath, and Davis’s eyes
widened in fear. “I’ve got you. An’ I been waitin’ on this day a
long, long time. Remember Centralia? You cut down a black
boy—though I’m sure you never gave it another thought. Last I saw
of you, you was ridin’ off, laughin’ and wipin’ that Reb sword of
yours clean of his blood.”

Charley put his knife close to the man’s head,
grabbing a handful of his hair, his intention clear.

“
No!” Davis yelled. “I’m
dyin’!”

“
Yeah. You sure as hell are. This
is for every murder you ever did in this life, Davis, but mostly
for Sango Chedakis at Centralia.”

“
I never did that…I
wasn’t…there…”

“
Yes, you did. I saw you. Now,”
Charley looked at his blade, then held it up to gleam in the sun,
“it’s your turn. ’Course, it won’t be as clean as what you did—with
a sword. And it’ll take a mite longer.” He bared his teeth at
Davis. “You’ll have a while to feel it, Davis. Every second of
it.”

“
That—that wasn’t me!” Davis spat
blood, then swallowed. “Clark?” he called.

If the shooting hadn’t all but stopped, the
others couldn’t have heard the thin, reedy voice.

“
Clark! Run! Get out of
here—”

Derrick looked at Charley, then back at Frank
Davis.

“
You, I done, McCain. Blasted you
to…to hell…and here you are—still alive.” Davis’ mouth twisted in
pain, but Derrick couldn’t miss the smirk as well. His jaw tensed
at that. Seemed Charley and he neither one was going to get the
full satisfaction of what they wanted to do to Davis. He was nearly
gone.

Davis’eyes sought Charley’s “What you said…I
didn’t…never carried no sword…”

“
Then who? Who?” Charley shook
him, hard, but Davis smiled as he took his last breath, safe in the
knowledge that his secret was still untold.

“
It was him,” Charley muttered,
sitting back on his heels. “I don’t care what he said—”

“
No,” Derrick said quietly. “No.”
He began to rifle the dead man’s pockets. There may be something,
he thought. Davis wouldn’t have lied about Sango Chedakis, he
didn’t think—there was something in the dying man’s face that made
Derrick believe him. ‘Clark,’ Davis had called. A warning. His
fingers closed around something hard, and he drew it from Davis’
pocket.

A tintype. He turned it over. Two boys stared
out at him. Both had light hair and freckles. Both were thin-faced
and of nearly the same height. Derrick turned the picture over.
Cousins Clark and Frank Davis, someone had penciled on the metal.
And beneath that, 1855.

Derrick swore harshly. “Clark.” His voice was
filled with self-reproach. He handed the picture to Charley. “Of
course. I didn’t think about that. His cousin, Clark—he rode with
us, and he was there that day. I don’t think he had been with us
for long, so I plumb forgot about him. And now I think on it, I
remember—Frank never did carry a saber, he always used a big Bowie
knife. Same one that’s on his belt now, I reckon. They resemble
each other enough—it wasn’t Frank, Charley. It had to be his cousin
that killed your friend’s boy. You didn’t see them both together,
and it all happened mighty fast.”

“
Damn it!”

The other Wolf Creek men were coming out to
meet Sheriff Satterlee as he made his way down the mountainside,
stopping now and again to make sure each one of Danby’s men that
had been shot was dead. He took a minute when he reached Danby’s
body to kick him in the ribs. There was no response. A grin spread
across his weathered face. “Burn in hell you son of a bitch,” he
said savagely.

“
Amen to that!” Goodson agreed
from a few yards away.

Charley rose swiftly, scanning the woods
around them, but there was no sign of any live captives. “Maybe
Satterlee got him,” he muttered, starting toward the sheriff. A low
groan of pain escaped him as he took a step, the second step slower
than the first.

Derrick stood up and followed him, the two of
them reaching a break in the cover of the thick brush and trees
just in time to see a flash of brightly-colored red shirt tail
flapping in the breeze atop a gray mount. The blur of color
disappeared over a distant ridge. Charley let go a curse and
stumbled forward, but Derrick caught him and held on. “Let him go,
Charley.”

“
What the hell?”

“
Look at you! You’re
shot.”

Charley looked down as if just realizing he’d
been wounded. Blood flowed freely from a tear in his pants, two
inches above his right kneecap. “Damn it! He’s getting
away!”

Derrick shook his head. “He’s gone, Charley.
And none of us is in much shape to go after him—especially not so
close to Demon’s Drop as we are.”

He’d gotten the salve for his own open wound
of vengeance he’d carried so long, Derrick thought. Jim Danby was
dead, just as he’d vowed he would be, and Frank Davis too. But
Charley Blackfeather’s healing would have to wait.

****

Spike Sweeney propped Rob Gallagher up under
the meager shade of a scrubby brush, resting his head on a stone.
The young man whimpered when the blacksmith jostled him.

A forced smile appeared on Rob’s wan face. “I
reckon I’m done for,” he said weakly. “I never expected to make it
this far, to tell the truth.”

Sweeney ripped his own bandanna in half and
shoved one part of it into Rob’s wound as makeshift packing. “Talk
like that don’t do anybody no good,” Spike said gruffly. Then, in a
gentler tone, he added, “You’ll be back at that general store
slingin’ flour sacks around in no time.”

Spike wet the other half of the bandanna
sparingly with water from his own canteen and used it to dab the
sweat from Rob’s pale face.

“
I’m ashamed, Spike,” the younger
man said.

“
Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of,
son,” the blacksmith said. “You’ve done good. We’ll make sure
everybody back in town knows what a hellcat you’ve been, and when
they see you in the street they’ll tip their hat and call you sir.
Gettin’ shot like this, it’s just bad luck. No shame at
all.”

“
I don’t mean that,” Rob said.
“I’m ashamed of the way I treated you, and the things I
said.”

“
It was just words,
son.”

Rob closed his eyes as a wave of pain washed
over him. When he opened them again they were tinged with agonized
tears. Spike took off his gray kepi and placed it on Rob’s head—he
had lost his hat—to shade his eyes from the sun.

“
My pa was an abolitionist,” Rob
said weakly. “He brought us down here from Ohio when I was a little
kid. Him and my uncles fought with John Brown at Osawatomie. When I
was eleven some Rebs shot him down in the field where we was
workin’.”

“
A lot of bad things happened back
then,” Spike said, “on both sides. I understand how somethin’ like
that can color your outlook.”

“
I think that’s why I fought so
hard, so much harder than I knew I could, back yonder at the
ambush. Those outlaws was the same kind of people that killed my
pa—and so was you. At least that’s what I thought. But you ain’t
like them, I was wrong.”

“
You hush now, Mister Gallagher,”
Spike said kindly. “Save your breath, and don’t worry none about
them things. Bygones is gone by, my father used to say. You just
rest.”