Valley of the Gun (9781101607480) (21 page)

Chapter 21

Sheriff DeShay and Arlis Fletcher had followed the copper dun's prints to a spot on a bald ridge where something seemed to have gone afoul for the Ranger. Cautious, the two had followed the trail down until they sighted wagon tracks, which appeared to make a wide swing and head off toward the Valley of the Gun. Without speculating aloud, they shared the silent feeling that the Ranger had been taken prisoner by Orwick's men.

Fletcher, still suffering the aftereffects of too much strong mescal, sat slumped to one side in his saddle, an open canteen of tepid water in his hand. Finally he stated what they both knew.

“They got him, Sheriff,” he said quietly, looking down, shaking his aching head. “What do you want to do now?”

Sheriff DeShay looked all around in the dark moonlight. Gazing back over his shoulder for an extra moment, he finally turned forward in his saddle and crossed his wrists on the saddle horn.

“I'm going on,” he said.

“That's foolish,” said Fletcher.

“You asked,” said DeShay.

“Yeah, I asked,” said Fletcher, “but I've got to call it how I see it.”

“You can turn back here,” Sheriff DeShay said. “You don't owe me a thing.”

“You're damned right I don't,” said Fletcher with a slight chuckle under his breath. “And I most especially don't owe the Ranger nothing.”

“I'm obliged for your help as long as it lasted, Fletcher,” DeShay said. He nudged his horse a step forward.

“Whoa, hold on,” said the hungover gunman, sounding suddenly irritated. “What the hell is that supposed to mean—
obliged, as long as it lasted?”

DeShay stopped his horse and stared at him.

“It means just what it sounds like,” he said. “I'm
obliged
for your help. Now go on home.”

“Huh-uh,” said Fletcher, “you're not getting by with that, saying I haven't done my part.”

“Damn it, Fletcher, what the hell is wrong with you?” said DeShay. “I'm trying to say
thanks.
I'm not trying to stick glass in your biscuits.”

Fletcher sat staring sullenly at him.

“I just don't want bad said about me later on,” Fletcher replied. As he spoke, he almost fell off his horse. But he managed to right himself in his saddle.

“Jesus, look at you, Fletcher,” said DeShay. “I don't know if you can make it back home, let alone ride on with me. Are you all right?”

“Damn right, I'm all right,” said Fletcher. “I could ride on if I wanted to. I just don't want to.”

“All right, I understand, Arlis,” said DeShay.
“Adios,
then.” He nudged his horse forward, this time up into a gallop.

Fletcher sat slumped and watched the sheriff ride off into the purple darkness for a moment.

“Damn it,” he said aloud to himself, “I've been gut-shot with bad mescal and I know it.” He kicked his horse forward behind DeShay and called out, “Wait up, Sheriff. You ain't leaving without me! I've still a hand in this game.”

Catching up to DeShay, the gunman swung his horse in close and gave him a scorching look.

“I've never run out and left a job half-finished in my life,” he said harshly, “and I won't be accused of it.”

DeShay looked him up and down, then turned his head quickly and stared back along the trail behind them.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Fletcher asked, clutching a hand to his growling midsection.

“Doing what?” DeShay asked.

“Looking back like you think somebody's following us,” said Fletcher.

DeShay listened closely back along the moonlit trail before answering.

“Because it sounds like somebody's following us,” he finally said, his voice lowered. “It sounds like they're coming at a hard gallop and they're getting closer by the minute.”

With his hand still gripping his sick stomach, Fletcher listened too.

“You're right, Sheriff,” he said. “I say we stop right here and shoot it out with whoever rides up on us.”

“No,” DeShay said firmly, “we might kill ourselves an innocent person.” He lifted a coiled rope from his saddle horn. “I've got a better idea. Let's lift whoever it is from the saddle and see why they're following us.”

“I'm with you,” said Fletcher.

With a dark chuckle, he took one end of the rope from the sheriff's hand. DeShay let the rope uncoil as the gunman stepped his horse across the trail. Reaching out from his saddle, he wrapped two turns of the rope chest high around a young scrub pine standing near a tall pile of rocks. When he finished tying the rope, he stepped his horse behind the rocks, drew his rifle from its boot and sat waiting.

Across the trail, DeShay secured the other end of the rope in the same manner around a chest-high stand of cactus, then backed his horse away into the darkness as the sound of a single set of hooves pounded closer.

While they waited, DeShay began having second thoughts about what they were going to do. What if it was Morgan Almond or someone else on their side—someone attempting to catch up with them for any number of reasons?

No, this is a bad idea,
he told himself.

At the last second, he started to shout out in the night and warn whoever was riding hard on the dark trail. But his change of heart came too late. Before he could get out a word of warning, the pounding hooves sped past him and kept going as a loud
twang
like that of some giant upright bass resounded above the trail. The rope, drawn tight between the cactus and the pine, had the effect of launching the rider from a slingshot. DeShay heard something
whoosh
backward twenty feet through the air and land with a solid rolling thud.

The sheriff winced at the sound, knowing it was a person landing unexpectedly on the hard, rocky dirt. Farther along the trail the pounding hooves trimmed down to a walk, then stopped. DeShay heard a long agonizing groan and dropped from his saddle, rushing out onto the trail, the big custom pistol cocked in hand. From across the trail, Fletcher did the same.

“Holy
Gawd
!” said Fletcher, the two of them staring down at Lightning Wade Hornady sprawled in the dirt, making a rasping sound as he tried to squeeze air back into his lungs. In the moonlight, they could see where the chest of his duster and shirt had been ripped apart and flung back over his shoulders, torn loose from the tops of his sleeves. Oddly, his hat brim had been ripped off the crown by the taut rope. The tall crown hung down his bare chest by the hat string around his neck, like some strange graining bag. The bandage that had covered his chest wound had been ripped off by the rope. Blood ran down his ribs.

“Let's get him up from there,” said DeShay.

Between the two of them, they managed to pull Hornady to his feet as his breath started coming back to him in short gasps. As they walked the dazed outlaw back and forth, DeShay reached down and pulled a big revolver from Hornady's waist and looked at it.

“I could almost feel sorry for you, Lightning, if I didn't know you had every intention of killing us.”

“What . . . did you hit . . . me with?” Hornady managed to say.

“Nothing,” said DeShay. “We set a skunk trap and you jumped right in it.”

“I'll . . . kill you,” Hornady said in a squeaking voice.

Both DeShay and Fletcher shook him hard.

“Don't start threatening us, Lightning,” DeShay warned. “You're in no shape.”

“Are . . . you going to . . . kill me?” Hornady asked, starting to breathe a little better.

“Not if you play your cards right,” said DeShay. “We think Dad Orwick's got the Ranger. You're going to guide us to Orwick's compound, get us in past the trail guards.”

“I'm not . . . going to do it,” said Hornady. “To hell with the Ranger.”

DeShay reached up and gave him a sharp rap on the side of his head with Hornady's own long-barreled custom revolver.

“We're not asking—we're telling,” he said.

“Jesus, all right,” Hornady said in surprise, cupping the side of his head. “I thought you and Dad . . . were on good terms . . . not you and the Ranger.”

“Things change,” said DeShay. He gave the outlaw a shove to the side of the trail. “You're riding between the two of us and getting us inside the Valley of the Gun. Make one false move, you'll get yourself killed by your own gun.” He turned the big custom Simpson-Barre in his hand.

“I'm bleeding,” said Hornady. “I'm hurt . . . bad.” He gestured at his bare chest, his hat crown hanging by its string.

“You sure are,” DeShay said flatly. He raised the brimless hat crown and shoved it atop Hornady's head. “Straighten your duster down over you. Let's get going.”

Fletcher cut in, saying, “Give me a minute, Sheriff. I need to walk off into the brush.” He held a hand clutched to his belly.

“What's wrong . . . with that one?” Hornady asked as Fletcher hurried away off the trail.

“Bad mescal,” said DeShay.

“Oh. . . .” Hornady understood. “If he got it from . . . the old hermit at Munny Caves . . . God help him.”

“Yep,” said Sheriff DeShay, “that's where he got it.”

—

A little while later the three were mounted and headed farther out along the trail running into the valley. When they reached a large rock shelf standing a hundred feet above one side of the trail, a flickering torch appeared above them and waved back and forth slowly. DeShay and Fletcher sidled up tight against Hornady on either side.

“Halt and be recognized down there,” a trail guard called out to them.

“Here's your chance to show us how pretty you can sing,” DeShay said to Hornady almost in a whisper. He jammed the big custom revolver into the gunman's ribs.

“Who's down there on the trail?” the voice called out again, sounding impatient.

“It's me, Lightning Wade,” Hornady shouted up in reply to the young-sounding voice.

“Lightning Wade, who . . . ?” the voice inquired.

“Damn it to hell,” Hornady growled under his breath. “It's Lightning Wade
Hornady,
” he shouted up as loud as his injured chest would allow him to. “I'm riding in to see Dad. He knows I'm coming.”

“Who's that with you, Lightning?” another, older-sounding voice called down to them in a gruff tone.

Recognizing the voice, DeShay called out before Hornady could answer.

“It's me, Sheriff DeShay from Whiskey Bend,” he said boldly. “The man with me is my new deputy, Arlis Fletcher.”

The ridgeline above them fell silent.

“Sit tight right where you are,” the gruff voice said. “We're coming down.”

“Jesus, Sheriff,” Hornady said in a lowered tone. “Why didn't you keep your mouth shut? I could have told them anything.”

“Like as not they'll know me from town,” said DeShay.

“Like as not you've got us killed if they don't,” said Hornady.

Fletcher and DeShay both stared at him.

“You don't get it, do you, Lightning?” DeShay said.

“Get what?” said Hornady as the two trail guards walked down from around a rock, rifles in their hands.

“I'll tell you later,” DeShay whispered to Hornady, keeping the revolver out of sight but still aimed at him.

“Howdy, Dale,” DeShay said to the older trail guard, recognizing him from riding through Whiskey Bend.

“Sorry, Sheriff. I figured that was really you, but I needed to come down and make sure,” said Dale Fenders, one of the few outlaws who lived full-time with Orwick's Redemption Riders.

“I understand,” said DeShay, giving Hornady a look.

“Did Dad send for you, Sheriff?” Fenders asked.

“No, but he'll be happy to see me,” DeShay said confidently. “Ride in with me if it'll make you feel better.”

“Naw,” said Fenders, “I feel good enough.”

Next to Fenders, the younger outlaw took note of the brimless hat stuck down atop Hornady's head and stifled a little chuckle.

“What kind of hat is that, Lightning?” he asked. “Something straight from Chicago, I'll bet.”

Hornady looked humiliated, but stayed straight and tall in his saddle.

“Yeah, straight from Chicago,” he said wryly.

“Well, you fellows can ride right along,” Fenders said, having eyed each of them up and down and noticed nothing unusual. “We'll see you again when you ride out.”

“Obliged, Dale,” said DeShay. As he spoke, he turned the custom revolver around beside his thigh and gave a glance toward Fletcher, seeing the gunman ready to raise a big Colt jammed out of sight back beneath his rump and start firing.

The two trail guards started to turn and walk away, but the younger one stopped and looked closer at Hornady's chest.

“Are you bleeding there, Lightning?” he asked, taking a step closer to Hornady's horse.

“Walk away, Brother Toby,” Hornady said stiffly, seeing what was about to happen. “Walk away now.”

But the young man only stopped and grinned dumbly.

“It sure looks to me like you are,” he said.

At that moment, for no reason in particular, the torn front of Hornady's duster fell down past his shoulders, exposing his chest.

Fender didn't know what he was looking at, but he knew something wasn't right. He jumped back quickly, raising his cocked rifle.

“It's a trick, Toby!” he shouted, getting off one wild shot.

Before Brother Toby could get his rifle up, two streaks of blue-orange fire erupted from the barrel of Fletcher's Colt, spun him in place and flung him dead on the ground.

DeShay fired the big custom Simpson-Barre three times, rapidly fanning the hammers. The gun made a distinctly different sound from the Colt, but the outcome was equally deadly. Dale Fenders flew backward, his rifle flipping from his hands. He landed flat on his back, his dead eyes staring up in shock at the purple starlit heavens.