War Party (Ss) (1982) (16 page)

Why had he not made an attempt? Because he was stalking. Because he had not yet found the right opportunity.

Bostwick sat long over his coffee and mentally explored every approach to the situation.

Putting himself in the unseen killer's place, he decided what he would do, and the following morning he began his puzzling tactics. Going around the house, he had gone down to the arroyo, then slipped back and, by using available cover, got the feed to his own horse. The ruse of the buckskin shirt had been used to make the watcher believe another man had entered the house. If he was correct in his guess that the killer was a careful man, the fellow would wait until he knew Bostwick was alone.

Bostwick was playing for time, working out a solution. Somehow he had to find out when the killer expected to kill, and from where. It was not long before he arrived at the same solution that had come to Cap Moffit.

The one time he could be depended upon to be at a given spot, not too far from cover, was when he curried his horse. That black was the love of his life, and he cared for the horse as he would for a child. The logical place was from the bed of the T U Creek. Flowing as it did, from Elk Ridge, it presented a natural approach. Searching it, Bostwick found a few faint tracks.

The killer had been down this way, had made sure of his ground.

Jim Bostwick prepared supper that night with a scowl on his face. Something, some idea, nagged at his consciousness but was not quite realized. There was something he had missed, but one thing he was sure of. Whoever the killer was, he had been hired by Charley Gore.

Now it has been said that Jim Bostwick was no gunfighter. Yet there was a time when he had faced one, back in Yellow jacket, and Jim Bostwick had come out ahead. Those who knew him best knew that Jim Bostwick was a tough man, easy-going usually, but get him mad and he would walk into a den of grizzlies and drag the old man grizzly out by the scruff of his neck. He was that kind of man. Angered, he had an unreasoning courage that was absolutely without fear of consequences or death.

Jim Bostwick was growing angry now. He didn't like being hunted, and he liked even less the thought behind it, and the man behind it. More than once he had walked into the face of a gun, and with a queer kind of fatalism he was sure that some day he would die just that way. Yet he knew what he was going to do now. He was going to get this killer, and then he was going to get Charley Gore.

Yet he was not without the usual rough, ironic cowboy sense of humor so common in the west. The killer was up there on the hill hiding in the brush, and all the time the intended victim knew it. Suddenly, he began to chuckle. An idea had come to him, one he would enjoy.

Getting his pick and shovel he went out beside the house at a place just far enough away, but one which allowed no nearby cover, and cornmenced to dig. High on Elk Ridge, Cap Moffit stared down at Bostwick, puzzled by the digging. He became more puzzled as the hole became outlined. It was about six feet long and probably no more than half that wide. Jim Bostwick was digging a grave!

While digging, the idea that had been nagging at Bostwick's memory flowered suddenly.

There had been other cases such as this. Lone men murdered without a clue, killed by some hidden marksman who then had vanished. There had been a family of three, slain one after another, over in the Panhandle.

Cap Moffit!

Jim Bostwick walked into the cabin and put the coffeepot on the stove. Nothing much was known about Cap Moffit. He was a rumor, perhaps a legend. A rancher had hinted once, at the beginning of a range war, that the proper way to end one was to send for Moffit. It had been a casual remark, yet it seemed to have information behind it. After that, there had been other stories, guarded, indefinite. It seemed that some of the more powerful cattlemen knew where they could get a killer when one was wanted.

Cap Moffit had been suspected of the Panhandle killings. His method had been talked about -the careful planning, the unerring marksmanship, the cold efficiency.

Now Jim Bostwick was sure the same man was lying up there on Elk Ridge. Of course, there were other killers for hire, but none with Moffit's careful, almost precise manner of killing. Realizing who he had to deal with sharpened his attention. If that was Cap Moffit, this was going to be anything but easy.

Cap had the reputation of shooting but once -and he did not miss.

Yet that in itself might be an advantage if Bostwick could continue to prevent him from getting the chance he wanted-or lead him into a trap, believing he had it.

He got a slab of wood and carved on it. Then he took it out and placed it at the head of the open grave. From the top of the ridge, Moffit saw it. A cold, unimaginative man except when it came to killing, Cap Moffit was puzzled. Anything he did not understand disturbed him, and he did not understand this. For the first time he made a change in his plans. He decided to crawl close enough to read what was carved on the slab through his fieldglasses.

Bostwick came out, saddled up, always keeping the horse between himself and the available shelter. Then he mounted and rode away. Using the cut of the T U Creek, Cap Moffit came down the mountain and got into position under a huge old cottonwood and lifted his glass.

Cut deep and blackened with soot the words were plain, all too plain!

Here Lies
.

Cap Moffit, Killer
.

Shot Down
.

Upon
.

This Spot
.

April 1877

Cap Moffit lowered his glasses and wiped his eyes. He was crazy! It couldn't be!

His second long look told the same story, and he lowered the glasses. He was known!

Jim Bostwick knew him!

He looked again at the carved slab. An eerie feeling stole over him. It was unnatural.

It was crazy. A man looking at his own grave marker. Only the date was blank, but the month was this month, the year this year. It was a warning-and it might be a prophecy.

Cap Moffit drew back and shook his head irritably. He was a fool to be disturbed by such a thing. Bostwick thought he was smart! Why, the fool! He'd show him!

Yet how had Bostwick known him? How could he be so sure?

Cap Moffit rolled a smoke and lit it, irritation strong within him, yet there was underlying worry, too. Had he known that at that very minute Jim Bostwick was scouting the ridge top, he would have been even more worried.

Jim Bostwick had gambled on Moffit's curiosity, and to some extent he did not care.

There was a hard heedlessness about Jim Bostwick when aroused. He did not like being hunted. He did not like the necessity of being careful to avoid that assassin's bullet.

Leaving the ranch, he had taken the trail toward town, but he had not followed it far; instead he had turned left and ridden round the end of Elk Ridge and mounted through the trees on the southern side.

Shortly, he had found Moffit's trail, knowing the tracks from those he had seen before.

Now he rode with caution, his Winchester in his hand. Soon he found Moffit's horse, and on the inspiration of a moment, he stripped off saddle and bridle and turned the animal loose. Then he followed the trail of the walking man and found his various hideouts on the ridgetop.

Rightly, he deduced that the killer was down below, but he guessed wrong. Even as he found the last place where Moffit had rested under the big pine, Moffit was coming back up the gully of the T U Creek. He was coming slowly and carefully as was his wont, but his mind was preoccupied. He did not like the thought that his prospective victim knew who he was. What if he talked? What if, even now, he had gone to town to report to the sheriff?

Even as this thought struck him, Moffit noticed something else. He had reached the back slope of the ridge, and he noticed a black saddled horse standing some two hundred yards away.

Yet even as he saw the horse, the black's head jerked up, its ears pricked, and it looked at him.

Something moved in the brush near the horse's head, and Gap Moffif s rifle came up, leaping to his shoulder. He saw the leaping body of Jim Bostwick, and he fired. The black sprang away, running, and Bostwick dropped, but as he hit ground, he fired!

The bullet clipped leaves not inches from his head, and Cap Moffit dropped to the ground. He slid downhill a few feet, then got up and, running lightly, circled toward his horse. He had no wish to fight a gun battle on that brush-covered, boulder-strewn mountainside. Such a battle would be too indefinite, for there not only marksmanship would be important, but woodcraft as well.

Moffit ran lightly toward his horse, then stopped. The horse was gone. An empty bridle and saddle awaited him!

Furious, he dropped back a few feet and took shelter among the rocks. He was fairly trapped! Unless-unless he could get Bostwick's horse.

It had run off, but would not go far. Probably his bullet had burned it. Yet he must be careful, for even now Bostwick might be coming down the mountain. The man would rightly deduce that the ambusher would head for his horse, so even now he might be drawing near.

Cap Moffit began to sweat. Something had gone wrong this time, and it would take all his ingenuity to get himself out of it alive. The man hunting him was no fool.

Jim Bostwick, warned by the quick swing of the black's head, had dropped. It was that dropping movement which drew the shot. Instantly, he rolled over and began to crawl, worming his way a full thirty yards before he stopped. His own bullet had been an instinctive reply, and he had no idea how close it had come. Yet there was nothing in him that warned him to retreat His only idea was to get the killer for hire who had come here to kill him.

The woods were still, and the sun was hot. Here under the trees, now that the breeze had died, it was sticky and stilL The air was sultry, and sweat trickled down his face. His neck itched from dust and from pine needles picked up when he rolled over.

There was the acrid smell of gunpowder from his rifle, and the silence of the woods.

His horse had stopped running somewhere oft among the trees.

Jim Bostwick waited. Patience and alertness would win now. Here in the woods, anything might happen. His throat felt dry and he wished for a drink. Somewhere he thought he heard a faint sound, but he did not move. He was lying on brown, parched pine needles in the blazing hot sun. Around him were the sharp edges and corners of rock thrust from the earth of the ridge, and not far away were larger boulders and a huge fallen log. It offered better cover, but more suspicious cover than he now had.

He waited. Somewhere an eagle cried. Something tiny scurried among the leaves. Then all was still.

His horse would come back to him. The black was trained to do just that. Yet even as he realized the black would soon be coming, another thought occurred. Cap Mofiit would try to catch the horse and get away! Or kill him!

Moffit was cunning. Suppose he realized the horse was going back to Bostwick? And that he had only to wait and be guided by the horse? The black would find him, for a horse can smell out a trail as well as some dogs, if the trail is not an old one.

More than once Jim Bostwick had seen horses do just that, and the black had often followed him in that way.

The sun was blazing hot. There was no breeze.

The rocks glistened with desert varnish, smooth as mirrors. Far away he heard the horse walking. Bostwick did not like waiting. It had not been his way to wait, but to barge right in, swinging or shooting, and letting things happen as they would.

This was Cap Moffit's game. The cool, careful killer's game.

Moffit would be coming. Moffit had to kill him now. He forced himself to lie still.

The black was nearer now. Somewhere he heard a faint whisper of sound, the brushing of jeans on a rock or branch. He slid his hand back to the trigger guard of the rifle, gripped the gun with two hands, ready to leap and shoot.

There was no further sound. The horse had stopped. Probably the black had seen Moffit.

Bostwick waited, sweating, his back cooking under the direct rays of the spring sun.

Every muscle was tensed and ready for action. Suddenly there was a flashing movement and a gun blasted, a rifle bullet cut through his hat brim and burned along his back.

Instantly he fired, not holding his shots, one in the center, then quickly left and right of the spot from which the shot had come. Another bullet notched his ear and he rolled over, down the south side of the ridge, trying to avoid the next shot until he could get to his feet. A bullet smashed dirt into his eyes and he fired blindly.

Rolling over, he lunged to his feet and dived for the shelter of some rocks. A bullet smashed into the rocks and ricocheted almost in his face, whining past his ear with a scream like a banshee. He hit ground and behind him he heard Moffit running to get another shot. The rifle roared behind him and he felt his rifle smashed from his hands and saw its stock was splintered.

He lunged to his feet again and threw himself in a long dive for some brush as the rifle bellowed again. He felt the shock of that bullet and knew that he was hit. Moffit wasn't stopping, but was coming on. Bostwick whirled and grabbed for his six-shooter.