Matt twisted in the saddle, looked back to the north for a second, and then said, “They’re comin’ after us again! Whip that team up, Sam!”
“It’s probably a trap,” Sam warned.
Matt’s grin flashed again. “Hell, I know that. But they’re not givin’ us much choice, are they?” He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. “Follow me!”
The horse lunged toward the cut between the two bluffs. Matt drew his Winchester from the saddle sheath as he leaned forward in the saddle.
Behind him, Sam slashed the long reins across the rumps of the mules and shouted at them. The balky animals hesitated, as mules were bound to do most of the time, but then they broke into a run and the wagon lurched forward.
Sam glanced back and saw that the outriders were putting up a good running fight against what appeared to be half a dozen or so of the outlaws. That small number confirmed the thought that had flashed through his head as soon as the shooting started behind the wagon.
With nowhere else to go, they were being driven straight toward that cut where the rest of the gang lurked, ready to ambush them. Sam had no doubt of that.
But there was nothing they could do except try to fight their way out of the trap.
Up ahead, Matt saw the wink of muzzle flashes from the slopes on both sides of the trail as he galloped toward them. The bushwhackers were hidden up there behind rocks and brush and any other cover they could find.
Dirt and gravel spurted into the air around the racing horse as bullets plowed into the ground. Matt was moving too fast for the outlaws to draw a bead on him accurately, though. He felt the hot breath of a slug on his face as it passed by his head, but that was as close as any of the shots came.
He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and peppered the right-hand slope with four bullets as fast as he could work the lever and squeeze the trigger. Then he turned and sprayed the left-hand slope with four more shots. He didn’t figure he would actually hit any of the outlaws, firing blind like that, but he wanted to make them duck for cover and give them something to think about.
The tactic worked, giving him a couple of seconds’ respite, and during that moment Matt’s horse, stretched out and running at top speed, dashed into the cut, which was about fifty yards long. The bushwhackers couldn’t hit him now from where they were.
Matt slowed his mount, but didn’t wait for it to stop before he kicked his feet out of the stirrups and threw himself from the saddle. He lit running and allowed his momentum to carry him into some boulders nestled against the right-hand slope. He stopped and crouched there for a second as the horse continued running through the gap.
The slope was steep but not sheer. Matt was able to scramble up it carrying the rifle in his right hand and occasionally putting his left on the rocks for balance.
The shooting was still going on. When Matt reached the top, he could see the wagon about a hundred yards away, still careening toward the bluffs. He was relieved to see that Sam was still all right, as was Marshal Thorpe. Sam whipped the team and got all the speed out of the mules that he could.
Only two of the outriders were left, though, Matt noted grimly. He couldn’t see the other two men because of the dust raised by the wagon, but it was likely they were lying back there somewhere with outlaw lead in them. The two surviving deputies had caught up to the wagon and were right behind it now, still turning in their saddles to fire back at the pursuing outlaws.
Matt paused long enough to throw a couple of shots at the owlhoots pounding along about fifty yards behind the wagon. He was rewarded by the sight of one of the varmints throwing his arms out to the sides and then pitching off his horse. That slowed the others down a little.
Then Matt hurried forward and looked down the front slope of the bluff. From up here he could see several of the bushwhackers as they crouched behind boulders to fire at the wagon.
Matt didn’t have any qualms about shooting a man in the back when the bastard was trying to kill innocent people. He drew a bead and squeezed off a round. One of the outlaws was driven forward by the slug that slammed into his back.
Before that man could fall, Matt had turned and homed in on another owlhoot. The man must have heard the first shot and realized that danger now threatened from behind, because he was starting to twist around as Matt’s next shot drilled him through the body.
The outlaw dropped his rifle, slumped against the rock he had been using for cover, and started to slide down it as bloody froth from his bullet-torn lungs bubbled from his mouth.
Now the rest of the bushwhackers on this slope knew Matt was behind them, and they whirled to start shooting at him instead of the wagon. That took some of the heat off Sam and the others, Matt thought as bullets started to whine around his head again. He snapped off a couple of shots, and then darted back where the outlaws couldn’t see him anymore.
The last glimpse he’d had of the wagon, it had almost reached the cut between the two bluffs. Matt ran toward that gap now, hearing the pounding hoofbeats of the team as he approached it. He reached the edge and never slowed down as he saw the wagon flashing past about a dozen feet below him.
Instead he leaped into the air, sailing out from the bluff and trying to angle himself toward the wagon as he fell.
“Son of a
bitch
!”
Marshal Thorpe let out that shocked yell as Matt came crashing down on top of the wagon right behind him. Matt’s momentum made him slide on across the vehicle. He grabbed at the edge with his free hand and dug in the toes of his boots to slow himself. He came to a stop just before he would have toppled off the far side of the wagon.
Matt rolled over onto his belly as he stretched out atop the wagon. He still had a couple of rounds left in the Winchester, so he brought the rifle to his shoulder and sent them toward the outlaws who were now entering the cut. With all the dust swirling around he couldn’t tell if he hit any of them or not.
The wagon burst out of the southern end of the gap. Sam yelled at the mules as he lashed them with the reins. Behind the wagon, on the slopes, the bushwhackers who hadn’t been cut down by Matt ran to the southern end and fired after the wagon.
One of the outriders cried out and arched his back as a slug tore through him. Matt saw the man topple from the saddle. That meant only one of the nine men Thorpe had deputized was still with them.
But the marshal had Matt and Sam siding him now, and it wasn’t far to Pancake Flats. Matt didn’t think the gang would follow them all the way into the settlement…but he couldn’t be sure about that. He reached in his pocket, found more .44-40 shells, and began thumbing them into the Winchester’s loading gate.
He didn’t need them, though, because the outlaws on horseback fell back, giving up the chase, and within minutes the wagon was out of range of the riflemen on the slopes. This latest attack had done some damage, but the wagon was still moving and Joshua Shade was still locked up inside it.
On the seat, Sam asked Thorpe, “Do you want to stop to check on Shade?”
The marshal shook his head. “No, keep moving. We’ll reach Pancake Flats soon, and we’ll find out then if he’s still alive.”
Sam nodded. If any bullets had penetrated the wagon, Shade might be wounded and slowly bleeding to death in there…but if that was the case, it was his own fault for giving up his career as a preacher and becoming a loco, bloodthirsty desperado.
Since the outlaws were no longer giving chase, Sam let the mules slow down a little, but only a little. He intended to keep them moving pretty fast until they reached the railroad.
“Do you know when the next westbound train will be coming through Pancake Flats?” he asked Thorpe.
The marshal shook his head. “Tonight or tomorrow morning, I hope. The sooner we get Shade on a train rolling toward Yuma, the better.”
“Amen to that,” Matt said as he sat up on top of the wagon. His hat had come off when he leaped from the bluff onto the vehicle, and now it hung behind his head by its chin strap. He tapped Sam’s shoulder and pointed. “My horse.”
The horse was trotting along the trail up ahead. It stopped in response to the piercing whistle Matt let out, and when the wagon drew closer, Sam slowed the vehicle so that his blood brother could slide over the side and drop to the ground.
Matt went to his mount and sheathed the reloaded rifle. He swung up into the saddle, lifted the reins, and rode out ahead of the wagon once more. The lone remaining guard trailed behind the wagon, his head swiveling on his neck as he checked their back trail frequently for any sign of the outlaws from Shade’s gang.
Now that this latest attempt to rescue Shade had failed, Sam’s thoughts turned back to the conversation he’d been having with Marshal Thorpe just before the shooting started. He said, “Marshal, doesn’t it seem strange that you were ordered to deliver Shade to Yuma practically on your own?”
The lawman shrugged. “That’s my job.”
“Yes, but the odds against you being able to do it are high, and your boss had to know that.”
“I’ve gotten Shade this far, haven’t I?” Thorpe snapped.
“Yes, but you’re still a long way from Yuma.”
“Not that far by train. It won’t take more than half a day to get there once we board.”
“You’ve still got to get on board,” Sam pointed out.
“What’s your point, Two Wolves?”
“I think something more is going on than just taking Shade to Yuma to be hanged,” Sam said. “I haven’t figured out what it is yet, but there has to be a reason the government wants things done this way.”
Thorpe shook his head. “You’re seeing conspiracies where there aren’t any,” he said. “You’re making it sounds like the government
wants
Shade to get away.”
Sam looked over at Thorpe and cocked an eyebrow, as if to ask if that might not be the case. Thorpe just snorted in disdain.
A few minutes later, a patch of green appeared up ahead, an oasis of color in the mostly drab brown-and-tan landscape. The terrain had smoothed out so that it was as flat as could be. Thorpe nodded toward the vegetation and said, “That’s got to be the settlement. There’s a spring there, or so I’ve heard.”
The sun was almost down. Night would fall quickly as soon as the blazing orb dropped below the horizon.
“I just hope we don’t have to spend much time there,” Sam said.
“You and Bodine plan on going all the way to Yuma, eh?”
“We’ve come this far. I don’t expect we’ll turn back now.”
“What if I tell you I don’t want you coming with me and Shade?”
“The railroads are public conveyances, Marshal,” Sam pointed out. “I’m not sure you can stop us.”
“I could have the local law lock you up.”
“But you’re not going to do that, are you?”
Thorpe didn’t answer for a moment. Then he shook his head and said, “No, I’m not. I’m no fool, Two Wolves. I know I wouldn’t have made it this far with Shade if not for the help I’ve gotten from you and Bodine. But don’t forget who’s in charge.”
“We won’t, Marshal,” Sam promised.
But at the same time, he knew that he and Matt were going to do everything in their power to see that Joshua Shade wound up at the end of a hangrope where he belonged.
Willard Garth was at his wit’s end. Twice, he had led the men—
his
men, damn it, as long as Joshua Shade was a prisoner!—against that blasted marshal in attacks that by all rights should have been successful.
And twice those attacks had been beaten back, thanks in large part to the audacity and deadly gun-handling of Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves.
Four more men had died during this latest fracas, leaving fourteen members of the gang still alive. A few of those fourteen had minor wounds, but nothing that would keep them out of the next fight.
There
would
be a next fight, Garth vowed to himself as the gang regrouped and the wounded men were tended to. He hadn’t come this far, risked this much, just to let Shade be taken to Yuma and hanged. They would free him somehow.
But the task had gotten more difficult now, and Garth knew it as he stared across the flat expanse to the spot where lights were beginning to be visible in the gathering shadows. That was the settlement where Thorpe planned to catch the train. There would be people around, and buildings where the lawman could hole up with his prisoner.
Even worse, a westbound train might come through this evening, and Thorpe could get on it with Joshua. If that happened, Garth would have to figure out some way to stop the train before it reached Yuma.
He looked around and settled his gaze on one of his remaining men. “Hennessy, ride southeast and find a place to watch for a train before it gets to that settlement. If you see one comin’, you light a shuck back here to let us know, you hear?”
The outlaw called Hennessy nodded. He mounted and rode off into the looming darkness.
Jeffries walked up and asked, “What now, Garth? Any ideas?”
Garth had an idea, all right, and it involved putting his fist down Jeffries’s throat. “I thought I told you to keep an eye on the pilgrim and his woman.”
“That sodbuster’s not going anywhere,” Jeffries said. “Hell, he hasn’t even fully regained consciousness since he collapsed. If you ask me, his skull’s busted and he’s going to die before the night’s over.”
“Damn it, hush that up!” Garth said. “I don’t want the woman hearin’ it.”
“Why not?” Jeffries sneered. “Are you worried about upsetting her?”
An idea had begun to form in Garth’s brain. He said, “No, but if she thinks her husband’s fixin’ to die, she might not cooperate with us.”
“She doesn’t have any choice about that, does she?”
“If she’s gonna do what I want her to, we’ll have to trust her. We can’t trust her if we don’t have her husband’s life to hold over her, along with the kid’s.”
Jeffries frowned and asked, “What are you thinking about, Garth?”
“You’ll see,” Garth said. He didn’t feel like explaining himself to Jeffries or anybody else. Instead, he stalked over to where Winslow was now stretched out on the ground with his bloody head pillowed in his wife’s lap.
She had ripped some strips from her petticoat and tied them around his head as makeshift bandages. Somewhere along the way, she had lost her bonnet, and her blond hair had slipped out of its bun to hang loosely around her shoulders.
Garth felt a pang of regret as she looked up at him with a stricken expression. He remembered a time when women this wholesome and pretty hadn’t looked at him with fear in their eyes.
“He won’t wake up,” she said. “I can’t get him to wake up.”
“He’ll be fine,” Garth told her gruffly. “I’ve seen plenty o’ fellas who got knocked addlepated like he did, and they just need some time to sleep it off. Then they wake up and they’re all right again.”
“He needs a doctor,” Maggie Winslow pleaded.
Garth shook his head. “No doctor. But we’ll take good care o’ him. You got my word on that.”
“You…you won’t let him die?”
“Not if I can help it.” Garth paused, then added, “Not if you cooperate and do what I tell you.”
“Anything.” Her hands went to the top button of her dress and started to unfasten it even though her fingers trembled. “You can do anything you want.”
Garth shook his head and made a curt gesture. “Not that. What I want you to do is ride down to that settlement and find out when the next train headin’ west is due to come through.”
Her hands dropped away from the buttons. “You…you want me to spy for you? Like when you sent Ike into Arrowhead?”
“That’s right.” That part of his plan had worked, Garth thought. They had known what Thorpe’s plans were, even if they hadn’t been successful in stopping those plans…yet.
He went on. “That ain’t all. We’ll need to know exactly where Joshua’s bein’ held and how many deputies the marshal has.”
Gonzalez was close enough to have been listening to the conversation. He spoke up, saying, “I saw just one of the gringo deputies left, Garth, if you don’t count that Bodine and Two Wolves.”
“You’d damned well better count them,” Jeffries said. “From the looks of what they’ve done so far, they’re worth two or three good fighting men apiece.”
“I want to know about all of it,” Garth told Maggie. “Can you do that?”
“I…I don’t know.” She looked down at the man whose head rested in her lap. “I…I guess I can try, but I’m worried about Ike…”
Garth drew his bowie knife. In a low, dangerous voice, he said, “I can promise you one thing, lady. If you don’t help us, that husband o’ yours won’t live out the night.”
Of course, Winslow probably wouldn’t be alive come sunup anyway, but his wife didn’t have to know that.
“All right,” Maggie said. “I’ll do it. Are you going to give me a horse?”
“That’s right. And don’t even think about tryin’ to double-cross us, ma’am. We’ll have your husband and your baby, and you won’t never see either one of ’em alive again if you try anything funny.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Garth. I’ll find out what you need to know.” She stroked back a few strands of hair that had fallen over Winslow’s closed eyes. “And maybe by the time I get back, Ike will be awake again.”
“I reckon there’s a good chance of it,” Garth lied. The longer Winslow remained unconscious, the greater the chances that he would never wake up.
It was a good thing Garth didn’t give a damn whether the pilgrim lived or died.
Pancake Flats was considerably smaller than Arrowhead, with only one real street that stretched for a couple of blocks north and south. It had something the larger settlement didn’t, though—an adobe railroad station that fronted the tracks of the Southern Pacific.
Matt glanced eastward along those tracks and thought that if you kept following them far enough, you’d wind up right back in Sweet Apple, Texas, which he and Sam had left weeks earlier. He wondered how their friend Marshal Seymour Standish was doing these days. To tell the truth, Matt wouldn’t have minded if Seymour was here in Pancake Flats right about now. For a skinny Easterner, Seymour was pretty tough.
And things weren’t looking too promising at the moment.
“What do you mean a bridge is out?” Marshal Asa Thorpe demanded angrily of the eyeshade-wearing gent on the other side of the ticket window. “I have a prisoner I’ve got to get to Yuma!”
“I understand that, Marshal,” the railroad clerk said nervously, “but I can’t do anything about it. That flash flood last week washed out the trestle over Bowtie Canyon, and it’ll be another couple of days before it’s repaired enough to get a train over it. There’s nothing we can do except wait.”
The wagon with Joshua Shade locked up inside it was parked next to the station. Matt, Sam, and the remaining deputy, a man named Everett, stood around the vehicle with rifles in their hands. Thorpe had stomped up onto the platform and gone over to the window to find out when the next westbound was due.
Now it had become crystal clear that there wouldn’t be a train rolling into Pancake Flats for a couple of days at the very least, maybe longer. Thorpe’s face was dark with anger in the lamplight that spilled through the ticket window onto the platform. He looked like he wanted to reach through the window, grab the unfortunate clerk by the throat, and squeeze a solution to the problem out of him.
But there was no solution to be had, so Thorpe turned away from the window with a disgusted curse. He stopped and looked back.
“You got any law around here?”
“Just a town marshal,” the clerk said. “His office is back up the street, half a block on your left.”
Thorpe grunted. “Obliged,” he said in a surly voice, then stalked along the platform to the steps at the end.
As Thorpe came down the steps, Sam said, “It sounds like we’re stuck here for a while.”
“Stuck is right,” Thorpe snapped. “Sitting ducks, that’s what we are.”
“I reckon we could follow the railroad tracks and keep goin’ in the wagon,” Matt suggested.
Thorpe shook his head. “That’d be even worse. There’s only four of us now. We’ve already beaten the odds in fighting off those outlaws twice. I don’t reckon we could do it again.”
Matt didn’t think they could either, but he would have been willing to give it a try. Still, maybe there was a better way.
“We’ll hole up and wait for the train,” he said. “Find some nice sturdy place with walls thick enough to stop bullets.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Sam added. “Most of the buildings around here are made of adobe. Their walls are probably pretty thick.”
“I saw a livery barn back up the street that looked like it’d stand up to anything short of a cannonball,” Matt said.
Thorpe said, “Let’s talk to the local law first. Maybe he’s got a good jail we can use.”
Sam climbed onto the wagon seat again and untied the reins from the brake lever. He got the mules moving, and followed Thorpe up the street toward the marshal’s office. They hadn’t noticed it as they went past earlier because there was no sign, but one of the citizens now pointed it out to Thorpe.
“You won’t find Marshal Lopez there right now, though,” the man added. “He’ll be havin’ his supper.”
“Whereabouts?” Thorpe asked.
“Over at the cantina.” The man pointed to a building on the other side of the street.
“Stay here and keep your eyes open,” Thorpe growled at Matt, Sam, and Everett. He walked across the road and vanished into the cantina.
Matt licked his lips and said, “My whistle could sure use wettin’.”
“I seem to recall you saying the same thing when we got to Arrowhead,” Sam commented.
“Well, it was true then and it’s true now. Nothin’ works up a man’s thirst like trail dust and gettin’ shot at.”
Thorpe emerged from the cantina a minute later, followed by a short, round man in a shabby black suit and with a high-crowned sombrero. Judging by the federal lawman’s long, angry strides that forced the smaller man to trot in order to keep up, Thorpe wasn’t happy.
“This is Marshal Lopez,” he said as he came up to the wagon, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the other man. “He says we’re welcome to use his office, but he doesn’t have an actual jail.”
Matt looked at Lopez. “Where do you lock up prisoners then?”
The man shrugged and spread his hands. “I try not to have to lock up anybody, Señor. Pancake Flats is a peaceful place. About the worst trouble we get is a cowboy who’s had too much to drink now and then. When that happens, I clout ’em over the head, toss ’em in the barn, and let them sleep it off.”
“That barn?” Sam asked, pointing to the livery stable. It was a low, rambling adobe building with a slate roof.
Lopez bobbed his head.
“Sí, señor.”
“We can bar the doors,” Matt said. “Looks like there are only a couple of windows, so we can trade off standin’ watch. As much as we’ve whittled down Shade’s gang, maybe they won’t want to come right into town to try to take him back.”
“It seems to be our best bet, Marshal,” Sam added.
Thorpe nodded. “I realize that. The livery stable it is then.” He looked at Lopez. “If there’s trouble, can we count on you and the townspeople to lend us a hand?”
Lopez grimaced uncomfortably. “Most of the folks around here are peace-lovin’ hombres, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean,” Thorpe said disgustedly. He studied Matt, Sam, and Everett. “It appears that we’re on our own until that train comes through.”
“Why should this be any different?” Matt asked.