Johnny Cross had something to say before the skirmishers went into action. “Remember, men, our job is to take a club and whack it against the hornet's nest. So hit it hard!”
One of the gawkers separated himself from the others, starting toward the strangers. His gait was unsteady, weaving. “Hey! Hey, you! What you doing over there?” he shouted while still some distance away. He was loud, causing heads to turn to see what the fuss was all about. Men sat up on their bedrolls, rubbing sleep out of their eyes, blankets falling to their waists.
Vic Vargas puffed away steadily at his cigar.
Some of the men standing around the campfire straggled after the loudmouth shouting at the skirmishers. Had he known they were skirmishers, he'd never have gone so much as a country mile near them.
The stragglers began buzzing, talking among themselves.
“Who's making all that noise?
“It's Fred. He's got the wind up about something . . .”
“Whatcha hollering about, Fred? My head hurts from the hangover I got, and your bellowing ain't doing it no good.”
“Something about them jaspers ain't right,” Fred said darkly. Speaking directly to the newcomers as he lurched toward them, he demanded, “Who're you? Where'd you come from, anyway?”
“Hangtown, friend,” Johnny said. “We come from Hangtown.”
Fred stood there thinking it over, mouth gaping open.
One of the stragglers figured it out first. “Hell, they're from Hangtree.
Git 'em
!” he cried, going for his gun.
Johnny Cross reached, his gun seeming to spring into his hand in less than an eye blink, shooting the straggler down.
Fred finally got it and clawed for his gun. Johnny burned him down, too. For good measure, he put some slugs into a couple men rushing forward, tugging at their guns. They spun as they were hit, crying out and falling down.
Shouts of outrage came from the cluster of camp followers, some women screaming. The scramble was on. Men on the ground threw aside blankets and jumped up, pulling their guns and firing wildly at the skirmishers.
Vic touched the hot tip of his cigar to the end of a fuse sticking out of a bundle of dynamite. The fuse began sizzling, alive and burning fast. “Short fuse, boys. Let's ride!”
The Hangtree raiders charged forward, shooting and shouting. Some ripped loose with a ringing rebel yell, a high howling cry full of fight and defiance.
Horses' hooves dug dirt, kicking up clods of earth in the force of their surging rush.
Men grouped around the campfire fired away, more guns joining in.
Enemy gunmen were black outlines against the campfire's red glare. Johnny leaned over to one side of his horse, letting loose with a few ripping rounds. The shooters screamed, throwing up their arms over their heads, whirling, and falling.
The skirmishers' line parted in the middle, going around the campfire on both sides, riding down those too slow and luckless to get out of the way.
Vic dropped the bundle of TNT into the flames as he raced by. Leaning forward, he touched spurs to his horse's flanks to get more speed and outdistance the upcoming blast.
The Hangtree raiders pointed their horses at the opposite end of the canyon and raced full-tilt for it, resolved to do as much damage as they could along the way, and woe to anyone who tried to bar the way. Making full use of the advantage of surprise, they tore through the crowds like a whirlwind, irresistible!
A few heartbeats later, the dynamite exploded. A dazzling flare of incandescence burst into the air, accompanied by a roaring torrent of noise and force. The light was at once orange, red, and yellow. Bodies were tossed high in a pillar of smoke and fire.
The Free Company and its followers were shocked, unable to imagine that anyone would have the audacity to attack
them
!
The hard-core main fighting force of the Company were hardcase killers, used to taking risks and being paid for it. The yellowbellies and cowards were in the larger group of hangers-on and camp followersâa choice crew. They were tinhorns, pimps, thugs, slavers, six-snake whiskey vendors, renegades who sold liquor and guns to the Indians, and still worse malefactors whose unnatural lust for cruelty and depravity had made them outcasts even among the freewheeling owlhoot fraternity.
The women who trailed the Free Company from town to town on its cross-country cavalcade of robbery and murder were the dregs and drabs, mattress-backs who'd lay for any man with the price of a drink. Sunbonnet Sues and Good Time Annies, they were often called.
Some of the younger ones still had their looks and figures, others were shapeless slatterns. Most were gutter-tough. More than a few were murderesses. They had to be or they would have gone down for the last time a long while ago.
Theirs was not the way of the gun but of the stiletto, knockout drops or poison in a drink, a hatpin or knitting needle through the ear and piercing the brain of a sleeping victimâmale or female, adult or child.
Yes, it took a certain kind of woman to follow the Free Company. They accepted a life of hardship, privation, starvation, and disease. But they hadn't joined the horde of camp followers to get shot at. That was for the men.
When the raid opened, most of the women did what they'd learned to do in a hundred, a thousand barroom fights, knifings, and shootingsâthey ran for cover. But little cover was to be found in Sidepocket's box canyon.
The attack loosed a floodtide of chaos. The raiders split into a center group and two wings. The left flank made for the cluster of tents where the inner circle of the Company was thought to be. Johnny, Huddy, and Carrados rode ahead of Vic, clearing a path for him. Vic galloped along, reaching into the sack of bundled dynamite sticks, pulling one out, lighting the fuse, and tossing the package where he thought it would do the most good.
Johnny swerved his horse to charge a line of gunmen guarding an unhorsed wagon housed with provisions, water barrels, and food stocks. Carrados and Huddy followed his lead. Ten gunmen fired at them, red lines of flame licking out from their gun barrels.
Johnny kept going, reins clenched between his teeth to free both hands to work his guns. He squeezed out shots, first from one gun, then from the other. He heard the guns of Huddy and Carrados firing along with his as the line of shooters began to melt away under the rain of bullets.
A shooter screamed, dropping in front of the supply wagon. Another went down as Johnny closed in. The line had been cut by half. The others suddenly lost their nerve. They broke, scrambling for the sidelines, getting out of the way of the gun-wielding fury and his sidemen. Johnny shot some down as they ran.
He swerved away from the wagon. The gun in his right hand clicked on an empty chamber. He holstered it, hauling out another pistol stuck in his belt, one of many. It was a tactic of a veteran pistol-fighter to not waste precious time reloading. He took as many loaded guns to a fight as he could.
Such was part of the gospel as preached by Quantrill, and Johnny had learned his lessons well. He had three spare guns tucked into his belt and a saddlebag full of extras. He didn't believe in doing things by halves, and making war was no exception.
Vic reined in at the supply wagon, stopping suddenly. He tossed a lit bundle of TNT into the wagon and quickly spurred his horse away from it.
Johnny had already changed course, making for the cluster of tan canvas tents that boasted the most military look of the sprawling camp. Vic followed.
A few beats later, the dynamite blew up, demolishing the supply wagon. In its place rose a new pillar of fire.
The tents were laid out orderly in classic grid style, with regularly spaced intervals between each one. A cart called a water buffalo held a big hogshead barrel of fresh drinking water. Rifles were stacked upright in cone-shaped arrangements in open squares fronting the tents.
Here was where the elite of the Free Company was sheltered, the all-important leadership cadre by which elusive Jimbo Turlock exercised his authority over the rank-and-file troops.
With the alert sounded and the attack well-launched, men rushed out of the tents in varying states of undress. Their women either screamed and ran or stayed behind, huddled on the ground inside the tents.
Reaching the squares, men grabbed rifles, shouldering, pointing, and firing them at the raiders.
Huddy charged, coming on strong. He was hit twice and went down, falling off his horse. A soft patch of muddy ground cushioned his fall, but he hit hard enough to knock the wind out of him and make him see stars. He was down but not yet out.
One shot hit him high on the left side of his chest, just below the collarbone. The round had missed heart and lungâlucky! He'd also been shot through the bicep of his left arm.
He was in a tight spot, plenty tight, but rose to his knees in the mud wallow, hands on the ground. His left arm wasn't working too well. He shook his head to clear it, to wipe away the shower of little colored lights that floated in front of his eyes, veiling the scene.
More Free Company men were running out of the tents, guns in hand. Three gunmen saw Huddy and ran toward him.
He pulled a revolverâfast, like lightningâfrom the top of his waistband and started banging away.
The man in the lead of the charge went down, falling on his face and dropping his gun. As he dragged himself up on his hands and knees, he and Huddy eyed each other for an instant.
The outlaw grabbed the gun on the ground in front of him and pointed it at Huddy, but Huddy fired first, blowing the top of the other's head off.
The other two gunmen fired. The bullets passed over Huddy's head.
Huddy slammed the gunner moving in on the left side with two shots. He stopped suddenly, hitting an invisible wall.
The third man was at point-blank range. Huddy swung the gun at him and fired. Momentum carried him forward until he came to a halt, dead. The hand of his outstretched arm was only inches away from where Huddy stood on his knees.
The tent area continued to yield Free Company men running along the aisles between the tents looking to get in the fight. Women stuck their heads out from between tent flaps to see what was happening. In the early morning light, their painted and rouged faces looked like unnatural fright masks.
A fat woman with frizzy brown hair in a bun, wearing a soiled white shift, ran back and forth in front of the tents shrieking and waving her hands in the air. Yet she seemed unhurt, not a mark on her.
On every side, the camp was in an uproar. Free Company members were on their feet, some grouping together, others standing alone. The canyon floor seethed, a cauldron boiling with angry desperate menâarmed men.
The fast-moving figures of mounted horsemen, the Hangtree raiders, darted this way and that, plowing through the mass.
The racket of gunfire rising to a steady roar was periodically punctuated by earth-shattering booms as Vic detonated a succession of dynamite blasts.
Huddy was still kneeling in the muck, isolated and alone. He lurched upright, rising to his feet, unsteady. He'd taken quite a blow when he fell. His left arm hung down at his side, numb, useless. He clenched his fingers, making a fist. The hand worked, but he couldn't raise it past his waist. The wound in his upper arm had impaired some key tendon or muscle.
His right hand was still good and that was his shooting hand. He'd make it count.
He looked around. His horse was nowhere in sight. Fled, long gone.
Staggering to one side, he came into view of a group of men grabbing stacked rifles. He fired at them, dropping a man with one shot. Another in the group pointed a rifle and fired at Huddy, missing.
Huddy's gun clicked on empty. He let it fall, his hand streaking to the next gun in his belt and hauling it out. The motion threw him off balance.
That saved his life. Rifle bullets tore through the place where Huddy had been standing. Lurching sideways, gun in hand, he threw down at the riflemen, pumping out lead.
One man went down, then another until Huddy's gun was empty and the riflemen were no more.
A fierce black-bearded man hovered on the sidelines, rifle in hands. Holding the weapon hip-high, he swung the barrel toward Huddy.
Huddy shouted something inarticulate, charging the other barehanded, set to sell his life dearly.
The black-bearded man's face vanished in a red wet blur as a bullet smashed into it.
A massive shape loomed over Huddy, the figure of a rider on horseback. Johnny Cross.
Wiley Crabbe rode up behind him, clutching his outlandish four-barreled revolving shotgun. He was not a big man. In fact, he was a scrawny undersized whelp who looked to weigh about a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. In his hands, the outsized weapon looked like a genuine hand cannon.
Wiley tossed Johnny a half salute with a free hand. “I'll cover ya!”
Johnny holstered his gun, freeing his hands, and turned his horse toward Huddy.
Huddy reached out with his right arm, left arm hanging down limply at his side.
Johnny got the idea. Approaching Huddy, he leaned out of the saddle and grabbed Huddy's forearm. In one sweeping motion, he hauled Huddy up, lifting him clear off the ground and setting him behind the saddle on the horse.
“Thanks!” Huddy said.
“Hold on!” said Johnny.
While the rescue was in progress, a fresh batch of Free Company men came into view. They'd been hanging back, held at bay by the volume of firepower Johnny had been pumping out of those twin Colts. The lethally streaming lead had come to a halt when he'd moved to save Huddy.
A rush of a dozen or more men with guns blazing came pouring out from a lane behind a row of tents.