Chapter 19
“Spread out!” Culhane bellowed as members of the posse began to yell in alarm.
The Kid hadn’t seen a muzzle flash or puff of gunsmoke to mark the bushwhacker’s location, but he aimed at the sound of the shot anyway as he brought the Winchester to his shoulder and rapidly cranked off three rounds in that direction.
He twisted in the saddle and looked back to see Nick slumped over but still mounted. Lace had hold of his arm, supporting him.
“Get him to cover!” The Kid barked as more shots began to ring out from both slopes.
They had ridden into a trap, all right, and they would be lucky if any of them got out of it alive.
Hoping the pack horse would stay out of the line of fire, The Kid let go of the animal’s reins and hauled the buckskin around.
Lace had grabbed Nick’s reins when the young man dropped them, and led his horse as she galloped toward the nearest trees. The Kid sent the buckskin pounding after them.
Several members of the posse were down, and some who were still mounted might be wounded. He didn’t yet know how badly Nick was hit, but was glad to see Culhane disappearing into some boulders on the other side of the canyon. The lawman seemed to be all right, as far as The Kid could tell.
More slugs whipped through the branches of the junipers and thudded into tree trunks as The Kid rode into the growth. He dismounted rapidly, taking his Winchester with him, and ducked behind one of the trees where he could see across the canyon to the opposite slope.
He couldn’t do anything about the hidden rifleman on his side of the canyon, but he could make things hot for the varmints on the other side.
Thrusting the Winchester around the trunk, he opened fire, peppering the opposite slope with slugs as he rapidly worked the rifle’s lever. The trees and the thick brush made it impossible for him to see what he was shooting at, but he hoped some of the bullets came close enough to make the bushwhackers jump.
After that initial volley, The Kid held his fire and took a moment to study the situation.
The posse had scattered the way Culhane ordered. They were spread out and fighting back, but were outnumbered. Two posse men lay unmoving where The Kid could see them. He knew they were either dead or badly wounded.
The ambushers had the advantage of the high ground and continued their barrage of gunfire.
Noise behind him in the brush made The Kid spin around with his finger on the Winchester’s trigger, but he held his fire as Lace emerged from the growth.
“Hold on, Kid, it’s just me,” she said.
“I can see that. You know how close I came to shooting you?”
She flashed him a grin. “I trust your reflexes. I’ve seen them in action often enough.”
He grunted as she moved to take cover behind a tree next to the one where he crouched. “How’s Nick doing? I couldn’t tell how bad he was hit.”
“He’s in quite a bit of pain,” Lace said, “but I’m pretty sure he’ll be all right. The bullet knocked a chunk of meat out of his left arm but didn’t break the bone. I gave him a couple swigs from the flask I carry in my saddlebags and left him up there in the trees with the horses. He’ll be fine.”
“Until those bushwhackers higher up start working their way down toward us,” The Kid pointed out.
Lace frowned. “I didn’t think about that,” she admitted. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt.”
“We can stay here and shoot at those men on the other side of the canyon all day without knowing if we’re doing any good,” The Kid said. “I think it would be a better use of our time to start up this slope and see what we can find.”
“Carve down the odds one at a time, you mean?” Lace asked. “I like that idea. Come on.”
Bullets still whispered through the branches, but the outlaws were firing blindly just like the posse. The Kid didn’t worry too much about those stray shots. If one of them found him, he would consider that his fate ... assuming he lived long enough to think anything.
In the meantime, he was going to do his best to take the fight to the enemy.
He had no doubt the bushwhackers were some of Warren Latch’s men. He didn’t think a small group of would-be robbers would have attacked a bunch as large as the posse. It could be the entire gang, for all he knew. Nobody else would have a reason to bushwhack them.
Like a phantom, The Kid moved through the trees, using every available bit of cover so the riflemen on the other side of the canyon wouldn’t spot him.
A few yards away, Lace was doing the same thing. The smile was gone from her face, replaced by an expression of grim determination.
They came to the place where she had left Nick Burton. The young man was slumped motionless on his side against a fallen tree.
For a second The Kid thought Lace had underestimated the seriousness of Nick’s injuries and the young man had bled to death.
Then a loud snore came from Nick. He hadn’t died or passed out. He had fallen asleep, even with gunshots going off all over the canyon.
The youngster must not have had much to drink in his life, The Kid thought with a smile, if two swigs of whiskey from Lace’s flask had knocked him out like that.
Lace had torn a strip from Nick’s shirt and bound up the wound on his arm. The cloth was bloodstained, but the bullet hole didn’t seem to be bleeding a lot. He ought to be all right there, The Kid thought.
Nodding to Lace, he gestured to indicate they should continue to move on up the slope. The gunfire continued, and The Kid used the sound of the shots coming from above as a guide. He and Lace steered toward the blasts.
The reports got louder. Holding out a hand, he motioned for Lace to get down. They crouched behind trees.
The Kid studied the slope. After a minute or two, he spotted the barrel of a rifle poking out from some brush.
It was tempting to empty his Winchester into the bushes, but since it was possible another member of the posse had worked his way up there, just as The Kid and Lace had done, they needed to make sure who was in there.
Using hand signals, The Kid told Lace to stay where she was while he worked his way around behind the hidden rifleman. She didn’t look very happy about that, but after a moment she gave him a grudging nod.
The Kid darted from tree to tree and finally had to go to his belly and crawl up the slope to remain unseen as he circled the brush. It took him several minutes to reach a position where he could see the man hidden there. The rifleman wasn’t one of the posse men. He was a roughly dressed hombre with a short, ginger-colored beard, and he had an ugly grin on his face as he fired another shot into the canyon.
The Kid drew a bead on him and squeezed the trigger.
The crack of the Winchester was lost in all the other shots filling the canyon. The bearded man’s head jerked to the side as the bullet from The Kid’s rifle bored through it. He dropped his gun and fell bonelessly to the ground, rolling over a couple times before he came to a stop out in the open.
Lace saw the body and hurried forward. She paused long enough to pull the dead outlaw’s revolver from its holster and tuck it behind her belt. She left the rifle where the man had dropped it.
“You need more armament?” The Kid asked dryly as Lace rejoined him.
“In my business, you can never have too many guns.”
He supposed that was true. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated they should move on up the slope.
They stayed about ten yards apart. Lace had paused and was kneeling behind a boulder when a man suddenly came around it. He stopped short in obvious surprise when he saw her, but that lasted only a split second before he swung his rifle toward her with blinding speed.
The Kid saw that from the corner of his eye, but there was nothing he could do about it. Lace was between him and the gunman, and he couldn’t take a shot at the man without running too great a risk of hitting her instead.
Lace was hardly defenseless, though. She threw herself to the ground as the outlaw fired, pulling the revolver from her belt as she did so. The man’s shot went over her head, and from her angle she pumped a .45 slug up into his belly.
The man doubled over and fell, tumbling down the slope out of control as he screamed from the pain of being gut-shot.
By the time he came to a stop, Lace had twisted around and was ready to fire again. She drilled a slug through his head, putting him out of his misery.
That made two of Latch’s men down. Lace gave The Kid a grim nod to let him know she was all right, and they resumed stalking their enemies.
The outlaws weren’t the only danger. A bullet suddenly came from behind The Kid and thudded into the trunk of a nearby tree, scattering chips of bark.
He knew that shot had been fired by one of the men in the posse down below. They weren’t aware he and Lace were up on the slope, working their way among the outlaws, and running the risk of being shot by one of their own allies.
The slope leveled out into a small shoulder of ground thrusting out from the canyon wall. The Kid heard the nervous whickering of horses. He and Lace had stumbled onto the spot where some of the bushwhackers’ mounts were being held. It was bound to put a crimp in the outlaws’ plans if they could stampede those animals, he thought with a faint smile. He motioned to Lace for her to go one way while he went the other.
They circled through the brush. The Kid heard horses moving around close by and crouched to part some branches and peer through the narrow gap. He saw a dozen horses in a clearing. Two of Latch’s men were there with them.
The Kid looked across the clearing and spotted Lace peering through a tiny opening in the brush on that side. He caught her eye and pointed to himself, then to one of the outlaws. She nodded in understanding that The Kid would take that man and she would take the other.
As soon as both of Latch’s men were dead, it would be simple to stampede the horses.
At that moment Lace let out a startled cry and came flying out of the brush with such force she lost her balance and sprawled on her face.
A man stepped into view behind her and planted a big, booted foot in the middle of her back to pin her to the ground. “Look what we have here, amigos.”
Chapter 20
The man was a burly Mexican, and stealthier than he looked or he never would have been able to sneak up on Lace undetected like he had.
Of course, with all the shooting going on in the canyon, plus the sounds of the horses moving around, there was quite a bit of racket, which helped explain how she had been caught unaware.
Even with the man pinning her down with his foot, Lace continued to struggle. She had dropped her rifle, but The Kid could tell she was trying to reach the revolver she had taken from the dead man earlier.
The outlaw’s jovial attitude disappeared as he rested the muzzle of the rifle he held one-handed against the back of her neck. “Stop fighting, señorita. I don’t know what you’re doin’ out here, but you’re in a bad spot.”
“What are we gonna do with her, Ortiz?” one of the other men asked.
Ortiz leered down at Lace, who had ceased her struggles when she felt the cold, octagonal barrel of the Winchester pressing against her skin. “I don’t know about you, Ramsey, but I can think of a few things I’d like to do with this one.”
A third man shook his head dubiously. “I don’t think Latch and Duval would be happy about that. We’re supposed to be wiping out that posse, not sporting with some gal that happened along.”
“Happened along?” Ortiz repeated. “This little hellcat did not just happen along, amigo. She was carrying a rifle, and the way she was trying to get to her belt, she must have a pistol there as well. No, I think she is part of the posse.”
“A woman, riding with a posse? I never heard of such a thing!”
Lace spoke up. “You’d better let me go. You’re going to be in big trouble if you don’t.” Her voice showed the strain of being held down like she was.
Ortiz boomed out a laugh. “We’re going to be in big trouble, señorita? How do you figure that?”
“Somebody will come to help me!”
“You think so? Really?” Ortiz took off his sombrero and lifted it mockingly above his head. “Here, I make it easy for them. I am a good target, eh?”
He certainly was. The Kid could have put a bullet in the man’s head at any time during the past few minutes.
But he had held his fire because of the rifle Ortiz had pointed at Lace. The Kid felt certain there was a cartridge in the chamber, just waiting for a squeeze of Ortiz’s finger on the trigger.
If that rifle went off, the bullet would probably sever Lace’s spine ... if it didn’t ricochet, range up into her brain, and kill her instantly. That would be a kinder fate than lying there paralyzed while she slowly bled to death.
But The Kid couldn’t just crouch there in the brush and do nothing. Carefully, he slid the Winchester’s barrel through the gap in the branches and settled the stock against his shoulder. His cheek rested against the smooth wood as he peered over the sights.
Ortiz clapped the sombrero back on his head and laughed. “It seems no one is coming to help you after all, señorita. So unless you want the next few minutes to become very unpleasant, you should tell me who you are, what you are doing here, and where your companions are.”
“Go to hell!” Lace said. “That’s all I’ll tell you!”
“I think not, señorita.” Ortiz’s foot came down harder on her back. Lace’s head turned to the side, and The Kid could see how her face was twisted in pain. “You are the one who will soon believe you are in hell.”
The Kid took a deep breath and settled the sights of his rifle on the barrel of Ortiz’s rifle. It was a lot smaller target than the man’s bulky body, but the only chance he had of saving Lace.
The shot carried with it a risk of its own. Even if he hit the outlaw’s rifle, the slug could ricochet and strike Lace. It was a chance he had to take.
The Kid squeezed the trigger.
The rifle cracked and bucked against his shoulder. With a loud
spang!
, the bullet hit Ortiz’s rifle and knocked it out of the startled outlaw’s hands.
Ortiz was so surprised he took a step back, and that was his undoing.
As soon as the weight on her back was gone, Lace rolled over and plucked the Colt from behind her belt with flashing speed. The gun roared as she fired shot after shot into Ortiz’s groin and belly.
At the same time, The Kid levered his rifle, swung it to the side, and fired again. One of the other two outlaws flung his hands in the air and died without a sound as he slid to the ground.
The third man didn’t stay to put up a fight. He ducked behind the horses, evidently hoping they would shield him.
That proved to be a mistake. The Kid put three fast shots into the ground near the already-nervous horses, and that was all it took to make them bolt.
The third outlaw let out a panic-stricken screech as the animals ran into him, knocking him off his feet. His scream ended abruptly as the horses stampeded right over him, their steel-shod hooves pounding him into a gory mess.
The Kid burst out of the brush and ran toward Lace.
Ortiz had crumpled, lying on his side, curled around the bullet holes Lace had put in him. He was still alive. Tears of agony welled from his eyes and coursed down his dusty face as he lifted his head to look at Lace, who had climbed to her feet and stood over him.
“You should have listened to me, you stupid bastard,” she said as she pointed the Colt at him.
The outlaw’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and his head flopped back to the ground before she could pull the trigger.
“You’d be wasting a bullet,” The Kid told her as he came up to her. “He’s already dead.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure it would have been a waste to wipe that smirk off his face for good.” Lace lowered the pistol.
“I think it’s gone. All those slugs you put in his belly took care of that.”
“He had it coming. Sneaking up on me like that and kicking me in the back.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear him.”
Lace glared at The Kid but didn’t say anything. Ortiz had gotten the drop on her, and nothing she could say would change that.
The Kid turned to survey the bench where the horses had been held. They were gone now, pulled loose from their pickets and vanished into the trees. Their owners would be in for a surprise.
Lace took some fresh cartridges from a pocket in her riding skirt and began thumbing them into the Colt’s cylinder.
The Kid smiled. “You always carry extra ammunition with you?”
Lace snapped the revolver’s cylinder closed and looked up at him. “Doesn’t everyone?”
She had a point there. His Winchester was starting to run a little low, so he reloaded it, too, pushing the shells in through the loading gate.
“Do we keep moving?” Lace asked.
The Kid nodded. “There were about a dozen horses here. We’ve accounted for five men.”
“Almost half.”
“But still plenty of work to do,” he said. “There are some boulders a couple hundred yards farther on. I caught a glimpse of them through the trees. That looked like a good spot for some of Latch’s men to fort up.”
“So what do we do, waltz up there and knock?”
“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” The Kid told her. “Isn’t that what you always say?”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”
They left the dead outlaws behind and started moving along the slope again. They were a good distance from Nick Burton, and The Kid hoped the young man was all right. With any luck, Nick would sleep through the rest of the battle.
The Kid’s thoughts turned to strategy. He had a hunch Warren Latch had split his forces, leaving a group to ambush the posse while the rest of the outlaws forged on toward San Antonio. Judging from the amount of gunfire coming from both sides of the canyon, The Kid guessed about half of the gang had been left behind. If the posse could stay hunkered down and hold out for a while without losing too many men, while he and Lace hunted up on the slope like beasts of prey, they could do some significant damage to Latch’s gang. That would make the odds closer to even when the posse finally caught up to the rest of the outlaws, he thought.
Assuming they did before Latch and the others reached the sprawling city of San Antonio.
The Kid and Lace came in sight of the boulders scattered along the slope. A haze of gunsmoke hung in the air over the rocks, telling The Kid some of Latch’s men were hidden there, just as he’d suspected. He saw several spurts of flame from the barrels of rifles thrust out from behind the boulders.
“We need to get above them,” he told Lace as they paused to assess the situation.
“How?” she asked. “There’s too much open ground between here and those rocks, all the way to the top of the slope.”
“We’ll have to circle around far enough that they can’t see us.”
“If they’re smart, they’ll have posted a guard or two just to keep an eye on their backs.”
“Then we’ll have to find those guards and deal with them.” The Kid pointed to some smaller boulders higher up on the slope. “You know, if we could start some of those rocks rolling ...”
Lace grinned. “We could dump a nice little avalanche right on top of those outlaws.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” The Kid nodded. “Let’s go.”
Staying in the trees, they began working their way higher. The slope became so steep they had to drop to all fours and pull themselves up by grasping branches and roots. Even in the shade of the trees, the day was hot. The Kid was soon drenched in sweat.
“Did you see how many in the posse were hit in the first volley?” Lace asked.
“I know at least two men were down,” he replied. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more.”
“We’re whittling down Latch’s bunch, but they’re doing the same to us. What about the Ranger?”
“Culhane? I saw him make it to some rocks. He seemed to be all right.”
“Good. I don’t like the looks of some of the rest of those men.” Lace shuddered a little. “Especially the one who’s all bandaged up. He makes me nervous, Kid.”
The Kid thought about how Vint Reilly had killed the Gustaffsons’ dog. “I don’t think he’s right in the head anymore. He’s got good reason to be a little loco. His wife was killed when Latch’s gang raided Fire Hill, and he got those burns when he was trapped in his house while it was burning down around him.”
“I’m sorry about all that, but I still don’t like him.”
“Neither do I,” The Kid admitted. “But as long as Culhane’s around, he’ll ride herd on Reilly and the others.”
“Yeah, but what if something happens to him?”
“Then he’s expecting me to take charge of the posse.”
Lace stopped climbing and looked over at him. “Kid Morgan, the man who was wanted by the law all over New Mexico and Arizona Territories?”
“Culhane doesn’t know I’m that Morgan. Anyway, those were trumped-up charges, and you know it.”
“Yeah, but you’ve still had more experience running from posses than you’ve had leading them.”
That was true. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want the job.”
They started climbing again, and reached the canyon rim a few minutes later. It was rugged and rocky, and in several places the slope turned abruptly into a sheer bluff reaching up into the blue Texas sky.
A little brush grew along the base of those bluffs, providing some cover as they worked their way behind the boulders Latch’s men were using as a stronghold.
No one challenged The Kid and Lace as they reached the small boulders they intended to push down the slope, starting a rock slide that would create havoc among the outlaws. Some of Latch’s men might be killed in the slide, and the chaos would give The Kid and Lace a chance to pick off the others.
That was their hope, anyway.
The Kid studied the men behind the rocks about a hundred yards below them. He could see quite a few of the outlaws from where he was, but if he and Lace started shooting, Latch’s men would turn around and open fire on them. The avalanche idea was better.
And if it worked, they could start bringing down some of the riflemen on the other side of the canyon.
The Kid pointed to one of the rocks. “That one. If I can start it moving, it’ll topple down and take several more with it. Once they’re rolling, the slide will develop quickly.”
“Then we’ll both push,” Lace said. “You know I’m strong, Kid.”
He knew that, but he also knew she had been seriously wounded less than a year earlier. Too much heaving and straining might damage something inside her.
“I can do it.” He set his rifle down.
“Are you going to argue with me at a time like this?”
“When do we not argue?” he muttered.
“Well, I remember one night on the trail—”
“Never mind. You can help me. Just don’t hurt yourself.”
“Don’t worry about that. Those outlaws are the ones I want to hurt.”