The Lawmen (11 page)

21

Clay jumped clear of the falling horse. He landed unevenly on his feet, stumbled and fell on his butt as more rifle shots rattled the desert stillness. Bullets spurted in the dust around him.

“Get off the trail,” he yelled to Essex. “Take cover.”

Essex was already moving. He grabbed the handcuffed Vance’s reins and led Vance’s horse into the brush on the side of the trail. Clay got up. His wounded horse was thrashing in agony, its eyes rolling wildly. While bullets flew around him, Clay pulled his six-gun and shot the horse in the head, killing it. Then he took the sawed-off shotgun from its pommel scabbard and sprinted after Essex and Vance, weaving as he ran to throw off the attackers’ aim.

The rolling rifle fire echoed off the hills as Essex led Vance into a protected dip in the ground. He dismounted there, half pulling Vance from his saddle along with him, and hurriedly tethered the horses to a clump of creosote. Then he pushed Vance forward, and the two of them dived for cover behind an outcrop of rocks, hugging the rocks for protection from the gunfire.

Clay joined them, scrambling over the rock outcrop. Essex looked at his feet ruefully. “Damn, I scuffed these new boots all up.” Above them, rifle bullets whined. “Is it Apaches?” Essex asked Clay.

Clay shook his head. His ankles and knees were still jarred from his fall from the horse. “Too many modern rifles for it to be Apaches, and they’re firing too much ammunition. Apaches don’t use that much ammunition in six months.”

“It’s my brothers!” Vance cried. He started to get up. “Hey, Wes-”

Clay pulled him back down. “Shut up,” he ordered.

Clay took a quick peek. The firing was coming from the high rocks on both sides of the trail. Clay knew they would have their best marksmen up there. More men could be seen moving forward, dodging among the rocks lower down. Clay had been watching their backtrail for pursuit, but in the twisting hills he had not been able to see far. The pass had taken a long bend about two miles back. Wes and his men must have cut through the hills, avoiding the bend, and come out here. They must have some good trackers with them to have picked up the lawmen’s trail, as well as someone who knew the country. But how had they overcome the lawmen’s long lead from Topaz so quickly?

As Clay looked, a group of riders broke cover and dashed up the trail, past the point where the lawmen had been ambushed.

“They’re trying to cut us off,” Clay told Essex. “Give me that Henry.”

Essex handed Clay the repeater. Clay drew a bead on the lead rider and fired. The man toppled from his horse into the dust. Clay levered another shell into the chamber. He aimed and fired again. Another rider reeled in the saddle but kept going. Clay readied to fire again, but by then it was too late. The riders were dismounting in the rocks at the trail’s far end. They began shooting. Bullets came at Clay from two directions now. Chipped rocks sprayed his face as he hunkered down for protection.

The gunfire tapered off, then died. Suddenly Wes Hopkins called out, “Chandler!”

Clay caught his breath, then answered, still hunched behind the rocks. “Afternoon, Wes. What can I do for you?”

“Let’s talk!” Wes cried.

“I’m listening.”

“We’ve got you cut off, Chandler. You can’t get away.”

“And?” Clay said.

“Let Vance go. You let him walk over here, and I’ll forget everything else that’s happened—even my two men you just shot.”

“Me and the deputy can go free?” Clay asked.

“That’s right. It’s a generous offer. I admire your guts, Chandler, but it’s all over. Stop now, before anybody else gets hurt, and there’s no hard feelings. I’ll even let you go back to Topaz.”

Clay looked at Essex. “What do you think?”

Essex just glared at him.

Clay raised his head and yelled back. “I got a better idea, Wes. You and your men clear out—now—or I’ll put a gun to your little brother’s head and scatter his brains all over these rocks.”

From the opposing rocks there was laughter, and Wes said, “Nice try, Chandler. That trick worked on Driscoll and Shaughnessy, but it won’t work on me. I don’t think you’ll do it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s not just because of what we’d do to you and that deputy of yours if you did—which is roast you over a slow fire, like the Apaches do, and skin you alive.” Clay and Essex exchanged glances, while Wes went on. “It’s because you’re too noble. Unlike me, you won’t stoop that low. You’re a lawman now, and you’ll go by the lawman’s book.”

Clay cried, “Well, you’re wrong, Wes. ’Cause I’ll do it.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Hey!” Vance yelped.

“What?” Clay said, disbelieving.

“You heard me,” Wes said. “Go ahead and kill him, if that’s what you want. ’Cause we’re not leaving.”

Clay looked at Essex in dismay.

Vance had recovered his confidence. “You ain’t going to do it, are you, Chandler? You ain’t got the guts.”

“Shut up,” Clay told him.

From the rocks Wes cried, “Time’s up, Chandler. What’s it going to be?”

Clay raised the Henry and snapped a shot toward the sound of Wes’s voice. “How’s that for an answer?”

Wes yelled, “All right, boys!”

Before he had the last word out, the rifles began to crackle again. Bullets whined off the rocks or plumped into the dirt behind the lawmen and their prisoner.

Clay returned the fire as best he could, but it was useless. Already Wes’s gunmen were working their way closer, firing as they came. Clay knew he wouldn’t be able to hold them back for long.

Beside him, Essex said, “I’m glad you’re the boss man here, ’cause I ain’t got no ideas how to get out of this.”

Clay thought desperately while he reloaded the rifle. “We’ll never make it to Tucson. Our only hope is to get back to Topaz.”

“We ain’t gonna make it anywheres, without we get another horse,” Essex told him.

“I know that. I ain’t stupid.”

“So you say.”

The path in front of them was blocked. Behind them was the unforgiving landscape of the Verdugo Mountains. Clay had prospected all through this country. It wasn’t far from here that he’d been jumped by Cochise’s men. He tried to remember if there was a place in the mountains where they could. . .

“I’ve got it!” he said. He grabbed Vance’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come on,” he told Essex as he started for the horses.

“Where we going?” Essex asked, following.

“You’ll find out.”

Bullets nipped at the three men’s heels as they raced toward the dip. Wes’s men had to be careful how they fired, in case they hit Vance, so their shots were deliberate, scattered. They knew that if they hit Vance, they might as well be dead themselves.

Clay and Essex reached the horses and untied them. Clay pushed Vance toward Essex’s horse. “Let’s go, sunshine. You’re riding with your friend here—he’s got the freshest horse.”

Vance regarded Clay defiantly. “And if I don’t go?”

Clay drew his pistol. “I’ll hit you over the head and we’ll tie you to the back.”

Vance’s dark hair was already clotted with dried blood from the other times he’d been hit. “Damn,” he said, and he reluctantly got on the horse. Essex swung up behind him, taking the reins. As Clay mounted, Vance complained. “Did you ever stop to think that you could break my skull, hitting me like that all the time?”

“No,” Clay replied. “To tell the truth, I never did.”

The three of them started off, with Essex and Vance riding double. Behind them Wes’s men poured out of the rocks. “Get the horses!” Wes ordered.

To his brother Lee, who knew the country, Wes said, “Where can they go in these mountains?”

“Nowhere,” Lee replied with his wolfish grin. “Nowhere but hell.”

Clay led Essex and Vance away from the pass, over a hill and into the mountains. The going was hard on the horses, especially the one carrying two men. The animals were still tired from last night, and they hadn’t been grain fed today. They couldn’t take too much more. Behind him, Clay heard hoof beats as the Hopkins gang started after them.

Soon Clay found what he was looking for. He turned up a canyon that wound into the mountains. He and Essex followed the canyon’s twisting path. Huge boulders lined the canyon bottom, deposited there over the centuries by storms. The saguaros that lined the canyon’s sides thinned out as they went higher. Behind them the noise of the Hopkins gang was growing. Twisting in his saddle, Clay saw their dust rising over the canyon rim.

When they reached a narrow bend in the canyon, Clay reined in. “Keep going,” he told Essex. “I’m going to slow them up.”

Essex protested. “Let me do it.”

“You couldn’t shoot off your own foot. How are you going to slow anybody up? Look for a tall, chimney-shaped rock on your left, a couple miles farther on. I’ll meet you there. Now get going.”

Essex and Vance galloped up the canyon. Clay rode farther on, then dismounted and took cover behind some rocks overlooking the arrow bend.

He didn’t have long to wait. The drumming of hoof beats grew louder. Clay aimed the rifle, resting the barrel in a notch in the rocks, waiting for Wes’s men to turn the bend. Then they appeared, charging around the boulders. Clay fired at the lead rider, a Mexican by his dress. The man fell from his horse and did not move.

The rest of Wes’s men pulled up in confusion. Clay fired again, but did not hit anything. Wes’s men retreated around the bend. Clay heard confused shouting as they dismounted and made a plan of attack. But there wasn’t going to be anything for them to attack.

“That’ll hold ’em for a few minutes,” Clay said to himself. He rose and started for his horse, leaping onto the horse’s back with an agility he did not think he possessed and lathering the animal up the canyon.

He halted again at another bend about a half mile up. Again he dismounted and took cover. As he looked back he saw the Hopkins men coming on. He saw the herd of spare horses being led behind them.

“So that’s how they caught us.” He cursed himself for being stupid. He should have known they’d do that.

Wes and his men rounded this bend more cautiously, as if they expected to be ambushed. Clay didn’t disappoint them. He let them go a few yards, then fired. One of the horses shuddered, and its rider clawed at the reins trying to turn the animal to safety before it went down. Clay fired again. He saw someone grab at his shoulder before the gang disappeared around the bend. As soon as they were out of sight, Clay headed for his horse and started off again.

He saw the chimney-shaped rock from a distance as he ascended the canyon. It stood like a beacon among the jumbled boulders at the top of the canyon wall. Essex and Vance were waiting in the canyon bottom beneath it, as he had instructed.

“Now what?” Essex asked. His horse was white with sweat, its flanks heaving.

Clay pointed toward the chimney rock. “Up there.”

“What we gonna do, make some kind of last stand?”

“Not if I can help it. Come on. Quick—before they come.”

The two horses climbed the steep side of the canyon, their hoofs crunching rock and gravel. Essex jumped off to make it easier for his animal, whacking the beast’s rump with his wool hat to urge it on. Clay stopped at the top, in front of the chimney rock. The rock stood out from the canyon wall, the base of which was choked with boulders, brittle brush, and prickly pear cactus. Below them the beating of hoofs grew loud.

“Get under cover,” Clay told Essex. “Take the horses.” He pulled Vance from Essex’s horse. As the handcuffed Vance hit the ground, Clay jerked the young man’s bandanna up over his mouth and retied it behind his head as a gag.

Essex got the horses in the opening behind the chimney rock. Clay and Vance moved behind some boulders. As they did, Wes and his men rode into view below them. Clay almost didn’t recognize Wes at first. The gang leader was wearing dusty range clothes now; he looked much the same as his men. They came on slowly, rifles at the ready, eyes sweeping the sides of the canyon. They were looking for trouble at eye level, though; they never thought to look higher up, where the lawmen and their prisoner were hidden.

The gang rode by. Clay and Essex watched them, scarcely able to breathe. Clay was so intent on their passing, he relaxed his grip on Vance’s arm. Suddenly Vance made a break for it, trying to yell for help through his gag. Essex saw him from the comer of his eye. He stepped away from the horses and punched Vance in the jaw, knocking him down, then he fell on him, holding him motionless, pressing a hand over his gagged mouth. Clay quickly grabbed the horses, keeping them behind the chimney rock, trying to make sure they stayed quiet.

* * *

On the canyon floor Lee Hopkins was looking over his shoulder. “I thought I saw something move up there,” he told Wes.

Wes halted the column. Lee pointed toward a tall, chimney-like rock near the top of the canyon. “There, by that tall rock.”

Wes followed Lee’s gaze; so did the rest of his men. The hot canyon was suddenly silent save for the occasional shuffle or whinny of a horse. Ahead, nervous jays twittered at the column’s approach. Wes studied the brush-choked area around the chimney rock for a long minute. At last he looked away. “I don’t see anything,” he told his brother. “It was probably a mule deer.”

“Apaches?” Lee suggested.

Wes shrugged. “If they were going to ambush us, they would have done it by now. If they’re not, I’m not interested in them. Chandler wouldn’t go up there unless he was looking to commit suicide. There’s no way out.” He let his gaze go up the canyon again, and he waved his men on.

With a last glance toward the chimney-shaped rock, Lee followed.

* * *

When the last of the gang was out of sight around the next bend, Clay and Essex let out their breaths. Essex stood, letting Vance get up. The young outlaw worked his jaw where he’d been hit.

“We don’t have much time,” Clay said. “This canyon ends about a mile and a half up. They’re going to be back soon.”

“They’re going to know we’re here,” Essex said. “We’ll never be able to beat them back down the—”

Clay held up a hand, silencing him. Leading his horse by the reins, he beckoned Essex to follow. Essex obliged, pushing Vance ahead of him.