Cotton's Devil (9781101618523) (5 page)

With nothing of particular importance to concentrate on, the sudden mental image of Emily popping into his head almost startled him. He'd been away only a short while, not long enough to start missing her any more than he normally did. But somehow he was surprised by his vision of her, almost as if she were in trouble. It was a very strange feeling. He tried to shake it off as nothing. But he couldn't. A tinge of fear came over him and he urged the mare to increase her pace.

She's all right; I know she is. Although, I do have a powerful feeling
someone
is in serious trouble. And it feels like it's not far off. He gave his horse a knee to her sides to add a little incentive to pick up the pace even more.

He'd gone no more than another mile when his fears were realized. Up ahead, lying on its side in a ditch was the stagecoach. And a man was lying in the road. He wasn't moving. Cotton kicked the mare into a run. As they approached the stricken coach, he reined the horse to a dusty stop. He jumped from the saddle and ran to the man. Dead. A bullet had torn much of his head off. Cotton spun around to check on the stage, or what was left of it, yanked open the door, and peered inside. Empty.

It was obvious that someone had presented a threat to the coach and given chase when the driver tried to elude whatever danger had been thrust upon him. When the racing stage had come to a sharp curve in the road, it appeared to have lost its balance and slid sideways, dropped into the ditch, then turned over on its side, ripping a wheel off and shredding one side. Baggage was scattered everywhere, bags and valises ripped open, not by the force of the crash, but by deliberate intent from whoever had precipitated the attack.

Indians! Damn! And Apaches at that!

He looked around to see if he could pick out where the passengers might have gotten off to, or if they had been
taken hostage. He found tracks of four people where it appeared they had made a hasty retreat up a slight incline, but were not followed by the Indian ponies. At least not immediately. The team of horses pulling the stage had been taken, cut from their traces and led away.
That must have been what gave the passengers time to make their escape
, Cotton thought, or hoped anyway.

Just as he was thinking he should get the body of the dead man into the ground, he was drawn to something that gave solid evidence of his greatest fear. The passengers were
not
out of danger. Gunshots could be heard coming from the other side of the foothills just ahead, foothills that led up the side of a mountain. He swung into the saddle to seek the exact location of the roar of the rifles. It didn't take long to spot smoke from the Indians' weapons being fired into the air, a dead giveaway that they had their quarry trapped and were preparing to go in for the kill.

C
otton saw his only option placed by fate right in front of him.

He rode like the devil himself was hot on his trail, pushing him straight into a battle he was woefully outgunned for. He dared not ride straight for the Indians, but instead he circled to the east to follow a ridgeline toward where the ground dipped into some trees. As he spotted a small rise, he headed for it, and reined in at its base.

Cotton dismounted, with the intention of climbing the rest of the way up the ridge on foot. He didn't want whoever was on the other side doing all the shooting to spot his silhouette astride a horse. With the sun at such an angle as to make that likely, he hunched over, keeping himself as insignificant as possible against the terrain, slipping and sliding up the tricky incline. When he reached the top, he dropped to one knee, keeping as close as possible to the larger of the boulders around him. He had pulled his field glasses from his saddlebags when he dismounted. He raised them to his eyes, focused the ring, and shook his head at what he saw.
Below were about a dozen screaming Apaches firing at some people who had obviously sought shelter in a slight ravine in a copse of cottonwoods. They were protected by several large boulders that had at some ancient time broken from their brethren at the top of the mountain on the other side of the ravine. The huge hunks of granite and sandstone had come crashing down to land near a stream, thus giving the hapless souls trapped by the marauding Indians almost a fortlike cover from which to defend themselves. It took no more than one quick glance to know that the four people hunkered down were sadly outgunned and outmanned.
More'n likely those folks are from the stage
, Cotton thought.

Cursing under his breath as he returned to his mare, he mounted up and began to follow a narrow trail that he hoped would lead to a position to make a flanking maneuver on the renegades. While the trail did get him to a spot slightly behind the Indians, he could see he would also have to ride like hell straight through their ranks to make it to those trapped in the ravine.

“Nothin's ever easy. I hate situations like this,” he muttered, thankful no one could hear him but the mare. He had almost a hundred yards of rocky, cactus-laden ground to cover, and six shots weren't going to give much protection for that great a distance. Racing through a bunch of Apache warriors while trying to shoot would be even more difficult. He urged the horse to a run, hoping to gain as much ground as possible before he was noticed. He had his Colt in his hand, cocked and ready. When one of the renegades saw him and shouted an alert, he began firing at any painted savage within range. He leaned over the mare's neck to make himself a small target, as if, considering the odds, that made any difference. He began yelling, making as much noise as he could in hopes of confusing the enemy, although he didn't hold out a lot of hope of that having much effect.

When he found that fate had allowed him to reach the creek unscathed—for which he was both grateful and surprised—he splashed through the water across to the other side, whirled the mare around, and jumped off, dropping the
reins as he raced to the cover of the cottonwoods. He dove behind some tree trunks as several bullets careened off the rocks straight ahead, thwacking off small limbs from the trees behind him. He looked around to get his bearings just as another volley of shots tore through the trees, clipping more branches and thudding into the soft trunks. Realizing his position was untenable, he dove for the dirt, then half-crawled, half-scooted to reach the relative safety of the boulders where the others were huddled together like puppies.

What he found wasn't encouraging. A boy no more than a teenager wielded a twelve-gauge coach gun with no sign of any ammunition other than the dozen shells left in his cartridge belt. A man in a sack suit and a bowler hat, holding tightly to a flat wooden box with brass fittings like it was a newborn baby, hunkered behind the others. He appeared to have no weapon and was obviously scared out of his wits. Thorn McCann was sitting propped up against a boulder, a scarlet stain seeping from beneath and through a wad of white cloth being held to a wound in his shoulder to stem the flow of blood. From the looks of it, the wound was damned serious. He was white as a newly washed sheet hanging on the clothesline. And the mystery of the dark-haired woman had been solved, too. The one holding the cloth was definitely Delilah Jones. Cotton figured she had ripped the cloth from one of her own petticoats. Thorn loosely held his revolver, the barrel of which dangled in the sandy soil. Delilah cradled a .41-caliber Remington double-derringer in her lap.

Somewhat out of breath, Cotton managed a snide greeting. “You folks new to the area? Looking for a guide to show you around? Hmm, Thorn McCann. Didn't expect to see you here.”

“Didn't…exactly seek out…the opportunity, myself,” he gasped.

“You're not lookin' too good. Could you use a hand?”

“Mighty nice of you…to ask, Sheriff. Wouldn't mind a taste of brandy…if you have any,” Thorn said, managing a weak smile.

“Fresh out, pard. Got a canteen we can dip in that stream behind you, if you've a hankerin' for some liquid refreshment.”

“Couldn't turn down such a mag-magnanimous offer,” Thorn said, then started coughing.

“Any of you sharpshooters manage to hit anything out there?”

Thorn stared at him like he was a raving lunatic. “With a short-barrel shotgun, a near empty forty-five, and a peashooter?”

“You folks
do
seem a little short of firepower. I'll go get you some water…and a Winchester. May make the odds closer to even, at least until those redskins decide to quit playing with us.”

Cotton scurried back to where he'd left his horse. The mare was nonchalantly drinking from the stream. Fortunately, the spot where he'd chosen to leave the mare was completely hidden from the view of the renegades. He took one of two canteens he'd brought along from around the saddle horn, unscrewed the cap, and dipped it into the cool water, watching it bubble as it filled. Then he grabbed his saddlebags and withdrew the Winchester from the scabbard. By the time he had crawled back to the safety of the rocks, the Indians were preparing for another frontal attack. He dropped the canteen in front of Delilah and began loading bullets into the Winchester. He levered a round to await the charge. He looked over at the kid with a questioning look.

“You ever been in a situation like this before, son? What's your name?”

“N-no, sir. This is my first trip on the stage. They hired me because I needed a job and didn't care how little the pay was. Reckon I know why there weren't no one else standin' in line for the opportunity. Name's J-Jimmy. Jimmy Culp, sir.”

“You know how to use that twelve-gauge?”

“Yessir, I-I grew up on a farm and went huntin' for wild turkeys and such.”

“Ever shoot at a man before?”

“Just today, and I don't think I've hit anything but the dirt.”

Cotton turned to the gent in the sack suit. “And you, sir, got a gun or know how to use one?”

“D-Denby Biddle's the name. I, uh, don't carry a gun. I'm only a simple printer.”

“Any chance you could hit anything if I gave you one?”

“I-I c-could try.”

“Get yourself up here and take this.” Cotton took Thorn's revolver from him and handed it to the man. “Sorry, Thorn, but I don't see you as bein' much use at this crossroads.”

Thorn grunted something unintelligible as Delilah wiped perspiration off his forehead. Having been wounded himself more than once, Cotton could tell at a glance how serious Thorn's condition was. He'd lost a lot of blood and was in great pain. Cotton looked into the beautiful but worried eyes of Delilah. She answered his silent question with eyes beginning to flood with tears.

He silently willed Delilah to hold on to herself. The last thing they needed was a sobbing woman to make the situation worse.

“Looks like they're gettin' ready to come at us. Jimmy, you come here beside me. Only fire that shotgun when I say to, understand?”

“Yessir, I do at that. You want me to make my shots count. I understand right well.”

“Good. Now, Denby, you scrunch down between those two boulders over there. That'll make you a tough target to hit. You can still fire easy enough, though. But don't squeeze off a shot unless you are certain of a hit, man or horse. We can't afford to waste ammunition.”

He'd no more than finished giving orders to his tiny army of less-than-eager volunteers than five Apaches came racing toward their position. Cotton waited until they were at most fifty feet away before he rose up and began firing his Winchester as fast as he could lever the next cartridge. The lead rider flew over the back of his pony and was trampled by the
one right behind him. As one rider yanked his pony to skirt the makeshift fortress, Cotton shouted to the boy.

“There! Jimmy, to your right. Now!”

The kid jumped up and pulled both triggers. The twelve-gauge spit out smoke and flame with a mighty roar. The Apache grabbed at his chest as he was hurled off his mount into a sea of cactus. He didn't feel any of the flesh-piercing barbs, however. Any pain he'd experienced during his young life had abruptly come to an end.

As much as he hated shooting any horse, Cotton squeezed off one more shot that brought down a pony, throwing its rider and leaving him afoot and limping back to the safety of the arroyo where the other Apaches had gathered for their initial attack. The lot of them retreated to regroup out of range of the sheriff's deadly rifle. If the Indians had figured they'd have an easy time picking off three men and a woman, they'd been sorely mistaken. Cotton was hoping the eight or nine that were left might consider retreating to fight again another day. He didn't really care, though; it was as good a day as any to kill some renegade Indians bent on his destruction.