Dead Trouble (13 page)

Finding the patch of heavy timber where Jimmy Taggart said the cache of boxes was took some doing. Deke located the particular mountain, and the sound of falling water drew him to the Cockrel Falls. He approached on the high trail that overlooked the ribbon falls as they plunged in twin strips of lacy water a hundred feet into a pool. Dark lines around the pool’s edges showed how much the level had gone down without rain.

Deke’s gaze was restless, probing the hollows and shadows amongst the rocks. About half-way up, he saw Ringo, settled in the midst of some boulders that clung to the steep side of the slope, watching the lower trail.

Cutler dismounted, leaving the grey inside the line of trees. He left his hat and spurs behind, slid over the edge, spray wetting him, and began to climb down. Twice he slipped, boots skidding across wet rocks, but he didn’t dislodge anything and Ringo didn’t look up:
he even set his rifle to one side and began to make a cigarette. Deke could hear him humming some range ditty.

It all helped to cover Deke’s approach and when he was about eight feet above Ringo, trying to figure out where to place his boots next, the projecting rock he was standing on one-footed, gave way. It pulled out of the damp soil with a slight sucking sound that made Ringo start and look up, dropping his makings. And then Deke was hurtling down to land almost on top of the man.

He jarred down with a grunt and instinctively grabbed at something for support. The something was Ringo, and the hardcase swore, shoved him away and dived for his rifle. Deke got his balance fast enough to pluck a handful of mud from the steep earthen wall and he flung it savagely. It took Ringo in the face and the man staggered into a boulder. The rifle fell and Deke heard it splash into the pool, then Ringo was lifting his hands, half-crouched.

‘Easy! I – I ain’t in any shape to fight you, Cutler!’

The man winced and pressed an elbow into his left side. Deke guessed this was where he had been wounded. And while his gaze was momentarily distracted to that part of Ringo’s body, the man’s right hand flew up to the back of his neck and Deke’s mind screamed a warning: the blacksmith had said Ringo favoured knives….

Deke dived left and the blade flashed past his face, thunked into the wet earth. Ringo swore and went for his six-gun but Deke didn’t want gunfire now. He ripped the knife free and lunged at Ringo. The man’s
scream as the knife pierced his heart was muffled by Deke’s free hand clamping across his mouth. Deke let him fall, and he tumbled down to crash on the rocks at the edge of the pool.

Breathing hard, Deke climbed the rest of the way down and started to drag Ringo’ s body out of sight. Then he thought of Lieutenant Craig and his soldiers and propped the dead man up amongst the rocks, using several stones and a dead branch to support the man’s right arm. He folded back all the fingers except one, pointing the way to the high trail, and hoped the young Lieutenant would understand.

The climb back to the grey left him breathless. He drank from the canteen as he looked for the landmark of the lightning-struck shagbark hickory tree. It was an old one, nearing the hundred feet maximum height, and it was split almost a third of the way down, one splintered arm hung up in the branches of
neighbouring
trees. It made a sizeable landmark even from a couple of miles away.

Due north for a mile, swing west and drop downslope into a thick, dark stand of cedar
… Those had been Jimmy Taggart’s instructions and Cutler followed them to the letter, riding the grey with his rifle held at the ready, using knee pressures to guide the horse. When he came to the brush that blocked further advance, he dismounted. As he stood beside the sweating horse, rubbing its neck idly, listening to the buzz and hum of insects and a distant swish of a breeze high up in the branches of the cedars, he heard a crackling sound like twigs breaking. Then there came the faint whinny of a horse and he quickly clamped a hand over the grey’s muzzle.

The sounds came from hard left and he turned that way, hearing them more clearly. He looped the grey’s reins over a bush, started forward, placing his boots carefully so as to avoid dead twigs and leaves.

Sweat drenched him in here. Once he felt a slight breeze touch his damp skin and he began to walk in that direction. Then, he heard men’s voices, not far off….

Deke tightened his grip on his rifle, crouched lower, using the Winchester’s muzzle to push aside branches to ease his passage. And then he jumped at the sudden braying of a mule, away on his right, stumbling into a bush. As it shook some of the deader branches snapped. He fell to his knees in the open, saw the
clearing
, stacked boxes and crates, discarded tarps lying on the ground. Men worked at sorting and transferring boxes to a waiting string of mules.

Then he was seen, and someone yelled. Boxes were dropped as the men immediately reached for their guns.

The old Ranger training took over and Deke Cutler dived for the ground, shooting in the general direction of the men, not caring whether he hit anyone or anything, just as long as they scattered. They did, yelling, and some men started shooting back right away, bullets going wild.

Deke skidded under a bush, levered in a fresh shell, fired, rolled away, forced his way back into deeper shadow. He nailed his first outlaw with the next shot, picking the man off as he ran for the cover of a pile of long, narrow boxes. The man went down all flailing arms and legs, knocking one of his companions off his
feet. Deke shot him, too, but he didn’t think it was fatal.

And then a volley of concentrated fire raked the brush and twigs rained down on his shoulders, dirt erupted into his face. He got his feet under him and lunged to his right, then instantly swung back and dived headlong. More bullets ripped through the brush but over to his left. He slid quickly under branches and emptied the rifle at the still running men. He saw a man’s leg kick out to one side, its owner tumbling, trying to crawl into cover. He looked like a man he had seen with Flash Bill Danton. Then he saw Danton himself, rising with a shotgun at his shoulder.

Deke rolled frantically, hurling himself wildly aside. The brush above him was torn apart, buckshot cleaving branches and leaves. They rained down on him in a swarming cloud, the bush ripping apart. The second barrel discharged with a brief thunder and more buckshot rattled mighty close above his head, several balls stinging his back, one burning his leg. It twitched and he grabbed at it, feeling a little blood trickling already.

He lunged up and started to run for the protection of a tree when a man loomed up to one side, yelling, ‘
Deke
!’ Cutler spun around, and a rifle butt crashed into his head.

Just before the world exploded in a sheet of flame, Deke recognized Durango Spain.

‘How the hell did he find this place, that’s what I want to know – and I mean now, Durango!’

Flash Bill Danton’s distinctive voice hammered through the thumping roar in Deke’s head and he
opened his eyes slightly, peering through interlaced lashes. They had dragged him nearer the stash of boxes and crates. Now he could read stencilled names on some: DYNAMITE on the slab-sided boxes with the hinged lids, and on the long, narrow boxes with the bracing-timbers nailed a foot in from each end, US ARMY: RIFLES. Some square boxes just on the edge of his vision he recognized as those made to carry
ammunition
.

So Bannister was right, he thought, remembering the captain at Fort Montague telling him he suspected a load of stolen arms had been taken across the Red River to be sold for an Indian uprising. Deke only
realized
he had spoken aloud when Danton and Spain snapped their heads around towards him. He started to sit up, remembering in time not to appear too fit. He wasn’t yet tied up – which could mean he was marked for death, though Durango could easily have killed him instead of knocking him out. He lifted a shaking hand to the goose-egg sized knot above his right eye.

‘What the hell hit me?’

‘I did,’ Spain snapped. ‘I should’ve shot you!’

‘Yeah, you should’ve,’ growled Danton, kicking Deke in the side roughly. ‘How’d you find this place?’

Deke swung his eyes towards Spain and smiled
devilishly
.

‘Why, Durango showed me a sketch map when he was figuring on cutting me in on the deal.’

The more dissension and suspicion he could foster the better, he figured.

Spain’s eyes flew wide in real alarm.

‘You goddamn liar!’ he shouted looking swiftly at
Danton. ‘It’s not true, Bill! He’s just trying to make trouble!’

‘Is that right?’ Danton gritted. ‘You been showin’ him a soft spot all along, Durango! I wanted him dead soon as he arrived, but you talked me around, sayin’ you could handle him. Well, you ain’t done it! Soon as you found that Springfield cartridge on him, you shoulda killed him! But I’ll take care of that, right now!’

Danton’s six-gun blurred out of leather but Spain jumped forward, quickly pushed his hand down.

‘Wait! For Chris’sakes,
wait
! We
have
to know how he got here, who else he told. Judas, I figured he’d be held up in Wichita Falls with that damn sheriff over Jno’s shooting and—’

‘He likely got your wife to wire the goddamn soldiers!’ Danton cut in and kicked Deke viciously, making him draw his knees swiftly up to his chest, rolling from side to side, moaning in pain. ‘Huh? That right, you son of a bitch?’

Spain leaned down over him, twisted his fingers in Deke’s hair, lifted his head and slammed it down on the ground.

‘
Did
you talk her round? I know you could do it, because she still cares for you! She never stops talking about you! Wept herself dry when we heard you were dead. Christ, I had to try and hold on to her somehow, but it took money to buy the things she was accustomed to. You think I’d deal with scum like Danton otherwise?’

Spain turned irritably as Danton hit him roughly on the shoulder. The outlaw bared his teeth.

‘Did you say “scum” like me?’

Spain frowned, still angry.

‘Hell, I dunno. I was just talking. But if it wasn’t for Cutler I would never’ve had anything to do with you – except to shoot you on sight.’

Danton nodded amiably.

‘Figured you felt that way. Well, it’s mutual, Durango, old hoss, dead – mutual!’

And he fired point blank into Spain, the bullet knocking Durango back almost six feet before he collapsed in a heap. Then Danton screamed as Deke drew Ringo’s knife from the top of his riding-boot where he had hidden it, and drove it into Danton’s leg, the only part of him he could reach. Flash Bill howled and danced away, his gun blasting wildly into the ground. He couldn’t keep his balance and Deke threw himself at Spain, rolling towards him, hoping to grab his six-gun. The man was too far away: he would never make it. But Spain wasn’t yet dead and he threw his Colt towards Deke.

Cutler scooped it up, spun on to his side and drove two bullets into Flash Bill Danton as the man rose to one knee, face screwed up in pain from his deeply slashed leg. Deke’s bullets wiped that and every other expression from his features and Danton slammed over backwards, dead.

The other men started shooting now and Deke felt the tug of lead against his right sleeve. He rolled towards the nearest pile of boxes. The outlaws were yelling and running, not sure how many intruders there were or what was happening.

Cutler wasn’t too sure himself, his head spinning.

Then Hal Tripp recognized Deke and started firing wildly. The men had made their way to some rocks,
moving away from the cache of weapons and dynamite so there would be no risk of stray bullets setting off a charge. Deke made a zigzagging run to where the pile of boxes were and dived behind them. The outlaws started shooting instinctively.

‘Stop! Stop, for Chris’sakes!,’
yelled Tripp. ‘There’s enough dynamite there to blow down half the
mountain
!’ Tripp wasn’t taking any chances that a bullet just might set off the dynamite though it would need to be very old and unstable for that to happen. Deke used the man’s panic to his own advantage. Safely behind the first row of stacked boxes, he thumbed fresh loads from his bullet belt. He spun around, shooting between two boxes. A man yelled but no bullets answered Deke’s shots. He crouched down, pulled one of the dynamite boxes towards him and lifted the hinged lid. There were sticks of dynamite, fuse lengths and a waxed
cardboard
cylinder with detonator caps packed in cotton wool inside.

Taking time to check where the others were, he pushed a detonator into the end of a stick of dynamite, crimped the fuse on to the copper nipple with his teeth, then lit a cigarillo he had found earlier in the pocket of the shirt he had borrowed from Spain. He touched the glowing end to the fuse, waited for it to splutter and hurled it in the general direction of the rocks.

Two men were creeping slowly towards his
hiding-place
, belly down, obviously hoping to surprise him. One saw the trail of smoke arcing down towards them and screamed a warning, jumping up to run back towards the rocks. He was too late – as was his
companion
. The dynamite exploded with gouting fire and
fountains of earth – and a couple of human limbs mixed in. It had a mighty sobering effect on the others still cowering amongst the boulders. Deke prepared another stick and hurled it towards them. It fell short but the explosion brought frightened swearing and dire threats.

Then he heard the crunch of stones, like a boot
turning
on gravel. Deke spun, and between the boxes, saw a man with a rifle only yards away. The man went to ground, panicked when he saw that Deke had spotted him, and fired one-handed. The bullet chewed a large splinter out of the corner of a box of dynamite but there was no explosion. The outlaw actually laughed in relief, jumped to his feet and, with a savage Rebel yell, charged in on Deke’s hiding-place, working lever and trigger on his rifle. Deke rolled clear, flopped on to his belly and fired at the wild man. The outlaw staggered and swung his gun towards Deke but Cutler brought him down with another bullet.