Twisted Hills (15 page)

As they neared a mammoth land-stuck boulder towering above smaller boulders surrounding it, Preston Kelso yelled out to them.

“Stop right there, misters,” he said, lying atop the boulder, the heat of its hard hot surface burning his belly even through his clothes.

The scalp hunters stopped and looked up, their hands chest high away from their weapons. Fain's large gun barrel welt had healed, but Montoya sat stiffly from the bullet wounds in his side and his shoulder.

“Preston Kelso, is that you?” Fain called out toward the boulder, recognizing Kelso's rough, raspy voice.

“Yeah. What of it?” Kelso returned in an unfriendly tone.

“Well, it's us,” said Fain, “me and Montoya.” He didn't know what to make of Kelso's less than warm reception.

“I'm not blind,” Kelso replied. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you three,” said Fain. “Segert sent us to round you up.”

Kelso murmured to himself, “That's what I was afraid of.” He started to take aim on Fain's chest.

“We've got a big job coming up,” Fain called out, not realizing he was a split second away from a bullet through his heart. “Dolan says Segert needs all the men he can gather.”

Kelso's finger eased off the rifle trigger.

“You two are riding for Segert now?” he called out.

“Yep,” said Fain. “He redeemed our guns from Graft and fed us dinner before we left.”

“And he's not mad at me for nothing?” Kelso asked, listening closely to how Fain answered him.

“Mad? No . . . ,” said Fain, in an even tone. “Dolan told him he saw you riding this way the other day. Said, get you back to Agua Fría and all of us get ready to make some money.”

“I can use that,” Kelso said, grinning. He stood up and slid down the backside of the boulder to where the Hooke brothers met him, their rifles at port arms. “Come on, fellows, Lady Luck is not only knocking—she's about to beat our doors down.”

“What about this money out here?” Hazerat asked.

“It'll have to keep,” said Kelso. He looked at each brother closely and said, “And it has to be our little secret.”

The two nodded in agreement.

“Meanwhile,” said Kelso, “let's get cracking and see what Segert has in store.”

They grabbed the reins to their horses and led them down from the boulder to where the scalp hunters sat atop their horses waiting for them. As they arrived, Fain gestured toward overturned stones lying here and there on either side of the trail.

“You fellows looking for something out here?” he asked.

“No,” Kelso said gruffly. “And if we was, whose business would that be but ours?”

“I understand,” said Fain. Changing the subject, he jerked his head toward the packhorse. “If you're hungry, we've got beans, dried elk, hoecake and coffee.”

“Damn right, we're hungry,” said Kelso. He stepped over to the packhorse as if to start eating right then and there. The horse shied back from him.

Montoya had sat quietly beside Fain, but now he pushed up his sombrero and said, “Ask him about Jones.”

“No, forget it for now,” said Fain.

“What's that?” said Kelso, overhearing them. “What about Jones?”

“He is out here,” said Montoya. “We saw him with the peddler's wagon earlier today. He and the woman are traveling together.”

“You saw them, where?” Kelso snapped his head around and looked back and forth as if the wagon might be sitting nearby.

“West of here, earlier today,” said Montoya. “Headed up through Apache land.”

Kelso looked off in that direction and scratched his beard, realizing how easily Jones might give up what rock the money was buried under if he saw a gun pressed to the woman's head. But before he could say anything, Fain cut in, saying, “We was wanting to go kill Jones for what he done to us and Petty. We didn't know how you fellows might feel about it.”

Kelso and the Hooke brothers looked at one another. Kelso took on a wry smile.

“Anything I can do to help a trail pard, I'm always in for it,” he said to the scalp hunters. “After what Jones did to yas, I say we help run him down and kill him on our way to town.”

“It'll be morning before we catch up to them,” Fain said.

“Morning or night doesn't matter to us,” said Kelso. He took the packhorse's reins from Montoya. “We can head that way now, and eat later, far as we're concerned.” He looked at the Hookes. “Ain't that right, Hazerat, Charlie Ray?”

“It's the gospel,” said Charlie Ray. He and Hazerat both nodded.

It was near midnight when the scalp hunters led Kelso and the Hookes up into the hills and found the tracks where the peddler's wagon had rolled along earlier that day. Once upon the wagon tracks, the men stopped long enough to water, grain and rest their horses while they themselves ate and drank hot coffee. They rested for a few minutes around the small campfire burning in the cover of a huge boulder standing on a rocky hillside. When they stood up to gather their horses and ride on throughout the night, Kelso stepped over ahead of Montoya and untied the lead rope to the packhorse.

“We can't have you leading this horse with your shoulder still mending,” he said. “I'll take it for a while, and then we'll have these two pull their turn.”

“Obliged,” Montoya said, looking a little surprised at Kelso's generosity.

Vincent Fain crushed out the fire with his boot. They finished gathering and saddling their rested mounts and stepped up into their saddles.

“Lead us on, Fain,” Kelso said. “You're the one found them.”

Holding the packhorse's lead rope, the animal drawn close to his side, Kelso and the Hooke brothers let their mounts fall in behind the two scalp hunters as all of them put their animals forward in the chilled desert air. The five of them rode single file throughout the night, speaking little as they wound downward turn after turn along the steep hill trail. Overhead, a three-quarter moon stood amid a purple-blue velvet sky, lighting the trail with the help of a million glittering stars.

They rode steadily in the tracks of the peddler's wagon, as quickly as the darkened trail would allow. At the first streak of dawn on the eastern edge of the universe, they had reined to a halt atop a bulging stone cliff on the downslope a hundred yards above the desert floor. Their horses' nostrils puffed steamily in the chilled and grainy morning air. As Kelso raised his canteen to his lips for a drink of cool water before the day's heat got to it, Fain sidled up to him on the stone ledge.

“I've never heard of you being so obliging, Preston,” he said, having given the matter much consideration throughout the night.

Kelso just looked at him as he lowered his canteen from his lips, capped it and hung its strap around his saddle horn.

“No offense intended,” said Fain, “but is there bad blood between you and Jones? Because there's bad blood between us and Jones.”

“Yep,” Kelso said flatly. He turned his head from Fain and gazed out across the sandy desert below them.

“Might I ask just what it is?” Fain ventured.

“No, you might not,” Kelso said in a short tone. He leaned enough to look past Fain at Hazerat and said, “Haze, come take this packhorse for a spell.”

Hazerat huffed and jerked his horse back a step before turning it on the cliff facing. He spoke under his breath to his brother.

“Why the hell am I the one to—?”

“Don't start,” Charlie Ray warned him in a guarded tone, cutting his complaining short.

Hazerat stepped his horse over to Kelso and took the packhorse's rope from his hand.

Before releasing the rope, Kelso looked him up and down in the purple light of dawn.

“Everything all right with you?” he asked.

Hazerat snatched the rope from him.

“Couldn't be better,” he said sharply.

“Is he always that way?” Fain asked as Hazerat reined his horse and the packhorse away.

“What way?” said Kelso, and before Fain could say another word, Kelso yanked his horse's reins, spun the animal in a puff of steam from its warm muzzle and rode off the cliff ledge. The Hookes followed, Hazerat leading the packhorse.

“I never knew Segert's gunmen acted so odd,” Fain said under his breath to the Mexican.

“I saw something change for them as soon as we found the wagon tracks,” Montoya said. “I don't like how he offered to take the packhorse.”

“I know,” Fain whispered. “We best watch these sons a' bitches close, Montoya.”

“I watch all sons a' bitches
close
,” the tall Mexican replied. They reined their horses around and put them forward onto the trail. Kelso and the Hookes lagged behind until the two scalp hunters were back in the lead.

•   •   •

Sam sat in the driver's seat of the peddler's wagon, Lilith sitting beside him, holding a ragged parasol above their heads. Sam's dun walked along behind the slow-moving wagon at an easy pace, his reins hitched to a rail near the rear door. At midmorning the heat of the day had gathered and pressed down on the desert floor with no breeze, and no letup. Beneath the blazing sun, heat wavered its way back upward to a blue and perfect sky. Lilith had been talking to him when he shoved the parasol aside and rose in his seat enough to look back over the top of the wagon.

“What is it, Joe?” she asked, seeing the look on his face when he sat back down and slapped the reins to the two horses' backs.

“We've got riders coming,” Sam said. He slapped the reins to the horses' backs again, forcing them to quicken their pace.

Lilith leaned sidelong in her seat and looked back along the trail, seeing only dust. She lowered the parasol, folded it and stuck it back under the seat.

“It's probably nothing, Lilith,” Sam said. But he slapped the reins again. “But it's best we get off this open floor, just in case.”

Lilith watched him reach under the seat and pull out the Gruen rifle she'd brought him. He stuck it up on the floor and leaned it against himself.

“What can I do, Joe?” Lilith asked.

“You can take over the reins and keep these horses moving,” Sam said. “I don't know if their intentions are good or bad, but they are trying to catch up to us. I want some cover around us before I stop for them.”

Lilith took the reins and scooted over to Sam's side as he looked over his shoulder again. He could see the riders had already gained on them. As he questioned their intentions in his mind, a bullet zipped past his head.

A second following the bullet, the sound of the shot rolled forward, out across the hill line.

“Not good,” he said to Lilith. “Keep them moving. We need some cover.”

“What kind of men attack a peddler's wagon?” she asked.

“These kind,” Sam said, having recognized the two scalp hunters riding out in front of the others. “The two out front are Vincent Fain and Carlos Montoya. I shot a friend of theirs and put them in the infirmary for a few days. The other three are Segert's men.”

“Segert's men?” She sounded surprised. “They are after you for shooting a scalp hunter?” she asked.

“That would be my guess,” Sam said. He leveled the untried Gruen rifle back along the top of the wagon and took aim. As he did so, two more bullets zipped through the air, near him. A third nailed the back of the wagon. He thought about the dun back there, in the line of fire. He fired a shot; the bullet went wide of the target. He allowed for the gun sights being off and fired again. His shot missed, but he could see by how the riders separated that the bullet had been close.

“Can you run this rig right up the slope and get us off these sand flats?” he asked, shouting above the roar of the horses' hooves, the jingle of gear and tack.

“Yes,” Lilith shouted in reply. “I can hold them. What are you going to do?”

“I've got to get the dun out of there before he gets his head shot off,” Sam said. “Can these horses pull any faster?”

“No,” Lilith shouted. “This is all they can do. The wagon is too heavy to go very fast.” She adjusted the reins in her hands and slapped them to the horses' back. But there was nothing to be gained by her actions. The horses' heads were down, their legs plowing at the rocky dirt trail.

Wild shots continued to zip through the air as Sam climbed atop the wooden wagon and moved at a low crouch on the swaying, rocking rig until he reached the rear corner where below him the dun ran along in a gathering cloud of trail dust.

A shot thumped into the rear of the wagon. Sam climbed down over the edge, Gruen rifle in hand, onto the top iron rung that laddered down the side. More shots zipped, spun and thumped into the rig. But Sam would not stop. He climbed down until he could reach the dun's reins and untie them from the rig. Before untying the dun, he reached the rifle out and shoved it down into the saddle boot. The dun seemed to know what was coming next.

With a free hand Sam loosened the reins, swung a leg out over his saddle and dropped into place. He immediately veered the horse away from the rig and touched up its pace as he turned it in a wide circle out of the roiling trail dust. He jerked the Gruen rifle back up from the boot and back into play. As the wagon rolled on along the trail, he slowed the dun, raised the Gruen to his shoulder and took aim on the front rider, recognizing him to be the tall Mexican he'd shot in the Fair Deal Cantina.

His first shot didn't make contact, but as the big .50-caliber bullet spun through the midst of the riders, it caused them to scatter out. He levered another round into the seven-shot Gruen's chamber. Luckily, Lilith had brought a pouch full of cartridges along with the big French rifle.

As the five riders drew closer, Sam took another aim on the Mexican front rider. This time when he squeezed the trigger, he saw the rider pounding along a few feet behind the Mexican sway in his saddle and begin to flop back and forth as his horse cut away from the others.

“I'll take it,” Sam said, realizing he'd fired at the tall Mexican but had hit the nearest man instead. He levered another round into the Gruen's chamber. Built almost identical to the 1860 Spencer rifle, the Gruen was a good hard-hitting rifle that just needed getting used to, Sam knew. He was sure he'd work that out before the day was over, he told himself, raising the rifle back to his shoulder, feeling the dun slow and circle beneath him.

A good rifle, a good steady horse beneath him, he thought. What else did a man need? He aimed in again on the Mexican. But this time as he squeezed the trigger, he saw the rider fly from his saddle before the shot caused the rifle butt to kick against his shoulder.

What's this?
He stared out, puzzled, knowing that one of the other riders had just shot the Mexican from behind.

Lowering the rifle, he circled back, putting the horse into a fast run toward the wagon as he saw Lilith drive it at an angle upward onto the long slope reaching up the hillside. She had good control of the rig, he could tell. But when he'd met her, she was having trouble on the hillsides. He wasn't going to take a chance, not with gunfire filling the air around them.

He raced on toward the wagon, gunshots still resounding behind him. Yet, in front of him, he saw the woman slow the wagon on the upward slope and duck in among large stones seated deep on the rocky hillside.
Good move,
he told himself, knowing that once in those rocks, with good rifles and enough cartridges, he and the woman could hold off an army—for a while anyway. A while was all he needed. Once he began inflicting wounds, knocking riders from their saddles shot after shot, it wouldn't take the riders long before they decided he wasn't worth what it was costing to kill him.

•   •   •

On the desert floor, Kelso and the Hooke brothers had brought their horses to a halt, but kept them moving back and forth, keeping themselves from being an easy target. A hundred yards behind them the Mexican, Montoya, had circled back to check on Fain, who lay alongside the road, flat on his back, one foot still tangled and jammed into his stirrup. Clutching a gloved hand to a new and bloody shoulder wound, Montoya rode up behind the others, who turned their horses to meet him.

“What the blazes is this?” Montoya asked, gesturing toward his bloody shoulder.

The three men looked at one another, then back at the Mexican.

They all three shrugged. They didn't know. Kelso sat with his new Colt hanging from his hand.

“Do not think you can shrug me off!” Montoya shouted. “One of you shot me! Which of you did this?” He paced his horse back and forth as he spoke, a rifle in his hand.

“Don't get your drawers in a knot, Mexican,” said Kelso. “You act like this is your first gun battle or something.”

“No, it is not my first gun battle,” Montoya raged. “I have been in many! But in none of them have I had to worry about my own
compañeros
shooting me from behind!”

Kelso gave a chuff and a halfhearted grin.

“Well, get used to it,” he said. “It happens all the time. A man can't always make a bullet go where he wants it to. One of us shot you and that's that. End of the story. Hell, it might have been Fain, for all we know.”

“Fain was already dead!” said Montoya. “I saw him fall before this shot was fired.” Blood ran down between his fingers as he gripped the wound tight. As he spoke, he let his horse come to a halt.

“You'll see yourself fall too,” Kelso said. “Unless you keep that horse moving.”

“I know how to look out for myself,” Montoya said, stepping his horse back and forth in the sand. “But it is hard to protect myself with my own men shooting me from behind.”

“You're not going to let this go, are you?” Kelso said quietly. The Hooke brothers sat staring blankly.

“Let it go?” said Montoya, still fuming in anger. “Hell no, I am not going to let it—”

The sound of the big new Colt cut the Mexican short as it bucked in Kelso's hand. Montoya rocked back and forth with a stunned, enraged look on his face. Then he toppled backward from his saddle as his horse stepped out from under him. He hit the ground in a puff of dust.

“I didn't think the son of a bitch was ever going to shut up about it,” Kelso said. He turned the tip of the Colt's barrel to his lips and blew away a string of curling smoke. “He acted like everybody's supposed to live forever.”

Charlie Ray looked off in the distance at the place where the wagon had rolled up out of sight into the hills.