Hell's Gate (Ben Blue Book 8) Page 15

  “Why did they stop?”

  “They’re waiting for the others to get into position. When they start moving around, the others will be ready to attack from behind or above. We’ve got to keep an eye on everything above us and around us… and them.” I motioned the three out in the open.

  “Marshal, I have to tell you, I’m not much of a shot… I’m sure I can’t hit anything with this rifle.”

  “Once they go to the ground, they’ll be hard for anyone to hit ‘em… They’ll come a little closer, and then they’ll leave their horses and creep up from bush to bush and even from bunches to grass. They can pop up, make a short run and go down again, but they won’t come up where they went down…. If you can’t hit any, at least you can make a lot of noise.”

  We waited and sweated while those three sat their horses, after what seemed to be an hour, but I was sure it was much less, they moved forward at a walk. As they were moving in, I was scanning the rocks and ledges above and behind us. I was on one side of the entrance and Barlow was on the other.

  I was keeping an eye on the three riders, the rocks above Barlow, and those above me. I couldn’t depend on Barlow to watch my back. He might want to, but the only things he watched were out in the open and mounted.

  They kept coming closer and closer and very slowly. I was tempted to take a shot, but I wanted them to come as close as they would. One man was slightly ahead of the others who were on either side of him but close by. I raised my rifle and sighted on the leader’s chest. But a flicker of movement in the rocks above Barlow caught my attention, and I swung around in time to see a brown head and chest being readied to spring over the rocks. I got meat, but I didn’t know how much. I was too busy turning and looking up expecting another jumper on my side… I saw nothing.

  As fast as I could, I returned to the three in the open. The man in the center was leading two riderless horses away from the battle. The two men were on the ground. That was bad enough, but I didn’t see where they went down, and there was another man behind, above me, or even in the rocks just outside the entrance. He wouldn’t be seen unless he moved.

  The best I could do was watch for those outside our front door and listen for that one who was already in the house. One man was moving a hundred and fifty yards out. But he was three feet away from where he went down, and I had been covering three feet in the other direction. By the time I re-aimed, he was gone.

  I took a quick look over my shoulder and above… still nothing. So I refocused on the open landscape. The grass grew in bunches and there were low growing mesquite and yucca. Nothing grew thick anywhere but the over lapping of one to another meant the men on the ground were covered almost at all times, except when they moved up. From the saddle, it looked all mighty sparse, but hunched down at ground level, it was good cover.

  The other man moved, and again I wasn’t ready for him. So I shot twice into the area just below where he had landed. I heard a stifled yelp and a muffled cry. I got more meat, but I couldn’t count the scalp. If I slowed him down that would be a big help. Another quick look above and behind me showed nothing, so I took a quick look above Barlow’s position. The brave I’d shot had fallen on the jagged rocks with an arm hanging over. So I’d gotten more than just a hit… It moved.

  Hoping that Barlow was watching the desert, I let my eyes linger on that arm. It was being pulled back over the rocks. Then a hand reached up and lifted it at the elbow. I took a snap shot, but I was a little low and sent rock fragments flying. At least I knew where the other man was.

  Turning my attention back to the open ground, I saw nothing moving. Then I saw the one who had taken the horses coming back with them. He was hanging low along the far side of the horse’s neck. The other two ponies were in tow right behind him. He must have been the one I’d shot a few days back. He wasn’t in good shape for a fight but he could help with the horses.

  The ponies swooped down and one man helped a bloody one up, and then he took off running between the horses and their riders, so I couldn’t get a shot at him. He finally swung aboard and they all melted into the distance. I watched until they disappeared into the wash. They weren’t coming back.

  I turned to face Barlow and exhaled. He was still pressed against the rocks on the other side of the mouth of the cove. There was a smile of relief on his face… He didn’t say a thing.

  “Well, Fielding, it looks like they didn’t want our scalps after all.”

  I turned and looked toward the wash and saw five ponies emerged from it. Three looked to be ridden by upright riders, but with two it was hard to tell. I didn’t much care how they were leaving as long as they left.

  “I hate to tell you this, Barlow,” I said as I turned back to face him, “but the one who was minding the horses was wearing your pa’s frock coat.”

  He blinked a few times trying to digest what that information meant to him. Then it registered and he said, “Oh… you mean they caught up with him?”

  “Chances are, they found him and back tracked him to our trail.”

  “That would be just like Father. One more thing he couldn’t get right… One more thing I had to fix for him… Do you think he suffered?”

  “Hard to tell.” I told him. “Chances are he was already dead when they came on him… The coat didn’t seem too bad a shape, which is a good sign.” I didn’t tell him they would have mutilated the body either way.

  He had walked about halfway across the opening and stopped as if he had just remembered something.

  “Oh, I suppose you’ll be wanting this back.” as he went to his waist band and lifted the pistol free, and extended it butt forward in my direction.”

  I started forward to take it from him, and then with as smooth a move as I’ve ever seen shifted it into action. He stood there grinning with that Smith and Wesson Lightening pointed in my direction.

  He just stood for a second or two as his demented smile got wider. The Lightening was a small gun made popular by Billy Bonnie. It used a short .32 cartridge. It didn’t have a lot of stopping power, but it was a single action and could spit lead as fast as a man could pull the trigger.

  “I was kinda hoping the old man had suffered…the worthless old reprobate. The only worthwhile thing he ever did in his life was to sire me… It was my scheme that made us rich in Chicago. Then he ruined it all by bragging to a two dollar whore.”

  “You’d have never caught on to what was happening there in that two bit town, if I’d have been the one who picked the messenger… But no, he had to go and recruit that moron Cooter Singleton…. I’d have gotten a smarter go between, but he thought Cooter was too stupid to know what was going on… and now look where we are.”

  “Oh… yeah… look where we are.” Then he broke into a forced high pitched laugh. “I’m about to shoot a US Deputy Marshal and make them think the Injuns did it. By the time they get it all figured out, I’ll be in San Francisco… and they’ll all think I was carried off by those same Injuns.”

  “Any last words…. Deputy?”

  I was sure that question was meant to put me in my place as a Deputy and not a Marshal, but that didn’t mean much to me.

  “Just that, I hope for your sake you’re better with that little gun than you were with a rifle… because you pull down when you shoot. All your shots were way low… and you need to know that little pistol doesn’t carry much punch, so you’re gonna need to get a lot of lead into a big man like me.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” He said as he raised the weapon and aimed at my head to allow for the downward pull.

  We were no more than fifteen feet apart, and he had a mighty quick pistol in his hand… I needed an edge, so I raised my left hand, pointed my finger at him and said, “You also nee…” and went for my gun. Bang, Bang… and Bang. Was what I heard.

  Two bullets went over my head and into the rocks sending fragments and dust particles showering down on me. The bigger slug found a place in his gut. The impact had knocked him off his feet and he
lay spread eagle on the ground partially in the muddy fringe of the waterhole.

  “I did my best to keep you alive, but you wouldn’t have it. You never know what a jury will do.”

  “That was a dirty trick… you cheated.”

  “It’s not a game, Barlow. When a man’s ready to kill… he better be ready to die… and just for the record, you don’t pull down, when you shoot, you jerk up…. but you were quick.”

  Taking a look at the wound, only told me that there was no fixing him, so I made him comfortable and built up the fire. I’d need some coffee before I could bury him. As it turned out, he lingered till nearly sun down. He didn’t go easy. He felt every breath he drew and every movement he made.

  I was getting ready to drag him out into the open and pile some rocks on his body, when a call came from the dusky gloom.

  “Hello… the Fire…Would that be you there, Squire?”

  “Come on in, Mike…. Anybody with you?”

  “Just this son of the old sod, and a big city Deputy Marshal.”

  “You mean the good lookin’ Marshal?” I called back.

  “Shore’n it would be a mystery to meself, as I didn’t ken there was such a thing.”

  The End

  About the Author

  It might be said that Lou Bradshaw is a late bloomer, but in reality, he has been a story teller his entire life. Lou was making things up from the time he was old enough to put two words together and form a simple sentence. To tell someone of a happening was not just a statement of fact. It became an adventure in embellishment and hyperbole. He just didn’t start writing things down until he was in his mid sixties.

  According to him, all he ever wanted to be was cowboy, but in the small town where he lived there weren’t any cowboy jobs to be had. And when he married the lovely Avon Thomas, she really didn’t want to live in a bunkhouse. So he turned to his second career choice, that being a commercial illustrator. After years in the graphic arts industry, he worked himself into management positions. Deadlines, employee relations, budgets, and many other problems meant sleepless nights. He found that creating stories in his head helped him fall asleep. Soon, those stories became so complex and expansive; he had to write them down…. The rest is history.

  When asked why he hadn’t started sooner he replied, “Nobody ever told me I could write… Then I realized that nobody ever told me… I couldn’t.”

  “Life is much too important to be taken seriously.”…lb