That didn’t take long. He spotted tendrils of gun-smoke curling from behind some rocks about halfway up the steeply sloping side of the gulch. The riflemen could have ridden along the top of the ridge, then worked their way unseen through the brush and the trees until they reached the rocks.
Bo told Scratch and Chloride what he had discovered. “Yeah, I see ’em now,” Scratch said. “Sort of long range for a handgun, but we might be able to get a little lead up there.”
“That old cap-and-ball of mine won’t carry that far,” Chloride said. “It’ll blow a big hole through a fella at close range, but it ain’t much good over twenty feet.”
“Scratch, toss one of your Remingtons over to Chloride along with some ammunition,” Bo suggested. “That way the two of you can keep them occupied.”
“What’re you gonna do?” Scratch asked as he looked over at his old friend.
Bo waved a hand toward Deadwood. “I thought I’d work my way downstream through the trees until the trail goes around the next bend. Then I can cross the creek and start back in this direction.”
“Maybe get behind the varmints, eh?” Scratch nodded. “That might work. You know how to work one of these Remingtons, Chloride?”
The old-timer snorted. “There ain’t a gun I can’t fire.”
“Well, just be careful with it,” Scratch said as he gripped one of the revolvers by its long barrel and got ready to toss it over to Chloride. “I’m mighty fond of these hoglegs.”
He made sure the hammer was resting on an empty chamber and sent the gun sailing through the air to land near Chloride’s feet. Chloride scooped it up. Scratch tied a dozen rounds in his bandana and threw them over to the old-timer as well.
When Bo saw that his companions were ready, he said, “Space out your shots to make your bullets last longer. And if you could actually hit one or two of those bushwhackers, that would be good, too.”
“You just tend to your part of the deal,” Scratch said as he drew a bead on the rocks with his remaining gun. “We’ll tend to ours.”
The Remington roared as Scratch squeezed the trigger. A second later, the gun Chloride was using blasted, too.
Bo darted out of cover and ran deeper into the grove of trees. The bushwhackers were still keeping up a steady fire. He heard several bullets thud into the trunks around him.
He didn’t know if they could see what he was doing. If they spotted him, they would be ready for him when he worked his way back on the opposite side of the gulch. His only real chance was to take them by surprise, so he hoped they were just firing blindly into the trees on this side of the creek.
Bo used every bit of cover he could find to conceal what he was doing. He moved swiftly but carefully, and the site of the ambush soon fell behind him. Scratch and Chloride might have been able to slip away like this, too, but the three of them would have been left afoot if they had done that, and if the men who wanted them dead had come looking for them, they would be easy prey.
Besides, Bo wanted to get a look at the bushwhackers. He strongly suspected that the men were members of the Deadwood Devils. If he was lucky, he might even be able to take one of them prisoner.
The sound of the firing diminished somewhat, although the reports still echoed back and forth between the walls of the gulch. The men at some of the mines in the area probably heard the shooting, but if Chloride was right about how spooked everybody was, they probably wouldn’t come to investigate. They would just think the Devils had struck again—and more than likely they would be right.
The trees thinned out before Bo reached the bend in the trail. All he could do now was make a run for it and hope they didn’t notice him. He broke out from cover and ran around the bend. No bullets whistled after him, and he took that as a good sign. After splashing across the creek, he stopped to lean against a slab-like boulder for a second and catch his breath. Not for the first time, he thought that he was getting too old for dust-ups like this.
He recovered quickly and started up the slope. From time to time he had to grab hold of a bush or a narrow tree trunk to help pull himself up. When he judged that he was about on the same level as the bushwhackers, he turned west and began making his way in their direction.
He still heard a lot of rifle shots, but the distinctive booming of Scratch’s Remingtons had slowed. That probably meant Scratch and Chloride were running low on ammunition, Bo thought. He needed to make his move soon.
He was almost in position. The whip cracks of the rifles were close now. Bo drew his Colt and slid forward from tree to rock to tree. He could look across the creek now and see the place where his friends had taken cover.
As he crouched behind one of the pines, he peered around the trunk and saw four men kneeling behind rocks and firing across the stream with their Winchesters. Bo was a little surprised when he saw that all four wore bandanas tied around the lower halves of their faces and had their hats pulled down low. They were taking pains to conceal their identities even now. He had good shots at a couple of them, but the others would be trickier. He had hoped to get the drop on all the ambushers and force them to surrender, but that wasn’t going to be possible.
No shots had come from across the creek for almost a minute now. That meant Scratch and Chloride had run out of bullets—or that they had both been wounded, maybe killed. Thinking about that possibility caused a grim, angry cast to steal over Bo’s weathered face. He took a deep breath, gripped the Colt tightly, and swung out from behind the tree.
He didn’t call out to the men and give them a chance to surrender. Bushwhackers didn’t deserve that sort of consideration. Instead Bo leveled the Colt and fired, squeezing off three quick shots. The first one smashed the arm of the closest rifleman, making him drop his weapon, pitch to the side, and howl in pain as he clutched at the injury. Bo’s second bullet struck a rock and whined off harmlessly. The third one ripped through the body of the other gunman he could see.
The other two masked men wheeled around, thrust their rifles past the rocks they were using as cover, and opened fire on the unexpected new threat. The slugs whipping around his head made Bo duck behind a tree again.
Across the creek, the two Remingtons again began to roar. Scratch and Chloride had been biding their time, waiting for Bo to get in position and launch a counterattack. Now they sent bullets ricocheting into the rocks where the bushwhackers were hidden. As Bo thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he heard one of the men bellow an angry curse, then order, “Let’s grab the others and get out of here!”
Bo didn’t want them to get away. He knelt, leaned out from behind the tree, and sent a couple of rounds whistling past the rocks. A veritable storm of lead lashed back at him as one of the men started cranking off shots as fast as he could work his Winchester’s lever. The barrage forced Bo to hunker down and try to make himself as small a target as possible.
When the shooting stopped a few moments later, he heard men forcing their way through the brush. A quick look told him the two men he had wounded were gone. The one with the busted arm might have been able to get on his feet and flee without any help. One of the other two men must have dragged the more badly wounded hombre away.
Bo knew he could go after them, but he had already pushed his luck considerably by taking on four-to-one odds and he knew that, too. Even though he had wounded two of the men, he couldn’t be sure they were out of the fight. And even if they were, that would still leave him facing two would-be killers.
It chafed him to let them get away, but right now, that might be the smartest thing to do. Sure enough, a few minutes later he heard the rattle of hoofbeats from somewhere higher on the ridge. It sounded like four horses were hurrying off into the distance.