Reese Bardwell’s horse suddenly went out from under him as a bullet struck it. The big engineer was thrown clear, slamming to the ground and rolling over several times as he landed. His rifle had flown out of his hands when he fell.
Reese came up within arm’s reach of one of the outlaws. The man fired at him at such close range that it seemed impossible for him to miss. Reese kept coming, though, swinging one of his huge fists in a sweeping blow with so much power behind it that when the punch smashed into the outlaw’s jaw, he was lifted clean off his feet and thrown backward. He sprawled on the ground, limp and motionless, either dead or out so cold that he was no longer a threat.
Bo was watching as Reese Bardwell started to turn around. He saw the black-bearded figure leap out from behind one of the rocks and line his gunsights on Reese. Tom Bardwell might have hesitated for just a split second when he recognized his brother, but then the gun in his hand roared and spouted flame and smoke anyway. Bo fired at the same instant and saw Tom Bardwell jerk under the impact of the slug that drove into his chest. Bardwell stumbled back a step and fell to his knees.
Reese was still on his feet, holding a hand to his side now. Bo saw crimson welling between the engineer’s fingers. Reese took a step toward his wounded brother. Tom Bardwell, his face a twisted mask of hate, struggled to lift his gun and shoot his brother again, but his strength suddenly deserted him. The revolver slipped from his fingers and thudded to the ground. Bardwell followed it, flopping face-first.
Reese turned and looked at Bo for a second. Then he gave the Texan a curt nod of thanks.
The shooting was over. The rest of the posse dismounted, and Sheriff Manning moved quickly to check the bodies of the outlaws who lay sprawled here and there on Wolf Head Rock.
While Manning was doing that, Bo stepped over to a groggy Martha Sutton, who was shaking her head as she struggled to get to her feet.
Sue Beth Pendleton was gone.
Bo took Martha’s arm and helped her stand up. “Are you all right?” he asked her. He didn’t see any blood on her, but a bruise was already starting to show on her jaw.
“Yes, I . . . I’m fine,” she said. “Mrs. Pendleton walloped me pretty good, but I—” She stopped short and looked around. “Where did she go?”
“She must have slipped off during the ruckus,” Bo said. He saw that the revolver Sue Beth had had hidden somewhere in her clothes still lay on the ground where he had kicked it. He picked it up and tucked it behind his belt while he looked around for her.
“Bo!”
The shout from above made him look up. Scratch stood on the ledge with Chloride. He called down, “Are you all right, Bo?”
Bo was waving to indicate that he wasn’t hurt when hoofbeats suddenly sounded close by. Martha cried out a warning. Bo jerked around and then leaped aside as one of the horses belonging to the Devils loomed up, practically on top of him. He caught a glimpse of Sue Beth riding the unsaddled animal as he threw himself out of the way just in time to avoid being trampled. He pushed himself to his knees as she galloped toward the path leading down to the main trail.
Before she could reach it, Andrew Keefer leaped in her way, yelling and waving his arms. The horse veered away from the stocky mine superintendent. Then Henry Manning shouted, “Mrs. Pendleton, wait!” He tried to grab the bridle Sue Beth had slipped onto the horse, but she frantically jerked the animal away from him.
The horse was already spooked from all the gunfire and powder smoke. Neighing shrilly, it reared up and danced backward. Out onto Wolf Head Rock it went, plunging and bucking, and Sue Beth screamed as she fought to bring the horse under control. That scream turned into a shriek of terror as hooves slipped on snow-covered rock and the horse’s legs skidded out from under it. Bo and everyone else watched in horror as the horse slid off the edge, taking Sue Beth with it.
“My God,” Martha said in a shocked, hollow voice. A big hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned to find herself standing next to Reese Bardwell. She buried her face against his massive chest as a shudder went through her.
A few yards away, Phillip Ramsey stood with his right hand clutching his bloodstained upper left arm. He glared at Reese and Martha and then shook his head. The young bookkeeper wasn’t hurt too bad, Bo thought . . . at least not physically.
He left Reese Bardwell comforting Martha while Ramsey looked on in disgust. Bo had spotted Olaf Gustaffson sitting propped up against a rock, and now he hurried toward the sergeant.
“How are you, Olaf?” Bo asked as he knelt beside the non-com.
“I think I’ll live,” Gustaffson replied. “A bullet got me in the side and knocked out a chunk of meat, but it went on through and didn’t hit anything too important, I hope.” He looked toward the protruding rock where Sue Beth and the horse had fallen. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Pendleton. What a tragedy.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Bo said.
By evening, everyone was back in Deadwood except the troopers who had been left to guard the loot at the Devils’ hideout. The next day, Chloride and several other drivers would take wagons up there to retrieve the gold and bring it back to town, where somebody would have to sort out which part of it belonged to who. Bo was glad he wasn’t going to have anything to do with that job.
Reese Bardwell, Ramsey, and Gustaffson had had their wounds patched up by one of the local doctors, and they were all expected to make a full recovery. Sue Beth Pendleton’s broken body was down at the undertaker’s, along with the bodies of the outlaws. John Tadrack was going to be busy for a while.
It didn’t seem right that those varmints would be laid to rest properly while Lieutenant Holbrook and the other soldiers killed in the avalanche would probably sleep for eternity under those tons of rock . . . but that was the way of the world, Bo knew. Justice was a relative thing, and often incomplete.
The Texans and Chloride were striding along the boardwalk when the door of the Argosy Mining Company opened and Lawrence Nicholson stepped out in front of them. The mine owner smiled and said, “Good evening, gentlemen. I’ve been hoping you’d come along so I could have a word with you.”
“What do you want?” Chloride asked, not bothering to be overly polite about it.
“Why, I’d like to offer you your job back, Mr. Coleman,” Nicholson said. He looked at Bo and Scratch. “And I’d like for the two of you to work for me as well.”
Scratch shook his head. “We’re a mite too old to swing a pickax.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find something better than that for you. I’m sure I’ll need some good men to guard our gold shipments.”
Bo said, “You shouldn’t have any more trouble. All the Deadwood Devils are either dead or behind bars in Sheriff Manning’s jail.”
“The Deadwood Devils aren’t the only bandits in the world, you know,” Nicholson said. “I’m sure there’ll be more trouble in the future.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll have to find somebody else to handle it,” Scratch said. “We’re makin’ a run for Mexico, soon as the snow melts.”
Nicholson sighed. “I can’t persuade you to change your minds?”
Bo shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“That is too bad. I can’t get you to work for me, and I’m going to be losing my chief engineer and superintendent, too. Possibly even my bookkeeper.”
“How do you figure that?” Bo asked with a frown.
“Now that Marty Sutton knows how Reese and Phillip feel about her, I fully expect both of them to resign from the Argosy and go to work for the Golden Queen, so they can continue their rivalry for her affections.”
“Now that could cause some problems,” Bo said.
“But somebody else’ll have to handle that fracas, too,” Scratch added.