"I was just remembering another gent who helped me get my son back the first time I went after him." He gazed at a window for a moment. "I wonder what's keeping your pa."
--------
*Twenty-four*
Coy Cline was riding his horse up a snow-laden slope when he heard the crack of a rifle. Something struck his breastbone with tremendous force.
"Shit!" he shouted as his sorrel gelding bounded out from under him.
"What the hell was that?" Bud Warren cried.
"A bullet, you damn idiot!" Buster Pate replied, reining his bay into the trees.
Another gunshot rang out from a ridge above the rim of the valley.
"Son of a..." Bud bellowed, gripping his belly as a piece of hot metal passed through him, exiting next to his spine. He threw his pistol into the snow to hold onto the saddle horn with both hands.
"I'm shot!" Coy shrieked, toppling out of the saddle into a snowdrift.
Buster jumped off his horse. A sharpshooter from above was taking potshots at them in the dark.
"Help me, Buster!" Bud called from a dark place between two lines of trees.
Buster didn't answer him. Only a fool would give his position away in the dark.
Coy began to moan somewhere in the inky blackness. "You gotta help me," he sobbed.
"Screw 'em," Buster muttered. The shots had come from more than two hundred yards away. It would take a hell of a marksman to make that kind of shot at night, and a very large-bore rifle to boot.
"Morgan," he whispered, gripping the stock of his rifle with gloved hands.
He'd been sure they were following Frank Morgan's trail of blood out of the valley, but now he wasn't so sure. Who the hell was shooting at them?
"You gotta help me," Coy cried again. "I'm shot through the gut. I'm bleedin' real bad."
From another spot in the pine woods, Bud began coughing until his throat was clear. "Jesus."
Bud slid off his horse next to a pine trunk. He landed with a thud and groaned softly as his gelding galloped away to escape the bang of guns.
"I'm dyin' over here," Bud croaked. "You boys gotta help me."
Buster was only thinking of surviving the sharpshooter himself. He lay still for a moment.
"Where are you at, Buster?" Coy wondered, the pain in his voice garbling his words.
Buster wasn't about to answer him and make a target of himself.
The boom of a rifle came from above.
"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Coy screamed, flipping over on his back.
It was proof that Buster had been wise to remain silent until he knew where the rifleman was.
"Please help me," Bud called. "I can't move my damn legs no more."
Buster wanted to make sure his legs would move as he made his way back down the slope. He said nothing, closing his ears to Bud's cries.
He could hear Coy strangling on blood. Under better circumstances he would have offered his old partner some assistance, but not now. He knew with certainty that his life was at stake now.
"Where're you at, Buster?" Bud shouted. "You gotta come help me."
Buster hunkered down to wait. Bud Warren was nothing but a hired killer in the first place, and someone at the top of the valley was giving him his just due, a payback he had coming after years as a gunman.
"If only we hadn't followed the smell of that damn smoke," Buster said softly.
"I'm dyin'," Coy choked. "Send my share of the money to my ma back in Texas."
Buster grinned, although there was little real humor behind it. No one in Ned Pine's bunch would send a share of the money anywhere ... if they got their hands on the money at all. It was beginning to look like the ransom money for Conrad Browning was going to be hard to collect.
"Morgan may be as tough as they say he used to be," Buster muttered. "He's damn sure a hard sumbitch to kill, if you ask me."
Buster went looking for his horse. Ned and Victor had to be told what had happened while they were following Frank Morgan's blood trail.
* * * *
Ned glared at Buster. "What the hell do you mean, he got all of you?" Ned demanded.
"He got Coy an' Bud. Shot 'em right off the backs of their horses. I made it down the slope, but I was dodgin' lead the whole time."
"In the dark?"
"Dark as pitch, Boss."
"I thought you told me Morgan was wounded ... that you found blood."
"We did. He's got somebody with him. Don't know who the hell was doin' the shootin', but he can damn sure hit what he aims at."
Victor Vanbergen was standing at a window. "That bastard," he snapped.
Cletus Huling strode over to the fire to get more beans from the pot. "I'll handle Morgan," he said, "If you raise my share to fifteen thousand."
"You're too goddamn greedy," Victor said. "You agreed to ten thousand."
Cletus grunted. "It don't appear any of us is gonna collect a damn dime unless we find Morgan, an' even then we ain't sure he's got the money."
"He wants this boy," Ned said, turning to Conrad for a moment.
Cletus gave Ned a steely stare. "After all I've been through gettin' this kid up here, I'd better get the money you promised me in that telegram, Ned. If I don't, I'm gonna kill you an' Victor an' every other gunslick you've got left, if you have any left after Morgan gets through with you. He's killin' off your boys faster'n you can keep track of the number, an' that ain't no joke."
"You can't talk to me like that, Cletus," Ned said, his eyebrows furrowing.
"Like hell I can't," Cletus replied. "I've killed better men than any of you. I'll kill every sumbitch in this valley unless I get my money."
"There's seven of us," Victor said from his spot by the window. "You'll never get us all."
"Time'll tell," Cletus remarked, his right hand near his pistol. "If I get the money you promised me, there won't be no trouble."
Victor's eyes strayed to Ned's. They both knew how dangerous Cletus could be, one reason they'd contacted him to capture the Browning boy.
"Take it easy, Cletus," Ned said. "No call to get so riled up."
"Just so long as I get my damn money," Cletus told him as he took a spoonful of beans and shoveled them into his mouth. "That's the only reason I'm here," he added, chewing without taking his eyes from either Ned or Victor, his back to the wall beside the hearth.
Ned looked at Buster. "Are you sure Coy an' Bud are dead?" he asked.
"Same as dead," Buster answered. "Coy couldn't hardly talk an' Bud was cryin' like a sugar-tit baby. I damn sure wasn't gonna look for 'em with Morgan shootin' down on us the way he did just now."
"What makes you so sure it was Morgan?" Victor asked, an eye still on Cletus as he walked over to the fire to warm his back and his hands.
"I ain't," Buster replied. "Only whoever it was could damn sure shoot in the dark."
"Morgan brought somebody with him this time," Ned told the others.
"Sounds like it," Cletus agreed. "A wounded feller ain't gonna have the best aim. You said you found blood in the snow, an' two sets of footprints."
"We did," Buster agreed.
"Reckon one of them Injuns I saw when we rode in is helpin' him?"
"Them Injuns don't help nobody. We hardly ever see 'em around here," Ned said. "They ain't never come down an' talked to us."