Sam kept his head down as one of the rustlers shouted, “Where the hell did he go?”
“He’s in amongst the cattle!” one of the other men answered. “Spread out! We’ll circle them!”
Sam couldn’t afford to let that happen. He yanked his hat off his head and slashed right and left with it, swatting the rumps of several cows. At the same time he fired his Winchester one-handed into the air and let out a howl like a panther.
The cattle reacted as he hoped they would. The normally stolid beasts around him spooked at the racket and at being swatted, and in a herd of cattle, when one cow panicked, they all panicked.
The herd surged away from the pool in a full-on stampede, straight at the rustlers.
Even over the pounding of hooves, Sam heard the frightened yells that came from the three men as they tried to get out of the way.
He had his own scrambling to do, since he was in the midst of the cattle when they began to run. He leaped from side to side to avoid the lumbering beasts, but he was still pummeled.
If he fell, he would never get up again. The cattle would trample him to death. Sam knew that. He dropped his rifle, willing to lose the Winchester if it would save his life, and used both hands to grab the horns of a steer charging past him. The steel-spring muscles in his legs vaulted him onto the animal’s back.
Sam hung on for dear life.
With his legs clamped around the steer’s neck, Sam used his grip on the horns to twist the beast’s head. That forced it toward the edge of the stampeding herd.
He had lost track of the three rustlers, but he had more pressing worries at the moment. The steer began to buck.
Sam had heard that down in Texas, cowboys had started to have what they called rodeos, competitions that centered around ranch work. One of them was bull-riding, or so he had been told.
This was a steer, not a bull, but the ride was a thrilling and dangerous one anyway. Sam thought a couple of times that the steer was going to throw him off, but he managed to stay on until the animal reached the edge of the herd.
He let go of the horns and piled off, leaping desperately to put as much distance between himself and the stampede as possible. When he hit the ground, he rolled away fast and came up running.
Dust choked him, but at least none of the cattle ran over him. When he looked back, he saw that he was clear.
Now he could start looking for the rustlers again, he thought as he blinked grit out of his eyes and drew the Colt that had stayed thronged down in its holster.
The thing about a stampede on top of a mesa was that the cattle didn’t have very far they could go. When the leaders reached the edge, they began to turn, and the herd started to mill. Sam ran around the confusion, searching for the three men.
The first one he found wouldn’t ever steal any more cows. The man hadn’t been able to get out of the way, and the thundering hooves had pounded him into a gory mess that barely resembled anything human.
The second man had been more fortunate, but not much. Both of his legs were broken. His groans of agony led Sam to him.
But just like a broken-backed rattlesnake can still bite, this crippled rustler was dangerous. When he spotted Sam, he heaved himself up with one hand and lifted a revolver with the other. Flame geysered from the muzzle.
Sam flung himself aside and returned the fire. He didn’t have time for anything fancy. The rustler’s head snapped back as a red-rimmed hole appeared in his forehead and Sam’s bullet drilled into his brain.
Sam grimaced. He wanted to take at least one of the men alive so they could question him. Now that might not be possible.
He swung around looking for the third man, and as he did, the scrape of boot leather on rock warned him.
But not in time for him to get out of the way. The last rustler slammed into him from behind, driving him off his feet.
Sam went down with the man on his back. The rustler must have lost his gun in the chaos of the stampede, otherwise he would have just shot Sam. Instead he looped an arm around Sam’s throat from behind and started trying to choke the life out of him.
Sam tried to buck the rustler off, just as the steer had bucked under him. The rustler clung with the same tenacity Sam had, though.
Heaving himself up on hands and knees, Sam rolled, thinking that maybe he could break the man’s grip that way.
Instead the arm across his throat just pressed harder, cutting off his air as effectively as if it had been an iron bar.
Sam still had his gun. He struck behind him with it in an attempt to knock his attacker unconscious.
The rustler ducked his head and pressed his face into the back of Sam’s neck.
“I’m gonna kill you, redskin!”
Sam heard the harsh whisper, although it sounded muffled because of the roar of blood in his ears. His vision was beginning to blur as a red haze dropped over his eyes.
He had no choice.
He pushed the Colt’s barrel against the man’s leg and pulled the trigger.
The rustler screamed in his ear and let go of him. Sam arched his back, throwing the man to the side. He rolled away and came up in a crouch, holding the Colt ready to fire again if he needed to.
But all the fight had already gone out of the rustler, along with a great deal of blood. As the man screamed again, a crimson fountain shot into the air from the wound in his thigh. He pawed at it, but the blood just ran between his fingers like a river.
Sam knew his bullet had torn an artery. He had intended just to inflict a flesh wound, something to make the rustler let go, but now he saw that the man had only moments to live unless that bleeding could be stopped.
Sam leaped forward and slammed the Colt against the rustler’s head, knocking the man out. There was no time to waste in struggling with him.
He dropped the gun and pulled the man’s belt off, then wrapped it around the thigh as high as he could above the wound and pulled it tight. Slipping the Colt’s barrel into a loop he fashioned in the belt, he began twisting it.
As the belt tightened and cut into the flesh of the rustler’s leg, the gush of blood slowed. Sam used both hands to twist the Colt and draw the makeshift tourniquet even tighter. The blood stopped.
A grotesque rattle came from the man’s throat.
“Blast it, no!” Sam burst out. He held the belt tight with one hand on the gun and used the other hand to feel for a heartbeat. The rustler’s eyes were open and staring, and the muscles of his face were slack.
After a minute, Sam had to admit to himself that he wasn’t going to find a heartbeat. The fourth and final rustler on top of this mesa was dead.
Sam had just heaved a sigh of disgust when he heard a man’s voice call his name. He turned his head to look and saw Stovepipe Stewart running toward him, followed by Wilbur Coleman and John Henry Boyd.
“Sam, you all right?” Stovepipe asked as he pounded up. “Lord, that’s a lot of blood!”
“It’s all his,” Sam said. He released the tourniquet and pulled his gun loose from the dead man’s belt. “I was trying to wing him, but I nicked an artery instead.”
“I’ll say you did,” Wilbur put in. “Looks like he bled practically a whole lake.”
Weariness gripped Sam as he got to his feet.
“What about the rest of you?” he asked. “Was anybody hurt?”
“One of my riders, Ben Conroy, was killed,” Boyd said grimly. “Couple men got creased, but that’s all.” He looked around the mesa. “Any more of the varmints up here?”
“None breathing,” Sam told him. “There were four men with the cattle.”
“This is just about the craziest thing I ever saw,” Boyd went on. “Who’d be loco enough to drive cattle up a narrow little trail like that to the top of a mesa?”
“Somebody who knew the chances of you findin’ ’em would be mighty small,” Stovepipe said. “If it wasn’t for Sam’s eyes, likely we never would’ve spotted the way up here.”