Longarm looked over at her, saw the lascivious glow in her eyes, and had no doubt what she was talking about. “You don’t have to make anything up to me,” he said gruffly.
“Oh, but I’d like to.”
He recalled what she had said the night before about regarding him as a challenge, and he almost wished he had stood firm about her going with her husband when the group split up. He had no patience for senseless wrangling, though, and that was what the discussion was turning into. With a frown on his face, he turned his attention to the streambed and watched intently for any sign that the Brazos Devil might have left behind.
The river twisted and turned, and Longarm and his companions had just gone around a sharp bend when he spotted something up ahead. “Hold on a minute,” he said to Helene. He motioned to Thorp’s man, Benson. “You and Ghote stay here, Helene, whilst Benson and me take a look at this.”
Benson’s horse kicked up water as he splashed through the shallow river to join Longarm. They rode forward carefully, not wanting to spoil any of the footprints Longarm had seen. As they drew closer to the tracks, Longarm’s pulse sped up. The prints were unmistakable. The Brazos Devil had left the water here and headed toward the western bank.
Longarm reined in with Benson beside him, then leaned over in the saddle to study the tracks more closely. As he did so, he heard those sounds again, the buzz of a giant bee and a sharp whip crack, much closer this time. They were followed closely by a thud and a grunt of pain. Longarm turned his head in time to see Benson tumbling from the saddle.
Longarm didn’t waste any time. He wheeled the Appaloosa and yelled “Go!” at Helene and Ghote. “Get out of here!” He slapped the spurs to his mount, sending the animal leaping ahead.
Another bullet whipped past Longarm as he turned his head to check on Benson. The Rocking T puncher was lying facedown in the muddy water at the edge of the river. The first shot must have killed him instantly, Longarm thought.
Helene and the Hindu servant were looking at him with their mouths open in dumbstruck amazement. Longarm gestured frantically at them. “Ride, damn it, ride!” A third shot rang out, and to his left, the bullet struck the water with a splash.
The shots were coming from the trees along the western bank of the river. Longarm jerked out his Colt and twisted in the saddle to throw a couple of shots in that direction. He didn’t expect to hit anything, but maybe he could distract the bushwhacker. The gunman was using a shorter-range repeater, probably a Winchester or an old Henry rifle, instead of a Sharps or a high-powered British elephant gun. Longarm thought again about Mitch Rainey.
Helene and Ghote had finally gotten it through their heads that they were in danger. Awkwardly, they pulled their horses around and started riding south. The soft, sandy bed of the stream didn’t make for very good galloping, unfortunately. Longarm, who had the Appaloosa under better control, swept up beside them. “Head for the east bank!” he shouted at them, motioning with his free hand as he did so. The east bank of the river was more sparsely wooded than the west side, but there were enough trees there to give them some cover. Longarm thought the ambusher would likely give up on the attack if they could get out of this streambed.
He triggered another shot toward the west bank, even though he knew he was far out of handgun range by now. Water splashed high around the hooves of the horses as Longarm and his two companions veered toward the east bank. Once they left the Brazos, the bank on that side was considerably closer due to the twisting of the channel. Longarm started to think that they might make it.
That was when a giant fist slammed into the side of his head and sent him spinning out of the saddle into a pool deeper and blacker than any in the Brazos River.
Mitch Rainey let out a cackle of triumphant laughter when he saw Longarm fall. He worked the lever of the Winchester he had stolen from a farmhouse downriver that morning. The old man who had been breaking up a field to plant winter wheat had been friendly when Rainey first rode up, passing the time of day with the outlaw and even offering him a smoke. Rainey had accepted gratefully since he no longer had the makin’s himself, and after a deep draw on the quirly, he had slipped Mal Burley’s gun from behind his belt and shot the old fool in the head. He’d left the dead farmer facedown in the field and ransacked the nearby cabin, finding the Winchester, three silver dollars, and some food. Then he had struck out north along the river on the horse he had stolen in Cottonwood Springs.
Setting up the ambush had been dumb luck, but that kind was as good as any, Rainey thought. He had settled down for a short siesta, but voices from the river had awakened him. His heart had pounded in excitement when he peered through the brush along the riverbank and saw Longarm riding along beside the channel with some redheaded woman. A damned nice-looking woman too, Rainey had thought, even though the riders were too far away for him to make out many details. There were a couple of other men with them, a cowboy and a fella with a rag tied around his head. Rainey had never seen his like before, but he wasn’t worried about that. What he wanted to do more than anything else was kill that son of a bitch Custis Long.
He would have gotten Long with the first shot, Rainey knew, if the lawman hadn’t bent over to look at something in the streambed. The bullet had taken down the cowboy instead. That was all right; Rainey figured he’d have to kill all four of them before he was through. He shifted his aim as Longarm and the others fled, feeling a fierce exultation when the marshal spun out of the saddle. Rainey couldn’t tell how badly Long was hit, but he intended to put another bullet or two in the bastard just to make sure he was dead before picking off the lawman’s slower-moving companions.
Rainey lined the sights of the Winchester on Longarm’s still form and took a deep breath, ready to take up the slack on the rifle’s trigger. Before he could do so, however, a deep boom sounded somewhere on the far shore and something slammed into the trunk of the tree Rainey was crouched beside. Splinters stung his face, and he fell to the side, as much from shock and surprise as from pain.
Blinking furiously, he looked up and saw the huge hole that had been gouged from the trunk of the oak. It looked almost like a cannonball had struck it. If the slug had been six inches to the right, his head would be blown to hell now and blood would be spurting from the stump of his neck. From the sound of the shot and the damage the bullet had done, he guessed the rifleman on the opposite bank was using a Sharps buffalo gun.
Scrambling back onto one knee, Rainey lifted the Winchester and searched for some sign of the man with the Sharps. He spotted a wisp of gray powder smoke drifting through the air above some brush. A glance at the riverbed told him that Longarm still hadn’t moved. The woman and the other man were still heading toward the far shore, although the woman looked back anxiously over her shoulder at the fallen lawman. They could wait, Rainey decided. He still had twelve shots left in the Winchester. He would use them to pepper that clump of brush where the man with the Sharps was concealed. He was confident that the son of a bitch hadn’t had time to reload.
Before Rainey could fire, another blast boomed from the eastern bank. Rainey was driven backward, and for one awful moment he was sure he had been hit. He was dead, a fist-sized hole punched through him by the monstrous slug, and his brain just didn’t know it yet. He couldn’t feel anything, especially in his hands and arms.
Then the pain started and he realized he was still alive after all. His arms cramped and spasmed and he gritted his teeth against the agony rippling through them. He looked around and saw the Winchester lying on the ground nearby, its barrel and breech ruined. The shot from the Sharps had struck the rifle, he realized, and once again it was pure dumb luck that the slug had been deflected enough to miss him. It could have just as easily ripped on through him.