A third shot crashed heavily through the air. Rainey knew that one had come too quickly. There had to be two enemies over there, each with a Sharps. Alternating shots as they were, they could throw almost as much lead as a lone gunman with a repeater. With the stolen Winchester now useless, Rainey didn’t need anyone to tell him that the odds had shifted dramatically against him.
The pain in his arms, a result of the impact from the slug striking the weapon he had been holding, was beginning to ease a little. Rainey was able to put a hand down to balance himself as he scrambled to his feet. He turned tail and ran. Only a pure damned fool would go up against a pair of Sharps like that while armed only with a handgun.
More of the heavy slugs ripped through the trees around him as he fled, but none of them found him. His horse was about fifty yards back from the river. Rainey stumbled up to the animal, jerked loose the reins he had looped around a sapling, and vaulted into the saddle. He slammed his heels into the horse’s flanks and gasped, “Let’s get out of here!”
At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that Long was probably dead, he told himself. The federal marshal had certainly fallen like a dead man. Rainey’s furiously thudding pulse settled down a little as he left the river behind. A Sharps rifle had a hell of a range, but those two on the other side of the Brazos would be shooting blind now. He was well out of sight.
He sent the horse up the slope of a small but fairly steep hill. Just before it reached the crest, the horse suddenly shied to one side, then reared up on its hind legs and pawed the air with its front hooves as it whinnied shrilly in fright. Rainey grabbed for the saddlehorn to keep himself in the saddle, and hauled down on the reins with the other hand, sawing cruelly at the animal’s mouth with the bit in an effort to bring it back under control. “Damn it!” he yelled. “Settle down, blast you-“
The horse leaped into the air, utterly terrified and desperate to get away. Rainey felt his grip slipping as his mount twisted frantically. He yelled another curse and kicked his feet free of the stirrups. If the horse bolted, he didn’t want to be dragged behind it. The ground came up to meet him, slamming into his back and knocking the breath from his body.
Gasping for air, Rainey rolled over onto his stomach. He heaved several huge breaths into his lungs and tried to get his hands underneath him so he could push himself up onto his knees. He had to get after that crazy horse and catch it before it went too far. The shadow that loomed over him made him freeze.
Rainey forgot about being out of breath. His body—and time itself—seemed to come to a grinding halt. All he was aware of was the massive shadow … and then the stench, worse than anything he had ever smelled before.
With near-infinite slowness, Mitch Rainey lifted his head so that he could peer up at the thing standing over him. Rainey’s eyes seemed nearly as big around as saucers. And then he began to cry.
Chapter 13
Longarm woke to the crackling of flames and the smell of smoke and wondered if he was in hell. He took a deep breath, even though it pained him, trying to decide if the smoke smelled of brimstone. Nope, he decided, it wasn’t likely he was in Hades. Not unless old Beelzebub was brewing up a pot of Arbuckle’s.
He tried to lift his head, only to have the world start spinning backwards on him. A soft groan came from his mouth as he let his head ease back onto the softness underneath it.
“Better just take it easy, Marshal,” a familiar voice said somewhere above him. “That was quite a knock on the head you took. Good thing your skull’s so danged thick.”
“So … so I’ve been … told,” Longarm rasped. His throat was dry and painful, his voice hoarse.
He felt something at his mouth, opened his lips, and blessed coolness flowed down his throat. His first impulse was to gulp at the water, but whoever was holding the canteen took it away after much too short a moment to suit Longarm. “Not too much,” the woman said again. “You’ll make yourself sick.” He had already figured out that his head was pillowed on a female lap. He pried his eyes open, wincing against the garish light from the campfire, and looked up into the face of Lucy Vermilion. She smiled at him.
“The boy’s awake, is he?” That booming question could have only come from Catamount Jack, Longarm knew. “So he ain’t dead after all.”
“‘Course not,” snorted Lucy. “I told you he’d be all right, Pa. That bullet just grazed him.”
Catamount Jack moved into view, peering down at Longarm with a curious look on his grizzled face. “How you feel, son?” asked the old mountain man.
“I’ve been better,” Longarm replied, his voice clearer now but still a little weak.
“You’ll be all right,” Lucy told him. “I reckon you’ve got what they call an iron constitution.”
Longarm’s constitution felt more like tinfoil right about now. He managed to lift a hand and touched his head, or tried to anyway. All his fingertips found was a thick bandage wound around his skull. He figured he must look sort of like one of those servants.
That thought made him remember what had been happening when he was shot out of the saddle, and he said anxiously, “Lady Beechmuir … is she all right?”
“I’m fine, Marshal,” said Helene Booth’s voice in reply. Her pale face swam into Longarm’s view as she looked down at him in concern. “The question is, how are you?”
Longarm noticed the glance that Lucy Vermilion sent up toward the Englishwoman. It was none too friendly, he judged, and he wondered if Helene had been trying to lord it over the younger woman. He suspected Helene would be biting off more trouble than she realized if she did that.
He answered her question by saying, “I’m all right, ma’am. Lucy, help me sit up.”
“You ought to rest,” Lucy said.
“Marshal Long made a reasonable request,” Helene declared haughtily. “Please assist him.” Her tone made it clear that she considered Lucy just as much a servant as either Ghote or Singh.
Lucy’s mouth tightened, but she did as Lady Beechmuir asked. Another wave of dizziness washed over Longarm as Lucy helped him sit up. Nausea that was even worse than he had experienced after eating that bad steak gripped him for a moment. But it passed quickly, and with Lucy’s strong arms supporting him, he was able to remain sitting up.
He could look around the camp then, and he wasn’t surprised to see Benjamin Thorp, John Booth, and the two servants clustered by the fire. The Rocking T hand who had survived the afternoon, a fella called Randall, was nearby tending to the hobbled horses. Everyone else was looking at Longarm with expectant expressions on their faces, and he realized they were waiting for him to say something.
“Much obliged to all of you for helping me out,” he managed with a nod. “I reckon I can guess what happened.”
“Lucy an’ me come along when some sidewinder was tryin’ to bushwhack you,” said Catamount Jack. “We threw some slugs ‘cross the river and run him off.”
“Had to be Rainey,” Longarm said grimly.
“What about the Brazos Devil?” Thorp asked from the other side of the fire.
Gingerly, Longarm shook his head. The memory of everything that had happened over the past few days had flooded back into his mind by now, and his mental processes were fairly clear as he said, “I haven’t heard any mention of the Brazos Devil ever using a Winchester, have you?”
Thorp inclined his head in acknowledgment of Longarm’s point. He said, “You’re probably right. But if Rainey ran into the Devil before and was so scared he nearly shit his pants—pardon me, ladies—why would he come back into this part of the country?”
“He knew I’d be on his trail,” Longarm said, “and he knows this Brazos River country better than anywhere else. I reckon he figured he could hide out easier here and avoid running into that monster at the same time.” Longarm pointed to the coffeepot sitting in the embers at the edge of the fire. “I could use a cup of that coffee.”