When the sun was blazing into the face of the rocks and the higher sandstone caverns, Longarm decided that he might as well make his move. Yes, it would have been better to have circled around behind for a safer approach, but he knew that Dan would have complained about the extra work for his horses. It would also have been better to make this move at night, but Longarm felt time was too precious. Besides, he was so anxious about finding something, anything related to Jimmy’s disappearance that he was determined not to wait any longer.
Longarm gathered the shotgun in his hands, took a couple of deep breaths, and then rushed forward, eyes riveted on the nearest rocks. No sooner had he jumped forward than a rifle shot boomed from above, and Longarm felt a searing fire across his leg and went tumbling. The shotgun spilled from his grasp and a second rifle bullet ricocheted off the rock beside his face, momentarily blinding Longarm. Knowing it was unlikely that the ambusher would miss again if he didn’t start moving, Longarm rolled sideways as fast as he could until he dropped into a shallow crevasse in the rocks. Still fighting to clear his vision, Longarm dragged out his six-gun and fired blindly upward in the general direction of the ambusher. His bullet was more than matched by the return fire.
“Damn!” Longarm swore, angry at himself for getting into such a bad fix. No one had to tell him that the rifleman above had all the advantages. As if to reinforce the fact, the ambusher resumed firing. He couldn’t quite reach Longarm with a bullet, but it was very close and he might get a ricochet and get lucky.
“Preacher Dan!” Longarm cried, his voice echoing through the boulders. “I need your help!”
There was no answer except for the retort of more rifle bullets.
“Dan, get the rifle and give me some covering fire!” Longarm pleaded, not really expecting that the preacher would do anything more than rattle the ambusher and perhaps give Longarm a chance to escape back down the slope to good cover.
Maybe an hour passed, but it felt more like a day as Longarm recovered his vision and waited for either Dan to come to his aid or the sun to go down so that he could slither off without getting drilled with a rifle slug. Then, suddenly, Longarm heard brush cracking downslope. He twisted around to see Preacher Dan standing with the rifle held loosely in his hands. The fool was just gawking up at the rocks.
“Get down!” Longarm shouted.
His warning was too late. The ambusher shot Dan in the shoulder, spinning him completely around. The only thing that saved Dan’s life was that he fell over backward into brush before the next rifle slug could ventilate his empty head.
Longarm was furious! With the ambusher’s attention momentarily diverted, he hobbled forward, scooping up his shotgun. Three long but limping strides carried him up the slope to cover. When the ambusher realized his mistake and stood up to try to get a better line of fire, Longarm opened up with both barrels of his shotgun.
The range was probably too far, but the shotgun’s shells packed rare force and Longarm actually saw the ambusher lift completely off his feet and then fly backward as if he had been jerked over by an invisible chain. He also saw the mushrooming crimson smear that had been the ambusher’s upper body. No question about it, the son of a bitch was dead.
Longarm glanced down at the crease in his pants. He was bleeding pretty good but knew that he’d suffered no permanent damage. Nothing that a few stitches or even a good bandage job wouldn’t fix. But Preacher Dan was another matter, and Longarm was almost certain that the old man had taken a fatal bullet in the shoulder.
“Dammit, Dan!” he swore, hobbling as fast as he could over to his friend’s side and dragging him out of the bushes so that he could be examined. “What were you thinking when you jumped up there and gave that man a clear target?!”
“I was thinking that, if the Lord was calling, I was ready to go.”
Longarm snorted. What could you do with such a man as this? Dan really didn’t care if he lived or died.
“Well,” Longarm said, “the Lord wasn’t calling because you are still alive.”
“Maybe I’ll get gangrene,” Dan said almost hopefully.
Longarm tore open Dan’s shirt and studied the wound. It was nasty, but the blood wasn’t real bright red as it would have been if Dan had taken a slug through the lung. “Maybe you’ll make it after all,” he said. “Roll over and let me see if the slug passed on through.”
“And if it didn’t?”
“Then,” Longarm said, “I’ll have no choice but to cut it out and that can be pretty rough.”
“I can take it,” Dan gritted.
“I’m sure that you can.”
“Did you kill that fella up above?”
“Blew his murdering head right off his shoulders,” Longarm said with a tight grin. “He won’t be ambushing anyone else—or cutting their throats.”
“Maybe he isn’t the one,” Dan said, looking pale as Longarm eased him over so that he could see that the bullet had not passed completely through the shoulder.
“I’m going to have to dig this bullet out or you’re a goner,” Longarm said. “Either that, or try to get you back to Wickenburg before you get blood poisoning.”
“The doc in Wickenburg is just a tooth puller. You go ahead and do your best. If I die, ain’t no big matter.”
“It is to me,” Longarm said. “I brought you out here, I feel responsible. Besides, you pretty well saved my life.”
Dan had been lying still, breathing hard with his eyes closed. But at Longarm’s words, he managed a smile. “I did?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, then, I don’t feel so bad about that other fella dying. I mean, I guess he deserved it.”
“Yes, he sure did. Now hold still and grit your teeth while I dig this slug out of your back. I think I can see it just under the skin. It almost went through.”
Longarm cut Dan’s flesh just under the shoulder blade. The blood really started to flow, but that wasn’t necessarily bad because it would carry out the infection. Dan didn’t do much other than grunt like a rutting boar while Longarm fished out the rifle slug, then rinsed the wound with his canteen and finally bandaged it tightly.
“Am I going to make it?”
“Of course you are,” Longarm said, taking care of his own leg wound. “But I have to tell you that we are both going to be a little under the weather for a few days.”
“Give us time to rest up and explore these caves,” Dan whispered between clenched teeth. “Maybe find poor Jimmy’s grave.”
“I doubt that they’d have bothered to even bury Jimmy,” Longarm said. “These kind of men aren’t generally so kindly disposed, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess that I do,” Dan said.
“Let’s go on up to the caves,” Longarm suggested. “I’ll bet that there is food and water waiting up there. We can rest up tonight, then tomorrow start poking around.”
“What about our horses?”
“All right,” Longarm said, “I’ll lead them up after the sun goes down. We’ve got grain, water, and hobbles. There’s enough feed up here to keep them going awhile.”
“Okay,” Dan agreed, allowing Longarm to help him to his feet. Dan leaned heavily on him as they slowly made their way up to the caves.
Despite the fact that they were both bleeding and in considerable pain, Longarm made a slight detour so that the preacher did not have to witness the terrible sight of the headless ambusher. If Dan realized that fact, he didn’t say anything. They both collapsed in the first cave they reached, gasping for breath.