Jumping down from the saddle, he wrapped the dun’s reins around the saddle horn and slapped its rump, sending it back down the steep path toward the trail. He reached down and jerked the knife from his boot well.
Ten yards to his right, slightly above him among a stand of rock, he saw gray looming smoke and heard steady rifle fire raining down on the soldiers below.
A good place to start, he told himself.
Shoving the knife down behind his belt, he stepped over onto a foothold in the rocky hillside and climbed hand over hand until he reached the edge of a cliff. He rolled onto his hands and knees on a narrow ledge and stopped for a moment to look around quickly.
Twelve feet away, at the far end of the ledge, he saw Lyle Myers staring down his rifle barrel, firing round after round, the rifle bucking repeatedly in his hands.
Rochenbach snatched the knife from his waist and sprang forward, coming up off all fours like a mountain cat. Myers saw his attacker coming from the corner of his eye. He swung his rifle around to meet him, but he was too late. Rock blocked the rifle with his forearm as he brought the steel point of the blade up between Meyers’ ribs and buried it in his heart.
Myers’ rifle fell from his hands at Rock’s feet. He rose onto his toes as if to get away from the sharp bite of the blade, but there was no escaping it. His mouth and eyes opened wide. Rochenbach’s arm slipped around his shoulders and embraced him like an old friend. He held Myers in place until the weight of him fell forward, lifeless against him.
Jerking the blade from Myers’ chest as he fell, Rock stepped back and to the side. Then he wiped the blade across the dead man’s back and quickly picked up the smoking rifle. He checked it and looked farther along the ridgeline as he slipped a big, bone-handled Colt from Myers’ hip and stuck it into his empty belly holster.
Standing in a crouch, he picked up a bandoleer of ammunition and slung it over his shoulder. Below him the fighting raged. Along the ridgeline stretched out before him, he saw two separate clouds of looming gray smoke. He heard the endless explosions of gunfire.
“One down, two to go,” he murmured to himself.
He climbed a steep footpath to the spot where Lyle Myers’ horse stood hitched to a scrub juniper. He snatched the horse’s reins free and slipped up into the saddle. Rifle in hand, he booted the blaze-faced chestnut out along the rocky ridgeline.
When he got to the next gunman’s position, he saw the man’s horse reined to a stand of rocks. While the gunman stood looking down over the edge of the trail, his full attention focused on firing madly down at the soldiers, Rock slipped from his saddle and reined the chestnut next to the other animal. As the two horses nosed each other’s muzzles, Rock slipped over to the edge in a crouch and stared at the gunman from twenty feet.
As if suddenly realizing someone was watching him from behind, Frank Penta turned around, smoking rifle in hand, and looked at Rochenbach through a haze of gun smoke. Seeing that Rockenbach had him cold, the rifle in Rock’s hands pointed, aimed and cocked at him, Penta gave him a strange, tight grin.
“Some fight, huh, Rock?” he called out above the roar of gunfire, sounding as if the two of them had been close friends.
“Yes, it is,” Rock agreed. His right eye fixed down the rifle sights, he squeezed the trigger. Penta dropped his rifle and clasped his chest with both hands as he staggered backward. He caught himself at the edge of the cliff for just a second. Then he fell off the cliff and bounced down the steep, rocky hillside.
Rochenbach looked toward the next looming cloud of smoke thirty yards away. He levered a fresh round into his rifle chamber and walked back to the horses. Before stepping into the saddle, he dropped the saddle and bridle from Penta’s horse and slapped its rump. As the horse bolted away, the chestnut tugged at its hitched reins, trying to run alongside the freed animal.
“Not you,” Rock said to the chestnut. “Not yet anyway.”
Looking along the ridgeline, he heard one shot fire at the trail below. Then he saw Dent Spiller scramble over the edge of the cliff and run to his waiting horse. The gunman grabbed his horse’s reins, jumped into his saddle and raced away, not giving Rochenbach so much as a glance.
Rock raised his rifle to take aim, but Spiller disappeared over a rise on the hilltop and thundered down the trail. Lowering his rifle, Rock turned and stepped up into his saddle. Noting that the firing below had waned over the past few minutes, he gave the chestnut a tap of his boots and rode away.
Realizing they’d been caught in a trap, Grolin and Swank leaped atop their horses and fled the trail as soon as the rifle fire from their men above the trail came to a stop. As they beat a hasty retreat around the turn in the trail, Swank looked at the reins to Bobby Kane’s horse in Grolin’s hand, Kane riding along close behind him.
“Why are you keeping that idiot alive?” Swank shouted at him.
But Grolin didn’t answer. He kept his head down and rode hard toward Dunbar.
Silas Dooley and the Dog fought on fiercely for a few minutes longer, until they saw Dent Spiller ride down a thin path and across the trail twenty yards away and keep on riding.
“What the hell was that?” Dooley cried out as shots still whistled past them.
“That was the last of our rifle cover running out on us!” said the Dog.
“Damn it!” said Dooley. He looked down the trail toward the empty wagon, then back to the Dog as two more bullets sliced past them. “What the hell are we waiting for?”
“Beats me,” said Lou. “I’ve been ready.” He turned and ran in a crouch in the same direction their spooked horses had taken toward the turn in the trail.
“That bastard Swank!” said Dooley, running right beside him. “He led us right into this—made it sound easy, talking about taking the gold away from Grolin and his men!”
“He shoulda hit a little harder on what we’d have to do to get it from these fellows first!” shouted Lou.
The two continued running away even as the firing slowed to a stop behind them.
Chapter 26
Rochenbach caught sight of the two fleeing gunmen as he rode from the ridgeline back down onto the trail. But he didn’t have time to raise his rifle and fire at them before they’d disappeared out of sight around the turn to where their horses stood beside the trail. Instead, he booted the chestnut on to where his big dun stood at the foot of the path he’d sent it running down.
“Glad to see you made it,” he said to the waiting horse.
He picked up the reins from around the dun’s saddle horn and had started to lead the animal away when he saw Trooper Lukens spring out of the brush on the other side of the trail with a rifle pointed at him.
“All right, Smith, drop the gun! Drop it now!” the young soldier said, his voice sounding nervous and uncertain. He stood pale-faced and covered with fresh blood. But upon closer look, Rochenbach saw no signs of a wound on him.
“Do you hear me, Smith?” the trooper said. “Drop that rifle before I shoot!”
Rochenbach ignored his order and let out a breath.
“Where’s the captain, Trooper?” he asked, seeing the young soldier squeeze his hand tight around his saddle carbine.
Lukens’ strong demeanor appeared to almost melt at the mention of the captain. His face took on a worried look.
“He’s—he’s down off the side of the trail with the horses,” he said. “He’s been shot bad.”
Oh no.…
Rochenbach winced and swung down from his saddle and led both horses toward the edge of the trail.