The Fetchens had us bunched for the kill. They were good mountain fighters, and they had herded us right into a corner. Maybe we could ride up Medano Creek and get clean away, but it looked too inviting to me. It would be a death trap if they waited for us up there where the cliffs grew high.
If we got out of this alive we'd have to be lucky. We'd have to be hung with four-leaf clovers - and I couldn't see any clover around here.
Chapter 15
The worst of it was, we weren't getting much of a look at those boys. They were playing it safe, slipping about in the trees and brush as slick as Comanches.
"Galloway," I said, "I'm getting sort of peevish. Seems to me we've let those boys have at us about long enough. A time comes when a man just can't side-step a fight no longer. We've waited for them to bring it to us, and they've done no such thing, so I figure it's up to you and me to take it to them."
"You give me time for another cup of coffee," Galloway said, "and I'll come along with you."
Cap Rountree looked at us thoughtfully. "What you expect us to do ... mildew?"
Me, I just grinned at him. "Cap, I know you're an old he coon from the high-up hills, but the fewer we have out there the better. You boys can stay right here. They'll be expecting us to move on pretty quick, and they'll be settled down waiting for it. Well, me and Galloway figure to stir them up a mite.
"Anyway," I went on, "Ladder's in no shape to travel more'n he's going to have to, getting out of here. Costello's in pretty bad shape, too. I figure you and Moss can hold this place if they try to attack you, which I doubt they will."
Galloway and me, we picked up our rifles and just sort of filtered back into the brush. "You thinking the same thing I am?" I said.
"Their horses?"
"Uh-huh. If we set them afoot we've got a free ride ... after we get through that valley yonder."
We'd been timber-raised, like most Tennessee mountain boys, so when we left our horses we swapped our boots for moccasins, which we always carried in our saddlebags.
The weather was clouded up again and it was likely to rain at any moment. We found no sign of the Fetchens until I came upon a corn-shuck cigarette lying on the moss near the butt end of a fallen tree. It was dry, so it must have been dropped since the last shower. After scouting around we found tracks, and then we worked our way up the mountain, moving all the quieter because of the rain-soaked ground.
Suddenly, high up on the mountain, there was a shot.
A voice spoke so close we both jumped in our skins. "Now what the hell was that?"
Galloway and me froze where we stood. The speaker couldn't be much more than twenty feet off from us.
"Do you s'pose one of them slipped out?" another man said.
"Naw! That's gotta be somebody else. Huntin', maybe."
"In this rain?"
We eased up a step, then another. In a sheltered place in the lee of a rock stood two of the Fetchen outfit. I knew neither one of them by name, but I had seen them both before. In front of them was a grassy slope that fell gradually away for about fifty feet, then dropped off sharply. The two stood there, their rifles leaning against the rock wall, well to one side, and out of the wet. They were sheltered by the overhang, but could watch a good distance up and down the canyon. One man was rolling a cigarette, the other had a half-eaten sandwich in his hand.
Taking a long step forward, rifle leveled, I turned squarely around to face them. Galloway stepped up beside me, but several feet to my right. One of them noticed some shadow of movement or heard some sound and started to turn his head.
"Just you all hold it right where you stand," I said. "We got itchy fingers, and we don't mind burying a couple of you if need be."
Neither of them was in shape to reach for a gun fast, and they stood there looking mighty foolish. "Go up to 'em, Galloway," I said, "and take their hardware. No use tempting these boys into error."
Galloway went around behind them, careful to keep from getting between my rifle and them. He slipped their guns from the holsters, and gathered their rifles. Then we backed them into the full shelter of the slight overhang and tied them hand and foot.
"You boys set quiet now. If any of the Fetchens are alive when this is over, they can come and turn you loose. But if we should happen to see you again, and not tied - why, we'd just naturally have to go to shootin'."
"If I ever see you two again," one of them said, "I'll be shootin' some my own self!"
So we left them there, scouted around, found their horses, and turned them loose. Then we went on up the mountain, careful-like. It wasn't going to be that easy again, and we knew it.
Suddenly, from up the mountain there came another rifle shot, and then a scream of mortal agony. And then there was silence.
"What's going on up there, Flagan?" Galloway said. "We got somebody on our side we don't know about?"
He pointed up the hill. Three men were working their way down the hill toward us, but their attention was concentrated on whatever lay behind them. Once one of them lifted his rifle to fire, then lowered it, as if his target had vanished.
Again he lifted his rifle, and as he did so I put my rifle butt to my shoulder. If we had a helper up yonder he was going to find out it worked both ways.
"Hold your fire!" someone called.
It was Colby Rafin, and with him was Norton Vance and two other men. They had us covered, and were close upon us.
This was no time to be taken prisoner, so I just triggered my shot and spun around on them. Galloway knew I wasn't going to be taken, and he hadn't waited. He had his rifle at his hip and he fired from there. It was point-blank range and right into the belly of Norton Vance.
He snapped back as if he'd been rammed with a fence post, then sat down and rolled over, both hands clutching his midsection.
A bullet whipped by my ear, burning it a little, but I was firing as fast as I could lever the shots. I missed a couple even at that range, for I was firing fast into the lot of them with no aim, and I was moving so as to give them no target, but I scored, too.
I'd shot at Rafin and missed him, the bullet taking the man who stood behind and to his right, and Rafin dived into the brush with lead spattering all around him. As soon as Colby Rafin got turned around he'd have us dead to rights, so we scrambled out of there and into the brush.
We moved in further, then lay still, listening.
For a time we heard no sound. Then behind us we heard a groan, and somebody called for Rafin, but he wasn't getting any answer.
We moved on, angling up the hill toward the edge of the pass. Then a burst of firing sounded below us where we'd left the rest of our party, and we stopped to look back down the hill. We could see nothing from where we were, but the firing continued. It made a body want to turn and go back, but what we had to do was what we'd started to do.
They hit us just as we started to go on. During those distracting moments, few as they were, they had somehow moved down on us, and they weren't asking questions. They just opened fire.
A bullet caught me on the leg and it buckled, probably saving my life, for there was a whipping of bullets all around me, and another one turned me sideways. I felt myself falling and tucked my shoulder under so I could roll with it, and I went over twice on the slope before I stopped.
What had happened to Galloway, I didn't know. I did know that I'd been hit hard, and more than once, and unless I moved from where I was I'd be dead within minutes. Somehow I'd clung to my rifle - I'd needed to hang onto something. Now I began to inch my way along the steepening face before me.
Instinctively, for I surely can't claim to much thinking just then, hurting the way I was, I worked back toward those hunting me. They would be off to my right, I was sure, and would think I'd try to get away, which was the smart and sensible thing. But I wanted to stay within shooting distance at any cost, and my best chances of getting away free would be to work right close to them.