His mouth had gone dry by the time he struggled to ask Bridger, “What’s your thinkin’ on how to play this, Jim?”
“We both seen our share of killin’ … an’ killin’s easy for men like us, Scratch. Hell, all them red niggers the two of us put under in more’n twenty-five winters—why, we could wait for them Saints to ride right up to us afore we let fly an’ there’d be more dead Mormons on the ground than I care to bury.”
“Spill what you got to say, Jim,” Titus said, angry with the way Bridger’s words had pricked his own conscience as the enemy got all the closer.
“You was once a fair shot with that ol’ table leg you call a rifle,” Gabe said. “You think you can knock that big gray hat off the one riding that roan out in front?”
Before he answered, Titus laid his cheek along the comb of the buttstock and peered down the worn, browned barrel, lining up the sharp rise of the front blade in that notch of the curved buckhorns of his rear sight. He held it on the hat, let out half a breath … then he said, “I think I can do that for you, Gabe.”
“Awright,” Bridger replied. “When that roan of his comes even with that pile of stone off there by the willows—you knock the bastard’s hat off.”
“You better signal the others, so them boys don’t think we’re openin’ up the fight.”
Jim turned, put two fingers between his lips, and whistled with the call of a meadowlark. Of the three signals they had agreed upon, that was the signal telling them to hold their fire. The other signals ordered them to fight for their lives, or to turn and slip away into the hills. Only three choices facing the ten of them now.
From those men waiting on the south, and from Shad’s bunch on the north, came the answering calls. Scratch peered over the barrel of the flintlock, waiting, amused that not one of those oncoming riders had paid any attention to the bird calls. Flatlander settlement types didn’t know a jay from a whippoorwill no how.
“He looks about there, Scratch!” Jim whispered low.
“Hush,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to concentrate over here, Gabe.”
Bringing the hammer back to full cock, Titus slipped his finger inside the trigger guard and set the back trigger. Then lightly touched the front trigger and slowly let his breath out as he blinked, blinked again, and held high on the Mormon’s big gray hat. Just a twitch here and he could put a lead ball through the man’s forehead, maybe right on up the bastard’s big nose, or right on into his grinning, gaping, stupid mouth. …
The gun went off a bit by surprise—and everything exploded into action at once. The hat went sailing, tumbling through the air as the roan’s rider threw himself onto the ground and started crawling backward toward the first wagon on his hands and knees. At the same instant other horses bucked and shied, men bellowing orders or screaming in surprise as they peeled this way and that—
“You there!” Bridger hollered as his eyes crept over the top of the low, burned timbers. “You Brigham Young boys! There’s only two ways outta this valley now!”
Scratch had turned and already had the barrel blown out and a load of powder poured down the muzzle.
“Who the blazes are you?” a voice demanded as the wagons rattled to a halt.
“I’m Jim Bridger! Right now, you an’ all your wagons are on my land!”
“It’s Bridger!” another voice hollered. “We got the reward! We got the damned reward!”
“Shuddup!” the first voice snapped. “Bridger, this isn’t your place no more. The lawfully appointed authority of Utah Territory has seized your land and all your worldly goods, in partial payment for your crimes against the citizens of Green River County—”
“This here ain’t no court of law!” Scratch hollered as he finished ramming home a ball and shoved the wiping stick into the thimbles beneath the barrel. “Quit your spoutin’ an’ start fightin’, you murderin’ sonsabitches!”
“Who-who’s with you, Bridger?”
“Enough to empty half your saddles afore you get turned around an’ off my land,” Jim attested.
“You’re a wanted man in this territory!”
Rolling back onto his belly to stuff his barrel out between the timbers, Scratch bellowed, “An’ you’ll be a dead man afore the sun goes down!”
“We don’t want any violence,” the voice shouted. “Only came to occupy what’s left of the post where you were selling weapons and powder to the Indians—”
“You an’ your bunch will come in here over my dead body!” Jim protested.
A third voice called out from the milling horsemen, “If that’s the way you want it!”
Another of the Mormons cackled, “The reward on your head is good no matter if you’re dead!”
Titus spit behind him, the warm tobacco juice steaming in the subfreezing air. “You give them Marmons ’nough of a chance awready, Gabe. They showed they ain’t the kind to appreciate what you’re doin’ to let ’em ride on outta here with their hair.”
“S’pose you’re right,” Bridger replied as the Mormons started forming in a broad front. “Best get your head down, John.”
The surveyor looked at Bridger, then at Bass, his eyes wide. “I’m here to defend myself, Jim.”
With a grin, Titus said, “Go find yourself a shootin’ hole, Mr. Hockaday. We’re ’bout to send these here Marmons straight on to heaven!”
“Give the boys a whistle, Scratch!” Gabe growled.
He and Titus signaled the other groups with a quick, short blast of the Stellar’s jay, then Scratch leveled his gun again at the riders just as the Mormons kicked their horses into a lope and started a ragged charge toward the charred walls.
Scratch’s gun was the first to speak. The bullet slammed into a horse’s chest, the animal skidding to a halt and collapsing on its haunches, tossing its rider clear. All around the Mormons, guns began to explode. Riders screamed in pain and terror as lead sailed through their midst. Other men bellowed orders. Horses reared and neighed. Wagons lurched onto two wheels as their drivers careened them about in a half circle as tight as they could, beating a retreat.
As he was digging at the bottom of his pouch for a lead ball, Bass watched how two of the Mormons were screaming at the others—ordering them off their horses and into the brush. Must be leaders of the bunch.
“I-I got one of them!” Hockaday announced.
“Kill ’im?” he asked.
“No, don’t think so,” the surveyor said. “Hit him in the leg.”
“Good enough,” Bridger growled. “Ain’t likely he can do any good with a gun no how, not now.”
The Mormons made it to the timber with their wounded as the wagons rattled up the valley and out of sight. Six horses lay on the crisp, brown grass of the meadow just now getting dusted with an icy snow—some of them lay dead in a heap, the others wounded and neighing pitifully. Two more hobbled around with broken legs, crying out. Bass wanted to drop them both and put them right out of their pain, but for the time being he’d save his shots for those Mormons hiding in the brush.
“Shad!” Bridger shouted. “Work your way in on ’em to the west!”