Part 18 (1/2)
Tied, hobbled, and blinded! Yakima set his rifle down, reached up, and slowly peeled the sack down over the horse's long, fine snout. ”You must have raised holy hob with those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!”
The black's mola.s.ses eyes stared back at Yakima, the pupils expanding and contracting quickly as he bobbed his head with joy, snorting happily.
”Easy, easy,” Yakima said, running his hands down the horse's snout, feeling the six- or seven-inch gashes. They'd partially healed over, but some of the cuts still oozed blood and pus. When he probed one such spot with his fingers, Wolf jerked his head up sharply.
”It's all right, boy. Easy. I'm not gonna hurt you. What'd those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds do to you, anyway? They'll soon wish they hadn't tangled with either-”
A voice rose behind him. ”Yakima?” He spun around, snagging his .44 from its holster and thumbing the hammer back.
But the voice had been familiar. And a familiar figure stood before him now, ten feet away.
Anjanette stared at him through the darkness, her long black hair framing her face, the silver crucifix winking softly between her high, proud b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Chapter 21.
Yakima's finger closed over the trigger, and the gun quivered slightly in his clenched fist. Anjanette stared at the gun pointed at her chest, then at him. She held his saddle by the horn, his blanket, bridle, and saddlebags draped over it. Her breathing was ragged.
She slung the gear forward, dropped it in the dust at Yakima's feet. ”Figured you'd need these.”
Yakima looked around. ”Where's Considine?”
”He headed off to powwow with Mad Dog.”
Yakima kept the .44 aimed at her. ”Any of your compadres know I'm here?”
She stared at him coolly, then, unable to hold his gaze, looked down. ”Only me. When I heard Wolf, I figured you'd come.” She looked up at him. ”How did you know-”
”I saw you with Considine.”
Absently, she lifted a hand to one of the many bruises on her face. ”I made a mistake. It wasn't the first one. Probably won't be the last.” She stepped forward, placed her hand on his forearm. ”Take me with you.”
Before he knew what he'd done, he'd slapped her with the back of his right hand. Her head flew sideways, and her hat tumbled off her shoulder.
Yakima's voice was tight. ”Between here and Saber Creek, there's anywhere between twenty and thirty men dead because of you and them.”
She shook her hair back from her face and stared up at Yakima, her dark eyes bright with tears. ”I didn't know what he was like. I didn't know what any of it any of it would be like!” would be like!”
”So, now you know, and you want to run home to your grandfather, just like nothing happened?” Yakima grabbed the bridle and turned to Wolf. ”Well, I'm not your ticket. If you want to go home, you'll have to find your own d.a.m.n way.”
”Please!” She sobbed as Yakima slipped the bridle bit through Wolf's teeth, then draped the harness straps over his ears. ”I'm scared, Yakima. Considine's crazy. They're all all crazy!” crazy!”
Yakima spread the blanket over Wolf's back, followed it with the saddle. ”Killers usually are.”
When he'd cinched the latigo under Wolf's belly and slung his saddlebags over the horse's rear, Anjanette wrapped her arms around Yakima's waist, pressed her head against his back.
”We shared a night together, Yakima,” she whispered. ”Doesn't that count for anything?”
Yakima spun around, his jaw taut, and grabbed her by one arm and the back of her neck. He ran her into the willows and was about to heave her into the river when a voice sounded up the bank behind him-clear and conversational in the quiet night.
”I'm relievin' ya, Jimbo. Go on and . . .”
Yakima froze, then whipped his head to see a shadow standing atop the dark bank on the other side of Wolf. The shadow jerked suddenly, bringing a rifle up. ”Who's there?”
Yakima released Anjanette's arm and slipped his revolver from its holster. He loosed two quick shots over Wolf's back. Bounding forward, he leapt into the stallion's saddle. A rifle cracked to his right, the slug curling the air along the back of his neck.
Holding the black's reins taut with his left hand, Yakima loosed two more shots up the bank. He gigged the horse toward Anjanette, then reined the horse in a tight circle.
”Climb up, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!” He fired two more rounds into the inky darkness.
Anjanette leapt forward, grabbed Yakima's hand, and swung up behind him as the rifle on the hill flashed and boomed twice, the slugs plunking into the willows behind Yakima.
”Hold on!” Yakima shouted, reining the sure-footed stallion in another tight circle, then giving him his head. They galloped downstream, the black stallion chewing up the damp sh.o.r.eline with his long, plunging stride. The horse laid his ears flat against his head, snorting with every breath, leaping driftwood logs and dodging boulders.
Behind, the man on the bank squeezed off two more shots, both rounds plunking into the river to the left and behind Yakima and Anjanette. Shouts rose from the ruins.
The man behind yelled, ”Rider headed downstream with the girl! Cut him off!”
As if on command, a gun flashed ahead and to the right, from just above a rocky k.n.o.b. The boom made Wolf tense his shoulder muscles. The slug whistled over Yakima's head and splashed into the river.
Yakima tightened his jaw. He'd wanted to reach a shallow ford another thirty yards downstream, but the shooter on his right stood above the rocky k.n.o.b, aiming a Winchester. Yakima swung the black into the river at the same time the desperado triggered another shot. The slug plunked into the water just off Wolf's right shoulder.
The horse whinnied. Her arms wrapped tightly around Yakima's belly, Anjanette cursed.
Yakima hunkered low and batted his heels against the stallion's flanks, urging him into the fog. ”Move, boy!”
Rifles and revolvers clattered behind them, punctuated by angry shouts and the scuff of heels on rock.
Someone shouted, ”He's straight out in the water, fer chrissakes! Shoot Shoot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
A slug barked into a rock just right of the long-striding stallion. Wolf gave a start, and there was the angry sc.r.a.pe and splash of a shod hoof slipping on a half-submerged rock. The horse leaned sharply right, his head swinging left. Yakima reached for the saddle horn too late. He and Anjanette slid down Wolf's right side, taking the saddle with them.
Anjanette screamed as she followed Yakima into the river, the horse plunging onto his side and trapping Yakima's right leg underneath. Yakima winced against the sharp pain of a half ton of horse grinding his leg into the rocks and sand under three feet of water. But before he'd fully realized what had happened, Wolf was pulling his hooves back beneath him, slipping and sliding on the slick rocks, lifting a wild whinny.
Heedless of the sharp pain in his right hip and knee, Yakima rose, pulled Anjanette up by one arm, and swung her back behind him. Guns flashed and popped on the opposite sh.o.r.e, the slugs whistling around Yakima's head, splas.h.i.+ng into the river.
As Wolf gained his feet, the saddle hanging down his right side, Yakima grabbed his Winchester from where it had fallen between two rocks and quickly raked a fresh sh.e.l.l into the chamber.
”Lead the horse to sh.o.r.e!” he shouted to Anjanette, spreading his legs and firing the Yellowboy from his right hip.
He continued peppering the desperadoes' sh.o.r.eline, hot cartridges arcing and sizzling into the river behind him, until the Winchester clicked empty. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and, stepping straight back in the water, grabbed his revolver from its holster and fired two more rounds. He'd try to hold as many shooters at bay as he could until Anjanette and Wolf had made the opposite sh.o.r.e.
He stumbled backward, shooting at darting shadows, flinching at occasional gunfire on the bank before him. Glancing behind, he saw the girl and Wolf topping the brow of a hill on the opposite sh.o.r.e.
Yakima fired the last two rounds in his six-shooter as two slugs ripped into the river around his ankles, then turned and ran to the opposite bank. Water sluicing down his denims and sand clinging to his bare, wet feet, he bulled through willows and ironwood shrubs, climbing the bank and diving over the ridge just before three slugs tore up gravel and sand behind him.