Luke's Gold (29 page)

Crying out in pain, Snider quickly pulled back to safety. “Damn you!” he roared in pained anger as he took stock of his wounds that now soaked both sleeves with blood. His overpowering rage caused him to ignore the excruciating throbbing near his collarbone. Determined to kill the man who had brought this trouble down upon him, he picked up his rifle again, and started to edge up to the side of the rock. Then a thought struck him, and he paused to consider. In the heat of the exchange of gunfire, something had slipped by him, and it came to him now. After he was shot, there was the sound of a hammer falling on an empty chamber.
Hunter's gun is empty.

With a new sense of urgency, he forgot his wounds, and rushed back to the edge of the boulder, in an effort to get to Cade before he could reload. Not willing to throw all caution to the wind, however, he eased his head around just far enough to see with one eye. What he saw surprised him. Instead of frantically jamming cartridges in his pistol, Cade sat calmly, leaning against the tree trunk, his pistol aimed at Snider. But he did not shoot. Stunned for a moment, Snider realized that he had been staring at the gun for several seconds, and Hunter had failed to shoot.

Gradually, he eased himself away from the rock until he was standing fully exposed to the man holding a gun on him. “You're out of bullets,” he said, hardly believing it himself. Holding his rifle at his hip and aimed directly at Cade, he moved a step closer, still halfway suspecting a trap, but getting bolder with each step. Finally, he stopped, now no more than a couple of feet from the wounded man. “Ain't that a shame,” he taunted, “you run plumb outta bullets.”

“Maybe,” Cade answered and pointed his pistol at Snider's head, causing him to jerk back abruptly and raise his rifle to shoot. But he didn't pull the trigger when Cade's gun failed to fire. “Bang,” Cade said softly before tossing the pistol aside.

Standing there with both sleeves of his shirt bloody, a triumphant smile slowly spread across Snider's face as he fully realized the irony of the moment. “Out of cartridges,” he repeated as if enjoying a great joke. “I bet you've been lookin' for me ever since I shot you and run off with your gold.” He shook his head, mocking the helpless man at his feet. “Well, you found me. A lotta good it did you. You wound up just like ol' Luke.” He raised his rifle and aimed it at Cade's face. “Maybe I oughtn't to finish you off too easy. You caused me a helluva lot of trouble. Maybe I'll just pump a few more holes in you, so you can die real slow. Only this time, I'm gonna wait you out to make damn sure you don't turn up again like last time.”

“Kiss my ass, Snider,” Cade replied. “I'll wait for you in hell.”

Snider chuckled, pleased by Cade's defiance. He lowered the rifle's front sight a little. “The first one's goin' in your gut.”

Cade heard the rifle fire, but he did not feel the bullet tearing into his abdomen. Stunned, he looked into Snider's face, astonished by the stark expression of surprise that suddenly replaced the mocking sneer. Another shot rang out, and Snider dropped to his knees for a few seconds before falling facedown on the rocky ground.

Scarcely able to comprehend what had just taken place, Cade was not sure if his life had been saved or not. The big man he had wounded in the shoulder was out there somewhere. There was no time to do anything about it, however, for in the next second, he heard the sound of a horse's hooves on the gravel by the boulder. A moment later, leading the horse, Red Reynolds appeared at the edge, a dread look of anticipation etched across his face. “Cade?” he said. “Are you still alive?”

“I think so,” Cade answered, “but I got a hole in me that ain't supposed to be there.” The intense strain that had captured his entire body suddenly left him, and realizing that he was in fact alive, he at last relaxed.

The sudden release of tension caused Red to think Cade was dead. In a panic then, he rushed to his side. “Cade!” he blurted, grabbing his friend by the shoulders. “Don't die! Dammit, Elizabeth will kill me.”

“Dammit, Red,” he exclaimed, “I won't unless you're gonna shake the life outta me.” The pain in his side from Red's sudden assault was evidence enough that he was still alive.

Red released him at once, then sat back on his heels and grinned. “Well, for a minute there, you looked like you was checkin' out. How bad are you hurt? You don't look too good.”

“I don't know,” Cade answered. “I took a bullet in my side. I ain't sure how bad it is. All I know for sure is that I can't move without feelin' like I'm tearin' out my whole insides.”

Red grimaced as he considered their predicament. “Well,” he concluded, “I'm gonna have to carry you down offa this mountain. I sure can't do nothin' for you up here.” He knew it was going to be painful as hell, but there was no choice in the matter. Cade needed a doctor. “If I can get you up on my horse, you think you can stay on till I get you down to the bottom?”

“I reckon I'll have to,” Cade replied, though he was not looking forward to it.

“All right, then, let's get to it. You already look like you lost all the blood in you.” He went back to lead his horse in closer. Passing Snider's body, he paused to roll him over with the toe of his boot. “Looks like I came along at a pretty good time, don't it? This son of a bitch was fixin' to shoot you.” He shook his head as if trying to make sense of it. “Why was he fixin' to shoot you, anyway?”

“It's a long story,” Cade replied. “I'll tell you about it later.”

Red paused to chew his lower lip as he considered that. Looking back at Cade, he asked, “I came across another dead feller down the hill a piece. You do that, too?”

“Yeah,” Cade answered, grimacing with pain as he tried to shift his body to a better position to try to get up. “How the hell did you happen to come up here?” Then before Red could answer, another thought occurred to him. “What did you mean back there when you said Elizabeth would kill you?”

“Well, see, that's just it,” Red replied as he dropped the reins and prepared to help Cade up. “Elizabeth came down to the corral lookin' for me. She said she'd heard about you takin' that jasper you shot back to John Slater's ranch. For a while there, she went on about how bad you was probably feelin' about killin' a man, even if it was self-defense. She lit into me like it was my fault for lettin' you go over there by yourself. She said if all Slater's men were like the one you shot, she was afraid you'd get in more trouble.” He looked at Cade with an apologetic expression. “I told her I offered to go with you, but you said no. That didn't really satisfy her none. She told me to climb on my horse and not to come back without you.” He cocked up one side of his mouth in a little half smile. “I was damn near too late, wasn't I?”

“You might be yet,” Cade said. “Let's see if we can get me on that horse.”

It was a painful task, but they managed to get Cade in the saddle, although not without starting the bleeding again. It was all he could do to remain upright, and before they had descended halfway down the mountain, he had to fall over on the horse's neck. Trying to pick the easiest way down the slope, Red led the horse across and back to avoid the steeper parts. At the top of the ravine in which Cade had first taken refuge, they found Snider's horse standing waiting. Red took the reins and led both horses down into the ravine. Looking back at his obviously suffering friend, he said, “Maybe I can make one of them things the Injuns use to tote things when we get down to level ground. Might make it easier to haul you to the doctor.”

Cade didn't answer. He was concentrating on trying to hang on to the horse. He knew his friend pretty well, and he figured Red didn't have an ax to cut poles, or enough rope to fashion a travois. He also knew he wasn't going to be able to stay on that horse all the way back to Deer Lodge. He was already feeling light in his head and weaker by the moment. In an attempt to get his mind off the pain in his side, he tried to think about what Red had told him about Elizabeth. Why, he wondered, had she sought out Red to come after him? Was she really that worried about him? He tried to imagine her youthful, smiling face when she teased him. And he felt a warm tingle on his cheek where she had lightly kissed him on the first day they rode to her “secret place.” These were the thoughts that were drifting through his mind when they reached the bottom of the slope, where Red caught him just as he was about to slide to the ground unconscious.

“This ain't gonna work,” Red said. “It's too far back to Deer Lodge. You're gonna bleed to death bouncing around on that horse. I'm gonna have to go get the doctor and bring him to you.” It was a painful truth, and the evidence was written on Red's face. He didn't want to leave Cade while he made the ride all the way back to town, but he was afraid the ride might be enough to finish him. “Tell me what to do, Cade,” he pleaded softly.

Recovering his senses somewhat after his near fall from the horse, Cade told Red to leave him there in the ravine, but Red protested that there was no shelter there from the cold night. Then Cade thought about Snider's ranch. There was no one there now. All of his men were gone. “His ranch is only about a mile or so back that way,” he said. “You can leave me there. I'll be all right. You can build up the fire, and I'll be warm and dry while you go get the doctor.”

Cade could see the relief sweep over Red's face, but his friend questioned his suggestion. “You sure you wanna go to Slater's ranch? Ain't he got more men there?”

“He didn't have but four left,” Cade explained. “You'll find one of 'em dead between here and the ranch, one of 'em dead at the ranch—you saw one of 'em back up the hill. The other one's shot and he took off. There ain't nobody left.”

 

After a ride that seemed a lot longer than the actual distance, Red slow-walked the horses into the tiny cluster of shacks that had served as John Slater's ranch. While Cade waited, slumped over in the saddle, Red took a quick check of the buildings and decided right away that the cabin Snider had used for his ranch house was the better of the two dwellings. With Red's support, Cade was painfully helped into the cabin.

With no other options, Cade was reluctantly settled on a homemade bedstead that, unbeknownst to him, had been used by Snider. Too weak and sick to protest, Cade lay exhausted while Red built a fire in the fireplace. Once there was a healthy flame going, he took a look at Cade's wound to see if he could do anything to help, and decided he could not. “At least you ain't bleedin' no more,” he said. “You think you can hang on till I get to town and back with the doctor?”

Cade nodded, then said, “If you leave me some water.”

Red took a look at the water bucket in the corner by the table, thought better of it, and fetched his canteen from his saddle. “Here, you better take this,” he said, placing the pistol he had found on Plummer's body next to the bed. Then he stood back and took a long look at his friend. “Don't shoot yourself with it,” he said as he turned to leave. “I'll be back as soon as I can.” Cade nodded and tried to smile. Before the sound of Red's horse's hooves had faded away, Cade sank into a sound sleep—the last thought on his mind was that Luke could now rest in peace.

Kneeling by the clear stream that bubbled down from the rocky ridge above him, Bonner soaked his bandanna in the chilly water, carefully cleaning the blood away from the wound. Though painful, it did not appear as serious as he had at first thought. The fact that he had run made no impact upon his conscience. He had no conscience to speak of. Jim Bonner was no fool as far as Jim Bonner was concerned. First Ned Appling, then Stover, then Johnson, then Plummer—the man that Slater wanted dead had taken them out one by one. And when he himself was shot, Bonner decided it was time to remove himself from the list of Hunter's kills.
Slater be damned!
If he wanted the man so badly, he could do the job himself.

The thing that Bonner wondered about now was what the final result had been. He had heard a lot of shooting after he fled the mountainside. He had to wonder who walked down off that slope when the shooting was done. Looking closely at the hole in his shoulder, showing only a small amount of blood now, there were other thoughts that overcame his concern for the bullet lodged in his shoulder. Slater was a wealthy man. He owned a saloon in Butte, but he had spent a great deal of time on the ranch recently purchased here in the valley. According to what Ned Appling had told Bonner, Slater had bought the ranch with gold dust. The more Bonner thought about it, the more it made sense to him that Slater would keep his gold or cash close to him—maybe hidden somewhere at the ranch.
By God, it's worth a little look-see around that ranch,
he decided. Thinking it best to wait until dark, he stuffed a dry piece of shirt over his wound and sat down against a tree to bide his time until sundown.

 

Walking his horse slowly across the open space between the old barn and the cabins, Bonner stopped to consider the horse in the corral. It was Slater's horse.
So Slater was the survivor of the shoot-out on the mountain,
he thought. This put a different shine on the situation, and he had to take a moment to decide if he wanted to face Slater or not. He thought of the shouted curses that Slater had hurled after him when he was retreating from the gunfight. What would Slater think now if he came back after running out on him? He might be inclined to shoot him on sight. Bonner could not decide—surprise him, kill him, and search for the gold, or try to talk his way back, using his wound as excuse for deserting, then kill him when the opportunity presented itself? It would take some serious thought. Slater was a dangerous man.