Rebel Yell (28 page)

“Git going, boys. I got you covered!” Wiley Crabbe called out.

Johnny turned the chestnut horse toward the canyon exit and put heels to the animal's sides, surging forward. Huddy hooked his good right arm around Johnny's middle, holding on tight to keep from falling off as the horse leaped forward.

A vigilant observer might have noticed something unusual about Wiley's attire. The jacket was similar to a hunting jacket in that it had a heavily padded quilted cushion sewn into the right chest and shoulder area, where the shotgun butt would be snugged up against it when shooting. The padding absorbed much of the impact from the piece's jolting recoil.

His saddle was custom-fitted with a special high cantle in back. Its curved inner wall, also reinforced and padded with cushioning, supported his lower back.

Not a wealthy or well-to-do man, Wiley lived hand-to-mouth. It was the best he could do on the scant wages paid him for laboring at the Doghouse Bar. He was a middling worker, at best. The drinks he sneaked behind the bar probably cost more than he was worth.

The point being that while Wiley rarely had a coin to his name, he'd managed to scrape up enough cash to pay for certain vital accessories to complement his fearsome weapon and maximize its striking power. When it came to killing, this proud son of Hangtree, Texas, spared no expense.

Bracing himself against the paddled cantle at the back of the saddle, Wiley shouldered the stubby short-barreled revolving shotgun and cut loose with a double-barreled blast into the charging Free Company frontline marauders. Yellow flame and clouds of gun smoke stabbed from twin-mouthed big barrels on the upper side of the weapon.

A handful of gunmen at the head of the charge ran full-on into a devastating double-barreled blast of 12-gauge double-ought buckshot. For each of them it was like catching the full-force blow of a lumberman's double-bladed axe square in the midriff. They went down like sheaves of wheat chopped by a scythe—the Grim Reaper's scythe—falling in a heap of bodies, clothes, and flesh charred and smoking from the close-range blast.

Some of those behind or to the side of the front-liners were caught in the broad fan-shaped spray of the shotgun burst. Even to catch one of the white-hot metal shot pellets in the flesh was a hurting for he who was hit.

“That'll learn yez!” Wiley chortled.

A marauder held both hands to his ruined face, blood streaming out between his fingers. He tripped and fell over the pile of corpses in front of him. He did not rise again. Others fell down at the flanks of the group, staggering and crying out.

The Company's inner circle, its ruling cadre or officer class, the smartest and most ruthless killers of the crew came to fill the gap in the ranks.

The bantamweight figure of Wiley Crabbe sat on horseback, wrapped in an ash-gray cloud of gun smoke. His right shoulder and chest were numb, his bones ached, his back was pressed hard and deep into the pads cushioning the built-up cantle. Undaunted, his blood hot and raging for battle, he braced the gun butt against a bony hip and thumbed the central axis release, allowing the barrels to revolve in a circle.

Gripping the stock with one hand, he turned the four-barrel assembly in a counterclockwise direction with the other. A metallic click sounded each time the rear of a barrel came under the freed locking plate. As each smoking barrel came clear, he fed in a fresh cartridge.

Two clicks sounded as Wiley turned the barrel assembly 180 degrees, bringing a pair of fully loaded barrels into place. All four barrels were fully loaded with two previously unfired barrels in place on the high side. He thumbed the release lever back down, locking it into place. “I'm ready for action and loaded for bear!” he crowed.

More of the outlaw cadre popped up in the rows between the tents, shooting and shouting.

Once more settling himself firmly in the saddle, Wiley ripped loose another big double-blast, clearing a significant space in the landscape by mowing down more Company men.

The bone-jarring boom of Vic's TNT blasts came less frequently. The battle was about to turn in favor of the defenders' far greater numbers and firepower. The Hangtree raiders' initial advantage of surprise was gone. The Free Company was starting to get its own back.

The raid was meant to give Turlock's outfit a bloody nose and get them good and mad, and it had certainly done all of that.

“The climate's getting unhealthy,” Wiley said to himself. “Too much lead in the air!” He turned his horse toward the east canyon wall, the way out to Wild Horse Canyon and escape.

It looked like most of the Hangtree hometown boys were making for it. A handful of riders, some alone and others in groups of twos and threes, tore eastward across the canyon floor. Bodies sprawled on the turf marked the raiders' single-minded path toward the canyon mouth.

“Time to make tracks. Dig dirt, horse!” Wiley kicked his horse forward, cutting a winding weaving path among the crowding robber bandits.

Of all places in the Sidepocket encampment, the eastern portal was the best guarded. Protected against an attack from without, however unlikely that might seem, it was also secured against deserters from within. From the top-ranked members of the leadership cadre to the lowliest scum of the camp followers, none could be allowed to depart freely and without official approval from the Commander, for fear they might betray some vital intelligence about the Company.

If Jimbo Turlock had wanted stone walls and impenetrable gates he could have held Fort Pardee, but mobility had always served the Free Company well in the past, and he had no intention of sacrificing it, so the entrance was only partially blocked. In the center of the canyon mouth, several wagons had been turned on their sides and reinforced with stacked hay bales to serve as a shooting platform for a twenty-man squad of riflemen on duty. Open areas on both sides were blocked with waist-high ropes and chains that could easily be lowered to offer entrance or exit for duly authorized parties.

When the attack broke, the gate guards were at first unsure what was happening or what to do. They feared the havoc within might be intended to divert them from an attack from without.

The Hangtown Raiders massed under a towering rock on the south side of the canyon mouth, forcing the gate guard rifle squad to move to the far side of the barricade for protection, which put them on the outside shooting in. Instead of trying to keep hostiles out, they were trying to keep them in.

The boulder at the south portal was shaped like an egg standing on its rounder, fatter end. Grouped under its overhanging curve, the raiders were shielded from the riflemen's bullets by the curve of the massive, house-high boulder, but not from the guns of the masses inside Sidepocket Canyon.

Cooler heads among the robber bandits were starting to take control of the situation. The cadre realized what had happened and were organizing a counterattack, getting their men under control.

Working against them was the near-complete chaos among the main body of the rank and file, who were confused, angry, and frightened. They had been stampeded. Being gunmen, they used their guns. Some shot at each other, mistaking their fellows for foes. Others shot their guns off in the air just to be doing something.

As for the horde of camp followers, they were in a blind panic. An undisciplined horde at the best of times, they were responding to the violence and brutality. They were being rounded up and herded like cattle, pushed out of the way so the main body of the Free Company could get into action.

Johnny Cross, with Kev Huddy riding behind him on the same horse, reined in, joining other Hangtree raiders who had gathered under the big boulder.

Seeing them mounted two on a horse, El Indio Negro started to ride off.

“Wait! Where're you going?” Baldy Vance shouted after him.

“Be right back!” El Indio Negro called over his shoulder as he galloped back into the enemy camp, making a wide curving swing south along the canyon rim, then going north.

“Crazy fool!” Baldy said, shaking his head.

Under the outward-arching rock were Johnny, Huddy, Vic, Baldy Vance, Mick Sabbath, and Fritz Carrados. Of the original sixteen raiders who'd begun the charge, more than half were missing.

Wiley Crabbe came in at a gallop, reining in and taking cover with the others.

“That's the last, I think,” Fritz Carrados said, “not counting El Indio.”

“He'll come back,” Baldy said.

“Is this all of us that won through?” Johnny asked.

“Looks like,” Wiley Crabbe said.

“We've got to be sure,” Carrados said.

“Look around. You see any of the others?” Wiley demanded.

“What about Lord? Don't tell me they got Tom the Lord!” Vic shouted.

“Gone!” said Mick Sabbath. “I saw it, but was too far away to help out. Lord's horse went down, throwing him into the middle of a mob. They rushed him, swarming all over him. He went down shooting to the last—” He stopped speaking for a moment. “Well, almost to the last. He saved one bullet for himself. He shot himself before they could lay hands on him. He was looking at me over the tops of their heads. He nodded to me before he pulled the trigger.”

“Tom the Lord dead! I thought for sure he'd come through,” Vic said.

“He died game,” Mick Sabbath said. “
Ave atque vale
! Hail and farewell!”

“Why the hell don't you speak English?” Baldy grumbled.

“I said it for Tom Lord, not for you,” Mick Sabbath said icily.

“Your way of saying adios, huh?” Vic said, trying to smooth things over.

“If you like,” Mick Sabbath said.

“More than half of us gone!” Fritz Carrados exclaimed softly, shaking his head as in disbelief.

“No guarantees on this mission,” Johnny Cross said, not unkindly.

Bullets
spang
ed the outthrust curve of the boulder above their heads, spraying them with stone chips.

“It's getting hot!” Vic involuntarily ducked his head.

“We'd best get out of here pronto if we don't want to wind up like the others,” Wiley said.

“Wait till El Indio comes back,” Baldy said.

“If he wants to get hisself killed that's his business. He must want to, charging back into that mess,” Wiley said.

“No, wait. Here he comes,” Mick Sabbath said.

The black-clad Indian came in at the gallop, leading a horse in tow, clutching its reins in one black-gloved hand. A swarm of Free Company bullets accompanied his return, none tagging him. He slowed to a halt, joining the others under the bulging rock.

“We were about to give you up for lost,” Carrados said.

The corners of El Indio's mouth turned up in what passed for a smile on his generally inexpressive face. He walked his horse over to Johnny and Huddy. “You no get far with two on a horse. Plenty strays around, so I take one. They no miss, I think. If they do, to hell with them.”

“You got plenty of sand, mister. You sure showed me something today,” Johnny said.

“You showed us all something,” Carrados said.

“I owe you more than I can say, but thanks and much obliged,” Huddy said.

“Steal me a horse sometime and we call it even,” El Indio said.

“I'll steal you a whole string of them, soon as I get patched up proper,” Huddy said feelingly.

Some of the others helped Huddy get down off the chestnut horse, assisting him into the saddle of the replacement brought by El Indio.

“Don't worry about me. There ain't a horse I can't handle with one hand,” Huddy assured them, holding the reins in his good one.

“You see, Baldy? I come back,” El Indio Negro said.

Baldy nodded. “I never doubted it.”

“You man of faith, Baldy.”

“I put my faith in my gun, and in some folks, too, I reckon. You being one of them. But not many folks. Baldy Vance ain't nobody's fool.”

“Time for us to make our breakout, men,” Johnny said.

“Glad I saved something for the occasion.” Vic reached in the deflated canvas sack hanging from a strap around his neck and pulled out a bundle of dynamite. “Last one. I saved it, figuring it might come in handy.”

The others readied for the breakout.

Vic had lost his cigar somewhere en route to the boulder. He struck a match, cupping a hand around it to shelter the flame and help it grow. When it burned hot and strong, he applied it to the fuse cord of the bundled TNT, setting it alight. “Cover me!”

The Hangtree raiders opened fire on the squad of riflemen behind the barricade, streaming lead at them in a furious onslaught, forcing them to take cover.

Riding out and around the curving limb of the egg-shaped boulder, Vic headed for the barricade. Reining in just short of it, he pitched the lit dynamite bundle up and over the tops of the overturned wagons, tossing it to the far side where the riflemen were, then quickly turned his horse around and rode back under the big rock.

The dynamite blew, generating a rushing, swelling cloud of smoke, glare, heat, and shock waves that cascaded through the portal.

“Let's ride!” Johnny shouted after the last debris of wagon fragments and body parts had come raining down.

The Hangtree raiders charged out from under the rock, surging toward the canyon mouth.

The dynamite blast had overturned one of the shattered wagons, pinning some screaming riflemen beneath. Bodies lay strewn on the ground around the broken barricade. Some few surviving riflemen had taken cover in the rocks outside the south portal.

The raiders poured through the wide gaps in the barricade, jumping their horses over any low-lying wreckage in the way. They rode out shooting.