The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill (15 page)

Dead ahead and not fifteen feet away, Jupe Dondee took aim and fired.

C
AMERON’S DESPERATE
grab for the horn threw him forward over the roan’s neck. He felt the heat of Jupe’s bullet as it whispered past the back of his neck, and then the mouth of the cut loomed darkly to the left.

Cameron swung the roan into that blackness and kicked with his left leg. Lead whined off rock, sending sharp shards slicing down around him. Hoofs hammered on stone as the roan caught a rock sliver and sprinted forward. The cut was a tunnel through thick rock and with not even starlight coming down from above. The blackness was complete as a bend carried Cameron out of range of the firelight.

Then the roan half-ran, half-skidded around a second bend, and two pinpricks of light appeared ahead. They resolved themselves into small fires, one on either side of the end of the cut. The roan ran between them and out onto the grass of a cliff-rimmed bowl.

He saw the wild horses huddled far to the left. On the right, against the cliff face, a third fire burned. Cameron could see two mounted figures, carbines raised.

Then Jenny cried, “Don’t shoot, Tod! It’s Roy!”

Cameron swung the roan toward them, brought it to a halt, and dropped to the ground. He took a single step and fell as his leg gave way.

Jenny left her sorrel and came running to him. “We tried to move the wild stuff out to help you when we heard the shooting,” she said. “But the stallion won’t move.” She dropped down beside him. “Roy?”

“Nick in the leg,” he said in thick disgust. “From the feel, the bullet went through the meat and on out.” He glanced toward Tod. The boy still sat his paint pony, still gripped his carbine.

“How is he?” Cameron asked Jenny.

“Hungry and tired,” she said briefly. “Let me see that leg, Roy.”

He took a closer look at Tod. The boy’s face was drawn, and in the firelight his eyes were sunken and brooding looking. He seemed to have gained years in the few days since Cameron had last seen him. His expression was bleak as he returned Cameron’s stare.

“Are you keeping that gun for me or for whoever might come in here?” Cameron demanded.

Tod’s voice was brittle. “Which side you riding for, Roy?”

Cameron was not surprised at the question. Tod’s attitude shouted suspicion, a touch of fear. “The same side I’ve always ridden for,” he answered quietly.

“That don’t tell me nothing!”

“Tod!” Jenny cried. “Stop acting like this. Put some water on to boil and get the fold of cloth from my saddlebag. Roy’s leg needs tending.”

“Bring the food out while you’re at it,” Cameron said. He made an effort to smile at Jenny. “We might as well eat. From the looks of this place, no one can get in as long as we stand guard. And it’s sure we can’t get out — not until that stallion calms down.”

“He’s spooked,” Jenny agreed.

Tod hadn’t moved. Cameron said softly, “Get it said, Tod. You’ve kept it bottled up inside long enough.”

Words that Tod had obviously been twisting in his mind these past days burst out bitterly. “I heard Larabee tell how he was going to rob the bank Saturday night. I heard him say he wanted you fit to stand guard because you’d turn your back while they stole the gold!”

“That’s how Larabee had it planned,” Cameron agreed. “Only he forgot to ask me. When he did try to tell me how it was going to be, we had a kind of argument.” He kept his voice, easy sounding. “That’s why Arker and Farley are in the meadow now — to gun me down. On Larabee’s orders.”

“I didn’t believe Larabee at first,” Tod blurted out. “I thought he had some idea of putting a gun to your back, catching you off guard because you’d been beat so bad. Then I got to wondering if he didn’t have some kind of hold on you. That’s what Larabee made it sound like. And the more I thought about it …”

“And the hungrier you got,” Cameron murmured understandingly.

“And then nobody came looking for me,” Tod went on.

He was still on the paint, the carbine held tightly in his hand. With a resigned look, Jenny rose and went to the sorrel. She untied her gear and set it near the fire. Rummaging in her saddlebags, she brought out a fold of clean cloth. Then she put water on to boil and came back to where Cameron lay.

She said tartly, “Nobody came looking for you because we all thought you were in the hills with one of Obed’s crews.” Her voice sharpened. “What right do you have to think that about Roy? What has he ever done to make you believe such a thing about him?”

Tod’s voice was anguished. “Why did Larabee think he could make Roy do what he wanted?”

Cameron told his story briefly, simply. While he talked Jenny slit his jeans from the knee down and laid the cloth back to expose a deep gouge in Cameron’s calf. It oozed blood slowly. The bullet had obviously not stayed in him. He heard Jenny’s sigh of relief.

When Cameron finished, Tod said, “You went to jail three months for something you never done?”

“For being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Cameron said. “For being friends with the wrong man.”

“If you can’t believe Roy, who can you believe?” Jenny demanded of Tod.

He said, “I believe him, all right. But Balder won’t, nor Stedman.” Tod slid from the horse and moved toward the saddlebags. Cameron noticed that even as he brought out food and prepared it, he kept his carbine handy and never put his back toward the cut.

Cameron winced as Jenny brought hot water and washed his wound. He said to Tod, “How much sleep have you had?”

“An hour now and then,” Tod said. “I’d build a big fire in the middle of the trail there and get a little rest while it was burning high. The Dondees tried to come in twice. Once the fire stopped them. The other time I singed that shorter one and they stayed pretty well out.” He made an effort to grin. “They kept yelling at me about the food they was eating, figuring to get me hungrier than I was. But I had a little grub with me, and I caught a couple ground squirrels and dug some roots and had me a stew.”

He was plainly proud of himself and pleased with Cameron’s expression of approval. He said, “There’s plenty of wood on the slopes here, and all the water we need. As long as the food holds out, we can keep ’em off us.”

“Of course,” Jenny said. “We can sleep in shifts just as they can. It’s a stand-off.”

“No,” Cameron said. “They hold the high cards. All they have to do is wait us out. We can’t stop any bank robberies from here.”

“If they’re out there keeping us bottled up, how’re they going to rob the bank?” Tod demanded.

Cameron said quietly, “How can we tell if they’ve got one man or four out there? One can hold us in here while the other three help Larabee in town. Remember, if Balder and Stedman swallow the story that I’m planning to hit the bank tomorrow night, they’ll be off balance now.”

Jenny said softly, “And that man Larabee is clever enough to take the gold and still blame it on you.” She finished bandaging Cameron and rose. “Can you use your leg, Roy?”

Cameron got slowly to his feet. He moved slowly, stiff-legged, but he moved. He walked with Jenny to where Tod had bread and cold roast beef cut. “On a horse, I don’t need the leg,” Cameron said. “I wish my arm felt as sure.”

“Let’s do our worrying after we eat,” Tod said. He wolfed down the food.

They talked little as they ate. Cameron was finishing his coffee when the moon topped the mountains and gave him his first good view of the inside of the grassy bowl. The cliffs surrounding it were high and steep, too steep for more than an occasional small tree to find dirt enough for rooting. A small stand of spruce by the spring had provided Tod with his wood. Other than that there was little but grass and glistening rock.

Tod was watching Cameron. “I looked for places to climb out,” he said. “There ain’t none.”

Cameron looked worriedly at the rising moon. “There isn’t too much time left,” he said. “Larabee’s making his hit at one o’clock.”

“Without you there like he figured, what’ll he do?” Tod wondered.

“He won’t try to bull his way in,” Cameron said. “He tried that once and it cost him a term in prison. Sax never makes the same mistake twice.”

He thought about it. “My guess is that he’ll decoy Balder and Stedman and the rest somehow and have things fixed so he can walk right up to the men standing guard. He’ll take care of them and before anybody really knows what happened, the gold will be gone.”

Jenny stared at the small fires by the cut. “What can we do?” she whispered. “Even if we get out now, what can we do?”

Cameron lifted himself slowly to his feet. “We ride,” he said. “If we get out of here now, there’s a chance of getting to town in time to do something.” He nodded toward the meadow. “Unless I’ve got Sax figured wrong, at least two of those in the meadow will be on their way to town now to help him. If we come out of here the right way, they can’t stop all of us.”

Jenny was packing away the food. She looked inquiringly at Cameron. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself, Roy, just to get Tod and me free. That’s foolishness. We’ll find a way where we all have a chance.”

“If my plan works, we’ll all be safe enough,” Cameron assured her. He spoke quickly, nodding now toward the wild stock huddled across the bowl, now toward the mouth of the cut.

“If there’s only two of ’em out there, we got a chance,” Tod said. “Forty-sixty, if everything goes right. If there’s more’n two …”

He broke off and went quickly toward his horse. His words seemed to hang in the air as he settled himself in the saddle and waited for Cameron and Jenny to get ready.

C
AMERON KICKED
the small fires away from the entrance to the cut. Mounting the roan, he worked his right arm to make sure that the cold chill of the mountain night hadn’t tightened the muscles. He could feel the pull and knew that his side was stiffening up, even as his leg was, and he said sharply, “Let’s go!”

They rode across the small bowl, Jenny deliberately staying behind. Tod and Cameron swung out, skirting the rock walls, coming in one from each side on the now nervous wild stuff. The stallion lifted his head and snorted in Tod’s direction. He swung about and glared at Cameron, his lip rolled back from his teeth. The mares and colts shifted nervously.

“Now!” Cameron commanded.

He sent the roan forward. On the other side, Tod did the same. Jenny appeared, dancing her sorrel in toward the stallion and cutting it quickly out again. The big horse charged this new tormentor. Jenny cracked the tip of her rope in his face, making him wheel. He was facing Tod now and his rope snapped, the end flicking the stallion’s dun hide. He whinnied and dashed in the opposite direction, only to find Cameron in his way.

Now he wheeled again and ran for the only refuge — the mouth of the cut. The mares and colts streamed after him, urged by Tod’s hoorawing, by Jenny’s snapping rope. Cameron and Tod fell in tight behind the last mares, leaning forward in their saddles, counting on surprise to give them the moment of advantage they needed.

This was the reverse of what had happened before, Cameron thought. Only now the advantage lay with the men in the meadow, not with himself and Jenny. They would be the ones standing aside. And unless the running herd spooked their horses, they could pull back and shoot from shadow while Cameron and Tod would be outlined by the bright moonlight.

The stallion burst into the meadow, the pounding of hoofs preceding him and giving more than enough warning to anyone out there. Cameron heard a bellow over the sounds of the horses and then light from a small fire was licking at him, revealing him and Tod plainly as the stallion made an unexpected cut to the right and so drawing away any protection they might have.

“It’s Cameron!” Rafe Arker shouted from darkness to the left. “And the kid!”

Lead whined across the fire, searching for Cameron and Tod. Both began to zigzag their horses, at the same time working away from the firelight. Cameron angled a little to his left, Tod to the right. As he rode, Cameron worked his gun free. He pulled the roan up suddenly and twisted himself in the saddle. Pain coursed up from his right side. He swore at the shock of it and nearly dropped his gun. Then it receded and he found the steadiness he needed.

He fired twice, turned, and sent the roan out into the meadow. “After them!” Arker bellowed. He swore in sudden surprise as the sharp sound of a carbine came from behind him.

“It’s the girl!” someone shouted, and Cameron recognized the voice of Hale Dondee. Then both men were riding through the firelight, Hale twisted and fired back at Jenny.

Cameron reined the roan around and held it quiet deliberately against Arker’s bullets. He drew his bead on Hale and fired. He could hear the snick of Arker’s shots worrying his saddle and the rim of his hat, but rage against these men who would attack a woman drove fear out of him. He steadied the roan again as he saw his first shot miss.

The .44 bucked in Cameron’s hand. Fire spewed from the muzzle and he twisted back, flattening himself over the roan’s neck as the stocky horse jerked away from whining lead. A bullet searched the air where Cameron had been. He laid his gun alongside the horse’s neck and shot a third time. He heard a half wild cry, cut off by the hammering of the big palomino’s hoofbeats. A quick glance showed him Arker driving his horse forward on the dead run. To the left, Hale Dondee’s riderless animal galloped aimlessly about.

Cameron righted himself and looked for Tod. He was moving toward the far end of the meadow as he had been instructed, and Cameron could guess how hard it must be for the boy to obey orders at a time like this.

Cameron turned back in time to see Jenny dart her sorrel up behind Arker. Her carbine lifted and steadied and she cried out a warning, wanting to make Arker turn, refusing to shoot him in the back. Arker swung the palomino and brought his gun around in a wide, sweeping movement. Cameron brought his .44 up and fired, but the big horse was weaving and the shot missed. Then Arker was on a line with Jenny and Cameron dared not fire again. Holstering his gun, he heeled the roan forward as he saw Arker’s shot strike the barrel of Jenny’s carbine and send it spinning out of her hands.