The Loner: The Blood of Renegades (16 page)
Chapter 29
Conrad’s heart slugged hard in his chest as he recognized that eye. It belonged to Arturo. He had no idea how Arturo had gotten up there in the loft, but the hope he’d clung to all day finally had a chance to pay off. A chance was all he asked for.
Arturo looked through the knothole for a few seconds, then Conrad heard something move again over his head, something heavy. If he hadn’t been listening for it, he wouldn’t have heard it over the sound of the rising wind. He looked at the guards. They seemed oblivious to the fact that someone was in the loft.
Arturo looked through the knothole again. He seemed to be trying to tell Conrad something. He wished there was some way they could talk, but that was out of the question. He thought furiously. He had heard Arturo moving something heavy around up there. Well, he asked himself, what would you find in a hayloft that was heavy?
Bales of hay, of course.
Conrad could see it in his mind’s eye. Arturo had shoved several bales of hay over to the edge of the loft. They would make effective weapons if he could drop them on the heads of the guards. The problem was getting the guards to stand where the hay would hit them when it fell.
“I can’t take this anymore,” Conrad said abruptly. “Hey! Hey, you avenging angels!”
“Browning, what are you doing?” Kingman asked.
“I’m not going to die because of you,” Conrad snapped. “This whole mess is none of my business. I never should’ve gotten mixed up in it in the first place. Hey, guards!”
One of the men strolled over to grin at him. “Quit raising such a ruckus. There’s going to be a wedding taking place soon. You don’t want to disrupt it.”
“The hell I don’t,” Conrad said. “Tell Elder Hissop I’m sorry, that I’ll do whatever he wants me to do. I’ll even become a Mormon if that’s what it takes. But I don’t want to die!”
“You should’ve thought of that before you killed some of our brethren,” the guard said as his face hardened angrily. “It’s too late for you to ask for forgiveness, mister. Blood calls out for blood.”
“But it was all a mistake!” Only one of the men had come in range. That wasn’t enough. Conrad began writhing against his bonds. “You’ve got to let me go! Please!”
The spectacle of him humiliating himself drew two more guards over to stand in front of him and grin at him. That left just one of them standing near the door. Better odds, maybe the best they could get. But Conrad figured he could try a little harder.
He began to sob.
Tears ran down his face as if his nerve had broken completely. Kingman stared at him in disgust. Ollie looked surprised and disappointed. “Mr. Browning, you really oughtn’t to carry on so. . . .”
“I can’t help it. I don’t want to die! Somebody help me, please!”
The fourth man came over to join the others in gloating.
“Someone,” Conrad cried. “Someone from above—”
A large, heavy bale of hay fell from the loft, plummeting down to smash solidly onto the head of one guard and strike a glancing blow to another. The second pair of guards didn’t have time to do anything except glance up in surprise before another bale came crashing down on their heads, knocking them off their feet. The bales broke on impact and scattered hay all around the sprawled bodies of the guards.
Arturo jumped down from the loft, holding a pitchfork. He landed on top of one man and plunged the tines into his chest. The hay bales had stunned two guards, but the last man was struggling up and clawing at the gun on his hip. He had dropped his rifle when the hay knocked him down.
Conrad kicked out as far as he could reach. The toe of his boot hit the man’s wrist and sent the gun in his hand flying. Arturo pulled the pitchfork free from the chest of the man he had just stabbed and whirled toward the fourth man. He drove the razor-sharp tool into the guard’s belly. Tearing it loose as the man collapsed, and before the two men who had been stunned could regain their wits, he dispatched them with the pitchfork, too.
When Arturo turned to face Conrad, his eyes were wide and staring hysterically. For a second he thought Arturo was going to stab him with the pitchfork, too, but then he dropped it, stepped back, and passed a hand over his eyes.
“My God,” he said in an awed tone. “My God, what have I done?”
“You’ve saved our lives, that’s what you’ve done,” Conrad said. “Now cut us loose, quick.”
Kingman and the other men looked amazed. “Did you know he was up there?” Kingman asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” Conrad snapped. “Come on, Arturo. That guard’s got a knife on his belt. Get it and cut us loose.”
“Of course. Of course.” With a visible effort, Arturo shook off the horror he felt and stooped to pluck the knife from its sheath. He cut Conrad’s bonds first, then tried to press the knife into his hands.
Conrad shook his head as he flexed his fingers. “My hands are still too numb to handle the knife. You just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Very well. I hope I don’t cut anyone.”
“Don’t worry too much about that,” Kingman told him. “Just get these ropes off us.”
Conrad kept working his hands, getting the feeling back into his fingers as fast as he could. He watched the barn door. No one came near it. Outside, the wind still blew. An idea began to form in his head. As soon as his hands worked again, he stripped the gunbelt off one of the guards and buckled it on, then hurried over to that big folded piece of canvas.
“Give me a hand with this,” he told Ollie, who was loose. “Let’s put it in the back of the buckboard.”
“What for?”
“No time to explain. Just do it. We’ll need that keg of nails, a hammer, a couple boards, and some rope, too.”
He could tell Ollie was baffled, but the big man did as Conrad asked.
Meanwhile Conrad picked up a fallen rifle and went over to the door, where he looked out carefully. Kingman joined him.
“See anybody moving around?” Kingman asked.
Conrad shook his head. “Not yet. Everybody must be going to that wedding. Where’s the arbor from here?”
“About half a mile in that direction.” Kingman pointed. “Behind Hissop’s house.”
“Will all the men be armed, even though it’s a wedding?”
“Leatherwood and the avenging angels will be. They always are. The rest of the men probably won’t be.”
“That’s good. We won’t have to fight our way through the entire bunch.”
Ollie came up behind them. “Got that stuff loaded like you wanted, Mr. Browning. Now what?”
“Hitch the team to the buckboard. It’s going to carry us out of here.”
“Wait a minute,” Kingman said. “You plan to interrupt the wedding, load everybody on the buckboard, and ride out of here, just like that?”
“We’ll try to slow them down,” Conrad said.
“Even if we do, they’ll catch up to us and kill us before we’ve gone a mile! We can’t outrun Leatherwood in some stupid buckboard!”
“Just be patient,” Conrad told him. “You’ll see what I’ve got in mind.”
“What I see is that we’re all going to be dead soon!”
“And if we are . . . wouldn’t you rather die fighting? Wouldn’t you rather try to save Selena first?”
Kingman looked at Conrad for a long moment, then jerked his head in a nod. “You’re right about that.” His hands tightened on the rifle he held. “I’ve been wrong about you from the start, Browning. I reckon you’ve earned a little faith.”
“Thanks.” Conrad hoped that faith wasn’t misplaced. “As soon as that buckboard is hitched up and ready to roll, we’re going to attend a wedding, whether we’ve been invited or not.”
Chapter 30
Conrad walked over and put a hand on Arturo’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked his friend.
Arturo gave him a shaky nod. “Yes, I . . . I just never did anything like that. I’ve killed men, but not in cold blood.”
“That wasn’t cold blood,” Conrad told him. “Everyone of those avenging angels would have killed you without even blinking, if they’d had the chance. You saved our lives and saved your own, too. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I suppose not. It’s just . . . since I met you, I’ve done things I never dreamed I’d be capable of. Both good and bad.”
“I’m sorry for the bad,” Conrad said. “We’ll be out of here soon, and then we can get on to San Francisco and finish the job that brought us out here.”
“Sometimes I feel like it’ll never be over,” Arturo mused.
To change the subject, Conrad said, “How did you get away from Leatherwood’s men?”
“When I saw them coming, I abandoned the horses and sought concealment in the trees up on the slope. I’m sorry I let them take the horses.”
Conrad shook his head. “It was a lot more important that you stay loose so you could help us.”
“After that I made my way over the ridge to where I could see what was going on down here. I saw them put you and these other men in the barn. I was afraid they might go ahead and kill you, but when I didn’t hear any shots I figured they were keeping you alive for some reason. So I snuck down here and found a rope hanging from a pulley in a window at the back of the barn. I was able to climb it and get into the hayloft that way.”
Conrad nodded. That rope was used to raise and lower bales of hay from the loft. There was a matching opening and pulley in the front of the barn.
“That was smart thinking, all the way around.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve learned to be . . . creative, shall we say . . . when it comes to dealing with villains. Traveling with you has taught me that, among many other things.”
Conrad grinned as he thought about the plan he had in mind. “Sometimes being creative is the only real chance you’ve got.”
Ollie came over to them. “The team’s hitched up, and the buckboard is ready to go. But where are we going in it?”
Before Conrad could answer, Kingman hissed at them from the front door of the barn. “Leatherwood’s coming, with some of the avenging angels! They’re probably coming to take us to the wedding, so Hissop can force me to watch him marrying Selena.”
“We’re going to the wedding, all right,” Conrad said. “Everybody pile onto the buckboard. Ollie, can you handle the reins?”
“Yeah, I reckon,” the big man said.
“All right. When we get out of the barn, head straight for Leatherwood and his gunmen. Whip the team into a run and roll right over them if you can.”
Ollie nodded. “I gotcha.”
The men had armed themselves with the dead guards’ weapons. Arturo climbed onto the seat next to Ollie. Conrad, Kingman, and the other two men got in the back.
“Let’s go,” Conrad said to Ollie.
They had turned the buckboard so it faced the open front doors of the barn. Ollie slapped the reins against the backs of the horses and they started forward, moving at a walk, then going faster as they approached the door. As the buckboard went through the opening, Ollie yelled and slashed at the team, making them lunge into a gallop.
Leatherwood and five other men were only a few yards from the barn. When the running horses emerged and barreled down on them, they tried to scatter and get out of the way, but three of the men didn’t make it. With startled screams, they went down under the pounding, steel-shod hooves of the team. Conrad felt the buckboard lurch heavily as the iron-rimmed wheels ran over the trampled men.
Leatherwood was one of the men who had thrown himself clear. Roaring furiously, he rolled and came up on a knee to fire at the buckboard’s occupants. Conrad threw a shot back at him but missed as Leatherwood ducked.
On the other side of the buckboard, the remaining gunmen tried to get up but crumpled as bullets ripped through them. That left Leatherwood firing futilely after them as Ollie sent the buckboard racing toward the arbor where the wedding was supposed to take place.
Hissop and the rest of the people gathered for the ceremony would know trouble had broken out, so it wouldn’t be possible to take them completely by surprise. Conrad had a hunch they wouldn’t be expecting wedding crashers, though.
The sky was gray and yellow with dust. A hard gust of wind suddenly pounded the wagon as Ollie wheeled it in a turn and sent it careening toward the brush arbor. People scattered, fleeing the windstorm. Conrad spotted Selena, dressed in a long white gown, struggling with Hissop.
“Selena!” Dan shouted. “Selena, we’re coming for you!”
Avenging angels ran toward the buckboard. Flame spouted from the barrels of their guns. Conrad crouched behind the seat and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. “Keep your head down, Ollie!” he called as he fired over Ollie and Arturo, jacked the Winchester’s lever, and fired again. Kingman was beside him, also firing a rifle. Three of the avenging angels spun off their feet as they were hit, causing the rest to scatter momentarily.
The buckboard careened right up the aisle in the brush arbor toward Selena and Hissop. Ollie hauled back hard on the reins to keep from running them over just as Selena finally clenched one hand into a hard fist and drove it into Hissop’s face. The punch jolted the elder backward. Seizing the opportunity Selena pulled up her skirt and leaped into the back of the buckboard. Conrad grabbed her while Kingman sent a couple shots racketing toward Hissop. The elder rolled behind some benches, and the shots missed, chewing splinters from the seats.
“Dora! Rachel! Caroline!” a man in the buckboard shouted. “Over here!”
Remnants of the crowd were still scattered around. Three women broke loose from the older men holding them, either their fathers or Hissop’s cronies to whom they had been promised as brides. They ran to the buckboard and clambered onto the back of the vehicle as Ollie struggled to get it turned around in the cramped confines of the brush arbor.
“Better get us out of here, Ollie!” Conrad warned. He snapped another rifle shot at an avenging angel and saw the man go over backward as the slug punched into his chest.
“I’m tryin’!” Ollie yelled, lashing at the horses with the reins. They overturned some of the benches that had been set up in the brush arbor as they stampeded back into the open.
Selena clutched at Kingman. “You came for me!” she cried. “You came for me! I didn’t think there was a chance!”
“There’s always a chance, as long as we’re alive!” he told her. “Now get down!”
The women hunkered low as the men surrounded them and kept up a steady fire. Conrad caught a glimpse of Leatherwood and triggered a fast shot at him as the buckboard flashed past, but he was pretty sure he missed.
“Head down the canyon to the salt flats!” Conrad told Ollie. “Fast!”
Ollie looked back over his shoulder. “The salt flats! What—”
“Go, just go!” Conrad told him.
As the buckboard passed the corral, Conrad sent several shots close over the heads of the gathered horses. They were already skittish because of the hard wind, and the shots spooked them even more. They milled around, pressing hard against the poles, and suddenly the corral fence collapsed on one side. The herd broke free, panicking and stampeding. Conrad flashed a grin. That would give them a little more time to put his plan into effect.
Ollie headed across the basin to the mouth of the canyon. A few minutes later it came into sight through the swirling, blowing dust. Conrad looked behind them but couldn’t see any pursuit. The air was so full of dust it was difficult to see for more than a hundred yards or so.
The buckboard barreled into the narrow part of the canyon. Everyone held on for dear life as it bounced and jolted. Conrad kept looking back, expecting to see riders appear on their trail. So far, there was no sign of pursuit.
After a few minutes of the wild ride, the buckboard reached the end of the canyon and emerged onto the gentle slope that led down to the salt flats about a mile away. “Keep going!” Conrad told Ollie. “All the way to the flats!”
“But we can’t go across there!” Ollie protested. “The horses can’t make it!”
“We’re taking the buckboard, but not the horses,” Conrad said. Ollie looked at him like he was crazy.
Maybe he was, he thought. They would soon find out.
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