Gunsmoke Serenade Read online

  Knight counted eight men. Lacroix said they had one more further back on a trail to keep watch. He said he could sense him. Knight strained his eyes but he still only saw eight men, although he didn’t doubt Lacroix. If he said they had nine men at this camp then it was nine men.

  ‘I want the man on the trail,’ Lacroix said.

  ‘But we can’t see him.’

  ‘We will when he smokes.’

  ‘You’re betting he has tobacco on him?’

  Lacroix nodded. ‘Wouldn’t you make sure you have tobacco on watch? It’ll keep a man awake and help pass the time.’

  They cut around a copse of trees and circled east. They saw nothing but could still hear the men talking in the camp. The fire crackled and smoke drifted on the wind. When Lacroix stopped they peered into the blackest part of the trail and still saw nothing. Lacroix pulled an arrow from his quiver and strung the shaft to his bow.

  Knight smelled the tobacco before they saw it. An orange glow lit up the man’s features as he inhaled on his quirly. Lacroix let the arrow fly and they heard it thunk! into the man’s chest. He coughed, and then the tobacco was dropped and they saw nothing. They heard the man’s death rattle and gurgling.

  Satisfied, Lacroix turned and retraced their steps. They went a hundred yards and came to a spot where they could watch the camp. Neither of them spoke. Two of the men had fallen asleep.

  Lacroix, tilting his head as if he heard something, whispered, ‘Stay here a moment.’

  Knight waited and listened while watching the camp. The conversation was dying down but there was still movement among the men. He heard Lacroix rummaging about in a thicket and worried the men in camp might hear it. This, however, was followed by silence. A few moments later, Knight heard a faint buzzing sound coming toward him. Turning around on his haunches, he observed Lacroix moving quickly in his direction. The buzzing sound grew louder.

  ‘Stay put!’ Lacroix rasped. ‘I’ve got a hornet’s nest!’

  Faintly, Knight could see the buzzing round nest hanging from a tree branch that Lacroix now held in his hands. With a mighty swing Lacroix heaved the nest high into the air, where it tumbled into the camp landing on one of the sleeping men. There was an instantaneous flurry of activity followed by loud curses that grew in intensity as the hornets went to work on the unsuspecting men.

  Lacroix, seeing an opportunity to add to the mayhem, once again lifted his bow and let an arrow whiz at a man flapping his arms in a strange dance of consternation. The arrow punctured his chest and the man coughed blood almost instantly before falling in a heap. Shouts rang out. ‘Indians! Damn it to hell, someone get help!’ One of the men raised his Winchester and fired futilely into the darkness beyond the campfire’s glow.

  ‘That’ll do it for tonight,’ Lacroix said. ‘That shooting will bring the others right quick. Let’s skedaddle.’

  They were in the canoe and paddling across the lake in minutes. Fifteen minutes later they looked back from the top of a hill and saw a line of torches marching in file through the darkness. The men were eerily quiet but Knight and Lacroix knew that didn’t make them any less dangerous. By the time they reached the cliff below Lacroix’s cave they heard a few Winchester shots, which they guessed were exploratory in nature.

  Up in the cave they sat near the opening but the men brandishing torches never came near them, and there was no further gunfire. Knight realized that he was exhausted. The long day had taken his energy and he was grateful to curl up in a soft bear hide that Lacroix tossed in his direction.

  But Knight had strange dreams. A boy at Shiloh emerged from the fog, his face eaten away by maggots, a bullet hole in his brow. The boy pointed a finger at Knight and smiled a death’s head grin. Then Knight was running through the fog, but he couldn’t catch his breath. His legs felt as if they were weighted down with lead. Dark shapes flitted in and out of his peripheral vision.

  He awoke several times and stared at the cave’s black ceiling. Lacroix was snoring contentedly. Knight admired the man’s self-sufficient lifestyle and calm demeanour.

  In the morning they chose to remain in the cave and sat near the edge to keep an eye out for intruders. Although their view was partially obstructed by a strand of pine, they could see a fair distance down-slope toward the switchbacks that curled east and west. They heard voices in the distance but no gunfire. Without knowing their adversaries true nature they were forced to guess at what might be happening. Knight conjectured that believing an Indian attack had occurred last night might force them to reconnoitre and perhaps even change their picket lines.

  Lacroix observed that, having planned so well, their leader appeared to be the type to have a contingency plan. They weren’t hunting without purpose, and they had planned well and at a great expense. ‘You’ve got one devilish enemy down there,’ Lacroix said. ‘Besides, it won’t take them long to figure there aren’t any Injuns hereabouts.’

  Shortly after noon they heard voices down below, possibly fifty feet away, but they never saw anyone. They spent time skinning a wild turkey that Lacroix had killed a few days earlier, and it was getting a bit gamey so Knight helped him skin it and cook it. After eating it Lacroix brought out his secret bottle of Tennessee whiskey, the best, he said, in any part of the country. Knight indulged himself with but a few swallows. The warmth slammed into him and spread through his veins. That was enough, he thought.

  Once again they watched the light change the trees and the mountain colors stood out in contrast to the tumbling sky. Suddenly they heard a sound that caught their attention. It was a buzzing sound followed by the faint slap of leaves rustling as if in a breeze. Then the rifle fire thundered up the valley and made the birds shriek as they flapped free of the tall trees.

  A cacophony of gunfire erupted again, somewhat closer, but from a different direction. Lacroix was puzzled but Knight knew instantly what was happening.

  ‘They set up lines of riflemen at different points and at different distances. They’re firing at separate points on the trail or in the tree-line with the hope of flushing me out. It’s a gamble.’

  ‘That’s a waste of ammunition.’

  ‘Sure, but after last night they know I’m watching so they’re assuming I’m nearby. If they’re lucky I’ll be close enough to feel the sting of their lead.’

  ‘But you’re not,’ Lacroix said smiling, ‘you’re sitting here with a belly full of turkey and a bottle of whiskey.’ Lacroix’s glee was palpable.

  ‘True enough, but my friends down there won’t give up. I’ve got to figure out a way to end this.’

  ‘That’s a fact. Now let me ponder on this a moment.’ Lacroix put the bottle to his lips and took a long draw, and smacked his lips appreciatively before corking the bottle. ‘Now the way I see it we have to come at them from two sides and fight like General Washington’s boys, picking away at them a little each day.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Of course, you dang fool. I’m in this now, too. Fact is, I haven’t had this much fun since my wife showed me the Injun fertility ritual of dancing naked under a full moon!’

  ‘Is that right? Did it work?’

  ‘Hell, no, but I sure enjoyed it all the same.’ Lacroix’s laughter echoed in the cave.

  Late in the afternoon they decided to chance looking around. Knight figured they had about two hours of daylight left. Down on the switchback trail they moved north and followed the same trail as the night before. ‘Let’s head for that mountain creek,’ Lacroix said. ‘I got a feeling it isn’t too safe down near the lake right now.’

  Up in the hills they were forced to break through a thick covering of bushes and small trees to reach the creek. The creek itself at this point wasn’t twenty feet across, but deep, the water dark and green and shaded on each side by underbrush and squat fat bushes. Lacroix said he had another canoe stowed somewhere nearby but couldn’t quite remember where it was. They found it after thirty minutes of scampering along the hidden embankment. The small bark canoe
was stuck in a bush of raspberries. Knight saw a grizzly paw print in the mud. He pointed it out to Lacroix.

  ‘We can’t stay long here. That grizzly has been hunting around these parts all summer. The black bears I don’t mind, but a grizzly will hunt a man down.’

  ‘Does this creek feed into the lake?’

  ‘That it does. There’s lots of turns and some shallows. It bottoms out in a marsh about forty feet from my other canoe. There’s a paddle under that rawhide cover. Keep it in mind if you need to get away fast. Now let’s mosey south toward the lake on foot. This brush makes good cover.’

  ‘As long as we don’t meet that grizzly,’ Knight said.

  Lacroix patted his flintlock rifle affectionately. ‘That’s why I brought this along, and you’ve got that fancy Winchester.’

  ‘We’re an industrious pair.’

  They moved slowly along a trail of their own making, although Knight relied on Lacroix to navigate. The old mountain man appeared to know every nook and cranny of this section of the Rocky Mountains. As they came closer to the lake they heard distant voices. Emerging from the thick underbrush, they eventually crouched low and watched for trouble. They had not seen any other men nor heard any voices, but Knight’s skin was prickling along his neck as his instincts warned him of danger.

  Judging it safe, they pressed ahead and continued toward the lake’s southern ridge. They had not gone fifty feet when five men appeared suddenly on the forest path in front of them. The men, startled by the sudden appearance of two armed men, went for the guns. One man, raising his rifle swiftly, managed to fire once. The bullet whizzed past Knight’s ear. Lacroix’s flintlock boomed and a lead ball shattered the man’s head. Knight dove to his right, levering his Winchester. A bullet tore a hole through a man’s leg. The man screamed, raising his revolver and snapped two shots in Knight’s direction. Rolling into the brush, Knight sent a shot at the man but missed. All of the men had fired at least once and scattered. The quick, lethal burst of gunfire echoed throughout the forest.

  With his knee caroming off a rock, Knight winced in pain and scrambled deeper into the underbrush. He heard the sound of Lacroix’s Navy Colt boom once followed by the sound of the old mountain man chuckling happily. The old coot is enjoying himself, Knight thought.

  They had one wounded man and three armed men to deal with. Worst of all, the gunfire would bring more men. They didn’t have much time. Knight crept about a line of blackberry bushes. He wanted to move closer to the men. He thumbed a few fresh cartridges into his Winchester to replace the ones he’d used. With a full magazine and Lacroix taking shots with his old Navy revolver, Knight thought they’d be able to handle these men as long as they did so quickly.

  Peeking out from a cluster of leaves, Knight sighted down his Winchester on one of the men. He fired without hesitation. The Winchester barked and its bullet found its mark on the man’s chest. Knight watched the man gawk at his wound, crimson blossoming on his plaid shirt, and then fall unceremoniously into a thicket.

  Three to go.

  He kept moving, feeling neither fear nor elation; his mind was simply focused on doing the job at hand. When he saw a shape emerge from a thicket he fired, the gunshot echoing loudly and scattering more birds. Then he was moving again. He thought his shot might have missed but at that moment it didn’t matter. More shapes in a swelter of rippling leaves – he fired again. He could hear nothing but the echo of his rifle. A few moments later he spotted droplets of blood on some tufts of grass. So he had at least wounded one of them.

  The embankment dropped away and he almost stumbled. A gun roared and a bullet nicked his left arm. Pain lanced his arm but he still pressed on.

  He heard voices. A man cursed.

  Wheeling around he saw a man about to raise his revolver and he dropped to his knees, jacked a round into his Winchester, and fired. Flame blew out of the muzzle. His bullet cut the air before thunking into the man’s jaw, a geyser of blood and bone spilling across the trail.

  Knight moved past the twitching body.

  Two to go.

  Lacroix’s revolver popped some distance off on his left. He moved in that direction. Far removed from their original path, Knight was nearly crashing through the underbrush with brute force. His exertions caused his energy to ebb, his breath finally coming in rasping gulps. Hell of a thing getting old, he thought as he crashed through a web of chokecherry scrub.

  He stopped, squinting through the scrub. A man a hundred yards away facing east. He had a rifle and he was looking about, half crouched by a moss-covered boulder. Knight pulled his Winchester to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. He heard a bluejay singing when he pulled the trigger just once. He saw flame spew from the rifle’s maw and singe a branch as the bullet sped toward the man a hundred yards away. The bluejay tweeted once, hurriedly, perhaps startled by the rifle shot.

  He saw a puff of dust rise off the man’s vest. The man dropped his rifle.

  Knight leapt to his feet, cursing his own tired bones. It took him longer than he intended to reach the man. Knight stood a few feet away and studied him. He was still breathing. He looked like any down-on-his luck cowboy. The sun poured down through the spruce and appeared to circle the man with a golden glow. He looked up and saw Knight.

  ‘You the marshal?’

  Knight nodded. ‘Why are you after me?’

  The man chuckled but then coughed up blood. ‘You got me, mister, that’s a fact. Do you have a canteen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Too bad. I would have liked a cool drink.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘Money. Manchester pays in gold.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘You killed his brother.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any Manchester.’

  The man shrugged, coughed, blood trickling from his nose.

  ‘Lousy goddamn luck. I have a whore girlfriend in Denver. Not even enough time to writer her a letter.’

  ‘Don’t worry about her. She won’t be lonely.’

  ‘That’s downright cruel of you to say so.’

  ‘Being a lawman isn’t a friendly business.’

  ‘Manchester has fifty men. You don’t have a chance. I hope you suffer when he kills you.’

  ‘Sure,’ Knight said, but the man was dead. His body relaxed slowly as he toppled over. Knight looked up at the sun blazing in the blue bowl of sky. He looked up and down the trail. The birds had started tweeting again. You wouldn’t know that four men had just been shot to death. Nature didn’t care. It was a beautiful day.

  One to go.

  Thirty minutes later, Knight had moved along a deer trail and circled around looking for Lacroix. He found the mountain man sitting on a log and casually swatting away some black flies that were hovering around his beard. Perspiration shone on his face.

  ‘I took some shots at a few,’ Lacroix said, ‘and I might have winged one.’

  ‘I killed four.’

  Lacroix gestured to his left. ‘One vamoosed up thataway. Might have hit him, like I said. I’ll rest here a spell, but don’t take too long. I’m expecting company.’

  ‘We’re too far away from the cave to get caught out here.’

  Lacroix smiled. ‘I have more than one camp. Now get moving.’

  Knight went after his man. Under any other circumstance he might have paused and enjoyed the beautiful Colorado weather as the sun shined down among the pines. Then he saw a speck of blood on a pine cone at his feet. The wounded man had come this way. Knight checked his guns, re-loaded, and jacked a round into his ’73 Winchester. Moving into the brush he crested a hill and stared down a sloping, broad trail that dropped off suddenly into a ravine. Down in that ravine he saw the man slip into a strangle-hold of scrub and small trees. The man had boxed himself in, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  The breeze scuttled along and threw windblown grit in his face. He could smell the pine as two pheasants burst from the s
crub down in the ravine and flapped away. Knight thought the man was either a damn fool or his wound was such that he couldn’t think clearly. He lost direct sight of the man but the branches were wavering where Knight had last seen him.

  A rifle thundered.

  Knight felt the bullet cut the air just an inch from his head, followed by another shot. By then he was dodging low, winging off a shot of his own down into that scrub. The distance was about two hundred yards and without getting the man centered in his buckhorn sights he didn’t much think he’d hit anything.

  Knight didn’t want to spend the time playing a cat and mouse game with a wounded man. Besides, the outcome was inevitable. Crouching on a hillock, he removed his Stetson and whipped it into the air while shouldering his rifle, quickly levering a round into the breech, and focusing on the brush where the man was hiding. He saw the muzzle flash as the blue smoke wafted upwards.

  Knight fired at the spot, his rifle booming, and then he emptied his Winchester by firing in a sweeping motion left and right to cover the entire area. He reloaded his Winchester before starting down the hill. He knew the man was dead. He heard his bullet strike bone and the man’s gurgling death rattle even though he couldn’t see him.

  He found the body lying face-up in a cluster of yellow wildflowers. Knight recognized him. It was the young kid he’d clubbed that night this all started. Now he was dead. Hell, it had been damn foolish to let him live anyway. These men won’t hesitate to kill me if they get a chance, he thought.

  What he really wanted were answers, but in order to understand all of this he needed to get to Silas Manchester, whoever he was. Meanwhile, Maxfield Knight had no choice. He was going to have to kill a lot of men before this was over.

  Forty-five to go.

  SIX

  Cole Tibbs thought that US Marshal Knight had his hands full with fifty armed men after him. He sat astride his horse up on a hill thick with spruce and birch and watched the camp. They had tents set up as if it were a military operation, a cook wagon and sentries. They were well armed and well fed. Not to mention, they could hunt game here in the mountains for extra food. The sons-of-bitches meant business. Now Tibbs had to come up with a plan to help.