Craig Johnson - The Dark Horse

I’d worry about it if I got there.

I crouched against Sue’s neck, loosened the reins completely, and gave her her head. The mare gained speed as we hit the flat, and she must’ve seen him or smelled him because, even though she should have been absolutely worn out, Wahoo Sue accelerated into that breath-snatching velocity that she’d exhibited on the mesa.

I shot a look over my right shoulder and felt my right hand stealing onto the brass receiver of the. 44 Henry. Barsad was less than a hundred yards away and gaining, the roar of the turbocharged Cummins diesel clattering up the isolated streets; it sounded as if the train had made a U-turn.

I looked back at the road ahead and the remaining distance.

No way.

We were not going to make it and, if we did, he was going to be on us as we got there-we’d just be crushed by the grill guard and run over.

My mind raced along with us and thoughts streaked across my brain like the chain lightning on the mesa sky. The railroad tracks were to my right, with the majority of town to the left, so there was no chance there, but the interior doors of the granary hung open with a ramp leading inside the cavernous building, and there was a chance there.

I glanced back again and could see the truck was now only a hundred feet behind us. He’d think we had to stop or that we’d have to veer left and up one of Absalom’s side streets. Instead, I yanked the reins to the right and sailed Wahoo Sue up the ramp. One of the doors hung loosely while the other rested on its side against the building, providing an opening you could drive a horse through or a truck driven at a sensible speed.

Wahoo Sue trusted my judgment implicitly, and we blew from end to end without hesitation with the diesel breathing down our collective necks.

Wade wasn’t as lucky-he was going too fast, and with the added wideness of the duellie and the lift of the elevated scales, he clipped the hanging door and a compressor just inside the opening, causing the Dodge to carom off the opposite side and shed a fiberglass rear fender. He fought to correct his trajectory, but with the force of his speed, he tipped a wheel off the ramp and slid sideways another fifty feet with his brakes locked.

I reined left at the other side, gave the mare her lead again, and we galloped up the road beside The AR toward the tiny library/post office. Another quick glance behind, and I could see the headlights of the Dodge in the sedimentary streams of airborne dust, and the diesel bellowed as Barsad extricated himself from the granary.

The pay phone outside the log building that served as the library/post office was clearly too far in the open to use. I wheeled Sue around the corner across the dried-grass lot and headed back south out of view of the main street. I pulled her up short. There was no way I could outrun Barsad on the open road, but in the confines of the little town I figured I could use the maneuverability of the horse against him.

I settled the mare, lathered in sweat and snorting, and I couldn’t help but think that she knew who he was and what the consequences would be if he caught us. She raised her head with the large, soft ears pivoting and listened along with me. We could hear the diesel as it sped up the hill; then I saw the red Dodge pass between two buildings and slow down on the street I’d just left.

I walked Sue, trying to cool her down a little, countering Barsad’s progress by continuing back around the log structure and down the hill. If I could make it to the bar, I could possibly find a safe place for the horse and make a call.

I stopped Wahoo Sue at the lower side of the building, and we listened as the diesel continued up the hill and, as I’d hoped, turned left. I continued down and tracked Barsad by listening to the sound of the Dodge’s engine as he turned again, but somewhere a block south.

I gently kicked her to a canter as I got to the next alley and turned toward the back of the bar. If I could hide Sue behind the building and get inside to make a phone call, I’d be able to get help to all the people who were counting on me.

I guided her into the lot behind The AR just as the red truck drove by the end of the alley we’d just been on. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen us, but I pulled the horse up to the back-door mudroom and hoped not. There was nowhere else to go. We stood next to one of the decayed, lath privacy fences that sided the dry-grass lot, as well as the thousand-gallon propane tank, which was the size of a small Japanese minisubmarine, sitting along the side of the fence to my left.

The racket of the diesel continued to echo off the hills and through Absalom. It sounded as if he’d stopped somewhere to my right and was now idling. I pulled my hat down and thought about using the Henry rifle on the Dodge’s tires.

Sue pivoted her head and began backing up. I hadn’t asked her to do that, and I ducked under the eave of the building as she continued to back away into the narrow walkway between the bar and the unconnected rooms. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but she hadn’t failed me so far.

We stood there, and I could feel her legs stiffen. What if Barsad had parked the truck and was now pointing the semiautomatic at us?

Enough was enough; I raised the. 44 and jacked the lever-action. I wasn’t sure what Wahoo Sue’s response to gunfire from close proximity would be, but it had to be better than being shot or run over by a seven-thousand-pound truck.

I heard the bellow of the diesel, so he hadn’t parked; I pivoted Wahoo Sue in the direction of the alley, but he sounded much closer.

The fence to my left blew apart as the Dodge crashed through and veered. I spun Sue into a rearing turn at the other side of the walkway as the duellie slid through the lot, occupying it with the front wheels turned toward us. Barsad had the 9 mm out but he miscalculated the distance to the propane tank, and I watched as the impact forced the pistol out of his hand and onto the floorboards where he would have to take the time to look for it. I could see that the utility tank had lurched off its concrete blocks and sat at a thirty-degree angle.

In a movie, it would’ve blown up. But we weren’t in a movie and it didn’t, and I could see Wade throwing the Dodge into reverse and swinging back.

I realized that I was trying to lose a truck in a three-block town, but my options were limited. I could get off and shoo the mare away, but my mobility was questionable to say the least, and once I got off the big black horse, there wasn’t anything to say she’d let me back on her.

Shooting the truck from the moving horse was an option but not nearly as easy as it appeared in most westerns. I’d known many an individual who had learned that by shooting either themselves or their horse; besides, the FBI wanted him alive, so it was a last resort.

I looked back up the paved main street that headed north when I suddenly remembered the Range Co-op phone jack at the junction box next to the bridge. Would it still be there? Would the bridge still be there?

If I were trying to outthink myself, however, that’s the direction I’d go.

I started to gig Wahoo Sue, but she’d already read my mind. It would take a while for Barsad to disentangle himself from the propane tank and the fences and get back on the road, and by that time I hoped to be up the rise and out of sight. Wahoo Sue was at an immediate disadvantage on the blacktop, so I reined her to the right, where there was a broad dirt walkway for horses-an advantage of small-town Wyoming.

I looked back as we got to the top of the rise overlooking Absalom and could see no activity in the streets below. The population must’ve slept like the dead or more likely didn’t want to be involved. The early morning sun was throwing a diffused glow through the clouds at the horizon, and the shadow of the mill cast across the town like a closed door.