Си Бокс - Dark Sky

Joe loosened the strap and threw the cover back. He reached down into the bag and his fingers felt clothes, extra boots, his sleeping bag, but nothing hard and solid like a weapon. He determined the items he needed must be either in the opposite pannier—or carried by other horses.

Joe glanced up in frustration at the same moment Brad began to turn in his saddle to check the string.

Joe ducked and moved in as close as he could to Toby and tried not to get stepped on. Joe gave Brad a few seconds to look back, then cautiously raised his head as he walked along.

But Brad hadn’t resumed his position facing forward. Instead, he glared at Joe in surprise and his eyes got big. Brad’s mouth opened to call out, but instead of a cry a thick dollop of blood rushed out and spilled down his chin through his beard.

Before Brad could swing his rifle around, Joe raised the .22 and aimed it at a spot under Brad’s right eye and pulled the trigger.

Snap . Another bad round.

Price couldn’t pick them, either.

Joe tossed the rifle aside and rushed Brad’s horse. As he did, he drew the broken spear out from his belt and gripped it with the point facing up. He ducked again as Brad fired and the concussion itself nearly broke Joe’s stride, but he knew intuitively that Brad’s awkward position had resulted in a miss right over the top of his head.

Winding up as he ran, Joe thumped headlong into the side of Brad’s horse’s flank, while at the same time arcing the spear across his body. The tip buried into Brad’s upper thigh, but missed bone. Instead, it stopped solidly as the point buried into the skirt of Brad’s saddle through the flesh of his leg.

Brad howled while he bolted another round into his rifle, and he spun his horse away. The lead rope he’d been holding for the pack string fell to the ground.

Joe stayed with him out of pure fear, because he didn’t know what else to do. When Brad swung the rifle down again, Joe reached up and grasped the warm barrel and pulled, hoping to wrench it away from Brad’s grip.

But the man was too strong. Instead of letting go, Brad jerked back and nearly pulled Joe off of his feet. But as he did, he howled again as if the pain from his thigh and his shattered jaw both hit him at once.

Joe placed the sole of his boot on the side of Brad’s horse for leverage and leaned back and yanked on the barrel again. This time, it dislodged the big man and he tumbled out of the saddle toward Joe. Brad let go of the rifle as Joe wrenched it free, but the weapon stuck muzzle-first into the ground at Joe’s feet.

Brad didn’t fall on him with all of his weight because the spear through his leg pinned him to the saddle. Instead, Brad swung down like a pendulum until he was upside down for a second. Then the spear came loose and the big man fell to the ground in a heap.

“ Hey! No! Goddammit! ” Earl shouted from down in the drainage. He spurred his horse and started to charge up the slope with Kirby falling in right behind him. As he rode, Earl pulled his rifle from its scabbard and brandished it.

Joe quickly examined the rifle he’d taken. The muzzle was packed tightly with mud. He had no way to clean it out, and if he pulled the trigger it would likely explode in his face.

The string of packhorses resumed their journey and continued to walk along as if nothing had happened. Horse after horse passed by as Joe stood there with Brad at his feet.

Boedecker’s gelding walked past and Joe found himself in the open with Earl and his younger son charging up the slope directly at him. He tossed the useless rifle aside.

As if oblivious to everything that was going on, Price suddenly lurched into Joe’s field of vision. He lurched because he was unbalanced from hefting a heavy rock the size of a football above his head with both hands. Which he smashed down on the back of Brad’s head with a sickening hollow sound, and the man trembled and went still.

Then Joe caught a glimpse of movement in the drainage, up the creek from where Earl and Kirby had been.

Two figures, one on foot and one on horseback, emerged from a dark tight stand of trees. They charged straight for a place halfway up the slope where they could intercept the Thomases. The rider was Sheridan, her hat flying off her head and her hair streaming behind her as she rode.

To Joe, she looked like a younger, faster, female version of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit .

The man on foot with his big revolver out was Nate.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Sheridan swung wide on Rojo just below the tree line when she heard: “ Hey! No! Goddammit! ”

She’d spurred her horse into a full gallop and the gelding had responded as if this was what he’d been waiting for his entire life: to be unleashed. It was hard for her to stay on his back while also seeing what was going on below in the drainage.

Earl and Kirby had also erupted into action. Earl shouted again and barreled up the slope from the creek. She could see he had a rifle in his right hand and the reins in his left. Kirby was behind him and to the side. They were both headed to the same place she was: up the slope, where her dad stood in a clearing with another man near a pile of slab rock.

Was that other man Steve-2?

She leaned forward in the saddle and rode straight toward them. She was moving too fast and the ride was too wild even to consider drawing the rifle out of her saddle scabbard or pulling the pistol. That could come later when she reached her father.

The situation she was in reminded her how unrealistic movies and television shows were when they depicted riders in full gallop drawing their six-shooters and firing away. She was an experienced rider and she could barely hang on.

She noted in her peripheral vision that Earl had pulled to a sliding stop halfway up the slope. At the same time, she realized the reason he’d done it was because he saw her cutting across the incline toward the two men. Earl raised his rifle and he swung it in her direction.

There was a sharp crack as a bullet snapped through the air just ahead of her. Then another behind her that thudded into a tree trunk to her right.

Sheridan leaned forward and hugged Rojo’s neck, trying to make herself a harder target to hit.

—

Nate saw Earl stop and aim his rifle at Sheridan. She was moving fast. Two hurried shots rang out, but she didn’t stop. At the same time, Kirby spotted him jogging along the creek and the younger son peeled away from where his father was. He turned his horse toward Nate and spurred it.

As Kirby charged, Nate could see that he’d drawn a rifle out and he held it at his side with a stiff arm. The rifle bobbed up and down as the horse ran toward him.

Nate stopped, steadied himself into a shooter’s stance, and leveled his weapon. Kirby was coming hard and fast and he was leaning into it, pressing himself forward along the neck of his horse. Nate thumbed the hammer of his .454, but couldn’t get a clear shot. All he could see coming was the horse’s head, its nostrils flared.

He hated to shoot a horse, he thought.

But: BOOM .

Kirby’s mount cartwheeled forward in a violent and complete somersault, throwing Kirby through the air. Kirby was launched and he hit the ground headfirst. Nate clearly heard Kirby’s neck snap as he landed. The rifle left his hand and clattered on the rocks of the creek bed.

Kirby lay facedown in the rocks and grass with his limbs thrashing in spasms.

—

Sheridan, no!” her dad yelled to her when he turned and saw her coming. “Go back!”

She had seen the horse tumble below her and she knew Kirby was down. Nate was now approaching the injured man, following the muzzle of his revolver.