William Johnstone - Battle of the Mountain Man

Dewey Hyde pumped seven slugs through his Winchester in a fit of rage, knowing he’d hit nothing with any of his bullets. Spittle dribbled down into his beard when he forgot to spit with a wad of chewing tobacco in his left cheek, thus he spat and took seven more shells from his pocket, pushing them into the loading gate to fill its cartridge chamber. As the roar of gunfire came from all directions, he wondered idly if Marvin was having any better luck in the ravine below, to the west. This kind of a fight didn’t suit Dewey, not when he couldn’t see who he was shooting at so far away in the dark.

“Turn around, creep,” someone said behind him. “I want to see your ugly face before I blow it off your skull.”

Dewey made a quick half turn, swallowing tobacco juice in his haste and fear, bringing his rifle around for a shot at the owner of the strangely calm voice in the middle of a deadly gun battle like this. He saw a squatting figure, muscles bunched in his bare chest, aiming two pistols at him from only a few yards away.

Before Dewey could aim, he heard a noise, an explosion, and in the same instant something akin to a red-hot poker entered the soft flesh beneath his chin—he was sure he could feel fire as it traveled upward, through his mouth and tongue, jarring him the way an iron-rimmed wagon wheel did when it struck a rock. He was scooted backward by the flaming poker entering his brain, and he could feel it tearing through the top of his head. Without truly understanding what was happening, he puzzled over the hot sensation, like fire. How could fire get inside his skull like this?

He lay back as the figure stepped over him, heading down to the ravine where Marvin was shooting. Dewey tried to yell, to warn Marvin, only his mouth was full of blood and tobacco juice and he could feel only the stump of his tongue moving when he tried to speak. He coughed and closed his eyes. Marvin would be able to take care of himself until Dewey could figure out what was wrong. For some reason, in spite of what had just happened to his head, he felt sleepy, and it was sure as hell the wrong time to be needing to take a nap.

Marvin Hyde decided it was time to pull back. Some of the bullets fired from the ranch were coming too close, whizzing over his head by no more than a foot or two. He didn’t want somebody to get off a lucky shot that would turn out to be unlucky for him and in all this noise and confusion, Jessie Evans would never know he’d moved to a safer place.

Marvin came slowly to his hands and knees, pulling his rifle along in the grass, its barrel still hot from so much shooting. A few feet more and he was behind the lip of the shallow ravine, where he could stand up.

As he turned around, he came face-to-face with a half-naked man holding two pistols. “Who the hell are you?” Marvin asked, unable to recall this fellow’s face as being a member of Jessie’s gang.

“Your executioner, plowboy. I’m gonna put a hole through your overalls while you’re wearin’ ’em.”

“The hell you say!” Marvin cried, bringing his Winchester up for a shot.

The roar of a Colt .44 caught Marvin in mid swing, before he could get his rifle muzzle lifted. He was torn off his planted feet by what felt like a whistling gust of wind striking his chest. His rifle flew from his hands as he fell backward from the force of it, and when he fell on his back it was as if an anvil had been dropped on his rib cage. He couldn’t breathe at all, not a single breath, and when he touched his chest he felt something wet on the front of his bib overalls, then the hole this sneaky stranger had promised.

He saw the stranger hurry off into the darkness, and thought how he needed to warn Dewey. But try as he might, he could not raise his head or suck in enough wind to shout to his brother.

He noticed his legs were trembling uncontrollably, feet twitching as though they had minds of their own. It occurred to Marvin that joining up with Jessie Evans and his gang hadn’t turned out to be such a good idea after all. Maybe he and Dewey should have stayed in Indian Territory, or headed north for the Kansas line.

Off in the distance, he could hear the pop of rifles, and it sounded like they were moving away, growing fainter. With all his strength, he tried to draw in a breath of badly needed air, and found again he couldn’t, Marvin had always feared drowning in a river someplace, running out of air. How could a man drown out in the middle of a cow pasture? Twenty-four

Smoke crept forward, toward the shape of a man lying prone at the crest of a rocky knob, firing down at the ranch in regular bursts, as fast as he could reload a Winchester .44. Smoke had a decided advantage tonight that he couldn’t always count on — the noise made by so many rifles firing at once. This made it far easier to slip up behind his quarry, not having to be so careful where he placed each foot.

The rifleman fired seven shells and then paused to load his gun, giving Smoke just the opportunity he needed.

“Turn around. I’ve got a message for you from Jessie,” he said quiedy, just loud enough to be heard above the din of guns banging.

A Mexican with a thin mustache looked over his shoulder as he continued thumbing shells into his rifle. He opened his mouth to speak, until he realized he did not recognize Smoke’s face in the dark. Then he saw Smoke’s pistols.

“ Dios! ”the man cried. “You are not with us!”

“No, I ain’t.”

“But you say you have a message from Senor Jessie…”

“I suppose I should have said I have a message for Jessie,” Smoke said. “Trouble is, I can’t leave you alive to give it to him.”

The Mexican seemed to understand at once that he stood no chance of turning his gun on Smoke in time. “ Por favor , please do not kill me, senor.”

Smoke answered softly, in case other members of Jessie’s gang were close enough to hear him despite the constant rattle of rifle fire back and forth. “Funny you’d beg for your life when you came here to kill us. If the tables were turned, would you give me a chance to ride off?”

“Of course, senor. It would be the honorable thing to do in this situation, when you have the drop on me.”

“You think I oughta give you a chance to aim that rifle at me first?”

The Mexican hesitated, thinking. “I do not believe you would do that, senor.”

“Then you’re callin’ me a liar.”

“No, senor. I only say I do not think you would be so foolish.”

Smoke lowered his pistols to his sides. “Aim it at me. Go ahead. I’ll give you plenty of time.”

Another hesitation, then suddenly the Mexican squirmed around, sweeping his rifle barrel toward Smoke.

“Long enough,” Smoke whispered, whipping his left pistol up, and gently squeezing the trigger so the motion wouldn’t ruin his aim.

His Colt barked, jumping in his fist, its echo lost in a wall of noise coming from the surrounding hills and the ranch down below. The Mexican’s body jerked as though he’d been startled, jolted by the bullet passing through him at close range. He threw back his head and shrieked in pain, letting his rifle fall between his knees. He sat there a moment, staring at Smoke, then he looked down at his belly, where a dark stain was spreading over the front of his shirt

“ Madre ,” he groaned, touching the bullet hole in his stomach with a fingertip.

“Your mother can’t help you now,” Smoke said. “It’ll take you awhile to die, bein’ gutshot.”

“Take me to the doctor in Mesilla!” the Mexican begged in a high-pitched voice. “Can’t you see that I am badly wounded and without a doctor, I will surely die?”

Smoke turned away from the knob. “I might have considered it, if it wasn’t for the fact you came here to kill me an’ my friends. Adios, bastardo . ”He strolled away into the deep night shadows, looking for another victim, another paid assassin who came to South Springs ranch seeking a murderer’s payday.