William Johnstone - Dead Before Sundown

A fraction of a second later, one of the men riding behind them let out a pained grunt. Palmer whipped his head around in time to see the man topple out of the saddle with a black, red-rimmed hole in the center of his forehead where the bullet had struck him.

“Move!” Lundy yelled as he kicked his horse into a run. “Somebody’s shootin’ at us!”

That seemed pretty obvious to Palmer. He heard the wind-rip of another bullet past his ear as he leaned forward to make himself a smaller target.

“Hyaaaahh!” he shouted at his horse as he urged the animal into a gallop. Lundy had gone to the left, so Palmer went to the right. When you were under attack, it wasn’t smart to bunch up. Make your enemies split their fire.

The other two outlaws were scattering as well. Palmer heard the flat crack-crack-crack of rifle fire now and saw a cloud of powder smoke rising over the odd-shaped rock. Some bastards had gotten up there and set up an ambush for them.

Palmer had a pretty good idea who they were, too. Those damn half-breeds were trying a double cross, he thought as he rode swiftly toward some trees.

His horse suddenly lurched underneath him. Palmer cursed bitterly as he felt the animal going down. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups and let go of the reins. He was thrown clear as the horse fell, but after sailing through the air for a few feet, he slammed into the ground so hard that he was stunned and all the breath was knocked out of his body.

He lay there gasping, unable to get any air in his lungs. He knew he needed to get up and make a run for the trees. Out here in the open, he was an easy target.

His muscles wouldn’t obey him, though. He tried to force himself up but slumped back down, helpless.

A few feet away, his horse lay bleeding to death from the terrible wound a bullet had ripped in its throat. Its hooves thrashed madly in agonized panic.

The horse’s body would give him a little cover, Palmer thought, if he could just get behind it. Gritting his teeth, he finally succeeded in forcing his body into motion. He began to crawl toward his stricken mount.

Palmer had to circle around the wildly flailing hooves. The horse’s movements were less urgent now as death approached rapidly, but those slashing hooves were still dangerous.

The horrible bubbling sounds the horse was making came to an end. The hooves stilled. Palmer pulled himself behind the carcass just as bullets began to thump into it.

He huddled as low to the ground as he could and hoped that would be enough to protect him. What felt like a burning brand raked along his leg. He realized that one of the bullets had just grazed him. He pressed himself closer to the dead horse.

From where he lay, he couldn’t see Lundy anymore, but he saw that one of the other men was down, knocked from his saddle by bushwhacker’s lead.

Where was the pack horse with the two chests full of gold bars?

That question suddenly filled Palmer’s mind. He desperately wanted to lift his head so he could take a better look around, but he knew that doing so would invite the bushwhackers to put a bullet through his brain. He clenched his teeth together and made himself keep his head down.

The first man who’d been hit had been leading the pack horse, Palmer recalled. Shot in the head like that, he would have let go of the reins.

A horse wasn’t like a mule. It would spook a lot easier when the shooting started. The pack horse could have bolted.

Which meant that it—and its valuable cargo—could be anywhere by now.

The ambushers continued firing from the rock for what seemed like an eternity to Palmer as he hunkered behind the dead horse. In reality, it was probably only a few minutes.

Then the shots died away, leaving an eerie, echoing silence in their wake.

Palmer knew better than to move. He stayed right where he was, convinced that if he popped up from behind his bloody cover, he’d be dead a second later.

He heard horses moving down the valley, from the vicinity of the gap that the funny-looking rock guarded. The hoofbeats faded into the distance, but still Palmer didn’t move. This could be a trick. The others could have pulled out but left behind a sharpshooter to finish him off when he showed himself.

But more time dragged past, and flies started to buzz around the horse’s carcass. The coppery stink from the pool of blood in which he sprawled filled Palmer’s nostrils and sickened him.

“Owen?” he called. “Owen, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Anybody else? Anybody alive out here?”

Nothing. Palmer’s teeth ground together as he tried to figure out what to do.

When he judged that at least an hour had passed, he muttered, “The hell with it,” and heaved himself up from behind the carcass. Nobody shot at him. He climbed laboriously to his feet and staggered toward the two bodies he could see. They belonged to a couple of Lundy’s men.

Palmer had never learned their names. He didn’t give a damn about that, either.

He spotted another body lying at the edge of the trees. When he hurried over to it, he saw it was the third member of Lundy’s gang. This man was as dead as the other two.

And sure enough, there was no sign of the pack horse as far as the eye could see. The saddle horses had stampeded and were gone, too.

In utter disgust, Palmer asked aloud, “Now what the hell am I gonna do?”

Somewhere not far off, somebody moaned.

Chapter 22

The sound made Palmer twist around and reach for his gun. His fingers found only empty air where the butt of the revolver should have been.

Shocked, he looked down and saw that the holster was empty. The gun must have fallen out when he was thrown from the falling horse, he realized.

His rifle was still in the saddle boot strapped to the carcass. He had been so stunned by crashing to the ground that he hadn’t been thinking straight. Otherwise he never would have gone wandering around this killing ground without any weapons except for a small knife hidden under his coat.

The moan sounded again from somewhere in the trees. The timber grew so thickly that Palmer couldn’t see very far into the woods. He glanced at the horse and wondered if he could run out there and get his rifle.

If he did, he would be turning his back to whoever was hidden in the trees, making him a perfect target.

But there was only one logical person it could be, he told himself. When he heard a strangled cough, he knew he had to risk it.

“Owen?” Palmer called. “Owen, is that you? Are you hurt?”

The voice that responded was so low and weak that at first Palmer wasn’t even sure if he had heard anything. Then it came again, and he knew.

“J-Joe …? Joe, I need … help … I … I b-been shot….”

“I’m coming,” Palmer said. “Speak up. Where are you?”

“H-here …”

Palmer followed the voice into the shadows under the trees. A moment later he found Lundy propped up against one of the trunks. His hat was gone. Lundy had a gun in his hand, but that hand lay in his lap as if it was too heavy for him to lift.

Palmer supposed it was, and he could see why. Lundy was weak from all the blood he’d lost. The right side of his shirt was soaked with it.

Palmer knelt beside him and asked, “How bad are you hit, Owen?”

“I … don’t know. Just know it … hurts like hell.”

“I thought you’d gotten away clean,” Palmer said as he carefully moved aside the blood-soaked shirt in an attempt to see the wound in Lundy’s side.

“I thought … I had, too…. One of the … sons o’ bitches … winged me … just as I got to the trees…. I fell off … my horse…. Don’t know where the bastard … ran off to.”