Howard Hopkins - The Lone Ranger - Vendetta

Ahead.

The Lone Ranger’s heart stuttered.

A man was staked spread-eagle to the ground, un-moving. Even at the distance he could tell it was the Indian who’d ridden beside him these many years.

“Go, Silver!” He heeled the horse faster, the stallion neighing, hoofs eating ground.

At last he slowed, approaching the figure. His gaze swept out and up, caught the glint of sunlight off rifles on the canyon ridge to his right. Five men, at least, all waiting for him, their weapons trained on the Masked Man.

He reined up, face tight. Without hesitation, he jumped from the saddle, slapping the horse on the rump and sending him charging from the canyon. No need risking the horse’s life as well. Silver would be around if he needed him.

He glanced up again; the men hadn’t moved. They were waiting, would not fire until the leader said whatever it was she had to say.

He went to Tonto, his heart sinking. Bruises shown livid on the Indian’s face, and one eye was swollen closed. Cuts crisscrossed his bare chest and arms. His wrists and ankles hard been tied with rawhide to stakes pounded into the hardpack. Those bonds were tightening with the sun’s heat and Tonto’s perspiration.

“Kemosabe…” Tonto’s voice came out raspy, low.

“Go… 1 am… already dead…”

The Lone Ranger swallowed hard, shook his head. “Then we die together, faithful friend.”

The Ranger started to bend for the knife tucked in his boot, but a shout stopped him.

“Ranger!”

His gaze lifted as he straightened. A man had come from behind a boulder, a man wearing a duster and low-pulled hat, Smith & Wesson in hand.

No, not a man. A woman. Boyish, but still a woman.

“Let him go,” the Ranger said. “Kill me.”

A laugh sounded from the gang leader and she reached up, whipping her hat from her head and flinging it to the ground. The Ranger did not recognize her features, but it was plain she knew him.

“He’s going nowhere, Reid. He’ll die first, so you can watch. Then after I kill you I’ll be paying that nephew of your’n a visit, thanks to Trace Cooper.”

The Ranger’s eyes narrowed and anger sizzled through his veins. He had taken a vow to take outlaws alive, if possible, but this woman made him wish he had never made it.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Why have you lured me here?”

“First things, first, Reid. Unbuckle your gunbelt and toss it on the ground. Now!” She switched her aim to the Indian.

He complied, unbuckling the belt and tossing it a handful of feet away.

“I asked you a question,” he said, voice hard, colder than he had heard himself since the day he made his pledge for justice in this very canyon years ago.

A sound reached his ears, and he almost smiled. It was distant, a slight rumble. He and Tonto might die here today, but this woman was not going kill anyone else ever again.

She gave no indication she heard the sound, her attention locked on him. As she took a stepped forward, her ice-green eyes widened.

“My name’s Laura Cavendish, Ranger.”

His belly tightened. Cavendish. The name rang in his mind, a death knell. “Butch Cavendish has no relatives.”

She uttered a vapid laugh. “I was his wife, one of ‘em, at least. I killed the rest, so you might say that makes me exclusive. Even had us a couple young’uns.”

“Why? Why lure me here?”

“It’s simple. Revenge. I want you to suffer, and I want you dead. He’d still be alive if it weren’t for you and that Injun.”

“I didn’t kill him.” He knew it didn’t matter. He was stalling, waiting, searching for a way to save Tonto’s life, as well as his own.

In the distance the rumble grew louder.

“You were responsible indirectly. You should have died that day with the rest. You’re an aberration, a ghost. You’d died Butch would still be alive. I’d still have him. You know what true loneliness is, Masked Man? It’s having everything that meant anything to you taken away, leavin’ you on this gawdamn dustball thinking about it night after endless night. Those thoughts never stop, Reid. Those nightmares never end.”

Behind the mask, the Ranger’s eyes hardened. “I know, Cavendish. I’ve known since the day your husband killed my brother and five other men worth a lot more than you or him. Good men, willing to die for a just cause, not eager to kill for fool’s gold.”

A dark grin spread across her lips. “Always the moralist, right to the end.” The fingers of her free hand went a pocket in her duster, came back out. Something small and shiny glinted in her hand. She tossed it to the Ranger, who caught it.

A copper bullet.

She suddenly raised her gun, prepared to pull the trigger and put a bullet into Tonto’s staked form. She wanted him to watch his friend die, suffer a last time before he followed the Indian to the grave.

“Stay in your grave this time, Ranger!” she said.

“Riders!” a shout came suddenly from one of the men on the ridge and Laura Cavendish’s head swung.

“What the hell—” she said.

“Rangers,” the Masked Man said calmly. “I telegraphed them before I came here. They have long memories for the name Cavendish.”

“Gawdammit!” she yelled, head coming back around. She was going to kill Tonto anyway.

He dove, tucked his shoulder as he came down on it and rolled over, coming up next to his gunbelt.

Laura Cavendish saw the danger of him getting to his gun, swung her aim toward him and fired, but it was a hasty shot, poorly aimed. The bullet plowed into the hardpack near his feet.

He grabbed his gun, yanked it free of the holster and fired from a crouch. He was hoping to hit her gunhand. He missed, the shot too difficult from his position.

Gunfire erupted from the ridge. The first shots hit around him, kicking up dust as he sprang up and ran toward the woman, then suddenly switched directions as the riders thundering from the horizon drew closer, loosing their own volley of gunfire.

Laura Cavendish screamed a curse and whirled, running for the trail next to the graves that snaked up to the lefthand ridge. She must have had a horse ready up there, he guessed, was retreating, as much a coward as all outlaw kind, including her dead husband.

He ran after her, gaining ground.

She reached the trail, began ascending, stopping only briefly to fire a shot over her shoulder.

He zigzagged, making himself a difficult target, trying to keep to the shelter of boulders and rock that jutted out from the side of the canyon wall.

The trail grew steeper the farther up they went, narrowing to a precarious degree. He triggered shots, not trying to hit her, merely slow her, despite the urge to end the monster that was Laura Cavendish.

She swung back again, firing over a shoulder. Copper chipped rock from a boulder near which he poised. She kept running while firing, blasting one shot, then another. Around him rock shards lacerated the air and copper slugs ricocheted. He ducked behind boulders, returned fire, silver digging into the ground near her feet. She was moving too fast and erratically to get a proper aim on her gun hand; he might miss and kill her, though it took every ounce of his oath and will power not to do so after the hell she had caused.

Near the top she twisted suddenly, trying to draw a better bead on him, fired.

He dove for cover as again copper spanged from rock, chipping a piece into stone splinters that stung his face.

Where she stood the trail had become treacherous and her sudden whirl played hell with her balance, the gun’s recoil adding to the situation. As she hastily took aim and squeezed the trigger again, the hammer clacked on an empty chamber.

A grim smile came to his lips. Her gun was empty. He stepped from the boulder, began mounting the trail toward her. Still off balance, she screeched and hurled the gun.