Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
As Caleb peered through the window, what he could see was limited. He’d heard enough to know a knife had been driven through Patterson’s hand, pinning him to the table. Painful as it must be for the judge, the battle of wills was a good distraction, and Caleb had to use it to his advantage.
At the very edge of his field of vision, he spotted Bear standing and wagging his tail as he stared toward the rear of the cabin, where Caleb was situated.
“Don’t give me away, big fella,” he murmured to himself.
Before crossing quickly through the high meadow grass to the rear of the cabin, he’d been able to get a good look at what he’d be facing.
Just as Gabe had counted, there were seven men plus Starr.
Added to that were Frissy and the two bodyguards who joined him in double-crossing the judge.
If he was going to keep Sheila, Paddy, and Patterson alive, he had ten gunhawks to kill. And his father.
Everyone was spread out in the front of his place, some standing in groups of two or three and a few standing alone.
Caleb considered the situation. If he went right at them—coming around the building with his Colts blazing—he’d probably get half of them before one of them managed to plug him. That wouldn’t get the job done. He had to be smarter.
He looked around him. The cabin sat on a grassy rise that had a few stands of cottonwood, scrub pine, and puffs of sage brush scattered here and there.
In the field, there were some good-sized boulders sticking out of the ground, but retreating to one of them would put him out of range for his pistols.
He could do some damage with his rifle, but he still wouldn’t get them all before the rest took cover behind the cabin or inside of it.
Then he’d have successfully gotten himself pinned down.
Behind him, the new corral he’d put in was full of Starr’s horses.
Crossing from the forest, he’d been able to use them as a blind.
To his left, to the east of the corral and the cabin, there was a wagon, a stack of lumber, ten or twelve cottonwood logs ready to be hoisted into place, and the unfinished barn itself.
Clearly, that side would give him his best shooting position. The sun was beginning to drop into the west, but it would be a few hours before the sharp angles of sunlight made it difficult to see his targets.
From his enemies’ vantage point, there wasn’t a lot of cover in front of the cabin. But he’d still need to get them all before they could move.
He needed to figure a way to take some out before the bullets started flying.
Before he could move from behind the cabin, Bear solved that problem for him.
Two men that Caleb recognized as part of the judge’s team of bodyguards were standing by themselves off to the side.
One of them noticed the dog staring toward the back corner of the cabin.
Nudging his pal in the ribs, he nodded and gestured toward the back.
He started first, and then the other followed, a few steps behind.
They swung wide of Bear before Caleb lost sight of them. But they were heading straight for him.
Quietly, he leaned his Winchester up against the cabin wall and pulled the long hunting knife from his boot. The smooth wooden handle fit into his fist like it had been made for him.
The razor sharp, ten-inch blade was straight backed, not curved, and came to a lethal point.
A fella down in New Mexico territory once said it was very similar to the knife Jim Bowie used in his famous Sandbar fight down in Louisiana.
The one that disappeared after Bowie died at the Alamo.
Old Jake had nothing to say on that subject, surprisingly, only commenting that the knife had brought him luck for over thirty years.
Wherever the knife came from, Caleb needed its luck today.
He could hear the loud voice of the judge and the cold responses of Elijah Starr coming from the front of the cabin.
The sound of his father’s voice set the chills of recollection hard against the flames of his anger.
Years bled away in an instant, but Caleb knew he couldn’t let that distract him right now.
He forced those thoughts from his mind. He needed to focus on the two men coming toward him.
Pressing his back up against the curved timbers, he waited until the first one turned the corner.
Caleb saw the man’s gray eyes widen as he reached for him.
Moving fast, Caleb grabbed him by the collar and struck before he could cry out.
He slammed him against the cabin wall, lowering him quietly to the ground.
Caleb had just straightened when the second man appeared.
He was looking toward the corral as he rounded the corner and began to speak to his companion. Then he saw Caleb.
Too late.
Caleb moved in a blur. The fight lasted only a heartbeat. A moment later, the second man lay crumpled beside the first. Caleb caught his breath and listened. No alarm.
He drew one of his Colts, listening. The argument was continuing. There was no shout of warning. Nothing.
Two down. Nine to go. The odds were improving slightly.
Caleb pouched his iron, sheathed his knife, and picked up his Winchester. He peered back through the window at his adversaries. No one seemed to miss these two.
Staying low, he moved straight back from the cabin, not stopping until he reached the far side of the corral. The horses were a little spooked, and as he passed by them Caleb murmured in quiet tones to settle them, with mixed success. No doubt they could smell the spilled blood.
As Caleb made his way around the corral, the men in front of the cabin began to come into his line of sight.
No one was paying the least attention to the horses or anything else beyond the spectacle on the porch.
Some of them were grinning, clearly entertained by what they were seeing.
But Caleb was too far away to hear what was being said by his father.
Only the judge’s curses and incensed shouts about “torture” and “lack of humanity” came through loud enough.
Suddenly, Patterson screamed, a nasty sound coming from a man so bullishly confident about his place near the top of the chain of beings.
Caleb ran for the corner of the barn, watching Starr’s men as he went. He reached the corner of the unfinished structure, crouched low, and continued around it.
It was a good angle to be shooting from. When the building was done, there would be two large stables and a wide, roofed space to connect them. So far, he’d put only the foundation course of logs in place for the second stable. But the walls of this one were above five feet high.
At its closest point, the barn stood about forty yards from the cabin. The building was about seven yards square. At fifty yards, Caleb could take the left wing off a baby fly with his Winchester. But he’d be equally accurate, and a lot faster, with his Colts if he got a little closer.
He’d laid out the entire barn to stand at roughly a right angle to the cabin, with the stable doors facing each other.
He figured it would make going in and out a great deal easier come winter.
Getting inside the building would bring him plenty close enough, but the position of the door presented a problem.
If they spotted him going in, the element of surprise would be lost.
Deciding it was worth the risk, he took one quick look around the corner.
The men had all edged forward toward the porch a little, forming a half-circle around it.
They didn’t want to miss anything, apparently.
The judge was seated at the table, and Frissy was behind him, holding tight to Patterson’s left wrist. The hand itself was still pinned to the table with a knife.
Another man was holding the judge’s right arm.
Elijah Starr stood straight and tall, imposing in his black suit with his back to Caleb. His broad shoulders had not lost anything in terms of size. A stove pipe hat sat on a discarded duster beside him. One side of his coat was pulled back, draped behind a holstered pistol.
It took all of Caleb’s willpower not to gun him down then and there.
“But today’s the day, I swear,” he growled. “For Mama.”
Hugging the wall, he moved toward the gap that would be the stable door. He’d barely taken a step, though, when one of Starr’s men caught a glimpse of him.
In the wink of an eye, the gunslick’s revolver was out, spitting fire. Bullets thudded into the log, sending splinters of wood showering over him.
Caleb dropped his Winchester, and his rods cleared leather in an instant. Beyond the man who’d spotted him, there was no time for choosing targets.
That one was the first to fall. On either side of him, two more went down before they could bring their weapons to bear. The element of surprise was still Caleb's greatest ally.
On the porch, Frissy and the blackguard who had been holding the judge both released the older man at the same time.
Frissy straightened up, confusion showing in his face.
The other one was drawing a short-barreled revolver out its holster.
The muzzle on that gun might as well have been three feet from the hammer, though, because he never got a shot off.
Judge Patterson yanked the knife free and struck at the man. At the same instant, Caleb fired. The outlaw collapsed and the pistol tumbled from his hand.
Clouds of smoke were hanging low in the afternoon sunlight.
The judge tried to rise from the bench, pushing off of the tabletop.
Suddenly, he jerked forward as a bullet ripped through his shoulder from behind, knocking him and the table off the porch and scattering papers everywhere.
Behind him, Frissy had his black eyes fixed on him.
The cracks of pistol shots matched the whiz and thup of bullets passing by his head, burying themselves in the log wall or sailing off into the distance. Two more of Starr’s men were moving away from the cabin, running to Caleb’s left and shooting on a dead run.
If they were trying to reach a small boulder nestled in some brush where the land started to drop away, it was a bad decision. Their last bad decision. Caleb leaned back, and the Colts barked. They never reached it.
A third man was racing for the far side of the cabin, clearly panicked and unable to get his gun out. He too made a mistake. In his haste, he ran too close to a large yellow dog with a black face who, tethered to a post or not, was more than ready to help out.
The outlaw went down hard as Bear launched himself at him.
Caleb felt the bullet burn across his right cheekbone before he heard the report from the gun. The shot spun him backwards, and he saw lightning flashes in front of him as he hit the side of the building.
He rolled and tried to blink away the lights as he heard a squeaky shout of elation. Frissy.
Out of his left eye, Caleb saw the ox-sized bodyguard lumbering to the end of the porch, peering toward him before moving into the open and finishing him if he had to.
From a sitting position, Caleb raised his pistol, unsure if his aim would be true with only his left eye. Frissy raised his gun as well.
Before either of them could squeeze the trigger, a shot rang out.
Frissy stopped. A puzzled look crossed his face. His pistol slipped from his hand. A moment later, he tumbled to the ground.
Behind him, Judge Patterson sank down against the cabin wall, holding the smoking pistol and clutching his wounded shoulder.
Caleb pushed himself to his feet. His right eye was starting to work again. Blood was running down his cheek and jaw, dripping off his chin.
His Colts were nearly empty. He hadn’t wasted any rounds. Before he could reload, however, a horse left the corral to his right.
The hatless rider dug his heels into the flanks of the mount. Bloody tears in the man’s shirt showed the damage Bear had done. A second later, horse and rider disappeared from view on the far side of the cabin.
If there weren’t a chance that this fool would run into Gabe or Doc or whoever might be coming from Elkhorn right now, Caleb might have let him go. But he wasn’t going to take that chance. Picking up his Winchester, he sighted along the barrel, his right eye still blurry.
When the rider reappeared, Caleb fired. The man tumbled from the saddle and disappeared in the tall grass.
But he wasn’t the last man.
Elijah Starr was nowhere to be seen.