Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The snake winding quickly toward him was as thick as Caleb’s arm, and he had to be seven feet long. The head of the monster was as big as a fighter’s fist, and the forked tongue flicking at him was brown and nasty.
However big it was, the critter had to be a tough old cuss to be living this high in the mountains.
Two dark lines ran on a diagonal on each side of its face, from its eyes to its jaw.
If the dark, diamond-shaped patterns along its back weren’t a dead giveaway, the rattles at the far end of him told Caleb exactly what was coming.
He was definitely on the horns of a dilemma. One killer was poised on a rock, ready to shoot his eye out, and another one was gliding toward him, smiling like Caleb was some oversize prairie dog.
Scooping some gravel from the ground beside him, he flung it at the rattler.
That was only good enough to encourage the snake to stop and curl up within striking distance of his foot.
The triangular head of the beast rose up, swaying from side to side, and those rattles struck up the first chords of a tune Caleb didn’t find himself partial to hearing.
If for no other reason, the closeness of the beady-eyed killer won out for his attention.
The Colt barked once, but he didn’t have any time to see how effective his aim had been. He and that rattler were close enough to shake hands, but Caleb had other fish to fry. Springing to his feet, he spun and fired twice at the kneeling figure at the top of the bluff.
Beneath a long, drooping moustache, the gunman’s mouth opened in a surprised O.
The rifle dropped from his hand as he clutched at the two patches of dark red spreading out on his chest. He kept staring at Caleb as he tried to rise, and he was wearing a look that was both perplexed and sorrowful.
A moment later, the gunman fell to his knees and tumbled headlong off the bluff, hitting a slab ledge halfway down before landing hard in the grass at the base of the cliff.
Caleb didn’t reckon he felt that ledge at all.
The whole thing was over in seconds, same as most deadly things were. One heartbeat, a man was breathing and fighting for his life. The next, the mountains had swallowed him up.
He turned and looked at the rattler. The carcass was missing a head, and Caleb had no interest in looking for it.
He picked up the snake by the rattles, though, and held it at arm’s length.
The thing was longer than Caleb’s own six-plus feet of height, and the weight of it had to be fifteen pounds.
As he laid it down, he felt an unexpected pang of disappointment at having to kill it.
The creature had to have been living here for quite some time.
“Sorry about that, old-timer,” he muttered quietly.
As he turned and looked at the gunman’s body, however, Caleb felt none of that remorse. He never liked killing a man, but this fella had come after him with just one thought in mind, and that was to kill him. If he’d stayed by the horses—if that’s what he was doing—he’d still be breathing.
Caleb found himself weary of how quickly the number of bodies could pile up once guns started talking. He thought fleetingly of Doc’s parlor again. Lamplight. Coffee. A world that felt a thousand miles from this mountainside.
The sound of rifle shots refocused Caleb’s attention. Grabbing his Winchester and jamming his hat on, he started back toward the confrontation.
Instead of climbing higher, as he’d done the last time, he now followed the line of firs until they ended and he was looking across at the open slope. He was still above the trail, but from here he could see the positions of the remaining ambushers.
These three were obviously not the brains of this operation. Instead of spreading out and finishing off the last man down below, they’d clumped together behind some rocks and brush.
The return fire from the fella by the trail was intermittent. It was just enough to let them know he was there and still had some fight in him.
Caleb levered a cartridge into the chamber, ready to lend a hand.
The man closest to him must have been reading Caleb’s mind. Leaving the other two, he moved stealthily to his left, looking for a clear shot. When he found the place, he grinned and nodded back at the other two.
It was a good decision, but his timing was wrong. Dead wrong. When he raised his head to take his shot, Caleb fired first.
The man dropped instantly behind the rocks.
That was all it took. The other two were off and running like a pair of jack rabbits with a hungry coyote on their tail. As they scampered up that trail toward their horses, he might have taken out one or both of them, but he had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t be seeing either of them too soon.
And truth be told, he was just as glad to let them run.
The survivor down below stood and let out a whoop they probably heard back in Elkhorn.
As Caleb climbed down the slope, the man met him with a grateful look on his face. Recognition and surprise registered as well in the next instant.
“Ain’t you Marlowe?” he asked as Caleb drew closer. “Fella, I ain’t never been so happy to see a gunslinger as I am now, seeing you. Thought I was a dead man.”
Caleb had remembered him the moment he stood up looking for a truce and nearly got cut down for taking the trouble.
He recalled Doc Burnett introducing them at the bar in the Belle Saloon.
Doc told him later that the man worked a silver claim near Elkhorn.
He was yet another soldier who’d shed his blood and watched brothers die during the war between the North and South.
Like so many others, he’d come west looking to leave the past behind.
Caleb wondered what brought him so far from town now.
“Do you recall? I’m Zeke…”
The miner stopped short, remembering something obviously important. Turning on his heel, he hurried back to where he’d taken cover.
As Caleb followed him, he heard a man groan in pain.
Caleb’s stomach tightened. Too much suffering already shadowed this trail.