Ambush Trail by Bradford Scott

Author:Bradford Scott [Scott, Bradford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western, Gunfighter, Ranger, Historical fiction, Old west
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 1960-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

SLADE MADE HIS WAY rapidly but silently toward the rise, going diagonally up the side slope. A couple of hundred yards from where the crows swooped and circled, he slowed down.

It took him more than a quarter of an hour to cover the last hundred yards. When he was in a position he judged to be directly above the crest, he wormed his way carefully down the slope. Overhead the crows, unseen through the thick canopy of leaves and branches, cawed querulously. Slade crawled on. He had drifted down the slope as noiselessly as a hunting wolf when he spied movement in the scattered brush that overlooked the trail. He halted instantly. A moment later he made out the figure of a man crouching behind a boulder. Nearby was another. A bristle of mesquite sheltered a third. The outlaws! All set and waiting for the posse to appear.

Recalling the number named by Wilkins, the prospector, Slade reasoned there should be four or five more somewhere around. Intent on discovering their whereabouts, he took a cautious step forward, planting his foot softly on what to all appearances was firm ground.

It wasn’t. It was the mouth of an abandoned badger hole, filled and drifted over by falling leaves.

Down he plunged, lost his balance and fell heavily with a prodigious crackling and smashing of twigs and branches.

The crouching figures whirled, leaped erect, glaring in the direction of the sound. Slade had barely time to free his leg from the hole and roll behind an outcropping of stone before guns cracked in the growth below and bullets chipped branches and fluttered leaves all about him.

Crouching, he slid his guns from their sheaths and waited. From below came the sound of voices, then the scrape and shuffle of boots moving in his direction. Peering cautiously over the ragged lip of stone, he caught glimpses of figures crawling up the slope. He fired three shots, and ducked back as answering bullets thudded against the stone. From below came a howl of pain and a wild thrashing about. Evidently one of the slugs had found a mark.

Which was all to the good, but he was outnumbered seven or eight to one and in the thick brush the outlaws would fan out and surround him.

Abruptly silence fell, which Slade did not like at all. He thrust a gun muzzle over the top of the rock and sprayed the brush with slugs. A yell echoed the reports and a torrent of curses.

A bullet whined past, cutting diagonally across his shelter. Another whistled from the opposite direction. The outlaws couldn’t see him yet, but they were crawling through the brush on either side to outflank him. Once let them get above where he crouched and he’d be exposed to a deadly crossfire.

He craned his neck trying to spot some nearby nook or crevice in which he could hole up. The only thing which looked at all hopeful was a rift in a ledge that wormed up the sag a score of paces distant.

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