Pitchfork Pass by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

According to Sam Flintlock’s mother and Bridie O’Toole the pass that led to the Hammer compound lay due south, but the entrance was difficult to see unless you were real close and Flintlock intended to do just that . . . get real close.

He rode out of the gulch as the Hammer riders’ dust cloud again stained the sky. The mesa country was a land of echoes and it was difficult to pinpoint the source of gunshots that racketed relentlessly around the rocks. But his pursuers were coming on steadily, beating the bushes for him, and Flintlock had to put a heap of git between himself and them or his scalp would decorate the Old Man of the Mountain’s parlor wall.

Once again he found himself among a lofty maze of sandstone rock that took on all kinds of fantastic shapes and cast strange shadows the farther south he rode. He depended on the big buckskin to pick its own way among the labyrinth and the horse did not fail him. After thirty minutes Flintlock found himself in yet another gulch, this one narrow and treeless, the looming bulk of Balakai Mesa forming a massive backdrop. Hammer’s horsemen had come from the southeast and he turned his horse in that direction.

His ma had been right, the entrance to Pitchfork Pass was well hidden, recessed into the mesa slope. But it was there. He’d found it.

Flintlock didn’t take time to consider how foolhardy his plan was. Uppermost in his mind was that he was about to take the war to Hammer’s doorstep and that pleased him . . . and he was sure it would’ve delighted the Apache in O’Hara.

He retrieved his Winchester, dried sweaty palms on his pants, took a deep breath, steadying himself, and then touched spurs to the buckskin’s flanks.

The big horse took off at a gallop. The mouth of the pass was fifty yards away . . . forty . . . thirty . . . twenty . . . then he was right on top of it. He yanked the buckskin to a skidding halt, threw the rifle to his shoulder and cranked off three fast shots, sending bullets into the gloom of the arroyo, heedless of where they hit. He cantered the buckskin for a short distance and then swung around. Flintlock’s blood was up and he grinned, ferocious as a lobo wolf. Now the fun was about to start.

He was not disappointed.

Like angry ants leaving a trampled nest, three men spilled out of the arroyo and he heard them cuss a blue streak, one of them with a flesh wound to his forehead that trickled blood.

Flintlock roared a war cry that was savage from his pent-up anger and charged, firing the Winchester from the shoulder. The range was short, the encounter brief, but he dropped two of the Hammer gunmen, one of them chawing up the ground with his kicking feet. Taken by surprise at the suddenness of Flintlock’s attack the bloodied man snapped off a shot from his Colt, missed and ran back into the arroyo.

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