The Death Mine by Ellis Wesley

Author:Ellis Wesley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Tense and alert at the mouth of the canyon, Ki watched the herd thunder past. Close on the heels of the panic-stricken cattle came shadowy horsemen, yelling and shooting. Up behind him in the rocks, Moss and his punchers were out of their blankets, roaring profanity. Although dazed and half-awake, they instinctively sized up the situation, grabbed their rifles, and began shooting.

The exultant yells of the rustlers changed to howls of surprise and alarm. There was a scream of pain that ended in a choking rattle. A man pitched headlong from his saddle. In the next breath another fell like a sack of old clothes. Abruptly leaving the cattle to scatter, the rustlers, low in their saddles, began charging toward the boulders where the ranch hands were holed up. A third outlaw somersaulted backward; two more vaulted their horses over his sprawling body, only to be downed in turn. The others kept coming, spreading up into the rocks. All of a sudden, Moss and the punchers were in a desperate bind, Ki realized. They had surprised the rustlers and accounted for a handful of casualties without receiving a wound. But instead of fleeing, the rustlers were counterattacking, in numbers that would overwhelm the defenders in short order.

“To the horses!” Moss roared. “Git to the horses!”

The punchers fell back, hustling through the rocks to where their horses were corralled. The rustlers were swarming up through the rocks and trees, turning both sides of the canyon mouth into an inferno of blazing gunfire.

Darting along between the boulders, Jessie and Nehalem pushed through to the horses. Ki, spotting them, angled off to intercept them, firing his carbine as he went, in an effort to cover their retreat. Jessie had a foot poised in one stirrup when Ki closed to grab his fractious gelding.

“Ki!” Nehalem yelled. “Look out!”

Jessie, too, caught the wink of steel as a rustler burst up through the brush for a point-blank shot at Ki. Hastily she drew her revolver and fired, but her bullet only creased the man’s shoulder, failing to stop him. Frantically Nehalem hopped up and threw a large rock, which beaned the man smack in the middle of the forehead. Cussing in shock and pain, he reeled back out of his saddle and landed hard on his rump. That gave Ki the moment he needed; he sprang, using a forward snap-kick followed by a sideways elbow smash to cave in the rustler’s ribs and stop his heart.

“Ride!” Nehalem urged impatiently. “Ride!”

Jessie mounted. Ki had a momentary delay while he fought his spooked, rearing horse, but finally he hurled himself into the saddle and jabbed both heels into the horse’s flanks. The moro tore off in a lather. Jessie slewed her grulla mare about, ignoring the bullets coming ever closer.

“My hand!” she called to Nehalem. “Grab my hand!”

Nehalem caught Jessie’s outstretched hand, seemingly without looking, and whipped up and around behind her.

Jessie shifted in the saddle, roweling her spurs. “Hang on!”

“I never fall,” Nehalem retorted, then almost did.

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