“Come for my king, fella,” he murmured.
In the silence that followed, Caleb could feel the shooter scanning the scene below him.He played it out in his mind.If he’d positioned his hat and rifle in the right spot, the pursuer would soon see them.Focus only on them.Put them alone in his sights.Positioned at the top of the slabs, the gunman would figure he’d have a clear shot at him if he tried to make it to the firs.
All Caleb wanted was for him to feel that he was in control of this chess board.Confident that the chase was over.Sure that he was closing in for the kill.And then, move just one space too far.
He heard the scrape of a boot far above him.Caleb slowly turned and raised himself until he could peer over the rock and then eased back down.The shooter was set at the top of the bluff, positioned close to the edge.He was on one knee, his rifle fixed on the hat and gun.
Caleb judged he was about forty yards from his target.He’d only have maybe one shot.He took a breath, ready to make his move.
Funny thing about life, though.It ain’t chess.Caleb knew that well enough.Chess was a board game that pitted two opponents against each other.The rules were set.It was a contest of intelligence and strategy.There was no element of luck involved.
In the game of life, fate was bound to throw the unknowable at you.Often when you least expected it.Often when you could least afford it.
The movement at the base of the rock eight feet from him caught his eye just as he heard the rasp of serpentine skin on the grass and gravel.
Caleb went still.
A rattlesnake with a diamond-shaped head that looked mean and deadly as sin itself, slid into view beside the rock.Its scales caught the fading sunlight in dull bands of brown and dust-gray.The tail twitched once.Then came the warning rattle.
Under different circumstances, Caleb might have backed away slow and easy, leaving the creature to its business.The snake belonged to these mountains same as the firs and the stone.But at the moment, he had a rifleman above him, a drop behind him, and nowhere to go.
“Well,” he breathed softly, “ain’t this a fine turn.”
ChapterSixteen
The snake winding quicklytoward 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.
