Mila had a strain to her voice when she spoke. “If they have harmed Lewana in any way, we will make them pay very slowly for their evil!”
No one needed to tell Shorty what pay slowly meant. Mila’s people were descended from the Aztecs, and they knew how to make an enemy suffer for his sins.
As the bobbing torch came closer, Shorty was able to see only two people, the unmistakable form of Harry O’Neill, and the slim figure of Lewana.
“What do we do now?” Mila whispered in the darkness.
“We wait and see. If O’Neill drops his guard, we nail him to the wall, but only if we are sure Lewana will be safe. If not, we let them pass and hope Madigan can catch O’Neill before he hurts her.”
“I don’t like letting him get away, but we may have no choice.”
“May be the only chance Lewana has. O’Neill will want to put as much ground between him and Madigan as he can, as fast as he can.”
He might kill Lewana first,” worried Mila.
Shorty took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. “I doubt it. O’Neill wants the gold mighty bad. Anybody else would have used Lewana as a trade. Not O’Neill. He wants both. Now he has her and he won’t rest until he has the gold too. Madigan knows that and he’ll stop O’Neill one way or another. You can bet on it.”
When they reached the ledge, O’Neill placed his torch in a crack in the rock and ordered Lewana to light another, all the time keeping a gun pressed at her back. Then he forced her to carry the second torch while they crossed the ledge. “Just in case you drop the light,” he had told her, “I don’t want to be left in the dark.”
Never once did he let the cocked gun move away from her body, leaving Shorty not the slightest chance of a shot at O’Neill without risking Lewana’s life. In quiet frustration, he was left with no choice but to let O’Neill slip on by. But for those that followed, it would be another story.
Now that there were no longer any hostages to get in the way, they would be waiting for the rest of the outlaws and Shorty was determined to let no one else escape.
“When they come, I’ll confront them at the ledge. Those that want to surrender can. Those that want to make a fight of it. . well, I’ll be ready,” Shorty said dryly.
It felt good to have the buckskin under him again. When Madigan got to the outside entrance to the tunnel, it was plain to see by the tracks that O’Neill was gone. There in the dust was the imprint of his heavy boot, beside it the small moccasin tracks of a girl. Madigan was surprised to find no sign of Shorty and Mila.
There was no time to lose. He would worry about them later after he caught up with O’Neill. Anything could happen out here in the high desert country. O’Neill was a desperate and crafty man, and he wouldn’t leave any more of a trail than a mountain lion over rock. The slightest breeze would erase all traces of his passing, leaving Madigan with only a guess as to where O’Neill went, and taking away all hope for Lewana’s safety at the same time.
Judging from the sign, O’Neill was in a bug hurry to get away. He was taking long strides, half dragging Lewana after him. Every once in a while he stopped, probably to get a better hold on the girl, then off he went again, still dragging her.
A short distance more and Madigan came to a place where horses were tied. The tracks on the ground showed where two horses were led away from the rest. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked as though O’Neill had stopped and possibly tied Lewana’s hands before they mounted up and rode off. The memory came back to Madigan of how the outlaws had tied Lewana’s and Mila’s hands before, and a rage started up within him again.
He’d ridden an hour when he heard the sound of a rider approaching from back down the trail. Madigan reined the buckskin up a dry creek bed where he could see without being seen. It was Shorty.
“Hold up down there!” Madigan yelled as Shorty came into view.
Shorty brought his horse to a halt and waited for Madigan to ride up beside him. “The others won’t be bothering anybody again,” he said grimly.
“How’s that?”
“We waited for them to gain the ledge over the tilt stone after letting O’Neill go by. No way of stopping him without hurting Lewana. When they were all on the ledge, I ordered them to throw down their guns. They answered with a shower of lead instead. Lucky to get under cover before I was killed!
“I was getting ready to pick a few of them off when all of a sudden I hear this ear-rending commotion coming from the area of the tilt stone. Next thing I know, the tilt stone along with the ledge the men were on dropped out of sight. Seems the Indians had the whole thing rigged in case they needed it in an emergency. There wasn’t one chance in a million any of ‘em survived.”
“The Indians won that battle for us. Now it is up to you and me to get Lewana back if we can.
“By the way, LaRue said he’d try to catch up with us as soon as he can. Mila asked him to blow the outside entrance to the tunnel up so it can’t be used again. I’d have done it, but just blowing that boulder out of the way scared the stuffings out of me. Of course, the snake didn’t help either!”
“What snake?” Madigan asked.
“I’d just gotten the charge in place when this big snake comes. .”
Shorty was suddenly thrown to the ground as his horse was shot out from under him. One second he was telling Madigan about a snake, the next he was on the ground with the wind knocked out of him.
For an instant Madigan watched as Shorty lay where he had fallen trying to get some air back into his lungs. There was nothing Madigan could do for him. Suddenly a second bullet whistled past Madigan’s ear. Madigan’s mind blew into a rage. He jerked the buckskin around and headed in the direction of the shot. In the middle of the trail, smoking rifle in hand, stood the killer, Harry O’Neill.
O’Neill levered another round into the chamber. Madigan saw the puff of smoke and felt a tug at his hips, but the great horse beneath him charged on straight at the killer as Madigan’s right hand dropped to his Colt. He had no conscious thought of firing his gun, but as he bore down on O’Neill the outlaw began to take on a strange, contorted look. One after another, Madigan saw splotches of red explode on O’Neill’s chest. Then another puff of smoke came from O’Neill’s rifle and Madigan felt the sharp, burning pain of the bullet strike him in the right arm, forcing the now-empty Colt from his hand. A third bullet hit Madigan in the lower right side and he slipped from the saddle and hit the ground with a jar.
Madigan must have blacked out for a few seconds. When he came to, the madman was standing over him. O’Neill looked like a rag doll that was shot to pieces. Blood was literally flowing from five gaping holes in his chest, but he stood there with a grin on his face and evil in his eye. And the rifle pointed at Madigan’s head was rock steady.
You lose, Captain!” he sneered as he tightened his finger on the trigger. As Madigan watched a blank look slowly spread across O’Neill’s face. O’Neill’s body seemed to relax a little and his right leg started to twist under the killer, while the muzzle of the gun swayed off target. O’Neill fought to again bring the barrel in line with Madigan’s head but no longer had the strength to do so. His face now took on the appearance of a man that was finally at peace as the once giant of a man slid to the ground, nothing more than a dead pile of flesh. Then Madigan blacked out again.
When he came to again he didn’t know how long he had been out. Hours, days, weeks? But somehow he was still alive!
“How?” Madigan groaned when he finally came around again.
“O’Neill died on his feet. Your first two bullets blew his heart away. He was dead and didn’t even know it. His evil just kept him going a little longer,” Lewana said, as she gently brushed a hair out of Madigan’s eye.
