The Clint Adams Special Page 4

  “Scorpions?” George hissed.

  Clint silenced him with a harsh glare.

  “No gold, eh?” the man shouted. “Then why don’t you toss out that map and we can part ways?”

  “What about a finder’s fee?” Clint asked. He couldn’t be less interested in the response to that, but the more he got the other man to talk, the better he could gauge where the attackers were.

  “You ain’t George,” the man shouted. “If you was, I figured we’d already have that map by now. What’s your name, mister?”

  “Why don’t we meet at a saloon back in town and we can introduce ourselves properly?”

  As the next few seconds passed in silence, Clint began to entertain the thought that his offer might be accepted. Then things fell back onto the track he’d been expecting.

  One shot was fired at Clint and George, which was quickly followed by more. Proving how much could be accomplished when properly motivated, both of them moved all the way to the back of a cave that had less room than an overturned outhouse.

  “Maybe we can just wait it out,” George said. “They’ll run out of ammunition sooner or later.”

  “Or,” Clint replied, “they’ll just walk up to the front of the cave and start shooting. Even a ricochet in this hole will likely kill one of us.”

  “I just don’t know who would want to kill me.”

  “We can figure that out later. Right now, we need to figure out how to live through the next couple of minutes. We got one thing in our favor.”

  “That’s one more than I would have guessed,” George whimpered.

  Clint inched toward the opening of the cave. As long as he kept quiet, he could hear the sounds from outside even better thanks to the curved rock walls surrounding him. He didn’t have far to go before he was outside again, but every fraction of an inch he moved felt like he was running a mile.

  Having situated himself with his belly flat against the ground and his eyes fixed on the slope in front of him, Clint waited.

  George waited, too, but once his nerves stopped jangling, he got anxious. “What is it, Clint? What’s the one thing we got in our favor?”

  A minute or so ago, Clint would have knocked George out cold just to keep him quiet. Now, he welcomed a bit of noise. Some of the men outside must have been waiting for that very thing because a subtle rustle announced the fact that one of them was making a move. As soon as he saw a figure cautiously climb the top of the slope, Clint shot it. He’d had all the time he’d needed to steady his aim, so that shot hit its target as best it could from that angle.

  The gunman who’d tried to advance was hit in the meat of his neck near the top of his shoulder. Yelping in pain, he straightened up a bit out of reflex, which allowed him to catch Clint’s next round squarely through the chest.

  “Our advantage,” Clint told George, “is that those bastards need to come to us.”

  “Outstanding!” George said as the first gunman fell over.

  “Now comes the hard part.”

  Shots were already coming from the remaining gunmen to answer for their fallen partner. Every one that cracked through the air caused George to twitch. “Hard part?” he squeaked.

  “We can’t stay here now, so we gotta charge.”

  “Ch-Ch-Char—what?”

  “It’s that or die,” Clint said while quickly replacing the rounds he’d spent. “I made my choice, so come with me or stay here.”

  Instead of waiting for George to find his courage, Clint bolted from the cave.

  ELEVEN

  As soon as he was out of the cave, Clint took a hard left toward a downward slope that led to an open patch of land about the size of a large corral. The gunmen were through with firing blind. They were taking fewer shots and making them count. Clint dropped to one knee and became still as the rocks. That way, when another of the gunmen approached, he had no trouble hearing him.

  The gunman moved up the slope just far enough to see over to the other side where Clint was waiting. Clint waited long enough for the gunman to make himself known. Both men stood their ground for a few seconds until a second gunman stepped up to the other one’s side.

  “You know it’s more than just us two here,” the first gunman said to Clint. “There’s more of us.”

  “How did you even know about the map?” Clint asked.

  Both gunmen smirked about that one. “Yer partner’s got a real big mouth.”

  “We already brought in the gold,” Clint said.

  “Then why are you out here?”

  The first gunman said, “We know Preston scattered his gold all over these here hills. You hand over that map, you can keep what you already found and be on your way.”

  “If I don’t?” Clint asked.

  “Then you and your friend will be buried in one of these caves.”

  Clint’s pistol was still in his hand, but the other two had theirs ready as well. This wasn’t a matter of who was the quicker draw. This was a test of all three’s backbone. The one with the steadiest nerves would take a careful shot even while staring down the barrel of another man’s gun.

  Clint’s movements were subtle. All it took was a few muscles to angle his Colt for a proper shot. The instant his gun moved, both of the men in front of him brought their guns up to try and put Clint down.

  The second gunman to climb up that slope was the first to pull his trigger. His finger clamped down so hard that the round he fired sailed somewhere off to Clint’s right.

  Clint took notice of that, but was already committed to shooting gunman number one. He let out part of a breath, squeezed his trigger, and fired a fraction of a second after his target sent a bullet in his direction. Although the gunman missed cleanly, the round from his own modified Colt drilled into the man’s chest.

  The last gunman in Clint’s sight was the one to fire the first panicked shot, and the next one he fired wasn’t much better. His round sparked against a rock as Clint’s punched through his forehead to explode out the back of his head.

  Clint waited for a second as the man in front of him swayed on his feet before dropping heavily to both knees. From there, the man with the bloody third eye crumpled over to join his partner upon the dusty rock.

  If there were any gunmen left, they weren’t stupid enough to climb up the slope that would bring them in range of Clint’s gun. He listened for a hint of movement while replacing the rounds he’d spent with fresh ones from his gun belt.

  Instead of waiting for the next shot to be fired, Clint circled around to another narrow path that would take him down the slope in another direction. From what he’d heard from his first shouted conversation, Clint guessed he should be able to get a look at the spot where the attackers had started. After moving carefully around, he climbed up the slope until he could get a look down at the other side.

  The man who stood in the distance wasn’t trying to hide. He wore a long coat over a blood red shirt tucked into dusty brown pants. There was a rifle in his hands, which he kept in a casual grip in one hand.

  Clint could feel the rifleman’s glare burning straight through to the back of his skull. The fellow either believed that he stood outside the range of Clint’s pistol or had supreme confidence that he could put Clint down before a shot came his way.

  “Where are all those other gunhands you promised?” Clint shouted.

  After a few seconds, the other man replied, “You’ll meet them soon enough, I reckon. That is, unless you want to put an end to this right here and now.”

  “By handing over the map or by us killing each other?”

  “Either one suits me just as well.”

  Clint moved in closer, to get into pistol range.

  “Are you going to tell me who you are?” Clint asked.

  “All you need to know is that I’m the man with a rightful claim on this gold.”<
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  “If that was the case, you wouldn’t need the map.”

  “Stop splitting hairs, Mr. Adams,” the man said in an aggravated tone. “Put an end to this now before things get a whole lot worse.”

  “You’re bluffing. The odds are evened out and you’re trying to get what you want through talk.”

  The man’s voice took a steely edge as he replied, “You want more than talk? So be it.” He flipped open his coat to reveal the holster strapped to his hip.

  The shot to break the silence didn’t come from the stranger, and it didn’t come from Clint. Instead, it came from another one of the caves, and it sent the unnamed man staggering backward. Rather than crumple from the wound, the man drew his pistol and sent a few quick rounds toward the threat that had just revealed itself. Since he hadn’t been expecting to defend himself from that angle, his shots were rushed. The man must have known he didn’t stand much of a chance of hitting anything because he finally began to retreat.

  “I got him, Clint!” George shouted from his vantage point. There were too many rocks and dry brush along that portion of the slope for Clint to see him, but it was obvious that George had found another cave well away from the first place they’d sought cover.

  Clint was careful when he went after the other man. Although he seemed to be running away, there was always the chance that he was simply drawing Clint in close enough for an accomplice or two to pick him off. Someone did hurry toward Clint from one side, but it was his own accomplice in this venture.

  “I know I hit him,” George said as he rushed to Clint’s side. “Looks like he’s turning tail.”

  “Give me that rifle.” As soon as he’d holstered his Colt, Clint felt the rifle dropped into his hand. He brought the rifle to his shoulder, sighted along the top of its barrel, but couldn’t take his shot before his target disappeared from view. Without taking his eyes from the rocky terrain stretching in front of him, Clint asked, “How many more of them did you find?”

  “Only one of them came after me. The rest went to get you.”

  “And you took care of your man?”

  “Yeah,” George replied. “More or less. Are we going after that one out there?”

  Clint lowered the rifle. “No need. It sounds like he already got to his horse.”

  As the rumble of hooves against the ground rolled through the air, George said, “Then we should follow him!”

  “I doubt it’ll do much good.”

  “Damn it, you’re working for me! I say follow him!”

  Reluctantly, Clint shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  TWELVE

  Less than an hour later, Clint returned to the expanse of caves dotting the hills. It might have taken him just as much time to find George again if he hadn’t spotted a horse’s nose protruding from a rock.

  Sure enough, the animal was George’s, and it was seeking shelter from the oppressive rays of the sun inside a cave with an entrance that was flush with the vertical surface of the hill.

  At first, Clint thought it was another cave that didn’t lead much of anywhere. Most of the ones he and George had been exploring were barely large enough to be used as an animal’s den. Squinting into the darkness, Clint hollered George’s name. The echo that came back to him let Clint know that this was one of the bigger caves they’d found. Once his eyes became adjusted to the shadows after being in the sun for so long, he saw a wide enclosed space that narrowed down into what looked to be a passage several yards farther inside.

  In response to his voice, a dim light bobbed a ways down that passage. “That you, Clint?” George shouted.

  “No, it’s a bunch of robbers who know your name and where to find you. Of course it’s me!”

  When George finally stuck his head around a corner so Clint could see it, he showed that the passage wasn’t as deep as it had originally seemed. The grin on his face could have been spotted from a mile away. “Glad you’re back! That means you must’ve put that killer down for good, right?”

  “I couldn’t find him,” Clint said as he ventured into the cave. The ceiling was jagged and uneven. Every step he took brought him into tighter quarters. The walls pinched in on him from both sides, making him quickly feel as if he was trapped in an upright coffin. “Whoever that fellow was, he wasn’t the sort to just charge in. He’d send his men in for that, but he struck me as a careful sort.”

  George’s enthusiastic smile faded when he heard that and nearly disappeared when he asked, “So that one careful fellow just disappeared?”

  “No, but you rode those trails,” Clint said. “They wind all over the damn place. I caught sight of him a few times, but by the time I made any headway, he disappeared around a bend or maybe even found someplace to duck in and hide.”

  George stayed put until Clint managed to squeeze through the narrow passage. On the other end of it, the cave widened out again and led to a sharp corner that was currently illuminated by the small lantern in George’s hand. “I suppose we proved we could handle ourselves well enough. Maybe he won’t even want to tangle with us again.”

  “Yeah,” Clint said. “I found that one man who came after you. Made a real mess of him, didn’t you?”

  “Truth is,” George muttered, “I was trying to get to my horse. I heard him coming as soon as I took a few steps and fired.” He shrugged. “Hit a rock and the man fell over screaming. Must’ve been a ricochet.”

  “Told you those could be deadly.”

  “He was still gonna shoot me so—”

  “You finished him off.”

  George nodded. “Seemed a cowardly way to kill a man.”

  “There aren’t a lot of great ways to kill a man,” Clint told him. “It was him or you so you didn’t have another choice. Doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

  Judging by the haunted expression on his face, George hadn’t shot many other men. Since George had the rest of his life to dwell on that moment, Clint decided to steer him away from it for now. “You seemed mighty happy when I first came in here,” he said. “What did you find?”

  George’s face brightened again. “Actually, I just got a look at it myself, and let me tell you, it’s pretty damn impressive.”

  “More gold?”

  “Gold and . . . well . . . come have a look for yourself.” Without waiting for a response, George turned his back to Clint and carefully navigated the passage.

  “How could anyone drag anything into this damned place?” Clint grunted. “I can barely tell up from down.”

  “Must’ve taken a few trips, but you have to admit this is a good place to hide something. The path alone discourages a man from getting all the way to the end.”

  When Clint rounded the next sharp corner, he found himself face to face with George. “Christ almighty. What possessed you to follow that damn tunnel?”

  “I don’t know,” George replied while turning around to walk even farther into it. “But I’m sure glad I did.”

  When George swung around to shine the light where it was needed, Clint saw even more than he’d been expecting.

  “This has got to be one of the larger stores,” George said. There was a small barrel nearby, which he used as a table for the lantern. That way, he could angle it toward the small wooden boxes stacked toward the back of the cave a few yards away. “Look at it in there,” he sighed through a greedy smirk.

  Clint could see the sparkle of gold between the slats of those boxes at the back of the cave, but something else had caught his eye. “Get that lantern off of that!” he snapped.

  “What? You mean the barrel?”

  “It’s not a barrel, you idiot. It’s a goddamn powder keg.”

  George turned around so quickly that he almost knocked the lantern over. Fortunately, he kept himself just steady enough to pick up the lantern and lower it so he could get a closer look for himself. “You’re
right. How’d you know?”

  “I can smell the gunpowder. There’s a whole lot more in here than just gold.”

  “I’ll say. This could be a mother lode!”

  Apart from what they’d already found, there was plenty more stored in the depths of all that rock. The goods stacked along the walls were covered by dusty tarps. Clint walked over to one of them to pull it off, already forming a good idea of what he would find. When he saw the short row of rifles propped against the wall beneath the tarp, he nodded slowly.

  “Guns?” George said. “Why would anyone store guns way out here?”

  “These look to be more than the weapons you could find at a store in town.”

  “Look like a bunch of rifles to me.”

  “That’s because you don’t know any better.” Clint picked one up to get a closer look. As soon as he felt the weight of it in his hands and the tension in the firing mechanism, he said, “Bring that lantern over here.”

  George stepped over to him, but slowly angled the light toward the smaller boxes and their glittering contents.

  “Keep it here where I can see,” Clint told him.

  “What is it? Is that a valuable weapon?”

  “It cost a pretty penny to have it made.”

  “Really?” George asked. “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m the one who made it.”

  THIRTEEN

  “How do you know that one’s yours?”

  Clint turned the rifle in his hands so he could look at it from several different angles. “This wasn’t just some rifle. It was a custom order. The man who ordered it wanted it modified to fire a higher caliber round. There were also changes to be made for it to send that round farther and with more accuracy.”

  “No offense, Clint, but it would seem to make more sense just to buy a different rifle than gussy one up.”

  “Custom rifles like this one are higher quality and are worth a whole lot more.”

  “How much more?” George asked.