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  —Butler was the first to react, simultaneously swiveling at the waist and drawing his second revolver with his intact right hand, quick-drawing and firing a string of shots as he ducked right. His evasive action threw his aim, and six bullets were wasted. By then Butler had tossed the first gun and, fumbling out a second from the saddle of his horse, his eyes wild and terror filled as he looked up at Joe Noose sitting high in the saddle on the Appaloosa stallion as it rode right into the center of the startled bounty killers—

  —“Get down!” Noose yelled at the top of his lungs down to an armed Bess, who was hopping on one leg out of the way despite both hands being tied, and tumbled to earth—

  —the dead marshal’s horse reared and Noose stayed in the saddle, turning the beast on its hindquarters so that its front legs jackhammered out and kicked Wingo in the skull with a wet crack that spun his eyes like white marbles rolling up in their sockets and sent him staggering to his knees. In a string of split-second perceptions, Noose saw as his horse reared again that Wingo just had whatever brains he used to own kicked out and was incoherent and no threat, so the cowboy whirled in the saddle, straightening his scattergun arm and aiming in the direction that he last saw Butler, but the leader was already taking cover behind his nasty horse. Having a sixth sense where the next bullets were coming from, Noose swung around in the saddle and took aim with his Colt at Sharpless and Trumbull right as the ducking men lunged with their irons and began shooting. Everything became explosions of gunfire and Noose felt a bullet slam into his saddle as another creased his ear with a burning sting, but he kept blasting, swiveling the barrel of the pistol in his fist to the man on the left as he leveled the second barrel of the shotgun to the man on the right and unloaded the second cartridge—

  —Trumbull’s right leg was blown out from under him into bloody fragments as he was flipped right onto his face, screaming like an animal. All in the space of a few fateful seconds under heavy fire, Noose’s brain ticked off Trumbull like it did Wingo as no longer an active threat, and Noose shot the last bullet in his pistol into the gun smoke behind where Sharpless was returning fire—Noose heard the flesh impact and the man started hollering, dropping his gun and clutching his wounded arm and pain-dancing in circles—

  —the air was already thick with a hovering haze of gun smoke and targeting was tough in the close quarters of the gunfight’s tight proximity theater of combat. It was point and shoot or simply shoot. Silhouettes of men ducked and darted and muzzle flashes erupted in all directions. Huge shapes of horses bolted to and fro and Noose’s Appaloosa continued to rear. Noose realized it was a big target and that he and his stallion were in the eye of the hurricane and surrounded by armed men loading up and firing back on all sides—

  —perhaps forty-five seconds had elapsed since Noose had loosed his first cartridge and in that brief span of time there had been a lot of blood and things were moving in slow motion now they were all in the thick of it—

  —revolving on his horse, Noose’s eyes swung back and forth as he tossed the empty shotgun and snatched the Winchester repeater rifle from his saddle holster—

  —Bess!—

  —A quick glance down showed the woman crawling away, trying to untie the rope on her wrists with her teeth and still clutching Butler’s pistol and inching on all fours toward Wingo, shivering and staring into space on his knees, his face a mask of red from the kick he took to the head. Bess got the rope off her wrists, closing in on the bounty killer. She meant to take his pistols, Noose figured, and the first thing she would do is put him out of his misery with the first bullet—

  —Butler. That question was answered by a heavy-caliber round screaming past Noose’s face from behind—it would have blown the back of his head off had his horse not been moving so much in the smoke. The cowboy jammed the empty revolver in his saddlebag and took up the Winchester with both hands, already levering off several booming rounds as he sighted down the barrel at the figure in black behind the big black horse behind him. The bastard was using his own horse as a body shield like he knew somehow Noose didn’t like to shoot horses and would hesitate, and although Noose hated that bastard’s mean horse, he was right. Butler ducked down and fired beneath the stomach of the stallion up at Noose like a Comanche. They traded fire but that mean ebony horse was already on the move and Butler with it, changing position—

  —a fleeing quarter horse rushing past in the melee cleared a clean view of Culhane, who had his pistol clutched in both hands, taking potshots at Noose in plain view. The bounty killer was screaming in fury like it would make his shots hit harder but all that hollering did was pinpoint his position. Culhane’s shoulder suddenly exploded in a ragged red crater of an exit wound that didn’t come from Noose’s gun. The cowboy switched his gaze to the right and saw Bess on her knees beside the stuporous Wingo with his smoking pistol in her hands and an all-business expression on her angry face, and just as Noose realized Bess had shot Culhane and saved his hide, Bess turned the pistol on Wingo and shot him in the shoulder even though she was aiming at his chest—

  —needing to get to ground because he was too clear a target astride the horse, Noose swung out of the saddle, clenching his Winchester and Colt .45 and landed on his boots in a crouch—

  —when the scream of rage behind Bess jerked Noose’s gaze up he saw Culhane swing an ax at her back but he was already too close to her and Noose couldn’t risk his bullet hitting Bess, so he fanned and fired once from the hip, blowing a hole through the bounty killer’s arm that spun him to the right in a broken stagger, Culhane coming full around with the hatchet in the other hand now, swinging it with raw rage at the woman’s head as she looked back, still too close for Noose to get a safe shot at the man so murderously intent on killing her and instead Noose fanned and fired a second time and took off Culhane’s left elbow, the ax flying harmlessly from his limp grasp and by that time Bess had rolled on her back, clenching her stolen pistol in a sure two-hand grip and shot Culhane fatally in the chest, blowing him clean off his feet, his chest trailing geysers of blood as he landed in the dust and lay still, dead as dead gets—

  —there was a lot of screaming coming from a lot of badly shot men who had just been schooled in the fearsome tradecraft of the shootist by Joe Noose. His ambush had been successful. The Butler Gang had been pounded and taken a beating. It was time to clear out while he and Bess still could. Mackenzie’s roughneck stallion stood a few yards to his right, still as a post, not even flinching as the bullets flew past it so that rugged old fighting horse was either tough or deaf, but on that nag’s blood-splattered saddle was how they were getting out of here. The cowboy whiplashed his gaze back between Bess and the horse, gauging distance and calculating next moves with instinctual animal precision—his decision came fast: she was too far away and it would waste time gathering her up and getting her back on the Appaloosa—the horse was closer, get it, then get her and get out of here before the shock of the surprise ambush wore off on the bounty killers, who were professionals, after all, and the men got a mind to start shooting straight—

  —Noose’s boots propelled him up off the ground like an uncoiled spring and both big hands grabbed the saddle, pulling himself into the stirrups already swinging his far leg over and grabbing the reins, sitting erect, barely spurring the horse because it was off like a shot, now in furious motion cantering right past Bess on the ground, that stallion so happy to be in action it wasn’t going to stop for her. Bess’s eyes were wide with wild and desperate hope as Noose approached in a thunder of hooves, her hand reaching out for him and Noose leaned hard out of the saddle to his left, leaning the horse, catching her arm in his big fist and not letting go as the Appaloosa charged past the woman, the velocity of its gallop and iron grip of the man plucking the woman like a feather off the ground, her agile hips doing the rest as Bess dropped into the saddle behind Noose and threw her arms around his chest to hang on for dear life as he spurred the warhorse hard now, driving it forward at full gallo
p, escaping across the field and down a grassy incline ever farther from the carnage of the bounty killer ambush left in their wake.

  By the time the shots did come the guns were out of range. Soon the shots were fewer, quieter, barely audible above all the screaming in the distance.

  It was sweet music to Noose’s and Bess’s ears.

  And they were away.

  CHAPTER 41

  It was a rout.

  No other word for it. No fancy bow to put on things nor rosy way to look at it. Noose’s ambush had been a massacre and a bloodbath with the bounty killers on the losing end, plain and simple.

  Frank Butler sat on a rock, racked with pain as he methodically wrapped a cloth around his blasted-apart left hand, binding his remaining fingers together. His pain threshold was high and made higher by the swigs of sour mash whiskey he took from the bottle beside him, which numbed the pain a little. His thumb and forefinger were gone forever and he’d never be able to shoot a pistol again with his left hand, but with practice should be able to manage handling a rifle. The leader was still in shock and the seething intensity of his bloodthirsty rage at the bastard who wounded him and the rest of his men, those he hadn’t wiped out, washed the pain away.

  Fifteen minutes ago he watched that slippery son of a whore and the bitch marshal ride away intact and his reward along with them. This whole last two days counted for naught but lost men and fingers, and likely the loss of the Butler Gang’s lives if those two made it to Jackson, because if they told their tale, he and his men would be swinging at the end of ropes.

  Butler had to stop them from getting there. He had to get after them. But he couldn’t do it himself and one look around told him that was going to be his problem . . .

  His men were sprawled, moaning and wailing and rolling on the ground, filled with bullets and bleeding everywhere. Everyone had been hit, at least once.

  Butler rose unsteadily to his feet and recovered his balance. The leader needed to be standing upright on both boots. Standing on the bloody field in the center of the carnage, Frank Butler looked around with a grim, saturnine expression at what was left of his gang, and took inventory:

  Culhane was dead.

  So was Lawson.

  And Garrity.

  All three of their bullet-scored, lifeless bodies were sprawled near the horses.

  Trumbull was hit in the leg. He sat on the ground in misery. Was in the process of binding a tourniquet around his upper leg below the thigh and looked like he would recover. Butler knew Trumbull was a steady reliable type and he could definitely still ride a horse.

  The horse-kicked Wingo was on his feet fifty yards away, wandering in dizzy circles with a glazed, vacant look in his eyes. Blood gushed down the side of his head. The bullet wound in his shoulder wasn’t doing him any good but Butler didn’t think the young gunman felt much of anything because his brains had been scrambled like a plate of eggs. Could he ride and shoot? was the question. The leader figured he’d shove him into a saddle and see what he could get out of him.

  All the horses were still within the perimeter. None had run off, that was one good thing. Although Butler wouldn’t need three of those nags now, he could scavenge the rifles, pistols, and ammo.

  “Get up, boys,” Butler barked.

  His men looked up at him like animals licking their wounds, with pain and incredulity in their eyes.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Mr. Butler?” Will Sharpless whined, nursing his ragged arm.

  “Up on your feet. Everybody. Mount up. Our reward’s getting away.”

  “Screw you, Butler. We’re shot to pieces,” Trumbull snarled.

  “You’re still breathin’, ain’tcha?” Butler swung in intimidating circles in a half stagger around his surviving shootists. “Mount up! We gotta get after that son of a bitch! Our reward money is getting away!” The leader was out of his mind with agony and sheer raging obsessive fury. His eyes were crazed and the three remaining men were scared of him. It showed in their faces. None of them moved. Butler held up his bandaged bloody stump of his left hand, displaying it. “I got shot, too! Noose shot my damn hand off! You don’t hear me complaining! That’s why I got me two hands for, ’cause the other one I’m gonna shoot him dead with! Now, on your horses, boys! I ain’t gonna tell you again!”

  The wounded possemen exchanged miserable glances, and Sharpless was the one to speak up. “It’s over.”

  “What did you say?” Butler hissed.

  “It’s over, Mr. Butler,” the ill-at-ease Sharpless said quietly. “We’re done. We’re all shot up. We picked the wrong man to frame and he kicked our asses but good. And that reward is gone, Mr. Butler. That’s a fact.”

  “Time to face reality,” Trumbull seconded. “We got to get us to a hospital.”

  “Time to face reality. Okay, then.” Frank Butler’s face was as pale as a ghost and his eyes were bloodshot and radiated a mad stare. Lightning fast, he drew his Colt Dragoon with his right hand and shot once into the ground an inch from Trumbull’s leg. Dirt jumped and with a cry of alarm the bounty killer had leapt to his feet and was hobbling on his unwounded leg.

  “I am reality,” Butler snarled through a curled pallid lip below his black handlebar mustache. “Face me.” As he said it, he cocked back the hammer of his revolver in his right hand and stepped sideways to get the last three of the gang in his killing range. His straightened his gun arm and switched the aim of the barrel back and forth, slowly back and forth, back and forth.

  Wingo was incoherent but Sharpless and Trumbull froze, neither of them daring to go for their guns because even if they could reach their weapons both at the same time, this was Frank Butler, his hammer was cocked, and he’d gun all of them down before they got a shot off. They could all see their leader had gone over the edge and lost his mind, and they knew he was dangerous enough when he was thinking straight but was as unpredictable as a rabid dog when he wasn’t.

  Standoff.

  Butler spoke calmly through gritted teeth. “Get up, mount up, or I’ll shoot you myself. Go get that reward for myself. Got a full load in this smoke wagon. Six. 44-40s. Bullet for each of ya. Best if it’s just me going after the reward not to leave any witnesses. I’d be doing you boys a favor putting you all down, y’see. Because it ain’t just about losing that reward money. Nossir. It’s about losing everything. Everything. Noose and that marshal, they make it to Jackson Hole and tell their story, tell what they know about us, it’s the end of the trail for this gang. Every U.S. Marshal in the country will be on our tail and we’ll all be hunted down and hanged. Nowhere to run the law won’t run us to ground. It’s all or nothing, boys. Get Noose or get the noose. So what’ll it be?”

  The gang exchanged glances. Saw he was right.

  In great pain, with excruciating slowness, Trumbull and Sharpless retrieved the fallen guns from the ground and staggered to the saddles of their horses. Butler holstered his pistol and used his right hand to haul himself up into the saddle of his black stallion, wrapping the reins around his left forearm and drawing his Colt again. He watched, eyes glittering with malevolent impatience, as Sharpless, the only one who hadn’t received a serious injury, helped Wingo and Trumbull into the saddles. The horse-kicked Wingo didn’t look like he knew where he was.

  In less than five minutes, what was left of the Butler Gang still looked no less like a pile of raw meat but they were mounted up and they were armed, and when their psychotic leader screamed “Yee-ahh!” the four bounty killers galloped fiercely off with the frightening force and terrible purpose of a last charge into hell.

  CHAPTER 42

  As she leaned against his back, her arms around his shoulders holding on, her hands gripped his chest because it was the biggest part of him to cling on to, and without meaning to, her fingers involuntarily touched the scar. Next thing she knew, Bess found herself gently tracing the mark of the branding iron with her fingertips in idle curiosity.

  Noose looked straight ahead, gripping
the reins, as he steered the stallion down the treacherous ridge with calm control. Now and then his gaze cut left and right, keeping a lookout for the marauders.

  If he minded or even noticed that she was touching his branding weal, he didn’t show it.

  “How did you get that, Joe?” Bess asked softly, looking over his left shoulder, her face by his cheek. She couldn’t help herself. Bess always spoke her mind.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “It’s a long ride.”

  “You ain’t gonna let up, are you?” Noose sort of smiled and shook his head to himself.

  “I want to know,” she pressed. “It ain’t every day you see a man branded like a steer.”

  “No, ma’am, it ain’t. And I reckon that was the whole idea. It was a long time ago.”

  “How long?” she asked, and the horse found its footing and trotted down the ravine.

  “I was thirteen.”

  Appalled, Bess stiffened her grip on his upper body in sudden stupefaction, gaping in horror. “What—who would—brand a little boy like an . . . an—?”

  “It was better than the alternative.”

  “Which was?”

  “Hanged.”

  He felt her listening.

  “You want the story, okay, I’ll tell you.” Over the next fifteen minutes, Noose spoke more words than he had said all day as the tale spilled from his lips in his low, laconic drawl. He told it softly, voice grim and reflective as he shared his past, and when he was finished, Bess Sugarland felt she knew everything there was to know about Joe Noose. She understood him now.

  “First thing you got to understand is I never had no parents, none that I knew,” Noose began. “From the age of five I was on my own up in Montana, living hand to mouth, no schooling. Never knew right from wrong, nobody ever taught me, and I did a lot of bad things as a kid because I didn’t know no better. Fighting for food, a place to sleep, stealing clothes off folks’ backs, rustling horses, it was all just surviving to me. I fetched up in every kind of place. A blur to me now. Shot my first man when I was eight. It was near Billings. I was big for my age and looked older but he was bigger and mean. And drunk as hell. He was passed out in a dark alley behind a stable. I was scoping the corral out to steal one of the horses when I saw the drunk and had a mind to steal his wallet and gun and the bottle of whiskey in his hand. Got the gun out of his holster and the wallet from his coat, but then he woke up and went for my throat. I’d stolen me a big old Remington Peacemaker from him and I drew down and plugged him easy as breathing. Didn’t feel bad after. It was him or me. Didn’t feel nothing. ’Cept hungry most of the time,” Noose said in a voice not proud.