Cutthroat Canyon. William W. Johnstone

and a couple of the other men standing around a dark shape on the ground. Bo recognized it as the man he had knocked out with his pistol, the one who had been struggling with Scratch.

      “What happened?” he asked as he and Scratch came up to the others.

      “This bandit was still alive,” Davidson said. “I thought he was dead, but he tried to get me with a knife as I walked by. I had to shoot him.”

      “Good thing you were quick about it, Boss,” Jackman said as he picked up a long, heavy-bladed knife from the ground beside the dead man. “Bastard would’ve gutted you with this if he’d gotten the chance.”

      “It’s a shame you had to kill him,” Bo said. “I’m the one who knocked him out. I was hoping we could ask him some questions, maybe find out who’s behind the trouble you’ve been having down here, Mr. Davidson.”

      The mine owner grunted. “It doesn’t matter what their names are. They’re all just damned Mexican bandits, like this one. And you could’ve gotten me killed by not finishing him off when you had the chance.”

      Bo heard the anger in Davidson’s voice, and knew the fear the man felt at the realization of how close he had come to dying probably prompted it. Not seeing any point in aggravating the situation, Bo just said, “Sorry,” and let it go at that as he knelt beside the corpse.

      The wide-brimmed sombrero hid the bandit’s face. Bo pulled it aside and studied the dead man’s features in the moonlight. He was surprised to see how young and unlined they were.

      Scratch saw the same thing. He said, “Hell, he ain’t much more’n a kid.”

      “That’s right,” Bo said. He put the dead bandit’s age around twenty.

      “He was plenty old enough to use a gun and a knife,” Skinner pointed out. “Little greaser got what was comin’ to him.”

      Davidson said, “We’ll bury him in the morning before we ride on.”

      Skinner spat. “Waste of time. Throw him in the arroyo. The zopilotes will take care of him.”

      “I won’t leave any man for the buzzards,” Davidson snapped. “Not even a bandit.”

      “I’m glad to hear you say that,” Bo said.

      “Do what you want,” Skinner said. “Just don’t expect me to help dig the grave. The only effort I’ll go to for scum like that is pullin’ a trigger.”

      He stalked back to the camp and started straightening up his bedroll.

      “Clearly, they spotted us and followed us,” Davidson mused. “I guess they thought this would be a good chance to get rid of me. If I was gone, they could take over the mine.”

      Bo frowned in thought and ran a thumbnail along his jawline. “Operating a mine seems like more work than a bunch of bandidos would want to do,” he said. “It strikes me that they’d be more likely to want you and your workers to dig out the gold, then steal it from you.”

      “Maybe. Whatever their motive, it didn’t work.”

      “Was anybody else hurt?”

      Lancaster spoke up. “I’ve got a bullet crease on my arm where the first shot hit me. Nothing serious, but it hurts like the bloody devil. I was able to return the man’s fire and downed him. That’s what started the whole fray.”

      “I didn’t see any other bodies layin’ around,” Scratch said.

      “Neither did I,” Bo agreed. “The bandits must’ve taken everybody who was wounded or killed with them except for this one fella, and they couldn’t get to him. From the looks of it, he and the hombre who jumped Lancaster were trying to sneak all the way into camp before the shooting started. Might have made it if Scratch hadn’t heard their horses.”

      Davidson grinned and clapped a hand on Scratch’s shoulder. “Good job, my friend. You probably saved all of us from a very unpleasant death.”

      “Can’t think of a death that’d be all that pleasant,” Scratch commented. “No, wait a minute, I reckon I can, if a fella was to—”

      “That’s enough talk about dying,” Bo said. “Let’s get some sleep instead. We’ve still got a long ride in front of us tomorrow.”

      CHAPTER 6

      Bo and Scratch dug the grave for the dead bandit the next morning, starting while the sky was still gray with the approach of dawn. Hansen helped them, and so, to their surprise, did the cold-eyed kid called Douglas. Bo gave up one of his blankets to wrap the body before they lowered it into the ground.

      Hansen explained that his father had been a Lutheran minister. He volunteered to say a prayer before they filled in the hole. It was in Swedish, but Bo didn’t figure that really mattered. El Señor Dios could probably speak all sorts of lingos.

      “If we’re done here, we need to get started,” Davidson said as Scratch tamped down the last shovelful of earth. Skinner, Lancaster, Jackman, and Tragg had all mounted their horses already. Lancaster’s bullet-creased arm had a rag tied around it as a makeshift bandage.

      Scratch tied the shovel back onto one of the packhorses where they had gotten it, and the rest of the group swung up into their saddles. They took the horses down a caved-in bank and along the wash for fifty yards or so before finding a place on the other side where they could climb out easily.

      Bo checked the ground in the arroyo as they crossed it. He saw several dark splotches on the ground and on the rocky banks that were probably bloodstains. The bandits had suffered other casualties during the brief battle the night before besides the young man Davidson had killed. It was impossible to tell, though, just how serious the other injuries had been.

      Bo still regretted not being able to ask questions of the bandit he had knocked out, but there was nothing that could be done about that now. He put the matter out of his head and concentrated instead on keeping a close eye on the landscape around them, just in case the bandits tried to ambush them again.

      That wasn’t going to be easy, considering how flat and open so much of the terrain was. In broad daylight, no one could approach them without being seen. There wouldn’t really be a good spot for another ambush until they reached the mountains.

      “You may not have any more trouble,” Bo mused as he and Scratch rode alongside Davidson that morning.

      “What makes you think that?” the mine owner asked.

      “The bandits know now that you’re bringing in reinforcements. They’ve seen us, swapped shots with us, and might just decide that it’ll be too risky to hit those gold shipments in the future.”

      Davidson laughed. “I’d like to think that’s true, Bo, but you don’t know how determined those bastards are. They know I’m bringing high-grade ore out of the mine. I can’t imagine them just turning their backs on it.”

      “Well, I reckon we’ll see.”

      “Yes, we will. And I bet it won’t take long to discover that they’re still out to ruin me.”

      That was sort of an odd way to put it, Bo thought. Stealing gold shipments wasn’t exactly the same thing as trying to ruin Davidson, although that might be the end result if the robberies continued.

      The ride that day was long and hot and tiring, but they didn’t run into any more trouble. Gradually, they drew closer to the mountains. Even after it seemed as if the gray-green peaks were close enough to reach out and touch, hours went by before the riders actually reached the foothills. Once they began climbing, the air was a little cooler, and that was a welcome relief.

      By late afternoon the mountains towered above them. Pine trees covered the slopes, and the valleys between the mountains were lush with grass. The riders passed occasional farms with garden patches and small herds of sheep and oxen.

      No