Part 22 (1/2)
the snakes opened their fanged mouths and struck at the still-warm body, sensing food in their presence. The old mine shafts contained thousands of snakes; they slithered and rattled in the darkness ...
”Who the f.u.c.k axed you?” Red snarled at the man.
Hull's body was rapidly turning black from the ma.s.sive amounts of venom being injected into his dead flesh ...
”Jesus!” West whispered. He had banged his still-sore stump getting away from the dead driver.
”What was all that hollerin'?”
The rattlers, some of them eight and ten feet long, wound and coiled around Hull's body. One stuck its head into Hull's open mouth and sank its fangs into the dead man's tongue ...
”Let's back off ”bout another half-mile, West,” a man suggested. ”We'll cut 'cross country and link up with Texas Red that away.”
”d.a.m.n good idea,” West said.
Hull's body was now completely covered by the rattlesnakes. The swelling carca.s.s seemed to expand with new life.
And the snakes waited for yet more food to fall their way.
”One group is pullin” back, Ben!”
Jordy called.
”Good boy. Keep a sharp lookout, kids,”
Ben called. He turned to Rani. ”We won the first round.”
”The fight isn't over yet,” she reminded him. ”Think positive, dear. Think positive.”
Chapter 21.
Ben watched the column headed by West pull back. Shortly afterward, he noticed dust from the north, tracking east, heading toward Texas Red's location.
”That screaming a few moments ago?” Rani asked.
”Someone stepped into one of the old shafts,” Ben told her. ”We shortened the odds some the first go-around.”
”We're going to need more than that,” Rani said glumly.
Ben laughed. ”Go tell the kids to stand easy but not to leave their posts. We're going to have a few hours respite.”
”And then?” she asked.
”Then all h.e.l.l breaks loose.” He looked toward the east. ”Be interesting to know what those c.r.a.p-heads are talking about,” he muttered.
”Jake's gonna be plenty p.i.s.sed about this,”
West said.
”f.u.c.k Campo!” Texas Red said. ”He don't spell Jack-s.h.i.+t to me.”
But West thought, and thought correctly, most of that was pure macho bravado. West had yet to meet anyone who wasn't, at best, leery of Jake Campo-at worst, terrified of the big outlaw.
”We gonna have to approach this usin' some sense,”
Texas Red said. ”I guess them Rebs of Raines must have fire-balled down here to join him.
He's got them scattered around the ruins of the town.
Problem is, I don't know how many of them they is.”
”I can't see how that's possible,” West countered. ”Our guys was supposed to find them and box them in, wasn't they?”
”Findin' Raines' Rebs is one thing,”
Texas Red said. ”Boxin' them in is something else.”
”So what do we do?”'
”We wait and think this thing out.”
Jake knew what had happened when Red and West were not at the prearranged meeting place. No honor among thieves, he thought.
He looked up at the sound of engines. Cowboy Vic's column roared into view.
”Where's the rest of the boys?” Vic asked.
”I would imagine they've gone on into that old ghost town just west of the Big Bend,” Campo said. ”That's what you had in mind, too, wasn't it?”'
”Yep,” Vic said honestly. ”I was thinkin' that whoever got Raines first, could write his own ticket. Wasn't you thinkin' the same, Jake?”'
Jake laughed. ”Sure was.”
”Thought so. That's why we all got down here a little early, wasn't it?”' ”That's it. Well, maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all,” Jake mused aloud.
”How you figure that?”
”We'll just lay back and let West and Texas Red soften up Raines and his bunch. Let them take the heaviest losses. Then we'll move in and pick up the pieces.”
”And the glory,” Cowboy Vic said, a trickle of s...o...b..r leaking out of one corner of his mouth.
”Right?”
”You got it.” And then I'll kill you, Campo thought.