SNAKEHAND

The Sidewinders Book 1

Chuck Dixon and John Neal

Copyright © 2021 by Chuck Dixon and John Neal. All rights reserved.

Castalia House, Switzerland

CHAPTER 1

The train of wagons trundled along a switchback that rounded the base of the butte. Big sturdy freight wagons weighed down beneath loads belted tight under tarps. Twelve mule teams. Heavy cargo. A dun-colored cloud of dust rose behind them to form a column high into the yellow sky.

“What they hauling?” young Joe asked of Ben Temple lying prone beside him on a rock shelf high above the trail. Ben had a long brass telescope trained on the silent parade below. A flap of hide was bound with twine to the front of the scope to shade the glass. No one below would see any telltale flash off the lens.

“Don’t know. A lot of something. And a lot of anything is worth having,” Ben said, open eye screwed to the lens.

Joe Wiley lay watching Ben study the scene below. Ben was a big, broad-shouldered man with a thick black beard and hair to his collar. The telescope looked small, like a toy, in his hands. His face was burnt as dark as a native, dark as walnut from a life in the sun and wind. His light gray eyes were all the more noticeable in that dusky countenance.

Joe shifted, anxious for a look through the glass. He was as restless and antsy as Ben was composed and measured. He was a decade, or more, younger than the other man. No way to tell how many years he had, really. He was nearly a man and longed to be seen as such by the other men in the outfit. Ben Temple most of all. Joe was red as a Comanche himself with the contrast of a shock of sun-bleached hair that hung to his shoulders. His body was rangy and slim. There was speed and power there and he ached to move, to make something happen. But Ben lay still, pondering what he saw below them, and Joe was obliged to do the same.

At last, Ben handed the scope to Joe.

Joe found the wagons after a dizzying search down the rock wall through the lens. A driver, hands filled with the straps of a team of twelve, filled his vision. Beside the driver sat a man with a big double-barrel coach gun across his knees.

“See the ruts they’re leaving. Deep. That’s a shitload of goods in those wagons,” Ben said.

Joe swung the glass to see the furrows in the clay left by the steel-rimmed wheels.

“And those pistoleros. They’re not there to watch over hay wagons,” Ben said.

Joe moved his view around to take in the outriders that flanked the column of wagons. Each rider was festooned with pistols on their hips and more mounted on their saddles. Each rode with a rifle or shotgun laid ready against the pommel. Their heads moved as though on swivels, watching the land all about for an ambush or sign. Before the head of the column rode a phalanx of armed men with more spread out riding behind.

“Professionals through and through,” Ben said.

“You thought of how we might take them?” Joe said, eyes still trained below.

“We’re not jumping them on while they’re in column. That’s for damned sure. Like taking on a company of dragoons.”

“So when?”

“When the prevailing conditions are properly aligned to favor us rather than them,” Ben said, lying on his back now, head resting on his arms, booted feet crossed. Ben Temple was book learned and he often spoke using words that young Joe took some time to decipher.

“We follow them?” Joe said, taking his eyes from the lens.

“That’s what we’re going to do, boy,” Ben said and closed his eyes, making no move to rise.

Joe turned the scope back on the train of wagons. It rounded the curved wall of the butte, heading west. He watched until the last wagon was gone. The drag riders trotted through the trailing veil of dust and were soon out of sight on the other side of the rock face.

“They’re gone away around the butte, following the dry wash,” Joe said and rose to a crouch. He pressed the telescope closed and placed it in Ben’s open hand.

“That means they’ll be turning north, should they continue on that course. We’ll give them some time and follow along through the pines,” Ben said, placing the scope in a tooled leather case. He sat up and set his dusty sombrero atop his head, pressing it down on his hair and securing the chin strap. Joe put on his own broad-brimmed hat and together they left the edge of the escarpment, rifles in hand, taking care to remain low so as not to skyline themselves to anyone watching the rim rock.