Chapter Twenty-two – Contact

Little Blue was still young, scarcely two years old, but he was full grown, with solid shoulders, strong jaws and big feet. His instinct for the protection of his owners was paramount, and when Jim tasked him with the protection of the group’s belongings, he took the responsibility seriously. He had known that there was danger behind them for some time, and that this danger had now caught up.

There was another presence out there tonight, other than men. It was a dog, half wild and savage. Little Blue could smell it prowling in the trees of the gully. The dog had been tracking him, had come to find him.

It was wary, however – waiting for an opportunity, and Little Blue would not be tempted into straying from his masters’ gear. He paced a rough circle near the leaping flames of the fire, watching. The first gunshots along the track took him by surprise, and made him more tense, looking anxiously, whining softly, dividing his attention between the dog in the trees and the gunfight nearby.

He understood that this was a night in which terrible things might happen.

***

Will fired the first shot, aimed above the heads of the party of horsemen. It was a booming discharge, breaking the silence of the night. The outlaws stopped in disarray, some trying to wheel their horses, others fumbling for weapons.

Will held one hand around his mouth to help project his voice as he shouted, ‘Turn around and get the hell out of here. You’ve got thirty seconds or we fire in earnest.’

The group seemed to splinter at first, but there was a voice, rising above the rest, haranguing them, whipping them into a mob.

Kahl, Will decided.

 Then came the sound of hooves on the track, riders geeing up their mounts and shouting encouragement to each other.

‘Jesus,’ said Lenny, ‘they’re gonna charge us.’

He was right, the horsemen had gathered themselves, started off slow, then gained momentum, whipping their horses into a gallop towards the seven defenders. It was perhaps the most terrifying scene that Will had ever faced, but he had no intention of running.

‘Alright,’ said Will, more softly now. ‘Let’s give it to them.’

Of the seven figures who stood across that track there were seven different perspectives. All were determined that the outlaws would not pass, but their reasons differed. As the riders thundered closer, each of the defenders took aim in a manner according to their feelings.

Aiming, moreover, was no easy matter. Iron sights, even with the assistance of some firelight, were not easy to use accurately in the dark. Added to this was the matter of nerves, and the general inaccuracy of firing from a standing position.

One or two of the horsemen started shooting, and the flashes of revolver discharges added to the confusion. The bullets flew wide, for almost no one can hit what they aim at from a galloping horse. Some projectiles, however, came close, or struck a rock and ricocheted around.

Will had eyes only for Kahl, and he picked him out of the group, sitting higher than the others, in the lead. He was the point of an arrow with the others behind him in widening ranks. With what he could see of the foresight settled in the V, Will let his forefinger take the first pressure of the trigger. He fired, and reloaded smoothly.

With only one cartridge left in his rifle, Jim had reluctantly left it in the saddle holster, and instead carried his revolver, for which he had adequate ammunition. He held it at arm’s length aimed at the same target as Will. He fired an instant after his mate, but Kahl had already reacted to Will’s bullet, whether from injury or design, dropping from the saddle.  

Lainey chose to fire into the greatest press of targets, and Lenny beside her did the same, the double concussion of their shots sounding only moments after Jim’s.

Rafe was slower off the mark, but no less angry. These men had come to take away the cattle station he had worked ceaselessly for, over fifteen years, paid by unscrupulous men who cared nothing for the country, only for the money it could make for them. These ruffians had to be neutralised so he could get the documents he required, and begin his journey to Palmerston.

Rafe did not trust to accuracy in this nighttime shooting but decided to rely on sheer firepower. His Winchester’s tube magazine held seven .45-70 rounds. He started firing from the shoulder, flicking up the lever and shooting into the men silhouetted above their galloping horses.

Matt, standing beside Rafe, was fighting a battle with his own conscience. He was a stockman, not a fighter, and he had no real investment in this, apart from wanting his boss to win through. The thought of killing a man filled him with horror. He fired into the gidgee trees above the outlaws’ heads. Once, twice, three times.

Black powder smoke was thick, hanging low in the night air, but as it slowly cleared Will was able to see ahead to where the horses were in disarray, bucking and shying. Some were riderless, for at least a few of the projectiles had stuck home.

‘Stop shooting,’ barked Will, ‘let them take their wounded.’

By ones and twos the outlaws managed to turn. Some gathered the reins of loose horses, and others slipped to the ground to lift fallen mates to their saddles. Over the next few minutes, they walked their horses back below the lip of the gully, swallowed by the darkness and the trees.

‘They’re running,’ said Lenny.

‘It might look like it,’ said Will, ‘but somethin’ tells me it aren’t over yet.’

‘I think you hit Kahl, bloke,’ said Jim. ‘He was droppin’ by the time I fired.’

‘I bloody hope so,’ muttered Will.

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Luke.

‘Well, what we don’t do is let them fortify themselves on the edge of that gully. We walk down there and push them out. Lenny, would you go back and watch our horses, just in case one of them barsteds crawls up from the trees? The rest of us’ll give chase. Spread out a bit, the rest of youse – we won’t make targets of ourselves by tramping down the middle of the track, and find cover where you can.’

As they walked along the track, warily stepping, nothing happened for a good few minutes. As Will had expected, it seemed that the outlaw band had ridden back down into the gully and stopped. They heard the sound of horses, slowly being settled, and men talking. A wounded man was sobbing in pain, calling for his mates.

 More walking followed. More unsettling noises. More darkness.

The natural sounds of a Territory night started to return again too – frogs down in the gully, a distant barking owl, and the disarming cry of a nightjar. There was also the sound of their own boots in the dust, and of jingling spurs from those who still wore them.

‘I’ve missed you, dear Elaine,’ came a voice from out to the left.

Knowing it must be Luke, Will rolled his eyes and said, ‘Can we bloody leave the lovebird guff ‘til this is over?’

Lainey’s voice, ‘No one asked you to foller me anyhow, Luke Phillips, yer like a bloody dog.’

‘No law against a husband follerin’ ‘is own wife, is there?’

A thunderous discharge and a muzzle flash of fire out from the trees, and a heavy slug thudded into the track ahead of them. It had to be a Snider. No other weapon boomed with such authority, and the impact of the .577 calibre projectile shook the ground.

Will snapped a shot at the place he had seen the muzzle flash, but his night vision was momentarily ruined. Away to his left, Rafe’s rifle boomed and another line of flame shot out over the track and grass.

‘Take cover ‘til we deal with this lot,’ called Will, and he moved to a termite mound just ahead, kicked the top part of it over, then fell to his knees and dropped the stock of his rifle over the mound. He settled down to wait, unsure how bullet proof a two-foot thickness of dried mud would be, but it was a steady rest.

Another shot came from the trees, a lighter calibre this time – rapid fire from a repeating rifle. Will aimed and fired at the flash, and the shooting stopped.

Lainey cried out.

‘Are you hit?’ yelled Will.

‘Jesus yeah, but just a scratch.’

He left the termite mound and ran to her. There was just enough light to see that a bullet had clipped her forearm, opening the skin and leaving a channel of raw flesh. Strangely, it was not bleeding much, but Will guessed that would come.

‘Nasty wound,’ he said. ‘It needs binding. Head back to the campfire and Lenny can help sort it out.’

‘I’ll go with her,’ said Luke, who had come up behind them.

‘No, you won’t,’ said Will, ‘I need you here.’

Will watched Lainey walk back, keeping her head low as she went. Then he turned to his dwindling force. ‘Right, let’s clear these bastards out of the gully. They’re as blind as we are, and hitting Lainey was just bad bloody luck.’

They moved down to the gully in a skirmish line, with Jim instinctively taking the lead, scouting ahead, flitting into the first saplings that marked the gully. Another fusillade came from behind a tree, and Jim hissed, ‘I’ll take him.’

The others continued on, and there was the sound of running feet. No more shots.

They came to the head of the gully. Slowly their eyes adjusted to the greater darkness there. After a few moments Will could just make out the shapes of men and horses down near the fast-running creek at its base.

©2025 Greg Barron
Continued next Sunday.
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