The Cowboy Way

by Elmer Kelton

  Hall looked at Coley’s bulging saddlebags, and shame came galling him. “My fault, Coley. I oughtn’t to’ve gone to the settlement. Mostly I just did it to show I wasn’t takin’ no orders from you.”

  Coley shrugged. “Ain’t no use shuttin’ the barn door after the milk’s spilt. If it’s all the same to you, I think we better keep a-ridin’.”

  Hall said, “You’re the boss.”

  They rode until at least midnight. They didn’t even build a fire for coffee, for neither man doubted that the Good brothers were somewhere behind them. Knowing as much as they already did, the Goods would have to be stupid not to figure out the rest.

  Hall and Coley were up and riding again by daylight. With luck, Hall figured, they might reach Fort Worth by night. Maybe with the long night’s ride they had gotten a strong lead on the Goods anyway. He and Coley kept a sharp eye on the trail, both behind them and ahead. Once Coley, turning in the saddle, pulled up and said, “Mister Hall, behind us!”

  Hall stopped and looked. “Nothin’ back there, Coley.”

  “I’d of swore, Mister Hall…”

  They waited a little but saw nothing. There wasn’t even enough breeze to wave the grass. Coley admitted, “I could’ve been wrong. I reckon. I’m still a mite skittish.” Hall nodded, somehow satisfied. This, then, was his department. This was one place, at least, where the Negro couldn’t outshine him.

  Riding, Hall could see tension wearing on Coley. The dark man’s eyes were wide, the whites showing more than Hall had ever seen. Again Coley called out, “Mister Hall…”

  But when Hall turned, Coley was looking uphill and shaking his head. “Nothin’. Guess I didn’t see nothin’. For a minute I’d of swore…”

  A bullet snarled past Hall’s face and thudded into the grass. A second later he heard the sharp slap of a rifleshot and saw powdersmoke rise from behind a bush up the hill. Automatically he brought his pistol up and fired an answering wild shot that didn’t hit within twenty feet of target.

  “Ride, Coley!” he shouted.

  Spurring, he dropped the six-shooter back into its holster and pulled his saddlegun out of its scabbard beneath his leg. Ahead of him, Coley Dawes was leaning well forward and putting heels to his horse. Scared to death, Hall thought. The ground seemed to fly by beneath. Looking back over his shoulder, Hall could see a rider come out from behind the brush and spur into pursuit.

  There were two of them, Hall thought. Where’s the other one at?

  Ahead of him he saw a dead tree. He slid his horse to a stop, jumped down, leaned the rifle barrel over the fork of the tree and took aim. As the rifle roared, the pursuing horse went head over heels, and its rider rolled in the grass.

  Afoot, Hall thought, he can’t hurt us much.

  Coley had slowed up and was waiting for him. Hall re-mounted and caught up. “Real peart shootin’,” Coley said.

  “You just have to know your business, is all,” Hall said as they rode on. “But we got no time to be a-pattin’ ourselves on the back. There’s still another one someplace.”

  No sooner had he spoken than he felt his own horse jerk under the impact of a bullet. Instinctively Hall kicked his feet out of the stirrups. He felt himself hurled forward, rifle in his hands. He slid on rough ground, his clothes ripping, the dead limb of a mesquite gashing his hide. But he was up again instantly, crouching, his anxious gaze sweeping the skyline. He saw smoke in a thicket ahead. He raised the saddlegun and triggered a shot in that direction. An answering bullet whined by him.

  At least now I know where he’s at. And he can’t get out of that thicket without me gettin’ a lick at him.

  “Coley,” Hall shouted, “you take that money and get the hell out of here!”

  Coley had pulled his horse up behind a big mesquite and was bending low, watching the thicket. “I can’t just ride off and leave you here alone, Mister Hall, with two of them white trash a-shootin’ at you.”

  “I got one afoot and one bottled up. Long’s I’m here they can’t go after you. Now git yourself gone.”

  “But Mister Hall…”

  “Damn it, Coley, I got you into this, and I’m gettin’ you out. Ride now before I nail your hide to the fence!”

  Reluctantly Coley rode away. To cover him, Hall kept firing into the thicket. Coley got away clean.

  Well, Hall thought, Coley won’t stop now till he’s got clear to Fort Worth.

  For the first time, he looked back to where the first robber’s horse had fallen. He could see the dead horse, but not the man.

  Slippin’ up on me. Hall knew he had to shift himself to a more advantageous position. Here he had a cutbank to protect him against fire from the man in the thicket, but his back was exposed. He looked toward his dead horse and wished he had the extra cartridges that were in his saddlebags. But to get them he would have to go out into the open, and maybe roll that horse over as well. No matter, he had another two or three shots left in the rifle. After that, there was still the six-shooter.

  All he had to do was stall the pair around till dark. By then Coley should reach Fort Worth. And in the darkness Hall could steal away unseen.

  The only thing he dreaded was the long walk. Ahead of him he could see a gully, where hillside runoff water had cut into the grass and soil and eroded an outlet. In that gully he could have protection from both front and rear. Moreover, weeds had grown up on either side, which would help hide him from view without keeping him from watching what the two robbers were up to.

  He lay still, studying the ground a minute, estimating how long it would take him to run to the gully. A few seconds should do it. He took a firm grip on the saddlegun, steadied himself, then broke into the open.

  He almost made it to the gully. Then a bullet cut through his leg, and he went sprawling. He tried desperately to push himself to his feet, but the leg wouldn’t hold him. Another bullet thumped into the grass ahead of him. Suddenly his mouth was dry and his heart was racing.

  He hadn’t seriously thought they could hit him while he was running. But they had. Behind him he could hear a man afoot, moving fast. The robber whose horse he had killed was closing in on him. Just ahead of him was a mesquite tree. Water had cut around the base of it, leaving a pile of drift on the offside which might give him some protection from the men behind him. The tree itself would shield him from the man in the thicket. Hall turned and fired a quick shot at the man who was trying to close with him. The man dove into the protection that Hall had abandoned only seconds before. That gave Hall time to crawl to the tree.

  He quickly found the protection here was not so good as it had appeared. The drift was deep enough to protect him only so long as he kept his head down. The moment he raised his head to take a shot, he was exposed to the man behind him. This way he had lost any advantage he might once have had over the man in the thicket.

  Despair swept over him now as he realized he was boxed. All the man behind him had to do was fire to keep Hall’s head down while the outlaw in the thicket calmly took his time and came out. He would be able to come up and put a bullet in Hall while Hall lay helpless, waiting for it.

  It didn’t take the two robbers long to figure this out, either. The one behind began firing sporadically at Hall’s hiding place. The slugs thudded into the soft earth and showered Hall with dirt. Hall would raise up slightly and answer occasionally with a shot of his own, but he knew all the advantage was with the outlaws.

  It wouldn’t be long before they decided to close in and kill him, for they knew Coley was getting away.

  The man behind waved his hat. That, Hall knew, was a signal. In a moment Hall heard hoofbeats. A horse was coming out of the thicket and running toward him. Hall carefully brought up the rifle. They might get him, but they wouldn’t do it cheap.…

  A bullet smacked into the earth at Hall’s face, showering him with sand, half blinding him. He snapped a shot at the man behind him and realized with sick heart that he had missed.

  He knew he had just a momen
t left to live, but that moment was long enough for him to know the sick feeling of desperation and the cold hand of remorse. If he hadn’t been so all-fired resentful of Coley … If he hadn’t gone to that settlement …

  The man behind him jumped up and came running, firing as he moved. Hall heard the hoofs pounding harder, coming from the thicket. He blinked the sand from his eyes and pushed up on one leg, knowing this would give the horseman a chance at him but knowing too that it was the only way he could get a clear shot at the man afoot.

  He heard a man scream, and almost at the same time he heard a rifle shot from somewhere uphill. Then he had his bead, and he squeezed the trigger. He saw the outlaw in his sights drop to his knees. The man braced himself on one hand and tried to level the pistol he held. Hall levered another cartridge into the breech and fired again. The man went down hard that time, down to stay.

  Hall spun around, hearing the horse almost upon him.

  The horse was there, all right. It passed him and kept running, its saddle empty. The rider from the thicket lay out there in the grass, his legs twitching, one arm twisted crazily beneath him. Down the hill came another rider, rifle in hand.

  Coley Dawes.

  Coley caught the outlaw’s horse and took Hall to a ranch house he knew of. He left him there while he rode on to Fort Worth with the major’s money. He stopped by briefly again on his way back to the Steward ranch, but Hall didn’t get to talk to him. Right about then, Hall’s fever was at its highest, and there wasn’t any talk in him. A couple of weeks later Hall rode up to the major’s chuckwagon just at dinnertime and unsaddled. He limped over to the wagon and took a plate. He glimpsed Coley Dawes. As always, Coley sat alone, on the wagon tongue.

  Hall got himself some beef and beans and stopped in front of Coley. Coley looked up with a grin. “Welcome back, Mister Hall. How’s the leg?”

  “Mendin’ fair to middlin’. Ain’t goin’ to lose it.” He frowned. “Coley, you never did say why you came back that day. You was supposed to keep runnin’.”

  “I couldn’t just go off and leave you in that kind of a fix. I hid the money and went back to see could I help.”

  “I’m sure tickled you did. But you never did tell me you could shoot like that.”

  “I don’t recollect as you ever asked me. You didn’t like it ’cause I could ride and rope. Figured you’d sure disappreciate it if you was to find out I could shoot, too.”

  “Coley, from now on I won’t care what you beat me at.”

  Humor sparkled in Coley’s eyes. “Care to try me some evenin’ on a little hand of poker?”

  Hall chuckled. He looked at the long wagon tongue and at the Negro who sat on it, all alone.

  “Move over, Coley,” he said, “and make a little room for me.”

  FORGE BOOKS BY ELMER KELTON

  After the Bugles

  Badger Boy

  Barbed Wire

  Bitter Trail

  Bowie’s Mine

  The Buckskin Line

  Buffalo Wagons

  Captain’s Rangers

  Cloudy in the West

  Dark Thicket

  The Day the Cowboys Quit

  Donovan

  Eyes of the Hawk

  The Good Old Boys

  Hanging Judge

  Hard Ride

  Hard Trail to Follow

  Hot Iron

  Jericho’s Road

  Joe Pepper

  Llano River

  Long Way to Texas

  Many a River

  Massacre at Goliad

  Other Men’s Horses

  Pecos Crossing

  The Pumpkin Rollers

  The Raiders: Sons of Texas

  Ranger’s Trail

  The Rebels: Sons of Texas

  Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer

  Shadow of a Star

  Shotgun

  Six Bits a Day

  The Smiling Country

  Sons of Texas

  Stand Proud

  Texas Rifles

  Texas Standoff

  Texas Vendetta

  The Time It Never Rained

  The Way of the Coyote

  Wild West

  Lone Star Rising (comprising The Buckskin Line, Badger Boy, and The Way of the Coyote)

  Brush Country (comprising Barbed Wire and Llano River)

  Ranger’s Law (comprising Ranger’s Trail, Texas Vendetta, and Jericho’s Road)

  Texas Showdown (comprising Pecos Crossing and Shotgun)

  Texas Sunrise (comprising Massacre at Goliad and After the Bugles)

  Long Way to Texas (comprising Joe Pepper, Long Way to Texas, and Eyes of the Hawk)

  About the Author

  ELMER KELTON (1926–2009) was the seven-time Spur Award–winning author of more than forty novels and the recipient of the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition to his novels, Kelton worked as an agricultural journalist for forty-two years and served in the infantry in World War II. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  Hewey and the Wagon Cook

  Fighting for the Brand

  Coward

  The Black Sheep

  A Bad Cow Market

  Duster

  No Music for Fiddle Feet

  The Debt of Hardy Buckelew

  The Burial of Letty Strayhorn

  Horse Well

  Continuity

  Yellow Devil

  Dry Winter

  The Reluctant Shepherd

  That 7X Bull

  Man on the Wagon Tongue

  Also by Elmer Kelton

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE COWBOY WAY

  Copyright © 2020 by Elmer Stephen Kelton Estate

  All rights reserved.

  Cover photographs: cowboy by DOUGBERRY / Getty Images; cattle by Michael Bittner / Shutterstock.com

  Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  120 Broadway

  New York, NY 10271

  www.tor-forge.com

  Forge® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kelton, Elmer, author.

  Title: The cowboy way / Elmer Stephen Kelton.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Forge, A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020032178 | ISBN 978-1-250-76895-7 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-250-76896-4 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Western stories. | LCGFT: Short stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3561.E3975 C69 2020 | DDC 813'.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032178

  eISBN 9781250768964

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: November 2020

 

 

 
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