The next instant he was struck by lightning. At least, that was what seemed to happen. Thunder crashed, and something struck him on the skull, and he tried to rise, and something struck again. He felt a drop of rain on his face, and his eyes opened wide, and then another blow caught him, and he faded out into darkness, his fingers clawing at the grass to keep from slipping down into that velvety, smothering blackness.
* * * * *
He was wet. He turned a little, lying there, thinking he must have left a window open and the rain was … His eyes opened, and he felt rain pounding on his face, and he stared, not at a boot with a California spur, but at dead brown grass, soaked with rain now, and the glistening smoothness of water-worn stones. He was soaked to the hide.
Struggling to his knees, he looked around, his head heavy, his lips and tongue thick. He blinked at a gray, rain-slanted world and at low gray clouds and a distant rumble of thunder following a streak of lightning along the mountaintops.
Lurching to his feet, he stumbled toward the cabin and pitched over the doorsill to the floor. Struggling again to his feet, he got the door closed, and in a vague, misty half-world of consciousness, he struggled out of his clothes and got his hands on a rough towel and fumblingly dried himself.
He did not think. He was acting purely from vague instinctive realization of what he must do. He dressed again, in dry clothes, and dropped at the table. After a while he sat up, and it was dark, and he knew he had blacked out again. He lighted a light and nearly dropped it to the floor. Then he stumbled to the washbasin and splashed his face with cold water. Then he bathed his scalp, feeling tenderly of the lacerations there.
A boot with a California spur. That was all he had seen. The tally book was gone, and a man wearing a new boot with a California-type spur, a large rowel, had taken it. He got coffee on, and, while he waited for it, he took his guns out and dried them painstakingly, wiping off each shell and then replacing them in his belt with other shells from a box on a shelf.
He reloaded the guns, and then, slipping into his slicker, he went outside for his rifle. Between sips of coffee, he worked over his rifle until he was satisfied. Then he threw a small pack together and stuffed his slicker pockets with shotgun shells.
The shotgun was an express gun and short-barreled. He slung it from a loop under the slicker. Then he took a lantern and went to the stable and saddled the claybank. Leading the horse outside into the driving rain, he swung into the saddle and turned along the road toward Basin.
There was no let-up in the rain. It fell steadily and heavily, yet the claybank slogged along, alternating between a shambling trot and a fast walk. Allen Ring, his chin sunk in the upturned collar of his slicker, watched the drops fall from the brim of his Stetson and felt the bump of the shotgun under his coat.
He had seen little of the tally book, but sufficient to know that it would blow the lid off the very range war they were fearing. Knowing the Hazlitts, he knew they would bring fire and gunplay to every home even remotely connected with the death of their brother.
The horse slid down a steep bank and shambled across the wide wash. Suddenly, the distant roar that had been in his ears for some time sprang into consciousness, and he jerked his head up. His horse snorted in alarm, and Ring stared, open-mouthed, at the wall of water, towering all of ten feet high, that was rolling down the wash toward him.
With a shrill Rebel yell, he slapped the spurs to the claybank, and the startled horse turned loose with an astounded leap and hit the ground in a dead run. There was no time to slow for the bank of the wash, and the horse went up, slipped at the very brink, and started to fall back.
Ring hit the ground with both boots and scrambled over the brink, and even as the flood roared down upon them, he heaved on the bridle, and the horse cleared the edge and stood, trembling. Swearing softly, Ring kicked the mud from his boots and mounted again. Leaving the raging torrent behind him, he rode on.
* * * * *
Thick blackness of night and heavy clouds lay upon the town when he sloped down the main street and headed the horse toward the barn. He swung down and handed the bridle to the liveryman.
“Rub him down,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
He started for the doors and then stopped, staring at the three horses in neighboring stalls. The liveryman noticed his glance and looked at him.
“The Hazlitts. They come in about an hour ago, ugly as sin.”
Allen Ring stood, wide-legged, staring grimly out the door. There was a coolness inside him now that he recognized. He dried his hands carefully.
“Bilton in town?” he asked.
“Sure is. Playin’ cards over to the Mazatzal Saloon.”
“He wear Mex spurs? Big rowels?”
The man rubbed his jaw. “I don’t remember. I don’t know at all. You watch out,” he warned. “Folks are on the prod.”
Ring stepped out into the street and slogged through the mud to the edge of the boardwalk before the darkened general store. He kicked the mud from his boots and dried his hands again, after carefully unbuttoning his slicker.
Nobody would have a second chance after this. He knew well enough that his walking into the Mazatzal would precipitate an explosion. Only he wanted to light the fuse himself, in his own way.
He stood there in the darkness alone, thinking it over. They would all be there. It would be like tossing a match into a lot of fused dynamite. He wished then that he was a better man with a gun than he was, or that he had someone to side him in this, but he had always acted alone and would scarcely know how to act with anyone else.
He walked along the boardwalk with long strides, his boots making hard sounds under the steady roar of the rain. He couldn’t place that spur, that boot. Yet he had to. He had to get his hands on that book.
Four horses stood, heads down in the rain, saddles covered with slickers. He looked at them and saw they were of three different brands. The window of the Mazatzal was rain wet, yet standing at one side he glanced within.
The long room was crowded and smoky. Men lined the bar, feet on the brass rail. A dozen tables were crowded with card players. Everyone seemed to have taken refuge here from the rain. Picking out the Hazlitt boys, Ring saw them gathered together at the back end of the room. Then he got Ross Bilton pegged. He was at a table, playing cards, facing the door. Stan Brule was at this end of the bar, and Hagen was at a table against the wall, the three of them making three points of a flat triangle whose base was the door.
It was no accident. Bilton, then, expected trouble, and he was not looking toward the Hazlitts. Yet, on reflection, Ring could see the triangle could center fire from three directions on the Hazlitts as well. There was a man with his back to the door who sat in the game with Bilton. And not far from Hagen, Rolly Truman was at the bar.
Truman was toying with his drink, just killing time. Everybody seemed to be waiting for something. Could it be he they waited upon? No, that was scarcely to be considered. They could not know he had found the book, although it was certain at least one man in the room knew, and possibly others. Maybe it was just the tension, the building up of feeling over his taking over of the place at Red Rock. Allen Ring carefully turned down the collar of his slicker and wiped his hands dry again.
He felt jumpy and could feel that dryness in his mouth that always came on him at times like this. He touched his gun butts and then stepped over and opened the door.
Everyone looked up or around at once. Ross Bilton held a card aloft, and his hand froze at the act of dealing, holding still for a full ten seconds while Ring closed the door. He surveyed the room again and saw Ross play the card and say something in an undertone to the man opposite him. The man turned his head slightly, and it was Ben Taylor!
The gambler looked around, his face coldly curious, and for an instant their eyes met across the room, and then Allen Ring started toward him.
There was no other sound in the room, although they could all hear the unceasing roar of the rain on the roof. Ring saw something leap up in Taylor’s eyes, and his own took on a sardonic glint.
“That was a good hand you dealt me down Texas way,” Ring said. “A good hand!”
“You’d better draw more cards,” Taylor said. “You’re holdin’ a small pair.”
Ring’s eyes shifted as the man turned slightly. It was the jingle of his spurs that drew his eyes, and there they were, the large rowelled California-style spurs, not common here. He stopped beside Taylor so the man had to tilt his head back to look up. Ring was acutely conscious that he was now centered between the fire of Brule and Hagen. The Hazlitts looked on curiously, uncertain as to what was happening.
“Give it to me, Taylor,” Ring said quietly. “Give it to me now.”
There was ice in his voice, and Taylor, aware of the awkwardness of his position, got to his feet, inches away from Ring.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he flared.
“No?”
Ring was standing with his feet apart a little, and his hands were breast high, one of them clutching the edge of his raincoat. He hooked with his left from that position, and the blow was too short, too sudden, and too fast for Ben Taylor.
The crack of it on the angle of his jaw was audible, and then Ring’s right came up in the gambler’s solar plexus, and the man’s knees sagged. Spinning him around, Ring ripped open his coat with a jerk that scattered buttons across the room. Then from an inside pocket, he jerked the tally book.
He saw the Hazlitts start at the same instant that Bilton sprang back from the chair, upsetting it.
“Get him!” Bilton roared. “Get him!”
Ring shoved Taylor hard into the table, upsetting it and causing Bilton to spring back to keep his balance, and at the same instant, Ring dropped to a half crouch and, turning left, he drew with a flash of speed and saw Brule’s gun come up at almost the same instant, and then he fired!
Stan Brule was caught with his gun just level, and the bullet smashed him on the jaw. The tall man staggered, his face a mask of hatred and astonishment mingled, and then Ring fired again, doing a quick spring around with his knees bent, turning completely around in one leap, and firing as his feet hit the floor. He felt Hagen’s bullet smash into him, and he tottered. Then he fired coolly, and, swinging as he fired, he caught Bilton right over the belt buckle.
It was fast action, snapping, quick, yet deliberate. The four fired shots had taken less than three seconds.
Stepping back, he scooped the tally book from the floor where it had dropped and then pocketed it. Bilton was on the floor, coughing blood. Hagen had a broken right arm and was swearing in a thick, stunned voice. Stan Brule had drawn his last gun. He had been dead before he hit the floor.
The Hazlitts started forward with a lunge, and Allen Ring took another step backward, dropping his pistol and swinging the shotgun, still hanging from his shoulder, into firing position.
“Get back!” he said thickly. “Get back, or I’ll kill the three of you! Back … back to where you stood!”
Their faces wolfish, the three stood, lean and dangerous, yet the shotgun brooked no refusal, and slowly, bitterly, and reluctantly, the three moved back, step by step.
Ring motioned with the shotgun. “All of you … along the wall!”
The men rose and moved back, their eyes on him, uncertain, wary, some of them frightened.
Allen Ring watched them go, feeling curiously light-headed and uncertain. He tried to frown away the pain from his throbbing skull, yet there was a pervading weakness from somewhere else.
“My gosh!” Rolly Truman said. “The man’s been shot! He’s bleeding!”
“Get back!” Ring said thickly.
His eyes shifted to the glowing potbellied stove, and he moved forward, the shotgun waist-high, his eyes on the men who stared at him, awed.
The sling held the gun level, his hand partly supporting it, a finger on the trigger. With his left hand, he opened the stove and then fumbled in his pocket.
Buck Hazlitt’s eyes bulged. “No!” he roared. “No, you don’t!”
He lunged forward, and Ring tipped the shotgun and fired a blast into the floor, inches ahead of Hazlitt’s feet. The rancher stopped so suddenly, he almost fell, and the shotgun tipped to cover him.
“Back!” Ring said. He swayed on his feet. “Back!” He fished out the tally book and threw it into the flames.
Something like a sigh went through the crowd. They stared, awed as the flames seized hungrily at the opened book, curling around the leaves with hot fingers, turning them brown and then black and to ashes.
Half-hypnotized, the crowd watched. Then Ring’s eyes swung to Hazlitt. “It was Ben Taylor killed him,” he muttered. “Taylor, and Bilton was with him. He … he saw it.”
“We take your word for it?” Buck Hazlitt demanded furiously.
Allen Ring’s eyes widened, and he seemed to gather himself. “You want to question it? You want to call me a liar?”
Hazlitt looked at him, touching his tongue to his lips. “No,” he said. “I figured it was them.”
“I told you true,” Ring said, and then his legs seemed to fold up under him, and he went to the floor.
The crowd surged forward, and Rolly Truman stared at Buck as Hazlitt neared the stove. The big man stared into the flames for a minute. Then he closed the door.
“Good!” he said. “Good thing! It’s been a torment, that book, like a cloud hangin’ over us all!”
* * * * *
The sun was shining through the window when Gail Truman came to see him. He was sitting up in bed and feeling better. It was good to be back on the place again, for there was much to do. She came in, slapping her boots with her quirt and smiling.
“Feel better?” she asked brightly. “You certainly look better. You’ve shaved.”
He grinned and rubbed his jaw. “I needed it. Almost two weeks in this bed. I must have been hit bad.”
“You lost a lot of blood. It’s lucky you’ve a strong heart.”
“It ain’t … isn’t so strong anymore,” he said. “I think it’s grown mighty shaky here lately.”
Gail blushed. “Oh? It has? Your nurse, I suppose?”
“She is pretty, isn’t she?”
Gail looked up, alarmed. “You mean, you …?”
“No, honey,” he said, “you.”
“Oh.” She looked at him and then looked down. “Well, I guess …”
“All right?”
She smiled then, suddenly and warmly. “All right.”
“I had to ask you,” he said. “We had to marry.”
“Had to? Why?”
“People would talk, a young, lovely girl like you over at my place all the time … would they think you were looking at the view?”
“If they did,” she replied quickly, “they’d be wrong.”
“You’re telling me?” he asked.
Mistakes Can Kill You
Ma Redlin looked up from the stove. “Where’s Sam? He still out yonder?”
Johnny rubbed his palms on his chaps. “He ain’t comin’ to supper, Ma. He done rode off.”
Pa and Elsa were watching him, and Johnny saw the hard lines of temper around Pa’s mouth and eyes. Ma glanced at him apprehensively, but when Pa did not speak, she looked to her cooking. Johnny walked around the table and sat down across from Elsa.
When Pa reached for the coffeepot, he looked over at Johnny. “Was he alone, boy? Or did he ride off with that no-account Albie Bower?”
It was in Johnny neither to lie nor to carry tales. Reluctantly, he replied: “He was with somebody. I reckon I couldn’t be sure who it was.”
Joe Redlin snorted and put down his cup. It was a sore point with Redlin that his son an
d only child, Sam, should take up with the likes of Albie Bower. Back in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Redlins had been good, God-fearing folk, while Bower was no good and came from a no-good outfit. Lately he had been flashing money around, but he claimed to have won it gambling at Degner’s Four Star Saloon.
“Once more I’ll tell him,” Redlin said harshly. “I’ll have no son of mine traipsin’ with that Four Star outfit. Pack of thieves, that’s what they are.”
Ma looked up worriedly. She was a buxom woman with a round apple-cheeked face. Good humor was her normal manner. “Don’t you be sayin’ that away from home, Joe Redlin. That Loss Degner is a gunslinger, and he’d like nothin’ so much as to shoot you after you takin’ Elsa from him.”
“I ain’t afeerd of him.” Redlin’s voice was flat. Johnny knew that what he said was true. Joe Redlin was not afraid of Degner, but he avoided him, for Redlin was a small rancher, a one-time farmer, and not a fighting man. Loss Degner was bad all through and made no secret of it. His Four Star was the hangout for all the tough element, and Degner had killed two men since Johnny had been in the country, as well as pistol-whipping a half dozen more.
It was not Johnny’s place to comment, but secretly he knew Joe Redlin was right. Once he had even gone so far as to warn Sam, but it only made Sam angry.
Sam was almost twenty-one and Johnny but seventeen, but Sam’s family had protected him, and he had lived always close to the competence of Pa Redlin. Johnny had been doing a man’s work since he was thirteen, fighting a man’s battles, and making his own way in a hard world.
Johnny also knew what only Elsa seemed to guess, that it was Hazel, Degner’s red-haired singer, who drew Sam Redlin to the Four Star. It was rumored that she was Degner’s woman, and Johnny had said as much to Sam. Sam had flown into a rage and, whirling on Johnny, had drawn back his fist. Something in Johnny’s eyes stopped him, and, although Sam would never have admitted it, he was suddenly afraid.
Like Elsa, Johnny had been adrift when he came to the B Bar and was taken in. Half dead with pneumonia, he had come up to the door on his black gelding, and the Redlins’ hospitality had given him a bed and the best care the frontier could provide, and, when Johnny was well, he went to work to repay them. Then he stayed on for the spring roundup as a forty-a-month hand.
Draw Straight Page 10
