The Third Western Novel

by Noel Loomis

  “You can save your pencil,” said Oliver Major. “The message will never reach!”

  “It’s got to reach.”

  There was silence through a long minute, and another, while the hurrying pencil of Stephen Sessions scribbled, blackening the sheet. Watching over his shoulder, Hughes saw that he ended his message with a few words of code.

  “What’s that last?”

  “It proves the signature, is all. Everett, or whoever is in command there, will know that to disobey this is to disobey the government of the state.” The old man paused a minute, and one hand gripped his writing wrist, as if to steady it. Then bearing down hard in a firm sweep, he signed his name, “Stephen Sessions, by authority of Theron Replogle.”

  He tore out the sheets and handed them to Hughes, who folded them lengthwise and wrapped the strip around his belt. Clay pulled off his boots and flung them into a corner.

  “Follow the Buckhorn bed,” Stephen Sessions was saying. “The cavalry will be camped close by the water, and just beyond the range of guns. As you come into their camp you’ll be picked up by the guard, and taken to whatever officer is in charge. In God’s name, tell them to be quick!”

  “Put out the light,” said Hughes, “and get back from the door.”

  Sally Major cried out sharply, “No—no! You mustn’t go; you mustn’t try it.”

  He turned his eyes to her slowly, almost reluctantly, then smiled queerly on one side of his mouth. “I’m afraid there’s no time to talk it over much,” he said, and turned to go.

  “Are you going to let him go?” she cried. “He won’t get ten paces, he won’t get five! It’s certain death to go out there now!”

  Oliver Major said slowly, “What is it for us all, if we stay?… You’d better go out the window on the far side. The door is towards the stream, and it’s from there that most of their guns have been sweeping us three sides. But on the west you’re only covered by the guns from the house.”

  “No,” said Hughes, “there’s nothing to be gained there. I’m going to rush the Buckhorn bed. Once across, and I’ll lose them in the willow brakes.”

  “Good-bye, boy,” said Oliver Major. He shook Hughes’ hand, gravely.

  “Then take a horse,” urged Dick, “and—”

  Hughes shook his head. “A horse makes a fine noisy mark on a job like this. Well, I’ll be seeing you before long.” He stooped, lifted the lantern, and blew it out.

  Sally Major flung herself upon him. As her arms clamped about his neck he felt the jerk of the sob which she sought to smother in her throat. He thought she was going to urge him once more to stay, but she did not. She pulled his face down to hers; and her tears were salty upon his lips as he kissed her mouth. Then she let him go.

  “Keep out of line now,” he said. He took Dick’s gun in his left hand and brought it to the cock, then slowly and soundlessly unbarred the door. He opened it inch by inch, so that its movement might not be heard. “Close it quiet behind me,” he whispered; and sidelong, silent on his bootless feet, he slid out into the night.

  For a moment he flattened himself against the adobe wall, out of line with the door, and eased his own gun into his right hand. After the utter darkness of the interior, the starlight seemed very bright. There was no moon, but the big near stars of the desert country leaned close, flooding the empty ground before him with a faintly blue, unwelcome light. For a moment he waited, accustoming his eyes to that light, locating the exact point of the stream-bed which he would try to make.

  The curve of the Buckhorn gave him his cue. Once he had reached the point between the stream-bed of the Buckhorn and the house, a part of the enemy fire would perhaps be confused, for he would be between two fires, and the guns that searched for him from one side would discommode those upon the other. He picked out the exact spot for which he would try. The stream-bed was narrow here, and he could make out the black brake of the willow thicket, low in the far side of the cut beyond. Beside him he heard the very gentle closing and barring of the door.

  It was a long fifty yards to the wall of the Buckhorn cut at the point he would try to make; and those fifty yards were open, flat as a table top, and as bare of cover. The starlight seemed to become plainer as his eyes accustomed themselves. A moving object in those fifty yards would be a mark almost impossible for trained guns to miss, and the range would shorten as he rushed the streambed. For all he knew, the point at which he aimed was itself a nest of snipers. There was no point along that stream-bed for a hundred yards from what the Shaw men had not fired upon the pump house.

  There was a chance in a thousand that a man could make it through, one chance in a thousand to bring rescue to those within the adobe; one chance in a thousand to go out living, one chance for the Buckhorn water. He took a deep breath and crouched low.

  After the dense air of the adobe, heavy with burning kerosene and the reek of engine oil, with powder smoke and the thick warm odor of horses, the outer air was cool and clean, like starlight, or clear water. Never before in his life had he consciously realized that life was very sweet. Now, in a sudden rush of awareness he realized that he loved life, and everything in it, from the smell of spring grass and wood smoke to the thunder of the hoofs of cattle, and the sharp tang of cold nights under the stars. He loved the harsh burn of raw whiskey, and winter cakes and sausage, and the battling of a bucking horse, and the voices of wolves singing the moon on long prairies; and many others were somehow in his mind for one sharp moment in which the world and the flesh seemed infinitely precious; and the hot pressure of Sally’s lips was sweet upon his mouth… He stepped forward, crouching very low, chest near the ground.

  Three steps forward he moved, four, very quietly and slow. He had intended to try to gain six paces before staking everything on his rush of the cut; but as he counted four a gun spoke from the house, and dust as sharp as salt jumped into his face. Hughes sprang forward, every nerve exploding into action as he sprinted for the cut, running with everything that was in him.

  And now abruptly the world awoke in a roar of guns; a ragged staccato rattle at first, instantly rising to a drumming thunder. The precarious silence of deceptive peace had split wide open on an instant’s notice. From half a dozen windows of the main house the Bar S rifles lashed out, and from the bed of the Buckhorn itself others answered from a dozen places, the red stab of their explosions converging upon the runner. Under the crash of the guns the air was filled with the droning hum of bullets. It seemed to him that in the cleared space across which he ran nothing could live, that even a gopher would have died there, shot to rags in an instant. He moved within a cone of droning lead from which no living thing could escape.

  Ahead of him, at the exact point for which he was making, and on either side of it, new guns now woke, meeting him head-on with a rapid fire. These his own guns now answered, as Hughes fired with both hands as he ran, dodging and twisting like a rabbit struck at by the unseen.

  What would happen when he flung himself headlong upon the guns in front of him—if he lived that long—he could not foresee, but there was no choice now. Behind him the defenders of the pump house had gone into action, covering his rush as best they could with a steady stream of answering fire. Every opening in the pump house seemed to roar and blaze with the fury of the defenders’ guns. If the pump house fire and his own could confuse and hasten the fire of those immediately in front of him for an instant more—

  * * * *

  As Hughes started his dash across the open ground, the watchers at the pump house loop holes tore down the heavy window-shields, flinging them aside into the dark, careless of whether they would ever be wanted again. There were two of those little pigeonhole windows on the stream-bed side; Chris Gustafson and Dick Major each took one of these. An array of extra weapons lay ready to their hands. At the end of the pump house, toward the main ranch house, was a single window. Oliver Major stationed himself here.

  By the time the shields were ripped clear, the siege had already taken
Hughes under its withering fire. Considering that many of the besiegers must have been caught unready, it was unlikely that more than twenty guns were in action; but that converging fire, its many voices melting into a drumming roar, with the Shaw men firing as fast as they could pull—faster perhaps than some of them could aim—seemed the concentration of at least a hundred. The empty space across which Hughes sprinted was an arena surrounded by watchers, and every spectator was a gun. Death poured itself into that dusty ground like storm-driven rain. It seemed to fill the air with invisible striking wings; and low to the ground there rose a knee-deep unnatural mist of dust that jerked and shifted as new gouts and puffs were struck up by the storm of lead.

  No one there had ever before seen so vicious a concentration of power close upon a single man. It was a burst of unbelievable nightmare, so sudden and overwhelming in its violence that the watchers, prepared for it as they were, seemed half stunned, unable to think or feel.

  Not stunned past action though. Oliver Major was training his spitting rifle upon the main house, at the windows of which the flash of a dozen muzzles could be seen. Major’s rifle was a five-shot clip-loader, extra long of barrel, but beautifully balanced, made to his order. It was said that he could shoot the head off a partridge with that gun, at seventy yards.

  Swiftly, with inspired hands, shooting as he perhaps would never shoot again, Major was putting his accurate shots into one window after another of the house. The opposing windows continued to spit flame; it seemed that if he was finding his marks at all, the silenced guns were instantly replaced. He fired swiftly and grimly, his long legs bracing him hard against the wall. And if any could have seen his face then, they would have seen that tears—tears of wrath and frustration and hate—were wetting the polished walnut of the rifle stock. Dick Major wept also, but in a different way, whimpering bitter oaths as he wildly emptied a six-shooter, and a second, and a third at the entrenched line of guns in the stream-bed.

  Of the three men fit to stand to action there, only Chris Gustafson fired cool and slow, aiming carefully with rested gun at the flashes as they showed, intent on making each shot count. But it was only in comparison to the others that Gustafson’s shots were slow, for the big impassive cowboy was shooting as he had never shot before. Three times he fired at the flicker of a single gun, shooting as close past Hughes as only a man who knew the steadiness of his hand could dare. Only when the flash upon which he fired ceased altogether did he pass on to a second mark; yet he had time to get his second man.

  And that time was brief; only the time in which it takes a man to sprint fifty yards, running as a man runs into the face of fire—a brief span of seconds, hardly more than a finger-snap in the face of time. Yet in that roar of guns the passage of time seemed to hang suspended forever. To those who brought their guns into play to cover Clay’s rush with the pitifully weak defending fire that they could command, it seemed that the running man lingered forever, vulnerable and defenseless in that open ground. The race took on the agonizing slow motion of a fever-dream. Hughes had sustained the first burst of fire and was still alive… He was half way, and he was still alive… He was almost within reach of the stream-bed. Both his guns were speaking now as he rushed, crouched low, directly into the face of the enemy guns.

  But the three men fit to stand to their weapons were not alone in bringing guns to the support of Hughes’ rush. Those that stood to their guns at the windows did not know then in that turmoil of action that Sally had flung wide the door. With the heavy rifle that she had caught up in the dark she was firing past the figure of Clay Hughes, even more narrowly than Chris Gustafson, cool-nerved and steady, as she tried to pick off the Shaw men directly ahead of Hughes.

  And to her side came two others, lurching unsteady figures out of the shadows. One, a stooped and twisted figure, was Bart Holt; he held his six-gun hard against the jamb of the door with his left hand, firing with his right. And the other, the tall shadow that swayed on wide-braced legs, firing a rifle from the hip like a six-gun, as if it were too heavy to raise, was Dusty Rivers.

  One more was in that fight. Walk Ross lurched against Dick Major, begging for room, and raised his six-gun to the sill. For a long time—or what must have seemed so to him—he tried to steady his almost invisible sight upon a fitful flash far to his left. He fired once, clung to the sill long enough to see that the man he had chosen fired no more; then lost his grip and slipped to his knees.

  All that was simultaneous, while those few brief seconds dragged into eternity; and still they knew that Clay Hughes was alive. Clay’s crouching rush, incredibly threading the maze of singing lead, had cut the distance almost to nothing when at last they saw him go down.

  It seemed to the watchers that Hughes turned in midair, as if in running his knee had struck a fixed post. The dimness of the starlight confused their straining eyes, but they knew that as he went down he rolled like a rabbit shot on the run. A gasp that was half a sob was torn from Sally Major, and the rifle slipped from her hands. She flung herself forward blindly into the starlight. It was Bart Holt who caught her wrist, clamping it in fingers hard and cold as iron. The jerk of her weight wrenched a gasp from the wounded man, but he held on, and threw his weight backward to drag her in. Bart Holt’s knees buckled under him, but still he held on, restraining her with his dead weight.

  Then Sally cried out, “He’s up! Clay’s up!” She stood rigid in the doorway’s shadow as Bart Holt’s fingers relaxed slowly, losing their grip. Clay Hughes was somehow on his feet again. They saw him lurch forward three paces, and both his guns spoke once more. A gun lashed out in front of him, almost in his face, and they could not tell whether he sprang or fell as he drove over the lip of the cut, and was lost to view.

  Within the adobe the firing ceased, leaving a silence that still seemed to ring with the explosions of the guns. The air was thick with the heavy reek of powder. Dusty Rivers was down in a crumpled tangle in the doorway, coughing as if he would cough out his life. Bart Holt, however, had dragged himself away; and though Walk Ross was down somewhere in the dark interior, no one knew exactly what had happened to him nor took time now to find out. Oliver Major picked up Dusty Rivers bodily and laid him upon a bunk. Dick Major was blubbering “They got him—they got him—the damned—”

  They heard Bart Holt’s voice, low and harsh, “It’s the end of the rope.”

  Oliver Major’s voice rose unnaturally. “Now, out, and fight. There’s nothing left but to rush the guns.”

  Sally cried out, her voice clear and sharp. “No! Are you crazy? Not now, not yet!” She snatched for the heavy door, slammed it and threw the bar.

  Oliver Major’s voice droned dimly. “There’s nothing left—”

  “You’ve got to give him his chance!” Sally Major’s hands found her father in the dark, and twisted the gun from his hands. “He’s got to have his chance; he’s going to have it!”

  “He’s dead,” said Oliver Major, his voice toneless and uncomprehending.

  “How do you know he is? He got up and went on!”

  “He dove square in the flash of a gun.”

  “If they’ve got him—at least—at least they don’t know it,” Sally insisted. “Hear them? There’s still firing going on in the Buckhorn bed.”

  A weird dry chuckle came from Bart Holt. “They’ll be shooting each other by mistake out there,” he said.

  “Dick, Chris!” Sally Major ordered. “Light the lantern! Do you hear me? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, Miss Major,” came Gustafson’s measured voice through the dark.

  “Then do as I tell you.”

  “I’m doin’ it.”

  Oliver Major’s voice was low and shaky as he spoke again, as if all the life, all the fighting spirit had burned out of him in those few incredible seconds of gun work. “What are you trying to do?” he demanded dully.

  “We have to see who’s hurt here, don’t we?”

  Chris Gustafson’s match flared at last. Yellow light w
elled into the room again, then immediately diminished as he covered it with the cone that permitted only that little circle of light on the floor.

  “Now get that planking up again,” Sally ordered them. “Hurry it up—have you forgotten how to move? Dad, are you going to stand there like a dummy?” Gustafson, Dick Major, and her father moved to shoulder the heavy shields back into place, and Stephen Sessions materialized, out of nobody knew what corner, to help them shakily in their work. Sally raised the lantern for a quick look about her.

  Bart Holt had propped himself up in the back of a bunk, motionless as a clothed skeleton, saving his strength. Walk Ross, too, was sitting up against the wall in the spot where his legs had failed him. His haggard face was no longer dark enough to give contrast to those eyes which had seemed so curiously light, like bits of shell. The man was colorless, curiously suggesting that he was no longer anything but a place where a man had been; yet he managed to smile at her wanly, and his lips formed almost silent words. “I certainly am a big flop,” he apologized.

  It was Dusty Rivers who seemed to be in the worst case. He lay in the awkward position in which Oliver Major had put him down in the dark, one arm flung out awkwardly into the room. His eyes were open, but as unseeing as glass, and his heavy breathing had brought a bit of red-flecked foam to the corner of his mouth. Setting the lantern down, Sally went to him, straightened his limbs, and wiped his face with her handkerchief.

  Working dully, in the manner of men who have outlived the overkeyed energy of battle, and with only Major and Sessions unwounded, it took them a long time, it seemed, to get the shields back into place.

  “Do you suppose,” Oliver Major said when they were done, “do you suppose that there’s a chance that he got through?”

  “No,” said Holt.

  “They’re firing still,” Dick offered.

  “They’re all balled up out there in the dark,” said Holt contemptuously.

  “He got up and went on.”