by Max Brand
“He’s been a covered card, partner,” said Bill Dozier. Not since Charles Merchant went away to school had he been able to remember the first name of Dozier, and Bill Dozier’s lips were twitching behind his faded mustache. “He’s been a covered card that seemed pretty good. Now he’s in the game, and he looks like the rest of the Lannings… a good lump of daring and defiance. Why d’you ask?”
“Are you keen to get him, Bill?” continued Charlie Merchant eagerly.
“I could stand it. Again, why?”
“You’d like a little gun play with that fellow?”
“I wouldn’t complain none.”
“Ah? One more thing… could you use a bit of ready cash?”
“I ain’t pressed,” said Bill Dozier, working away behind the eyes of the younger man with his own ferret glance. “On the other hand, I ain’t of a savin’ nature.” Then he added: “Get it out, Charlie. I think I follow your drift. And you can go as far as you like.” He put out his jaw in an ugly way as he said it.
“It would be worth a lot to me to have this cur done for, Bill. You understand?”
“My time’s short. Talk terms, Charlie.”
“A thousand.”
“The price of a fair hoss.”
“Two thousand, old man.”
“Hoss and trimmin’s.”
“Three thousand.”
“Charlie, you seem to forget that we’re talkin’ about a man and a gun.”
“Bill, it’s worth five thousand to me.”
“That’s turkey. Let me have your hand.”
They shook hands.
“And if you kill the horses,” said Charles Merchant, “you won’t hurt my feelings. But get him.”
“I’ve got nothing much on him,” said Bill Dozier, “but some fools resist arrest.” He smiled in a manner that made the other shudder. And a moment later the deputy led his men out on the trail.
They were a weary lot by this time, but they had beneath the belt several shots of the Merchant whiskey that Charles had distributed. And they had that still-greater stimulus—fresh horses running, smooth and strong, beneath them. Another thing had changed. They saw their leader, Bill Dozier, working at his revolver and his rifle as he rode, looking to the charges, trying the pressure of the triggers, getting the balance of the weapons with a peculiar anxiety, and they knew, without a word being spoken, that there was small chance of that trail ending at anything short of a red mark in the dust.
It made some of them shrug their shoulders, but here again it was proved that Bill Dozier knew the men of Martindale and had picked his posse well. They were the common, hard-working variety of cowpuncher, and presently the word went among them from the man riding nearest to Bill that if young Lanning were taken, it would be worth $100 to each of them. Two months’ pay for two days’ work. That was fair enough. They also began to look to their guns. It was not that a single one of them could have been bought for a man killing at that or any other price, perhaps, but this was simply a bonus to carry them along toward what they considered an honest duty.
Nevertheless, it was a different crew that rode over the hills away from the Merchant place. There was even something different in their riding. They had begun for the sake of the excitement. Now they were working carefully, riding with less abandon, jockeying their horses, for each man was laboring to be in on the kill.
They had against them a good horse and a stanch horseman. Never had the pinto dodged his share of honest running, and this day was no exception. He gave himself wholeheartedly to his task, and he stretched the legs of the ponies behind him. Yet he had a great handicap. He was tough, but the ranch horses of John Merchant were of the Morgan breed, vicious, a good many of them, but solid and wiry and fast enough for any purpose—such as clinging to a long trail over hill and valley. Above all, they came out from a night of rest. Their lungs were clean of dust. Their legs were full of running. And the pinto, for all his courage, could not meet that handicap and beat it.
That truth slowly sank in upon the mind of the fugitive as he put the game, little cattle pony into his best stride. He tried the pinto in the level going. He tried him in the rough. And in both conditions, the posse gained slowly and steadily, until it became apparent to Andrew Lanning that the deputy held him in the hollow of his hand and in half an hour of stiff galloping could run his quarry into the ground, whenever he chose.
Andy turned in the saddle and grinned back at the followers. He could distinguish Bill Dozier most distinctly. The broad brim of Bill’s hat was blown up stiffly. And the sun glinted now and again on those melancholy mustaches of his. Andy was puzzled. Bill had horses that could outrun the fugitive, and why did he not use them?
Almost at once Andy received his answer.
The deputy sheriff sent his horse into a hard run and then brought him suddenly to a standstill. Looking back, Andy saw a rifle pitch to the shoulder of the deputy. It was a flashing line of light that focused suddenly in a single, glinting dot. That instant, something hummed evilly beside the ear of Andy. A moment later the report came barking and echoing in his ear, with the little metallic ring in it that tells of the shiver of a gun barrel.
That was the beginning of a running fusillade. Technically these were shots fired to warn the fugitive that he was wanted by the law and to tell him that, if he did not halt, he would be shot at to be killed. But the deputy did not waste warnings. He began to shoot to kill. And so did the rest of the posse. They saw the deputy’s plan at once, and they grinned at it. If they rode down in a mob, the boy would no doubt surrender. But if they goaded him in this manner from a distance, he would probably attempt to return the fire. And if he fired one shot in reply, unwritten law and strong public opinion would be on the side of Bill Dozier in killing this criminal without quarter. In a word, the whiskey and the little promise of money were each taking effect on the posse.
They spurted ahead in pairs, halted, and delivered their fire, then the next pair spurted ahead and fired. Every moment or so, two bullets winged through the air near and nearer Andy. It was really a wonder that he was not cleanly drilled by a bullet long before that fusillade had continued for ten minutes. But it is no easy thing to hit a man on a galloping horse when one sits on the back of another horse, and that horse heaving from a hard run. Moreover, Andy watched, and when the pairs halted, he made the pinto weave.
At the first bullet he felt his heart come into his throat. At the second he merely raised his head. At the next he smiled, and thereafter he greeted each volley with a yell and a wave of his hat. It was like dancing, but greater fun. The cold, still terror was in his heart every moment, but yet he felt like laughing, and when the posse heard him, their own hearts went cold. It disturbed their aim. They began to snarl at each other, and they also pressed their horses close and closer before they even attempted to fire.
And the result was that Andy, waving his hat, felt it twitched sharply in his hand, and then he saw a neat, little hole clipped out of the very edge of the brim. It was a pretty trick to see, until Andy remembered that the thing that had nicked that hole would also cut its way through him, body and bone. He leaned over the saddle and spurred the pinto into his racing gait.
“I nicked him!” yelled the deputy. “Come on, boys! Close in!”
But within five minutes of racing, Andy drew the pinto to a sudden halt and raised his rifle. The posse laughed. They had been shooting for some time and always for a distance even less than Andy’s, yet not one of their bullets had gone home. So they waved their hats recklessly and continued to ride to be in at the death. And everyone knew that the end of the trail was not far off when the fugitive had once begun to turn at bay.
Andy knew it as well as the rest, and his hand shook like a nervous girl’s, while the rifle barrel tilted up and up, the blue barrel shimmering wickedly. In a frenzy of eagerness, he tried to line up the sights. It was vain. The circle through which he squinted wobbled crazily. He saw two of the pursuers spurt ahead, take their posts
, raise their rifles for a fire that would at least disturb his. For the first time they had a stationary target.
And then, by chance, the circle of Andy’s sight embraced the body of a horseman. Instantly the left arm, stretching out to support his rifle, became a rock; the forefinger of his right hand was as steady as the trigger it pressed. It was like shooting at a target. He found himself breathing easily.
It was very strange. Find a man with his sights? He could follow his target as though a magnetic power attracted his rifle. The weapon seemed to have volition of its own. It drifted along with the canter of Bill Dozier. With incredible precision, the little finger of iron inside the circle dwelt in turn on the hat of Bill Dozier, on his sandy mustaches, on his fluttering shirt. And Andy knew that he had the life of a man under the command of his forefinger.
And why not? He had killed one. Why not a hundred?
The punishment would be no greater. And to tempt him there was this new mystery, this knowledge that he could not miss. It had been vaguely present in his mind when he faced the crowd at Martindale, he remembered now. And the same merciless coldness had been in his hand when he pressed his gun into the throat of Charles Merchant.
He turned his eyes and looked down the guns of the two men who had halted. Then, hardly looking at his target, he snapped his rifle back to his shoulder and fired. He saw Bill Dozier throw up his hands, saw his head rock stupidly back and forth, and then the long figure toppled to one side. One of the posse rushed alongside to catch his leader, but he missed, and Bill, slumping to the ground, was trampled underfoot.
Chapter Nine
At the same time, the rifles of the two men of the posse rang, but they must have seen the fall of their leader, for the shots went wild, and Andy Lanning took off his hat and waved to them. But he did not flee again. He sat in his saddle with the long rifle balanced across the pommel while two thoughts went through his mind. One was to stay there and watch. The other was to slip the rifle back into the holster and, with drawn revolver, charge the five remaining members of the posse. These were now gathering hastily about Bill Dozier. But Andy knew their concern was vain. He knew where that bullet had driven home, and Bill Dozier would never ride again.
One by one he picked up those five figures with his eyes, fighting temptation. He knew that he could not miss if he fired again. In five shots he knew that he could drop as many men, and within him there was a perfect consciousness that they would not hit him when they returned the fire.
He was not filled with exulting courage. He was cold with fear. But it was the sort of fear that makes a man want to fling himself from a great height. But, sitting there calmly in the saddle, he saw a strange thing—the five men raising their dead leader and turning back toward the direction from which they had come. Not once did they look toward the form of Andy Lanning. They knew what he could not know, that the gate of the law had been open to this man as a retreat, but the bullet that struck down Bill Dozier had closed the gate and thrust him out from mercy. He was an outlaw, a leper, now. Anyone who shared his society from this moment on would fall under the heavy hand of the law.
But as for running him into the ground, they had lost their appetite for such fighting. They had kept up a long-running fight and gained nothing, but a single shot from the fugitive had produced this result. They turned now in silence and went back, very much as dogs turn and tuck their tails between their legs when the wolf, which they have chased away from the precincts of the ranch house, feels himself once more safe from the hand of man and whirls with a flash of teeth. The sun gleamed on the barrel of Andy Lanning’s rifle, and these men rode back in silence, feeling that they had witnessed one of those prodigies that were becoming fewer and fewer and further and further between around Martindale—the birth of a desperado.
Andrew watched them skulking off with the body of Bill Dozier held upright by a man on either side of the horse. He watched them draw off across the hills, still with that nervous, almost-irresistible impulse to raise one wild, long cry and spur after them, shooting, swift and straight, over the head of the pinto. But he did not move, and now they dropped out of sight. And then, looking about him, Andrew Lanning felt how vast were those hills, how wide they stretched, and how small he stood among them. He was alone. He was utterly alone. He almost wished that Bill Dozier were back at the head of the posse hunting for his life. At least that had been a sort of savage company. But now there was nothing but the hills and a sky growing pale with heat and the patches of olive-gray sagebrush in the distance. The wind picked up a cloud of dust, molded it into the strangely lifelike figure of a horseman, and rushed that form across the valley at his left; it melted into thin air, as many a man had melted to nothingness in the mountain desert.
A great melancholy dropped upon Andy. He felt a childish weakness; dropping his elbows upon the pommel of the saddle, he buried his face in his hands. In that moment he needed desperately something to which he could appeal for comfort. In that moment a child of ten coming upon him could have stuck up Andy with a wooden imitation of a gun and driven him without resistance back to Martindale.
The weakness passed slowly.
He dismounted and looked to the pinto, for the pinto had worked hard, and now he stood with his forelegs somewhat apart and braced and his head hung low. Every muscle of his body was relaxed, and like a good cattle pony, not knowing what strange and violent exertion might be demanded of him the next moment, he made the most of this instant of rest. And now the cinches were loosened; the sweat was rubbed carefully from him. Since he stood sagging to the right side and pointing the toe of his off-hind hoof, Andy anxiously lifted that hoof to make sure that his horse had not picked up a stone. The pinto rewarded him by coming to life and raising his head just long enough to gauge and deliver a kick at Andy’s head. It missed its mark by the proverbial breadth of a hair, and the pinto dropped his head again with a grunt of disappointment.
It made his rider grin with relief, that vicious-little demonstration. When the cinches were drawn up again, a moment later, the pinto distended his lungs to make a slack after the girths were fastened, but Andy put his knee into the refractory ribs and crushed them to the breaking point. So the pinto with a sigh expelled his breath and allowed the cinching to be properly finished. The tender care had for a moment given him a thought that this man was no master, but the knee in the ribs removed all doubts. And from that moment the pinto was ready to die for Andy.
The rider, after this little exhibition of temper, stepped back and looked his horse over more carefully. The pinto had many good points. He had ample girth of chest at the cinches, where lung capacity is best measured. He had rather-short forelegs, which promised weight-carrying power and some endurance, and he had a fine pair of sloping shoulders. But his belly was a trifle fine drawn, and although he might stand a drive of a day or two admirably, it was very doubtful if he could endure a long siege of such life as Andy was apt to live. Also, the croup of the pinto sloped down too much, and he had a short neck. Andy knew perfectly well that no horse with a short neck can run fast for any distance. He had chosen the pinto for endurance, and endurance he undoubtedly had, but there was no question that he must have a horse superior in every respect—a horse capable of running his distance and also able to spurt like a trained racer for short distances. For many a time in his life, he would need a horse that could put him out of short-shooting distance and do it quickly. And many a time, he would face a long grind across mountain and desert, and both together.
There were no illusions in the mind of Andrew Lanning about what lay before him. Uncle Jasper had told him too many tales of his own experiences on the trail in enemy country.
“There’s three things,” the old man had often said, “that a man needs when he’s in trouble… a gun that’s smooth as silk, a horse full of running, and a friend.”
For the gun Andy had his Colt in the holster, and he knew it like his own mind. There were newer models and trickier weapons, but none
that worked so smoothly under the touch of Andy. Thinking of this, he produced it from the holster with a flick of his fingers. The sight had been filed away. When he was a boy in short trousers, he had learned from Uncle Jasper the two main articles of a gunfighter’s creed—that a revolver must be fired by pointing, not sighting, and that there must be nothing about it liable to hang in the holster to delay the draw. The great idea was to get the gun on your man with lightning speed and then fire from the hip with merely a sense of direction to guide the bullet, just as one raises his hand and points the finger. As a rule, one will point with astonishing closeness to the object, but he needs a wrist of iron and many a long year of practice, to do that accurate pointing when there is a .45 gun in the hand. Uncle Jasper had given him that training, and he blessed the old man for it now.
He had a gun, therefore, and one necessity was his. Sorely he needed a horse of quality, as few men needed one. And he needed still more a friend, a haven in time of crisis, an adviser in difficulties. And although Andy knew that it was death to go among men, he knew also that it was death to do without these two things.
He believed that there was one chance left to him, and that was to outdistance the news of the two killings by riding straight north. There he would stop at the first town, in some manner fill his pockets with money, and in some way find horse and friend.
Andrew Lanning was both simple and credulous, but it must be remembered that he had led a sheltered life, comparatively speaking; he had been brought up between a blacksmith shop on the one hand and Uncle Jasper on the other, and the gaps in his knowledge of men were many and huge. The prime necessity now was speed to the northward. So Andy flung himself into the saddle and drove his horse north at the jogging, rocking lope of the cattle pony.
He was in a shallow basin that luckily pointed in the right direction for him. The hills sloped down to it from either side in long fingers, with narrow gullies between, but as Andy passed the first of these pointing fingers, a new thought came to him.
