Fox's eyes were ugly. "You do an' I'll smash that printin' press an' burn you out! You been carryin' it high an' mighty long enough. There's a new system comin' into bein' around here. If you don't think like we do, we'll either change you or kill you!"
Forbes was tall. He looked taller now. "That's your privilege to try, Fox. But I wouldn't if I were you. There are some things this country won't tolerate. Abuse of a good woman and interference with a free press are two of them."
Fox stared at Mary Blake. He started to speak, then turned abruptly and strode from the room. Then there was a rattle of horses' hoofs, and they were gone.
"Thanks, Rals," Angie said. "He would have hit me."
Forbes nodded. "And I'd have killed him. And I've never killed a man, Angie."
"At least," Angie said, "Blaine will have more of a start. They'll not catch him now."
"No."
Mary Blake turned from the window. "What about you, Rals? You'd better not try to fight them. You're all alone here."
"Alone?" Forbes shook his head. "No, I'm not alone. There's a dozen men here in town who'll stand by me: Ryan, the blacksmith, Jordan, the shoemaker, all of them."
It was only an hour later that news reached Red Creek of the attack on the Big N. Ben Otten was in the cafe talking to Forbes when a Big N hand came in. They listened to Rocky White's recital of what had happened. Ten tons of hay gone! Although worth twenty-five dollars a ton now, the hay would be priceless before the coming winter was gone.
And the ranch house had been shot up. More and more he was
beginning to realize that once trouble was started anything could happen. He tried his coffee and stared glumly out the window.
Rocky White said nothing for a few minutes. Then he commented, "The Old Man's fit to be tied. He's sure cuttin' capers over this shootin'. I wonder what he figured would happen when he braced Utah Blaine? Lucky the man isn't an out an' out killer. He'd have killed Nevers by now."
"What's Nevers goin' to do?" Otten asked.
"He's importin' gunmen. He's goin' to hunt Blaine down an' kill him. He's sent Witter after some gunslingers. He's goin' to offer a flat thousand for Blaine's scalp, five hundred for the other two. Five hundred each, that is."
"That will blow the lid off. We'll have a United States Marshal in here."
The cowhand got up. "Yeah, an' a good thing, too," he said. "Well, so long." He glanced around. "I'm draggin' my freight. I want no part of it. "
The leave-taking of Rocky White created a restlessness among the other hands. Two of Otten's oldest cowhands suddenly pulled out without even talking to him, leaving wages behind. A man quit Fox the same way. In the meanwhile, however, men came in to replace them; five of them were gunfighters.
Now the chase was growing intense. One by one the waterholes were being located and men were staked out near them. Blaine found that Rice's cabin was no longer safe. It was being watched. Even the corral back in the brush had been located and was under constant observation. Blaine struck Fox's Table Mountain outfit at midnight on the third day after the Big N raid. Only two men were at home. They were tied up, the horses were turned loose and driven off, the water trough ripped out and turned over, the corral burned.
Clell Miller and Timm exchanged shots but both missed. Rip Coker came upon one, Pete Scantlin, an Indian tracker working for Nevers' man-hunters. The Indian had his eyes on the ground. He looked up suddenly and saw Rip sitting his horse, and the Indian threw up his rifle. His shot went wild when Rip's .44 ripped through his throat. The body was found an hour later. Written in the dust alongside the body were the words:
NO QUARTER FOR MAN-HUNTERS. YOU ASK FOR IT, YOU GET IT.
Soon after two of Nevers' gunhands shot up Red Creek while on a drunken spree, wounding one bystander with flying glass. Forbes' paper came out on schedule with a headline that shouted to the world and all who would read:
LAWLESSNESS RAMPANT IN VALLEY. ATTEMPTED LAND GRAB BY NEVERS, FOX AND OTTEN LEADS TO KILLINGS
That night men with sledge hammers broke into his printing office and smashed one of his presses. Forbes' arrival with a smoking gun drove them off. His ire fully roused now, the following morning Forbes mailed copies of the paper, of which only a few had been left unburned, to the governor of the territory, to the United States Marshal and to newspapers in El Paso, Santa Fe and other western towns.
However, following the Fox raid no word came from Blaine. The rumor spread that he was wounded. The death of Scantlin was attributed to Blaine until Rip Coker drifted into town.
He came riding in just before closing time at the Verde Saloon. He pushed through the doors and walked to the bar. His face was drawn, his eyes sparking and grim. He tossed off a drink and turned to face the half-dozen men in the room. "Folks say Utah killed Pete Scantlin. It wasn't Utah. It was me. Utah can stand for his own killin's, I stand for mine. He was huntin' me down like a varmint, so I rode out an' gave him his chance. He lost. "
"You better ride, Rip. Clell's huntin' you."
"Huntin' me? Where is he?"
"In his room over at the hotel," somebody said. "But you . . . you better--" The speaker's voice broke sharply off, for Clell Miller stood in the doorway.
Miller's face had sharpened and hardened. His eyes were ugly and it was obvious that he had been drinking--not enough to make him unsteady, but more than enough to arouse all his latent viciousness.
"Huntin' me, Rip?" Clell stepped in and let the door close behind him. "I saw you ride in. Thought I'd come down."
"Sure, I'm huntin' you." Rip Coker stepped away from the bar. His thin, hard-boned face was drawn and fine from the hard riding and short rations, but his smile was reckless and eager. "You want it now?"
"Why not?" Clell went for his gun as he spoke and it came up, incredibly fast, faster than that of Rip Coker. His first shot struck Rip right over the belt buckle and Rip took an involuntary step back. Clell fired again and missed, but Rip steadied his hand before he fired. His shot spun Miller around. Miller dropped to one knee and fired from the floor. His second shot hit Rip, and then Rip brought his gun down and shot twice, both bullets hitting Clell in the head. Clell fell over, slammed back by the force of the bullets.
Rip staggered, his face pale. He started staggering for the door. As he stepped out, a voice from across the street called out. "We get five hundred for you, Rip!" And then a half-dozen guns went off. Slammed back into the wall by the force of the bullets, Rip brought up his own gun. His knees wavered, but he stiffened them. He was mortally wounded, but he straightened his knees and fired. A man staggered and went down, and Rip fired again. Bullets struck him, but he kept feeding shells into his gun.
Shot to doll rags, he would not go down. He fired again and then again. Somebody up the street yelled and then another ragged volley crashed into the blond fighter. He fired again as he fell, and one of the killers rose on his toes and fell headlong.
Forbes rushed from the hotel, Mary Blake and Angie following him. Ben Otten and others began to crowd around. Rink Witter pushed through the crowd. "Back off," he snarled. "If this varmint ain't dead, he soon will be!"
Forbes looked at him, his face drawn in hard lines in the light from the Verde window. "Leave him alone, you murderer!" he said. "You've done enough!"
Rink Witter's eyes glittered and he looked down. The doctor had come up and was kneeling over Coker. Coker's eyes fluttered and he looked up at Witter. Suddenly, the dying man chuckled. "Wait! Wait!" he whispered hoarsely. "You're dead, Rink! Wait'll Blaine hears of this! He'll hang up your scalp!"
"Shut up!" Witter snarled.
Rip grinned weakly. "Not--not bad," he whispered, "I got Clell. Nev--figured--I'd--I'd beat him."
The bartender, an admirer of gameness in any man, leaned
over. "You can go happy, son," he said. "You got two more to take along."
Rip put a feeble hand on the doctor's arm. "You--wastin' time, sawbones." He blinked slowly. "Clell an' two more! Hell, I don't reckon U
tah could of done much better!"
The doctor straightened slowly and looked over at Forbes. "I can't understand it," he whispered. "He's shot to ribbons. He should be dead."
Angie moved in. "Carry him to my room, Doc. He's got nerve enough for two men. Maybe he'll come through."
By mid-morning the story was all over the valley. Rip Coker had shot it out with Clell Miller and killed him. Staggering from the saloon, badly wounded, he had been ambushed by six gunmen, had killed two of them before going down under a hail of bullets. Although shot eleven times, he was still alive!
"He might make it," Forbes told Angie. "Cole Younger was shot eleven times in the fighting during and after the Northfield raid, and he lived."
"Yeah," the bartender was listening. "I was tendin' bar in Coffeyville when the Daltons raided it. Emmett was shot sixteen times in that raid. Hear he's still alive."
Utah Blaine had been scouting the 46 range. When he returned to their temporary hideout in The Gorge near Whiterock Mesa, Timm came down to him, his face dark with worry. "See anything of Rip?" he asked. "He took off when I was asleep last night. Never said a word."
Blaine swung down. His jaws were dark with four days' growth of beard, his eyes hollow from lack of sleep. "That damn' fool!" he said anxiously. "He's gone huntin' a fight! Saddle up an' we'll ride
in!
"No," Timm said, "you get some rest. If Rip is still alive now, he'll stay alive. You go down there like you are and you'll be duck soup for whoever runs into you first. Get some sleep. "
It was wise advice and Blaine knew it. In a matter of minutes he was asleep. Timm looked down at his face and shook his head. Slowly, he walked out in the sunlight and sat among the rocks where he could watch both approaches to The Gorge. There was small chance of their being found here, but it could happen. He was tired himself, when he thought about it. Very tired.
Far down on the river bank, an Apache signaled to Rink, motioning him over. "One horse," the Indian said. "He ver' tired--cross here."
"A big horse?" Witter asked eagerly.
"Uh-huh, ver' big."
Blaine's dun stallion, the lineback stallion, was larger than most of the horses around here. Rink Witter rubbed his jaw thoughtfully and squinted his glittering little eyes as he studied the terrain before him. The great triangular bow of the mesa jutted against the skyline some three miles away. It was all of fifteen hundred feet above them, and the country to both left and right was broken and rugged. A man on a tired horse would not go far, and a man who was exhausted, as Utah Blaine must be, would have to bed down somewhere. Nor would he be watching the covering of his trail so carefully.
"Let's shake down those canyons left of the mesa," he said, "I've got a hunch.
Slightly less than six miles away, Timm sat in the warm sunshine. He was very tired. The warmth seeped through his weary muscles, easing them and relaxing them. Below him a rattler crawled into the shade and a deer walked down to a pool of water and drank. Timm shifted his seat a little, but did not open his eyes.
It felt mighty good to be resting. Mighty good. And it was warm after the chill of the night. His eyelids flicked open, then lowered . . . closed . . . they started to open . . . then closed again. Timm was not as young as Rip or Blaine. This riding took its toll. Slowly, his eyes closed tighter and he slept.
Chapter Twelve.
The mountains into which Rink Witter led his four men were rugged and heavily wooded. Skirting the lower shoulder of a mesa, he headed across an open stretch of exposed Coconino sandstone and swung back toward the river.
Ceaselessly he searched out the possible hideouts that could be used by two exhausted men and their worn mounts. North of the towering wall of the mesa there were a half-dozen deep canyons. Each of these canyons had occasional seeps from intermittent streams where a man might obtain water.
Even without a cache of food there was game back here: deer, elk, bear and plenty of birds. A man could scarcely ask for a better hideout. Rink was in no hurry. Hunched atop his horse, he studied the terrain with his flat-lidded eyes. Trust Blaine to pick a hole with a back way out. Yet if they took their time, Blaine might relax. He was tired. He had to be tired. And after a few minutes he would relax and sink down, and possibly he would go to sleep.
Wardlaw, one of Rink's special men, studied the terrain with care. "Country for an ambush," he commented. "This Blaine ain't no tenderfoot."
It was nearing sundown before they completed an examination of the two canyons to their north and started up the main canyon
called The Gorge, which led almost due east. They had gone scarcely a half mile when the tracker lifted a hand. Plain enough for all to see were the marks of a horse crossing a stream.
All drew up. Wardlaw struck a match and squinted past the smoke at Rink. "Figure it's far?"
Rink looked speculatively up The Gorge. "This canyon," he told them, "takes a sharp turn about two miles east. My guess would be they'll be located right up there at the foot of Whiterock Mesa. There's an undercut wall there, plenty of firewood an' good water.
"I say," he continued, "that we take her mighty easy. If we come along quiet we may come right up on them. "
Timm came awake with a start, horrified at what he had done. Hours must have passed for it was already past sundown. He started to move, and then he stopped. Not sixty yards away were Rink Witter and his killers!
They saw him at the same instant. Wardlaw's gun leaped and blazed. The shot sprinkled rock on Timm, and he swung his rifle. His own quick shot would have taken Rink but for the fact that the gelding Rink rode chose that instant to swing his head and the shot took him between the eyes. The horse went down, creating momentary confusion, but Wardlaw fired again, knocking Timm back into the rocks. Rolling over, he started to crawl.
Utah came out of his sound sleep wide awake. He sprang to his feet and threw himself into the shelter of a rock before he realized the shooting was centering about a hundred yards away. Hastily he swung saddles on the two horses and cinched them. Then he threw the packs on. It was the work of a minute for all had been kept ready for instant travel.
He heard another shot behind him and knew that for the moment Timm was doing all right. But Blaine also knew they couldn't hold this spot longer than a few minutes. However, it was, fortunately, close to night. He left the horses standing and raced down the short canyon to the main branch. The first thing he saw was Timm. The older man was crouched by some boulders, his rifle ready, his back stained with blood. That the man was hard hit, Utah saw at once.
Sliding up beside him, he whispered, "Stay in there, partner!"
Timm's face was agonized. "I went to sleep!" He was shocked with the shame of it.
Blaine grinned. "Hell, you couldn't have seen 'em until they were right on you, anyway!" The Apache showed and Blaine burned him with a shot across the shoulder, then slammed a fast shot at a shelving rock that ricocheted the bullet into the shelter taken by the killers. Lead smashed around him.
He glanced at Timm. Hard hit he was, but he was still able to move. "Start crawlin'," he said. "I took time to saddle the horses. Get to 'em, an' if you can, get into the saddle."
Utah shifted left and fired, then shifted back halfway to his original position and fired again. A shrewd and experienced Indian fighter, he knew just exactly what their chances were. The men against them were bloodhounds, and fighting men, too. They would be on the trail and fast, and they were men one couldn't gamble with.
Suddenly, a shot clipped rock near him, and he noticed where it came from. Right up from behind a boulder on a steep slope. The boulder was propped up by a small rock, while behind it was piled a heap of debris. Snuggling his rifle against his shoulder, he took careful aim at the rock, then fired!
The rock splintered and the boulder sagged. Carefully, Blaine took another sight, and then fired again. He never knew whether it was the first shot or the second that started it, but just as his finger squeezed off that second shot the whole pile tore loose a
nd thundered down the hill!
There was a startled yell, then another. Two men sprang into the open, and with calm dispatch Utah Blaine drilled the first through the chest and dropped the second with a bullet that appeared to have struck his knee. The rocks roared down, swung sharply as they struck a shoulder of rock, then poured down into the stream bed.
Swiftly, before the man-hunters would have time to adjust themselves, Utah turned and raced back up the canyon to the horses. Timm was in the saddle, slumped over the pommel. His rifle was on the ground. Picking it up, Utah dropped it in the bucket and they started. He led Timm's horse and went right straight for a dim mountain trail between huge boulders. Beyond it there was brush. The shadows were heavy now and it would soon be dark. With an occasional glance back at the wounded man, he rode swiftly.
Now they climbed through the pines, mounting swiftly on a winding, switch-back trail. Darkness filled the bowl of the valley below and the dark gash of the canyon; it bulked thick and black under the tall pines. Beyond them, far to the south, the sunlight lay a golden glory on the four peaks of the Mazatzals.
With a mile more of the winding mountain trail behind him, he turned into the pine forest and crossed the thick, cushioned needles and then took a trail that dipped down into the basini oi Rock Creek. Instead of following it south toward their cached food and ammunition, Utah turned left and went up the canyon of Rock Creek itself. Then he crossed a saddle to another creek.
Glancing back, seeing that Timm was still in the saddle, he grimly pushed on. Hours later, he sighted his objective: a canyon crossed by a natural bridge of rock. Dipping deep into this canyon he worked his way along it until he reached the caves which, long since, he had heard described.
When he stopped Timm swayed, and Utah reached up and lifted the older man from the saddle. Timm's face was pale, visible even in the vague light near the cave's mouth. "I stuck it, didn't I?" he whispered, then fainted.
There was a sand floor in one of the caves, and Blaine led the horses there. He drew them well back from the entrance and out of sight; then he built a fire. No one could ever find them here.
Utah Blain (1984) Page 9
