Mart said: “Leave that to me, hombre.”
Gomez looked doubting, but he slapped Mart on the shoulder and wished that God would go with him. Mart watched him until he quickly disappeared into the darkness of the trees.
He checked the loads in the rifle, the shells for the revolver and the spare tubes for the rifle in his pockets. Then he wondered what the Hell he did next.
Chapter Nine
Styree was in a cold insane fury. This he hated because he reckoned it confused his mind and he liked his mind to be working clearly. He walked up and down the room slamming a fist into a palm. The woman stood motionless, watching him.
Maddox was in despair. His professional calm seemed to have been blasted away with gunfire.
“I’ve got to have silence,” he cried. “I can’t do my work without silence.”
“By God,” Styree told him through clenched teeth, “you don’t git that safe open I’ll give you all the goddam silence you can take.”
Maddox didn’t show fear of him.
“This is one time when your bully-boy ways won’t do you a mite of good, Marve,” he said. “Just let me have real quiet for five minutes. I’m halfways there. Five minutes is all I ask.”
There was one other man in the room now—young Wayne Grube. Styree jerked his head at him.
“Tell all the boys you can find,” he said. “No shooting for five minutes.” The boy nodded and left the room. Styree went on: “Maddox, you git your five minutes. You have that safe open by then or you won’t open no more safes in your whole life. Hear?”
Maddox managed a chilly smile.
“You sure have a persuasive way with you, Marve,” he said.
He knelt at the safe and started work again, a rapt expression on his face. The shooting seemed to have stopped outside.
Styree’s mind started to work again also. Two dead and two wounded. What a Hell of a note. If that fool didn’t open that safe, where did that leave him? Scarcely a cent in the world and this woman. The last job he had done hadn’t earned him more than a handful of dollars and a price on his head. Any one of these men once they had gotten around to thinking about it would turn him over to the law. One of them could buy a cow-spread and turn honest for the money he could earn on Styree. Dead or alive too, by God. The thought made a man’s blood run cold.
He had to have that safe open.
What the Hell good was the woman to him without the money? What good was anything without money? Then the idea hit him.
Aragon could be worth money.
But who valued her in gold? No, she would only prove useful if he was on the run. A hostage for his safety. But what would his life be worth if he killed a woman? What good was his life worth right now? Christ, his thinking was going haywire.
He was brought from his thoughts by Maddox exclaiming: “Keno.”
“You done it?” Styree demanded eagerly, going forward.
“No. But only one to go now,” Maddox told him.
Styree cursed savagely. Tension and rage made him want to smash something. He should of killed that Storm kid and the greaser. Then he calmed himself. There was hope. If Maddox could come this far, he could complete the job. Just one more tumbler to go.
“Git on,” he cried. “For God’s sake quit kneeling there sayin’ your fool prayers and open the goddam thing.”
Maddox laughed, his professional pride restored by his partial success.
“Want to make a bet?” he asked.
“Git on,” Styree yelled, hysteria rising in his voice.
Maddox returned to work, the faraway look coming on his face again. His slender fingers gently moved the dial. His sharp ears listened. The silence stretched out. Styree found himself holding his breath.
Then his nerves screamed agonizingly as all Hell seemed to break loose outside the house. The earth shook under the thunder of the hoofs, guns started going off.
Styree gave an insane cry and rushed across the room to the window. He could hear the horses running, but he could see none in the yard below him.
The appalling truth came to him. Some sonovabitch had run off the horses in the further corral. That meant there was scarcely a horse left on the place.
There came the pounding of booted feet from below. A man came bounding up the stairs. Maddox threw up his hands and gave a howl of despair.
Styree bawled out the window: “What the Hell’s goin’ on down there?” But he knew.
A man called back: “The bastard’s run off the rest of the stock.”
A man burst into the room. It was Dale Brophy. His face was blackened by burned powder, his eyes were bloodshot and wild.
“The horses is gone,” he said as if he couldn’t accept the fact.
“I know, I know, I know,” Styree shouted, beside himself. “Shut that goddam door an’ be still. Maddox, open that safe.” He was screaming, his voice as soprano as a woman’s.
The safebreaker ignored him, sighing gently and proceeding with his delicate work.
Styree seethed, clenching and unclenching his hands, filling his lungs with air to bursting point. He saw himself stranded here with Claud Maxwell’s treasure and not a horse to carry it on. Fate had never been so cruel with him. The scar on his deeply tanned face showed white. The woman stood like stone and watched him.
After a few minutes, Maddox stopped work and relaxed. Then he pressed his fingers against his eyes as though the concentration was tiring him. Then he wiped his fingertips again on his handkerchief and started again. The rapt expression returned to his face. Styree and Brophy watched him avidly. They saw the expression change slowly to one of utter tranquility.
He sank back on his heels and looked up at them.
“I’m all through,” he said quietly.
For one horror-filled minute, Styree thought the man meant he was defeated but Maddox put one slender hand on the handle of the safe door, gently lowered it and swung the heavy door open. For a second, Styree remained motionless, then he almost ran to the safe and looked in over Maddox’s shoulder. He gripped this shoulder with a hand and pulled the safebreaker violently aside. Maddox measured his length on the floor. Indignation leapt to his face. He scrambled to his feet, angry words on his tongue, but he held them back. He knew they’d be wasted. Styree would not have heard him. He was on his knees in front of the safe, reaching for the treasure—boxes, pokes of gold, paper packages, larger leather sacks. He lifted out one of the last. It was heavy and it clinked when he shook it.
He tore open the mouth of it and emptied the contents on the floor. The rich hue of gold glittered softly in the lamplight. He muttered something incoherently. A hand reached out a box. It proved to be locked. He smashed it open with his revolver. When he lifted the lid, the light hit brightly on the hard brilliance of diamonds, the soft luster of pearls, the richness of rubies. He reached out a paper package, tore it open feverishly and found within it a thick wad of high denomination notes of the federation.
The sight of all these riches propelled him to his feet.
“Jesus God,” he said, walked the length of the room and back again, slamming his fist into a palm through different feelings than before. “I’m rich. I’m so goddam rich ...”
Maddox said: “We’re all rich, Styree.”
Brophy was watching him with his mouth open, his buckteeth showing like tombstones against the deep shadow of his mouth.
Styree said: “Yeah, sure. We’re all rich.” He laughed. “We don’t have no more worries, boys. We live soft for the rest of our lives.”
“You’ll live to hang,” the woman said.
He had forgotten she was there. Slowly, he turned to stare at her.
“Who’ll hang me for this?” he said. “It’s all stolen. Your old man was a thief, honey.”
“I’ll see you hang just the same.”
He nodded, accepting the rationality of her feelings. He sobered, thought a moment and told Brophy: “Dale, go check what goes down below. If there’s horses left,
I want ’em in the yard. Pack animals with Arapahos. Check if the wounded can ride. Maddox, open up the rest of it and see what we have.”
As Brophy turned toward the door, the latch lifted and the door opened.
The three men were totally unprepared for what they saw—a tall fair man with a Remington pistol in his right hand and a repeating rifle in his left.
Mart Storm said: “Reach.”
They stayed utterly motionless for a moment, unable to accept the situation, bemused. Then Marve Styree bent forward at the waist almost imperceptibly. There was too much to lose here—enough to risk life for.
Mart said: “Try it.”
Linda Aragon moved, lifting the gun from Styree’s holster. Sick bitterness showed in his eyes as if an essential part of himself had been taken away when the gun left him.
The woman said: “I want you all dead. Just give me the opportunity.”
She moved first to Brophy and then to Maddox, relieving them of their weapons. In Maddox’s vest, she found a tiny two-shot derringer.
“We want their ammunition,” Mart said. “Drop your belts, boys, an’ kick them over here.”
They obeyed.
Maddox said: “You can’t walk out of his house an’ live.”
“I walked into it,” Mart reminded him.
“Buckle the belts on the last hole,” Mart told the woman and she did as he said. Then he told her to loop them over his shoulders. That done, he said: “Bring what you can from the safe.”
She hurried to a far corner of the room. Mart stayed inside and to one side of the door, his ears sharp for approaching footsteps.
“Just one sound out of any one of you,” he said, “an’ he’s dead.”
The woman went to the safe with what looked like a hide parfleche of Indian origin. Dropping to her knees, she hastily bundled into it what she could from the safe.
Mart thought: We have as much chance of gettin’ out of here as two overladen pack-mules.
As she came away from the safe, the door opened softly and Juanita appeared.
“Men are coming,” she said.
“Which way?” Mart demanded.
“The main stairs.”
Hope showed in Styree’s eyes.
“Quit,” he said. “You can’t pull this off an’ you know it.”
“You’d be surprised,” Mart said. “Juanita, carry some of these guns.” He turned back to the men: “My advice is, don’t put your heads out of this door too soon, boys. You’ll get ’em shot off.”
Juanita opened the door and peered out.
“Hurry,” she said.
She went out and Aragon hurried after her. They could all hear the men on the stairs now. Styree was shuddering with suppressed effort. Mart knew this was going to be the closest-run thing of his life. He could hear the women going along the corridor toward the east end of the house. He backed out and took six strides in the opposite direction. He fired two shots toward the head of the stairs. A man yelled in fear and surprise. Then he turned and drove a shot through the doorway of the room he had just left.
There was only one thing to do after that and that was to take to his heels, which he did with some enthusiasm. Weighed down with ammunition it was a Hell of a chore, but he reckoned he broke records going the length of that corridor, shouting to the women that it was him and not to shoot. A moment later he was with them.
“Which way now?” he asked Aragon.
“If we take the rear stairs,” she said, “we could be going into trouble. This window here is unbarred. We can get onto the roof of the shed in the small corral.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
He turned to watch the faintly lit corridor as Aragon urged the girl through the window. He heard Juanita’s hard intake of breath before she jumped.
Aragon’s hand was on his arm.
“You’ll follow quickly?” she said. “I want no dead heroes on my conscience.”
“I’ll do my mortal best to stay alive,” he assured her. “I have the best of reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“I don’t go back to Colorado without one of those men down there,” he told her. “And ...”
“And?”
“I don’t go back to Colorado without you.”
He felt her stiffen.
“That would show a real profit for the trip south, Mr. Storm,” she said coldly.
“You said it, honey. Now, climb out of that window and careful you don’t break your neck doin’ it.”
She turned away and began to haul herself carefully through the opening. A moment later, he heard her call softly: “Throw down the bag.”
He laid the rifle down, lifted the parfleche and went to the window. He saw the two women almost immediately below him. The bag thudded heavily as it fell at their feet.
There was a faint sound along the corridor. He turned and threw himself flat on the floor as he snatched up the Henry. By the time he was flat, he had levered and triggered. Guns roared in the confined space.
Noises from the corral below told him that there were horses there. A shout told him there were men there too. Alarm close on panic blossomed in him. He let off another shot and reared to his feet, pushing his wide shoulders through the window. He could see the women running, carrying the heavy parfleche between them, headed for the gate at the far end. The horses were edging their way around the edge of the corral. Then Mart saw the man, angling across the corral for the women. He dare not shoot for fear of hitting them. Pulling his shoulders back, he threw a leg over the sill of the window, levered with his other foot on the sill and leapt for the roof of the shed below. It cracked beneath him with a sound like a pistol-shot. He leapt again for the ground and started to run. The man dove for the nearest woman. It was Aragon. He saw her go down and drop the bag.
My God, he thought, I’ll kill the bastard.
He wasn’t aware of hearing any definite sound, but he knew for sure that there were men behind him. He ran full-tilt into the man as he rose to his feet and bowled him to the ground again. Moonlight touched the barrel of the gun and Mart swept around the butt of the rifle catching the fellow on the side of the head.
He didn’t wait for any more. Shouting for the women to run, he turned and fired toward the house, seeing no more than dim shapes that could be men. Muzzle-flame stabbed back at him. Something plucked at the tail of his coat. Lead kicked up dust at his feet. He didn’t know how long he stood there shooting and being shot at and somehow staying alive when he should have been shot to shreds. He heard Aragon scream for him to run.
He ran, hearing the lead follow him, praying it wouldn’t touch the woman. A second later, he was outside the gateway of the corral, covered by the wall and sending fire back toward the house. That would hold them for a moment. Meanwhile, the heavily burdened women were covering precious distance. Let them reach the trees and he would feel he could follow them.
Then he heard the horse running. A rider had come around from the far side of the house and was now angling away from the building after the fleeing women.
Mart panicked. He turned, the men in the corral forgotten, and he ran as he had never run before, seeing the shadowy figure of the horseman ahead of him. He shouted a desperate warning to the women. He could no more than glimpse the pale flutter of their dresses in the moonlight. The horseman cried out. Mart thought the women stopped. The rider reached them. Mart could only hear his own heaving breath and the pounding of his feet. The rider was dismounting.
He heard Aragon call clearly and he knew this man didn’t mean danger. He panted up to them and found Jesus Maria Gomez there, helping Aragon into the saddle.
“Sta bueno,” the Mexican said. “We are doing well.”
All Mart could do was suck air desperately into his starved lungs. Gomez was helping Juanita up behind the older woman, then handing up the treasure.
Gomez said: “We will go on. I do not think they will follow until dawn. They are not fools. But in the daylight, then we
must prepare ourselves for the fight.”
Mart nodded agreement. Gomez led off, trotting, and the horse with the two women followed. Mart looked back at the house and followed them. He reckoned his running days were about done. Like Will said—they weren’t getting any younger. But he broke into a run just the same. He would maybe find a way even to grow wings and fly for that damned woman.
Styree’s rage seemed to have burned itself out.
Dawn was no more than minutes away. They had enough horses. Some of the scattered remuda had gone no further than a quarter mile from the village and had been caught up easily. The dead were buried and the men had filled their bellies with food. A good meal was sometimes a replacement for lost sleep. The fat Serafina had fearfully but reluctantly served them breakfast. Now she had fled into the brush as fast as her fat legs could carry her.
Styree had not wasted his time during the remaining hours of the night after Aragon had escaped. He had used the time to organize. The lock to Aragon’s armory had been broken and the men were all well armed and supplied with ammunition. Pack animals had been loaded with supplies. As soon as it was light they would pick up the trail of the fugitives. They would be moving slowly, hampered by the women and the treasure. By dawn or mid-afternoon, Styree would be once more in possession of both the things he wanted.
Among that company of murderers and thieves was a man known as Chaco. Simply that—no other name. He didn’t speak much and he was not liked by his companions, for they suspected, probably with justification, that he had more claim to being Indian than of being white. He had been accepted on two counts—one, he was a man trusted by Max Koler with whom he had been associated for some years; two, he was a superlative tracker.
As soon as this man saw there was enough light to read sign, he stepped into the saddle on a sprightly sorrel and set off to pick up the tracks of the fugitives. By the time the rest of the company was on the move and caught up with him, he was ready to declare that he could follow the hunted until they were fetched up with and could predict that, if they kept the pace they were now holding, which he very much doubted, they would be sighted before noon.
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