He drew up again, half under the shade of a cottonwood, his body and that of his horse dappled with sunshine and shadow. From even a few yards away he would be invisible.
It was then he saw the riders.
Doc Shabbitt was in the lead, behind him Ike and Purdy Mantle, and tied to a horse ... Duncan McKaskel.
It was Duncan himself who started them after Hyle. Held a prisoner he could do no good, and if they stayed around they might discover Tom.
"What does he do now?" McKaskel asked curiously. "Do you sit waiting until he comes back? I thought you were all in this together."
Nobody said anything, but Doc shifted uncomfortably. "There's nothing in my wagon," he said, "nor with my wife, but if there was, he'd get it all."
"Shut your trap!" Purdy said irritably, then he looked over at Doc. "Well, we did all come out together. We all should see it through together."
"You mean, ride after Hyle? I don't think he wants company."
'To hell with him. We're all in this together."
"What if he gets sore? He said we should stay put."
"You takin' orders from him, Doc? I thought you was the leader. I say we all ride over there. I say we take McKaskel here. We started out together, and we'll finish the job together."
Ike and Purdy jerked McKaskel to his feet, thrust his hands behind him and tied them, then helped him on a horse. Leaving the horse standing, they all began saddling up. The area was so small that there was no chance of making a move even though McKaskel's horse was standing close under the trees.
Doc was in the saddle when Duncan McKaskel felt something tug on the rawhide bonds that held him, and then felt the sawing of a knife.
Tom's jack-knife. For weeks he had been planning on sharpening it for the boy but neglected it.
The boy sawed, then shifted position and began sawing on another strand without completing the first. McKaskel was cold with fear. If they caught the boy, they'd kill him, and he dared not even whisper. The boy was in the brush close against his horse's side, and presumably out of sight, yet a move of the horse might reveal him.
Suddenly Purdy turned his horse toward him. "All right, Mac, we'll go call on your wife. And Red Hyle."
They rode out, and he dared not look back. Gently, he tested the rawhide. The ropes held tight, yet he was sure they had been cut almost through, and a sudden jerk might part them. For a wild moment he considered it, then decided against it. He would be killed without helping anybody. He must wait until he could act to some purpose.
Con Vallian saw them ride past but was struck by only one factor. The Huron was not among them. The Huron must be somewhere in the woods and that meant he might be very close.
Hesitating, studying the woods with care, he saw nothing. He listened, he turned in the saddle and studied the wall of trees behind him ... nothing. There was no doubt in his mind that the next time he saw the Huron one of them would die.
Over there! Something moved! Con slid his rifle from the scabbard and lifted it in his hands, waiting. Something was over there in the brush, something that could only be a man. He was ready to shoot, but he was not the sort to blast away at any chance movement. He wanted to see what he was shooting. He held the rifle ready, and waited.
Suddenly a small figure darted from the brush and ran across a portion of the clearing. It was Tom!
Con walked his horse from the brush toward the boy, keeping his eyes and ears alert for the Huron. Tom saw him coming, and pulled up.
"Tom, where's your mother?"
"Yonder. Over where they are going. Pa's tied, but I was cutting on the rawhide. With a good jerk he can break loose."
"Good. Let's ride over there."
He grasped the boy's hand and swung him to the saddle behind him, and then started on a fast lope for the corrals. Con rode with his rifle in his hands, for the Huron had to be close.
Turning into the trees, he dismounted. Tom slid to the ground. "You stay here, Tom. Stay with my horse."
"Aw!" Tom grabbed Vallian's arm. "Ma's over there! I've got to help!"
"You stay out of it!" Vallian said sharply. "There's going to be shooting, and there's no fun in it."
He touched his gunbutt, wetting his lips. He could hear the distant sound of voices, and taking his rifle in his hand, he started to walk closer.
Shabbitt had only now found the place, and Red Hyle was obviously angered.
Waiting back in the trees, well-hidden, Vallian listened, taking in the scene.
Susanna McKaskel had her back to a tree, and in her hands was a shotgun. Her face was white and strained, her eyes bright, but the gun was ready.
"Figured you might need help," Doc was saying. "After all, we started this here together, we figure to finish it the same way."
"You see it that way, too, Purdy?" Hyle was standing wide-legged, his hands on his hips. They were thick, powerful hands with red hair on the backs. His blunt, brutal features seemed to thrust forward.
"We're in it together, Red. If they've got anything, we want our share."
McKaskel was close to Shabbitt, and even as Con glanced that way he saw McKaskel's horse step over a little closer. If McKaskel's hands were still tied there was not much he could do, but if he could break loose he'd be in a fair position to jump Doc.
Con's eyes swept the scene again. Purdy, Ike, and Red Hyle. It was too tough a job even if McKaskel got Doc out of it.
Susanna had the shotgun, of course, and she might account for one. She had been quick enough to act when she swung that club on Booster.
"We've got your husband," Hyle said, turning to Susanna. "You put down that shotgun or I'll have Doc start cuttin' fingers off. Every time I count, he'll lose another finger. Now you goin' to drop it or not?"
Susanna's shotgun was steady. "Mister," she spoke quietly, "if you say one, you will never say two. By the time you open your mouth I will have blown you apart with both barrels of this shotgun. You know, Mr. Hyle, or whatever your name is, you make a big, wide target, and I don't think I like you, Mr. Hyle."
All the time Vallian kept thinking, Where is the Huron? He looked all around him, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary.
It looked like a stalemate, but Con Vallian did not believe in stalemates. He held back, waiting. If the Huron moved in, then he would do likewise, otherwise he preferred to be the joker in the deck.
"Now," Susanna was cool, "you just back up and ride away, and when you go, leave my husband right where he is."
Nobody moved. There were four armed men and she was alone. How long before her nerve broke? How long before her arms tired and she lowered the shotgun?
She had obviously expected them to go, and when she spoke again, her voice was higher. "Go," she said, "or I'll shoot!"
Doc Shabbitt was smiling. It was a situation he liked, Con could see that, and especially as the shotgun was not pointed at him. "Ma'am," he said, "you better put that gun down. If you was to kill Red here, there'd still be the three of us.
"First off, I'd kill your husband. Then we'd just have things as we want them. If I was you, I'd just put down that there shotgun and hope we'll be easy on you."
What she would have done, Con Vallian never knew, for at that instant, Tom rushed up. "Ma! Give me that gun, I'll—!"
Her eyes went to Tom, and Red Hyle lunged for her. Duncan, bursting the sawed-through rawhide, spurred his horse to jump against Shabbitt, whose horse side-stepped into those of the Mantles. Duncan threw both arms around Doc and they went from the saddle to the ground.
Con Vallian snapped a quick shot at Hyle, missed, and swung the gun on Ike Mantle. Ike saw the rifle swinging to cover him and went down, Indian-fashion, on the far side of the horse, leaping it for the brush as he snapped a quick shot.
Hyle grabbed for the shotgun as Con swung his rifle for another shot, but Susanna clung to the gun. Red swung her violently, the shotgun tearing from her hands as she went into the brush. Con fired and the bullet burned across the back of Hyle's hand
as the big gunman dove for the brush, grabbing for his six-shooter.
Susanna scrambled for the fallen shotgun as Shabbitt shook off her husband, and scrambled to his feet. He turned and grabbed at his horse, and Susanna shot at Hyle, then at Shabbitt. Doc went sprawling, tried to get up, then sagged out on the grass, turning red beneath him.
Only Purdy remained, sitting his horse and offering to make no move.
Con Vallian strode down from the brush. "Ride out!" he shouted. "Ride out or make your fight!"
"I'll make my fight when I'm ready," Purdy said. "This here wasn't my idea." He turned his horse and walked him from the camp. Susanna was fumbling to get the empty cartridge casings from the shotgun. Tom stared, awed and frightened.
Slowly, Duncan got up and brushed himself off. "There wasn't much I could do. Arms numb," he said, "I just jumped my horse."
"Good thinking," Con said dryly, "that just about saved us all. Threw 'em all off stride."
Susanna stared in horror at Shabbitt. "Is he dead? I mean, did I—?"
Con walked over and turned Doc onto his back. The man was not dead, but soon would be. He had taken the shotgun blast through the lower part of the chest and part of the stomach.
Con Vallian turned around to meet Susanna's eyes. "Yes, ma'am, you did. And a good job it was, too."
"Let's get out of here," McKaskel said.
Chapter XX
On the seventh day following the difficulty in the woods, Duncan McKaskel had completed plowing an acre near the cabin for a vegetable garden and was planning a cornfield across the river on the fiat near the old corral.
Con Vallian had been showing Tom how to cut long wedges to fit into cracks in the old cabin, and Susanna had taken tune from other duties to bake a cake. Earlier, Tom had caught a half dozen trout from the stream, and the sun was bright over the cabin on the creek.
It was very quiet. Nobody had felt much like talking, but they all knew that Con had gone back and buried Doc Shabbitt where he had fallen, and that he had spent several days trying to pick up the trail of the vanished Red Hyle.
A dozen miles to the north not far from the Cherry Creek to Fort Laramie Trail, Purdy Mantle was seated by the fire waiting for Ike to return. Ike had ridden out after a deer or any meat that could be found, and to tell the truth, Purdy was glad to be alone.
He had been doing some thinking since the brief shootout and what he saw of himself did not appeal. He was good with a gun and he came from an outlaw clan, but outlawing had grown increasingly distasteful. He had said as much to Ike.
"It's no life for a man. On the dodge all the time."
"What you figurin' on?" Ike demanded. "You goin' to work?"
"What we do's often harder. I figure I'd like it. I ain't cut out for this."
Ike snorted, but said no more. Purdy was going soft he figured, and said as much, but Purdy merely shrugged.
He heard horses and straightened up. It was Ike, but he had Red Hyle with him.
Red had an angry-looking scratch along his cheekbone, and he rode kind of one-sided in the saddle. "Howdy," Purdy said, "looks like you caught a couple."
Hyle's expression was surly. "I didn't see you makin' no show of yourself, an' you're supposed to be good with a gun."
Purdy shrugged. "I never picked on women."
Hyle's face reddened. "What's that mean?"
"Nothin' at all," Purdy said quietly, "except I had no fuss with that woman. I didn't want her, an' you did. I didn't figure they had anything worth takin', an' I never did after maybe the first few days. It wasn't my idea to come along with them, and I was of no mind to get myself killed over it."
"If I thought you were pointin' that at me—!"
Ike interrupted. "That feller lied to us. He said his wife had taken off with Con Vallian."
"He prob'ly thought she had," Purdy said mildly. "He's been around here enough."
"Where was the Huron?" Ike grumbled. "He should have been there. I thought sure he'd come in there a-shootin'."
"I'm not through," Red Hyle said. "I'll bide my time."
"Leave them alone," Purdy advised. "They're trouble an' grief."
The smoke lifted straight toward the sky, and even the aspen leaves were still.
Purdy Mantle poked a stick in the fire. Here it was, right here, right now. He had seen it coming, and now Hyle was full of bitter anger and the need to explode. But then, if it had not been now it would have been something else later. He had known that all along.
"I've been shot at," he said mildly, his glance quizzical, almost amused. "I've been shot at, an' I've shot back."
Red Hyle straightened up, hands on his hips. "Have you now? You didn't do any shootin' back there in the woods. Was you scared?"
Purdy knew it was not to be avoided, and somehow deep inside, he wanted it. Just as much as Hyle did, he suspected. "No, I wasn't scared. I was too busy watchin' you run from that woman. She not only stood you off, Red Hyle, wanting none of you, but she made you run like a rabbit."
Hyle was on his feet and had the advantage, yet the moment his hand moved, Purdy knew. He had been poised and ready and he came up fast, and he drew fast—too fast. He had gotten his gun out swifter than had Hyle, but his first bullet went off as the gun was coming up and scattered fire. He never fired his second.
Hyle had palmed his gun coolly, swiftly, and when he shot it was unerringly, with just that split second of hesitation that made it matter. The first bullet took Purdy through the heart, the second an inch lower.
Red Hyle held his gun and glanced at Ike, who was roasting meat at the fire. "Funny thing," Ike said, "about Purd an' me. We was blood brothers, but we surely hadn't anything in common. We never really fancied each other."
Hyle slowly lifted the gun and dropped it back into its holster.
"Be different without him," Ike said. "We always sort of run together."
"He didn't want to go back, anyway," Red said, "an' I intend to go back. They ain't shut of me yet. That woman ... I'll break all her fingers first. She'll learn not to throw down on me with no shotgun."
He stuck a piece of meat on a skewer. "You want to go back, Ike?"
"I was countin' on it," Ike said. "I never figured it no other way."
On the morning of the eighth day Tom collected wood. There was enough wood down so that no cutting was needed, so he went out into the edge of the timber and just picked up around where trees had fallen.
Duncan McKaskel crossed the stream with his plow and went to work on the cornfield he'd planned. It was easier plowing than expected, for there were few roots there in the bottom, and once he was through the sod the blade could cut deep into the good black earth. Duncan McKaskel wore a six-shooter and he had fastened a rifle scabbard on his plow handle.
Duncan looked down the dark earth of the furrows and was pleased. This was good land, fine land. He could get in a crop, and if he could keep the varmints away he would reap a good harvest. There was plenty of game, and there were fish in the river. Later in the year there would be wild strawberries and raspberries.
What he needed most were some cattle. There was enough grazing for a good-sized herd, and there was plenty of water. He had seen no cattle, and Con told him there was a meat shortage in Cherry Creek.
He started again and by noon he had plowed a fair chunk of land. He unhitched, left the plow where it was, and started back to the cabin for dinner.
Con was squatted on his heels beside the door as Duncan came into the yard. "You take it pretty easy," McKaskel said, irritable from his own hard work.
Con smiled. "I've got no woman to support, and there's lots of country yonder that I ain't seen."
" 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,'" McKaskel quoted.
"Seems to me most of the moss grows on dead wood," Con said, grinning. "An' there's another quote, 'a wandering bee gets the honey.'"
Con pushed his hat back on his head. "Anyway, the food's good and it's a far piece to the next place where I could put my feet under a
table."
"You've been very helpful," McKaskel said. "I don't know what we'd have done without you, but you must have some business, some place you want to go."
"Go? Oh, I got a thousand places to go! Only I figure to set about for awhile, get some of the wrinkles out of my belly. Your wife surely does cook up a fine mess of vittles."
McKaskel had been stripping the harness from the mules as he talked. Now he carried it into the house and hung it on nails on the wall.
There was a tin wash-basin at the door. He poured water into it, rolled up his sleeves and began washing the dirt from his hands. His irritation remained with him, yet he knew it was in a large measure unjust. He was simply tired by the fact that he had put in a hard morning behind a plow and Con seemed to be merely sitting about.
Oh, he had cut some wood, and had brought in meat from time to time, but still—
"McKaskel," Con Vallian spoke suddenly and a little lower in tone, "you keep that rifle handy."
Something in his tone brought McKaskel up short. He looked down at the man who squatted beside him and said, "Have you seen something?"
"Tracks ... only one or two. Fresh tracks. There's been somebody around."
"The Huron?"
"Could be. You keep that gun handy. That's a mighty mean outfit and I never did feel they were gone for good."
Duncan flipped water from his hands, then reached for the towel. His hands had become very brown from constant exposure, but his forearms, covered by sleeves while working, were white as a woman's. He dried them carefully, thinking. "Is that why you're staying around?"
Vallian grinned. "I told you the food was good. Besides, you got a mighty handsome woman, there."
"I think Susanna is a very attractive woman," Duncan said quietly, "and she's my wife."
"That does make a difference," Vallian got up, with a sigh. Filling the basin with fresh water, he washed his own hands.
There was a small broken piece of mirror fastened to the wall near the door and above the basin. As he dried his hands he scanned the edge of the aspen behind him. Being careful of a situation was as natural to him as eating.
Had he seen something move back there? Or was it his imagination?
The Quick And The Dead Page 13
