Charlie shrugged and said, ‘For Christ sake git on. You’re jest feelin’ mean is all, pard. This chore done an’ you’ll feel different.’
‘Sure,’ the other agreed and led the way, presenting his back to a man that promised he’d be dead before much of the creek had flowed past the bluff.
They dropped from the loading platform and started through the trash, Schwartz picking his way fastidiously so he wouldn’t get his fine black boots messed, Charlie kicking his way through. They went into the timber, walking quickly and the Texan not liking that much because of the high-heels of his cowman’s boots. His spurs got all tangled up in brush at one point and he cursed hoarsely. When they were within earshot of the creek, they angled left towards the widow’s house. They were about to leave the timber and circle out to either side of the house, so that one could approach the house from the corral and one from cover provided by the barn, when they were arrested by a voice.
‘What’s the hurry, men?’
They knew that voice and Schwartz at least felt a tightening of his nerves. Wragg had caught him playing the double game. It shamed him a little, but that wasn’t what was worrying him. He wasn’t afraid of the little man and his accurate gun-aim and his lethal speed only because there wasn’t much in this vale of tears that he feared at all. But he knew what the little man could do. and he prepared himself for it.
As they stopped and turned, Wragg stepped out from cover. He was neatly dressed as usual—silk cravat and clawhammer coat, hard hat and a snow-white handkerchief showing from the cuff of his left sleeve. No gun visible, but Schwartz knew from experience that it was handy enough under his right armpit. Henry was left-handed and that left hand could get the short-barreled Colt out with a speed that left nothing to be desired. He was dead accurate up to about twenty paces. A saloon champion.
As there was nothing to be gained by talking, Schwartz held his tongue, let Wragg strut on his short legs and say his piece. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Charlie to judge his reaction and knew at once, if it came to a showdown with Henry, Bontine could be counted on to be strictly neutral. It didn’t matter to him which one got hit. They were both Yankees, weren’t they?
‘Where you headin’ if a man may ask? Totin’ repeaters, too. My, my, there’s goin’ to be some right smart huntin’ around these parts—huh?’’
Charlie grinned and, his voice still a little blurred, said ‘Sure, we’re goin’ huntin’ the biggest game these parts ever seen. Mighty handy scalp-bounty, too.’
He thought that double-talk pretty clever and he had a good laugh out of it. The other two didn’t think it was that funny.
‘Can anybody play?’ Wragg wanted to know.
Schwartz considered that, thought of the possible danger from their quarry and said, ‘Could be? I looked for you all over, Henry.’
‘Yeah,’ said the little man, ‘sure.’
The saloon-keeper wished he hadn’t said that.
Wragg jerked his head towards Charlie who had wandered off to one side and stood leaning against a tree looking as mad as a big cat with his foot in a trap, ‘Why the local badman?’
Schwartz gave one of his chilly smiles.
‘I like to help a young fellow in his ambitions. This one is to collect the reputations of the Spurs of this world.’
Henry said, ‘Maybe he’ll get himself an ambition he ain’t thought of overly when he meets up with this Spur.’
‘Maybe. While Spur’s helping him to that, we could down Spur. That’ll be the first act beneficial to the great American public this boy’s ever performed.’
Charlie snarled, ‘Cut it out.’
Henry took the handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his hands on it.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘if we’re all in on this, we might as well make medicine. You got any ideas about how you’d do this, Wright?’
The saloon-keeper gave a little sigh of relief. He’d have to brace the little rooster, but that could be put off to later.
‘The way I see it,’ he said, ‘is this…’
Janey wandered into the house and said, ‘You know who I seen over in the timber?’
Absently, her aunt said, ‘No—who?’
‘Henry Wragg talkin’ with Mr. Schwartz and that Charlie Bontine.’
That brought her mother out of the kitchen.
‘Where … where?’
‘You can’t see them from here,’ the child told her. ‘But they’re there.’
‘Janey, arc you lying to me?’
‘No, ma’am. That’s the truth.’
Sarie gripped both hands together tight and wrung out of her tight mouth, ‘My Gawd, we can’t git him outa here now, Luce. There’s going to be another dead man in your bed.’
She met her sister’s anguished gaze with an angry stare.
‘Don’t talk that way.’
‘Don’t waste time. Go tell Sam Spur they’re there.’
‘What good can that do?’
‘That boy ain’t dead yet.’
Lucy Overell hurried into the bedroom and found the gunman spread out on the bed in a sound sleep. She thought at first that he had fainted, but his breathing was sound and steady. When she shook him he grumbled and opened his eyes.
‘There’re men in the timber,’ she told him.
‘Men in the timber,’ he mumbled, no understanding in his eyes.
She laid an urgent hand on his arm.
‘They’re the men who were hunting you yesterday.’
She watched awareness come quickly to him. Not alarm, she noted, and thought, He’s a cool one, and half-envied him.
But he wasn’t cool. He was fighting the desire to stay right where he was. He was all shot up and on the edge of that frame of mind that didn’t care anymore if they found him or not. The pain was in him solid and undeniable and when he got to his feet he knew it would flood through him like fire.
He sat up and knew he was right. His face went very white and his hands were shaking.
She watched him apprehensively.
‘What’re we going to do?’ she asked plaintively.
‘I don’t want you in this, ma’am,’ he said. ‘God knows you’ve done enough. I must get out of here.’
‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘You can’t walk like that.’
‘Now don’t fret yourself,’ he advised. ‘I’ve been shot before. Surprising what a man can do when he’s got to. Help me up.’
She helped him to his feet and saw the agony the movement was causing him.
‘It’ll kill you,’ she said and he laughed dryly and said, ‘It won’t be the only one.’
Sarie came into the room with Janey peeking around her hip and exclaimed, ‘My God, you look like hell.’
He felt like hell.
‘I’d like to take a look around,’ he said and, a woman on either side of him, he walked slowly and crouched over by one of the front windows. From here he had a view of the timber, a small glimpse of the edge of town straight ahead, the corral to the right with two ponies in it, the edge of the barn to the left and beyond that the head of the bluff.
‘Creek over that way?’ he asked and Sarie said, Yes, it was the creek. Janey added that that was where they had found him.
‘Honey,’ he said, ‘go git me the pistol. Ma’am, I’d be obliged for any ammunition you have around the place.’
He eased himself out of their hold and got himself nearly upright, running his eyes around the room. They came to a stop on Will’-s Henry hanging on two nails on the wall.
‘If’n I had a smoke-pole like that, it’d make a real difference, ma’am.’
Without hesitation, she went over to it and reached it down, laying it on the table and going to the bureau to find the shells for it. Spur looked out of the window and saw the faint movement on the brush at the edge of the timber.
If I could make it to that bluff ... he thought. To Sarie he said, ‘What kind of men are they out there? You see them?’
‘Henry
Wragg,’ she said, ‘a cocky little rooster that makes a habit of cutting big men down to size. Wright Schwartz—he owns the saloon on Main, the Golden Glory. A cool number, all right. Knows how to handle a gun. He has to in his business. The other one’s Charlie Bontine—he’s the local badman. Likely he’s after your scalp so he can tie it on his pony’s tail.’
He nodded and said, ‘I’ve met the kind.’
‘You’re in a tough spot,’ she told him, ‘or don’t I have to tell you that.’
‘Tough enough,’ he agreed gravely.
Mrs. Overell put some shells beside the Henry and said, ‘This is Will’s gun, my husband’s.’ He raised his eyebrows and said, ‘That’s real kind of you, ma’am. I’ll see you get it back—if I can.’
She nodded and asked, ‘What will you do?’
‘I don’t care to git your house all shot up. First stop’s the barn. I’ll work something out from there.’
‘But you can’t walk.’
‘I’ll walk. Now, ladies, and you, honey, none of you had any cause to help me this way—but you did and I’m more beholden you than a man can say. If I git through this maybe I’ll be able to show you in some way.’
He lurched to the table and hefted the Henry. It was almost too much for him and he had to rest the butt on the floor. He saw the widow had placed shells for the rifle and the pistol on the table in neat piles. He put the Remington rounds in his left pocket and the Henry’s in his right. Janey solemnly handed him the pistol and he tucked that in the waistband of his trousers over his belly, butt to the right. He patted it a little as if it pleased him a whole lot. Then he loaded the rifle, sitting on the edge of the table. Mrs. Overell watched him anxiously, Sarie grimly. Janey awed.
Then he stood up and walked very slowly to the door.
He stopped and from the calm aspect of his face they could not know of the terrible hesitation that was in him, the almost unbreakable reluctance to go through that door into the open, knowing there were men out there with guns. If it hadn’t been for the women and the child, wild horses wouldn’t have got him through it.
Mrs. Overell gave a breathless, ‘No,’ but he was moving slowly forward, resting against the wall for a tired moment, to lever a load into the Henry’s breech, then opening the door and stepping through. He heard Janey say, ‘Won’t those bad jaspers shoot him dead, Ma?’ then the feel of the earth was under his feet and he was going at an ungainly and weakly shambling pace towards the bam. If luck was with him the men wouldn’t be in position yet, but he doubted he had any luck left to him. He had a fatalistic feeling that the deck was stacked. The will to live was the only thing that kept him moving through the blanket of pain that stood between him and escape.
He heard a shout dimly, felt his heart pound with alarm at the sound and went on. Someone, he guessed, had sighted him and had been caught unprepared.
A shot came and slammed dully into the plankwork of the barn, wide of him, sent hastily. He tried to quicken his pace but couldn’t. When the second shot came, he gauged that its origin had been the rear corner of the house, stopped halfway to shelter and turned with the Henry at hip-level. His uncertain sight caught a blur of movement there and he drove an unsighted shot in that direction. The bullet made a glancing strike, saw chips fly from the corner.
He walked three paces, wanting nothing more than to lie down, but inspired to strength by the danger, jacking another round into the breech, turning and firing as the man poked his head around the corner for a second try.
This time the Henry’s shot missed its target and the corner of the house. But the head disappeared at high speed.
Spur levered and went on, swerving away from the doorway of the barn and taking a big chance by going around the townside of the building. His guess was that the men had scattered out and for a while he’d be safe behind the barn. That would bring him nearer the bluff with the river at his back. It was a bad military tactic maybe to get a river at your back, but he didn’t give a damn. If he had all the space in the world behind him, he couldn’t run far. He couldn’t run at all.
The man at the corner of the house sent another shot after him, but he was firing with a revolver and the range was too long. That gave him a little satisfaction, giving him a sense of strength in the possession of the Henry.
When he got along the townside of the barn, he revised the feeling because there was a man in the timber with a rifle. Luckily he was across the other side of the house and, though he got off a couple of close shots, when Spur rounded the second corner he was safe. For the moment.
He sat down and rested with his back against the barn, feeling faint and dizzy. The pain in his leg was almost intolerable. His back felt as though it had been freshly ripped open by a blunt knife. The bandage on the leg had slipped a little and he hitched at it through the leg of his pants.
Someone near the house was shouting, ‘He’s back of the barn. Charlie, get around the back of the barn. You hear me, Charlie?’
A faint shout came in reply.
That meant Charlie was a good way off. That would allow a minute or two. In his mind’s eye he pictured the various positions of the men—one by the house, one on the other side of the house in the timber. That one might be Charlie. Where was the third?
The question gave him a cold creeping sensation up his spine, knowing that the third man might be lining a gun up on him that very minute. Whether the man was there or not, there was no staying where he was. Somehow he had to get on his feet and get moving.
The thought dismayed him. He tried to get up, but the pain in his back was a barrier through which he could not thrust himself. When he heaved with his legs, the wounded leg failed him completely. He felt the sweat break out on him and swore.
Rolling over, he got to his knees and made it to his feet that way, gritting his teeth till he could hear the grating sound of them. Once on his feet, he felt he had gained a major triumph, but he was so weak he had to lean his head against the timber of the barn, weak enough to fall down.
It seemed impossible to go on and he waited as he fought against the sense of hopelessness.
He was shaken out of his mood of defeat, by a sudden eruption of noise inside the barn. A bucket went over and a horse started kicking a stall to pieces, whinnying shrilly. Facing the building, Spur glanced hastily to left and right, caught sight of a window to the right and leveled the Henry. No sooner had he done so than the glass of the window was struck from within and fell to the ground in fragments that caught the sun brilliantly.
The Henry jumped in his hands and something that gleamed from out of the darkness of the barn at the window seemed to be snatched violently out of sight. The bucket sounded again, a wildly screamed curse and the sound of a fall.
Spur found it in him to chuckle—which surprised him. That would be the little rooster Mrs. Overell’s sister had mentioned, standing on a bucket to see out of the window. He wondered if he’d been hit.
Feet pounded on the other side of the barn and the women in the house started to shriek out their warnings to him. The feet stopped and whoever it was shouted angrily at them. The man in the barn started bellowing in a deep furious voice. Spur started to limp backwards, watching the two dangerous corners of the barn, levering another shot up. Once he glanced back to see if he was still headed for the patch of brush that he had picked out as his first stopping place on the way to the bluff.
He’d make a stand there. Probably a last one, because this shooting could be heard in town and every glory hunting hero would want a part of killing Sam Spur.
He realized with a sense of alarm that there was only one corner of the barn which he could use as a target because the other was directly in line with a window of the house. If he knew anything, the women were at that window now. He groaned and turned to hurry forward, risking the second man getting off a shot. If this was the fellow from the other side of the house, he had a rifle. That meant the end if the fellow got a bead on him at this range. Unless he could sho
ot first and down him.
He got as far as the brush without the shot coming and he reckoned maybe the cards were altering a mite. By rights a third lead should have joined the work of the two that had hit him already. He fell into the brush headlong so taut were his nerves, tore his clothes and hurt his wounds. When he put a hand down to his leg to feel if the bandage had slipped again, his fingers felt something sticky on his pants and he knew he’d opened the wound and he was bleeding freely again. Taking off the bandanna Mrs. Overell had washed for him, he bound it tightly around the outside of his pants and felt better for it.
A squint through the thick brush showed him a man standing with his right side showing around the corner of the barn, rifle in hand, staring in his direction.
He was dressed like a cowhand—Levis pushed into high boots, mule-ear hanging wide. He wore a high-crowned black hat with a large stiff brim that hadn’t yet warped in sun and rain. Blue hickory shirt and leather vest without buttons. Two belt-guns tied down to the thighs. His face was extraordinary square-jawed and vacant.
Spur guessed it was Bontine, the local badman.
He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees, ready for a quick shot because he knew he wasn’t strong enough to hold the heavy rifle up for any length of time.
Bontine must have glimpsed the movement or caught a glint of the sun on the barrel. He made a quick effort to raise his rifle. When the Henry crashed out its challenge, he disappeared abruptly out of sight around the corner as if he’d been on wires and had been jerked away. Something then slapped against the timber and Spur saw that it was his hand and arm come around the corner as if he were embracing the building in his death throes.
The hand grasped frantically at the rough plankwork, found no purchase and Spur heard the sound of the nails scraping along the woodwork as the body fell and the dying man still made his attempt to stay on his feet.
Spur refilled the breech and laid the rifle down by his side, shaking from the effort that had been demanded of him.
‘The damn fool,’ he said out loud.
The Gun is my Brother Page 8
