He stood up, steadied himself and started down the narrow path, feeling as naked as the day he was born against the bareness of the rock-face at his right side.
Smelling stood up and showed that he had come within twenty yards of the cliff-face. He was sweating.
‘Get a bead on him, Henry,’ he shouted and didn’t take his eyes from Spur.
Spur looked towards the willows and could see nothing but the gleam of a sorrel horse hidden there.
‘I can’t walk down here,’ he said raising his voice. ‘I have to crawl.’
Smelling laughed.
‘I allus wanted to see you crawl, you bastard.’
Spur bellied down and went on with the cautious descent. He could feel the stone through the torn knee of his right pants’ leg.
Smelling yelled, ‘Hurry it up,’ and put a shot about a foot above him. Spur did as he was bid. When he was halfway, he paused as if tired—which was the truth.
‘Faster—come on, git movin’.’
‘I can’t.’
Another shot and Spur went on sucking air into his lungs, watching the man below, waiting for the moment, wishing the man near the creek would get himself out of cover.
As if in answer to a prayer, Smelling commanded, ‘The hosses, Henry.’ He chuckled delightedly. ‘We’re gonna pack you into town, Spur. You owe the folks a hangin’.’
Surprisingly, Spur grinned down at him and said, ‘That’s a fact. And they’ll get it.’
Henry Wragg came out of the trees, leading the three horses, tramping on stiff legs, picking his way carefully.
‘Come ahead.’ Smelling ordered again and Spur made a show of crawling on with great difficulty, making it slow because he wanted Henry well within pistol shot. He watched for a good spot to make his play, revising his plan of action as he came lower and noted the position of the rocks.
About ten feet from the floor of the Rock, he stopped and stared off up creek towards the town and shouted with a wild jubilation, ‘You ain’ gonna hang me, Smelling—there’s Carlson now.’
The chances against it working were heavy. But Smelling was confident. His head was half turned before doubt touched him and he swung the gun back for Spur. By that time the man on the goat-track had heaved the gun from his hip-pocket and fired.
The big man was so startled that he fell over his own feet. Before he hit ground, Spur gave him a second shot which being more steadily aimed than the first, took him in the shoulder, jerked him around and over, dumping him on his face.
Before the ring of the two shots had died, Henry Wragg was trying to get into action. One hand holding the horses, he tried to lift his Spencer with the other, fired one shot, found the attempt to aim hopeless and threw the carbine down. By the time he had drawn his Colt, Spur had let go his third shot.
The big roan tore its head free, reared high and fell over on its back. The little black followed his example and went away towards the creek, kicking up its heels. Henry retained his hold on his own horse, heaved its head down savagely and tried to fire his pistol. The animal fought to free itself, rolling its eyes and snorting and the little man’s shot went wide again.
Spur gave him another shot, but the distance was too great for accurate and hurried shooting. Wragg knew it and piled hastily into the saddle.
Smelling reared up, leaving his rifle lying and showing a pistol in his hand, letting go two shots rapidly so that Spur was forced to roll of his ledge and take cover in the rocks below. The fall winded him and shook his weakened body up badly, but he drove to his knees and looked around for a human target.
The big man was staggering away, half-hidden by the rock, yelling at the top of his voice, ‘Wait for me.’
He got near the dead horse and holstering his pistol, began tearing at his bedroll. Wragg whirled his horse and yelled, ‘Come on.’ When Smelling continued his frantic effort to get the money-belt, Wragg turned his horse again and sent it jumping for the rocks. Spur sent lead after him and missed. He got out of the rocks and made a run for Smelling’s carbine which lay where the big man had dropped it. Holstering the Remington in his belt, he levered the little carbine and tried a shot at Wragg as his head bobbed away into cover. All he managed to do was lift the little man’s hat and make him put his head down around his horse’s neck.
Smelling found what he wanted, straightened up and fired once before he fled towards the creek. Spur shouted for him to stop, levered and sent a shot after him. It was only then that he realized that the light was going.
In a moment Smelling was through the willows and Spur heard the sound of him floundering in the shallows.
Fie sat down on a rock and found that he was shaking. Not ready for fighting yet apparently. But he felt better for the sudden violent action. He decided not to go after the rancher—there were other days ahead and only a fool would search for a man with a gun in the dusk down by the creek. He put a shot through the willows to keep Smelling on the move and listened to his increased hurry. Then he got up and went down to catch up the black that was now waiting for him with ears pricked forward expectantly.
Later, he mounted and rode directly south, away from the town, knowing for certain what he would do, strangely satisfied that he had something definite to do with his life, feeling good because he once more had a good horse between his legs and could feel the strength flowing back into him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dusk.
Two riders came slowly up out of the blue mist of the creek and walked their horses into town.
The same moment, Henry Wragg was drinking in the Golden Glory and having a sharp general think. It was more than a month since he and Smelling had been chased away from Indian Rock by Sam Spur and they hadn’t heard tell of him since. So far as they knew no one had seen hide or hair of him.
Which could be a good thing. Only could be. Henry felt an uneasiness of which he was half-ashamed.
There were one or two things about his affairs that made him uneasy. One was that cash was running short. Two, that Smelling, now his partner in a manner of speaking, was showing a marked independence. The man had talked big always, but he’d trod carefully with Henry. Now he didn’t tread so carefully.
Wragg didn’t like that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it—not while Smelling had a half-dozen tough riders to side him.
And that brought Henry to his third little worry. The cash that Smelling was displaying. Not a week back, the ostensible-rancher had bought cattle. Bought cattle. If his mood had been a mite different, he could’ve got himself a good laugh out of that. There wasn’t a laugh in him.
A man like him didn’t think life was very funny when his cash was running low and his self-respect was going down with it. So something had to be done. And quick. Alone, because Smelling had this money now and he wouldn’t help in a job.
For Henry Wragg there was only one method of gaining money. With a gun. No cards for him—he was lousy with the pasteboards. His taste always went with the threat of violence. That brought him into the world of tough men and he liked to believe himself as one with such men.
‘Another,’ he told the barkeep, raising a finger. The man came quickly, which was pleasing.
When a cowhand jostled the little man and received a curt, ‘Watch them elbows, son,’ the boy apologized with a polite, ‘I’m real sorry, Mr. Wragg.’ That pleased him a little too.
He downed the whisky and went out of the saloon on to the street. An ore wagon from the hills lumbered slowly by behind its ten sweating, straining mules unable to hasten their pace even under the blistering curses of the muleskinner.
Gold.
Wragg considered that and the thought fed his anger against the world.
Two horsemen came into town slowly from the direction of the ford. There was something familiar about one of them, but Wragg’s mind was occupied and he dismissed the part-recognition from it. His eye wandered over the men passing him in either direction—cowhands, townsfolk, a miner or two. The mi
ners he watched carefully, noting the drunkenness of them. A lone drunk miner with a full poke was his mark. He’d done it before and there was nothing more profitable. All you had to do was to choose the right man going to the right spot and then do the job quickly and get away.
The meanness of the crime did not hurt his pride. No one would witness it.
He sighted a small man with a bearded, pockmarked face, stumbling a little, holding something inside his shirt.
He’d do.
Henry stepped off after him when he had gone by twenty paces and followed him with a wonderful air of casualness. He knew the man by sight, knew he’d turn down the alley between this block and the next. He’d leave his unconscious body among the trash of the backlots. A warm feeling of satisfaction chased away the anger and resentment.
The man turned down the alleyway as he hoped, but he didn’t follow. Hastening his steps, he passed the bank, cut down the far side of it and, when he was away from the dim lighting of Main, broke into a sharp run, turned right, stumbled through trash and came to the bottom end of the alley down which the miner had gone.
Once in the darkness of the narrow way, he stopped and listened. All he could hear was the sound of his own labored breathing and he feared he’d lost his quarry. Then he heard the sound of a man singing softly to himself, and he knew it was the poor fool crooning to himself in his native Cornish. Suddenly Henry felt virile and dangerous. He raised himself on his toes and said, ‘Ha!’ gently to himself, stepped out soft as a panther, feeling with his hand along the plank wall.
The man must have heard him when he got within a few yards of him. The singing stopped and the Cornishman drew his breath in sharply.
There came the faint sound of a man taking a step backward. When he spoke his thick dialect was made thicker by drink.
‘‘Oo be ’ee?’
Henry stayed still, debating whether to advance cautiously and make a sudden charge or to talk and rid the man of his fears.
He decided on inaction. There was neither moonlight nor lamplight in the alley. Neither man could see the other. He laid his hand on the butt of his gun.
‘Doan’ ‘ee come near Ol,’ the miner whispered hoarsely.
Henry took a tentative step and something bright seemed to strike him in the eye and he realized with a start of alarm that he had walked into a small beam of light from a nearby building. That decided it. With an inarticulately savage sound in his throat, he pounced on the Cornishman, tearing the gun from its holster and making a slashing downward blow with it The man was turning to run. The heavy pistol barrel struck his shoulder and turned him into the wall as he yelled his pain and fright.
Wragg charged into the squat, powerful body, smashed the gun into the faint gleam of the face-flesh, then laid it in a short, snapping motion along the cheekbone and ear to avoid the protection of the hat.
The man screamed thickly and struck out.
Henry heard the wind go out of his own thin body, doubled up with the pain of the heavy fist in his stomach and went down under the impact of a second fist into his throat, gagging and choking.
As soon as he hit dirt he was berserk with fury. The man didn’t follow up his success, but turned to run back towards Main. He made one pace before Henry tripped him adroitly, rolled over and brought the Colt down on the now hatless head. The Cornishman drove his face into the dust, making a prolonged moaning noise. That was stopped abruptly as the little man dragged himself to his knees and rained blow after blow on his skull. Somewhere about the sixth the skull gave way, but that didn’t stop Henry. He went on till he was tired and recollected the reason for his waylaying this man in the darkness of the alley.
Hurriedly he began searching the man’s clothes.
The bulge in the front of the shirt proved to be a package of sandwiches which the gunman hurled away from him angrily. Pockets contained only personal effects. The hat was as unsatisfactory. The boots contained nothing but a pair of dead feet.
Henry searched his own mind then, trying to imagine where he would have hidden gold if he’d had it.
He could think of nothing.
Sitting back on his heels, the truth came to him. He had killed a man for nothing.
The fury returned and he lifted the gun for another blow. But it wasn’t delivered. The sound of voices and boots had entered the alleyway and he turned and fled, running into the backlots and turning up by the bank. He straightened his clothes, set his hat jauntily when he had holstered the Colt and stepped to the mouth of this second alley to spy out the land. Men and riders passed, a wagon, a buggy. He took a pace out into street and stopped.
All the anger in him died as he stared across to the sheriff’s office at the two men tying their horses and walking into the building.
The taller of the two men. He knew why he’d thought he’d recognized the rider a few minutes back.
His heart leaped painfully in his meager chest. In that first instant he wanted to run and hide. In the second he felt ashamed of the impulse and the anger flared again. This was the chance he wanted to put him right with himself.
He had to find the boys, he had to find Smelling.
Sheriff Carlson didn’t feel so bad at all. His wife was back in a pretty even frame of mind and the town was quiet. The dilemma he had been in a month back had evaporated with the disappearance of the man Spur.
The sheriff even eyed that big-eared moron Ely with a kind of fatherly tolerance tonight.
He did till the door from the street opened and a man stepped inside. The sheriff saw Ely start and guessed he must have shown his feelings about the same. Ely brought his chair back on all four legs with a bang, the sheriff brought his feet off his desk with a louder one.
‘Jesus!’ he said, and with that unseemly blasphemy, Sam Spur was re-announced into town.
The tall man stood motionless inside the door just as he had on that first night four weeks back.
He nodded and said, ‘Sheriff,’ in greeting.
Carlson shifted his eyes to the second man and thought, Come back in here with a partner. Two of ’em like Spur should just about blow this burg apart.
A butterfly got into his stomach and started to flutter around.
The second man toted a close-clipped mustache of a kind not in fashion. His clothes were good and he looked like a prosperous man dressed for the trail. The gun wasn’t showing, but the gunbelt was.
Spur himself looked changed. Neat string tie, dark jacket, new fawn cord pants tucked into high boots with the mule-ears hanging on the outside. His face was calm. You’d never have thought the man had been badly wounded so short a time before.
The sheriff got a hold of himself and stood up.
Ely did the same and said, ‘I gotta see a man, sheriff.’
Spur pointed to the door leading to Ely’s sleeping quarters, ‘Is there a door out back?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All right.’ He jerked his head towards the door leading to the cells. ‘Get in there.’
The deputy didn’t take his eyes off the gunman till he was through the door.
There was a short silence that the sheriff felt like a strong pressure on his chest. He tried taking deep breaths but it didn’t do any good. Where, he asked, was that new-found strong character he’d had a month back?
He got himself steady and demanded, ‘Why’d you come back here, Spur?’
His tone sounded antagonistic and he hadn’t wanted that.
‘Why shouldn’t I come back?’
The sheriff found himself watching the mustached man’s right hand. That fellow was the unknown quantity here. He knew already that Spur could cut him down even if the sheriff had a cocked gun on him.
‘You killed men in this town.’
Spur stepped right into the room and sat down, the stranger closed the door and parked himself alongside it, leaning back, grave-faced, against the wall.
The sheriff found he was sweating.
Spur said, ‘Defending myself.’
Sitting down before his legs gave under him, Carlson said, ‘Look, Spur, maybe you’ve got some right on your side. I don’t deny it. I even told some of the boys so. Yessir, I told ’em that very thing … personally.’
‘That was kind,’ Spur said dryly. ‘But I still got a bullet in my back and another in my leg.’
‘Now see here ...’ leaning eagerly over his desk, right hand gesticulating. ‘I got this town quiet. No trouble. But the folks haven’t forgotten a month back. You come in here with another … er … fighting man ... it won’t do you no good …’
He raised his eyes to the man by the door and found the clipped mustache was bent upwards in a faint smile. The sight chilled him to the bone.
Alone here with two cold-blooded killers!
He thought of his wife … damn near a widow.
Spur was saying, ‘This here is Lyam Foggart.’
The sheriff blinked, stared at Spur, turning the name over feverishly in his mind, not able to make any sense out of it, knowing it should mean something to him.
‘Three weeks back, Mr. Foggart was appointed Deputy United States Marshal for this part of the Territory,’ Spur told him.
Something that was hurting him gave way in the sheriff’s chest and he started to breath freely again. His sigh was plain to hear in the still room, even above the sounds on the street outside.
‘You got proof of that?’ he wanted to know, wondering at the new firmness in his voice.
The man by the door said in a rich voice, ‘Wire Chisholm City, sheriff. Meanwhile ...’ He stepped across the room, flipped a wallet from his inside pocket, laid it on the desk.
Carlson looked and knew the man spoke the truth. He stood and offered his hand, feeling in his bones that real trouble was here at last, not just trouble with sneak-thieves and road-agents. Official trouble. A man like Spur didn’t bring Federal law here if he wasn’t sure of what he was doing.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr. Foggart. Sure we can work together. Always ready to co-operate with United States officials. Yessir, just say the word ...’ His mind worked furiously behind his forcibly beaming face. ‘What can I do for you right now?’
The Gun is my Brother Page 14
