The Overlanders

by Nelson Nye

  “Better git on,” the gunfighter said, “‘fore we lose ‘em.”

  They struck off through the dark, both horses heaving. They came up with the others. Grete said, “We’ll rest a bit.” He saw the hard set of the gunfighter’s shoulders. “We’re back far enough,” he nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Idaho struck a match in cupped palms. Patch’s grumpy scowl came out of the darkness, the Mexican’s steeple-crowned hat, the kid’s face. Idaho’s bitter eyes came around. Patch cursed. “Now you know.”

  Grete, sighing said, “He could have been hit,” but none of them believed it. He didn’t himself. Ben wasn’t the kind to be hit. He was a hitter.

  “God damn it,” Patch said, “we better give this thing up.”

  They sat there a moment. The kid tipped his head back. “Maybe that’s him now.”

  They all heard the hoofs of an approaching horse moving erratically toward them. Not cropping grass, Grete thought; there’s somebody on him.

  Confused, or trying to be cautious maybe. Could be one of Crotton’s Swallowfork bunch.

  Patch slipped a gun out. Barney, next to him, caught Patch’s wrist. “Hold it.”

  “Grete…?” a voice called tentatively. Idaho’s face jerked. Behind him Frijoles softly let out his breath.

  “Over here — around the rock,” Grete said.

  Dark as it was her eyes picked him out.

  “Never mind. No point in my staying. Ben’s sold you out.”

  Somewhere in the night’s sudden quiet a shod and careless hoof struck rock. Frijoles, looking around nervously, crossed himself. “He’s split them up,” Patch said. “They’re comin’ after us.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Grete told himself he should have known better than try to brace Swallowfork with this kind of crew — and it wasn’t as though he hadn’t been warned. He hated to be put in the position of promising something he wasn’t going to be able to deliver. He had promised her half of a ranch, and it hacked him.

  “They won’t know where we are…” That was Barney, worriedly whispering the hope of at least three of them.

  Grete was conscious of Sary’s eyes. “Maybe not,” he said gruffly, “but they’ll know where we’re headed.” It wouldn’t have been quite so mean if the girl had stayed with the horses; that would have forced Stroat to leave dependable men.

  He rubbed a damp hand across his thigh, bitterly knowing there was no way of going back, of undoing what was done. He had either to give up the whole deal right here or get these dogs to Swallowfork pronto. And without he wanted a bullet in his back it would have to be their own choice that took them.

  You could smell their fright — even the kid was panicked.

  In their desperate reflections Crotton’s headquarters was the mouth of the lion. How could he put them into it? How could he convince them their only chance for survival lay in doing the thing least likely to insure it?

  Somehow it was the girl — Sary’s continued regard — that shaped the empty gesture he hauled full-blown from the darker recesses of his need. He said, “If one of them stumbles into us now we’ll have no chance at all, that’s sure. I won’t hold you boys — duck out if you’ve a mind to. I won’t say you can get through but you can try. It’s not over a hundred miles to the border. Go ahead. Good luck to you.”

  He sat back against the high swell of his cantle as though he had all the time in the world.

  He could feel them fidgeting, could see the heavier black of them hanging there, free to go yet afraid to move. It was Patch who asked suspiciously, “And what’ll you be doing?”

  “What I set out to do,” Grete said — “riding over to Crotton’s ranch.”

  “With the girl?”

  “If that’s what she wants to do I won’t stop her.”

  He had a feeling that Sary saw through what he was up to, that it was one more count against him with her; but she said cool enough, “Of course I’m going with you,” and Idaho said, “You can count me in.”

  Barney Olds sighed. “Me, too.”

  “Hell,” Patch said then, “what are we waitin’ for?”

  But Frijoles, Ben’s man from the start, was still thinking. “Eef they have gone by us —”

  “You’re a free agent, Beans,” Grete cut in. “If it’s your notion you’d be better off by yourself then that’s how you ought to play it. I don’t want anyone along who’d rather be somewhere else.”

  The skies should have fallen after delivering himself of that one. He felt Idaho’s sharp look but squeezed the dun with his knees, swinging off toward the north at a circumspect walk, not daring to turn his head. Do it right, he told himself. Do it right or you’ll never get there.

  At least some of them were coming. He could hear the rasp of leather, a myriad of lesser sounds not exactly definable. In his mind he turned over the words of the Mexican, darkly wondering. If Crotton’s bunch had gone past this might get pretty rough. But, knowing Stroat as he did, he did not consider it too likely. The man was too dogged, too methodically thorough, to risk overrunning his great opportunity. At least a fourth of his crew would have been left with the captured horses if only to make certain Grete had no chance to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Stroat, as Grete’s segundo, had had plenty of experience with Grete’s flair for legerdemain. Hollis, to be sure, would have told Crotton’s ramrod of Grete’s order to abandon the mares, but Stroat wasn’t the kind to consider anything a fact without he had personally established it. He’d have the rest of Crotton’s hired toughs spread out, beating the rocks and brush above the rim.

  Knowing that any attempt here at haste would prove the surest means of attracting trouble, Grete was holding the pace to an exasperating walk, breaking it up now and again with short pauses — almost, Idaho crossly muttered, as though they were helping Stroat’s Swallowforkers search.

  This was the impression Grete was endeavoring to create, for only by such a frustrating device could he find any hope of digging themselves clear. Rip’s flight over the rim in plain hearing of Stroat’s crew, followed by Ben’s defection, had put Crotton’s riders on their trail far too soon for Grete to consider any straight-out dash. The last thing he wanted was to make a race of this trip; he would have to find enough when they got there to get up the field pieces. If he were denied such a margin, Stroat’s superior numbers could be made to tell heavily.

  Grete’s party had not gone a quarter of a mile when out of the gloom directly ahead of them somebody cursed. Grete, snapping his quick glance over his shoulder, discovered no one had quit him; but he saw also they had got too closely bunched. His yanked-back look found nothing in front of him to put a gun on. His horse had stopped — so had the rest of them. In this intensity of quiet the metallic sound of Idaho’s leveraction repeater lifting a .44–.40 into firing position was about as restful as a Comanche war cry.

  “You goddamn fools!” Stroat’s voice ripped at them. “I told you, Haines —”

  Everything appeared to happen at once then. Grete’s eyes found the man and he grabbed at his sixshooter. He bent low over the horn and gouged the dun with his spurs. Idaho’s Henry cracked spitefully — spoke again; but Stroat’s horse was already in motion, flame spitting above the line of its plunge. Someone yelled behind Grete and Stroat disappeared between rocks as Grete triggered futilely and Idaho riddled the night with his rifle. “Come on — come on!” Grete shouted through the uproar, and drove the dun at full speed dead ahead.

  Yells and cursing came through the rush of hoofs behind him and he held the big horse to its panicked run for another couple minutes before easing him into a more conservative gallop. The black shapes of the others were coming hard at his heels; then the girl thrust alongside. “We’ve got to stop — Barney’s hurt!”

  “He’ll have to wait,” Grete answered.

  “Then you’ll have to slow down or he isn’t going to make it.”

  Grete, throwing a hand out to warn the rest of them, pulled up.

  Patch was hold
ing the kid in his saddle. “Where’d it catch you?”

  Olds said, groaning, “In the chest — I’m all blood. You — you fellers go on.”

  Grete crowded the dun against the kid’s horse and felt of him. He didn’t need any light. He pulled off Olds’ neckerchief and, folding it for padding, thrust it inside his shirt. Then he got the kid’s belt and strapped the pad in place. “Tie him into his saddle,” he told Frijoles; and Idaho’s rifle began laying flat smashes of sound through the night. Sary cried at Grete: “What good will it do to go to Crotton’s headquarters?”

  “We can’t make a stand here!”

  “Seguro,” growled the Mexican. And Patch said, “We got him anchored.”

  Grete led them off through a jumble of boulders, the girl hanging onto the reins of Barney’s horse. There was a renewed burst of firing from Crotton’s outfit. Lead smashed and flattened against the rocks, some of it squealing in wild ricochet. “Sharp pitch here,” Grete warned and dropped from sight, the others following.

  Ten minutes later they were climbing again. Grete, dropping back, leaned out to stare at the kid.

  “None of it,” Sary said, “is worth that boy’s life!” Grete felt the searching look she threw at him. “Why are we going to Swallowfork?”

  “We’re going to Swallowfork because that is where we have to go to put a stop to this.”

  “And how do you propose to manage that?”

  “Mostly what we do is going to depend on how things shape there. If Crotton’s in town we’ll fire the big house. That’ll reach a long ways in a night black as this one, and it will give us some light. We’ll take over the outbuildings. When Stroat’s bunch comes in we’ll drop what we can of them. What Stroat brings will be hired guns — the Swallowfork hardcases. Hurt those rannies bad enough and what’s left will go straight over the hill.”

  “That’s a pretty brutal outlook.”

  “What do you suppose Crotton sent Stroat to do? Hand down the Ten Commandments?”

  Her face tipped around. “What other people do —”

  “Don’t give me that! We’re not dealing with Bible tracts. When you set to fight wolves you’ve got to bite like a wolf bites.”

  “And what if they get there before we do?”

  “Crotton will give out a story and that will be the end of it. He’ll say it was tough about that woman but…”

  Idaho pushed up. “I thought you said —”

  “That was back there. Where I told her to stay!”

  He lifted the dun into a lope again. They crested a ridge and there were ranch lights ahead of them — Crotton’s headquarters, still a couple of miles off. Now the going was easier, gently rolling. They were out of the rocks and there was no brush here. Grete thought of the kid with a long regret, understanding this ride would be doing him no good and bitterly aware that there was no help for it. More than Grete’s inclination was involved; to have stopped would have been giving death warrants for all of them, and despite the harsh words he’d just flung at the gunfighter Grete did expect to reach the ranch first.

  Crotton’s crew, if Crotton was with them, may have by-passed this outfit and be waiting right now, but Grete did not believe this. He was gambling Stroat had charge of that bunch and he was gambling on what he knew of Stroat’s character.

  “When we ride in, spread out,” he said over his shoulder. “We’re not like to have any great amount of time. Every move’s got to count. Watch the yard. Those lights don’t signify — they’re always turned up; Leppy, Crotton’s cook, takes care of them. I’ll fire the house. Rest of you scatter. Take cover in the outbuildings.”

  Idaho said, brushing alongside once more, “Could be trouble in that house. I’ll go with you.”

  Grete slammed a look at him. “Why don’t you say it?”

  “Well, by God, I will! I never been sold out but there’s always a first time. Way you’ve set this up it’s got all the earmarks —”

  “If it’s a trap,” Grete snarled, “it will close on me, too.”

  “That’s what I aim to make sure of. You pick the house for yourself and send the rest of us into them outbuildin’s. For all we know you’ve never quit Crotton — that bunch played around back there one hell of a while!”

  Grete was too hacked to say anything to that. He clipped his horse with the steel again, sent him down the last stretch at a headlong gallop, pulling away from the others, so furious mad he would have tackled right then Crotton’s whole crew single-handed.

  But he got hold of his temper before he’d gone very far, this innate sense of the fitness of things reluctantly convincing him that, in Idaho’s place, he might have felt the same way. It came to him then if he wasn’t damned careful he might very well be bracing Swallowfork single-handed —

  “solo” as they said in this country.

  Key to the man was in the gunfighter’s stake and, viewed in that light, he threw a pretty long shadow. He had no stake in what they were doing here. Idaho’s interest was centered in the girl and he was stringing along purely to make sure she didn’t wind up grabbing the burnt end of things.

  This didn’t leave Grete much ground to stand on. It reduced his outrage to frying size, left him feeling about as tall as a toothpick. He wondered if this was how Sary saw him.

  With mouth sucked in he checked the dun’s lick to let the others come up. Hating this like poison, yet impelled to do it, he declared, facing Idaho squarely: “This don’t change anything that’s between us but I reckon you had some right to say that.”

  Grete couldn’t own up that events in these last few hours had managed to turn the whole deal sour on him, that except for the girl he would dropped the damned business, that he was here now mainly to make good if he could on that brag of a ranch which had pulled Sary into it. Stamper’s words, though he didn’t suspect this, had got deeper under his hide than was apparent.

  Idaho just stared at him, not saying anything. Grete had not aimed to go so far but now, grinding his pride into doll rags, said, “I’d be considerably favored if you would go with me.”

  The gunfighter’s suspicion looked to grow progressively stronger. Grete was beginning to get a bit panicky under Idaho’s hard and continuing attention when Sary said impatiently, “This boy’s in a bad way. We’ve got to get him out of that saddle.”

  They’d drawn up at the edge of the yard and Grete, checking appearances against remembered knowledge of this place, jerked the girl a stiff nod. “Take care of him, ma’am — Frijoles can help. That boy has sure won his spurs on this trip. You just ride straight into that barn with him.” They were in the deep dark of a bunch of old cottonwoods. “You hole up in the forge shed, Patch — that’s it over there,” he pointed; and brought his glance back to Idaho. “Ready?”

  “This place is too quiet.” The man’s tone didn’t like it.

  “Cook’s probably lit out. Crew is with Stroat, what he hasn’t split off to look out for those mares.” He threw another look around. “Likely Crotton’s in town.” A horse nickered tentatively from an open-face corral. “Listen —” Patch said, putting a hand out.

  The rumor of travel was strong-lifting pulse. “That’s them!” someone cried in a voice turned jumpy with nervous excitement. They all twisted around to stare hard into darkness. “Man, they’re comin’!” cook said.

  Grete tipped his head at the gunfighter. “Let’s go.”

  They put their horses across the yard, flashing through bars of light from the house’s open windows, the told-off trio striking diagonally toward the barn, Grete and Idaho making for the pillared gallery. Grete saw one dark room facing onto the yard which, thinking back, he was certain had just a moment ago been lighted. Quick fear splintered through the shell of his mind and a warning shout rushed out of his mouth. But the damage was done, his cry too late. The gunfighter’s stare was like a curse as he reeled, missing his grab, and fell out of the saddle.

  The gun barked again, cuffing the night with its sound, its muzzle flash
striking like a lance from the blackness even as Grete, still gripping his rifle, flung himself off the dun. He struck limp and wildly rolled, saddle gun hugged against his chest, the crazy tightness in his head throwing him onto his feet in a crouching run, driving him across the pounding planks straight at the window.

  He squeezed off his single shot with the snout of his rifle almost touching the sash, the black-powder flare briefly showing him Crotton’s face. He bitterly knew that he had missed and cast the useless weapon aside. There was now only solid blackness in that room, for the door had been closed to keep out the light, but Grete knew that somewhere in this dark Crotton waited.

  There was sweat in his palms, his heart was thumping when he wiped them across the canvas of his pants. He caught the pistol up out of its leather and, writhingly remembering Idaho’s last look, cleared the sill in one dive that took him deep into blackness, piling him up in bleak shock against unyielding wood that shouldn’t have been there. A gun battered the room with the wild fists of its racket, the rip and slap of those slugs nearly turning Grete crazy. He couldn’t find his pistol but the search of his hands told him what he’d run into was Crotton’s desk moved out of its corner. He dragged himself around it by pure animal instinct and, back of it, pulled himself onto his feet, feeling the stickiness of blood as he stood braced there hunting for Crotton with eyes that burned and watered trying to see through that acrid stench.

  Either Crotton had shot his gun empty or was holding his fire till he had something to shoot at. If the man had reloaded Grete hadn’t heard him, but he now heard the pounding of guns outside and knew that time wouldn’t wait for him. Time was Crotton’s friend; and any man slick enough to have planted this desk in the path from that window would have been smart enough to have a couple of extra guns. He wouldn’t have to reload, and any moment now some of that bunch who had come back here with Stroat were like to bulge into this room hunting cover. Grete’s dug-in guns, by the sound, were still holding, but without benefit of crossfire it could be only a matter of minutes before Stroat’s superior numbers engulfed and silenced them. Stroat’s voice came over the yard to him now, cold, dispassionate, dry as stove wood.