Then he heard the sound of a horse.
He stiffened. Listened.
The animal sounded as if it were coming directly toward him from the north.
A moment passed and he heard a second horse, further to the west. He wondered who it could be and if it were reinforcements for the first man.
Booted feet rattled a few stones loose and he knew that the new arrivals were coming in on foot. A full two minutes passed. A man’s voice was raised in a shout—
“Mig! Mig, where you at?”
He knew the voice and couldn’t place it.
The first man bellowed back—“I got Spur. He’s pinned down in the rocks yonder.”
“Give him a shot an’ show me where.”
The first man fired. The bullet spanged on the rock behind which Spur was hiding.
The second man yelled: “All right. Hold him there. I’m goin’ above him.”
Spur wondered where the third man was. He also wondered if Ben had heard the shots and was going to do something about them. He didn’t like the sound of the man working his way above him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The first man had him pinned all right.
He heard the second man get started. He hoped fervently that he would get sight of him so that he could stop him. If he hit one of them, it might discourage the others.
Then he realized whose voice that had been he had heard.
It was Tom Ball.
The outlaw hadn’t given up the idea that the red stud belonged to him.
Funny, thought Spur, maybe I’m going to die for a horse.
He saw the crown of a hat moving slightly above him. Slamming the butt of the Spencer in his shoulder, he fired. At once he came under fire from the north and the south. He crouched back into cover and let them both get tired of shooting at rock.
He reckoned he had never needed Ben more.
Then the thought hit him that the posse might be close enough to hear the shooting. It would be a real laugh if he were rescued by Carmody, rescued so that he could be hung.
He settled down to wait till the man above tried for him. It was suicidal maybe, but there wasn’t much else he could do. If the fellow took a shot at him he would have to show himself. He heard the man to the south working in closer. He got a glimpse of him and let him have a shot to keep him at a distance. The other man to the north started firing again. Spur hugged cover. He crouched down and kept switching his gaze from the rocks below to the rocks above, expecting a rifle muzzle to start spitting death at him at any moment.
Hoof beats sounded off to the south. A horse was running fast. That must be Ben come to see what the shooting was about. Spur hoped that Ben wouldn’t come rushing in bull-headed.
The hoof beats stopped.
Silence hung over the scene.
Spur waited. He wanted Ben in position before he made the man to the south fire and give his position away. He wondered whether the fellow was watching for him or for Ben. Most likely for Ben. Which might give Spur a chance.
He peeked out of cover. No shot came.
So far so good. He glanced upward and could see nothing. He fired a couple of shots at the position of the man to the south. They almost flushed him out. Maybe the man received one of the ricochets, but suddenly he was in view. There was no more than a glimpse of him. Spur snapped off a shot. The man disappeared quickly. Spur didn’t know whether he had made a hit or not.
Suddenly there was the flat echoing slam of a rifle from above. Rock chips were smashed into Spur’s face. He winced back from them. He scrambled a yard or two to the left and the rifle still sought him out.
A gun started firing to the south and he thought that was Ben. He hoped so.
He peered up, saw the crown of a hat and fired. Or meant to fire. But his rifle was empty. Cursing, he ejected the loading tube and shoved home another. The man up there started shooting again. There seemed to be lead flying everywhere. Spur’s flesh cringed. Now the man to the north opened up and he didn’t know how he lived through it.
Rifle loaded, he levered a round into the breech. He had to hit somebody and damned quick. Loose stones sounded. The man to the north was running in.
He reared up and brought the butt of the Spencer into his shoulder. He fired instinctively and in that hurried moment, he wasn’t fooled by the man’s pants and shirt. He knew he’d fired at a woman. Something in him recoiled in horror and, as the figure flung itself down behind a rock, a voice in his head said: You’ve killed a woman.
Just then the man above fired and put a bullet in his left shoulder.
He couldn’t believe it had happened. It knocked him forward against a boulder and he lay there for a moment half-stunned and not believing it.
The whole shoulder felt numbed.
He dragged himself into deeper cover.
The man above was shouting: “I hit him, I hit him.”
It must have been Ben to the south who fired then because the shouting stopped abruptly as the man scrambled back into cover. The other man to the south started firing and it sounded as if he and Ben were having a steady duel down there.
Spur decided that for a man shot in the shoulder he didn’t feel too bad. He’d heard of men before who had been shot and had failed to feel any pain for several hours. He hoped desperately that he could stay mobile while this fight lasted.
Chapter Eleven
The posse was in the hills moving south. Keit Maynard the young hunter they were using as a tracker knew his job. He had unraveled the trail of the fugitives without too much trouble. Their taking to water down in the valley had held the posse for several hours, but finally Keit had made an inspired guess and headed into the hills to the east and come on the trail of the outlaws. This put new life into the saddle-weary men. They rode with a new heart. Now they moved south at as smart a pace as the terrain would allow.
Michael Carmody, at their head, was feeling pretty good. He had a feeling that his luck had turned. Only one thing disappointed him and that was it was evident that the Kid was not up ahead with the other two. Maynard declared that the two men were Spur and the Negro. The tracks they had left when dismounted were not small enough for the Kid. But the sheriff would have been satisfied to have taken such men as Spur and Ben. His cup would have been full then. His name would live on forever in the legends of the West.
Maynard came racing back from the advanced position he had taken up. He was excited. He brought his pony to a racing stop and shouted: “There’s shooting up ahead, sheriff. There’s a real ding-dong battle going on.”
That could mean anything, of course. But Carmody had Spur and Ben on his mind and he couldn’t see that it could be anything but them. He shouted for the posse to follow him and put spurs to his horse. They raced for several miles, risking their necks on the narrow and often dangerous trails. Men cursed him, but they kept up. Finally, Maynard held up a hand and brought his horse to a halt.
They straggled to a stop behind him and the sheriff called impatiently for silence.
When he had it, he heard the distant popping of guns. Maynard was right— there was a regular battle going on up there.
Carmody started to position his force. He detailed several men to cut off into the higher country. Always come at a dangerous enemy from above if you could.
He himself led the rest forward at a more cautious pace.
It was not long before he could hear the shooting plainly above the sound of the horses.
He called a halt again and chose two men to come with him. The rest were to surround the area from the west. They would come in as close as they could and they would take their word from him. With his two riders, he worked his way to the east of the shooting, going high. Up there he found the men he had sent forward and detailed them to scatter out. He dismounted with the other two and went forward on foot. He took his glasses with him. It was not long before he came in sight of the battle.
There was one man immediately below him. He had heard the approaching horse
s and was scrambling down through the rocks. A man further down from him almost at the foot of the hill was shooting at him. Carmody put his glasses on this man and saw, to his great satisfaction, that this was Spur.
By God, he thought, I’ve done it. I’ve caught Spur.
He swung the glasses on the man trying to make his escape. At first the man’s head was turned away from him, but immediately the man moved again, he saw the face in profile. He could not suppress a gasp of astonishment and disbelief. It was Tom Ball.
No, he thought, it wasn’t possible— Sam Spur and Tom Ball in one bag.
He put away his glasses, picked up his rifle and fired two shots in the air.
The firing down below stopped.
He stood up and exposed himself to the men below.
“This is Sheriff Carmody. I have you completely surrounded. Throw down your guns and you won’t get hurt.”
The silence lengthened.
His men to the west fired a couple of shots. He shouted for men to move in the north and his men started to work their way through the rocks.
Ball shouted: “You won’t take me alive,” and started to run.
“Cut that man down,” Carmody roared.
There were several shots. None of them hit Ball, but they made up his mind for him. Members of the posse started to appear from everywhere it seemed. Ball hurled his rifle down with a curse. Another figure appeared from the rocks. Carmody put his glass on it and exclaimed again. Annie Coleman. He couldn’t believe his luck. He started down. The men with him followed suit. They were wary and a little scared of the men they had captured. They would have fired if a man had coughed.
Carmody shouted for Spur to throw out his guns. Spur obeyed. Carmody sneered to himself. These tough badmen weren’t much when you came down to it.
Another figure appeared from the rocks. Carmody thought it might be Cuzie Ben, but he saw that it was a tall dark man. Just as the sheriff was inspecting this fellow, there was a scurry of movement to the south.
Carmody yelled.
Men started firing.
There came the clatter of horses’ hoofs and a mounted figure burst momentarily from cover. The sheriff knew this was Cuzie Ben and cursed. He wanted to send men after him, but he reckoned he didn’t have any to spare. The three men and a woman he had captured filled his hands.
He got down onto the flat and immediately sought out Spur. He found him lying among the rocks pale-faced.
“On your feet,” he said roughly. He couldn’t get over Spur not putting up a better fight. He was almost disappointed. Very slowly the outlaw heaved himself to his feet.
Carmody said: “Turn around.”
Spur turned and the sheriff saw that he had been hit in the shoulder. The whole of one side of the shirt was covered in blood. That explained a lot. Carmody took the Colt’s gun from the holster and shoved it under his own belt. Spur stayed still as if the life had gone out of him. Carmody gave the order for the prisoners to be bunched. Sullen and defiant, Ball was pushed forward. The tall dark man came up and Carmody demanded: “Who the hell’re you?”
The man said: “Go to hell,” and Carmody backhanded him across the face.
The woman looked a dreadful sight. Her hat had fallen off and her startlingly red hair was over her face. She spat at her captors and cursed them in language that would have done credit to a man. Spur looked at her with some interest for he thought that he had shot her. However, though there was some blood showing on her left arm, she seemed not to be seriously hurt. This came as something of a relief to him. Carmody ordered the prisoners bound. Pegging strings appeared in men’s hands.
The man who came to bind Spur saw the blood and said: “This man’s hurt bad, sheriff.”
Carmody waved a hand.
“So the great gunman got himself hurt. I should cry about it,” he said. “Tie him up.
“He’s bleedin’ like a stuck hog. He’s like to bleed to death.”
“Save the taxpayer a heap of money.”
The man bound Spur’s hands behind his back. The other three prisoners were treated in a like fashion. The man Mig Rawlins made a fight of it at the last moment, but it didn’t get him anywhere. Somebody hit him over the head with the barrel of a gun and then they bound his hands behind him with him unconscious on the ground. Carmody shouted for the horses to be brought up. A couple of men hurried off to obey him. Spur sat down. He was growing weak and he found he couldn’t stand any longer. His vision was getting a little uncertain. He heard Carmody talking with two men who looked like ranchers, but he couldn’t make out much of what he was saying.
Carmody was using his best manner because he wanted help. He had four well-known hard cases on his hands. They all had friends in these hills and he wanted to get them safely out without them being taken from him. He talked persuasively and he talked a lot. The ranchers weren’t willing to spare many men for long. There were more than a dozen men here now, they had done their bit by helping him capture the badmen. Carmody said he’d swear them in as special deputies. Arkhold County would pay them and there was the reward money to consider. Beside that they’d have a story which they could tell to their grandchildren. One of the ranchers said telling stories to their grandchildren wouldn’t get the ranch chores done. So Carmody talked some more. It ended with him having four men to go along with him and spell him watching the prisoners. He was determined to go straight from this spot back to Arkhold City and lodge these men and this woman in the county jail. He scratched his head over the woman a little for the county had never had a woman prisoner before.
Then there was the problem of how to mount Spur. Nobody could find his horse. Which was a pity, Carmody thought, he had fancied that little mare of Spur’s. So they decided that Spur and the woman could ride the woman’s horse. By this time Spur was almost unconscious and had fallen sideways on the ground. For the sake of appearances, the sheriff gave the order for the flow of blood to be stopped. As soon as that was done, he would move on. A couple of the men untied Spur’s hands and did what they could to dress the wound. But Spur was unconscious and, at Carmody’s orders, he was thrown across the horse and the woman mounted behind him. She screamed at them that they were no more than a bunch of animals to treat a man that way. Tom Ball laughed and said: “At least he didn’t get the red stud.”
Men started to call their goodbyes. The sheriff mounted. He had never felt so good in all his life. He had two famous outlaws for the price of one, as you might say. He wanted to sing and dance. He shook hands with the two ranchers, thanked them for their help and led the way out.
When Ben fled from the advance of the posse, his partner was in his mind. It was his instinct to go back there and fight, but he knew that it would have been a fight from which there would have been no survival. Spur was right. The Negro didn’t have a nerve in his body. But he wasn’t a fool either. He was a specialist in survival. If there wasn’t a chance of winning a fight, there wasn’t any sense in fighting it.
So he fled on the back of the red stallion. He came on the mare in his flight, picked up her trailing line and led her away. He reached Albert the mule where they had left him, gathered up his line, too, and rode on. He didn’t stop for a good many miles. There were a lot of guns and horses back yonder and who could tell when they would come after him. He rode clean across the valley and into the hills to the west before he came to a halt. There from the high ground he watched the valley till the sun went down. Only then was he sure that he hadn’t been followed.
He put the animals on grass and slept the night with his back against a rock and his rifle across his thighs. He wasn’t taking any chances. He woke several times in the night and checked that the horses were all right. But nothing happened all through the dark hours.
Dawn came up.
He smoked and thought.
Carmody was smart and he was salty. He didn’t have any time for the man, but he had to give him that. He would watch his back-trail like a hawk. So don’t get on hi
s back-trail. Think ahead.
The sheriff would be returning to Arkhold. If he had sense, he wouldn’t waste time getting there and he wouldn’t go alone, not with a man like Spur to guard.
Ben stayed where he was and waited.
A few hours after dawn he saw what he was waiting for. A small bunch of riders coming from the north. Slowly he watched them coming closer till they came abreast of him no more than a half-mile away. Each rider he inspected carefully. He recognized Tom Ball with some surprise, saw the woman, realized he didn’t know the third prisoner. It was with something like horror that he saw that the figure draped across a horse, the one the woman rode, was Spur.
Grief touched the Negro.
Throughout his wretched life of slavery and being a hunted man there had been few friends and few men he could trust. Spur had been the exception. From the start Spur had treated him like a man, with respect.
Sam could be dead.
Why else was he thrown across the saddle that way. Carmody was toting him back to Arkhold for the bounty money.
Carmody… Ben tasted the bitterness of extreme hatred.
His impulse was to swing up on the stud and ride down there shooting. They would knock him out of the saddle riddled before he could get to them, but he would take some of the white bastards with him. He found that he was shaking violently and that he was weeping like a woman.
He cursed himself.
He watched the little cavalcade going slowly past.
The woman had her hand on Sam’s back—he could see that she was talking to him. Hope soared in Ben. You didn’t talk to a dead man. Then he saw Sam’s hand move. The woman was screaming something. In the lead, Carmody raised his hand and the riders came to a halt. The sheriff got down and walked back to Sam. He caught him by the hair and lifted his head. The woman was still screaming out her words.
Now, thought Ben, I could kill two-three of them.
But he waited.
Two of the other men were leaving their horses and were lifting Spur down from his horse. He lay in the grass. The other outlaws stared down at him.
The Cimarron Kid (A Sam Spur Western Book 5) Page 9
