Greg Talbot was riding that horse as he had never ridden a horse before, leastways not since that Blackfoot war-party had chased the ass off him back in the fifties. He realized with the excitement of a devoted horseman that he was riding real quality.
It was not long before he saw another rider coming towards him. As they rushed towards each other, he saw that it was Si Tallin. He was sure that he was not going to stop for God or the Devil, so he pulled his belt gun out and held it ready for a shot. As it was nothing happened. Tallin could recognize when a man was not going to stop for anything, and drew aside on the trail. Talbot went past him like a bat out of hell. Tallin turned in the saddle and watched him go in wonder. He was not displeased. Now, he reckoned, he would find McAllister alone. That could not be bad. It would be man to man and he was pretty confident that he was the better man. He had to be because he was sure that right was on his side.
~*~
Up on the ridge, Larkin’s keen eyes saw the approaching dust. He pointed and said: “Who’s this comin’? It’s like bein’ in a goddam city, the traffic here’s so bad.”
Jolly swung the glasses. He had trouble picking up the distant figure, but at last he settled on it and made an exclamation of surprise.
“I’m damned if it isn’t ole Tallin hisself.”
That was enough for Larkin. He stood up.
“Let’s move ourselves,” he said.
Jolly rolled over and stared up at him. “What you aimin’ to do?”
“I have a feelin’ in my water that Tallin is comin’ here for the same reason we are. I aim to get to McAllister before he does. McAllister’s mine.”
Jolly rose reluctantly to his feet. He hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure how he should say what he wanted to say. He had been villain enough in his time, he could be tough and mean, but there were some things he could not see himself doing. He said: “Don’t it mean a thing to you that there’s maybe a woman down there, hurt?”
Larkin’s face was expressionless, but Jolly could feel the question there. “Now you ask, Jolly, it don’t. I come here to brace that son-of-a-bitch an’ that’s what I aim to do.”
Jolly wanted to tell him to go ahead and do it alone, but he could not. He’d sided Larkin for a good many years now and he guessed it had become a habit. Maybe a bad habit but he had it just the same.
“I’ll tag along,” he said, “but, Jesus, I don’t have to like it.”
“Nobody goddam well asked you to,” said Larkin, “not one nor the other.”
They walked to their horses. They mounted and rode out of the trees, down the ridgeside and straight for the house. Larkin flicked his horse sharply with the quirt and got some pace of it. He wanted all the action over by the time Tallin rode in. Jolly reluctantly spurred after him.
They rode into the yard in a cloud of dust, swerved to the hitching rail under the ancient tree and dismounted. They tied their horses and Larkin called out: “Hello the house.”
McAllister appeared in the doorway.
He looked at them as if he’d seen two ghosts.
“I thought you were the doctor,” he said.
Jolly said: “Who was hit?”
“Miss Helena.”
Jolly looked at Larkin to see if that information made a jot of difference. He could see from the man’s face that it did not.
He asked McAllister: “Did Talbot go for the doctor?”
“Yes,” McAllister replied. “Did Larned send you two?” McAllister was plainly confused. There had not been enough time for Talbot to get to town and speak to Larned and for them to ride out here.
Jolly said: “Nobody sent us.”
“How’d you learn about it?”
Jolly asked Larkin: “How about it now, Slim? Changed your mind?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
McAllister said: “I can’t stand around talkin’.” He went to turn back into the house, but Larkin called out: “Go get your gun, McAllister. I’m bracin’ you.”
McAllister stopped. He looked as if he did not believe he had heard right.
“Quit bein’ a damn fool, Larkin. This ain’t the time.”
“It’s my time,” Larkin said.
Jolly whispered urgently: “For crissake, back off, Slim.”
Larkin went on: “Go get your gun, man, or I’ll gun you down there. I ain’t taken so much shit from nobody, not in all my life.”
McAllister said in a kind of despair: “Any time, Larkin. But not now.”
“Now,” Larkin said and drew his gun.
Jolly swept his hand through the air in a gesture of dismissal. He said: “Count me out. I don’t want no part of this.”
Larkin said coldly: “If you get on that horse, Jolly, you keep ridin’, hear?”
Jolly said with finality: “If that’s the way you want it.” He walked to his horse, slipped the tie and was quickly in the saddle. He turned the horse to the north and rode away without another glance at the two men.
Larkin had not taken his eyes from McAllister. He stood upright with his gun by his side and called: “You still there, McAllister? You want to die without a gun in your hand.”
McAllister appealed to him—“Why, for God’s sake? Why now? I have a wounded girl in here, man. Wait till the doctor comes. Don’t you have an ounce of feelin’?”
“No, sir,” said Larkin, “not an ounce. He raised the gun, cocking it as he did so, and he fired one shot with a careless ease, placing the bullet in the wall of the house one foot to the right of McAllister’s head. McAllister ducked instinctively, then he disappeared inside.
~*~
When McAllister went back into the house, Mary Larned looked at him in frightened desperation. She was crouched by the bed at Helena’s side, her thumbs still pressed into the girl’s armpit.
“I heard you,” she said. “Take my place here. I’ll go talk to him. Doesn’t he realize …?”
“He realizes,” McAllister said. “He must be crazy. It’ll do no good you talkin’ to him. I’ll settle this. Stay right there.”
He reached for his gun from where it hung in its holster on the back of a chair. While he checked the loads, he thought, not wanting to go out through that doorway. It would be foolish from his own point of view, for he did not doubt that Larkin would start shooting the instant he appeared. It would also be dangerous for the women. Bullets would come in through the open doorway. They could ricochet. He walked to the rear of the house, threw the window wide and put a leg over the sill.
Mary Larned was talking to him, begging him, but he did not take in her words. Out in the yard, Larkin was shouting for him to come out. He could not help thinking of what would happen to the girl if Larkin killed him. He desperately wanted to know if she would live.
He threw the other leg over the sill and dropped to the ground. He walked a couple of paces to the corner of the house and saw the dust coming fast along the main trail. As he watched, the solitary rider turned down the cut-off and came towards the house.
He walked out into the open and Larkin saw him at once.
Neither hurried. McAllister paced away from the house. Larkin had his gun high, the muzzle following him all the way. McAllister felt himself drop into the cold, calm self that was so badly needed at a time like this. Some sardonic side of himself was mocking. He had thought he was all through with this kind of thing. He was on the edge of marrying a nice girl and settling down. The hell-raising days were over. He wondered if his instinct would come to his aid as it had done in the past. Would that warning sound in his head the instant Larkin started to squeeze the trigger?
Then came the question, the one that had never come before—did it matter? Did it matter if he lived or died? He knew in that moment that the girl could not live. He had known that it would be hopeless as he carried her into the house and laid her on his bed.
Just the same, he reacted like a hair-trigger when Larkin fired.
As smoke belched from the man’s gun, he hurled himself forward and dow
n, tucking his shoulder in and coming up on his feet again, his eyes watching Larkin, measuring and judging. He knew at once that Larkin was firing a second time at his hurtling body. So he rolled again. He heard the boom of the gun and saw the new smoke, saw Larkin move hastily to one side to get out of that smoke and escape impaired vision.
That was the moment for his own shot.
He fired in mid-moment, loosed off a bullet from a moving gun-platform. Then, as soon as the lead left the gun, he changed direction. He had been moving left. Now he jerked back to the right, getting clear of his own gun-smoke, upright now, a static gun. Even as he fired a second time, he knew that his first shot had found its target. He had fired at the centre. The surest.
Larkin staggered from the first bullet.
The second landed higher, near the heart. It seemed to have more power than the first or maybe it met a man who was weaker. It plucked him off his feet and seemed to drop him light as gossamer into the dust. But he was not gossamer when he landed. The body hit the hard ground with a dull thudding sound.
Even so, Larkin was not finished. As good as dead, but the mechanism was still working. He gritted his teeth and strained to keep his head up off the ground, using all his remaining strength and willpower to lift the gun.
As the weapon was lined up with McAllister and as McAllister was about to deliver a third shot, life seemed to snap out of Larkin: he collapsed, both heels rapped on the ground and he became totally still. As McAllister stared down at him, he appeared to shrivel and grow small. When McAllister walked over to him and looked down, his eyes looked huge in the small pinched face.
McAllister became aware that he felt cold. He shivered.
The sound of the approaching horse seemed to beat through that very cold to him. He looked down the trail and saw Tallin coming ahead fast. McAllister started back towards the house, wanting to reassure Mary Larned. But before he could reach the door, he heard Tallin’s shout.
He stopped and turned.
Tallin was off his horse, his gun in his hand.
The range-boss said: “I ought to shoot you down like a mad dog, McAllister.”
McAllister said with cold impatience: “For God’s sake, Tallin. The girl’s hurt in here.”
Tallin gaped. He looked lost. “Girl? What girl?”
“Helena.”
“What?”
McAllister entered the house. Mary Larned had not moved.
“Oh, thank God,” she said.
He laid the gun on the table and walked across to her. He heard Tallin come into the house behind him. He told the woman: “Take the pressure off for a moment, Mary. Let it bleed a little or we’ll do more harm than good.” The girl was still breathing, but the breathing was shallow. He knew that he was feeling grief for her already and that was not right. You must have hope right up to the end. He hoped that the girl’s mother could not read his thoughts. He was still shaking from cold.
Tallin was standing there making weak gestures of speech, not really saying anything. The sight of the girl lying there, grey-faced, the blood marking her clothes, was too much for him. Finally McAllister heard him say: “What can we do?”
“The doc’s on the way. Greg Talbot went for him.”
Tallin said uselessly as if he only wanted to fill silence: “He passed me on the trail.”
McAllister started to apply pressure again. The bleeding stopped. Tallin could not take his eyes from the girl’s face.
“Who did it for God’s sake?”
“Does it matter?”
“Was it you?”
McAllister could still be surprised— “Me? No, it was Billington. He came to kill me. Somebody paid him to kill me. Who would do that now, I wonder?” He turned to Mary Larned. “Mary, would you make us all some coffee. Reach that bottle, Tallin. Take a swig and leave me some.”
Automatically, Tallin reached for the bottle, drew the cork, drank and handed the bottle to McAllister. One-handed, the big man drank and passed the bottle back.
“Save some for doc,” he said. “He likes to drink while he works.”
Mary Larned clattered at the stove.
Tallin’s voice shook when he asked: “Will she live?”
McAllister said: “Sure. The doc’ll fix her fine.”
It seemed an age before Robertson pounded up to the house. He came out of the saddle fast, bag in hand. He took the scene in at a glance. He saw what McAllister was doing. He saw the steaming pans of hot water. He stripped his coat off and whisked on a white apron. McAllister objectively admired his economy of movement. The man was doing what he had done many hundreds of times before. It was like a skilled man throwing a loop. The instruments rattled into a pan. Carbolic followed. Robertson reached the bottle from Tallin, took a stiff drink and said: “Haaa!” He winced when the whisky hit him.
Robertson spoke for the first time.
“You saved her life so far, Rem. Now it’s up to me and her maker.”
“Amen,” said Mary.
Robertson said: “Hold that pressure for a while. There’s a bullet in there and I have to get it out.”
McAllister, who had seen more grisly sights than he could remember, could not watch as that bright scalpel cut into the girl’s flesh. He looked at Mary and saw that she had gone pale. Distantly, he heard the sound of a horse approaching. Greg Talbot hovered in the doorway. McAllister said: “Greg, oblige me, will you? Whoever that is, stop them interruptin’ us here. Doc’s concentratin’.” He heard the rider shout something. The creak of saddle leather. Time started to play tricks. Suddenly, Edward C. Larned was in the room, hat in hand, staring down at his daughter with horror in his eyes. McAllister watched Larned’s gaze lift to his wife and he thought he saw shame there.
Robertson was muttering incoherently to himself. Sweat was dripping from his forehead.
McAllister told Mary: “Wipe the sweat off his forehead.” She came forward and obeyed him.
Robertson said: “Take the pressure off.”
McAllister released the pressure and heard Larned whisper: “Oh, my God.” The doctor drew his breath in sharply and made a deft quick movement. McAllister heard the bullet rattle into the kidney dish. He looked then and saw the bright blood. It made him want to vomit. It was many years since the sight of blood had made him want to throw up. Larned turned away abruptly and walked out of the house. McAllister turned his head and his gaze met Tallin’s. The man’s face glistened with sweat. McAllister realized how many people loved this girl.
“Pressure on,” Robertson said. McAllister used his thumbs again. He looked at the girl’s face. The lashes were long and dark against the pale flesh. McAllister, a man who prided himself on making things happen, knew utter helplessness. There was nothing here that action, or guts, or cunning could effect. Even the doctor could only do so much. He could use his skill, remove the bullet, clean the wound, but he couldn’t heal the girl. Whatever miracle of nature that rested in her flesh was the only thing that could save her.
He seemed to come back into reality as he watched the doctor dressing the wound after the careful stitching. Robertson tried to be casual, presented this as just another case when everybody there knew that it was not. “Nice piece of stitching that,” he said. “Though I says it as shouldn’t. Well, Mary, we’ve done all we can. Wrap her up well and keep her warm.” He washed up in McAllister’s bowl, lathering Helena’s life-blood from his hands and forearms. He packed his instruments into his bag. Mary Larned started covering the girl and making her comfortable.
The doctor said: “I have to go to another case now. I’ll call in on my way home. Probably about two in the morning. She must not be moved. Somebody must stay here with her awake all the time. Rem, you watch that bandage. Be ready to stop the flow of blood to the injured part. But I think what I’ve done should hold it. Mary, I’d stay here for a while, was I you. Get some sleep. You look bushed.”
He swung his bag and walked out of the house. McAllister and Tallin followed him. Larned was s
tanding in the yard with his hands behind his back. He was trying to look indomitable, but all he succeeded in doing was looking like an ageing and very worried man.
His voice had taken on a stranger’s tone when he asked Robertson: “Will she live?”
“I’m a doctor,” Robertson told him, “not a goddam clairvoyant. Rem, loan me a fresh horse.”
Greg Talbot said: “I’ll have one right with you, doc.”
Tallin walked up to Larned and said in an oddly neutral voice: “Did you send Billington here to kill McAllister?”
Larned stared at Tallin as if he were trying to remember who he was.
“What has that to do with anything?” he demanded.
Tallin said: “That boy shot Helena.” Larned looked around at all their faces as if he wanted confirmation that that was a lie.
“It can’t be true,” he said. “There’s some mistake?”
Tallin said: “Did you send the boy?”
Larned tried to escape. They could see that he wanted to walk away from this. The truth was too much for him to handle on top of seeing his girl wounded. He started to mumble. “The boy … he came to me. He made a crazy proposal. I must have been out of my head … it seemed like a chance to finish all this … I had no idea Helena would be here. How could I know?” He raised his voice and appealed to them. “How could I guess that my daughter would be here?”
Tallin said: “You admit you told that boy to come here and kill McAllister?”
“I …” Larned could not bring himself to admit it in naked words. “It was a rough game. McAllister had cut down so many of our men. Tallin, you would have done the same. You know it.”
“That boy was no gunfighter. The only way he could have a prayer against McAllister was to shoot him when he wasn’t lookin’.”
Larned was cornered.
“Why did you come here? Tell me that. Tallin … didn’t you want McAllister dead? You think I haven’t seen … you and Helena …”
“Sure I wanted him dead, but I never backshot a man in my life. I came out here to kill him—sure. But he was going to be lookin’ at me when I shot him. He would of had a gun in his hand. McAllister, were you wearing a gun when that punk kid tried to kill you?”
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