"No sir," one man said emphatically. "It wasn't no Sioux who was around the coach. It was whites. Three of them. I figure three, though it was nigh impossible to see anythin' by the time the cavalry got through waltzin' around there. And I say their animals was shod. Hadda be. Wasn't a unshod pony print for half a mile."
"Some of the Indians are starting to shoe their animals," the barkeep said.
"Only a handful. Not three outa three, by a long shot."
"Can I have a drink?" Taw asked.
The bartender shifted himself slowly erect before looking at Taw. When he did, he said, "Yes sir!" quickly and poured a shot. His companions finished their drinks and went out the swinging door.
Taw drained his whisky and paid for it. The man in the apron thanked him nervously and Taw went out. There was some sort of a commotion farther down the street. Taw saw several horsemen gathering before the Grand Hotel. He went on up Pawnee toward Lincoln Street and the house standing out from the town.
Jess was there when Taw arrived. The younger brother was sitting on the sofa in the parlor, his mud-covered boots propped up in the seat of a nearby chair, a glass of whisky in his hand. "Well!" he said with a wide grin as Taw came through the doorway. "Where in hell have you been?"
Taw pushed his hat back on his head and leaned across the back of the chair that held Jess's feet. "I've been riding around," he said soberly. "Keepin' busy. Where's Christine?"
Jess motioned to a note on the table that held the kerosene lamp. "She finally got up nerve to do it. She left me to weep and wail all by my solitary."
"Where'd she go?"
"Didn't say. Who cares? All she said was good-by." Jess laughed gaily. "Good-by trouble! Worthless bitch!"
"She was worth more than you and me put together, Jess."
"C'mon now!" Jess waved his glass toward a bottle and glass on the table to his side. "Pour yourself a stiff one. What was it them smart ol' Romans used to say? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die! They had the right thinkin' there. You're bein' too damned serious!"
Taw poured some whisky for himself and rolled it on his tongue before swallowing it. "What happened to you after we parted company this morning, Jess?"
The younger man shrugged. "Everything went right on the nose. We took the stuff to Arrow Rock Road, and poured it into the flour barrels, covered 'em with more flour and capped 'em up again. Snyder drove them extra mules out into the hills and burned the sacks, or maybe he just hid them in all that rain. I don't know. I come straight into town and Charley after me in the wagon. Later on I went out with one of them fool posses. But I finally got separated from the others and come back." Jess spread his arms expansively. "We're all right!"
"I been trying to think of some way to tell you this." Taw sat down across from his brother. "The gold is gone."
Jess frowned briefly, staring at Taw with a confused expression. Then the laughter came back to his eyes and he said, "Why, you deep old son of a gun!" He took a quick mouthful of whisky. "Trying to tell me the gold's gone! I sure never thought you'd try to fool me that way. It's in Snyder's store cellar just like we planned right along. When Snyder brought the wagon up to the back of his place from the warehouse, I helped him unload those sixteen barrels and stack 'em up in the basement myself."
"Snyder switched wagons on you someplace between the warehouse and the store, Jess."
Jess shifted to his feet and grinned. "Well, that story is sure worth a try, at least, when you got so damned much reason for it."
Surprised and puzzled, Taw said, "You think I'm making this up, Jess?"
"Why, sure!" Jess laughed. "But with two tons of gold at stake, I don't blame you." He added good-naturedly, "I want you to know that. I don't blame you at all, Taw."
There was a faint noise outside and Jess crossed the room to the window. Moving back quickly, he said, "Somebody out there by your horse."
"I'll take a look," Taw said.
"I'll turn the light down." Jess started toward the oil lamp.
Taw had taken two steps out onto the gloomy porch and the lamp was still throwing light on him through the window, when he heard from the dark shadows to his side, the tiny, deadly click of a gun hammer being thumbed back. He dived off the porch as the gun roared deafeningly from the black night.
A sharp breath of hot, dry air whipped past his face as he plunged into the safety of darkness, rolling as he hit the ground, his Colt leaping into his hand.
His unseen enemy was firing shots wildly, and slamming lead slugs whined and pounded around Taw where he lay. The light from the lamp in the house went out now, and Taw fired blindly toward the tiny tongues of flame spitting from the edge of the porch. A chance shot from the hidden gunman sent a bullet against the cylinder of Taw's Colt. The shell screamed away through the air, ricocheting from the metal cylinder, and the revolver was torn violently out of Taw's hand, leaving his hand shaking and numb with agony.
Taw sprang up and, crouching low, ran away from the killer in the shadows. He stumbled in the dark and fell into a shallow ditch. He lay there quietly, controlling his breathing with effort. For the moment there was no sound of pursuit. He felt his numbed hand and tried to flex the fingers. Slowly they responded to his command and moved almost into a fist under their own power. Evidently no bones broken.
Voices a few yards away whispered against the silence and he raised himself to look out over the edge of the small ditch. Outlined fuzzily against the dim, black sky, where lonesome stars struggled against the immense darkness, were the figures of two men. From their low voices they were strangers to him. From their blurred outlines he thought he recognized the two gunmen whose faces he had never yet seen.
One man knelt down to brush his fingers against the earth where Taw had been before. "I shoulda hit him, two, three times anyways." The low voice hesitated, then whispered, "Damn! Ground's still too wet to feel any blood that mighta come out of 'im." The faint outline of the kneeling man suddenly stopped moving. "What the hell? It's a gun! Cylinder's all outa line on it. That last shot of mine musta hit his gun!"
"Somethin' made a awful racket," the other muttered. "Sent that slug rippin' away like crazy."
The first man stood up and gestured in Taw's general direction. "Hit or not, then, he's out there hidin' someplace. And he ain't got no gun."
"You take off a little to the right, there," the second man whispered. "I'll edge over to the left. We'll flush him out."
They moved slowly, guns held at the ready. The man who went to Taw's left was soon lost in the shadows. The other was coming almost in a straight line toward Taw, moving quietly and with care, placing each foot softly down on the dark ground before him so that he would not trip.
Taw had one advantage. From where he lay, he was looking up at the approaching man and was able to see him against the sky. So far, the man could not see him where he lay in the deep shadows of the ditch.
Taw's right hand was nearly back to normal now. He flexed it once more, feeling his strength come flowing into the fingers once again. He ran the fingers softly over the damp ground, searching for a stick, a rock, anything to use as a weapon. His hand closed on a small rock and he debated using it. The man was less than five yards away now.
Silently, he replaced the small rock on the ground and stretched his hand in a wider circle around his body. The outstretched fingers closed suddenly on a good-sized rock, a stone about twice the size of his clenched fist. He gripped it tightly and waited.
When the killer was less than ten feet away, the moon peeped out timidly from the black, uneven edge of a high cloud. Silvery light spilled down from above and Taw tensed, ready to leap out if he were seen. The killer turned at that moment and stared back at the house with sudden suspicion. The brief, silver glow died as the cloud covered the moon again. A moment later the man above Taw began walking forward once more.
The man's foot hesitated, feeling its uncertain way, as he came to the almost invisible ditch.
Taw explod
ed into action. He grabbed the foot above him with his free hand, twisted viciously, and pulled. The killer's hand tightened instinctively on the trigger and his gun roared as he plunged into the ditch, flinging his hands before him to cushion the fall. The killer landed on his face as Taw bounded forward and brought the rock in his hand crashing down against the man's skull.
"Hold on, I'll be right there!" the killer's partner yelled from the dark beyond.
Desperately Taw grabbed at the stunned man's hands, searching for the revolver, as he heard the other man running toward them. The gun was gone.
At the last moment Taw leaped out of the ditch and hurried away, still unarmed. Fifty feet away, he crouched in the shadows as the second man rushed up to the ditch.
The man in the ditch moved groggily and his partner started shooting at point-blank range down into the heavy shadows. After three shots he called, "Got him this time! Where are you? He was hidin' here in the ditch all along!"
The man stepped down into the ditch and kicked the lifeless figure beneath him over onto its side. He stooped down and suddenly cursed. "Christ! Oh, God damn, God damn!"
Taw started moving toward the house. From his position in the ditch the remaining killer noticed him. He stopped his muttered, angry curses and fired a shot in Taw's direction.
Taw broke into a swift run toward the end of the porch where his pinto was tied. He got to the pinto, whipped his rifle out of its saddle holster and dived back to the ground, levering a fresh shell into the chamber as his body flew to the dirt
Slugs whistled over his head as he went down, and he heard the paint scream behind him as the bullets meant for him thudded into the horse's deep chest. The paint reared back, shaking his great head frantically to break the thongs that tied him to the porch pillar. Then he came down and his legs went out from under him. He died with his head held up off the ground by the tied reins.
Taw stared into the night until his target was fixed. He almost took too much time, and there was the whining shriek of a bullet that bounced away from a flat rock a few inches from his ear.
Then Taw made out the dark figure moving from the ditch toward the house and he squeezed off his shot. The big slug from his rifle hit the killer high in the chest. Its powerful wallop knocked the man back as though he'd been hit with a sledge hammer, and his feet whipped up and out from under him from the force of the shock.
Taw got up and pumped a new shell into his Winchester. Gun ready, he checked the two men to see if they had any life in them. Their faces were still invisible in the dark, and both their hearts had ceased to beat.
Back at the porch, Taw stopped to release the reins that held his paint's head at an awkward position. Then he mounted to the porch and crossed into the foyer.
At the sound of his footsteps inside the house, Jess's voice, angry and tense, came from the parlor. "In here."
Taw walked to the parlor doorway. In the still darkened house, he could vaguely make out his brother sitting with head bowed over a glass of whisky he held in his hand. There was a faint glow from the lamp near Jess. He had turned it down until only a tiny bit of wick held a dim, yellow patch of life. Without looking up, Jess said, "Is he dead?"
"Nope," Taw's heartbeat was so heavy and fast he could hear it throbbing in his ears. His chest felt constricted and tight. "He's still alive."
At Taw's first word, Jess jerked his head erect and the glass dropped from his hand to the floor. He stood up slowly, staring through the shadows toward Taw.
Taw swung the Winchester on a level with his brother's chest. "Quite a fracas out there. Two men died—and a horse worth more than the two together. I was thinking that it sure was taking you a long time to get out there to give your brother a hand."
Jess's voice was an almost inaudible whisper. "You gonna pull that trigger?"
"Maybe. First I'd like to know what decided you to have me gunned. Talk carefully. I haven't heard more than two honest words out of you since I got here."
Jess cleared his throat nervously. "Before anything else, I want you to know I'm glad they didn't get you. Even if you shoot me, I'm glad. I knew how wrong I'd been the minute the first gun went off out there."
"Then why didn't you come out and join the party? I could have used some help."
Jess put his hand to his head, the gesture almost invisible in the shadows. "I was scared. God damn it, Taw, that's always been the trouble. Nothin' ever scares you so anyone can see it. That's always been the taste of everything in our lives. You're the great Jack Tawlin, and I'm your little brother who's nothin'!" Jess put his hand back down to his side. "When Snyder suggested you be killed so we could hang the blame on you, I said okay to it because I was sick and tired of bein' jealous of you, bein' number-two man all the time. You could fight better'n me, shoot better'n me, drink better'n me. You were smarter and better than me in every way and everyone knew it." Jess's tone grew a shade huskier. "And Christine thought you were just as great as I was bad. It's—it's hard for a man to know that about his wife. Well, anyway, I'm thankin' God you weren't killed out there. And if you're goin' to pull that trigger, I wish you'd get it over with."
Taw dropped the muzzle of his Winchester. He said, "That's the most mixed-up explanation I ever—"
A gun roared from where Jess was standing and the crushing blow of a lead slug knocked Taw down, his rifle sliding from his fingers.
"Thanks for giving me my chance that way," Jess said, talking instantly in a lighter, conversational tone. "Had me worried plenty there for a minute. God damn it, anyway, Taw, before I finish you off, there's something I got to try to tell you. And I'm goin' to try to tell it straight.
"There may have been some truth in what I was sayin' to you before, but I doubt it. It's hard for others—even you, bein' my brother—to understand a fellow like me. That's because you have to lay a reason to everything a man does. He does it because of bein' scared, or mad, or because of love or loyalty. You try to pin a man down as bein' good or bad, brave or yellow, straight or crooked. Well, I ain't none of them things. Can you hear me, Taw?"
"Yeah." Taw found he could move his left arm, and he reached out through the black shadows, slowly feeling for the Winchester.
"Maybe I'm just too easy to see through, and that's why nobody hardly ever does it. I just plain and simple want the best outa life for Jess Tawlin. That's all. I'd push you into fights when I could, cause I get a bang outa fights. I married Christine because the money she had then looked pretty good to me. I get drunk because I love bein' drunk. And by the same token, Taw, I'm goin' to get all that gold one way or another. Like Snyder says, you'll be handy to hang the blame on, but you'd have to go one way or the other, because I ain't goin' to share that gold with nobody. Not you, or Snyder, or nobody. It's just too much money.
"I've tried to tell you how I feel, just so you'd know and understand." Jess hammered back the revolver in his hand, thumbing it back two clicks, through safety to cock. "In a way I hate to kill you, cause life is fun to live. But I'll have enough fun to make up for you." Jess laughed a short, genuine laugh. "Honest to God, Taw. Every time I spend a stack of that gold, have a wild time or buy some fantastic thing, I'll think of you. I'll give you a little wink in the back of my mind. I'll—"
Taw had lost so much strength he could hardly hear his brother's voice now. His left hand finally found the barrel of the Winchester. He ran fingers down to grip the stock and the trigger, raised the gun with intense effort toward Jess, and fired. He was only vaguely aware of the indistinct blur of his brother returning the fire from across the room.
Then a heavy gun cut loose in a wild cacophony of roaring blasts directly over Taw. Under the pounding fury of angry bullets from the gun above Taw, the darkened parlor seemed to rock and shudder.
There was a flashing, brilliant burst of flame in the room as a slug shattered the kerosene lamp. In the brief moment before the flames raced through the spilled kerosene on the floor, Taw had a glimpse of Jess lying face up, still grin
ning good-naturedly, his eyes closed.
Eyes closed. Good idea. Taw let his head tilt back to the floor and closed his eyes against the hot, glaring light of the burning room....
Someone lifted his arm and the pain of it surged through his whole body. He opened his eyes and was vaguely aware that Christine was leaning down over him, wrapping a piece of cloth tightly around his arm. She saw that his eyes were open and said, "You were bleeding to death."
Taw could see her open purse and the big, short-barreled Volcanic where she had dropped them on the floor. She lifted him to a sitting position as someone shouted from the front of the house. Taking his good arm over her shoulder, she whispered, "You'll have to do some of the work yourself. Try!" He exerted all his will and the deadened muscles of his right leg at last obeyed, pulling the leg up and under him.
"Good!" Her slight body strained forward fiercely against him, forcing him up until he was standing, weak and stumbling.
"Now walk with me!" she commanded. "Move your feet."
Swaying and sagging against her, Taw forced his legs to shuffle ahead one after the other. When they were in the kitchen he could dimly hear the crackling fire crawling out into the foyer and snickering up the papered walls in long, eagerly spreading fingers.
Then they were out the back door and Christine was urging him into a slow, drunken run, away from the house.
Behind them the yellow flames were spitting out of the windows and the noise was shifting from numerous, lesser sounds of rapid burning to one vast, hollow roar. People were running around the house now, shouting and shading their eyes from the heat.
Christine's support went out from Taw at one point and he fell into a patch of high weeds as though his legs had been cut off. A moment later two horsemen rode by on their way to the fire, their horses' hoofs thumping by within touching distance of the man and woman below.
Then they were up again, moving clumsily into the darkness and away from the now giant flames curling high into the black sky. Taw was only half conscious of being propped up against the rail of a fence while Christine disappeared. Soon she was back, leading two horses through the shadows. With her help Taw got one foot in stirrup, but the horse moved too soon ahead, almost throwing him to the ground as his foot fell free. Christine pulled the reins sharply. She pounded her tiny fist on the beast's neck, whispering furiously. "Stand still! Damn you, stand still!"
The War Wagon Page 12
