by Nelson Nye
"There's bigger things than Alph Chilton involved!" He could see well enough to know the mare when she nuzzled him. He reached for the horn, then stepped back. "You'll ride with me," he grumbled at Bunny.
"Ride with yourself," Bunny said. "I'm comfortable."
Rafe stared.
Luce said, "Somebody has to be up there with Pa," and Brownwater nodded, "He's about done in."
Bunny, peering about, wanted to know what Rafe had done with her gelding. She didn't sound like she was minded to be put off.
"He went lame," Rafe said. "I pulled your gear and turned him loose." He took the reins from Bill and, hauling Bathsheba's head around, pulled himself up, so gut sick and weak he thought for a minute he'd go straight on over. Breathing hard he hung to the horn with both hands.
"I can't see," Luce complained, "why you'd want to go to town. That's the first place they'll—"
"Don't argue about it, just do like I say. Important thing now is to get there," Rafe muttered. He got his head up, tried to straighten his shoulders. "Lead the way will you, Bill? Let's get started."
The fat puncher said, "You don't look too good. Maybe Lucy better ride with your pa and let Bunny—"
Bunny's snort cut him off. "He don't need no help! What you trying to do—insult him? He's got a cast-iron hide and solid bone for a head! You might as well argue with the shadow of death. Go on and do what he says before he bows up and cuffs you."
The two girls exchanged looks. Brownwater, scowling, said, "Ahr—" but set off. Luce, behind with the knees sticking out of her hiked-up skirt, muttered, "Who does he think he is—Julius Caesar!"
Rafe waited with his mouth hard shut until Bunny, wheeling past with his father, fell in behind Bill. Then Rafe turned Bathsheba into their tracks, so hungry he was dizzy, so dry in his throat he couldn't have said anything that would have half done him justice even could he have shoved it through the things that were choking him. He had all he could do to keep himself in the saddle.
An indefinable while later Brownwater spoke out of the black at his elbow. "Lucy figgered mebbe you might want somethin' in your belly."
It wasn't quite a question, not even noticeably apologetic; it was, however, an overture and, after staring hard at the blobs of their faces, Rafe, still silent, pushed out a hand. The girl put a leathery something into it. "I—I'm sorry about what I said," she mentioned, leaning out from her perch behind fat Bill to slip a weighted strap over his wrist.
The strap was attached to a near-empty water bag. After he'd squeezed the last drop out of it Rafe peered at the chunk of dried meat she'd put into his fist. He got it all down and perked up enough to take a harder look at the things on his mind, the more urgent ones at any rate. Likely, as Luce had pointed out, town was the first place Spangler would head for. Whether he got caught or not, Rafe had to go there. It was the only chance he could see to put a crack in their plans, and he wasn't naive enough to underestimate his peril. Spangler or Duke would shoot him on sight—he had no doubt of that. Even Chilton's sheriff.
But the only alternative was to let these buggers get away with it, and he sure couldn't see himself doing that. He wondered what price Jack Dahl had for his part. It must have been a pretty because at least the start of this deal had been set up with his connivance.
The night began to grow a little gray about the edges. Most of the stars had gone. A smell of rain was in the air; the smell of death was in it, too. Unconsciously Rafe shivered.
When first light finally came, they weren't more than a mile and a half from town. The sky was overhung with clouds but the land behind looked grayly empty. Rafe peered hard without discovering movement, but wasn't building no hopes on that. Spangler, if they'd got hold of fresh horses, could have sent some of his gunnies on ahead while Duke and the rest started hunting for tracks. One thing sure—they'd have horses by now. And if they'd followed his tracks to where he'd left Bunny's Roanie they would have the whole story. Duke might of run, but not that guy Spangler!
Chilton wouldn't be at his bank this early; yet this was where Rafe was determined to see him. He pushed it around for a while in his head. They could see the town's roofs across the tops of the trees growing out of the bosque into which Rafe had fled when Spangler's gunhand took after him. He thought some more, scowling, then abruptly called, "Bill! You got any lawyers around here?"
"Only lawyer closer than Tucson," Bunny said, "is Alph Chilton."
Rafe swore.
"If it's legal advice you're in need of," said Brownwater, "you could ride to Camp Grant an' put it up to the military—"
"I've got to get this done before Spangler—"
"Daddy's a notary," Bunny said, watching him.
Rafe, even yet, wasn't sure he trusted Pike, but he didn't have much choice—not if he was to make his father safe. What he had in mind held some risk for Luce, but he couldn't help that. He had to act while he could. He got them into the trees where the limbs and leaves hid them, hauled Bunny off the old man's horse, helped Bender down; then, ignoring her spluttering, thrust the reins in her hands. "Go get him. We'll wait right here."
Choking back whatever she'd been going to say, she got into the saddle and rode off through the brush. Some things about her you simply had to admire.
The others got down; Luce, female fashion, putting store on appearance, trying to cuff some of the dust and wrinkles from her clothes. "Whatever you two have got up your sleeves, I hope—"
Rafe said, cutting in, "All we got to do is cinch our hulls on this critter," and tossed Brownwater the chunk of rock he'd picked up. The fat puncher took one look and whistled. It was hard to keep still after that but he done it. Luce, all agog, kept reaming him with her stares and, when this failed to unlock his lips, stuck her nose in the air and gave him her back. Rafe watched the town through their lattice of branches.
He'd about given Bunny up and, in a lather of impatience, was getting ready to move when she came up through the brush without her pa, and afoot. "You don't need to swear," she said, eying Rafe's scowl. "Daddy's coming. In the buggy. He's gone around by the road."
Rafe helped his father into the skewbald's saddle, grabbed hold of her cheekstrap and set off, the rest following. He could hear Luce back of him dinging at Bill, and the snapping of the brush and the hoofs of the horses coming through the leafy mold. "We're making enough racket," Bunny said, "for a herd of elephants." Things quieted down after that and Luce quit talking.
Rafe stood listening at the edge of the growth. All of them stopped when they saw him put a hand up, and the skreak and rattle of an approaching vehicle rumbled plainly off the planks bridging the gully at the edge of town. Rafe got Bender off Bathsheba. "You an' Pa," he said to Bunny, "will ride in the buggy. Soon as you're aboard have Pike turn it round an' head for the bank. Luce—"
"Don't you think," his father said a bit testily, "I'm old enough to be told what you're up to? Seems like I ought to have some say—"
"You'll have plenty of say when we get to it. Right now we've got to have a talk with that banker. We've got to get to him 'fore Spangler shows up." Rafe turned to his sister. "Luce, you get on Bill's horse and go after Chilton. He's prob'ly still in bed—you know where he lives?"
Big-eyed, she nodded.
"Get goin', then." He shoved her toward Bill's horse.
"But what will I tell him?"
"Tell him anythin'. Tell him the Old Man's waitin' with the money to pay off that mortgage. I don't care what you tell him, long as you fetch 'im. An' don't lallygag around pickin' no posies!"
Brownwater said, eying Rafe uneasily, "I'm not sure I like this. Somebody could get bad hurt—"
"You got a better idea?"
"What's the matter with me goin' after him?" Bill said, reaching a hand out to Luce.
"If Spangler shows, I'm going to need your gun."
They stared at each other. "You're leanin' on a mighty weak reed," the fat man said, but he dropped the hand. Luce climbed into the saddle. She put her ho
rse through the trees.
Rafe stepped out and Pike pulled up, Bunny and Rafe helping Bender aboard, Pike wanting to know what this was all about. "Drive 'em back to the bank and stay in the buggy—all of you—till Chilton shows up," Rafe told him shortly. "An', if lead gets to flyin', keep your heads down, but get into that bank no matter what."
He slapped the horse on the rump and, as Pike wheeled for the turn, moved back into the brush. Gathering the skewbald's reins he lifted a foot to the stirrup. "Let's go," he growled, and swung into the saddle.
Brownwater, still looking kind of huffy, stood with his fat holding him anchored in his tracks. "I'm beginnin' to feel like your ol' man—"
"Beginnin' to look like him, too. C'mon, let's get outa here," Rafe said impatiently. "We ain't got all day."
Bill reluctantly forked the horse Rafe's father had been sharing with Bunny, grunting and grumbling as he pulled himself up, scowling like a Piegan squaw as he turned the horse in a walk after Rafe's. "You figger t' wait out back'n the bank?"
When he got no answer to that, he said, "Why can't we do this someplace else? There's lots of better—"
Rafe, twisting around, growled, "I can think of some places I'd rather be, too, but we got to get into that golram safe."
Bill's jaw dropped. "Now look here," he wheezed, all choked up with emotion. "I didn't hire out t' stick up no bank!" He hauled his horse to a stop, sat glaring.
"You want to marry my sister?" Rafe said, real soft.
The fat man stared as though confronted with a snake. When he began to swell up Rafe said, eyes hard, "I'll be waitin'. Fetch Chilton's tin-badge an' be there in ten minutes."
Swinging around in the saddle, Rafe rode off.
XV
Waiting, Rafe decided, was the hardest thing a man had to do. Long as a feller could keep himself busy he went along pretty well, but give him time to think and all that kept him up began flying apart. Doubts crowded in, his nerves got to jangling, every joint in his carcass seemed about to give way. If he could only get down and stretch out.
He didn't dare. It was all he could do to stay awake as it was. His eyes felt like they'd been rolled in sand. His face was numb, his feet were twin screaming lumps of misery. Every muscle in his body was a separate ache, jerking and twisting like a skillet full of eels; and any moment, he knew, this early morning quiet might explode into gunplay.
He damn near screamed just thinking about it.
Where was Spangler, and his brother, and their gun-hung crew? They'd come storming in sure as God made little apples! No matter how many risks he put in their way, Spangler, he was certain, wasn't going to be stopped this side of a bullet.
Duke was the weak one, always spinning like a weathercock, wanting things he had no right to, squirming, twisting, hating, scheming. Yet in this very weakness there was a desperate kind of conscienceless strength that could be harder than iron. It took a pretty cold fish to plot his own father's death; and that was what it amounted to, tying his kite to a guy like Spangler, helping the man put the ranch on the skids, determined no matter what to wrest it away from the owner of record. Probably, in the beginning, Duke—with Rafe out of the way—had figured to heir it. Must have been a considerable shock to have the true heir walk in on him that way, just when the place was pretty near in his pocket.
The Bender range boss was a different breed. Rafe would have bet good dollars against doughnuts he'd no intention of sharing anything. His kind never shared. Once Duke's use was exhausted Spangler, without the slightest compunction, would be rid of him. A bullet in the back was the best Duke could look for. But a man couldn't tell him that.
Rafe, discovering the trend of this thinking, snorted in disgust. He'd done his share of worrying over Duke; just the same it was a habit he found hard to get shed of. Hauling up a leg, still scowling, he got down. He had things more important to sweat about than Duke. It was time he got at them!
Keeping hold of the reins he limped over to the corner and had a look at the street. It was still too early for anyone to be about, though he did see smoke coming out of a number of stovepipes. He was about to step back when hoof sound hit him with its tap-tap of warning, not loud but plain, certainly moving this way. At about the same time he heard the skreak of greaseless buggy wheels.
That last would be Pike with Bunny and Bender. But who were the horsebackers? Helpers or enemies? Didn't hardly seem time enough for Luce to be coming along with that banker. What if this were a couple of Gourd and Vine gunhawks!
Rafe figured he'd better find out.
He slipped the spur off his heel, left Bathsheba on grounded reins. Hard to tell, the way sound slapped around, which was hoofs and which was echoes, but it looked a poor bet to wait till they got here.
Scurrying along the bank's back wall, he reached the alley formed by the flank of the Big Bun Bakery, the smells coming out of this near overwhelming him. His stomach went into a spasm of protest as Rafe, hard-faced, plunged into the passage, catfooting streetward through a clutter of tumbleweeds, cans, broken glass and wind-whipped, twisted tore-apart papers. He stopped, gun in hand, when he was close to the street, all his faculties screwed wiretight, edgily listening a spell before popping his head out.
He needn't have got such a sweat up. It was Luce and Alph Chilton making the hoof sound. They were just coming past the front of the Cow Palace, the banker scowling and wagging his lip like a sore-backed bull with a mouthful of larkspur. Rafe, making ready to fade back through the rubbish, went suddenly stiff as his glance crossed a face in the harness shop doorway.
The light wasn't good, the range a full eighty strides across hoof-pocked dust with the guy pulling back into deeper shadow, but Rafe would of swore it was the feller he'd left tied up in the woods the last time he'd gone to the bank to see Chilton—one of the pair Spangler'd staked out at Pike's! If the guy hadn't ducked Rafe might never have seen him.
He went cold all over. Were the rest of them here, stashed around between buildings, or was this ranny on his own, left in town to keep cases? Either way he spelled trouble.
Rafe softly cursed. He was sure enough wedged between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't leave the guy loose to go running to Spangler.
Keeping narrowed stare bitterly pinned to the doorway, Rafe scanned his chances. Last thing he wanted was to rouse the town, and any sudden commotion, or gunplay, could do it. It wasn't likely whoever ran the shop had opened yet; so if he started across the road, both of them knowing he had the guy cornered, the feller was pretty near bound to shoot.
The wheel skreaks had quit. Though he couldn't see it without poking his neck out again, Pike must have the buggy in front of the bank. And the horsebackers had apparently arrived there, too. "Couldn't this have waited till the bank opened for business?" he heard Chilton say in a voice gruff with outrage. Saddle leather popped and boots thumped ground, and Bunny was tartly saying through the protest of buggy springs, "Stand around in plain sight with his arms full of money?"
"I haven't seen any money yet!"
"You'll see it," Pike said, "when you get that door open—"
"What're you doing here?"
"Somebody has to be a witness to this."
Muttering something about "highly irregular" Chilton was unlocking the bank's front door when Rafe staring hard, suddenly made up his mind. A man could swing just as high for a sheep as a goat in this country and, since he dared not leave that feller loose, he yelled with his gun up, "Come outa that doorhole. Andale! Pronto!
Brick chips stung the side of his face. Muzzleflame bloomed in the harness shop shadows. Firing at the flash Rafe saw Spangler's man stumble out of the doorway clutching his side, lurch two crazy steps in a kind of half circle and crumple into the dust.
Shouts and the slapping of thrown up windows came through the stomping clatter of echoes as Rafe, diving into the street, gun lifting, ran toward the huddle of statuelike shapes before the bank's open door, the gallop of horses hammering hard at his heels.
Some excited fool yelled, "They're stickin' up the bank!" and Rafe, twisting around, saw Brownwater Bill and a flustered looking badge-packer piling off their ears-back, eye-rolling horses in a fog of lemon dust. He saw more dust, far out, a long balloon-edged boiling line of it.
He stood with sinking heart, all his hopes and defenses toppling. Then he grabbed a fresh breath. "Get 'em inside, Sheriff, an' hurry it up!" He ran to Bill's rearing horse and snatched free the rifle, levering a cartridge into the chamber. Some of the men hurrying out of near houses sprinted for cover as Rafe put a blue whistler over their heads. He loosed a couple of more to make sure they kept going, and ducked into the bank in the wake of the others, slamming the door.
