by Neil Hunter
Peckard turned towards the flats beyond town. He shaded his eyes with his hat. The three riders were already out of his sight.
‘Luck,’ he said softly, then turned and went back into the jail.
McCall, bringing up the rear, guided his horse around a particularly muddy strip of ground and eased his big frame in the saddle. With them moving out so soon he hadn’t had time to get a change of clothing. The rapidly rising sun was beginning to throw down its probing rays and McCall began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.
Just ahead Ballard had his own problems. The horse he rode, a big dun, was in a vile mood. But the Texan was not in the best of spirits himself and gave the dun as good as it handed out.
Dicken Hodges rode about a quarter of a mile in front, roving about as he searched for tracks. Though he’d said that he didn’t expect much until they were further out.
The three moved south at a smooth, unhurried pace. Around them the land was for the most part a sweeping expanse of grass, with an occasional clump of bush. Mostly it was grass, and more grass. McCall and Ballard, both, realized, with the inbred instinct of cattle-men, why the valley was such good cow-country. With graze like this, a man could raise a fine herd.
They’d been riding for two hours when Hodges took off his hat and waved it above his head.
Ballard spoke for the first time since they had left town as he acknowledged Hodges’ signal. He said: ‘Let’s hope he’s got something.’
The Texans let their mounts run as they headed for the spot where Hodges had dismounted. Hodges was on his knees when they reined in beside him.
‘Looks like our lucky day,’ he said, indicating a group of hoof-prints in the moist earth.
‘You reckon they’re the right ones?’ asked McCall.
‘Made by four horses going south. I reckon they’re the real McCoy.’
‘Can you follow them from these?’ Ballard asked as he gazed toward the distant hills.
Hodges stood up, scratching beneath his left arm. ‘Yep,’ he answered.
‘They’ve got a hell of a lead on us,’ McCall said,
‘Don’t mean nothin’,’ Hodges put in. He mounted up and swung around to face McCall. ‘They got ‘bout twelve hours on us, I agree. But they ain’t in too good a condition for hard riding. They’ve been living in town too long. Gone soft. And it takes a good man to hide his tracks in country like this. I don’t think Temple is smart enough to fool me. No, sir!’
‘You think maybe they didn’t ride last night? Made camp and then lit out come daylight?’ McCall asked.
Hodges nodded, then grinned. ‘You ain’t so dumb, are you, son? he said. ‘I reckon if we make the top of the south wall by noon, we’ll be able to rest a while ‘til the sun cools off a mite, then keep going the rest of the day and all night. That way we’ll make up the time we’re behind on.’
‘Let’s go,’ Ballard said, and kneed his horse into motion.
McCall settled his hat firmly on his head and swung in line behind Hodges.
For the next few hours they maintained a steady pace that ate up the miles but didn’t exhaust the horses. Above them the sky cleared, with no clouds and a hot sun. The heat increased steadily throughout the morning, drying up the moisture of the previous day’s storm, turning the ground hard and dry.
It was just after mid-day when they reached the crest of the southern hills. The climb had been smooth and easy for Hodges had led them up a trail he’d used many times before.
While Ballard and McCall gave the horses and gear a check, Hodges cast around for further tracks. He vanished from their sight for over an hour. Then he came back as silently as he had gone.
He had found the spot where four men had camped for the night in the shadow of a huge outcropping rock. He had seen the ashes of their fire and the place where they had tethered their mounts.
‘They headed out about six hours ago,’ he said. ‘I found their tracks. They won’t be hard to follow now.’
They rested for a couple of hours. They ate some dried beef and swilled it down with water. It was a great deal cooler when they mounted up and set off again. Hodges led them along the top of the hills until he picked up the sign he had found. Then they began the descent to the wild and empty vastness of the Kansas plain.
Hodges led the way with the Texans close behind. McCall was rolling himself a cigarette as he rode. Ballard sat his saddle erect and watchful, his eyes on the sweeping expanse of the land ahead.
Chapter Fourteen
About the time Ballard, McCall, and Dicken Hodges were descending from the top of the Gunner Valley hills, Wade Temple was draining the last of the water from his canteen. His dry throat was barely moistened by the minute trickle of warm liquid.
Temple swore beneath his breath as he hung the empty canteen on his saddle. He was ready to give every last dollar he owned for some good fresh water. Then he shook his head angrily. At the moment the lack of water was his most insignificant problem.
Turning his head he gazed down towards the ground where Burt Nels stood. At Nels’ feet lay a dead horse. The animal had put its right foreleg into a pothole and fallen. On trying to get the animal to its feet again, Nels had found that the leg ins broken. Reluctantly he had shot the horse.
This turn of events hadn’t done anything to calm down Temple’s ravaged nerves. He was tired and thirsty, as well as being dirty and almost at his wit’s end. The previous night had been spent out in the driving rain. For their meals they had eaten beans, swilling them down with foul black coffee. They had ridden as soon as it became light, and hadn’t stopped until now. This wasn’t the way Temple had planned it, and it worried him. He found himself looking back over the way they had come. But he saw nothing except the vast plain that lay baking beneath an unmerciful sun.
So to relieve his frustration and anger he turned on the unfortunate Nels. Temple’s voice was forced and biting as he said, ‘What now?’
Nels glanced up, running his tongue over his dry lips. His face was scraped raw down the left side, a result of his fall.
‘Reckon I’ll have to ride double ‘til we can find me another horse,’ he said.
‘Oh, fine,’ Temple snapped. ‘That’s going to slow us up damn good.’ He glanced at Dutch Canfield who gave a short shrug of his shoulders.
‘I don’t see any other way,’ Hal Weston said sharply. He put out a hand and took Nels’ saddlebags and rifle. Then he slid his right foot from the stirrup to allow Nels to mount up behind, him.
Temple looked across at Dutch. He kept his eyes firmly on the man as he said, ‘There’s a way.’ And as he spoke he brushed the tips of his fingers across the butt of his holstered gun.
He was counting on an instinct that was telling him Dutch would act as was expected of him. Dutch had already betrayed the men back in Gunner Creek. Temple rationalized that Dutch would do it again, if and when the situation ever arose.
Temple’s instinct served him well.
A minute flicker of a nod was Dutch’s only indication that he had read the meaning of Temple’ a glance. Then he acted without warning or hesitation. With the same deliverance that a man uses to kill an insect he drew his gun. The barrel lined up on Nels’ back and the hammer clicked back. Then the Colt roared and belched flame as Dutch fired twice.
Nels was almost mounted when the two slugs slammed into him. He was tossed over the horse’s back and pitched face down in the dust. Blood welled from the closely spaced holes in his shirt.
For a moment Hal Weston sat rigid in his saddle. Then he jerked his head round toward Dutch who was returning his gun to its holster.
‘Dutch,’ he yelled, ‘have you gone loco? What in hell do you mean gunning’ Burt?’
Temple swung his mount alongside Weston’s.
‘Look, Weston,’ he said, ‘we had no choice. If you look at it my way you’ll see I’m right. If we’d had to ride double it would slow us up a great deal, and it would tire the horses a lot faster, too. We’ve got a long way to g
o. God knows how long it’ll be until we get a chance to obtain fresh horses and supplies. Think about a posse on our back trail. If my scheme didn’t work as I hoped it would, we most probably are being chased. So we’re going to need all the speed we can get out of these animal. And riding double wouldn’t be the way to do it.’
Temple swung away from Weston and moved out. Dutch followed him without a backward glance.
Hal Weston remained where he was for a while. He seemed to be fighting some inner conflict. Finally he ran his hand across his face. Before he rode off he gave a last look at the body of Burt Nels. Then he swung his horse’s head round and galloped after Temple and Dutch.
The noise of their departure rapidly faded into the distance and there was only the silence and the heat.
It was late afternoon when Dicken Hodges reined in his horse a few yards from the body of Burt Nels. He turned in his saddle and waved for Ballard and McCall to join him. Then he dismounted and knelt by the body.
‘Who is it?’ Ballard asked as he came alongside.
Hodges stood up. ‘Name of Nels,’ he paid.
‘Looks like he got it in the back from here,’ McCall said from the saddle. ‘Wonder what happened?’
‘You can ask Temple when we find him,’ Ballard said.
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
‘We’d better bury this poor devil,’ Hodges said.
A quarter-of-an-hour later they mounted up and headed out again. Behind them they left a long, narrow mound of earth and stones, the final resting place for Burt Nels.
They rode steadily until night began to fall. Twenty minutes for a cold meal and a rest for the horses then they were in the saddle again and heading into the darkness.
Their pace was slowed until the moon rose big and bright in the heavens. With the darkness came the sharp, biting cold of the open plain, and they paused to put on the thick, short-coats that Hodges had insisted they bring.
As they struggled into the heavy coats Hodges said, ‘I reckon if we keep moving’ all night, we’ll catch up with ’em sometime tomorrow. Like I said before, Temple and his boys are town rats, not the prairie kind. They can’t move in the dark like me.’
McCall blew on his chilled hands. ‘Hell, you got to admit that there’s something to living in a town. A night like this a man needs a place he can go to get a drink. Man, what would I give for a bottle of good whisky.’
Hodges gave a toothy grin as he rummaged about in the pouch of his worn saddlebags. His had rose to the accompaniment of a familiar sound. That of liquid swilling about inside a bottle.
‘This feller is my kind of man,’ McCall said as he took the bottle.
After McCall’s healthy swallow of its contents the bottle passed to Ballard, then back to Hodges. The old man tock a mouthful then replaced the cork.
‘I feel like riding none-stop to Juarez after that,’ Ballard said as the whisky cut a path clear down to his boot heels. ‘What was that stuff?’
‘‘Bout as crude as it comes,’ Hodges grunted. __
‘Seems to have quieted down Texas, here,’ Ballard grinned.
McCall was holding a hand to his stomach and waiting for the whisky to settle before he moved. He finally gave a deep sigh and said, ‘That was downright lethal stuff. All I want now is a pretty gal and I’ll be the happiest man in Kansas.’
Hodges gave a low chuckle. ‘I carried some queer stuff in my ‘bags,’ he said, ‘but it never run to women.’
‘Don’t fret none,’ McCall said. ‘I’ll make do with my thoughts.’
He sighed wistfully and kneed his horse forward.
Hodges rode ahead again and a grinning Ballard brought up the rear.
Throughout the night they kept up the steady pace that didn’t tire the horses but got them a long way before the graying sky heralded dawn. The sun rose to reveal a change in the landscape. Where yesterday had been a wide expanse of grassland, the scene now was of undulating hills and ravines, hard baked earth and rocks with occasional clumps of stunted scrub.
As they reined in atop a rise McCall said: ‘I never knew country to change so rapidly.’
‘It gets worse further out,’ Hodges said.
They moved out in silence. Hodges concentrated on following the tracks that were bringing them nearer their quarry.
The sun was well up when, as they halted to remove their coats, McCall saw them. No more than a quarter-of-a-mile away. Three horsemen They went out of sight behind some rocks for a few seconds, then he saw them again. McCall brought his mount up beside Ballard’s.
‘Up ahead,’ he said.
‘I see ’em. Dicken?’
Hodges nodded. ‘Yep. Got ’em.’
‘Any suggestions as how we catch ’em?’ McCall asked.
‘Forget any ideas that include surprising them,’ Ballard said
Hodges and McCall turned and saw the three riders sitting their now motionless mounts. It was obvious that they had spotted their pursuers. Then they wheeled their horses around and headed out at a gallop.
‘Damn,’ McCall said.
Ballard kicked his horse into motion and it leapt forward eagerly. Hodges and McCall followed closely, their mounts moving forward in the first hard riding they’d done since leaving Gunner Creek.
It was Temple who spotted the three men on horseback. He had been taking frequent glances along the back-trail ever since they had left Burt Nels beside his dead horse the previous day.
Now as he saw the three, sitting their mounts on a rise, he felt an icy hand clutch at his heart. It was the one thing he’d been praying for not to happen. He couldn’t recognize any of the men. Somehow, though, he knew without doubt that one of them would be Chet Ballard.
Temple reined in his sweating horse and dropped a hand to loosen his gun.
‘Dutch,’ he called, ‘we’ve got company.’ He tried to sound calm, but didn’t think he’d succeeded.
Both Dutch and Hal Weston reined in alongside of Temple. They stared across the stretch of hot, dusty earth that lay between them and their pursuers.
‘Looks like your scheme didn’t work after all,’ Dutch said.
‘They haven’t got us yet,’ Temple snapped back.
Weston said, ‘If it comes to making a run we won’t get far on these mounts. They’re about finished.’
‘Then we’ll make a fight,’ Dutch said. ‘Get in amongst some of these rocks and pick ’em off when they come in range.’
Temple opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. He realized that Dutch’s way was the only one left open to them. His horse was practically exhausted and wouldn’t carry him far if it had to race. No matter how he turned this was one time in his life he was going to have to stand and fight if he wanted to keep alive.
With Dutch leading the way they moved out fast. Dutch headed for a sprawling bed of jumbled rock that lay ahead. It would make an ample defensive position for what they were planning.
They had to dismount and lead the horses as the ground became rougher and strewn with chunks of hard, jagged stone. As they moved deeper into the rock-bed the chunks of stone became boulders, then vast, towering masses of solid, sun-bleached rock.
They halted at a point which gave them protection, yet allowed a clear view of the land spread out before their eyes. Hal Weston led their horses into the cover of a huge boulder. He rejoined Temple and Dutch. They all had their rifles. Dutch took his and climbed up onto a boulder, lying on his stomach, his rifle ready for when the three riders came into sight over a rise about a hundred yards from where he lay.
Below, in the shade of a smaller boulder, Temple crouched down and wiped sweat from his face. He made a futile attempt to brush away some of the dirt from his soiled clothing. Irritably he ran his hands over his smarting eyes and unshaven chin.
Dutch suddenly said, ‘They’re comin’!’
The rattle of lever-actions being worked brought Temple to his feet. Keeping low he looked over the top of his protecting boulder, Hal Weston be
side him.
He saw the riders as they appeared over the rise a hundred yards away.
‘You recognize then’?’ he asked.
‘It’s that McCall feller, old Dicken Hodges…and Ballard,’ Dutch replied.
‘Hell, with that old bastard, Hodges, trackin’ it’s no wonder they found us,’ Weston said.
‘Well he won’t do any more trackin’,’ Dutch snapped. He raised his rifle and took swift aim. When he fired the boom of his gun slammed and rolled around the rocks for a long time.
‘Hey, you got the bastard,’ Weston said viciously.
As he spoke one of the riders slid from his horse and fell stiffly to the ground. Instantly the other two left their saddles and threw themselves onto the hard earth.
Dust flew up and created a hazy curtain the hot air as Hodges’ horse picked its sure-footed way amongst the rock and scrub. Ballard and McCall bringing up the rear were covered in a choking mist as the powder—fine dust swirled over then.
McCall couldn’t express his feelings on the matter. If he had opened his mouth he would have been eating dirt. So he put his head down and pulled his hat low.
Their pace had been slowed to a swift walk, for it was too risky to push the horses in this kind of terrain. A man on foot wouldn’t last long out here and riding a horse recklessly amongst these jagged rocks and rutted slopes of iron-hard earth was one sure way of aiding up like that.
‘Hold up,’ Hodges said suddenly.
McCall reined in beside Hodges. ‘See ’em?’ he asked.
Hodges shook his head. ‘Nope. But I reckon they’re up ahead. In them rocks.’
‘They sure couldn’t pick a better place,’ Ballard said. He placed his hands on the saddle-horn and eased his weight in the saddle. His bruised face was dust-grimed and weary. ‘If they’ re as tired as me and my horse they’ll be in there.’
