by T. T. Flynn
The horse fell heavily and Will barely launched clear. He struck the ground off balance on a skidding foot and fell hard, his handgun already out in his fist.
The horse’s head heaved up convulsively as Will rolled to a prone position, searching for the hidden gun.
In the timeless past a great chunk of the high cliff had split off and fallen into a giants’ rubble heap on the valley floor. From among those great rocks the shot had come. There now Will sighted a figure moving out from behind an immense, tilted chunk of the yellow sandstone—holding a rifle ready. Not Hansbro—This one lacked Hansbro’s black, chopped-off beard. Will was already shooting through the dust haze around his horse.
He saw stone dust spurt beside the target and belated recognition came. That youthful, wiry figure with heavy silver on the sagging gunbelt was Dave Waggoman.
Will lowered the heavy, wooden-handled forty-four. He was remembering Alec Waggoman’s curt order for Dave to stand back from the fight with Vic Hansbro in town. That tall old man with the bold-nosed, majestic face must be unaware of this.
Dave had dodged back out of sight. A second rifle shot drove its sharp report through the quivering valley. Dust fountained up an arm’s length from Will’s head. And this gun was behind him among the first trees on the lifting slope. He was boxed without cover, Will realized, glancing over his shoulder.
He weighed the chance of a dodging run toward the big rocks where Dave was hiding, and abandoned the idea as a second rifle shot back in the trees drove dirt spurting close again in pointed warning.
Will holstered the handgun and lifted an arm and sat up. His horse now lay inertly. He eyed the beast with somber anger and then watched six riders spur toward him from concealment among the trees.
Will got to his feet, retrieved his black hat, and knocked dirt from his denims as the running Barb horses drove sheets of spray from the small creek. The men reined up in a crescent beside him, and again Will was struck by the fine horses they rode, the competent, hard look of the men.
The short, sallow-faced rider at the end was Fitz, who had roped Will at the salt lagoons and held him while the mules were shot and four big freight wagons burned. Fitz dismounted, dropping the long reins, and stepped to Will and plucked out the holster gun.
“So Barb is killing horses this time,” Will commented in cold disgust.
Fitz grinned as he examined Will’s gun. “Mighta been you.”
Fitz’s head turned as one of the men muttered sharply, “Dave’s hand! Now there’ll be hell to pay!”
Dave was coming, rifle in his right hand and a blue bandanna wrapped around his left fist. Blood dripped from the bandanna cloth. One look at Dave’s face and watchful, regretful calm settled on Will. Dave’s features and full underlip which reminded Will vaguely of Barbara Kirby’s mouth, were pale now in malignant anger.
“Get his gun!” Dave called in thin-voiced rage. He stepped around the dead horse’s head. The bandanna on his left hand was sodden with blood. Dave’s glare had a wild, pale fury.
Here, Will saw, tensing, was unbridled temper wildly out of control. He guessed shock and pain like this had never really happened to Dave before. Always there had been Barb; always Barb’s power backed by the tough Barb crew. And behind that always the ruthless force of Alec Waggoman.
Dave’s thin-voiced rage shook with the wild viciousness. “I should have killed you, Lockhart!”
The futility of arguing made Will shrug silently. Hansbro was evidently not with this bunch, and probably just as well, Will decided bleakly. Dave was bad enough now.
Dave shoved his rifle at Fitz. “Gimme his gun!” Dave’s shaking voice ordered.
Silent unease had dropped on the Barb men. Fitz’s sallow face had lost its grin as he surrendered Will’s handgun.
“Y’ ain’t gonna kill him?” Fitz muttered.
“Shut up!” Dave was examining Will’s gun. His hand was unsteady. He held up the left hand and watched the blood drip for a moment. “Hold his arms!” Dave ordered thinly.
Fitz caught Will’s right arm. A brawnier Barb man gripped Will’s other arm. Both men seemed uncertain, uneasy. Will saw the futility of trying to wrestle away and stood quietly.
Dave lifted his bleeding left hand again. “Look at it, damn you!” Dave choked, and Will stiffened against the blow Dave evidently meant to strike with Will’s own gun. Then in pale rage, Dave shoved the gun muzzle at Will’s left palm and pulled the trigger.
Will’s unbelieving comprehension and great lunge to wrench the hand away were not enough. He felt the hands tighten convulsively on his arms as the shot crashed out.
Dave moved back from the swirl of black powder smoke, and Will stood with his own wild and helpless rage, head turned, staring at the mutilated hand. He felt no pain. That would come later. When the Barb men released the arm, it swung down against Will’s leg and blood dripped off the fingers.
“Same hand, same gun!” Dave spat at him. “How d’you like it?”
Will had to swallow and breathe deep to keep his own wild outrage steady. “I don’t like it!” he said thinly. “Tell your father there’s a limit to what Barb can do! It’s been passed!”
Dave sneered and spoke to the Barb men. “Shove him off our land and get back to work. I’ll ride to Doc Seldon in town an’ get this hand fixed. Fitz, get my horse.”
Will was stripping off his own bandanna and wrapping the hand. There was, he saw with relief, no spurting arterial blood. More talk was useless. He watched Dave start down the valley, and then ran a coldly estimating gaze over the Barb men before wheeling away for the long punishing walk back to Half-Moon.
“Hold it, Lockhart!” It was the brawny man who had held Will’s left arm. “We’ll tie your saddle on my horse. This wasn’t our doin’. It ain’t the Old Man’s way to have a man held while a bullet is pumped into him. Dave went crazy.”
Most of Will’s chill fury shifted from these hired hands. “Where’s Hansbro?”
“Up higher.”
“Is Alec Waggoman at the ranch?”
“Was this mornin’.”
“I’ll stop there on my way to the doctor,” Will decided.
He got a flat “Dave’ll be ahead of you. Ride to town on the Half-Moon side. See the Old Man later if you have to. Been enough trouble for today.”
After a moment Will nodded, not certain he could trust himself if he did catch up with Dave. He waited for the saddle horse, and pain began to crawl up the arm, and the promise of great trouble ahead moved in with dark certainty.
Of those who rode this day from Coronado toward Barb and Half-Moon, Frank Darrah was the last. He had waited overly long for Vic Hansbro to appear in town. Finally, wishing he’d made the ride with Barbara, Frank had started for Barb.
Today he wore a revolver and shell belt under his coat and carried a carbine in the saddle scabbard, a thing he almost never bothered to do. There was insidious threat in the thought that Lockhart was close again, backed now by Kate Canaday’s influential friendship. And she was influential. At times it seemed the big, loud, coarse-featured woman knew most people of importance in the Territory.
Alec Waggoman knew them also. Barb—Half-Moon—If those two big outfits warred openly, the destructive impact would be felt throughout the Territory. And it would be destructive, Frank mused. Only outsiders could possibly benefit. Someone like Frank Darrah, a cool, quick-thinking—yes, dangerous, too—young man, whose star was in an almost magical ascent. Everything fell right for a man who could grasp opportunity and turn it to his needs. And today Vic Hansbro might have the needed idea how Barb and Half-Moon could be set quickly at each other.
Hansbro might also have his own sullen wish to deal with Lockhart’s presence on Half-Moon. Conning that idea closely, Frank made the turn off the Roxton road, and at the first wooded, sugar-loaf hills he rode onto Barb land.
The green oak thickets and grassy draws under the low foothill ridges assumed today a new, gratifying significance. With a proprietary
eye, Frank reflected that all this, as far as one’s gaze could reach, might someday belong to Frank Darrah. In an unbelievably short time, too, if Vic Hansbro could be prodded in the right way.
The rough, narrow road cut up a shallow finger canyon and debouched into a winding, grassy valley. The horse pricked ears inquiringly and Frank had the quick, hopeful thought he might be meeting Vic Hansbro.
But the rider who came into sight was Dave Waggoman.
Frank halted his own horse with a disgruntled yank of the reins. He could do without Dave; he had little wish to see the arrogant young hothead today. It was Vic Hansbro who was all-important now.
Chapter Eighteen
Dave’s pale and set face lacked any friendliness. Then Frank saw the blood-crusted blue cloth around Dave’s left hand and half-guilty fear struck him. Had Vic Hansbro made a try at Dave and failed? And then under pressure had Hansbro been forced to open his dark and greedy thoughts to the Waggomans?
It required an effort to ask as Dave reined up, “Your hand! What happened?”
Dave’s glower and tight-lipped tension carried no particular enmity for Frank Darrah. “That fellow Lockhart shot me,” Dave gritted. “Roll me a cigarette.”
“Cigar?”
“Cigarette, dammit! Here, makin’s in my pocket. I’m no good with one hand.”
Frank inquired cautiously as he started the smoke, “How did it happen?”
“Caught him on Barb land again. God, this hand hurts!” Dave groaned; then viciously, “I hope his hand hurts worse!”
Quickly, hopefully, Frank asked, “Was Lockhart shot, too?”
Dave’s satisfaction was white-lipped. “With the same damn’ gun that shot my hand!” Dave pulled a wooden-handled forty-four from inside his wide, silver-buckled cartridge belt. “This one! I shoved it against his own damn’ hand and pulled the trigger! Hope he loses the hand!” Dave sucked a breath of pain again, glowering at the bloody bandanna. “Doc Seldon in town?”
“He was this morning,” Frank said, holding out the cigarette and a match. “What happened exactly, Dave?” Dave might have been killed. Frank breathed a little faster as all the possibilities raced through his mind. Here was the first violence between Barb and Half-Moon—between the Waggomans and Lockhart—The closest sort of a shave already for Dave.
Frank listened intently as Dave sucked smoke deep and jerkily related what had happened, with no capacity, Frank saw, for admitting that Dave Waggoman might have been wrong. Dave’s natural arrogance was supreme; his belief in the ruthlessness of Barb overwhelming.
Thoughtfully Frank inquired, “Is Lockhart heading for Doc Seldon, too?”
“How the hell do I know?” Dave answered unpleasantly.
“You might run into Lockhart between here and town.”
“Suits me.”
“Going to send Lockhart’s gun back?”
“I’ll leave it in town.”
Frank was unaware of the precise second the idea stirred full-blown and enticing in his brain. Suddenly his heart was pounding. The tension of it slid through nerves to tingling finger tips. He’s passed no one, Frank recalled, since turning off the Roxton road.
Dave had come directly down from the high shoulders of South Peak, missing the Barb headquarters. All the Barb crew, Dave had just said, were in the high country today. And who had any idea that Frank Darrah had ridden this way? He hadn’t mentioned it in town. And until the Barb crew returned at dusk, no one else would suspect that Dave was here in the foothills. Then it would be night—
“My business at the ranch,” Frank decided, smiling, “wasn’t very important. Mostly an excuse to get out from the store. I’ll ride back to town with you.” He was forcing the smile. His throat was tight; great slow thumps of his heart must surely be noticeable. In a lifetime—at least once—was Frank’s rather desperate decision now, a gamble became so certain, the reward so great, that a man could not hesitate—
Dave was saying indifferently, “Suit yourself.”
Dave lifted the reins with his good hand and rode on, and Frank wheeled his horse and rode with him, speaking lightly. “What will you do with Lockhart’s gun?”
Dave passed over the heavy revolver. “Give it to Lockhart,” was Dave’s surly suggestion.
Frank held the weapon gingerly, fascinated. Dave put his horse into a slow lope and drew ahead. Frank gazed at Dave’s unsuspecting back in growing fascination now, and rode that way, a little behind Dave, nerving himself.
At about the same time, a Half-Moon hound sighted Will Lockhart and barked, and the full yelping pack came streaming out of the ranch yard to investigate. A lean grin broke on Will’s face as his greeting from the saddle made tails wag. Then as he rode into the ranch yard, Will sighted Kate Canaday’s big figure in the back doorway of the spacious log ranch house.
“Had an idea ’twas you!” Kate called. “Anything on the mountain worth the ride?” Below her gray-streaked pompadour, Kate’s rough, weathered face was humorous. “Coffee an’ a pretty girl waitin’,” she stated jovially. Then Kate’s movement out from the doorway was agile for so large a woman. “That’s a Barb horse!” Kate stated sharply. And then more sharply, “What’s wrong with your hand?”
Will dismounted and said tersely, “Bullet.”
He got then a better measure of Kate Canaday. “Come in an’ get patched up,” Kate said calmly. She turned back into the kitchen. Will heard her brisk order reaching deeper into the house. “Barbara! We got a bullet hole to fix!”
Kate was pumping water at the iron sink inside the back kitchen windows when Barbara Kirby appeared. “Get clean towels an’ that pint o’ iodine on the medicine shelf,” Kate directed vigorously. “An’ the razor an’ them little tweezers.”
Barbara hurried out and Will smiled faintly. “A regimental surgeon wouldn’t do better.”
Turning from the sink, rolling up one sleeve, Kate demanded keenly, “How many army docs you seen in action, Lockhart?”
“I’ve heard of them,” Will parried.
Kate gave him an oblique look and lifted the cast-iron lid of the range hot-water tank and tested the water with a finger. “Pop your hand in that pan of cold water in the sink an’ soak the cloth loose,” Kate ordered. She added with resignation as Will moved to the sink, “Seems all my life I been peckin’ lead outa hard-luck Harrys.”
Barbara came back with her hastily collected burden and Kate asked bluntly, “You got a weak stomach?”
“I don’t think so,” Barbara said uncertainly.
“This,” said Kate briskly, “ain’t an’ won’t be a purty. Fetch that whisky bottle from the pantry shelf. If Lockhart don’t need it now, he will.”
The cold water eased feverish throbbing in the hand and arm. Will stood in grateful relaxation, watching Barbara. Each time they met, she seemed slightly different, he decided. Today her divided riding-skirt was of cocoa-colored, soft-weave merino. Her small, square shoulders had the look of gay vigor he remembered so well. She caught her red underlip between white teeth as her greenish eyes soberly estimated him.
He knew her temper, her capacity for the unexpected. He knew she was going to marry Frank Darrah. A hardening disinterest possessed Will as he thought of that marriage and looked away.
Kate’s brisk, “Well, let’s get at it—” diverted his thoughts.
In the next moments he was wincing, clenching teeth while he marveled at the deftness of Kate’s big, rough-looking hands. Barbara stood at Kate’s elbow, doing quickly the things Kate demanded, and Will briefly told them what had happened.
Indignation burst from Barbara. “I wouldn’t have thought even Dave would do such a thing!”
“Ain’t Dave always done what he wanted?” Kate reminded shortly. She pumped water over the hand and bent with the small tweezers.
Will’s comment was curt and bleak. “How did a man like Alec Waggoman have a son like Dave?”
Intent on her work, Kate muttered, “Alec married a pretty little fluff who knowed wha
t she wanted an’ got it. An’ never fergot how pretty she was an’ how rough her man was. Dave was mama’s pet. He got anything he wanted. Alec was busy buildin’ Barb. Time his wife died, the damage was done. Vic Hans-bro did his share, helped Dave have his way. Dave was a swaggerin’ little bully. He never changed.” Kate’s snort was disgusted. “Dave’s mamma’d be proud of him, I reckon.”
The bitter hostility in Kate’s tone drew Will’s thoughtful look. Barbara’s calm voice changed the subject.
“A man named Charley Yuill is here. He rode up on the mountain on the chance he’d find you.”
“I was expecting him,” Will said, and he wondered why Barbara’s glance sought his face in sober estimation.
Kate said briefly, “Quigby, the deputy, stopped by this mornin’, lookin’ for you.”
“Do they want me back in jail?” Will asked, hardening.
“Quigby,” said Kate dryly, “came to warn against any trouble with Barb. Said he’d already warned Alec. We’ll see now what Quigby an’ his law does about this.”
Will was staring at his hand. “I’m going to ride to the doctor,” he decided.
Kate nodded. “You better. Barbara can ride home with you.”
Barbara’s quick look was surprised. Will said soberly, “I’ll probably need help.” Then he grinned at Barbara’s askance look.
Later with the hand bound massively in strips torn off a sheet, Will sat at the kitchen table and ate a meat sandwich Barbara had made for him. He heard the dogs give cry once more. Barbara glanced out a back window.
“Your redheaded friend.”
Will pushed back his chair. “This won’t take long; then we can start.”
Charley Yuill’s friendly grin had never been more welcome as Charley slipped nimbly off the bareback mule. “Ridin’ the grub line, lookin’ for work,” Charley drawled. “What’s the matter with your hand?”
Will told it as they walked toward the horse corral, Charley leading the mule. Charley’s dark face took on Indian impassiveness. “What do we do, Cap’n?” Charley’s dark eyes had a dangerous glow.
