Dead Man's Range

by Paul Durst

  A figure detached itself from the shadow of a cottonwood in the front yard, yelling, ‘It’s Jeff!’ and he recognized Caleb. Spurring the lathered black toward the house Carmody threw a glance over his shoulder. Along the ridge at the top of the valley a scattered dozen dots moved swiftly down the slope in the starlight. Carmody slid from the saddle before the black had stopped and hit the ground in a run.

  ‘Stay in the house!’ he warned, plunging through the gate. There was a strange wagon standing in the yard he noticed vaguely and he wondered if that meant Anne had been getting ready to move. Then they were gathering around him in the shadows; Caleb and Anne and Will Henstridge and a woman Carmody guessed must be Will’s wife.

  He stumbled against the side of the porch and leaned there, catching deep gulps of air and the pain in his chest told him what the ride had cost him. Anne was beside him, her arms about him, her face peering anxiously up at his in the faint light. ‘Jeff! – Jeff, are you all right? There’s blood on your shirt – what’s happened?’

  Carmody gestured toward the slope. ‘Anson’s crew’ – he breathed heavily – ‘coming to burn you out … better get inside. I’ll tell you about it.’

  Will Henstridge was running toward his wagon saying something about going to get his rifle. Carmody herded the others inside, describing briefly what had happened, interrupting himself to ask, ‘Ammunition and water? We’ll need plenty of both!’

  Anne ran to a cupboard and jerked open a drawer, bringing forth several boxes of cartridges. She pointed to the pump at the sink in the corner. ‘Clint and Caleb built the house around the well – we’ve got plenty of water.’

  Will Henstridge came running back with his Winchester, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Can’t see ’em now – they’re scattered along the flat and the trees are in the way.’

  ‘They’ll sneak up now and try to fire the place,’ Carmody warned. ‘They’ve brought coal oil.’ He glanced at the doors leading off the kitchen. ‘You ladies had better hunker down behind the stove where it’s safe,’ Carmody snapped. ‘Henstridge, you go in there and watch that side of the house’ – he pointed to the parlour – ‘and Caleb maybe you’d better take the bedroom.’

  Anne had taken her Winchester from the rack and was busy slipping extra cartridges to fill the magazine. She glanced up and said sharply, ‘I will not hide behind any stove! This is my ranch and if I can’t.…’

  Carmody grinned at her across the darkness of the kitchen. ‘All right, Anne, then maybe you’d better.…’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Anne breathed as the door behind Carmody opened.

  He turned to see Penelope standing there uncertainly in the dimness.

  ‘Who put out the light, Mommy?’ Then she saw Carmody and ran to him, grabbing his knees and laughing. ‘I knew you’d come back, Jeff! I knew you would!’

  From the kitchen window Caleb’s heavy Sharp’s boomed authoritatively, making everybody jump. ‘Damn … missed him!’ he swore, throwing open the breech and inserting a fresh cartridge. An answering shot showered the room with glass and he flattened against the wall, muttering, ‘I seen you – just behind that tall cottonwood. All right, feller, just try it again!’

  Will Henstridge grabbed the bucket of water and his Winchester, running toward the parlour. ‘Emma! You come on in here – there’re two windows and you can take my pistol and cover one.’

  Penelope clutched Carmody’s knees. ‘Jeff, I’m scared! Will they hurt us?’

  ‘No, little lady,’ he said firmly. ‘They won’t hurt us.’

  Carmody said softly to her, ‘This might last a while, Anne. Maybe we’d better make a bed for her under the table. ‘I’ll bring the mattress off her cot and put it there; then I’ll go in and watch from the bedroom. I can cover the back of the barn from there. That’s the side they’ll use if they try to.…’ He stopped, remembering Penelope.

  He saw Anne nod. ‘All right, Jeff, that’s a good idea.’

  ‘If you’re going to stay in the bedroom, Jeff, I want to, too!’ the little girl said. ‘I want to be where you are.’

  He glanced at Anne for confirmation and saw her nod her head again. ‘I’ll feel better if she’s with you, Jeff. You can put her mattress on the floor. So she won’t be … you know.’

  ‘All right,’ Carmody said.

  ‘Where’s Pinto?’ Carmody said softly as he dragged the mattress onto the floor.

  Penelope giggled and pointed to a ball of fur in a box in the corner.

  ‘Good watchdog,’ Carmody said.

  ‘He’s awful tired,’ Penelope said defensively. ‘He’s spent most of the day trying to dig up the coyote Caleb buried.’ She giggled again, ‘And I ’spect Caleb’s almost as tired trying to keep him from it. But’ – she hesitated, then said conspiratorily – ‘he did dig up something. If you promise you won’t tell I’ll let you see them. Promise?’

  But Carmody was watching the window now and said absently, ‘Sure, I promise. But lay down there and go to sleep now.’

  A voice called suddenly from beyond the barn and Carmody ran to the window. ‘Hallo there in the house! Mrs Merriweather, all we’re after is Carmody. Turn him over to us and we’ll go away and leave you in peace!’

  ‘In pieces, he means,’ he heard Caleb mutter from the kitchen. Then the night shook to the roar of the buffalo gun and the old man taunted, ‘Come on in and git him! What the hell’s ailin’ you?’

  ‘Caleb!’ Anne said. ‘There’re ladies present!’

  ‘Damn – I forgot!’ Caleb chuckled, and Carmody could hear the click of the breech as he replaced the spent cartridge.

  A long and uneasy silence followed. Carmody could feel the tension building up. ‘Get ready,’ he said, just loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘They’ll probably try a rush after that.’ He risked a quick trip across the room to glance out of the window on the other side and looked across at the wing where Henstridge and his wife were.

  ‘I’m sorry I got you folks into this,’ Carmody called across.

  ‘Hell, that’s all right, fella!’ was Will’s quick reply. ‘Ain’t your fault.’

  Carmody grinned and returned to the other window. He had just reached it when Caleb yelled, ‘Here they come!’

  The words were almost drowned in the fusilade which followed. The house rattled under the hail of bullets.

  The shooting kept up at a rapid pace, the heavy booming of Caleb’s heavy Sharp’s dominating the return fire from the house. Carmody had not so much as fired a shot; he was too intent on ferreting out the reasoning behind the barrage of pistols and rifles. There had been no bodily rush of men – Anson wasn’t chancing that until he found out the positions and numbers of the defenders. He had probably noticed the Henstridge wagon in the yard and knew he would have to deal with more than he had counted on.

  But what struck Carmody most was that, so far, the Anvil attack seemed to be coming mainly from the vicinity of the barn. No attempt had been made to encircle the house. Either that meant that Anson was afraid to risk his men away from the safety of the barn itself – or that he was trying to distract the attention of the defenders away from something that was happening elsewhere. Knowing that Anson would have little conscience about the safety of his riders, Carmody bet heavily on the other alternative.

  The scathing fire from the barn continued undiminished and the kitchen was filled with the whine of bullets and crash of broken glass and crockery.

  ‘Jeff! Will!’ Caleb yelled excitedly, slamming a fresh cartridge home. ‘Lend us a hand out here, will you? They’re all in the barn and raisin’ hell with us out here!’

  ‘Hold it, Will!’ Carmody barked. ‘Stay right where you are. Caleb, an old Injun scrapper like you ought to know better’n that! That’s just what Anson wants – and when he’s got us all out there he’ll send somebody sneakin’ around this side to try and fire the house.’

  ‘Well – mebbe you’re right,’ Caleb said grumpily. ‘But I don’t know why the hell it had to be me out her
e. These walls’re about as thick as paper when it comes to stoppin’ a bullet.’ A loud crash interrupted him as a bullet swept into the kitchen table-high, scattering fragments of the supper dishes across the floor. ‘See that!’ Caleb yelped, crouching beneath the sill, his eyes searching the darkness for the offending marksman. ‘There he is!’ he growled in a hoarse whisper. ‘Hidin’ behind Will’s wagon. Watch me nail him!’

  ‘Make damn sure you hit him and not the wagon,’ Will called quietly with mock seriousness. ‘That damn elephant gun of yours.…’ He was cut off by the thunderous roar of the Sharps which was followed instantly by the loud clang of iron as the big slug tore into a hub of a wheel at the axle. Craning his neck around the corner of the window Carmody saw the wagon settle with a crash on the broken wheel as a figure detached itself from he wreck and scurried for the cover of the barn. Anne’s rifle cracked from the kitchen and the running figure pitched forward, rolling over, and lay still, a dark blot against the lighter background of the yard.

  There was a sudden cessation of firing from the barn and in the heavy silence that followed he could hear Anne’s voice say tonelessly, ‘I-I’ve killed him!’ He knew the shock she must be experiencing at the realization that she had ended a human life, and even though she had done so justifiably in defence of her home and her child the shock would still be there.

  Then Will Henstridge’s voice spoke up quietly and broke the tension. ‘Hell, that’s all right, Anne – just lookit what Caleb’s done to my wagon.’

  He heard her give a laugh of sheer relief, but he knew it had bordered closely on hysteria and if Will’s odd humour had not intervened it might have been serious. But the moment had passed and he knew it would not return.

  As if with sudden angry desire to avenge the dead man, the firing broke loose again more heavily than before. The rattle and whine of bullets and little crashing noises filled the house once more. Something in the darkness outside caught Carmody’s attention. Peering cautiously over the sill beside his Colt he moved his eyes slowly over the dark shapes of brush scattered beyond the house at the back. Then he saw it again, beside the henhouse, a form almost indistinguishable in the shadows. It moved as he watched, creeping from behind the henhouse and darting to the shelter of a clump of brush closer to the house. The movement was quick, giving him no time to take aim in that feeble starlight. But it was enough to let him know his earlier guess had been right. The man had been carrying something as he scurried for cover. A jug of coal oil.

  CHAPTER 14

  From where Carmody stood, he commanded a view of that part of land beyond the house on the side away from the barn. It was sprinkled with brush and a few scrub willows, and not many yards away was the deeper shadow of the tall cottonwoods where the creek bent close to the house. While it offered little protection from gunfire, it was well suited to the type of skulking the man out there was doing.

  He stood for a long time watching for a sign of movement while the gunfire behind him continued. He tried to locate the spot where he had first seen the man but became uneasily aware that he had lost it in the confusing similarity of each straggling clump of brush.

  Then he saw the man move. Quickly again, darting from shadow to shadow, not exposing himself sufficiently for accurate shooting at that distance in darkness. Carmody marked the spot well this time, then debated the wisdom of borrowing Anne’s rifle for a shot at the brush. He decided against it. A misplaced shot would only warn him that he had been spotted, would make him more cautious. Instead Carmody gave himself over to studying the possible line of the man’s approach, trying to figure in advance the path he would choose.

  A brief examination of the ground made Carmody a little more confident. Close against the house the brush was nonexistent; for a dozen yards or so beyond that it was sparse enough to provide poor cover. Even if the man bellied down and crawled Indian-style every inch of the way he would have to expose himself sooner or later. He would have to come in and pour the coal oil, then light it. But he would never get that far.

  Carmody saw him move again, closer this time and angling toward the house. He moved more slowly, too, as though weighing up his chances for a final approach. Carmody watched the patch of brush for a long time, but the man seemed in no hurry to close.

  Then the shadow rose above the brush. Closer now, much closer. So close that Carmody drew his hammer to full cock and raised the Colt. The man went through a peculiar motion that was shadowy and indistinct and Carmody wonderingly held his fire. Then he was gone down behind the brush again. Carmody frowned, puzzling the meaning of this. In the next instant the roof gave a peculiar double thud as something landed solidly on either side of the ridgepole.

  Still puzzled, Carmody watched the brush for a sign of further movement. Surely the man hadn’t thrown the jug of coal oil on the roof and expected it to break and splatter? He frowned again, growing impatient.

  A faint gurgling noise caught his ear in a lull in the shooting and he jerked his head upward to stare at the ceiling. Something dripped from the eaves past the window beside him. The smell was unmistakable. It was coal oil. But – how the hell…?

  In a flash Carmody saw what the man had done. He had taken a length of rope and tied a chunk of wood or some other heavy object to one end and the jug of coal oil, loosely corked, to the other. Then he had flung them and, with more luck than skill, had made them straddle the ridge of the roof. The impact had knocked the cork loose from the jug and the coal oil was now running down the roof, saturating it and the side of the house.

  ‘Damn!’ Carmody muttered, jerking his attention back to the brush where he had last seen the man. ‘But you’ve still got to put a match to it, son,’ he thought. Yet the annoying notion stirred in his mind that maybe the arsonist had figured out something for that, too. A bullet, maybe. No, he doubted if a bullet would create enough friction to set off coal oil. You sometimes even had to hold a match a while to get it to catch oil. Then maybe.…

  A flicker of light appeared suddenly in the brush, then it grew quickly brighter, lighting the whole of the area clear to the cottonwoods along the creek. The man rose above the brush and Carmody saw that he was drawing back his arm to hurl a torch made of a length of stovewood wrapped at one end with rags now blazing furiously from the coal oil in which they had been soaked. Carmody fired twice in rapid succession.

  Both shots struck home, staggering the man backward under their impact. The arm holding the torch aloft relaxed its grip and the torch fell, striking the man on the shoulder. The man’s clothes were instantly aflame and with a scream of agony he turned and stumbled drunkenly toward the trees, slapping feebly at the flames which enveloped him. The cottonwoods and brush danced crazily in the shifting light as the blazing figure reeled, helplessly, a human torch. A second shuddering scream was cut mercifully short as Carmody sent a third bullet into his back. The man dropped instantly and lay unmoving in a little open space in the brush. For a moment or two the bright flames licked at him, then gradually faded and went out, leaving only a few glowing sparks in the darkness beneath the trees. Carmody turned away from the window and reloaded, his face grim-set. A peculiar sickly-sweetish odour penetrated through the smell of coal oil still dripping slowly from the eaves.

  Carmody was conscious of a sudden quiet everywhere. The shooting had stopped. The Anvil men in the barn beyond had either seen or guessed what had happened from the screams and shots. He guessed it was enough to shake even their hardened nerves. Nodding toward the kitchen he said, ‘Better get back there, Caleb. No tellin’ what they’ll try now. I’ll be out in a minute.’

  The pup was standing there, looking on wonderingly, and Carmody caught him up and held him to Penelope. ‘Look, Pinto’s here.’ She raised her head and glanced at the pup as if it might be the first thing she recognized in all this nightmare. ‘You said you’d show me what Pinto dug up this afternoon,’ Carmody went on, holding her attention. He felt it was unlikely that Penelope had been seriously affected by what s
he had witnessed, horrible though it was to see a man burn. He felt it was more a matter of taking her mind off it – hers and Anne’s, too.

  Penelope looked guiltily at her mother, then reprovingly at him. ‘You promised you’d keep it a secret.’

  ‘We’ll let your mother in on the secret – just the three of us, huh?’

  The girl turned to her mother. ‘Will you let me keep them?’

  Anne would have let her keep a bear in the parlour right then. ‘Of course, Penny. Let’s see what they are.’

  Penelope turned and drew a box from beneath the wardrobe. Something chinked metallically and she came back holding a pair of spurs. Anne gave a relieved laugh and hugged her to her. ‘She’s always wanted a pair of her own, Jeff. I was afraid she was too young yet, remembering how I turned into a female wrangler before I was much older I tried to discourage it.’ She kissed her little girl and said, ‘Of course you can keep them.’

  Penelope was overjoyed. She hugged Pinto and thanked him for bringing her the spurs. ‘He dug them up when he was looking for the coyote Caleb buried. They must be old – they’re kind of rusty and one rowel’s missing. But maybe you’ll help me fix them up, will you, Jeff?’ She held them out to him.

  ‘Can you fix them, Jeff?’ Penny said eagerly. ‘Can you make a new rowel?’

  ‘Yes, little lady,’ he said slowly, his voice strangely thick, ‘I think I’ve got a spare rowel that’ll just about fit this. I’ll take it along for now. You keep the other.’ He shoved the broken spur in his hip pocket. It was too dark to see it plainly. But he felt sure it was the one.

  A scattered outburst of shots came from the barn, slamming into the house. Carmody stood up quickly. ‘They’re starting up again.’ He glanced at the kitchen, then out of the bedroom window. ‘You’d better stay here with Penny a little longer,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they’ll try that again, but you can keep an eye out the window every once in a while. I’m going out in the kitchen and see if I can size up the situation.’