When they got to the oak tree behind the hotel, they found Kitty still waiting there. She ran to meet them. “They ain’t come back,” she said.
“I’ll go see if I can find ’em,” Perley said. “But I need to get Melva down here first.” Barbara ran into the hotel at once to get her. As soon as the little girl saw Perley, she ran to him and started telling him about Drew riding his big white horse right up to the tree where she and Alice were playing. “Did you or Alice ask if you could have a ride, or did Drew ask you if you wanted one?” Perley asked.
“He asked us if we wanted to take a ride on his horse,” Melva said. “But he couldn’t take but one of us at a time.”
“Do you remember where you were standin’ when Drew and Alice rode away?” Perley asked then. Melva nodded her head and walked over to a spot near the edge of the little yard. When she got there, she stamped each foot down hard, then folded her arms across her breast to show she was sure. “Good,” Perley said. “Now, can you point where they rode off to?” She nodded again and pointed toward a little gap in the trees on the other side of the railroad tracks. “That’s real good,” he told her. “You did a good job.” To Rachael then, he said, “I’m gonna go see if can pick up their tracks.”
She placed her hand on his forearm and begged him, “Perley, find my daughter.” Tears began welling up in her eyes, so that she had to step away. “Please,” she pleaded.
“I will,” Perley said, and leading Buck, he started out in the direction Melva had pointed, searching the ground for tracks that would tell him the child had remembered correctly. He found that she had, for the tracks were easily seen, and there was one set of tracks, coming and going, so Perley saw that as a good thing. Maybe Drew intended nothing more than giving a child a ride on his horse and had no ill intent. It would have been easier to assume that, if he didn’t suspect that Drew Dawson was covering up something. He had gotten that feeling when Drew was so interested in his six-gun. He told himself to put those feelings aside and just concentrate on following Drew’s trail.
The tracks led him to the gap Melva had pointed toward, and he entered the creek there. Once across, he found more tracks, left by more than one horse. He decided there were two or more horses, and they had stopped there, never entering the water. The multitude of tracks made it difficult to try to guess an exact number, but from the pattern of the tracks, he had to allow that it could have been only a couple of horses nervously stamping around in that one spot. He mentally painted a picture of two or three riders accompanying Drew and waiting there while he went to pick up the girl. It was not a pleasant image. Since the trail leading away from the creek was so obvious, there was no need for close examination. So he climbed aboard his horse and followed.
There were no longer any thoughts of innocent amusement for a child at this point. Whatever Drew Dawson was up to could be of nothing but evil purpose. Kidnapping came to mind, kidnapping for ransom maybe. He might erroneously think Rachael was wealthy, or if not, that Emma would come to her aid financially for the safe return of her niece. The farther he rode, the madder Perley became, and he cautioned himself to beware of a surprise ambush, for he was obviously outnumbered. He looked out ahead of him and scanned the land before him. Nothing but wide-open prairie with only a tree here and there. He could certainly see if he was catching up with anyone and it didn’t appear that he was. The prairie led to a low line of hills not too far ahead. There was nothing to do but to follow the trail, which was blatantly obvious. It almost made him think it was intended to be obvious, but he felt he could not afford to break off to find a safer route, for the simple reason he didn’t know where Drew was going.
He was closing in on the ridge ahead when he heard the snap of the bullet as it passed over his head, followed a full second later by the sound of the rifle that fired it. Ambush! He thought and immediately looked for cover as a second shot rang out. A dried-up streambed was the only cover anywhere close, so he galloped straight for it as rifle shots kicked up sand behind Buck’s hooves. He charged into the dried creek, coming out of the saddle as fast as he could, pulling his rifle in the process. He had cover, but the sandy bank was not adequate cover for Buck, so he tried to shoo the horse away with a swat on his rump. He didn’t want the bay to catch a wild shot, but Buck took only a few steps and turned to face him. He was confident that Buck wouldn’t be shot on purpose, unless he was dealing with a complete fool on that ridge. And he was sure now the shots were coming from the ridge. So he crawled over and took the horse’s reins and led him about ten yards along the dried creek bed, then dropped his reins to the ground. Knowing Buck wouldn’t move from there with the reins on the ground, he then scurried back to a place where he could see more of the ridge. The rifle fell silent for a time. Perley figured the shooter was moving to a different position to get a better angle to shoot from. That might explain why he had not been hit by the many shots thrown at him while he was hustling to find cover.
He realized that he was in a very bad position. The words cow pie came to mind, and he could picture his brother John saying them. “Well, you’re right, brother, I’ve stepped in another one, and this one looks like I ain’t gonna be able to wipe it off my boot.” It was then that the voice called out.
“Hey, Perley, you kinda rode yourself into a tight spot, didn’t you?” The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t nail it down. “You know, the way I see it, you ain’t got a lot of choices. You can lay down there behind that little sandbank until I start takin’ aim, instead of just skippin’ bullets in the sand to keep you humpin’ to get to cover. But I’m a sportin’ man, myself, so I’m willin’ to give you a chance to walk away from here alive.”
Before he said the next word, Perley knew who it was, and he scolded himself for not paying enough attention to his gut feelings about the man. “Is Alice with you?” Perley called out.
“No,” Drew called back. “Alice is on her way to visit some folks. She’s all right. Don’t worry about Alice. Right now, it’s time for you to decide what you’re gonna do, and you ain’t got but two choices. One, you can set behind that sandy bank while I start pickin’ it apart with this rifle. And believe me, Perley, I could have put you down at any point I wanted to while you were hustlin’ your ass for cover. But I like you, Perley, so I’m willin’ to give you a chance to see how fast you really are with that Colt six-gun you carry. And if you’re as fast as everybody’s talkin’ about, then, hell, you can walk away from here and tell everybody you beat the fastest gun in Texas.”
Perley didn’t doubt Drew when he claimed he could have shot him at any time. He could imagine he was sitting on that ridge somewhere, watching him as he approached. “That does sound mighty sportin’ of you, Drew, but how do you know you’re the fastest gun in Texas? Texas is a big place.”
“I found out the same way you’re gonna find out you ain’t the fastest,” Drew called back. “So what’s it gonna be? You gonna face me, man-to-man?”
“What if I don’t want to shoot it out man-to-man?”
“Then I’m gonna shoot that bay horse you think so much of, and then really start takin’ aim at that bank you’re hidin’ behind,” Drew answered.
That bushwhacker really will shoot Buck, Perley thought. “All right, but how do I know you won’t shoot as soon as I get outta this creek?”
“Because I don’t have to,” Drew answered. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to win a reputation. Let’s get to it.”
“All right,” Perley said. “One last question. Are you one of the Ned Stark gang?”
“I’m not in anybody’s gang. Ned’s my cousin.”
“I was beginnin’ to think you had some connection with him,” Perley said. “How ’bout tellin’ me where they’re holdin’ Alice, so I can go get her when this little thing between us is done.”
Drew couldn’t help chuckling. “I like your spirit, Perley. I’m comin’ out now. You do the same, guns holstered.”
Perley saw him emerge f
rom a deep gully, halfway up the slope. He made his way down to the bottom of the ridge, his gun in his holster, but his hand was hovering over the handle, leery of a trick. As he agreed, Perley climbed up from the dry creek and walked over to a flat area where Drew waited, smiling, finally getting Perley Gates where he wanted him, facing him with ten yards of Texas between them. “There ain’t no use for lyin’ now,” Drew said. “Tell me the truth, did Curly Williams and Quirt Taylor pull on you first?”
“Yep,” Perley answered, “both of ’em.” His answer gave Drew pause, and during that pause, Perley whipped his six-gun out and put one round in the middle of Drew’s chest. With a startled expression of shocked disbelief, Drew fell to his knees, making no attempt to draw his weapon. Perley watched him closely as he walked up to him.
Still on his knees, although fatally wounded, Drew stared at Perley as he approached, his six-gun cocked and ready if needed. “I wasn’t ready,” Drew forced out between clenched teeth.
“I was,” Perley replied. “I couldn’t take a chance. You mighta been the fastest gun in Texas, for all I know, and Alice needs me.” He took a step back then when Drew fell face forward, his last breath exhaling on the way down. Good, Perley thought, I won’t have to waste another bullet. He then relieved him of his fancy gun belt and a sizable roll of money. Before going to get Buck, he took one final look down at the body and thought, I never could understand why a man would want to stand face-to-face with another man and try to see who could shoot first. To Perley, it was the definition of stupidity.
CHAPTER 19
“What you’re doing is wrong,” Alice said to the coarse-looking man who took her roughly by the arm and led her into a small shed attached to the line shack. “I don’t wanna go in there. I wanna go back to my mama. Drew didn’t mean to give me to you. Please take me back home.”
Clearly uncomfortable with the kidnapping of a six-year-old girl, Jim Duncan was hard pressed to think of what to tell her. Ned was already annoyed to have her there, and Jim was afraid if she caused any fuss at all, Ned would severely punish her. “You’ll be all right in here, a whole little room all to yourself. Just be quiet, or you’re liable to get Ned riled up, and you don’t wanna do that. You be real quiet, and I’ll bring you a cup of water and somethin’ to eat, all right?”
“I wanna go home,” Alice insisted.
“Now, honey, don’t make a fuss and you’ll be all right.” He closed the door. There was no lock for the door, but he closed the hasp and secured it with a twenty-penny nail, especially for that purpose. He left her and returned to the line shack where Stark and Frank Deal were sitting at a crude table, using two upended wooden boxes as chairs.
“Where the hell is Drew?” Stark demanded. “He oughta been here by now.”
“They musta been a little bit slow findin’ out the little girl is gone,” Frank answered.
“If he don’t show up pretty quick, I’m gonna go look for him,” Stark declared. He had been threatening to do that for about an hour. The plan that Drew had agreed to was for him to pick up the girl, since he was sure she would come with him. Then he and Jim and Frank would leave enough of a trail so anyone could follow it when they brought her out to the shack. When Perley followed them, they would bushwhack him. He had come to hate Perley Gates so passionately that he would know no satisfaction unless he personally put the bullet in him that finished him. And now, he was beginning to realize that Drew had gone back on the plan, just so he could gain a reputation for killing him. He had tried to tell Drew that killing Perley Gates wouldn’t gain him a reputation, because he had never heard of him before. Drew had always had a big head about his fast gun. Ned should have suspected he was up to something when he insisted that the other boys should go with him to pick up the Parker brat.
“I told her I’d bring her a cup of water,” Jim said. “You reckon we oughta give her somethin’ to eat?”
“What the hell for?” Stark responded.
Jim shrugged and said, “I just thought she might be hungry and maybe thirsty—thought it might keep her quiet.” When Stark didn’t respond, Jim said, “I can give her some water outta my canteen. There ain’t enough water in that little stream for the horses to drink.”
“Hell, it’s your canteen,” Stark said. “If you wanna waste it on that young’un, that’s up to you.”
Sitting huddled up in the tiny shed, Alice could hear the three men talking, but she was not sure why they had taken her. Feeling alone and frightened, she held onto the one thought that sustained her. “Perley will come to get me,” she murmured softly to herself. In her heart, she believed this, and it was enough to keep her from crying. She pictured her mother and her sister worrying about her, and it almost made her cry. So she told herself again, “Perley will come to get me.”
* * *
Even as Alice told herself not to cry because Perley was coming, Perley was urging Buck to maintain a steady lope that was rapidly shortening the distance between them. Leading the big white gelding that Drew had ridden, he followed the trail left for him to see. The trail turned when it came to a trickle of a stream, and he followed it for about a quarter of a mile before he pulled Buck to a stop. He had been riding along the stream bank through a sparse copse of trees. But now there were no trees as the stream wound its way across a grassy plain, and he could see a shack of some sort sitting in another small patch of trees about one hundred yards away, backed up to a low ridge. He studied the shack for a few minutes. There were horses in a small corral beside the shack, which he decided must be an old line shack. Had he ridden out of the trees to follow the trail, he could have been easily seen by anyone in the shack.
There was no reason for anyone to be in a line shack this time of year. Even when in use, there was usually only one man. So he figured this was where Alice had been taken. Evidently Stark was holding the girl here, in the event a posse showed up at his ranch looking for her. He was still puzzled over Stark’s interest in the kidnapping. Was he thinking of holding Alice for ransom, as he had considered earlier? Drew Dawson had evidently taken advantage of the kidnapping strictly for the purpose of a showdown with him. No matter what Stark’s reason was for holding her, Perley’s purpose was to rescue her and see her safely home, so he started thinking about how he was going to do it. While he was sitting there on Buck, he looked back at Drew’s horse and an idea struck him.
He slid out of the saddle and grabbed his rope, then he tied Drew’s horse’s reins to the limb of a tree while he prepared to give him a tail. He pulled Drew’s saddlebags off and tied them to one end of the rope. Then he played out about fifteen feet of the rope, cut it off, and tied that end to the saddle horn so that the saddlebags would drag about nine or ten feet behind the horse. He took a look at the saddlebags, picked them up and dropped them a couple of times, and decided they could use a little more weight. He removed the pistol and cartridges from Drew’s fancy gun belt and put them in Buck’s saddlebags. He put Drew’s gun belt around the saddlebags and drew it up tight so it wouldn’t fly off. “That’s better,” he said and prepared to set the white horse off to the races. He picked up the saddlebags and gun belt tail and carried it while he led the horse to the edge of the trees. With the reins wrapped around the saddle horn, he aimed the horse at the shack and gave him a slap on the rump. When the horse jumped, startled, Perley pulled his six-gun and fired three quick shots right behind him. When he ran, Perley threw the saddlebag tail up in the air after the charging horse. When it hit the ground, it bounced up behind the frightened horse, causing it to gallop even harder. Hoping Snowball did his part in his plan, Perley jumped on Buck and raced off in a circling direction to come up on the other side of the ridge behind the shack.
* * *
“What the hell!” Stark blurted when he heard the shots fired about a hundred yards from the shack. All three men ran out the door, their guns drawn.
“That’s Drew’s horse!” Frank exclaimed. They watched, astonished, as the riderless white horse
galloped across the grassy prairie in front of the shack. The saddlebag tail bouncing high in the air every time it hit the ground effectively chased the confused horse relentlessly.
“What the hell?” Stark repeated, this time a question. “Where’s Drew?”
“That don’t look too good,” Jim said, then uttered what they all thought, “Perley Gates.”
“Maybe,” Stark responded, then ordered. “Go after that crazy horse before it breaks a leg.” He picked up his rifle while Jim and Frank ran to get their horses and galloped after the panicking horse. Out in front of the shack, he watched the woods from which the horse had come, waiting for whoever was chasing the horse.
Alice held her head up when she thought she heard someone whisper her name from behind the shed. Then she heard it again and turned toward the back of the shed to discover someone there. She could see a body through the wide cracks between the boards but couldn’t tell who it was. “It’s me, Perley,” he whispered. “I’m gonna get you outta there.” He grabbed one of the boards and gave it a good yank. The rusty nails offered no resistance, so he pulled the board out of the way and grabbed the next one.
He only had it pulled halfway aside when she whispered, “I can get through,” and wedged her little body all the way out. She took hold of his hand then and followed him up the low ridge behind the line shack. He paused only once to take a look behind them to make sure her escape had not been discovered. Ned Stark was still standing out in front of the shack scanning the open expanse, his rifle ready. Then Perley ran up the slope at a trot, so Alice could keep up with him. Over the top, they ran to find Buck waiting at the bottom. Alice had not spoken another word until she was on Buck, behind Perley, with her arms locked tightly around him. “I knew you would come to get me,” she said softly.
“You can count on that,” he told her as the big bay gelding’s hooves pounded the dirt in a steady ground-eating rhythm. “I just wanted to be sure you weren’t late for supper.” With Alice safely behind him, he was not worried about being chased. The two men he saw ride out after Snowball were of no concern to him. The frantic horse was leading them off in the opposite direction to town, and the last glimpse he got of him, Stark was still standing out in front of the line shack with his rifle ready to fire. Since it was not that long a ride back to town, he eased Buck back to a gentle lope.
Shot to Hell Page 24
