The Last Straw

by Harold Titus

  CHAPTER XXVI

  BATTLE!

  Jane found herself on the pinto racing through the night, ducking undercedars until she was clear of the timber, crashing through brush,leaping washes and at her side, silent, close, protecting her, an armready to grasp her body should her horse fall, rode Tom Beck.

  They made straight across the flat toward the foot of the trail. Totheir right was shooting and behind them a sharp volley rattled. Astray bullet _zinged_ angrily, close over their heads.

  "You've got to get out of this, ma'am," Beck cried. "There'll be hellto pay before mornin'. There's nothing they won't do now."

  "Tom! You came!"

  Her eyes were blinded by tears as she turned her face to him, trying toput into words the forgiveness which she deemed unnecessary and whichshe knew was the one essential to Tom Beck, which she knew would bealmost impossible to convey convincingly. But through the tears she sawthe flash of a gun before them and an answering flash. A lengthyflicker of lightning showed two figures. One, Dick Hilton, horse drawnback on his hocks, revolver lifted. They saw him shoot again and theysaw that other figure, Baldy Bowen, who was there to block the trail,crumple in his saddle and sag forward, struggle heavily to regain hisposition and then, as his frightened horse moved quickly, plunge in anungainly mass to the ground.

  Beck raised his gun as Hilton's horse leaped for the trail. He shot butthe instant of light had passed, making the world darker by contrast.They saw fire shoot from scrambling hoofs.

  The burst of rain had ceased, the interval of fury broken; the stormstill swirled, roaring, above them, but it was dry and black,threatening, holding in reserve its strength....

  The sound of another horse, cutting in before them, runningfrantically, and Beck's gun hand went up only to poise arrested as avoice came to them with the singing of a rope end that flayed theanimal's flanks.

  "Go; go! Take me after him!"

  It was Bobby Cole's cry. She had seen. She was riding on the trail ofthe man who would have been her betrayer.

  They dismounted hastily and stooped over the figure that lay quiet onthe rocks. Jane stilled her sobbing as Beck rolled the body over andfelt and listened.

  "Dead," he said huskily.

  "Dead!" echoed Jane. "Dick killed him! Oh ... beastly!"

  Fresh firing behind them. The shout of a man and an answer. More shots,coming closer.

  "You've got to get out," Beck said lowly, lifting her from her kneesbeside the dead rider. "There'll be hell here to-night and it's noplace for you. You bring the law!"

  "I feel as though I should stay. There'll be others killed and it's myfight!"

  Hers was a cry of anguish, but he replied:

  "You'll save lives by bringin' help. And hurry, ma'am, hurry!"

  His only thought was to get her to safety.

  A rifle crashed twice not a hundred yards from them and they heard arunning horse grunt as spurs raked his sides.

  "Get up and get out!" he cried hoarsely, fearful that she might insiston lingering in this place which, this night, was well named Devil'sHole.

  "There's only one of 'em ahead of you. He's bound only to make hisget-away.... An' the Catamount, she'll clear your way if he does turnback!"

  He lifted her bodily to her horse.

  "It seems my place to stay!" she cried as shots peppered the storm. "Tostay with you, Tom!"

  "It's your place to get out! Ride!"

  He swung his hat across the pinto's hind quarters and the animal leapedinto the trail. He heard Jane cry out to him to stop.

  "Go on!" he shouted. "Go on! It's your job to bring help!"

  And he heard her go on, the horse floundering up the steep rise, andknew that she obeyed. Then he turned and looked out across the flat.

  Far down toward Cole's cabin was a shot. A riderless horse went pasthim, blowing with excitement. He crouched behind a boulder, gun in hishands, peering into the darkness. Others would not travel that trailthat night so long as he was on guard....

  The fight had been carried in both directions, further up into theHole, on down toward the Gap. HC riders, partially assembled andidentified, had closed on the outlaws, cut them off from the trail andfor the space of many minutes there was no revealed action, eachwaiting for the others to show themselves.

  Again in the distance was the mutter of thunder and a brilliant,prolonged flash of lightning. The wind had subsided to breathlesssilence as if the heavens marshaled their forces for fresh outbursts.Beck started up as the clouds flared, looking quickly about. He saw ahorse with an empty saddle. He saw a man standing waist deep in brush,a rifle at his hip, ready to fire. He could not recognize the man.Darkness; again, a silent lighting of the skies, and with that thestillness was broken. There was the sharp crack of a rifle far to hisleft, up toward the head of the Hole. None replied to the shot. Amoment later the clouds sent out their flare again ... and this timetwo shots echoed.

  Beck started up with a low cry. Above on the trail he had seen JaneHunter's pinto, making for the high country, and those two stabs ofyellow flame had been aimed upward and toward the wall to which herpath clung.

  It seemed to the man an age until lightning again revealed the earth.He had an impression of a horseman far toward the top of the trail andbehind him another, riding hard; and lastly, Jane's pinto toilingbravely up the sharp climb.

  And as darkness cut in again two more fangs of flame darted toward her!

  Jane Hunter, without protection, wholly revealed by the lightning, wasa target for merciless men, for men who had nothing to lose and atleast a fighting chance to gain by stopping her!

  He had believed that she was going to safety; he had underestimated themaliciousness of those men she had driven into the open that afternoon.He had neglected to consider the fact that on the trail she was withoutprotection of any sort and that lightning would make her stand out likea cameo! He forgot his mental stress, he relegated his duty as sentinelto inconsequence, for she was in great danger and needed help! It was ajoy to know that the life in his body, the blood in his flesh, might bethe one thing she needed, for only by offering those possessions couldhe atone for his faithlessness. He had no idea that he could regainthat desire to possess her. He only wanted her to know that what he hadto give was hers; that was all!

  Then another rider was on the trail: Tom Beck, roweling his horse,fanning his shoulders with the rein ends, crying aloud to him forspeed, his gun in his holster, a useless thing.

  He rode with abandon in the darkness, urging the horse to a speed thatmocked safety. Stones were scattered by the animal's spurning feet andhe heard them strike below, the sounds becoming fainter as he mountedthe steep rise. Lightning again and the viper spits down there in theflat licked out for the woman ahead. Beck swore aloud and beat hishorse's flanks with his hat.

  The darkness, though it handicapped speed and enhanced the danger ofhis race, was relief. When it was dark they could not fire....

  And he knew they were waiting down there, rifles ready, straining tosee in the next burst of light....

  He begged of the Almighty to send rain, to hold back the lightning, butno rain came; the flares continued. He heard another shot, closer, frombehind, and knew it was the rifleman he had seen standing in the brushfiring at those who menaced Jane Hunter's safety.

  He was gaining on the pinto, slowly, with agonizing slowness. His bigbrown horse drove on, but, when in darkness and without perspective, itseemed as though his hoofs beat upon a treadmill. The animal's excitedbreathing became more clearly defined.... The pinto ahead crawledslowly and awkwardly like a dying animal, many minutes from shelter....

  One of those spurts of flame stung toward Beck. He heard, almost as hesaw it, the spatter of a bullet on the rock behind him. He lay low onhis horse's mane.

  The glimmer of lightning, unaccompanied now by thunder, became almostcontinuous. Against the white face of the mountain the riders were likesilhouette targets. Below there were stabs of fire from a dozen places,like fire-flies on a summer
night, but carrying death.

  Two bullets, close together, snarled past him, one above, the otherjust ahead, perhaps in a line behind his horse's ears. He hoped wildlythat they were directing all their fire at him, that he was drawing itfrom the girl above but even as this hope mounted the skies coruscatedagain and he saw that the pinto was stopped, saw that Jane was slippingto the narrow trail, her body wedged between the cliff and the body ofthe horse.

  For an interminable time blackness seemed to hold. The big brown, whosebreath was now laboring with exhaustion as well as with excitement,gasped scarcely a dozen breaths before the greeny light came again butto his rider it was an aeon of time. Tom Beck passed through theveriest depths of torment in that interval and unconsciously he shoutedinto the night incoherent cries of suffering. He had been too late! Hehad sent her to physical suffering, to her death, perhaps, and beforehe could make her understand that he blamed himself as only a just manwho has been unjust can crush himself with execration!

  But light came and he saw her, still alive, still safe!

  The pinto was down, hind feet over the trail. Wounded, he had tried toturn back, tail to the abyss as a mountain bred animal will turn. Hehad moved on unsteady limbs, his hind feet slipped over the edge andmoaning, head back, eyes bulging, he clawed with his fore hoofs to stayhis fall. Clinging to the reins, calling aloud her encouragement, thegirl helped with voice and limbs.

  For an interval she balanced the pull of the animal's own weight....

  And when Tom Beck could see again she was alone on the trail, one armraised to her face as she cringed from the bullets that spattered allabout!

  He cursed his horse, lashing furiously, spurring in the shoulderswithout mercy. He came up to her and she faced him, lips tight and inthe dance of cloud fire he saw her eyes wide, nostrils distended.

  "Get up here!" he muttered and lifted her to his saddle horn, windinghis arms about her, bowing his head and shoulders over hers to take themissiles in his own body first.

  She clutched him frantically, her warm arms around his neck, hertrembling limbs across his thigh with his hand hooked beneath theknees, her soft breast cleaving to his and, slipping through his openedshirt the little gold locket that was at her throat pressed against hisheart.... It was cold from the night and he felt it send a tinglethrough his body. Even then he wondered, with the strange sharpnesswhich stressed thought will give to irrelevant matters, what itcontained!

  "Tom! It's good to have you!"

  Good to have him! With death singing all about her it was good to havehim; it was her first thought!

  "It would be good to die for you!" he said.

  "No, no!"--sharply. "Not that, Tom! Live for me ... live for me!"

  She felt him start and shudder and sway and a moan broke from his lipsas a searching, tearing thing ripped at the small of his back,burrowing devilishly into his very vitals. She clutched him closer, notunderstanding.

  "It's all I've got to give you," he muttered unnaturally. "My life'sall I've got, ma'am. I'd be proud to give it.... It's a little thing togive to pay ... a debt like I owe you....

  "You keep your body behind mine ... always ... until we get to thetop...."

  "Tom!"--in alarm. "You're hit.... Oh, Tom!" She shook him, hitchingherself about that she might see his face. "Tom!"

  "A scratch," he said. "Just a--"

  The horse threw up his head and recoiled as a bullet sang past.

  "A--scratch," he finished.

  The girl looked about wildly. She knew there was no shelter there, nota ledge behind which they could hide, not a tree that would screenthem. The wall rose straight on one side, fell sheer on the other.There was no place to go but up; they could not turn there and go downfor there was no room ... the pinto, shot through the belly, had triedthat!

  The firing below grew more rapid. It did not wait for the lightningflashes now. Those spats of yellow fire struck upward continuously; indarkness, blindly; in light searching intelligently as the riders movedupward, nearer safety. HC men closed in on those who shot at thefigures on the trail, aiming at the flurries of viper light, meetingcounter fire as they drew nearer the murderous group of men.

  "Fireflies!" Beck muttered as he looked down again. "Lightnin' bugs letloose from hell!"

  When there was no fire in the clouds those light points looked soharmless, down there in the soft, velvet darkness! Well they might havebeen insects, bedecking a summer night ... but from them came thewhining, droning, searching projectiles that flew to find his life andJane Hunter's life!

  Fifty yards further was the first rise of rock that would protect themfrom below. Fifty yards, and the horse, under added burden, was sobbingas he staggered.

  Beck swayed forward and regained his balance with an effort that costhim a groan, but his arms, tight about Jane Hunter's body did not relaxa trifle; they held like tough, green wood. The girl cried out to himagain, that he was hurt....

  "It's nothin', ... my life," he replied. "It's all I could do ... fordoubtin' you. I couldn't ask you to ... love me.... I could die for you... that's all, ma'am...."

  "Tom, Tom! Keep your head; keep your head one minute longer; we'll besafe.... Safe, then...."

  Thirty yards to the place where the trail ran between uprising walls ofrock; thirty yards to that shelter; thirty yards to safety....

  But she looked down at those deadly fireflies playing on the flat, anddid not see a hatless man, crouched forward, run down the trail towardthem, pistol in his hand....

  Dick Hilton, who had escaped the Hole only to realize that there was noescape, was waiting to vent the last drop of poison in his heart....Nor did Jane see, nor did Hilton suspect, that waiting there for himwas another stalker, who had followed and lost him, who had turnedback, who had seen the travelers up the trail and who waited theirapproach screened by timber....

  Bobby Cole's heart leaped as she saw him run crouching to meet TomBeck, and her gun leaped to position ... and she waited there in thedarkness for the next flash of light ... as men waited below ... asJane Hunter waited, with her heart racing in despair; as Dick Hilton,gibbering under his breath, waited....

  The big brown horse stumbled and Tom Beck cried aloud in fear and pain,cried drunkenly, as his blood drenched the saddle. Twenty yards to theshelter of solid rock ... ten ... five....

  And a scarecrow figure leaped from it at them, revealed by a long,green glimmer.

  "Damn you, Beck! Damn you, you've ruined me; you drove me to this....Now, take th--"

  His gun had whipped up even as the gun of the girl they saw behind himwhipped up.

  Neither fired.

  Down below had come those winking fangs again and Hilton's voicetrailed into a rising, rasping gasp as missiles from his compatriotsdrilled his body.

  His pistol dropped to the rock. He put his hands to his stomach.

  "Damn your--"

  He choked on the word, and as he choked he took one blind step forward,over the brink. As he fell he threw up his hands and sailed downwardinto the depths, into the coming darkness....

  The brown horse had halted, but as Jane Hunter slipped to the ground,holding Beck's sagging body with all her strength, he stepped forward,in behind the rocks: their haven....

  "Oh, they got him!" Bobby sobbed. "They got him...."

  She might have meant Hilton, but if so the pity, the regret in hervoice was a mourning of her dead love, not the dead lover; or she mighthave meant Tom Beck and the tone might have been sympathy for the womanshe had come to understand, the woman who had respect for her and whoshe could respect....

  They let Tom's body to the trail. The horse moved off. Hastily Bobbyripped open his shirt....

  "Through the hips," she whispered. "Through the hips....

  "Look!"--starting up. "He's movin' his foot. It didn't get his spine;it didn't get his spine...."

  She tore open her shirt and tugged at the undergarment beneath it. Shestuffed it into the wound deftly, staying the blood while Jane Hunter,Beck's head in her lap,
cried aloud.

  "Listen!" Bobby knelt beside the other woman, hands on her shoulders,peering into her face.... "You're safe here. They've got 'em cut offfrom this trail below....

  "My horse is fresh. I'm goin' to your ranch for help. He ain't goin' todie, ma'am.... I promise you that.... He ain't goin' to die!"

  She was gone and Jane Hunter, half faint, clinging to that promise asthe last, the only thing in life, lowered her lips to her lover's eyes.