Who Wants to Live Forever?

by William MacLeod Raine

  Casey gauged the distance carefully to avoid loss of even a second. He swept the car around in a circle just in front of the runners. Mullins glanced at his friends in the saddle, undecided whether he had better make a bolt to escape. But the rifles were spitting at him, and he had no time to explain he was no enemy. Hal pushed him forward into the rear seat and fell on top of him.

  Dale's rifle roared at the attackers. She fired again as Casey completed the circle and dashed for the ranch house. Hal took the weapon from her, crashed the butt through the rear window, and answered the fusillade hammering at the car. Bullets spattered around them. Two or three struck the car. One must have hit the gas tank, for a jet of gasoline spurted from it.

  The sound of the firing back of them grew fainter as the distance from the attackers grew greater. The car left the pasture and ran up the hill road to the house.

  'They are still coming,' Hal warned. 'We had better get inside and lock up.'

  Piling out of the car, they ran into the house and locked the doors, after which they fastened the windows and lowered the blinds. Susie followed her young mistress from the kitchen. She was fat, forty, and very black.

  'Wha's all the rumpus about?' she demanded.

  'You'd better go down into the basement, Susie,' Dale said. 'Some of the rustlers are attacking us.'

  'I ain't goin' down into no cellar,' Susie answered. 'I stays right here with yo' folks.'

  Hal was busy tieing up the prisoner. 'You had better take your own advice,' he told Dale. 'Casey and I will hold the fort.'

  'I'm too busy.' Dale went to the telephone and called up the M K ranch. When she had got the connection, she said: 'This is Dale Lovell. Mr. Stevens is here at the ranch. A lot of his enemies are outside. I think we are going to be attacked.'

  Wall was at the other end of the line. He promised help as soon as he could gather a few men.

  'They are down at the bunkhouse deciding what to do,' Casey announced from one of the windows. 'Fenwick is one of them — and Frawley another.'

  Hal took the receiver from Dale and called up Elbert. 'I've got a bird here I would like you to make sing, sheriff. Better come over right away. I'm at the Seven Up and Down. There has been shooting, and likely there will be more. Black's gang is all set for war. They're helling around outside, and we are in the house.'

  'How many of them?'

  'Five. Casey and Miss Lovell and I are holding the fort.'

  'Anybody been hurt yet?'

  'I was attacked in the hills and had to shoot one to get away.' Hal listened to Elbert explode, and after a moment interrupted. 'Save it till we meet, sheriff. I was in a jam and—' He broke off in the middle of the sentence.

  To Dale he said, 'The phone has gone dead. They must have cut the wire.'

  'You… killed another of them?' she asked, her low voice almost a whisper.

  'Yes. Forget that now.' He spoke curtly. 'Go down into the cellar with Susie till this is over.'

  She was shocked at his brusque dismissal of what he had done, and she resented his sharp order to go packing until the danger was past. This was her house. He could not push her out of the picture. Even though he seemed not to appreciate it, she had just saved his life.

  Stiffly, she told him, 'I'm going to stay here, sir. If you wish to go into the cellar, you may do so.'

  He stared at her, a little surprised at her anger, but there was no time to make explanations now. His smile was ironic. 'I'm running true to form, according to Brick Fenwick — always hiding behind a woman's skirts.' Abruptly he brushed non-essentials aside. 'Is there another rifle in the house?'

  'Yes. I'll get it.'

  'Fellow headed this way waving a white flag.' Casey added to his bulletin. 'It's that young Fenwick.'

  Dale and Hal moved to different windows. Fenwick had a white handkerchief in his hand, but he was not making much of it. He came forward confidently, with the lithe catlike tread that distinguished him.

  Hal flung open the door and stood in the entrance. Fenwick stopped at the foot of the porch steps.

  'Let him come in,' Dale said to Stevens, a command in her voice.

  The M K man stepped back into the room and the outlaw followed him. Casey kept an eye on the companions of the envoy and Hal watched Fenwick closely. This might be a trick with an unpleasant surprise back of it.

  'What do you want?' demanded Dale.

  The boy's slitted eyes shifted from the young woman to Stevens. 'I want him — and Mullins.'

  The bound man made haste to get in his explanation. 'He got the drop on me, Brick. I couldn't do a thing but go with him. I told him you'd fix him.'

  Nobody paid the slightest attention to him.

  Dale said to Fenwick, 'You can't have Mr. Stevens.' She turned to Hal. 'I don't suppose he can have this man Mullins either, can he?'

  'No, I had too much trouble getting him here.' Hal had some misinformation he wanted to pass on to the enemy. 'Soon as I can get the sheriff, I want him to come over and collect Mullins. That will have to wait, since the telephone wires have been cut.'

  Mullins started to correct this statement, but as he opened his mouth Hal, apparently by inadvertence, put his heel on the man's hand and ground it into the floor. The prisoner forgot what he had been going to say and let out a yell of pain instead.

  'Sorry,' Hal apologized.

  'I'm not asking you to turn over this gunman Stevens to me, Miss Lovell,' the outlaw said, a cold fierce eagerness shining in his eyes. 'I'm telling you we mean to take him. He went up into the hills and last night murdered another of our boys. He has run his string out. If it's the last thing I do in this world, I'll blast the life out of him. You have been running around butting into what's none of yore business. Keep out of this, ma'am. Let him play his own hand. Keep plugging at us with guns, and you'll end on a slab.'

  'Now we understand one another, there's no reason for you to stay any longer, Fenwick,' Hal said, steel in his voice. 'Offer declined. Get out.'

  The outlaw's furious eyes were a barometer of his rage. A dull flush suffused his face, and the thin cruel line of his mouth tightened. Though Hal's gaze had never left him, the swiftness with which that tense still body came to life caught the cattleman unprepared. An empty brown hand swept up. Without stopping, the fingers closed on the butt of a revolver. The roar of the gun filled the room. As Hal dived to one side, a blow hit his left arm. He slipped to a knee and dragged out a revolver. Casey swung from the window, shortened the rifle by drawing it back, and fired from his hip. The crash of the weapons lasted scarcely two seconds. Fenwick dodged out of the doorway and ran close to the side of the house, his body bent so that he would offer no mark from the window. He slipped back of the root house and kept going. From the stable the rifles of his companions covered the man's retreat.

  CHAPTER 36

  Holding the Fort

  HAL LOOKED at Dale with shocked eyes. 'Why did I come here and bring these wolves at my heels?' he asked. 'You might have been killed.'

  Her eyes fastened to a thin stream of blood running down under the sleeve of the coat to his wrist. Fear had driven the blood from her lips. 'You're wounded!' she cried.

  He stared at his hand, surprised to see the red stain. 'Must have been his first shot. I felt something slap me.' From a pocket of his coat he took a handkerchief to prevent the blood from dripping to the carpet. 'Lucky I had just time to duck.'

  'Get a basin of water, Susie,' said Dale. She went to a closet in the next room and brought back surgical dressings. In spite of Hal's protests she helped him take off his coat.

  'Just tie it up,' he told Dale. 'We've got no time to fool with this scratch now.'

  'That's all right,' Casey differed. 'I've got my eye on the fellows. They are down in the stable having a powwow. I'll let you know when they start buzzing.'

  While Dale was busy tying up the arm, Mullins voiced a complaint. 'You told Brick you didn't get to talk with the sheriff.'

  'Did I?' Hal laughed grimly. 'Afraid I
made a mistake.

  I didn't want to hurry him away before Elbert gets here. Wish now I had let him know I reached the sheriff.'

  'Does you think they'll come bustin' into the house, Mr. Stevens?' asked Susie.

  'I don't know what they will do,' Hal replied. 'They won't have a great deal of time before my boys come over from the M K. But there will be more shooting. The best thing you can do, Susie, is to persuade your mistress to go down with you into the cellar until reinforcements come.'

  'He's right, Miss Dale,' Casey agreed. 'We can stand them off all right till help comes. You've done your share — and more. I'd get down where it is safe if I were you.'

  Dale shook her head decisively. 'No. Susie can go down. I think she ought to go. But my place is here.'

  Hal moved with her to the far corner of the big living room. 'Aren't you being stubborn?' he asked in a low voice. 'If we are attacked, Casey and I will be worried all the time for fear you get hurt. After all, this is my fight. These scoundrels are here to get me. You're not in it.'

  Looking at him, the girl felt herself torn by conflicting emotions. She was shaken by the knowledge of the strange drag flowing from him to her that implied a closeness between them startling and frightening, a weakness in her born of agitation, of the conviction that she was utterly his to take or to fling away. But with this was blended anger. He said this was his fight and he did not want her in it. Yet only a few minutes ago she had driven down into the pasture to rescue him from almost certain death. He brushed away obligations as if they did not exist. She was just a meddling woman, to be put in her place.

  'Isn't it my fight when they are attacking my house?' she asked, her eyes bright and hard. 'If you didn't want me in it, why did you bring them here?'

  He smiled wryly. 'We haven't time for a good quarrel now. Look at it this way, Miss Lovell. You saved my life a few minutes ago at the risk of yore own. I ought never to have come here. How do you think I would feel if you get shot when there is no need of it?'

  In spite of herself, she felt her anger leaving. 'You're a fine one to talk about being cautious,' she jeered. 'After going up into the den where these wolves hole-up, leaving all your friends to worry about whether you are dead or alive. I should think you would be ashamed of yourself.'

  'I am,' he confessed, with the friendly grin that mitigated his audacities. 'I'm ashamed of having flunked the job. My idea was to get Mullins alone and bring him down for Elbert to quiz. I thought and still think he will turn state's evidence to save himself. But I didn't expect to stir up such a hornets' nest.'

  'You never do,' Dale said dryly.

  'No. So I come running to you to save me. You have done that. Later I'll have time to say thanks. As Casey says, it's up to him and me to stand off these fellows. Stay up here, and you'll make it harder for us.'

  Outside, a rifle coughed. The bullet struck a window and left a small round hole in it.

  Dale said quickly, 'If I'm in the way, I'll go down into the cellar.' She wanted to tell him to be careful, but there was no use in that, any more than there was in this wild emotion that swept away her strength and will, that left her weak and flaccid in his presence.

  'They're spreading out,' Casey reported. 'One of us had better make a round of the windows.'

  'I'll go,' Hal agreed. He called to Dale, as she followed Susie down the stairs into the basement: 'Adios, compadre. Don't worry about us. The boys from the M K will be here soon.'

  Hal made a tour of the first floor, stopping at each window for a careful inspection of the terrain in front. He caught sight of a man slipping back of the garage. At once he fired, with no intention of hitting the fellow, but to let the enemy know the defenders were on the alert.

  Bullets spattered against the walls of the house. Somebody was tinkering with the car in the garage, perhaps trying to turn on the ignition without a key. Presently he gave it up, called something to a companion, and walked to the group of horses tied to a rack at the corral. He mounted one, waved a hand, and went down the valley road at a canter. It was an easy guess that he was going to telephone for reinforcements. Now that the wire had been cut, the hill men did not worry about help for the besieged. After a time the Seven Up and Down punchers would ride home, to find themselves prisoners. Probably they would be held under guard until Hal Stevens had been rubbed out. No doubt that was the plan.

  Except for an occasional shot, the firing died down. The outlaws evidently felt they had the situation in hand and did not intend to take chances. This Fabian policy suited the men in the ranch house, since it could not be many minutes before aid arrived from the M K. When Wall and the others got here, the outlaws would be outnumbered. Evidently Fenwick had picked up one man on the way down, but he had been in too great a hurry to cut off the retreat of Stevens to stop for more.

  CHAPTER 37

  Decorative and Efficient

  WALL SLAMMED the receiver back on the hook and ran out to the porch. His voice lifted to a shout. 'Hi, Mr. Arnold —Bill —Mike! Trouble at the Seven Up. We've got to jump.'

  They came running toward Wall — Arnold from his cabin, Mike from the horse he was saddling, Bill Nuney and Carlos Vallejo from the corral. Swiftly Wall explained. Miss Dale had called. Stevens was at her ranch and a lot of his enemies were outside ready to attack. That was all he knew.

  'Sure it was Miss Lovell talking?' Arnold asked.

  'Yes. I'd know her voice anywhere. We'll take the station wagon. Better leave a note for the other boys to join us when they drift in, Mike. Too bad there's only one rifle here, but that will have to do.' Wall swung round sharply on Nuney. 'You and Carlos sitting in with us, Bill —or not?'

  Bill's eyes asked a question of Carlos. He knew what he was going to do. The Mexican nodded. Nuney said, annoyed at the query, 'Hell, yes!'

  They got their weapons, piled into the station wagon, and started down the hill to the valley.

  'Did Miss Lovell say how many of Black's men are there — or how they are armed?' Arnold wanted to know.

  'She didn't say a thing more than I told you,' Wall replied.

  'If they have rifles, they can keep us from getting close,' Mike said. 'Unless we barge ahead anyhow.'

  'Any hill road leading to the ranch from the rear?' Arnold inquired.

  'Not one we can strike from here.' Wall grinned. 'Only thing to do is pound right up the hill — and pray.'

  They decided to stop for a few moments at the brow of the mesa on which the ranch house stood and let Nuney pump the rifle as fast as he could, to give the impression that several weapons were in action, after which they would make a run in the car for the house.

  As soon as they reached the paved valley road, Mike put his foot down and set the station wagon racing. They were doing better than ninety when they swept past a wagon loaded with hay. Just beyond a curve an old Mexican driving a ramshackle outfit drew aside hurriedly to let the car thunder past. 'Mother of God!' he cried in Spanish, and wondered what kind of liquor the mad Americanos had been drinking.

  Mike slackened to take the side road for the Seven Up and Down. A man on horseback drew aside to miss being hit. Nuney recognized him, a boy named Rusty Peters who worked for Black.

  On the brow of the mesa a stone's throw from the house, Mike braked. The crack of a gun sounded. It came from a front window of the house. A man crouched back of the tool shed answered it. Around the corner of the stable the head of Cash Polk craned to check up the situation. Nuney took a quick shot at it. The head was hurriedly withdrawn.

  'It's Doc back of the shed,' Vallejo said.

  Nuney pumped two bullets at the man. He gave a yelp and started to run, disappearing back of the building.

  A moment later he could be seen running for the stable. From the way he moved, it was plain he had been hit. Nuney raised his rifle. Vallejo leaned forward, his shoulder jolting against his friend's elbow. The shot went wild. Bill Nuney grinned. He had not intended to kill Doc, though if his rifle had covered Brick Fenwick, he w
ould not have hesitated an instant.

  Mike threw in the clutch and took the car to the house, stopping in front of the porch. Casey opened the door, and they piled out of the station wagon into the living room. Blithely Hal gave them the old Spanish welcome.

  'Esta es su casa de usted.'

  He was very glad, indeed, to see them. Never had the lean brown faces of these hard, tough men looked better to him.

  Over his shoulder Dale's voice said quietly, 'Mr. Stevens has taken the words out of my mouth, gentlemen.'

  Hal turned, embarrassed. He had not known she had come up from the basement. His greeting had been a little unfortunate, since it was her place and not his to tell them this was their home.

  'We're right glad to see you, boys,' Casey said. 'Quite a bit of excitement on the Soledad today. Brick Fenwick pretty nearly sent Mr. Stevens over the hill.'

  Hal corrected the statement with a smile. 'I'm a long way from being a dead man, though Brick's intentions were good. A scratch.'

  'Where you been these last few days, Hal?' asked Wall. 'Yore friends would feel better if you would leave an address when you disappear.'

  'Amen to that,' agreed Arnold. 'Let's hear your story.'

  'I went into the hills to talk Mullins into surrendering,' Hal explained. 'We had some trouble getting down here, but Miss Lovell and Casey fixed that up. So here we are.'

  'When did Brick plug you?' inquired Mike.

  'About a half an hour ago,' Dale answered. 'He was here talking peace terms and started shooting as he was leaving.'

  Through the open door the sound of horses' hoofs came down the wind. 'Some gents pulling their freight,' announced Nuney from the window where he was posted. 'They're riding back into the hills and not down into the valley.'

  'We can run the station wagon up far as the gap and head them off maybe,' Wall suggested.

  'So we can, if we get going now,' Hal agreed. 'But we'll have to hurry.' He started for the door.

  'Hold on a minute,' Arnold interposed. 'You're staying here. A doctor has to look at your wound.'