by Bill Crider
Pistol shots rang out at his back. A bullet grazed his left arm, and another clipped off the heel of his left boot. He fell sprawling, and rolled toward the tree, coming up in a crouch beside it with his pistol in his right hand.
He fired blindly in the direction of the first figure he could see in the heavy dusk and heard Johnny McGee screaming. "My hand! He's shot off my goddamn hand!" Then there was a thud, which sounded as if someone, probably McGee, had fallen off his horse.
Ryan didn't think it was possible to shoot off a man's hand, but if it was, he hoped that he had taken at least one of the five out of the fight.
He snapped off two more shots, with less spectacular results, and then began to work his way back into the trees.
Twenty feet back into the darkness, he paused to listen. He could hear a horse snorting, and he could hear the moaning of the man on the ground.
That was all he could hear, except for the humming of some kind of insect next to his ear. He brushed at it and moved back as quietly as he could. If he could hold out for thirty minutes, Virginia would be sending the sheriff back. He was sure of that.
Then he heard the clink of a horseshoe against a stone and turned to his left. All he saw was a spurt of flame as the pistol fired at him. When the bullet hit him, he was thrown backward as if he had been kicked by a mule. There was a terrible numbness in his left arm from the elbow down, and in fact he thought that it might have been shot off, just like McGee's hand. He reached over and touched it. It was there, with blood soaking through the shirt.
The pain would come later.
He had landed behind a tree, and he looked around it, hoping to get a shot at whoever had hit him. He saw no one. He moved backward again. He had to hold out. Keep them off until the sheriff came.
He might have made it if it hadn't been for Long. Somehow Long found him without making a sound, and stood behind him in the trees, waiting for him. The first Ryan knew of Long's presence was the barrel of the pistol that stuck him in the back, hard, like an iron rod.
"Hold it right there, or I'll shoot you where you stand," Long said. His voice hissed on the S's, like a snake.
Long had gotten too close, so Ryan whirled around, knocking the pistol away with his right arm as he turned, but Long recovered quickly. Almost as if his snaky eyes could see in the dusky dark, he reached out and grabbed Ryan's left arm.
It was probably just Long's good luck, and Ryan's bad fortune, but Long had done just about the only thing that could completely immobilize Ryan. Just at that moment, the numbness wore off and the pain came flooding up from the elbow, engulfing Ryan completely. His pistol fell from his fingers, and he almost fell himself.
Ryan managed to strike at Long feebly and ineffectually. Long hung on to the arm, dragging Ryan backward. "I got 'im," Long called out. "Back here!”
“Where?" It was Kane's voice. "Where are you?”
“Back in the trees," Long said.
A dark form stepped out from behind another of the trees. "Here they are," Mack Barson said.
"Get him out here," Kane said. "Surely the two of you can handle him."
"Now we can," Long said. "He's hurt."
Long located his pistol after turning Ryan over to Barson, who twisted the arm in his cruel grip, sending ripples of pain with every twist.
"Let's go," Long said, when he had found the gun.
Ryan stumbled along in front of them, wondering how long it had been, wondering if Virginia had been able to get back to town yet, wondering if she had sent the sheriff on his way.
Out from the shelter of the trees, Ryan could see the night sky filled with stars. The moon had come up, round and yellow. Kane was still sitting on his horse. Billy was standing by Johnny McGee, looking at his hand.
"It's just the finger that's gone," Billy said. "The little one. He's just got three fingers now."
"Well, Mr. Ryan," Kane said. "You've severely damaged one of my men. But it appears as if you might be slightly indisposed yourself."
Ryan said nothing. He had nothing to say to Kane. Nothing at all.
"I had hoped we might talk like civilized men," Kane said. "Simply talk. That was all. But no. You had to run. You had to resort to violence, in the way a man like you always does. Now it appears as if you do not wish to talk at all. That really is too bad."
Ryan looked at the doughy face, pale white in the moonlight. It looked as if it were floating there above Kane's dark clothing like the moon floated in the sky.
"Yes," Kane said. "I had hoped that we could conclude a deal tonight, a deal for your land. I just happen to have a contract here with me." He reached inside his coat and drew out a piece of paper. "I thought that you might sign this, but I doubt very much that you would, not now."
"I never would have, anyway," Ryan said.
"Perhaps a little persuasion," Kane said. "Mack." Ryan never even saw the fist coming, but he felt it when it collided with his temple. The shock spun him around and for a few seconds even drove the pain of his arm out of his mind.
Long caught his arm, just to remind him, and smashed him in the other temple.
Ryan was reeling, hardly able to stand, but somehow he kept his feet. He wasn't going to let them get him down. He would never go down for them.
And then he did. Because Barson hit him across the chest with a board or a limb, or maybe just his forearm. Whatever it was, it was hard, harder than Ryan, and he felt his ribs crack as he stumbled backward.
He hit the ground, hard, and then his head went back and struck the packed earth. For a second, everything stopped.
Then it all came back, doubled, as he awoke to the toes of Long's boots kicking him in the side.
Then Barson.
Then Long.
And then Kane's voice. "Pick him up."
He felt himself being lifted by hands under his armpits. There was no specific pain now, nothing localized. His entire body was throbbing with hurt.
"We could avoid all this if you would merely sign this paper," Kane said.
Ryan tried to focus his eyes on Kane, but he couldn't. He wondered if he had been kicked in the head, too, or if his inability to focus was merely the effect of his head hitting the ground. It didn't really seem to matter.
He tried to say he'd be damned if he'd sign, but no words came. So he shook his head.
"I see," Kane said. "Your turn, Billy."
Ryan tried to look where Billy had been standing by McGee.
"I ... I don't know," Billy said.
"Don't know what?" Kane said.
"I mean, haven't we done enough? He looks nearly dead to me."
"He's not dead, Billy," Kane said. "Not yet, anyway. See if you can change his mind."
"I . . . can't," Billy said.
"Yes, you can." Kane's voice was patient. "One way or another, you can do it."
"No," Billy said.
"Yes," Kane said. "Use your pistol if you're afraid to use your hands."
Barson and Long moved away from Ryan, their eyes filled with contempt for Billy, a contempt that in the darkness he could not see. Only feel. He took his pistol out of its holster.
"Don't kill him," Kane said. "We don't want him dead. Yet."
Billy looked at Ryan. The night was quiet again, as quiet as the stars, as if even the horses were holding their breath.
"No," Billy said.
Kane jerked his own pistol out and fired it. Ryan saw the spurt of flame and felt his left arm flung backward. He felt the impact of the bullet, but had no idea where it had hit. There was too much other pain for him to tell.
"Like that, Billy," Kane said. "It's really very easy."
Billy cocked his pistol. He fired, and dirt kicked up by Ryan's left boot.
"Close, Billy," Kane said. "But not good enough."
Kane would have fired again himself, but suddenly Ryan was moving, shambling forward in an awkward attempt at a run. He had seen Billy's horse move right behind Billy, not fifteen feet from where they were standing.
Ryan knew there was no way he could get on the horse, but he hoped there was something he could do. He wasn't going to stand there and get killed. If they were going to kill him, they were going to kill him while he was on the move.
Before anyone could figure out what he was doing, he had gotten to the horse's left side. Then the bullets started flying, one of them chipping a stone right by the horse's rear hooves.
The horse jumped, started forward.
Ryan jumped, too, managing to hook his right arm through the stirrup.
The chipping stone, the sudden unexpected weight, the gunshots coming all around it—all of these things were too much for the horse, which panicked and ran, dragging Ryan along beside it, bouncing him across the rocky ground like a rag doll.
Kane was no good in a chase. He was too heavy, and his horse was made for carrying weight, not for racing. Barson and Long took too long getting mounted. Billy had no horse. McGee was still nursing his hand.
Before they could get organized, Ryan was out of sight in the darkness. And though they searched for hours, they never found him.
They spent the next two days in a kind of eager fear, Barson and Long constantly watching their backs; Billy keeping to his room, sweating, with a chair propped under the door handle and a blanket tied up over the window; McGee complaining about his hand and saying that he'd never be able to use a pistol again; Kane waiting for the sheriff to arrive.
The sheriff never arrived, but Billy's horse did, looking drawn and thirsty, with the saddle twisted completely around and hanging under its belly.
Kane was convinced, as were the others, that Ryan must be dead, that some of the shots had hit him and that he was now lying somewhere in the great unpopulated expanse of West Texas, food for buzzards or whatever else could get at him.
It was shortly after that time that Kane started the rumor of Ryan's running away, saying that he must not have been able to stand up to the fear he had of Kane. And shortly after that, Kane managed to get his hands on Ryan's land, leaving Sally only the shack for a place to live.
Virginia Burley never told her part in the events of that night, and when she heard the story of Ryan's running she shook her head and felt a secret hurt in her heart. She didn't know what had happened, but she knew she had been a part of it. She also knew that it wasn't like Ryan simply to leave, no matter what people were saying. She thought that Kane might very well have killed him, but she could never say so. All she could do was count herself lucky that she owned her cafe, free and clear, and would never have to depend on any man again. There were plenty around who would have liked to make her offers, but she ignored them one and all.
Ryan set some canned tomatoes on a shelf in the shack. He had no idea how Virginia felt, but he did know one thing. She'd never sent the sheriff back to the grove that night. It was more than a feeling now.
He wondered if that mattered now, after all that had happened. He wondered if he would see her again. The cafe was there; McGee had been sitting in front of it, and he wondered if McGee's being there had any significance.
Probably not, he thought, but you never knew about those things. Maybe he would find out. Maybe not.
He wondered if he cared.
Chapter Four
It had been a fairly boring day for Deputy Jim Meadows, except for McGee showing up. Everybody else had pretty much avoided the jail, as if the prisoner might have something catching, something that might infect them if they got too close. Meadows thought that was funny. Anybody could see that Billy Kane was scared half to death and the only thing you could catch from him was a yellow streak.
Despite the lack of excitement, in fact the lack of any activity at all, Meadows had to sit in front of the jail with the shotgun ready to deal with anything out of the ordinary. Sheriff Bass was almost certain that something would eventually be done by Kane and his men to break out Billy. Kane was a stubborn man, and he didn't want his baby brother to die.
It was a funny thing, Meadows thought. He had been to the trial and had even gotten to know Billy Kane a little bit. It was hard for him to think of Billy as the kind to be a killer. Of course he was supposed to have killed a woman, and if Billy was going to kill anybody, Meadows supposed it would be a woman—somebody who couldn't put up much of a fight if attacked. Trouble with that idea was, it looked like Sally Ryan had put up a hell of a fight. Meadows had been in the shack with the sheriff, and the place looked like a brawl had been fought there.
Billy didn't strike Meadows as a brawler, and Congrady had brought him in alone. Billy had been pretty marked up, all right, but Meadows figured Congrady had done most of that.
Well, it wasn't any of his business. His job was to sit out here with his shotgun and watch for trouble, not to question the verdict of a jury, and a jury of good citizens who paid his salary, at that.
He wasn't really watching much when Ryan came riding up. He was about half asleep, to tell the truth; the afternoon sun warming the air and the lunch that had been brought from Wilson's Cafe had combined to make his eyelids heavy. Had Ryan kept on riding, he might have passed by unseen for a second time that day.
This time, however, Ryan stopped right in front of Meadows, who jerked his head up, grabbed his shotgun securely with his right hand, and adjusted his glasses with his left.
He looked up and saw a tall man sitting on a bay horse. The man was holding one arm funny, and he had a glove on one hand. He sat kind of stiff, too, as if there was something holding his back straight.
"Who the hell are you?" Meadows said.
The man shifted the tiniest bit in the saddle, and the horse twitched its tail. "Name's Ryan," the man said.
"Ryan," Meadows repeated. He looked at the man again, saw two pale blue eyes, so pale they were almost white, looking back at him. "Any kin to . . . uh . . ."
"I'm her brother," Ryan said.
"Little late for a homecomin', ain't it?" Meadows said. He wasn't normally belligerent, but he was trying to make up for having been caught dozing.
His comment seemed to have no effect on Ryan, who said nothing.
"What you want from me?" Meadows said.
"I want to talk to the sheriff," Ryan said.
"I don't know about that. Sheriff don't want just anybody goin' in there right now, not with the prisoner he's got. And since the prisoner's convicted of killin' your sister . . ."
Ryan got awkwardly off his horse and flipped the reins around the cedar hitching rail. "I think the sheriff would let me in," he said.
Meadows noted the low-slung pistol on Ryan's right hip. "Maybe," he said. "You'll have to leave the gun out here, though."
Ryan unbuckled the gun belt with his right hand, holding the left arm immobile across his body. He handed the belt and the holstered pistol to Meadows, who took it and set it down beside him.
"Something wrong with your arm?" Meadows said.
"Yes," Ryan said. "Something."
Fine with me if he don't want to talk, Meadows thought. I guess it won't hurt if a fella who's halfway a cripple goes in the jail. Don't see how he could do much damage, even if he was of a mind to.
"Go ahead on in," he said. "Sheriff's right inside."
Bass looked up when Ryan came through the door. "Hello, Ryan," he said. "I heard you were in town.”
“News still travels fast here," Ryan said.
"I guess I was almost expecting you," Bass said. "Course, lots of folks around here didn't figure ever to see you again."
"Why's that?" Ryan said.
Bass laced his fingers together, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. "I guess they figured that once you left, you were gone for good."
"I guess they were wrong," Ryan said.
"Looks that way, don't it?"
Ryan didn't answer, and for a minute the two men watched one another warily, like two dogs sizing one another up on the street.
Bass took out his tobacco pouch and papers, rolled a cigarette, lit it, breathed smoke.
He noted the left arm, remembered the stiff way Ryan had walked into the room.
"Looks like you had a little trouble, wherever you were."
"A little," Ryan said. He intended to deal with his trouble his own way. It was too late to tell the sheriff about it now.
"I hope you haven't come back to make any trouble for us here in Tularosa," Bass said. He tossed his tobacco pouch idly in the air, catching it in his left hand.
"I just came by to find out what you knew about my sister's murder," Ryan said. "How much trouble is that?"
"Not much," Bass said. "Why don't you have a seat?"
There was a wooden chair with a rounded back near the desk. Ryan walked over and eased himself down.
"I guess you know we got the killer in jail here," Bass said.
"Billy Kane," Ryan said. "I heard that."
"I know you and Kane had your troubles," Bass said. "I hope you don't think you're going to hurry justice along any."
"No," Ryan said.
"That's good. The hangin's set for day after tomorrow, and that ought to be soon enough for anybody."
"I'd like to know why."
"Why?" Bass was confused. "Because Saturday's the day we have hangin's around here. Got to give folks a chance to get to town. Nobody wants to miss a good hangin'."
"That's not what I mean. I mean I'd like to know why he did it."
Bass looked at the twisted end of his cigarette as if he might find the answer there. Then he took a last puff and tossed the butt to the floor, stepping on it with his boot sole. "I can't tell you that," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know. I know what I think, that's all. Billy never admitted doing it."
"Wait a minute," Ryan said. "He's going to hang for murder, but he didn't confess?"
"That's right," Bass said. "Pat Congrady caught him right there with the body and brought him in. That was good enough for the jury."
"Sounds like a pretty weak case to me," Ryan said.
"There's a little bit more to it than that. Everybody around here knew that Billy Kane was after your sister to marry him, and everybody knew she never would. Not after what happened." Bass paused and looked at Ryan. "I might as well tell you that folks don't think too much of you in these parts, goin' off and leavin' her like that, lettin' Kane get hold of that land."