by Noel Loomis
“Yeah, he got up,” Bart Holt admitted. “It was the gamest thing I ever saw a man do. You could tell by the way he spun when they got him that they got him good and final. And after that he dove right square into the last shot on the bank. I seen his hands throw up as he fell.”
“Looked to me like he jumped in,” said Dick.
“Jumped hell,” said Bart Holt dogmatically. “He throwed up his hands and fell. They finished him with that first hit. Only he just wouldn’t give in, that’s all.”
“I never saw his hands throwed up,” said Chris Gustafson.
“Sally,” said Major, “you’ve got keener eyes than the rest. What did you see?”
There was no answer, and after a moment Major, lifting the shielded lantern, saw that she was no longer in the room. Dick Major, searching, presently found her in the stable room, huddled limply in a corner pile of hay, under the ponies’ low swung heads. Kneeling beside her, her brother gathered her against him with his unwounded arm; and she clung to him, weeping convulsively…
Outside the firing had fallen away to ragged bursts here and there in the stream-bed itself. It had a random desultory sound, but continued persistently.
* * * *
Clay Hughes had almost reached his objective—the defended stream-bed of the Buckhorn—when the enemy’s first hit caught him as he ran. A shock like the impact of an axe smashed one leg from under him, so that he was spun in his stride and went down, rolling with his own momentum. He knew as he went down, the bared teeth of his open mouth grubbing up earth, that he was through and would never get up; yet somehow, without knowing how he accomplished it, he was instantly up, rushing the stream-bed once more. One leg was as numb as if it no longer existed. Its stumbling irregular action, over which he had no authority, gave his rush an uncontrollable lurch and stagger, as if the legs which carried him forward were not his own.
Then a gun blazed in his face, so close below and ahead of him that he took the blinding sting in his cheek to be the burn of powder. Both of his own guns answered from the hip as he stumbled and plunged headlong into the stream-bed itself. The crash of his fall brought a flash of light into his head, but he twisted as he hit, coming to his feet again like a spilled halfback.
A voice cried, “Frank, don’t shoot!” Dark looming figures were closing upon him like falling rock, so close about him that they could not fire without landing each other. An insane battle craze came into him, the desperation of one man alone, swarmed over by enemies; he fought like a wounded animal, or a man inspired. Clay fired once with his left hand, and a man went down almost under his feet, but his right gun clicked empty. A gun muzzle, swung viciously downward at his head from behind, streaked his scalp; he whirled and smashed down a man with the barrel of his right-hand gun, then hurled the empty weapon into the face of another who in that instant fired at point blank range without effect.
For a moment he was clear of the hornets’ nest in which he had landed. Two paces away, as he turned to the stream, a shadowy figure struggled to its knees; he could see it against the stars reflected in the Buckhorn water. He fired once more with his left hand, and the figure toppled and splashed in the shallows.
Behind them they were firing again as he splashed through the shallow Buckhorn, running with a stumbling lurch. He had almost reached the black cover of the willows on the far side when the next smashing hit knocked him headlong into the edge of the cover; his right arm crumpled useless under him as he fell. Turning on his side, he fired once more with his left hand; then that gun too was empty, and he let it fall.
He wormed his way forward on his stomach deeper into the black shadow of the willows. A great driftwood log offered momentary protection; a bullet threw rotted wood in his face as he rolled over it. Dragging himself silently, tight to the ground, he worked downstream through the willows. More Shaw guns were searching for him now, clipping twigs behind him, above him, as they beat the willows.
Men were calling out with excited angry voices, questioning voices, voices uncertain in the dark. “We got him—he’s down somewhere in this damn brake!”
“Somebody get a light!”
“To hell with your light—you want to die?”
“For God’s sake be careful; he got Smoky square in the teeth.”
“Who was it?”
“It’s that damn Wyoming gun fighter.”
“He dodges like a rabbit, and he throws two guns like a fool…”
The searching bullets became less accurate as he worked his way yard by yard downstream. He had gained a rod, two rods; three. No one seemed anxious to beat the brakes for him by hand. They supposed that he was dead, and if so, he could wait; but if he was not, no one wanted to stumble onto his guns in the black shadow. Well downstream where an angling irrigation trench raised the Johnson grass stirrup high, he left the thinning rift of the willow thicket. The ditch led him to a lateral that turned southward; and by the time he was out of the irrigated ground he knew that he was probably far enough south to have distanced the search. He rolled under a fence, checked his direction, and began running steadily southward, twisting between clumps of cactus and sage.
The craze of battle that had sustained him in the stream-bed was out of him now. In its place was the necessity of swiftly covering the ground. He did not know how much time he might have before Dutch Pete closed upon the pump house for the last time. His escape in itself might have precipitated the one last attack that could not be withstood. He clutched his wounded arm to his chest with his left hand, and put everything he had left into steady running. A racking pain had come into his wounded leg, but it seemed to be working more smoothly now, on the level ground. He forced himself to greater speed. His breath labored as he drove himself, until his windpipe turned raw, and the starlight dimmed. He tasted copper.
He was almost done, and it seemed that he must have passed the cavalry station long ago, when the dark low shadows of the picket line loomed ahead, and a voice called out sharply, “Halt! Who’s there?”
“Friend, you damn fool,” gasped Hughes; and barged headlong against the rifle of the guard.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I don’t suppose,” said Oliver Major, “that I ever seen anything like that before. I misdoubt if anybody’s ever seen anything like that before.”
Once more he sat in his office, sidewise, at that ornate Victorian desk, as he loved to sit, now that he was old; he sucked fragrant clouds of smoke from his pipe, and a tall whiskey toddy stood beside him on the desk. His haggard face, gleaming silver with the unshaved stubble of its beard, looked older than they had ever seen it, even in those worst hours in the pump house adobe; but though the long siege and the fight was over, and those slim youngsters in the O. D. of Replogle’s cavalry were noticeable all over the Lazy M as an assurance of returned peace, Oliver Major did not seem ready for sleep. Outside the dawn was bringing a cool lucid light to the corrals and adobe buildings; Sally had been sent to bed an hour ago, and the rest of the defenders of the pump house—there was not an unhurt man among them now—had been glad to turn in. But the old range-wolf, the iron man of the saddle, seemed ready to stay up and carry on.
Clay Hughes, who had now been carried up from the cavalry camp, lay on the couch in old Oliver Major’s office while Doc Hodges redressed his wounds in a more professional manner than had been his fortune in the hands of the cavalry. Hughes, Hodges now found, had been wounded no less than five times; but though he was weak from loss of blood, none of the hits had found a vital mark. It was as if he, like Oliver Major, who was the one man untouched, had been defended by the unseen. It was the sort of miracle that had made the Indians believe in mystical medicine in the old days, medicine that could make a man indestructible, immune to rifle fire.
“I’d swear,” Oliver Major said, talking to Doc Hodges, “an undersized coyote couldn’t have got across that space. The Bar S people churned up that dust like pouring a quart of buckshot in the bottom of a pail.”
“It
was a fluke,” said Hughes faintly.
“Fluke hell,” said Oliver Major. “For one thing, you’re the most durable feller I ever see. Your hide would certainly be great for saddle leather. But that ain’t all. That message was got through by means of a cool head and cast-iron guts. Dutch Pete said you got three men as you shot your way through.”
“A fluke just the same,” said Hughes.
“As for me,” said Oliver Major, “I’m beginning to believe that there’s something takes care of people that’s got sufficient guts.”
“Nothing took care of Bob Macumber,” Hughes mumbled.
“No. And we’re lucky if we don’t lose Dusty Rivers and Walk Ross. They’re alive; and that’s about all you can say.”
“Dusty Rivers especially,” said Doc Hodges. “Now hold steady, boy. This is going to hurt for just a minute…”
There was a light, almost furtive tap upon the door, and Steve Sessions came in. He had spruced himself up somewhat, evidently in the habitual effort to make himself look like what he was supposed to be. Yet, he was no more like the Sessions who had arrived in the Buckhorn a week before, dominant and assured, than a gunnysack is like a saddle.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he apologized, his voice husky and unconfident, “so I got up and shaved. What I’m wondering now is can a man get hold of a drink?”
“I sure guess you’re entitled to one, Steve,” said Major. “You turned the trick for us, in the end.”
Stephen Sessions shook his head. “It was too late,” he said, “it was way too late. God knows how Hughes made it through.”
“Looks to me,” said Hughes, ignoring Hodges’ effort to keep him quiet, “like we may be in worse trouble than we were before. We’ll still be under suspicion in the killing of Hugo Donnan; and on top of that, who’s going to be responsible for the fight we made against Shaw’s sheriff and his men? We stood ’em off as harmless as we could, but heaven knows we must have finished some of ’em in the course of the five days.”
“They lost eight men,” said Hodges, “not counting the wounded that I’m liable to pull through. Now, if you’ll—”
“We’ll still be held responsible for that. Mr. Major, we’re a long ways from home.”
Stephen Sessions accepted the glass that Oliver Major offered him, and drank deep. “Hagh!” he ejaculated; then slowly shook his head. “No; the Buckhorn war is over with, Hughes. You’ll see this whole thing dissolve and blow away.”
“But how?” Hughes insisted.
“Because we made a stubborn rightful stand,” said Major.
“No,” said Sessions slowly. “It isn’t exactly that. It’s more like what Hughes said last night. You knock just one stone out of an arch, and the whole tower comes tumbling down. As far as the Hugo Donnan killing goes, you’ve got circumstantial evidence against a man who is dead. I mean Art French. The testimony of Walk Ross shows that Art French was desperately afraid to have the truth come out about that killing; afraid enough so that he sent word to Adobe Wells that Tanner must die. And in Walk Ross’ testimony as to how Tanner died, you too have a terrible indictment against the Shaw outfit, who then had the sheriff’s office in their hands. The stone is out of the arch, and the tower is down. It’s Theron Replogle’s worry now how he will smooth over the fact that he put that sheriff’s office in the hands of killers and thieves.”
“But can we prove that Art French killed Hugo Donnan?”
“What use to prove a murder on a man that’s dead?”
“But Tanner’s testimony was that there were two killers.”
‘“You’ve never had any doubt, have you,” said Sessions, “that the other man in that killing was from Adobe Wells?”
“Never,” said Oliver Major, “in our own minds; but when it comes to proof—”
“Ask yourself what will happen now, with the tide turned against Shaw? What always happens when a corrupt organization begins to crack? The rats will begin to break for cover, first a few, and then all, every one for himself; and when state’s evidence begins to turn, there’ll be half of them across the border, and the other half—You’ll have the other killer of Donnan all right. Only I’m thinking that when you do, you’ll have caught another dead man in the net.”
“The rats will run for cover, all right,” Hodges said. “One of the supervisors told me—I don’t want to say which one—that he was going on French leave to Laredo, and that if once things broke against Earl Shaw he was going over the border, and it’d be hell ever getting him back.”
“What did you mean,” Oliver Major demanded of Stephen Sessions, “when you said that when we got the other killer of Hugo Donnan, we’d have caught another dead man in the net?”
“Give me another drink, Oliver. I’m afraid,” said Sessions, “I’m not sure enough to answer that.”
There was a silence, then Hughes said, his voice husky and faint, “Is Alex Shaw alive?”
“Just,” said Hodges. “During the night he’s been better; that’s the first encouragement I’ve had that I can save him. Lord knows how he’s hung on!”
“Is that what you meant, Steve?” said Major.
Sessions hesitated. “I can’t answer that, Oliver.”
Oliver Major bore in upon him. “You won’t deny that it’s in your mind, as you sit there, that Alex Shaw himself was the man who killed Donnan?”
A heavy voice came from the door, “What if he did?”
The door, left unlatched by Stephen Sessions, had drifted open with the draft; and now in the doorway a tall stooped figure stood. Hughes tried to sit up, and Doc Hodges forced him back, as those in the room saw that the man in the doorway was Earl Shaw.
Oliver Major had blown out the lamp, and the early morning was not so advanced as to show the man in the doorway in a strong light. Working always in his chosen background shadows, he was a man who had seldom confronted his enemies face to face. To many of them he had remained no more than a menacing name, half tradition and half myth. And he was a shadowy figure still, as he stood in the doorway facing the old boss of the Buckhorn water across the width of the room.
Then as Earl Shaw took one slow step into the room, the light from the window caught him square, so that he was a shadow and a name no more, but a reality as solid and as hard as rock. Once more Hughes felt the stubborn strength that lay in the mass and set of the bulldog head, in the wide heavy jaws, in the blunt and bony nose. The man’s face was as grey as granite, and no less hard; and the harsh humor was gone from the eyes, which were bloodshot now.
Oliver Major got to his feet with a slow noiseless motion, like an old dog who catches the wolf scent, and rises from his rest.
“What if Alex killed Donnan?” said Earl Shaw. A taunting note crept into his voice, bitter-hard and husky as it was. “What if I sent Alex to kill him because he knew too much, and was trying to quit my gang? What then?”
“You admit it then?” Oliver Major demanded.
“Certainly not, you old fool,” said Earl Shaw. “But you think you know it’s true, don’t you? I’m asking you, what then?”
“I guess you know what then,” said Oliver Major.
“Oh, do I? Where’s your proof? Art French is dead. What passed between Alex and Donnan and me isn’t known by another soul. He’s slipped on through the loop of your rope, you hear? I wanted you to know that. I wanted to see you chew on that, before we go on.”
“Slipped hell! So he’s guilty, is he? My answer is that I’ll see him swing!”
“No,” said Earl Shaw. “He’ll never swing, Alex won’t.”
“I promise you—” Oliver Major began.
“My brother,” said Earl Shaw, “died ten minutes ago.”
There was a silence in the room. Then Oliver Major, looking square and hard into the bloodshot eyes of Earl Shaw, said, “That’s good.” Just the two words, spoken very low, but so inhumanly cool and hard that a shiver ran down the spine of Clay Hughes.
“You’d better be wishing,” said Oliver Major
after a moment, “that it had been you. You’re at the end of your rope, Shaw. This is once too often that you’ve come after the Buckhorn water. I’ve got you this time, and I’ve got you to keep. I’ve got you in the death of Donnan, and Tanner; and through Art French I’ve got you for the gunning of Walk Ross and Dusty Rivers, if they die. You’ve got a few too many wanted men in that gang of yours to expect them to stand by you now. I thought I’d taught you. I smeared you when you come with cattle, and I smeared you when you come with sheep, but you had to come again, like a wolf coming back to strychnine—and you got it again, didn’t you? Yes, you got it now!”
“That’s as may be,” said Earl Shaw. His voice was so low it was almost dead. “You’ll never live to see it, Major, I’m promising you that.”
“You think I won’t?”
“I know you won’t. I’m calling you out.”
Clay’s eyes were on Oliver Major’s face; and he saw incomprehension change to a slow incredulous hope. “You mean—” he said, as if he could not believe, “you’re calling—you’re calling me—”
“I’m calling you out,” said Earl Shaw again. “You heard me, I guess; but maybe you’ve forgot what that used to mean.”
“No, I ain’t forgot. Only—I never believed you’d dast face me with a gun on. You’ve got no gun on now.”
“It’s here all right,” said Shaw. He jerked open his vest to show the shoulder holster beneath, swung well to the front. “Strap on your gun, old water hog, and come out where there’s light.”
Oliver Major did not reply, but Hughes saw a slow inward smile cross his face, half closing his deep-set eyes, as he turned, reached for his gun belt and strapped it about his lean hips once more.
Earl Shaw stood aside as Oliver Major led the way out. The door closed behind them.
“Wait!” shouted Stephen Sessions. “Wait! You can’t do this! I tell you—” His voice died away, and he stood sagging, a helpless and pouchy old man, tugging at a pendulous lip and staring at the door.
Hughes struggled up and swung his feet to the floor.
“No—lie down,” Doc Hodges urged him, forcing him back.