Billy grinned at her. “I’m not as bad off as I look, ma’am. It’ll do me good to move around a little. Besides, I’m kind of hungry—think I’ll get down to the cook shack before it’s all gone. I can hear ’em unsaddling down at the corral right now.”
Billy declined Mrs. Harper’s invitation to stay to supper with her and Thad and thanked her for her hospitality. Downstairs, Thad handed him his gun belt from the rack on the kitchen wall. Billy slung it over his shoulder, held out his right hand.
“I’m obliged to you for what you’ve done, Mr. Harper—you and your wife.”
Thad returned the handclasp firmly. “Be a poor sort of a man who wouldn’t look out for his own riders.”
Billy tried to think of a comment and couldn’t, so he only nodded.
“You needn’t ride till you feel up to it,” the old man told him.
“I’ll be all right by tomorrow,” Billy said. Then he said goodnight and stepped onto the porch.
For a while he just stood there, looking around at the yard and outbuildings in the dimming twilight. He found himself thinking about what Thad had said—about why Jase Thornhill seemed so down on him. There was something downright evil about the way Jase Thornhill had let himself be ruled by hate. It was to be expected that some men would be cool toward a man who’d fought for the North. And some would be openly hostile, taking no pains to hide how they felt. Billy knew he could cope with those, given time. Given the time to work among them, to let them get to know him, to let them see that he was no different from themselves. It would work. It had worked already, with some. But the hatred Jase Thornhill had built up was something that would not pass with time. Someday, Billy knew…
Halfway across the yard he noticed the horse just outside the corral. The mount was still saddled, and for a minute, in the dusk, Billy couldn’t see the man. When he did see him, squatting there by the gatepost, it looked like Joe Metcalf, Thad’s foreman. Funny, he thought. Joe wasn’t one to squat outside and admire the scenery when there was grub being spread in the cook shack. Billy stopped. The orange spurt and wind of the slug past his face came together. Before the rifle cracked again Billy was flat in the dust, clawing at the Colt slung over his shoulder.
The noise in the cook shack had stopped and the clack of the rifle breech was loud in the sudden stillness. Billy cursed his swollen eye and the deepening dark that made it hard to see. He thumbed a shot blind, just on chance. There was a whinnying scream and he saw the horse rear up against the sky, then go off at a stumbling run. The rifle cracked again and the bullet ricocheted off the hardpan and whined away. Billy fired at the flash, he knew he’d missed again when he saw the scurrying figure disappear around the corner of the corral.
The whole exchange was over in a couple of seconds. In the next instant bedlam reigned as riders poured out of the cook shack, those who were armed looking for something to shoot at, those who weren’t hanging back a little.
To the flurry of yelling questioners Billy answered with a shouted warning. “Look out for the corral! He ran around for the barn. He can’t get far, his horse got shot.”
While the armed riders ran to surround the barn, Billy flipped open the loading gate of his .44, felt out and replaced the two dead shells. Then he got up and ran over to where Joe Metcalf was hunkered behind a corral post.
“Tell the boys to hang back, Joe. No point in anybody else sticking his neck out. Whoever it was is after me.”
Despite the darkness, Billy was close enough to see Joe’s face. He could see the steady eyes searching his face thoughtfully. Then he saw the white of teeth as Joe’s lean face parted in a slow grin.
“Hell,” the foreman said lazily, “you want all the fun. You get in a fist fight one night and let us stand around and watch. Now you get a good gun fight started and you want us to sit back again. Do me a big favor, will you, Condo? Go to hell.”
Joe turned away and Billy found himself grinning in spite of the soreness of his swollen face. There was a warm glow deep inside him. Not just because he had help in a gun fight—hell, no. But because here was proof that he was winning his biggest fight—the fight to be accepted once again as a man among men. Accepted as a Texan among Texans, with no thought of what had gone before, but only of what was to come. These men had made his fight their fight because he was one of them.
But it was still a long road, he knew that. There would still be those who would call him traitor, without stopping to reason his side of it. And there would still be men, like the one out there in the barn right now, who would try to kill him.
“What’s going on out here?”
Billy looked up to see Old Thad’s shadowy figure crossing the lot, his big .45-70 ready in his hands.
“Get down, Thad!” Billy hissed at him. “There’s a man with a rifle holed up in the barn. Took a shot at me as I came across the yard.”
Thad slid in beside them and rested the heavy rifle on a corral pole. He didn’t say anything. Both knew without saying that the man in the barn was from Jase Thornhill’s outfit—if not Jase himself.
Billy made up his mind about what to do. He buckled the gun belt across his hips. “Cover the barn for me, will you? I’m going to go in after him.”
“Sit still,” Old Thad growled. “If you want to live to be my age, son, you got to learn patience.”
“He’s right, Condo!” Joe Metcalf said. “Long as we wait, he’s got to come out sometime.”
Meantime, Billy thought, somebody might get shot. Appreciation of a man’s willingness to help was one thing; letting somebody get killed for you was something else. And if they sat there long enough the man in the barn would likely get a shot at somebody.
“Well,” Billy said slowly, “if I don’t make it, just say I died a damn fool.”
He stood up and began to move along the corral in a running crouch.
CHAPTER FIVE
The twilight had given way to night and there was only faint starlight to show him the way. Billy paused at the corner of the corral where it turned to parallel the side of the barn. It was half an hour or more till moonrise, and for that he was glad. Before him was a good fifty feet before the shelter of the barn, with only the poles of the corral to shield him. In moonlight he knew he’d never make it. He had his doubts as it was.
The heavy boom of Old Thad’s .45-70 thundered on the still night. Billy glued himself to the ground along the corral, heard the metallic whang of the big slug hitting a strap iron hinge on the loft door.
In the stillness that followed he could hear Thad’s muttered swearing at the poor light that had caused him to miss. Then the old man called out. “Watch the loft, Condo!”
That was what Billy had feared would happen. From the hayloft the hidden rifleman could command a view of every tree, bush and outbuilding around. Moreover, there was only one way to get up there—up the ladder inside. And that led to a three by three opening in the loft floor. It would be like shooting a pig in a barrel, Billy thought to himself.
He waited until the clack of the breech told him Old Thad had reloaded. A man’s natural respect for the big rifle would make him want to keep from showing his head too often.
Once or twice it occurred to Billy that Joe Metcalf might have been right about waiting. But it was too late to think about that now. He did wish, though, that it didn’t hurt him so much to move around. Crouched as he was, he felt the throbbing in his punished ribs, and his face felt hot as fire. If it was an effort for him to move, he wondered how the hell he’d ever get up that ladder. It wouldn’t be a cinch, him with only one good eye and the man in the loft just sitting there, waiting.
There was a movement behind and Joe Metcalf came up, crouching.
“Long as you’re hell-bent on going through with this,” Joe said dryly, “Thad and me figured we might as well make it look as little like suicide as possible. Next time Thad lets go with tha
t blunderbuss of his, you scoot. I’ve got two six guns here, and with Thad reloading fast as he can, maybe we can keep that fellow back in his hole till you make the barn. I couldn’t get word to the others, but when they hear the shootin’ they ought to catch on and join in.”
He paused for a minute, squinting close at Billy’s face.
“My Gawd!” he chuckled finally. “You look like hell. You don’t need a gun, you’ll scare the bastard to death!”
That didn’t strike Billy as very funny, but he tried to grin anyway. Right now the only person he knew who was scared was Billy Condo.
The solid ker-boom of Thad’s long gun almost made him jump.
“Get goin’!” Joe Metcalf hissed and Billy’s eardrums were numbed as the foreman’s two six-guns began blazing away beside his head.
It was the longest fifty feet he’d run since that day a Confederate ball dropped his horse from ambush when he was crossing Cedar Run. That time, he remembered, he’d crossed the creek so fast he didn’t sink in enough to get his boot soles wet.
The soreness in his body was forgotten in the surge of excitement brought by the cracking of shots and the smell of burnt powder. He remembered hugging the rail in a crouch and watching his feet move up and down. Next thing he knew he was under the eaves of the barn, leaning against the wall and trying to get his breath while his ribs hurt so bad he thought at first he’d been shot till he remembered.
When his heart slowed down and the pounding left his ears he realized how quiet it had gotten. And it came to him then how much alone he was now. Joe Metcalf, Old Thad, and the others—they’d all be helpless to aid him now. They couldn’t shoot, because in the dark who could tell? Well, it suited him this way. At least he’d done right, he guessed, in trying to keep the fight his own. Just who it was up there in the loft, he wasn’t sure. But now was the time to find out.
Beside him was a door that opened into the wagon yard from the barn. Inside was where Thad kept his rolling stock; a buckboard, a hayrick, a chuck outfit, and a general-purpose rig. A board wall separated the wagons from the saddle bin, and next to that was the blacksmith shop with an open space and then the place where the ladder led up to the loft.
Billy had been inside only once or twice, and now he was wishing he had a better idea of how everything was arranged. He couldn’t afford to go stumbling around in the dark making a lot of noise. He slipped quickly inside and stood back against the wall, listening and letting his good eye get used to the deeper dark.
After a minute he could make out objects. He picked his way around the wagons, moving slowly and putting each foot down gently to make sure he wouldn’t make a noise when he shifted weight from foot to foot. Once past the wagons he could make out the forge, and from the faint light coming through a window he could see the ladder.
He felt the moisture on his palms and shifted his .44 to his left hand while he wiped the sweat from the other on his denims. His eyes ran up the ladder. The black hole at the top looked awful small. Worse, the ladder was against the wall, which meant he’d go up it with his back to the loft and would have to twist around to shoot behind him. He was thinking he didn’t like the setup worth a damn.
He cocked the .44, holding it under his armpit while he did to deaden the click. Then he began to inch forward, keeping his good eye strained on the black hole until his bad eye watered in sympathy.
Billy didn’t see the doubletree until too late. Somebody had left it propped against the forge and when he passed, his pants leg brushed against it. It fell to the floor with a loud rattle that made the hair on his neck stand up and froze him in his tracks.
Cursing his own incaution he stood and listened. A horse whinnied in the distance. In the silence that followed, Billy could hear nothing but the wheezing of his own breath. But he knew one thing for certain—any hope he might have had of surprising the man in the loft was gone now. Worse still, be began to see that the floor above was full of cracks through which a man could look down. Funny, he thought, he hadn’t noticed the cracks before. And then it came to him. The interior of the barn was getting lighter. He looked out the window to the east. The moon was starting to rise—big and full.
His tongue felt like dry cotton in his mouth. Slowly, quietly, he began to back up the way he’d come, looking behind to make sure he didn’t stumble over something else, then glancing back quickly at the cracks in the boards overhead. He knew full certain that the next sound he made would bring lead down on him through the thin planks above.
When he came to the wagons again he sidestepped gingerly to avoid the tongues. Why he looked up he didn’t know. Instinct, he guessed. But he was thankful he did.
There, behind and above him, was a knothole. Through it was poked a pistol barrel—waiting. He felt the chill run up and down his spine. One more step and he’d have been in line.
He stood looking at it. From the way it seemed, the man upstairs could only cant the pistol so far and no more. Billy tried to imagine how much of himself would show from above. He judged his feet must be in the sights. No more, surely, or he’d never have known what hit him. There was one way to find out. He brought the .44 up slowly, aiming at the spot he figured a man’s head might be behind the gun. Then he pulled the trigger.
The powder flash blinded him momentarily. When he could see again the gun was still there, but there was a black hole in the plank where his bullet had gone through. He listened for a sound. There was none. If he’d hit, he must have done a clean job. So clean that the dead man’s hand had slipped from the gun without dislodging it. Maybe…
“Drop that pistol, Condo!”
The voice was a rasped whisper, backed by a firm jab with a gun in Billy’s back. There was nothing else to do but obey. He let his own gun fall to the dirt floor.
The man was talking again. “You’re my ticket out of this place, Condo. Call your friends and tell them to saddle two mounts and tie them out.”
Billy tried to recognize the voice, but couldn’t. It was one he’d never heard to his knowledge.
“Now, get movin’…”
He walked to the door like he’d been told and called out, “Thad! Thad Harper!” At his shout Thad stood up and Joe Metcalf started to walk along the corral fence. Other riders came out of hiding and started for the barn.
Thad was chuckling, “Got him, did you? Figured so when I heard the shot…“
“Hold it!” Billy yelled. “I got tricked. Whoever it is, is behind me right now with a gun in my back. Don’t come no closer, dammit!”
He relayed the instructions, and stood chafing inwardly while two men went about the business of catching and saddling the mounts. He could see Joe Metcalf talking earnestly with Old Thad and saw the old man shake his head emphatically and spit on the ground in disgust. There wasn’t a damn thing any of them could do but stand by.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Billy growled.
The man behind gave a hollow laugh. “Reckon you’ll find out in time. Let’s don’t get impatient.”
Billy’s swollen face broke in a scowl. Well, it was his own damn fault he got into this mess. This was the second time tonight somebody’d accused him of being impatient and he was wishing to hell he’d listened the first time.
He heard the gate creak open on the other side of the corral and saw the two riders leading the mounts out to tie them on the side away from the buildings. Billy’s mind was numb from trying to think of some way out. Once they got away from the Circle 8 it’d be too late. The man behind him had made that plain enough.
Suppose he got stubborn and refused to budge? If he was to be shot anyway, why the hell should he give this man a chance to get away by using him for a shield? But there was just a chance that he might be able to get away if he went along.
Then something came to him. It wasn’t a gold-edged guarantee, but it was half a chance. The man had gone into the barn with a ri
fle and had left his handgun poked through that knothole. That meant that the gun in Billy’s back was the rifle. The longer barrel would make it harder to swing at close quarters.
“Stop shiftin’ from one foot to the other and stand still!” the man growled.
“Hell, my legs are getting tired!” Billy protested. Then he started to shift his weight again—only this time he kept moving, fast.
He rolled on a pivot that put him midway down the length of the rifle barrel and face to face with the man. In the next few seconds he was too busy to get a look at who it was. He brought his knee up, aiming for the groin, while his hands closed over the rifle. The man jumped back out of the way and jerked the rifle to him. They fell together, off balance, with Billy trying to roll close in. But his body had been beaten too badly to respond as it should and he was slow. He saw the glint of moonlight along the barrel as the man stopped his roll and aimed point blank from where he lay.
In the split second it took, Billy tensed against the shock of the slug. But it never came. Old Thad’s .45-70 boomed again and Billy saw the man jerk awkwardly as the chunk of lead tore through his chest.
Billy pulled himself to his feet with an effort and bent over the twisted body. He straightened up shaking his head just as Joe Metcalf came up with Old Thad close behind.
“Dead?” Joe asked.
Billy only nodded.
Joe leaned down for a look, then looked up at Billy. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly.
“Who is he?” Thad wheezed, too winded to bend over to see.
Billy told him. “Bud Hardin.”
CHAPTER SIX
Old Thad stood shaking his head and looking down at Hardin’s body.
“Jase sure has spread his hate, to get a man to do this.”
Billy picked up his hat and brushed it off. “Either that,” he said slowly, “or he paid to get Hardin to do what he didn’t have the guts to try himself.”
The 7th Western Novel Page 47