Before he could prevent himself, Styree looked apprehensively over his shoulder. Angrily, he shouted: “You tell Brydon he does a deal or we’ll shoot this place to shreds. He won’t never walk away from here alive.”
McCord nodded and turned back.
As he stepped into the house, Brydon slammed the door behind him and dropped the bar.
“What he say?” he demanded.
“You go out with the gold,” he said. “You split with Styree and the rest of the bunch and he’ll see you get safe out of the country.”
Brydon looked agitated. He muttered a short while to himself, caught in a dilemma.
“I go out there with all that gold,” he said. “An’ I’m a dead man. Don’t you reckon that, McCord?”
“Should I care?”
Brydon vented his rage on McCord.
“You change the way you talk to me, boy,” he said. “Or I mark you.”
“What do you intend to do?”
Brydon went to the parfleche and bent over it. McCord was tempted to jump him, but he held himself back. Brydon was a fighting man and he wouldn’t be easily disposed of. The women could get hurt. Brydon had the parfleche open, fumbling through the boxes and pokes. What he found made him exclaim in wonder.
“By Christ,” he said, “I never saw anything like it in my life.”
He weighed a poke of gold in one hand, put it to one side. Picked up the sack of coin and heard it clink.
“Gold?” he demanded of Linda who had turned to watch him. She nodded. He added another poke of gold and another. No more, he thought. There had to be enough there to tempt Styree to ride on without shooting. He stood up and gestured to the parfleche. “Roll that up and take it out to Styree,” he ordered.
McCord did as he was ordered, put the heavy bundle under one arm and let himself out of the house. He saw that Styree had ridden back to his men. They were now fanning out around the house. He wondered where the Mexican whom McCord had forbidden admittance to the post had gotten to. McCord walked a hundred paces down the slope and dropped the bundle to the ground. He gazed out beyond the outlaws, searching the valley for any sign of movement, any chance of there being some rescue in the offing. He saw nothing stir. He felt defeated. He knew that he was risking the lives of the women and his own.
Styree now came riding toward him. He stopped his horse and looked down at the parfleche.
“Jesus,” he said, “you mean Brydon gave it up just like that?”
“He took his cut,” McCord said. “That’s his part of the deal. You take it and ride.”
“Brydon’s trouble,” Styree said, “is he don’t trust nobody. He’s sick in the head. I always said so.” He swung down from the saddle, hurried to the bundle and opened it. He rifled through the contents and McCord wondered if he knew what should be there. Apparently he did because the next thing he said was: “That sonovabitch took more’n his share. The thievin’ bastard.” Crouched down over the treasure, he turned and glared up at McCord with red-rimmed eyes. “Where’s the woman. I tole you to bring the woman out.”
McCord swallowed.”
“He refuses to give her up,” he said firmly.
Styree stood up and braced his shoulders back.
“He wants her for himself?”
“No—it’s just he doesn’t make deals over decent women.”
Styree laughed.
“Aragon a decent woman? Why that bitch...” He looked up toward the house, raising his voice in a bellow: “Brydon ... you hear me, Brydon?”
Faintly, Brydon’s voice came back—
“I hear you.”
“I want Aragon. You send her out an’ we’ll call it a deal.”
McCord stepped forward: “Styree,” he said, “I beg of you, leave the woman. You’re a murderer and a thief, be satisfied with that.”
Styree said: “Watch your words.”
“Styree, you owe me a debt. If I hadn’t cared for you, you wouldn’t be standing here now.”
“I don’t owe you nothin’, trader. You hush up now or I knock your teeth down your throat.”
Back in the store, Brydon turned and looked at Aragon.
“Styree wants you out there,” he told her. “That Styree ...”
Juanita screamed: “No, señorita.”
Linda ran to the open door, Brydon to the window.
It was the sight of the woman in the open doorway that triggered action in McCord. He thought that she was about to give herself up. Instinctively he leapt for Styree. McCord was heavy and powerful. He flung the outlaw to the ground and dropped on him. Styree’s first impulse was to draw his gun. It was always guns or knives with Styree. Before he could draw the weapon from leather, McCord’s strong hand clamped down on his wrist.
Styree was yelling his head off, demanding that his men come to his aid. McCord heard a distant horse get into action. Holding Styree’s wrist with his left hand, he drove his right elbow into Styree’s face. The outlaw was flung backward and he tried to continue the movement and escape from McCord’s grip. He rose to his knees and butted his head into the trader’s. McCord rode the blow and smashed his fist into Styree’s face. He knew that he didn’t have more than seconds before the horseman arrived on the scene. His blow put the outlaw in the dust on his back. Styree, no more than half-conscious, his face a mass of blood from broken teeth and mashed lips, reached for his gun again. McCord was on him, kicking the weapon from his hand. As it spun away and hit dust, Styree dove for it. Before he could reach it, McCord landed him a kick in the ribs that lifted him from the ground. He yelled in pain and fright. McCord scooped up the gun and shouted to Linda to get back inside the post.
Quickly looking around, he saw the rider angling across the slope toward him. The sun glittering on the belt-gun in the man’s hand.
McCord cocked and fired. The rider at once thought better of his charge and served away down the slope. McCord turned and started to run back toward the post. He had covered about half the distance when he heard Aragon scream. Almost in the same instant, he heard the flat slam of a rifle behind him and something hit him hard in the back. In the next second, his face was in the dust and his mouth was full of the stuff.
He wondered if he was about to die.
He heard a sound and raising his head with great difficulty, he saw Aragon running toward him.
“Go back, go back,” he shouted, but the sound he gave out was no more than a whisper. Then the acute danger the woman was in came to him and he knew that he must move and do something even if it was the last thing he did on earth. Somehow he rolled over onto his back and groped for the gun he had dropped. Miraculously, his hand closed on the butt. To lift it took all the strength and will power in his body. To cock it took a final and supreme effort. He found that he didn’t see too clearly. Styree, rifle in hand, the horseman swerving back into the action, were no more than dim shapes.
He fired at Styree. And missed. The man had his rifle to his shoulder.
Then, it seemed, another miracle happened. There came the sound of a rifle from above the house in the rocks. Dust spurted at Styree’s feet and he started back, suddenly alarmed.
McCord felt Aragon’s hands on him, dragging him back. Her voice begged him to aid her. She took the gun from his hand and fired downhill toward the outlaws. And he was on his face, dragging himself back towards the post. Then there was another woman there—Juanita. After that there was nothing but dull pain and the dominating fact that he had to reach the house.
Linda Aragon ran her eyes over the scene below. Jesus Maria Gomez up in the rocks above the house was laying a covering fire right along the line of the attackers and they were aware that if they advanced they could ride into lead. Styree took the hint. He ran for his horse, piled into the saddle with the heavy parfleche burdening him and rode back for the shelter of the ridge below.
Linda turned and ran back toward the house. Together she and Juanita somehow dragged the heavy McCord inside. Brydon slammed the door behind t
hem and dropped the bar into its brackets. He was a greatly shaken man.
“The bastard lied to me,” he said. “He didn’t tell me Styree wanted you, Aragon. I should ought to put a bullet atween his eyes.”
They were the last words he spoke.
The last thing he heard was the roar of Aragon’s gun. She fired at close range and the heavy bullet took him in the side of the head, knocking him lifeless against the wall. He dropped like a rag doll to the beaten-earth floor.
Linda Aragon said in Spanish to Betsy: “Woman, get that carrion outside.”
Even before the outlaw had stopped kicking, the strong Navaho woman had opened the door and dragged his corpse outside. She spat on him, re-entered the post and closed the door. She went at once to McCord and fell on her knees beside him.
“Juanita,” Aragon said crisply, “help Betsy carry McCord into his room.”
Her mind seemed to be going a thousand different ways as she watched the two women struggling to get the wounded man to his room. She knew that Jody Storm had fallen into the hands of the outlaws and she knew that his life wasn’t worth a bare cent. That brought her mind to Mart Storm, waiting back there on the trail for these same outlaws. Had it dawned on him that that outlaws would not follow the trail they were thought to have followed? Was he on his way here now or was he still waiting for men who would never arrive? She couldn’t believe that a man like him hadn’t discovered the truth by now. But even if he had realized what had really happened, could he possibly arrive here in time to save his nephew’s life.
She thought too of their situation in this house with two wounded men. Even if Styree did not use Jody as a hostage, could they hold out here against so many men? The only real hope she had was that Styree would be satisfied with the haul of gold and jewels that he had and would ride away.
Hurriedly, she searched for shells for the Spencer and finally found them under the counter. She opened the door and emptied the box on the ground, lying down so that she could have a wide view of the valley below her. She counted on Gomez being able to cover the rear of the house if an attack came. What he would do if the outlaws worked their way around behind and above him, she did not know. If they could hold on here long enough for Mart and Valdez to arrive, the situation might be saved. Now she had to wait and see if Styree was satisfied with his loot and decided to cut his losses.
She heard a dragging movement behind her and turned. To her astonishment, she saw Gregorio crawling with an agonizing slowness across the floor.
“You fool,” she said. “You mustn’t move.”
But the Mexican came doggedly on until he was beside her. The sweat shone on his face. His magnificent mustaches were bedraggled. His face was a dull gray.
“Do you think you do me a service by killing yourself?” she demanded acidly.
“You listen to me, little one,” he said. “You’re now in a man’s business and a man has to decide.”
“Rubbish,” she told him. “The only smartness the men have shown in this business is to get themselves shot or captured. You’re no longer in this, Gregorio, my friend.”
“You listen to me, woman,” he said. It hurt him to talk and it showed. “I can lie here as well as you and shoot at these gringos as they advance on the house. You and the women slip out the rear way and join Jesus Maria in the hills. I will stay here until Martin and Valdez arrive.”
“There is McCord and the Storm boy.”
“They must take their chances. They are men.”
“Styree may ride off now.”
“You think so? After what McCord did? And he wants you. No, Styree will not ride off. Look yonder.”
She looked below.
The riders were in a loose bunch, slowly edging their way up the slope. She could see a man stumbling on foot. She knew that was Jody Storm on the end of a rope. Her heart was like lead in her breast.
A rider detached himself from the group of horsemen and came up the slope. They saw that it was Styree. He halted halfway to them, rose in the stirrups and shouted: “Look yonder. You see that boy? We’re goin’ to drag him till he’s dead if”n you don’t come down here, Aragon, an’ bring the rest of the gold with you.”
The Mexican took the Spencer from her hands.
In Spanish, he shouted: “You harm that man and I shall kill you.” The effort turned his face ashen.
Desperately, Linda said: “You are out of your mind. They’ll kill the boy.”
“Men who threaten often have no courage.”
Suddenly, Gregorio jacked a round into the breech of the carbine and fired a shot close over Styree’s head. So close that the man instinctively ducked after the bullet had passed.
Gregorio yelled: “You don’t move from there or I shall kill you.”
Styree was beside himself.
“Did you hear me? We’ll kill the boy if you don’t do like I say.”
Gregorio levered again.
“No,” Linda cried, pushing aside the rifle. “We cannot risk this. They’ll kill the boy.” She rose hastily to her feet, picked up the portion of the treasure the dead Brydon had put aside for himself and walked out onto the stoop.
“Señorita,” Gregorio said, “I am begging you. Let me kill that carrion. That will change the minds of the rest.”
“No,” she said, “there is too much at stake.”
She started down the slope as a rider down there quirted his horse into a run. The figure of Jody Storm was torn from his feet. Linda began to run, screaming: “Stop, stop.”
Gregorio whispered: “That I should ever see this,” and laid his head on his arms. He felt very tired.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time they reached the floor of the valley, both Mart and Valdez considered that they were too late. Either Styree and his crowd had caught up with the fugitives or they had attacked the post in which they had taken shelter.
Both men were footsore and, after a night of little or no rest, they were tired to the bone. Basically they were both horsemen and their riders’ feet were giving them Hell. They had removed their boots and walked through the hills with these articles slung by their mule-ears around their necks. Their feet had suffered, but not so much as they would have done if they had kept their boots on. At the foot of the valley wall, they came on a small stream and here they drank, splashed water deliciously in their dusty hot faces and bathed their burning feet in the cool water.
“Valdez,” Mart said, “we won’t make it.”
The Mexican nodded. He was not a man of many words.
They stayed there maybe ten minutes and then their consciences started to spur them on. They waded through the water, climbed the far bank and started to walk across the valley. Now the heat was so bad that the ground began to burn their feet and they were forced to pull their boots on again. They stumbled on, numbed with tiredness.
An hour passed without their exchanging a single word. Each man gritted his teeth and kept going, merely fighting the need to walk and the wish to run, both weighed down with guilt because of their poor judgment, feeling that if they had stayed with the rest of the party, the women would have been safe.
But, it was too late, Mart told himself. He had allowed the only woman who had ever profoundly stirred him to ride away into the worse danger that he could have imagined for her. Jody too was on his mind. He would have to account to Will for Jody and he didn’t relish that chore. He knew the boy wouldn’t give up. If Styree attacked his party, Jody would die defending it.
He was in the black depths of remorse when suddenly Valdez halted so abruptly that Mart, who was walking directly behind him, cannoned into him.
Valdez said: “I heard something.”
They both held their breath, listened and heard nothing.
“I heard voices,” Valdez said. “I swear it.”
“A bird or an animal maybe,” Mart said.
The Mexican waved impatiently to silence and they listened again.
“There it is,” the Me
xican said.
Mart heard something this time, but it wasn’t the sound of a human voice. It was the soft whicker of a horse. He looked all around him, but could see nothing.
“There’s not a thing in sight,” he whispered.
Valdez pointed north.
“There is a ridge there.”
Mart couldn’t see any ridge. Maybe there was a break in the land, but he couldn’t see that either. Valdez signaled him to go off to the right. Mart obeyed him. They crept forward, weapons held ready.
As he advanced, Mart again heard the clear trumpet of a horse. Maybe he and Valdez had been spotted by a horse. He glanced at the Mexican who was slightly in advance of him and on higher ground. Valdez pointed at a spot to the north of them.
Within a few minutes, Mart was standing on the lip of a depression in the valley floor, looking down on a camp of Mexicans. There were a couple of two-wheeled carts, two or three dozen men, women and children, as many bullocks and, his heart rose, to the north of the depression, a few horses and mules. He was startled by a sharp cry from Valdez and the man was running down toward the others like a man gone berserk. Every head there was turned. Valdez stumbled into a flood of humans. Arms were thrown around him. There was a white-headed old man clapping him on the back and kissing him on either cheek, a fat motherly woman who tore him from the grasp of the oldster just so as she could do the same thing. The place was a bedlam. Mart strode down and then he, too, was surrounded.
Everybody talked at once and he picked up what information he could from the babble of talk.
These people, it appeared, had fled from Aragon, taking with them what they could. They had managed to catch some of the horses and mules Mart and the others had scattered, a few possessions had been thrown into the carts, children had been gathered up and they had fled. Slowly, the noise died down and Valdez was telling his story, demanding that men immediately catch up some horses so that he and Mart could ride after the señorita’s party. The old man shouted orders. Young men ran. Valdez was demanding if anybody had arms with them.
There were more than arms, it appeared. There were more than a half-dozen men willing to ride with them. Within minutes, it seemed, while Mart and Valdez poured water down their dry throats and stuffed food into their starving bellies, horses were led up and men and guns were lined up for their inspection. They were, it was evident, better off with men than guns. They decided on all the guns and three men. Horses were saddled, the guns were shared out so that every man there had a belt-gun and a rifle. Two of the rifles were single-shots and one of those was a muzzle-loader, but they would have to do. Saddler-leather creaked and men swung up into the saddle. Mart had never felt greater pleasure on being astride a horse before. It all happened so quickly that he was confused. It seemed they were no sooner in that camp than they were riding out again.
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