by Zane Grey
“Bud, you’re the only one in this bunch of loggerheads thet has any sense. What d’you say?”
“Quiet down an’ wait here,” replied Bud. “Mebbe old Bent didn’t hear them shots of Herky’s. He may come back. Let’s wait awhile, an’, if he doesn’t come, put Herky on the trail.”
“Good! Greaser, go out an’ hide the hosses—drive them up the canyon.”
The Mexican shuffled out, and all the others settled down to quiet. I heard some of them light their pipes. Bud leaned against the left of the door, Buell sat on the other side, and beyond them I saw as much of Herky as his boots. I knew him by his bow-legs.
The stillness that set in began to be hard on me’. When the men were moving about and talking I had been so interested that my predicament did not occupy my mind. But now, with those ruffians waiting silently below, I was beset with a thousand fears. The very consciousness that I must be quiet made it almost impossible. Then I became aware that my one position cramped my arm and side. A million prickling needles were at my elbow. A band as of steel tightened about my breast. I grew hot and cold, and trembled. I knew the slightest move would be fatal, so I bent all my mind to lying quiet as a stone.
Greaser came limping back into the cabin, and found a seat without any one speaking. It was so still that I heard the silken rustle of paper as he rolled a cigarette. Moments that seemed long as years passed, with my muscles clamped as in a vise. If only I had lain down upon my back! But there I was, half raised on my elbow, in a most awkward and uncomfortable position. I tried not to mind the tingling in my arm, but to think of Hiram, of Jim, of my mustang. But presently I could not think of anything except the certainty that I would soon lose control of my muscles and fall over.
The tingling changed to a painful vibration, and perspiration stung my face. The strain became unbearable. All of a sudden something seemed to break within me, and my muscles began to ripple and shake. I had no power to stop it. More than that, the feeling was so terrible that I knew I would welcome discovery as a relief.
“Sh-s-s-h!” whispered someone below.
I turned my eyes down to the peep-hole. Bud had moved over squarely into the light of the door. He was bending over something. Then he extended his hand, back uppermost, toward Buell. On the back of that broad brown hand were pieces of leaf and bits of pine-needles. The trembling of my body had shaken these from the brush on the rickety loft. More than that, in the yellow bar of sunlight which streamed in at the door there floated particles of dust.
Bud silently looked upward. There was a gleam in his black eyes, and his mouth was agape. Buell’s gaze followed Bud’s, and his face grew curious, intent, then fixed in a cunning, bold smile of satisfaction. He rose to his feet.
“Come down out o’ thet!” he ordered, harshly. “Come down!”
The sound of his voice stilled my trembling. I did not move nor breathe. I saw Buell loom up hugely and Bud slowly rise. Herky-Jerky’s boots suddenly stood on end, and I knew then he had also risen. The silence which followed Buell’s order was so dense that it oppressed me.
“Come down!” repeated Buell.
There was no hint of doubt in his deep voice, but a cold certainty and a brutal note. I had feared the man before, but that gave me new terror.
“Bud, climb the ladder,” commanded Buell.
“I ain’t stuck on thet job,” rejoined Bud.
As his heavy boots thumped on the ladder they jarred the whole cabin. My very desperation filled me with the fierceness of a cornered animal. I caught sight of a short branch of the thickness of a man’s arm, and, grasping it, I slowly raised myself. When Bud’s black, round head appeared above the loft I hit it with all my might.
Bud bawled like a wounded animal, and fell to the ground with the noise of a load of bricks. Through my peep-hole I saw him writhing, with both hands pressed to his head. Then, lying flat on his back, he whipped out his revolver. I saw the red spurt, the puff of smoke. Bang!
A bullet zipped through the brush, and tore a hole through the roof.
Bang! Bang!
I felt a hot, tearing pain in my arm.
“Stop, you black idiot!” yelled Buell. He kicked the revolver out of Bud’s hand. “What d’you mean by thet?”
In the momentary silence that followed I listened intently, even while I held tightly to my arm. From its feeling my arm seemed to be shot off, but it was only a flesh-wound. After the first instant of shock I was not scared. But blood flowed fast. Warm, oily, slippery, it ran down inside my shirt sleeve and dripped off my fingers.
“Bud,” hoarsely spoke up Bill, breaking the stillness, “mebbe you killed him!”
Buell coughed, as if choking.
“What’s thet?” For once his deep voice was pitched low. “Listen.”
Drip! drip! drip! It was like the sound of water dripping from a leak in a roof. It was directly under me, and, quick as thought, I knew the sound was made by my own dripping blood.
“Find thet, somebody,” ordered Buell.
Drip! drip! drip!
One of the men stepped noisily.
“Hyar it is—thar,” said Bill. “Look on my hand.… Blood! I knowed it. Bud got him, all right.”
There was a sudden rustling such as might come from a quick, strained movement.
“Buell,” cried Dick Leslie, in piercing tones, “Heaven help you murdering thieves if that boy’s killed! I’ll see you strung up right in this forest. Ken, speak! Speak!”
It seemed then, in my pain and bitterness, that I would rather let Buell think me dead. Dick’s voice went straight to my heart, but I made no answer.
“Leslie, I didn’t kill him, an’ I didn’t order it,” said Buell, in a voice strangely shrunk and shaken. “I meant no harm to the lad.… Go up, Bud, an’ get him.”
Bud made no move, nor did Greaser when he was ordered. “Go up, somebody, an’ see what’s up there!” shouted Buell. “Strikes me you might go yourself,” said Bill, coolly.
With a growl Buell mounted the ladder. When his great shock head hove in sight I was seized by a mad desire to give him a little of his own medicine. With both hands I lifted the piece of pine branch and brought it down with every ounce of strength in me.
Like a pistol it cracked on Buell’s head and snapped into bits. The lumberman gave a smothered groan, then clattered down the ladder and rolled on the floor. There he lay quiet.
“All-fired dead—thet kid—now, ain’t he?” said Bud, sarcastically. “How’d you like thet crack on the knob? You’ll need a larger size hat, mebbe. Herky-Jerky, you go up an’ see what’s up there.”
“I’ve a picture of myself goin’,” replied Herky, without moving.
“Whar’s the water? Get some water, Greaser,” chimed in Bill.
From the way they worked over Buell, I concluded he had been pretty badly stunned. But he came to presently.
“What struck me?” he asked.
“Oh, nothin’,” replied Bud, derisively. “The loft up thar’s full of air, an’ it blowed on you, thet’s all.”
Buell got up, and began walking around.
“Bill, go out an’ fetch in some long poles,” he said.
When Bill returned with a number of sharp, bayonet-like pikes I knew the game was all up for me. Several of the men began to prod through the thin covering of dry brush. One of them reached me, and struck so hard that I lurched violently.
That was too much for the rickety loft floor. It was only a bit of brush laid on a netting of slender poles. It creaked, rasped, and went down with a crash. I alighted upon somebody, and knocked him to the floor. Whoever it was, seized me with iron hands. I was buried, almost smothered, in the dusty mass. My captor began to curse cheerfully, and I knew then that Herky-Jerky had made me a prisoner.
CHAPTER XV
THE FIGHT
Herky hauled me out of the brush, and held me in the light. The others scrambled from under the remains of the loft, and all viewed me curiously.
“Kid, you ain�
��t hurt much?” queried Buell, with concern.
I would have snapped out a reply, but I caught sight of Dick’s pale face and anxious eyes.
“Ken,” he called, with both gladness and doubt in his voice, “you look pretty good—but that blood.… Tell me, quick!”
“It’s nothing, Dick, only a little cut. The bullet just ticked my arm.”
Whatever Dick’s reply was it got drowned in Herky-Jerky’s long explosion of strange language. Herky was plainly glad I had not been badly hurt. I had already heard mirth, anger, disgust, and fear in his outbreaks, and now relief was added. He stripped off my coat, cut off the bloody sleeve of my shirt, and washed the wound. It was painful and bled freely, but it was not much worse than cuts from spikes when playing ball. Herky bound it tightly with a strip of my shirt-sleeve, and over that my handkerchief.
“Thar, kid, thet’ll stiffen up an’ be sore fer a day or two, but it ain’t nothin’. You’ll soon be bouncin’ clubs offen our heads.”
It was plain that Herky—and the others, for that matter, except Buell—thought more of me because I had wielded a club so vigorously.
“Look at thet lump, kid,” said Bud, bending his head. “Now, ain’t thet a nice way to treat a feller? It made me plumb mad, it did.”
“I’m likely to hurt somebody yet,” I declared.
They looked at me curiously. Buell raised his face with a queer smile. Bud broke into a laugh.
“Oh, you’re goin’ to? Mebbe you think you need an axe,” said he.
They made no offer to tie me up then. Bud went to the door and sat in it, and I heard him half whisper to Buell: “What’d I tell you? Thet’s a game kid. If he ever wakes up right we’ll have a wildcat on our hands. He’ll do fer one of us yet.” These men all took pleasure in saying things like this to Buell. This time Buell had no answer ready, and sat nursing his head. “Wal, I hev a little headache myself, an’ the crack I got wasn’t nothin’ to yourn,” concluded Bud. Then Bill began packing the supplies indoors, and Herky started a fire. Bud kept a sharp eye on me; still, he made no objection when I walked over and lay down upon the blankets near Dick.
“Dick, I shot a bear and helped to tie up a cub,” I said. And then I told him all that had happened from the time I scrambled out of the spring-hole till I was discovered up in the loft. Dick shook his head, as if he did not know what to make of me, and all he said was that he would give a year’s pay to have me safe back in Pennsylvania.
Herky-Jerky announced supper in his usual manner—a challenge to find as good a cook as he was, and a cheerful call to “grub.” I did not know what to think of his kindness to me. Remembering how he had nearly drowned me in the spring, I resented his sudden change. He could not do enough for me. I asked the reason for my sudden popularity.
Herky scratched his head and grinned. “Yep, kid, you sure hev riz in my estimashun.”
“Hey, you rummy cow-puncher,” broke in Bud, scornfully. “Mebbe you’d like the kid more’n you do if you’d got one of them wollops.”
“Bud, I ain’t sayin’,” replied Herky, with his mouth full of meat. “Considerin’ all points, howsoever, I’m thinkin’ them wallops was distributed very proper.”
They bandied such talk between them, and occasionally Bill chimed in with a joke. Greaser ate in morose silence. There must have been something on his mind. Buell took very little dinner, and appeared to be in pain. It was dark when the meal ended. Bud bound me up for the night, and he made a good job of it. My arm burned and throbbed, but not badly enough to prevent sleep. Twice I had nearly dropped off when loud laughs or voices roused me. My eyes closed with a picture of those rough, dark men sitting before the fire.
A noise like muffled thunder burst into my slumber. I awakened with my body cramped and stiff. It was daylight, and something had happened. Buell ran in and out of the cabin yelling at his men. All of them except Herky were wildly excited. Buell was abusing Bud for something, and Bud was blaming Buell.
“Thet’s no way to talk to me!” said Bud, angrily. “He didn’t break loose in my watch!”
“You an’ Greaser had the job. Both of you—went to sleep—take thet from me!”
“Wal, he’s gone, an’ he took the kid’s gun with him,” said Bill, coolly. “Now we’ll be dodgin’ bullets.”
Dick Leslie had escaped! I could hardly keep down a cry of triumph. I did ask if it was true, but none of them paid any attention to me. Buell then ordered Herky-Jerky to trail Dick and see where he had gone. Herky refused point-blank. “Nope. Not fer me,” he said. “Leslie has a rifle. So has Bent, an’ we haven’t one among us. An’, Buell, if Leslie falls in with Bent, it’s goin’ to git hot fer us round here.”
This silenced Buell, but did not stop his restless pacings. His face was like a thunder-cloud, and he was plainly worried and harassed. Once Bud deliberately asked what he intended to do with me, and Buell snarled a reply which no one understood. His gloom extended to the others, except Herky, who whistled and sang as he busied himself about the campfire. Greaser appeared to be particularly cast down.
“Buell, what are you going to do with me?” I demanded. But he made no answer.
“Well, anyway,” I went on, “somebody cut these ropes. I’m mighty sore and uncomfortable.”
Herky-Jerky did not wait for permission; he untied me, and helped me to my feet. I was rather unsteady on my legs at first, and my injured arm felt like a board. It seemed dead; but after I had moved it a little the pain came back, and it had apparently come to stay. We ate breakfast, and then settled down to do nothing, or to wait for something to turn up. Buell sat in the doorway, moodily watching the trail. Once he spoke, ordering the Mexican to drive in the horses. I fancied from this that Buell might have decided to break camp, but there was no move to pack.
The morning quiet was suddenly split by the stinging crack of a rifle and a yell of agony.
Buell leaped to his feet, his ruddy face white.
“Greaser!” he exclaimed.
“Thet was about where Greaser cashed,” relied Bill, coolly knocking the ashes from his pipe.
“No, Bill, you’re wrong. Here comes Greaser, runnin’ like an Indian.”
“Look at the blood! He’s been plugged, all right!” exclaimed Herky-Jerky.
The sound of running feet drew nearer, and suddenly the group at the door broke to admit the Mexican. One side of his terrified face was covered with blood. His eyes were staring, his hands raised, he staggered as if about to fall.
“Senyor William! Senyor William!” he cried, and then called on Saint Somebody.
“Jim Williams! I said so,” muttered Bud.
Bill caught hold of the excited Mexican, and pulled him nearer the light.
“Thet ain’t a bad hurt. Jest cut his ear off!” aid Bill. “Hyar, stand still, you wild man! you’re not goin’ to die. Git some water, Herky. Fellers, Greaser has been oneasy ever since he knew Jim Williams was lookin’ fer him. He thinks Jim did this. But Jim Williams don’t use a rifle, an’, what’s more, when he shoots he don’t miss. You all heerd the rifle-shot.”
“Then it was old Bent or Leslie?” questioned Buell.
“Leslie it were. Bent uses a 45-90 caliber. Thet shot we heerd was from the little 38—the kid’s gun.”
“Wal, it was a narrer escape fer Greaser,” said Bud. “Leslie’s sore, an’ he’ll shoot fer keeps. Buell, you’ve started somethin’.”
When Bill had washed the blood off the Mexican it was found that the ball had carried away the lower part of the ear, and with it, of course, the gold earring. The wound must have been extremely painful; it certainly took all the starch out of Greaser. He kept mumbling in his own language, and rolling his wicked black eyes and twisting his thin, yellow hands.
“What’s to be done?” asked Buell, sharply.
“Thet’s fer you to say,” replied Bill, with his exasperating calmness.
“Must we hang up here to be shot at? Leslie’s takin’ a long chance on thet kid’s life if he
comes slingin’ lead round this cabin.”
Herky-Jerky spat tobacco-juice across the room and grunted. Then, with his beady little eyes as keen and cold as flint, he said: “Buell, Leslie knows you daren’t harm the kid; an’ as fer bullets, he’ll take good care where he stings ’em. This deal of ours begins to look like a wild-goose stunt. It never was safe, an’ now it’s worse.”
Here was even Herky-Jerky harping on Buell’s situation. To me it did not appear much more serious than before. But evidently they thought Buell seemed on the verge of losing control of himself. He glared at Herky, and rammed his fists in his pockets and paced the long room. Presently he stepped out of the door.
A rifle cracked clear and sharp, another bellowed out heavy and hollow. A bullet struck the door-post, a second hummed through the door and budded into the log wall. Buell jumped back into the room. His face worked, his breath hissed between his teeth, as with trembling hand he examined the front of his coat. A big bullet had torn through both lapels.
Bill stuck his pudgy finger in the hole. “The second bullet made thet. It was from old Hiram’s gun—a 45-90!”
“Bent an’ Leslie! My God! They’re shootin’ to kill!” cried Buell.
“I should smile,” replied Herky-Jerky.
Bud was peeping out through a chink between the logs. “I got their smoke,” he said; “look, Bill, up the slope. They’re too fur off, but we may as well send up respects.” With that he aimed his revolver through the narrow crack and deliberately shot six times. The reports clapped like thunder, the smoke from burnt powder and the smell of brimstone filled the room. By way of reply old Hiram’s rifle boomed out twice, and two heavy slugs crashed through the roof, sending down a shower of dust and bits of decayed wood.
“Thet’s jist to show what a 45-90 can do,” remarked Bill.
Bud reloaded his weapon while Bill shot several times. Herky-Jerky had his gun in hand, but contented himself with peering from different chinks between the logs. I hid behind the wide stone fireplace, and though I felt pretty safe from flying bullets, I began to feel the icy grip of fear. I had seen too much of these men in excitement, and knew if circumstances so brought it about there might come a moment when my life would not be worth a pin. They were all sober now, and deadly quiet. Buell showed the greatest alarm, though he had begun to settle down to what looked like fight. Herky was more fearless than any of them, and cooler even than Bill. All at once I missed the Mexican. If he had not slipped out of the room he had hidden under the brush of the fallen loft or in a pile of blankets. But the room was smoky, and it was hard for me to be certain.