by Dean Owen
So suddenly had they appeared within his range of vision, that Rim had no time to seek cover. But they had not spotted him yet. He was downwind from their mounts, and sounds of his approach had been drowned out by a stream that roared down through a flume of rock just behind them.
As Rim jerked free his booted rifle Jellick rose high in the stirrups. Rim saw sunlight flash on the barrel of Jellick’s rifle. But it wasn’t pointed at him. Jellick began firing on someone below.
Rim heard Bert Stallart’s faint cry, “Jellick—no!”
“Pay for my busted head!” Jellick shouted.
Rim’s first shot went wild because the brown-bearded man had seen him and fired. A shudder wracked Rim’s horse. And he knew that he had no chance unless he could seek cover. All he could do now was kick free of the stirrups, for the horse was pitching forward on its nose. Rim struck the ground on a shoulder that had been bruised in his fight with Jellick. He felt a flash of pain. A bullet struck the ground a yard in front of him. Instinctively he closed his eyes, but even so a great gout of dirt nearly blinded him. He rolled aside and felt the lethal brush of a bullet so close to his face that it froze him. All three of them were shooting at him now.
But he managed to cradle his rifle, and he squeezed off a shot at Jellick. But at that moment Tut Tyler wheeled in close on a dun. The bullet struck him with such force that it knocked him backward out of the saddle. And Jellick was forced to rein in to keep from being struck by the falling body.
Rim came to one knee, firing. He felt the ground jar under him again, rock chips stung the back of his hands. Ahead the horses of Jellick and the brown-bearded man reared, broke apart. Tut Tyler’s mount went crashing off into the brush. Again Rim tried for Jellick, but the big man had neck-reined his roan to send it leaping the stream and Rim guessed the reason. Far behind him he could hear the shouts of Anchor men, coming on the run, drawn by the firing.
But the brown-bearded man twisted in the saddle for a final shot. And Rim’s finger was already pressing the trigger. The beard was suddenly bright with color as a pumping stream of redness came from a bullet hole in the throat.
The man fell loosely and before Rim could lever in another shot Jellick was out of sight beyond a shoulder of rock.
Five Anchor men came pounding up the trail and Rim shouted, pointing in the direction taken by the T rider: “Jellick! Get him!”
The men thundered past Rim, drawing in a bit to look at the pair on the ground, then they went on. Rim picked himself up, shaky in the knees. He looked at his dead horse, seeing the bulge of the saddlebags that held his three thousand dollars. Just sheer luck that he still lived to count it.
He could see the loose horses of the two T men deep in the aspens ahead, but they were too far to catch. He turned his back on the gold-filled saddlebags, and hiked up the trail. There were other things more important than money now.
He came first to the brown-bearded man, laying face down in a great rust-colored pool of dust. Fifteen yards higher on the slope he came to Tut Tyler crumpled on his side. A wedge of dark color stained the front of his shirt.
“Rim,” he gasped, and coughed. “I never figured it to be no ambush. I—”
Rim turned him over on his back, trying not to feel anything for this man he knew would be dead within the hour. “You chose your side of the fence, Tut.”
“Jellick said he just wanted to see how Anchor—” Tyler coughed again. This time his lips were stained as was the front of his shirt. “Honest to Gawd, Rim, I never figured he’d try and ’bush Stallart—”
Rim drew Tyler’s belt gun, threw it into the brush. He kicked aside the man’s rifle.
“It was my damn luck, Rim,” Tyler gasped, “that I run into Jellick today. If I’d delivered the message like I was supposed to—”
“What message?”
“Some gal stayin’ at the hotel in town. Said she was Ward’s sister. Wanted me to ride out and tell him she was waitin’ for him. But I went to the Jewel. I got drunk. And then when I sobered up I seen Jellick and—”
Rim got up and peered downslope but the junipers were so thick here he couldn’t see Stallart. He started away, but Tyler said, frightened, “Get me to the doc, Rim. I—I got a chance if you get me to the doc.”
Rim looked back at him. He thought of the evenings at Anchor when he had sat across the table from this man with nothing more deadly between them than a stack of poker chips. It sickened him to see the fear in Tyler’s eyes. How would it be when his own time came? Was the fear of dying in every man?
The riders who had gone after Jellick now came streaming back to report they had lost his trail.
“Got clean away,” the youthful Charlie Daws said.
Tom Niles, the scar on his swarthy cheek livid, said, “That Jellick is harder to catch than a black rabbit at midnight. He got away just like he done when he got Simpson.”
“Give me a horse, somebody,” Rim said, and when Charlie Daws swung down and Rim had mounted, he added, “I’ve got three thousand dollars in my saddlebags yonder.” He pointed at his dead horse down the trail. “Some of you boys watch it. One of you stay with Tyler. I’m going to look for Bert Stallart.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eric Ward, standing in the yard at Anchor, hat in hand, gave the dark-haired woman a sad smile. Three older men, gray hair thickly tangled below hat brims, watched them from the bench in front of the bunkhouse.
“So you see, Mrs. Stallart,” Ward said in his quiet, best country-gentleman manner, “I just want you to understand I have no control over Meade Jellick.”
“But you hired him after he was fired from Anchor,” Marcy Stallart said.
“I needed a horse breaker—” Ward spread his hands. “It’s the same as if a man tried to make a pet out of a lion cub he found in the hills. All would go well until one day the growing cub tasted blood. That’s how it is with Jellick. He was reasonably docile until the day he went berserk and killed your brother.”
He saw her wince and swing her gaze toward the starkly erect headboards in the Anchor Bar burial ground on the knoll.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Ward said. “I’ll see that Jellick pays for that among other things.”
She brought her stricken gaze back to his face. “I don’t understand you, Mr. Ward. You are my husband’s enemy. You spread vile stories about me and—” Ward noticed the slight break in her voice—“my husband’s partner.”
“Believe me, I am truthful when I say that was Jellick’s doing. Not mine.”
“Was it also Jellick’s doing—Jellick’s alone—when two hundred head of Anchor cows were taken the day my brother was killed?”
“Mrs. Stallart, your husband and I were engaged in a business enterprise in Kansas. The cows you speak of were part payment on an old debt.”
Her dark eyes studied him closely. “Why is it I can never get my husband to talk about Kansas?”
“This is something I can’t explain.”
“Was this business of yours so—so—” She waved a strong hand, groping for the word. “Something to be ashamed of?”
Ward deliberated a moment, then said, “Many things happened during the war that men would rather forget.”
“I see.”
He felt a little uncomfortable under her steady gaze. He knew she was not only handsome but possessed of brains as well. He had come here today with a twofold purpose in mind. To prepare her as much as he could for the death of her husband, that was inevitable. And to let her know that when she was widowed he, Eric Ward, was her friend and was to be trusted.
He wanted to get away from the grim slant their conversation had taken, and told her of the time before the war when he had been extended the hospitality of a plantation house during a storm. “Since that time I have had a fondness for that type of person. I know that you once came from such a home. You are extremel
y fortunate.”
“Am I?”
The sharpness of her tone caused a small furrow to ridge his forehead. “I don’t blame you for being bitter. It was a grand way of life. And, alas, it is gone forever.”
“I daresay most of us will survive without it.”
He felt that somehow he had offended her and his mind groped for the reason.
“It may have appeared to be a grand way of life, as you put it,” she went on, “but it was a way of life dependent upon the enslavement of human beings.”
He pursed his lips, nimbly swinging into the wake of her pronouncement: “I was an Abolitionist.”
But even this didn’t bring any lessening of her watchfulness. “Thank you for offering your friendship,” she said coolly. “I’ll tell my husband when he comes home.”
He felt a surge of rage at her insolence. Didn’t she realize that her husband was never coming home? That after smashing a whisky bottle against Meade Jellick’s head, her husband was doomed? That Jellick would hunt down Bert Stallart, and there wasn’t a human on this earth who could prevent the killing. The palms of his hands itched to grab her and push her into the house and make her realize that Eric Ward was the only man in this world she could have? Not Bert Stallart, not Rim Bolden. No one else—
She stood stiffly, hands clenched at her sides. And he had the eerie feeling that she almost sensed his thoughts. He said, “Remember, I am always at your service.”
She said nothing, but just looked at him in that way of hers. She went into the house and closed the door.
Flushing, he strode to his horse. He jammed his hat on his head. What would she say if she knew at this very minute her husband lay dead, and probably also dead was Rim Bolden. For this day Jellick had planned to make a full sweep of his vengeance. Ward shivered a little when he thought of the raging Jellick who regained consciousness on the floor of the saloon in LaVentana. And Ward was considerably relieved to learn that Jellick didn’t know who had struck him down that second time with the barrel of a gun. Not that Ward considered himself afraid of Jellick. But he knew if the man realized who had struck him that second time there would be a shooting. Ward didn’t want to kill Jellick. And this he would be forced to do if Jellick came after him. He wanted Jellick to stay alive a little while longer. For the time being he was useful.
Turning in the saddle he looked around at the house and saw Mrs. Stallart watching him from one of the windows. She didn’t know it yet, he thought, but that house, the other buildings, everything here would soon change ownership. “And that includes you, Marcy Stallart,” he whispered to the still face in the window. He touched the brim of his hat with a long forefinger, and rode across the yard.
He stared at the three silent old men sitting stiffly in front of the bunkhouse. He nodded at them, and only one responded with, “Howdy, Mr. Ward.” The other two glared at the speaker and the man shrugged and looked away.
Ward made a mental note to remember the man who had spoken. That man would be retained when Anchor Bar changed hands. The other two would be fired.
Ward had barely cleared the yard when the sudden appearance of a rider startled him. He had scouted this Anchor headquarters for half an hour before riding down to talk with Marcy Stallart, whom he had seen sunning herself beside the house. He was sure the Anchor crew was across the mountains at roundup camp. No one about the place but the three pensioners occupying the bench in front of the bunkhouse.
But now from the corner of his eye he saw this rider mottled by shadow in the trees. He reached for his gun, but a familiar voice said, “It’s me, Ward. Pete Prentiss. I heard you were comin’ this way. I been waitin’ for you.”
It was one of his own men, a ruddy-faced man with a worn patch over one eye. Despite this apparent handicap, the Prentiss vision was good enough to enable him to show a decided talent with a gun. Ward had sent clear down to Paso for him.
“What is it, Pete?” Ward demanded.
“Sid went lookin’ for you in town, but I come over here. I remembered you sayin’ this morning—”
“All right, all right,” Ward said impatiently. “Has there been more trouble?” And he thought hopefully that it might be news that Stallart and Bolden were dead. And if this were the case Ward would ride back to the house and deliver the news in person and watch Marcy Stallart’s face. She’d damn soon get over her imperious manner. It was galling, Ward thought, not to have made a better impression on her. He considered himself genteel and had thought she would soon realize that he was one of her kind.
But this pleasant contemplation was destroyed by Pete Prentiss who was falling all over his words in trying to impart some information. It was something about this girl being driven out from town by somebody from the livery stable, trunk and all. She had arrived in town and heard that the only T man in town was Tut Tyler. And she had got hold of Tyler and asked him to take a message out to T ranch. But this morning she had seen Tyler drunk and realized he hadn’t delivered her message at all. So—
“Who did you say it was?” Ward demanded as he finally realized what Prentiss was talking about.
“Your sister.”
Ward’s mouth slowly opened. What a time to pick for a visit. He didn’t want her here until this bloody business was ended. He would take her immediately back to town where she would stay until he decided it was time for her to console the Widow Stallart—
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rim rode down through shin oak, his horse sliding on shale. At last he came to a trail of blood and followed it to his former partner. Stallart lay against a rock, his eyes open, gripping the revolver that lay on the ground at his side. At first Rim thought he was dead.
Rim dismounted and came closer, seeing the hole in Stallart’s thigh. He saw another hole in the front of his shirt. But there was not much bleeding from this wound as there was with the one Tut Tyler had suffered.
He was five feet from Stallart when the man suddenly lifted the revolver. “Jellick!” Stallart cried in a voice hoarse from shock. “I should’ve killed you back in Kansas when I had the chance—”
Rim threw himself flat as the gun crashed. He sensed rather than felt the bullet go through the crown of his hat. Then he was on Stallart, twisting the gun free. But the move was unnecessary. The effort of shouting, of firing the gun seemed to have sapped the last of Stallart’s strength. He was out cold.
Then other Anchor men were coming up, among them Ed Rule. “Did you and Bert have it out, Rim?” the cook asked, after looking around.
Rim shook his head. He felt a trembling in his legs as he told how he had come unexpectedly upon Jellick and the other two. He was lucky to be alive. But how much luck was a man entitled to in one lifetime.
The cook shook his gray head. “You got a hole in your hat, Rim. Somebody come almighty near to spillin’ your brains.”
Rim swallowed. His throat was tight and dry. “Let’s carry Stallart down to the road. Some of you get back to camp and bring up a wagon. Tyler’s up there,” Rim pointed, “bad hit. Maybe he’ll last till town, but I doubt it.”
“One thing for sure,” Ed Rule said, as the men hurried to carry out Rim’s orders. “If it hadn’t been for you buyin’ into this game Stallart would be dead for sure.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it ain’t your fight no longer, Rim.”
Rim looked at the cook. “And how about you? Is it your fight?”
“Reckon,” the cook said without looking up. “I felt like cussin’ Bert out a few minutes back. But when it’s a war like this—Well, a man draws pay from an outfit he sticks with it till the thing is settled.”
Rim looked around at the other men, those in the saddle, those now starting to carry Stallart down to the road to meet the wagon. “That’s the way it is with all of us,” Rim said. “We’ll stick till the thing is settled.”
Rim was surprised to hear
Stallart’s voice, clouded with pain, and realized the rancher had regained consciousness and evidently had heard everything that had been said.
“You don’t have to stick, Rim,” Stallart said. “You don’t owe me nothin’.”
Rim walked beside the improvised stretcher, each of four men holding a corner of a blanket one of them had unlashed from the back of a saddle.
Rim saw that Stallart’s eyes reflected the shock that gripped his big body. “Maybe I owe myself something, Bert,” Rim said. “A man quits a fight and he’ll be quitting for the rest of his life.”
“I—I heard what you said about Jellick. You saved my hide. Thanks, but maybe my hide ain’t worth savin’.”
“You better not talk, Bert. It’s a long way to Doc Snider’s place.”
They reached the road and put Stallart in the shade to await the wagon from camp.
“Send the boys away, Rim,” Stallart said with painful slowness. “I want to talk to you—alone.”
Rim didn’t have to order this done for Ed Rule jerked his head at the men and they went on down the road some twenty yards to stand in a close-knit group, talking in low tones. Overhead the sky had darkened; clouds, big and black, tore themselves against the higher peaks.
Rim dropped to one knee. “How’s it going, Bert?”
“Not bad, all things considered.”
“The pain will come when the shock wears off. You’d better be prepared for it.”
“Don’t worry. This ain’t the first time I been shot. I got a favor to ask, Rim.”
“Go ahead. Ask it. Things have changed since this shooting. I’m still your partner. No papers were signed.”