‘In heaven’s name,’ she said. ‘You’re wounded.’
Her face was all concern, but he couldn’t see it too well. It seemed that she guided him to the deadfall because the next thing he realized was that he was sitting on it and she was picking at the bloody cloth of his coat with her fingers.
She said: ‘If you give me your knife I’ll cut the cloth away from the wound.’
‘No, ma’am. This is the only coat I have.’
So they struggled to get it off him and, as they did so, the numbness in the arm went and the pain started to seep up the arm through the shoulder and into the rest of his body. He began to fear that the lead had broken the bone and was still in there. That opened up a formidable prospect—almost alone here in the hills with a wound that could go bad, no doctor for several day’s ride. Even if he could reach a doctor, it could be too late. Medical men weren’t miracle workers. He broke into a cold sweat and shook a little.
She wiped his forehead with a very small handkerchief. The wound was bleeding profusely and the blood was running down his arm.
‘I shall have to cut the shirt,’ she said, ‘and we’ll need plenty of rag.’
‘There’s bear-grease and whiskey in my saddlebags,’ he told her.
He reached for his knife and handed it to her. She cut the shirt, then ripped it and peeled it from him. He felt her cool fingers on his flesh and even under those circumstances he found that he liked it.
‘Being wounded,’ he said, ‘has its compensations.’
‘The situation,’ she rebuked him, ‘is too serious for flirting.’
He laughed and patted her arm affectionately. He liked this woman. She had sand and she was beautiful. A combination that appealed to him.
She said: ‘You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Storm.’
‘Under the circumstances, I think you could get around to calling me Martin.’
‘Just because we’ve killed two men between us and you’ve kissed me, that doesn’t mean to say that we can afford to be familiar. As I was saying, Mr. Storm, you’re a lucky man. The bullet, though it has injured the bone slightly, has passed right through you and is not lodged in the flesh.’
He looked at her with fresh interest.
‘You sound as if you know what you’re talkin’ about, Miss Hargreaves.’
‘You don’t spend your life exploring the wild places of the earth without learning something about gunshot wounds. My aunt and I fought off the Shilluks on the Nile, had a brush with the Indians in Chile and a running fight with aborigines in Australia.’
‘Nice to know I’m bein’ nursed by a lady who’s mixed in the best society,’ said Mart.
She laughed and slapped him lightly.
‘Have you thought,’ she said, ‘that we might still be in danger?’
‘All the time,’ he answered. ‘You patch me up, girl, an’ we ’light outa here. Fast.’
She padded the wound and told him to hold the pad firm. Then she fetched the bear-grease and whiskey. She cleaned the wound out with the whiskey, then worked to stop the bleeding. He could just manage to see the wound by craning his neck and squinting and it looked to him as if his shoulder had been mashed up badly.
‘You press hard on that pad, my lad,’ she told him. She started tearing his shirt in strips, pursing her lips as she pulled on the stout cloth.
Darky whickered.
Mart jerked to attention and pulled the gun from the top of his pants.
‘Get under cover,’ he told the girl.
‘Far more important,’ she told him, ‘To get this wound covered.’
She untied the bandanna around his neck, used the rag to bind the pad down on the wound, then wound the bandanna around it to hold it in place. But the wound was in an awkward spot, it could slip. She hesitated, moved to the nearest dead man and removed his bandanna. Mart watched her with some admiration while his ears did their work, listening for anybody approaching. She returned with the bandanna and fixed it around his body, down from the right shoulder underneath his left armpit.
‘Now get under cover,’ he said.
She gave him a little smile and obeyed.
Mart heard a horse approaching. Then he heard a short whistle, followed by a long one. He replied with two long ones.
‘You can come on out,’ he told the girl, ‘it’s a friend.’
She came out. She saw his rifle lying on the ground and picked it up.
‘You can’t be too sure,’ she said.
‘That’s a fact,’ he admitted.
There were several horses approaching. Mart was curious. His curiosity was satisfied when a rider appeared, leading two saddled but riderless horses. It was Joe Widbee.
Joe stopped his horse and looked solemnly from Mart to the girl and back to Mart again. Mart glanced at the girl, he wanted to know how she would take Joe.
‘Miss Hargreaves,’ he said, ‘this is Joe Widbee, a friend of mine. Joe, this is Miss Vanessa Hargreaves.’
She smiled and reclined her head slightly. It was the first time Mart had ever seen a white woman of the girl’s social standing do this to a black man. She had taken her cue from him.
‘How do you do, Mr. Widbee?’ she said.
‘I do purty well, thank you, ma’am,’ said Joe, lifting his battered hat from his head. ‘How-dee-do yourse’f, ma’am.’
He stepped down from the saddle, walked to each of the dead men in turn and came back to Mart and the girl.
‘You know them?’ he asked softly.
‘No.’
‘Dillon Wells and Mort Cromby. Hired guns. You done did the human race a real service, boy.’
‘That’s nice,’ Mart said.
‘I think,’ the girl said, ‘it’s time I fainted.’
‘Don’t spoil it,’ Mart told her. ‘I was just startin’ to think you a woman in a million.’
‘Well perhaps I shall just sit down,’ she conceded and she sat down beside him on the deadfall.
Joe squatted.
Mart told him his side of the situation, about the Indians, how he was trying to get the girl back to her aunt. The girl said that it was now important that they find her aunt because she would be able to attend to the wound properly. The wound was serious and Mr. Storm must have attention soon. Joe nodded. He then told them about the posse. Mart nodded. Joe told them he had embarrassed the posse a little and slowed them down. He had also made them a little nervous. He suggested it might be a good thing if Mart disappeared into the hills and he, Joe, took Miss Hargreaves on to her party. But the girl wouldn’t hear of it. Mr. Storm must go to her camp. Joe sighed. Women!
‘All right,’ he said, ‘you go ahead. There’s saddles there for the takin’. You can ride easy. I’ll stay an’ plant the stiffs. Then I’ll maybe kinda ride around and pass the time of day with the sheriff an’ his crowd.’
‘You’ve done enough,’ Mart said.
Joe ignored him.
He said: ‘This is Ed Brack back of this. You know that. He’s whittlin’ the Storms down. He puts you outa the way and that makes things kinda easier.’
‘You could be right.’
‘I know I’s right.’
‘Ed Brack,’ said the girl. ‘Why, my aunt knows him. She met him in Baltimore. We have an invitation to stay at his ranch.’
Mart and Joe looked at each other.
‘That’s interestin’,’ Mart said, ‘maybe you should take him up on that invite, Miss Hargreaves. I’ve a mind to call on him myself.’
Joe was grinning.
‘Git on,’ he said.
The girl helped Mart dress. She was very tender with his wounded shoulder. Joe transferred a saddle from a captured horse to Old Stripes and packed the supplies on Mart and the girl’s horses. Then he sent the two horses of the dead men scampering into the hills. He’d done a lot of things he shouldn’t in his time, but he’d never stolen a horse in his life. Not for long, at any rate. He helped Mart into the saddle and told him: ‘You lie up some place till tha
t shoulder mended.’
Mart said: ‘See you, Joe.’
Joe touched his hat to the girl and she bade him a polite and warm goodbye. As they rode west she said: ‘A remarkable man, Mr. Storm.’
‘You can say that again,’ Mart agreed.
‘What is his story?’
‘He was my father’s slave. He grew up with my brother Will an’ me.’
‘I never saw a man less like a slave in my life.’
‘Me neither, Miss Hargreaves.’
They went on west. Mart had to admit that, in spite of being on the run and wounded, he liked being with this girl.
Chapter Twelve
Joe Widbee didn’t bury the two dead men for two reasons. One there wasn’t too much time. Two, he only had his knife to dig with. However, when he had planted the two killers in a single shallow grave, he gathered a few rocks and piled them over them to keep out the scavengers.
That done, he sat on the deadfall and thought. He didn’t think for long because he reckoned that time was short. The posse had Pete Yewdley with them. Pete was no slouch at tracking, but Joe reckoned he wasn’t in his own class. However, that didn’t mean that Pete couldn’t lead the posse to Mart. And there were some pretty stout men in the law party who could handle guns and who thought that they had right on their side. A man who has a gun and thinks he’s right is in a pretty strong position. Joe decided it was time for some pretty smart riding and shooting. He got up, mounted his horse and reckoned he would show that Ransome what a good man on a good horse could do. It was getting a mite tame chasing mustangs, any road. He needed livening up. He rode briskly back into the east, keeping his eyes and ears open.
Chapter Thirteen
Ed Brack rode down to Grebb’s place at Spring Creek. He didn’t like folks to know that he had any connection with Grebb. It might not do him much good and it hurt his pride a little. But he was mad all through and he had to take it out on somebody. Grebb was a tough one and thought he was a pretty big wheel so Grebb was a good target for Brack’s spleen.
He left his two hands outside, told them not to touch a drink if they valued their jobs and strode into the saloon. It was early yet and the place was almost empty. The man behind the bar told him that Mr. Grebb didn’t rise till late. Brack told him to get Grebb off his fat butt and hurry up about it. The man didn’t like the chore that had been handed to him, but he hurried up about it.
Five minutes later, Grebb appeared. He looked like a man who didn’t like to be aroused from his sleep till he was good and ready. But he put on a polite face for Brack. With him was his shadow, Charlie Stott. Charlie looked at Brack as a coyote looks at a wolf when they want to eat the same morsel.
Before Grebb could open his mouth, Brack barked: ‘I want to talk to you, Grebb. Alone.’
‘Sure,’ Grebb said. He didn’t like Brack’s tone in front of witnesses. He cut a big swathe around here. This kind of thing could undermine his authority. ‘Come into my office.’
He led the way to the rear of the building. Stott went to follow but Brack growled to him: ‘I said alone. You deaf or something?’
Stott blinked, shivered a little and stayed put.
The room that laughingly called itself an office was typical of Grebb, Brack thought. The man would never really amount to anything. A big frog in a small pond.
Brack didn’t waste time on preliminaries.
‘You ain’t worth two cents worth of buffalo shit, you know that, Grebb?’ Grebb gobbled and looked as if he would like to kill the other man. ‘I told you I wanted Mart Storm dead legally. He’s still around. You want to stay here? You want to go on enjoying the good life, drinking and whoring? By God, the way I feel now I could finish you.’
That was even more than Grebb could take.
‘You can cut that kinda talk, Mr. Brack,’ he said. ‘I hired the best. I wasn’t to know the best wasn’t good enough. But, hell, look what we did. Mart’s outa the game. He’s outlawed. Every man’s gun against him. He ain’t no more use to Will now.’
Brack rounded on him like an enraged buffalo bull, shoulders hunched head forward.
‘In the hills,’ he growled. ‘Being helped by that black ape. Christ, you think those two ain’t dangerous?’
‘Ransome’s on the job.’
‘Ransome! A damned old woman.’
‘There’s some of your men with him. Good men. Tristem.’
‘Yeah. That gives us a chance. But this ain’t the way I set it up.’
Grebb looked at Brack from under heavy eyelids. He wondered how far he dare push this man.
‘Nothin’,’ he said, ‘is the way you set it up, Mr. Brack.’
Brack said: ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Your son.’
‘What about my son?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘See here, Grebb, you get goddam gay with me and I’ll—’
‘He’s at the Storms’.’
Brack’s eyes clouded with puzzlement.
‘You mean they took him?’
‘I mean he’s ridin’ for Will Storm.’
‘Voluntary?’
‘Voluntary.’
That staggered Brack. Riley couldn’t do this to him. Nobody could. His son working for the enemy. It didn’t seem possible. By God, the boy must hate him.
‘You know anything else I should know, Grebb?’
‘They say he’s taken a shine to Will’s eldest girl, Kate.’
Brack clenched and unclenched his thick hands. A sudden gust of fright took him. The boy was of age. He could even marry the girl. It didn’t bear thinking on. He had to stop the boy before it was too late. He smelled a possibility of his vast holdings one day going to a member of the Storm family. The thought made him throw up almost.
‘Aintree,’ he said. What happened to him? Did he clear out?’
‘No,’ Grebb told him. ‘He’s still around. Healin’ up nicely. Madder’n a wet cat.’
‘Can he ride?’
‘Another coupla days.’
‘I’ll have another chore for him. Easier than the last one and he’d best not fall down on this one.’
‘Okay, Mr. Brack.’
Without another word, Brack turned on his heel and stalked out on his short legs. Slowly Grebb walked through the saloon to the window and watched the man mount. As Brack rode away, Grebb thought. Say Brack did manage to move the Storms out of the country. That would leave the southern range empty. Brack himself would want to occupy it. But if Brack had been weakened by his fight with the Storms ... there were possibilities for Grebb in the situation. He wasn’t intelligent, but he was cunning and he was an opportunist. He went back to the bar, told the man there to give him a bottle and a glass and carried them into the room he called an office. At the table he called a desk he sat and poured himself a serious drink. He then drank seriously and thought seriously to match the liquor. He came up with a number of pleasing, but slightly alarming thoughts.
He heard a sound behind him and turned.
Stott was standing there, watching him.
‘You got somethin’ on your mind, boss?’
Grebb laughed shortly.
‘Sure, Charlie,’ he said, ‘I have somethin’ on my mind. Plans.’
Stott looked at his master with admiration. He thought that Andy Grebb was the greatest man he had ever known. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for him.
Grebb said; ‘Dwyer been in?’
‘No.’
‘If he comes, I’ll have a word with him.’
‘Sure,’ said Stott.
Chapter Fourteen
Joe Widbee stopped his horse and watched the posse winding its slow way through the narrow valley below him, picking its way carefully through the strewn boulders. He pulled gloves over his hands and tied his bandanna tightly over the lower part of his face. If they saw his black skin, it would be a giveaway. There was only one Negro in these hills who could have the motive to shoot at them.
/> The posse were going steadily east. Mart was travelling slowly now. Maybe they would catch up with him in a few hours. Half a day at least. He had tried slowing them with a fall of rock and with two attacks with his rifle. He reckoned he hadn’t delayed them for more than an hour. This time he must be serious. And as Mart was against him shooting men unless he had to, he would have to shoot horses. Maybe some of them would get the message then. If they went on, men would die.
The idea of shooting horses didn’t sit too well with Joe. His experience of the human race had led him to a preference for horses.
He started down toward the lower ground, checking the loads in his rifle. None of the posse saw or heard him. Not because he was being cautious, but because none of the posse looked that way and Pete Yewdley was most likely ‘way out ahead.
Joe hit the flat, trotted his horse forward and came in clear sight of the riders.
He halted his horse, fired a shot over their heads and waited. As he hoped and expected, they halted and turned. The rearmost man brought his horse around side-on to Joe. That gave the Negro the target he wanted. He put his rifle to his shoulder and fired. It was a long shot and a lesser man could not have made it. The bullet took the horse through the head, the animal sank to its knees and gently tumbled its rider over its neck. The horse kicked so frantically in its death throes that it kicked the rider before he managed to scramble clear. Joe had thought that he would have had time for a second shot, but he did not. He underestimated the quality of the men there. Before he could jack a second round into his rifle, two riders jumped their horses forward and came at him on the run. They had no sooner swept past the dying horse, than two more riders were on the move.
Joe, who believed in live cowards and had little admiration for dead heroes, turned his horse in some haste and beat a retreat. His horse also felt the urgency of the moment, for Joe no sooner touched it with his quirt than it got its legs under it and ran with a will. But its will and ability was not quite enough. There were a couple of men back there with some good horseflesh between their legs. They were coming on hard and fast and Joe knew that if he didn’t do something pretty smart pretty soon they would be running him into the ground in two-three miles. This didn’t suit his plans at all. He ran on for a mile, choose his spot and turned abruptly left and made for high ground. The motto being that, if you can’t win a race, don’t run it.
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