They had rigged a weight to pull the gate shut when anybody let go of it; and fastened to the same line they had half a dozen tin cans of pebbles. When I pulled that gate open, the line tightened and all those loose pebbles rattled in the cans.
Inside the house a chair fell over and somebody swore. The next thing I knew, as I was propping the gate open the house door opened and light fell across the yard, putting me right in the spotlight. At the same instant, Cotton fired.
The bullet hit the door jamb and the man in the door sprang back, swearing. Cotton fired again and I heard a rattle of falling glass, and then I was around the corral, sprinting for the back of it.
Cotton was up, yelling at the horses, and we heard them start. A rush of hoofs, more yells and shots, and the horses exploded from the wide-open gate.
Somebody fired from the house, the light went out, and men burst from the door, scattering right and left. I hit the saddle on the run and felt my horse’s muscles go taut as he leaped away. Cotton let out a wild Texas yell, and we skirted the corral, guns blazing at the men around the house, and then we were racing away up the draw toward the cattle.
Cotton ran his horse up the bluff by a trail we had spotted earlier, while I drew up in the deepest shadows under some trees and waited, counting the seconds it would take him to reach the other side. Suddenly I heard a screeching of wire. Something broke, and I yelled at the cattle and fired my six-gun.
From almost under my feet a man leaped up and fired, the gun blazing right in my face, so close my eyes were momentarily blinded and I felt the powder sting my cheeks. I slammed down with my gun barrel at the black object I took to be a head and felt it fall away under my gun barrel with a grunt of pain.
My horse lunged toward the path up which Cotton had gone, but even as he sprang that way I saw something dark race across the trail ahead of me. “Block the trail!” came a yell, and I turned the buckskin on a dime and went racing away.
There were bluffs on both sides near the ranch house, and no chance to go up either of them. The pasture fence blocked the way toward the cattle and Cotton, and the only way left was back down and past the house. There was no time to hesitate, and I took it on the run.
Somebody had relighted the lamp in the house and the door stood open, throwing its rectangle of light on the hard-packed ground between the house and the corrals. I crossed that stretch of ground with my horse running all out, heard the slam of six-gun shots against my eardrums, and saw a man leap to the door and swing up with a rifle. Dropping low alongside my bronc, Indian-fashion, I snapped a shot at him from under my horse’s neck.…Snapped was right—the gun was empty!
Tugging myself back into the saddle, I saw the rifle stab the darkness with flame and, holding the reins in my teeth, I thumbed cartridges into my gun. There seemed but one possible chance, and I turned my horse downstream, skirting a stack of hay and plunging into the unknown darkness beyond.
My horse was going full tilt when we saw the fence. It was just a glimpse, the darker bars across the gray, and the buckskin did the only thing he could do…he jumped.
There was an instant of flight, then the buckskin hit, went to his knees, and sent me flying over his head. Instinctively I tucked in my head, and when I hit the dirt I landed on my shoulder and rolled over. Momentarily dazed, I lay still, unsure whether I was alive or not. Staggering up, I could see nothing of my horse.
From the house came a shout. “Go get him! He can’t get away!”
There was the sound of running feet and, turning, I plunged into the blackness where there had been trees along the stream, if memory served me right. Luckily, dazed though I was, I reached the trees. Instantly, I stopped.
They would be right behind me, and they knew the terrain and I did not, Desperately, I needed my rifle, but it was in the scabbard on my saddle. The sixshooter was all right, but I trusted myself better with a rifle, and was prepared to face anything with a Winchester in my hands.
There were perhaps seven or eight of them, to judge by their voices. Occasionally they called out, as they moved down toward the pasture fence. They assumed I did not want to let my position be known and would not risk a shot, and they were right. To have fired one shot would have been to draw fire from all their rifles. One shot might miss; it was unreasonable to suppose eight would.
Putting my hand behind me, I felt bushes, and to my left a tree. I eased back against it, and worked my way around it, placing my foot down gently at each step until I knew what lay beneath it.
As they came on, I managed to put thirty feet or so behind me, and was desperately hoping to find some place to hide. The night was still. The lower pasture they were coming toward was much like the upper. As they reached the fence where I had taken my spill, I came to the fence along the side toward the creek. My hand touched a bark-covered rail, felt for the space beneath it, and then I slipped through. The stream must be close now.
It was growing lighter now…the moon would be rising. Remembering how the stream had looked from the crest of the hill above, I recalled that the stream bed was all of fifty yards wide, but the stream itself not over five or six. That meant I would be fully exposed, a black figure moving across white sand; and without doubt a rifleman would be watching such an easy target.
If a body had been taking odds, my chances were about fifty to one to wind up a corpse. There were a lot of men out there with the idea of salting me down, and they had the guns to do it with. Otis Tom Chancy’s time looked to be about up. Nevertheless, I figured to make them pay for their fun. I had me a good bit of ammunition and I could shoot…maybe not as well as some, but well enough. As a last resort, I had a bowie knife with a blade sharp enough to slice bone as if it was cheese.
Suddenly a voice spoke, not twenty feet off. “Bud? I figure he got away. Plumb and total.”
“You just hold that. You stow that gab. He didn’t get away. There’s no place he could go.”
Looking past the two who spoke, I could see the dim figures of two or three men out in the pasture. Suddenly I had an idea. With those two there close by, I wasn’t going to get away, but if—
Straightening up, I took careful aim at the little knot of figures out there, and fired.
Instantly, I dropped to my belly in the grass. It was as I’d figured. Those men out there in the pasture didn’t stop to ask questions—somebody had shot at them and they shot back, all of them, and they kept on shooting. I got up and legged it out of there, running eight or ten steps before I slid down a bank and ran up a slight cut toward the cabin and the corrals.
Somebody back there was yelling. “Don’t shoot, damn it! You’ve got Pike!”
Thumbing a shell into my gun, I came up out of the little draw, crossed behind the cabin, and started for the hills. It looked as if I was going to make it.
But all of a sudden a bunch of riders, unheard by me because of the shooting and yelling behind me, came down the trail to the cabin, right toward me.
There was no place to go. I was caught dead to rights, fair in the middle of the trail, with the moon just showing over the ridge. And my gun was in my holster.…
The riders drew up when they saw me from a distance. “Pike, what the hell’s going on out there?”
It was Caxton Kelsey.
Chapter 10
KELSEY HAD MISTAKEN me for the man called Pike, and this gave me the break I needed. My holster was set for a crossdraw, and my right hand was at my belt. Moving it over, I shucked my gun, the darkness of my body masking the movement.
“Kelsey,” I said, “I’ve got a gun lined on your belly. I’ve heard you’re a fast man, but I don’t think you are fast enough to beat a bullet.”
He never moved. He was no fool, and he was not one to gamble against a sure thing. Nor were the others. They sat very still, every one. But you know who worried me the most? It was that redheaded woman, Queenie. A man you can figure on; a woman you can’t. They’re likely either to faint, or to grab for a gun regardless of consequences.
“It’s you they’re after, then.” Kelsey drew on his cigarette and made it glow red in the night. “We’ll get you this time. You’re afoot.”
“Not any more, Kelsey. I’m riding out of here right now. I’m riding your black. I’m not inclined to shoot unless called upon, but at this range I should get two or three of you, including the girl there.”
Now, you hear about men arguing in the face of a gun, or taking wild chances, but it is a rare thing that you find a gun fighter gambling like that—he knows too much about guns. By now I was within fifteen feet of them, and just out of line of their horses.
“You could start shooting, or I could,” I said, “and I’d dearly love to put lead into you, Kelsey; but the way I figure it, whoever starts shooting gets killed, and somebody else as well, maybe all of us. I don’t like the odds, but I don’t have a choice. You boys do.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Let go your gunbelts. Just unloose the buckles and let them fall. And when you’ve done that, shuck your rifles and drop them.”
“Cax, you ain’t going to let him get away with this, are you?” It was Queenie, and she was mighty angry—ready to spit and snarl and scratch, given chance.
“Queenie,” Kelsey said, cool and quiet, “you make one wrong move and I’ll kill you myself. This man means business, and he’s got nothing to lose.” He chuckled a little. “Besides, I like his nerve. It will be real fun next time we meet when I gut-shoot him.”
They unloosed their belts and let them fall, then dropped their rifles.
“Now back up the length of your horses,” I said, “and get down from your saddles one at a time, Kelsey first.”
Nobody wanted to be a dead hero, and they did just as I said. When they were all down, I told Kelsey to lead his horse up to me. “Now, Kelsey, you be kinda careful,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to try to get that horse between us, and if anything goes wrong I’m going to kill you first…and you were the one who suggested gut-shooting.”
When I had the black, I rode over, starting their own horses moving ahead of me toward the high range.
When Kelsey and his lot started down the trail, I took time to swing down and gather up a rifle and a cartridge belt. I slung the extra belt over my shoulders and gathered up the others. Then swinging back into the saddle, I started up the trail, shucking shells from the belts as I rode, and stuffing them into my pockets.
Kelsey and the others were yelling, trying to draw some attention from the outfit at the ranch.
The black was a good horse and stepped right out, although he had come a far piece that day. Up on the high ground I glanced back; only the light from the ranch house showed. I kept to the west, testing the night for the smell of dust, which would mark the way taken by the stampeding herd.
Dawn was reaching red fingers at the sky when the smell of dust became strong, and I began coming up with scattered cattle. We started bunching them, the black and I, and he proved himself a good cow horse, with a liking for his job. Ranging back and forth in the growing light, we gathered strays and pushed them on to join the herd.
Cotton was out there, bringing up the drag. He swore with relief when he saw me. “Man, I thought you’d caught one! And my pony’s durned near wore out with pushing this bunch.”
“Keep right on pushing,” I said. “We’re heading for Cheyenne.”
There was an idea buzzing in my head. They’d figure we would start for Fort Laramie, and might cut corners trying to head us off—when and if they got horses. If they followed our trail, it was a cinch they’d find us, but I had an idea Kelsey would be impatient to come up with us before we reached Fort Laramie.
We drove on into the dawning, and when day was full upon us, stopped for water.
Five of the Gates horses, stolen by the Kelsey outfit, were found among the cattle. They must have joined the herd in the night, knowing the cattle, and had trailed along. We roped them out, and felt better about the hard work ahead, but neither of us was of any mind to talk. Handy Corbin was still missing, and we had not found Tarlton.
There is something about a morning in the sagebrush country, something about the smell of leather and cows and horses, something about the smoke of a fire on the prairie, of coffee boiling and bacon frying…tired as I was—and believe me, every muscle and bone in my body ached—I loved it.
“Wonder how the boys are makin’ out back at the ranch,” Cotton Madden said suddenly. “I really do miss ol’ Tom. He’s been like a daddy to me…not that he’s that much older, only he’s been a man grown ever since I first knowed him.”
“He’s a good man. They’re both good men.”
“You’re from Tennessee?” Cotton asked.
“Cumberland country,” I said, “but nobody’s waiting for me back yonder.”
He glanced at me. “You on the dodge?”
It was a question nobody asked out here, but I didn’t take it wrong, coming as it did from Cotton Madden. So many men out here had left home for reasons of health.
“No,” I said, “and there’ll be a time when I go back. There’s some folks I want to straighten out a mite.”
Suddenly we heard a horse whinny, and you never saw two men roll out of sight so fast. But it was Buck, my buckskin, packing my gear. He’d come on our trail and followed it right along. I never was so glad to see a horse in my life, and it beats all how attached a man can get to a piece of horseflesh. Best of all, I had my outfit back, and my own rifle.
We hazed the cattle west and south, and the sagebrush levels fell away before us, or lifted in slow waves of hills, one no different from another. There was a reason for our dropping by Cheyenne, for we needed another cowhand—perhaps two if we were to drive this herd north. Moreover, there was a good chance that Tarlton would have gone there, if he was alive.
Cheyenne was in cattle country. The cattlemen had started moving into the area several years before, and by this time they were well established. I’d find friends here, I knew.
It was a wild, wild town. It had been hell on wheels, the end of the track, and many of the saloons and gambling houses were still active. It was not a big place…at its biggest there had been several thousand people there, most of them passers-by, but the ones here now were about half passers-by and about half folks who were settled, or who planned to settle there.
Leaving Cotton with the cattle, I rode into town, and first off I saw a man with a star. Now, the man wearing the badge was usually a solid citizen, although sometimes he was an ex-outlaw. When I pulled up my horse, this one looked over at me and I swung down. He was a tall, well-setup man with a brown, drooping mustache. He was neatly dressed and carried himself with a confident air, yet without arrogance.
“Marshal,” I said, “I’m with a cow outfit, and I need a couple or three cowhands. I want solid men who’ll ride for the brand, no dead beats and no rustlers.”
He took the cigar from his mouth. “I might find some men,” he said. “Where you ranching?”
“We’ve just started,” I answered. “We drove a herd into the Hole-in-the-Wall country a few months back.”
He stared at me. “You must be crazy! That’s right in the heart of Indian country.”
“It’s good grass, and there’s water,” I explained, “and when I left there’d been no Indian trouble. Only trouble we’ve had,” I added, “was with Caxton Kelsey and his outfit.”
That stopped him, as I expected it would. “Kelsey’s at the Hole-in-the-Wall?”
“No, sir. He’s riding for Laramie right now, or maybe trailing us here. He’s got blood in his eye and he’s hunting me.”
So I gave him the whole story, right from the beginning, and he stood there and listened, chewing on his cigar, his eyes sweeping the street. It seemed to me that it was in Cheyenne the way it had been in Abilene, and if I wanted the law to understand my position I’d best tell my story first. If there was a gun battle he would have no choice but to treat both sides the same, unless he
knew the real truth of the matter.
Kelsey’s name helped. He was a known bad man—not only a bad man with a gun, but an outlaw. In those days, when you said somebody was a bad man you did not mean that he was necessarily an evil man. It might just mean that he was a bad man to tangle with. Kelsey was all of that, but he was more. LaSalle Prince had an even worse reputation, and Andy Miller was a bad one, too.
“When you pick your enemies,” the marshal said, “you pick them tough.”
“They picked me,” I said. “I came to Wyoming to ranch, and if there’s trouble it will be because they come riding to fetch it.”
The marshal tipped his hatbrim down. “So happens,” he said, “that I’ve got a lobster up there in my jail right about now that might be just the man you want.”
“In jail?” I sounded skeptical.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t point you down the wrong trail. He’s a good man.” He grinned at me. “He’s just full of cockleburs and sand, and he wants to fight everybody in town. But I happen to know that out on the range he’s a first-class cowhand.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a key. “He’s over at the jail, and his name is Corky Burdette. He can ride anything that wears hair, and he’ll fight anything that walks. You go let him out and tell him I said he was to go to work for you.”
“Marshal, there’s one more thing. Have you seen or heard anything of Bob Tarlton? Or Handy Corbin?”
“Tarlton’s a cattle buyer, isn’t he?”
“He was…he’s my partner.”
“Good reputation.” He rolled his cigar in his lips. “I know Handy Corbin, too. What’s he to you?”
“He works for me. He’s a good hand.”
“Yes, he is that.” The marshal took his cigar from his mouth and glanced at me sharply. “Did you know he was a cousin to LaSalle Prince? They grew up together.”
Well, you could have knocked me down with a pencil, I was that surprised. I could only shake my head. Corbin had said nothing about knowing Prince. In fact, he had not said anything about himself at all, nor had I expected it.
Novel 1968 - Chancy (v5.0) Page 11