by Lauran Paine
“Frank, hold up a minute! You, too, Red and Fred. All of you, hold up a minute. Give ’em a chance to quit.”
“Quit hell!” roared back the knife-edged, furious voice of young Clark Forrester. “Come and get us, you bunch of bushwhackers!”
Miggs kneeled, eased around the tree, raised his rifle, and snugged it back. He took a hand rest and waited. For a while there was not a sound anywhere around. Even that uproar to the west, where the stampede was diminishing, was too far off now to be heard as more than a very faint echo.
Miggs kept his vigil. Time ran on. The sun popped up around a shoulder of aloof Ute Peak in the northward background, and a flashing ray of light shone off blue steel over the trunk of that deadfall. Miggs fired.
A man’s involuntary howl shattered the stillness. A blue steel Colt six-gun whipped straight upward and backward where dust, slivers, and rotting tree trunk exploded under the violent impact.
Frank McCoy’s unmistakable keening cry of exultation rang out. “You did it, Jack!” he cried. “You put one of ’em out of commission.”
Frank would have exulted even more, but a waspish six-gun shot whipped around the deadfall’s easternmost end, driving Frank back to cover with a yelp. On westward from Frank, two youthful voices broke out into derisive profanity as McCoy shrilly denounced the man who had narrowly missed him.
Even Miggs grinned at Frank’s indignation. He lowered his rifle, carefully reloaded it, placed it across his left arm, and called out again.
“You boys are pinned down! You can’t win, and you dassn’t run, so why not just quit? That way, at least, you’ll end up alive!”
No reply came back to this plea.
Miggs deduced from this, since always before it had been Forrester who had shouted back, that the man he’d incapacitated was indeed Denver Holt’s youngest rider.
“All right, boys!” he called. “If they can’t see where this’ll lead ’em, I reckon we’ll have to show them!”
At once two weapons opened up from around eastward where McCoy and Red Morton were. Fred Brian, who had been quite silent throughout all this, now slipped down where Miggs was, got under cover, and said: “That was Forrester you knocked out, Jackson. That other one … the big, dark feller … is called Curly. Curly Hogston. He was the one who balked hardest about dumping me in a canyon. Let me talk to him. This way, he’s going to get killed.”
Miggs nodded, bawled over for Frank McCoy and Red Morton to hold their fire. When it was still again, he nodded over at Brian.
“Go ahead. But we’ve got to end this thing one way or another pretty fast. Holt will have heard the gunfire by now. He’ll likely be coming back.”
Brian leaned his Winchester aside, cupped both hands to his mouth, and called out.
“Hey, Hogston! This is Fred Brian. I owe you a favor for standing up to the others yesterday. I’m repaying it now. Put down your gun and come out from behind the tree. You’re a goner if you don’t.”
No reply came back, even after the last echo had faded out.
Fred stood there, looking hopeful right up to the last. He eventually turned to gaze out of troubled eyes at Miggs.
“I’ll try again,” he said.
Miggs shrugged, his face stony. “Go ahead, but I don’t think Hogston’s going to give up. Once more … then we’ll smoke them out.”
Brian cupped his hands again. “Hogston, listen to me! There are two men east of you. They’re going on around where they can flank you from behind. There are two men here with rifles, not carbines. Either one of ’em can pick you off farther than your six-gun’ll reach. Don’t be a fool … throw out your gun and call it quits.”
This time the trapped cowboy called back an answer. “Brian? Forrester’s comin’ out. He’s hurt. He can’t fight anymore, so he’s comin’ out. Hold your fire. All right?”
“All right!” sang out Jackson Miggs, shifting both his stance and his grip on his rifle. “Hey, Morton … you and Frank hold off.”
A man rose up from behind the deadfall pine. He was holding his right hand and wrist, which were wrapped in a bandanna, with his left hand. Even from pistol-range distance Miggs and Fred could see the anguish in that man’s dirty, sweaty face. It was young Forrester. He shuffled on around the deadfall and started unsteadily across the intervening distance.
Miggs kept him covered until he was satisfied Forrester had no weapons. He said to Brian: “Get him, Fred. Check him for a hideout gun.”
Brian met Forrester in among the trees, halted him to search for weapons, and afterward, having found no gun, herded Forrester back where Miggs was. Those two exchanged a long, flinty stare.
Miggs put aside his rifle. “How bad’s your arm?” he asked.
Forrester snarled: “I’ll live, squaw man.”
Miggs’ iron jaw snapped closed. He reached out, caught Forrester by the shirt, lifted him one-handed, and brought Forrester’s face up to within three inches of his own face.
“Mr. Miggs, sonny. Let’s hear you say that … Mr. Miggs.”
Forrester, astonished at the power of Jackson’s mighty right arm, said in a faint whisper: “Mr. Miggs.”
Brian took over when Miggs flung the cowboy from him. “What’ll it take to get Hogston out from behind that danged log?” he asked.
Forrester dragged his gaze away from Jackson Miggs with an effort. He looked out beyond where Fred Brian stood, to that old deadfall, lifted his shoulders, and let them fall.
“I don’t know. You can’t scare him out … not Curly Hogston. He don’t scare worth a damn.”
Miggs took up his rifle. “We’ve wasted enough time,” he told Brian. “Take that little nit back where the horses are. Tie him with a lariat, and let Murphy patch him up. Go on.”
After Forrester and Fred were gone, Miggs drew a careful bead upon the old deadfall about where he thought Hogston would be hiding and fired. A large hunk of rotted wood burst into powder-fine dust, cascading down the deadfall’s far side. At once a carbine and another rifle also punished that old tree. Pieces of punk wood flew in several directions and dun-brown dust hung in the air above the deadfall.
For a long time, Hogston made no attempt to fire back. When he did fire, though, it was easterly, the way Miggs was sure Red Morton and perhaps Frank McCoy would be moving around him. This surmise was proved correct almost before Hogston’s gunfire echo had diminished. First a carbine, then a rifle, exploded off in the direction Hogston had fired. Miggs did not see either of those slugs strike the deadfall, so he assumed that Frank and Red had succeeded in flanking Hogston.
There could now be no hope at all for Denver Holt’s curly-headed cowboy. Even if he could hold Red Morton off, he could not hope to do the same with McCoy’s long-barreled rifle.
“Hogston!” he shouted. “You’ve got about half a minute now to make up your mind to die right there or quit! How about it … you coming out or not?”
“Why don’t you come and get me?” challenged Holt’s cowboy.
Miggs’ eyes narrowed in thought. There was no way he could frontally approach that deadfall pine without Hogston seeing him, but, if he could do as Frank and Red had done—get around the old log—he could slip through the trees and catch Hogston from the rear. This would take more time than he thought they had, but on the other hand, he had no stomach for murdering a brave man, which Hogston obviously was, and which also was bound to happen if he persisted in fighting the odds lined up against him. Miggs sighed, ruefully shook his head, stood up, and started in an eastern direction around through the forest.
He made it to the upper end of Hogston’s deadfall, glimpsed something ragged and lumpy crouched midway down the old log’s shielding length, caught the flash of sunlight off gun metal, and continued silently along until he was almost directly behind the crouched, straining cowboy. Hogston was swinging his head, trying to watch for another glimpse o
f men eastward, and also southward where Miggs had been. His face was scratched, his clothing torn, and hair hung sweatily down across his forehead. He was beaten every way but in spirit.
Miggs’ moccasined feet made absolutely no sound as he glided up to within fifty feet of the besieged range rider. He stood poised behind a stalwart tree, raised his rifle, took a long sighting, held his breath, and fired. Hogston’s right hand with its fisted six-gun was upon the deadfall, stretched out from the rest of him. Miggs’ bullet struck the six-gun where the ejector slide and cylinder joined. The gun was violently wrenched from Hogston’s fingers.
Miggs leaned his rifle upon the tree and watched Hogston recoil from that numbing blow, watched him flop over upon his back, staring with big eyes straight at Jackson Miggs.
Without a sound, Hogston then sprang up. He was a big man, easily twenty-five years younger than Jackson Miggs, and he was killing mad now. He let out a roar and lunged forward.
Miggs, fearful Morton or Frank McCoy might fire now, stayed back until the very last moment, then stepped straight out into the path of that oncoming big man, braced himself, and ducked under a savage blow Hogston aimed at him. At the same time, he cried out: “Hold it, Frank! Don’t shoot!”
Hogston whipped past, came around, and launched himself a second time at Jackson Miggs. As before, the older, much heavier, and broader man braced forward, refusing to take a single backward step.
This time they met in a collision that sent reverberations as far away as McCoy and Morton, who were hastening up, but not recklessly, not without utilizing all the cover available, because they also knew Denver Holt was probably hurrying back to participate in this battle.
Hogston lashed at Miggs with the full force of his lunging drive. He missed, though, and fell into Miggs. This was Curly Hogston’s biggest mistake yet. He realized it the second both those immense arms closed around his upper body, locked behind Hogston’s back in a bearlike hug, and slowly, inexorably began to tighten.
Hogston had never heard the legend of Jackson Miggs out-bear-hugging the bear. In fact he’d never heard of Jackson Miggs at all, but now he surmised he was up against no ordinary man. He rained futile blows down upon Miggs’ head; he whipped and sawed and threw himself first one way and then another. None of it helped. Miggs’ constricting arms were slowly squeezing the life out of him. Hogston’s eyes aimlessly rolled, his mouth flew open, his face became purple, and his flailing fists heaved about and finally fell away altogether.
Miggs, standing wide-legged and braced, suddenly released his hold.
Hogston fell, limp and broken, his eyelids twitching, his nostrils distended.
Red and Frank came up, halted, and gazed downward. McCoy seemed the least appalled of the two.
Morton looked up and down again. “Be damned,” he whispered. “He done bear-hugged this one senseless. Or is he plumb dead?”
“Not dead,” pronounced McCoy, watching Jackson Miggs go back after his rifle. “But all the same, Red, you’d best use his belt, and your belt, too, and tie his arms behind him.”
Red dropped down and Frank bent low to supervise, which was all that kept one or the other of them from being killed, for out of the westerly forest a Winchester roared, and a moment later a second Winchester exploded.
Miggs, back with his rifle, dropped as though he’d been shot, whipped up his gun, and fired at movement in the gloomy distance. Up ahead someone yelped.
Down beside Hogston, Frank McCoy squeaked at Morton. “Go on, boy, tie him up, dammit. Never mind the Holts, Jack and I’ll fix their red wagon for ’em. Tie him up, and then slap him back to his senses and take him on back where Brian went with that other one. Go on, boy, do like I say … move!”
Chapter Eighteen
After Jackson Miggs’ snap shot up into the gloomy forest shadows where those two carbines had opened up on McCoy and Morton when they were bending over Curly Hogston, there was a long lull.
During it Frank called over quietly to Miggs, saying: “The Holts, Jack. By my calculations there should be three men up in there.”
“I think only two now,” Miggs answered back. “I winged someone … I heard him squeal.” Miggs was well hidden. He turned now carefully, considering the westerly forest. “Frank, stay down where you are. I’ll slip on toward ’em. You give me cover fire.”
McCoy bobbed his head up and down, pressed himself flatter into the earth, trying to blend in, and snugged back his rifle, watching down its long barrel for movement up where their enemies were.
Behind Frank, Red Morton finally got Hogston to breathe again, and said: “Frank, you still figure I ought to leave you here alone?”
McCoy’s answer sounded irritable. “Yes, I do. When me and Jackson Miggs got something interesting going, we don’t need any lowland cowboys to help us. Take that danged fool and get out of here. And tell Lex and Brian to keep out of this, too. Go on now, boy, beat it!”
Morton pushed Hogston into a crawling position, prodded him awkwardly as far as the first good stand of protective trees, then yanked Hogston upright and, using his six-gun, guided the captive eastward off through the forest.
Denver Holt called out in his rumblingly defiant voice, challenging Miggs to stand up, to fight man to man.
Miggs made no answer, but Frank did, because he knew perfectly well that Jackson Miggs not only would not answer but also that every second gained in parley with the Holts would help Miggs get that much closer.
“Sure!” yelled Frank. “You want it man to man, Holt, you show yourself first!”
This brought a string of vile epithets, and McCoy grimly smiled before calling out again. “Holt, cussing isn’t going to help you any. We’ve got Forrester and Hogston. So far none of us’ve been hurt. The odds are pretty big now … five to two of you, or maybe three, and we’re on familiar ground. If you got the sense God gave a goose, you’ll quit while you’re still able.”
Holt swore at Frank again, and when McCoy laughed outright, one of the Holts fired down toward the sound of McCoy’s voice.
The echo of that shot had scarcely died out when a fresh voice came down through the forest to McCoy. Miggs’ voice. It was not particularly loud, but its steely hardness gave it both depth and timbre.
“Get up you two. Easy, Bert … leave that gun on the ground.”
Frank tensed unconsciously, tracked the location of that voice with his rifle barrel, and waited. It was not a long wait.
“Frank,” called Jackson Miggs, “come on up here!”
Frank went without bothering to brush leaf mold and crumbly earth off his clothing. Once, he halted to whip around in response to the rush of oncoming booted feet. Fred Brian and Red Morton were recklessly dashing through the trees toward him. At first Frank’s intention was to send those cowboys away. But on second thought, he did not do this; instead, he led the cowmen on up where Miggs stood.
There were three men there. Four actually, but Jackson Miggs, who had craftily gotten completely around the others, was standing back a little distance with his cocked rifle covering the others.
One of those disheveled, unshaven, and ragged men who had survived the earlier stampede was moaning on the ground. This one had been shot along the ribs by Miggs’ initial shot at the lot of them. The other two were Denver Holt and his son, Bert. Neither of these two was hurt, but both were scratched, battered, and hatless. Most of the defiance was out of the younger man. His father, however, was as spittingly defiant as ever, unarmed or not. He glared at Frank and the two range men who had come up with Frank.
Miggs waited until Red, Frank, and Brian had halted, then said: “Spread out a little, boys. That’s it. Now keep a sharp watch on ’em.”
“What you fixing to do?” asked McCoy as Miggs lowered his rifle, leaned it gently against a tree, unbuckled his shell belt, and also hung this close by.
“We could shoot ’em, Frank,”
answered Jackson Miggs, “or hang ’em. They deserve one or both for coming up in here and acting like Comanches, stealing Beverly, pistol-whipping Brian, taking a shot at you … at all of us … and trying to ride roughshod over Tolman’s range.”
“Good idea,” said Frank with a wolfish smile. “I’ll go back and fetch a rope.”
“But,” went on Miggs, “I’ve got a better idea. Killing a man doesn’t teach him anything.”
Frank straightened back around, his brows drawing down. Brian and Red Morton looked puzzled, too.
Miggs thinly smiled at them, jerked his head to one side, and said: “Herd the old man away from the boy.”
“Ahhh,” crooned McCoy, his face cleared instantly. “Of course. I didn’t understand at first.”
Brian and Morton still did not understand, but they aided McCoy in doing what Miggs had ordered, then, when Denver was glaringly apart from his son, Miggs moved down closer to the younger, taller man, deliberately went up close, slapped Bert Holt’s face stingingly, and just as deliberately jumped back when Bert roared a curse and swung.
Denver Holt roared: “Get him, Bert! Beat him down and kick him to death, son!”
Bert dropped his head, rushed in swinging, beat air, and whirled to come back again. Three times he did this and three times Miggs was not there when those punishing big fists whipped at roiled air where Miggs had been.
Bert, breathing hard, swore at Miggs. “Stand and fight, damn you. You wanted it like this … then stand and fight!”
Miggs did. He jumped out straight into the younger man’s path exactly as he’d done with Curly Hogston before. Bert bored in at him. He struck Miggs three times, hard, and would have hit him again, but Miggs, hurt by those blows, lunged, whipped both arms around the larger man’s waist, pinning his arms, locked his hands, and raised big Bert Holt half a foot off the ground at the same time burying his face against young Holt’s chest.
Frank made a triumphant growl deep in his chest. When Denver Holt, seeing what Miggs was doing, would have jumped forward to succor his son, Frank’s rifle barrel slammed across the big man’s belly, stopping him cold, making Denver double over gasping. By the time Denver had his wind back and could straighten up, it was all over. Bert lay broken and twitching upon the ground, his face as red as sunset.