by Lauran Paine
Chapter Twelve
Beyond the jailhouse windows there was nothing to see. From the vaulted overhead came watery light. It showed empty plank walks, ghostly storefronts, lamp-lit windows. A new silence was everywhere, a boding hush. Union City might have been deserted it was so empty of people, so breathlessly still.
Lee kneeled beside Pete Amaya. Sweat trickled down between his shoulders. The stock of his rifle was slippery, too.
Uriah moved like a caged cat, springy at the knees, head high and canted, eyes moving with liquid flame in their depths. His jaw bulged from the tightness of locked teeth.
Zeke returned from a tour of the windows. He had seen enough blurred movement beyond in the night to know they were surrounded now. He turned to say: “They’ll have sent for the soldiers, Paw, and the posses.”
“I know, boy, I know.”
“Then do something!”
“Hush, Zeke.”
Uriah crossed to Pete Amaya’s side and touched the Mexican with his fingertips. “You’re the smallest,” he said with his eyes on the empty roadway beyond. “You’ll make the least target. Listen to me. We got to have horses. You go out the front door there, zigzag for cover, and hunt us up animals to ride. Try the livery barn or maybe the hitch racks around back of the stores yonder.”
Lee arose with Amaya. He looked into his father’s face with disbelief. “Paw, he wouldn’t get ten feet from that door and you know it.”
Uriah did not look away from the roadway at once but his color changed noticeably; dark blood coursed under his cheeks and his eyes came back finally with that terrible wrathful glare and fixed themselves upon Lee. “Boy,” he said in a knife-edged voice, “you been plaguing me about enough lately. You and your Hairston blood … your goddamned watery backbone.”
Around the still room the others turned. Some stood away from windows, watching. Zeke went fully forward with long strides but he did not get between them. Uriah’s arm shot out to stop him.
“Pete’ll go,” Uriah said in the same edged way. “He’s one I can count on.”
The little Mexican was looking fully into Uriah’s face. He said: “I’ll go. It is nothing.” No one moved as he padded softly to the door and stopped there, looking back, wearing a weak and crooked little smile. “You will cover me, señores?”
Uriah moved forward toward the door. He said: “We’ll cover you, Pete, and God go with you.” Then he faced the others, still motionless. Each face showing openly the thoughts in every mind. “They can keep up this surround forever. They’ll never have to risk a hide to get us. You’d better understand that. They can starve us out, and, when we have to give up, they’ll cut us down like dogs when we march out. I know this game. I’ve seen it played before.”
From the corridor’s opening, Kant U’Ren, recently come forward from the building’s rear, nodded approval. “We’re more’n likely all dead, anyway,” he said into the long silence.
The words went into Lee’s skull and rattled there dryly hot and penetrating. He looked for Ann, saw her standing beside Lew. Then the half-breed spoke again.
“A bullet is better’n a hang rope. Good luck, Pete, you’re going to need it.”
The Mexican’s reply sounded hollow and without conviction. He was still smiling at them all. “I am a lucky man, Kant. I’ll make it.”
U’Ren nodded gently when he replied: “If I had some money, I’d lay you a bet on how far you get.”
Lee saw Uriah stiffen with indignation at this brutal frankness, but he said nothing for the simple reason that there was nothing more to be said. There was not a chance for Pedro Amaya to make it. Not a chance.
George Dobkins shot back the door bolt with damp hands, drew the panel inward silently, and nodded.
Without another look at those behind, standing as though cast from lead, Pete Amaya slid through and was instantly lost from sight.
Uriah waited until Dobkins had closed the door, then turned toward the others. “Give him diversionary fire,” he ordered. “Zeke, Lee, Joseph … the rest of you … go to the back door with Kant and open fire.”
They were moving away in a body when a solitary shot burst the roadway’s stillness. Then other shots sounded and Uriah called them back. “They’ve seen him. Get to the front windows instead. Give him cover fire. Remember now … aim at their gun flashes and aim low. Aim to kill!”
Lee crouched by the same window he’d shared moments before with Amaya. Someone shouldered down next to him; he did not look around to see who it was. Uriah’s words dinned in his brain. He knew without looking around that the old warrior was standing, wide-legged and towering, in the center of the room. He could pinch his eyes closed and visualize the spray of spittle, the twisted face alight with strange intentness, with madness, while Uriah listened to some inner voice no one else could hear, and roared his orders, directing the joined battle.
“Aim low and mind now … no snap-shooting. Use your sights. Make every ball count … we don’t have too many.”
Lee forced himself to look out where unkind light from the sickle moon shone. He heard the ripped-out curse of the man beside him.
“There he goes. Oh, Lord, they forced him away from the buildings.”
Pedro Amaya was out in the roadway running hard toward the south. It came sadly to Lee that he was fleeing the wrong way—away from them toward the open prairie beyond Union City. Then it stung him that the enemy fire had dwindled and died and for the space of a withheld breath he thought Amaya was going to make it, was going to fade into the darkness and escape.
Then a wisp of smoke spewed, and another, and another, with flat, powerful sounds behind them. More shots until the roadway reverberated with them and they fell without rhythm, slamming hard and deafening.
“Now!” Uriah screamed over the din. “Now! Give it to them!” He was watching the running shadow with wide-sprung eyes and contorted mouth.
The man beside Lee thrust his rifle past the bars and fired into a spigot of red-flash from a storefront across the way. At his second shot Lee saw a man spring up convulsively, half turn, and crumple. The noise was deafening and black-powder stench choked him, stung his eyes.
A hurtling cry from north of the jailhouse fluted as clear as a bell above the gunfire. There came a ragged reply from many throats and the rocketing thunder of approaching horses. Hope left the youngest Gorman in that instant. The soldier column had returned, or one of the big posses. Full realization came swiftly then. They were bottled up, surrounded. Nine desperate men against an army …
Uriah’s loud groan came now. “He’s shot! Oh, Lord, he’s shot!”
Lee turned in time to see Pedro Amaya’s distant small form wilt. In his heart he winced with each slug that tore the Mexican’s flesh, twisting him, holding him suspended until more lead came to crash into his numbing body. Then Amaya was down. Flat down and unmoving with dust spurting around him.
Uriah’s groan lingered, searingly clear in the boy’s head. Never before in his lifetime had he heard his father give over to despair. Never once.
“Zeke! George! Come over here! Move fast now!”
Others twisted for a searching look at him, the despair in every face diluted by the most illogical hope. Uriah ignored everyone but his eldest son and George Dobkins. “We got to get out of here,” he shot at them. “There’s only one way left now, with Amaya gone. George, go fetch U’Ren. Zeke, get the Fosters. We’ll bargain with ’em first.”
“Paw, they won’t bargain, dammit all.”
“Get ’em anyway. We’ll use ’em for shields then.”
“Not the girl, Paw.”
“Zeke, damn you …!”
Lee was moving across the room as he interrupted his father. “No! I’ve gone along, Paw, but here I quit.”
“Quit!” Uriah roared. “Quit! You jellyfish you, there’s not a man amongst us can quit now. You�
�re fighting for your life now, boy. All of us are.”
But Lee stood shoulder to shoulder with Zeke and in their eyes and faces Uriah read finality. Normally he would have broken them with his scorn, his mighty and towering contempt. Now there was not the time and he knew it. “All right,” he said in a strangling way. “Leave the girl, then.”
“And Lew, Paw.”
Before Uriah could reply Kant U’Ren came up with George Dobkins. “The soldiers are filing in behind the jailhouse,” he told him. “They got a mortar with ’em.”
Uriah crooked his talon-like fingers at them and when they had all drawn close—all except Lew Foster sitting on a chair and Ann standing beside him watching—he started forward toward the door. Beyond, the gunfire was dying down.
“Make for the livery barn and get a horse. Don’t stop if someone goes down. Don’t even stop to give battle. There’s no time for that now. Get astride and ride for it. Don’t stop for anything. Ride west toward the mountains. Stay with the others as long as you can. We got strength so long as we stand together, but, if a horse goes down or gives out, don’t turn back to help.” The fingers closed around the drawbar; they grew white from straining. “I’m going to open this. As soon as I do, go. Run for it. Don’t stop and don’t look back and God go with you. This has been an honest fight and we’ve deserved success.”
Lee watched the drawbar move. His mouth was dry and numb. He wasn’t conscious of Ann saying his name. He wasn’t even conscious of moving when Uriah yanked the drawbar clear with a report like a pistol shot and flung back the door, and the straining bodies around him impelled him forward out into the rattling gunfire and the sudden screaming turmoil of the roadway.
Lee ran swiftly with the others, northward toward the livery barn, only dimly conscious of the puffs of smoke and flashes of fire coming at them. He was aware of nothing, really, until a familiar pungency filled his head, its ammonia overtones clearing out the fumes and numbness. Ahead, Uriah’s swinging form bobbed and weaved as he ran deeper into the livery barn. Behind him scurried Joseph Fawcett and Kant U’Ren side-by-side. Out of nowhere a blurred face appeared; it disappeared almost immediately in a burst of flame from George Dobkins’ handgun.
“Horses!” Uriah was yelling. “Yonder in the tie stalls!”
They scattered toward the frightened animals that were rolling back their eyes and straining at their tie ropes. Lee glimpsed Zeke yank a rope loose, spin up on to a quivering back, and wheel the animal toward the barn’s rear exit.
Uriah got astride, too, flinging himself against a plunging mount with scrabbling hands and flying beard, but never for a second loosening the hold on his rifle. Then the others were engulfed in orange lamplight, milling, cursing, mounting or falling back, and yelling for the others to wait, to help.
Lee had no trouble with the horse he found. It was a canny beast and old. Man-made panic did not readily penetrate its thick skull or easily disturb its small brain. It did not come to life until the rifle butt crashed against its side, then it plunged ahead with a snort.
Now the cowmen were rushing across the road. They were firing into the barn alleyway, adding to the din and confusion. Two men, one of them Zeke, swung and emptied pistols into the crowd and there was a burst of yells as the cowmen broke and fled. Next, Uriah’s scream rose keening high and they followed him down the runway out into the paling night beyond. Behind, two sheepmen remained afoot. One had gotten astride but had been bucked off. They fought well but unwisely. Both fired at the same time and thus their guns came empty at the same time. They were shot to death as they cowered in a corner, and their bodies were shot into long after both were dead.
Doubled over targets on speeding horses in uncertain light made the worst possible targets, but they should all have been killed anyway if the number of bullets fired at them had counted, and once they were nearly stopped. A perceptive soldier ran his squad across their path, some hastily kneeling, the balance standing. But it was too late. Uriah’s horse hit the officer first. He was knocked easily ten feet and lay broken in the curling dust. Other horses went over and through the squad. There were shots fired but they hit no one. The outlaws raced past and night closed after them.
Lee’s horse proved swiftest of them all. He was overtaking his father when Uriah cried out and slammed his plunging beast back upon its haunches. Coming toward them in a blurred race was a great host of riders. The sheen of the sweat of their horses was visible. Lee leaned far over the side of his horse instinctively and shot past Uriah going westerly. The others followed his example and Uriah careened along beside Zeke, an ungainly figure squared into the light of a lowering moon, arms flopping and head thrust forward as though to aid his flight by sheer will alone.
The pursuit fought to stay within pistol range and for an hour it succeeded. Then the outlaws began steadily to draw away. Their horses were fresh. The other horses were not. Distant howls of frustration and rage came softly into the dawning day.
Lee’s rifle was gone. He had no recollection of dropping it, nor did he speculate on it long. Instead he concentrated on the horse under him. Eventually, when he dared, he peered over his shoulder to watch the distance widen swiftly now between his companions and their pursuers. Then he laid low along the horse’s neck and closed his eyes against the stinging lash of a whipping mane.
Around him the survivors were breaking out of the tight group a little. Uriah’s shirttail was whipping behind him and his thin long legs were wound around the horse beneath him like coiled springs. His shaggy hair flew and his beard was a speckled banner.
Off to one side, Kant U’Ren rode low on his horse completely in rhythm with its movements, and behind him Zeke was thumping his mount with heels and rifle butt.
Joseph Fawcett had both fists wound into the mane of the animal he rode. He, too, had lost his rifle somewhere.
There were six of them left: Dobkins, U’Ren, Joseph Fawcett, Lee and Zeke Gorman, and Uriah. That was all. Bachelor and the others lay somewhere behind, either dead in the livery barn, killed before they got to it, or strung out on the prairie down their back trail. To Uriah their escape was a mighty victory. He counted them once, twice, looked back to be sure there were no more, then cried out to the survivors: “The Lord was with us, boys! Head for the uplands now and ride hard.” In the same voice he added: “I think Fawcett’s been hit.”
Lee slowed after another mile to let the others come up. He had not heard his father speak of Fawcett, and, when Uriah flagged him onward, he turned dutifully and pushed on at a slower pace, leading them toward a bosque of cottonwoods that loomed up in the growing steel light of earliest dawn. There he stopped to blow his mount and to wait. When Uriah came up, he flung Lee his lead-rope rein and sprang down, walked swiftly back, and caught Joseph Fawcett as the latter began to slide earthward from his mount.
“We can’t stay here long,” Kant U’Ren said.
The others did not heed him. They were walking back where Uriah kneeled beside Fawcett.
When Lee moved restlessly, the half-breed said: “Here, give me the lines and go look, but tell ’em not to waste too much time.”
There was a soft duskiness to the sky and a little fat star hung low above the horizon, easterly.
When Lee was approaching, he heard Uriah say: “He’s hard hit, boys.” He went closer, stopped, and stood transfixed, staring down at the gaping wound, uncovered and jellylike where his father had skinned back Fawcett’s sodden shirt. Then he kneeled across from Uriah and for just a moment an ill dizziness gripped him, then it passed. He reached out to staunch the rush of dark blood with a piece of rag someone pushed into his hand, wiped the blood away with long even strokes only to have it bubble upward again and pool below Joseph Fawcett’s chest, in the sunken place of his belly.
“Clean through him … from behind,” said Uriah, rocking back on his heels.
Lee felt Fawcett’s eyes full on his f
ace. He glared at his father. “Shut up, will you. Somebody find some water.”
Uriah got up and shuffled off. The others followed him and Lee was left alone with the dying man.
Fawcett’s lips were turning blue now. He no longer sought faces or the answer in other eyes to the consuming question in his head. Instead he pinched his eyes closed and struggled to breathe, and the boy kneeling in the new grass beside him knew what he was attempting was futile. Blood pushed through the rag, undiminished.
Thoughts screamed in the complete silence of Lee’s brain: You’re dying, Fawcett. Paw’s gone to hunt water, but it won’t help. There’s no use to suck air like that, Fawcett. We’ll be here with you … this isn’t going to take long. We’ll bear the vigil with you. I’ll stay, Fawcett. I’ll stay. You’re the fourth today I think, Fawcett. Pete was first. He didn’t believe in anything. There’ll be more. You were a brave man. You didn’t have Paw’s courage, his will and craftiness maybe, but you were a brave man because I know how scared you were in that jailhouse, waiting to be hung.
“Kit …”
It was a soft whimper of sound and no other sound ever passed Joseph Fawcett’s lips. It’s a name, Lee thought. Maybe you had a wife somewhere, or a daughter maybe. It doesn’t matter now. You’re brought low for no real reason, Fawcett. No particular reason, really. Not for range rights. I guess you’ve known this, too, for a few days now. I guess you’ve come to this like the rest of us will … because you were wound around Paw’s finger. Blinded by his spell. Caught up and flung here like an autumn leaf … Don’t stare. Don’t strain, Fawcett. Paw’s gone for water. No, they didn’t get us. We’re clear, Fawcett. For maybe an hour we can stay here. In less than that you won’t care any more. I know. I know, Fawcett … you’re afire. You’re burning up inside. It didn’t smash your soft parts. It went clean through your backbone and out your lungs. I can hear them filling up. I got no idea what’s inside you, but I can hear the sloshing every time you breath.