“Tell them to come on and let’s get going.”
Kendall yelled and waved, whereupon his companions gathered up their gear and remounted. They came forward at a gallop. As Cory watched them, his thought was the logical one for his single-track mind to produce:
I wonder if this will get me within shooting distance of Mel Dorken any quicker?
THEY KNEW of a comparatively isolated stop in the rocky country further west. An optimistic squatter had come and gone and there was a sod leanto against an eighteen-foot wall with a corral further in and a narrow exit out into the boulders a half mile back.
There was bacon and beans from Cory’s pack and Mike Taber did the cooking. He had taken Cory’s rifle slug through the flesh of his forearm and had a strip of red handkerchief as a bandage. He was a lean, bronzed man with no expression except one of sullen resentment. He did not mention the wound.
Paul Thompson was bigger than the other two combined. He seemed darker than even sun-burn could make him, and looked much more foreign than his name. After eating, he went to the mouth of the canyon and sat down on a rock, taking over watch duty without a word.
The remaining three sat on the dark ground and put their backs against the sod wall.
“You’re a funny one,” Kendall said to Cory. “I can’t make you out, Balleau.”
“Why funny?”
“I don’t know. It’s like you don’t realize what you did, or something—like you’ve got no nerves maybe. God, man! You rode into Ngania and pulled your gun and shot the town marshal! You realize that?”
“I shot the wrong man.”
“Who were you gunning for?”
“Mel Dorken. He’s the one I came north to kill.”
Taber scratched his chin. “He was the one that shot your uncle. Anyway that’s how it got noised around. Self defense.”
“Uh-huh. I shot Frake in self-defense too,” Cory said with bitterness.
Kendall turned his head and eyed Cory with speculation: “You aiming to stick around ’til you get a crack at Dorken?”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Seems to me you went about it in a bad way. Before, you could have walked up and done it anytime. Now maybe it could be a mite hard to get close enough.”
“I’ll figure out a way.”
Kendall sat silent, mulling something over in his mind, and Cory said. “That lynching. You men moved awfully fast. What was behind it? What did you expect to gain?”
Kendall’s eyes narrowed. “What do you expect to gain by killing Dorken?”
Cory thought for a moment. “Yes. I sec what you mean.”
“We were all in the same boat. We’d been done out of our land by Bates and we all knew Bendorf well. It was only plain justice, and we figured we had to strike back. Guess we had a hazy idea to stir up the settlers too, but it didn’t work out that way.”
“Frake sure wanted to get his hands on you.”
“And Bates too. He still does. That’s why we were blocked on trying to stir up trouble for him. With that reward offered we had to keep our traps tight shut. We was even worried about each other for a while. Then two of the boys drifted on and us three kind of stuck together.”
“Why did you want to hook up with me?”
This left Kendall a little at a loss. It was difficult for the man to explain why they’d instantly thought of Cory as being that leader. When driven to direct statement, it seemed absurd of Kendall, a forty-year-old man, to offer allegiance to a boy scarcely out of his teens.
He was never required to put it in words, however because, at that moment. Thompson called back from the mouth of the canyon:
“Trouble coming! Straight up the line.”
THE THREE by the cabin came to their feet. Kendall’s face showed genuine surprise. “God! They track fast. Thought we’d be safe for the night.”
At the gorge entrance they looked silently out at the trouble. A dozen riders a mile away coming hard and fast.
“We’ve got to move,” Cory said. “Hit for your goffs!”
Immediately there was the whine of two rifles, a single sound, and five men rose up not a hundred yards due south. Thompson leaped back, cursing. He flung an arm across his eyes.
The four dived back into cover and Kendall yelled: “You hit, Paul?”
“Molten rock in the face.”
“This is too open,” Cory said. “We can’t make a stand here. Back to the leanto.”
They ran silently. There was a hundred yards to cover before the attackers made the canyon mouth. Pellets were whining around the men’s ears as they tumbled through the door.
Immediately Kendall was pushing the barrel of a rifle out the window.
“Don’t use that,” Cory said, sharply.
Kendall turned, questioning silently.
“You could only get one or two at the most,” Cory said. “Maybe they’ll get cocky and try moving in before the others get here. We’ve got to get them all—the whole five—or we’re rats in a trap.”
Thompson was shaking his head. The man seemed dazed, completely off balance. “I didn’t see that first bunch. They must of come up out of the ground.”
“They circled and worked back down country. They must have spotted us from across the prairie. Maybe they’ve got a glass and saw us come in here.”
“No wonder the posse was coming straight as a string,” Kendall said. He was peering out the window and he saw that Cory was correct about the necessity of killing the five men. It had to be done before the main body arrived. This because the five, with rifles, covered the open area between the leanto and the horses.
“Maybe they’ll get within pistol shot if we stay quiet. Then we shoot and we don’t miss.”
Taber was easily lifting pellets from his belt and putting them in a pile near the door. When he had a respectable heap, he sat down cross-legged and awaited developments. So far he had not spoken a word. His jaws continued to work evenly upon a cud of tobacco.
Outside, the five invaders showed signs of exhuberance. There were yells echoing up the canyon. Already the men were celebrating a victory.
Cory watched as two of them came cautiously forward, moving close to the canyon wall. They evidently expected to draw fire. When none came they hesitated, held a short conference in low tones and waved the other three forward.
But only one of the three came further into the gorge to join the two. Cory frowned. They were playing it smart. Back near the entrance, two rifle barrels peered out from between rocks. The advance was going to be covered.
One of the advance guard yelled, “Come out you yellow-bellies! Crawl out o’ your hole with your hands up. We’ll see you get a fair trial!”
“And a quick hanging” another of them bellowed. There followed a series of hearty guffaws. They were in high good spirits.
CORY FINGERED his right-hand gun and studied the dark future. Not given to outbursts of anger, he nonetheless choked on quick rage as it welled up within him. Not rage at anyone or anything, but rather at the nebulous, mocking fate that was blocking him at every turn. Instead of getting closer to Dorken, he was coming closer to destruction. With plans laid for a safe hideout, he had to meet these three men and get himself maneuvered into a trap like this. His luck, definitely bad, had grown worse.
In a sudden spasm of frustration he dived for the door. He jumped into the open, landing, like a cat, on his toes. His left arm came around in a swift chopping motion, three times. Instantly the covering rifles whined a challenge. But Cory was back behind the shelter of foot-thick sod blocks, and Kendall was gaping through the window, lips hanging slack.
Kendell stiffened his mouth and muttered. “My great God in heaven! What kind of shooting was that? The whole three—dead! Like they was cut down with a blow torch.”
“Damn!” Cory said, fervently. “We might have made it. I’m too slow. I’m just too damn slow!”
He spoke as the approaching cavalcade arrived in a great clatter and sent a dust
cloud lazing up the canyon. Now the entrance was alive with rifles. Glinting steel was poked out through cracks and from behind rocks. The trap was sprung.
Cory surveyed the gorge entrance, standing well back from the door. He reached out a hand and picked up his rifle from where it leaned against the sod wall. Going down on one knee, he spotted a rather unwary gunman who had climbed to a vantage point four feet up the gorge wall. The man’s head and shoulders were in plain sight. Cory lowered his sights on the bulging forehead and pressed the switch. The pellet went exactly where he sent it, and the man’s lower torso came upward in agonized reflex and then tipped forward like a tree falling. He hit the canyon floor and flopped down like half a tired rag doll.
Kendall fired three times through the window, but he scored no hits. Then a positive hail of pellets drove the trapped men back from the window of the leanto.
Cory sat on his heels in one corner and slid three pellets into his right-hand gun. He glanced out through the door and said: “We’ve got an hour of daylight left, and we’ve got to make a break before it’s gone.”
“That’s plumb suicide,” he said, mildly.
“Probably, but it’s surer death to stay here after dark. There’s no moon tonight and they’d just move in on us. If we wait until dark to slip out, we’ll find them three feet from the door and they’d blast us to hell. We’ve got to run for it, one at a time.”
“We won’t make it though,” Taber said. There was no fear, but rather a regretful sadness in his voice.
THOMPSON scowled. “Better’n waiting for a sure bullet, though. He’s right. We got to break.”
A silence filled the sod leanto. It lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed like hours. Then Cory said:
“Want to draw straws?”
“On who’ll go first, you mean?” Kendall asked. He looked at the others. “Personally I’d just as soon have Balleau do the covering.”
“The first man will have the best chance,” Cory said. “The second and third, not so good. The fourth—” Cory shrugged. “He’ll have no cover.”
Simultaneously, both Kendall and Thompson looked at Taber. Taber caught their eyes and said: “I ain’t in no hurry.”
“You get back there and have the goffs ready,” Kendall said. “We’ll all be along.”
Taber peeled off his belt and Cory said: “You cover a hundred yards and you’ll be all right. It will take a lot of luck to get you after that.”
“I’ll make it,” Taber said.
Several men of the posse had moved up now; had skirted the gorge walls and found shelter within easy pistol range of the leanto door. They kept up a desultory fire, but appeared to be waiting. In this, they were sensible. Why risk their lives when darkness would soon come to their aid?
Cory stepped to the window. He studied the layout before he said: “I’ll take the close ones. Kendall, you use your rifle through the door and try to hold back their long-gun fire from back behind.”
Kendall said nothing. He knelt down, slightly back from the doorway.
“I’ll give you the word,” Cory said.
He raised his guns, selected some targets, and said:
“Jump!”
Mike Taber went out fast. He veered west, up the gorge, running low in a straight line.
Instantly Cory’s guns began to bark. He switched the shots carefully. There was a scream from a posseman who had come to his feet to level a pistol.
Kendall’s rifle filled the leanto with its whine, slugs spewing out as fast as he could eject empty shells.
Then Thompson, peering through the doorway at another angle, said: “He’s down. They got him.”
Cory and Kendall turned and saw Taber prone and motionless some forty yards up the canyon.
“I think I know who got him,” Cory gritted. “Give me that rifle.”
There were cheers from outside—sounds of savage elation—as Cory went flat on the ground inside the door. From behind a boulder, far back, he saw a lean figure come half erect and lift his hat like an actor acknowledging applause.
“Was it you, Lafe?” A voice yelled.
“My pellet,” the man called back. “I want the bounty!”
There was laughter, punctuated by the whine of Cory’s rifle and the lean figure stood perfectly still as the hat dropped out of sight behind the rock. There was a deathly pause and every eye watched the man pitch forward to hang over the big rock.
“Now!” Cory said. “Both of you! Run like hell! They’re off guard!”
THE TWO reacted instantly. Thompson went lumbering out first, with Kendall in his wake, while Cory began pumping a deadly stream of pellets into the posse.
He was in no position to watch the progress of Thompson and Kendall. He kept on switching until his own gun was empty. Then he snatched up Kendall’s and emptied that. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he had killed nor hit no one, but he had kept many shots from following the two runners.
Now he moved around and looked up the canyon. Thompson was sprawled on the ground about twenty-five feet from the body of Taber. Kendall was not in sight.
“Kendall made it,” Cory breathed. “The sons-of-bitches didn’t get Kendall!”
Cory threw the rifle into a corner and saw Bates’ makings lying there on the floor. Cory seldom smoked, but now he squatted down and carefully rolled a cigarette. He lighted it with a match from his own pocket and drew the smoke into his lungs. It tasted good. He blew out a white cloud and watched the smoke curl, listening the while to shouts and comments from outside.
“Set us up another duck!” some one bellowed, and Cory thought: I wonder where that one is? I’d like to kill him. I’d sure like to.
Suddenly Cory felt the urge to yell. “Ten shots to hit a cigarette!” he bellowed. “Go home and get some practice!”
“It’s Balleau! That’s Cory Balleau!”
Cory felt loose and easy. “Who’d you think it was? Some waddy who handles a gun like you do?”
There was laughter and now an atmosphere of mock hilarity, but with a deadly undertone.
“We’ve heard some about your shootin’ Balleau! I’ll throw up a rock! See can you hit it!”
Baiting the trapped animal.
“All right. Throw it.”
A head and a hand appeared in the canyon—up from behind a dirt hummock. The hand tossed a pebble into the air.
Cory fired once, snapped the switch of his gun with a quick chop of his left hand.
There was a gargled scream and the man who had tossed the pebble slapped both hands to a face that wasn’t there and went over backwards.
“Missed,” Cory yelled. “Damned if I didn’t miss! What do you know about that?”
There was a concerted howl of rage against which Cory laughed as he got to his feet. He felt good. In all his life he had never felt so lighthearted and happy.
What am I doing in here, he thought. I’m going out—now. Nobody’s going to stop me.
WITH THE sun low, he stepped out into, the open and fired three shots.
“It’s Cory Ball—” The man who shouted died with the rest of the name unspoken.
Cory’s second pellet burned down another gunman, bringing him into the open, no longer caring about cover. The third melted rock and drove a third gunman down.
Cory turned and ran. He ran on his toes, light-footed feeling like a cloud. The pellets singing around him were of no consequence. He made fifty yards and glanced back.
They were up now—all of them up and silent and desperately shooting. Cory killed two of them with four shots—deadly pellets that either killed or missed entirely. Then he ran again, holstering his empty gun and moving the left one still in his right hand.
But he fired no more. He moved out of range, beyond the rocks, on flying feet, and there was Kendall holding two goffs, waiting.
“You made it,” Kendall said. He could have been speaking of nice weather.
“My number’s not up yet,” Cory grinned, and they mounted and
galloped up the canyon.
Cory thought: I wonder if Dorken was there. Probably, but he sure kept under cover.
Mel Dorken was with the posse. Acting town marshal now, he had to be there, but he saw no reason for risking his life, and directed operations from the rear.
He noted, with satisfaction, the deaths of Thompson and Taber. He’d always felt that they had been involved in Tip Snead’s death and this proved it. Otherwise why would they tie up with an outlaw like Cory Balleau.
Elated with the way things were going, Dorken turned and looked back over the red prairie. He narrowed his eyes into the lowering sun. There was a rider approaching at a gallop and it was—
Damned if it wasn’t! That yellow-haired skirt he’d been drooling over for months!
Dorken forgot the posse. He forgot that he was a lawman. He forgot Cory Balleau and everything else but the desire to get that yellow hair in his hands.
And a plan to accomplish this didn’t have to be formulated. It was there in his mind, instantly, as though it had been lying dormant, waiting to be put into action.
He turned to a man close by and said: “That’s Bates’ daughter coming hell for leather. We don’t want any women here. I’ll head her off and get her back to her dad. Keep things going. I’ll be back.”
With that he mounted and rode off to meet the girl. He held his horse directly in her path, forcing her to rein up or swerve around him. She reined up and Dorken said:
“It’s too late to see anything. It’s all over.”
Kay Bates whitened. A hand went to her breast. She spoke two words, forming a question: “Cory—Balleau?”
Dorken exhulted inwardly. He’d been right! Balleau was the reason for those trips she used to take into the country—out toward Cotter’s Creek. She’d met the boy out there, and now that attachment dropped neatly into Dorken’s plan.
WHEN A MAN changes as fast as Cory Balleau had changed, there are always lapses; recessions—if not of a physical skill, then of a mental nature. A reversion of some sort even if it takes only a mild form.
With Cory it was a quick wave of wonder sweeping through his consciousness. He was riding through the night beside Kendall—through the rocky country at the western edge of the farmland. He looked at the dim shadow beside him and said:
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 35