by Bill Crider
O’Grady was limping badly, trying to give the impression that he was suffering terribly from the pain in his ankle, and he put a bit of strain in his voice as he answered.
“I’m glad you’re giving me that bit of advice,” he said. “Sure and it’s a world of good it’s doing me now.”
“Nothin’s goin’ to do you any good now,” Ben said. He was tired of looking for the horse, which he figured was long gone. “We ain’t never goin’ to find that horse, so I might as well kill you and have done with it.”
“Killing me won’t do you any good,” O’Grady said. “Why don’t we make camp. We can stay here for the night, and then we can look for the horse again in the morning. He can’t have gone far, and by tomorrow he’ll be looking for me. There’s not a lot of grass around here; he’ll be wanting something to eat.”
Ben thought about it. Maybe O’Grady had a point. But Ben didn’t think there was any need for the Irishman to be doing any waiting.
He thumbed back the hammer of his pistol.
O’Grady heard the click. “Before you do something that you’ll be regretting,” he said, “let me remind you that the horse won’t come to you. If he does come back, it’s me that he’ll be looking for.”
Well, maybe so. Ben lowered the hammer.
“Where do you think we should be camping?” O’Grady said.
“Don’t go tryin’ to get friendly,” Ben said. “This ain’t gonna be no campfire party. I’ll be keepin’ an eye on you all night.”
“And that will be fine with me. But where will we be staying?”
“We’ll go back where I tied up my horse,” Ben said. “That’s as good a place as any.”
It was what O’Grady had been hoping to hear. Having at the moment no horse of his own, he thought that his best bet was to get his hands on Ben’s.
There were a number of obstacles that had to be overcome first, not the least of which was Ben’s regrettable lack of trust, but that could be dealt with later. At least for now, it appeared that O’Grady would survive the night.
“A fine idea,” he said. “And where might your horse be?”
“Back that way,” Ben said, pointing to the right. “You go along in front.”
“Of course,” O’Grady said. He didn’t mind. He wasn’t going to try jumping Ben now. If he had to kill him, he might not be able to find the horse on his own, and then he would be no better off than he was now. He limped along in the direction that Ben had indicated, waiting for his chance.
Jink was panting as if he’d run up one of the sandy hills he had dreamed about. He was scrabbling around in the dirt for his pistol and tried to keep from screaming from the pain that had now stretched from his hand all the way to his shoulder.
He knew he hadn’t hit anyone with the shot he’d fired. By the time he’d pulled the trigger, his hand had been shaking so much that he couldn’t have hit anything smaller than a house except by accident.
Which meant that the man and woman were both still out there somewhere.
And worse than that, it meant that they knew where he was hiding.
He had to get away from there.
He sobbed with relief as the fingers of his right hand closed around the checkered wooden grips of his pistol, and he pulled it to his chest and held it there for a moment while he tried to decide which way to go.
The ridge ran a little farther to his left than to his right, and at the left end there was a little more cover—some spindly cedars whose limbs grew almost down to the ground. It was getting dark now, and if he could get to the cedars, he might be able to hide there.
The cedars had a strong smell, too, which would be a big help. His left hand was smelling rank even to him, and he knew the dead people would be able to track him just by the smell if the cedars didn’t mask it.
Still sobbing, he slid toward the bottom of the ridge, then rose to a half crouch and wobbled toward the trees, looking back over his shoulder every two or three steps to make sure that no one was following him.
No one was, but he nevertheless fell down twice, hard, on his way to the trees, tearing his pants and scraping the skin off both knees. He was barely able to keep from screaming the second time because he landed on his left arm.
When he got to the trees, he pitched forward and slid beneath the dark shelter of their branches. Sweat and tears were running down his face and into his mouth, and he swiped them away with the back of the dirty hand that held the revolver.
The limbs of the tree he was under nearly touched the ground, and they were so thick it was hard for him to sit up, but he managed it. The smell of the cedar tickled his nose, but he somehow kept himself from sneezing. The touch of the limbs made him itch, too, but anything was better than being out in the open.
It was very dark under the tree, and it was quiet except for Jink’s sobbing and the clicking of some kind of insect.
Jink sat there shaking and trying to stifle the sound of his sobs. After a while, he calmed a bit, though his gun hand still wasn’t entirely steady. He listened for his pursuers, but he heard nothing.
Maybe it was just another damn dream, he thought. But he knew that couldn’t be so. He was hurting too much for it to be a dream. In fact, that had been the only benefit of sleeping. While he was dreaming, he wasn’t in pain.
He looked down at his hand. It was hard to see it in the darkness, but he could tell that it was about twice its normal size and that the bandage was ragged and torn. It was probably filthy, too, but Jink didn’t care about that. All he cared about was the dead people who were after him.
He had to take care of them first. Then he could worry about his hand.
Jonathan didn’t know who had fired the shot from behind the ridge, but he had two ideas. It was either the one man who had ridden away before Rawls Dawson was shot, or it was the two who had killed Gerald and the marshal.
It was even possible that the three men had gotten back together, but Jonathan didn’t think that had happened.
It seemed more likely that it was the one man alone, since there hadn’t been any shots after the first one. Two men setting up an ambush would most likely have stationed themselves at opposite ends of the ridge and caught Jonathan and Ellie in a crossfire, but that wasn’t the way it had happened.
In fact, there’d been only one shot, which puzzled Jonathan slightly. He couldn’t figure out why the drygulcher hadn’t kept right on firing, unless he’d just wanted a little extra time to get away rather than kill anyone.
Jonathan supposed that was possible, but knowing the kind of men they were dealing with, it didn’t seem very likely. So he was going on the supposition that the man was still there, somewhere.
“We might could sneak up on him,” he said to Ellie. “If you’re willin’ to try it.”
Ellie wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. If he’d asked her an hour before, she wouldn’t have hesitated, but now her feelings were all in a jumble.
She was no longer sure at all that she was interested in getting revenge, and she wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it if she did. It had seemed to her that Jonathan was more interested in locating the three men than she was, but now when it appeared that they had caught up to them, Jonathan was leaving everything to her.
She had thought that she had things figured out, but somewhere along the way everything had changed. And she didn’t know just exactly what the changes meant, or even what they were. The only thing she was sure of was that the object of the trip now wasn’t the same as when she’d started out.
However, she still wanted the men to be punished. There wasn’t any question about that. And if the law wasn’t there to take them in, then maybe it was up to her.
“What do we do if we can sneak up on him?” she said.
“That’s kinda up to him. I don’t think we can count on him throwin’ down his pistol and surrenderin’ to us, though. Do you?”
Ellie thought about Burt, and about the bodies of Gerald Crossland and the marshal.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think he’d do that.”
“Another thing,” Jonathan said. “There might be two of ’em. Maybe even three.”
“That makes it harder, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe. You still want to try?”
“You didn’t tell me what we had to do.”
“If he shoots at us,” Jonathan said, “we shoot back.”
Ellie had to think about that for a while, though it was more or less what she’d expected. Earlier, it had been what she wanted. She still couldn’t figure out what Jonathan wanted.
“All right,” she said finally.
“You’re sure about that?” Jonathan said. “You ever shot a gun at anybody before?”
“No. But I can do it.”
Jonathan thought she was telling the truth. Considering what the men had done to her, he would have been surprised if she’d answered any other way.
“Here’s what we’ll do then,” he said.
Shag Tillman made it back to Blanco about sundown, leading the marshal’s horse, with the marshal lying across the animal’s back, wrapped up in a horse blanket that Shag had taken from Jonathan Crossland’s barn.
Several people saw him come into town, and they had a strong feeling they knew who was under the blanket. They followed Shag to Fowler’s undertaking establishment and helped him take the marshal down and carry him inside.
One of the men was Elmer Wiley, the bank president. “What happened?” he said.
The men were outside again. Fowler had taken charge of things and gotten Rawls Dawson into the back room to prepare him for burial.
Shag showed Wiley the note that had been pinned to Dawson’s vest.
“That crazy old fool,” Wiley said. “He’s three-quarters dead himself. What good does he expect to do?”
“I don’t know about that,” Shag said. “All I know’s what that note says. He was a mighty good man in his day, so I’ve heard.”
“And what do you plan to do?” Wiley said. “With Dawson dead, you’re the law in Blanco.”
Shag might be the law, but he didn’t feel too self-important right at the moment.
“Those Rangers the marshal sent for get here yet?” he said.
“No one’s seen them if they did,” Wiley told him.
“I expect we’d better wait for them, then,” Shag said. “We can’t do anything tonight, anyhow, and they oughta be here by tomorrow for sure.”
Wiley didn’t argue. Dawson had been next to worthless, and now he’d gotten himself killed. And Shag Tillman made Rawls Dawson look like Wyatt Earp. Jonathan Crossland might have been a hell of a man in his day, but his day had been over for too many years for the past to count for anything now.
“Very well,” Wiley said. “We’ll wait on the Rangers.”
He’d just about given up any hope of getting the bank’s money back. By the time the Rangers arrived in Blanco, the robbers would be in Mexico.
They were coming for him.
Jink couldn’t have said how he knew that, but he knew. It was as if someone were whispering it to him in the slowly stirring branches of the cedar where he was concealed.
Well, let ’em come. He was ready for them. He’d killed them once, by God, and he could do it again. He’d had Ben’s help the first time, but he could handle the job by himself if he could just quit shaking.
He didn’t know what they wanted with him, anyhow. Why hadn’t they gone after Ben? It seemed to Jink that killing them had been Ben’s idea in the first place. Hadn’t it? He couldn’t remember. Maybe it hadn’t been anybody’s idea. Maybe it was just something they’d done. Hell, it wasn’t his fault, either way. Wasn’t no call for ’em to come ha’ntin’ him out of their graves.
He heard a rustling in the cedars nearby. Here they came.
He steadied his hand on a branch as best he could, and waited.
SEVENTEEN
Because he was in the lead, O’Grady saw the two horses before Ben did.
He was surprised that he hadn’t thought of the two horses getting together. It was logical that if there was another horse in the vicinity, his own horse might somehow sense it and, being naturally sociable as some horses were, find his way to where the other horse was standing.
By the time O’Grady had reasoned it out, it was almost too late. Ben had seen the horses, too.
O’Grady was just a little bit quicker, however, both mentally and physically, so that by the time Ben had jerked out his pistol and started triggering it, O’Grady had jumped to the side, rolled over, and come up running.
“You son of a bitch,” Ben roared, firing his revolver until the hammer clicked over an empty cylinder.
O’Grady heard bullets whizzing over his head, and one of them nicked a small cedar branch that fell in his face, but that was as close as Ben came to hitting him.
His ankle felt as if it had been kicked by a horse, and his leg almost went out from under him a couple of times, but he kept running, weaving in and out among the few trees that were there to offer him cover, trying not to get too far away from the horses.
He knew that Ben would figure out soon enough that killing him, while it might offer a certain amount of personal satisfaction, didn’t matter nearly as much as getting his hands on the money did.
O’Grady didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want Ben to have the money, either. So he planned to get to it first. There was a loaded rifle in the boot fastened to his saddle girth. If he could get to it and get it out before Ben shot him, he had a chance.
Fortunately, his horse had calmed down since the encounter with the rattler, and the presence of another horse also helped soothe him. At any rate, neither of the mounts was spooked by Ben’s shots.
O’Grady angled back to his left not running now but moving quietly, keeping as best he could to the sparse cover, trying to move among the shadows and keep out of Ben’s line of sight.
Something of what O’Grady had in mind must have occurred to Ben, who suddenly started running toward the horses. He pulled out his pistol, trying to reload on the run, but his fingers were clumsy, and he dropped it.
He didn’t stop to pick it up. Instead, he pulled O’Grady’s gun from his belt and held it carelessly as he ran.
O’Grady heard him coming and gave up all pretense at caution. He broke into a faltering run, nearly going down each time his ankle took his weight, but managing to stay upright. He was almost there.
Ben saw him coming and came to a sudden stop. He raised the pistol and fired.
As Ben discovered, running and shooting do not go well together. The brisk activity did nothing for the steadiness of his aim, and the bullet didn’t even come close to O’Grady.
Ben forced himself to take a deep breath and to squeeze the trigger slowly. His second shot ripped through O’Grady’s shirt near the ribs on the right side, grazing O’Grady’s ribs.
O’Grady threw himself forward and skidded toward the horses on his belly, the rough ground tearing his shirt and the rocks ripping his skin. He slid under his horse and grabbed the stirrup to pull himself up.
He stayed half bent so that his head wouldn’t show over the saddle, but Ben kept shooting. He was shooting at O’Grady’s legs.
O’Grady tugged the rifle from the boot. He waited until he had control of his breathing. Then he stood up and brought the rifle over the top of the saddle. There was still enough light in the sky for him to see Ben.
Ben realized what was going to happen, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. O’Grady pulled the trigger, and the bullet slammed into Ben’s right shoulder, turning him sideways and causing him to lose his balance. He fell to the ground, the pistol dropping from his hand.
O’Grady walked out from behind the horse, keeping the rifle aimed at Ben. He saw that he didn’t have anything to worry about. Ben was sitting on the ground, his teeth clenched, his left hand clutching his bleeding shoulder.
“Well, Ben,” O’Grady said. “Not feeling too
likely a lad, now, are you?”
“You turd,” Ben said.
“Ah, Ben, that’s no way to talk to a friend. If you’d only been a wee bit more trusting of me, it would never have come to this.”
“The hell it wouldn’t. You’d have gone for me as soon as you got to that rifle, whether I’d trusted you or not.”
“Well, we’ll never know that, will we? The question is, what do we do now?”
Ben just scowled at him.
“Oh, I’d know what you’d do,” O’Grady said. “You’re not the kind even to give it much thought. You’d be shooting me where I sat if we exchanged places. But I’m a bit more on the thoughtful side, myself.”
“The hell you are. Why don’t you quit your yappin’? Just shoot me and get it over with.”
O’Grady lowered the rifle until the barrel was pointing at the ground.
“I don’t think I will,” he said. “I don’t think I need to, not now.”
Ben couldn’t figure it. “What’re you gonna do, then?”
“What you did to Jink.”
“You’re just gonna leave me here? Jesus, you can’t do that, O’Grady.” He looked at his shoulder, where the blood was seeping between his fingers. “I’m bleedin’ to death. If you leave me here, I’m gonna die.”
“And what did you think was going to happen to Jink?”
“That’s different.”
“I’m afraid I don’t see it that way,” O’Grady said.
“Well, it is. Jink and me was partners. He knew he was gonna die, and he didn’t want to slow me down.”
“I don’t want you slowing me down, either. So I’ll be leaving you now.”
He bent down and retrieved his pistol. After he returned it to his holster, he went back to his horse and slid the rifle into the boot.
He patted the bag of money. “It’s all in here,” he called to Ben. “I don’t think you’ll be needing your share, anymore than Jink will.”