by Lauran Paine
“Where ya goin’, Caleb?” Britt’s grizzled eye-brows were creased with a worried look.
“Down to the livery barn an’ check on my horse. Back in a few minutes.”
As Caleb emerged from the saloon, the people on the plank sidewalk looked at him oddly, and the buzz of excited voices trailed in his wake from the saloon all the way down to the livery barn. The half-breed hostler flashed a brilliant smile at him as he walked back and looked in at his drowsing black horse, sleek and shiny and comfortable, a big flake of fragrant timothy hay still untouched in the worn manger.
“Good fight. I heard about it.”
Caleb was mildly irritated that the news had traveled so quickly. He nodded and ignored the quick look of anticipation. “Saddle my horse and hang the bridle on the saddle horn. Tie him in his stall. I may have to use him in a hurry. Understand?”
The half-breed nodded importantly. He now had a secret that the other loungers would know nothing about.
Caleb turned and walked out of the wide opening of the barn. Somewhere a rifle cracked and Caleb heard the ripping tear of the heavy slug as it plowed its way into the wall beside him. He threw himself backward, ran into the barn again, down the long, dirt-paved aisle between the stalls, past the startled hostler, and out the back end. It was beginning to rain again and a freshet of cool, invigorating air blew into his face, fragrant with the smell of wet, moldy earth and sage.
Caleb’s fringed hunting shirt darkened as the rain fell on it. He stalked slowly, warily around in back of the stores and avoided the rubbish and refuse piles, alive with shiny bluebottle flies, with effortless grace. The Texans were back for blood. He was opposite the Longhorn Saloon when the throbbing rumble of loping horses came to his ears. He stepped around in front of the building he had been using as a screen as a large host of heavily armed men swung up to the hitch rail and dismounted. Two tight-faced men were left to watch the horses and the rest of the riders surged into the saloon. Caleb stepped out into plain sight and both the Texans left with the horses saw him at the same time. One made a slight, bird-like jerk toward his gun and growled. The second man said something in a breathless voice and the first man stopped his dip. Caleb held them both with his cold stare and neither man moved. The speed of the scout’s draw had made a deep impression on the Texan who had been present at the recent killing, and he had stopped the green cowboy just in time.
IV
All of Lodgepole, it seemed, had expected the Texans to return. There was only the gentle whisper of the light drizzle to break the awful silence in the town. Even as far away as Caleb was, he could hear the stentorian roar of a big, deep-chested man in the saloon.
“Ah want the squawman who done shot mah fo’-man an’, b’ Gawd, iffen y’all don’t produce him right naow, I’ll tear this heah li’l dung heap daown aroun’ yuah ears.”
There was the brittle silence again, then Caleb heard the scuffling boots and tinkling spurs as the Texans came through the batwing doors. They were beside their horses before the horse guard pointed at him and yelled in a high, hysterical voice: “Thar he stan’s! Over thar ag’in’ that store. He’s the feller as shot down Powder Hudson.”
The Texans all went into action at the same time. It was a fair certainty that they were letting off pent-up steam, because at least a dozen of them couldn’t have seen the horse guard point to him. Caleb singled out a massive, flashily dressed man with an ex-plosive, blustering face. His gun was clear of its holster before the horse guard had stopped speaking. The big man swore thunderously and filled his hand. Caleb’s shot sent the big pistol flashing back-ward out of his hand, then Caleb disappeared down the slim alley between the two buildings. The Texan roared in rage and pain and leaped on his horse. “Comb th’ town. Teah th’ damned thang daown, but get me thet squawman. Ah’ll give a hunnert dollars gold to th’ cowboy that brings me that hombre daid or alive.”
Marshal Holt had heard the firing and was just emerging from his office when a covey of the red-eyed cowboys swung past. One of them turned sideways in the saddle and fired a careless shot at the marshal. With one smooth motion, the marshal’s gun was flaming. The rider went off over backward and his frightened horse ran after the others, stirrups flapping and head high.
All hell broke loose. Lodgepole seemed finally to let go its pent-up emotion. Rifles cracked and pistols roared. The Texans, embattled and savage, shot indiscriminately at anything that moved. Two stray dogs and one saddle horse lay where they had been cut down in the deserted street, not far from the cowboy who had been shot off his horse by Marshal Holt. From the Longhorn Saloon, spiteful pistol fire erupted. The Lodgepole cowmen sought targets with little chance of success. The fight had swirled almost out of range. With a sizzling oath, one of the younger Lodgepole riders darted through the batwing doors while the others watched. They all wanted to get out-side, but feared the consequences of leaving as long as the Texans were loose on the town. The rider ran about fifty feet, when a ragged volley of rifle fire rattled up and down the road. He crumpled in a heap, and the drizzling rain diluted the little pools of blood that formed around his dead body.
Britt wagged his head. “Not that way, boys. It’s murder goin’ out the front. See if they ain’t a back way.”
There was, the bartender showed it to them, and singly and in pairs the Lodgepole men got away from the besieged saloon. With the scattered de-fenders slipping through town, the fight became general. Marshal Holt was very effectively bottled up in his office, however, and his furious oaths rang over the intermittent gunfire. Storming and fuming, the fighting lawman challenged one and all of the malcontents to fight him. All he got in the way of replies was a bouquet of bullets that kept him indoors.
Caleb had scaled the back wall of the general store. He could hear the spurs of the running Texans below him. In the smattering of gunfire, he heard one Texan swear plainly and another laugh. Squirming along, prone, Caleb risked a peek over the edge of the building. One Texan was exploring his rump, which had been grazed by a rifle slug. He had holstered his gun and was alternating between swearing with feeling and groaning. The second cowboy was hunkered low behind a half-filled water barrel. Even as Caleb watched, the man levered his rifle and pumped a shot into the window of Sally Tate’s café.
Caleb eased his .44 over the edge of the roof and spoke: “You, there, pull up your britches an’ help your pardner climb up here.”
To say the Texans were startled would be putting it incorrectly. They were dumbfounded. Awkwardly they clambered up to Caleb, who kept them covered. Once on the roof, he ordered them both to lie down, then disarmed and tied them with their own belts. Gags were made from their neckerchiefs and handkerchiefs, and the frontiersman smiled saturninely at them as he dropped off the roof.
Caleb was taking advantage of every foot of cover among the refuse piles and out buildings on his way to the livery stable. The rain was coming down now in a heavy drizzle that was cold in contrast to the former heat. The gun butt was slippery in his hand. Up ahead, two men were backing around the end of a building, and the scout hastily ducked into an out-house until he saw whether they were Lodgepole men or Texans. Unfortunately for Caleb, the out-house turned out to be occupied by another hiding fighter. With an alarmed oath, the man fired his gun as Caleb spun away as far as the tight confines of the building would allow. The bullet scored a thin, hot scratch under Doom’s ribs. He felt it as he fired back and the tiny shack rocked on its hollowed-out foundations. The door fell on its hinges as Caleb’s body went against it and he fell outside in the slippery mud. The two men farther down turned white-faced at the eruption of the two shots. With an oath, one of them fired and missed. The word—“Squawman!”— split the air and Doom rolled as fast as he could in the muck, finally getting to one knee.
The Texans were the brace of horse guards he had seen in front of the saloon. The older one was firing with frantic haste and no attempt at accuracy. Caleb ran as he crouched, his gun spitting fire. The older man went d
own, and the younger jumped and fled. A rifle crashed behind him and Caleb went down into the mud as he whirled. Standing, spraddle-legged, a Winchester carbine held waist high in both hands, the big, florid-looking Texan levered and fired again. Caleb threw two quick shots at the man, jumped to his feet, and ran zigzag for the dark interior of the livery barn. It was shadowy and dark in-side, but the sour smell of powder smoke rode the atmosphere like a warning.
Jack Britt could hear Marshal Holt cursing in an embittered monologue and a little wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Nothing could be quite so annoying to one of the marshal’s fire-eating propensities as to be bottled up inside his own office when a gunfight was going on in town. He hugged the wall of the Lincoln House closer as a rifle flamed off toward the livery stable. There were two muffled pistol shots from behind the barn and down a little way, and Jack wondered who had gotten caught back there. He soon forgot, however, when a Lodge-pole cowboy fell soddenly onto the overhang in front of the general store from the roof above. The body didn’t roll and Jack’s squinted eyes looked for the killer. A wisp of a black hat showed down the deserted street from him, on his side of the road. He cocked his pistol and waited. The black hat’s curled edges came out a trifle, and Jack carefully brought his gun up. A rash of sudden firing in the neighbor-hood of the Longhorn drove the gunman back to cover again. Jack waited patiently until the hat came into view again. This time there was enough for a target. He fired methodically and the hat went sailing off into space like a frightened bird and its own-er looked down the road at Jack for one startled second and disappeared. Jack moved, too.
Inside the livery stable, Caleb took a breather be-hind a jag of aromatic mountain hay. The cut along his ribs had bled profusely but the mud caking he had acquired while rolling around in the alley had pretty well staunched it. His fringed shirt was a wreck. Grimly he wiped his .44 off as best he could and reloaded it. Suddenly he heard a board creak lightly, too lightly to be moved by any of the softly snorting, excited horses in the stalls. He tensed un-consciously and let his eyes roam familiarly through the eerie gloom of the building. Again he heard it and flattened out on his stomach, poking his head around one ragged corner of the haystack. A big Texan was quietly stalking through the barn looking for him. Smiling bitterly, Caleb’s pistol came up slowly, steadied, and fired with a thunderous explosion. The Texan’s rifle went off unpredictably as Caleb’s slug tore its stock into a gust of splinters. The big man staggered forward as the gun was wrenched out of his hands. He roared in pain and insane fury and hurled himself toward the haystack. Caleb cocked his gun again, but the big man, de-spite his bulk, was upon him before he could squeeze off the second shot, his ornate boot toe lashing out instinctively and sending Caleb’s gun flying. The scout barely had time to get to his feet before the cowman was on him. A sizzling fist the size of a small ham roiled the air past Caleb’s head and another gigantic hand slammed him backward, striking him fully in the chest. Caleb gasped and rolled away from the behemoth of ferocity that was boring in, roaring mad.
Caleb found an inner well of energy somewhere and came back on the balls of his feet. He recognized this fight as one for his life. The Texan was insanely angry and his tremendous body was capable of deadly force. He lashed out and the Texan took the blow without an effort to side-step. Caleb had struck hard, but the Texan smothered the shocking force as though he hadn’t felt it. A little awe surged through the frontiersman as he back-pedaled. The stranger charged, head down, roaring oaths, his big arms flailing like a thresher. Again Caleb gave way, but this time he went a little sideways and chopped two stunning blows under the Texan’s ear that staggered the big man. Following up what he thought was an advantage, Caleb drove in with a rain of piston-like shots that caromed off the hard body of the other man like rubber balls.
A big fist lashed out in a looping, overhand shot and Caleb went down. The Texan stood over him, legs apart, breathing heavily for a second. Caleb shot one boot toe behind the big man’s calf and darted the other foot out like the tongue of a snake, pushing it abruptly against the Texan’s kneecap. With a look of surprise, the big man went over back-ward, hard. Before he could regain his feet, Caleb was up and poised. When the Texan came up off the floor, a one-two lash out of bony, knuckled fists belted him like the explosions of a bullwhip in the face. He teetered for a long second and went down again, a bubbling, ragged sound of breathing coming out of his smashed nose.
Caleb felt weak as he scooped up his .44 and walked heavily toward the front of the barn. The firing was getting faster now and he edged carefully up to the yawning maw of the front entrance, risked a quick peek that drew no fire, drew in his breath, and made an erratic, reckless rush for the opposite side of the road. Dust devils kicked up mud behind him as the Texas cowboys swung to gun him down, but he made it to the back of the apothecary’s shop with only one boot heel missing and two holes through the back of his tattered hunting shirt that he knew nothing about. Leaning against the soggy wood of the building, he caught his breath as his narrowed eyes studied the immediate locality with-out seeing a single fighter. Knowing the Texans on his side of the road would be moving in on him, he reluctantly pushed himself off the wall and began a weary advance down past the Longhorn Saloon to Sally Tate’s café.
V
Almost before his slippery pistol butt rapped on the thick back door of Sally’s café, the door opened and Caleb shoved through. Sally’s violet eyes were wide in alarm. “Caleb, you’re hurt!” She went forward, but he backed away with a tired shake of his head and a tight smile.
“No, just scratched. Are you all right?”
Sally’s tension relaxed as it had the night before when Caleb had left the now defunct Texan on her floor, unconscious. Sparks flashed from the deep blue eyes and her lips trembled. “Look at you! You’re mud from the top of your head to your boot toes. Don’t stand there and drip that slime all over my clean floor…get over there by the stove.” Caleb moved to obey and caught the flicker of a swift movement out of the corner of his eye. Instantly his muscles jerked into action as he whirled and his gun came out and up with incredible speed. Sally stood horrified, her mouth open and one hand at her chest.
“No shoot.”
Caleb let the breath come out of him in a rasping sob. “That was close, Bull Bear. Damned close.”
The Crow leader nodded wryly. “Too close. You hurt?”
“No, tired and filthy from wallowing in the mud out there.” Caleb nodded toward a rain-flecked window where the slippery, dark earth was shiny with water. “But not hurt.”
“You stop fight, then.”
“Huh?”
“You stop fight. Crows let Texas cows go to the Platte if cowmen let Crow warriors guide them through Crow land by way of Canon del Muerto.”
Caleb looked thoughtfully at the scarred warrior before he answered. Canon del Muerto—Dead Man’s Canon—was aptly named. The trail was narrow above a deep canon. Many emigrants had been am-bushed there in the early days. Now, even with the Crows to guide them, the canon trail would be a treacherous, slippery quagmire. Still, it was preferable to the fighting at that time still echoing through Lodgepole. Anything, Doom thought, to get rid of the Texans and their cattle. He nodded abruptly. “I’ll see what I can do.” He turned and opened the door a crack before Sally Tate caught his slippery, mud-covered arm.
“Caleb, don’t go. They’ll kill you. Oh, Caleb.…”
“Sally, I’ve got to try an’ stop the killing. Bull Bear’s offer to cross…. ”
“I don’t care, Caleb. You’re hurt. Stay here and let me bandage your side and wash the mud off you. Let someone else go.”
Caleb fixed her with a critical look. “Who?”
She looked around her for a desperate moment, saw only the blank, disapproving look of the Crow chieftain, and let her arm drop as Caleb slipped out of the café into the drizzle and mud.
The rain was coming down in a steady, persistent sheet of water now and Doom was thorou
ghly drenched and streaked with the cloying mud before he managed to get to the Longhorn. A bullet came out of nowhere, smashed into the rear door of the saloon, knocking it violently inwards. Caleb jumped frantically into the room, crouched and ready, but saw no one. He swung over to the stairway leading upstairs and mounted them two at a time, a filthy, grim figure of a man, hair straggling over his grimy, hollow-eyed face, the wet .44 glistening in his muddy paw.
Caleb searched each room until he found what he was looking for, a small trap door in the ceiling leading up onto the roof. With surprising ability, he leaped up, caught on with his powerful fingers, and shoved the wooden cover away so that he could wiggle through. The rain hit him like a hundred cold little fists as he clambered out onto the roof. Straightening up, he was startled to see a crouched rifleman over be-side the edge of the building’s false front. Apparently the drenching rain had muffled his noisy ascent. Stealing forward, he raised and cocked his six-gun. “Drop it hombre, or I’ll drop you.”
The lean back tensed but the rifle fell into the pool of clear water at the man’s feet. Caleb risked a quick glance down over the town. He could command the front of the livery barn easily from up here and it dawned on him where the gunman had been who had first shot at him as he had emerged from the stable.
“Turn around, but don’t raise up too high or you’ll get it from down below.” The man turned. Doom recognized him as one of the men who had been with the gunman foreman at the saloon. The man’s eyes widened when he saw the filthy, ragged apparition before him. He recognized Caleb as the killer of his foreman and a dry tongue flickered over his rain-washed face. “What’s the name of that big hombre with the flashy clothes? The one who did all the hol-lerin’ in the saloon this mornin’?”