The man turned away quickly.
Wyoming began to feel uneasy. He ate slowly, taking his time, trying to pick up conversation at a table nearby and figure out what was wrong, when the door opened and the talk in the cafe stopped altogether.
"Where is he?" a voice boomed.
Wyoming turned to look at a big man with handlebar mustaches. He wore a star pinned to the front of his shirt.
"What's your name, stranger?" the man demanded.
"What's yours, Sheriff?" Wyoming asked.
"Don't get smart with the law, boy," the man said, his face turning red. The cafe was as quiet as the tomb. "I asked you what your name is?"
"Sheriff, you're making a fool out of yourself. Every man in this cafe knows my name is Wyoming and that I'm looking for Arky Steel." Wyoming had pushed himself away from the table and stared at the lawman. "So far as I know, I haven't broken any of your laws. And you're disturbing my breakfast."
The old man moved for his hip in a lightning gesture that surprised Wyoming, but he had his Colt out before the old man had cleared leather. There was a murmur around the room.
"Speak your piece, Sheriff," Wyoming said. "Arky Steel killed my pa, and I'm going to call him out the first time I see him."
The old man was chagrined at Wyoming's holding the Colt on him. "Don't do it within the limits of this town, son," the old man said. "We don't want no gunfighting on the streets of San Tone."
"You want me to leave, is that it?" Wyoming said.
"You're going to leave," the old man said heavily. "I don't take kindly to a man throwing down on me."
Wyoming's voice was harsh and heavy. "And neither do I," he snapped. "You think that star protects you? Well, it doesn't. You could have told me you don't want your town shot up and I'd have said all right and moved on. I'll move on anyway, but don't try to give me any of that law business and drawing guns."
"If I was ten years younger—"
A voice spoke out from the back of the cafe. Wyoming had not seen the big Frenchman, Sanoui. "If you were ten years younger, Morton, this man would beat you to death."
Wyoming did not look or acknowledge Gigi Sanoui's defense. He stood up and stared around him at the faces of the men who had listened so quietly. "Arky Steel got any friends in here?"
No one moved.
"Anybody want to try and keep me from leaving?"
Not a finger moved.
"When you pull a gun, my pa told me," Wyoming said to the sheriff, "use it."
He spun the Colt on his finger and let it drop into leather. He faced the sheriff. "Take off that goddam star and show me down, lawman," he said coldly. "Move as a man, not as the law."
The old man did not move. His handlebar mustaches quivered slightly.
"I got more respect for the law than you. I won't fight the law. You asked me to leave town and I'm leaving, but don't ever pull that shooter on me again."
Wyoming threw money on the table and walked out, picking up his hat on the way. No one said a word. . . .
Rose was still asleep when he got back. He stuffed his few belongings into his saddlebags and started for the door. "Are you going to come back to Rose, Wyoming?" she said sleepily.
"Yeah. I'll be back," Wyoming said.
He walked back to the bed and leaned over to kiss her. She slipped her arms around his neck. "Come back, Wyoming, eh?"
"I'll be back."
Out on the street men lined the boardwalk and watched him take his deliberate walk down the side of the buildings toward the hardware store. He bought shells for the Colt and the carbine, a coffee pot and a knife. In a general store he bought several new blankets, an extra shirt, coffee and sugar.
Back in the street, he noticed some of the men were walking along in back of him. They were not going to stop him. There wasn't any feeling of hostility on the street. Wyoming was sure the old sheriff had done it to attract attention to himself.
At the Peso Stables he saddled the palomino and slapped the blankets and saddlebags over the animal's haunches and tied them on. He swung into the saddle and moved back out into the street. Right down the middle he rode, looking neither right nor left. He spotted Gigi standing alone. He rode over.
"Thanks for Rose. And thanks for the information."
"I still haven't changed my mind. But you made a wrong play against old law-and-order."
"I'm leaving town anyway. I couldn't wait around for him to come back. I got to go out and get him."
"I know," Gigi said.
"Well, so long."
"Take the old Spanish trading trail down through the big dry toward Laredo. You'll probably hit him coming back up."
"Thanks, I will."
He swung the stallion away from Gigi and back to the middle of the street. Even the freighters, who ordinarily did not move over for hell or high water, pulled their teams to one side when the deep-chested stallion and the tall dark rider moved up the street.
Wyoming did not ride fast. He rode steadily, straight out on the Laredo road.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wyoming rode past the freighters coming up from Mexico, several stagecoaches, and quite a few riders like himself, silent men who barely allowed a nod as they passed on the road. The dust was thick; the heat was clammy and the dust stuck to Wyoming's body as if glued there. The humidity was heavy and Wyoming could not understand it until he realized he was not too far away from the Gulf of Mexico. The air was not bright and hard and clear the way it was back in the Panhandle.
He did not try for speed as he worked his way around the traffic on the Laredo road. There was time for speed later. Now he made careful examinations of every man and every rider.
At noon he stopped at an adobe house and ate chili and beans, and a Mexican kid took care of the golden stallion.
The flies buzzed incessantly. The water he drank from the well was warm and tasteless. He was not used to eating in the middle of the day and the heavy food did not agree with him.
Soon he was on the road again. He was well south of San Antonio now and the traffic began to thin out a bit. After a while he had the road to himself.
The stallion kicked up high dust that seemed to follow him and settle back down on the rider and horse. Wyoming did not seem to notice. He kept his hat low over his eyes and squinted into the distance, always searching.
Long before the sun dropped he was alone on the road. He had not passed another rider or wagon for more than two hours.
The afternoon heat bore down on him mercilessly. He swung on down the road, entering the big dry country that would stretch clear to Laredo. The land was flat, pinkish to yellow, and there was the usual outcropping of buffalo wallows, stunted growth and rugged boulder rocks.
He swung on, passing a rider late in the afternoon. They swung their horses onto the side of the road, leaving the whole road empty, and did not speak or exchange greetings when they passed. But neither man took his eyes off the other until out of range.
The sun began to drop. There was a long low rise ahead, a good mile pull at a slight angle, and the ruts were deep where the freighters had urged their teams to pull hard and heavy up the slight incline.
Wyoming saw the rider top the rise, his back to the sun, and swing toward him. He knew before he could make out the color of the horse or the man's hair that it was Arky Steel.
Wyoming did not alter his swing up the road. He did not make a move toward his Colt or the carbine. He knew his guns were ready, and he felt that he was ready to face this man.
And he swung up the road with the same feeling he would have if he knew there was a nest of rattlers ahead— careful of his pony, alert for the slightest movement. The rider ahead of him was close enough to distinguish now. There was the dappled gray and the slight, darkly dressed figure and the yellow of his hair.
At a thousand yards, Wyoming pulled the stallion off to the side of the road and came to a stop. He waited for the man to come closer. He was not hiding, just waiting.
At fiv
e hundred yards and the man's face clearly seen, Wyoming moved out and stood on the road. "Arky Steel!" he called.
The man stopped and studied him carefully. "Who wants him?"
"I do."
"For what?" Steel's voice was hard and flat.
"You killed my pa—and I'm calling you out," Wyoming said.
"I never seen you before, mister," Steel said. He edged the gray forward slowly. "What you want to accuse me of a thing like that for?"
"I'll freshen your memory," Wyoming replied. "You made a deal with the Cheyennes to attack me and my pa's hide camp, and then you swapped them carbines for the hides."
Steel had moved steadily closer. "You're crazy, mister," he said. They were a hundred yards apart now. Steel brought the gray to a standstill. "I been down in Mexico till now."
Wyoming did not move. His right hand was hanging free at his side.
"You killed one of your own men when I threw down on you after you stole the hides. Then I trailed you into the range and found out you gunned down and robbed Tinker Flynn. Then I trailed you into Dodge City and put Cracker down with a slug in his head after I found out how you and he killed the three farmers that came after Flynn's money."
"You sound plumb loco, cowboy," Steel said, his eyes hard.
"Then I met up with the Pritchard outfit and learned how you killed Pritchard's ramrod, Isaac, and stole their horses. And then you bushwhacked the two hands that came after you. I know everything you did from the Black Hills until you hit San Antonio."
"You got the wrong man, cowboy," Steel said, and edged his pony closer.
"Don't come any closer," Wyoming said. "I told you I'm calling you out."
Steel jerked his pony to one side and drew with his left hand. He fell away from the gray.
Wyoming slipped out of the saddle and fell to the dust in the road. "You and me, Steel."
Arky Steel's answer was a hail of lead that splattered around Wyoming's feet.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The gray slashed to the right off the road and Steel continued to fire wildly. The animal broke free of the blond killer and left Steel exposed in the road.
Wyoming took careful aim and began to squeeze off, and suddenly the stallion jumped and leaped away. Wyoming and Steel were facing each other at fifty yards in the dust of the Laredo road.
Wyoming fired. Steel dodged and dived for the brush on the side of the road. Wyoming fell away on the opposite side and lay still.
He reloaded the Colt and stared out between the brambles. He couldn't see Steel. The gray and the stallion had come to a stop on either side of the road in the brush. Only the slight flicking of their ears indicated they were aware of the gunfight that was taking place on the road.
Wyoming began to work his way back toward the stallion. Inch by inch, his eyes and ears alert for movement on the other side of the dusty trail, he worked his way back through the dust to where the stallion was standing.
Steel fired rapidly, three times, kicking up dust and missing Wyoming by an inch with each shot. Wyoming did not return the fire. He kept moving backward toward the stallion.
"Come here, Boss," he whispered. The stallion did not move. "Over here, Boss," he urged. The golden stallion raised its head, looked down at the man crawling in the dust and moved one hoof. Wyoming inched on down toward the stallion and was a few feet from him when Steel fired again. He was not on the road anymore. He had worked his way back into the brush, and Wyoming saw he was going after the gray.
Wyoming leaped up and grabbed the reins of the palomino and held him tight. Carefully and slowly, with the animal between himself and Steel, he worked the carbine out of the boot and unlaced the canteen from the saddlehorn.
The stallion remained motionless. Wyoming lay back down and sighted down on the gray, waiting for what he knew would be Steel's sudden appearance beside the animal for his own rifle.
Steel fired again; he had gotten the carbine. Wyoming brought up the long-barreled gun and propped himself up on an elbow. He sighted down on the position of the last shot and fired. He fired again. There was movement across the road in the brush as if a man were running.
Wyoming took careful aim and fired at the saddlehorn of the gray. The bullet tore the point apart and startled the gray. The horse broke free, and Wyoming saw that Steel had slipped up behind a protecting rock.
There was a shot from behind that rock now. It took Wyoming's hat off and he could feel the hot warm blood oozing out of his scalp and sliding down the side of his face.
He turned to the stallion and worked his way back into some heavy brush on the opposite side of the animal, and pulled down the saddlebags that held his spare shells. The stallion pawed the ground and danced away just as Wyoming pulled the last leather thong free and the saddlebags slipped into the dust beside him.
There was a sharp report, and Wyoming looked up to see that Steel had shot the saddlehorn off of the palomino. The golden horse reared back and broke free. He beat a trail of high dust and did not stop until Wyoming lost sight of him in the haze of the shimmering heat that lay heavy on the land.
And then, suddenly the sun dropped and the flat hard light of dusk was on them.
Wyoming inched forward recklessly. He wasn't going to let Steel get away in the dark if he could help it.
He scrambled to the side of the road and held himself down trying to figure out where Steel was, when he heard the distant dragging of footsteps.
He jumped up. Steel was a thousand yards away and running low and fast through the sand toward the gray. Wyoming leaped up and began to run down the road, barely able to see the dark figure in the sudden night.
He had the advantage of being on the open road and ran parallel to Steel. He dropped to one knee when he saw the man was heading for the gray that stood a thousand yards away. He fired. He hated to do it, but there was no way of stopping the man. He saw the gray rear back and whinny with pain, and then the animal fell backward in the sand and began to scream and kick.
Wyoming ran forward, closing in. His mouth was parched and his hands were sweating. He held the carbine tightly across his chest ready to bring it around.
He heard a shot and knew that Steel had put the gray out of its pain. Now Wyoming relaxed. There was no escape. He would get Arky Steel here on the Laredo road, if not tonight, then tomorrow. But now there was no place left for the man to run.
Wyoming moved over into the brush on Steel's side of the road and dropped to his knees. He took a drink of water from the canteen, then emptied the saddlebags of the spare shells, loaded the Colt and the carbine and sat down to wait. . . .
Wyoming moved once during the night, when he thought he heard Steel moving, but it was only a rabbit and he settled back down again. Even if the man tried to run in the darkness, he would get him. He had water and plenty of shells. He would wait his man out until dawn.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
At dawn, Wyoming saw the stallion come back within -half a mile and come to a standstill. He was sorry that the animal had to keep the gear on, and especially the bit, but there was nothing he could do.
"Steel!" he called. He heard his voice echo flatly across the country. "You can't run, and there's no place to hide, Steel!"
He waited, his eyes searching the brush ahead of him.
He inched forward in the dim light, moving on his stomach and stopping to examine each bush of sage large enough to hide a man. The vultures began to circle over the dead gray. They wheeled in huge high circles, spiraling lower and lower to the ground before dropping on the dead horse.
Wyoming pushed his way to a huge rock and waited. On the other side was the gray, and beyond there was a flat stretch.
He eased around the side of the rock, the Colt in his hand, and looked out. The gray was covered with the huge ugly birds, and to the south, heading toward the stallion, Wyoming saw Steel running straight up and without fear.
Wyoming jerked up and began running after him. He hit the road and ran straight down a
s far as he could, taking advantage of the clear trail, and then cut into the brush and the flat land that stretched for miles on either side. He ran hard, his boots sinking into the soft sand. Wyoming saw that Steel was gaining on him. In another few hundred yards Steel would reach the stallion.
He ran, pushing himself harder and harder, falling several times, scratching his face and bruising his knees and elbows on the small stones when he fell, gun up to protect it from the grit.
He saw Steel rush to the side of the stallion and grab for the reins.
Wyoming dropped to a knee and fired rapidly. He hated to shoot the big horse that had served him so well, but there was no way to prevent Steel from getting away.
Five, six, seven shots cracked through the air. Steel stopped and ducked out of sight as Wyoming poured the lead after him.
The range was too great, and the stallion was not disturbed by the shots. He had missed with every shot, but it had been enough to make Steel drop into the brush and prevent him from gaining the stallion and turning on him. The man with a horse, Wyoming knew, was the man that would survive.
The stallion moved away. It tossed its head, annoyed with the bit in its mouth and the all-night stand with the saddle on its back. It was nervous, and probably hungry, Wyoming thought as he watched the horse shy away from what he knew was Steel's crawling attempt to get to the animal.
The stallion retreated again, breaking away from the spot near Steel, and ran hard for a mile before coming to a stop and turning to look back over his trail.
Wyoming eased forward again in the sand. The sun was showing over the eastern ridges now, and he could see well. Behind him, a mile or so away, he heard the rattle and snap and hiyiii! of the freighters moving along the road, getting an early start in their haul to San Antonio.
Suddenly Steel began to fire. He had worked his way closer to Wyoming and the dirt kicked up several feet in front of the cowboy. Wyoming dropped down and held his position. He squeezed off a few shots and then moved in a roundabout way to his left, hoping to come up onto Steel from his flank.
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