Steel had the same idea and began to move to his right. They were inching closer and closer.
"I'm going to make you die slow, cowboy, for killing my horse." Steel yelled out into the bright morning.
Wyoming remained silent. He kept his eves open and his ears tuned for the slightest rustle in the brush.
There was a movement to his right, deep in the grass. He snapped off a shot with the Colt and saw a buck rabbit jerk straight up in the air and fall back down again.
Steel fired quickly, several shots kicking up dust and taking hunks of the brush away from Wyoming's protection. And then a hot searing pain burned on Wyoming's left upper arm. A bullet had taken out a solid inch of flesh from the shoulder muscle. He groaned involuntarily and Steel continued to fire.
After the initial shock of the wound passed and the pain began to settle in, Wyoming gritted his teeth and thought no more about it. He bound it up tightly with his neckerchief, happy that it had not been an inch closer, where it would have shattered the bone.
Steel was running—but running away. Wyoming had not noticed, but several men on horseback were loping in from the road to investigate the shooting.
"Stay back!" Wyoming called to them. "This is a private fight!" He fired at the feet of the horses of the advancing riders and saw the men pull back sharply on the leather.
Steel was up and running low now, toward the men on horseback.
The men hesitated, seeing Steel run toward them and then, without waiting another second, turned their ponies around and beat it back to the Laredo road.
Wyoming jumped up and fired after Steel. He saw the man's hat fly off and then the dark-suited figure fell to the ground.
He advanced slowly, ready, his face streaked with blood and dirt and sweat, his clothes grimy from crawling around in the dry.
A hundred yards away, Steel rolled over and emptied his Colt at Wyoming.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Wyoming felt the bullet enter his leg and pass clean through. He fell hard on his face in the dust and could not move for a moment.
He brought up the carbine painfully and leveled it. He could hardly see. His vision danced before him and the vague outlines of the bush he had fallen into, though right before his eyes, seemed to be a hundred yards away.
Steel didn't move. He lay still and waited. Wyoming fired, not aiming his gun, to let the other know that he was still alive. He had to have time to get used to the pain.
Steel jumped up and scrambled through the brush. Wyoming grinned, setting his teeth on edge against the pain in his leg. It was, he saw, even in his pain, the way men like Steel were. He had Wyoming down, and the opportunity to finish him off was at hand. But the warning shot sent the man running.
Wyoming closed his eyes because it seemed to help if he shut out the bright yellow-blue sky. The ache throbbed through his whole left side, sending spasms of pain up and down his side. He opened his eyes and tried to see. Steel was running toward a low pile of dead rock.
Wyoming closed his eyes and dropped the carbine. He slipped his hand down to his leg and felt tenderly around the wound.
With more pure grit than he thought he had, he pulled himself upright and off the brush. He looked at the leg and slowly, carefully unscrewed the cap of the canteen and poured water onto the leg to remove the dirt. It was a clean hole, about as big as his thumb and right through the fleshy part of the thigh muscle.
He removed the neckerchief from his arm and tied it tightly around the wounded leg. He poured a little more water on the leg and then carefully replaced the canteen cap.
He tried to stand up, fell back into the dust with a hard fall and lay there, staring into the sun, his vision dancing.
He gritted his teeth and pushed himself up. He pulled the carbine over and used it as a support and heaved himself upright. He shook his head, in an attempt to clear his vision. He wiped his eyes with his free hand and squinted into the sun-baked dry. Dimly, he saw the figure of Steel running toward the rocks.
Wyoming took a deep breath, jerked the carbine upright and across his chest and swung the bad leg forward. He fell. He got up and tried again. This time he took a step. He took another and fell again, but he was going to get up.
He got up. He took a drink from the canteen and poured some of the water into his palm and wiped his face.
He stepped off again and this time he felt the leg steady under him. He took another step, and another. He didn't fall this time until he had walked a hundred yards.
He got up and tried again. He loosened the neckerchief around his leg and felt the blood spurt in a fresh throb of pain, but he did not fall. He retied the rag and stepped forward. The pain did not lessen. Wyoming just grew accustomed to it. He learned how to walk on the leg even though he could not always feel it under him. He walked another hundred yards and stopped to rest. His vision began to clear, and it was not as far to the ramble of rocks as he had thought. He moved on again, swinging the leg out awkwardly, but managing to stay on it. He kept squinting into the distance, studying the lay of the rocks, walking upright and straight, the carbine held tightly across his chest.
He moved steadily forward toward the rocks.
At noon the pain had stopped and the leg was numb. He had worked his way into the rocks and they had more or less settled down behind good defenses for a duel. Wyoming lay behind a long flat rock, his canteen and shells beside him. A hundred yards to one side, Steel had settled in a boxed pit. He couldn't get out and it was impossible for Wyoming to get any closer.
He saw the stallion lope slowly after him, shaking its head trying to throw the bit, but not fighting too hard yet. He wondered about the horse getting water.
"You better get out of here with that leg of yours, cowboy !" Steel shouted. "If I don't get you the fly rot will."
Wyoming answered with a singing shot from the carbine.
They exchanged shots and then settled down again. The sky was absolutely clear. Not a cloud could be seen from horizon to horizon.
His leg throbbed a little and in his cramped position, Wyoming moved slightly. Steel replied with a shot at once. The bullet kicked up rock dust.
Wyoming sipped his canteen water and moistened his eyes. His vision was good and clear now. The shock of the leg wound was nearly over. The pain had subsided to a steady, pulsating ache. He worried about the flies and tried to keep them away, but there wasn't much room to move around and fan. And he had to keep his attention on the box pit a little above him where Steel had made his stand.
In the distance Wyoming could see traffic on the Laredo Road which stopped now and then to listen to the shots that sang out over the dry, and then moved on. Several riders came off the road and listened and watched and then went on. There was no use in getting into another man's fight; no telling who was right or wrong, and no sense in finding out. The horses drifted on and the wagons lifted high dust in the afternoon sun.
They exchanged a few shots when Steel had tried to get out of the box pit as the sun dropped to the west and burned down on him. Wyoming had fought the eastern sun all morning and now had the sun to his back. He glanced back at the big red disk that was falling away rapidly beyond the flat dry country and thought about the coming night.
"You got any water, Steel?" he called. "Sure. Want some, cowboy?"
"Better save it. I'm going to stay right here. It's going to be hotter'n hell tomorrow. See how red that sky is?"
"You'll be dead tomorrow, cowboy, and I'll be drinking French wine in Gigi Sanoui's," Steel replied.
"You have to kill me first," Wyoming said.
"If that leg of yours don't freeze up stiff tonight, then I'll watch you blow your own brains out from the pain tomorrow when it heats up, and that fly rot begins to eat away at the nerves."
"You want to have a showdown?" Wyoming asked cautiously.
"Why should I?" Steel asked. "All I got to do is wait you out, cowboy, and I'm on my way to San Tone."
"I'm going to kill you, Steel.
"
"No you ain't. I'm going to live a long life."
"Tomorrow is your day, Steel. I'll get you tomorrow for sure."
"You won't be alive tomorrow. I'll slip out of here tonight and if I can't get that horse of yours, I'll take one down on the road. You'll be sitting down there waiting for me to show up and I'll be long gone. But you won't know if I'm gone or not, cowboy, 'cause I ain't talking to you no more. You going to sit down there and wonder if I'm really gone or playing possum. And you never know."
"You're just full of hot air, Steel. Why don't you come out and have it out?" Silence. "Steel?" Silence. So he was going to play his game, Wyoming thought.
He settled back down easily and sipped the water. The sun was gone now, and only the streaks of great red shafts filled the skies south of San Antonio.
At what Wyoming judged to be midnight, he began to get a chill. His teeth rattled against each other and he could not stop them. He pulled himself up tighter against the rock; a little of the day's heat remained in the stone, but it was not enough.
His leg was so stiff he could hardly move it now, and he couldn't bend the knee at all. His left arm ached and throbbed in a sudden spasm of violence and he became aware of his parched, cracked lips. His head ached from the bullet creasing he took early in the day. He felt the wound gingerly—another half inch and he would have been out of it.
There was a noise below him and in the dim starlight the moon had risen shallowly, he saw the stallion still hanging around the edge of the rock bramble. He wished there was some way he could get to the horse and at least remove the bit, but there was no use even thinking about it.
He turned his attention back to the box pit where Steel was—or was he?
Several times early in the evening when the pain was violent, Wyoming had jerked awake, not sure if he had been asleep or not.
He brought the rifle up and aimed at a black spot on the edge of the rock pit where Steel had been hiding. He squeezed off a shot—listened to the report echo across the dark land, and then heard the unmistakable sounds of a man gasping for breath.
"I hit you, Steel!" he said.
Silence.
"I got you!" Wyoming cried triumphantly. "Is it bad? Does it hurt much? You're only starting to get used to the pain. I've already learned how to live with mine. And you got the chill of the night to go through."
Silence.
Wyoming almost laughed, but caught himself in time. Take it easy, he told himself. Listen to him. He might get desperate and try something.
And while Wyoming was thinking it, Steel moved out of his pit, rocks slipping down into the dust around Wyoming's position.
Wyoming waited. He brought up the carbine and aimed at the middle of the black shadow that was moving down on him.
He fired, but nothing happened. The carbine was empty.
Steel was holding his left hand down by his side. Blood streamed out of a deep chest wound not far from the heart. He was spitting blood. But he held a Colt high and hard in his right hand. He began to fire. Steadily, and with precision as he moved down on Wyoming. He was getting closer.
Wyoming hunched down in back of the flat rock and waited. He pulled his Colt, and then remembered he had used it earlier and was not sure if he had reloaded. Steel was close on him now. He could not take a chance to see if he was loaded or not.
He pulled the Colt around and fired. He had half expected the gun to be empty and was a little off with his aim. He saw Steel jerk sideways, and heard the rattle of the man's gun dropping to the rocks. Both arms hung by his side, blood streaming down his sleeves.
Wyoming stepped out. Dragging the dead leg in back of him, he faced Steel. "This is for Curly," he said quietly, and shot Arky Steel between the eyes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It took him until daybreak to sooth the stallion so that he could get a hold on the reins. The animal was breathing hard. He needed water. Wyoming led him back into the rocks and used Steel's hat as a drinking vessel. He poured all the water left in the canteen into the hat and removed the bit and let the horse drink freely.
Then he let the animal graze on bunchgrass nearby for an hour while he sat on the rock and waited for the sun to come up and take the chill out of his bones.
When the sun broke free, he hobbled over to the stallion and put the bit back in his mouth and pulled the animal up into the rocks, and managed to get Steel's body jack-knifed across the palomino's haunches. He pulled himself into the saddle, collected the dead man's two Colts and carbine and moved the pony down out of the rocks. He let his leg swing free of the stirrup, moving easily, avoiding the road until he came onto it at an angle, cutting straight for San Antonio.
He stopped at the same adobe house as he had on the way out and let the stallion oat up and drink his fill. He ate a little chili and beans, drank coffee and cleaned out the leg and arm wounds. The Mexican family watched him from the edge of the yard, their eyes straying to the dead man across the back of the stallion.
"Pardon, señor, but what are you going to do with the dead one, eh?" the man asked, coming up to Wyoming.
Wyoming jerked up straight and looked into the soft brown eyes of the man. "I don't know," he replied. "I don't know why I brought him along."
"Does he have a family?"
"Nobody."
"It is not good to carry a dead man in this country, señor."
Wyoming nodded. He hobbled over to the stallion and looked at the glassy-eyed, dead figure of Steel. He nodded. "You're right. I'll bury him."
"I will help you, sefior."
They buried Arky Steel in a shallow grave, with boots on and eyes open. Wyoming pulled himself into the saddle, gave the Mexican a handful of silver and rode on for San Antonio.
It was over. There wasn't anything now. He had promised Curly, and he had kept his promise. He did not notice the strange looks of the riders that passed him. He hadn't washed and his blood-streaked face and dusty clothes, the bloody trouser legs and the bloodier shirt from the arm wound, made him an awful sight. He moved on, thinking about Curly, Tinker Flynn and the three farmers in Dodge City; of Pritchard's ramrod and the two hands that had trailed after Steel.
He rode right through sunset without being aware that it was dark. He didn't even notice that he was in San Antonio.
San Antonio already knew about the gun fight. Those who had seen Wyoming leave town matched stories with those who had heard the gunfire off the Laredo Road. The odds were two to one on Steel, who had the advantage of a local reputation. But there was plenty of Wyoming money from those who had seen him pistol-whip Gigi Sanoui and better yet, had outdrawn and out-talked the sheriff.
He rode down the middle of the street, the stallion stepping slowly and carefully avoiding the tangle of carriages and broadwheelers. The men lined the streets and watched the big cowboy on the golden horse ride back into San Antonio looking neither right nor left. They saw the blood and they saw the double set of guns and the spare carbine. All of it attested to the stories brought into town by the travelers. There had been a hell of a fight on the dry south of San Antonio.
Wyoming wheeled the big stallion into the rack before Gigi Sanoui's restaurant. The Frenchman came through the door and stood for a moment rocking back and forth on his heels, a cigar clamped between his teeth, studying Wyoming. "Is he dead?" he asked quietly.
The men on the street waited for Wyoming's answer.
The big cowboy did not reply. Slowly he pulled the spare carbine from the boot and threw it into the dust. Then he threw both of Steel's Colts down beside it.
Wyoming looked around at the faces. "Anybody here friends of his that want to make something of it?" he asked.
He turned slowly and looked every man in the circle in the eye, his body hard and tense in the saddle.
No one moved.
Wyoming nodded to Gigi Sanoui. "Luck to you," he said quietly, and turned the stallion around and threaded his way through the crowd that parted before him. He rode slowly, bac
k straight, left leg dangling from the stirrup, into the darkness of the street.
The crowd drifted away. The carbine and the guns were not touched. They were left in the mud before Gigi Sanoui's restaurant until the rains came and covered them with mud, rusting the metal. And finally they were kicked away by the hoofs of passing wagon teams.
THE END
of a Gold Medal Original by Richard Telfair
Wyoming Jones Page 11