by Joe Millard
Then the handlers were driving Satan back. The youngster got his foot free and struggled to stand. He got as far as his knees and had to stop to let another wave of pain ease off. As he hung forward, his eyes fell on the broken end of the cinch strap. Unmistakably the strap had been cut halfway through with a sharp knife.
He made it the rest of the way to his feet, waved aside the hands who came running to help him and began to walk, bent over and holding his broken side. Someone had the good sense to run ahead and open the corral gate. He stumbled through, his lips set tight, making no reply to the bombardment of anxious questions.
He went to the bunkhouse, got his gun belt and holstered gun from its peg on the wall and managed to strap them on. He had to wait a long minute, clinging to the bunk to let another wave of pain subside. Then he stumbled back outside and toward the corral where the men were gathered in a knot.
They gaped at him as he pushed past to face Carvell.
"You—cut my—cinch—strap."
"Me?" Carvell blustered. "Now look here, kid, you better be careful, makin' crazy charges without no proof."
"I don't—need—proof. I know."
"So? What do you figger to do about it?"
"Kill you."
"You hear that?" Carvell said, his eyes shifting. "Me, with five notches on my gun, and he's gonna kill me."
At the word me his hand slapped down to the butt of his gun. He had it almost clear of the holster when the youngster drew and shot him through the heart. He stood, swaying, watching Carvell's collapse into the dust. Then his own gun slipped from his fingers and he fell in a heap.
One of the hands was sent to town for the sheriff. By the time the lawman arrived the injured youth had been revived and bandaged tightly enough to ease the worst of the pain. The sheriff questioned the witnesses, scribbled in a dog-eared notebook and tramped over.
"You're in the clear, kid. They all agreed he went for his gun first. But just don't make a habit of it." He squatted down to examine the body and suddenly stiffened. "Hey, does anybody know if this fellow had a knife scar right about here?" He indicated a path running from beneath his armpit to his breastbone.
The hands nodded vigorously. "He sure had, Sheriff, We all seen it plenty of times."
The sheriff climbed to his feet. "I thought there was something familiar about that ugly face. His name wasn't Carvell. It was Carver—Monk Carver. Kid, that little ruckus earned you a thousand-dollar reward. If you're able to set a saddle, you better ride in with me and let Doc Meeker bind them ribs up proper. Then you drop over to my office to sign the receipt and pick up the cash."
It proved to be his lucky day in another way. Satan had been too far away for his savage kick to do more than graze the ribs, cracking four ribs but not driving a broken one into the lung. A tight professional bandaging made him feel almost as good as new.
While the sheriff counted out the money and filled in the forms, he had prowled the room, studying the reward posters and mentally adding the bounties offered. The total made him purse his lips in a soundless whistle.
When the thousand dollars was counted into his hand, he stood for long moments, staring at the thick packet of notes and mentally comparing it with his ten-dollar-a-month wage from ranch labor. In those moments of decision, a ranch hand died and a bounty hunter was born...
The dream from start to finish was incredibly real—so real that he could hear himself gasping as the pain lanced through his rib cage. Every detail of the dream was exactly the way it had actually occurred long ago. Every detail, that is, except one.
After kicking him in the actual episode, the black horse, Satan, had not hung over him, snarling in a guttural Indian voice, "Wake up, goddam you! Wake up and take your medicine!"
He opened his eyes. It was not Satan (or was it?) hanging over him but Apachito, his face contorted with rage, his foot drawn back to deliver another savage kick. He was pointing his cocked pistol at the hunter's middle and the hand holding the gun trembled with the intensity of his fury. An outlaw standing at his shoulder was holding a lighted lantern.
The hunter sat up quickly to avoid another kick, then had to gasp and bend over, clutching his ribs. After a moment he realized that they were surrounded by Apachito's men, every one wearing his gun belt and holding his cocked pistol. Shadrach was also sitting up, with Lupo standing over him, the long-barreled pistol in his left hand, his own gun in his right.
"Get up!" Apachito panted. "Get up on your feet! You're so smart! But you weren't smart enough to remember I had four of my men posted to guard the tunnel and the road, were you?"
The bounty hunter struggled to his feet, suppressing a groan. The pain knifing through his ribs made his recent dream all the more vivid in his memory. Apachito leaned forward cautiously, snatched the hunter's gun from its holster under the poncho and jumped back out of reach. Lupo was prodding Shadrach up onto his feet.
"March!" Apachito snarled, gesturing with his gun. "You can sit in our warm, comfortable jail the rest of the night and in the morning we will have some interesting things for you to do."
"I'll just bet you have," the hunter said through clenched teeth.
They were roughly shoved through into the jail. The door slammed and the bolt grated into its socket. Apachito's mocking voice called, "Sweet dreams, amigos."
The room was a cube of inky blackness. The warmth and stench of tight-packed bodies still lingered in the air. Outside there was moonlight and a night breeze, but little of either found its way through the small, barred window. The hunter snapped a match to light on his thumbnail. Its feeble flare confirmed his remembrance of a room completely devoid of a single stick of furniture. He sank down on the hard-packed dirt floor with his back to the wall and Shadrach dropped down beside him.
"Well, genius, what now? You were full of bright ideas awhile back. Just one will do now if it will get us out of here before morning. When that devil says he has interesting things for us to do, he isn't talking about jobs. I hear one of his favorite sports is hoisting a man by his testacies, then jouncing him up and down until he tears loose and drops on his head."
"That sounds like fun," the hunter said sourly. "Maybe if you did less yammering and more thinking yourself, you'd contribute something besides goose-flesh to our problem. For whatever it's worth, Apachito was so busy crowing over his own smartness that he overlooked the extra gun I'd tucked into my waistband."
"The devil he did," Shadrach said. "And I kept turned from the lantern light so Lupo wouldn't see the gun I tucked into my belt. In addition, I've got two double-barreled derringers holstered in the tails of this coat, though they didn't do me any good this afternoon. I couldn't possibly reach them with my arms chained through that damn wagon wheel."
The bounty hunter whistled softly. "And I've got two—the one in my wrist holster and another in a clip under the tail of my poncho. We're practically walking arsenals, but not even all that combined fire power can unbolt this door."
"But I can," a voice said through the window in a loud whisper.
The pair shot to their feet, exclaiming simultaneously, "Dandy!"
"Shh! Shh! Shh!" Dandy whispered fiercely. "For God's sake, don't announce it to the whole world. As soon as they quiet down and go to sleep I'll unbolt the door and let you out. Right now they're sitting around a big fire, stuffing themselves and passing a bottle. Some of them are pretty drunk already so they should all be out cold before long. I'll be back as soon as it's safe."
"Why?" the bounty hunter demanded bluntly. "You cheated us out of a fortune and did your best to get us killed or sent to jail by putting that crooked sheriff on our trail. Why the sudden change of heart? What's your angle this time?"
"You don't trust anyone, do you?" Dandy whispered reproachfully. "You've saved my life over and over, and today you risked yours to spare Molly from torture. Can't you credit me with any decent impulses?"
"Oh, sure," the hunter said. "You're brimful of them, but you'd better clear out fo
r now or those decent impulses might all leak out through a bullet hole."
"Later, then," Dandy whispered, and was gone.
"Don't you trust Dandy at all?" Shadrach asked.
"Sure I trust him. Almost as far as I trust you."
CHAPTER 21
They settled down again with their backs to the wall to await deliverance. Suddenly the sounds of an altercation of some sort erupted outside. They jumped up and dived for the window.
The voice of Dandy Deever was complaining indignantly, "What the hell's the matter with you fellows, anyhow? Can't a man step into the woods to take a quiet leak for himself without you jumping all over him?"
Apachito's harsh voice barked something, but the words were indistinguishable. Moments later there was a scuffling of feet and angry voices outside the door. The bolt grated and the door of their prison opened far enough for a lighted lantern to be shoved through. After what appeared to be a silent inspection from the outer darkness, the door swung wide.
Two outlaws with cocked guns peered in. Between them, Lupo held a struggling, purple-faced Dandy with a huge arm crooked around his throat and a gun at his head. Behind them, Apachito stood grinning, gun in hand. Lupo released Dandy and gave him a shove that sent him stumbling halfway across the dirt floor.
Dandy recovered his balance and gaped at the other two prisoners with a fine show of astonishment.
"You two? What are you doing here? I thought..." He whirled back toward the door. "You promised I'd be as safe as in my mother's arms while I waited to collect the reward next week. You can't lock me in here with these two. They hate me because I returned the money they intended to steal. They'll kill me."
"I think not," Apachito said blandly. "But don't worry. If they do, we will kill them. But you will be out of there by sunrise. It is only that the night air is supposed to be bad for the health and we would not like you wandering around in it, getting sick. Tomorrow, and for many days to come, you will be very, very busy and we want you in the best of health."
"Busy?" Dandy bleated. "Busy doing what?"
"Why, busy putting on your entertainment. Men in our business do not get many chances to watch a circus. So you will put on a private performance for us every day until we return to Hangville. But since we are easily bored with the same old sights, you will make sure every performance is different and more exciting than the last."
"But—but, how can I do that when I've lost half my equipment and my star act? My trick coffin is lost, so I can't do that one. And you've got Nameless locked up here, so I don't have his gunnery act."
"We have your trick coffin, undamaged," Apachito said. "It will be brought in tomorrow morning. As for the gunnery act, we have a new and more exciting one to replace it."
"What is that?" Dandy asked cautiously.
"Each performance, at the end of your coffin trick, we will hang someone." He chuckled. "If the show is dull, it can be one of your people. Next week, if you have not collected the reward money and your show is boring us, we will hang you."
The lantern retreated, the door slammed and the bolt slid home. In the inky blackness that followed, Dandy's voice had a distinct quaver.
"Did you hear that? The monster intends to hang me if he doesn't find the show exciting enough."
"Relax, Dandy," the hunter said. "It couldn't happen to a more deserving scoundrel."
They sat on the hard dirt floor, their backs to the wall, and glumly contemplated a brief and highly unpleasant future. The hunter puffed on one of his cigarros and Shadrach on his pipe. Dandy gnawed on his nails. The night chill was finally penetrating into the cabin, but from time to time he found it necessary to mop away gathering perspiration.
Outside the voices of the outlaws died away and ended in the slam of cabin doors as they stumbled or reeled to their bunks. Silence descended on the camp except for the occasional shuffle of footsteps outside their window. Apachito, obviously taking no chances of another reversal of control, had posted a guard to keep watch on the jail.
The bounty hunter mentally timed the passings of the guard and found that the intervals varied widely. Clearly he was not pacing any regular beat but simply making a superficial inspection any time the mood struck him. The hunter scrambled to his feet and went to the barred window. Outside, sufficient moonlight filtered down through the trees to lighten the gloom.
Presently he heard the shuffling steps again, approaching from the front of the jail. A shadowy figure came around the corner, a blanket draped around his shoulders to ward off the night's sharp chill. Passing the window he prudently veered well out, beyond the reach of anyone inside. At the rear of the cabin he stood for several moments, listening, then turned and moved back toward the front, again giving the window a wide berth. He turned the corner and the steps died away.
The hunter heaved a deep sigh of frustration and turned to go back to his place against the wall. From the window at his back came a soft hiss. He whirled around.
The voice of Laura or Cora whispered, "I have to hurry. He may decide to come back at any moment. Is Dandy all right?"
"I'm fine, honey," Dandy whispered at the hunter's elbow. "But what on earth are you doing here?"
"Waiting until it's safe to unbolt your door and let you all out. He's got a warm fire out in front and between times he sits there, swigging from a bottle of whiskey. He always sits facing the door, but any minute now he'll get up and go to his bunk."
"How do you know?" the hunter demanded.
She giggled. "Because I'm a beast. The last time he left the fire to make his inspection round, I slipped over and poured out most of his whiskey on the ground. When he discovers the bottle's empty, he's almost certain to go back to his bunk for a fresh one. Shh! He's coming again. I'll be back."
She darted away and disappeared in the deep shadows under the trees. In a moment the guard came shuffling around the corner to repeat his routine. Once more, both going and returning, he veered well out away from the window. The bounty hunter swore under his breath.
Minutes passed before the twin reappeared at the window. This time she came from the front of the cabin.
"Damn," she whispered. "I wasted his whiskey for nothing. He drained the bottle, glared at it and threw it away. Now he keeps looking toward the bunkhouse as if he wanted to go for another but doesn't dare leave his post. They're all frightened to death of that awful Apachito."
"I've got a gun," the hunter whispered. "If just once he'd forget to swing wide of this window, I could cold-deck him and lay him out long enough for us to make a getaway."
"If that's all it takes, I think it can be arranged. Be ready for ac—Shh! Here he comes again. Get set."
She vanished a moment before the guard reappeared around the front corner and plodded to the rear, skirting the window. He stopped to listen at a point just beyond the hunter's line of vision. Suddenly the waiting three heard him give a yelp of alarm, followed by the voice of the twin cooing indistinguishable words.
There was a long murmur of conversation, then the guard reappeared, walking close to the wall. The twin was huddled in the crook of his left arm under the blanket.
She was cooing, "...warm by your fire, we can slip back in the dark and have some fun, if you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean, baby," the guard panted. He seemed to be having difficulty with his breathing.
The bounty hunter had his gun out and gripped by the barrel. He rested his elbow on the window sill, between the bars, holding the gun with the butt outward. The pair drew abreast of the window, the guard too preoccupied for caution.
The hunter's arm whipped downward. There was a hollow thock! and the guard went down on his face. The twin knelt, then scrambled up again.
"I've got his gun. That was beautifully done, Nameless. I'll meet you at the door."
"Make it fast," the hunter said. "I couldn't get enough leverage to really bust his skull open."
A moment later the door swung open and they crowded out. Dandy s
eized his daughter in a bear hug. The hunter dived around the corner of the cabin. There was another, louder, thock and he came back, holstering his gun.
"There's no sense in letting him wake up and spoil a family reunion, but that doesn't mean we've got all night to fool around. Come on, Dandy. We'd better head for the tall timber and let your daughter scamper back to her bed before Apachito discovers we've been sprung."
Dandy disengaged himself and straightened to his fullest height. He shook his head firmly.
"I—I can't run off and abandon Molly and the girls to the mercies of these brutes. I'm going to stay and face whatever penalties they decide to mete out to me. You fellows go along and good luck to you."