They had Marta’s money, and now they wanted her ranch, and probably her.
He wondered if Tomason had thought of Creet and the girl. With his shrewd eyes, Brett had long been aware of Creet’s desire for the girl, and he had watched the man speculatively appraising Marta on more than one occasion. Tomason, for all his gun skill, was no match for Creet.
The outlaw was a cold-blooded killer, and he was a deadly hand with a six-gun. Only Brett Larane might match him in gunplay, and of that fact only two men were aware—Larane himself, and Joe Creet.
* * *
CREET KNEW THAT Larane had a reputation in Hays and Tascosa, a fact unknown to Tomason or to any of the others in the Valley of the Sun country or the Saxon Hills. Larane had backed down the Catfish Kid on two occasions, and Jesse Evans, Billy the Kid’s former pal and later enemy, had backed down for him. In that tough and hard-bitten crowd that included Hendry Brown, Frank Valley, and Dave Rudabaugh, Brett Larane had been left strictly alone.
Two things he must do now. He must at all costs recover the money for Marta, and he must kill Joe Creet and Gay Tomason.
Had he been a well man, he might have handled the situation without gunfire. But in his present shape, with no knowledge of how long he would be around, he dared take no chances. If he did not live, he must be sure that the others died. And he must be sure that if he was to be sick or crippled, none of the three were around to take advantage of his and the girl’s helplessness.
He knew the risk he was taking, but at all costs he had to have water. He had ridden for hours now without a drink, and the water earlier had scarcely been sufficient to refresh him after his long thirst. Moreover, he must know who was at the ranch, and what was happening there.
Leaving the buckskin tethered in the aspens, he moved carefully toward the ranch house.
At the spring he lowered himself to the ground and drank long and deeply. Lifting his head, he studied the situation with care, then turned toward the bunkhouse. He must first know who was on the grounds. At a window, flattened against the side of the building, he glanced within.
Joe Creet was hunched over the table, and Indian Frank sat on the edge of a bunk. Gay Tomason was tipped back against the wall in a chair. “What I say”—Tomason was speaking—“is we split the money now. Then you hombres take a good-sized herd and leave me here. That’s fair enough.”
Creet’s dry chuckle was a warning to Brett Larane, who knew his man, but Gay saw nothing in it. “Sure, that’s fair enough,” Joe agreed, “in fact, that’s more than fair. But who wants to be fair?”
Tomason’s smile faded. “Well, let’s have your idea, then!” he demanded sharply. “I’ve stated my case.”
“My idea?” Creet chuckled again, and his small black eyes were pinned on Tomason with contempt. “I want the money, and the girl.”
Tomason’s chair legs hit the floor, his face was dark with angry blood. “She’s mine!” he said furiously. “She’s in love with me, and she wants me! She doesn’t enter into this!”
“Doesn’t she?” Creet sneered. “I say she does. I’d kill”—he stared at Tomason—“for a woman like that as quick as for money. I’d even kill you, Gay.”
Their eyes held, and Brett watched, fascinated. He saw what was in Creet’s mind, and he could sense the evil triumph within the man at this moment. Joe Creet liked nothing and hated everything. He was a man eaten by a cancer of jealousy and hatred, and now he was savoring his triumph over the handsome Gay Tomason.
“So? That’s the way it is?” Larane knew what Tomason was going to do. The man did have courage, of a kind, and now he laughed suddenly. “Why, I might have guessed you’d never play fair with any man, Joe! I might have known that as soon as I helped you put Brett out of the way, I would come next.
“I see things different, myself. I wouldn’t kill for any woman. You can have her. Now, if you like.”
Tomason chuckled as he finished speaking, and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Let’s forget her and split the money. If you insist on Marta, there’s no reason for me staying around.”
“Sure.” Joe Creet got up slowly, smiling with hard eyes. “I think that’s just what I’ll do. Go up an’ see her now.” He turned on his heel with a last sneering glance at Gay, and stepped toward the door.
It was a trap, but Tomason was too intent on his own subterfuge, for as Creet’s back turned to him Gay Tomason went for his gun and started to his feet in the same moment. And then Indian Frank buried his knife to the haft in the back of Tomason’s neck!
The big cowhand gasped, his mouth opening and closing. He tried to lift his gun. But at the grunt of Indian Frank as he drove home the knife, Creet wheeled like a cat and shattered Gay’s wrist with a sweeping blow of his gun barrel. Tomason’s gun crashed to the floor, and the cowhand stood swaying, then his knees buckled under him, and he went down. Deliberately, Creet kicked him in the stomach, then the face.
* * *
GOOD JOB,” CREET said, grinning at his crony. “Now we’ll have the money, and the girl.” He looked up at the Indian. “And I mean both of us. Let’s eat, and then we’ll go up.”
Carefully, Brett Larane eased away from the cabin wall. On cat feet he started for the house, and when he got to the door, he tried the knob. It was not locked. Opening it, he stepped in.
Marta heard the creak of the door and looked up. Her eyes went wide in startled horror. He lifted his finger to his lips. Then he got to the table and dropped into a chair. In gasping words, he told her of the shooting on the trail, of his own wounds, and of the murder of Gay Tomason.
His face was deathly pale, and he felt sick and empty. He tried holding his hands steady, and his lips stiffened as he felt them tremble. He could never hope to shoot accurately enough to kill both men before they got him. He needed time—time. And there was no time. They were coming now, in just a few minutes.
Yet there was a chance. If he could keep them in the cabin, prevent them from getting out…He looked up. “Where’s my rifle?” he asked hoarsely. With the rifle he could pin them down, hold them back, possibly kill them at a distance. Away from Marta.
“They took it, Brett. Creet came in with Gay, said there was a coyote he wanted to kill. There isn’t a gun in the house except the one you’re wearing.”
For money and a girl…they believed they had killed him, they knew they had killed Gay. They would stop at nothing, and they had been sure Marta had no weapons. The minutes fled, and he stared wildly from the girl to the window, trying desperately to think. Some way to stop them! There had to be a way! There just had to be!
His dwindling strength had mostly been dissipated on the long ride home. He knew, with an awful fear for Marta, that he could never get to the bunkhouse again. He doubted if he could cross the room. The sweat stood out on his face, and in the pale light he looked ghastly.
Slumped in the chair, his breath came in long gasps. His head throbbed, and the rat’s teeth of agony bit into his side. He tried to force his fevered mind to function, to wrest from it one idea, anything, that might help.
When Creet saw him there, he was going to shoot. The outlaw would give him no chance to plan, to think. Nor would he hesitate. Creet knew him too well. He would, at first glimpse, realize Brett Larane’s tragic weakness. There would be no second chance. Joe Creet must die before he cleared the doorstep, while he was stepping across it. Brett frowned against the pain, and his thoughts struggled with the problem.
He had no strength to lift a gun, no strength to hold a gun even, nor did he dare risk Marta’s life by allowing her to use his gun. There was in his mind no thought of fair play, for there was nothing fair about any of this. It was murder, ugly and brutal, that they planned.
They had not thought of fair play when they ambushed him. Creet hadn’t thought of fair play when he lured Gay Tomason into a chance at his back while Indian Frank sneaked up with his knife. If he was to save Marta and the ranch he had worked for, it must be now, and by any means.
> Then he saw the box. It was a narrow wooden box, quite heavy, with rope handles. He had seen such boxes often used for carrying bar gold. The handles were inch-thick rope in this case, the ends run through holes and held on the inside by knots.
“Marta,” he whispered hoarsely, “break the near end out of that box. Force the nails without noise, if you can.”
He sat at the table and stared as she worked, and in a few minutes she had the end removed. “Now, from the other end,” he whispered. “Cut the rope handle out and put the box on the table!”
Wondering, she did so, and looked at him curiously as he fumbled with the box to move it, the long way toward the door, the open end toward him. “Now,” he said softly, “my gun.”
Drawing it carefully from its worn holster, Marta placed it on the table beside him. Lifting the gun, he gripped the butt and pushed his arm and hand into the box, which was open on top. Marta, her eyes suddenly bright, caught his intention, and guided the muzzle of the barrel to one of the holes from which the rope had been taken. It was just large enough to take the muzzle of the six-gun.
“Now,” he said, looking up at her, “throw a cloth over it, like it was food or something, covered on the table.”
* * *
HIS HAND GRIPPING the butt on the gun, and the box covered by the cloth, Brett Larane sat facing the door, waiting. They would come, and they would come soon, and he had the gun fixed now, in position, pointed directly at the door. And he needed no strength to hold it ready for firing…but he had to get that first shot, while Joe Creet was in range, and he had to kill with that first shot. Afterward, Indian Frank might run off, or he might try to come through the door. If he came through the door, he, too, would die.
“Will you be all right, Brett?” Marta asked him gently.
He nodded, liking the feel of her hand on his shoulder. “Only, I hope they come…soon.”
She left him to put coffee on the stove, and his eyes strayed toward the door, knowing as well as she what little chance they had. He must make desperately sure of that first shot. Indian Frank was not dangerous without Creet, but the outlaw would be dangerous at any time.
She glanced from the window, but shook her head, and Brett sipped the coffee she offered him, a little at a time. His left hand trembled so, she had to hold the cup to his lips. He drank, then managed a few swallows of food.
They came silently and were scarcely heard. A quick grasp on his shoulder and Brett opened his eyes, aware for the first time that he had fallen asleep. His heart pounding, he gripped the gun butt and his finger slid through the trigger guard. And then the door opened.
It was Creet, but even as Brett Larane’s finger tightened on the trigger, Joe turned sidewise and motioned to Indian Frank. “Come in!” he said, and then his head swung toward the room.
For the first time he saw the man sitting across the table beyond the coal-oil lamp. He jumped as if shot, and his hand swept down for his gun, but at that instant, Indian Frank stepped into the doorway. Brett squeezed the trigger, and the concealed gun bellowed loud in the silent room.
Frank, caught in midstep, stopped dead still, then sprawled facedown in the doorway, and Joe Creet leaped aside. Brett’s second shot, booming hollowly, lost itself through the open door.
Creet, gun in hand, stared at him. “Well, I’m forever damned!” he said softly. “You’re a hard one to kill, Larane! A hard one! I’d have sworn you were dead back there, with blood all over you! And now you’ve got Frank…well, that saves me the trouble. I never figured on him sharing the money. I had plans for him.”
He looked at the table and the cloth-covered box. “Whatever you’ve got there, I don’t know,” he said, his eyes wary, “but you’d never be settin’ that way, your hand covered an’ all, if you could hold a gun. You’d never have missed the second shot you fired. Nor would you be settin’ there now. You’d have turned that gun on me.
“No, I reckon you’re not dead, but you’re not quite alive, either. You’re hurt bad.”
The outlaw’s face was saturnine, and his eyes were wicked with triumph. “Well, well! I’m glad to see you, Larane! Always did sort of spoil my fun, thinkin’ you wouldn’t be here to watch.”
Brett’s fingers tightened on the gun butt, trying to ease it out of the hole in the box, but it would not come loose, or his strength was too little to exert the necessary pull.
“Come over here!” Creet looked up at Marta. “Come over here and do what I tell you, or I’ll drill him right through the head.”
Marta Malone, transfixed with horror, stared from Creet’s tense, evil features to the poised gun in his hand. Then, as if walking in her sleep, she started to move toward him.
Brett Larane stared at Creet, too weak to lift a hand, helpless to prevent the outlaw from doing as he wished.
Suddenly, something clicked in his brain. It was a wild, desperate, impossible chance—but there was no other choice.
“Marta—!” he said, speaking as loudly as he could. “Think!”
“Shut up!” Creet snarled at him. “Shut up or I’ll brain you!”
“Think, Marta!” Brett begged. “Please think! Marta…!” His voice lifted as she drew near Creet. “Think—the door!”
As if he had spoken his thought, Marta understood, and with all her strength she hurled herself at the side of the gunman! Her weight hit him, and he staggered. His gun blasted a stab of flame, and a dish across the room crashed into bits as Joe Creet went staggering into the open doorway!
* * *
AS HE HIT the doorpost with his shoulder he ripped his next shot out, and the lamp beside Brett shattered into bits, splashing him with oil, and then his own gun bellowed, and the dark figure in the doorway jerked spasmodically. Brett triggered the gun again, and the outlaw screamed…then broke his scream off in a choking, rattling sound, drowned by Brett Larane’s last shot.
Joe Creet, hit three times, toppled forward and sprawled on his face outside the door. For a moment, in a deathly silence, they could hear the scratching of his fingers on the hard-packed earth beyond the step. Scratching, and then silence, a lonely shuddering silence in which Marta Malone clasped Brett Larane’s head against her breast and sobbed brokenly in relief and shock.
There was sunlight in his face when he opened his eyes, sunlight, but he liked it, enjoyed it.
He looked around, remembering Marta’s room, and seeing the sharp, bright, cleanliness of it, and the look of home about it.
The door opened as he lay there, enjoying the warmth and peace of it, and knowing it was early morning, and that he felt good.
The door opened, and Marta came in, her face bright when she saw he was awake. “Oh, Brett! You’re up at last! I thought you would never awaken! How do you feel?” She put her hand on his face. He caught it and held it, looking up at her. “Like I never wanted to leave!” he said, smiling. “But what happened?”
“Nothing, until the next morning. Then a man came out from Willow Springs to get some money I owed him, and he buried the bodies and then he went in and sent the doctor out. I found the money they had stolen in Joe Creet’s saddlebags in the bunkhouse.”
“Better not think about it,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow it will be an old story.”
“Tomorrow, Brett? Why, it’s already been more than two weeks! You’ve been awfully sick! Your side…the doctor said if it hadn’t had care right away, you would have died!”
“Well, I didn’t. Now we’ve got work to do. I’ll have to find a crew, and—”
“We’ve got a bunch of boys, Brett. The doctor hired them for me, four of them, Texas men who were heading back after a cattle drive. You’ll have a crew to boss when you can get around again!”
“And I suppose they are all flirting with you!” he said darkly. “I reckon it is time I got around!”
“No, they haven’t flirted—much. The doctor told them we were going to be married.”
“Oh, he did, did he? And what did you say?”
“
Why, what could I say? He was such a nice man, and had been so helpful, I just couldn’t have all those cowhands thinking he lied, could I?”
Brett Larane sank back against the pillow and grinned weakly. “You sure couldn’t!” he said. “You sure couldn’t!”
THAT SLASH SEVEN KID
* * *
JOHNNY LYLE RODE up to the bog camp at Seep Spring just before noon. Bert Ramsey, foreman of the Slash Seven outfit, glanced up and nodded briefly. Ramsey had troubles enough without having this brash youngster around.
“Say!” Johnny hooked a leg around the saddle horn. “Who’s this Hook Lacey?”
Ramsey stopped walking. “Hook Lacey,” he said, “is just about the toughest hombre around here, that’s all. He’s a rustler and a horse thief, and the fastest hand with a gun in this part of the country since Garrett shot Billy the Kid.”
“Ride alone?”
“Naw. He’s got him a gang nigh as mean as he is. Nobody wants any part of them.”
“You mean you let ’em get away with rustling? We’d never cotton to that back on the Nueces.”
Ramsey turned away irritably. “This ain’t the Nueces. If you want to be useful why don’t you go help Gar Mullins? The heel flies are driving cows into that quicksand faster’n he can drag ’em out.”
“Sure.” Johnny Lyle swung his leg back over the saddle. “Only I’d rather go after Lacey and his outfit.”
“What?” Ramsey turned on him. “Are you crazy? Those hombres, any one of ’em, would eat three like you for breakfast! If that bunch tackles us, we’ll fight, but we’ll not go huntin’ ’em!”
“You mean you don’t want me to.”
Ramsey was disgusted. What did this kid think he was doing, anyway? Like a fool kid, to make a big play in front of the hands, who were listening, to impress them how tough he was. Well, there was a way to stop that!
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