“I imagine that li’l thought’s been goin’ around in Shiloh’s noddle,” agreed Sudden. “I’ll just have to do my best to talk him out of it.” The frosty smile on his lips brought an answering grin to Rusty’s face. The boy’s eyes dropped for a moment to the smooth and deadly butts of the tied-down six-guns in their polished holsters. They shone dully in the faint starlight.
“If anyone can do it,” Rusty thought, “yo’re the one, Jim. I’m bettin’ yo’re square, an’ I’m playin’ it accordin’.” Thus committed in his own mind, he let his horse slow until he was once more alongside Barbara’s. She smiled as he turned to tell her what he had just heard.
Shiloh, too was talking guardedly to Quincy, with Tucson riding nearby listening. A plan of dastardly dimensions was forming in Shiloh Platt’s brain, and it contained all the ingredients for the revenge his slighted pride cried out for. He had begun planning the moment Sudden had mentioned his intention of heading for Cochise. Shiloh had no intention of going anywhere near the military, who wished to discuss with him certain dealings with reservation Indians which had resulted in Shiloh Platt receiving gold, and the hapless Pimas tobacco-colored water which he had told them was whisky, Quincy, he knew could hardly dare show his face on a military establishment ... his mind busily wove a spider web of murder and deceit, discarding this eventuality, considering that.
“Once we get clear o’ the desert we’re sunk,” he told his companions. “Mister Sudden aims to run for Fort Cochise, knowin’ we can’t show our faces there. That bein’ the case he figgers to swindle us out o’ the reward money, an’ hightail it afore we can ketch up with him. Well,” he snarled, “I ain’t lettin’ him.”
“How yu aimin’ to stop him, Shiloh?” Quincy asked.
“I got an idea, don’t yu worry,” the half-breed hissed. He glanced over his shoulder. Tucson had fallen back out of earshot. “We get rid o’ that stupid ox at the same time,” he gloated. I’ll teach him to interfere in what don’t concern him.”
“So,” breathed Quincy. “We get rid o’ Sudden an’ Tucson. What then?”
“We change our route,” Shiloh told him with a cunning grin. “Swing west, head across the desert an’ come out right above—”
“Wilderness!” exclaimed Quincy. “My Gawd, o’ course!” He smiled, silently evil in the darkness. “Shiloh, yo’re a genius. Wilderness, o’ course! No sheriff, no law, no interference. We hole up thar in peace until the ol’ fool coughs up the mazuma, an’ we’re safe as ticks in a saddle-blanket.”
Shiloh nodded. The town of Wilderness was about twenty miles due north of Tucson; it had become the gathering-place for every scalphunter, owlhoot, desperado and murderer in the south-west. Any man who dared not show his face in Tucson gravitated to Wilderness, where there was no law, either Federal or Territorial. The outlaws policed the tiny mountain town themselves, and any man who entered it knew well that the penalty of jeopardizing the immunity of Wilderness was death. The retribution which the lawless visit upon their wayward own is far harsher than any other.
“Once we get there,” Shiloh said. “We send word to the Davis gal’s father, an’ sit an’ wait, like yu said, snug as bugs in a bedroll.”
“What about the kid?” Quincy wanted to know.
“Bah, he’s sweet on the girl hisself,” Shiloh sneered. “We can use him for a messenger boy – if he gets to Wilderness alive.” The emphasis upon the last words was deadly and intent; case-hardened to violence though he was, Quincy shuddered at the cold-blooded manner in which his companion spoke of killing the boy.
“Takin’ Green ain’t goin’ to be easy,” he warned Shiloh. “He’s too damn fast with them guns o’ his!”
“Exackly,” said Shiloh with an evil smile. “So we take him without guns. Then we’ll see how long Mister Sudden lasts!”
“How yu figgerin’ to do that?”
“I ain’t,” was Shiloh’s reply. “Tucson is.”
“Tucson?” Quincy frowned in bewilderment. “He backed Sudden afore. How—”
“Tucson’ll do it,” Shiloh assured him. “Yu leave everythin’ to me.”
And with this dark promise, Quincy had to be content. He let his horse fall back, and Shiloh rode on alone, his mind tortuously following the possibilities of his loose-knit plan. Whichever way things worked out, one thing he knew for certain: at the end of it, the girl would be his. His mongrel blood thirsted for her cool beauty, and he seethed to have her in his power, begging for mercy, for a kind word. He would take her, break her; only then he would return her to her father.
They made camp that night in a declivity deep in the heart of the badlands, about half a mile from the edge of the desert itself. The sun had been strong throughout the day, and the rocks still retained its warmth these many hours later. On the morrow, they would head into the burning heart of the desert itself. Against the day, Sudden rationed the water stringently, as Shiloh had expected and hoped he would. When the cold food was prepared – they could not risk a fire – he passed Tucson his plate and in the darkness sprinkled it liberally with salt he had scraped up from a salt lick they had passed during their ride. The meat itself was heavily salted. By morning, the big man would have a monstrous thirst. Shiloh Platt rolled into his blankets with a satisfied grin on his lupine face.
They were awake before sun-up, having slept only a few hours. Once again, Shiloh made a point of grumbling about the rationing of the water.
“If we aim to get across that desert at all, we gotta save every drop o’ water,’ Sudden told him. “The hosses’ll need more ’n we will: yu know it as well as I do, so don’t act up!”
“Hell, we ain’t that short,” Quincy complained, acting upon Shiloh’s nodded cue. “Yu could give us another cupful at least.”
“No more water, an’ that’s final.”
“It’s all right for yu, Sudden,” Shiloh sneered. “What about pore Tucson here? He’s a big feller. He needs more water ’n us others.”
“Got a Gawd-awful thirst on me fer shore,” Tucson admitted.
“Sorry, Tucson,” Sudden said with a shake of the head. “Yu get the same as everyone else.”
“Ah, give the pore ox a break, Sudden,” wheedled Quincy. “Go on, Tucson, get yoreself another swig o’ water.”
“Shore could use another drink,” Tucson mumbled, half rising.
“Don’t yu try it, Tucson!” Sudden’s voice had gone cold and menacing, but Tucson lumbered to his feet.
“Shucks, Green,” he protested. “One more cupful ain’t goin’ to make that much difference—”
“Go on, go on!” Shiloh rawhided the giant “Yu ain’t afeared o’ him, are yu?”
Tucson shook his head, his dry tongue rasping across his lips. He wanted a drink. The idea was firmly in his head now. He had to have it. Shiloh was right. He was a bigger man than most: he needed more liquid. This thirst was torturing him. What right had Green to stop him, anyway?
“I ain’t afeared o’ nobody,” Tucson rumbled.
“Tucson!” Sudden’s guns were in his hands in one smooth, eye-baffling movement, leveled rock-steady at the giant’s barrel chest. Then Quincy’s laugh broke the swift silence.
“Get yore water, Tucson,” he told the big man. “If’n Sudden thar pulls trigger, every ’pache back within forty miles’ll kill his pony gettin’ here.”
Tucson looked at Sudden again, and took a step forward.
“I don’t wanna hurt yu, Green,” he said.
“What I said still goes, Tucson,” Sudden told him quietly. “Stay back.”
“I got to get me some water, Green!” burst out Tucson. “I gotta.”
“No dice, Tucson. Yu got to move me first’
“Yu better get out o’ my way,” Tucson said doggedly.
Sudden was puzzled by the man’s persistence. Tucson was not a quick thinker, but only last night he had shown signs of understanding fair play as well as any man. Now – it just didn’t make sense. The conviction deepened in his mind t
hat Shiloh Platt had engineered this confrontation, but just how he could not now establish. The half-breed’s goading had pushed Tucson to this point, and now the idea was firmly fixed in the huge man’s brain to the exclusion of all else. The only way to stop Tucson was barehanded; he saw now that the man was conspicuously unarmed, and anyway, the scalphunters had been correct when they said that shooting would give away their position to the Apaches as surely as if they had lit a smoke fire to guide them. But stopping Tucson was going to be no easy task. Sudden’s eyes weighed the barrel chest, the mighty shoulders and forearms, the height a good six inches above his own more than six feet.
Seeing Sudden’s assessing glance, Shiloh Platt jeered, “Don’t make the mistake o’ tryin’ to stop him, Sudden – he’d break yu in two!”
Rusty stepped forward, standing alongside his friend, hand curled above his gun butt. Sudden waved him back.
“No gunplay,” he told the boy. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Then let him have the water!” urged Rusty. “It ain’t that important.”
“It ain’t the water we’re arguin’ over,” Sudden said. “It’s on’y a means to an end. Shiloh figgers that if Tucson breaks a few o’ my bones, then I’ll hardly be able to stop him callin’ the tune from here on in.”
“Let him call it,” the boy said. “What’s the odds – we’ll still get Barbara home.”
“I ain’t so shore o’ that,” was the reply, and a quick glance at Shiloh revealed a start of surprise at Sudden’s words. The Texan knew now that his hunch was right, and that Shiloh had somehow engineered the affair.
“Tucson,” he said calmly. “Yu know yo’re bein’ used, don’t yu?”
Tucson shook his head. “All I know is I’m dyin’ o’ thirst while yore a-jabberin’, Sudden. Whyn’t yu step aside an’ let me get my drink o’ water?”
Sudden raised a hand in the halt sign, his mind made up.
“Hold it right there, Tucson!” he snapped. The giant halted, a frown between his beetling brows. Sudden beckoned with his forefinger, and Tucson leaned forward; what was the man playing at, anyway? In a second he knew.
Starting almost level with his ankles, Sudden’s right fist came flashing upwards in a murderous uppercut, every ounce of his whipcord strength behind it. His fist caught Tucson flush on the point of the jaw, and sent him flailing backwards to land with a crash upon the ground, a cloud of dust fogging up around him. Sudden watched him, eyes narrowed. Tucson lay still for a moment, eyes closed; and Sudden began to hope that perhaps his desperate gamble had paid off. Then Tucson moved. He rose on one elbow, then got to his knees, rubbing the dust-matted blood from his split lips. He looked up at Sudden with a dull light that grew brighter in his eyes, and a slow smile began to spread across his face. And then Sudden knew that he was in for a fight.
The big man came at him like a bull, and Sudden evaded the huge hands, skipping away and chopping down with his right fist on the back of Tucson’s neck as he did so. His only hope, he knew, was to keep out of the man’s clutches. Those ham-like hands and tremendous arms would break him like a dry stick if they ever closed about him. Time after time, he dodged Tucson’s ungainly rushes, punishing the big man with flurries of punches to the face, aiming for Tucson’s beetling brows, cutting them, half blinding him with blood. Every time Tucson reached up to paw the streaming blood from his eyes, Sudden would move in and out fast, planting solid vicious blows to the midriff, one-two, one-two, putting every ounce of power he could muster behind them. For all the outward difference it seemed to make he might as well not have tried, for Tucson shrugged off the punishment and kept coming after Sudden, growling inarticulately, his splayed hands reaching, pawing. Once or twice he landed glancing blows which sent Sudden reeling, his mind jarred by the sheer power of those huge fists, but the Texan managed to remain on his feet. He knew with deathly certainty that if he fell, Tucson would show no mercy, for the giant was now mindlessly fighting without thought of cause or effect, fighting because that was what he did superbly, the huge strength channeled into its perfect outlet.
Lumbering, clumsy, unstoppable, he pursued the will-o-the-wisp Texan, who danced away from his reach like a wraith. Once, he caught Sudden’s shirt in a huge paw, and a yell of triumph escaped him, only to end in an oath of chagrin as Sudden wrenched free, leaving a square of ripped cotton in the man’s grasp, and then slashed two punishing blows into Tucson’s ribs. The blood was pouring down the giant’s face, and he brushed it away with an oath of rage. Again, Sudden hit him hard in the midriff, solid blows that pushed a gasp from the giant’s puffed lips. The big head dropped for a moment, and once more Sudden drove it up with a full-blooded uppercut. Tucson rocked on his heels, stunned for a moment, and then shook his head. Sudden stood back, his chest heaving, fists still cocked and ready. Would nothing even slow down this bearlike figure? Again, Tucson rushed forward, and again Sudden, fists clubbed, chopped savagely at the man’s exposed neck. Tucson stumbled to one knee, but this time instead of stopping there for a moment he whirled, and tossed a fist almost casually sideways. It caught Sudden with all his weight on one foot as he moved sideways; only a glancing blow in the ribs, but enough to wind him and send him reeling back against a boulder. Moving with astonishing speed for one so huge, Tucson whirled around and the huge forearms wrapped themselves around the puncher’s body, as vicious and irresistible as a metal vice, squeezing the breath from his lungs, torturing his rib cage. Red spots, then black swamped the Texan’s vision, and he knew unconsciousness was very near.
With a roar of triumph, Tucson leaned back, lifting, taking Sudden’s feet off the ground so that his entire weight was gripped in the crushing circle of Tucson’s arms. With a superhuman effort, Sudden doubled his legs behind him, thrusting with the soles of his feet against the boulder. This unexpected move pushed Tucson backwards, slightly off balance, and for a moment the crushing strain of his grip was relaxed, and in that moment, Sudden, his arms spread and his palms open, smashed both hands simultaneously against the giant’s ears. Tucson screamed in agony, and his hands went to his ears, for the terrible blow Sudden had given him had felt like a steam hammer exploding inside his skull. Sudden reeled clear, wheezing for oxygen, his tortured lungs laboring to return to normal. Sweat drenched him, and his arms felt as if leaden weights were attached to them. Tucson was standing, reeling slightly, shaking his head. His face showed the results of the murderous punches that Sudden had landed upon it. Tucson’s lips were split and puffed, his eyebrows matted with dried blood, a huge darkening bruise on one cheekbone. Now Sudden moved in for a final try: while Tucson was still half-dazed from the effects of that awful impact upon his ears, The Texan delivered one, two, three, four sledgehammer punches to Tucson’s middle. The giant’s breath hissed out of his lungs and he wilted, but even under this merciless hail of blows, he slouched forward, arms reaching blindly for the man in front of him. Sudden edged backwards, this time quite close to where Quincy and Shiloh stood, and realized his danger too late. Although he half-turned to avoid the peril, he was unable to avoid the push from the scalphunter which sent him reeling forward on one knee directly in front of the oncoming Tucson.
“There y’are, yu dumb ox,” yelled Quincy. “Finish it!”
With a tremendous roar of mingled rage and triumph, Tucson swung a haymaker at the stumbling form he could just see through the blood which misted his eyes. The blow caught Sudden on the side of the head and lifted him bodily two or three feet to be hurled in a crumpled heap against the boulders ringing the edge of the campsite. Tucson stood in the center of the clearing, his shoulders heaving, and looked at the body of his fallen adversary. He shook his head.
“Yu needn’t of shoved him,” he complained. “I would’ve taken ’im’.”
Barbara Davis knelt quickly over the unconscious Sudden as Quincy raged, “Yu big dumb ox, he was runnin’ yu ragged! If I hadn’t shoved him in front o’ yu, he’d’ve cut yu down like the slow hunk o’ choppin’ meat yu are!�
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He made to turn away, but Tucson, frowning now, pulled him back with a ham-like hand which took a fistful of the scar faced man’s shirt and half-lifted him off his feet.
“Why’s it matter to yu whether I beat him?” he roared. “What difference does it make to yu, Quincy?”
Quincy wrenched ineffectively against the big man’s grip as Shiloh plucked tentatively at Tucson’s arm. Quincy’s face darkened, and then the scar across his face went a livid white. His eyes began to roll in his head.
“Put me down, yu dolt!” he bellowed. “Let go o’ me!”
Tucson’s homely face creased into a frown beneath its mask of dust and blood. He shook Quincy like a terrier shaking a rat. “That’s another thing,” he raged. “Don’t yu keep callin’ me stupid. Yu hear me?” He shook Quincy. “Don’t call me that.”
“Dolt! Ox!” Flecks of foam appeared at the corners of Quincy’s mouth as the others watched helplessly while Tucson shook the bearded scalphunter like a rag doll. “Let – go – Tucson!” screamed Shiloh, dancing around. “Yu ape, let him go!”
The half-breed’s words touched Tucson’s consciousness, and he lashed out with his free hand, sending Shiloh reeling back, blood pouring from his pulped lip. As he did so, his grip on Quincy loosened slightly, and the scar faced scalp-hunter, the bright light of madness in his eyes, squirmed his body around and with his free hand whipped out his revolver. Thrusting the muzzle against Tucson’s chest he pulled the trigger. The report was muffled, and Tucson doubled up like a jack-knife, reeling backwards, his shirt burning where the powder-flash had ignited it. Tucson painfully drew himself upright and lurched forward, hands outstretched for Quincy, then fell to the ground in a boneless heap as a thin scream escaped Barbara Davis’s lips.
Quincy’s mad gaze swept the others. He was raging with passion, his whole body – save only the hand which held the smoking six-gun – trembled with it. He had killed and he hungered to kill again. Even Shiloh, inured to violence as he was, shrank back, awed by an anger such as he had rarely witnessed. All of them knew that a word, a slight movement might turn the camp into a shambles. In his blind insensate fury Quincy would shoot and go on shooting until nothing stood except himself.
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