Harrison sprang forward with a shout, hand shooting out to grasp the bridle of one of the leaders. The momentum of the animal swung him off his feet and one driving hoof scraped along his leg.
Someone had dived for the lines and gotten them and the horses were slowing to a stop. Harrison flung himself to one side, heard the rumbling wheels rush past him, then was running alongside as the stage came to a halt.
With a leap, he sprang on the front wheel, scrambled to the seat, reached down and lifted the slumped figure that hung against the dashboard. The man was a dead weight in his arms as he pulled him free and the lolling head flopped back to show the grinning teeth of pain, the eyes staring vacantly at death.
Slowly, Harrison laid him back and straightened up. His hand was wet and the sleeve of his shirt was stained with the sticky blood that had glued the dead man’s shirt tight against his back.
Harrison looked down into the white faces that stared up at him.
“It’s Carter,” he told them. “Shot.”
Ma’s scream cut above the murmur of the crowd.
“Where is she? Where’s Carolyn!”
Harrison vaulted from the seat of the stage and pushed toward the open door. A frightened man in a flowered waistcoat cowered against the coach.
Ma yelled at him, hysteria edging her voice. “Where is she? Where’s the girl …”
“They took her,” the man yelled back. “They must have. They …”
“Don’t you know?” screamed Ma.
Hatless Joe loomed up beside Ma’s squat, angry figure.
“Now, you calm down,” he said, “and let the gent get a word in edgewise.”
He said to the man: “Take your time and get your wits together and tell us all about it.”
The man put up a trembling hand and pulled at his wilted collar.
“They held us up just this side of the river, where the road begins to climb the rise.”
“They?” screamed Ma. “Who was it?”
“He don’t know,” said Hatless. “He’s a stranger in these parts.”
“They held us up,” the man went on, “and they told us to get out. There was just me and the girl riding back here and the driver up front. They let the driver stay up on the seat but they made me and the girl get out. It was just getting dusk and I couldn’t see them good, but there were several of them, four or five, I’d say, and they wore masks and carried guns.
“One of them started toward the girl and made a move as if he was going to put his arm around her and she hauled off and slapped him. Hit him in the face and he cussed. The driver got up from the seat and started to jump down. Like he was going to come down and tangle with the fellow that the girl had hit. But he hadn’t no more than got to his feet than somebody shot him. One of the fellows still sitting on his horse was the one that done it.”
Ma yelled at him. “And you stood by …”
Hatless yelled at her. “You shut up and let this gent go on with his story.”
The man pulled at his collar with trembling fingers. “When the driver was shot, the horses bolted. Guess they started the minute they felt the lines go slack. I turned around and jumped for the open door of the stage and made it.…”
He lifted his hands and let them drop. “I guess that’s all,” he said. “That’s everything that happened.”
Ma moved toward him threateningly. “I’d ought to skin you alive,” she shouted at him. “A great big hulk of a man and you ran …”
Hatless put out a hand and jerked her back. “You leave him alone,” he told her. “He was scared and he didn’t think.”
“I guess I didn’t,” said the man.
“Kidnaped,” yelled Ma. “That’s what it is. My little daughter kidnaped.”
A heavy shouldered man pushed through the gaping crowd. “Maybe it isn’t that at all, Mrs. Elden,” he said. “Maybe they didn’t take her. She may be out there along the trail.”
Harrison saw that the heavy shouldered man was Dunham, of the Bar X spread.
“Well, then, why don’t you get out there and see,” yelled Ma. “What are you standing around for?”
Dunham stiffened. “We will, Ma’am, just as soon as I can get the boys together.”
“Standing around!” shrieked Ma. “Standing around! That’s all you’re doing, every one of you … just standing around!”
The crowd shrank back before her belligerency, started to scatter.
For the first time Ma saw Harrison in the crowd. She moved toward him, put out a hand and grasped him by the arm.
“You’re going to do something, ain’t you, Johnny? You’re going to do something to get her back.…”
Harrison saw the faint gleam of tears in the flint-hard eyes. Cold inside, he nodded. “Sure thing, Ma. Sure thing.”
Ma yelled at him. “Well, get going, then. Never saw anything like a man. Standing around, standing around …”
Harrison shook his head. “Look, Ma, I just thought of something. I’m not jumping a horse and riding out there on a wild goose chase. The others can do that as well as I can. And it wouldn’t do any good. They got all creation to hunt in and not an idea where to look.”
“Unless she’s just out there, sitting along the road, waiting for someone to come along,” said Hatless, hopefully.
“Not much chance of that,” Harrison declared. “Ma’s probably right when she figured it was a kidnaping. And I got a plan.”
“I hope it works,” Ma said, acidly, her very tone implying that some other plans of Harrison’s hadn’t worked at all.
“It’s got to work,” Harrison said grimly. “If it don’t, I’m buzzard meat.”
He stepped forward and grasped her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek.
“Well, I never …” gasped Ma Elden. She put up a gnarled, weathered hand, rubbed at her leathery cheek.
Harrison swung around and strode away, heading around the stage, back toward the street.
Rounding the stage, he came face to face with Marshal Haynes. The two men stopped dead in their tracks, not more than six feet apart, staring at one another.
The marshal’s hands moved swiftly, driving for his gun-butts. Harrison knew his own hands were moving, streaking for his belt, but it was almost as if his hands were those of another person, acting independently, almost as if by instinct.
Steel rasped against leather and his hands were snapping the two guns into position.
Guns halfway out, Haynes froze, staring at the muzzles that were tilted at him.
“I wouldn’t do it, Marshal,” Harrison said, softly. “I would just put them back.”
Haynes gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing in his bull throat. His hands loosened and the guns slid back.
“Slow,” said Harrison, and smugness crept into his voice even when he tried to keep it out. “Too slow to be a lawman.”
For a long minute the two men stood facing one another.
“Someday,” said Haynes. “Someday.…”
His tongue came out and licked dry lips.
Harrison nodded carelessly. “Yes, Haynes, someday, maybe. But not now. I got work to do. Get out of my way.”
He motioned with the right gun-hand and the marshal moved, stepping swiftly to one side.
Harrison strode across the street, leaped to the board sidewalk. By the time he reached the Silver Dollar he was running. Behind him he heard the shouts of men forming the posse, heard the shrill voice of Ma Elden rising above the shouts and the pounding of hoofs.
By the time he had hitched up his team and driven the wagon onto the prairie stretching back of the town, Sundown was quiet. Sitting in the wagon-seat and listening, he could hear no sound. The posse apparently had ridden off. The buildings squatted, stolid, square match boxes dumped along the street.
Unhitching the team,
he tied them to a wagon wheel, found a hammer in the wagon and headed for the row of dark, quiet buildings.
Back of the frame structure that served as the jail and marshal’s office, he crouched in the darkness, ears strained for the sounds that did not come. The town was deathly quiet. Every man who was able to ride, he knew, was pounding out along the trail that the stage had taken, hunting for Carolyn.
He crept along the building, came to a halt beneath the window barred by heavy planking.
“Westman!” he whispered, softly.
The silence held.
Crouching against the building, Harrison felt the first chill of apprehension and doubt steal across his mind. Maybe he was wrong … maybe.
But somehow it all linked up. The men who had stopped him on the trail, the holdup of the stage, Dunham leading the posse, Carolyn’s disappearance, Westman here in jail when he should be in the jail at Rattlesnake.
“Westman!” he called again.
Faint sounds of stirring came from inside and he heard the soft thud of feet crossing the floor toward the window.
A cautious voice came out of the darkness.
“That you, Spike?”
“Not Spike,” said Harrison. “It’s Johnny Harrison.”
He saw the man’s face faintly, a white smudge in the darkness behind the planking.
“Harrison!” The man’s voice hissed through the night. “Say, you’re the hombre …”
“Yes, I’m the one,” said Harrison.
“You better keep out of that lawdog’s way,” warned Westman. “He’s ripe to claw your guts out.”
“He had a chance to just a while ago,” said Harrison, “and he didn’t do it.”
“What you want?” asked Westman.
“Not a thing,” said Harrison. “Figured maybe you’d like to get out of here.”
Westman laughed softly, but he didn’t answer.
“Got a hammer with me,” Harrison told him. “Think I can get these planks off.”
“What’s the deal? Spike send you?”
“No one sent me,” Harrison told him. “It’s all my own idea. Need a place to do some hiding. Thought you could lead me to it.”
“So that’s it,” Westman said.
Harrison waited, ears strained for any sound along the street. None came.
“All right,” Westman said, finally. “Start ripping off them boards.”
Harrison reached up with the hammer, worked the claws under the edge of the lower plank and pried. The spikes squealed faintly, protesting. Harrison tugged savagely, bearing down upon the hammer handle. The plank came free and hands from the inside reached out and pushed it away to clear the window.
“Just a minute,” said Harrison. “I’ll have another one.”
“Don’t bother,” panted Westman. “This is big enough.”
His hands gripped the window ledge and his head and shoulders came through, thrusting, struggling. Harrison dropped the hammer and reached out to help.
On the ground, Westman ran exploring hands over his body. “Skinned up some,” he said, “but nothing serious. You got horses?”
“Team and wagon. You’ll have to ride in that.”
Westman made a motion of disgust. “We could pick up a couple.”
Harrison shook his head. “Can’t take the chance. You’ll be safer in the wagon than in a saddle. No one would think of looking for you there.”
Back at the wagon, Westman helped hitch up the team and climbed up on the seat. Harrison picked up the reins. “Which way?” he asked.
“Head for Rattlesnake,” Westman told him and there was an ugliness in his voice that had not been there before.
Harrison clucked and the team started. The dry wheel squeaked.
Westman swore. “Can’t you do something about that wheel?”
“Probably could,” Harrison admitted, “but I never did get around to it. Just sit back and take it easy. Nothing’s going to happen.”
He headed north, striking across the prairie toward the trail that ran to Rattlesnake. A pale moon came up, a sickle in the sky playing hide and seek with clouds. The wind rustled the tall, dry grass and from some wooded ravine an owl complained. Half an hour later they struck the trail.
Westman stirred restlessly, eyes keeping watch on the faint, night horizon.
“Better split your guns with me,” he suggested.
“The guns stay with me,” Harrison told him, crisply.
Westman flared. “What the hell! I …”
“Just playing it close to my belt,” said Harrison calmly. “You and I made a deal and I aim to see that you carry out your end of it.”
The trail wound into broken ground, the level road giving way to steep pitches and sharp turns. Hills studded with scrub pine made a jigsaw skyline.
Westman fidgeted. “I heard something.”
“Imagination,” snapped Harrison.
“Like a horse.”
Somewhere in the darkness a shod hoof struck a stone with ringing noise. Westman wheeled swiftly in the seat, hand clawing for Harrison’s right hand gun.
“Hey!” yelled Harrison, but the man already was rising to his feet, gun gripped in his hand. With one, swift motion he was gone, leaping out and away from the wagon. A thud came out of the darkness and then the rustle of bushes.
A voice bellowed: “Stick ’em up!” Harrison pulled the team to a stop, slowly raised his hands, trying to make out the shadowy figure of the man and horse beside the trail.
Marshal Haynes sat the horse, a stolid, square-shouldered figure, teeth gleaming in his beard, moonlight shining on the gun he held.
“Lucky thing that I had to come back,” he said. “Lucky thing no one thought to take along a lantern.”
Another horse moved in the darkness, came alongside the marshal’s.
The voice of Ben, the bartender, spoke: “Both of them here, marshal?”
The marshal roared at Harrison. “What did you do with Westman?”
Harrison pretended surprise. “Westman? You must be loco, marshal. I don’t know any Westman.”
“You helped him break out of jail,” the marshal grated. “When I wouldn’t let him out when you threatened me, you came back and let him out. Ben, here, heard that squeaky wheel of yours when you and Westman drove off.”
“Didn’t think nothing about it, at the time,” said Ben. “But when Al here came steaming into the place yelling that Westman was gone, I remembered it.”
“What did you do with him?” the marshal roared. “Where you got him hid?”
His gun arm leveled suddenly and the gun belched searing fire. The canvas cover of the wagon jerked and a pan clanged with the impact of the bullet. The gun bellowed again and yet again.
The marshal yelled. “You, Westman, come out of there. Ain’t no use in hiding. If you don’t …”
“Ah, hell,” said Ben. “He ain’t there. Let’s just take Johnny back and hang him instead.”
“You sure have run yourself up an awful bill with all that promiscuous shooting,” Harrison told Haynes. “I’ll tell you what it is soon as I figure up the damage.”
The marshal’s voice was icy with rage. “Smart-aleck, eh? I’ll fix it so there won’t be no bill.”
Jangling bells of alarm rang in Harrison’s brain … bells set off by the murderous intent that ran through the marshal’s voice. He surged up out of the seat, hand going back to the left gun-butt. But he knew he’d never make it. Back in Sundown the marshal had had a head start and he’d beat him to the draw, but you can’t beat a man who already has his fist wrapped around a gun.
A six-gun roared, stabbing with an orange finger through the dark and the marshal screamed in pain and rage as the gun flew from his hand.
Out of the darkness Westman’s voice said: “Next time it’ll be i
n the head instead of in the arm.”
Harrison, his own gun out, swung it toward the bartender, who froze in the saddle and slowly raised his arms.
“You gents,” commanded Harrison, “get down off them broncs. We’re trading the team and wagon for them.”
“And toss the gun away,” Harrison told Ben. “Just reach down easy and let it drop. If you make a sudden move, I’ll plug you.”
Carefully the two got down off the horses, climbed into the wagon seat under the threat of Westman’s gun. Harrison seized the bartender’s horse, vaulted into the saddle.
The marshal’s teeth were chattering with fear and rage. “I’ll get you for this,” he growled. “I’ll get the both of you.”
“You get that team turned around,” snapped Westman, “and get started out of here.”
Awkwardly, the marshal turned the team around, yelling at the horses. The wagon clattered at a fast clip back toward Sundown.
For a long moment Harrison sat his saddle, staring in the direction the wagon had taken. Harrison stiffened. Westman’s gun was out, resting across the saddle, trained straight at his middle. And in the pale moonlight the man’s face was twisted into something that might have been a grin, but probably wasn’t.
“This,” said Westman easily, “is as far as we go together.”
For a second Harrison sat speechless, staring at the shining muzzle of the gun. Then he lifted his head, stirred slightly in the saddle.
“So you’re backing out,” he snapped. “You get me in a jam and you’re backing out.”
“And you played me for a sucker,” snarled Westman. “You wanted to have me lead you someplace and you thought that I would do it if you got me out of jail.”
He spat viciously. “Hell, I didn’t need your help to get out of there. If you hadn’t come along the boys would have been in in a day or two and yanked the place up by the roots to turn me loose plenty pronto!”
He motioned abruptly with the gun barrel. “Hit the dirt, tin horn. And don’t try to follow me.”
Harrison slowly swung his horse around. There was, he knew, no use of trying to argue. No use of doing anything. He’d gambled and he’d lost.
The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume Two Page 8