He fumbled; one spur dropped to the floor. He caught the other and, with the world swirling and darkening before him, he jabbed the spur-rowel savagely against Six’s sweating face.
Six’s great shout filled the room. He fell back, whipping both hands to his face. Blood welled between his fingers. McCracken heard someone shout but ignored it; he pressed relentlessly forward, batted Six’s hands away from the bloody face and stood grimly pounding that red-flowing countenance until, dim in his mind, he heard the report of a gunshot.
He looked around. Andrews, his face enraged, stood with a smoking gun in his fist. ‘Get away from him!’
McCracken backed up. Six was fumbling blindly—and it was then that McCracken saw that his spur had taken the man’s left eye.
Six collapsed slowly, moaning, covering his face with his huge hands. McCracken felt sprung pain in his ribs. The haze faded from his eyes. McCracken saw Andrews’ thumb curling over the hammer, cocking the gun, thrusting it forward.
A shot, louder than it should have been, boomed through the room.
Seventeen
Stunned, he stood in dumfounded amazement. Where Andrews’ jaw had been was only a red-welling emptiness. Andrews stumbled forward and fell flat; the gun rolled unfired from his fist.
McCracken wheeled. And he saw Elena standing in the doorway. Smoke wisped up from one bore of the double-barreled shotgun in her hands. McCracken dived for the floor and came up with Andrews’ gun, training it on Waco and Calabasas and the other two men at the bar. They must have retreated from the table at the start of the fight. On the floor, hands cupping his face, Six was rolling and moaning in his throat.
‘Your guns,’ McCracken said. ‘Quick, now. I haven’t got time to fool—that shotgun blast will bring half a dozen men down on us.’
The four men dropped their guns. Elena came forward plugging a fresh shell into the shotgun. She snapped it closed and stood at McCracken’s shoulder. She kept her glance averted from the dead Andrews. McCracken said, ‘I came up here for Waco and Calabasas. Nothing’s changed. The four of you get out front—and stay where I can see you.’
The four men slowly moved toward the door. Waco said, ‘You’ll never make it stick.’
‘Go on,’ McCracken said. He was turning to cover them when a corner of his eye caught a sudden motion. Wheeling, he saw Chet Six, his single bloody eye wild with insane rage, pawing up one of the guns from the floor. The gun whipped up with surprising speed. Before McCracken could throw down on him, Six fired. The bullet went wild. Six cocked the gun again, and that was when, with a distinct touch of regret, McCracken pulled trigger. The bullet, with a savage irony of its own, took Six in his one remaining eye. His head rocked back and his gun hand dropped to the floor. A long fluttering gust of air bubbled in his chest and that was all. The massive body lay mounded on the floor.
McCracken turned slowly, gasping for air through his teeth. Elena stood silent, her shotgun guarding the four toughs. McCracken gestured wearily with his gun. ‘Outside on the porch.’
They went out, leaving two men dead on the saloon floor. A rider was walking his horse forward up the canyon, and McCracken squinted toward him. ‘Don’t shoot,’ Elena murmured. ‘I think it’s Will Garrison.’
It was. Will rode up, a rifle across his pommel, and looked down wide-eyed. ‘What happened?’
‘Blood,’ McCracken said. ‘You’ll find my horse up in the trees in back of the saloon. Get him for me—on the run, Will.’ The youth looked at Elena. McCracken caught her slight nod. Will cantered away around the end of the building. ‘He’d cut off his arm for you,’ McCracken said. ‘Will’s a good man.’
Elena said nothing. The pull of recent tragedy was on her cheeks. Nevertheless, the cocked shotgun was steady in her hands. The four toughs stood resentfully by the steps. McCracken said, ‘Get on those horses—and move slowly.’
The toughs obeyed. In a softer voice, McCracken said to the girl, ‘You saved my life, Elena.’
‘San Saba died,’ she said tonelessly.
McCracken’s bleak glance touched Calabasas, who was climbing onto his saddle. The four toughs sat with washed-out patience. Will Garrison came trotting around into sight, leading McCracken’s horse. McCracken was about to step off the porch when a trio of horsemen breasted the head of the canyon, rode fifty feet forward, and stopped, squinting toward the saloon through the moonlit dark. Waco’s voice lifted in sharp warning, and the three men wheeled out of the road into the blackness of the timber.
‘That does it,’ McCracken said, pushing Elena ahead of him. ‘Let’s ride.’
The girl mounted and McCracken ran around to take his horse’s reins from Will. In that moment of confusion, Waco made his break, spurring his horse away from the saloon. He got twenty yards away before Will, strain pulling his cheeks white, put a rifle bullet into him, spilling him from the saddle.
Calabasas was sitting with his reins lifted, as if about to make a break; his slow, dull glance came around uncertainly and rested against Waco, who was crawling painfully away from the road. Will’s bullet had wounded him somewhere high in the back. ‘Let him go,’ McCracken said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Driving the three prisoners ahead of them, they swept away from the saloon porch and headed down-slope through the pass. Behind them, two or three rifles opened up in the trees, talking in harsh signals. McCracken fired his pistol empty, trying to keep the toughs’ heads down. Elena rode beside him and he realized that she too was shooting at the guns behind them. They thundered around a bend, dipped through a quick series of switchbacks, and ran up the road over a hogback. ‘All right,’ McCracken called. ‘Slow down.’
The three prisoners reined in. Will Garrison sat with his rifle hanging in one fist. He grinned weakly and held out his left hand. ‘Look at that.’ His fingers were trembling violently.
‘Good man,’ McCracken murmured reassuringly. ‘You didn’t kill him, Will.’
‘I’m glad of that.’
McCracken failed to add what he thought: that Waco, afraid of capture, would probably crawl off and try to get away. The wound might well fester and kill him eventually.
His head lifted alertly. ‘Hold it,’ he said. ‘Someone’s coming. Get off the road.’
They prodded the prisoners into the trees and sat waiting silently. Moon glow filtered down through the treetops. The sound of horsemen coming up the road swelled quickly—a large crowd, at the gallop.
McCracken frowned. Six didn’t have that many other men in these hills—there were three back in Dragoon Pass, three here held prisoner, two dead and one wounded at the saloon. Six’s crew of toughs would number only three or four more than that—and he remembered, too, that Pierce had gone over the hills. Who would this bunch be? He remembered Pierce’s warning, and thought it might be Scott Kramer with his crew. But McCracken knew men on the Turkey Track crew, and he was certain none of them had any part in Kramer’s duplicity. He frowned and said, ‘Hold your fire when they come by.’
He was right to have used caution, he found; it was Mossgrove’s posse that came drumming up the road, a dozen men strong.
McCracken put his horse out into the open and lifted his hand, palm out. The crowd swirled to a dust-boiling halt. Mossgrove frowned across the distance between them. ‘Where the devil did you come from?’
‘Dragoon Pass,’ McCracken said. ‘Six and one of his toughs are dead. Waco’s nursing a hole in his back, and Channing Pierce is long gone.’
‘And Cody Longwell? What about him, Ben?’
‘He tried to draw on me. I had the drop. I’ve got Calabasas and a couple of the others here. Come on out,’ he called into the trees.
Elena and Will boosted the three prisoners forward from the trees. Under his mustache, Mossgrove showed a lopsided grin. ‘That’s quite a crew you’ve got there.’
‘They’ll do,’ McCracken murmured laconically. ‘You want to take charge of the prisoners?’
‘Be glad to,’ Mossgrove said,
and looked at him levelly. ‘I guess, with Six dead, there won’t be anybody to press that complaint against you. You’re free to go, Ben. But I wish you’d left this business to the law. I may be gettin’ old and slow, but I try to do my job.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ McCracken murmured. ‘I took the bit in my teeth. I guess it’s a bad habit. But when I saw Felix dead, I knew it had to be done.’ He looked back through the posse, seeing Shattuck and Obregon and Knox Bannerman. Mossgrove said, ‘What’s left in the pass?’
‘A few toughs. Waco’s there, shot up.’
‘We’ll clean them out,’ Mossgrove said. ‘I intend to set the torch to that town. There’ll never be another Chet Six in this county.’
McCracken nodded. ‘I guess I’ll drift on home. I’ve got some meals and some sleep to catch up on.’
Mossgrove delegated two men to take charge of Calabasas and the other prisoners. He said, ‘After we clean up at Dragoon Pass, we’ll scatter around the mountains and see how many stolen cows we come up with.’ He lifted his arm and dropped it forward, and the posse drummed up the road.
Sitting his horse by the rim, watching them pass, McCracken felt an immense weariness blanket him, making his mind and body sluggish. Elena sat her saddle beside him, silently regarding him through eyes dried of tears. Will Garrison, who had become a man tonight, rode uphill with the posse. McCracken noticed vaguely that a man had stayed behind to take Will’s place—Knox Bannerman.
Bannerman said, ‘I guess I’m not needed up there any more. Ben, I know you’re tired, but there’s something I want to talk about.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘A few days ago,’ Bannerman said, ‘I spotted Chet Six riding across the north boundary of my outfit. Now, Six didn’t do much riding, especially in daylight. I wondered what he was up to—so when he was out of sight, I backtracked him. The trail led me straight into the Turkey Track yard. It made me start thinking about Kramer. Then, yesterday afternoon, Kramer dropped in at Box B and made me an offer for the place. His figure was way too low and I laughed at him—and then he warned me that if I didn’t sell out to him, things were bound to get worse. You know how he’d put it—he came right out and told me bluntly that I wasn’t man enough to steer my own ship. I answered that all that had changed. I was willing to fight Six if I had to. Kramer said it wouldn’t work, and then he said a funny thing—he said he was the only man in this part of the country who knew how to deal with Six. After he left, I thought about it. I put it together with finding Six at his place, and I’m still not sure of anything, but I’m beginning to get the feeling that just because Six is dead our troubles haven’t ended.’
‘It’s true,’ McCracken said tiredly. ‘Channing Pierce told me Six was working for Kramer.’
He heard Elena’s indrawn breath. He looked sourly at her. ‘I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t want to have it broken to you that way. Enough has happened to you already, and I know how you feel about Kramer.’
‘You do?’ she said sharply. ‘You’re a fool, Ben.’ She clamped her lips together and reined away, still holding the shotgun. She crashed through the trees, came out onto the road some distance below and went galloping homeward.
McCracken shook his head, and Bannerman said awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry, Ben—I didn’t realize—I should have remembered she was Kramer’s girl.’
‘It’s all right, I guess. It had to come out sometime.’ McCracken turned his horse with a weary lift of his shoulders.
He went trotting down the road with Bannerman at his flank. Slowly the moon heeled over across the chipped whitewash of stars.
In time, long past midnight, they reached the Wagon Wheel gate. McCracken said, ‘Come on in and have some coffee, Knox.’
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
Together, they turned into the Wagon Wheel road and cantered down into the yard. Dismounting, McCracken frowned. Something was wrong. No lights burned in the house. There was no sign of Elena’s horse in the corral. Bannerman was still in the saddle, also frowning—and then McCracken said suddenly, ‘The crazy little fool—she’s gone to Kramer’s!’ He vaulted into the saddle and, with the hollow feeling in the pit of his belly that he was going to be too late, he drove the horse out of the yard, heading overland toward Kramer’s. Behind him, Bannerman whipped up his horse, following. A wolf howled across the hills; hoof beats pounded the earth.
Eighteen
Her insides seething, Elena hauled in the reins, boiling the horse to a halt in the dusty yard at Turkey Track. A light burned in the main house; Kramer was not yet abed. The door opened and his tall, trim shape stood silhouetted, looking out to see who had arrived.
‘No,’ Elena said, stepping forward with her shotgun. ‘I’m not Chet Six.’
‘Elena,’ he said, in a surprised tone. ‘What are you doing here at this hour?’ He stepped across the porch, coming down to meet her, sweeping off his hat in a gesture of gallantry that sickened her.
She lifted the shotgun. ‘Get back in the house,’ she said grimly.
Kramer froze. ‘Wait a minute—what the hell is this?’
‘Judgment day,’ she said. ‘Inside, Scott.’
Frowning, he turned and walked back into the parlor. She saw that he wore no gun. It was like him, she thought; he left the gunplay to others.
Once inside, she shut the door. Kramer, having composed himself, went across the room and turned, smiling gently. ‘Now,’ he said calmly, ‘what’s this all about, Elena?’
For a moment, she stood silent, fighting the turmoil within her, forcing herself to be calm. Then she said, ‘I’ll tell you what it’s about, Scott. It’s about my father, who was murdered. It’s about San Saba—he’s dead, too. You didn’t know that, did you? You didn’t care. It’s about Ben McCracken, who almost got himself killed in Dragoon Pass before he wiped out Chet Six.’
Kramer frowned. ‘Why bring all this to my doorstep?’
‘Because that’s where it belongs,’ she said tightly. ‘Chet Six is dead, Scott, and his gang’s broken up. Tom Mossgrove is up there now, setting the town on fire. If you look out the window, maybe you’ll be able to see the flames from here.’
Kramer wheeled to the window and squinted upward. Even from where she stood, Elena could see the faint red glow against the night sky, high in the mountains, reflected from the undersides of clouds.
‘Judas,’ Kramer whispered. Then, catching himself, he turned and faced her. ‘You still haven’t told me why you came here.’
‘Because it was your hand,’ she said. ‘Your hand directed it all, Scott—my father’s death and all the rest of it.’
‘I see,’ he said softly. He didn’t trouble to deny it. ‘How many others know about it, Elena?’
‘Too many for you to do anything about it. They’ll be down around your ears now, Scott. I wanted to be the first—and—if I can use this shotgun—the last.’
Kramer spread his hands. ‘Elena, I had nothing to do with your father’s death. I explicitly ordered no shooting.’
‘You started the ball rolling,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to accept the responsibility for whatever it knocked down, Scott.’
He shook his head mutely. He came forward until the shotgun almost pressed his flat stomach. ‘What do you propose to do now? Shoot me down in cold blood?’
‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that you force me into it, Scott. It would make me happy.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s just the moment talking. If you shot me down, you’d regret it the rest of your life. After all, at one time at least we meant something to each other. But I guess that’s all gone now.’
‘We never meant anything to each other,’ she said bluntly. ‘That was all in your head, Scott. I never wanted any part of you.’
He turned and stood pensively. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Then that was just a stupid dream, like all the rest.’ His face came around; his eyes were bright and level. ‘I love you, Elena. Believe what you want of me, but believe that, too.’
&n
bsp; ‘Don’t make me sick.’
‘I’m sorry—’ he breathed; and suddenly his hand, shooting out, was webbed underneath the twin hammers. She pulled the triggers savagely, but the hammers only dropped on the flesh of his hand. He jerked the gun out of her grasp, winced with pain, pried the hammers off his hand and set the shotgun down out of reach. Then, before she could think to reach for her belt gun, he had it in his hand. He grunted and stooped, picking up the shotgun again. He broke it, dropping the two buckshot shells into his hand. ‘You could make a mean mess of a man with that thing,’ he said, pocketing the shells and dropping the shotgun idly on a chair. He rammed her six-gun into his belt and waved toward a chair. ‘Sit down, Elena,’ he said.
The tables had turned on her so quickly that she remained caught up in the backwash of surprise. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Pack,’ he said.
He stepped across the room. She sat down at his bidding and he went into his bedroom, leaving the door open so that he could watch her through that opening. She saw him stuffing clothes into a carpetbag. He buckled it shut and lugged it into the parlor, tossing it on his desk. Then he jerked the drawers out of the desk and began to throw papers and money into a smaller bag. She saw blood oozing from his hand where the shotgun hammers had struck flesh. He put the hand to his mouth and sucked at the cuts and looked at her.
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