gripping his throat, and at the same time he reached over with his right hand
and dug his fingers into the palm of the gripping hand. Retaining his hold, he
ripped the hand free from his throat and, turning quickly, gripping the hand and
pushing down on the elbow, he sent Maloon stumbling, bent over and head down. He
fell, and lay still, face down in the dust.
Macon Fallon staggered toward him, then his knees folded and he fell. He tried
to get up, and he fell again, and the last sound he heard was a rifle shot. A
rifle shot… and then another.
He fought his way out of a fog of unconsciousness and strained to get up. A
gentle hand touched his shoulder and a voice whispered, “Lie still.”
He relaxed slowly, trying to figure out where he was. It was dark, with strange
faint streaks of light off to one side. The voice … that had been Ginia. She
was here with him.
Then he remembered the fight … but what happened after that? There had been a
shot—after that be remembered nothing.
“Ginia?”
“Ssh!”
He whispered. “Where are we? What happened?”
“We were attacked … a lot of men on horseback. All of a sudden, just as your
fight ended, they just came down out of nowhere, and there was a lot of
shooting.” She stopped, listening. Then she added, “We’re under the hotel.”
There was, he recalled, a sort of hollow under the back of the hotel because it
was built at a spot where the ground fell away behind it. The back of the hotel
was actually resting on an eight-foot stone foundation.
Those strange streaks of light, he realized suddenly, could only be sunlight
coming through the cracks in the boardwalk. It was alongside the boardwalk that
he had fallen. As she could not have carried him, she must have come in through
the back somehow and dragged him under the walk, and then down here.
“They were shooting and running their horses,” she explained when he asked about
it. “I was afraid you’d be killed.” She paused a moment. “They are looking for
you. Al Damon is with them.”
“I thought as much.” He lay quiet, trying to judge his own condition. His face
felt stiff and sore, and he could move his jaw only with difficulty. One eye, he
discovered, was swollen almost shut. He tried to work his fingers, but they,
too, were stiff and sore.
“How long has it been?”
“An hour … maybe a little more.”
“I’ve got to get a gun.”
He was lying on his back and he turned over slowly and pushed himself to a
sitting position. He felt sore all over. He could hear men moving about on the
floor above, and they must be Bellows men, or there would be no reason to remain
quiet.
He leaned close to Ginia. “Do you know what’s happening now?”
“When they rode in,” she said, “I know that somebody shot at them, because as
they came around the corner we heard the shot and a man fell.
“Everybody scattered for shelter. They killed Mr. Hamilton, I think. You and Mr.
Maloon were left lying there … I think they believed you had been killed. So I
came around behind, got in here, and pulled you back under the walk. Then I
spilled water from the trough over the ground where you had been dragged.
“They are looking for you now. I can hear what they say sometimes.”
He sank back on the cool earth and looked up into the darkness that was the
underside of the floor above. He could hear sporadic shooting, which meant the
surprise had not been complete. Joshua Teel and some of those in his small band
of defenders had been on the alert.
He must have a gun, that first of all. And then in some way he must get the
defenders together and drive Bellows and his outfit from the town. At the same
time, he must not risk Ginia’s safety. But first of all, they must leave this
place.
He sat up again, grasping her arm. There was an old door, he remembered, that
opened at the back. It opened into a gully grown high with wiry brush and weeds,
but there were paths through those weeds.
He got up and moved carefully in the darkness. He found the door, but there he
hesitated. Did the hinges creak? No matter, he’d have to try it. He opened the
door the merest crack and a bright glare of sunlight entered. It was a dozen
feet to the brush. He tried to recall how many rear windows there were …
surely they would be watched.
They stepped outside—then three running strides and they were in the brush,
unseen, he hoped. Beyond the gully the mountainside rose up. He must follow the
gully, which grew more shallow farther on, and get into the Yankee Saloon if
possible.
Somewhere a gun barked … two guns responded.
Crouched in the gully, they listened. The sun was blistering hot, the rocks too
hot to touch. Lifting his head slowly, he peered out. Between two buildings he
could see a section of the street. A dead horse lay there, and a man sprawled
near the horse, a man with a bald head … a stranger.
Fallon looked up at the windows. At one of them he saw a gun barrel … was it
friendly, or otherwise? He could not risk finding out.
His head ached with a dull, heavy throb, aggravated by the heat. He looked down
at his hands, swollen out of shape, dark with bruises. He would have trouble
with a pistol now, although he could manage it. A rifle … he wanted his
Winchester.
He heard more shots, tried to locate their origin. Suddenly, he heard a faint
creak of leather, and his breath caught. Then, carefully, he eased back to the
deeper brush where Ginia waited.
Had he made any sound? He did not think so.
Under the baking sun he could smell the dust and the drying brush. He waited,
motionless. Then he heard the footstep again, and suddenly the man came into
view, not more than ten feet away.
He was a big bearded man, inclined to fatness around the midsection, and he
carried a rifle and wore a belt gun. His eyes were small and mean—cruel eyes. It
was obvious that he was hunting them … he had seen or heard something.
He slowly surveyed the brush. Fallon put his left hand back to touch Ginia, a
warning. She was gone!
His hand closed on a jagged chunk of rock, and he started to lift it. As he did
so, Ginia suddenly stood up, a dozen feet away, directly in front of the man
with the rifle.
“Were you looking for me?” she said.
The man’s rifle had started to come up, but at her words he lowered it. He moved
toward her, and Fallon took three short, running steps and hit him in a long
dive. Ginia had given Fallon his chance, and he had taken it.
His shoulder smashed into the man, hitting him just below the waist and lifting
him almost bodily from the ground. The man fell sprawling, losing his grip on
his rifle. Ginia caught it up and swung it by the barrel, a neat, precise swing
that was like chopping cotton with a hoe. The solid thunk of the rifle butt
against the man’s skull was a welcome sound.
Swiftly, Fallon stripped the gun belt and holster from the man’s waist, then
took the rifle from Ginia. Flattened against the side of the building, he
glanced at her. “I thought you disapproved of violence?” he said softly.
Her chin lifted. “There are times,” she said.
“Good girl,” he whispered. “You think fast.”
He checked the rifle. It was a .44 Henry, and the belt ammunition was .44
calibre.
Keeping close to the buildings, they ran toward the upper end of town. Fallon
had a hunch that the defense would center there; he knew the best place to
defend, the place from which the town could most easily be covered lay at the
mining claim he had sold to Pollock. Next to that, the best place was the Yankee
Saloon.
Brennan would at all costs head for there, and it was likely others would also,
although the need to protect their families must of necessity scatter them.
Suddenly a shot nipped the wall near him, then another. Ducking between the
buildings, Fallon saw a man in a dirty red shirt wheel to face him. As the man
turned, a shot from somewhere laid a gash along the side of his neck. Fallon
fired his Henry from the hip, and the bullet knocked the man sprawling back into
the street, where another bullet finished the job.
“That came from the blacksmith shop,” he said quietly.