Coffin swung down as a rifle shot, aimed at the voice, howled high and far.
“I lit the fire on Piety. The boys are comin’.”
“How’d you know?”
“Saw ’em loading up. Couldn’t find Shorty.”
There was a long silence and Hank Rooney retrieved and relighted his cigar. In the shelter of the chuckhouse he smoked and waited.
“Hank . . . ?”
“Yeah?”
“Feller up there on the sidewall. He’s tryin’ to Injun us. How many times will he bounce?”
“He’ll fall clean.”
“Bet you a seegar. There’s a boulder up there on that face.”
“You got a bet.”
The Winchester stabbed flame. They heard a grunting cry, a rattle of rocks, and the man fell. He hit ground solidly like a sack of flour.
“You owe me,” Hank said.
Bullets screamed overhead and several smacked against the chuckhouse. “Hey—where’s Mahafee?”
“Aw, the old coot went back up the pass. He’s got him a couple of wire traps. Tryin’ to catch some quail. He ain’t back.”
Hank walked to the house and brought out the two Sharps rifles and the Spencer. Coffin was using his own Winchester.
Far up the pass behind them they heard the sound of horses. Neither man made a comment, but each had been listening, and each knew the boys were coming. Yet the first man to come into the yard came from Piety way. It was Clay Bell.
“Get set,” Hank whispered suddenly. “They’re fixin’ to rush.”
There was a sudden pound of running feet and a scramble of gravel. All three men opened up, firing low and fast. The rifles stabbed flame into the darkness and the acrid smell of gunpowder was in the air. Lead hailed around them, but the rush broke.
Even as they heard retreating feet, Jackson and Brown lode into the yard and sprang down, rifles in hand. “Ain’t over, is it?” Brown pleaded. Mahafee came into the yard behind them. He said nothing, merely went into his kitchen and began to make coffee.
“Don’t reckon they’ve quit,” Rooney said, “but they lost their stomach for it.”
Clay waited, listening. Out in the darkness he heard a faint groan.
Holding their rifles high for greater distance, all five men fired, their shots racketing down the Gap. Far down a man cried out, and someone cursed wickedly. Then there was silence.
“What’s the matter?” Coffin yelled, tauntingly. “You boys leavin’ so soon? We ain’t had a chance to be hospitable yet!”
The echo died, and there was no other sound. The men waited, Hank Rooney smoking placidly.
“Light up, Hank,” Clay said finally, “let’s see what we’ve got.”
Hank walked to the end of the prepared fuse and knelt. He drew deep on his cigar and the end glowed. He touched it to the fuse, which spluttered into flame that ate its way along. Suddenly the long piles of stacked brush burst into flame. In the bright light they could see three men lying upon the ground. One man had been trying to drag himself away, but when the brush burst into flame he held himself still.
“For Gawd’s sake, don’t shoot! We’re through!” Brown caught Bell’s arm. “Listen!” In the distance they could hear the sound of wagons. A yell came, then the sound of hoofs on stone and the rumble of wheels.
“Pullin’ out,” Brown said. He swore softly, bitterly. “Figured we’d have us a battle.”
Bill Coffin spoke, his voice reflective. “As I recall, Devitt bought those broncs off Wheeler. Mighty skittish, they were.”
The air was pregnant with speculation. “Mighty skittish,” Jackson agreed, and in his voice was a sudden lighting of hope.
“He always maintained,” Montana Brown said gravely, “they was the fastest runnin’ teams in the country. You reckon he was right?”
“Interest of science,” Coffin said, “maybe we should find out. You reckon?”
“Go ahead,” Rooney suggested. “I’ll see how bad those boys out there are hurt.”
With a yell, the three cowhands ran for their horses and rode whooping into the night.
Rooney chuckled. “Man’s only young once,” he said to Clay. He drew on his cigar. “Boss, I reckon those horses will be the fastest runnin’ teams in the country this night, anyway!”
Hank Rooney and Bell walked out to the fallen men. “If you want to lie quiet and be taken care of,” Rooney advised them, “don’t start anything.”
One man was dead . . . he was that one who had been shot off the rock wall by Coffin. One man had been shot through the leg, and the other shot twice through the shoulder. When they were bedded down in the bunkhouse and getting care from Rooney and coffee from Mahafee, Clay Bell walked back to the corral.
“Takin’ the black,” he told Hank. “I’m goin’ into town. Shorty’s alone.”
An hour after he had gone, three weary and bedraggled punchers rode back into the ranch yard. Over their coffee they told gleefully of their race with the wagons.
“Them horses could run, all right,” Jackson said. “Montana nicked one with a .45 and he suddenly recalled some relatives back in Texas an’ lit a shuck.”
“They might have made it,” Coffin agreed, ” ‘cept the wagon tipped over.”
“Runnin’ yet, them horses.”
A young lumberjack with a broken leg turned around on his bunk. “What happened to the jacks?”
“Walkin’,” Coffin said.
Montana gulped coffee. “What’d you boys give us for twenty-two pairs of high lace boots?”
“You made ’em walk? In their sock feet? Hell, I’d rather have a busted leg!”
“They started for Tucson,” Coffin said. “We figured they wouldn’t have no reason to go to Tinkersville.”
Quiet settled on the ranch. Jackson stood guard at the gate and was relieved by Coffin. Montana Brown, after a word with Rooney, saddled up and started for town. It was still dark—at least an hour before the first gray of dawn would light the sky.
Clay Bell had gone down the Gap, but turned off the trail and cut across country for Tinkersville. The black was restless and wanted to run but he held him in. There was no telling what might lie ahead, but he had little hope of any break, despite this new defeat for Devitt.
Stag Harvey and Kilburn were still in town. Was that entirely accident?
It would pay to have a care, for Devitt might not hesitate to hire them. There had been shooting, and if there was more, nobody would be surprised. So far Devitt had lost, but with Harvey and Kilburn at his side there would still be trouble. They were dangerous men, men who killed without a qualm, men reared to the gun and steeled and tempered in its use.
Bert Garry was dead and Shorty was in town. Much might have happened, but his first call had been to the ranch. Seriously, he pondered the situation.
He was not worried about Shorty. The man was cool and careful, and a thoroughly dangerous fighter. No gunman, he had served his time in several cattle wars, had fought Indians and had been over the trail. He was tough and salty, and a thinking man. He was no match for speed with Stag or Kilbum, but he was dangerous to either of them. He was a man who would have to be killed before he could be stopped.
And neither Kilburn nor Harvey were apt to take up the fight of a lumberjack.
The fact remained that for several hours Shorty had been in town alone, and that town was filled with enemies.
Clay Bell saw the sharp-cut outlines of roofs against the sky. Few lights showed at this hour, and everything was quiet.
Somewhere a rooster crowed . . . another light went out. Clay Bell rode on, the only sound the footfalls of his horse on the dusty road.
Chapter 16
When Clay Bell rode out of town headed for his ranch at Emigrant Gap, it was Sam Tinker who brought up the subject of the grazing rights.
“The rights to graze that area, along with the sole rights to develop or improve that land, belong to Clay,” Tibbott said. “Chase tried to block me, and he was making trouble until I met a man named O’Connell. Seems Bell saved his life at Shiloh.
“O’Connell is active in the Party, and he knows the right people. On Clay’s right of prior use, the fact that he’s kept a fire watch, and that he has sold beef to the Army all helped.
“O’Connell turned up a quartermaster who convinced the Senate committee that Bell’s beef was needed right there, that in case of a new Apache outbreak it would be the only stable source of supply in that area. We stretched a point here and there, but we made it stick.”
There was silence in the dining room. Tinker’s spoon tattled on his saucer.
“Leaves Devitt without a leg to stand on,” Miller said. “He won’t like it.”
“Nor will some others,” Tinker said grimly. The big clock ticked off the seconds, and they waited, listening. Nobody phrased the situation, yet all understood. Somewhere out in the town was Shorty Jones, and somewhere else was Pious Pete Simmons.