Behind him Boyle spoke impatiently. “What are we waiting for, Barker? Damn it, I’m-was “Healy!” Barker’s voice caught him full in the light and two good steps from the wagon.
Healy turned. “Yeah? I’m tired. Figured I’d catch some sleep.” Guilford had not moved.
He sat very quietly against the wheel, but he was alert.
Barker’s gun appeared from beneath his coat. “Come back and sit down, Healy. We want. to talk.” “I’m all right where I am. Start talking.” Barker balanced the gun against the butt of his palm. “Where’s the money, Healy? Where’s that strongbox?” Tom Healy took his time, trying to think of a way out. He desperately needed a hole card and he had none. Barker would not hesitate to kill, and he would be of no use to the girls dead.
“You boys have it wrong. There isn’t enough money in that box to keep you drunk a week.” “He’s lyin’!” Boyle shouted. “Damn it, Barker, you said he must be carrying four, five thousand, anyway.” “There’s not eight hundred dollars among the lot of us,” Healy said. “That’s why we’re so anxious to reach the Gulch.” He took a careful breath.
“No use you boys going off half-cocked. I know this is a rough trip. I’ll give you seven hundred more to take us on through.” Barker smiled, showing his white teeth under his mustache. “And what would you tell them at the Gulch?
What nice boys we’d been? I don’t think so, Healy. I think this is as far as we go.” “Anyway,” Boyle said, “it’s as far as you go.” Wycoff looked up from under thick brows, grinning at Healy. Barker’s gun tilted and Healy saw his finger tense. He threw himself desperately at a hole in the wall of brush.
Barker’s gun blasted once, then again. He hit the brush, tripped, and plunged face down and sliding in the snow. A bullet whipped past him and then he was up and running. Inside him was a desperate hope that unless they could be sure of killing them all, they would not dare kill any. If he got safely away, they might hesitate to kill the women while he might remain to tell the story.
He stopped suddenly, knowing the noise he made, and moved behind a blacker bush. There leas no pursuit. From where he now stood, on a slight rise, he could see part of the camp.
He was fifty yards off, but in the clear, cold air the voices were as plain as if he stood among them.
“Shot me,” Wycoff said. “The old devil shot me.” Guilford no longer sat straight against the wheel.
He was slumped over on his side, limp and still.
“It was me he shot at,” Barker said. “You just got in the way.” “Well,” Wycoff shouted, “don’t stand there!
Get me a bandage! I’m bleedin’!” “Aw, quit cryin’!” Boyle was impatient.
“He just nicked you, an’ it’s over. We got “em.” Tom Healy looked around for a way to run. He might have to go fast, for without doubt they would come looking for him.
Only they did not have to look now. They could wait until morning, then mount their horses and ride him down in the snow. He was unarmed and helpless.
Inside the wagon, three women stared at each other, listening. Janice got up and started for the door, but Maggie caught her arm. “Don’t go out!
The door’s locked now and it won’t be easy to break.” “There’s a shotgun in the other wagon,” Janice said. Dodie swung her legs to the floor and began dressing. Then she opened her small carpetbag. When she straightened up she held a long Colt pistol in her hand.
Janice stared. “Where did you get that?” “It belonged to my father. Can you shoot it?” “Yes,” Janice said.
She took the pistol. It was very heavy and it was loaded. She carried it to her bunk and put it down.
It they tried to break in, that would be the time to use it.
“Tom got away,” Maggie whispered.
“Yes, but it’s awfully cold away from the fire.” Wind rattled along the side of the van, moving a lantern that hung outside. They heard a mutter of voices.
Silently they waited in the dark wagon, making no sound, huddled together with blankets around their shoulders. It was a long time until morning.
A hand tried the door, then pushed. After a moment footsteps retreated and there was a further mutter of talk.
The wind began to pick up. Blown snow, frozen long since, rattled along the side walls.
It was very cold….
OUT IN THE DARKNESS Tom Healy crouched and shuddered with cold. He had to have a fire. Much as he hated to move far from the wagons, he must have a fire.
There was nothing he could do here. And it was improbable that anything further would be done tonight. He had seen Boyle try the door of the women’s van, swear, and turn away. The three men huddled close to the fire, talking in low tones.
Healy straightened stiffly and walked over the snow. A half mile away, among some rocks and trees, he found shelter from the wind. Shivering, he got sticks together and started a fire.
He had no gun. He had no weapon of any sort. The night wind blew cold, and his blaze dipped and fluttered, then ate hungrily at the dry sticks. Doc Guilford was dead. The old man had made his try and failed. Wycoff’s wound was too slight to matter.
In the morning they would rifle the wagons. They would find the money belonging to the show, but the other box might not be so easily found. It was sunk in a compartment of the double bottom of the wagon. Maguire himself had suggested the hiding place in his letter. They would also find the shotgun. The shotgun. If he could get his hands on that shotgun. He considered the possibility as the fire slowly warmed his cold muscles. His chances were slight, yet if he got the shotgun he could handle that crowd. At close range it was hard to miss with a shotgun.
He had no experience on which to draw. His years began to seem woefully wasted, for in this emergency he had nothing on which to base his plans but remembered sequences of old melodramas or the stories of Ned Buntline. Yet if he could creep close enough, if he could get into that wagon…
First he ,mst give them time to fall asleep.
He fed fuel to his fire, reflecting that if the fire did not keep him warm, getting fuel for it would. Searching for wood, he found a hefty club.
With that he felt better. An hour passed slowly and he waited it out. His back was cold, his face too hot, yet he felt better. He was no longer shaking, and he had a plan. When the third hour had passed he left his fire burning and, taking the club, started back to the wagons.
Art Boyle dozed on a blanket near the fire. The others had gone to sleep, as they usually did, in hastily built shelters near the wagons.
Healy waited, hoping Boyle would fall asleep, yet after several minutes he knew that he must act at once, before he grew too cold.
The door of the van where he had himself slept was close by. Neither Wycoff nor Barker had moved in.
The hinges were well oiled and they should not squeak.
There might be some frozen snow around the bottom of the door.
Mentally he went through every move. It would take four strides to cover the ground to the door. All would be within plain view of the man by the fire.
Once there, he must open the door without noise, step completely inside, and reach under the blanket where the shotgun lay. He must grasp it and turn, one hand on the barrel, the other at the trigger guard.
Once that turn was completed, he would be reasonably secure. He would disarm Boyle and tie him up, and then he would take Wycoff and Barker. One wrong move and he must shoot.
If he failed, he would be killed, and worse, Janice would be left without protection.
Janice and Dodie and Maggie… and it was his fault. He had brought them into this.
His mouth was dry and his heart pounding. He took one quick glance toward the still figure by the fire and stepped out toward the wagon. To him every footstep sounded horribly loud, yet the man lay still. One… two… three… He was at the step. His hand grasped the latch and pulled. The door did not budge.
The mud and snow on the bottom had frozen.
He took a breath, then pulled hard on the door. It came open suddenly and he went through the door in one quick step. Outside there was no sound, and he moved swiftly to the bed, feeling for the shotgun.