“All right, Healy. Lift your hands-an” they better be empty i [*macr] For an instant he wanted to gamble. He wanted to grasp the gun, swing it clear of the bedding. But he knew he would never make it. He turned slowly. “Boyle.” He took a breath, one hand still on the bed. Under it he could feel the outline of the shotgun barrel.
“Boyle, there’s not much here. Suppose you take what there is, give me that gun, and you take a horse and ride. How about it?” “Not a chance!” Boyle’s black frame in the doorway receded a little. “Come out with your hands up.” To make a move now would be certain death, and a dead man was no good to anybody.
“You won’t get away with this. King Mabry’s out there.” Art Boyle’s grin showed in the reflected firelight. “If he’s alive, he’s got his own troubles.” “What’s that mean?” “Get down on the ground,” Boyle said, and when Healy had descended, Boyle pushed the door shut. “Means the boss sent a man out to get him.” Healy was an actor and he threw on his talent now. “You sent one man after him? Hardly seems enough.” “He’ll take him.” Boyle said it, but to Healy he did not sound positive.
“Look, Boyle.” Healy’s voice was low and persuasive. “Why run a chance? There’s seven hundred dollars in that wagon. Take it, take a horse, and beat it. Just let me have my chance. Then you’ll have the money, and if Mabry comes you’ll be out of it.” Boyle chuckled. “Might take it,” he said, “was there only you. But there’s them women. They’re the bestlookin’ women hit this country since I been here. I ain’t goin’ to miss that.” Healy searched his mind for an argument. Somebody was stirring in the shelter where Barker slept. The low murmur of their voices might awaken Barker.
Art Boyle stood six feet away, and Healy gauged the distance and considered it. Yet the sound of a shot would be an end to it.
Janice awakened suddenly. For an instant she lay perfectly still. Then she heard the low sound of voices and she slipped from her narrow bunk and listened.
Tom was out there! He was talking to someone. She strove to hear, then to see out. Finally, standing on tiptoe to look over the frost on the window, she made out Tom. She could not see who talked to him.
Yet from his attitude she knew he was again a prisoner. She turned quickly for the gun. Maggie moved, putting her feet to the floor and dragging her heavy coat around her. She picked up a heavy flatiron and hefted it. Dodie was awake, lying there, eyes wide, watching.
Janice waited for the other man to speak so she could locate his position. She would have to open the door, then shoot. And she had no idea whether she could score a hit or not. Yet it might give Tom a chance to do something. She dropped a hand to the door latch, testing it gently. As they had been coming and going earlier in the day, the door was not frozen. She swung it open a few inches and heard Tom say: “Whoever’s out after Mabry will get killed.
Mabry will find he’s being trailed, and when he’s through with the trailer he’ll come hunting Barker.” “Might, at that,” Boyle agreed. He seemed to be weighing his chances. “But I’d as soon take a chance with him as with Barker. Mabry’s one man, Barker’s got friends. Some of the old Plummer outfit.” “Plummer?” “Sheriff one time up at Alder. His outfit murdered more’n a hundred people. Then the vigilantes hung twenty-six of the gang. But they didn’t get “em all.” Janice had the door opened wider now and was edging around to try a shot when Barker spoke. “What’s going on?” Then, seeing Healy, he grinned.
“Got him, did you?” He walked over to Healy, lifted a broad hand, and struck him across the face. “I think I’ll kill you now, before we have more trouble.” “Boss?” Boyle said.
“Well, what is it?” “If we have to move these wagons, we can use him. Might’s well get some work out of him first.” Barker hesitated, then shrugged. “All right. But for now, tie his hands and keep him with you. I want to go through that wagon.” Janice eased the door shut. She turned back to her bed. Her spirits had never been lower, and Maggie felt the same, obviously. They had done nothing. There had been nothing to do.
“What’ll we do?” Dodie whispered.
And the whisper was like a plaintive cry in the lost emptiness of night.
KING MARRY reached the Hole-in-the-Wall hours before the wagons arrived and followed a stream that he took to be the Middle Fork of the Powder, hunting a place to hole up for the night.
When he had ridden more than a mile he turned off into a ravine and found a place where the clay shoulder broke the wind. There he dug a shelter out of a snowbank.
The night was cold, but he was asleep before he was fairly settled in place. , At daybreak he thrust an arm from under the robe long enough to toss a couple of sticks on the coals.
When they blazed up, he added more. Not until the fire was blazing cheerfully did he come out from under and pull on his heavy socks and moccasins.
When the coffee water was on, he mounted the bank to look around. The snow was unbroken as far as he could see except by the towering wall of red sandstone,. and that was streaked with white where snow lay along the ledges and breaks.
He ate jerked beef and drank coffee, then saddled up and cut across the flatland toward the gap.
Nothing had come through. Had they gone up the valley of the Powder? The sky was gray and lowering. It looked and felt like snow. He turned back toward the Hole, keeping to low ground and riding with caution.
Yet he was almost at the opening itself before he heard the sound of an ax, It was unmistakable. He listened, trying to place the sound exactly while the big horse stamped restlessly, eager to be moving. He started again, riding directly toward the Wall.
There was little cover, but the stream had cut deep here and there, and the banks provided some concealment.
There were some willows and here and there a cottonwood.
After a few minutes he saw the smoke. The darker gray of the morning clouds had disguised it well. When he was approximately four hundred yards away he drew up and left his horse in a space between the willows and a clay bank. The sound of the ax continued.
It was late. If they were cutting wood, it meant they did not plan to move that day. Yet Barker must know what the sky implied. He would know it meant snow, and farther west the timber was fairly heavy along the streams, offering plenty of fuel. Here there were only willows and what driftwood they could find along the stream.
Carrying his rifle, he went downstream, covering the ground in long, easy strides. Pausing once, he cleared the rifle’s mechanism to be sure that dampness had not frozen it tight.
When he worked his way to the top of the bank again he could see the vans. The stove in one of the wagons was going, and there was a fire beyond it. As he watched, Healy came out of the willow carrying an armful of wood. Wycoff, one arm in a sling and his rifle in the other hand, walked a little to his left. Healy dumped the wood and started back toward the willows. Edging around for a better view, Mabry saw Barker. But Art Boyle was nowhere in sight.
The small camp was concealed partly by the V of the two vans, forming a wall against the wind. A clay bank was to the west, and a hedge of willows protected the other two sides. Barker was sitting on a log drinking coffee. None of the women was in sight, and there was no sign of Doc Guilford. Obviously, Barker had made his move. Wycoff’s in- jured arm could be a result. What Barker now intended was not apparent, except that he planned to spend the night, yet in this weather that could easily mean being snowed in for a week. And his present position was far from good. Why wasn’t he moving?
It was growing colder. Tying his scarf across his mouth to conceal his breath, he worked his way nearer.
He could do nothing without knowing where Boyle was.
To make a move without knowing the whereabouts of all three men would be reckless in the extreme, and a man did not live long by being reckless. Only fools took chances. It began to snow. Large flakes began to sift down from the gray sky, fast and thick. His coat began to whiten. He wiped off the rifle.