THEY WERE HUDDLED around the fire when they heard a low call. Tom Healy lowered his tin plate, suddenly watchful.
All of the others reached for their guns. The call came again and a rider appeared, walking his horse through the falling snow. It was Griffin. He got down, then brushed snow from his coat. “All right,” he said, “it’s done. I killed him.” “You got Mabry?” Boyle was skeptical.
Griffin looked up, unfastening his coat, not taking his eyes from Boyle. “I got him. Want to say I didn’t?” Boyle’s eyes were ugly. “I’d like to see the body,” he said. “I shot him twice. Once in the body, once in the head.” “You didn’t go up to him?” Barker demanded.
“Think I’m crazy? No, I didn’t go near him, but I watched him all of ten minutes and he didn’t move. If he wasn’t dead, then he is now. No man can lie out there and live.” “Good!” Barkers face was hard with satisfaction.
“Now we’re clear. That’s what I wanted to hear!” Ha strode across the clearing, striking his fist into his palm. “Now, Healy-was He broke stride. The log where Healy had been sitting was deserted. There had been a moment when all attention was on the rider and his news. And Tom Healy was learning. He had turned and walked into the night. Boyle sprang for the brush and the others followed, except for Griffin, who went to the coffeepot. He glanced up from his filled cup and looked at the smoke coming from the wagon of the women, and his lips thinned down. Getting to his feet, he walked around to the door. When he saw the bullet hole, he nodded.
“So that’s it.” He stood there, sipping his coffee for perhaps a minute, and then he said conversationally, “Mabry’s dead. You can give up on him.” There was still no sound from inside. “You got some money in there?” Griffin asked. “Say, about a thousand dollars?” “And if we do?” Janice asked.
“Might help you.” “You do it,” Janice replied. “You’ll get paid.” “Cash?” “Cash. What shall we do?” “Sit tight.” He smiled to himself as he moved away.
It was cold in the wagon. The fire was very small, barely kept alive by the last few bits of wood and some old clothing.
Dodie raised herself to an elbow. “You haven’t that much.” “He doesn’t know that,” Janice said.
“But when he finds out?” “By then we may be out of here. Maybe we’ll have only one man to deal with.” Maggie coughed, a hoarse, racking cough: Janice turned her head and looked toward the older woman’s bunk, but said nothing. In the dark they could only vaguely see outlines, but Janice knew the older woman was very ill. The continual cold as well as the closeness of the air was doing her no good.
Unless she received some warm food and some attention.
.. Janice walked the floor of the wagon, three steps each way. Dodie was quiet. She had said almost nothing since producing the gun. Suddenly she spoke. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe he’s dead.” “You heard what was said.” “I don’t care. I just don’t believe it” Outside, Griffin stood by the fire.
He was not a trusting man. He had received half the money for killing Mabry, but did not expect Barker to pay the rest willingly. Mabry was dead now, and Barker had two men to side with him.
Griffin sloshed the coffee in his cup, listening for sounds from the search. Snow continued to fall. This was no time to start anywhere. This was a bad storm and it might get worse. Nor would it be a good time to discuss money with Barker. ,. not yet.
When he had Barker alone, that would be the time. And when the storm was over, so he could travel. If he could get the women away, so much the better. He was no man to ,mess with decent women; he knew the penalty for that in the West.
Wycoff was first to return. He stamped his feet to shake off the snow, then went to the fire and added some sticks he had brought back. “They won’t find him,” Wycoff said, “and it makes no difference.
By now he’s lost, and by morning he’ll be dead.” “Prob’ly.” Griffin studied Wycoff, thinking of an ally, but decided against opening the subject.
Wycoff was a brute. The women would be vastly more important to him than any amount of money.
Boyle? No. Boyle was not to be trusted. He would go it alone. He would watch for his best chance.
Barker and Boyle came in together. “No sign of him. He got into your tracks and by that time you couldn’t tell them apart.” “He’ll die out there,” Boyle said. “He ain’t got chance.” Three quarters of a mile west and stumbling through deepening snow, Healy was panting heavily. Once free of the camp, he had circled to find the horse tracks, thinking they would lead him to Mabry’s body. Griffin had not gone up to Mabry, hence he had not taken his guns. With those guns he might have a chance, Healy knew. He had started to run, and had run until pain knifed his side and his breath came in ragged gasps. Then he slowed and for the first time gave thought to being trailed. But it was dark, and by the time they could seri- ously attempt trailing him, his tracks would be covered with snow. So he slogged along, head down, following the rider’s trail. It was bitter cold. He got out his scarf and tied it across his face. The earlaps on his fur cap were down, and that helped. Yet the tracks were fast filling with snow, and unless he found Mabry soon the trail would be lost. He reached the end of the tracks suddenly. But where the body should have been lying there was nothing. Man, horse, and guns were gone! So Mabry was not dead… yet there was a dark blotch on the ground not yet covered with snow, a blotch that might be blood. Mabry was wounded. It was bitter cold and Healy knew no man could last in such cold.when he had lost blood and was undoubtedly suffering from shock. A man needed a warm place, care, and treatment. He needed, above all, rest. Healy was very tired. Today he had worked harder with an ax than he had ever worked before. And he must have run almost a quarter of a mile in deep snow, yet he dared not stop. He turned and followed the tracks of the horse bearing Mabry.
From the time it had taken Griffin to reach camp, and the time it had taken Healy to get to the place where Mabry had been ambushed, Mabry could not have been on the ground for long. Yet in this cold a man could die in a very short time.
Healy did not try to hurry. That was useless now, and he had not thg strength for it. Head down to the wind, he pushed on, content to keep putting one foot before the other. His forehead ached from the cold wind and his face was stiff. There was no place to stop. There was no definite place to go. He could only follow that rapidly vanishing line of tracks.
Twice he fell. Each time he merely got to his feet and walked on. Pausing at the top of the hill, he listened. Common sense told him there would be no pursuit. Barker would not overestimate his chances of survival and finding him would be nearly impossible.
Somewhere ahead of him a wounded man clung to a wandering horse, but he could not be far ahead, for in such snow a horse could not move much faster than a man.
Yet after a time Healy began to realize that the horse was not wandering. He was being ridden or was going by himself toward a definite goal.
The survival of Mabry and himself might well depend on how well he clung to that dwindling line of tracks. They were rapidly becoming only hollows in the snow.
Only movement kept him warm. There was no sound but the hiss of falling snow. He was lost in a white and silent world.
Starting on again, he brought up short against a cliff. Yet almost at once his heart gave a leap. Mabry’s horse had stopped here, too.
And for some time. When the horse started on again, the hoofprints were sharp and definite. That horse was only minutes ahead! Excited, Healy plunged into the snow. He tried running, but fell headlong. Getting to his feet, he realized how close he was to collapse, and knew his only hope was to move on carefully, to conserve his failing energy.
He lost all track of time. He lost all thought of himself. Numbed by cold, he staggered on, keeping the trail by a sort of blind instinct. He walked as a man in his sleep, forgetting the existence of everything but the vast white world in which he lived and moved. He seemed to be on an endless conveyor belt that carried him on and on and never ceased to move.