“Better sit up to the table,” Dodie said.
“I’ll start some more bacon.” She walked to the window. “That’s odd,” she said. “I don’t see anybody.” “Probably in the barn.” “All this time? Anyway, there’s hardly room in that little place for-was She broke off sharply. “King, something’s wrong out there!” He put down his fork, his mouth full of eggs and bacon. Getting to his feet, he walked toward her, but stopped well back from the window, where he could see out without being seen. “Now what’s the trouble?” “There was a rabbit,” Dodie was whispering. “He started past the cottonwood over by the corrals. Then suddenly he bolted right back this way!” Mabry studied the situation. No rabbit would be frightened by anything out there unless it was a man.
He had been telling himself to put aside that gun too soon. Dodie was right. There was something wrong.
Healy and Janice had been gone too long and there was nothing for them to do in the barn. Scarcely room to move around with those horses in there.
“You stay here. I’ll go out back.” “They’d be watching the back, too. I know they would.” Dodie walked to the rifles against the wall. She picked one up and moved the shotgun nearer the door.
“I can help, King. I can try.” “Stay out of sight.” As he spoke, he was thinking it out. They could have been out there waiting. They must have been, or Janice and Tom would be back by now. They were holding the two of them and waiting for him to come out. Suddenly he remembered the root cellar under the house. There was an outside entrance, too.
And on the side of the house nearest the barn. He opened the cellar door, lifting it up from the floor.
“You sit tight. Hold the house and don’t let anybody in.” Softly, on light-stepping feet, he went down the steps. At the bottom he paused to study the situation.
The cellar was under the whole house. There were several bins of vegetables and a crib of corn. There were also several hams and slabs of bacon. A dozen feet from the foot of the steps was the cellar door to the outside, and luckily, it was standing open. Windy Stuart had been careless, but his carelessness might save all their lives. Opening that door would have made noise.
Between the barn and the cellar door was the woodpile.
The end of the barn was toward him. He studied it with care, then returned to the steps and went up into the house until his head cleared the floor. “Dodie, you count to a slow fifty. When you get to fifty, open the door and then pull it shut. Don’t by any chance get in front of that door. Just open and close it, but make some noise.”.
“All right.” He went back down the steps and crossed to the outside door. He mounted those steps until his eyes were at ground level. Some scattered wood offered slight protection. He went up another step. There was nothing in sight. The end of the barn looked solid. Having seen the care with which Windy Stuart had built, he doubted if there was so much as a chink through which wind might blow or an eye might look. Gun in hand, he waited. He had a moment then of standing with his mouth dry, a moment when he knew that in the next instant he might clear those steps and feel the smash of a bullet, feel it tearing through his vitals. It was only the fool or the witless that felt no fear. What a man must do was go on, anyway. Suppose he went back into the house and waited for them to move? He knew what they would do. They would wait just so long, then tell him to come out or they would kill Healy and Janice. Now the move was his… and you did not win by sitting on your hands. Long since he had learned the only way to win any kind of fight was by attack, attack always with whatever you had.
The door slammed.
He sprang into the open and crossed to the shelter of the barn’s end in swift strides. He flattened himself there, listening. Silence, and no sound within. Then a horse stamped. Before him, in the open place in front of the house, he could see nothing. He could see some of the trees, but only a corner of the corrals. There was probably a man inside with the prisoners, and another at the corrals.
Yet if he was guessing right, and there were four, where were the other two?
Barker, Art Boyle, Joe Noss, and the fourth man who aright be Benton. The man who had ridden through the Hole with Joe Noss. Two in the barn, maybe. That was more likely. One with the prisoners, and one with a poised gun, to…
Where could the other be?
If he had come this far without attracting a shot, the fourth man must be where Mabry could not see him, or he Mabry. Considering that, he decided the fourth man must be in front of the house, between the cottonwoods and the trail.
From that point he could cover the front door, but he must also have seen Dodie’s hand when she opened and closed the door. So he might have guessed that their plan was not working.
A boot scraped. Then Healy called out, “King? Can you come out here a minute?” “Louder!” King heard Barker’s voice. “If you make one try at warning him, I’ll kill her!” “King!” Healy yelled. “Can you come out?” There was a period of waiting, and Mabry heard a muffled curse. “No use.” It was Art Boyle’s voice. “They’re wise. That girl’s got a rifle.” It was time to move. Time to move now, before they did. They had numbers, so it was up to him to catch them off stride. There was such a thing as reaction time. That instant of hesitation between realization and ac- complishment. It was upon this that he must gamble.
There was little cover beh.the trees, and it was cover only from the front, not from the flanks. Boyle had yelled from in front of the house when he had seen the rifle in Dodie’s hands. Mabry darted out quickly, not quite past the front of the barn, but enough for Boyle to see him. Boyle saw him and started to swing the rifle. He was too slow. Mabry’s gun was breast-high and he glanced along the barrel as he fired. There was an instant when time seemed to stand still. Mabry saw the man’s white, strained face.
He saw the rifle swinging, and he stood perfectly still and cold, with no heat in him, and pointed the gun as he would a finger. The pistol leaped in his hand.
The teamster’s rifle was coming up when Mabry’s bullet smashed him in the teeth. His head jerked back as if slammed by a mighty fist, and he fell. Then he rolled over, clawing toward the fallen gun, but blood gushed from his mouth and he stiffened out.
Mabry flattened himself back against the wall of the log barn, gun up, ready for a chopping shot.
Boyle rolled over, choking on his own blood, and lay still.
From within the barn there was absolute silence. One gone… three to go. One at the corral’s end and at least one in the barn, probably two. He thought of that and realized his advantage, if such it could be called. Four people in close quarters, two of them ready to shoot, but neither of them wanting to kill Janice, neither wanting to kill his partner. They would have one target, he would have two; they would be separated and his two friends would undoubtedly be shoved back against the wall or in a corner.
He remembered seeing Dodie’s shadow as she moved within the house. He remembered thinking that the sun was up, shining through the gray clouds like a poached egg in a pan of gray grease. He remembered hearing a wind rustle the cottonwood leaves. His gun was up and he was going in. He was going into two blasting guns, but he had the advantage of being the only one who knew just when he was going in.
He tried to recall the inside of the barn he had seen but once. He tried to figure just where they would be. One of them was close against the wall near the opening. That would be Barker.
There had to be one there. It was the logical place, as near the door as possible. And it was not a narrow door, but half the width of the barn front.
When he went in he could not get a shot at that man.
That fellow would be too far over on his right, unless he managed to swing close enough and fire from against his body. But if he figured right, the prisoners would be in the corner behind Barker, and if he shot Barker the bullet might go all the way through and kill one of them.