In the throbbing rattle of the room the guns boomed like a crash of thunder. Heads whirled. Liquor-befudded brains tried to focus eyes. All they saw was Tor Blazer sagging back against the bar, his shirt darkening with blood. The strained, foolish expression on his face was like that of a man who had been shocked beyond reason.
Facing the room was a lean, broad-shouldered man with two guns. As they looked, he swung a gun at Fats McCabe.
Instinctively, at the boom of guns, McCabe’s brain reacted, but a shade too slow. His hand started for his gun. It was an involuntary movement that had he had but a moment’s thought would never have been made. He had no intention of drawing. All he wanted was out, but the movement of his hand was enough. It was too much.
Tex Brisco’s gun boomed again, and Fats toppled over on his face. Then Tex opened up. Three shots, blasting into the brightly lighted room, brought it to complete darkness. Brisco faded into that darkness, swung the door open, and vanished as a shot clipped the air over his head.
He ran hard for fifty feet, then ducked into the shadow of a barn, threw himself over a low corral fence and ran across the corral in a low crouch. Shouts and orders, then a crash of glass came from the saloon.
The door burst open again, and he could have got another man, but only by betraying his position. He crawled through the fence. Keeping close to a dark house, he ran swiftly to its far corner. He paused there, breathing heavily. So far, so good.
From here on he would be in comparative light, but the distance was enough now. He ran on swiftly for the river. Behind him he heard curses and yells as men found their knotted bridle reins. At the end of the log, Tex retrieved his spurs. Gasping for breath from his hard run, he ran across the log and started for his horse.
He saw it suddenly, and then saw something else.
In the dim light, Tex recognized Joe Gorman by his hat. Joe wore his hat brim rolled to a point in front.
“Hi, Texas!” Gorman said. Tex could see the gun in his hand, waist high and leveled on him.
“Hi, Joe. Looks like you smelled somethin’.”
“Yeah,”–Joe nodded–“I did at that. I live in one of those houses over there with some of the other boys. Happened to see somebody ride up here in the dark and got curious. When you headed for the saloon, I got around you and went in. Then I saw you come in the back door. I slipped out just before the shootin’ started so’s I could beat you back here in case you got away.”
“Too bad you missed the fun,” Brisco said quietly.
Behind him the pursuit seemed to have gained no direction as yet. His mind was on a hair trigger, watching for a break. Which of his guns was still loaded? He had forgotten whether he had put the loaded gun in the holster or in his belt.
“Who’d you get?” asked Gorman.
“Tom Blazer. Fats McCabe, too.”
“I figgered Tom. I told him he shouldn’t have shot the kid. That was a low-down trick. But why shoot Fats?”
“He acted like he was reachin’ for a gun.”
“Huh! Don’t take a lot to get a man killed, does it?”
Brisco could see in the dark enough to realize that Gorman was smiling a little.
“How do you want it, Tex? I let you have it now, or save you for Shute? He’s a bad man, Tex.”
“I think you’d better slip your gun in your holster and walk back home, Joe,” Tex said. “You’re the most decent one of a bad lot.”
“Mebbe I want the money I’d get for you, Tex. I can use some.”
“Think you’d live to collect?”
“You mean Caradec? He’s through, Brisco. Through. We got Bo. Now we got you. That leaves only Caradec and Johnny Gill. They won’t be so tough.”
“You’re wrong, Joe,” Tex said quietly. “Rafe could take the lot of you, and will. But you bought into my game yourself; I wouldn’t ask for help, Joe. I’d kill you myself.”
“You?” Gorman chuckled with real humor. “And me with the drop on you? Not a chance!. Why, Tex one of these slugs would get you. If I have to start blastin’, I’m goin’ to empty the gun before I quit.”
“Uh-huh,” Tex agreed, “you might get me. But I’ll get you, too.”
Joe Gorman was incredulous. “You mean, get me before I could shoot?” He repeated, “Not a chance!”
The sounds of pursuit were coming closer. The men had a light now, and had found his tracks. “Toward the river, I’ll be a coon!” a voice yelled. “Let’s go!”
Here it was! Joe Gorman started to yell, then saw the black figure ahead of him move and his gun blaze. Tex felt the shocking jolt of a slug. His knees buckled, but his gun was out and he triggered two shots, fast. Joe started to fall, and he fired again, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Tex jerked the slipknot in his reins loose and dragged himself into the saddle. He was bleeding badly. His mind felt hazy, but he saw Joe Gorman move on the ground, and heard him say, “You did it, damn you! You did it!”
“So long, Joe!” Tex whispered hoarsely.
He walked the horse for twenty feet, then started moving faster. His brain was singing with a strange noise, and his blood seemed to drum in his brains. He headed up the tree-covered slope, and the numbness crawled up his legs. He fought like a cornered wolf against the darkness that crept over him.
“I can’t die–I can’t!” he kept thinking. “Rafe’ll need help! I can’t!”
Fighting the blackness and numbness, he tied the bridle reins to the saddle-horn and thrust both feet clear through the stirrups. Sagging in the saddle, he got his handkerchief out and fumbled a knot, tying his wrists to the saddle-horn.
The light glowed and died. The horse walked on, weaving through a world of agony and soft clutching hands that seemed to be pulling Tex down, pulling him down.
The darkness closed in around him, but under him he seemed still to feel the slow plodding of the horse…
Chapter XI
Roughly, the distance to the Fort was seventy miles. Rafe Caradec rode steadily into the increasing cold of the wind. There was no mistaking the seriousness of Bo’s condition. The young cowhand was badly shot up, weak from loss of blood. Despite the amazing vitality of frontier men, his chance was slight unless his wounds had proper care.
Bowing his head to the wind, Rafe headed the horse down a draw and its partial shelter. There was no use thinking of Tex. Whatever had happened in Painted Rock had happened now. Brisco might be dead. He might be alive and safe, even now heading back to the Crazy Woman–or he might be wounded and in need of help.
Tex Brisco was an uncertainty but Bo Marsh hung between life and death, hence there was no choice.
The friendship and understanding between the lean, hard-faced Texan and Rafe Caradec had grown aboard ship. And Rafe was not one to take lightly the Texan’s loyalty in joining him in his foray into Wyoming. Now Brisco might be dead, killed in a fight he would never have known but for Rafe. Yet Tex would have had it no other way. His destinies were guided by his loyalties. Those loyalties were his life, his religion, his reason for living.
Yet despite his worries over Marsh and Brisco, Rafe found his thoughts returning again and again to Ann Rodney. Why had she ridden to warn them of the impending attack? Had it not been for that warning the riders would have wiped out Brisco at the same time they got Marsh, and would have followed it up to find Rafe and Johnny back in the canyon. It would have been, or could have been, a clean sweep.
Why had Ann warned them? Was it because of her dislike of violence and killing? Or was there some other, some deeper feeling?
Yet how could that be? What feeling could Ann have for any of them, believing as she seemed to believe that he was a thief or worse? The fact remained that she had come, that she had warned them.
Remembering her, he recalled the flash of her eyes the proud lift of her chin, the way she walked.
He stared grimly into the night and swore softly. Was he in love? “Who knows?” he demanded viciously of the night. “And what good would it do if I was?”
He had never seen the Fort, yet knew it lay between the forks of the Piney and its approximate location. His way led across the billowing hills through a countr marked by small streams lined with cottonwood, bow elder, willow, choke-cherry and wild plum. That this was Indian country, he knew. The unrest of the tribes was about to break into open warfare. Already there had been sporadic attacks on haying or wood-cutting parties. Constant attacks were being made on the Missou steamboats, far to the north.