But the thing that worried me most was Galloway.
Had they killed him right off? That I couldn’t believe. But where could he have gotten to?
Right then I taken out my six-shooter and checked every load. I did the same with my Winchester, and added a few rounds to bring her up to capacity. If the Fetchen boys found me they were going to lose scalps rooting me out of here.
Then I sat back to wait. I would have liked a cup of coffee … four or five cups, for I’m a coffee-drinking man. But all I could do was wait and think.
That Judith girl, now. She was a mighty pretty thing, come to think of it. How could I have been so dumb as not to see it … Mighty contrary and ornery, though. And those freckles … She was pert, too pert …
Other thoughts were in my mind, too. How long could those boys hold out down below – Moss, Cap, and the others?
I had to hand it to Black Fetchen. He was a general. We seemed to be winning a round or two, but all the while he was baiting trap for us.
I wished I knew what had happened to Galloway. He might be dead, or he might be lying up somewhere, worse off than me. Far down the slope I heard a long “halloo” – no voice I knew. All right, let them come.
I twitched around and studied my layout by the coming daylight. They couldn’t get at me from behind, and nobody was coming up that slope in front of me. What they had to do was come right along the same way I had. Taking sight down the trail, I figured I had it covered for fifty yards; then there was a bend which allowed them cover. I had the side of the canyon for a hundred yards further along.
It started to rain again, a cold drizzle that drew a sheet of steel mesh across the morning. The grass and the trees were greener than I had ever seen them, the trunks of the trees like columns of iron. For a long time I saw no movement. When I did see it down the trail I saw it half asleep, but I was startled into wakefulness.
On a second look I saw nothing, yet something had moved down there, something black and sudden, vanishing behind a bend in the trail even as it registered on my consciousness.
I lifted my rifle muzzle, and rested it on my half-bent knee. My hand was on the action as I watched the trail. My ears were alert to catch any sound, and I waited for what would come …
Supposing I could get out of this jam – and all the time I knew how slight my chances were – what could I do with my future? Well, Tyrel had no more when he came west, and now he was a well-off man, a respected man, with a fine wife and a ranch.
My eyes had not wandered from the trail, and now a man came into view down there. He was following some sort of a trail, although mine must have washed out long since, and he was edging closer. From his manner, it seemed to me that he fancied he was close upon whatever he was hunting.
Once, while my rifle held him covered, he paused and started to lift his own weapon. He was looking at something above and back of me, but evidently he was not satisfied with his sight picture or else he had been mistaken in his target, for he lowered the rifle.
He came on another step, seemed then to stagger, and he started to fall even as the sound of a shot went booming down the canyon, losing itself in the rain.
The man went down to the ground, his rifle still gripped in his hand, and he lay there sprawled out not sixty yards away from me. I could see the bright stain of blood on his skull and on the trail beside him.
Who had fired?
Waiting for a minute, I saw no one, but suddenly I knew I could not stay where I was. I had taken time to plug and bind my wounds as best I could, but I desperately needed help. So, using my rifle for a crutch, I crawled from my shelter and hobbled into the cold rain.
For a few moments I would be invisible to whoever was up there. With care I worked around and started to go on up the narrow trail. I could not see anybody, but visibility was bad; I knew that shot could not have come from far off.
The trail became steeper. Hobbling along, I almost fell, then I pulled up under some trees.
“Flagan?” came the voice.
It was Judith.
She was standing half behind the black trunk of a spruce, partly shielded by its limbs. She wore a man’s hat and a poncho. Her cheeks glistened in the rain and her eyes seemed unnaturally large. She must have been out on the mountain all night long, but I never saw anybody look so good.
“Be careful,” she warned. “They are all around us.”
“Have you seen Galloway?” I asked.
“No.”
I moved up toward her, but stopped to lean against a tree. “I’ve been bit, a couple of times,” I said. “How is it above us?”
“They are all along the ridge. I don’t know how I managed to slip through,” she said.
Looking up toward the ridge through the branches, I could see nothing but the trees, the rain, and the low ram clouds.
“I’ve got a place,” she said. “We’d better get to it.”
She led the way, and before she’d taken half a dozen steps I could see she knew what she was about, holding to cover and low ground, taking no chance of being seen. It was obvious she had used the route before, and that worried me. With a canny enemy against you, it never pays to go over the same ground twice. Somebody is likely to be waiting for you.
“How do you happen to be over here?” I asked her.
“Nobody came back, and we were worried. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I slipped away and came in this direction.”
The place she had found wasn’t much more than a shelter from the rain. A lightning-struck tree had fallen almost to the ground before being caught between two others. Wedged there, it formed a shelter that she had improved by breaking off small branches on the underside and weaving them into the top.
The steep bank behind and the trees kept it dry, and she could enter it without being seen. The trees lower down the slope screened it in front, and we felt we could even have a small fire without it being seen or the smoke attracting attention.
“Flagan?” She was on the ground beside the fire, waiting for coffee water to boil.
“Yes?”
“Let’s just ride away from here. I don’t want to fight any more. I don’t want trouble.”
“Your pa’s down there.” I gestured toward the base of the mountain, almost within view from here. “He’s almighty tired, but when I left them they were holed up in a good spot”
“I want to see him, but I’m scared for you. Black will never rest until he’s killed you, Flagan. You and Galloway.”
“We don’t kill easy.”
When the coffee was ready, we drank some, and nothing ever tasted so good. But I was worried. The Fetchens were close around somewhere on this mountain, and I knew I wasn’t going to get another chance. The next time we met, it had to be all or nothing. Hurt as I was, I knew I couldn’t last very long.
Putting down my coffee cup, I checked my guns. Just then somewhere up the slope a branch cracked, and we both heard it.
Taking up my cup again in my left hand and keeping my six-gun in my right, hand, I looked over at her.
“You get down behind that mess of branches. This here is going to be a showdown.”
“You scared, Flagan?”
“I guess I am. I’m not as sharp as I should be, this here wound and all.” I finished my coffee. “That tasted good.”
With my rifle I pushed myself up, holstered my gun, and wiped off the action of my rifle, flicking the water away. Standing on a small mound of dirt pushed up by the roots of the fallen tree, I looked down the slope.
They were coming all right. I counted five of them. And there were others up the slope, too, closing in. There must have been fourteen or fifteen in all.
“This here’s going to be quite a fight,” I said. “You got a pistol besides that rifle?”