Brannenburg’s face flushed. “Now, see here, Missus Talon, I—”
“You ride out of here, Dutch, or I’ll shoot you my ownself.”
Dutch was angry. He did not like being faced down by a woman, but he remembered this one, and she could be a holy terror when she got started.
“I want Logan,” Dutch insisted. “That man’s a thief. Why else did he run when chased?”
“You’d run from a lynch party, too, Dutch.” She looked down at him from the porch, and then suddenly she said, “Dutch, do you really want him? Do you just have to have Logan?”
Suddenly wary, Dutch peered at her, trying to read what was in her mind.
“That’s what we come for,” he said sullenly. “We come after him.”
“I’ve heard all about your lynching cow thieves, or them you thought were thieves, and I heard you set fire to a couple of them. All right, Dutch, you want Logan, I’ll give him to you.”
“What?” Dutch peered at her. “What’s that mean?”
“Logan Sackett,” she said quietly, “is kin of mine. We come of the same blood. I’m a Sackett, same as him, and I know my kinfolk. Now you boys believe in fair play, don’t you?” she spoke to Brannenburg’s riders.
“Yes, ma’am, we surely do. Yes, ma’am.”
“All right, Dutch. You want Logan Sackett. I hear tell you shape yourself around as something of a fighter. You been walking hard-heeled around this country for several years now because most of these folks hadn’t lived here long enough to know you when you walked almighty soft. You just get down off your horse, Dutch. You want Logan, you can have him. You can have him fist and skull right here in front of my stoop, and the first one of your boys who tries to help you will get a bullet through his brisket.”
Well, I just walked out on the porch and stopped on the steps. “How about it, Dutch? You want to take me, it’s like Em says. You got to do it yourself, with your own hands an’ without help.”
9
Well, his face was a study, believe me. He was mad clean through but there just wasn’t anything he could do but fight. Dutch sat up there on his horse and he knew he had it to do. Em Talon had laid it out for him and there was no way out short of looking small before his men, and no ranch boss of a tough outfit dares do that.
He got down off his horse and trailed his reins. He taken off his gun belt and slung it around the horn, and then he hung his hat over it.
Meanwhile I’d unslung my gun and knife and come down off the porrch. When he turned around I knew I was in for trouble. I was taller than him, but he was broad and thick and would outweigh me by fifteen pounds or so. He was shorter, but he was powerful and he moved in, hands working back and forth.
I moved out toward him, a little too confident maybe. He taken that out of me but quick. Suddenly he charged, and he was close in before he did, and he went low into a crouch, swinging both hands high. One of them crossed my left shoulder and connected like a thrown brick.
Right away I knew that whatever else Dutch was, he was a scrapper. Somewhere along the line of years behind him he’d learned how to fight. He came up inside, butting his head, then back-heeling me so I fell to the ground. I rolled over and he put the toe of a boot into my ribs before I could get up and raked me with his spur as his foot swung back from the kick. He raked back and he raked deep, ripping my shirt and leaving a trail of blood across my chest. I was up then, but he came at me, and I knew this wasn’t just a fight. He was out to kill me.
You think it can’t be done? I’ve seen a half dozen men killed in fights, and there was no mercy in Dutch, nor in any of his boys. Nor in Em Talon, for that matter.
He came at me, boring in, punching, driving, stomping on my insteps when he got close, raking my shins with the sides of his boots or his spurs. And it taken me a moment to get started.
He was a bull. He had great powerful shoulders under that shirt, and he slammed in close, butting me under the chin with his head. I threw him off and he charged right back. I managed to slam a right into his ribs as he came close, but he knew where he had to win that fight, and that was in close where I couldn’t use my longer arms.
He slammed away at my belly, and I taken a few wicked punches. Then I slammed him on the side of the face with an elbow smash that cut to the bone. When that blood started to show, Dutch went berserk. It was like roping a cyclone. He slammed at me and every punch hurt. He was fighting to kill, but I shoved him off, stiffened a fist into his face, then caught him with a right as he came on in.
It stopped his rush, shook him to his heels. I landed a left and then, as he crouched, swung a right to that split cheekbone that ripped the cut wider.
He hit me twice in the ribs, charged on in, head under my chin, and I tripped and went down. He came down on top of me, grabbing for my throat I reached across one of his arms, grabbed the other, and jerked. He rolled over and I got to my feet first. I started for him as he started to roll and he lashed out at me with both spurred heels. I jumped back just in time to get a wicked slash across one wrist. Then he came up and I hit him in the mouth.
It smashed his lips back into his teeth. He came at me again and I split his ear with a left hook, turning him half around. He grabbed my arm and tried to throw me with a flying mare but I went with it and put both knees into his back. He went down hard, me on top. Grinding his face into the dust, I had him half smothered before I suddenly let go and jumped back. I wanted to whip him, not kill him.
He came up from the ground, staggered, located me and rushed. I put a left jab to his mouth, and as he came close caught him under the chin with the butt of my palm and slammed his head back.
There was no quit in him, I’ll give him that. He was bull-strong and iron-hard and his punching away at my belly was doing me no good. I shoved him off, hit him with a stunning right as he tried to come in again, and then I let him come, but turned a little as he came in and threw him over his hip with a rolling hip lock. He came down hard in the dust.
“Dutch,” I said, “you know damn well I never stole any stock of yours. An’ you know I didn’t know those two who did.”
Paying me no mind, he got up on his hands and knees, then threw himself in a long dive at my legs. My knee smashed him in the face as he came in, and he fell, but he rolled over and came up again.
“You fight pretty good, Dutch,” I said, “but it takes more than owning a lot of cows to make a big man. Hanging anybody you can find or anybody you don’t like makes you nothing but a murderer, lower than any of the men you chase.”
He wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve and stared at me. His cheek was cut to the bone, his lips were in shreds. One eye had a gray lump over it, but he stood there, his big hands opening and closing, the hatred in his eyes an ugly thing.
“You want some more, Dutch,” I said, “you come an’ get it.”
“Next time,” he said, “it’ll be with a gun.”
He wasn’t stopped. I’d beaten him, but he wasn’t through. He liked too much what he thought he’d become. He liked the feeling of power, liked walking hard-heeled down the boardwalks of the towns, liked being followed by a lot of tough riders, with people stepping out of the way.
Most of them were just being polite in spite of his rudeness, but he thought they were afraid. He liked bullying people, liked shoving them around. And he wasn’t going to give it up because he’d lost a fist fight.