Most of them were young, and the younger they were the harder they worked to be accepted as men. No boy over fourteen wanted to be thought of as a boy … he wanted to be considered a man and a top hand at whatever he was doing.
The first thing he learned was to do his part. Nobody had any use for a shirker or a lay-around … it just made more work for the others, and such a one became almighty unwelcome awful fast. On the other hand, nobody asked who you were or where you came from, only that you stood up when there was something to be done.
Nobody thought of horses except as companions and working partners. The value of a horse in terms of money wasn’t often mentioned. You’d hear a man say, “He’s a damn’ fine cuttin’ horse.” Or maybe, “He’ll go all night an’ the next day. Stays right in there.” Or, “That’s the horse I rode when I tied onto that brindle steer that time, an’ …”
You hear folks say how horses were rough used on old-time ranches, but it ain’t so. At least, they used them no worse than they used themselves, and usually a whole sight better. You’ll hear folks say that horses are stupid, but they ain’t if you give them a chance. A horse is like a dog … he needs to belong to somebody, to be trusted by somebody. Once they know what’s expected of them they’ll come through.
There was no word from Milo Talon, and I lay awake nights wondering what Planner would do next. Me an’ Em talked it over at breakfast, with Al Fulbric putting in his two cents’ worth. The result was that I got out a team that had once been broke to harness, hitched them to a plough, and then went out and ploughed a firebreak twelve furrows wide just below the crest of the hill that divided us from town. It taken several days, but I got it done, and Al ploughed some on the other side.
Back up into the woods we scouted the country, and here and there tied onto a dead fall and dragged it into place. In other places we cut trees and felled them so they’d form a barrier to riders or even men on foot. We laid out trails through these barriers with certain logs to be lifted to let us by. It was like one of these mazes you hear tell of. If a man knew his way as we did he could ride through almighty fast, but if he didn’t know the key entrance and exit he played hob gettin’ through.
Fire was what we feared most. We set out barrels and filled them with water near the barns and bunkhouse, and we shot more meat and jerked it against a long fight.
Two nights later I woke up with a yell ringing in my ears. Somebody was pounding on the door and yellin’ “Fire!” I grabbed for my hat and my pants, slamming the first on my head and scrambling into the others. I stamped my feet into boots, grabbed my gun belt, and ran for the door.
The whole horizon was lit by flames. They were coming right at us with a good beat of wind behind them. As I ran for the corral I heard the beat of hoofs and Al Fulbric came out on the dead run. He was in his long Johns with a gun belted on, waving his rifle and yellin’ like a Comanche. But across his horse in front of him he had a bunch of old sacks and a spade.
It taken me a moment to throw the leather on the roan and get into the saddle. There were sacks laid out and ready and I grabbed a bundle along with a shovel and raced after him.
We reached our firebreak just ahead of the flames. Believe me, had it not been there we’d have been wiped out, but because it was lyin’ like it was, on our side of the hill, Planner hadn’t even guessed it was there.
We hit the dirt, and leaving our horses on the ranch side of the break, we ran across and went to whipping out the first inroads of flame with our sacks. We managed to fight it for a bit, then fell back after starting backfires.
The backfires burned right up to our firebreak and gave us about fifty more feet of leeway. Only a few sparks managed to blow across to the ranch side and we whipped those out or buried them with earth before they got started.
Pennywell was right there with us, and so was Em. Suddenly I turned sharp around. “The house!” I said. “They’ve gotten into the house by now!”
We hit our saddles on the run, Em no slower than the rest of us, and we went down the slope on the run.
As we came into the back door, a bunch of men were crowdin’ into the front door and Em ran through, me behind her. Al cut around through another room.
Len Spivey was there, and Matthews, and some others. Len was grinning. “Looks like we got you! Jake thought that fire would do it.”
They all had guns in their hands and there were eight of them and only two of us in sight.
They guessed right on some things, they guessed wrong on Emily Talon.
“You got nothing,” she said, and she cut loose her dogs … only they were slugs from a big Dragoon Colt.
They couldn’t believe it. They’d been sure if there was trouble it would come from me, and they paid no mind to the womenfolks, or mighty little. And they didn’t even know about Al.
Em just tilted her old pistol and cut loose, and just as she fired, Al Fulbric jumped from the bedroom door with a shotgun in his hands, and somehow my old six-shooter was speaking its piece right along with them.
It was shock that won for us. They’d not expected shooting with the women there, not really knowing what kind of a woman Em was. It was shock and the time it takes a man to react. Em’s first shot caught Matthews, who was closest to her, and turned him halfway around. His own gun went oft into the floor just as Al cut loose with a double-barreled shotgun.
Matthews was falling, shot through the body. Another man grabbed at the doorjamb and slid down it to the floor, and Len Spivey threw himself at the door and damn near broke his neck getting out of there.
We ran to the door after them. One man turned to fire and my bullet cut him right across the collarbone from side to side. I saw him stagger and cry out, seen his shirt flop where the bullet cut it, and then I put a second one into his brisket. And then they were gone.
They left three behind. Matthews was down and dying. The man who slid down the doorjamb had taken a load of buckshot at twelve-foot range, and he was dead. A third man lay on the grass outside the front door.
They’d drawn us off with the fire as they figured, but they had guessed wrong on Emily Talon. I might have held back myself, for fear of the women getting shot, but there was no hold-back in Em.
Nor in Pennywell.
She had got off two shots. I saw her loading up again afterwards. She was pale as a ghost when it was over, but she was thumbing two cartridges back into her pistol, and she was ready.
Man, those were women!
12
There was a meanness in me. We’d come off lucky. Em had been burned by one bullet, but that was the only injury to any of us.
We’d lost some grass, but spring rains and the winter snows would bring that back. The burning left us secure from that side at least, for now there was nothing left to burn.
They’d busted through the front window. They’d tried to break down the door, but it just didn’t bust that easy. They’d pried off one of the shutters and had busted through the window to get in. That was what allowed us time to get down there.
But it was not in me to sit by, so I went right outside, and saying nothing to anybody I hit the road for town. I pulled up in the shadow of a barn, saw their horses at the hitch rail of the hotel-saloon, and I walked across the street and up the steps. They were all inside, cursing and swearing and downing drinks when I came through the door, and they turned around thinking I was Planner.
I never said yes or no, I just cut loose. My first bullet taken Len Spivey just as he closed his fist over his gun butt. It slammed him into the bar and the second one opened a hole right in the hollow at the base of his throat.