Putting a hand on his shoulder, I said, “All right, boy. You just take it easy.”
Somebody was out there in the night, calling to me. Now a man who goes rushing
out into the night will sooner or later wind up with a bullet in his belly. Me,
I circled around, scouting, and moving mighty easy. I had a sight more enemies
in this country than friends.
It wasn’t any time at all until I saw a standing horse, heard a low moan, and
then I moved in. It was a man on the ground, and he was bad hurt.
“Señor!” the voice was faint. “Please … it is Miguel. I come to you … I
bring you troubles.”
So I scooped him off the ground and put him on his horse. “You hang on,” I said.
“Only a few yards.”
“Men come to kill me, señor. It will be trouble for you.”
“I’ll talk to them,” I said, “I’ll read ’em from the Scriptures.”
He passed out, but I got him to camp and unloaded him. He was shot all right.
He’d had the hell shot out of him. There was a bullet hole in his thigh and
there was another high in his right chest that had gone clean through. His
clothes were soaked with blood and he was all in.
There was water by the fire so I peeled back his clothes and went to work. First
off, I bathed away the blood and plugged the holes to stop the bleeding. Come
daylight, if he made it, I was going to have to do more.
With the tip of my bowie I slit the hide and eased a bullet out from under the
skin of his back, then bathed the wound and fixed it up as best I could. I could
hear riders working their way down the country, a-hunting him. Sooner or later
they’d see the reflection of my fire and then I’d have to take care of that.
Moving Miguel back out of the firelight, I got him stashed away when I heard
them coming, and they came with a rush.
“Hello, the fire!”
“You’re talking. Speak your piece.”
“We’re hunting a wounded greaser. You seen him?”
“I’ve seen him and he’s here, but you can’t have him.”
They rode up to the fire then and I stepped up to the edge of the light. Trouble
was, one of those riders had a rifle and it was on me, and the range wasn’t
fifteen feet.
That rifle worried me. They had me sweating. A fast man on the draw can beat a
man who has to think before he can fire, but that first shot better be good.
“It’s Sackett. The kid they say is a gunfighter.”
“So it’s Sackett,” it was a sandy-haired man with two tied-down guns like one of
these here show-off gunmen, “I ain’t seen none of his graveyards.”
“You just ride on,” I said, “Miguel is here. He stays here.”
“Talking mighty big, ain’t you?” That man was Charley Smith, a big man, bearded
and tough, hard to handle in a difficulty it was said. The one with the rifle
was thin, angular, with a bobbing Adam’s apple and a shooting look to him.
“He’s wounded,” I said, “I’ll take care of him.”
“We don’t want him alive,” Smith said. “We want him dead. You give him to us and
you’re out of it.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Sandy said, “I like it this way. I prefer it this way.”
That Sandy didn’t worry me as much as the man with the rifle. Although the
chances were that Sandy had practiced some with those guns. Even a show-off may
be pretty fast, and I had that to think about.
Of one thing I was sure. There was no talking my way out of this. I could stand
by and see them kill Miguel or I could fight them.
Now I’m not a smoking man myself, but Miguel’s makings had fallen from his
pocket and I’d picked them up, so I got them out and started to roll a smoke and
while I talked I went right on building that smoke.
What I needed was an edge, and I needed it bad. There was the man with the rifle
and Charley Smith and there was this Sandy lad who fancied himself with
six-shooters. There might be more back in the dark but those three I had to
think about.
“Miguel,” I said, and I was talking for time, “is a good man. I like him. I
wouldn’t interfere in any fight of his, but on the other hand, I don’t like to
see a wounded man shot without a chance, either.”
Smith was the cagey one. He was looking around. I guessed Smith was worried
about Orrin. He knew we were a team, and he knew there was four of us, and there
might be, just might be, somebody out there in the dark.
Now I was doing some serious thinking. A man who holds a gun on somebody is all
keyed up and ready to shoot when he first gets the drop on you, but after awhile
his muscles get a little heavy, and his reactions will be a little slower.
Moreover, these fellows outnumbered me three to one. They had the advantage, so
they just didn’t think anybody would be fool enough to tackle them. That there
was against them too. It sort of made them relax mentally, if you get what I
mean.
Only any move I made must be timed just right and I had to slicker them into
thinking of something else.
If they killed Miguel when he was wounded in my camp, I’d never feel right again
… even if I lived.
“Miguel,” Smith said, “is one of Alvarado’s men. We’re running them out.”
“Where’s your brother?” The man with the rifle was asking. He’d had some of his
attention on the shadows out there. In his place I’d have been giving them
plenty of thought.
“He’s around. Those boys are never far off.”
“Only one bed.” That was Sandy shooting off his fat mouth.
“I can see it.” That was the man with the two big pistols who wanted to kill me.
He could make it sound mighty big, later. Charley Smith was going to kill me
because he didn’t want anybody around taking a shot at him later.
Putting that cigarette between my lips I stooped down and picked up a burning
twig to light it. I lifted it to my cigarette, holding it in my fingers while I
had my say.
“The four of us,” I said, “never spread out very far. We work together, we fight
together, and we can win together.”
“They ain’t around,” Sandy-boy said, “only one bed, only his horse and the
greaser’s.”
Up on the hills there was a stirring in the pines and because I’d been hearing
it all evening I knew it was a wind along the ridge, but they stopped talking to
listen.
“I’m a Sackett,” I said conversationally, “out of Tennessee. We finished a feud
a couple of years ago … somebody from the other outfit shot a Sackett and we
killed nineteen Higginses in the next sixteen years. Never stop huntin’. I got a
brother named Tell Sackett … best gunshot ever lived.”
I was just talking, and the twig was burning. Charley Smith saw it. “Hey!” he
said. “You’ll burn—!”
The fire touched my fingers and I yelped with pain and dropped the twig and with
the same continuing movement I drew my gun and shot that rifleman out of the
saddle.
Sandy was grabbing iron when I swung my gun on him and thumbed my hammer twice
so it sounded like one shot and he went backwards off his horse like he’d been
hit with an axe.
Swinging my gun on Smith I saw him on the ground holding his belly and Tom
Sunday came riding up with a Henry rifle.
“Smartest play I ever saw,” he said, watching Smith on the ground. “When I saw
you lighting up I knew there had to be something … knowing you didn’t smoke.”
“Thanks, you sure picked a good time to ride up.”
Sunday got down and walked over to the man who’d held the rifle. He was dead
with a shot through the heart and Sandy had taken two bullets through the heart
also. Sunday glanced at me. “I saw it but I still don’t believe it.”
Thumbing shells into my gun I walked over to Miguel. He was up on one elbow his
face whiter than I’d have believed and his eyes bigger. “Gracias, amigos,” he
whispered.
“Orrin told me you’d come out here and I was restless so I figured I’d ride out
and camp with you. When I saw you in the middle of them I was trying to figure
out what to do that wouldn’t start them shooting at you. Then you did it.”