“You see it that way, too, Purdy?” Hyle was standing wide-legged, his hands on his hips. They were thick, powerful hands with red hair on the backs. His blunt, brutal features seemed to thrust forward.
“We’re in it together, Red. If they’ve got anything, we want our share.”
McKaskel was close to Shabbitt, and even as Con glanced that way he saw McKaskel’s horse step over a little closer. If McKaskel’s hands were still tied there was not much he could do, but if he could break loose he’d be in a fair position to jump Doc.
Con’s eyes swept the scene again. Purdy, Ike, and Red Hyle. It was too tough a job even if McKaskel got Doc out of it.
Susanna had the shotgun, of course, and she might account for one. She had been quick enough to act when she swung that club on Booster.
“We’ve got your husband,” Hyle said, turning to Susanna. “You put down that shotgun or I’ll have Doc start cuttin’ fingers off. Every time I count, he’ll lose another finger. Now you goin’ to drop it or not?”
Susanna’s shotgun was steady. “Mister,” she spoke quietly, “if you say one, you will never say two. By the time you open your mouth I will have blown you apart with both barrels of this shotgun. You know, Mr. Hyle, or whatever your name is, you make a big, wide target, and I don’t think I like you, Mr. Hyle.”
All the time Vallian kept thinking, Where is the Huron? He looked all around him, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary.
It looked like a stalemate, but Con Vallian did not believe in stalemates. He held back, waiting. If the Huron moved in, then he would do likewise, otherwise he preferred to be the joker in the deck.
“Now,” Susanna was cool, “you just back up and ride away, and when you go, leave my husband right where he is.”
Nobody moved. There were four armed men and she was alone. How long before her nerve broke? How long before her arms tired and she lowered the shotgun?
She had obviously expected them to go, and when she spoke again, her voice was higher. “Go,” she said, “or I’ll shoot!”
Doc Shabbitt was smiling. It was a situation he liked, Con could see that, and especially as the shotgun was not pointed at him. “Ma’am,” he said, “you better put that gun down. If you was to kill Red here, there’d still be the three of us.
“First off, I’d kill your husband. Then we’d just have things as we want them. If I was you, I’d just put down that there shotgun and hope we’ll be easy on you.”
What she would have done, Con Vallian never knew, for at that instant, Tom rushed up. “Ma! Give me that gun, I’ll-!”
Her eyes went to Tom, and Red Hyle lunged for her. Duncan, bursting the sawed-through rawhide, spurred his horse to jump against Shabbitt, whose horse side-stepped into those of the Mantles. Duncan threw both arms around Doc and they went from the saddle to the ground.
Con Vallian snapped a quick shot at Hyle, missed, and swung the gun on Ike Mantle. Ike saw the rifle swinging to cover him and went down, Indian-fashion, on the far side of the horse, leaping it for the brush as he snapped a quick shot.
Hyle grabbed for the shotgun as Con swung his rifle for another shot, but Susanna clung to the gun. Red swung her violently, the shotgun tearing from her hands as she went into the brush. Con fired and the bullet burned across the back of Hyle’s hand as the big gunman dove for the brush, grabbing for his six-shooter.
Susanna scrambled for the fallen shotgun as Shabbitt shook off her husband, and scrambled to his feet. He turned and grabbed at his horse, and Susanna shot at Hyle, then at Shabbitt. Doc went sprawling, tried to get up, then sagged out on the grass, turning red beneath him.
Only Purdy remained, sitting his horse and offering to make no move.
Con Vallian strode down from the brush. “Ride out!” he shouted. “Ride out or make your fight!”
“I’ll make my fight when I’m ready,” Purdy said. “This here wasn’t my idea.” He turned his horse and walked him from the camp. Susanna was fumbling to get the empty cartridge casings from the shotgun. Tom stared, awed and frightened.
Slowly, Duncan got up and brushed himself off. “There wasn’t much I could do. Arms numb,” he said, “I just jumped my horse.”
“Good thinking,” Con said dryly, “that just about saved us all. Threw ’em all off stride.”
Susanna stared in horror at Shabbitt. “Is he dead? I mean, did I-?”
Con walked over and turned Doc onto his back. The man was not dead, but soon would be. He had taken the shotgun blast through the lower part of the chest and part of the stomach.
Con Vallian turned around to meet Susanna’s eyes. “Yes, ma’am, you did. And a good job it was, too.”
“Let’s get out of here,” McKaskel said.
CHAPTER XX
On the seventh day following the difficulty in the woods, Duncan McKaskel had completed plowing an acre near the cabin for a vegetable garden and was planning a cornfield across the river on the fiat near the old corral.
Con Vallian had been showing Tom how to cut long wedges to fit into cracks in the old cabin, and Susanna had taken tune from other duties to bake a cake. Earlier, Tom had caught a half dozen trout from the stream, and the sun was bright over the cabin on the creek.
It was very quiet. Nobody had felt much like talking, but they all knew that Con had gone back and buried Doc Shabbitt where he had fallen, and that he had spent several days trying to pick up the trail of the vanished Red Hyle.
A dozen miles to the north not far from the Cherry Creek to Fort Laramie Trail, Purdy Mantle was seated by the fire waiting for Ike to return. Ike had ridden out after a deer or any meat that could be found, and to tell the truth, Purdy was glad to be alone.
He had been doing some thinking since the brief shootout and what he saw of himself did not appeal. He was good with a gun and he came from an outlaw clan, but outlawing had grown increasingly distasteful. He had said as much to Ike.
“It’s no life for a man. On the dodge all the time.”
“What you figurin’ on?” Ike demanded. “You goin’ to work?”
“What we do’s often harder. I figure I’d like it. I ain’t cut out for this.”
Ike snorted, but said no more. Purdy was going soft he figured, and said as much, but Purdy merely shrugged.
He heard horses and straightened up. It was Ike, but he had Red Hyle with him.
Red had an angry-looking scratch along his cheekbone, and he rode kind of one-sided in the saddle. “Howdy,” Purdy said, “looks like you caught a couple.”
Hyle’s expression was surly. “I didn’t see you makin’ no show of yourself, an’ you’re supposed to be good with a gun.”
Purdy shrugged. “I never picked on women.”
Hyle’s face reddened. “What’s that mean?”
“Nothin’ at all,” Purdy said quietly, “except I had no fuss with that woman. I didn’t want her, an’ you did. I didn’t figure they had anything worth takin’, an’ I never did after maybe the first few days. It wasn’t my idea to come along with them, and I was of no mind to get myself killed over it.”
“If I thought you were pointin’ that at me-!”
Ike interrupted. “That feller lied to us. He said his wife had taken off with Con Vallian.”
“He prob’ly thought she had,” Purdy said mildly. “He’s been around here enough.”
“Where was the Huron?” Ike grumbled. “He should have been there. I thought sure he’d come in there a-shootin’.”
“I’m not through,” Red Hyle said. “I’ll bide my time.”
“Leave them alone,” Purdy advised. “They’re trouble an’ grief.”
The smoke lifted straight toward the sky, and even the aspen leaves were still.
Purdy Mantle poked a stick in the fire. Here it was, right here, right now. He had seen it coming, and now Hyle was full of bitter anger and the need to explode. But then, if it had not been now it would have been something else later. He had known that all along.
“I’ve been shot at,” he said mildly, his glance quizzical, almost amused. “I’ve been shot at, an’ I’ve shot back.”
Red Hyle straightened up, hands on his hips. “Have you now? You didn’t do any shootin’ back there in the woods. Was you scared?”
Purdy knew it was not to be avoided, and somehow deep inside, he wanted it. Just as much as Hyle did, he suspected. “No, I wasn’t scared. I was too busy watchin’ you run from that woman. She not only stood you off, Red Hyle, wanting none of you, but she made you run like a rabbit.”