She jerked the stick up, gripping it with both hands, and as he lunged at her she ripped the jagged end of the stick into his throat, just back of the chin.
Hayden gave a strangled cry and fell back, blood gushing from his throat. Cutler dropped from his horse and rushed at her.
She backed off a little, choosing her ground. “Come on!” she invited. “You can have what he got!”
Cutler was wary. He circled.
Hayden was on his hands and knees, choking on his own blood. “Heh … help me!” he pleaded. Cutler ignored him, circling, watching her like a cat. “You throw down that stick!” he said. “You an’ me, we can git along. We don’t need him. We don’t need nobody. Jus’ you an’ me?”
“You’d better take care of your friend,” Kate said calmly. “I’m not afraid of you, and the Travens are coming. They’re bringing the rope to hang you with!”
Cutler was a heavy, powerful man, but quick. She must be very, very careful! What was it Dal always said? “You got to think of the terrain. You got to use the ground.”
The place where they were was a clearing in the forest not more than fifty feet across, edged on one side by a marsh with no water visible, its surface covered with a thick mat of water lilies and clumps of sedge. As a child she had often hopped from one such clump of sedge to another, but the water-lillies in between often grew over deep water.
There were some scattered pines, much undergrowth, and other trees. She backed off, toward the edge of the lilies, and Cutler followed, his eyes on her.
How much did he know? Of how much was he aware? To make her first leap she must turn her back on him, something she was loathe to do, yet suddenly, she did just that. She turned and leaped for the nearest clumb of sedge, feeling his hands grasping, slipping off her arms as she barely eluded him.
She landed on the sedge, sagged dangerously but came erect and leaped to the next clump. Unaware he lunged after her and ran right into the lily pads. He went down, came floundering to the surface gasping. “Damn you! I’ll -”
Coolly, she leaped to another clump of sedge, then running to the nearest horse she caught up the reins and got into the saddle.
He was floundering in the water and lily pads. “Help me! Help! I can’t swim!”
“Everybody has troubles!” she said, and rode away.
It was Cutler’s horse, and there was a rifle in the scabbard and a pistol in a saddle holster.
She was armed. Now she could look for Dal.
Dal holstered his gun and looked over at Mac. “Well, boy, this is what it all comes to. You and me and them. If we don’t get out of this alive I just want to say no better man ever lived, and I’ve been proud to have you for a brother and a friend.”
“That goes double, Dal, but you and me, we can make it. We’ve got to for Kate’s sake, and then we’ve got to take the girls home.
“You know, Dal, I wonder what happens to men like Ashford? He was a respected man, and he could have gone on to make something of himself. Now he’s thrown it all away.”
“He was rotten at the core, Mac, like one of those pretty red apples a man bites into sometimes. What it all comes down to in the end is a matter of honor and simple decency. If a man doesn’t have that, he’s nothing, and never will be anything, no matter how many cows he owns.”
“You ready?”
“If I ain’t I never will be. We got it to do, boy, and I’ve a hunch here’s where the shootin’ starts.”
Mac stepped into the saddle and edged ahead of Dal. He was thinking, Dal had Kate if they could find her, and who did he have?
He had known a lot of girls, but when it came down to now, where were they? And who would shed a tear if he folded his cards on this trip? Just nobody, outside of his family.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves and dappled the grassy trails. Shadows lurked deep under the trees in this scattered, stunted forest. He saw the tracks where several javek’nas had crossed the trail, leaving the deep, sharp little prints of their passing. They didn’t leave much of a mark, but who did?
He drew the Spencer from the scabbard. A pistol was all right, but for a man with strong hands a rifle was better. He could shoot straighter, farther, and harder, and he had learned to shoot a rifle like a pistol, shooting right from where it was.
“Must be twenty of them left,” Dal said. “Maybe even more.”
“Makes it about even,” Mac said, grinning at him over his shoulder. “But let’s you an’ me find Kate and dust out of here. They don’t have anything we want.”
“Yes, they do. Back yonder in that wagon they’ve got coflee, bacon, and …”
“Ssh!” Mac lifted a hand, and they reined in, listening. They had come close to the edge of the woods, and they could hear the sound of a ship’s bell. Edging forward, from a low sand-hill they could see a ship at anchor on the bay, a boat being lowered into the water. “We weren’t any too quick, Dal,” Mac said. “I hope to God nothing keeps them from getting to Refugio! After all this …”
“They’ll make it.”
“There’s Ashford, going out to meet them.” Mac got out the field glasses. “Butler’s with him. Must be him, from Jesse’s description, and there’s a half dozen others.”
“Anybody at the wagons?”
“Are you thinking what I think you are?”
“Well, look at it. Kate’s out there somewhere needin’ help, but she’ll also be hungry, and it won’t do no good if we starve. Besides, I think we should send up a signal.”
“There’d be ammunition, too, and I’m down to one more load for my pistol.”
They turned their mounts and rode back into the trees, keeping back from the edge of the forest. After all, the two groups approaching each other would be watching each other, not the wagons.
There were many tracks, but they had been ridden over too many times to identify. When they were within fifty yards of the wagons they pulled up. “Nobody in sight,” Mac whispered.
“Let’s go.”
They walked their horses out to the wagons. “Get what we need, Dal. I’ll stand watch.”
Only a moment or two passed, and Dal emerged with a sack of coffee and a slab of bacon. He returned for some jerked beef, a loaf of bread, and a sack of lead bullets.
“Get me some powder, too.”
“Make it quick.”
“Hold your horses. I’ve found me one o’ them Quick-Loaders. I just want to make sure she’s all loaded up.”
He disappeared. Mac was sweating. He mopped the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve, looking all around. The two groups had come together on the sand near the sea. They were talking now.
“Hurry, Dal!”
Dal was climbing out of the wagon when the three riders came out of the brush. They were riding toward the wagons when Mac saw them, and a moment later they saw him. For a moment they stared, then rifles came up, and Mac shot the Spencer from where it was and saw a man fall. He rode his horse away from the wagons to draw fire from Dal and shot again. The man’s horse leaped, throwing him off balance and momentarily out of the fight.
Mac spurred his horse, leaping him toward the third man and they fired simultaneously. Mac felt something snatch at his collar, and his shot missed. His second, fired at a dead run toward the third man, did not.
Wheeling his horse Mac charged at the last man, who was fighting his horse into control. As he came up to the rider he lifted his rifle for a point-blank shot when the man jerked and fell sideways off his horse.
Dal came up as his shot sounded in their ears. “Don’t be greedy,” he said.
At a dead run they rode into the woods. Dal pulled up at the narrowing trail. “You hurt?”
“No … but it was close.”
“Closer than you think. You’ve got blood on your collar.”
Mac put his hand up, touching his neck gingerly. A graze. A half inch further over and he might have bought it. Now the sweat was getting into the wound, and it stung. He took out a handkerchief and made a square of it and tucked it between his collar and the wound.
“Anyway,” Dal said, “we won’t starve, and I’m loaded for bear. I got one of those six-cylinder Quick-Loaders. Maybe we should start this war all over again.”