In the dim light, Tex recognized Joe Gorman by his hat. Joe wore his hat brim rolled to a point in front.
“Hi, Texas!” Gorman said. Tex could see the gun in his hand, waist high and leveled on him. , “Hi, Joe. Looks like you smelled somethin’.” “Yeah”-Joe nodded-was I did at that. I live in one of those houses over there with some of the other boys. Happened to see somebody ride up here in the dark, and got curious. When you headed for the saloon, I got around you and went in. Then I saw you come in the back door. I slipped out just before the shootin’ started so’s I could beat you back here in case you got away.” “Too bad you missed the fim,” Brisco said quietly. Behind him, the pursuit seemed to have gained no direction as yet. His mind was on a hair trigger, watching for a break. Which of his guns was still loaded? He had forgotten whether he put the loaded gun in the holster or in his belt.
“Who’d you get?” asked Gorman.
“Tom Blazer. Fats McCabe, too.” “I figgered Tom. I told him he shouldn’t have shot the kid. That was a low-down trick. But why shoot Fats?” “He acted like he was reachin’ for a gun.” “Huh. Don’t take a lot to get a man killed, does it?” Brisco could see in the dark enough to realize that Gorman was smiling a little.
“How do you want it, Tex? Should I let you have it now, or save you for Shute? He’s a bad man, Tex.” was I think you’d better slip your gun in your holster and walk back home, Joe,” Tex said.
“You’re the most decent one of a bad lot.” “Maybe I want the money I’d get for you, Tex. I can use some.” “Think you’d live to collect?” “You mean Caradec? He’s through, Brisco.
Through. We got Bo. Now we got you. That leaves only Caradec and Johnny Gill. They won’t be so tough.” “You’re wrong, Joe,” Tex said quietly. “Rafe could take the lot of you, and he will. But you bought into my game yourself, I wouldn’t ask for help, Joe. I’d kill you myself his “You?” Gorman chuckled with real humor. “And me with the drop on you? Not a chance! Why, Tex, one of these slugs would get you, and if I have to start blastin’, I’m goin’ to empty the gun before I quit.” “Uh-huh,” Tex agreed. “You might get me. But I’ll get you, too.” Joe Gorman was incredulous. “You mean, get me before I could shoot?” He repeated, “Not a chance!” The sounds of pursuit were coning closer. The men had a light now and had found his tracks.
“Toward the river. I’ll be a coon!” a voice veiled. “Let’s go!” Here it was! Joe Gorman started to yell and then saw the black figure ahead of him move, and his gun blazed.
Tex felt the shocking jolt of a slug, and his knees buckled, but his gun was out and he triggered two shots, fast. Joe started to fill, and he fired again, but the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Tex jerked the slipknot in his reins loose and dragged himself into the saddle. He was bleeding badly.
His mind felt hazy, but he saw Joe Gorman move on the ground, and heard him say: “You did it, cuss you! You did it!” “So long, Joe!” Tex whispered hoarsely.
He walked the horse for twenty feet and then started moving faster. His brain was singing with a strange noise, and his blood seemed to drum in his brain.
He headed up the tree-covered slope, and the numbness crawled up his legs.
He fought like a cornered wolf against the darkness that crept over him. “I can’t die-I can’t!” he kept saying in his brain. “Rafe’ll need help! I can’t!” Fighting the blackness and numbness, he tied the bridle reins to the saddle horn, and thrust both feet clear through the stirrups. Sagging in the saddle, he got his handkerchief out and fumbled a knot, tving his wrists to the saddle horn.
The light glowed and died, and the horse walked on, weaving in the awful darkness, weaving through a world of agony and the soft clutching hands that seemed to he pulling Tex down, pulling him down. The darkness closed in around him, but under him he seemed still to feel the slow plodding of the horse . . . .
Roughly, the distance to the fort was seventy miles, a shade less perhaps. Rafe Caradec rode steadily into the increasing cold of the wind. There was no mistaking the seriousness of Bo’s condition. The young cowhand was badly shot up and weak from loss of blood.
Despite the amazing vitality of frontier men, his chance was slight unless his wounds had proper care.
Bowing his head to the wind, Rafe headed the horse down into a draw and its partial shelter. There was no use thinking of Tex. Whatever had happened in Painted Rock had happened by now, or was happening.
Brisco might be dead. He might be alive and safe, even now heading back to the Crazv Man. Or he might be wounded and in need of help.
Tex Brisco was an uncertainty now, but Bo Marsh hung between life and death. Hence there was no choice.
The friendship and understanding between the lean, hard-faced Texan and Rafe Caradec had grown aboard ship. And Rafe was not one to take lightly the Texan’s loyalty in joining him in his foray into Wyoming. Now Brisco might be dead, killed in a fight he would never have known but for Rafe. Yet Tex would have had it no other way. His destinies were guided by his loyalties. Those loyalties were his life, his religion, his reason for living.
Yet despite his worries over Marsh and Brisco, Rafe found his thoughts returning again and again to Ann Rodney. Why had she ridden to warn them of the impending attack? Had it not been for that warning, the riders would have wiped out Brisco at the same time they got Marsh, and would have followed it up to find Rafe and Johnny back in the canyon. It would have been, or could have been, a clean sweep.
Why had Ann warned them? Was it because of her dislike of violence and killing? Or was there some other, some deeper feeling? Yet how could that be?
What feeling could Ann have for any of them, believing as she seemed to believe that he was a thief or worse? The fact remained that she had come, that she had warned them. Remembering her, he recalled the flash of her eyes, the proud lift of her chin, the way she walked.
He stared grimly into the night and swore softly.
Was he in love? “Who knows?” he demanded viciously of the night. “And what good would it do if I was?” He had never seen the fort, yet knew it lay between the forks of the Piney and its approximate location.
His way led across the billowing hills and through a country marked by small streams lined with cottonwood, box elder, willow, chokecherry, and wild plum. That this was the Indian country, he knew. The unrest of the tribes was about to break into open warfare, and already there had been sporadic attacks on haying or woodcutting parties, and constant attacks were being made on the Missouri steamboats far to the north.
Red Cloud, most influential chieftain among the Sioux, had tried to hold the tribes together, and despite the continued betrayal of treaties by the white man, had sought to abide by the code laid down for his people. With Man Afraid of His Horse, the Oglala chief, Red Cloud, was the strongest of all the Sioux leaders, or had been.
With Custer’s march into the Black Hills and the increasing travel over the Laramie and Bozeman trails, the Sioux were growing restless. The Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull was indulging in war talk, and was aided and abetted by two powerful warriors, skilled tacticians and great leadersCrazy Horse and Gall.
No one in the West but understood that an outbreak of serious nature was overdue.
Rafe Caradec was aware of all this. He was aware, too, that it would not be an easy thing to prevail upon the doctor to leave the fort or upon the commandant to allow him to leave. In the face of impending trouble, the doctor’s place was with the Army . . . .
News of the battle on the Crazy Man, after Ann’s warning, reached her that evening. The return of the triumphant Shute riders was enough to tell her what had happened. She heard them ride into the street, heard their yells and their shouts.
She heard that Bo Marsh was definitely dead. Even some of the Shute riders were harsh in their criticism of Tom Blazer for that action. While the Shute outfit had ridden away following their attack, fearful of the effects of the sharpshooting from the timber, they were satisfied. Winter was coming on, and they had destroyed the cabin on the Crazy Man and killed Bo Marsh. Mistakenly, they also believed they had killed Brisco and wounded at least one other man.