His first bullet caught the big renegade in mid-stride and the man seemed to stumble, his gun half drawn, and then he took three, stumbling, halting steps forward before his knees buckled under him and he went to the ground. He turned as he fell, and uttered no sound.
With that shot the camp exploded into confusion. A man in a blue shirt charged around a building and was almost torn in half by a shotgun blast, smashing him back as if suddenly jerked from behind. With the roar of the gun echoing against the canyon walls, the man went to the ground, screaming in his death throes.
Hammer and Stahl lunged from the doorway of the cabin and Stahl ducked around the corner, but Hammer halted in the doorway, grabbing the jam with his left hand while he dropped his right in a sweeping draw. The draw was fast, but never completed for Aaron Stark, bowie knife in his fist, hit him like a charging bull. Hammer cried out, and then they both flopped from the door to the earth, fighting like madmen. Hammer was the younger man, but the old man’s rage turned him into a fury, and Matt saw Hammer twist as the knife struck down again, and as Bat squirmed to free himself, the knife of the old mountaineer rose and fell again and again. Aaron Stark had seen his youngest son shot down brutally by this man, and he had waited for the moment.
Bardoul ran for the door just as Massey appeared in it, dragging Jacquine. Massey stopped there, his face scratched, his hair tumbled, and stared wildly about, seeming to see in one frantic moment the end of everything. With an angry cry he sprang back into the door, shoving the girl ahead of him, slamming it shut behind him even as Bardoul’s shoulder hit the heavy planks. The door held.
A bullet struck over his head, and Matt wheeled in a crouch, a gun clenched in his fist.
Not ten feet away was Stahl. He had fired his first shot while skidding to a halt from a run, but when Matt turned and the renegade recognized him, his fury vanished into blank astonishment, then blind panic. He swung his gun up, but Matt squeezed off a shot that jerked Stahl back on his tiptoes, his body bent at the waist. Matt’s second shot went right through the top of his skull.
Then, dead silence fell on the camp. Everywhere Matt saw the bodies of outlaws or honest men carrying guns.
He turned then. Clive Massey was inside. A sadistic killer, crazy with injured vanity and desperate with the crashing of all his schemes, but inside with him were the wives and daughters of the men from the wagons.
Somehow, Massey had to be gotten out of that building, at whatever the cost. It would be like him in his insane rage to turn his gun on them all, but he would kill Jacquine first. Matt Bardoul looked up at the plank door, and his mouth dry, he called out: “Come on out, Massey! You’re through! Come out and give yourself up!”
The sun was warm on his shoulders, and he stood there, tired of fighting, yet knowing that death still waited in the guns of Clive Massey.
“Come out?” Massey’s laugh seemed to hold genuine humour and triumph. “Don’t be a fool! I’m here, but so are your women. Do anything to hurt me, and they all suffer. You let me go free or they all die, one at a time!”
Aaron Stark had come up, and Matt saw Murphy, Tolliver, Lute Harless, Kline and Reutz. And then the Coyles and Pearson.
“What about it, Bardoul? Do I come, or do I start shooting?”
Only an instant did Matt hesitate. “Come on, damn you! Come on out! You get a horse and ten minutes start. After that, I’m on your trail!”
“Leave your friends behind,” Massey shouted, “and I’d like nothing better.”
The door swung open, and Jacquine Coyle was framed in it, her eyes wide and angry. Massey was behind her, gun in hand. “I’m taking her for a hostage to assure my getting out of camp.”
Matt stood flat footed, staring at Massey. All the hatred he felt toward the man came welling up within him, but he stifled it. If Massey took Jacquine, he knew what would happen. At the edge of camp he would kill her. It was like him to destroy what he could not have. Yet there was a chance, a chance that lay in Massey’s vanity.
“Hiding behind a woman’s skirts?” He thickened the sneer in his voice. “Why don’t you meet me man to man? Are you yellow, too?”
“You think I’m such a fool? You would be easy for me, but what of your friends? I wouldn’t trust a man of them!”
Massey was backing toward the horses as he spoke. “What a fool you are, Bardoul! You and that Logan Deane! Gunmen! Bah! You two are a couple of milksops, not worthy of the name of men! I killed him, Bardoul! Beat him to the draw!”
Matt started to speak, to tell him how he had beaten Deane, but then he realized that knowing Massey’s secret was his ace in the hole, for if the man used the trick against Deane, he would also use it against him.
“You’re afraid, Massey! You wouldn’t meet any man on even terms. You aren’t a gunfighter, you’re just a killer! A murderer! You couldn’t equal Deane the best day you ever saw!”
Clive Massey was near the horses now, but he stopped. The innate arrogance and viciousness of the man would not allow him to leave the field without at least one triumph, and coupled with this was his hatred of Matt Bardoul.
Across the level ground and over Jacquine’s shoulder, their eyes met. It was no hatred of Bardoul’s that drove him now, it was the knowledge that he was fighting for the life of the girl he loved. The knowledge that Massey would never leave her for him, or for anyone else. The name of Sun Boyne had become a synonym for brutal murder, and he would not stop now.
“If it weren’t for your friends,” Massey shouted furiously, “I’d kill you now!”
Matt Bardoul smiled slowly, putting all the contempt and doubt he could into his smile and his voice when he spoke. “They will stand aside, and if you kill me, you can go free. You agree to that, Buff? Coyle?”
Both agreed. Murphy at once, Brian Coyle with doubt. Aaron Stark was about to speak up in angry dissent, but Murphy caught his arm warningly.
Matt could see Jacquine looking at him, her eyes large and beautiful, her face white and strained with fear and doubt.
“All right, then!” With a quick, angry gesture Massey threw the girl from him. “You’ve marked me, Bardoul, with this broken nose, but by God, I’ll kill you!”
With his right hand at his coat lapel he faced Matt, taking three quick steps to draw nearer, his eyes ugly with the hatred in them.
Matt stood with his hands hip high, crouched a little, watching Massey. “All right,” he said quietly, “whenever you’re ready!”
Half crouched, his hair blowing a little about his brow, he waited, watching that deadly right hand. Aside from Massey and himself, none knew on what a slender thread his life hung, for they alone knew where Massey’s gun was kept, and with what speed it could get into action.
From the beginning Matt had believed he could taunt Massey into a fight, for the man’s fierce arrogance and vanity would not allow him to refuse. Yet he knew well enough how deadly such a gun could be, and what a hole a .41 would tear in a man’s vitals at their present range of ten feet. He had seen the holes blown into Logan Deane, a man almost as fast, if not faster, than he himself. Mart’s only advantage was that he knew what to expect, and Deane had not.
Bardoul waited, and his lips were stiff, and a slow trickle of sweat started from the roots of his hair and trickled down his brow. His mouth was dry, for they stood close, so close neither man could very well miss, and he knew he must score with his first shot.
The hand at the lapel relaxed its grip, ever so slightly. “It will be a real pleasure to kill you, Bardoul! A pleasure I have denied myself too long!”
The fingers were no longer gripping the lapel, although they remained in the same position, his right hand held high. The fingers were relaxed now, and ready.
“Then if you aren’t yellow,” Matt taunted, “go for your gun!”
The hand of Clive Massey dropped no more than four inches and Matt saw the derringer shoot from his cuff into his fingers, but even as the hand moved, Matt had drawn in a sweeping, half circle movement that brought his gun up, blasting flame.