Hardcase (22 page)

Afterward he went back into Wallace's room, lighted the lamp and set it on the floor beside the chest, and drew out one gun. The other was wedged in his levi waistband above his shell belt.

For a moment he just stared at the chest, gauging his chances. He would have to shoot twice. One shot would take care of the outside lock. The second shot would have to be spent on blowing open the small iron chest, for he wouldn't be free to lug that around with him on this night.

A second's doubt assailed him. He wasn't even sure the iron box was in there. He was trying the impossible. His glance raised to the dresser, and along the face or it was the scar of Wallace's spur, where he had kicked it.

To Dave that scar was a symbol. It stood for everything that Wallace believed in—violence and destruction and respect for nothing. And beyond that, it was a symbol of what Wallace and his crew were doing to Carol and her father.

Dave looked down again at the lock. Then coolly, calmly, he raised his gun and shot at the lock. The big padlock spread but did not break. Dave shot again, and this time the lock skittered off across the floor.

Quietly, swiftly, he raised the lid. A litter of papers confronted him, and he threw them aside. Then on the bottom he saw the iron box and lifted it out. He tried not to listen to the other noises from the rooms beyond.

He put his gun barrel to the small padlock, and one shot blew it clear across the room. Opening the lid, he saw the deed there—one lone piece of paper, resting inside the box like a jewel in velvet. Inside it was the receipt. Dave blew the light, folded the papers, buttoned these in his shirt pocket, then came to his feet and moved swiftly toward the door, and opened it a crack.

There was turmoil in the two end rooms, but Dave ignored them. It was the room opposite this that he was watching.

The door suddenly pulled open, and a tousle-headed, barefoot puncher, holding his pants up with one hand, a gun in the other, ran out. He leaped for the stairhead and ran down, shouting, “Who the hell shot?”

Dave let him pass. He had counted two in that room. Then suddenly, from the open doorway, Marty Cord, with only one boot on, a gun in his hand, lunged for the stairs.

Dave swung the door open, reached out, and wound his arm about Cord's neck, slamming the gun out of his hand with a vicious kick of his boot.

There was turmoil below now, and Dave shoved Cord ahead of him down the stairs, keeping the strangle hold on him. Cord clawed futilely at Dave's arm around his throat, but he was helpless.

Dave rounded the turn in the stairs, took three steps down, and then stopped just as Usher bawled, “Look out!”

Wallace, three punchers, Will Usher, and the barefoot man, all standing in the hall below, swiveled their heads and looked at the stairs. For one utterly silent moment—save for the pounding on the bedroom doors above—nobody moved, nobody spoke, and then Dave said jeeringly, “Will, I reckon it's time to tell Wallace a few things, don't you?” Will, standing just ahead of Wallace, didn't answer.

Wallace had a gun in his hand. He stared at Dave, and with his thumb he cocked his six-gun.

“Wallace, me and Will aimed to steal your deed. I got it in my shirt now. I also broke into the county clerk's office and got the record of it, so you ain't got even a claim to the Bib M.” He had relaxed his grip on Marty's throat now, and Marty was silent.

“There's just one thing I want you to know, Wallace, before I walk out of here behind your ramrod. That is, that Will was double-crossin' you all along.”

“You're a liar!” Will Usher shouted. He started to turn around to face Wallace, but Wallace was faster. He swung his gun into Will Usher's back, and his face was white with rage.

“You want proof, Wallace?” Dave jeered. “I been hidin' in the house all day. Go look below the top hinge on that door that goes into the kitchen, and you'll see what Will wrote there for me to see while he kept you playin' cards.”

Nobody moved. There was pounding on the doors up above, and Dave heard a muted shout.

Marty gasped out, “He's a crook, Tate, Usher is.”

“Prince, go look,” Wallace said thickly.

“Drop your gun first!” Dave said swiftly.

The tousle-headed puncher dropped his gun, went down the corridor, opened the door, peered in the darkness, fumbled a match out, struck it, and then read aloud, so Wallace could hear: “‘It's in a locked iron box six by nine.' It's signed ‘Will'.”

He came back down the corridor, and then Usher found his voice. “Damn you, Dave, you lie! I never—”

A muffled shot sounded in the hall. Will Usher's back arched; a surprised expression crossed his handsome face. He tried to scream, took a step forward, fought to raise his gun to shoot Dave, and then every muscle in him collapsed. He fell on his face, his gun kiting across the rug and hitting the bottom step.

Dave said: “Line up against the south wall, and make it quick! I'm goin' out of here!”

On the heel of his speech he heard glass shatter up above, and he knew that he would have to move fast. The crew had discovered the gallery door.

He took a step down the stairs. And then Wallace dodged into the living room. His gun poked around the corner, and Marty Cord, seeing it leveled at him, yelled, “Don't shoot, Tate! Don't—”

Crash!

Dave felt Marty Cord's body far as if it had been hit with a sledge. For one instant, as Marty's muscles tautened to the breaking point, Dave couldn't believe it. Wallace had shot Cord, his own man, to get at him!

And then Marty sagged. Dave shoved him, vaulted the rail, fell the six feet to the floor, and lunged for the door into the kitchen just as Wallace bawled: “After him!”

A shot slapped into the doorframe, and then Dave was in pitch dark. He lunged for the kitchen door, yanked, but the door didn't give. It was locked. Another shot came down the corridor and slapped into the door ahead of him.

He ducked, turned left, and raced for the end of the dark kitchen. A man pounded into the kitchen from the corridor, and Dave snapped a shot at him. The man tripped and sprawled, and then Dave, remembering from breakfast, lunged through the door from the kitchen into the dining room. It was dark in here, and he flattened against the wall, peering about him in the darkness. He made out a window and ran for it. Halfway there he heard a door slam open, and a shaft of light from the corridor was laid swiftly across the floor. Dave fell and lined his gun at the man in the door and shot. The man, still holding the door handle, fell backward, pulling the door shut.

Dave picked up a chair and threw it through the window, and then three separate shots slammed through the window from outside and bedded in the far well. They had the place surrounded.

Dave ran for the corridor door, then yanked it open, took aim, and shot out the lamp on the corridor table. Now the lower story was half dark, and he stood back against the wall by the open door. Men were still pounding down the stairs, and he could hear them shouting outside. Above the racket was the voice of Wallace in the kitchen: “Try the office!”

Dave stepped out into the dark corridor. Yes, there was one light left, and that was in the living room. He ran for it, saw a man at the open window, facing outside, and then he shot the lamp out.

Now the whole lower story was dark. Dave stood there at the foot of the stairs, listening, beating his mind for some way out of this.

He tiptoed to the front door and opened it. A squeak of the hinge gave it away, and a slug boomed into it the next second. Dave drew back and slowly loaded his guns, listening to the sounds. Someone was moving in the kitchen. A man tripped over the chair in the office. Above, the house was quiet. The man in the living room suddenly kicked the window out and leaped through, and Dave could hear him pounding for the cottonwoods, yelling, “Don't shoot!”

A man in back bawled, “Come give me a lift back here!”

And then it was quiet. Men were moving softly outside and in, hoping to avoid drawing fire.

Suddenly a man whispered loudly, “Steve.” No answer. “Steve, where are you?”

Dave whispered too. “Here. Who is it?”

“Juke. Where are you?”

“Here. Listen, he's went upstairs,” Dave said hoarsely.

“Whyn't you cut down on him?”

“I come off without a gun!” Dave whispered savagely. “You got one?”

There was a movement ahead of him in the dark, and Dave held his breath. Then the man said, “Here!”

Dave reached out and touched a man's shoulder. Quick as thought he ducked around behind him and rammed his gun in the man's back.

“Don't move! Don't yell!”

He felt the man shaking, and then the rider whispered, “Don't shoot, Coyle.”

Dave said softly, “Open that front door and bawl out as loud as you can. Yell, ‘Wallace, we got him! He's hangin' out that south window!' You savvy that? Yell it!”

He shoved the man toward the door and yanked it open. A shot hammered out, and a slug whistled over their heads. Dave jammed his gun hard against the puncher's spine, and suddenly the puncher cut loose with a bawl that could be heard for a mile.

“We got him, Wallace! He's hangin' out the south window! We got him!”

Dave kicked the man out into the night, as a babel of voices from all sides of the house welled up. He turned and ran down under the gallery toward the north and the corral.

He had almost achieved the corner of the house when he heard someone pounding toward him in the darkness. He tried to swerve out of the way, but he was too late. He rammed into the man with a force that sent them both sprawling and drove the wind from his lungs.

And while he was lying there gagging, he heard Juke's voice lift up in a wild, cursing yell: “He's got away! He ain't dead! He's headin' for the corral.”

Still fighting for breath, Dave heard in the gloom the puncher he had collided with moaning softly and stirring. Dave crawled over to him, raised his gun, and crashed it down on the man's head.

It was too late to move now, for a half-dozen men were running under the gallery toward him.

Dave put his face to the ground and sprawled out and lay there in the darkness, trusting to the night and their haste to miss him. They were running blindly now. The first man hurdled the two figures lying side by side on the ground, and the others split their ranks and pounded past.

And then he heard Wallace approaching, cursing like a maniac. Wallace paused beside him, put his hands to his mouth, and yelled: “He ain't got a horse. Surround the barn!” And then Wallace ran forward again, so close this time that the toe of his boot touched Dave's gun.

Dave lay immobile a moment, then came to his knees. He faded into the shadow of the house, moved on past it into the cottonwoods, and then turned and ran. Within a few hundred yards he was brought up abruptly by a dry ditch. He dived into it, squatted down, and waited there, sucking great drags of breath into his lungs, hearing the ruckus over by the corrals.

He knew he would have to hurry now, for there wasn't much time. He turned west then, heading for the horse pasture at a dogtrot. He skirted the stand of cottonwoods, and when he finally reached the fence he climbed it and walked in the darkness toward the middle of the pasture. He lay down there in the grass, and presently he heard a horse pounding across the small field, searching for the loose horses. The man found them bunched down toward the far end of the field where the grass was better. Now the herd started toward the corral. Dave saw someone had lighted a lantern and hung it over the corral.

Wallace was smart. He knew, or guessed, that Dave didn't have a horse. Once his men were mounted he could beat the country inch by inch and sooner or later pick up a man afoot.

The herd pounded toward Dave, and he lay down again, watching the rider ride by him, hazing the horses into the open corral gates. Two men were by the gate, holding it open, and two more were guiding the horses into the corral.

Dave, clinging to the fence now, and crawling up on hands and knees, moved toward the corral. When the last of the horses was inside, the gate shut, and two more lanterns lighted to help in snaking out the mounts, Dave moved closer. He kept watching the man on the horse, holding his breath.

The gate shut; the rider swung off, tied his horse, took off his rope from the saddle, swung over the gate bars, and dropped into the corral. Men were cursing now as the horses milled nervously. It was slow work, cutting out horses, and these men were in a panic of a hurry. Wallace's voice goaded them with orders.

Dave, on his belly now, crawled along the ground next to the corral toward the lone horse. The milling horses inside cut off the light of the lantern, so that he was in darkness. He inched forward until he came to the gate. That was open, barred, and he would have to wait until the horses circled again. He lay there, peering into the dusty corral, watching the horses. A puncher made a cast, got his loop on his pony, then the horses broke and started milling. When they came around to him Dave, keeping them between himself and the lantern, raced across the length of the gate and dived in the shadow of the poles, right at the horse's feet. The pony snorted, but nobody paid any attention. Dave reached up, untied the reins, and slowly led the horse along the corral poles until they were outside the lantern night. Then he rose and walked the horse farther back into the darkness. When he was certain he was clear he mounted him and rode out toward the end of the pasture. There was a gate there which he went through, and then he pointed off toward the Corazon. Isolated shouts drifted down the cold night to him from the house, and he could still see the lanterns.

He put a hand to his shirt pocket, felt the deed and receipt there, and then lifted his horse into an easy lope.

He was smiling a little into the night, and he did not take his hand from the deed. Here, over his heart, in the palm of his hand, he held the key to the man behind Wallace, the man who killed Sholto, the man who ruined McFee.