the Man from Skibbereen (1973) (13 page)

Cris said, "I'd like to live."

Murray laughed. "Now you'll see, honey, what you can expect if you don't do as you're told... see?" The gun bellowed, and Cris felt a sharp sting. He stared. The end of his little finger was gone!

He started to move, seeing blood well from it. "Hold it there, boy!" snapped Murray. "You can try for three now! But you make one move, even a tremble, and you get it right through the skull."

Murray eared back the hammer and in that instant Cris dropped his wounded hand into the hot coals and swept a great handful of flame and sparks at Murray. One quick thrust and fling, and the air was filled with glowing coals and leaping fire.

Murray sprang back, yelling, startled; as the embers struck his hand, he dropped the gun.

He stooped, grabbing for it, and Cris Mayo was over the fire and at him. His knee smashed into Murray's brow, knocking him sprawling on his back. Cris rushed in but churning feet and flashing spurs drove him back. Murray came off the ground, lips curled in a snarl as he dove at Cris.

All pain was forgotten now. This was a type of fighting he understood, and Cris smashed a left into the charging face and felt Murray's nose crunch under his fist. The gunman flailed at him with frantic fists, but Cris stepped in, slipped a wild left and hooked a wicked right into the other man's ribs. Murray grunted, grabbed at Cris and stabbed a thumb at his eyes. Cris turned his head... this was old stuff, he'd learned that trick when he was fourteen, at Rosscarbery... and smashed another blow to the ribs and another to the ear.

Murray staggered and almost fell, but Cris picked him up with his left and struck him four times in the face, then in the belly, Murray tried to knee him in the crotch but Cris Mayo knew what to do about that, too. He lifted his own knee, turning it sidewise and the effort failed.

He shoved Murray off and struck him again in the belly, then again, and then he stopped and spread his legs and began throwing them from the hips, brutal, battering punches that knocked Murray around as if he was but a leaf in the wind.

Murray went down to stay, and Cris walked over and picked up the fallen man's gun. He walked back to Murray and turned him over with one boot. There was a second pistol--Pete Noble's--in his belt, which Cris took also. Murray made no effort to move, so Cris walked to Barda, picked up a knife from beside the fire, and cut her free. "Your finger!" she gasped. "Your poor finger!"

She got to her feet, staggering from being so long tied up. He took Murray's gun in his right hand and held out the left to her. "Bind it up, if you can. We've got to get out of here."

"But we can't leave now! You're hurt!" She began to bandage the finger with a couple of dainty handkerchiefs that were all but inadequate for the job. Yet the hot coals had partially cauterized the wound, even in the fraction of a second of their contact with it.

"Somebody may have heard those shots, and maybe they are his friends and maybe they'll be coming this way," said Cris.

He went to the horses, saddled her mare and gathered the guns, his and Murray's. He helped her onto the mare and saw Murray slowly moving as though to rise. "If you're smart," he said quietly, "you'll stay down. Though you're a bloody and cruel man, I'd not be for beatin' you further unless you ask for it. But if you cross my path again, I'll not let up a second time. If I see you, I'll come for you, fist or gun or club, as to your liking, and to a finish."

He swung up on one of the horses bareback and walked them all away up the hill, with Barda taking the trail beside him. His finger hurt abominably. On the far side of the hill he dismounted, saddled the best looking of the captured horses, and scattered the others with shouts and slaps; then, leading the colonel's horse, they started away.

"What will he do there?" she asked.

"He's got water nearby, and he's got whatever grub he had. When he's able to move, he'll get out. Maybe his friends will find him, and if they do not, he will find his way. He's a mean man and a tough one."

Crispin Mayo looked up at the stars, then swung the horses a bit to the west of north. They rode steadily. "We'll be goin' to the station now," he said. "I'm thinkin' there will be trains, and your father may be there, and this will soon be a bad dream in your mind and no more."

"You are a brave man, Crispin Mayo, a very brave man."

"I'd not claim that. I was afraid yonder. I knew the man had a cruelty in him that would not be satisfied with missing me, nor with a finger even. He'd have shot me to pieces, then killed me."

He had taken the time to hold his burned hand in cold water after the fight, while saddling the colonel's horse when he was beside the trough, but it hurt. Yet his hand had been in the coals only a moment, a swift dash of the arm that had given little time for burning or anything else, and still its tip had been slightly cauterized. That surprised him.

Far on the horizon, low down, he saw a red star. And then he was sure. It was no star at all, but the station, and there was a red lantern burning there. They had not been far from it at all.

He slowly drew closer, looking to the welcoming light as to that of his own home, and eager to be there. Now it would be only minutes...

They had dipped down into a hollow and were coming out of it when he heard the galloping of a party of horsemen. Suddenly there was a shot and the welcoming light was gone and he heard wild rebel yells and shots, and he swung down from the horse. "Hold them!" he said. And dropping to one knee, he leveled at the dark mass where the riders were and opened fire with his rifle, two quick shots, then a dash off to the left, and another shot. Back to the right and another, trying to make them believe they faced several riflemen.

Bullets replied, most of them from pistols and too far off, and then they wheeled their horses and rode off, not wishing to come up against riflemen on the ground and hence in a better firing position.

Keeping on the side of the low embankment on which the station stood, the man and the woman walked forward. Fifty feet off, Cris stopped and called out in a low voice. "Is it you then, Reppato?"

"Sure it is! Come on in!"

They walked in, leading their horses, and Rep came to the door, a gun in his hand, then Colonel McClean. Barda ran to him and for a moment they clung together, each demanding to know if the other was all right.

"Crispin took care of me, father. I am all right, but he's got a burned hand and a finger shot off."

"I taken care o' you, too," Reppato said grumpily, "for awhile."

"Of course you did! And I am grateful for it."

"Was that you shooting?" McClean asked.

"It was. I saw them against the sky, and knew them for what they were; then they opened fire and I had them flanked."

"Good man! I doubt if they'll try again tonight, and there will be a train with soldiers on it at daybreak. The train will take us through to Fort Sanders."

Reppato Pratt walked to the corner of the room where Crispin was already settling down with an extra blanket from the bedroom. "You lost a finger?"

"From the first joint only. He was showing his marksmanship to her. I knew he'd put one in my belly soon, or break a knee first, or something, so I swept coals in his face and went after him. His name was Murray."

"Murray!" Rep grasped his shoulder. "Did you kill him? If not, you better go back an' do it."

"I did not. But he will remember me. I broke his nose over his face and I'm thinking he has some staved--in ribs. I gave him a fearful beating and I'm thinkin' he will not wish to come for me again."

They slept then, while the colonel and Rep kept watch, and in the clear, cold hour before the dawn they heard a far--off sound, a sound they all wished to hear... a train whistle, winding lonesomely against the hills, and like it there is no other sound.

Crispin Mayo came to his feet, then sat again and drew on his brogans. He was dog--tired and his hand hurt in every bit of it, but soon he'd be on the train again. It would be a few days before he could handle a pick or a hammer, but his hand would heal.

The train whistled again and Rep struck a light in one of the lanterns. He waved it and the churning wheels of the train ground to a stop.

They stood on the small platform, and the conductor stepped down. It was Sam Calkins. "You?" he said to Cris. "I thought you'd run out on our fight."

"I left one man last night with a broken nose and ribs, and I can leave another. Get a ramp down and load the horses, man, the colonel cannot wait."