Trigger Gospel (10 page)

“We better do somethin' about this,” Bill told Luther. “I'm goin' to drive those hombres back from the trough or come mighty close to it.”

Although Luther protested, Little Bill made him hold Six-gun now as he stood up on the seat of his saddle.

He was seen from the ridge as soon as he poked his rifle barrel over the top of the wall. The slugs began to ping and ricochet off the wall all about him, but in some miraculous way he escaped being hit.

His own gun began to bark as he opened up on the men crouched down behind the trough. Although they flattened themselves to the ground, he could see them.

Suddenly one of them let out a yell of pain, and flinging himself to his feet, beat a precipitate retreat.

The others did not linger long.

“Well, I sure smoked them out of there,” Bill muttered laconically as he slid down beside Luther.

Luther flashed an incredulous glance at him.

“Wonder those gents on the ridge didn't make a sieve out of yuh,” he grumbled.

Suddenly it was still. The minutes dragged by without a shot being fired.

The better part of an hour passed.

“Mighty still,” said Luther. “You don't think they've drawn off?”

“They're still there,” Little Bill answered. “I'll prove it to yuh.”

He stuck his hat on his rifle barrel and held it up to the window. It was riddled instantly.

“That didn't git 'em anywhere,” Luther grinned. His face was a gory sight. He cocked an eye at the sun. It was getting hot in the old house. He saw that it still lacked an hour of noon. “It's goin' to get hotter in here,” he said. “We'll be wantin' water before the afternoon's gone.” The springs would have been just as accessible a mile away as at the door.

“The horses will need it more than us,” Little Bill returned. “It'll make it tough for us tonight. Sure as fate when we try to get 'em out they'll smell water and begin to act up. It'll give our play dead away.”

“We may have to go without 'em,” Luther suggested.

Bill said no. “We wouldn't have a chance on foot.”

It wasn't long before the posse's guns opened up again. They kept up a desultory fire for a quarter of an hour. Suddenly then they began to bang in earnest. It dwarfed what had gone before.

“Sounds like they'd got reinforcements,” said Luther.

It was a moment or two before they realized that the slugs were no longer spattering against the walls.

The posse seemed to have dropped back. In the course of a few minutes the heavy firing had moved completely away from the springs.

Luther and Little Bill stared at one another in growing amazement.

“What do you make of that?” Luther jerked out.

“I don't know. It may be a trick to encourage us to make a run for it. I'm goin' to climb up on Six-gun and have a peek over the wall.”

“You be right careful,” Luther urged. Then a moment later: “Do yuh see anythin'?”

“Why, that's Link out there!” Little Bill cried. “He's ridin' this way! Looks like that's Scotty with him!”

Luther ran outside recklessly.

“It's them all right!” he yelled. “Hey, Link!—Scotty!”

“Yee-ah!” they screeched as they dashed up to the springs.

Little Bill ran out to greet them.

“What's the meanin' of this?” he demanded. “What are you boys doin' here ?”

“What do yuh think we're doin' ?” Link countered. “We didn't lose no time gettin' here when Maverick came in with word that Beaudry had you cornered.”

“We just handed our respects to him,” Scotty drawled. “They're fannin' it away from here now.”

“Not all of 'em,” Link corrected. “One is layin' up there in the sage. Git your horses out of the house, boys, and we'll look things over.”

“You damn fools!” Little Bill stormed. “What did yuh want to mix in this for? All of yuh here?”

“All but Tas; we figgered he was too old to take a hand in a runnin' fight,” said Link.

On the ridge they met Tonto Baker and Maverick. The two men were staring at something in the brush. Their faces were glum, for now that the excitement was over they were beginning to realize where they stood.

Little Bill pulled up alongside them to stare at the lifeless thing on the ground. It was a moment or two before he spoke.

“Anybody know who he is?” he asked.

“It's Frenchy Le Breton,” said Link. “It was me who got him. If his aim had been a little better it would have been the other way around. I rode up this little knoll and he cut down on me.”

“Just better leave him there,” Bill advised. His mouth was hard as he turned away. Link glanced at him sharply.

“I hope you ain't sore about this, Bill,” he said. “It was either him or me.”

“I ain't sore about nothin', Link. How could I be? Yuh got Luther and me out of a bad jam. That ain't what's in my mind at all. I just wonder if yuh realize that it means … that we're all outside the law now. We ain't got only a crooked sheriff against us, but every peace officer in Oklahoma as well. In twenty-four hours there'll be a price on our heads.”

They had nothing to say as Bill led the way back to the springs.

“We'll water our horses and pull out of here at once,” he told them. “Best thing to do is to head for the North Fork and work out into No Man's Land; we ain't safe this side of there now.”

His gloomy view of things began to get on Luther's nerves.

“See here, Bill,” he burst out angrily, “ain't no use in goin' on that-a-way! We did everythin' we could to keep from spillin' blood here. I never wanted to drift into outlawry. Now Beaudry has pushed us into it. Since that's the case, I intend to git even without wastin' any time. Pop got it, and we'd have got it but for the boys here. If the law—in the face of all that—can make me an outlaw, I say let it!”

There was nothing more to be said. Circumstance had burned their bridges behind them and they could only go on. Reckless, strangers to fear, they rode away from Cain Springs strangely subdued and helpless. Needing a leader, they found him in Little Bill.

No one knew the country better than they. For two days they followed the North Fork into the almost uninhabited region to the west. If they were pursued they failed to catch a glimpse of their pursuers.

From Wednesday to Friday they went without food. They were also without money. Something had to be done. So about noon on Saturday they rode into Scott's Station. There was just a backwoods store there. They drew up in front of it and Little Bill and Tonto Baker went in to see what Scott would let them have for Bill's watch.

Ike Scott had seen his share of outlaws. He was instantly aware of the six rough-looking men, all heavily armed, their manner desperate, who drew rein at his hitch rack. He was alone in his store. It imposed no handicap on him. Without wasting any time in deciding what to do, he reached for the sawed-off shotgun he kept under the counter for just such emergencies. As Little Bill and Tonto stepped through the door he flung the gun to his shoulder and fired.

Not knowing what they faced in entering the store, Bill and Tonto came in with their eyes alert. As Scott threw his gun into position they dropped to their knees behind a cracker barrel. A split second later a load of buckshot swept the door.

They were untouched. Before Scott could fire the second barrel, Tonto's six-gun barked sharply. Scott dropped his gun and fell across the counter.

Luther and the others came running to find the two men staring at the stiffening body. They stopped in their tracks.

Little Bill got to his feet and walked over to the counter. A glance was enough to tell him that Scott was dead.

“That makes it complete,” he muttered gloomily. “This is a grudge the law won't forget.”

“What happened?” Luther demanded huskily. “I was watchin'; I didn't see you go for your guns or do anythin' to bring this on.”

“We didn't,” Tonto declared soberly. “We didn't do nothin' nor was there a word said. He just threw that shotgun to his shoulder and began to blaze away.”

“I'm afraid we did more than plenty,” said Little Bill.

“Why, yuh mean I shouldn't have dropped him?” Tonto demanded incredulously. “What else could I have done? He would have got us both with that second barrel!”

“Oh, I ain't findin' fault,” Bill answered. “Reckon you're right, Tonto; you couldn't have done nothin' else. We're all outside the law, and there ain't nothin' for us to do but realize that it's the other fellow or us from now on.”

They helped themselves to what food they could carry. With greater deliberation than they had shown since leaving Cain Springs, they mounted and rode away.

They had little to say to each other. Little Bill was the most glum of all. He could not put the thought of Martha Southard out of his mind. He found a bittersweet satisfaction in recalling how she had rushed to his side to warn him against Beaudry. Certainly her concern for him had sprung from something warmer than friendship.

It made him realize how great was his loss in losing her. That he had lost her forever, that the events of the past few days had removed her from his world as surely as death could have done, he could no longer doubt. Whatever Martha's feeling toward him, she would not be permitted to brood over it alone for long. Paint would see to that.

“I don't know as I can blame him for that,” he told himself. “I can't expect Martha to string along with me now. I'd be the last one in the world to ask it of her. I don't know what lies ahead of me, but it sure ain't goin' to be nothin' for a girl like her to share.”

I
T WAS
a comparatively easy matter to lose one's self in the almost impenetrable brakes of scrub oak and buck brush in the Strip. But water was needed as well as cover.

At the end of several days they found a place that suited them. Others had been there before. There was even a brush corral that some rustling gang had built years past.

Little Bill looked the ground over carefully and from such sign as he could discover, decided that a month or more had passed since anyone had camped at this hidden spring. Reassured that they were safe for the time being, they went into camp.

There was some game in the brush, but to fire a gun was to announce their presence not only to any prowling marshal but to other wanted men like themselves, and that might mean the Sontags, for they had no way of knowing how close they were to Smoke and his long riders. So their guns were silent. Link took Little Bill to task over it.

“I didn't know we was walkin' wide of Smoke,” he said. “I figgered the sooner we met up with 'em the better we'd like it.”

“We'll meet up with 'em, sure enough,” Bill answered, “but I don't aim to give 'em a chance to jump us. If I can, I'm goin' to be the one to pick the time and place; not Smoke. It's somethin' that will only be done once, and it's got to be done right when we do it.”

“What do yuh mean by all that?” Luther demanded.

“I mean we ain't strong enough for a showdown yet. Outside of you and me and Link none of us owns a first-class rifle. We need ammunition too.”

“I'd like to know where we're goin' to git all them things,” Link argued.

“We'll get 'em,” Bill answered him. “I'm figgerin' things out. We need money, and there's only one way I know of that men in our position can get it.”

“You mean hoistin' a bank?” Luther queried, his mouth grim.

The question was unnecessary, for they understood him well enough.

“That's what I mean,” the red-haired one echoed gravely. “It ain't a case of its bein' what we want to do. As I figger it, we ain't got no choice at all, unless we want to walk in and give ourselves up. You know if we do that we'll all end up down in Fort Smith with a rope around our necks.”