Trigger Gospel (9 page)

L
ITTLE
B
ILL
glanced back repeatedly at the posse. He had not expected Beaudry to hang on after it became apparent that they could not be overtaken.

“Still back there, eh?” Luther asked.

“Yeh, still trailin' us, but we seem to be drawin' a little away all the time.”

“We'll shake 'em off as soon as we get out of this flat country and run into a little scrub timber.”

“I wasn't thinkin' of that,” said Bill. “I was just wonderin' what's makin' Beaudry so anxious to grab us so suddenly. Sam thought he would hold off until the funeral was over. You can see by the way he's hangin' on now that he means business. You might think we'd just hoisted a bank.”

“I suppose somebody repeated to him what you said about linkin' him up with the Sontags. He evidently figgers you can do it.”

They were between three and four miles out of Bowie by now. It was their intention to intercept the Sawbuck wagon and get their rifles and blankets. According to their calculations, Maverick should be nearing Cain Springs.

“We'll have to get some grub off Maverick,” said Little Bill. “We'll head west then and make ourselves pretty hard to find for a few days.”

Luther nodded and conversation died again for another ten minutes. Bill had thoughts of Martha Southard to temper his bitterness; Luther was not so fortunate.

“I'll never forget her comin' to warn me,” Bill murmured to himself. “Some people are sure to talk me down and give me a bad name for this. I don't care what they say if it don't turn her against me.”

The country was beginning to change. The treeless level plain southwest of Bowie was giving — to rolling, scrub-covered hills. Bill turned in his saddle to find Beaudry and his posse far behind.

“We won't change our course until we get in among the scrub,” he advised Luther. “They'll think we're headin' for the Strip. If they keep after us, that's the way they'll go, stayin' close to the Cimarron bottoms.”

In a few minutes they lost sight of the posse and swung to the south for the springs. The gelding hadn't raised a sweat. The mare Luther was riding was flecked with lather. She had evidently been on hard grain for weeks and had had far too little exercise. She was strong, however, and would toughen up in a hurry.

An old stone house that dated back to the days of the Texas trail stood under the cottonwoods at Cain Springs. The Sawbuck wagon stood drawn up before it as Luther and Little Bill rode in. Maverick was watering his horses. He dropped his bucket on catching sight of them and stared his surprise.

“What's the idea of this?” he demanded banter-ingly. “You git chased out of town?”

“That's exactly what happened,” Bill informed him. “A lot of things have taken place since I saw you last, Maverick. We're here to get our rifles and blankets. Want you to make us up a sack of grub too.”

“Hunh?” Maverick grunted as their soberness was communicated to him. “Why, you boys mean it!”

“We do, for a fact,” said Little Bill as he and Luther pulled their rolls out of the wagon. “I don't know how much time we've got; just shake up anythin' that's handy. We can talk while you're gettin' it ready. You tell Tascosa we took this sack of cartridges.”

Maverick threw some stuff together as Little Bill acquainted him with what had happened. Luther had walked back to a little ridge twenty-five yards beyond the house. He could see for some distance from the crest of it.

“I'm sorry to hear all this, Bill,” Maverick asserted with a great wagging of his head. “You're goin' up against a bad bunch in them Sontags. I know some of 'em. You look out for Grat. He's the kind what kills just to see a man kick. You got any plans?”

“We'll make our plans as we go along, Maverick. If you've got that sack ready I'll tie it on my saddle.”

“There it is! I'll give yuh a little tobacco if—”

He didn't finish. Luther was running toward them.

“Bill, they're comin'!” Luther shouted. “They got this place surrounded! The best thing we can do is git our horses inside the house and stand 'em off! Maybe we can slip out tonight!”

“Grab your horse then and get him in !” Bill snapped out. “You get that wagon rollin' out of here, Maverick! There'll be hell to pay in a muinte!”

Neither the mare nor the gelding wanted to enter the house. It took precious seconds to get them inside. Maverick had leaped to the seat of the wagon and was lashing the team into a run.

Inside the old stone house, roofless for many years, Little Bill and Luther waited grimly for the attack. To their surprise, minutes passed without bringing a shot or summons to surrender. The creaking of the wagon had died away in the distance.

“You couldn't have been mistaken, Luther?” Bill asked.

“Not a chance! They're here! Crawlin' up behind that ridge like as not!” He flicked a glance at his brother. “You got any idea what we're goin' to do if they try to rush us?”

“They'll have a time gettin' us out of here,” said Bill.

“That ain't answerin' me! Are we goin' to shoot to kill—that's what I want to know! You can figger what it means if we do. It will put us outside the law for the rest of our lives.”

“I know it,” Little Bill muttered gloomily. “Our hand is bein' forced, but it ain't my idea to shoot these men down if it can be helped; though killin' is what they need. They won't make much of an attempt to take us alive. If he can wash us out legally, Beaudry will do it.”

“No doubt of it, Bill. With no witnesses around, I'm thinkin' we wouldn't git very far if we walked out of here with our hands in the air. It's askin' a lot of a man to expect him to hold off when he's facin' a bunch that's dead set on wipin' him out. But that's what we've got to do.”

Luther stationed himself to defend the door. Little Bill took the window. In just a second or two, Beaudry hailed them.

“We got you birds dead to rights!” he yelled. “I'm callin' on yuh to give yourselves up! I've got a warrant for yuh, Bill Stillings! Yuh better throw your guns away and walk out with your hands up! Do yuh hear me?”

“We hear yuh all right!” Bill answered. “We ain't givin' ourselves up to you, Beaudry!”

“You're resistin' arrest!” Cash yelled. “If you ain't out of there in ten seconds we'll smoke yuh out!”

He counted ten. It was the signal for a crashing volley. The slugs ricocheted wickedly off the stone walls.

“They're all behind the ridge,” Bill told Luther. “Don't get too near the door; they've got their guns trained on it!”

For the next twenty minutes the posse poured a hail of lead into the house. The air began to reek with the acrid fumes of burnt powder. The blue haze of gun smoke drifted in through the open door and window. Six-gun and the mare didn't like it at all. Little Bill and Luther still held their fire.

“We better show 'em we know how to shoot,” Luther argued, “or they'll think we don't intend to. First thing we know they'll try to reach that tree out there. If they do, it'll be pretty hot for us in here.”

The tree to which he referred stood halfway down the slope. A man could reach it from the top in ten strides. On the heels of another withering volley, Blackie Chilton leaped over the crest and made a rush for the cottonwood. From the house two streams of fire flashed through the haze.

Chilton changed his mind in a hurry. In his anxiety to get back to cover he whirled so swiftly that he threw his gun away. He disappeared behind the ridge in a dive that landed him on his nose.

“Didn't touch him,” Luther grinned owlishly, “but I bet he felt them slugs burnin' him as they went by.”

“They'll try it again,” said Little Bill. “Come at us in two ways the next time. If this smoke gets much thicker we won't know what we're shootin' at.”

Beaudry divided his forces now, as Bill had foreseen. Ten minutes later three of his men leaped over the crest to the left of the house and made a dash for the springs. Another ran for the tree that Chilton had failed to reach. This man was turned back too, but the other three made the rock watering-trough beside the springs.

“They crease you, Bill?” Luther demanded anxiously as he saw a trickle of blood run down his brother's cheek.

“No, just a chip of rock caught me,” Little Bill muttered. He realized that the three men at the trough could advance under cover of a fusillade from their companions. “Things ain't workin' out so well for us,” he went on. “If those gents out there make a rush for the door we'll have to drop 'em or it'll be all over with us.”

“It ain't what we want to do,” Luther murmured gravely, “but there's some things you can't walk away from. I'm afraid I winged the hombre that tried to reach the tree.”

“I'm goin' to try to get 'em out from behind the trough,” Bill told him. “You hold Six-gun steady there in the corner so I can stand on the saddle. I'm goin' to fire over the top of the wall. They'll be right under my gun. I'll give 'em a chance to back away if they want it. If they don't take it, I'm goin' to bust 'em, Luther.”

“Get up there and Beaudry will pick you off from the ridge!” Luther warned. “Don't you try it! I been thinkin' things over, Bill. Maybe we made a mistake not to parley with them.”

“What sense would there be in doin' it? He wants our hides and nothin' else!”

“I'm goin' to talk to him just the same. It'll give this smoke a chance to rise.”

“You're wastin' your time,” Little Bill protested impatiently. “But you go ahead if yuh want to.”

Beaudry answered Luther's hail.

“Are yuh ready to come out?” he demanded.

“What sort of a proposition will you make us if we do?” Luther yelled back. “We got plenty ammunition left.”

“So have we,” Cash informed him, “and we got plenty of time! But I'll make a deal with yuh, Luther, if you'll come out.”

“What sort of a deal?” Luther inquired sceptically.

“It ain't you we want,” Beaudry returned. “I'm inclined to be reasonable. Just walk out of there—”

At that moment the three men at the trough made a rush for the door. Beaudry's willingness to talk had been just a ruse to divert the attention of the two men in the house.

Little Bill cried a warning, but before Luther could leap back a bullet tore a ragged gash across his cheek.

“Pump that gun!” Bill screamed at him. He was firing madly himself.

The three men fell back, one of them with a slug in his shoulder.

“That settles it!” Little Bill raged. “They'd shoot yuh down even when yuh was parleyin' with 'em! It's them or us now, and we're shootin' to kill! Just bang away at anythin' that shows!”

T
HE
gunfire from the ridge was almost continuous now. It said plainer than words that Beaudry was getting ready to rush the house.