Troubled range (21 page)

Then Mark turned his attention to his attackers. Two of them had found a snug spot, one between two large rocks, the other on the slope side of them. It took Mark ju^t five seconds to recognise the two flabby hard-cases he and Cousin Beau tangled with in Guthrie. It would appear they sought revenge.

At that moment Mark remembered the third rifle.

Apparently the two men had brought along a friend to even the odds a mite—or had they come after him at all? Mark remembered the bartender's pungent comments on how Rushton and Kinnear made their money. More likely they came after the Doolin gang. Of course the girls would be worthless to the bounty hunters, for they did not have rewards on their heads. However they would know the location of Doolin's hide-out, so could lead the bounty hunters to it.

Somehow it did not fit with what he had seen of the two men in town that they would risk tangling with the Doolin gang. Maybe they only hoped to pick off a stray. Perhaps they took him for an outlaw—or they may have recognised him and decided to combine business with pleasure and get their revenge.

Carefully Mark scanned the slope. One thing he did know. He must get in a whole lot closer happen he hoped to do any shooting. Maybe if he used both hands, rested his wrists on the rock top and took careful aim he might be able to do something useful at that range. Only while he stayedup there ranging in on the men, they could aim their rifles on him and finish him off; for a rifle was easier to aim over a distance.

With that in mind Mark left his cover and started to move up the steep slope. He wanted to get above the men, always the best place to be in any fight. While not being the Ysabel Kid, who could glide through the thickest cover as silently as a shadow, Mark had taken more than one wary mule deer by stalking it. So he moved from cover to cover, angling up and along the slope.

The man who stalked Mark had Indian blood and knew the secrets of silent movement. Luckily for Mark, the half-breed had never been a very good shot and wanted to get so close he could not miss. Mallalieu's instincts warned him that if his first shot missed, or failed to kill, he would most likely die an instant later. Consequently Mallalieu came to within twenty feet of Mark before he crouched among the bushes and raised his rifle.

In the cabin Britches and Annie, their differences forgotten, knelt by a window, each holding her carbine.

From their position they could see the two men by the rocks, Mark moving up and along the slope—and a patch of black where such a colour had not been a few seconds before.

"Hold them two down, Britches!" Annie snapped.

Without questioning her friend, Britches started to throw lead at the rocks and her spirited bombardment caused Rushton and Kinnear, never the bravest of men, to duck hurriedly. Annie rested her carbine on the window ledge, took careful aim and fired.

Mark became aware of a smell as he inched along on silent feet. He did not carry his guns in his hands, keeping the hands free for parting branches and giving him support. The smell wafted down-wind to him and it took him an instant to recognise it. Then he remembered. The stench of grease blackened buckskins and stale, unwashed human flesh which often clung to Osage Indian villages. Yet such a smell should not come to him here unless—

Behind the bushes Mallalieu lined his rifle at the big Texan. His finger curled on the trigger, then Annie's bullet slapped the air over his head. He jerked back and his rifle cracked as its muzzle tilted upwards.

Flinging himself to one side, Mark lit down with a gun in either hand. He fired, left, right, left, right, sending the four bullets hammering into the bushes and spacing them along. He heard a gasp and the soggy thud as his fourth bullet struck flesh, so sent a fifth into the same spot. Mallalieu reared upwards into view, his mouth hanging open, a neat hole between his eyes and no back to his head.

Fifteen seconds ticked by slowly. Mark lay under the cover of a rock, his Colts in his hands. He watched the moccasion clad foot which stuck from behind a bush, but it did not move.

"Looks like he got Sunset," Kinnear remarked, crouching between the rocks and throwing a couple of shots at the cabin.

"Sure," Rushton replied, ducking down as a bullet sent rock chips flying into the air. "But I reckon Sunset downed him at the same time. What now?"

"There's only them two gals and the Texan here. We'll get the gals and make 'em tell us where Doolin and the bunch are.

If they haven't pulled the raid, we can telegraph the town they're headed for, warn the marshal and get a cut of the reward."

A loose-lipped, slobbering grin came to Rushton's lips. "We'll do more'n..."

Yet the problem of how to get at the girls needed some solving, for both had weapons and showed they knew how to use them. Rushton and Kinnear did not aim to take chances, that had been Mallalieu's side of the partnership, they reserved the safe plays for themselves. Neither man had come up with any startlingly brilliant solution when Mark appeared and took cover behind a huge rock some forty yards above them.

Now Mark also had a problem. A similar problem to the two bounty hunters if he had only known. His problem, like theirs, was how to get close enough to take his opponents without also taking a bullet in the belly.

His eyes checked the area ahead of him. It appeared to have been swept by an avalanche at some time, for it lay more open than most of the slope. Then Mark looked at the rock he stood behind. This rested on a level piece of the slope, but did not appear to be part of it or an outcrop rising above the soil.

Turning, Mark holstered his Colts. He pressed his back against the rock, braced his arms and hands against it, bent his legs and began to push. Never had his enormous strength been placed to such a test. Never had so much depended on his muscular powers. Sweat poured down his face, he forced back on the rock, his boot heels gouging into the earth. Joe Gaylin, the El Paso leather-worker who made the boots, always boasted that no power on earth could rip off the heels. Now Mark was giving the boots a thorough test—and they proved Gaylin's boast.

Mark felt the rock move, tilt slightly. He relaxed his hold, seeing that the rock did not settle back again, and turned to look down. Now there was a small gap between the rock and the ground and he knew he could only achieve his aim in one way.

Bending down, Mark put his hands under the edge of the rock, setting his feet a short distance apart and bending his

legs. Then he began to lift. Although he felt the tremendous dead weight upon his hands, Mark did not give in. His face twisted in the strain and he felt as if his back would cave in under the weight. Yet he did not give in. Slowly the rock rose and Mark kept on his relentless lifting, moving over a thousand pounds weight by his giant strength.

"Just look at that man!" Britches gasped, forgetting to use her carbine as she watched Mark's efforts.

"Whooee! He makes Bill or any of the boys look like weaklings!" Annie replied, resting her carbine and not firing. "What a man!"

With a final heave, Mark lifted the rock past its point of balance and it started to tilt forward. Mark gave a final thrust and the huge rock turned over, going away from him, bounding and rolling down the slope. Gasping for breath, Mark sank to the ground, but he knew he might still have need to defend himself.

Not until the huge rock began to roll did the two bounty hunters become aware of their danger. The first warning they received came with a dull rumbling sound that drew their attention up the slope. They saw the huge rock rolling, at an ever-increasing speed, down towards their hide-out.

Rushton, nearest to the rolling rock, flung himself clear and leapt to safety. Perhaps Kinnear would have been safe in the shelter between the two rocks, but he panicked. Rising hurriedly he tried to dive over the rock on the side away from the rolling menace. His right foot slipped and he fell on to the rock he was trying to climb over. A glance over his shoulder told him he was not going to make it. His scream of terror chopped off in a hideous crunching crash as the huge rock smashed down, coming to rest where Kinnear and his cover had been.

Shaken by the scream, Rushton staggered forward. He still held his rifle and his eyes went up the slope to where Mark stood with hanging head and fighting to recover from his exertion. Throwing up the rifle, Rushton fired a shot at the big Texan, but his nerves had been jolted and he missed. With fumbling fingers Rushton tried to work his rifle's lever.

The bullet missed Mark by inches. It served to warn him of his danger. At that range a man would have to use sights to

make a hit and he knew he must hit—or die. He could guess that Annie and Britches would be in no condition to help him after what they must have seen when the rock landed on Kinnear.

Mark's right hand Colt came from leather and lifted. Raising the weapon shoulder high, he gripped and supported his right hand with the left, extending his arms almost straight. Sighting the V notch in the tip of the hammer and the foresight, Mark aimed down at Rushton. He fired four shots as fast as he could work back the hammer. The first three bullets missed Rushton, getting closer all the time, as the bounty hunter finished working the lever and sighted again. If the fourth bullet missed, Mark would be a dead man.

It did not miss. Grazing the barrel of the rifle, Mark's .44 bullet whirled off in the buzz-saw action of a ricochet to strike full into the centre of Rushton's forehead. It threw him backwards from his feet, his rifle firing off one wild shot as it fell from his lifeless hand.

Like the circuit riding preacher used to say: he who lives by the gun shall die with leafd in his hide. Rushton had killed five men in cold blood for the bounty on their heads. He would never kill again.

Holstering his gun, Mark walked slowly down the slope. He saw the cabin door burst open and waved the girls back inside. Kinnear's body unde r the huge rock was no sight for a girl to see, even if she was a tough lady outlaw.

Mark counted off a thousand dollars from his wallet and handed it to Cattle Annie.

"Here," he said, "I'm in a hurry to get back to the O.D. Connected. So I'll pay you the ransom and save you holding me until pappy gets up here."

The girls, both wearing new shirts and cleaned up— though showing marks of their fight—stared at the money, then at the big blond Texan. He had buried the two dead bounty hunters and done what he could about hiding all that remained in sight of the third. Now he was preparing to resume his interrupted journey.

"You don't have to give us this," Annie objected and

Britches nodded in agreement, their earlier rivalry forgotten.

"Sure I do," Mark replied. "Business is business. Whyn't you girls go off and spend it someplace far from here?"

"That wouldn't be fair to the boys," Britches explained.

"It sure wouldn't," Annie agreed.

Mark shrugged. He knew he could not persuade the girls to change their way of life. Still they seemed happy in it and he reckoned Bill Doolin would see nothing serious happened to them. Swinging afork his bloodbay, Mark raised his hat to the girls.

"If I'm ever up this way again, I'll look you up," he promised. "Adios."

Standing side by side, their arms around each other's waists, Cattle Annie and Little Britches watched Mark riding south. The little girl sighed and turned to her friend.

"Did he—last night—you know—did he?"

For a moment Annie thought of lying. Then she shook her head.

"No," she said, sounding a little regretful. "How about you?"

"Me neither," Britches confessed just a shade wistfully. "Do you think he knows that we've—that we're—"

"How could he?"

But Mark did know. Which same was one of the reasons he had not accepted their invitation to stay on for another night. Which same was also the reason why he aimed to steer clear of Cattle Annie and Little Britches—well, at least until they got to be a few years older.

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