West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) (10 page)

"I know that," Rope Nose replied solemnly. "I was well out of it, an' then I got to thinkin'. Ten thousand dollars--why, that's a lot of money! It would keep a man a long time, if he used it right, especially down in one o' them South American countries. I just couldn't forget it, so I asked myself, 'where will Sutton go?' And I guessed right."

"George," Sutton said patiently, "you get out of here now and I'll forget this ever happened."

"That's fair. That's mighty fair, ain't it, Mr. Warner? Not many would give a man a break like that. Nevertheless, I ain't a-goin' to do it. Ten thousand--why, I never see that much money! I'll never have me another chance at it. I ain't nervy like that Pink Lucas is. I'm a yaller dog. I know that, Sutton. I always been afeard o' Pink an' his crowd, but why should I set in that durned bar when I could be settin' on a wide piazza down Guatemala way? I know a gent onct who come from Guatemala. He said . . ."

His voice trailed off and stopped. "You!" He pointed at Stormy. "I know that money you got is in that sack. Set it over here. Then get those saddlebags. Then I'll tie you all up an' drag it."

He chuckled. "I figured you'd come here, so I never went across that Tornillo Flat. I rode straight west without comin' north at all, then dropped south an' crossed the crick afore she got a big head up."

"Better think it over, Rope Nose," Sutton suggested mildly. "We'll get you."

"I done thought it over. I'm takin' two o' Warner's blacks. Nothin' around here will outrun them horses. I'll switch from one to the other an' ride hard to the border. It ain't far, an' once across I'll make the railroad an' head for Guatemala or somewheres. You'll never see hide nor hair o' me again."

With his left hand he gathered up the sacks. The shotgun rested on the back of a chair with the muzzles pointed at Sutton, not ten feet away.

"Now," he waved to Stormy, "you tie these gents up. Tie 'em good an' tight because I'll look 'em over after. Then I'm takin' out. Sure do hate to take your money, young lady, but I'll need it, an' you're young."

Johnny Sutton was the last one tied. The girl drew the ropes about him, then tied a knot and, opening Johnny's hand, placed the end of the rope in it. Instantly, he realized what she had done. She had gambled and tied a slip noose!

Rope Nose called her over and proceeded to tie her hands. Then he picked up the sacks and, with the shotgun, backed to the door. As the door closed after him, Sutton jerked on the rope. His wrists were tied, and he could only pull a little at a time. Sweat broke out on his face and body but he fought with his fingers, struggling to pull the knot loose. He heard a horse walking, then another. He heard one of the outlaws call out from the barn, and Rope Nose replying.

Suddenly the noose slipped, and then he was jerking his arms and shaking loose the loops of rope about his wrists. Swiftly he untied his feet and grabbed for his gun belts. Whipping them about him, Johnny rushed to the door. Rope Nose had both blacks saddled. He hung the saddlebags and sack on one, then swung to mount the other.

Johnny heard Lucas swearing from the barn, and heard the refusal of Rope Nose to give them aid. Then Johnny stepped out and let the door slam behind him. Rope Nose whirled as if stabbed, the shotgun in his hands. He was all of fifty yards away and his mouth was wide, his eyes staring with incredulous horror.

Suddenly he shouted, almost screamed, "No! No, you ain't goin' to stop me!" He stepped forward and fired the shotgun waist high, and then Sutton fired. The widely scattered pellets of the shotgun clicked and pattered about him as he fired. He shot once, twice.

Rope Nose staggered, dropping the shotgun as the second barrel of shot plowed up earth. Sutton could see the man's fat stomach bulging over his leather belt. He saw the sudden whiteness in the man's face. Saw him step forward, hauling clumsily at a belt gun. He got it out, his eyes wide and staring.

"Drop it!" Sutton shouted. "Drop it, George!"

"No!" the fat man gasped hoarsely now. "No, I won't . . . !"

The gun came waist high and he began to shoot. The first shot went wild, the second kicked up earth at Sutton's feet, and then he saw the muzzle was dead on him, and Johnny Sutton fired a third shot. Rope Nose took a short step forward and kept falling until he hit the hard ground on his face. Then he rolled over and lay staring up at the sky, a spot of mud on his nose.

Sutton ran to him. The man was still alive. His eyes met Sutton's. "Should of knowed I'd ... I'd never make it," he whispered, "but me, an' I'm a yaller dog, killed in a gun . . . gunfight with Ranger Johnny Sutton!" He breathed hoarsely. "Yessir, let 'em say I was yaller! Let 'em say that! But let 'em remember I faced up to Sutton with a six-gun! Let 'em remember, I died . . . game."

Johnny Sutton stared down at him, a fat, untidy man who had rolled over in the mud. The florid features were pale and the spot of mud might have made him ludicrous, only somehow he was not. It was simply that in this last minute, this moment of death, by his own shady standards at least, he had acquired a certain nobility.

Stormy Knight came up beside Sutton and took his arm. He put his hand over hers and turned away. Why didn't men like this ever learn that it wasn't money in the long run? It was contentment. Or had Rope Nose found contentment in that last moment when he knew he had faced a gun and stood up to it?

"You think it will be all right for us to go on tomorrow?" Stormy was trying to make conversation.

"Sure," Sutton replied, "I think it will. When you get that ranch, you might write me. I'll come calling."

"I'd like that," Stormy said, and when she smiled, Johnny knew she meant what she said.

*

To Make A Stand
.

When the snow began to fall, Hurley was thirty-six hours beyond the last cluster of shacks that might be called a town, and the plain around him stretched flat and empty to the horizon.

The sullen clouds sifted sparse snow over the hard brown earth and the short, dust gray grass. The fall of snow thickened and the horizons were blotted out, and Hurley rode in a white and silent world where he was a man alone.

Had he dared, Hurley might have turned back, but death rode behind him, and Hurley was a frightened man, unaccustomed to violence. He had ridden into town and arrived to see a stranger dismounting from a horse stolen from his ranch only a month before.

Following the man into the saloon, Hurley demanded the return of the horse, and the man reached for his gun. In a panic, Hurley grabbed frantically for his own.

His first shot ripped splinters from the floor and his second struck the thief through the body and within minutes the man was dead.

Clumsily, Hurley reholstered his gun. Shocked by what he had done, he looked blindly around the room like a man suddenly awakened in unfamiliar surroundings. Vaguely, he felt something was expected of him.

"He asked for it," he said then, striving for that hard, confident tone that would convince them he was a man not to be trifled with. Inside he was quivering with shock, and yet through the startled horror with which he looked upon the man he had killed came the realization that he had actually defended himself successfully in a gun battle. The thought filled him with elation and excitement.

Hurley was not a man accustomed to violence. He carried a gun only because it was the custom, and because in the daily round of activity emergencies might arise with wild steers or half-wild horses when a gun was needed, but he had never dreamed of actually killing a man.

From time to time he heard at the store or the post office some talk of gun battles, but that was in another world than his, and he could remember few of the names he had heard and none of the details.

Hurley had come west from Ohio, where he combined his farming with occasional carpentry work. When he first arrived, he drove a freight team for a season. The one time their wagon train was attacked by Indians the attack broke off before he was able to fire a shot. Leaving the freighting, Hurley had bought a few head of cattle and settled on a small stream with a good spring close by, and true to his Ohio upbringing he put in a crop of corn and a few acres of barley, and planted what was the first vegetable garden in that part of the country. He cut hay in the nearby meadow and stacked it for the winter feeding.

He had wanted no trouble, and expected none. He was a sober, hardworking man who had never lifted a hand in violence in his life.

"He asked for it," he repeated.

"Nobody's going to argue that." Pearson was the saloonkeeper, a man Hurley had several times seen but never spoken to. "But what are you going to do about his brothers?"

Pearson looked upon Hurley with cool, measuring eyes that had looked upon many men and assayed their worth. He found nothing special in Hurley, and of the men in the room, he alone had seen Hurley's success had been born of pure panic and unbelievable luck.

The words failed at first to register on Hurley's stunned consciousness, and when they did register he looked around. "Brothers? What brothers?"

"That's Jake Talbot you killed, and Jake has four brothers, all men mighty big-talking about how tough they 'are. They're just down the street to Reingold's, and they'll be hunting you."

The momentary elation over his astonishing victory oozed out of him and left Hurley standing empty of all pretense. He looked to Pearson in that moment like a frightened and trapped animal.

"He stole my horse," Hurley protested. "I can prove it."

"Nobody asked for proof. You've got two choices, mister. You can dig in for a fight or you can run."

"I'd better go see the sheriff."

Pearson looked upon him without pity. A man behind a bar cannot afford to take sides. He was an observer, a spectator, and Pearson was not disposed to be otherwise. He viewed all life with complete detachment except as it affected him, personally.

"The sheriff never leaves Springville," he said. "Hereabouts, folks settle their own difficulties."

Hurley walked to the bar and put his hands upon it. Jake Talbot ... the Talbot brothers. They had an outfit somewhat closer in to town than his, and it seemed that half the stories of shootings and knifings he had heard of centered around them. He could recall no details, only the names and their association with violence.

Four of them . . . how could he be expected to fight four men? He was not a brave man and had never pretended to be one. Fear washed over him and turned his stomach sick. Turning swiftly, he went outside and stood staring down the hundred yards of dusty street into the open prairie. Against the four Talbots he would have no chance. He had worked hard since coming here, but had no friends to go to for help or advice.

If they did not find him in town, they would come at once to his ranch and murder him there. Mounting, Hurley rode west, away from town and away from his ranch.

That had been thirty-six hours ago, and now the snow was falling. Thirty of those hours had been in the saddle, and although the bay gelding was an excellent horse the long miles had sapped his strength and the need for rest was desperate.

Hurley got down from the saddle and looped the reins about his arm as he walked. However little he knew about guns and fighting, he knew a great deal about the weather, and he knew his situation was dangerous. At this time of year such a storm as this might be over within hours, and a bright sun might wipe away the snow as if by a gesture. However, such a storm might last for two or three days and the resulting snow remain for weeks.

Until now his mind had been a blank, with no thought but to escape, to get away from the danger of tearing, ripping bullets that would spill his life's blood on the ground--and for what?

Hurley had looked upon the dead face of Talbot and had seen himself lying there, knowing better than most how narrow had been the margin. That he had scored with his second shot had been luck of purest variety, for it had been aimed no more than the first.

The snow fell steadily. The trail he followed was no longer visible, but he could feel the frozen ruts with his feet. It was not a narrow trail, but one a hundred yards or more wide where wagons had cut deep ruts into the prairie sod, yet once away from the road the wagons had traveled, the prairie became flat and smooth. The difference he could tell with his feet . . . until the snow became too deep.

Night offered no warning of its coming, for in this white, swirling world of snow there were no advancing shadows, no retreating light, not even, it seemed, a visible darkening. Only suddenly the night was around them and upon them.

A faint stir of wind sent a chill through Hurley. If the wind started now there would be a blizzard, and dressed as he was even his slim chance of survival would be lost. He had never been farther west than the town, and rarely in town in the short time he had been located on the ranch. From overheard conversations in the stores and the livery stable, Hurley knew there was nothing in the direction he , was going for several days of riding.

Finally, he stumbled and stumbled again. Wearily, he turned to the horse and, brushing off the saddle, he mounted again. There was no longer any use in trying to follow the trail through the snow for it had become too deep, so he simply gave the gelding its head.

It might have been an hour or even two hours'later when the gelding stopped abruptly and awakened him from a doze. He peered through the still falling snow, and at first he saw nothing, but then a gate, and some distance beyond it, a cluster of buildings. Actually, they were not buildings, but merely roofs indicating the sod houses below them.