Kress fought madly, trying to cry out, but the grip on his throat squeezed his cries to tiny gurgles that bubbled faintly from his lips. He tried to reach his gun, but it had swung under his body as he fell, was pinned between him and the floor. Viciously he brought a knee up into Morgan’s stomach and for a long moment the rancher felt himself tumbling giddily into a swaying pit of blackness. But he managed to keep his hands locked on Kress’ throat, drove his fingers into the flesh of the man he held.
Kress tried with the knee again, but his strength was failing. His eyes widened and he gasped and sobbed for breath. With pawing hands he clawed ineffectually at the hands that throttled him. His boot heels beat a feeble tattoo on the floor.
Dropping Kress, Morgan moved quickly to the wall and jerked down the double belt and guns that hung there … the guns that had been taken from him. He took out each gun and spun the cylinders to be sure they were fully loaded, then put them back again.
Calmly the rancher closed the door and slid the bolt, then went back to Kress, stripped off the deputy’s gun belt and flung it in a corner. With a length of rope he found in a desk drawer, he tried Kress’ hands behind him.
He used the man’s own neckerchief to gag him. Then he hauled Kress over to the desk and propped him up.
The deputy’s eyes flickered open and for a moment he stared at Morgan with a puzzled look.
Morgan grinned at him. «How do you feel, Kress?»
Kress worked his jaws, but no sound came.
«Yes, I know,» said Morgan, «I’ll swing for this.»
Kress made gurgling sounds.
«Somebody will be around and find you soon,» said Morgan. «Maybe it is a dirty trick to play on you, but no worse than you played on me. And I had to get my guns again. Can’t do what I’m planning without guns.»
His face sobered. «There’s just one thing, Kress. You hombres heaved me in jail for a killing I didn’t do and never lifted a finger to stop a necktie party that was all set to get me. I ain’t forgetting that. You shoved me down the owlhoot trail and if I got to travel it, I aim to travel it plumb right. So tell the sheriff that if he comes after me he better come with guns out. That goes for you, too, or anybody else.»
Deliberately, Morgan turned on his heel, unlocked the door and stepped outside. The street still was clear. The horse still stood, with drooping head, at the hitching post.
Grimly, Morgan slid a six gun from its holster and clutching it in his hand, moved boldly forward, making no effort to hide his progress. With a gun, there was no longer any need of skulking.
Reaching the horse, he untied the reins and vaulted into the saddle. At that moment the bat wings of the saloon swung open and a man stepped out.
For a moment he stood stock still in astonishment, then with a wild whoop went for his guns.
Morgan yelled and raked savagely with his spurs as the horse reared and danced. Light from the window fell across the face of the man on the porch as he took a quick step forward. It was Hank Fridley, the Diamond C foreman, the man who had found Jack Harris and ridden to tell the sheriff.
Still fighting the rearing horse, Morgan snatched at his holster, ripped one of the .45s free. Fridley’s hand moved. Lead droned past Morgan’s ear.
Then the other gun was talking and the horse bucked wildly.
Twisting in his saddle, Morgan triggered savagely, spraying the saloon front with a hail of death. Fridley dived for the safety of the street, going flat on his belly in the deep layer of yellow dust.
With a whoop of triumph, Morgan aimed his last shot at the man in the center of the street, the slug raising a geyser of dust six inches from his face.
Then the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.
The horse still was running, stretching out and eating up the ground.
Morgan let him run.
Darkness closed in behind until the lights of Buffalo Gap were twinkling fireflies far away.
Morgan rode east, toward the ranch house of the Diamond C.
The buildings of the Diamond C were a dark huddle on the prairie.
Standing beside the horse, Morgan waited in a tiny draw that ran between two swales, ears strained for the rolling drum of hoof beats that would announce Fridley’s arrival. That Fridley would head straight for the ranch as soon as he could get another horse, Morgan had no doubt.
He did not have long to wait. Within five minutes the racing horse and rider topped a ridge less than a quarter mile away, swept down toward the ranch.
He heard Fridley’s yell as the foreman pulled up in front of the ranch house, saw a light come on through one of the windows. Another light blinked out of a bunk house window. The bunk house door spouted men.
Some of them ran toward the house, others headed for the corral.
«They’ll figure I’ll head out for my own spread,» Morgan told himself. «Maybe to cover up some evidence or get something I don’t want to leave behind. Some of them will ride out there and the others will try to cut off my escape back into the badlands.»
The riders gathered in a knot around the front door of the ranch house.
Someone that looked like Crawford was standing in the door, his form outlined by the lamplight.
With a smile of amusement, Morgan watched them go, waited another quarter hour, then mounted the horse and rode slowly to the ranch house.
No one challenged him as he dismounted and strode up the porch.
Without pausing, he flung open the door and walked in.
«That you, Mike?» came Crawford’s voice.
Morgan did not answer. The voice had come from the office, just off the living room.
Without hurrying, without a change of stride, he covered the space to the office door.
Crawford, sitting behind the desk, glanced up and a look of amazement, slowly replaced by anger, spread across his face. Then he moved swiftly, standing, kicking back his chair, all in one effortless bit of action.
But at the first hint of a move, Morgan’s hands dropped to his gun butts and the two sixes came out, steadied waist high. Crawford’s hands stopped, just short of his guns.
«You got something I want, Crawford,» Morgan told him, tersely.
«All I’ve got for you is a rope,» snarled Crawford.
«Any more talk like that,» Morgan told him, smoothly, «and I’ll let daylight through you. I haven’t got a thing to lose. You already got me pegged as a killer and hanging for a real killing ain’t no worse than hanging for one I’ve never done.»
Crawford stared at him, flinched a little at what he saw in Morgan’s eyes.
Morgan holstered one of his guns, reached behind him and closed the door, slid along so he had his back against the wall.
«H’ist out those guns,» he ordered. «Easy like. Just the butts between your thumb and fingers. Heave them on the floor. In front of the desk.»
Crawford hesitated. Morgan’s voice was deadly. «Get them out.»
Never shifting his gaze from Morgan, Crawford complied. The two guns hit the floor in front of the desk.
«Now,» said Morgan, «I want to know where that geological report is.»
«Geological report?» asked Crawford.
«Don’t play dumb,» snapped Morgan. «You know what I mean. The report the geologist made for you. The one that showed there was oil on my place.»
Crawford didn’t budge, didn’t speak.
Morgan moved forward, threateningly.
«Do I have to knock your teeth in?» he asked.
«It’s not here,» said Crawford.
«That’s just too damn bad for you,» snapped Morgan.
His gun moved slightly downward and his eyes narrowed. His finger tensed on the trigger.
«Right in the belly,» he said. «You’ll suffer like hell, Crawford.»