Jud did not move for a while, but eventually he un-crossed his arms and scowled. “He can hardly stand up, Rufe. He ain’t a match for a little old lady, right now.” Jud ambled over, cocked his head at Charley Fenwick, then without warning swung savagely from the buckle. Fenwick’s head went violently backward, his legs turned loose, and Fenwick fell.
Jud did not even turn as he leaned down. “Give me a hand pitching him across one of their horses, and let’s get back to the ranch.”
VII
By the time they got back to the barn and unceremoniously dumped unconscious Charley Fen-wick in the dirt, Rufe was well aware that he had been pummeled by a man whose blows had sledge-hammer power.
Without a word to the chained man propped out front, who watched their arrival with a slack jaw, they yanked loose the rigging from the three Chase horses, turned them into a corral, then prodded the tall youth who had been in possession of the oil-soaked rags up to his feet, and kept prodding until he had crow-hopped the full distance around front— where he saw the dirty, torn, and bloody lump lying a few feet in front of his chained companion. The tall youth sank down beside the other prisoner, round shoulders against the barn’s front wall, staring.
Jud went after a bucket of water while Rufe rolled a smoke, lit up, flexed his aching hands, and completely ignored the prisoners until Jud returned, and hurled the bucket’s full, cold contents upon Charley Fenwick. He was rewarded with a weak spluttering sound, a small fit of coughing, and that was all, so Jud upended the bucket, sat down upon it, and joined Rufe studying their pair of chained captives.
After a while Rufe put forth a question. “You boys think it’s funny as hell, charging by here firing into the buildings, don’t you?”
The lanky youth swallowed hard, and turned to the older rider, but the older man was already wary, so he did not answer, either. The youth looked up at Rufe. “No, sir, it ain’t funny.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Well…. ”
Jud snorted in disgust. “I never figured Chase, or his men, any different. Anyone who makes war on a woman alone is plumb gutless.” He looked longest at the older cowboy. “We’re goin’ to may be set you loose, one at a time, give you back your guns, then my partner’n me’ll take turns bucking you…hand-guns only.”
The cowboy said: “Wait a minute. Personally I never aimed low. I’d shoot high along the walls. And I never really liked this way of doin’ it. If Chase wanted her out, all he had to do was come right on in some night, tie her up, and send her out of here, belly down, on one of the pack animals.”
“Sure,” agreed Rufe. “Or send you fellers over to burn her out.”
The cowboy paused, licked his lips, then grudgingly nodded. “Yeah. But, hell, even that’s better’n maybe accidently shooting her, ain’t it?”
Jud cast a sidelong glance at Fenwick, lying soggily in the darkened, wet dirt. As he glanced back, he said—“I’ll get a rope.”—and arose off the wooden bucket. “We can hang the young feller last…but we can’t hang this horse-killing bastard until he wakes up. That leaves just this other one for now.”
The youth made a small sound deeply in his throat, then he strained on the chains. The other cowboy looked over, a little sympathetically, and a trifle scornfully “You always run the risk of not succeeding” he mumbled. “I told you that on the ride over.”
Rufe dropped his smoke and ground it underfoot. He did not look at either of the prisoners until Jud came back out of the barn, lariat in hand, then Rufe faced the tall, thin younger range man.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty.”
“Where you from?”
“West Texas…sir…an’ my folks are church-abidin’ folks of the Baptist faith, and I never in my life done nothing like this…. ”
“Sure not,” growled Jud, looking blackly at the youth. “You know some prayers, Baptist boy? You better start reciting them for you and your big, brave, woman-fightin’ friend here.”
The older cowboy eyed Jud steadily. “He’s telling you the truth. We picked him up last winter down in town when we needed someone to mind the horses, chop wood, and help haul water for the cocinero. He’s the least feller Chase ever had with the outfit. Hell, he ain’t old enough to have done much, is he? Well, then…figure he’s learned a lesson and let him loose.”
“So he can ride back to Chase and tell him what happened over here?” growled Jud, shaking out a loop, then snugging it back to begin making the eight-inch wrap for a hangman’s knot.
“I won’t!” exclaimed the tall youth. “I swear I won’t. I’ll head west, mister. I won’t even look easterly. And I’ll keep on riding. I give you my word. I swear it to you!”
Jud continued to manufacture his hangman’s knot, acting as though he had not heard a word the youth had said. Then he stepped over close and began peering upwards as though seeking an eave end with enough of a notch or knot to it so that the rope would not pull off.
It was Rufe who finally spoke to the boy. “The penalty for burning folks out is the same as the penalty for stealing their horses or rustling their cattle. Did you know that when you left Chase’s cow camp tonight?”
The youth struggled with the truth for a long while. All three older men watched, all three of them mightily curious about how he would answer. Then he said: “Yes, sir, I knew that.”
Rufe nodded. “But you didn’t really figure to fire the barn, is that it?”
“No, sir, that ain’t it. I figured to fire it, like Chase said we was to do. I figured…burn her barn, and maybe next time her house…and she’ll leave with-out no one getting hurt very much.”
Jud asked: “And if you had a mother or a sister living alone, and some range scum came along to burn them out?” Jud did not wait for an answer; he had found his eave, and twisted to flip the rope ex-pertly up and over, and catch the tag end when it came dangling down.
The older range man watched Jud making the adjustments. After a moment of this he glanced up at Rufe. “Mister, if you’ll fish in my pocket, you’ll find some Kentucky twist, and, if you’d hold it up so’s I could get a chaw, I’d be right obliged.”
Rufe leaned down to get the man’s chewing tobacco, and, when he was that close, the cowboy said: “Hell, he’s only a kid…scairt two-thirds to death…and he didn’t really do nothing, anyhow.”
Rufe held out the twist, the cowboy gnawed off a corner, and, when Rufe shoved the plug back, then straightened up, he and the older man looked stonily at one another.
Rufe stepped away, reached to yank the tall youth to his feet, whirled him roughly against the barn, face forward, then yanked loose the arm chains with Jud standing off a short distance, watching from an expressionless face.
Rufe spun the youth back to face him and said: “Sit down and take the ankle chains off.”
The cowboy sank down almost as though his legs could not support his spindly frame. He fumbled with the chains while all three older men eyed him. When he was free at last, Rufe said: “If you go any-where even near Chase’s cow camp, or if you go down to that town on the desert and hang around down there…or if I ever see you again at all, you’re going to get shot all to hell. Get!”
The youth stared, so Jud repeated it. “Get! Damn it, climb onto your hind legs and commence run-ning westerly. On foot. Mister Chase’ll have the law on you if you make off with one of his horses. Now get!”
The lanky youth spun and fled around the side of the barn. They could still hear him fleeing, one long stride after another, for some little time.