Rafe

This was not a particularly comforting thought.

For close-in fighting—and it would be that kind if he had any chance at all—Rafe would have much preferred to depend on his belt gun. He found it awkward to be toting a weapon in each fist, and he damn sure wasn't about to throw away that carbine. He stuck the pistol into the front of his pants and then, bent double, put another yard behind him.

It was slow, sweaty work and any moment, he thought bitterly, that cold-jawed Spangler might get into the gulch and touch off the brush. Or one of them muttering pukes up above might take it into his nut to look over. Even if the guy couldn't see him he would have to be deaf, if he come that close, not to know somebody was moving right under him.

But nobody looked. There was no sound of boots. The Bender crew, evidently, was too indifferent, too lazy or too cautious to move out of their tracks. Weren't muttering now, either. Rafe, straining his ears till he thought they'd snap off, couldn't hear a dang thing; and his back was killing him.

He eased down on his knees, nerves screwed so tight they was like piano wires. He put down his saddle gun to flex cramped fingers and rub the damp off them. The rim was so near he could pretty near touch it; about a yard to go. He got to chewing his lip, trying to figure which was like to hold the most chance—to bust right on into them or try to wriggle through.

He was still on his knees, trying to make up his mind, when the black loom of the cliff face dissolved into flickering shadows.

Rafe didn't wait for any leaden translations. Scooping up his carbine, he surged to his feet and scrambled over the rim in one wild leap. He was among them before Spangler's hardcases got hold of their wits enough to know what was happening.

They were all afoot. The meaty impact of Rafe's carbine dropped one like a bursted sack, sent a second man staggering; then, like a swarm of hornets, they were all over him, swinging and swearing, clawing like wildcats to get him down. There wasn't enough room now to club with his carbine; Rafe smashed the butt of it into somebody's face, brought up his knee into the groin of another. This thinned them a little. Then someone leaped on his back, almost knocking him down. A hand reached and tore at his neck, and somebody's shoulder caught him hard in the chest. Gasping, he got all his strength together, bracing his feet, and whirled, the flying legs of the man on his back clearing a path. The man's strangling grip broke loose and he was gone.

But so was most of Rafe's strength. His knees began to wabble. Fists beat against his back and he reeled through a kind of red fog sprung from nausea. Blows seemed to rain on him from every direction. The carbine was torn from his hands. There was the warm slippery taste of salt in his mouth, and he knew this was blood; and in the brightening glare from the roaring brush he saw their hate-twisted faces and their hands closing in again.

He got the six-shooter out of the waistband of his pants and slashed its barrel across the nearest face, laying it open from jaw to ear. The flames threw back the lifting wink of metal in several other fists but, with so many of their fellows in such close proximity, no one it seemed wanted to fire the first shot. Rafe, on his knees, had no such scruples. His pistol barked and somebody yelled; he fired again and a man, twisted half around, went down with both hands clapped to his neck. Another gun went off, another man collapsed. Rafe, lunging up, dived into the welter of kicking, plunging horses, managing to nab one that had stepped on its reins.

Lead sang over his head as he tore off the bridle and hurled himself up. The panicked horse was going full stride before even Rafe's leg settled over the saddle. With an arm round its neck he yelled in its ear like a half-crocked Apache. The ground flew past, the wind whipped off his hat, the shouting gun-pierced racket of Duke's crew was left behind.

XII

When Rafe got back enough wind and nerve to risk straightening up and having a look at his situation he must have been at least two miles north of the rim. The thunder of hoofs which he'd thought was pursuit turned out to be several of the Bender crew's horses which, swept up in the excitement, had come along with him.

He got his mount stopped and, while the horse blew, took a long edgy squint at his backtrail. The star filled night loomed vast and empty; then a voice said, seemingly right at his elbow, "Reckon I've growed enough gray hairs fer both of us!"

Rafe came around. The feller's dark shape wasn't a rope's throw away. He had his hands shoulder high and, though his chuckle was nervous, both of them looked empty. "You won't need that artillery. I'm the jigger that he'ped you bust loose. Hell—" he said when Rafe made no move to put up his pistol, "you sure didn't figger you done that all by yourself?"

Rafe, kneeing the captured horse in closer, growled, "Who're you?"

"Just one of the Bills. You can call me 'Brownwater'—ever'one else does."

Now that he was up near enough to make out things, Rafe could see by the way he spread over his saddle the feller had enough extra fat hanging on him to do a whole tribe of Papagos half the winter. He looked mighty near big as Bunny's pa, Pike, and had a mottled appearance like he'd got in the way of an upended paint bucket—freckles, probably. He had a chaw in one cheek and a wheeze to his voice and seemed altogether as unfit for the part he claimed to have played as a two-legged dog in a three-ring circus. Rafe said, suspicious, "How'd you get into this?"

"It's kind of a long story. I'm Lucy's beau. Was, anyways, till that brother of yours—"

"How'd you know I had any brother!"

Brownwater grinned. You could tell by the shine of his teeth. "I was in that harness room back of the tree when you was tryin' that day to git the prodigal's hug an' Duke kep'—"

"If you was there," Rafe growled, "tell me who got the paper."

"Duke grabbed it out of the Old Man's hand just before Spangler bended that gun over your head. Hell," the fat man said with his look juning jumpily into the black, "we better git whackin'!"

There was a whole heap of things Rafe was aching to know, but so long as he kept his eyes skinned and one fist wrapped about the handle of his shooter he reckoned it wouldn't hurt to ride a spell with this john. "All right," he grumbled, "lead out an' stay careful."

They pushed along at a lope, driving into the east for maybe three or four miles; then they eased up a bit bending south at a jog while the night got colder and a ground wind whined through the catclaw and pear.

When Brownwater pulled up to blow the horses Rafe had belted his pistol, had both hands in his pockets trying to thaw out the cramps. The fat man had his fists in plain sight, piled atop the horn of his saddle like they was hostages for good conduct. There wasn't anything to be heard but the wind, no thud of hoof pound, no whisper of shouts.

"Where are we?" Rafe asked.

"Gourd an' Vine. About four miles due north of headquarters. Figgered you'd be wantin' to auger some with your paw."

Rafe's brows squeezed down. "You hopin' to run me into a jackpot?"

"That bunch won't be along fer a while—"

"Says you!" Rafe jeered, and set the good hand to reaching back for his pistol.