“You should hold it with both hands.”
Gregg smiled indulgently. “Morna, you’re a very well educated young lady, and I daresay you know all manner of things I never even heard of—but don’t try to teach an old hand like me how to shoot a six-gun.” He steadied the gun, held his breath and squeezed off his first shot. There was an explosion like a clap of thunder and something struck him a fierce blow on the forehead, blinding him with pain. His first confused thought was that the revolver had been faulty and had burst open, throwing a fragment into his face. Then he found it was intact in his hand, and it dawned on him that there had been a massive recoil which had bent his weakened arm like a piece of straw, swinging the weapon all the way back to collide with his forehead. He wiped a warm trickle of blood away from his eyes and looked at the gun with awe and the beginnings of a great respect.
“There isn’t any smoke,” he said. “There isn’t even …”
His speech faltered as he looked beyond the gun in his hand and saw that the stone water trough, which had served as a backing for his target, had been utterly destroyed. Fragments of three-inch-thick earthenware were scattered over a triangular area running back about thirty yards. Without previous knowledge, Gregg would have guessed that the trough had been demolished by a cannon shot.
Morna took her hands away from her ears. “You’ve hurt yourself—I told you to hold it with both hands.”
“I’m all right.” He fended off her attempts to touch his forehead. “Morna, where did you get this … this engine?”
“Do you expect me to answer that?”
“I guess not, but I sure would like to know. This is something I could understand.”
“Try it at longer range, and use both hands this time.” Morna looked about her, apparently more composed now that Gregg was doing what she expected of him. She pointed at a whitish rock about three hundred yards off along the hillside. “That rock.”
“That’s getting beyond rifle range,” Gregg explained. “Handguns don’t …”
“Try it, Billy.”
“All right—I’ll try aiming way above it.”
“Aim on to it, near the top.”
Gregg shrugged and did as he was told, suddenly aware that his right thumb was throbbing painfully where the big revolver had driven back against it. He squeezed off his second shot and experienced a deep pang of satisfaction, of a kind that only hunters understand, when he saw dust fountain into the air only about a yard to the right of the rock. Even with his two-handed grip the gun had kicked back until it was pointing almost vertically into the sky. Without waiting to be told, he fired again and saw rock fragments fly from his target.
Morna nodded her approval. “You appear to have a talent.”
“This is the best gun I ever saw,” he told her sincerely, “but I can’t hold it down. These arms of mine can’t handle the recoil.”
“Then we’ll bind your elbows.”
“Too late for that,” he said regretfully, pointing down the slope.
Several horsemen were coming into view, their presence in the formerly deserted landscape more shocking to Gregg than the discovery of a picnic hamper.
He began cursing his own carelessness in not having kept a look-out as more riders emerged from beyond the spur until there were eight of them fanning out across the bottom of the hill. They were a mixed bunch, slouching or riding high according to individual preference, on mounts which varied from quarter-horses to tall stallions, and their dress ranged from greasy buckskin to gambler’s black. Gregg knew, however, that they constituted a miniature army, disciplined and controlled by one man. He narrowed his eyes against the morning brilliance and picked out the distinctive figure of Josh Portfield on a chestnut stallion. As always, Portfield was wearing a white shirt and a suit of charcoal grey serge which might have given him the look of a preacher had it not been for the pair of nickel-plated Smith & Wessons strapped to his waist.
“I was kind of hoping Big Josh would leave things as they were,” Gregg said. “He must be in one of his righteous moods.”
Morna took an involuntary step backwards. “Can you defend yourself against so many?”
“Have to give it a try.” Gregg began scooping up handfuls of cartridges and cramming them into his pockets. “You’d best get inside the house and bar the door.”
Morna looked up at him, the hunted look returning to her face, then she stooped to pick up something from the ground and ran to the house. Glancing sideways, Gregg was unable to understand why she should have wasted time retrieving the flattened cartridge box, but he had more important things on his mind. He flipped the revolver’s cylinder out, dropped the three empty cases and replaced them with new shells. Feeling sad rather than afraid, he walked a few paces towards the advancing riders. They had closed to within two hundred yards.
“Stay off my land, Josh,” he shouted. “There’s a law against trespassing.”
Portfield stood up in his stirrups and his powerful voice came clearly to Gregg in spite of the distance. “You’re insolent, Billy. And you’re ungrateful. And you’ve cost me a good man. I’m going to punish you for all those things, but most of all I’m going to punish you for insolence and lack of respect.” He sank down in the saddle and said something Gregg could not hear. A second later Siggy Sorenson urged his horse ahead of the pack and came riding up the hill with a pistol in his hand.
“This time I got a gun, too,” Sorenson shouted. “This time we fight fair, eh?”
“If you come any further I’ll drop you,” Gregg warned.
Sorenson began to laugh. “You’re way out of range, you old fool. Can’t you see any more?” He spurred his horse into a full gallop, and at the same time two other men went off to Gregg’s left.
Gregg raised the big revolver and started to calculate bullet drop, then remembered it was practically non-existent with the unholy weapon fate had placed in his hands. This time the two-handed, knees-bent stance came to him naturally. He lined up on Sorenson, let him come on for another few seconds then squeezed the trigger. Sorenson’s massive body, blasted right out of the saddle, turned over backwards in mid-air and landed face down on the stony ground. His horse wheeled to one side and bolted. Realizing he would soon lose the advantage of surprise, Gregg turned on the two riders who were flanking him to the left. His second shot flicked the nearest man to the ground, and the third—fired too quickly—killed the other’s horse. The animal dropped instantaneously, without a sound, and its rider threw himself into the shelter of its body, dragging a red-glinting leg.
Gregg looked back down the trail and in that moment discovered the quality of his opposition. He could see a knot of milling horses, but not men. In the brief respite given to them they had faded from sight behind rocks, no doubt with rifles from their saddle holsters. Suddenly becoming aware of how vulnerable he was in his exposed position at the top of the rise, Gregg bent low and ran for the cover of his shack. Crouching down behind it he again dropped three expended cartridges and replaced them, appreciative of the speed with which the big gun could be loaded. He peered around a corner of the shack to make certain that nobody was working closer to him.
Shockingly, a pistol thundered and black smoke billowed only twenty yards away. Something gouged through his lower ribs. Gregg lurched back into cover and stared in disbelief at the ragged and bloody tear in his shirt. He had been within a handsbreadth of death.
“You’re too slow, Mister Gregg,” a voice called, frighteningly close at hand. “That old buffalo gun you got yourself don’t make no difference if you’re too slow.”