The wind marched across the roof, rattling a shingle here and there, came back to rattle them again. A low hanging tree branch scraped against the side of the house and downstairs he heard the mumble of voices as the old folks talked themselves to sleep.
Shut your eyes, he told himself, and pretend that it is ten years ago. Pretend that Luke is lying here beside you and that tomorrow the two of you are going fishing down in the big sucker hole just above the drift fence. Shep is a young dog and Mother has fewer wrinkles in her face than she had tonight. Old Matt’s beard is just starting to turn gray and maybe, in the morning he will take down the gun and let you sight along its barrel and brag about all the game that you could get if he’d only let you use it.
But it would be no use, he knew. No use to try to purchase even a moment’s forgetfulness. For Luke was not in this bed, but somewhere out in the night, a hunted man, hunted for a thing that he never could have done. And Shep was old and had rheumatism so bad that of winter nights he was allowed to come in and sleep beside the kitchen stove. And Matt never could look at that gun again without remembering.
Parker lay, staring into the darkness, listening to the wind walking on the roof and tripping on the shingles.
Suddenly he sat straight up in bed, jerked upright by something that had come out of the night. Rubbing his eyes, he waited for it to come again.
“Must have been asleep,” he told himself, surprised.
Thunderous knocking rumbled through the house, the insistent beat of fists hammering on a door.
Throwing back the covers, Parker swung his feet out of bed, hand reaching in the darkness for the gunbelt on the bedpost.
The knocking came again, a hollow rolling sound.
Feet shuffled through the darkness below and Matt’s querulous voice came floating up the stairs.
“I’m coming, dog gone it. I’m coming. Just hold your horses.”
Parker felt the cold of the floor biting into his bare feet as he stalked softly, gun in hand, to the top of the stairs. The knocking had stopped, but outside old Shep was barking viciously.
CHAPTER THREE
Bushwhack Boomerang
A lamp chimney rattled in the living room and the flare of a match splashed across the darkness.
Gun gripped tightly, Parker squatted on the top stair step, shivering in his underwear, eyes watching the front door.
Slippers slapped across the floor and he saw old Matt, nightshirt flapping at his ankles, shuffle across to the door. In one hand he carried the monstrous sixgun that he had worn earlier in the evening when Parker had ridden up.
The latch clicked and the door creaked open and in it loomed a red-faced man. Behind him, on the porch, were other dark shapes.
“Where’s Luke?” snarled Betz.
Matt stood still, gun hanging at his side, half hidden by his nightshirt.
“Luke’s in jail,” he said. “You should know about it, Betz. You helped put him there.”
“Luke broke out,” Betz told him. “We figured that we’d find him here.”
“Ain’t seen him,” Matt said softly.
“Him and that chicken-livered sheriff both are missing,” Betz bellowed. “More than likely went off together. When we find them we aim to hang them on the same tree.”
Old Matt stood unmoving.
“Get out of my way,” snarled Betz. “We’re coming in to search.”
The old man did not move and Betz stood undecided.
Slowly, deliberately, Parker brought his gun up, lined the sights with cold accuracy on the point straight between Betz’ eyes.
“You’re not coming in,” said Matt. “You aren’t even staying.”
His hand moved swiftly, the huge sixgun glinting in the lamplight. From where he squatted, Parker heard the grunt of surprise that was driven from Betz’ lungs as the gun’s muzzle jammed into his belly.
Slowly Betz took a backward step.
“I’ll be back,” he snarled. “I’ll make you sorry that—”
“Get a move on,” croaked old Matt. “Get out of here before I dust you off!”
Betz backed away and the dark shapes backed with him, across the porch and down the steps, watching the steady menace of the gun held in the old man’s hand.
Parker released his pressure on the trigger, let the hammer fall back gently.
Hoofs pounded outside, drummed into the distance.
Old Matt closed the door and swung around and in the lamplight his face was drawn and haggard.
Parker called softly: “Matt.”
The old man moved to the bottom of the stairs, stood looking up.
“Clint,” he said, “you were backing me!”
“Betz,” Parker told him, “never came closer to dying in all his crooked life.”
He rose and came down the stairs.
“Matt,” he said, “I been thinking. I have to go find Luke.”
“You know where to find him, son?”
“I think I do.”
The old man’s eyes crinkled for a moment in the lamplight.
“Clint, I lied to you tonight. Luke was here, just before you came.”
Parker nodded. “I figured that he was.”
“Seems to me you got yourself in a tight as well as Luke.”
“It wouldn’t have made no difference,” Parker told him. “If it hadn’t been Luke, they’d figured out some other way. They are out to get me, one way or another. They aim to either kill me or discredit me as sheriff. They want to get their own man in!”
“But the girl,” protested Matt. “How about the girl—old man Horton’s daughter.”
Parker shook his head. “She’s pretty much disgusted with me. Don’t figure she’ll have much to do with me from now on. Her and her dad wanted me to take a job up north…”
“I said some harsh things to you this afternoon,” Matt told him. “You know, Clint, that I didn’t mean them.”
For a moment they stood facing one another.
“Sure,” said Parker. “Sure, I know you didn’t mean them.”
A voice called from the bedroom.
“That’s Ma,” said Matt. “You hustle upstairs and get into your clothes. I’ll rustle up some coffee.”
Outside the moon was low and the morning crisp. The stars in the east were paling and the first sleepy chirps of birds came from the grove down by the spring.
Just beyond the porch, Parker stood for a moment, listening, but there was no sound but the birds and the wind rustling in the trees.
A western window in the barn let in a slash of moonlight across the stall where the buckskin stood, slack-hipped, head hanging in the manger, asleep or dozing. He lifted his head at Parker’s step and the man spoke to him softly, strode to the peg where the saddle hung. Swiftly he lifted it off, half turned—and heard the sound.
The sound of a foot scuffing through the bedding, the sharp indrawn whistle of a human breath.
“Stand right where you are,” a voice said. “And keep your hand from your gun.”
Slowly, carefully, still holding the saddle in front of him, Parker pivoted, saw the man standing just at the edge of the shaft of moonlight—huge and burly and black-bearded.
The moonlight highlighted the gun held in the hairy fist and the man’s teeth gleamed through the tangle of his beard.
“Hello, Egan,” said Parker. “So you stayed behind.”
“Told Betz you would either be here or be coming here, but he didn’t figure that you would. Said both you and Luke had too much brains for that.”