“Good morning,” said another voice.
Parker swung around to face the direction the words had come from.
Betz stood on the trail, gun in hand, laughing at them without the sound of laughter.
One hand came up and he tipped his hat to Ann.
“It was nice of you, Miss Horton,” he said, “to show us the way.”
“To show you the way!” Luke bellowed.
“Why, certainly,” said Betz. “We took the news to the ranch and waited for her to leave. Then we followed her.”
“You never miss a single bet, do you,” Parker commented bitterly.
“Never, sheriff,” declared Betz.
His eyes narrowed and the bantering tone had vanished from his voice. “So you brought Egan with you.”
Egan yelled in sudden panic. “I didn’t tell him nothing, Frank. Not a single word. I never opened…”
“He just got through saying,” Betz told him, grimly, “that you spilled your guts.”
And the words were soft, too soft.
The gun steadied in Betz’ hand.
“Damn you,” said Betz. “I never liked you. I always knew that you were yellow.”
“No, Betz!” screamed Egan. “Please Betz! I’m your friend…”
Eyes wide with terror, he backed away, mouth working and no words coming out.
Behind Parker, Ann screamed at him. “Look out!”
But it was too late. For a moment Egan tottered on the edge of the precipice, face twisted with fright, arms straining at the ropes behind his back, fighting to keep his balance. Then with a long, thin scream he toppled over and plunged out of sight.
Betz’ hard voice rapped out an order.
“Drop them!”
Parker’s fingers loosened on the sixgun and let it slide back into his holster. Too slow, his mind told him, too slow. Watching Betz, he heard Luke’s sixgun clatter on the rock.
Betz chuckled.
Parker held his arms half lifted, mind racing.
A slow grin spread over Betz’ face, a leering grin of triumph.
“How do you want it?” he asked. “Gun or rope?”
Parker’s lips moved and his mouth was dry. “What about the girl?” he asked.
“Never mind,” Betz told him. “We’ll take care of her.”
His face was not a very pretty thing to look at.
An unseen hand knocked Betz’ hat off his head and sailed it through the air. A bullet chugged against the cliff and from somewhere in the tangled terrain that lay across the canyon a rifle barked—a full-throated, growling bark that set up a chain of echoes.
Parker’s hand dipped swiftly for his gun as Betz spun around to face the hidden rifle.
The rifle barked again and rock splinters flew from the cliff wall just above Betz’ shoulder, while the bullet howled into the sky, tumbling end for end.
Betz ducked swiftly and was gone, back along the trail. Parker stood, gun in hand, staring foolishly.
Luke’s voice chattered at him suddenly: “Clint, you recognize that gun! That’s the old .45-70! The old man’s out there, backing us!”
Another rifle rattled, three quick shots, flat, cracking, spiteful sounds. The .45-70 talked back.
Luke was running for the ledge.
Parker turned swiftly to Ann.
“Quick,” he told her, “get into the cave—and stay there.”
His left hand dipped to his belt, hauled out the second gun, thrust it at her.
“Use it if you have to.”
Swinging around, he raced after Luke—but Luke already had disappeared.
From far below a rifle spanged and a sixgun answered. The .45-70 was silent.
Running swiftly, bent forward, Parker left the cliff wall behind him, reached the tangled land that plunged down toward the canyon. Ahead of him a tiny puff of smoke plumed from behind a tree and a rifle hammered.
Diving off the trail, Parker slung a quick shot at the tree, then was skidding through the underbrush, driving deep beneath it in a flying, feet-first plunge.
The rifle churned and bullets clawed savagely at the bushes beneath which the sheriff lay. Body pressed tight against the ground, with the smell of leaf mold in his nostrils, he lay unmoving and watched the tree through the net of branches.
The canyon was quiet—no sign of the men who skulked through rocks and bushes to kill or be killed. No sign of the hidden, waiting guns. Somewhere a bird sang to the morning and far overhead the sun’s first rays were painting the cliff tops.
Parker clutched the sixgun savagely. Everything had been going well—too well, he told himself. And now a thing like this would happen. Egan dead at the foot of the cliff—the one man who could have cleared Luke of the charge against him. Egan, with his hands tied behind him, falling from the ledge, falling to the rocks and trees below—killed by Betz as surely as if Betz had fired a bullet through his head.
And now—odds of five to one or more. Two sixguns and a rifle in an old man’s shaky hands against a band of well armed men. Men who had to kill or be exposed for what they were. Men who would let nothing stop them …
Down the trail a sixgun hammered rapidly, shots rolling together until they seemed to be one long rattle.
The shots cut off and silence came again.
Parker let his breath out slowly.
His lips moved soundlessly. “One,” he said.
Luke had gotten his man, for there had been no answering shot. But a man couldn’t keep on doing that, couldn’t keep on killing without being killed himself.
Something moved beside the tree beyond the bushes, a dark thing against the dark green of the shaded brush. Tensed, Parker watched. The dark thing projected farther and there was a sullen gleam, the gleam of light on steel.
Parker sucked in his breath, slowly raised the sixgun. The glinting thing was a rifle barrel and that dark projection would be the elbow of the man who held it.
His finger tightened on the sixgun trigger and the hammer eased back slowly. Then the gun leaped in his hand and a man sprang, howling, from behind the tree. The rifle struck the ground and slid slowly down the slope and the man was running, left hand holding the elbow of his right arm.
Parker’s wrist bucked to the impact of the coughing gun and out on the canyonside the man was folding up, folding and falling as he ran, knees bending beneath him, feet scuffing in the leaves. Slowly he pitched forward upon his face and rolled.
On the hillside above Parker a rifle clamored, hacking and spitting and the whistle of lead hissing through the bushes above him was like the sound of a sudden summer thunder storm.
Breath caught in his throat, Parker squirmed away, crawling on his belly.
Another rifle caught up the chuckle where the other one left off, chattered and yammered. The bushes swayed and rippled and leaves cut by the storming bullets fluttered down on Parker’s back.
Parker’s throat was dry, dry with sudden fear.
Two rifles bearing on him, others sneaking up, attracted by the sound of shooting and closing in on him.
A voice came to him through the underbrush.
“Better come out, sheriff.”
He hugged the ground, red fury in his brain.
“Come out,” said Betz’ voice, “or we’ll open up. We’ll chop you all to hell.”
He can’t see me, Parker told himself. He can’t see me or he’d have me shot. It’s just a trick. A trick to make me move and tip off where I am.
One bullet plowed ground not six inches in front of Parker, throwing a shower of dirt into his face. Another clipped his hat with a tearing sound as it ripped through the cloth. Something stung his left leg.