Up the hillside a man was screaming and a sixgun was talking in jerky, tortured bursts of sound.
A sixgun! That would be Luke!
Parker came to his feet, lowered his shoulders like a battering ram, charged through the brush, heading for the sixgun sound.
A rifle chugged, but the shot was wide and Parker kept on going, scrambling up the hill in leaping bounds that sent loose rocks clattering down the slope.
The sixgun was silent and the man who had screamed was moaning, moaning and sobbing somewhere among the trees.
A woman’s shrill cry rang out: “Clint … Clint!”
And then choked off, as if a hand had come across her mouth.
Breath sobbing in his throat, Parker leaped toward the sound. A rifle chortled and whining lead sang above his head.
He stumbled, bursting through a screen of brush, and there before him was Ann—Ann in the grip of one of the Turkey Track riders, an arm tight around her waist, holding her in front of him while he backed away.
At the sight of Parker the man’s arm came up and the gun exploded in a belch of fire and smoke. Parker jerked to the impact of the bullet as it scraped along his side.
Ann was struggling, fighting, eyes wide, lips tight and straight.
Parker jerked up his gun and as the girl bent forward, straining to break the grip of the arm around her, he pressed the trigger.
Ann stumbled forward, falling to her knees as the arm relaxed and towering over her, his throat ripped out by Parker’s bullet, the man stood for an instant like a graven statue and then fell backwards, crashing like a falling tree.
Parker spun around, sixgun ready. Figures were storming up the hill, swiftly plunging forms moving from one tree to the next. The sheriff’s sixgun hammered and down on the hillside a man spun in midstride, went rolling down the slope.
A rifle barked in steady tones and Parker felt the wind of winging death whisper past his cheek. Bullets chunked into the rising ground behind him.
He swung around and saw Ann running for a nest of boulders. He whipped two quick shots at the barking rifle and then the hammer clicked on an empty shell.
The girl was calling to him: “Quick, Clint—quick.”
Bullets plowed the ground around him as he ran, but he reached the boulders, flung himself behind them, lay listening to the howl of ricocheting lead screaming off the rock.
A hand reached out and touched him.
“Clint, you all right …”
He stormed at her. “You little fool! I told you to stay back in the cave!”
“But they were shooting at you and I had the gun.”
He sat up and fed cartridges into his Colt.
“Where’s the gun you had?” he asked.
Her voice shook a little. “I dropped it.”
On his knees, he stared across the little space that separated them, saw the tremble of her lip.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry that I talked like that.”
“Where’s Luke and Matt?”
Parker shook his head. “Down the canyon somewhere, I guess.”
He nodded at a niche between two boulders. “Get in there and stay,” he told her. “Pure hell is apt to break loose any minute.”
She slid into the niche and Parker crouched, sixgun ready, watching the trees and underbrush. They’ll be working up the hill, he told himself, to get above us, and when they do, this nest of boulders wouldn’t be worth a damn as a thing to hide behind.
Up the hill a rifle spat. A man’s shriek rose above the din of the shot and then chopped off.
Parker tensed. That gun!
It spat again and a man was running through the trees, twisting and doubling like a hunted deer.
Deliberately, Parker lined him in the sights and pressed the trigger. The runner stumbled, crashed to the ground and bounced, flapped against a tree and then lay still.
The gun took up again, deliberate, steady, like a cornered bear.
“Matt!” yelled Parker. “Down this way, Matt!”
The old man whooped at him from up the hillside: “We got them on the run, lad. Open up!”
The bark of the .45-70 cut off his words and snapping, snarling rifles answered back.
A new sound came in, far off to the left—the steady rattle of a rasping sixgun.
Luke! That’s Luke, Parker told himself.
He slid around the corner of the boulder, snapped his gun down on a bush overhung with powder smoke, triggered rapidly. A man burst from the bush, went zigzagging down the hill in wild, plunging leaps.
Other men were running, too. Scurrying down the hillside, plunging and sliding, running to escape the withering fire that was pouring from above them.
Parker leaped from behind the boulder, smoking sixgun snapping at the heels of the fleeing man.
His boots bit into the sloping ground, leaving long skid marks behind him as he strode down the hill, while above him old Matt’s rifle growled and Luke’s sixgun played a constant tune.
A bullet whipped past Parker’s head and a gun crashed off to the left. Parker checked his stride and swung around, saw the man standing beside the scraggly tree at the foot of the cliff.
Red-faced, bull-necked, lips twisted with bitter hate, Betz raised his gun for another shot.
Parker shot from the hip, a quick snap shot that sent the bark flying from the tree. Betz’ gun drooled fire and Parker staggered under the smashing power of the bullet that took him in the shoulder.
Numbed, Parker lifted his gun, took a slow step forward.
This one has to be good, his mind told him through the ache that spread across his body—this one has to count. If it wasn’t, he knew that he would never had another chance.
Feet planted, he held himself upright and rigid for the moment, everything else blotted out but the red-faced man and the ugly snout of Betz’ sixgun poised for another shot.
The gun in Parker’s hand spat fire, bucked against his wrist. In front of him Betz jerked as if hit by a red-hot iron. His gun dropped from suddenly limp fingers and the man bent in the middle, as if he had hinges in his stomach. When he hit the ground he was still—very still and limp.
Through a foggy haze, Parker drove his legs forward, walking toward the dead man—and stopped in astonishment.
Something rolled out from under the tree beside which Betz had stood, something that flopped and thrashed like a chicken with its head cut off.
Parker’s legs were running and his mouth was shouting:
“Egan! Egan!”
Egan struggled to a sitting position, stared at him, blood-matted black bear working as his jaws made words.
“Afraid I’d never get out,” he said. “Damn rope was fouled up with a branch.”
“But you fell,” gasped Parker. “I saw you …”
“Sure,” said Egan. “I fell into a tree. Knocked me out for a while, but it saved me. When I come to I kicked around a little and then I fell the rest of the way.”
He jerked his head at Betz.
Egan was swinging to and fro and the trees were dancing. Parker felt his knees giving way and suddenly he was sitting on the ground, face to face with Egan. He shook his head to clear away the fog and the trees stood still, jiggling just a little.
“He got you,” said Egan viciously. His eyes were on Parker’s blood-soaked shoulder.
“I hope to hell it’s bad,” said Egan. “I hope you croak, right along with Betz.”
Parker clenched his teeth. “Don’t worry,” he told the man. “I’ll live to see you behind bars …”
Feet pounded behind him and he twisted his head around. It was old Matt and Ann, tearing down the hillside. Ann a running deer, Matt a lumbering grizzly, beard floating in the wind, rifle waving in his steady hand.