Burt Ransome didn’t like it. For a number of reasons and one was that he wasn’t what might be called a riding sheriff. In short, his butt was taking a beating from the saddle, his legs were stiff and his back was aching; the heat was playing hell with him and he kept thinking of schooners of cold beer. But there was enough iron in the man and fear of the mighty Ed Brack to keep him goading Pete Yewdley, the tracker, into leading him to his quarry.
By the second day, he lost count of how many times Pete had lost the sign of the man they sought. Expert as Pete was he could not prevent time being lost while he searched for sign that simply seemed to disappear by magic. It became pretty clear that Storm was no slouch at losing posses.
It was on that same second day just when Pete had ridden back from searching the country ahead to announce that he had found sign and they could come on as fast as they could make it when the catastrophe happened. How it happened that the posse did not lose half its number killed, the sheriff would never know.
They were riding along a steep-sided and fairly wide gully, most of them travelling in single file when Hank Tristem, who was riding in the van immediately behind the tracker, gave a yell of alarm, whirled his horse and started forcing his horse back past the men behind him.
In the first second or two of the confusion he caused nobody there could make out what had spooked the veteran top-hand, but a rumble from above turned all their eyes to the sky. A few small loose rocks rattled about the feet of their horses. Then it seemed that a large part of the gully-side to the right of them heaved down toward them. That was enough to put the fear of God into every man there.
Horses were brought around untidily in a raking of spurs and lashing of quirts, a horse screamed and men yelled. The dust rose and the rumble above them became a roar. Every man there was headed east fast when they heard the landslide hit bottom. It did so with a roar like a battery of cannon. Trembling, they halted at the far end of the gully, turned their horses and looked back.
What they saw stilled them all to silence for a moment.
Some twenty or thirty yards ahead of the spot where Tristem had turned and yelled his first warning was a heap of stone composed of whole boulders and smashed rock. Dust rose on the still air in an impenetrable fog.
‘My God,’ a man said and spoke for them all.
Ransome in that moment, to everyone’s surprise, most of all his own, showed that he had not lost his presence of mind.
‘That wasn’t no landslide,’ he said grimly. ‘There’s some murderin’ bastard up there. Follow me.’
Some of the men gazed at him in shaken astonishment as he rode for the north side of the gully. Here it was steep, but not too steep to be tackled by a good horse and a fearless rider. The sheriff spurred his mount at it and shouted encouragement to his men like a gallant officer of cavalry. A number of the posse members reacted automatically to the example shown them and went after him. A few, considering that caution and safety were better choices than valor, stayed right where they were. However, there were five of the hardiest spirits following in the lawman’s wake. One of them lacked in skill as a horseman what he gained in courage and permitted his horse to fail the steepness of the slope and to fall over backward. The poor fellow was able to get his feet out of the stirrup irons in time to fall clear of the horse. Neither man nor beast was seriously injured, but both were so badly shaken that they immediately opted out of the reckless charge.
The five remaining riders fought their way up the dangerous slope, scattering rocks to right and left, somehow keeping their horses on their feet and shouting encouragement to each other. However, the climb was long and arduous and the sheriff for one was a little less enthusiastic when he reached the top than when he had started. All five men reached the top almost as exhausted as their horses. They found themselves on rocky broken ground adorned with a scattering of trees and bushes. Not a man there doubted that whoever had sent the avalanche of stone down on them had ample hiding places to choose from.
‘Fan out,’ croaked the sheriff and they urged their tired horses into action, drawing their belt-guns and preparing for action.
It came a little sooner than they expected.
It came in the form of a hail of lead. It whined through the air about their heads, it hit rock and whistled into the blue, it kicked up dirt in their faces when they flung themselves down from their horses and took cover.
The boldness went out of the charge at once. Every man there felt excessively mortal and every man there came to the conclusion that he was not cut out for this kind of work. In short, their minds worked like any other set of men who find themselves under fire from a man who held an impregnable position.
The firing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. But they stayed where they were, just in case. None of them felt favorable about getting his head blown off. They lay prone and they kept their heads down.
Hank Tristem was the first to come to the conclusion that not much would be gained by their staying where they were all day. He called across to the sheriff: ‘I’m goin’ to work my way around north.’
Without lifting his head one half-inch, the sheriff said in a somewhat muffled voice: ‘Good man, Hank. Go ahead.’
Tristem crawled away and disappeared into the rocks and trees.
Some time passed. The other Broken Spur man, maybe shamed a little by the enterprise and courage shown by his fellow hand, said that he was going to work his way forward.
‘We’ll cover you, son,’ the sheriff said encouragingly.
After fifteen minutes some shooting broke out ahead. When it stopped Tristem and the Broken Spur man appeared looking a little shamefaced and walked openly back to the prone men. Tristem told them that he and Twiney, the other man, had been shooting at each other.
The sheriff got to his feet and looked a few more years than he could rightly claim. But he got a grip on himself and said: ‘All right, men, search the area.’
Cautiously, the man started to move around, tense, guns held ready.
Ransome now became aware that he did not have his full posse with him. He went to the edge of the gully and saw those who skulked below. He poured shame and a few naughty words down on them and told them they could safely come up now the shooting was over.
They came up looking not so much ashamed as pleased to be alive. It was about this time that Ransome realized that though a powerful amount of lead had been thrown their way by a rifle at pretty short range not a man had been touched.
He was just trying to put a scare into us, he thought.
At that moment, he heard the flat slam of a rifle and a bullet seemed to flirt for a brief moment with the crown of his hat. With a howl of alarm he moved with an agility which did great credit to his years and gained comparative safety behind a tree. A second bullet told him how wise he had been to take such action and a third convinced the whole posse that the sheriff’s example was a good one to follow.
The shooting this time came from the other side of the gully, which proved that there either were two marksmen at work or that the fellows sure could move.
But even bad things come to an end and after the area had been well and truly dusted with thirty-thirty slugs, silence once more took over that section of Colorado and for the second time that day the members of the legally constituted posse were glad to be still alive. This time, however, they took a little longer to venture out of cover.
When they did, Hank Tristem, much to Ransome’s annoyance, for the sheriff felt that his high office had already received enough ridicule for one outing, insisted that the situation was one to provoke laughter.
The lank top-hand from Broken Spur sat himself down on a boulder and slapped his lean thigh.
‘By crackey,’ he cried, ‘that bastard sure had the whole bunch of us buffaloed. Hell, you shoulda seen your faces, boys.’
‘Maybe I’m odd or somethin’,’ the sheriff said, ‘but I don’t think it’s so funny nearly gettin’ my butt shot off.’
The iciness of the lawman’s tone did nothing to curb Tristem’s laughter. In fact, he had a real fit of the laughs. Maybe it was the relief at being still alive. His laugh was contagious apparently, for man after man of the posse flopped down on the ground helpless with laughter.
When there was a lull, the sheriff said coldly: ‘When you gals’re through gigglin’, we’ll git on. We have a killer to catch, remember.’
Sobered a little, they staggered to their feet.
They climbed down into the gully, mounted their horses and followed Yewdley as he searched for a way around the blocked trail, determining that no matter what they wouldn’t ride again into a gully where they could be smashed to death by rocks. Which did them some credit, when you come to think of it. They were volunteers and they could have turned around and ridden home again.
Hank Tristem expressed the thoughts of them all when he said: ‘This Mart Storm is sure goin’ to take some takin’ before he’s took.’ That may not have been strictly grammatical, but it was true.