Brick Hollister gave a startled yell, hand slapping down at his side as he felt his gun being jerked from his holster. But he was too slow to prevent Mahon drawing the old Army Colt. Dusty Fog was moving with the speed which made his name a legend. He was in close as Mahon started to swing the gun around towards him. His reaching hands caught Mahon’s boot, jerked it from the stirrup then thrust upwards. Mahon gave a yell as he lost his balance and let the gun fall. He grabbed at, and missed, the saddlehorn, then fell, kicking his other foot free and breaking his fall with his hands. Even as he landed Mahon saw the small Texan picking up the gun.
Lindy lunged forward, the old Pettingill ready for use, meaning to protect her father. Mark Counter’s left hand shot out from the side of the door, gripping the chamber of the revolver and twisting it, preventing her firing. Then with a quick pull he plucked the gun from her hand. His right hand went down, came up again, the ivory-butted Colt lining on Hollister.
“Hold right as you are, sheriff!”
Hollister froze, bending forward with hands scant inches from the butt of his rifle. He stayed still, very still, knowing that there was another good man with a gun. He also knew that many a gun as good as either of the pair would have downed Mahon as soon as he made that stupid move. That they did not, warned Hollister that all was far from being as it appeared on the surface. These two Texans were no trigger-fast hired killers, for if they were both he and Mahon would be dead right now.
“Keep still, all of you!” snapped Dusty, moving to jerk the rifle from Hollister’s saddle boot. Now he and Mark held all the visible weapons.
Lindy stared at the rifle and revolver Dusty held, then at the Pettingill in Mark’s hand. She realized that they were now unarmed and at the mercy of the two grim young men. The Ysabel Kid’s old Dragoon revolver lay on the sideboard in the living-room, but it was empty. She felt ready to break down and sob, they were in the hands of two men she had tried to shoot.
It was Bohasker who broke the deadlock, moving forward and ignoring the Colt in Mark’s hand. “Reckon you don’t aim to use that gun, friend, so put it away. If you’d been fixing to kill any of us you’d have done it by now.”
Mark’s long-barreled Colt spun on his finger, dropping back into leather. He turned and smiled at Lindy. It was a smile which charmed kisses from girls and food from cooks from Texas to Montana and back the long way. Reversing the Pettingill, Mark held it out to the girl.
“Here, ma’am. I hope I didn’t hurt you when I took it. I don’t like these hammerless guns, a man never knows when the trigger’s far enough back to fire them.”
“Now let’s have some sensible talk for gawd’s sake!” Dusty snapped, handing Hollister the rifle and revolver. “We ran across two men in town, they’d got our pard’s horse and we wanted to know why. So we turned ole Thunder loose and he brought us here. Then somebody started shooting at us and wouldn’t let us talk. That’s why we came in like we did, tried to get near enough to make talk without being shot.”
Lindy saw the big white standing with the other two horses and remembered something the Ysabel Kid had told her.
“Loncey said he was going to meet two friends in town. You must be the two.”
“Why sure,” agreed Dusty, then nodded to Mark as he walked back along the path to the white, reaching out a hand to stroke its neck. Dusty went on, “I reckon Lon warned you not to touch his hoss, there aren’t many ole Thunder’ll let do it.”
“He told me that,” Lindy smiled, relief flooding over her.
“If you look in his war bag you’ll find a Colt Dragoon,” Dusty went on, “one of the Third Model, with the detachable canteen-carbine stock. There’s a plate in the butt that reads, ‘To Mason Haines from his good friend, Jethro Kliddoe’.”
The others looked at each other now, knowing a tragedy had been averted only because the two Texans knew how to control their emotions and tempers. They did not need further proof of the connection between the two Texans and the man in the house. Lindy was sure they were the friends her guest was meeting in Escopeta. They were so much like Loncey, slow talking, polite, yet terribly swift in action. She had thought Loncey was fast, but not when compared with the small Texan. There was one more proof, she decided, no stranger could guess the white horse was called Thunder.
“Yes, you are his friends.”
“Yes’m!” answered Dusty. Mark was back by his side now and silent. Dusty hoped his friend would do the talking.
Mark did not speak. His throat felt as if it was blocked and his usually glib tongue stilled. He did not dare ask the question which seethed in his mind, but neither he nor Dusty dared hope the Kid was still alive, not after the way the girl had spoken when they arrived. The Kid was dead, they were both sure.
At last Dusty drew in a deep breath. His fingers worked spasmodically by his side, his face set grimly. “Is he—?”
Even now he could not bring himself to finish off the sentence.
“No he ain’t,” replied Bohasker huffily. “I might not be a halfway good doctor, but when I get to them in time they mostly live.”
It took some seconds for Dusty and Mark to understand what was said, to understand what it meant. Then a relief almost too great to bear flooded over them. The Ysabel Kid was not dead after all: he was alive. With an ornery old cuss like Lon that was all that mattered; give him anywhere near a fighting chance and he would come through.
Mrs. Mahon advanced from the passage where she had been watching. “He’s badly hurt, but he’ll live.”
“Yes’m,” said Dusty. His face showed the relief he felt and he sighed. “Can we see him, please?”
Mahon got to his feet, shaken by the fall and still confused. He looked around him, then asked, “What’s been happening here? What horse is that out there?”
His wife ignored the questions, she was watching the faces of the two young Texans. Both were under a considerable strain, worrying over their friend’s fate. It struck her in that moment how lucky her husband was to still be alive. Many men, particularly when as fast and efficient as these two, would have shot Mahon down and never given it a second thought. Even two such pleasant-looking men might, under the strain, have lost their tempers and acted without thinking. She knew the best way to ease the tension.
“Come inside, all of you. There’s a lot to tell and from the looks of these two they need a seat and a cup of coffee before we tell it.”
Dusty and Mark looked at each other, seeing the signs of the strain they had both been under. Dusty suddenly felt as he had the time he spent over three days continuously in the saddle dry-driving a trail herd. ii He was tired and exhausted but managed a smile.
“How bad is he?”
“Not another word until you’ve taken a cup of coffee!” Mrs. Mahon interrupted. “Let’s go inside.”
Dusty was a cowhand; he thought of his horse before his own welfare. “We’ll tend to the horses if you don’t mind, ma’am. And bring Lon’s gear in the house.”
Mrs. Mahon spent the time explaining to her husband and the sheriff what had happened. Hollister listened to the story without a word. He was thoughtful, wondering what was behind the trouble in the Gunn River country. Then when Dusty and Mark returned, the party went into the house. Mahon led the way to the living-room and the men sat around. Hollister tilted back his chair, resting it on the back legs as he studied the two young men, wondering who they were. One thing he knew for sure—they were more than just fast with their guns: they belonged to that magic-handed group known as top-guns. He was willing to go further and say they were the fastest he had ever seen and quickly ran his mind over the descriptions of such wizards of the tied-down holsters as Ben Thompson, Clay Allison, Bill Longley, Jim Courtright or Bass Outlaw. None of the descriptions fitted either of these two young men. Neither one could be Wes Hardin, for Hollister knew who “Mr. Johnson” in town was. There was the Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog, the big man might be him, except that Dusty Fog used the cross draw. Hollister’s eyes went to Dusty’s guns, noticing how they lay, butt forward. That was how the Rio Hondo gun wizard wore his guns, but a small, insignificant boy like this could not be Dusty Fog.
The coffee was cowhand style, thick, hot, strong and sweet. The Texans drank the scalding brew with relish. Mrs. Mahon waited until they had finished, then opened the door and smiled.
“Come along and see your friend now.”
Dusty and Mark followed the woman from the room. Lindy, not wishing to miss anything, swooped along the table, cleared up the cups, took them into the kitchen and then followed her mother. Bohasker looked up with an annoyed grunt, but allowed the two cowhands into the room. He growled a warning that they could not stay long and moved back.
The Ysabel Kid lay in the bed, clean sheets drawn up to his chin. His face was pallid under the tan, but the pain was gone and he might have been asleep. His clothes lay in a tidy pile on a chair by the bed, his gunbelt hung over the back, the holster empty and the knife still sheathed.
“That young cuss should be dead by any fair means,” growled Bohasker with some satisfaction. “The bullet hit him in the body, glanced off his ribs, made a real bad tear and broke the rib. He’ll live, his kind’s too tough to die of something as simple as a broken rib. Lucky I was over to the Temple place, handling a confinement. Heard the shooting and came over.”
“Thanks, Doc,” said Dusty, gratitude plain in his voice. “You get him on his feet again and I’ll cover any bill you want to put in. Not that he’s worth a cuss one way or another, but we’ve had him around so long we’ve got used to him.”
“Say,” put in Mark, he had been looking at the empty holster and was puzzled. “Where’s Lon’s handgun? They didn’t tote it off with them, did they?”
Mrs. Mahon shook her head. She watched the way the two men tried to hide their feelings for the boy. They must have been suffering the tortures of the damned not knowing what had happened to him. Now, even more than before, she saw how lucky her husband was to be alive.
“No,” she replied, “they didn’t take the gun. We brought it into the house and I left it in the living-room.”
“Pity,” grunted Mark. “I thought we’d seen the last of that damned relic.”
The Ysabel Kid’s preference for his old, four-pound, Colt Dragoon revolver was a standing joke with the other members of the floating outfit. It was one of the square-backed trigger guard, Second Model, made around 1850, and was superseded by the Third Model Dragoon, the 1860 Army model, various conversions by Richardson or Thuer to fire metallic cartridges and by the 1873 Model P., Colonel Sam’s fabulous Peacemaker. Despite all the developments, despite the advantages metal cartridges gave for ease of loading, the Kid clung to and swore by his old Dragoon. He frequently declared, and proved, the Dragoon’s reliability and man-stopping power.
“I think we’d better leave now,” Mrs. Mahon said, catching Bohasker’s sign. “He mustn’t be disturbed from his sleep.”
“That’s right. Sleep’s what he wants,” agreed Bohasker. He was looking at Dusty and wondering who the small Texan was to speak with such authority about meeting the bill for the treatment of his friend.
Mrs. Mahon followed the Texans to the living-room again. Hollister watched them come in but did not speak. He tilted himself further back on the chair legs in his favorite way of thinking. Over the years he had learnt to tilt a chair to some amazing angles without falling over backwards. He was a strong believer in thought before speech and was turning everything over in his mind. When the time came he would be ready to ask any questions he thought necessary.
Mark asked Mrs. Mahon if he could fetch the Kid’s saddle from where he had left it at the door. She took him out and Dusty went to the sideboard, picking up the old Dragoon. Setting the gun at half-cock he rolled the cylinder under his thumb and checked the chambers. The gun was empty, that meant some of the other men were dead. The Ysabel Kid might speak disdainfully of pistol shooting and boast of being a poor shot, but he could hit his mark when he needed to do so.
Mark brought in the saddle, laying it carefully on one side, then took the bedroll, opened it and removed the powder flask, bullet bag and roll of cleaning gear. Joining the others at the table he started to clean the old Dragoon, handling it with a care that his earlier scoffing did not warrant.
Lindy picked up the old rifle and looked down at the open breech. Dusty saw the expression on her face and joined her. “What happened, the usual?”
“Usual?” inquired Lindy, looking puzzled.
“Sure, the extractor ripping the head off the cartridge. That’s the usual thing goes wrong with the Springfield.” He told her, “Fact being, along with the stupidity of their leader that’s what cost Custer’s command their lives. I’ll dig out the burnt case if you’ll promise not to shoot it off at me again.” Lindy’s face reddened, then she smiled, realizing Dusty was only having a joke. Mark looked up from the gun, studied the girl for a long moment, frowned and said:
“Know something? This’s the first time a daughter ever took a shot at me—at least, it’s the first time one took a shot at me on my way in.”
“What happened here?”
All eyes turned to Hollister as he spoke. His deliberations were complete and he was ready to get information. Mrs. Mahon told him the story for the second time, going into everything she could think of. The men sat in silence, all could imagine the scene. One man facing eight, and fighting them off.
“Why’d you say Lon was dead?” inquired Dusty, turning to Lindy when her mother had finished speaking.
“I didn’t know you were his friends and wanted to keep you out of the house. So I called you murderers to make you think you’d killed him. It wasn’t such a good idea, was it?”
“It was a smart idea,” growled Mark. “You near on scared Dusty out of three years’ growth.”
“You said there were eight of them, ma’am,” Dusty put in, bringing the conversation back to the shooting. “Lon got two, wounded another. We saw another two in town, leaves three more of them.”
“Them two in town,” interrupted Hollister, “they both dead?”
“Man’d say that’s how they finished,” Mark agreed. “They tried to kill Dusty and me. What should we’ve done, stood by and called their shots for them?”
“One thing’s for sure, though,” Dusty put in, before Hollister could make a reply. “One of them knew who we were, or at least, guessed.”
Hollister was wondering who the small man was and why he should think anyone would know him. “How’d you know that?”
“The way he acted. The other man stood and fought and he wasn’t better than fair with a gun. The one I downed, turned and ran for it. But when he came round shooting he showed he was better than fair. Yet he ran instead of fighting. I reckon he guessed who we are.”
“Which same’s more than I do.”
“This’s Mark Counter, I’m Dusty Fog. The man in the bedroom’s the Ysabel Kid. I reckon the gunman in town knew it. That was why he tried to run without fighting.” That figured to Hollister. Most any man would run if he knew he was faced with a shoot-out against Dusty Fog and Mark Counter. Far more so when the man was in possession of their friend’s horse and thought that he had killed the Ysabel Kid.
“You say one of them was hurt, ma’am,” remarked Mark, turning to Mrs. Mahon and receiving a nod in reply. He spoke to Bohasker. “I’d take it kind if you’d let me know when somebody comes in with a bad leg wound, Doc.”
“Hold hard there!” Hollister said as he realized what Mark meant. “I want the men who did this.”
“So do we.” Dusty’s words were soft and gentle; but there was nothing soft or gentle about the set of his jaw.
“Not in my county. Four killings in one day. That’s not going to happen again.”
“Meaning?” Dusty asked.
“I’m not having any more trouble in my county.”
“Mister,” Dusty’s voice was still low and menacing, “with trouble, it’s people who don’t want it who mostly get it. Like these folk here they didn’t want none but it came to them. Or would have, happen Lon hadn’t been here. Comes to that he didn’t want it either, but he got it. Eight lots of it. There’s three more lots riding the range now. Likely they’ll be back to finish what they started here and ole Lon’s in no shape to handle them. Sure you have them—if you get them afore we do.”
Hollister brought his chair legs crashing down to the floor and rose to his feet. “You can’t take the law into your own hands. You’ve both held badges and know that.”
“The law doesn’t come into it, one way or another,” snapped Dusty, letting the Springfield rifle slide to the floor and watching the sheriff. No longer did he look small, somehow he appeared to tower over every man in the room. “Lon’s closer than any brother to us. He’s stuck by us through anything we ever tied into and never worried about breaking the law. Now he’s been cut down by a bunch of hired guns and we’re not going to stand by until you get up off your tired butt-end and see what the hell’s going on in your county.” Hollister and Dusty stood face to face, eyes locking in a struggle for mastery. Hollister was no Earp-style trail-end bully or hired fast gun, but a brave, honest and straightforward lawman who had made a few so-called hard cases back water. This time he knew he was faced with a man who was no blustering imitation. There was no bluff about Dusty Fog; he was supremely confident in his skill and his ability to handle any eventuality.
The situation was getting out of hand. Hollister was not the sort of man who could back down and hunt his hole. Neither was Dusty Fog. Lindy watched the two men, then moved forward, coming between them. For the first time her mother realized that Lindy was a grown woman.
“Stop it! Stop it! Both of you! The way you’re acting would be better suited to a couple of saloon loafers than grown, responsible men. You’ve both the same idea in mind and want to get the men who attacked us.”
Suddenly Dusty tilted his head back and let laughter burst from him. The transformation was amazing. He was once more the small and insignificant cowhand. The tension left him as he moved back a pace, his face flushed and red as he realized what he was doing. Dusty recalled the many times he had told his hot-tempered cousin, Red Blaze, not to act without thinking and to quit letting his temper run away with him. Now Dusty himself was doing just that. He was allowing his emotions to run away with his judgment. He grinned, if Cousin Red got to hear about it, Dusty was going to be rode unmercifully.
“I’m sorry, sheriff,” said Dusty with a smile. “Reckon we were both sort of set to go off half cocked. Sure Mark and I’ll be looking for the men who downed Lon. You couldn’t expect us not to. If we can we’ll bring them in alive.”
“That’s fair enough with me, Cap’n Fog. Reckon we both started to paw and bellow for nothing.” Hollister replied. “I reckon having Wes Hardin in town’s got me all shook up.”
“Why?” asked Mark, grinning at the worried look on the sheriff’s face.
“I don’t know. All he’s done so far is play poker—but he might be fixing to rob the bank.”
Dusty laughed. “I don’t know who’s been telling you about Cousin Wes, but one thing he never does is rob banks.” Hollister stared at Dusty. “Cousin Wes?”
“Nor trains, or stagecoaches comes to that,” Dusty went on without bothering about the sheriff’s interruption. “Nor even people, unless it’s with a mean deck of cards. All Wes’s wanted for is shooting a nigra. ’Course, I know that’s about as bad a thing as a man can do—even if the nigra was twice as big as Wes, mad drunk and coming in with a razor ready to use. That’s what Wes Hardin’s wanted for. They called it Reconstruction, but what it meant anyplace south of the Mason-Dixie line was if he’s black he’s right.”
The Mahons and Hollister were not Confederate sympathizers but they knew something of the horror called Reconstruction in the south. It was a terrible period, fortunately now over, when the Union Army occupied the Southern States and protected the freedom maddened negroes. John Wesley Hardin shot down a huge, drunken negro who was trying to kill him with a razor and since that day was a hunted, wanted man, force to kill time after time to save his life. iii “So he’s kin of your’n?” said Hollister, for he had never connected Ole Devil Hardin with the deadly Texas killer. He could foresee trouble ahead for the men who had shot down the Ysabel Kid. Dusty’s next words proved it.
“Sure—and a real good friend of the Kid. Cousin Wes’ll likely be on the look-see for the men who downed Lon. You want, I’ll tell him to bring them in on the hoof.”
“How’d he find them?” Hollister asked worriedly, seeing his peaceful county faced with a dangerous upheaval in the near future.
“Man can learn a whole lot just sat in a poker game. Like I said, I’ll pass Wes the word I want the men alive. That way we might just get them like it.” Dusty’s voice showed that if Hardin found the men first, there was not much hope of their being brought in any way but feet first. “We’ll be staying on in town until Lon’s back on his feet. I hope you don’t mind if we drift in and see him regular, ma’am.”
“Feel free,” replied Mrs. Mahon. “I’m sorry for the way we all acted when you rode up.”
“Shucks, ma’am, you’ll be having us think you meant it next,” Dusty replied and took up the Springfield rifle. “I’ll fix this for you, then we’ll head for town and send Uncle Devil a telegraph message, that we’ll be delayed. He wouldn’t want us to go back until Lon’s on his feet. When’ll he be ready to make some talk, Doc?”
“Not before tomorrow morning at the earliest and I don’t want him disturbed much even then.”
Mark finished cleaning the old Dragoon gun. Reaching across the table he picked up the powder flask and prepared to load the weapon. The powder flask had a measure fitted to the top that regulated the flow of powder and gave the correct forty-grain charge without the trouble of weighing. Mark tilted the flask over the top of the first empty chamber and pressed the lever, allowing the charge to flow in. Then he took up a round lead ball and placed it on top of the charge, turned the chamber under the rammer, worked the lever and thrust the ball home.
“Got me some combustible cartridges in my saddle pouch,” Hollister remarked, watching Mark reach for the powder flask again. “I can let you have some if the Kid’s out.”
“No thanks. Ole Lon likes to pour her in raw and stick a round lead ball on top, then ram home. He allows that for man or bear there isn’t a made cartridge and shaped bullet to touch that load.”
Dusty, knife in hand, looked up from where he was carefully working the torn case from the breech of the Springfield. “Times are I agree with him.”
The case emerged and Dusty laid the rifle on the hooks again, looking at it with disgust. Then his attention went to the Pettingill Navy revolver which Lindy had put back in the holster.
“Are these the only weapons you own?”
“Yes, Cap’n,” Mahon apologized. “We never needed anything better and they were all we could afford at the time.”
“They good enough for you?” Dusty inquired.
“We’ve never needed weapons before,” Mahon pointed out.
“Man, you’ve got a whole lot of faith in Apaches. Was I you I’d get a repeater and a cartridge Colt. Had Mark and I been Apaches coming across that garden it’d have gone bad for your ladies.”
“Cap’n Fog’s right, Thad,” Hollister went on. “If you can afford them I’d get a couple of decent guns. We’ve never had trouble with the Apaches, since they went on the reservation, but you know what Juan Jose’s like. Give him but one good chance and a few rifles and he’ll be off the reservation looking for war.”
Mahon knew the truth of this. The chief of the reservation Apaches would be willing to dig up the hatchet and go to war. In that case the Mahon house would be poorly defended. It might never happen, but if it did, there would be no time to run for town and buy new weapons.
“We need the guns all right,” he conceded. “Lindy, you go in and buy them.”
Dusty drew the Pettingill, examining it. There was none of the wonderful, hand-fitting feel of the Colt about it. The Pettingill would be awkward to use, hard to keep in order and difficult to point by instinct. Then he was aware that this was not one of the .44 caliber Pettingill Army revolvers he had seen, but a .36 Navy model.
“I’ll give you ten dollars for this gun. Uncle Devil collects firearms and doesn’t own a Pettingill Navy. Reckon we owe him something for staying away from work, waiting for Lon to recover.”
“That’s good of you, Captain,” Mahon replied, seeing there was no charity meant in the offer. The money would be useful, going towards paying for a second-hand cartridge revolver.
“Shucks, I’ll take it out of Lon’s pay when we get back home.”
Lindy looked delighted at a chance to go into town. Mahon realized for the first time how lonely it must be for the girl here on the farm. It was only on a rare trip into town she could meet up with people of her own age. The trip would do her good.
Mrs. Mahon was not so sure. “Do you think you can get to town and back today, dear?”
“You can spend the night with us if you can’t, Lindy,” Hollister put in. “My gal was saying she hadn’t seen you for a piece now.”
“We’ll ride in with you,” said Dusty. “I can telegraph Uncle Devil, fix up a room at the hotel and we’ll bring you back in the morning. I’m wanting to hear what Lon says about the men who shot him.”