THREE PEOPLE OCCUPIED the room into which he stepped. Two of them were men of the same general stripe as the one who’d brought him in—sloppy, bony, drifters; like Corey Wate in general appearance. These two sat opposite each other at a crude, tilting table, idly playing cards.
The room’s third occupant was a girl. She wasn’t pretty by any standards; her skin was tough and brown and her dress a tattered remnant. Her face was long and angular and surmounted by a mass of dry, tangled brown hair. But her eyes caught Chavis’ attention for a moment: round, sad eyes, filled with too much knowledge and too little belief, too much rough treatment at men’s hands, too little memory of a childhood that must have been short and dismal.
All that was plain in the single moment when Chavis looked at her. Then she turned and tramped wearily through a door at the room’s opposite end.
“Boys,” said his captor, with some measure of satisfaction, “we caught us the big one—Chavis!”
The two men sat back. One of them grinned and picked his teeth with a splinter. “How about that?”
The ambusher locked the door, then came around from behind Chavis. He leaned a hip on the table, his head canted, and considered his prisoner.
“Alvy,” he said, “get your horse and take word to Sid that we got Tracy Chavis.”
Alvy nodded, got up, and went out.
Chavis sat down, tilting the chair back against the wall. “What now?” he said.
“We wait,” replied the other man. “Bob, take his saddle off the corral and put it in the barn. Take care of his horse.”
Bob left, and the other one said, “I run this outfit. Call me Rem. You want somethin’ to eat, say so.”
“I could use a bite.”
“Helen,” called Rem. “Fix us up somethin’ to eat.”
No answer came and Rem called again: “Hear me?”
“I’m fixin’ it.” The girl’s voice came tiredly through the thin partition.
“Answer me next time I call you.”
“Sure, Rem; sure.” Then silence settled down until Bob came back from the barn and sat down in his original chair at the table.
“He’s still somewhere west of us,” Ben Majors said. “I’m sure of it. He didn’t have time to cut back during the night and he would have been spotted if he’d tried it in daylight.”
Vivian nodded. “Got any plans?”
“We take Chavis. It is a matter of time. He shot up our camp last night. I’m sure of it. He’s leavin’ a lone trail to draw us off the rest of Chainlink’s outfit, so they can get away. But they won’t. We’ve got the whole range guarded from the peaks. Nobody can cross the Yellows without us seeing them. And I’ve got men huntin’ for their camp. They can’t move fast with a woman along, and without food.”
“Poker?” Rem said, looking at Chavis.
“No money,” Chavis told him.
“That’s all right,” drawled Bob, grinning his evil-toned grin. He shoved a handful of matches toward Chavis and Chavis shrugged, pulled his chair in to the table, and played.
He thought: It’ll take Alvy the rest of the day to find Sid Vivian. That means Sid will probably get here sometime tomorrow morning.
He had to get out of here before then. If Vivian caught him, he’d be dead the same day—he had no illusions about that. Idle talk, friendly enough, ran around the table and presently the girl Helen entered with a meal. He ate and sat back.
Helen reappeared in the room with a second helping of beef and Chavis did away with it. He looked at Rem. “Work for Sid long?”
“A few years,” said Rem.
“Helen,” Bob said, “sit down, dammit.”
She sat down wordlessly. She was trying, it seemed, to shrink back into her dim comer and make herself invisible. Her round-eyed glance rested for a time on Chavis. She was trying to ask him something.
She wanted to get out of here, he realized. She had probably come in with Rem, who Was likeable enough in some ways, but had then been caught in a web Alvy, silent and lustful; Bob, who took what he wanted by force. Chavis could see that Rem wasn’t interested enough in the girl to protect her from his two partners. Helen wanted to get away.
Rem finished dealing and said: ‘I’ll open,” aware of the interplay between Chavis and the girl and not minding it. If Chavis could get the upper hand, Rem wouldn’t kill himself trying to hold him. Chavis was Vivian’s problem; it was up to his own ingenuity to be alive after the next twenty-four hours.
“I’ll take three,” Chavis said.
“Two,” droned Bob, flipping his dead cards on the heap.
The monotony of it stretched through the afternoon, casual only on the surface. Bob never had both hands above the table at once, and since the man wore two guns that meant he always was ready with one of them. Rem was more wary of his partner than of his prisoner; Chavis realized suddenly that it was Bob who held them all prisoner here.
The girl never moved from her half-hidden spot in the cabin’s darkest comer.
Once, near sundown, Helen left her post to bring in a pot of coffee. And returned to her comer.
The windows darkened and Rem lit a lamp, placing it centered on the table. The game continued until Helen cooked a supper, and resumed thereafter.
An hour after supper Helen came back to the table with more coffee. Then, instead of retreating to her comer, she took ‘ up a stand behind Rem. She rested her hands on his shoulders, saying nothing and keeping her eyes constantly on Chavis.
Sometime later, when she caught his full glance, her gaze immediately shifted to the lamp, back to his face, then once again to the lamp.
He nodded almost imperceptibly. He had to take the chance of understanding her intent; he had at most ten or twelve hours before Vivian was due and by then he must be long gone.
Helen caught his nod, lowered her eyes.
“I’ll play these,” said Bob, and waited for Rem to deal the draw. At that moment the girl reached over Rem’s shoulder to pick up his empty coffee cup. She came around and got the other two cups.
All the mugs in one hand, she was now leaning over the table between Chavis and Bob. As she straightened, her free hand suddenly shot forward to cuff the lamp out. The darkness was instant.
Chavis hurled his chair away, caught the girl’s arm and dropped to the floor, pulling her with him. Bob’s heavy voice cursed and his gun stabbed orange flame across the room, its crash mushrooming within the walls. With the girl out of danger, Chavis got his bearings by that report and launched himself.
His hand caught Bob’s arm and he slid it down to the wrist, holding that gun out of the battle. Bob went for his second gun, and Chavis rammed his weight forward. Bob fell over his chair, crying out as his back bent the wrong way over it. He rolled to the floor with Chavis’ entire weight atop him.
Chavis had Bob’s wrist in one hand. The gunman’s other arm was pinned. Chavis whipped his free hand around and twisted the gun out of Bob’s hand. He pressed its muzzle against Bob’s chest.
“Lie still,” he hissed.
Bob subsided. Chavis slammed the gun down on Bob’s head. All resistance went out of the man.
Chavis stood up. “Light the lamp,” he said, and having spoken, moved away from the spot, trying to catch some sign of Rem’s whereabouts.
“I’m not in this,” Rem said.
A match exploded. Rem lit the lamp, making no hurried motions. He replaced the chimney and stepped back, saying, “I left my gun on the table.”
The girl was getting up. She looked at Bob and curled her lip. “He ain’t dead. He’ll wake up in a few hours.”
Chavis regarded Rem. “You’re not stupid. Take the girl and get out of here.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m going now,” Chavis said. “Do what you want. But don’t expect Sid to be happy when he gets here and finds me missing.”
With full dark on the mountains, Chavis had a rough time finding the trail he’d used before. But the stars were a fair guide and for the moment he merely aimed generally northeast, letting the horse pick the easiest passage. He had little over twenty-four hours to keep his rendezvous with Bones and Connie. Since he had to dodge his way through the cordon of Spur’s outriders, it would be only luck that got him to Bones’ cave by the next morning.
He threaded the narrow passage where Rem had ambushed him that morning, and picked a careful path through the dismal chasm beyond until the vague trail opened onto flat stretches. Moonlight helped him here, and Longshot Mountain reared its massive tower above him. His horse crossed a high saddle and penetrated a plateau’s timber.
Some sound disturbed his horse. It threw back its ears. Chavis halted and waited on the edge of the trees until the horse calmed down. The danger, whatever it was, had passed. Nothing disturbed the night for some time and then, simultaneously, two riders broke into the open across from him.
They saw him and began to shout. Chavis faded back into the timber and ran for it. Behind him, one of the men let off two fast shots—a gathering signal to Spur. When he came out in the open again the riders were dissolved shadows in the night. He rammed in his spurs, sending the horse forward in labored jumps, until the dim mass of a ridge wall broke through ahead. He wheeled into a side gulch and followed that until he reached more trees. There he slid into the timber, raised Wate’s Winchester, and waited, the gun ready on his lap.
Night winds shook the pine branches overhead, wiping out other sound, until somewhere in the meadow he heard a man call. A horseback shape broke into view and advanced.
Chavis aimed low and fired. He saw the man’s horse drop sideways. The rider, flinging clear, rolled over and over and Chavis put another shot near him, hearing the pummeling of other riders in the distance.
The man reared up and rushed back to cover, calling to his partner. From the head of the gulch a rifle started firing in harsh signals. The crowd was drawing near. Chavis swung up the ravine and climbed out of it. He returned toward the source of the signal shots. From a point on the ridge he heard Spur’s men calling back and forth, but he couldn’t spot them. He reined into the trees and stood fast.
Below him the riders began to emerge, but never fully taking shape or presenting targets. They drifted across the meadow and stopped on the far side, talking among themselves. Then he had passed them; they were behind him, going away, and for the moment at least he was safe.
Talk was running in whispers through the town. Talk of Vivian and Majors in partnership, of their rough-handed running Chainlink’s woman off.
Sheriff Paul Hilliard finished sampling the liquor at the Drovers’ Rest. A thoughtful scowl on his forehead, he walked back to the courthouse, thinking:
I ought to get out there and give Chavis a hand. It won’t help me if he’s run down. Won’t help anybody, except Ben. He turned into his office and settled behind the scarred desk.
Someone knocked. Hilliard called: “Come in.”
When Sara Majors entered, he grumbled a hello with no show of pleasure.
“You can save that kind of greeting for my father,” she said. “Why don’t you get out there and stop them?”
He made a vague gesture. “What can I do? I only had weight to swing when your old man stood behind me. When I turned against him I was through. This badge ain’t worth no more than an alley cat’s tail.”
“You could send for a marshal.”
He dropped his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “Sara, you don’t seem to realize how much power your old man really has. If a marshal came in here it would be to help him, not stop him.”
“Dad can’t control the federal government.”
“No. But he can push the local employees around. He’s got all kinds of connections in the capitol. I’ve known times when he wanted someone moved off legal. He’d file a ridiculous homestead claim to the land in the name of one of his cowboys. Anybody could have seen through that, but it went through for him.”
“This isn’t land-grabbing, Paul. It’s murder—a vastly different thing.”
He shook his head. “No. This is just another man Ben’s got to get out of his way. He won’t bother the rest of that bunch if he gets Chavis.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said. “You’ve got no spine, Paul.”
She left, slamming the door.
Hilliard tried impatiently to return to a desk that had no work on it. Thus idle, he thought about this sorry affair with rising self-contempt. He had released Chavis from jail because he liked Chavis and could help him; and also saw in the man a crowbar to pry Ben loose from his obsessive drive for power. But he hadn’t helped Chavis at all, he now realized. He had just brought things to a boil and now Ben was set to gun Chavis down.
And when Chainlink was done away with, the sheriff would be next on Ben’s list. Hilliard had no illusions there. He was useless to Ben now, and Ben’s next thought would be to replace him.