Chop-off Johnson came upon Gunnison suddenly, from the side as before. He had put away his pistol and drawn his long knife. It cut a thin swath across the back of Gunnison’s hand, and Gunnison’s pistol slammed hard against a wall beside him. He almost dropped it.
Somehow Gunnison managed blindly to grab the single wrist. Enraged, Chop-off bellowed, sending out bursts of foul breath.
If he had possessed two arms, Chop-off likely would have killed Gunnison on the spot. As it was, as long as the younger man held his arm tightly, he could do little but writhe, kick, and try to bite, which he did with much vigor and swearing. Hot blood splattered Gunnison’s face.
“I don’t want to kill you!” Gunnison said with a straining voice. “Give it up—I’ve still got my gun!”
Chop-off let out a yell and kicked Gunnison’s feet from beneath him. He went down as cleanly as a soldier fainting at attention. Gunnison’s pistol came up. He squared it on the one-armed man and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. Jammed. The pistol must have been damaged when it hit the wall.
Gunnison felt a sharp sting as Chop-off’s knife grazed over his shoulder. He had aimed for the heart, but Gunnison had twisted enough to make him miss. Rolling to the side, Gunnison freed himself and bounded to his feet to begin a blind run.
Chop-off was directly behind, amazingly fleet for a wound-crippled man. This way and that Gunnison darted, until suddenly he realized Chop-off was no longer on his heels. He stopped to catch his breath and saw he was beside a long ladder leaned against the side of a two-story building. Without a second thought, he climbed it, feeling he would be safer above the street than on it. When he reached the roof, he pulled the ladder up, making more of a clatter than he wanted to. He hoped Chop-off had fled.
A look around revealed that the building he was on was fire-damaged; the smell of ash and charred timbers was strong. Though he did not know it, by chance he had stumbled upon Jimmy Rhoder’s pool hall; the ladder in the alley had been used in battling the fire. Part of the roof ahead of him was gone.
At least up here Chop-off probably won’t spot me, Gunnison thought. I’m safe for now. I can wait out the night if need be.
He worried about Kenton. What if Chop-off had killed him? Kenton was not the kind just to give up on a chase, yet he was nowhere to be seen.
Winded, Gunnison sank to his haunches and breathed the cool Leadville breeze. It chilled the sweat clinging to him and made him shiver. Moonlight beamed out again, causing him to feel exposed, so he moved more to the center of the flat rooftop. There he fumbled with the pistol, trying to unjam it, but it was no use.
Time went by. He heard no worrisome sounds from below. Chop-off Johnson was surely gone.
The man’s persistence in attempting to kill him frightened Gunnison. It also confused him, for he still could not understand why, if Chop-off wanted him dead, he had passed up the best opportunity to be rid of him in Deverell’s old mine. Something must have changed his mind. Chop-off had obviously seen this chance encounter as an opportunity too tempting to pass up.
Or perhaps something or someone else had restrained Chop-off from violence at the mine. Lundy had said there was a second man there. As he sat on the charred rooftop, Gunnison wondered if the second man might have been George Currell. He and Chop-off did seem to have some connection, and Currell had acted peculiarly enough tonight to make Gunnison suspect he had some hand in all of this.
Something scuffed on the roof of the adjacent building. Gunnison stood and turned in one motion.
Chop-off stood on the edge of that roof. He was looking squarely at Gunnison. “Time for you to die,” he said, lifting his pistol. He fired a shot that sang past Gunnison’s ear, then another that clipped away part of his collar. When Chop-off pulled the trigger a third time, the pistol merely clicked. It was empty.
Chop-off swore loudly, threw down the gun, and leapt the gap between the buildings, going for his knife.
Gunnison, panicking, backed away as Chop-off approached, but there was no escape. Chop-off closed in, his knife went up, and Gunnison did the only thing possible—jumped through the burned-out portion in the roof nearby and into the dark building below.
Perhaps Gunnison was stunned by the drop, for after it came a small gap in memory that he was never able to fill. The next thing he was aware of was pushing up to a squat. A big hole gaped above, sky showing through. He had fallen only one level, to the second floor, which was badly burned and a few feet from him sagged down into emptiness.
Gunnison clambered to his feet and felt dizzy. He tripped over a pile of sticks on the floor and almost fell. A quick look showed the sticks to be a bundle of fire-damaged pool cues. He picked up one of them. It was comfortingly stout, a useful club should he need it.
Looking up, Gunnison waited for Chop-off to appear at the edge of the hole. He did not.
The young journalist crept to a side window and looked out. Two men passed below in the alley. Maybe a pair of footpads, or maybe policemen—he couldn’t tell from this angle.
Chop-off dropped through the hole and immediately came at him, his knife ready.
Gunnison let out a yell to the strangers below: “Help me! Murder!”
The next moments consisted of dodging, ducking, fighting as best he could. He swung the billiard cue back and forth, which kept Chop-off at enough distance to keep him from using his long knife for the moment. Gunnison would not be able to keep him off forever, though. Chop-off was obviously determined to see him dead.
Gunnison decided to try to reason with his attacker. “Killing me will do you no good,” he said. “Lundy O’Donovan got out of that fire. You didn’t get him. He’s already admitted there was a body in that mine, after all, and that you were there. He’s talking to Marshal Kelly right now.” Gunnison didn’t know if the latter statement was true, but he hoped Chop-off would think so.
Chop-off paused, breathing even harder than before. “I can’t take the chance you’re lying to me,” he said. “I’ve got to go ahead and kill you, just in case.” He shifted the knife and advanced.
Gunnison swung the cue just as the charred floor-board beneath his right foot gave way and his leg went through, up to the thigh. He was painfully trapped.
Chop-off laughed. He put his knife between his teeth and came forward, nimbly grabbing the pool stick and wrenching it away. He took the knife from between his teeth. “You’ll slice up pretty as a Christmas goose.”
The knife descended. Gunnison gave a desperate wrench, trying to pull his caught leg free, and at that moment a gunshot echoed through the empty building.
Chop-off’s head jerked to the side, and he fell directly before his intended victim, dead eyes staring into Gunnison’s in the moonlight, his knife still gripped in his single hand.