Five minutes after Cort painfully rode out, Wilson and Nash arrived at the blood-soaked meadow. Cliffords had sent them to find out who had done all that shooting. But as they sat atop their horses at the edge of the clearing, the only thing they knew for sure was that Wassin and three of their fellow hired hands had been in a battle. A losing battle.
Reluctantly, Wilson and Nash dismounted. Like their horses, they were skittish about coming close to the dead. And, sure enough, when they checked Wassin, they found a dead man. But the next body they came to was breathing. Despite a bad gash across the side of the head, this was one Double C man who would open his eyes again.
While they were trying to bring their unconscious friend around, low, pitiful moaning drifted to their ears from some thirty or forty yards away. Nash was the first to react. He grabbed the extra canteen from Wilson’s saddle and dashed to what he hoped would be the rescue. Only you can’t help a man who has a bullet in his belly. To be gunshot is to die a slow, painful, death. Nash knew it, and the young bunkmate that Nash knelt beside knew it.
Jeff ... Jeff.” Nash whispered in despair.
The man named Jeff heaved a few times and blood spilled through his lips. “Hell,” he finally spit out amid his coughing. “We shoulda known better.” Pain was etched into every line of his young face, and he had to clench his jaws together to keep from coughing. But he couldn’t stop the convulsions inside his ripped up body.
Nash didn’t want the kid to speak. Just the same, the words Jeff had to say came tumbling out of his mouth covered, it seemed, with his blood.
“We was dumb. We was so damned dumb. Afraid of Wassin when we shoulda been skeered of Lacey. We had him cold, Nash. We had Lacey cold, but he got us all anyway. He just waited there with bullets flyin’ and got us all anyway. We shot him up too, but what the hell? I don’t even know ’im ...
“Nash? I don’t even know ’im! For the last four years of my life I’ve been takin’ pot shots at people I don’t even know. Now one of ’em gone and shot me back.
“I been dumb, Nash. Real dumb. And now I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die and I ain’t never been to San Francisco. I ain’t never had a real pretty woman. I ain’t never had more than fifty-five dollars at one time in my whole life. I ain’t had the ranch I promised my ma I’d have someday.
“My ma ... .I ain’t seen my ma in seven years. I ain’t never gonna see my ma again. Why’d I go shootin’ at people I don’t even know? My ma didn’t raise me to go killin’ strangers. Really. Really she didn’t bring me up that way. Ma was a fine lady. Ma was always proud’a me. Ma ... ”
Jeff ran out of breath. He was dead.
A cold wind seemed to blow through Nash’s soul. He shuddered. It had been like hearing his own confession. He too had left home a long time ago to better himself in the new land to the west. He had ridden with high hopes eleven years ago when he left his poor tenant farming family in Tennessee. When was it that he had lost the faith he would make something of himself? When was it that he too had fallen to shooting people he didn’t know?
Yes, it was a cold, warning wind, something for Nash to think on. And he was thinking.
Wilson finally revived Buddy Warren, the rider who had been knocked unconscious. When he came to, the dazed Double C man’s first words were, “Are Jeff and Tod okay?”
Looking across the meadow, Wilson watched Nash get up slowly, walk past another body, and then start back in their direction. Nash’s color was ash gray.
Wilson gazed down into the worried face of a man who had just asked about his two friends. Taking a deep breath, Wilson said, “Jeff and Tod are dead.”
The ride back to the Double C was predictably somber. Not a word was spoken as they worked their way down off the far side of the bluff, and around toward ranch headquarters.
The silence among the three riders was finally broken when they came to a halt in front of the Double C corral. His head throbbing from a bullet-creased temple and grief over the loss of his two friends, this lone survivor of a pitched battle with Cort Lacey muttered, “I’m gonna get a shovel and go back, and then I’m ridin’ on. Tell Cliffords for me, willya?”
“Sure Buddy,” Wilson quietly replied.
The afternoon sun, bright and hot, beat down on Nash and Wilson as they walked their horses toward the ranch house. William Cliffords was waiting for their report, they knew, and there was no way they could delay giving him the sorry news that two of his men were dead. For some reason, they expected Cliffords to be as upset as they were; to be as upset as any boss would be over the loss of two loyal men who had tried to do their job.
As soon as they entered the house and smelled the alcohol fumes, they realized with a sickening jolt, that William Cliffords wouldn’t give a good God-damn. Standing in the foyer with this terrible realization in their minds, the two men looked at each other, wondering if this wasn’t the time to quit. Wilson was about to say something to that effect when Nash stopped him with a hard look.
“No,” Nash said coldly. “I know what’s on your mind and the answer is no. We’re in this too deep to just pick up and walk out. Hell, I don’t care who controls this valley,” he hissed. “Cliffords can have it or those folks we’re supposed to run off can have it. But it’s our fault Jeff and Tod are dead. And it’s our fault too that Harris and the others got shot up at the Five Fingers. It’s our fault because we brought Wassin here!”
“All right, we were wrong,” Wilson whispered, and then with more heat added, “But what’s done is done. Wassin is dead. Besides, it was Cliffords, not us, that hired Wassin. It’s Cliffords that’s the cause of all this. Not us. It’s not us!” he almost pleaded.
“Yeah. I know.” Nash answered his partner. “It’s not just us. There’s Cliffords.”
From deep within the large ranch house came the half-drunk, half-mad bellowing of William Cliffords. “Wilson! Nash! Where the hell are you? Get your asses in here!”
“Listen,” Wilson implored, “let’s get a couple a’ shovels, help bury Tod and Jeff, and then beat it the hell to west Texas. Maybe we could even go to San Francisco, huh?”
At the mention of San Francisco, Nash closed his eyes. When he opened them he said, “We been to ’Frisco, you an’ me. A lot of the other guys never been. You know that?”
“No,” Wilson responded uncertainly.
“Well, it’s true. A lot of ’em never been there. And just about all of ’em would sure like to take the trip. You and me, we’re gonna do our best to see they make it someday.”
Wilson didn’t exactly understand what Nash was saying, but he trusted his partner more than he trusted his horse—which is to say he trusted Nash with his life, and then some. “I’ll stick with you,” said Wilson simply.
Nash flashed one of his infrequent smiles. He tried to hide the warm feelings he felt for his friend behind the facade of a wisecrack: “You just want to stick around to see Cliffords’ expression when we tell ’im Wassin is dead.”
“There’s truth in that. Let’s go tell ’im.” Wilson laughed.
The two of them ambled through the liquor-scented house till they found William Cliffords sitting in a shadowy corner of the musty library. He was sucking on a bottle of bourbon.
“Find out about the shootin’?” Cliffords asked belligerently, his face twisted out of shape by a strange combination of utter fear and raw, whiskey-crazed courage.
“Yeah,” said Nash.
“Then spit it out! What happened?” Cliffords demanded.
“Jeff Carter and Tod McNeil got killed.”
“They were supposed to bring Wassin here,” Cliffords whispered, dejected. Then his face brightened and he exclaimed, “I sent three men to get Wassin. There was a third man, and he’ll bring Wassin back.’
“No,” Wilson spoke up. “Nobody is bringin’ Wassin back. Wassin is dead. Cort Lacey killed ’im.”
Cliffords looked like he had been hit with a shovel. Nash added harshly, “Wassin didn’t even put a scratch on ’im. It took the likes of Jeff, Tod, and your third man, Buddy Warren, to put a coupla slugs into Lacey. You didn’t even know their names, did you? Well, Buddy, the only one who came back, he asked us to tell you he’s pullin’ up the stakes. He’s quittin’. Maybe, Mr. Cliffords, you oughta do the same.”
Cliffords, literally, heard none of it—none of it except that somehow Cort Lacey had been shot. Despite Wassin’s death, there was a reprieve in this remarkable good news. With Cort Lacey out of the way, everything would be different. Everything.
Tentatively, hopefully, William Cliffords asked, “How bad was Lacey shot?”
Nash and Wilson were startled by the question. Nash had only mentioned Lacey being wounded to show his contempt for Cliffords’ inability to remember the names of men who had died bravely, riding for the Double C. Instead of scaring or shaming Cliffords out of the valley, Nash had inadvertently given him encouragement.
With more force, Cliffords demanded, “Was Lacey shot real bad ... did you find his body?”
Trying to downplay his unfortunate slip of the tongue, Nash said, “Before he died, Jeff said he thought Lacey might have been hit. But we didn’t find his body, so Lacey had to at least be strong enough to ride himself off the bluff. And from what I’ve heard about Cort Lacey—”
Cliffords didn’t let him finish. He was grasping tenaciously to the simple fact that Lacey had been shot. Nothing could make him let go of that. It was his salvation—his one chance to be in command of the entire valley and everything and everyone in it ... no more big brother Howard to tell him what to do, no more Wassin to extort money out of him, and now no more Cort Lacey to thwart his plans. No more Cort Lacey: The thought of that made him drunk without need of the bottle in his hands.
Like a coyote tearing hungrily at the throat of a dying animal, Cliffords could almost taste his victory. But just almost. He had to know if Cort Lacey was truly out of the fight.
Trembling with the words, Cliffords asked, “Was there blood? Did you find Lacey’s blood?”
The truth of the matter was that Wilson and Nash had found quite a lot of blood. It had been all over, especially where Cort’s horse had been tethered. They would have liked to have lied and said they had found no evidence of Lacey’s being hurt, but, despite their present profession, they were essentially honest men.
“We found some blood, Mr. Cliffords,” Wilson said cautiously, “but it’s hard to say how much. You just can’t tell about these things.”
The Double C owner was exultant. Grinning madly, he exclaimed, “We’ve got ’em now! We’ll chase Lacey till he drops. Get all the men. We’re leaving in five minutes to run that dog down!”
Bewildered and deeply troubled, Wilson and Nash left to gather the crew.
A man only has so much blood, and an awful lot of Cort Lacey’s blood was no longer within him. It was soaking his right side, dripping onto his horse’s flank, and then down to the ground.
Tied to the saddle and semi-conscious, there was little Cort could do about the trail he was leaving behind. His only hope was to keep riding.
As he rode, thoughts whirled through his delirious, fever-ridden brain. He began to wonder if it would take twelve more years for his horse to plod its way to the Five Fingers. The specter of another twelve years of exile put Cort into a sudden panic. He wanted to gallop not only across the valley, but across time. He wanted to somehow make up for the lost, barren, lonely years. He wanted to go home ... to walk through the front door of a house he had helped to build, to be among the friends of his youth, to warn them that Cliffords might be coming to destroy all they had built, to finally rid himself of John Bell’s ghost, to see his brother, and most of all, to see Clare once more.
So on he rode, spilling his blood along a course that zigged and zagged, leading him, he prayed, to the Five Fingers—to home.
It had been less than two weeks since the day William Cliffords led his men to Ella Frank’s cabin and had met Cort Lacey for the first time. Since then, he had remained in virtual seclusion within his ranch house. But now, once again, William Cliffords was in front of his men—though their ranks had been considerably thinned.
By the time they left the Double C and then found the trail on the other side of the bluff, Cliffords and his men were over an hour behind Cort Lacey. But Cort’s lead was shrinking fast. His trail was simple to follow and they came after him at a gallop, Cliffords exhorting his men at every step of the way.
After riding almost halfway across the valley, however, Cliffords suddenly brought his horse to a stop. Nash and Wilson, riding behind Cliffords but ahead of the other Double C men, signaled the rest of the riders to come to a halt as well.
Cliffords had been gleefully aware of the bloodstained ground marking Cort’s meandering trail, only not until this moment did he realize the obvious: Cort’s destination was the Five Fingers.
If Lacey couldn’t be caught before he reached Broken Rock Canyon, should Cliffords and his men ride in after him anyway? It was that question which stopped William Cliffords dead in his tracks. He needed to think. And he needed a drink.
A long pull from a bottle he had stashed in his saddle bag steadied his nerves. Watching him take that drink didn’t do the nerves of his men any good, however. Some were more experienced than others, but all of them knew that a leader who drinks too much leads men to their graves. They had been uneasy about Cliffords’ unwillingness to leave his house since Lacey’s promise of revenge ... a boss ought to have more courage. They were even more deeply troubled by Cliffords’ inaction when Bob’s and Denny’s horses came back with that note on the saddle. It seemed to them, though, that with the deaths of Jeff Carter and Tod McNeil, their boss had finally gotten off his duff and was ready to act. It had certainly felt like old times, thundering out of the Double C, yelling and yahooing to beat the band. But their easy camaraderie and sense of purpose quickly drained away as they watched their boss grease his courage with whiskey.
Cliffords, totally unaware of his riders’ disapproving stares, came to a fateful decision: he would stamp out all resistance in the valley now. Right now. He envisioned himself leading his small army in a dramatic sweep across the land, wiping out Cort Lacey, the Five Fingers, and anyone else who would dare stand in his way. Like Sherman, marching to the sea, he would visit upon his enemies the twin devils of death and destruction. And he knew he’d enjoy every minute of it.
With a soldier-like wave of his arm, Cliffords commanded his men to follow. Hesitating long enough for the men to notice, Nash and Wilson finally fell in behind the boss. Full of doubts, the Double C crew left Cort’s meandering trail and found themselves being led as straight and sure as an arrow, to the Five Fingers.