The shadows were lengthening, giving promise of a cool evening after the long day of heat, dust and hard riding.
The lawman had made it clear to the posse that he wanted to reach the Prewett ranch in daylight.
Drawing rein now on a narrow rise that looked down into the well-grassed Prewett valley, the sheriff removed his hat and rubbed his scalp in irritation. Then he said;
“We got a half-hour at most before dark. I want you men to remember one thing ... Tom Prewett killed Will Stone in cold blood. For that, he’ll hang. But before we string him up, we’ve got to take him alive. Close in from all sides. When I put it to him to surrender, we’ll see what he does. If he gives himself up and comes quietly, well and good. If he doesn’t ...”
The lawman shrugged.
“If he doesn’t, then what, Sheriff?” Abe Gordon asked. Buck Halliday had kept close to Gordon for a reason he did not fully understand himself. Now he was positioned to the man’s left, one rider back.
The lawman’s look hardened. He waited a long moment, then said carefully;
“Then we go in for the kill, Abe. We’re dealing with a murderer here and I don’t aim to let him add another notch to his gun with a bullet that might have my name on it. But all that is up to him.”
“You’re callin’ Tom a murderer without a jury findin’ him guilty, Sheriff,” Gordon said in his quiet, self-assured way. “I don’t see that a man can hang until a jury brings in a verdict agin him. I know Tom Prewett. He ain’t a murderer. I think I can talk him into comin’ quietly.”
The lawman turned slowly, blinking into the setting sun. He waited another moment and then said impatiently;
“I ain’t givin’ a sodbustin’ murderer a chance to get away, Abe. I don’t aim to waste anymore sweat chasin’ him across a hunnerd miles of badlands, neither. We’ll do it my way. We’ll close in and give him his chance.”
“Your way will be givin’ him no chance a-tall, Sheriff,” Gordon said stubbornly.
Anger flared in the lawman’s slitted eyes.
“You sound like you’re on his side, Abe.”
“I know the man, Sheriff.”
“He worked for him for three years,” Red Dank put in. “When Prewett couldn’t afford to keep him on, he came beggin’ to Mr. Cowley for a job. I reckon he still has some time for this murderer, Sheriff, which is maybe why he wants to do things different. I think we’ve wasted enough time already. Let’s get it over with.”
“I agree,” another rider said.
Halliday saw Gordon switch his gaze to the country below, then to the house at the end of the valley. Halliday made his own check on the valley and saw there were plenty of men to prevent Prewett from escaping. In fact, as he saw it, no one down there would have the slightest hope of getting away unless he could climb like a mountain goat.
Corey Martin spoke authoritatively now, leaving no room for argument from Abe Gordon or anyone else.
“Wiley, take a couple men with you and stake out that far rise. There’s plenty of cover there. We’ll give you five minutes before we show ourselves. You know what to do.”
Wiley nodded, then drew his gun and checked the cylinders. He gestured at two of Cowley’s bunch and rode away, taking a trail along the valley but keeping to timber cover. By the time the pounding of their hoofbeats had died in the fading light, Dank had ridden almost down to the valley floor and sat his horse with his gun in his hand. Corey Martin was beside him and their backs were turned to the others. Halliday moved closer to Abe Gordon, and as the others in the posse began to discuss the chances of a shoot-out, he asked;
“You said Tom isn’t a murderer, Abe.”
Gordon jerked his head around and fixed Halliday with a look of deep suspicion. But when Halliday’s stare remained fixed on him, some of the suspicion died.
“He just ain’t the kind,” Gordon said.
“Killers come in all shapes and sizes, Abe,” Halliday suggested.
“I know they do. But Tom ain’t one of ’em. He’s a man of standing.”
“But Will Stone was brought back to town slung across his saddle.”
“If Tom pulled the trigger, it had to be a fair fight. Tom knows how to look after hisself.”
“Even against three top gun hands?”
Gordon pursed his lips and grew thoughtful, his big hands clamped on the pommel of his saddle.
“That’s my point. Why would Tom want to take on anyone when he knew he was badly outnumbered? I don’t rightly know what happened out there, but I do know someone has made a big mistake.”
Halliday nodded. “Sheriff Martin doesn’t think he’s making one now. The way I see it, Tom has little chance of gettin’ out of this alive. But tell me, he had a girl with him the other day. Where does she fit in?”
Abe’s gaze returned to Halliday. It was plain that he was puzzled. Then, finally, he said, “She’s his daughter. She looks after him.”
“Then she’ll be in there now?”
“I guess she would.”
Halliday left it at that. He could see the wrangle going on inside the oldster’s head, and when Gordon picked up his reins and straightened in the saddle, he knew what the cowhand had in mind. So Halliday whispered;
“You take the right, Abe. It’s not so steep and you can make better time. I’ll do what I can from here.”
The oldster regarded Halliday warily, his mouth as thin as a razor slash across his face. He said nothing, but a nerve jumped in his temple. Then, without warning, he kicked back his heels.
His horse let out a whinny and bounded forward. Then he veered to the right and cut between two posse men. Their horses shied away, then swung back as he put the horse into a gallop.
Halliday heeled his sorrel forward to crash a shoulder into one of the posse men’s horses, then he kicked the other horse in the belly. The horse reared, knocking into Red Dank’s brown mare. Attempting to wheel his horse out of harm’s way, Corey Martin put his mount’s neck hard up against the head of Dank’s horse and the mare backed away, trying to buck Dank out of the saddle.
Halliday brought his sorrel around, leaned forward and patted its neck. Through the corner of his eye, he saw that Gordon was at least a hundred yards away. Then Dank shouldered his mare into Halliday’s sorrel. His eyes were wild with anger and his gun came swiftly into his hand.
“What the hell are you up to, Halliday?”
“I’m up to nothin’, Dank,” Halliday answered coolly. “Abe made a run for it and spooked my sorrel. I was lucky to stay in the saddle.”
“Near knocked me off, too,” put in one of the other posse men, and a string of grumbling stopped Dank from taking the matter further. Then the lawman, catching sight of Abe Gordon, swore aloud and shouted;
“Get after him! Stop him any way you can afore he can get to Prewett. No need to worry about that murderer comin’ peaceful now. Shoot to kill!”
When Martin kicked his horse into a run, four of Cowley’s bunch followed him, barging their way between Dank and Halliday.
Halliday saw the chance he was looking for and turned the sorrel to the right. As he rode down into the valley, he saw the shadowy figure of Abe Gordon coming off the rise a good two hundred yards ahead of him. He knew there was no chance of anybody stopping the oldster, so he worked his way into the dust cloud thrown up by Gordon’s horse and kept his sorrel at a fast run.
When they were halfway to the house, Halliday was relieved to see that Gordon had put even more distance between himself and the posse.
Then Corey Martin veered away to his left, taking a wild-eyed Red Dank with him. The lawman beckoned the rest of the posse to follow him in a direct line to the ranch house. Halliday saw Gordon cut past the horse yards and draw rein at the fence to open the gate. He went through and closed the gate behind him.
A blast of rifle fire slashed the ground between the back hoofs of Gordon’s horse. The big cowhand drew his gun and returned fire before going on.
Halliday was no more than fifty yards from the house now when he saw the front door open. In the dimness, he made out the figure of a stocky man with a rifle in his hands. Directly behind the man was the slim figure of a young woman.
Gordon swung down from his horse and ran toward the house, urgently waving his hands.
Halliday had reached the fence when Red Dank sighted him. Dank let out a triumphant yell and wheeled his horse straight at Halliday.
Within fifty feet, Dank opened fire.
When the first bullet whistled over Halliday’s head, he got the gate open as a bullet sliced skin from his right forearm. He kicked the horse forward and booted the gate closed. It struck hard against the strainer post and swung back at him.
The light was failing now and the dust that had been thrown up by Abe Gordon’s horse made it almost impossible for him to see Dank clearly. There was just a blur of movement and flashes of gunfire, along with the thud as bullets hammered into the wall of the barn behind him.
Halliday took careful aim and fired off three fast shots as he saw Dank approaching the fence.
Halliday’s shots saw Dank rise in the saddle, then fall along the neck of his horse. But Dank kept squeezing trigger, his bullets whistling dangerously close to Halliday’s body.
Halliday jumped from the saddle and slapped his horse away. Then, seeing Dank ride past the end of the yard and cross the line of fire from the house, Halliday broke into a run. But as he came to the other side of the yard, bullets from the house smacked into the fence, causing him to drop for cover. He lay there, trapped, aware that Dank’s aim was to see him dead before the man went after Prewett.
Why?
The question burned away in Halliday’s mind. Then he remembered Jude Cowley speaking quietly to Dank as the posse was leaving town.
Had Cowley given him an order to kill him ...?
Now Dank was holding all the high cards.
Lying on his belly in the dust with bullets thudding into the ground from two sides, Halliday wondered what the connection could be between Bo Jackson’s greeting him and Cowley’s order to kill him. It just didn’t add up.
Halliday rose to his haunches and ran forward. He went over the rails and headed for the side of the house as two horses broke from cover behind the house.
Halliday ran to the corner in time to see Abe Gordon leading the young woman to the freedom of the steep, right-side rise. A quick check and Halliday realized that Gordon knew what he was doing, for there was plenty of cover up there in the brush. Once safely there, Gordon and the girl could hold off a dozen men for as long as they wanted.
But where was Tom Prewett?
Halliday had his answer a moment later.
Sporadic gunfire from the end of the valley where Len Wiley and his sidekicks had taken up their positions was now a steady onslaught. From the front of the house, where Martin must now be grouped with his posse, heavy gunfire riddled the front door.
Halliday swore as he eased away from the wall and crept slowly to the back of the house.
There were still gunshots coming from inside, but they were more evenly-spaced now. When Halliday reached the back door, the firing from inside stopped altogether.
Halliday waited, his hand firmly on the door knob.
If Tom Prewett was dead, all he could gain by entering the house was to take the dead man’s place and maybe suffer the same fate. That had little appeal for him, but he had come this far ... so there was no turning back.
He turned the knob and entered the house.
Heavy gunfire ripped into the front of the house and bullets sang through the passageway leading from the front door.
Halliday flattened himself against the wall and refilled his gun. Then he heard a groan. Shifting his gaze to the front door, he saw a man leaning to one side, rifle dangling from his grasp, his knees swaying.
“Tom, this way!” Halliday called.
The rancher stiffened and began to turn. Then he hefted his rifle and emptied it into the clearing before he staggered into the open and stumbled on for a dozen steps before he pitched headlong to the ground at the hitchrail.
Halliday knew the man had no chance of surviving.
He retraced his steps to the back door as the shooting from the clearing died away. From the doorway, he saw posse men carefully approaching the house across the clearing. Three were bunched together. Red Dank ran past them, hunched over to make a small target of himself, his gun leveled.
Halliday saw hate and cruelty in the man’s eyes.
He ran to his sorrel, swung up and rode away. He sent the sorrel along the valley toward the town trail, a barrage of bullets following him. At the end of the valley, he turned off the town trail and heeled the sorrel for the hills.