Barely a week later, Cato almost had Guthrie. It was so close that the small avenger wondered if he really was jinxed.
It had been a long, hard trail after leaving the dead men at that isolated shack. He hadn’t caught wind of Guthrie for two, nearly three, days. Then, a stone under his horse’s front left shoe had lamed the claybank and he knew the wisest thing to do was to head for the nearest town. This time, it was a place called Claiborne and there was a Ranger post there. Not that Cato wanted any help from them or anyone else. But, while he was deciding whether to buy a fresh mount or see if the horse-doctor could fix the claybank’s hoof, he ran into the Ranger troop sergeant, who turned out to be an old acquaintance. He couldn’t call the man ‘friend’, for they didn’t know each other that well, but they bought each other a drink and the Ranger looked steadily at Cato, noting the lined, weary face, and the manhunter look in his eyes. And he knew all the stories he had heard about Cato were true. The man was a little loco in his desire to track down Guthrie and kill him.
“Cato, we don’t know each other all that well,” the Ranger said, “but we got somethin’ in common, and that’s a real hate for Frank Guthrie.”
Cato looked at him across his glass and drank but said nothing. His bleak eyes didn’t have any expression in them, though the Ranger figured there was a quickening of interest in his gaunt features.
“Guthrie killed my sister’s boy couple of years ago,” the Ranger went on quietly. “Ambushed him when he rode after Frank and Tag for rustlin’ some of my sister’s steers. I hunted ’em for a long time, followed every lead, never even got within shootin’ range. Gradually calmed down and went back to normal duties. But I never forgot that boy or how busted-up my sister was. She died six months back, not even forty years old, and I damn well know it was because she’d lost that boy. I ain’t lost my desire to kill the last Guthrie if ever I come across him, but I got me a wife and family of my own now, have to think of them; can’t go takin’ off on a vengeance trail.”
He downed his drink and looked steadily at Cato. “But if I can do anythin’ to help nail Guthrie, I will. Right now, I can’t go after him myself, but we got word he’s up around Hillsboro. Wire only just come in couple hours ago. Local law’s on his trail and got him on the run, I hear. There’s a train to Hillsboro leaves the depot at sundown. You could be there before sunup and, if you like, I can wire on ahead and have a fresh mount and supplies waitin’.”
Cato drained his glass and turned to fully face the Ranger. “I can’t even recall your name, you know that?”
“Trent,” said the Ranger. “Harve Trent.”
Cato thrust out his right hand and they shook briefly. “Well, Harve Trent, yours is a name I won’t forget again. If there’s anythin’ I can do for you …”
“Just put a bullet in Guthrie’s belly for my sister and her boy, Cato,” Trent said, grim-faced.
“It’ll be a pleasure,” Cato assured him.
Harve Trent was as good as his word; there was a fresh horse, loaded down with saddlebags full of grub and spare ammunition waiting for Cato when he stepped down off the train at Hillsboro in the pre-dawn darkness. He gave the man who was with the mount a dollar and got information about the posse that had been chasing Guthrie. It seemed the outlaw had outfoxed them at the Brazos River Crossing, though, scouting around, they had found sign that told them Guthrie had gone upstream. They had returned to town for fresh mounts and supplies and to outfit a posse that could stay on the trail for two weeks if necessary, for he was headed deep into almost inaccessible country.
Cato said nothing as he mounted up and rode out of Hillsboro, getting the feel of the new horse, a big, sixteen-hand chestnut with white sox on both forelegs. Once outside of town, Cato turned south, making for the Brazos River Crossing. He had no intention of heading upstream. It might be a good neck of the woods to hide in, but he knew that downstream lay Waco.
And the Guthries had kin in Waco, distant cousins named Florian. They were tough hombres, living just on the edge of the law ... if it suited them. Sometimes they stepped outside it and to hell with the consequences. Laird, the eldest, had done time in the Territorial Prison for knifing a lawman and Billy Joe, the youngest, was said to have downed several men in gunfights. The other two Florians, Zack and Moses, were hard-eyed, knotty-fisted men who would do anything for a dollar.
Cato figured it was no accident that the posse had found clear markings that indicated Guthrie was headed up the Brazos. It was what he wanted them to think. For it wasn’t general knowledge that he was kin to the Florians and they were just the kind of hombres Frank Guthrie needed now to back him, with half of Texas looking for him.
So Cato played his hunch and rode hell-for-leather for Waco and that was where he came so close to nailing Guthrie that he began to wonder if fate was forever going to keep him from getting the killer.
He was to find out later, that not even the law in Waco knew that the Florians and Guthrie were related. Not that it made any difference, for Guthrie had apparently skirted the town and gone straight out to the Florians’ place, a hard rock spread ten miles west of Waco. Cato paused only long enough in the town to be sure Guthrie hadn’t shown up there and then got directions to the Florians’ spread. The man he spoke to seemed to recognize him but Cato didn’t give his name, just rode out of town fast. The man stared after him thoughtfully, then walked slowly down the street towards the law office.
~*~
Cato lay full length amongst the rocks and held the Winchester down at his side as he took off his hat and lifted his head slowly to look down at the cabin below. It was a ramshackle place, mainly clapboard but with some logs, as if the builders had started out with big ideas but had given up when they realized how tough a job it was building with logs. The roof was shingled, and several were missing. Some grass grew on other parts of the roof and he wondered how it stood the weight of the soil necessary to anchor the roots. The porch rail was down at one end and there were at least two boards missing from the verandah floor.
There were two windows in the front wall, but no glass in either; they were merely draped with burlap sacks. The door was made from heavy planks. It seemed the most solid part of the cabin and would take more than a man’s shoulder to smash it open.
In the corrals were maybe ten horses, and one showed the yellow streaks of dried foam. It would be like Guthrie to ride in here like a bat out of hell and not even bother to rub down the mount that had brought him. That foam looked like it was caked, so likely meant it had been there a day or so.
There was no movement down at the cabin, but there was a smell of wood smoke in the air and the hint of bacon, likely hanging around since breakfast time. He moved his head slightly so that he could see the rusted tin chimney against the darker background of a hogback rise and he could just make out the heat waves, tinged with the pale blue of smoke, and figured the fire was mainly coals in the cabin. Then, even as he looked, a pillar of sparks and thick, whitish smoke gusted from the chimney and he knew someone inside had stirred up the coals. He glanced at the sun; around noon. Likely they were going to cook up some lunch. At least, it told him someone was in the cabin; he just hoped it was Guthrie.
The only way to find out was to get on down there and take a look. The door had him buffaloed, it being so heavy. His original plan had been to burst into the cabin, shooting, but he knew his weight wouldn’t be enough to smash down that door. So he would have to figure out some other way.
He found the answer in the barn; a part drum of coal oil and some empty whisky bottles. Cato had managed to get to the barn undetected from behind the rocks but there was no cover between the barn and the house, unless he used the slim corral posts and maybe the milling horses. He slipped into the barn by means of some loose boards at the rear and almost stumbled over a battered coal oil drum. The empty bottles, stacked beside it, clinked, but though he crouched, rifle hammer cocked, there was no movement from the cabin.
He laid down the rifle, lined up three bottles and began to pour oil into them from the drum. It was full of rust and there were even some globules of water, but it would be good enough for what he had in mind. He filled each bottle only about two-thirds to the shoulder, then set down the drum and looked around for some old rag. He found some dusty potato sacks and used his clasp-knife to cut off three strips. Cato took several cartridges from his belt and worried the lead out with his teeth. He carefully poured the gunpowder out of each shell into the bottles so that it floated in a black scum on top of the oil and clung to the glass neck and shoulder. He used three shells for each bottle. Then he soaked three strips of the burlap in the remains of the coal oil and stuffed them in the bottlenecks so that the cloth went down below the surface of the oil and gunpowder mix.
Now he was ready, but to make sure it would burn properly and explode on contact, he poured a little more gunpowder down into the neck of the bottles where the burlap entered. Cato moved to the front of the dusty barn and peered out between the partly open, sagging doors. There was still no movement from the cabin; if he hadn’t seen the signs of that fire being stirred up he would figure that no one was inside. He reckoned the distance from the barn to the cabin as being about fifty feet and he thought he could throw the bottles that far. Provided he wasn’t shot down in the attempt.
He lined the bottles up beside him, cocked the rifle and his Manstopper, and laid both guns down in front of him. Then he fumbled out a vesta from his shirt pocket and eased open the barn door a little more, just enough so he could step out with ease.
The vesta flared and Cato glanced once more towards the cabin before touching it to each of the three wicks. Then he picked up the first bottle, stepped out and hurled it towards the cabin, the wick flaming behind it. He didn’t wait to see where it was going to land. He spun back and grabbed the second bottle and had thrown that before the first firebomb exploded in a sheet of flame and smoke at the edge of the porch.
The third bottle was already in the air by the time the second bomb spread fire all along the front of the cabin, but in that section, the wall was made of logs. He swore and watched the third bottle smash on the edge of the shingle roof. Fire flooded up the roof like a blazing river and the tinder-dry shingles caught in an instant. By that time guns were blazing from the windows and even the door was wrenched open and someone, kneeling inside in the gloom of the cabin, began firing at him. Cato threw himself bodily back into the barn, knowing there were at least three men inside the cabin.
Their lead peppered the barn door and splinters flew as he snatched up his rifle and, lying prone, commenced firing. Flames were spreading in a red wall now and the whole front of the cabin and most of the roof was ablaze. The flames leapt up and hid the windows and door from him, but Cato fired until his rifle was empty, aiming to keep the men inside. Then he dropped the rifle, snatched up the Manstopper, and ran for the rear of the barn and out through the loose boards.
He had seen on the way in that there was a corner of the barn that would give him an oblique view of the rear of the cabin.
Panting a little, he skidded to a halt at the corner and cursed violently. He was a few seconds too late! Someone— and he was willing to bet it was Guthrie—had darted out the back door of the cabin and was just disappearing around the far corner. Cato spotted a leg and fired a snap shot though he knew he had little hope of hitting the man. But the bullet clipped a handful of splinters from the cabin and he was surprised to see a man stagger and fall to the ground, rolling out into full view, grabbing at the calf of his leg. It was Frank Guthrie, though he didn’t seem to be badly hit for he was already struggling to get to his feet.
Cato thumbed the toggle on the Manstopper’s hammer to the shot-barrel and drew a swift bead as Guthrie limped away towards the corral where the horses were milling and whickering, spooked by the fire and smoke.
The avenger fired and swore as he immediately realized the angle was a little too oblique. He still might have brought Guthrie down with some of the buckshot except that a wild-eyed pinto smashed down the corral fence and ran into his line of fire, just as he squeezed the trigger. It staggered and whinnied and a large patch of blood showed on its hide as it skidded to its knees. Cato started to run towards the rear of the cabin and Guthrie, now hidden by the horse’s crashing body and billowing smoke. Then Cato spun as a bullet seared across his left forearm and he stumbled and went down to his knees. He rolled onto his back, bringing his Manstopper around, flicking the toggle back to the normal cartridge barrel as he saw Zack Florian charging towards him. Behind the big man he saw the three other Florians staggering out of the burning cabin.
Cato fired as Zack triggered and the outlaw’s lead punched through the brim of his hat. Zack staggered and Cato shot him again, rolled swiftly over onto his belly and bounded upright. He ducked instinctively as the other Florian guns hammered and the lead buzzed around him. Cato sprinted for the rear of the blazing cabin, coughing in the smoke and using his bullet-burned left arm to shield his eyes from flying sparks. Through the smoke haze he saw the horses stampeding out of the corrals and he thought one looked as if it had a rider crouched on its back. He fired blindly, then staggered back as he ran into a pile of logs that had been cut into firewood and which he hadn’t seen in the smoke. Blood gushed from his mouth as his lips mashed back against his teeth and he shook his head, staggered upright, jumping as lead whined off the sawn logs. He triggered and ran out of the pall of smoke and coughing, gagging for breath, saw that he was too late.
Frank Guthrie was riding bareback on a long-legged black, not worrying about shooting at Cato, concentrating on keeping the animal in the center of the stampeding mounts, making himself as hard a target as possible. Nevertheless, Cato got off two more shots, and then whirled as lead sang past his ear. The remaining three Florian brothers were coming in on him, guns blazing.
Cato emptied the Manstopper at them, then dived back into the thick smoke, shucking out the empty shells from his gun’s chamber and thumbing in fresh loads as he ran. He fumbled out the shot-shell from his shirt pocket and dropped it into the special chamber in the center of the fat cylinder. He was around the front of the cabin now and had to leap wildly aside as the porch awning and roof crashed down with an explosion of flames and sparks. His clothes began to smolder and he brushed at the sparks as he ran, hoping his speed wouldn’t fan them into flame.
The collapsing porch had driven back the Florians, except for Moses: he let out a blood-chilling scream and Cato glanced back over his shoulder and saw the man stumbling about, a pillar of living fire, clothes, hair and flesh all ablaze. One of the other brothers—he thought it was Billy-Joe—shot Moses and put him out of his misery, though the body burned even after the man had fallen to the ground.
Now, the only cover that Cato could see was the barn. He had run in a complete circle around the blazing cabin. He dived in through the barn doors, spun about and triggered twice, sending Billy-Joe and Laird Florian hunting cover. There wasn’t much except the corral poles and posts, and they had been knocked all askew by the bolting remuda. But they ran for this cover, anyway, though Laird abruptly veered back towards the cabin and Cato figured he was going back into the smoke. He snapped a shot at Billy-Joe, missed, and then looked around and found his empty rifle. He checked outside. The youngest Florian was lying prone behind two fallen lodgepole rails but he couldn’t see Laird. Cocking the Manstopper’s shot-barrel and laying the big gun within inches of his hand, Cato began to load the tubular rifle magazine.
There was a thud against the barn wall and he looked up, reaching for the Manstopper, but couldn’t see anything. He set the gun down again, thumbed more shells into the rifle and then there was another thud and a third. The last one came from up on the roof and he knew in a flash what Laird was about. The man had picked up blazing timbers from the collapsed porch and was hurling them onto the barn roof and against the walls. Even as Cato realized they had turned the tables on him, he saw flames licking up the warped and cracked boards to his right. He glanced up and saw smoke drifting between the old shingles of the roof, above the hayloft. In a matter of minutes, this barn was going to be an inferno and he would have to make a run for it.
And the Florians would be waiting to shoot him down. Now their guns hammered and lead flew fast and furious through the big barn, pinning him down until it was alight. He retreated towards the rear but figured one of them would have it covered. He was right. As soon as he started to ease aside one of the loose boards he had used to gain entry earlier, a gun roared and a bullet punched clear through the timber missing his face by a hairsbreadth. He hit the ground as they poured a fusillade into the now blazing barn. The hay in the loft had caught and two of the walls had long tongues of flame licking at them. Part of the roof, in one corner, had already sagged down and was about to collapse inwards.
They had the barn covered front and back. There was no way out, unless he ran through the wall of fire ... and straight into the waiting guns.
What galled him the most was that Guthrie was getting farther away with each passing minute and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. He didn’t want to die now, not with Guthrie still able to draw breath. And by hell he wouldn’t die, but as to how he was going to get out of this predicament, he had no idea. All he knew was that somehow he would make it; he couldn’t cash in his chips yet.
Guns hammered and he threw himself flat, but rolled almost immediately as a blazing brand dropped from the roof and landed beside him. A beam came crashing down, trailing smoke and flames and hit only a few feet from him. Heat sucked the oxygen from his lungs as he squirmed back and lead whined around him. The hay was crackling like a forest fire and his eyes stung. He coughed and gagged and there seemed to be fire in his chest. His nostrils burned and the hair on the backs of his hands was singed. In a few moments he was going to have to make his try to get out of here, or he would be barbecued.
The guns were hammering outside and it took a little while for him to realize that bullets weren’t flying around him anymore. Then he spun, bringing the Manstopper up and around as there was a crashing sound from the rear wall and the flaming timbers bulged as a body burst through.
Cato fired but the body dropped straight to the floor and stayed there, clothes already beginning to smolder. He recognized Laird Florian’s shirt and, puzzled, whipped his head back towards the front as he heard Billy-Joe shouting his brother’s name. Then there was a hammering of shots, two guns, one a rifle and the other a six-gun, then silence.
Cato knew he couldn’t stay here any longer, no matter what was going on. He had to make his move before the smoke suffocated him. Kerchief covering mouth and nostrils, he staggered to his feet and, rifle in one hand, Manstopper in the other, both cocked and ready to fire, he ducked his chin into his chest and made a wild charge through the sheet of flame at the front doors. He felt his hair singeing and there was a great gulping wave of heat hammering at his flesh. His clothes began to smolder and smoke blinded him and choked him so that his tongue seemed to be too big for his mouth. His shin rammed a burning timber but he didn’t have enough air left in his lungs to cry out.
Cato fell and sprawled face-first on the ground, seeing through blurring tears that he was out in the yard. He had to drop his guns and beat at the flames that ate at his clothing and had already singed his flesh. He rolled about, threshing, hoping he would make a difficult target, but he didn’t hear any gunfire. Then suddenly he gasped as a flood of water drenched him and the smell of burned rag assailed his nostrils. Another flood of water knocked him down as he fought to get to one knee, knuckling his eyes, trying to clear his vision.
Gasping, gurgling, he rolled onto his back and blinked up, seeing a tall silhouette as someone stood over him, wooden pail in one hand, gun in the other. He couldn’t make out who it was because the sun was behind the man, but when he heard the voice he knew, although he thought the roaring of the flames and the crashing timbers as the barn collapsed, were making his ears play tricks on him.
“Bet that’s the fastest you’ve cooled down in a coon’s age.”
He blinked and moved his head a little so he could make sure he wasn’t mistaken. Even when he was certain of the man’s identity he found it hard to believe. The man dropped the pail and extended a hand. Cato took it and was hauled easily to his feet.
“You kind of look like half-brother to a drowned rat, pard,” grinned Yancey Bannerman and he caught Cato as the smaller man’s legs buckled under him.