She looked around hastily and saw the men even as the roan trumpeted. It was the roan’s ears that had warned Spur.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”
“It don’t matter,” he told her. “They’re here. Get on your fancy horse and ride. Make it fast.”
She protested, but he picked her up, dumped her into the saddle and gave the horse a whack with his hand. The animal jumped and ran along the side of the creek. Spur looked past her through the willows and saw the men were headed toward him. He reckoned they had back-tracked the horse he had sent home. It wasn’t greatly surprising.
He mounted the roan and took his rifle from the boot, riding out to meet them. The girl gave him a scared look over her shoulder and rode on past the men. It was faintly satisfying to know that something could shake her. But that didn’t help him at all in this situation.
He spotted Brocius riding a sorrel. There were four other men and they all had their rifles out. He centered his rifle on Brocius and went forward at a walk. Right next to the big man was one of the boys he had clobbered in town. He was in for a rough time, if this lot got their hands on him.
He called out: “That’s far enough, Brocius.”
The big man halted his horse, pushed his hat to the back of his head and said: “There’s five of us, Spur.” He sounded very calm and very confident.
“My Henry’s looking at your belly.”
“There’s a Spencer on the other side of the creek.”
That could be a trick, of course. Spur flicked his eyes in that direction and saw the man with the carbine. The girl had stopped her horse on the top of the nearest ridge and was looking back.
Spur knew he was a dead duck and said: “I’m putting my rifle away.”
“No,” Brocius said. “Just drop it.”
Spur hated to do that to a good rifle, but arguing would only have made the big man’s victory sweeter. The rifle hit the ground.
“Go, break it.”
The boy Spur had clobbered in town, slipped from his horse, walked over to the rifle, picked it up and smashed the stock on a rock. Spur sat still, his face like stone, hands folded on the saddlehorn. The man from the other side of the creek rode his horse through the water and joined them.
The boy tossed the two pieces of rifle into the creek and asked with youthful eagerness: “Do we do it now?”
“No,” said Brocius. “Mr. Randerson wants him.” He shouted an order, men dismounted, tied Spur’s feet beneath the belly of the roan, roped his hands to the saddlehorn. Then one of them took a line and led the horse forward. They rode in silence and the girl drifted ahead of them. Nobody remarked on her being there. Spur’s thoughts were that she was maybe the last woman he would kiss on earth. He must be getting old the way he had allowed these men to come up on him. Maybe the sight in the canyon had unsettled him more than he knew. It didn’t make any difference one way or the other now. They had him and unless he thought of something smart, he would be dead by sunset. Maybe they would be killing him for the man he had shot and maybe they’d be killing him for something else.
It took them a couple of hours to reach the Randerson place. Spur had never seen the headquarters before and the sight of it was enough to show him what the man was worth. A fortune must have been invested into the place and by what he heard, Randerson owned it all, lock, stock and barrel. A real live cattle king.
The house was long and narrow, two storied and with galleries running around the whole house; the additional bunk houses, barns and other out-houses made the place look like a small town. In the corrals were horses that made his eyes widen. Here was blooded stock that made the roan look like an uncurried mustang just caught in the hills. Trees shaded the yard that was centered by a fine stone well, flowers brightened beds at the front of the house. Here was money and, in the terms of the country, power.
The girl’s horse was being led away by a Mexican vaquero as they rode up. She was not in sight. The men swung down from their horses and one of them led the animals away. The rest stayed, lounging, their rifles still in their hands. Randerson walked onto the stoop, a big cigar protruding from his fleshy face. He lived well and it showed. He wore a good suit and his linen was white. He was as well-groomed as his thoroughbreds.
He took the cigar from his mouth and without taking his eyes from Spur, said: “Get him down.”
They cut his bonds, Brocius dragged him out of the saddle and dumped him in the dust. Spur couldn’t do much about it, because the bonds had been tight and his hands and feet were without blood.
“Take him around the back of the bunkhouse,” Randerson said. “Brocius, Jake, Haggerty. The rest of you can go.”
Brocius took him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his feet. Spur stood choking, wondering if he would be able to walk. Somebody prodded him in the small of his back with a rifle muzzle and he stumbled forward. They drove him across the yard and around the long bunkhouse to the corral fence beyond.
Randerson said: “This’ll do.”
They stood around him, eyeing him coldly. Only Brocius showed any emotion; he looked pleased. Randerson now held a quirt in his hand and he kept gently beating the whip against the calf of his boot.
“One of my horses came home, Spur,” he said. “What happened to the rider?”
Spur said: “He tried to kill me. That was his error.”
“You killed him,” said as a statement not a query.
Spur nodded.
“You assaulted my daughter.” So the girl had run straight to her father with a lie to cover herself.
Spur said: “I reckon.”
He thought: They’re going to kill me, but they’ll remember me for many a long day after it’s done.
Only now did a spark of emotion show on Randerson’s face. Two red spots appeared on his cheeks and his eyes pinched themselves up. If Spur had touched one of his horses it would have been the same - a man killed, a daughter touched: both were his possessions.
When he had been taken from the horse, his legs had been cut totally free, but his hands were still tied together with the rawhide thong. There wasn’t much he could do.
Randerson beat the quirt through the air, making a hissing sound. Spur winced inside in anticipation of the whip cutting into his flesh.
Randerson said: “You take him, Brocius. He owes it you.”
The big man grinned. He closed in a little, Jake and Haggerty coming with him. Spur watched them, his muscles and nerves tensing.
“Your teeth, Spur,” Brocius said conversationally. “I’m going to break your teeth. You’ll be spitting teeth all over. Then your nose, before I really get to work on you!”
Spur said: “You’re a blown-up yaller bull-frog, Brocius, You don’t have the guts of a coyote. You couldn’t whip me with two to help you, an’ you ain’t goin’ to whip me with my hands tied.”
Randerson snarled softly: “We ain’t here for conversation. Get on with it, Brocius.”
“Yes, sirree,” Brocius said, pulled back a ham-like fist and lunged forward. He didn’t hurry, but he leaned his full weight behind the blow.
Spur went quickly to the right, kicked hard at Brocius’ ankles and tripped him into the wall of the bunkhouse. Before Jake or Haggerty could jump in, Spur had moved with incredible speed, moving around behind Brocius and swinging his bound hands over the man’s head, so that he at once had a strangle-hold on his throat. Jake tried to swing at Spur’s head with the butt of his carbine, but Spur was moving too fast. He heaved backward so that he cannoned into Jake, nearly knocking him from his feet, and, with a superhuman effort, tore Brocius from his feet, his bound hands acting as a noose. Brocius’s flying feet caught Randerson and flung him cursing against the corral fence. Hastily, Spur disengaged his hands from the big man, letting Brocius sprawl on the ground, choking and coughing.
Haggerty screamed: “Hold it.”
Spur was still moving and it was too late to stop. He ducked to the left. Haggerty pulled the trigger and the bullet knocked splinters from the corral fence. Randerson howled for him to hold his fire. Haggerty swung the weapon to cover Spur, but it was too late. Spur was past the muzzle of the carbine and slamming a shoulder into the cowhand. Haggerty staggered and almost lost his balance, but as soon as he had gone into him, Spur was finished with him. There were three men and he had to keep them all occupied. He turned, crouched, keeping moving and something struck him hard on the shoulder, driving him down onto one knee. It felt as though his right shoulder had been broken, but he kept moving. In front of him was Jake, carbine swinging. Spur dove forward, head down, struck Jake just on the buckle, bore him backward at a great rate and slammed him into the corral fence. The wind going out of him sounding like a collapsing organ.
Spur spun, saw Randerson’s face red and sweating in front of him and sung a booted foot. The rancher’s shout of fury was smashed into silence. Spur’s vision blurred, he tried to locate the other cowhand, found him and charged. This time he ran full into the brass-bound butt of a carbine, fell backward hard, hit his head on the lower rail of the fence and passed out.
There was the dry stench of dust in his nostrils.
He coughed feebly and looked up. He didn’t see too well and he squinted to focus his uncertain eyes. He became conscious that there were a great many men standing around him. Far more men than he had had to deal with just now. He found Randerson, standing motionless, the quirt hanging idly from the loop around his wrist. Brocius, pale and puffed. Jake, looking sick. Spur tried to find Haggerty and found a bland Mexican face.
Sheriff Gomez.
Painfully, he turned his eyes and found Rick.
The other men were armed with belt-guns and rifles. They looked travel-worn and grim.
Spur started to get slowly to his feet. Nobody helped him. When he was on his feet, he said, his teeth gritting on the dust in his mouth: “Reckon you saved my life, sheriff.”
Gomez said: “I haven’t come to save your life, Spur.” No ‘Mr.’ now. “Maybe pretty soon I’ll be taking it.”
Spur looked startled. He glanced at Rick. The deputy’s face was as grim as the rest. He stared at Spur in a kind of doleful wonderment.
“What’s he talkin’ about, Rick?”
Rick said: “We just come from the canyon, Sam. We rid right along your sign. You put us off a mite here an’ there, but the sheriff’s pretty smart when it comes to trackin’. You led us right here, boy. Now we’re goin’ to take you back to town an’ pretty soon, after the trial, we’re goin’ to put a rope around your neck.”
Spur found himself shaking a little.
A lot of satisfaction started to show on Randerson’s face. Brocius looked about the same.
“What exactly am I supposed to of done?” he asked.
Gomez said in a cold voice: “Rick told you we followed you from the canyon. Naturally, we found the burro-train. The whole story is clear.”
Spur said: “You’re crazy. Any fool could see that train was wiped out hours before I reached there. I didn’t have anything to do with that an’ you know it.”
Gomez said: “You went back for something and I’m going to find out what. You must have done, else how did you find the train in all that country.”
“Vultures. Any road, what about Randerson’s rider?”
“The man you killed?” Gomez smiled. “He trailed you when he spotted you. He knew who you were and was naturally curious to see what you were up to out there. The sign is plain. We know just what happened.”
“You know damn well,” Spur said, “it would be just as easy to prove that I found Randerson’s rider there and was suspicious.”
Gomez’s smile broadened.
“But that’s not what we’re going to prove,” he said. “Will one of you gentlemen fetch Spur’s horse.”
Randerson said: “You should have come five minutes later. We’d have killed him for you and saved the county money.”
“You wasn’t doin’ a very good job,” Rick said, “not from what I saw of it.”
When the roan was brought up, they ordered him into the saddle, his hands were tied to the saddlehorn again and his feet were fastened under the animal’s belly. The posse mounted and formed up around him and they moved away, leaving Randerson and his men glowering after them. As he passed the head of the yard, Spur glanced toward the house and saw Lucinia standing on the gallery, watching them. He reckoned he owed her about as much as he owed her father. Trouble was, it didn’t look like he was going to live to pay his debts. Not unless he thought of something pretty smart.