ELEVEN

Their horses were standing in a light group, chomping at the bits, bridles jingling as they brushed shoulders and stirrups, their breath misting the cool air.

The sun was up now, bathing the landscape in light that bore the promise of later warmth. A faint breeze stirred the long grass. From time to time, one or the other of the three people engaged in deep conversation let their eyes drift towards the east, looking for the black specks of fast approaching riders.

After the first, emotional greeting when Pierre swung down from his mount and reached up to draw his daughter down into a fierce embrace, there had been a second coming together between Cord McQueen and Juliet Monet. It was a brief, strangely clumsy encounter from atop their horses, a clasping of outstretched hands that told of shyness and inexperience but also of a long suppressed yearning set free by a shared realization of coming peril; an understanding, unspoken now because that had always been their way – and, besides, Pierre was watching with barely concealed amusement – that if both of them came through the inevitable violent encounter with the Farringtons, those old ways would change forever.

Now, his eyes studying her pale, tired face, Cord said tersely, ‘Who used his fists on you?’

‘The wild one, Hil Farringlon,’ Juliet said, gently touching her bruised cheekbones with her fingertips.

‘Wild!’ Cord laughed without humour. ‘From recent experience, I’d say there ain’t a tame one among ’em.’

‘Oh, but I can assure you there is one less wild than the rest,’ Juliet said simply, her eyes caressing his face, ‘or I wouldn’t be here.’

‘Didn’t expect you to be,’ Pierre said, his voice unsteady. ‘There was blood on your saddle.’

‘I guess like Caje Hawkins I rode too close,’ Juliet said. ‘In the darkness, watching the house, I almost rode over the one called Will. He was down off his horse, stripping Caje Hawkins’ dead mount of those loaded saddle-bags. My own horse shied, dumped me in the grass – after all you’ve taught me!’ She laughed softly. ‘Like the empty graves, the blood was Levi Harrington’s little joke. They’d shot a jack-rabbit. He got Billie Barton to skin it, smear the blood on my horse and set it loose.’

Quickly, as she washed down mouthfuls of tough jerky with water from Cord’s canteen, the two men filled her in on developments, Cord relating events that had occurred on the ridge above the ranch house, Pierre skipping lightly over the fierce gunbatde at the cabin that had seen two men downed, Lee McQueen wounded, and Caje Hawkins ride off with Nancy McQueen and a parting ultimatum.

‘Do you know they thought it was you out there with your pa, Cord?’ Juliet said gravely as she tossed him the canteen. ‘Both those men guarding Nancy and Lee were Farringtons. Levi and Hil now hold you responsible for those two murders, along with the previous three.’

‘This Hil Farrington,’ Pierre Monet said, blue eyes flinty, ‘he beat you to get information?’

‘For what that was worth,’ Juliet said. ‘I knew what Cord told us about arriving back from the Platte and seeing the graves, then riding into an ambush. And I could tell them what little you and I knew – how we’d seen Caje Hawkins headin’ north, ridin’ like crazy.’ She shook her head in remorse. ‘Later, when Billie fetched me from the barn, I was weak, tired and, I suppose, just plain stupid, and I told them how many men – how few, in reality – they would come up against.’

‘No matter. It’s little enough, and they could’ve worked it out anyway without using their fists on a woman,’ Cord said dismissively. ‘But what do we know that’ll be of use to us? For some reason this Barton feller let you go. But I’d bet a double eagle he wasn’t too open mouthed about just when the Farringtons’re likely to make their move.’

‘Hell, Cord, we don’t need his word on that. They took pot shots at us—’

‘Oh, no!’ Juliet gasped, her hand to her mouth. ‘I was in the loft and heard the shooting, but I had no idea!’

‘That’s over,’ Pierre said, touching her arm. ‘What matters is after shootin’ at us and missing, seein’ their two kinfolk brought in belly down and then you makin’ your break – well, they ain’t likely to hang about for too long.’

‘And this,’ Cord said, with a sweep of his arm indicating the open grassland, ‘is no place for us to get caught.’

Pierre Monet grinned. ‘I built my place on the fringe of the timber with this kind of situation in mind,’ he said. ‘That was twenty years ago, Cord, and this is the first chance I’ve had of provin’ I did it right.’

‘Let’s get to it, then,’ Cord said. ‘My guess is those log walls’ll stop a cannon ball – and with Juliet and Lee lendin’ a hand, we can match those outlaws gun for gun.’

Nate McQueen spotted the six Sioux riding his back-trail as he topped a rise and took a breather, dragging a gloved hand across his mouth as he squinted back down the long slope to the trees lining the shallow creek where he had filled his canteen and watered his horse.

He had done this two or three times since leaving Cord and Pierre, his eyes gazing into the far distance as if by so doing he could take himself closer to the two men; in some way give them his assistance.

He did so without hope of seeing anything, just as his ears listened for the sound of gunfire while knowing that the distances were too great.

But although he was not expecting to see anything, the presence of the Indians came as no surprise. This was Indian country. It was unlikely that he would go more than a day or so without catching sight of one or more Lakota braves.

In the early morning sun the Indians’ oiled skin glistened, and even without glasses he could see the daubs of paint, the flash of light on carbine barrels.

Well, they didn’t need to study the trail to see which way he’d gone. He was in full view, their eyes were a darn sight sharper than his – and if they were after him, well, it would be the first time in more years than he could count they’d caused him any trouble.

Most Sioux he’d come across when he’d been hunting broncs had no quarrel with those few white men who settled down to a peaceful, harmonious existence that took nothing from the land the Indians looked on as lent to them by God.

Nate himself agreed whole-heartedly with those sentiments, had several times over grub shared with them by flickering fires expressed his feelings to the Sioux – and in particular to an ambitious young buck cailed Crazy Horse – and so it was with easy nonchalance that he turned his back on the warriors and looked ahead to the high country.

Nate had cut across Caje Hawkins’ sign an hour ago, leaned out of the saddle to decipher the hoof-prints in the dust, then turned his horse a mite towards the north-west to follow the trail and since then had been closing fast.

He guessed part of the reason for that was because he knew where the tall man was heading, and took every opportunity to cut across the shallower arroyos and gulches whereas Hawkins wasted time negotiating the ridges.

But he also had a sneaking feeling that Nancy would be doing her darndest to slow down the outlaw; everything from somehow causing her mount to be a dead weight at the end of the lead rope, to making frequent shame-faced and totally fabricated pleas that she needed to make a personal visit to the bushes.

Despite approaching the area from a different direction, already Nate was identifying landmarks that told him he was getting close to the rocky clearing where he and Hawkins had camped towards the end of winter.

The fact that the tracks were heading that way gave him a warm feeling.

The gaunt gunslinger thought he was being clever. But if he’d got his mind set on anything other than mindless revenge for something that had never happened he’d have realized that, from almost any vantage point, a bushwhacker would have a clear shot from cover at anyone in the clearing.

Nate knew that, because he’d ridden down on the rocky glade from the high ground. Caje Hawkins was clearly unaware of the dangers because, on that previous occasion, he’d been so all fired keen to demonstrate his prowess with a six-gun.

All of which intelligent ruminating pleasantly occupied Nate’s mind as he worked on refining the art of fashioning a cigarette while riding over rough country. Totally absorbed, he kept one mildly interested eye on the Indians, the other one and both ears alert for the first signs of tumbling water that would indicate his close proximity to the clearing – but only the remaining unoccupied portion of his brain attuned to the possibility of danger.

So the shot, when it came, hummed dangerously close to his ear and without touching a hair of his head almost killed him stone dead from shock.

Too late he heard Nancy’s shrill warning cry, abruptly chopped off. But while he was registering that sound and mentally calling himself all kinds of a fool, he was already tumbling from the saddle.

He hit the ground with a bone-shaking thump, rolled, came up under thick scrub with sharp thorns ripping his shirt and tearing the skin off his back. Flat on his belly, he watched his rangy dun trot away, carrying with it the booted Winchester that was probably his one chance of besting Caje Hawkins.

Then a series of rapidly triggered shots punched up the dirt in a line crossing in front of his face. Spitting dust, he wormed backwards, wriggled his way into the open. Warm blood trickled down his back. Insects hummed in the silence.

Clenching his teeth, Nate pushed himself up to an uncomfortable half-crouch and set off at a swerving run up the rock-strewn slope.

After fifty yards he was gasping for breath, sweat stinging his eyes. He dropped to the ground, rolled onto his back. Chest heaving, he slipped the thong off its hammer and dragged out his heavy Walker Colt. He lifted it, squinting against the sun as he checked the loads.

And a mocking voice cried, ‘This ain’t no time to go to sleep, Nate,’ followed at once by the sound of rapidly receding hoofbeats.

Rolling, scrambling to his feet, Nate was in time to see Caje Hawkins some two hundred yards away, spurring his horse along a hogsback, the lead-rope to Nancy’s mount taut as a bowstring.

In an explosion of impotent rage, Nate grabbed a jagged hunk of rock and hurled it after the fleeing outlaw – which, he figured ruefully as he watched the rock bound uselessly down the slope, was an action about on a par with what he’d managed thus far.

It took Nate ten minutes to locate his grazing horse. When he climbed, sweating, into the saddle, he was not only mad enough to spit at his own incompetence, it was also dawning on him that maybe he’d figured this all wrong.

Without thinking too deeply, he’d worked on the assumption that Caje Hawkins would ride to a selected location in the hills where they would come together and sort out their differences. And if that involved gunplay – which sure as hell seemed most likely – then that was something he could handle.

But after that hot rain of Winchester slugs, fired by an expert yet doing no more harm than kick dust in his face, Nate was getting the uneasy feeling that Hawkins was playing with him; using Nancy as a juicy carrot to lure him not to a meeting where they could shoot it out man to man, but to certain death.

The man planned on leading him a merry dance through the foothills of the Bear Paw. Then, when he tired of the game, he’d drygulch him; shoot him down like a dog.

If that prospect wasn’t enough to ruin a man’s day, Nate’s already sombre mood was darkened considerably when a swift glance over his shoulder as he set off after the hightailing outlaw revealed six motionless mounted figures watching him impassively from a nearby bluff.

He continued to be uneasily aware of them at his back during the next couple of hours. During that time he rode over increasingly rough terrain, caught occasional glimpses of what remained of the shine on Hawkins’ battered black hat, and some brief flashes of red as the whipping wind blew Hawkins’ frock coat away from his shirt. And too many times than he cared to count he had to peel out of the saddle in a hurry when the gaunt outlaw doubled back, took cover, then unsheathed his Winchester and used him for a live target.

But to Nate this was never more than a minor irritation. Wait long enough, he figured, and Hawkins was sure to lose interest.

He realized this had happened when the time since he’d last hit the dust with slugs whistling past his ears stretched inordinately long, and as he rode loose in the saddle with his sharp eyes following the faint trail he noticed that the outlaw, with his hostage, had begun to head in a south-easterly direction – back towards the Powder.

About the same time the itch disappeared from between his shoulder blades, and he knew that the Sioux braves were no longer behind him. Although he couldn’t vouch for it, nobody could ever be sure of anything where Indians were concerned – he was pretty damn sure they hadn’t gone past him to the north, because that’s where he’d put most of his attention.

So, Nate reckoned, they’d either turned back, or cut past him to the south on a line that would, sooner or later, intersect that taken by Caje Hawkins.

But it wasn’t until he took a halt when the sun was high overhead and burning through his hat into his sweating scalp that he recalled the ragged Indian scalps dangling from Caje Hawkins’ twin holsters, and came to understand the purpose of the Sioux’s silent, dogged pursuit of the tall gunman who had found gold in the Black Hills.

Each of the front windows of Pierre Monet’s cabin was furnished with heavy board shutters, equipped with gun-slits, that could be folded across to provide solid protection almost as effective as the thick log walls. Originally intended to see off attacks by Indians armed with bows and arrows, they were stout enough to reduce the killing power of all but the heaviest of rifles.

Both windows commanded a clear view of the gentle slope up from the grassland.

Inside the cabin the big table and comfortable chairs had been pushed back out of the way. The rack of oiled rifles had been plundered and, in addition to the shotgun Pierre quickly allotted to Juliet, the four occupants of the cabin could now muster three Winchesters, Pierre’s trusted Spencer, Cord’s old Henry, three six-guns – including Nate’s massive Walker Colt – and enough ammunition to keep a small army at bay.

The light was also in their favour. The sun was now high in the sky to the south-west of the cabin, blazing down over the foothills of the Bighorns and straight into the faces of anyone launching an attack on the cabin.

‘They’ll be ridin’ in blind, we’ll knock ’em off their horses one by one,’ Pierre said scornfully, then added, ‘that’s if they come at all.’

‘I hate to worry you,’ Cord said grimly from the far window, ‘but I suggest you get that Sharps lined up fast or eat your words.’

‘Are they here?’ Lee cried eagerly. He had been gaining strength by the hour, and now stood like a bloodied warrior, chest naked, Winchester held high.

‘Hell,’ Pierre said drily, ‘somebody hold him back before he wipes ’em out single handed.’

With a flashing grin he turned to squint through the gun-slit in his shutter, then swivelled away and placed his back against the wall.

‘With your military training,’ Pierre said without a trace of irony, ‘what d’you recommend, Cord?’

‘Wait,’ Cord said bluntly. ‘See what develops. This place is like a fortress, but even ridin’ into the sun they can see that. If they come at us from the front they’re even crazier than I figured.’

‘Ain’t no windows at the back,’ Pierre said. But his eyes met Cord’s, and although he said nothing more Cord knew that he understood the implications. No windows meant that any of the outlaws out back could not be watched. And there was always one sure way of ending a siege when defenders were holed up in a log cabin.

While he was ruminating, Pierre had fired his blackened old pipe, and now turned back to the window, keeping an eye on the approaching riders while listening intently for further words of wisdom from Cord.

A distant shot cracked out. Juliet came out of her bedroom yawning, face pale, shotgun clutched in both hands.

‘I dozed off,’ she said. ‘But they’re here, aren’t they?’

‘Here, and wastin’ lead,’ her father said derisively.

‘Testing us,’ Cord said. He had the shutters of his window half open, and was down on one knee, the battered Henry resting on the sill. ‘Hoping we’ll take the bait, show our faces.’

The Farringtons and their henchmen had started their horses up the long slope and were close enough now for Cord to pick out the two massive figures with dark beards, the comparatively light-weight outlaws riding out on the flanks.

‘Will Taylor, Billie Burton,’ Lee told him, watching over Cord’s shoulder. ‘One wild, one weak.’

‘He let me go,’ Juliet said. ‘The weak one. If it comes to it, I don’t know if I could shoot him.

Then they all saw the flash of sunlight as a rifle was raised aloft and swept to either side, and as the Farrington brothers continued to canter straight up the hill the flank riders peeled off and executed a wide pincer movement.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Pierre scoffed. ‘There’s solid walls either side, they might as well.…’

He broke off. The Farringtons had drawn rein and, obviously figuring they were still out of accurate rifle range, were sitting their horses and gazing up the slope. Both the flank riders were now out of sight. To the west, Will Taylor had ridden into the trees, while Billie Burton had spurred his horse madly clear across the front of the cabin then swung in on the far side of the creek.

There was a smooth, oiled click as Pierre cocked the Sharps.

‘Could knock a squirrel out of a tree at this range,’ he said softly, and through the narrow slit he took a careful bead on the larger Farrington’s broad chest.

‘Easy, now,’ Cord cautioned. ‘Killing another Farrington ain’t going to solve any problems.’

‘Might make me feel a mite happier, if it’s the one laid his hands on Juliet,’ Pierre said, the stock of the heavy Sharps cuddled against his bearded cheek.

‘There’s someone moving behind the house,’ Juliet said shakily.

Then they all glanced upwards as an object thudded onto the roof, rolled with a harsh scuffing sound, then appeared to stick fast.

Almost immediately, they smelt smoke; heard the faint cackle of laughter, the receding snapping of footsteps through dead timber.

‘Now d’you reckon I should plug him?’ Pierre said fiercely.

‘D’you ever get around to repairing those shingles on the back slope?’ Cord asked.

Pierre swore softly. ‘Damn it, there you go again, answering an important question with one of your own that don’t even make sense!’

‘Because if you didn’t,’ Cord said, moving towards the big table, ‘that’s one possible way out.’

Now there was a distinct crackling overhead, and close to the roofs ridge a few tendrils of white smoke began filtering through the shingles.

‘They’re gonna burn us out!’ Lee said, realization hitting him. In his low voice there was an edge of panic.

Ignoring the boy, his narrowed eyes fixed enquiringly on Cord, Pierre said, ‘Nope, they’re still loose, maybe a couple missing.’ He turned away from the window, carefully hunkered down. ‘But all four of us can’t bust through and climb down without being seen. And my guess is those fellers out back’ll hang around, so where the hell’d we go?’

‘Just me,’ Cord said. ‘All they’ve got to go on is Juliet’s guesswork. Nobody saw me ride this way, walk in here. As far as you’re concerned when you walk out of here – and this it what you tell them – I was never here, you’ve got no idea of my whereabouts.’

He was up on the table now, standing under the section of roof directly over the rusty can Pierre had used to catch the leaking rainwater.

‘Lee,’ he said sharply, ‘hand me that chair.’

With a wary glance at the half-open shutters Cord had abandoned, Lee switched his Winchester to his left hand, moved to the table then swung the light, straight-backed chair up to his brother. Using both hands, Cord inverted the chair and drove it hard up against the inside of the roof, using the four legs as battering rams. The thin timber easily splintered. It took him thirty seconds to smash a man-sized hole with a solid roof beam at its lower edge. Fresh air gusted in carrying with it billows of smoke.

At the other end of the room there was an angry, hissing crackle as flames began to lick through the roof. Glowing embers fell to the floor, to be stamped on by Juliet. Despite the recent rain the shingles were tinder-dry. With a soft breeze fanning the eager flames it would be only minutes before the whole roof was ablaze.

Watching Cord, Pierre growled, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘I told you, it’s the only way that makes sense,’ Cord said, and tossed the chair clattering to the floor.

‘No,’ Juliet said, her upturned face troubled. ‘If you stay we can all walk out, try to talk sense into those men.’

A faint cry drifted up the hill, and Lee crossed to the window, peered out.

Cord laughed shortly. ‘You’ve been with them, Juliet. D’you think they’d listen?’

‘She’s been with them – and could be again,’ Pierre warned. ‘We’ll be going out unarmed, helpless, Cord. They find out you ain’t here they’re sure to use Juliet to bring you to heel.’

‘Then work something out between now and then,’ Cord said brutally.

Lips tight, he reached up to the hole in the roof, hooked his hands over the beam and heaved himself up. By using his elbows and upper arms he was able to get his chest over the beam. There he hung, legs dangling, head and shoulders through the hole, peering narrow-eyed through the clouds of hot, acrid smoke.

As his eyes searched the woods behind the house, Pierre Monet’s voice carried to his ears.

‘Farrington! Hold your fire, we’re coming out!’

The answering shout was lost in the crackle of the rapidly spreading fire. Cord’s head shot round as a horse burst through the trees close to the creek and headed downhill, the slight rider flattened along the horse’s neck. The crash of a heavy body breaking through brush over to his right told him the other flank horseman was also about to rejoin the Farringtons.

He ducked his head, called, ‘I’m on my way!’ Then, grunting, he squirmed and clawed his way through the ragged hole onto the sloping roof and flattened himself along the shingles so that his bulk was below the ridge. There, coughing harshly as the breeze whipped smoke into his face, he paused to take stock.

The fire was raging, angry tongues of flame licking towards him, clouds of smoke billowing into the branches of the high trees. As he watched and clung on, a section of roof ten feet away from him collapsed with a crackling roar into the cabin, and Cord prayed that Pierre had gauged the speed at which the fire was devouring the roof and got the others out fast.

His own position was still precarious, with much hard work to be done before he was in the clear. His unsaddled buckskin was with the other horses in the small corral that lay between the house and the creek. The enclosure was sheltered from the Farringtons’ sight by a small stand of trees. A rough track led down to the clearing by the creek where he had washed and shaved, and from there it wriggled down the rocky, tree-covered slope to emerge on a small plateau above the Powder River.

If he could get away from the house without being seen, Cord was confident of making it that far. But what plans he had stopped at that point.

Eyes streaming, Cord turned so that his feet were pointing down the shingles, then let go of the ridge and went down off the roof in a slide that threatened to rip his clothes and tear the skin off his hands.

He plunged over the edge, dropped silently onto earth cushioned by pine needles, and rolled onto his knees. Then he was up on his feet, moving fast along the back wall of the cabin towards the patch of open ground between the house and the corral, the one place where he would be exposed, and at risk.

But as he left the cabin’s shelter he saw at once that the smoke from the blazing cabin had swirled high, then been caught by the stronger breeze above the pines and driven down to cling to the grassy slope like a heavy morning mist. A swift, running glance in that direction told Cord that Pierre and Lee had escaped from the flaming inferno and were sauntering across the grass towards the waiting outlaws.

For an instant he was distracted, anxiously searching for Juliet. Then the strolling figures were lost to sight in the pall of smoke.

Seconds later Cord was safely behind the stand of trees, had collected his saddle from the open-fronted outbuilding tucked up against a steep bank, slipped the loop off the pole gate and stepped inside the corral.

In the hot, dusty sunlight eerily filtered by trees and smoke, all the horses had moved across the small enclosure and were huddled against the poles at the far end, their eyes showing white as they lifted their noses to the scent of fire.

In amongst them, calming them with soft words, was Juliet.

‘How in Hades …!’

‘You told Pa to work something out,’ she said, her voice mildly reproving. ‘They both shielded me as we walked out, and covered by the smoke I was able to slip away.’

‘Thank the Lord!’ Cord breathed. He cut out the eager buckskin, heaved his saddle aboard and as he stooped to tighten the cincht he saw the gunbelts and rifles lying in the dust against a stout upright and realized that Pierre had indeed used his head, and that Juliet had carried their weapons with her despite the appalling risk.

He went to her, took both her hands in his and said huskily, ‘I bust out of there intending to get this finished on my own. With all three of you unarmed, pinned down by the Farringtons, what plans I had stopped just about here. But now—’

He broke off, instinctively flinching as gunfire crackled close by. Then he saw the impish smile tugging at Juliet’s lips.

‘We left enough shells inside the cabin to convince those Farringtons we’d left all our weapons behind,’ she said. ‘I guess the fire’s reached them.’

He shook his head in wonder, squeezed her hands, said, ‘If I show myself, make enough racket heading down to the Powder, the Farringtons’ll hightail after me. You wait here for Lee and your pa. This is my problem, always has been, so I can’t ask them to risk their lives to save my skin. But—’

She stopped him speaking by standing on tiptoe and planting a warm kiss on his lips. Then, eyes sparkling, hands resting lightly on his shoulders, she took a half-step backwards.

‘Go,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I’ve believed all along this mess could be worked out without gunplay. But my sojourn with those outlaws taught me different. Despite what you say, you desperately need help, Cord, and you know you can count on Pa, and Lee.’

Gently, she pushed him. And moving rapidly, still savouring the touch of her lips on his, Cord stepped over leather and walked the buckskin out of the corral. He urged it into the small, downslope stand of trees, walked it through, and emerged on the lee side in bright, clear sunlight.

The dark-bearded Farrington brothers were some three hundred yards away, down off their horses, talking to Pierre Monet. Sunlight glinted on their drawn pistols.

Lee was sprawled on the grass, resting nonchalantly back on his elbows.

Will Taylor and Billie Barton were mounted but some way back, horses facing downslope as they shared the makings.

Grinning crookedly, Cord McQueen drew his Navy Colt, pointed it at the clear blue skies and triggered a single shot.

The sharp crack of the pistol jerked the Farringlons’ heads around, had Taylor and Barton grabbing for the reins as their horses jerked up heads, snorting in fright.

Then the peaceful scene that in different circumstances might have been a group of range hands lazily chatting in the warmth of the sun exploded into action.

Both Farringtons flung themselves at their horses, climbed heavily into the saddle and wheeled towards the trees. Instantly realizing that there was nowhere for Cord to go in a hurry except east towards the river, Levi used an outflung arm to gesture towards the lower slopes, then bellowed an order at Will Taylor. With wild whoops of excitement the two men kicked their mounts into a fast gallop that took them across the slope towards the distant Powder, threatening to cut off Cord’s escape.

Hil Farrington was already riding madly towards the cabin, hat-brim flattened back, the Greener held wide in his right hand.

And as Billie Barton put spurs to his horse and galloped reluctantly after after the younger, wilder Farrington, Cord pouched his Colt, spun the buckskin, and headed back through the timber.

One way or another, the end was in sight.