The girl raised her eyes and looked at Clay. She saw the strong line of his jaw, the sensitive brooding mouth and it was all she could do to stop herself from standing on tiptoe and kissing him. It was a moment suddenly and startlingly enriched with truth. Until then, she had thought that what she felt for him was deep gratitude. Now she was stunned by the fact that she wanted him as she had never wanted him before. The emotion took her so completely unawares that she could do nothing but stare at him.
She was still staring at him when he raised his eyes and looked into hers. She knew then that she couldn’t go on fooling him anymore. She must tell him and she must tell him now.
‘Clay,’ she said, ‘I have something to tell you.’
She knew, as he looked at her, that his own feelings were completely in accord with her own.
‘There’s nothin’ to tell,’ he said.
He moved and put his hand to her face. She almost fell toward him.
Whether he started his violent counter-movement before or after the shot, he never knew.
All he was aware of was the girl’s face close to his and the terrible blow in his back. It knocked him forward, he and the girl were off-balance and they fell together.
There was dust in his mouth, grating on his teeth.
He raised his head and saw the terrified face of the girl.
He heard booted feet pounding.
He rolled on his back and saw Jody there, Jody lost in indecision.
He heard George’s voice–’There he goes, yonder.’
Clay yelled: ‘Git after him.’
Jody was running for the corral. Clay watched his younger brother vault over the high corral fence. George reached the pole-gate and started removing them. The girl was on her knees watching them, her face streaked with dust. The horses were bunching in a far corner of the corral away from Jody. He ran for them. Now was no time for fooling. The horses broke to the right, running along the edge of the corral. George was inside, arms outstretched, yelling. A horse turned back and Jody dove for him. Nobody could get up on a horse like Jody, saddle or no saddle. The boy was hauled violently from his feet. He seemed to bounce his feet on the ground and jack-knife into the air. The next second he was astride and his legs were hugging the barrel of the horse. They went through the opening in the corral as if they had been catapulted out of there, Jody riding like an Indian, his eyes wild. This kind of action was the first chapter in Jody’s book.
He took that pony around the corner of the corral at a flat run and tore for the brush.
It was only then that he remembered that he had nothing but a belt-gun on him. That shot had come from a rifle. If the gent up ahead wanted to stop him, he could without too much trouble. But Jody had the bit between his teeth and he kept on going.
When he reached the base of the hill, he saw the man ahead of him. He tightened the grip of his knees on the horse and pulled his iron.
The man heard him coming and stopped. The rifle came up. Jody was screaming like a wild Comanche.
He never heard the shot. A puff of smoke came and it was as if the little sorrel under him had run into a solid stone wall. One second he was running with all his heart, the next his front legs gave under him and Jody was in mid-air.
There was no time to land properly. He hit dirt hard and badly. The sorrel was screaming. Jody got to his hands and knees, dazed and confused. He knew the man was shooting at him. He rolled and found himself entangled in a thorn bush. Then he searched around for his gun and saw it lying in the dust near the kicking horse. There was a rider coming in from the south. He lunged for the gun and a bullet kicked up dust in his face. He cringed back into the thorn bush. Lead tore at it.
Then the firing stopped.
He craned his neck to see what was going on and this time nobody tried to shoot it off. He saw that a rider had come up with a led horse. The man who had been shooting at him was getting into the saddle.
Jody dove for the gun, lifted it and jumped to his feet. It was a long shot for a belt-gun, but he made his try just the same. As the man’s butt hit leather Jody fired. The shot must have gone pretty close, because the man ducked low and the other turned a startled face towards Jody. They didn’t shoot back at him. Their minds were on escape. They wrenched their horses around and they spurred away. Jody emptied his gun after them and stood cursing insanely.
His horse was still screaming and kicking. He reloaded one chamber of his gun and shot the animal through the head. There was nothing he hated more than having to shoot a horse. It went against everything in his nature. He reckoned he had the Storm soft streak in him.
He heard the roll of hoofs coming from the house and a moment later George burst from the brush on board a little dun horse. And George was traveling.
When he saw Jody standing there with his horse dead, he did what he could to pull in his racing pony. He went on maybe thirty yards and came trotting back.
‘Who got shot?’ Jody demanded.
‘How should I know?’ George said. ‘You all right?’
‘Sure, I’m all right. Get down and leave me have that horse.’
‘Like hell I do,’ George said.
‘There ain’t no time to argue,’ Jody said, ‘do like you’re told.’
George tried to turn the pony and get it on the move again, but Jody caught him by the arm and yanked him from the animal’s back. George bounced and leapt to his feet, mad. Jody had the pony on the move, he pendulumed his body centering on his grip on the mane and swung onto the animal’s back. He was gone before the younger man could curse even. George stood there a moment so mad he couldn’t move or make a sound. He started back toward the house.
When he reached there, he found the girl helping Clay into the house. Their backs were to him and he saw that the whole of the back of Clay’s shirt was covered in blood. Clay was too much weight for the girl. George took her place without a word and got Clay into his own room. He laid his brother face downward on his bed and started cutting away his shirt with his knife.
Clay said: ‘You get him?’
‘No,’ George said. ‘Jody kept after him.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Saddle up and get after him.’
‘But-’
‘Go on. Git outa here.’
George hesitated, but the girl said: ‘Leave him to me.’ George went out into the yard and saw that the horses were coming out of the corral. He drove them back in and selected a sturdy bay, got his saddle and threw it on him. He collected his rifle from the barn and mounted.
Back in the house, Sarah started work on Clay’s back. As she washed out the wound, he said: ‘Tell me about it and I’ll tell you what to do. You ever see a wound before?’
‘During the war.’ He knew that she was frightened by what she had to do. But she had a grip on herself. He turned and looked at her. Her eyes were big in her pale face. He smiled at her and got a wavering smile back in return.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ he said. ‘They always look bad first off.’
‘But you want a doctor,’ she said. ‘It could be poisoned.’
‘Find the old man’s whisky bottle,’ he told her. ‘Go on now.’ She walked away, searching for the whisky and Clay’s mind was on his two brothers, those two crazy kids out there in the brush searching for a would-be killer. He should be with them. A moment later, the girl came back with the whisky and Clay had a good drink from the bottle. Then he told her to describe the wound to him. She said it began at the neck and ran down at an angle across his shoulder blade to almost underneath his arm.
‘Other way around,’ he said. ‘It starts at the arm.’
From the sound of it, the bullet had ploughed its way through his flesh and never settled. Going up like that, it was a wonder it hadn’t taken his fool head off.
‘Wash it out with the whisky,’ he ordered. He felt her fingers on his bare flesh and wounded or not, he liked that.
George rode away from the house as if all the bats in hell were after him. He stirred that bay up with the quirt and kept it moving. He rounded the hill and then he had to slow because he couldn’t see anything moving. He hoped to hell that Jody had the fugitives within sight. Once you lost sight of anybody in the brasada you had to settle down to tracking and that could be a slow job. No, he and Jody had to ride right up to the butts of those gents and shoot ‘em off. Young George was loaded for bear and he reckoned he wasn’t going back to old Clay without a scalp on his belt.
He searched around and he saw where some horses had swung around into the west and he went along the tracks, eyes on the ground. But this was slow and he started to grow pretty frustrated. He wanted a fight and he wanted it now.
After a while, he heard a shrill cry and, raising his eyes, saw Jody far ahead of him. At least he thought it was Jody. He urged the bay forward and soon saw that it was his brother, although as soon as he saw that George was following him, the elder brother went on ahead again. George increased his pace and slowly gained on Jody.
Jody yelled back: ‘They ain’t too far ahead. Their nags’re tired.’
They were riding through low brush now and George thought he could see something moving ahead of them, but he couldn’t be sure. They swept on until they came to taller chaparral and came onto a narrow trail that would take no more than a horse and rider at a time. The brush closed over above them so they rode down a dimly-lighted tunnel. The men crouched low above their horses’ heads. George wondered just how sure Jody was that the men had come this way.
When they burst out onto a wide glade a short while after, he knew Jody was right, for there were the two men ahead of them flogging their mounts for all they were worth.
‘We got ‘em,’ Jody whooped triumphantly.
But his triumph was short-lived. They pounded their way to the center of the open space and the men ahead had disappeared into the brush. Neither of the boys heard the shot, but they heard the whine of lead and knew they were being shot at. Ahead of them, the gun smoke drifted bluely.
George swung off to the left. Jody, yelling, went straight ahead. George reined around, thinking his brother was the biggest damn fool on earth.
This opinion was confirmed when Jody’s horse went down. It slid its chin into the ground, its front legs crumpled under it and Jody was hurled off the bare back. He landed running, tripped and went down. It was as well he did, for the lead sought him out.
George thought: Two horses inside the hour. That’s bein’ kinda extravagant.
Jody had the sense to crawl behind his horse and stay there. One of the men in cover, turned his gun on George. The boy dismounted with some haste, slapped his horse away and lay on the ground with his rifle. There wasn’t much cover there, little more than a dip in the ground. But he had a rifle and he knew where the men were. He started making it hot for them. If they had any sense, they’d use their cover and get on their way. Jody started shooting at them with his belt-gun. It wasn’t much use at that range, but no doubt it was some help.
After a while, the men in the brush decided to call it a day. The light was starting to go. George heard them depart. He stayed where he was for a while, not quite sure that it wasn’t a trick and Jody did the same. But the elder brother’s patience ran out first and he climbed to his feet.
He yelled to George to catch up his horse and come on over. George did that, put away his rifle and led the animal to Jody.
‘You gettin’ through the remuda pretty fast,’ George said looking down at the dead beast.
Jody snarled.
‘Mount up,’ he said. ‘We’ll go back double.’
George said: ‘Maybe I want to go on after ‘em on my lonesome.’
‘You Goddam crazy or somethin’?’ Jody said. They’ll knock you off for sure in this light. I’ll tell you what we do -we go on home. Before dawn tomorrow we come back here with fresh broncs, grub and ammunition. First light, we pick up them bastards’ trail and we stay on it till they’re dead.’
It sounded like a good idea to George. Even coming from Jody. He had to admit it.
‘All right,’ he said. He mounted and his brother got up behind him. Slowly they made their way home through the brush. By the time they neared the house, it was full dark. In both their minds was thought of Clay - how bad was his wound?
They knew he was still around when they were challenged as they reached the corner of the corral. They called back and went forward. Clay was sitting on the stoop with a rifle in his hands.
‘Did you get him?’ Clay asked.
‘It wasn’t a him, it was a they,’ Jody said. ‘An’ we didn’t get ‘em.’
George said: ‘All we got was another dead horse. Our brother sure is good at losing horses.’
‘Will you keep your fool mouth shut?’ Jody demanded.
‘Put your horse up an’ come inside and eat,’ Clay said. They went into the house and the boys saw that a lamp was alight, but the shutters were up at the windows. It made it stifling inside the house. Sarah was there. She came forward.
‘Did you see who it was?’ she asked.
‘Bearded feller,’ Jody said. ‘Yeller beard.’
‘Sounds like the feller that come for you that night,’ George said. ‘Said he was your husband.’
‘It’s him,’ she said.
They could all feel her fear.
‘We’ll get him tomorrow, Sarah,’ Jody said. ‘Don’t you fret none.’