Stryker crouched in water under the overhanging river bank. Only his head was above the surface. From a few feet away Vern’s eyes met his. Vern’s hands were steady as he unwrapped the matches and held them high. He handed half a dozen matchsticks to Stryker. Stryker nodded. Vern moved slowly upstream a few yards and stopped to wait.
The morning sun cast long shadows across the water. Stryker turned and looked back across the river, past the trees and at the hills beyond. Within a few minutes big buffalo guns began to roar their throaty signals. Smoke puffed from gun positions and bullets began to rain into the Rafter Cross emplacements on the bank.
Someone not far from Stryker began to curse.
“The bastards have got us outranged—”
Stryker nodded to Vern and struck a match on the face of a rock that protruded from the undercut bank. Cupping the flame in his hands, he touched it to the tips of the river grass that hung out from the bank. He watched the tiny flame wriggle its way out of sight, struck a second match. The wind blew it out. He struck a third and set fire to another bunch of grass.
Soon the little blazes were going strongly. Stryker caught Vern’s attention and jerked with his thumb. Vern acknowledged the signal. Stryker put his head down and swam underwater. He let the current carry him downstream along the bank and away from the Rafter Cross position. No one had yet discovered the small fires when he surfaced. Vern’s head appeared briefly—he took a mouthful of air, made a hand signal and sank again. Stryker went down behind him and swam across the river under its surface, unburdened this time by rifle or boots.
He and Vern climbed out of the river at the point where they had entered it twenty minutes ago. They dressed quickly. Upstream, immediately past the bend, someone began to shout and Stryker made out a growing grayness of smoke through the trees. He turned and caught Vern’s grim smile.
Stryker said, “You did fine, kid.”
“I’m still scared green.”
“Don’t let that worry you.”
Stryker buckled on his gunbelt, picked up his rifle and strode upriver through the cottonwoods.
Even against the wind the heat and smell of the roaring fire reached Stryker’s position among the trees on the north bank. Through narrowed eyes he watched the fire lick its way up cottonwood trunks and race through the bottom grasses, driving men before it. Through flickering flames he made out the distorted, heaving shape of the stone fort and, in time, he had the satisfaction of seeing four figures boil out of its door and plunge uphill. One of the four was impossible to mistake—the three-hundred-pound Buck Madrid, who evidently had chosen the fort as the safest place in the battle. By now those rocks must have been too hot to touch.
Buffalo rifles boomed steadily from the hills behind Stryker. They sounded like a distant artillery barrage. He saw two panicky Rafter Cross gunmen go down on the hill. One lay where he had fallen. The other got up and dragged himself up the slope, favoring a useless leg. Madrid had disappeared into the clumps of rocks that lay at random along the hilltop like the battlements of an ancient castle.
Upstream, beyond the fire, Stryker saw several horsemen determinedly put their animals into the river and splash across, intent on getting around behind the hill and cutting off the escape of the Rafter Cross men. Cruz’s idea—or Cotten’s? Perhaps some of the old man’s cavalry training had come back to him, after all. The idea was good.
The Rafter Cross horses were tethered downstream. The fanning flames terrorized them, sent the animals plunging away, tearing up their ground-ties. Left afoot and pinched between the rising fire and the riders who were now circling the hill, Rafter Cross was in a bad position. Stryker turned and began to walk toward the herd of cattle.
Diego Cruz met him. Cruz was leading a saddled horse.
“Thought you’d want this.”
“Obliged.”
Stryker mounted. From horseback he could see the high stabbing tongues of flame consuming the brittle cottonwoods like tinder. And when he turned his head the other way he saw the herd moving down through the gap between hills, waiting for the fire to move on and the earth to cool.
Vern Cotten was riding point. He raised his arm. His bandage flashed brightly in the sun and Stryker waved back.
Cruz said, “Someday that kid will turn into quite a man.”
“I expect he will,” Stryker said with some surprise. “Let’s get across and finish this, Diego.”
“Right beside you,” said Cruz.
Together they turned their horses toward the river bend.
Howard Cotten rode to meet them.
“It’s my ranch—my fight too, I reckon,” was all he said by way of explanation.
The three men splashed across the river and rode for the spine of the long hill. Rafter Cross was holed up in the rocks. The high wind fanned the thinning fire away from the black skeletons of the cottonwoods and drove small beasts to the hilltop patchwork of mesquite and tufted grass.
Long-range rifles on the Circle C hilltops kept Madrid’s men from moving downhill toward the ford.
Stryker, with Cruz and Howard Cotten at his heels, rode at a gallop through an acrid patch of drifting smoke. When he broke into the clear he saw the six Circle C riders fanned out at the base of the hill, firing up into the rocks. Rafter Cross gunmen answered the fire angrily. The sharp cracks of their rifles contrasted weakly with the heavier rolling of the buffalo guns.
Stryker jumped down, carrying his rifle, and ran toward the rocks. When he reached them he waved and called for a cease-fire.
The buffalo guns ceased their harsh conversation. The rifles in the rocks gradually slowed fire. Stryker cupped both hands to make a megaphone and sent his resonant voice hurtling up the slope.
“Madrid—Rafter Cross—you hear me?”
No one answered. But all die rifles had quit now and an almost tangible silence settled across the hill.
Stryker called out, “You’re finished here. You may as well throw down your guns. Give up and we’ll let you ride out—all of you except Buck Madrid. Otherwise we’ll fight you to the finish. Make up your minds.”
After a little while—perhaps time out for a brief conference—Jules Meecham’s voice came down the hill.
“How do we know we can believe you?”
“You don’t,” Stryker answered. “But you know me well enough to know my word is good, Jules.”
“Give us a minute,” Meecham yelled.
Stryker glanced at Cruz and Howard Cotten. Cruz was nodding his agreement with Stryker’s action. Cotten was staring up the hill as if praying the men would give up so that he would not have to fight any more.
The sound of voices raised in argument wafted down from the hilltop. The words were not distinguishable.
Cruz said, “I reckon they’re for it but Madrid won’t let them go. He knows what’s in store.”
“He might have a fair chance in court,” Stryker said, “if he’ll turn himself in.”
Cruz said, “Buck Madrid never gave in to nobody.” He rubbed the seat of his pants, grimaced and said, “How many men are up there?”
“Eighteen or twenty, all told.”
“It’d be tough to go up after them,” Cruz observed. Stryker was looking up the hill.
“It looks as if we won’t have to. Here they come.”
They came out by ones and twos, tossing their guns away and holding their hands high in the air, stumbling as they came down the steep pitch. Behind them Madrid’s voice lifted in screaming rage and after a while, when a dozen or more men had come out of hiding and disarmed themselves, Jules Meecham’s voice added its anger to Madrid’s.
No one stopped. The Rafter Cross gunmen threaded the boulders downhill and none of them looked back. They tramped stolidly, their faces grave and beaten.
Cruz muttered, “I count sixteen.”
“Madrid and Jules Meecham are up there,” Stryker said. “Any others besides them?”
“I don’t think so.”
Vern came in time to see the first of the surrendering gunmen reach the bottom of the slope. He dropped from his horse and tipped up his sixgun. His face was taut with righteous indignation.
His father said, “Easy.”
Diego Cruz cupped a hand around his mouth and sent his voice up the hill.
“Keep right on walking out, gents. Maybe you can pick up some horses in Espanola.”
Howard Cotten asked, “You don’t figure to arrest them?”
“My jail wouldn’t hold that many,” Cruz muttered. “Besides, they’re all through in this district and they know it. Look at them.”
A bearded gunman walked past Stryker without looking up. He spat in the earth, glanced ahead across the plain and put his arms down. Slumping, the gunman walked away, putting one foot in front of the other the way a man will who knows he has a far way to walk.
Two Others came straggling after him.
One stopped and said, “Thanks, Deputy—” and went on away.
Vern Cotten’s lip curled back in an expression of bravado.
“Hell, we could’ve licked the pack of them if they’d had the guts to stand and fight.”
Stryker admonished him: “Be glad they didn’t.”
“Damn it,” Vern raged. “I feel like a fight. So help me. I feel—”
The hilltop erupted in sudden violence. A rifle boomed, chattered rapidly. Its bullets caromed from the rocks around Stryker and Vern.
Cruz snarled, “The fat bastard—”
Howard Cotten put his back to a rock and lifted his gun. For a moment again he was the image of the cavalry officer, spine like a ramrod, gun up and eyes keen.
Stryker began to answer the rifle fire, shooting deliberately, both eyes open.
Vern stood between two boulders, staring at the hilltop while one of the rifle bullets took a surrendering gunman in the back and knocked him face down against a rock. The other gunmen leaped to cover. There was a good deal of confused yelling.
Nat Stryker suddenly dove at Vern’s knees.
He knocked Vern down, scrambled for footing while bullets made creases in the earth all around them. Stryker dragged Vern roughly into the rocks.
Cruz bent forward.
“He’s hit.”
Stryker spun back against a boulder to answer the bullets from the hilltop with a withering fire until his gun went dry.
Then his head swiveled toward Vern.
Blood welled from a small hole where the front of Vern’s shirt was pasted to his chest. Vern coughed. A glaze began to form on his eyes.
His father kneeled beside him. Stryker saw moisture in the old man’s eyes.
Vern said in a weak voice, “I guess I never could fill your boots. You got any whiskey?”
“No.”
“That’s all right, too,” Vern said.
Stryker said, “Take it easy.”
Cruz brushed past him with a canteen and kerchief and made an effort to stem the bleeding.
Vern said, “Never mind, Diego. I’m all through.”
“The hell you are,” Cruz said.
Stryker muttered, “You’ll pull through.”
“I guess not,” Vern said. He looked incredibly tired. He whispered, “Funny thing, though. I never figured I’d go out this easy. I ought to be yelling and screaming about now. But I just ain’t scared, after all. Stryker?”
“Yes.”
“Take care of my old man and my sister. You’re the only one who can.”
Stryker began to speak but the opaque glaze covered Vern’s eyes and he was dead.
Howard Cotten stood looking down at his son’s body. His deep-lined face was long and dull gray in the heat.
He said in a level voice, “I think I’ll want to pay Buck Madrid back for this.”
His eyes lifted. Diego Cruz corked his canteen and looked up.
“You tell me what to do, Howard, and I’ll do it.”
Cotten looked at Stryker.
“We’ve got to get him out of those rocks up there.” Stryker said, “You’re in charge.”
And Cotten took charge.
“All right. He won’t go anywhere before nightfall. After dark he’ll try to slip away through the rocks. I won’t send men up there now—they’d get cut to pieces. But after sundown we’ll move our perimeter up the slopes and take positions. We’ll spot him when he makes his move.”
Cruz said, “Don’t forget he’s got Meecham with him. You want them both shot on sight?”
“Only if they don’t give us a choice,” Cotten said. “There’s been enough killing.” He shook his head, baffled. “I didn’t think any man could have enough devil in him to shoot his own men in the back.” He lifted his head, like an old horse smelling lion, and he said to Stryker, “That plan all right with you?”
“It sounds fine—Major.”
Cotten nodded and swung around.
“Diego, I’d be obliged if you’d take Vern back to the ranch.”
“Sure.”
“See if you can hunt up my foreman. Tell him to keep that herd moving. I’ll want all the men he can spare to stay here on the hill and help us keep Madrid pinned down.”
Cruz bent down, picked up Vern’s limp corpse and walked away toward the horses. Stryker, his face bleak, watched until the deputy was out of sight. He thought dismally that it was a hell of a price for Howard Cotten to have to pay for the regaining of his self-respect.
Stryker’s face, ordinarily sad, was particularly grave. He posted a guard at sundown and himself took a position on the slope with Howard Cotten. Diego Cruz drifted past, dropped a few soft words and went on, restlessly scouring the deepening shadows.
Cotten said, “He’s found himself—he’s a good man.”
“Might say the same for yourself,” Stryker said.
“I used to think I was a pretty good man,” Cotten said. “For a while there I hated you for reminding me of what I used to be. It took my own son’s murder to knock remorse out of me.” He shook his head, studying his knuckles. He said, “My son is dead, Stryker, but somehow it hasn’t really hit me yet. Some time tonight or tomorrow it’ll get to me. And I wonder if I’ll hunt up a bottle of whiskey when it does.”
“My guess is you won’t.”
Cotten locked glances with Stryker. After a moment he turned his head to look up toward the hilltop.
He said, “I wonder what that fat man’s got in his mind. He knows he can’t get away from here.”
“I stopped trying to figure out his kind a long time ago. He’s got a wire down in him someplace.”
“I guess so,” Cotten said. “I guess that’s right.”
Stryker’s gun moved. His head turned.
Cotten asked, “Hear something?” in a taut whisper. Stryker motioned with his hand. He shifted his stance, then lowered his gun.
He asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I had to come.” Adriana slipped into view. “You two are all I’ve got left.”
Her father said, “Maybe you and I are all Stryker’s got left.”
Adriana sat down, her back to a rock. If she was aware of her danger she did not show it. She reached for Stryker’s hand and held it, not saying anything, and watched her father’s grave face.
What happened finally was foreordained, as if it had all been written on stone long ago. Somewhere in the tortuous recesses of Buck Madrid’s brain lived an instinct that convinced him no harm could come to him. Stryker saw both of them, Madrid and Jules Meecham, creeping down the hill during a dark hour after midnight when the moon was long gone. He had a good view of them and could have shot both men down from where he stood.
He balanced his sights on Meecham’s wire-thin shape but did not fire. He let them come until they were only thirty feet from him before he said in a mild way, “Give it up. You’re finished.”
Both shadows froze. Meecham’s head turned.
“All right,” he said wearily. “All right. I’m throwin’ down my guns, Nat.”
Buck Madrid uttered an animal scream unlike anything in Stryker’s experience. In the uncertain light it was not clear what he was doing. Stryker pushed Adriana down flat against the earth to shield her from the line of fire and Madrid’s gun went off, exploding in a great round boom of sound and flash.
Madrid was not shooting at Stryker at all. He was shooting at Jules Meecham—disarmed, back turned, deserting. Meecham coughed, howled a bitter curse and died.
The orange tongue of Cotten’s muzzle-flash stabbed the darkness. The shot rang in Stryker’s ears and the bullet ploughed somewhere into the folds of Madrid’s fat. Madrid sat down like an elephant and tipped over to one side. His gun clattered away. There was a loud rasp of breath and Madrid was only a big mound on the hill.
Cotten said, “Thanks for leaving him to me, Stryker. It was something I guess I knew I had to do.”
Adriana whispered, “He must have known it was coming.”
“He knew that a long time ago,” Stryker said.
He rose to his feet. Sorrowing silently, Adriana turned into his arms.
Cotten said, “You’ll stay.”
“Yes,” Stryker said. Everything for him was here. There was the slow drift of clouds across the stars. He said, “Let’s go down, now—” and turned away from the hill, holding Adriana tightly in the circle of his arm.
They went down and found their horses.
Adriana pressed herself silently against Stryker. He touched her cheek with a finger and gave her a hand up into the saddle.