Blood on the Moon (20 page)

The next few minutes with Anse at the front window and Amy at the rear, were bedlam. Riling’s outfit scattered, surrounding the house, and it was up to both Anse and Amy to drive them back into the cottonwoods. Anse succeeded on his side and then came over and helped Amy flush Mitch Moten from the protection of the corral to the low bluff behind the house. From now till dark Riling must content himself with throwing shots at the shack from a distance that precluded accuracy.

Amy and Anse sank down against the wall, and Jim, still propped on his elbows, looked at them. “Riling?”

“And Pindalest, Moten and Big Nels and Avery,” Amy said bitterly. “Oh, Anse, it’s my fault. It didn’t have to happen!”

“It was in the cards,” Anse growled. “No harm’s done.”

He went over to the front window and looked out, and Amy went over to Jim. “I’m goin’ to get up,” Jim announced to her.

“No!” Both Amy and Anse shouted it with a unanimity that made Jim blink.

“But I’ve had a night’s sleep and food,” Jim protested. “I’m all right. You can’t let—”

“The hell I can’t,” Anse said grimly. “Amy can shoot and she can stay out of the way. You stay in bed.”

Jim settled back into a smoldering silence. Did Barden think this was all in fun that he’d let Amy chance being shot? They didn’t know Riling like he knew him. Riling wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Amy if by doing it he could get to Jim, and Jim knew it. He’d tried to tell them both, and they hadn’t listened.

He watched Amy, who was standing at the foot of his bed, flattened against the wall. Occasionally she would peer out through the window, then pull her head back quickly. If anything happened to her, Jim thought—and then he stopped thinking about it. This was the girl who’d laid a slug so close to him on the river that day that she’d nicked his hat. But if Riling succeeded in rushing the shack and taking it her shooting wouldn’t do much good. No, there was a way to stop it, and he’d take that way.

Jim said, “Barden, come here.”

Anse came over, and Jim talked to him, knowing Amy was listening and watching. “Before this goes any farther tell Riling I’ll go with him.”

Anse glanced up at Amy and only grinned and shook his head. “These walls are thick. They can’t burn us out, and we got plenty of shells.”

“But he’s an Injun, I tell you!” Jim said hotly. “He won’t quit till he’s got me and he’ll kill you both to do it.”

Amy came around the bed then and said angrily, “So we should let him take you and shoot you, just to save our own necks!”

Jim glared angrily at her and then spoke to Barden. “Then sing out to them that she’s comin’ out. They’ll let her through.”

“No!” Amy said immediately.

“Do it!” Jim said angrily to Barden.

“I won’t go,” Amy said calmly. “If you put me out I’ll stand right out there and shoot at them.”

Barden shrugged. “She was out there once and she risked gettin’ hurt to come back here.” He added dryly, “It looks like this is where she wants to be, don’t it?”

He turned and went back to his post. Amy gave Jim a grave, questioning look and went back to the foot of the bed.

Jim turned his face to the wall, raging at his own helplessness. He had to lie there and watch it happen, as it would sooner or later. But he couldn’t do it! He had to make Barden understand someway that Riling was desperate, that he knew he’d lost and that he’d risk his life to get the man responsible.

Jim said, “Barden, I want to talk to you alone.”

In the dusk he saw Amy turn her head and look at him first and then at Anse.

“The lean-to,” Anse said reluctantly.

Amy hesitated a moment, as if knowing they would talk about her, and then she went out. Somebody in the cottonwoods started pumping shots which thumped heavily into the thick logs of the shack.

Anse came over and sat on Jim’s bed.

“We got to get her out of here,” Jim said.

“She won’t go.”

“Make her. If you say so she’ll go.”

Anse regarded him with shrewd dissent in his eyes. “You don’t know much about women, do you, Garry?”

“No.”

“Why do you think she come back if it wasn’t on account of you?”

Jim just stared at him and then he said flatly, “No.”

“I’m right.”

Jim’s hand slowly plucked the blanket as he and Barden eyed each other. Then Jim said, “And why do you think I want to get her out of here?”

“The same reason, I reckon,” Anse said.

“You’re wrong about her,” Jim said steadily. “I’ve helped her father. Why wouldn’t she want to help me?” He paused a moment. “You were right about me though, Anse. That’s the way it is. But I’ve thought it over a lot more than you have. It wouldn’t work, Anse, not even if she’d have me. I’m not her kind. Before I got hurt I was plannin’ to ride out when this was finished. And I’d still like to finish it my own way.”

“How’s that?”

“With her not around. I’d like one more crack at Riling—alone. Will you go?”

Anse stood up and called, “All right, Amy,” and went back to the window. That was his answer.

Amy came back, and she said to Anse, “Maybe you better go bar the door on the lean-to, Anse.”

When he’d gone Amy came up to Jim’s bed and knelt beside it. “The walls were pretty thin, Jim. I heard you.”

Jim looked at her searchingly in the dusk. He couldn’t really see her face, but he didn’t need to. He’d carried her image in his mind for weeks now, so that he even knew how the hair curled off her temple and fell to her shoulder in that sleek and beautiful line. He took her hand and said, “Amy, pretend you didn’t hear. Because it can’t be. I’ve been fiddle footed and no good all my life; I’ve even been
a gun hand part of it. I’m not askin’ any woman to take that.”

“I knew that when I came here. I’ve always known that—and I don’t believe it.”

“But that’s what I am, Amy. That’s me!” Jim said flatly.

“That’s you, Jim—stubborn, proud and foolish still. Don’t you see how useless talk is, Jim? I’m here and I’m staying.”

Jim came up on his elbows, mouth open to protest, when all hell cut loose from outside. The glass spattered out of the window above Jim’s head, and Barden’s clock on the shelf behind the stove seemed to explode in a great racketing whir of the spring before it crashed to the floor.

Anse piled in from the lean-to, grabbing his rifle on the way. Amy broke away from against Jim’s grasp and picked up her rifle.

For minutes then the twilight was alive with gunfire. Riling had moved in to the very edge of the cottonwoods and the corral, and now they were sending a withering hail of lead into the door and windows.

But as it grew darker Anse remarked something and spoke about it. “Amy, hold your fire. They’ll have to cross this snow if they want to make the shack. And they’ll show on it. Watch the snow, and when something black moves against it cut down on it.”

Jim lay on the bed, cursing at his own helplesness while Amy and Anse scanned the deepening darkness. It was as Anse said. The snow was a gray against the night’s black; the trees looked black, the corral and barn a sooty smudge against the snow.

And then Amy saw something moving. She
watched it carefully, and it veered toward her in the night. She could make it out now, a man walking hesitantly and slowly toward the house, curious if he could be seen.

Amy took careful sight on him and then moved the gun to the right and fired. The gun flash blinded her, but she could hear the pounding of the man’s feet as he retreated to shelter.

The gloom of the cabin was deep then, and Jim couldn’t see Amy any more. He could hear her breathing and her every movement, and her presence was close and dear to him. She was going to stay because of him. Jim hated that thought and was humbled by it. The irony of it, their meeting here when he was helpless to aid in protecting her, was like gall to him.

The firing had ceased entirely now. Anse cocked his head and then murmured, “I can hear ’em talkin’ down there in the cottonwoods.”

On the heel of his words Riling’s voice lifted in the night. “Garry! Oh, Garry! I want to talk to you.”

“He ain’t here!” Anse yelled back.

“You’re lying,” Riling said flatly. “He’s there. His horse is in the corral.”

“I picked it up last night,” Anse called. “What do you want with me?”

“Tell Garry something for me,” Riling said. His voice was getting an edge of anger now. “Tell him I’ll give him a chance to surrender.”

Jim said swiftly, “Take him up on it, Anse.”

Anse yelled, “He ain’t here, I tell you.”

Riling called back, “I’ll give him three minutes. Then I’m riding into town for Manker and more men.”

The three of them were silent, considering this news. Jim said bleakly, “He’ll do it too. And Manker will come.”

He saw Amy loom up beside his bed. She reached for his hand and took it and then sat down on the bed. “Hush, Jim. Let him go. Manker won’t watch a man shot.”

Jim knew better. Manker wouldn’t have to see it. Riling could wait, but it would come. Jim knew the implacability of the man, and neither Anse nor Amy did.

Riling’s voice lifted once more into the night. “Coming out, Garry?”

“No,” Anse yelled.

They listened. They heard the soft clop-clop, the rustle of leaves made by Riling’s horse as he rode out. He’d kept his word; he was going for reinforcements.

Afterward the man at the corral started to shoot half-heartedly at the shack, and someone out in the cottonwoods fired now and then.

Amy and Anse were at the windows again, peering out into the night. It was so dark in the room that Jim could see nothing.

It was then that he made his decision. He held his breath and cautiously pushed himself to a sitting position in bed. The pain of his wound knifed at him, and he waited there, sitting upright until it had subsided. Then gently he swung his feet to the floor and stood up. Again the searing in his side, and he put a hand against the wall to steady himself. He stood there in the dark, waiting for his mind to adjust itself to this pain. It was bearable. His whole side was sore and hurt deep within him, but he
could get used to it. That was all he wanted to know.

“Jim.” It was Amy. She had heard strange movements from the bed.

“I’m here,” Jim said.

The height from which his voice came brought Amy across the room. When she saw the black hulk of him standing she cried out, “Jim! You’re out of bed!”

“To stay,” Jim growled.

Anse stepped over to him and put a hand on his arm, which Jim gently removed. Something in him hoped Amy wouldn’t protest, and he sighed with relief when she said quietly, “What is it, Jim?”

“Riling,” Jim said briefly. “Let me talk. He’s gone to Sun Dust. I’m going to follow him.”

It was Anse who protested sharply, cursing him. Jim said stubbornly, “A half-hour after I’m gone tell Big Nels you’ll give up. When they see I’m not here they won’t do anything. That’s all.”

“What about a horse? Have you thought of that?” Anse asked savagely.

“Amy’s horse is loose, isn’t he? I’ve been lyin’ here in bed and listenin’ to him trompin’ around off there at the end of the house.”

Still Amy didn’t speak. Jim knew it would come, probably in the form of a simple request that he not go. And that would be the hardest to refuse, but he would refuse it.

Anse said harshly, “Amy, are you goin’ to let him?”

“Yes, she is,” Jim said.

“Amy?” Anse insisted.

Amy was long in answering, and Jim listened for it.

“Do you have to go?” she asked finally.

Jim was thankful for that and he wanted her to understand if she could. “I’ve got to,” he said quietly. “It’s him or me, Amy. It always will be until one of us is dead. He won’t quit and I won’t, and if I wait for Manker that would be quitting. No. I’m going to find him—now—because I’ve got to know.”

Amy moaned softly and came into his arms. Jim hugged her close to him, smelling the clean scent of her hair, feeling her fine straight body against him. She was all a man would ever want, and more, and now it seemed more urgent than ever that he go. Amy raised her hands to his face and bent his head down and kissed him on the lips. And then she backed off into the darkness.

When Jim could trust himself to speak he said, “I want a gun.”

Anse handed his belt and gun to him, and Jim strapped them on. He put on his coat and Stetson and then walked slowly toward the door, holding his breath against the new throb in his side. Somewhere against the front wall he knew Amy was watching him, but she wouldn’t speak again. She knew.

Jim slowly opened the door, and before he stepped out into the chill night he said to Anse, “When I’m back against the lean-to open up on the corral.”

He shut the door behind him. Whoever was in the corral couldn’t see him, he knew, until he crossed the snow, and then he would be plainly visible. It was because of this that he had asked Anse to fire, hoping to draw a return fire whose powder flash would blind the man at the trigger.

He moved slowly down toward the end of the shack, crossing the window and then the corner, and
finally stood against the dark bulk of the lean-to, looking out toward the cottonwoods where the horse was loose.

Presently Anse opened up at the corral. He put a dozen shots into it before an answering fusillade of hotly returned fire.

It was during this shooting that Jim walked calmly and slowly across to the cottonwoods. If they saw him he could neither run nor well return their fire, and he would be trapped. A kind of narrowing, dismal fatalism was with him then until he reached the first tree without drawing a shot.

The rest was easy. He found the horse deep in the cottonwoods, coaxed him to him and then led him slowly out of hearing of the men surrounding the shack. He mounted then and headed toward Sun Dust.

“There’s a dead man,” Anse said grimly when Jim had gone. He went moodily to the other window and looked out. Presently he heard Amy’s slow, stifled sobbing and regretted that he had spoken. But it was the truth. Jim Garry wouldn’t come back, and Anse cursed him for a headstrong, wild fool. And all the time he was praying to his own small gods that he was wrong.