Bounty Guns (9 page)

Her father and Jeff and Murray Seth had loaded the pine box into the spring wagon. Murray drove off, while Ben and Jeff came back to their horses. She mounted hers and the three of them rode out abreast. Ahead, she could see the crew, five men and the Chinese cook, strung out in a line, heading for the graveyard. She looked at her father and could see nothing in his face, no sorrow, no disgust, no pity, nothing but the bleak expression with which he faced the world nowadays. He had buried two sons, two brothers, and minor kinfolk, all with the same expression—or lack of it. His face was still swollen from the beating in the sheriff's office, as was Jeff's, but where Jeff's was cut and bruised, her father's was only puffed grotesquely. She looked away from them in loathing.

The services for Yace Bolling, shot the night the Bollings made their try for Buck Shields, were short, recited in an emotionless voice by Ben Bolling, his father.

Afterward, the little group broke up, and Anna started back with her father and brother.

“We better move Murray into Yace's room today,” Ben said suddenly, and added by way of explanation, “Better protection for the house.”

Anna grimaced in disgust. Her father never thought, except in terms of fighting men available, and how best to use them.

“You'll do nothing of the kind,” she said coldly. “The help have their quarters. Are you going to turn your own house into a stables?”

“Stables?” Jeff asked, bridling.

Anna said contemptuously, “I'd much prefer a horse to Murray Seth.”

“We need him there,” Ben said with finality.

“Why?”

“I just told you. There's always been one of us at each corner of the house. In case they raid, there won't be a blind spot.”

“How can they raid with Hagen Shields in jail?” Anna asked contemptuously.

A second later, she could have bitten her tongue out. Her father swung on her and said sharply, “Jail?”

“I—I thought they put him in jail for shooting Yace?”

Jeff pulled in from the other side of her and grabbed her horse's bridle, pulling him up. “You know something,” Jeff said in a low voice. “Did Doc Pendexter say Hagen Shields was in jail?”

Anna said as forcibly as she could, “No. I thought you told me he was arrested.”

Jeff's mouth lifted in a sneer. “You're lying.” He looked across at his father.

“I think,” Ben said slowly, “you're lying, Anna. Doctor Pendexter brought that news, because there's never been a hint of it before. What did he say?”

“Nothing, I tell you!”

“What did he say?” Ben insisted, his voice getting ugly. Jeff grabbed her by the wrist in a grip of iron.

“I'll cuff it out of you, sis,” he promised. “What did he say?”

Anna struggled furiously. Jeff held to her wrist, and when she looked to her father for help, his face held no sympathy. Years ago he would have thrashed Jeff within an inch of his life for laying a hand on her, but now he was siding with Jeff.

Anna ceased struggling now, a wave of weary hopelessness washing over her. What was the use of fighting, of bucking fate? She said tonelessly, “Yes, he's in jail. And I don't know why.”

Jeff dropped her hand and touched spurs to his pony. Ben followed, leaving her to ride home alone. She had done it now. It had been unwittingly said, but the result was the same. They would raid the Bridle Bit tonight, and in the morning more men would be dead.

When she arrived at the house, there was a fever of activity. The men were congregated at the bunkhouse, listening to Murray Seth. Her father was in the front room at the gunrack, and she could hear the clink of cartridges as he filled the belts.

She went up to him and said, “What are you going to do, Dad?”

“I think you know,” Ben said, without looking at her.

“You can't! You just can't do it! Don't you realize that Lucy Shields will be there?”

“We'll let her go.”

“And Pate, that boy?”

Her father looked up at her, his eyes wicked. “That boy shot Yace, Anna.”

“To protect his brother. Oh, Dad, you can't do it! It's rotten and cruel and cowardly!”

Ben said coldly, “You just came back from the graveyard, Anna. Did you count the graves? Every one of them, with the exception of your mother's, was put there by a Shields. Now get out of the way. Go to your room.”

Anna did. Outside, the men were changing horses. A couple of the hands were out in the pasture rounding up the horses and turning them into the corral. She knew how these men felt, and didn't wholly blame them for it. Hagen Shields, a month ago, had set fire to a line camp up in the mountains. Four Three B riders had been in that line camp, and Hagen Shields, from behind a tree, had shot each of them as they raced out of the blazing cabin. They found them there, face down, where he had left them, not even bothering to cover the bodies. These men feared and hated the kind of cautious murder that Hagen Shields planned. He had the patience of an Indian, taking advantage of every mistake, every lack of watchfulness in his opponent, until his very existence began to prey on their minds. But with him in jail, they would pay him back in kind tonight, and it made Anna sick to think about it.

An hour before dark, they rode out of the place, leaving only a skeleton crew to protect it. She had seen Murray Seth earlier ride over to the Dennises' to the north. The four Dennis riders added to the seven Three B men would outnumber the Shieldses, and they would have their way with them.

The triangle clanged in the dusk, the supper call to the remainder of the crew. Anna went out into the kitchen. Nobody would eat at the house tonight, for Jeff and her father and Seth were gone. Suddenly, she paused in the dusk of the kitchen. Now, while the men were at supper, was the time to act if she was ever going to. She slipped on a man's coat, got her flat-brimmed Stetson, and left the house.

At the corral there was just enough light to see that there was one horse left in the corral. Anna, hoping it was Streak, her bay filly, whistled softly. There was a short whicker in answer, and a horse walked over to the gate. Anna went inside the wagon shed, pulled her saddle from the poles, and saddled up, her hands trembling with excitement. She was going to do something that would have terrible consequences for her, perhaps, but she believed she could stand that. She could stand anything, now. Nothing that could happen to her would make things much worse.

Taking her pony by the reins, she led him through the gate. She was just closing it when a rider appeared from around the shed and pulled up at sight of her.

It was Murray Seth. She could tell his big-boned grace in the saddle and the high build of his gelding, and her heart sank within her.

Murray dismounted and led his horse over to her. “Oh, it's you,” he said. “Where you going?”

“I'm afraid,” Anna said quietly. “I'm going to town.”

Seth laughed. “Afraid of what?”

“If we can raid them, they can raid us. I don't want to be here.”

Seth came closer, and Anna, although she couldn't see his face, knew he was smiling crookedly, pleased with himself. The rank smell of horses, the smell of a dirty hostler, was about him, and it gagged Anna. She stepped backward, and was brought up against the corral poles.

“You have a pretty tough time of it here, don't you, Anna?” Murray began, his voice smooth with false sympathy.

“Have I ever told you I have?”

“No, but a man sees it. Jeff and Ben don't think of anything but fight. They've got no time for you, and you're lonesome, aren't you?”

“Will you get away from me?”

“Not yet,” Murray said. “I come back here so I'd have a chance to talk to you alone. I've been waiting for this a long time.”

“You've had your talk,” Anna said. “Now get out of the way and let me ride out of here.”

Murray took another step toward her, penning her tight against the corral. “Just a minute more,” Murray said quietly. “I've been thinking about us, Anna. We're the only two people at the Three B who don't give a damn about this fight, and we're the only two that will come through it alive, you and me. And you'll need a man to run it, a husband. I'd treat you good, better than Jeff or Ben do. When it happens, will you remember that?”

Anna was so amazed that she could not answer. Murray Seth was already planning on the death of her father and Jeff, and of his position here afterward.

Murray, misunderstanding her silence, laughed comfortably and put his hands on her. The very touch of them seemed to unloose something in Anna. She struck out with her quirt and caught Murray across the face.

He stepped back, crying out in pain, and then he began to curse. Anna had lost all reason then. She went at him, lashing out with her quirt, crying with rage. Murray backed up, threw his arms in front of his face, and when that seemed to do no good, he took to his heels and ran behind the shed.

Anna stopped sobbing, and then turned and ran to her horse. Stepping into the saddle, she put the horse into a long lope across the park toward the town road. She was crying now out of hysteria and anger and disgust.

Murray Seth, gingerly touching the welts on his face, could hear her sobbing, and wondered what had got into her. He had spoken at the wrong time, had interrupted something. But what was it? Anna Bolling hadn't ridden to town at night before, never. And why was she riding tonight? Standing there, Murray Seth experienced the first jealousy he had ever felt in his life. To him, a pretty woman riding at night could mean only one thing, that she was riding to meet a man.

Murray Seth forgot his appointment at the Bridle Bit. He mounted and set out after Anna.

Tip was sitting at the roll-top desk, leafing through the reward dodgers that were deposited in the bottom drawer when he heard the door open. He turned to confront Lynn Mayfell and a girl whom he immediately recognized as Anna Bolling. The expression in the Bolling girl's face made him come to his feet quickly.

“What is it?”

“They're raiding the Shieldses' tonight,” Anna said breathlessly. “I came as soon as I could.”

Tip didn't wait for more. He pushed the two girls out, instructed Anna Bolling to wait for him at the hotel, directed a brief glance at the second-story window to see if the lantern in Hagen's cell block was still alight, and untied the reins of his horse at the tie rail in front of the sheriff's office. Down at the feed stable, he picked up Sheriff Ball, who was settling a feed bill, and together they headed out of town at a long lope. Caution told Tip to pick up more men, but he knew the time wasted in finding the men favorable to the Shieldses might prove too costly.

“They damn well didn't waste much time after Hagen got jailed,” Ball said bitterly.

The ride seemed unending. But when they came to the bottleneck, passed through it, and rounded the bend, Tip pulled up. Far to the southeast, the night sky was lighted.

“They've burned the buildings,” Ball said grimly.

Cutting across the park, Tip put his chestnut to a gallop. Not until this moment was the Vermilion county feud a brutal reality, and now he tried not to think of Lucy Shields, who might be trapped in that fire.

When they came in sight of the ranch, Tip breathed a sigh of relief. The barn behind the house was afire, its skeleton of logs still standing as it held between its ribs a great pillar of fire that crawled high into the sky and was capped by lazily turning banners of thick smoke. A racket of rifle fire, faint at this distance, was the only sound in the night.

Tip sized up the situation and said, “They're forted up behind those sheds, waitin' for the try at the house.”

“We better hurry,” Ball said.

Tip put out a hand. “We can't save the barn, and they'll hold the house long enough.” He turned to Ball. “I'm going to make those Bollings sorry they ever put foot on this land. Come along.”

Tip headed away from the fire toward the timber. Objects within a quarter of a mile of the fire were standing in faint relief. Achieving the timber, Tip said, “Spread out and work along the edge of the timber. When you find their horses, whistle.”

Ball gave him a quizzical glance, then pulled off into the timber. Tip entered the timber about twenty yards, then, keeping parallel to the edge, he worked his way toward the fire. He had the feeling that he was losing precious time, that he should be doing something, but common sense told him there was no hurry, that the Shieldses could hold them off half the night.

Closer to the house now, he looked through the trees and saw the situation. Stretched in loose semicircle, from the wagon shed to the farthest corral, the Bolling men were behind shelter, pouring their fire into the house. Tip counted ten rifles. Along the narrow length of the house, on the barn side, four guns were returning the fire. Tip knew that the Bollings would have to wait now until the light from the fire was diminished enough to let darkness give them some protection. After that, the finish would be certain.

Ball's low whistle yanked him alert. He pushed back into the timber, and getting Ball's whistle again, he made for it. In a deep little gut over a low hogback, Ball was waiting for him. He could hear the uneasy movement of several horses.

“Ten of them,” Ball said.

“Got a knife?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Lead 'em off, one by one. When they're clear, cut the cinch and bridle and give the pony a cut over the rump. These Bollings will walk home from this party.”

He and Ball set to work. In a few minutes, all the Bolling horses had been driven off through the timber, the only reminder of their presence being a pile of useless saddles and bridles.

Afterward, their jobs understood, he and Ball parted. Tip rode toward the fire. At the edge of the timber, he offsaddled, threw his saddle and bridle in the brush, took his rifle from the saddle boot, and made his way to the edge of timber. His chestnut started to follow him, but Tip drove him back into the timber. Finding a spot behind a log that commanded a good view of the house, he sat down, levered a shell into his Winchester, and waited. The fire was at its peak now, and the solid logs of the barn were caught well. The yard was light as day, and Bolling's men, keeping shelter between themselves and the house, were moving around hunting better positions.