From Hide and Horn (A Floating Outfit Book Number 5) (20 page)

‘
How about that, Swede,’ called Sodak.
‘Are you going to help me get rich at ole Red’s
expense?’

Once brought up, the subject aroused much
interest and demanded settlement. Never averse to putting his skill
and strength on display, Ahlen suggested that he and Mark should
satisfy the bettors promptly.

Producing his sturdy
chopping-block and muttering dire
warnings of what would happen if it be
damaged in any way, Rowdy set it in position by the fire. Taking up
their places on either side of the block, each of the contestants
rested his right elbow on the chopping surface and gripped the
other’s raised right hand. Appointed judge, Rowdy waited until the
audience had formed around the block and gave the order to
start.

‘
I’ve got ten dollars’s says it lasts
for more than twenty minutes,’ a man said and another took the
bet.

Certainly all knew that they faced a lengthy
session of Indian-wrestling, for the contestants were evenly
matched. Mark’s slight advantage in strength was counter-balanced
by Ahlen’s extra experience. Excitement filled the audience as the
seconds ticked away and they were oblivious of anything but the two
men at the chopping block. Straining in their efforts to force down
the opposing hand, Mark and Ahten put all their considerable
strength into beating the other.

Shortly after the contest began, Willock
became aware that Barbe was not in the crowd. Looking around, he
saw her going towards the de Martins’ wagon and edged back to
follow her.

Laughter, advice—mostly impractical or
impossible—and offers of further bets flashed noisily among the
spectators. So great was the racket that it drowned out the sounds
of cursing, shouting and scuffling from behind the de Martin wagon.
Dusty as first to become aware of the trouble, although up to that
point he had not noticed certain absentees from the crowd.

Suddenly Willock reeled into sight from
behind the wagon. Catching his balance, he drove out a blow at the
head of Vern as the youngster followed him. Running into Willock’s
fist, Vern went backwards and sat down hard.

‘
Don’t shoot him!’ Barbe screamed,
appearing beyond the two cowhands.

Spitting out a curse and mouthful of blood,
Vern stabbed his hand towards his side. Already moving in to
attack, Willock skidded to a halt, drew and fired. Vern rocked
backwards as lead ripped into his chest and sprawled on to the
ground.

Dusty went through the crowd as
if it did not exist. At the so
und of the shot, Mark and Ahlen released each
other. The rest of the crowd forgot the contest, bets, everything
except what met their eyes as they faced the de Martins’ wagon. A
concerted rush followed on the small Texan’s heels. Faster than the
rest, Dawn reached her brother almost as soon as Dusty. She went to
her knees at Vern’s side, staring at the wound and reading its
serious nature.

Tense and watchful, yet without
making a hostile movement, Dusty faced Willock. Every sense the
small Texan possessed warned him of danger. After shooting the
youngster, Willock had re
-cocked his revolver. Now he stood on spread-apart
legs, with an over-casually balanced stance that, taken with the
loose-lipped, slobbering grin on his face, screamed a deadly
warning to one experienced in such signs. For all that, Dusty could
not believe Willock was drunk no matter how he looked or acted.
Silence fell on the crowd behind Dusty as they waited for him to
make a move.

‘
What happened?’ Dusty asked
quietly.

‘
The
fodder-forker pushed his luck too far is what,’ Willock replied,
his voice slightly slurred but tuned to sound tough and
mean.

‘
Vern’s dead!’ Dawn gasped, looking at
the two men.

‘
So he was going for his
gun and I stopped him!’ Willock
growled. ‘That’s—’

‘
He’s not wearing a gun!’ Red Blaze put
in, having moved forward to kneel at Dawn’s side. ‘His holster’s
empty.’

Angry comments rumbled up at the
words. Looking over his shoulder, Dusty saw Narth moving forward
with the Swinging G cowhands flanking him. At the same time, Jacko
and two other Mineral Wells men came together. Dusty was
suddenly aware that
all but Ahlen of the older Mineral Wells men were riding the night
herd. That deprived him of what might have been a restraining
influence. Dusty’s sense of danger increased. There was trouble in
the air, a peril to the success of the herd as serious as any
Hayden’s hired guns might have caused. One wrong word or move might
easily explode the whole camp into blazing gunplay.

‘
If that’s
right
—!’ Narth began grimly.

‘
I’ll handle it,’ Goodnight
interrupted, joining Dusty. ‘Put the gun up, Burle, and let’s talk
this out.’

‘
What’s to talk about?’ the cowhand
demanded truculently. ‘I pulled on him when Miss Barbe yelled. How
was I to know he didn’t have a gun?’

‘
Easily enough,’ de Martin commented,
walking to his sister’s side from the rear of the wagon. ‘You’d
seen Vern loan me his gun so that I didn’t go unarmed into the
bushes.’

‘
Why
you
—’
Narth spat out, right hand dropping to his
Colt’s butt.

Fingers like steel grasped Narth’s fist,
crushing it in a powerful grip and preventing him from drawing the
gun. Twisting his head, the cowhand looked into Mark Counter’s face
and heard the other’s soft-spoken warning.

‘
Leave it
be,
amigo.
Colonel Charlie’ll see the right’s done.’

Slowly Dawn raised her head. No tears came,
but her face held lines of grief and anger. Lifting her eyes to
Goodnight’s, she said in a bitter voice, ‘What’re you going to do
about it, Colonel? He murdered my brother.’

Again the low rumble of comment rose. Every
man in the camp knew of the last grim article in the contract they
had signed before leaving the Swinging G. Looking back, Dusty saw
two separate groups starting to form. About half of the men,
Goodnight’s hands included, moved to where Narth stood by Mark. The
second party consisted of Willock’s cronies and looked to Ahlen for
guidance. As the accused cowhand’s segundo, Jacko and the others
wanted to know where the big blond stood in the affair.

So did Dusty, come to that, and he asked,
‘How about it, Swede?’

‘
We can take
him
—’
Austin began.

‘
Open your mouth again!’
Dusty blazed, swinging towards
the speaker. ‘And I’ll close it with my
boot. Mark, take Austin, Spat and Eddie to the night herd. Eph,
Ross, go help Will Trinka on the remuda.’

‘
Get to it!’ Goodnight went on, knowing
what Dusty wanted to do.

Slowly, showing their reluctance, the
Swinging G men turned to obey. Usually Eph Horn and Ross Phares
would not be sent to assist the nighthawk with the horses but Dusty
wanted to give Ahlen proof that he would deal fairly with Willock
and not rely on the hands loyal to Goodnight to enforce his
demands.

Swiftly Dusty looked around.
Kneeling at her brother’s side, Dawn was silen
t. It seemed that she had
realized what her words might cause, for she never took her eyes
from Goodnight’s face although she said no more. From her, Dusty
turned his attention to the de Martins. They and Heenan once more
stood clear of the two factions. Considering what had happened,
Barbe seemed remarkably calm. She watched the scene before her with
an almost detached interest.

Diverting his thoughts from the
girls, Dusty studied the trail hands. His dismissal of the Swinging
G men had lessened the tension slightly. Yet everything depended on
how Swede Ahlen answered Dusty’s question. If he stood by the
Articles of Agreement, Willock’s supporters would go along. If not,
the small Texan did not care t
o think of the result. Swede Ahlen held several
lives and the safety of the whole trail drive in his big hands.
Should he go back on his word about the contract, Josh Narth would
want to dispense his own justice. While Willock’s cronies might
stand for Goodnight or Dusty dealing with the situation, they
certainly would not permit another trail hand to do so.

After what seemed an age, although it
followed on the heels of Dusty giving his orders to Mark, Ahlen
spoke.

‘
Put up the gun, Burle. We’re going to
hold a hearing on the killing.’

‘
The hell you are!’
Willock spat back, making no attempt to comply.
‘What chance do I
have? You’ve seen how all that bunch stand together.’

Ahle
n stiffened slightly, looking at the
cowhand’s face and moving to stand between Dusty and Goodnight.
‘He’s liquored up. Watch him. He’s dangerous when he’s
wet.’

Hearing the words, Dusty and
Goodnight let out low breaths of annoyance. Under the Articles of
Agreement, no liquor could be carried by the trail hands. Yet
Willock showed every sign of being drunk and, according to his
foreman, was a bad
hombre
when in that condition. Which altered nothing in the basic
issue. It only made the situation more dangerously
explosive.

‘
All
ri
—’
Goodnight began, making as if to step forward.

‘
Keep back, all of you!’ Willock
snarled, his Colt making an arc that took in the three men before
him. ‘I’m full to my guts with this drive and I’m quitting. Who’s
coming with me?’

‘
Nobody,’ Goodnight said quietly. ‘And
you’re not going either.’

‘
Who’ll stop me?’ snarled
Willock.

‘
I
will,’ Goodnight
answered.

‘
No, Uncle Charlie,’ Dusty put in
gently. ‘The segundo handles the men. I let this start, so it’s for
me to see it through.’

There was another, unmentioned point. Without
its trail boss, the herd could not get through. So Dusty figured if
anybody was going to be shot, he could be better spared than his
uncle.

‘
I’ll kill the first to move!’ Willock
snarled.

‘
Then you’ll have to do it,’ Dusty
replied and took a step forward.

‘
You’ll have to drop us
both,’ Ahlen warned, advancing in line with Dusty. ‘Don’t
be
loco,
Burle. Leather it. You know Colonel Charlie’ll give you a
fair hearing.’

Backing off before the steady
advance of the two men, Willock looked from one to the other. Drunk
he might be, but not sufficiently for his condition to have driven
all sense and thought from
his head. Swede Ahlen had never professed to be a
gunfighter, but possessed the gritty determination to push through
anything he started. Yet, more menacing to Willock at that moment
was the
big
blond man ranged at his segundo’s side. A quick glance
warned Willock that he could not expect help from his cronies. Even
Jacko stood silent and clearly willing to accept Ahlen’s assurance
that justice would be done.

Sweat ran down Willock’s face and indecision
played on it. Watching him, Dusty knew that he might go either way.
If he should be drunk, impossible as it seemed, he could either
surrender or make a rat-like fight against what he regarded as a
trap.

For each pace the two men advanced, Willock
retreated a stride. To Dusty it seemed that the barrel of the
cowhand’s Colt started to dip. At that moment a shot rang out. Lead
ripped into Willock’s head, spinning him around and tumbling him
lifeless almost at the small Texan’s feet.

Smoke curled up from the revolver in Heenan’s
hand and he said, ‘I thought he was fixing to start throwing
lead.’

Throwing a look at the Mineral Wells men,
Dusty prepared to draw if they showed signs of hostility. None of
them made a move, but stood staring at the still body at the small
Texan’s feet.

‘
You stupid son-of-a-bitch!’ Ahlen
growled at Heenan. ‘He was giving it up.’

‘
It didn’t look that way
to me!’ the
hardcase answered, holstering his gun. ‘Hell! If he’d
thrown lead, this whole camp’d’ve gone up smoking. And if he’d run,
we were standing in his way.’

On the face of it, Heenan had acted in a
sensible manner. The moment Willock had squeezed his trigger, the
rest of the men would have become involved. That would place the
innocent bystanders in considerable danger. Nor would their
position have been any safer if Willock had elected to escape, for
they stood in his path to freedom.

‘
You can hardly blame Mr. Heenan,
Swede,’ de Martin put in. T thought that Burle meant to shoot
you.’

‘
Best get two graves dug,’ Dusty said
quietly. ‘Lon, take after Mark, then go on to Billy Jack and tell
them everything’s all right here.’

‘
Yo!’ replied the Kid, whistling for
his stallion and darting into the darkness to meet it.

Slowly Dawn rose and turned her grief-lined
face towards Dusty. It was not her first brush with violent death,
or even the first time she had lost somebody close to her, so she
held control of her emotions and showed no sign of breaking down.
That might come later. Right then she had other things on her mind.
From Dusty she turned to Barbe, eyeing the girl with cold
mistrust.