The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill (16 page)

She cut the sorrel but the palomino moved with her, superbly as if he was working a wild cow back into a herd. Cameron realized that Arker was playing a game here — by keeping himself and his horse between Jenny and Cameron, he scotched Cameron’s shooting; and by trying to catch Jenny alive instead of shooting her, he was trying to get himself a hostage. If he did, Cameron thought bitterly, then the fight was up. Larabee would win.

Cameron’s only chance lay in riding Arker down. All three were close to the fire now. Cameron could see the desperation mingled with pain on Jenny’s drawn features. And he could feel the eagerness radiating from Arker. He drove the roan on — fifty feet … thirty, Jenny made a final effort to swing the sorrel away as Arker moved to pin her in a corner of the meadow. Effortlessly, he put the palomino after her. Cameron swung in close.

Jenny cut her horse right and then sharply left. Arker tried to match the move and the palomino lost precious feet, giving Jenny almost room enough to dart toward the open meadow. But now Cameron had the roan in close and he drove it forward with a sharp rake of his heels along its flanks.

Arker saw him when he was less than a dozen feet away. Cameron had a blurred glimpse of Arker’s gun arm swinging up, of moonlight and firelight glinting off the gun barrel, and he threw himself wildly to one side. He felt the heat from the muzzle and the roar battered at his eardrums. Then he had the roan’s shoulder driving against the palomino, bringing him leg to leg with Arker.

Cameron kicked himself free of the stirrups and threw his body onto Arker’s, catching the heavy bulk with his left arm and letting his solid weight bring the bigger man out of the saddle. They hit the ground with Arker underneath. He grunted as Cameron drove the wind out of him. Cameron rolled and came to his feet, knowing he would last no time at all if Arker ever reached his bruised ribs.

Jenny swept the sorrel in close and reined up. Cameron saw that she rode with one hand, having the other clamped under her armpit, and he wondered how badly the carbine had hurt her when it had been ripped out of her fingers.

He shouted, “Ride. Tod’s waiting on the trail.” And he turned back to Arker, who was struggling to his knees.

There was no time now for the niceties of fighting. Cameron heard Jenny send the sorrel racing away and then he moved in on Arker. He lifted a foot and drove it forward, catching the bigger man in the belly. Arker retched and went over on his side. He rolled onto his back and Cameron dropped his full weight down, pinning Arker’s chest with his knees.

Arker’s head was back and his mouth hung open. Cameron lifted his left arm and smashed it downward, twisting his knuckles into Arker’s face. A massive hand reached up and clamped on his wrist. A fist battered his face, splitting his lips. Arker swung again, awkwardly but still powerfully. Knuckles ripped Cameron’s temples and dizziness threatened to blot out his vision. He jerked his wrist free and slashed downward again. Arker rolled, taking the blow on his shoulder.

The man’s stamina was unbelievable, Cameron thought hopelessly. Now Arker’s power was beginning to tell. His blows were finding Cameron’s body, working closer and closer to the ribs on his right side. He caught Cameron’s arm in a steel-spring grip and began to pull Cameron’s body closer to his sledge of a fist.

Cameron brought his right arm up, fighting the stiffness and the surge of pain. With the last of his strength, he brought his torso around, throwing the force of its movement and weight into a driving blow. His fist caught Arker in the throat. The big man gagged and sagged away. His fingers slipped from Cameron’s arm. Cameron rolled free and staggered to his feet. One of Arker’s blows had laid open the skin over his eyes and he could seen only dimly through a haze of blood.

Arker somehow got to his feet, still gagging and retching. His gun lay a few feet away, where it had fallen when Cameron tore him out of the saddle. He staggered in that direction and fell to his knees, shielding the gun with his body. He turned slowly, breathing raggedly through his mouth. Now the gun was clutched in both hands, and he brought it up, steadying his aim on Cameron.

“Roy!” It was Jenny’s anguished voice. “Watch Rafe!”

Cameron dashed the blood from his eyes and thrust his head forward half blindly. He could make out Arker’s movements, but he failed to understand their meaning until firelight glinted on the blued steel of the gun barrel. He reached for his own gun, his muscles responding with agonizing slowness. He cleared leather and brought the gun up with a sharp wrist movement The instant before he fired, he felt his wounded leg give way. He heard Arker’s shot and felt the heat of the bullet’s passage. Then he crashed on his side and lay waiting, half stunned, for Arker to fire again.

He felt hands under his armpits. Jenny said, “I’ll help you on the roan.”

His mouth was dry and his tongue thick. “Arker?”

“He’s dead. You hit him in the face. Hale Dondee’s dead too.”

Cameron staggered up. He saw that Jenny had her bandanna wrapped around her left hand, and that blood was seeping through.

“Get out of here,” Cameron said through mashed lips. “Go with Tod and find Obed. If I’m too late getting to town, he might still catch Sax. Hurry!”

“I had to wait,” she said gently. “I couldn’t let Rafe kill you.”

Cameron let her help him aboard the roan. He scarcely heard her. His mind was on the few hours remaining until one o’clock. “Take the trail to the stagecoach road and go down the pass. We can’t risk all of us riding the same way. There could be a man waiting down below.”

He started across the meadow. The sorrel stayed close at his side, and he knew Jenny was half expecting him to fall from the saddle. But as he rode, the cold night air whipped life and strength back into him. By the time they reached the forks, where Tod waited, he was sitting straight, feeling almost alive again.

“I was about ready to ride back.”

Cameron said, “There’s nothing to ride for.” He went on down the valley by the trail he had come up such a short time before. At one place, he stopped the roan and looked to the west. From here he could see the other trail twisting along a cliff face. He glimpsed Jenny and Tod moving through the moonlight, and when they were on safer ground, he brought the roan about and continued on.

From the moon’s position, he judged he had a little time to spare, and he used this to soak his face in an icy spring halfway down the mountainside. He rode on, more alert now, watching every shadow ahead for movement, for sign that Larabee had been clever enough to post a guard.

But he passed Rafe Arker’s cabin and reached the wagonroad without seeing so much as a jackrabbit move. He squinted up at the moon. Time enough yet if he pushed the roan. It was closing in on midnight. The festivities in town would be about over for those who had finished their work and come down out of the hill country. Then things would go quiet. And that would be the time Sax Larabee was waiting for.

With the solid road beneath its hoofs, the roan stretched out in its ground-eating lope. Cameron could feel fever working in him, and now and then he would lift his head and blink and then realize he had fallen asleep. He was almost into town before he realized that he could be riding into a trap. There was little doubt in his mind that Larabee had told his story and that it had been accepted by Balder and Stedman and the others who ran the town.

If he came in boldly, up the main street, Balder could have him in jail before the dust from the roan’s hoofs had a chance to settle.

Ahead and to the right, a narrow track worked up through the timber to the ridge trail. Cameron turned and walked the roan through the dark stand of trees and out into the moonlight again. The ridge trail was half covered with deadfalls and tumbles of loose rock, but there was only a short distance to go, and so Cameron let the roan set its own pace.

The trail came into town by way of Cougar Hill, dropping around a shoulder of the hill and onto Hill Street where the fancier homes were. And down where this road crossed Main, he’d find Sax Larabee, Cameron thought.

He started downslope, between rows of tall trees, riding slowly now for the sake of quietness. Cameron judged it barely short of one o’clock, and he pictured Larabee and his men moving up carefully on the sleepy guards by the bank. He could almost feel the strike of gun butts against their skulls, and he fought down an urgent need to hurry. If he hammered into town now, he would alert Larabee and lose any advantage he might have from surprise.

The better houses were gone, and smaller places lined the street now. A crossroad ahead marked the end of the lane of trees. Below that the scattered business houses began, with the hotel and bank only another block along.

Cameron reached the crossroad, paused to peer down through the empty moonlight, and lifted the reins to move on again.

A horse stepped briskly out of shadow cast by the tall trees. A voice cracked sharply, “Hold it! You’ve gone far enough, Roy.”

Cameron turned in the saddle. Moonlight lay on Marshal Balder’s tight features and it glinted off the carbine he held unswervingly, aimed at Cameron.

“So you believed Sax Larabee’s story,” Cameron said softly.

Balder’s voice was almost sorrowful. “I had no choice. I told you I wrote to Boise for information. I got a letter back today saying you two’d been in prison together.”

He brought his horse closer. “That’s why I’m here. I figured Larabee was pulling a shennanigan with his talk about you hitting the bank on Sunday. I figured you’d try tonight. And I was right. Come along, Roy. You’re under arrest.”

C
AMERON STABED
at the .44 aimed at him. He said softly, “So you believed Larabee’s story.”

“Not at first I didn’t” Balder said. “And not all of it even afterward.” He sounded almost sorrowful now. “I didn’t want to believe it at all, but after I got that letter from Billy Rogers in Boise …”

With a start, Cameron recalled the letter Balder had sent to his friend in the Boise sheriff’s office. “And you learned I was in prison with Sax Larabee?”

“I learned that about you and a lot more about your sidekick Larabee.”

“Did the letter tell you I was released after three months when they found I was innocent?” Cameron demanded.

Balder snorted. “How many times have both of us heard that story before!” Hardness began to creep into his voice. “I thought you acted danged funny about Larabee. Then when he come to me with that story about you planning to rob the bank Sunday night, I got the idea you’d rubbed him the wrong way a little too much and he was trying to get back at you. When I read the letter from Billy Rogers, I figured out what everything meant — we was supposed to sit around asleep tonight, waiting for tomorrow, while you and Larabee packed off all the gold.”

Cameron started to explain and stopped before the first word was fully formed. He needed only one glance at Balder’s set features to know that he would gain nothing by talking. And Balder’s next words gave him proof that he was right.

“You’ve argued with me plenty about my claiming a jailbird don’t change his stripes,” the marshal said. “It looks like you proved my point instead of yours.” He waggled the gun barrel. “Let’s move down to the jailhouse.”

“While you sit there jawing at me, Larabee’s taking the gold,” Cameron said in a tight voice.

Balder snorted. “I ain’t as big a fool as you’d like. I figured you’d sneak into town this way and I was waiting for you. I figured too Larabee’d show up to help you at the right time — and I got two good men waiting at the bank for him.” He added in a disgusted voice, “I’d have more but most everybody who came to town got liquored up early tonight.”

By this Cameron judged that Obed and his crews were still in the hills, or at best at Obed’s ranch. That meant Jenny and Tod had a chance of warning Obed so that he could make a try at catching Larabee. Even if he had failed here, there was still that slim chance Jenny or Tod had got through in time.

Balder waggled his gun impatiently. Cameron said, “You might not be as big a fool as I’d like, but you’re a lot bigger one than you think. Larabee isn’t going to hit that bank alone. He’s got Jupe Dondee and Joe Farley with him. Your guards will be looking for Larabee, not for men they’ve drunk with.’ They won’t last long tonight, marshal.” He glanced at the moon and added softly, “It should be about over by now.”

Balder simply said, “Ride on down to the jail, Roy,” in a cold, disinterested voice. Cameron did as he was bid and walked the roan in the middle of the street. He had no chance at all of getting away, he thought. Balder rode just far enough back to be safely out of reach.

Balder was a bitter man now, Cameron guessed. A man who believed he had been hoodwinked by someone he had trusted. A man who believed his judgment had been wrong. A man whose strong pride had been horsewhipped.

And he would never know how wrong he was. Even if Obed and his crew stopped Larabee, Balder wouldn’t learn the truth. Cameron knew Sax Larabee well enough to be sure he would play on Balder’s belief, swear that he and Cameron together planned the robbery. He would see his chance to get his final revenge on Cameron — it was not an opportunity he would pass up.

And suddenly Cameron knew that even if he had no chance, he had to try to stop Larabee. He twisted his fingers in the reins and laid a knee into the roan’s side. The sudden pressures sent it dancing backwards and to the left. Cameron jerked the reins, swinging the horse around abruptly. At the same instant, Cameron flattened in the saddle and drove his heels into the roan’s flanks. The swiftness of the maneuver caught Balder off guard. He tried to jerk his own horse out of the way and at the same time bring his gun into play.

Cameron tried almost the same trick he had used against Rafe Arker. He rammed the roan’s shoulder into the other horse’s side. At the same time he reached out, but instead of trying to pull Balder out of the saddle, he caught the barrel of the marshal’s .44 and jerked back. The gun came loose and Cameron sent it spinning to the edge of the street. He drew his own handgun awkwardly, still using his left hand.