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I crawled toward the door and managed to push it open and get outside. Nobody
needed to tell me I was hard hit, and nobody needed to tell me I'd done a damn
fool thing to ride into the enemy camp and go to blasting.
My horse was yonder, and I crawled for him. A door opened in the side of the
hotel, then closed easy like. I hitched myself down the steps into the street
and using the hitch rail, pulled myself to my feet.
I was backing across the street, gun in hand, when Jake Flanner stepped
around the corner of the hotel on those crutches of his. He had a six-shooter
in one hand, and he kind of eased his weight on the other crutch and lifted
the gun. At the same moment I saw Brewer come out of the saloon door. He had a
rifle in his hands and he was maneuvering himself into position for the kill.
My gun came up. I took a step back and my boot came down on a rock that
rolled under it. Weak as I was, it was all that was needed. The stone rolled,
I staggered and fell just as two guns went off, followed quickly by a third.
That last had a different sound. It was a sharper spang, not the dull report
of the forty-four. I saw Brewer stagger and go down, then crawl around the
corner and out of sight.
Flanner was gone. An instant ago he was there and then he was gone.
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I started to get up and felt a hand under my arm. "Easy now!" The voice was
strange, but my eyes were fogging over and when I started to look around he
said, "You'll have to walk. I can't carry you and shoot. Let's go."
Somewhere along in the next few minutes I felt myself getting into a saddle,
and I felt the movement of a horse because every time he set a hoof down it
hurt like hell.
There was a fire burning. I liked the pinewood smell. It was night and there
was a roundup of stars right overhead. I could see them through the branches
of a tree. My head ached and I didn't feel like moving, so for a long time I
just lay there looking up at the stars.
After a while I must have passed out again because when my eyes opened the
sky was gray and there was only one star left on the range of the sky. For a
time I lay there looking at it and then my eyes located the fire. It was down
to coals and gray ash, and over beyond it I could hear that wonderful sound of
horses munching grass.
Nothing moved so I just lay there, not even wondering what had happened to me
or where I was. Then I smelled something else and my eyes located it, a
blackened coffeepot on the coals.
I wanted coffee. I wanted it bad but I wasn't so sure I could get to it or
what I'd drink it out of. For a while I lay there, listening to the wind in
the pines, and finally it began to come over me that I'd been shot ... I'd
been hit at least once, probably twice or more. Somehow I'd gotten out of
town. Vaguely, I recalled a gentle voice and a hand on my arm. I recalled
riding, and a hand on me much of the time. Finally I'd been tied into the
saddle ... but where was I now?
When I made a try at moving my right arm I found it was tied up somehow. My
left was free.
Reaching out, my hand encountered something ... my pistol! Well, I'd been
left a gun, anyway. I could see the horses now, right yonder beyond a few
scattered aspen. They were picketed and eating grass. Turning my head I saw
somebody sleeping off on my left. His head was on a saddle, and he was bundled
up in blankets with part of a ground sheet over him ... but it was no type of
ground sheet I'd ever known.
My right arm was hurt. Rolling to my left side a little I pushed into a
sitting position. The horses looked over at me. There were two horses, one of
them my roan.
Some gear was stacked on the grass near us, and two packsaddles. So this gent
was a drifter. His gear looked a whole lot better than any drifter I'd ever
come across, and he hadn't much in the way of spurs on his boots ... and they
weren't western boots.
When I started to twist a little I got a shot of pain through me that made me
gasp, and when I gasped this sleeping man came awake sudden-like.
He was a tall man, not more than thirty, and handsome. He was one of the best
dispositioned men I ever met, and he dressed neat. His outfit was all of the
best, and while I couldn't make out his rifle, it was a handsome weapon.
He sat up and looked over at me. "Don't try moving," he said, "you'll start
bleeding again. I had a hard time getting it stopped."
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"Where'd you come from?"
He chuckled dryly. "What does it matter? I came at the right time, didn't I?"
He shot me a look. "What happened in there, anyway?"
"We had us a fight They were pushing us hard so I decided to push back. I
done it"
"Did you get any of them?"
"I got two inside. I thought I got another outside, or somebody did."
"That was me. I took a shot at the man with the crutches but missed. Probably
it was just as well. I'd hate to shoot a crippled man."
"Just because a man's got game legs doesn't say he's got a good disposition.
That was the worst of the lot. That was Jake Flanner."
"What was the fight about?"
"Ranch out yonder," I said, "called the Empty .. for MT. There's an old lady
runnin' it ... salt of the earth ... named Emily Talon. Those back in Siwash
were tryin' to run her out, and I got myself into the fight ... I don't
exactly know how. They hit us, tried to burn us out, and we saved the ranch,
then whipped them in a fight at the house. But they'd be coming again and I
got sore, them pushing an old lady that way ... so I rode into town."
"Alone?"
"Why not? There wasn't all that many of them. And I couldn't take from them
the only hand they've got."
"You look familiar."
"There's a few posters around. My name is Sackett. Logan Sackett"
"Hello, cousin. I am Barnabas Talon. Em is my mother."
Lying back on my blankets, I looked him over. He had the look, all right He
reminded me of Em, and a little more of Milo. "Heard you were in England."
"I came back. We'd received word a few years ago that ma was dead and buried.
We were notified of it, and that the estate had been settled. There seemed no
reason to return, so I kept on with what I was doing.
"A few months ago I was talking about Colorado with some English friends, and
they commented on seeing the house, our house, and they had heard about an old
woman who lived there alone.
"At first I thought it was nonsense, but it worried me, so I caught a ship
and came over. In New Orleans I went to an old man who had been pa's attorney,
and he told me there had been no settlement of the estate and that he had a
letter from ma not two months before. So I started home."
He filled a cup with coffee and handed it to me. "My father taught me
caution. I had been formally notified that the estate had been settled and ma
was dead. Obviously someone had done so for a reason. Apparently the reason
was to cause me to forget Colorado and whatever property we had there.
"Whoever had such intentions would not be pleased if I returned, so I came
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quietly, and when I reached Denver, I made inquiries. Nobody knew anything
until I consulted a former deputy sheriff whom I knew. He told me that a man
named Jake Flanner, who had lived in Siwash, was hiring fighting men ... the
worst kind.
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