Bounty Guns (21 page)

Jeff Bolling was shouting up the stairs to Murray Seth as they entered, and he turned to confront them. His face was haggard, mean-looking, and he hadn't shaved for several days. He scowled at the sight of Joerns with the two girls.

“Jeff,” Joerns said, “I understand you have Pate Shields up there in a cell.”

“That's right,” Bolling said, looking at Lynn. He smiled faintly, insolently.

“What for?” Joerns said.

“She told you, didn't she?”

“Yes. Still, it's illegal. As long as he wasn't in the county you haven't any right to seize him.”

Jeff put a foot on a chair and folded his arms on his knee. “Nobody had a right to kill my old man in jail, Joerns. Nobody had a right to burn down our spread. Still, it was done.”

“You can't do it, Jeff!” Anna said hotly.

Jeff didn't even look at her. He was looking at Joerns. “And you didn't have a right to force Buck Shields to sell the Bridle Bit, Joerns. Still, you did it.”

Joerns flushed and contrived a weak smile. “These girls seem afraid that something will happen to Pate while he's in jail.”

Jeff looked at Lynn and sneered, “He'll be safer here than outside, where every bounty hunter in the county will be takin' pot shots at him.”

Anna walked up to Jeff and said in a low voice, “Jeff, I've never asked you for much. But I do now. Let Pate go.”

Jeff came erect, his eyes flashing. “Sis, unless you get out of here and shut your mouth, I'll do a little talking on my own hook.”

Anna paled, Lynn noticed, and then turned away.

Joerns said to Lynn, “I've done my best, Miss Stevens.”

Lynn came up to Jeff. “Let's hear you promise, Jeff, that nothing will happen to Pate.”

“Nothing will happen,” Jeff said nastily, “except he'll get three good meals a day and a lot of sleep. He'll be let out of here as soon as we have Woodring.”

Lynn laughed, and it was touched with hysteria. “You get Tip Woodring? That's funny, Jeff. He'll break Pate out of this jail and you'll never know it, because you'll be dead when it happens if you try to stop him.”

Jeff grinned wolfishly. “That's the way to talk. Maybe you'll send him.”

“Maybe I will!” Lynn said hotly. She had completely lost her temper now and she was talking foolishly, and what's more she didn't care.

Jeff laughed aloud now. “That's a bargain. Now, Joerns, take your beauties out of here before they blow up and spatter all over the ceiling.”

Lynn and Anna went out, and Joerns went back to the bank. Up in their rooms again, Lynn sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. She was so angry she was sick, and her own helplessness made her want to scream and yell. It couldn't go on this way. It just couldn't! Suddenly she laughed, and Anna, who had been watching her, put a hand on her shoulder. “Jeff isn't all bad, Lynn. I don't think he'll hurt Pate.”

Lynn leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “I wish I believed that, Anna. Anything can happen in this fight—anything.”

Anna went to the window and stared moodily down into the street. She gingerly fingered the torn shards of glass where Tip had thrown the chair through the window last night. She turned and looked at Lynn, then said quietly, “Do you think they got away, Lynn?”

“Of course they did.”

“But—there was blood out there on the walk across the street. I saw it.”

“They're both tough,” Lynn said. She opened her eyes and looked at Anna. Before Anna could turn her head, Lynn saw the sadness and tragedy in her face. She said gently, “Buck's all right, Anna.”

“But I saw Tip pick him up and carry him away!” Anna cried in a choked voice. She held her fists tightly clenched for a few seconds, then relaxed. “I'm not going to be afraid,” she said in a firm voice. “I've stood worse than this, and I can again.”

Lynn came over and took her arm and turned her around and looked in her eyes. “You've just got to believe it will come out all right, Anna. It's a funny kind of faith to have in a man, but it works. I know. Just keep
knowing
nothing will happen to them, and it won't.”

She turned around then and said in a flat voice, “I'm going to sleep,” and went into her room and closed the door. Anna went in to see Ball and talked with him awhile, afterward going out into the kitchen.

A knock on the door brought her into the front room. She opened the door to confront Murray Seth. Strangely enough, he was shaved and had on a clean shirt. Anna said, “Hello, Murray. What do you want?” and didn't move out of the door.

Murray said, “I want to talk to you.”

“All right, go ahead.”

“No. Inside, where we can sit down.”

Anna sighed and stepped aside, and Murray shuffled into the room. He saw the window and shook his head somberly. “That damn Indian can wreck a place quicker than any ten men I ever knowed.”

“He'll do the same to you.”

Murray chuckled. “No, he won't. He's got to back-water, now. Last night took a little of the sand out of his craw, I reckon.”

“They got away, didn't they?”

“But they was shot up,” Murray said in a matter-of-fact voice. “There was blood across the street and out by the graveyard, where one of 'em left the hurt one and sucked us all down the canyon. There was blood on that gray up on the rimrock, too.”

Anna said in a small voice, “Which one was it, do you think?”

“Hurt? Why, Buck Shields, I figure. I'll tell you why. Nobody but that damn Tip Woodring would have had the nerve to leave a man there in the graveyard and then come back for him. Buck would of done it, only I misdoubt if he'd of thought of it.”

Anna turned away and sat down, fighting to keep control of herself. She wanted to ask one more question and didn't dare. She sat there, staring at her hands. Murray pulled a chair over close to her and sat down.

“That's what I wanted to talk about,” Murray said, hunching his chair closer. “Now that Buck's either dead or goin' to die, it makes it pretty easy for us.”

Anna looked up at him, speechless. There was a horror in her eyes that Murray Seth in his fatuousness did not even recognize. He even took hold of her hand.

“You been pretty stubborn, Anna, but I think it's about time you give in,” Murray said tolerantly. “I've asked Jeff, and he says it's all right with him. You and me could buy that Shields place when it comes up for auction in a couple days, and it would give us a right nice setup.”

Anna withdrew her hand and slapped Murray viciously across the face. He took it unsmilingly and didn't move off the chair, only stared at her. “The reason I think you'll do it,” he said carefully, “is because if you don't I aim to tell what I know about Blackie Mayfell's murder and your part in it.”

Something happened to Anna. She came off her chair fighting, clawing at Murray's face and kicking and sobbing wildly. Murray laughed, and gathered her in his big arms and tried to kiss her.

Suddenly Lynn's voice rapped out, “Let her go, Murray!”

Murray looked over in the direction of the kitchen. Lynn Mayfell, in a gray wrap held together by one hand, had a gun leveled at him, and there was murder in her eyes.

Murray took his hands off Anna, who was crying, and stepped back.

“If you think you can make that door before I can shoot, Murray, you better try it. I can't hit a man running as well as I can hit him standing still.”

She cocked the gun, and it wobbled as she stretched for the hammer. For once, Murray Seth thought fast. He lunged for the door, and Lynn shot. It was a wild shot, knocking a sliver of wood out of the floor behind Murray, but it sufficed. He slammed the door open, lunged down the stairs, tripped, and rolled the rest of the way. Hitting the boardwalk, he scrambled to his feet and ran for shelter.

Lynn let the gun sag and came over to Anna, who was still crying. Lynn took her in her arms.

“I've had enough, Lynn,” Anna whispered. “I'm going.”

“But you can't, child. There's no place to go.”

“I'm going to find Buck. I've
got
to!”

“But how?”

“I—I can track, Lynn. Look, won't Tip come to get Lucy there at the line and won't she go to Buck? Oh, I know I can find him, Lynn! I've got to!”

Lynn hugged her to her. “All right, Anna. It's better than waiting this way, not knowing how he is or where he is. You can try.”

She wanted desperately to ask Anna the meaning of the threat Murray Seth had made that he would disclose Anna's part in Blackie Mayfell's murder. But she couldn't now, she just couldn't.

She watched Anna change into her riding-clothes and walked down to the feed stable with her and watched her pick out a horse, certain that it was futile and wishing it weren't.

Anna came to the abandoned camp at the county line in midafternoon. The Shieldses' wagon was still there and so was the tarp, but the bedding was gone, which meant Lucy was gone. Out of all the tracks that scarred the camp site Anna knew she must pick those of Tip's horse, a horse she was not familiar with.

For a moment she pondered this problem amid the confusion of tracks. Logically, the tracks of Tip's horse would be the freshest, since he had ridden into camp to get Lucy. But how many hours ago was that, she wondered. Even an Indian would shrug at this impossible chore. Then it occurred to her that she knew the tracks of Lucy's horse and that Lucy would be riding with Tip. Accordingly, starting from the trampled-down spot where the rope corral had been, she picked up what looked to be the most recent tracks of Lucy's mount. Her first lead was a wrong one, for those tracks soon merged with those of a smaller horse which, of course, would be Pate's. Doubtless Lucy and Pate had gone out together to drag in wood.

Patiently she returned to the corral and tried again. This time the tracks of Lucy's horse took her over to where the bedrolls had lain. Then they took off into the timber and were soon joined by another set of tracks. These were of a big horse; they were not only large but were pressed deeply into the fresh earth. Time and again as she followed them they obliterated older tracks, and Anna felt a quiet exultation. These must be the tracks that Lucy's and Tip's horses made on their departure.

By that time it was close to dark. She ate part of the lunch she had brought with her, then crawled into the wagon, wrapped herself in the tarp, and went to sleep.

She was up at daylight, knowing she was facing a task that was almost insurmountable. Tip, to make sure that Bolling's men would not follow his tracks from the camp, was certain to use all the skill at his command to cover his tracks on the way back to Buck. Only one thing was in her favor; Tip would be in such a hurry to get back to Buck that he would be careless. But not very careless, Anna knew.

Two miles from camp, she lost Tip's tracks in a stretch of malpais, and that was only the beginning. By noon, she had found them again; they had come out by some brush not fifteen feet from where they went in. By nightfall, Anna had succeeded in tracking Tip a bare five miles from camp. She went to bed that night hungry, and with a wholesome respect for Tip Woodring's ability.

Next day, she was to meet worse. She got three miles behind her by late afternoon, and then the tracks disappeared in a stream. She was faint from hunger and weariness, and a feeling of despair settled on her as darkness fell. It would take her two weeks to find Buck this way, and she had neither the food nor the strength nor the ability to go on.

She built a fire and ate the last of her food, and then pondered what she was to do. She decided, after much thought, that she would build up a big fire, and shoot her gun. If Tip was within hearing-distance, he would come. If he wasn't, nothing was lost that wasn't lost already.

Dragging big logs onto her fire, she started firing her shots in groups of three, the universal frontier call for help. But at midnight, both her shells and her wood were used up, and nobody had come in answer. She took the piece of tarp she had cut for a blanket, rolled up in it, and cried herself to sleep.

Sometime in the night she was wakened by a hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see a man's head and Stetson framed against the sky.

“Anna?” It was Tip's voice.

“Oh, Tip. You came! How is Buck?”

“He's plenty sick, but he'll pull through the fever all right.”

“Take me to him, Tip. Quick!”

“You better rest.”

“I've had my rest.” She threw the tarp off her. “You wait here till I catch my pony.”

“He's caught and saddled,” Tip said, chuckling. “I figured you'd be in a hurry.”

They rode north again, and presently left the cedars for the timbered country and later came to the camp.

There was a small fire on the grass, and Lucy was kneeling over Buck. She turned to greet them and she was smiling, her face radiant. “The fever broke, Tip! He can talk to me!” She smiled at Anna, too.

Anna walked slowly to where Buck lay and looked down at him. Buck grinned weakly at her and tiredly raised a hand in salute.

Anna dropped to her knees beside him and took his hand. Tip touched Lucy on the shoulder and when she turned to look at him, beckoned her away.

Anna didn't speak for a long while, holding Buck's hand. Finally she said, “You look awful, Buck. Were you pretty sick?”

Buck grinned and whispered irrelevantly, “You're what I've been dreamin' about for four months these last three nights.”

Anna didn't say anything, and Buck went on in a whisper. “I kept wantin' to die and end this and you kept sayin' to me, ‘Don't do it, Buck. We've still got a chance.'”

With a soft cry Anna leaned over and kissed him and hugged his head to her breast. “Oh, Buck, nothing matters any more. I don't care what you've done or what you've been, just so I can be with you!”