Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (31 page)

“Anatoly Yanishev,” Belivev said promptly.

Danilov nodded. “A good choice, Nicolai. He is near, and the riders, have been once to his farm, so they will not come back.”

“All right,” Longarm said briskly. “Get those men here as fast as they can move. Tell 'em to bring their rifles and some shells. And pass along the word to the rest of your Brethren not to shoot if those damned cowhands hit their place, not even in the air. It's too dark to aim proper, and I don't want those night-riders spooked before we catch up to 'em.”

“We would not shoot at all if we did not feel that we must defend our crops,” Danilov sighed. “We had no choice but to fight back.”

Longarm nodded soberly. “I reckon you didn't. Seeing as how those cowhands started the shooting, your folks couldn't afford to fool around, and I don't blame 'em. But you get those two men on their way here. I aim to get things settled fast!”

In much less than an hour, Fedor Petrovsky and Anatoly Yanishev arrived. Fedor was on his mule, Anatoly on a swaybacked plow horse that he rode bareback. Both men had rifles. Longarm took them to one side and began explaining his plan, He was still going into the details of his strategy when shouts, growing progressively closer, told of the beginning of another night-rider raid.

Mordka came running up to the three men. “The night-riders are at Mischa Evrykenov's farm now! It is close, and if you want to catch them you can! But you must ride fast, before they go!”

“We're ready to ride,” Longarm assured him. “Come on, men. We've got a good chance to end this night-riding once and for all! Let's see how those bastards like it when they get jumped for a change!”

Hurrying to their horses, the four-man commando team mounted and rode off. Following Longarm's instructions, Fedor Petrovsky led the way; knowledge of the layout of the fields that made up each homesteader's 160-acre half-section of land was engraved in his trained tracker's mind. With Petrovsky, Longarm had paired Anatoly Yanishev; the two men, he'd found, were neighbors and close friends. In the narrow lanes that separated the wheatfields, there was just room for two horsemen to ride abreast between the Glidden wire fences.

As Danilov had told them, the distance to Mischa Evrykenov's farm was short. Ten minutes of hard riding brought them within earshot of the intermittent cracking reports of the raiders' pistols. Even from a distance, they could pinpoint the spot where the fence-cutters were at work by the muzzle flashes that now and again cut orange-yellow streaks across the moonless sky. Moments after they could see the flashes they were close enough to hear the wild shouts of the cowhands.

A fence-corner loomed ahead. In the field beyond it, the forms of men mounted on galloping horses showed as shadows; the night-riders were shuttling back and forth, the hooves of their mounts breaking and trampling the grain. With all the noise and confusion, Longarm couldn't tell who was shooting, but he hoped the homesteaders were heeding his instructions not to shoot and thus risk driving the raiders away. A pistol shot cracked from the field. In the instant of its flash, the high-crowned Stetson of a cowhand on a plunging horse shone in brilliant light and vanished as quickly as it had been revealed.

At the fence-corner, Petrovsky reined in long enough to let Longarm and Belivev get close enough to see his arm waving them up the lane on their left. Then he kicked his mule's flanks and the beast moved forward, following Anatoly Yanishev along the lane down which they'd been riding. Longarm and Belivev turned and rode until they reached the fenceposts that marked the corner of the field in which the night-riders were still galloping around. They pulled up, waiting for Petrovsky and Yanishev to ride around the field and come up the lane where they were waiting.

“Let's go!” Longarm called to Belivev, when he was sure they'd waited long enough for the other two
Bratiya
to get into position. “Remember now, keep your shots low. Hit their horses. Those cowhands are going to be in enough trouble—hell, maybe all of us will be in a stew—but we sure don't want murder charges to come out of this.”

“
Da. Ya panimayu
,” Belivev replied.

They turned their horses into the lane that intersected the one in which they'd been waiting. The noise in the wheatfield was tapering off now. The yells were diminishing and there'd been no pistol shots since those they'd heard earlier. They rode slowly, not to avoid noise, for the sound of their horses' hoofbeats would go unnoticed in the hullabaloo that was coming from the night-riders, but to give them an opportunity to spot the gap in the Glidden wire where it had been cut. Longarm saw the slack fence first, and reined in. Belivev pulled up his mount. The two brought their rifles up.

“All right!” Longarm cried out. “Let 'em have it!”

After the first shots fired by Longarm and Belivev, Petrovsky and Yanishev joined in the shooting. They followed Longarm's orders and aimed low. It was impossible to sight on a target in the darkness, with the night-riders in constant motion.

“Hell! We're being shot at!” a voice yelled from the wheatfield.

“Shoot back!” another voice responded.

Gunfire from the wheatfield joined the cracking rifle shots that Longarm and his companions were pouring into the field. A horse in the wheatfield whinnied wildly.

“My bronc's hit!” someone shouted.

“Let's get the hell outa here!” another voice followed the first.

“How? They got us cut off from where we cut the goddamn fence!”

“Cut it someplace else!”

“Cut it yourself, damn it! You're closer to it than I am!”

“Quit bitching and let's get the hell outa here! I just got a slug through my hat!”

In the wheatfield, the shadowy figures, almost invisible, moved to the far side and stopped at the fence. In the lane, Longarm's group maintained a steady patter of rifle fire. Another horse neighed shrilly, its scream of pain dying to a choked bubbling in mid-cry.

They got my goddamn horse!” a night-rider shouted.

“Get up here with me!” one of his companions called.

There was a quick burst of hoofbeats along the lane across from the one where Longarm and his men were attacking. The hooves thudded more crisply on the harder dirt of the lane as the night-riders left the field.

A muzzle flash erupted from the retreating riders. Longarm felt the impact of the rifle slug and saw the flash at the same time. A mighty fist hit him in the ribs and tossed him from his horse. Even as he started to fall, the first numbing shock of the slug's impact faded and a merciless hand rammed a red-hot poker through his side. He was conscious when he hit the ground, and the pain doubled in intensity, spreading up and down his left side in a bursting flood.

Distantly, he heard someone's voice shouting, “Is hit, the marshal!”

Then he knew nothing more.

Chapter 10

There was a soft hand on his forehead, a hand Longarm couldn't identify, and a woman-scent that was also strange to him. The light beating against his closed eyelids hurt his eyes. He thought of opening them, but the thought died quickly with the dread that the brighter light this would expose them to would hurt even more than the dim glow of which he was now aware. There was an aching in his back. To ease it, Longarm tried to move. The effort brought a stabbing pain to his left side. It ebbed and faded to a steady, throbbing ache again, and he realized by degrees that he'd been aware of that ache ever since he'd become conscious of the woman's hand, but had been trying to ignore it.

Close to him, and surprisingly loud, a man's voice spoke in Russian, with a rising inflection—a question—and a softer voice, a woman's voice, answered.

Curiosity conquered Longarm's reluctance to move or look. He opened his eyes, and blinked when a rush of tears filled them as the brighter light struck them. Through the fluid he saw two white, moving blurs, one close, the other some distance away. Another blink and the blurs began to resolve into faces. The distant face he recognized at once. It was Mordka Danilov. After a thoughtful moment of struggling with the puzzle, he gave the second face an identity: Tatiana, Mordka's young daughter.

“Ah, good!” Mordka exclaimed when he saw Longarm's eyes open. “It is about now the doctor told us you should again be conscious.”

Memory was re-forming quickly in Longarm's mind. The sensation was not a new one. He'd gone through the same experience before when bullets had hit him: the belated shock of impact and the pain of the slug tearing through his flesh; the moments of semiawareness as consciousness returned; the need to refocus eyes glued shut for a long time; and at last, the quick, flooding return to memory of all that had happened, not just during the moments before being wounded, but the entire lifetime of experiences and sensations recalled.

“How long was I out?” he asked.

Mordka shrugged. “Six, perhaps seven hours. Daylight was close by when Fedor and Nicolai and Anatoly carried you here to my house.”

Longarm frowned. “That's something I don't remember.”

“Is not strange. You have a bad wound, my friend. And a fall from your horse, too.”

Longarm looked around. The room he was in wasn't the Danilov house as he remembered it. Mordka anticipated his question.

“No, no. Is not the room where we ate supper, Marshal. Is my little girl's room. Tatiana, you remember?”

“Oh. Sure. I do. I guess that was her I heard saying something a minute ago.”

Tatiana came back into the room, and said something in Russian to her father. He nodded, and was about to reply when Longarm spoke.

“I guess I took over your room, didn't I, Miss Tatiana? Well, I'll try not to put you out too long. Soon as I can get up—”

“This will not be for a while,” Tatiana said. “But do not worry, is nothing at all.”

Mordka said, “She is right, Marshal. You will hear this from the doctor when he comes back, too.”

“You mean I've been doctored and didn't know about it?”

“Of course,” Danilov replied. “Fedor and the others put only a rough bandage on your side, after they were sure the night-riders—
proklinat kasaki
—had gone. It was then almost daylight. Now it is just beyond noon.”

Longarm tried to move again, but grunted and lay still when he found the pain too great. “How bad did I get hit?”

“He did not seem too worried, Doctor Franklin. He will be here soon, he will tell you better than I could. It is a clean wound, he said, and will soon heal.”

“How about the others? They all right?”

“None of them were hurt. And only a killed horse was suffered by the night-riders.”

“That was about how I figured it ought to be.” He nodded with satisfaction. The quick move of his head reminded him of his wound again, as his side throbbed with a sudden, darting pain. “I want to see that horse, as soon as I can get to my feet.” In spite of the warning he'd had when he'd tried to move earlier, Longarm started to get up.

“Eta nilza!”
Tatiana scolded. She stepped quickly to the bed and pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him back down. “To stay still is what the doctor says.”

“You been looking after me too, Miss Tatiana?” Longarm asked.

“
Da
. My mother and I have helped to see that you have comfort.”

“Having a pretty girl like you look after him makes a man not want to get well too quick,” he told her, grinning.

Tatiana's peaches-and-cream skin reddened in a blush. She said, “
Spasiba
. But it is my mother who do most for you.”

“Well, she's a mighty pretty lady too, you know.” Longarm saw Mordka's face twitch in a smile at the byplay. To him, Longarm said, “It was real good of your womenfolks to take me in. I bet I've been a lot of trouble.”

“Don't talk of being trouble, Marshal. You have done much for us. It is our fault you were shot.”

“No, Mordka. I was just in the way when a bullet with nobody's name on it came along. Dark as it was, nobody could take any aim. We were shooting blind, and so were the night-riders.” He frowned. “But I still want to see that horse. I'm curious to know whose brand it had on it.”

“Fedor thought of that,” Danilov said. “It was not Hawkins's brand, but a smaller ranch, not even close to him. The Lazy Y, Fedor said it was.”

“Just the same, I'd give a lot to know if all the other horses that bunch was riding had the same brand.”

Marya Danilov came in. She saw Longarm and her husband talking, came to the side of the bed, and looked down at Longarm.

She asked, “With you it is better feeling now?”

“It sure is. And I don't aim to impose on you, Mrs. Danilov. I'll be out of your way in a day or so.”

“Do not nonsense talk. I know how you come to help us quick when Mordka is ask you.
Prisnatelniey
, Marshal Long. We are grateful. It is much we owe you,” Marya replied. “Now you must eat. Soup I make,
pokhlyobka
, with the good mushrooms and vegetables, to keep clean the blood. Tatiana, you get, help Marshal Long to eat. Mordka, come now, we eat in other room like always.”

“If your soup's as good as the supper you fixed the other night, I know I'll like it,” Longarm told her as she and Mordka left. Privately, he thought he'd just about as soon have a big piece of beefsteak, but he was beginning to feel so empty that even soup would taste pretty good.

Tatiana brought the soup, steaming in a deep bowl, and a plate holding thin slices of crusty bread, sliced from a round loaf and spread with sweet butter. She pulled a chair up to the side of the bed.

“
Teper kushaitye
, Marshal. You must eat good now, to get well,” she said. “So I feed you soup and good bread.”

“Now, that ain't necessary, Miss Tatiana. I can do for myself,” Longarm protested.

“
Nikovag
, Marshal Long. Is to help you I am here,” Tatiana said severely.

Longarm tried to sit up, to prove that he could eat without assistance, but the first movement he made sent pains dancing along his wounded side. He sank back on the bed.

“You see? You will tear open your wound if you do not lie quietly,” she told him. “Now, so, I fix pillow to raise head, then you eat while I hold bowl and spoon.
Da?
”

“
Da
” Longarm grinned weakly. “Guess I better let you help me.”

Tatiana plumped up the pillow to raise Longarm's head, and began to feed him the soup. She tore off bits of bread and dropped them in the thick, vegetable-rich broth to soften. Longarm found that he was ravenous. Each bite seemed to increase his hunger until the bowl was almost empty, then his stomach suddenly felt full and satisfaction spread through his body in a warm glow.

By that time, he was enjoying being pampered. Tatiana's soft hand was warm on the nape of his neck, as she helped him hold his head erect. The woman-scent that he'd been aware of so vaguely when he was just regaining consciousness was closer now, a mingling of the sweetness of field flowers and fresh summer rain that somehow seemed to increase the flavor of the soup and yeasty bread.

“More?” she asked him when the bowl was empty. “Is plenty in pot on stove, if you want.”

“No thanks, Miss Tatiana. I had all I can hold.”

“Is good. Now I bring cloth and wash face clean.”

In spite of Longarm's protests, Tatiana washed his face, the soft cloth of the wet washrag snagging on his stubble. She'd started to wipe his hands with the cloth when a murmur of voices came from the front room. A short, roly-poly man with a Vandyke beard and a full, drooping mustache came in. Longarm looked at the black bag he carried and realized he must be the doctor.

“How do you feel now, Marshal Long?”

“Pretty good, I guess. A mite sore. I guess you know me a little bit better than I know you. I saw your sign there, in Junction, but damned if I can remember your name.”

“Franklin. And with commendable patriotism but doubtful judgment, my parents named me Benjamin.” Putting his bag on the floor beside the bed, the doctor said to Tatiana, “Why don't you go join your folks at dinner, Miss Tatiana? I'll see to the marshal.”

“
Da
. Excuse, please. I do not want to be in way.”

After Tatiana left, Dr. Franklin said, “How're your bowels? Can't let your system get clogged up, you know.”

“Now, Doc, that's a hell of a question to ask a man who ain't been awake more'n a half-hour.”

“You had a movement last night—this morning, rather—before I got here, Mrs. Danilov told me.”

“Well, she'd know better than I would. But my guts ain't been rumbling, if that's what you mean. Or griping either.”

“Good.”

Dr. Franklin pulled back the light blanket covering Longarm and prodded at his abdomen. “That hurt?”

“It don't hurt where you're poking at me, but those pokes sure don't make me feel good where that slug took me.”

I'm not surprised.” The doctor took a thermometer from his vest pocket, wiped it on his handkerchief, and slid it under Longarm's tongue. “You're a lucky man, Marshal Long. First, because it was a high-velocity rifle bullet instead of a slug from a pistol, or pellets out of a shotgun. They'd have torn you up. As it is, you've got nothing but a nice, clean hole through the fleshy part of your side. Here.” Dr. Franklin indicated the spot on his own body.

Longarm wanted to tell him that he knew damn well where the slug had hit, but the thermometer kept him tongue-tied.

“If I'd picked out a place for a body wound, I couldn't have done better,” Franklin went on, leaning over the bed to inspect the area around the bandage. “No inflammation, that's a good sign. Yes, you're lucky. An inch higher, the bullet would have hit your ribs and probably been deflected down through your intestines. An inch or so lower, it'd have shattered your hip and more than likely crippled you for life. An inch to the right, and your stomach and kidney would've been ripped up.”

Sure
, Longarm thought.
An inch to the left, and the damn slug would've missed me entirely.

“So, as I said, you're not in bad condition at all,” the doctor said, taking out the thermometer and peering at it through his gold-rimmed spectacles. “And you don't have any fever, so I'd say you're in excellent condition.”

“Damned if you don't make it sound like I got a blessing instead of a bullet hole,” Longarm told him tartly. “It ain't the first slug that's hit me, you know.”

“Yes,” Franklin replied dryly. “I saw your scars when I examined you.”

“This one sure doesn't pleasure me much, though,” Longarm continued. “How long's it going to keep me all tied down?”

“Three or four weeks, and it'll be healed completely.” Franklin raised a hand to stop the protest he saw in Longarm's eyes. “Now just a minute. Right now you're still sore from the shock. The impact of a rifle bullet's greater than a blow from a sledgehammer, damned close to that of a locomotive. You can move around as soon as you stop feeling sore. That should be inside of three or four days. But don't get into any brawls, or gallop a horse, for another week or two after that.”

“Now that's more like it.” Longarm smiled. The pain was still present in his side, but his mind felt easier.

“Well.” Dr. Franklin picked up his bag. “I'll look in on you tomorrow or the next day. If you feel any unusual pain, or if your bowels get locked, you'd better send for me. But I'd say you'll be well a lot quicker than most men. You're a very healthy specimen.”

A few minutes after Dr. Franklin had left, Mordka Danilov came in. “The doctor says you are doing well,” were his first words. “He told us you must rest, though, and he made us promise to see that you do.”

“Now, Mordka, you know I've got no time to rest. There's too many things I still need to find out!”

“They will wait.”

“No, damn it, they won't! What you said about that dead horse the night-riders left behind 'em—that's started me thinking. I want to ride out to that Lazy Y ranch and see whose horse it was. Then when I find out who was forking it last night, I'll get him off to one side and won't let up till he tells me who-all was with him.”

“Can you be sure that Sheriff Grover would arrest them, even if you gave him their names?” Danilov asked.

“No. Not by any means. But if he won't, I can take 'em in myself. I'll admit I ain't figured out on what grounds, but it wouldn't be the first time I've seen the fetter of the law stretched to cover special cases.”

“I do not believe there will be any more night-riders,” Danilov said, his voice thoughtful. “And even if there are, we of the Brethren will make plans to take care of our own fields. Our eyes were opened by what happened last night. Before, there has been only one man or two who cut our fences and let his horse trample our wheat. But last night was like the bad days in Russia, and we learned how to protect ourselves then. We can do the same now.”