“With all due respect, ma’am, you walk back to your house now, and you just stay there. These are rough times. If I see Kilrone I will tell him you’re wishful to see him.”
“That won’t do. I want to see him before he goes to Hog Town.”
Lahey came up, mounted and leading a spare horse. “McCracken’s comin’,” he said; “so are Ryan an’ Reinhardt. There’ll be more, too, when word gets around.”
“Now, ma’am, I—”
“Don’t say it, Mr. Teale. You’re all going, I can see that. Well, I am going, too.” She turned to Lahey. “Mr. Lahey, I will take that horse.”
“I am sorry, ma’am. You can’t have it. No lady goes to Hog Town…least of all, you.”
“I demand that you give me that horse!”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Lahey was firm. “I’ll not do it.”
“Well, then, you can tell me this: Has Mr. Kilrone gone there?”
“No, ma’am. Not that we know of.”
“But you think he might?”
“Ma’am, I know he will, if he’s in shape to fight. He’s got him a good one comin’, with Iron Dave.”
“He’ll be killed.”
“Him? Don’t you bet on it, ma’am. He’s all man, that one. I seen the way he treated Sproul. Like dirt, ma’am. First man I ever did see who worried Sproul. Worried him—yes, ma’am, he did.”
“You’ll not get me a horse, then?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Any other time.”
Abruptly, she turned and walked quickly away.
Teale grinned. “Look at her go. She’s mad all through.”
“She’d have stopped the fight,” Lahey said.
“Maybe, but I think she’d have watched it. That there’s a game woman, you take it from me.” He looked after her. “Lahey, we got to watch out for her. I’ll lay you three to one she gets over there.”
“You think I’m a fool, to take a bet like that? I’ll lay you five to one she does, although I’ve got no idea how.”
Suddenly Mary Tall Singer was walking beside Betty. “You want to go, I go with you,” she said.
“I can’t let you, Mary. There are bad men over there.”
The Indian girl looked at her, her black eyes ironic. “You think maybe? I go…I have buckboard.”
B
ARNEY KILRONE ARRIVED in the vicinity of Hog Town just after daylight, but he did not go near the post or the town. He was dead-tired and he had a job to do. Finding a hidden dell near the river, he picketed the gray horse on some good grass, then bathed in the river. When the sun had dried him off he dressed, and then carefully checked out his gun. He had no proper cleaning materials, but he could wipe the gun free of dust and burned powder. He tore off a piece of his shirt and ran it through the barrel with a small twig; then he reloaded the gun, wiping off each cartridge before loading.
When his gun was ready he led his horse to water, picketed it on fresh grass, and in the shade of a tree he lay down.
The outburst of gunfire from the post awakened him. He listened, gathering from the firing about what was happening. Then he went back to sleep. It was not likely that any Indians would come near Hog Town, and equally unlikely that the denizens of Hog Town would be out attracting attention to themselves. The gray horse was as good a sentinel as one could want.
Kilrone slept through the morning and into the afternoon and woke up hungry, which was what he had expected. He gave the gray horse another drink and had one himself. He had a bit of jerked beef in his saddlebags and he chewed on that. He wanted an empty stomach when he met Iron Dave. A man’s wind is better with an empty stomach and he takes a punch better; and unless he had vastly overrated Iron Dave, he knew that he was going to take some brutal punches from Sproul.
He knew what he had to do. He had to break Sproul once and for all. He had to whip him, and whip him thoroughly, to remove the fear that many felt for him. Once Sproul had been whipped, he could never again command the same authority, for it was upon his physical strength and iron-hard fists that he based his control.
“You’re a damn’ fool,” he told himself. “Who ever told you you could whip him?”
He did not know whether he could or not; he only knew that he had to try, and that he would never be satisfied until he had.
He saddled the gray, chewed on the jerky, and considered the situation before him.
He had to get into town and he had to find Sproul. He had to challenge him in such a way that he dared use no help, for Kilrone himself would have none. He had purposely avoided the post, knowing that there were some there who might wish to come with him, but he preferred not to involve anyone else.
He considered his own condition. He had not boxed in a long time, but he was in good shape. Sproul had come off the New York streets, had known street-fighting days in politics—he would know all the tricks of dirty fighting. As for himself, he had served his time at that sort of fighting, too, in the years of his knocking about.
There was no shooting from the direction of the post. Everything seemed to have quieted down there. Several times he went to the edge of the trees and looked out, but he saw no Indians anywhere.
Finally, when it was almost sundown, he heard a sound of activity from the post—some hammering, the crash of something falling. Evidently they had already started demolishing some of the half-burned structures in preparation for rebuilding.
He mounted his horse then and started toward Hog Town. At the outskirts of the tiny settlement he waited, studying the layout again, and then rode in, keeping himself out of view from all but a couple of windows. He came into the town’s street, a street no more than a hundred and fifty yards long.
Behind him he heard movement and turned in his saddle. Teale was there, and with him McCracken, Lahey, Reinhardt, and half a dozen men he did not know.
“You boys looking for something?” Kilrone said.
Teale grinned at him. “Now, you didn’t expect us to miss the best fight in years, did you? We figured to see the show and sort of pick a few fights ourselves if anybody elected to interfere.”
“Thanks,” Kilrone said. “Let’s go inside.”
His mouth was dry as he went up the steps and pushed through the door.
The big room was almost empty. The bartender stood behind the bar, and there were a few other men around, one of them with a bandage on his head. More than likely it was a memento of the night they came after the wagon. Iron Dave Sproul himself stood at the end of the bar, a big man in shirt sleeves and wearing a vest, with a massive chain of gold nuggets draped across the front. The vest was plaid, the shirt white, his trousers black and somewhat baggy-looking, as was the fashion.
Sproul took the cigar from his mouth and dusted the ash from it, then spat into the brass cuspidor. He threw a hard look at the soldiers who slowly moved around the room.
“Poole didn’t make it, Dave,” Kilrone said. “He was too good a man to work for you.”
“I don’t know anything about him.”
“No? He told a different story.”
Anger was rising in Sproul. This man had thwarted him, wrecked his plans. The destruction of the army post and its cavalry had failed. No telling where Medicine Dog was…if he was even alive. In any event, the moment was past. He would never be able to pull it off again…not here, at least.
“What do you want?” he said finally.
Kilrone was suddenly amused, and eager. It was coming up in him now, the old driving urge to destroy. He had built up a long antagonism for this man, and there was a time to end it…now.
“I came to whip you, Dave. I’ve heard about all that iron. Is it really there? Or are you a fraud?”
Sproul put down his cigar, placing it carefully on the edge of the counter. “Don’t move that,” he said to the bartender. “I’ll want to finish it in a moment.”
Kilrone unbelted his gun and handed it to McCracken, who was nearest to him. Sproul placed his on the bar and turned casually as if to face Kilrone, and then struck out viciously.
Kilrone, starting to turn, caught the blow on the corner of the jaw and it slammed him to the floor. He hit hard and skidded, his head bursting with lights. He heard the pound of boots as Sproul came at him and he rolled over, braced himself when he saw the man was too near, and dove at his knees.
Sproul side-stepped and laughed, kicking at Kilrone’s head. The boot just scraped his skull, and then Kilrone lunged at the leg that was still on the floor. Sproul staggered, but caught his balance. Kilrone came up fast, went under a left hand, and hooked both fists into the mid-section. He smashed the second punch home with his left and then threw a high overhand right that caught Sproul on the cheekbone and staggered him, drawing blood.
They circled warily, Kilrone’s head still buzzing from the first punch, a blow that by all rights should have finished him off. The iron was there, all right, in Dave Sproul’s fists. He had never doubted that it was, knowing so much about the man, and had used the term only to taunt him.
Kilrone was being careful. He wanted desperately to win, to whip Sproul decisively, to beat him at his own game of knuckle and skull, but he dared take no chances. He not only had to guard himself against Sproul’s attack, but against his own eagerness. His tendency was to wade in throwing punches, but a man would be a fool to trade punches with Sproul.
Sproul feinted and Kilrone started to step in. Sproul threw his punch and Kilrone dropped under the blow, and whipped a wicked punch to the mid-section. Sproul grunted, then came on. He struck Kilrone in the chest, staggered him, and then clubbed him brutally in the ribs and kidneys.
Kilrone crowded in, trying to trip the bigger man, but Sproul was used to that and braced his powerful legs. Kilrone found himself flung off balance and staggering against the bar. Sproul’s eyes were gleaming with blood lust now. He came in, smashing a blow to Kilrone’s ear that made his head ring; then he put a hook into his mid-section that almost lifted his feet from the floor.
Kilrone felt himself falling; but Sproul, suddenly sure of victory, caught Kilrone’s shirt front in his left hand and shoved him back against the bar, drawing his right back for a finishing blow. Kilrone threw his right arm over Sproul’s left and grasped the top of his vest, jerking him forward, and at the same instant Kilrone dropped his head and butted Sproul in the face with the top of his skull.
Sproul staggered back, his lips smashed and his nose streaming blood. With an inarticulate curse, he rushed, swinging with both big fists. There was no chance to side-step, no chance to evade. Kilrone lunged to meet Sproul and, dropping his head against the bigger man’s chest, he began battering at his body with both fists. Sproul pushed him away, smashed a left to Kilrone’s head and then a right, and as Kilrone tried to get inside the next punch, Sproul half turned and kicked him in the ribs.
A knife of pain stabbed at Kilrone’s side and he gasped, his legs suddenly weak, and started to fall. Sproul kicked again at Kilrone’s head; but in falling, Kilrone took the kick on the shoulder. He hit the floor on his hands and knees and scrambled forward, trying to grab Sproul’s legs, but the big man skipped easily out of the way, amazingly light on his feet. Then stepping in, Sproul swung his boot and kicked Kilrone in the side.
Kilrone tried to pull away and he missed the full force of the blow; he staggered up, caught a smashing right on the chin, but his own weakness saved him and he was falling away from the punch into a table. With his last strength, he swung the table into Sproul’s path and stopped the big man long enough to get his feet braced under him.
Kilrone shook his head, half blind with pain and fury, and as Sproul closed in for the kill, he leaped forward, stepping in fast and stopping the rush with a straight left to the mouth. He missed with a right, but curled his arm around Sproul’s head and, catching hold of his left arm, threw Sproul over his hip to the floor.
The big man hit heavily, but came up fast. Kilrone hit him on the chin with a right before he could straighten up, and Sproul went to his knees, diving forward to grab Kilrone’s legs. But Kilrone drove up with his knee, which caught Iron Dave in the face, smashing his nose into a bloody pulp.
Sproul came up and they stood toe to toe then, trading punches. Kilrone was a little faster, landing just often enough to take some of the drive from the punches he was catching. Every time he drew a breath he felt a stabbing pain in his side, and he knew he had at least one broken rib—probably more.
Sproul, shrewd enough to know Kilrone had been hurt, swung a hard right at his injured side, but Kilrone caught the blow on his forearm, then drove his fist into Sproul’s mouth. By this time Sproul’s lips were shredded and bloody, his nose was bleeding, and he had a welt over one eye, but he had hardly slowed down and was still coming in.
Backing away, trying to get his wind, Kilrone sidestepped. Sproul caught up a chair in one hand and swung it at arm’s length in a sweeping blow that barely missed, shattering against a pillar. He closed in, landed a left to Kilrone’s face, then a right. He was still cool, still confident. The big man had learned his fighting in many a bloody brawl such as this. He swung and missed, and for an instant was bent far over, and Kilrone clubbed him with a hammer blow to the kidney.
Sproul grunted and almost went to his knees. He started to come up, and Kilrone moved and hit him again in the same spot. He rolled to one side, flinging out a hand. His fingers grasped at Kilrone’s shirt and it ripped in his hand. He struck with a left and Kilrone crossed his right over it, splitting the skin over Sproul’s eye.