The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

frowned. "There is—or was. Lee was pokin' around the east trees a little while ago and found where a fellow had beaten down the grass and brush. Apparently watchin' the house. Considerin' yore helpless I wasn't going to say anything about it."

      Denver thought about this for a period. "Redmain may be nearby. Only one way to be sure. You start out in the morning as if to round up the stock. Beat the country pretty well. Better yet—send out some men tonight with cold grub. Put 'em where they'll cover the trails. Same system we tried before. It worked then, and it'll work now."

      "That all?"

      "Ahuh. Get out of here. Oscar's losin' his patience. Can't you see him fiddlin' around?" But Bonnet had hardly departed when Doc Williamson arrived. He cast a professional glance at Denver. "Suppose you've been threshin' around the bed and cussin' everybody. Your kind always does."

      "If I ever get out of here I'll never look at that ceilin' again. Going to paint it full of faces, so I can talk to 'em. Put your face in the middle and give you the devil. Meet Oscar."

      "Crazy as a loon," remarked Doc Williamson and threw back the covers. "Now if this don't hurt, tell me. Otherwise keep still."

      "It's a good thing you've got Pete Atkins to take care of up here, too," reflected Denver, "or I don't know how you'd manage to keep up the story of me bein' dead. Yeah, that's my foot, all right. No doubt about it."

      "Think you're wise?" countered Williamson. "Givin' grief to a lot of good people—and some in particular?"

      "I reckon I'll pay for it later. It's a hard game, Doc, but I've got to play it out."

      "Somebody's got to play it out," agreed the Doc, "or this county will be worse than when the Indians skulked through it. Now, I'm going to get a little rough."

      "What do you call what you been doin' so far?" Denver wanted to know. He closed his eyes while Williamson lifted one foot and another, turning the ankles, bending the knees, all the while his sharp eyes probing Denver's face for pain. In ten minutes or so he had worked up as far as the splinted arm; taking off the bandages he continued his search, fingers gently insistent. Then he was done; and he leaned back, eyes lighting. "Well, after bouncing off every rock in Tom's Hole I still can't find any bones busted. What'd you want a doctor for? Legs are sound, ribs seem satisfactory, that arm's got a few pulled tendons, but nothing more."

      Denver considered he did very well in suppressing his wild emotion of pleasure. "How about my head?"

      "You got a gash in it big enough to drive a span of mules through, right over the left ear. I washed so much grit out of it the other day I thought I was prospectin'. What difference does it make? Nobody in Yellow Hill uses a head often enough to count, anyhow."

      "So I can get up, uh?"

      "Who said so?" grunted Doc, juggling some vile-looking pills into a glass of water.

      "Well, if I'm not hurt—"

      Williamson clucked his tongue in disgust. "Listen, Dave, if you were a horse I'd shoot you for bein' absolutely no good for further service. But since you're a Denver—the blackest and toughest breed of mortal fools I ever knew—I'll say you stick on your back for a week. Then you can do what you please. You will anyhow, so I might as well say it. Drink this, and don't bellyache."

      Denver obeyed, shuddering as he waved the empty glass away. "You'll make me sick yet. But, listen, you cut that week down to about three-four days, Doc. As a personal favor to me."

      "I'm not God," said Williamson, closing his bag. "But I'll drop around tomorrow and see if some packs and some massagin' won't work a little of the bruise out of you. Now, get some sleep."

      "Sleep—I'm so full of sleep I'd float," grumbled Denver fretfully. "Go on away and leave me alone."

      Williamson paused in the doorway. "Well," he mused, "I'm glad it wasn't worse." That was his only display of sentiment, his only admission of the deep concern he had felt for a man he loved. Closing the door quietly, he went out to treat Pete Atkins, who had taken a bullet through his leg in the fight.

      Denver stared at the ceiling, calculating his condition. A week was a long time to be helpless while Lou Redmain raced through the hills. If the renegade would just play 'possum for a while, it would be all right. But the thought was not worth entertaining. He knew Redmain. The man was a furnace of tempers. He had tasted blood, and like all killers, low or high, he would be lusting for more. Redmain had boasted on that night in the Wells—it seemed months back—that the sky was his limit. He wouldn't know enough to stop, and there was no audacious scheme he would turn away from.

      The fly, or one of its innumerable cousins, made a graceful loop through the air and came to rest on Denver's nose. Denver blew him away abstractedly. Then he lifted his sound right arm and considered it. He had the means of defense left him. Or attack either. One arm was better than no arm. And the right arm was a little better than the left one, though he had been trained from childhood to shoot with either. He waved it across from one side to another, feeling the stiff and aching resistance of his chest muscles. Changing tactics, he operated the member up and down—and woke more muscles to discomfort. There seemed to be no single square inch of his body free from hurt.

      "Must of lit on all four sides at once," he gloomed. "I recall Dann pluggin' my horse. I recall goin' down that slope like somebody that'd been sent for in a hurry. I bounced. Yeah, I sure did bounce. Anyhow, I faded to the sound of music and shootin'. I bet Dann would have stood on top of the ridge and made a target out of me all day long if the boys hadn't heard the ruction from the trees and come along. I must have been within hailin' distance of them that morning when I went into Tom's Hole. There's another item Redmain had figured down to the seventh decimal. He had it doped we'd come struggling out of the brush and take the shortest road home. And so he planted himself. No, by George, a week is too long. He'll be started on a campaign of ruin before I'm up."

      The renegade had uncanny perceptions of attack and defense. Denver was candid enough to admit his own mind didn't move as fast as Redmain's. Redmain was like a sharp sword, flashing in and out while he, Dave Denver, was as slow moving as a bludgeon. He didn't have the dash, the flair; he could only do as he always had done: beat doggedly ahead, take punishment, and keep going for the knockout blow. There was that difference between them; and the fight would be so waged. Until one of them got in the killing blow. No other end than that. A kill.

      The fly made another landing. Denver looked cross-eyed at the insect. "Oscar, I'm gettin' disgusted at you. Go play with your own friends." And he made a swipe at his nose that flexed all the mass of jangling ligaments in his body. He relaxed groaning.

      Patience was not one of his virtues, and when Lyle Bonnet brought in supper he was morose and irritable. "Roll me about five hundred cigarettes, Lyle, and pile 'em on the table. I've tried to do it one-handed and wasted three sacks of heifer dust."

      "Want me to spoon this nutriment into yuh?"

      "No," rasped Denver, "I'll spill my own soup on my own chin."

      Bonnet chuckled. "What big teeth yuh got, Grammaw. Well, I'll go eat and set half the crew to rollin' the aforesaid cigareets. There just ain't nothin' we ain't bright enough to do in this outfit."

      "Go 'way and let me think."

      Bonnet caught that one neatly. He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Well, that'll be something different, anyhow." Grinning broadly, he departed.

      When, an hour later, he returned, Denver lay silent on the bed. So Bonnet put the cigarettes in a row, laid out a bunch of matches, turned down the lamp, and tiptoed away with the dishes. Denver, who only had his eyes closed, heard all this; and through his morose discontent he felt a warm glow of affection. Bonnet was as tough and devil-may-care as they made them; but he was a man. In the middle of the night when he drowsed he faintly heard the latch click and somebody come in for a moment.

      Next morning he was cheerful for a little while. Bonnet arrived to say he had sent out four of the outfit to settle down in convenient locations; he was taking all the rest on the ranch but five, to go out on the fake roundup.

      "Why