The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

my half or I'll write my mark in yore fat skin, Fluger!"

      "Go join Hazel's gang," was the hot retort. "It's yore style."

      A cool, unexpected interjection emerged from another angle of the street. "Better handle that easy, partner. The walls have ears, an' yore apt to lose yores."

      Gillette's muscles tightened at the sound of the voice. He moved backward, face turned toward the voice. A moment later he was on the other side of the street and in the deeper shadows. By and by he made out Hazel. Hazel moved across a lane of light. Gillette drew a deeper breath.

      "The man keeps his promises. Has he got the camp wound around his finger?"

      He travelled on, keeping abreast of Hazel and at intervals catching a sight of the renegade. Then the man dropped completely out of view. The restaurant was abreast Gillette, and he saw the place was dark. Lorena would be about ready to go; he took to the alleys once more, reached the stable, and got his horse. He rode through a path of light and arrived at the trail. Fifty yards farther up he turned in time to see a lantern rise and dip; horses drummed behind him. Out of a growing caution he drew off the trail and rested silent while they swept past and galloped on until the echo of their progress no longer rolled back through the pines. After this he travelled more discreetly, stopped to mark some stray movement near by, and went on again. The night wind rustled through the boughs of the pines, the moon was shrouded, the notes of a banjo carried across the air. He halted, judging it time to wait for the girl.

      But he remained still only a moment. Uneasiness gripped him so strongly that he turned and started toward town. The air was tainted to-night, there was too much traffic on the road and too many noises in the brush. No woman was safe here. The thought of the girl breasting the darkness alone, as well as living in that bleak hut alone, only added to the uneasiness. She was brave. But that wasn't enough. She judged men too leniently. In this melting pot there were always a certain number of human wolves watching.

      "It won't do," he murmured. "I can't let her go on. Reckon I'll have to find some better words or some stronger words."

      The wind seemed to rise and shake the scattered bushes. Shapes sprang from nothing to confront him, and a familiar voice spat through the darkness, metallic and deadly. "Let him have it!"

      It was then too late—too late for him to escape. And, like the unrolling of a panoramic picture, he saw a great many scenes out of his past; foremost was San Saba's evil face studying him across the tip of trail fire. That was San Saba's voice over there. He knew it as he knew no other. Even while his hand dropped and the whole hillside roared to the enfilading bullet he filled his lungs and shouted:

      "San Saba, you dog, I've come to get you!"

      Smoke belched in his face, the crack of the guns was in his ears. San Saba spoke back, but he couldn't hear then what the man said. He was firing—that he knew. How many times he didn't know, never found out. For this was to Gillette one of those blind passages in life when all things merge to a shape or a sound or a single vivid impression. He thought something fell on his head; the sap flowed out of him, and the weight of his gun became too great to manage. The saddle horn grazed his cheek, he was lying flat, both arms around the pony's neck, tasting his own blood. How had he got into such a shape as this? He should be sitting up. And still they fired. San Saba was speaking more clearly.

      "Not me, yo' don't get. I'm puttin' a curse on yo' soul, Gillette. May yo' burn in hell a thousan' years. Empty those guns—empty 'em! He ain't dead yet. I want him dead! Make him fall, knock him outen that saddle! That's the last Gillette yo' trying to kill!"

      He heard all this, though it sounded remote and unreal. There was a trickle of strength in him yet, but life ebbed swiftly, and his strongest desire was to get away—to defeat San Saba's vicious desire to see him stretched dead. All his will went into one arm. The horse moved downhill; he held on, the horn jarring on his temple and his feet losing the stirrups. Confusion behind and more firing. They would never quit, it seemed. Somebody yelled, Deadwood's lights were below him. He sank his teeth into his tongue to stay the advancing paralysis, he talked to himself but heard nothing of the words. One by one the wires went down and cut him off from life. He fell to the ground, rolled over and over, and brought up against a stump.

      He wasn't dead yet, he wasn't out yet. This he thought with a dim pride. Of course the Gillettes were tough. They died hard. Now, where had he been hit? Maybe he could stop the blood and hold on a minute longer. Astonishing how a man clung to life. He sent an order down to his arms, but they wouldn't obey, and he knew that for him the fight was over. More he couldn't do. The gang was beating around the brush, and there was somebody still nearer calling his name in a thin and frightened voice.

      "Tom—where are you?"

      Lorena. Out of all this blackness she came. He framed her name in his throat with a painful care. One more effort—that was all, just one more effort.

      "Where are you—where are you?"

      The energy to speak that name was gone. And then in dead despair be gave up. She was forever lost to him. She was alone and he would never be able to help her. How a man missed the sun once it was gone. Nothing but blackness down this new trail, nothing but blackness...

      Lorena left the restaurant a moment after Tom Gillette started away from the town. She knew he was somewhere along the trail, and thus, when the burst of shots rocketed down the slope, she instantly understood what was happening up there in the shadows. She heard San Saba's voice lashing into the night, she heard him call the Gillette name. At that she dropped her basket and broke into a run. A horse galloped toward her, more shots woke the echoes; she sprang out of the trail to let the horse go by, and she heard Gillette fall to the ground directly to the rear. She wasn't exactly sure that it was Gillette lying there until the renegades started in pursuit. Then she ran back and began to call, muffling her voice.

      There was no answer. She marked the spot in her mind and weaved back and forth in a narrowing circle repeating his name over and over again, while the very weight of the night smothered her and her heart pounded unbearably. She found him; found him all in a huddle on the ground just as the beams of a lantern shot along the trail. The renegades were at a halt, parleying among themselves.

      "Go on—go on, Hazel. His hoss is halfway to town by how."

      "Yeah, but he fell offen the brute. We got him clean. He's back there, rolled in the brush."

      "I brought this lantern so's I'd look in his face and see him dead," droned San Saba. "Now, we're goin' to find the man and plant the last bullet in his neck."

      "Judas, but I never saw a fella as wanted another man so bad as you. Well, let's beat around, then."

      "Hustle it. Might be a posse collectin'."

      Hazel's laugh exploded and echoed up to the tree-tops. "Nobody's goin' to be in any hurry to investigate a burst of shots. Not when they know Hazel's night-hawkin'."

      All this came to the girl on successive waves of sound, rising and falling, sometimes plain, sometimes only a murmur. She was on her knees, her hands running across Gillette's body, touching his heart, passing over his face. And still again she repeated his name while the lantern dipped in and out of the trees, its outflung beams striking a little nearer at each swing. They would find her in a little while. In despair she caught his shoulders and shook him. The warm blood trickled across her palm, and it took all the courage she owned to suppress the cry that caught in her throat. His horse had stopped the moment the saddle emptied and now waited on the trail; if she could only get him into the saddle once more...

      He was too heavy to lift. Hazel's gang swept down the incline at a faster pace, the rays of the lantern touched the ground a scant ten yards off.

      "He ain't far away, bet yore hat. Shucks, man, what's the itch? I know we got him."

      "I'll look in his dam' face befo' I believe it," droned San Saba. "I got to see him dead with my own eyes. Wait a bit."

      The lantern bobbed; they smashed through the brush, back- tracking. Lorena's hand dropped to Gillette's heart. He still lived, and that was all.

      "Oh,