Clifford Simak - Dusty Zebra - And Other Stories

The lawman staggered in midstride and stumbled. His gun dropped from his hands and his face suddenly was red with blood that spouted from his nose. Burns danced out of his way, brought up with a jolt against a pile of cases stacked against the wall.

Egan skidded to his knees, sprawled upon the floor.

The room crashed again with spitting thunder and a bullet crunched into a case scant inches from Burns’ head. Quickly Burns ducked, knees bending beneath him, dropping his body to a crouching position.

Through the gunsmoke that filled the place, Burns saw Carson standing to one side of the doorway. A crooked smile was on his lips and his gun was leveling for another shot.

Swiftly Burns angled his own sixgun around, thumbed the hammer. The shot was wild, but it spoiled the saloon man’s aim. Carson’s bullet plowed a furrow along the floor, hurling shining splinters in the murky light.

Another gun crashed and the half open door beside which Carson was standing jumped on its hinges at the impact of the bullet.

Carson jerked back, moving swiftly, dived for the safety of an empty case standing on the floor.

Steve spun on his heels, leaping for the back door. He saw Ann standing in the doorway, gun in hand, smoke still drooling from its muzzle. The man who had stood beside her, the one with the look of blank astonishment on his face, was huddled on the floor.

“Quick!” Burns yelled at her. “Outside!”

She hesitated for a second, staring at him.

With a single bound, he was at the door and reaching out for her. Lifting her, he swung her into the darkness, set her roughly on her feet. From behind them a sixgun snarled.

“Run!” gasped Burns. “The livery stable. Two horses. I’ll hold them off.”

She clung to him. “I hit him,” she said. “He was just standing there and I grabbed the gun out of his holster and hit him on the head.”

Burns shoved her away. “The barn,” he shouted at her. “Get us horses!”

The girl was running and Steve loped after her, watchful, guns ready to be used.

Another gun barked from a building’s corner and Burns heard the bullet whine through the grass at ankle height. He held his fire.

“They can’t be sure where we are,” he told himself. “No use showing them.”

Ahead of him he saw Ann’s shadowy figure duck into an open door, knew it must be the rear entrance to the livery barn. Reaching it, he stood in the darkness by the door, waiting, watching. But there was no sign of pursuit. Perhaps no one knew exactly where they’d gone. Perhaps most of them didn’t even know what was happening. Of the gang back in the saloon’s back room, Carson would be the only one in any shape to tell them. One man was dead, another had been knocked out by the girl, and the sheriff would need a little while to get his wits together.

Swiftly, Steve ducked into the door, ran down the aisle that smelled of hay, of oiled leather, of sweaty saddle blankets.

One horse was sidling along the aisle and Burns spoke to it soothingly. The animal snorted and backed away. Leaping, Burns caught the reins.

“Where are you?” he shouted at the girl and her voice came back.

“Here. I got another horse.”

She was backing it out of the stall.

Burns flicked his eyes up and down the row of stalls, wishing for his own gray, although his mind told him there was no time to wait, no time to choose. No time even to get on saddles. They’d have to ride without them. Bridles was the best that they could do.

If he only knew where his own horse had been put. If only…

“Hey, what’s going on?” a voice called sharply.

Burns swung around. It was the livery man, striding toward him.

Burns jerked up his gun.

“See this?” he asked.

The livery man stopped abruptly.

“Just turn around and walk ahead of us,” Burns told him. “Real slow. And shed your artillery as you go.”

Slowly the man swung around, hands fumbling at his gun belt.

“One wrong move,” warned Burns, “and I’ll blow you plumb to hell.”

The gun belt dropped from off the man’s waist and the man himself plodded on ahead, hands half raised.

Behind him, Burns heard the soft, muffled thud of his own horse and the girl’s.

“When we get to the door,” Burns told Ann, “we’ll climb these ponies and hit the street full gallop. Swing to the west and keep on going. If there’s any shooting, don’t try to shoot back. I’ll take care of that.”

To the livery man, he said: “That’s far enough for you. Just stand where you are and don’t let out a yelp.”

Burns swung abruptly, leaped for the back of his horse. The animal, accustomed to a saddle, crouched in fright, then sprang for the doorway, burst into the street.

Deftly, Burns swung the horse around, brought his sixgun up to a firing position. Someone stormed out of a restaurant doorway, yelling at him and from far up the street a rifle started up with hollow coughing.

The sound of hoofs swept out of the barn and went past him. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve caught a quick glimpse of the girl, bent low on the saddleless horse, thundering down the street.

A bullet hummed over his head and another skipped along the sidewalk, like a stone on water, gouging out clouds of splinters as it went.

In front of the Longhorn bar men were running for their horses. Others were leaping for their saddles.

With a yell, Steve reined his horse around, taking the direction the girl had gone. Lighted windows spun past as the horse stretched out and ran as if his life depended on it.

Then the town of Skull Crossing was behind him and he was following the drumfire of hoofbeats that he knew was the other horse ahead.

The moon rode just above the eastern horizon and flooded the valley with a crystal light.

Burns frowned. If only the night could have been dark, Ann and he might have had a better chance. But with the moon almost full, pursuit would be easy. Soon the horses and their riders would be streaming out upon their trail.

The horse thundered down an incline, splashed across a shallow stream, plunged up the other bank and breasted the rise.

Ann and her mount were no longer to be seen, but the trail was plain and the horse followed it unerringly. If there’s a place to turn off, Burns told himself, she’ll stop there and wait for me.

The horse suddenly shied as a running figure came out of the shadows. Burns’ hand, snaking for his gun-butt, stopped short. The running figure, he saw, was Ann. She was stumbling down the trail in the moonlight, waving as if to stop him.

She had lost her hat and the shirt was ripped open at the shoulder. Dirt smudges marched across her face.

“The horse,” she gasped. “Threw me off. Scared of a snake…”

He reached down a hand and she grasped it.

“Up you come,” he said, and heaved.

The horse shied and reared, and Burns talked to it soothingly.

“Hang on,” he said to Ann.

Her arms tightened around his waist. “I’m all right,” she told him. “If I’d had a saddle he never would have thrown me. But he jumped so quick that I just flew off.”

“You hurt?”

“Skinned up some. That’s all. Landed on my shoulder and skidded.”

“We got to keep moving,” Burns told her. “There’s a big gang in town. Running for their horses when I left.”

“The Lazy K mob,” said Ann. “Egan must have sent for them.”

The horse was stretching out again, running with an easy lope that ate up ground.

“You’ll have to tell me when to leave the trail,” said Burns.

“I will,” she said.

They crossed another stream that tumbled from the hills down into the valley and the horse lunged up the bank.

“We sure got you in a mess,” said Ann. “I know Bob didn’t figure it this way. He just wanted to talk to you. Wanted to get you straightened out. Didn’t want you to ride away thinking he had taken to robbing banks.”