Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"Try it," retorted a near figure, and smashed Chaffee's face with a hard fist. Chaffee's head snapped back against the door frame, and a fiery rage came roaring to the surface. After that he almost lost account of his own acts. His gun was out and he knew he felled the man with a sweep of the barrel. Another came on but never reached him; the rest of his partners were using the same tactics. That cleared the immediate neighborhood of the door for a little while.

"We mean business," called Chaffee. "Go on and pull down a few houses if you got to work off steam. But Woolfridge goes to the jug."

Alki Stryker had been swallowed up during the melee, but his voice rose like a rocket now. "Ne'mind—let's get them buzzards which was imported to kill! Let's get Perrine and his outfit! They're going out the back end o' town! Come on—come on!"

That was a rallying cry. The porch almost instantly became deserted. The mob raced along the street and sifted down the alleys. Firing began and the yells came shrilly back, like the sounding of a wolf pack. Chaffee spoke hurriedly. "You fellows close in here. Couple hit for the back way to see they don't try to fool us. I'm going after Woolfridge. Saw him a second ago climbin' toward the sky."

He turned in and walked to the stairway. Looking up he saw Woolfridge standing on the landing and just about to disappear down the hall. It brought him to a full halt, for he discovered a gun in the man's hand and a pinched look on the soft cheeks.

"Come down, Woolfridge. Your skin ain't worth much, but such as it is you owe it to Stirrup S. Step along. We can just make the jug before anybody gets rash."

Woolfridge nodded slightly. "You made a worthy stand, my friend. But was it worth the trouble?"

"I've got to live a long time," muttered Chaffee, "and I don't want you on my conscience. You've bothered me enough as it is. Come down."

"And supposing I don't?" asked Woolfridge in a droning monotone.

"Then I'll come up," said Chaffee.

"Come ahead," grunted Woolfridge, and immediately disappeared from sight.

One of Chaffee's partners left the door. "That means business. He'll get leaded yet before this night's over. Better a couple of us take the back stairs and some more hike up this-away. Mebbe—"

But Chaffee, still watching the landing, shook his head. "It's my play, Mike. He expects me to try it. He's issued the invite. I'm goin' up there alone. Just stay right here and wait."

That drew the puncher's immediate protest. And the rest of the old Stirrup S riders closed in, dissenting. "What for—to get ambushed?" demanded one of them. "Don't be a durn fool."

Chaffee climbed the first step and turned about, face tremendously sober. "Now listen, boys. I've got first call on that gentleman. It was Woolfridge who killed Dad Satterlee, the finest friend I ever had. It was him that bought my ranch out from under me. He was responsible for havin' Mack put out of commission. And it was the same gent who has sent me through all this miserable course of sprouts in the last few weeks. It's my turn. He still thinks he can humble me. He still thinks he's top man of the two of us. What should I do—back down and let him keep on thinkin' it? Not by a jugful. Boys, you let me alone. I am going up there and call his bet. One of us is too proud. Him or me. I aim to find out. Stay here. Keep everybody away from that second floor until you hear one of us sing out."

There was a grumbling disagreement among them, but Chaffee turned and continued on up, gun drawn. His face rose above the landing and he had one swift survey of the hallway, dark excepting for a patch of light coming out of an open door—the door to Gay Thatcher's room. Then he ducked and lunged to the top; a bullet roared in the cramped space and ripped at a post in the railing. Swinging wide he reached the shelter of the wall leading along the back corridor and the back stairs. For a moment he rested silently, listening. He thought he heard Woolfridge shift and breathe somewhere in a room along the main hall.

"Woolfridge—you had better give up and go to jail."

The man's voice, still even but rising to a slightly higher pitch, floated down the corridor. "You will find me in my room. I am waiting for you."

"You won't have to wait long," muttered Chaffee, and without stepping away from his protected spot, shuffled his boots against the carpet. The answer was quick in coming, gun roar following gun roar. Both shots crashed through the flimsy boards of the far wall. "That," said Chaffee to himself, "is three cartridges gone. Three to go unless he's got a supply in his room. I'd better cut this short."

He drew his breath and swung around the corner into the main hall. As he moved he fired point-blank at the black end, raking the left wall where Woolfridge's room was. He had to keep the man humble while he ran the distance; he had to keep the man flinching. There was no time for him to duck, and even if there had been time he would have never thought about it. Jim Chaffee's blood was on the race; all the old, berserk anger swelled his veins and overwhelmed his caution. He wanted to crush, to destroy. He wanted, at that moment, to wipe out whatever lay before. And so he raced past the lane of light, battering the blackness with his gun, and hearing an answering roar match his own. One bullet cut a path across the plastered expanse beside him. Another he felt strike the floor at his feet. There was a third—some cool monitor in the recesses of his brain kept counting the shots—that he thought touched him. Then he was at Woolfridge's door, turning on his heels, poising, plunging through. Immediately he collided with the man and was locked in a hand-to-hand struggle.

The bitterness and the ferocity of Woolfridge's resistance was something he never dreamed the man capable of. That mediocre body with its softness and fashionable grooming was a collection of striking, clawing, twisting muscles. Chaffee wrapped one arm around the man's neck and compressed it with every cruel ounce of strength he owned. He heard the actual snapping of vertebrae, but he could not catch Woolfridge's gun, and his own face and shoulders suffered a constant battering from the weapon's constant slashes. The front sight ripped across his cheek; he felt the blood warming chin and throat. It roused him to incredible fury. He released his grip and freed himself for a terrific sweep at Woolfridge with his own gun. It struck bone. He heard the man whimper. Resistance for the moment ended, and in that moment Chaffee secured another clamping hold on Woolfridge, whirled him around, and smashed him against the edge of the door frame. It revived the last of the man's energy, embarked him on a series of violent, jabbing punches. Chaffee made no attempt to block them. He had Woolfridge out in the hall and was slamming him from side to side like a figure of straw.

The light coming through Gay Thatcher's door fell upon them. At the same instant Woolfridge, crying with a shrillness almost impossible to the human throat, brought his knee into Chaffee's groin and jabbed the thumb of his free hand in Chaffee's eye. It scarcely missed its mark but the pain of the nail's slicing impact was worse than anything that had so far happened. The man was spent, reeling in Chaffee's arms, resorting to all the last and most vicious tricks. Chaffee drew back, struck a slanting blow across Woolfridge's head. The overlord of Roaring Horse went down, sprawled face on the floor, half across the threshold of the girl's room. He was finished, for the time being dead to the world.

Chaffee sagged against the wall, struggling for wind, hearing his partners calling from below. He shook his head, beginning to feel the throb of his slashed face. Then the stairway drummed with boots and a handful of Stirrup S men were crowded on the scene.