Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"Hey!"

No reply. Not even an echo. It appeared there was no power sufficiently strong to dent the overwhelming vacantness. Steve considered the water tank thoughtfully. "Wonder if he climbed up there to take a bath and couldn't get out? HEY!"

He swore mildly and started for the Mexican houses. "Well, if I got to find him, I got to find him. But the type of help this railroad company employs shore is scandalous." His boots ground audibly into the cinders, then struck soft sand. The first Mexican house lay a hundred yards down the track, while a short fifty feet to the left stood the gaunt ribs of the first loading pen. Steers reached for his tobacco and had grasped the package in his fingers when a shaft of hard cold warning plunged through the lethargy of his mind. His hand froze to the tobacco sack, his feet faltered. But an impulse raced like lightning to his lagging muscles, and he pressed on, keeping the same tempo. There could be no turning back to the shelter of the station house now. He was a broad, fair target, and no safety presented itself short of the loading pen, which in that same interval had drawn a thousand miles off. Sweat prickled his skin; then he was cold and nerveless. He felt his face cracking under the strain of maintaining it lazily indifferent. And the end window of the nearest Mexican shanty stared at him like the eye of death.

"Trapped, yuh lousy fool!" he cried to himself. "One move out of place and yore dead as a last year's snake skin! My God, why don't yuh think! Now, now—keep goin'—a little more—a little more! Don't run for it yet! Don't—run—for—it—yet!" And while he kept cautioning himself and throttling the impulse to panic it seemed he was standing dead still. The apertures between the corral bars were like so many mouths jeering at him. The silence of Ysabel Junction had drawn to an awful thinness, ready to burst with a roar like the crack of doom when Dann's gun spoke. And for every yard he gained to safety there was also a yard shortened between himself and the unseen weapon.

A small voice inside his brain said distinctly, "Now!" Steve leaped aside, lunged for the corral, leaped again, and heard a gun's fury booming out of the section house. He fell to the ground, rolled against the base of the corral, sucking dust into his lungs. Bullets ripped madly through the posts, knocked off splinters, sent up sand sprays a foot beyond his head. Steve weathered through it. The shots ran out. Dann cried furious from the shanty, "Yuh wanted this, Steers! Stand up and get it!"

"No more shells in the rifle," thought Steve and jumped to his feet. Dann leaped through the door of the shanty and crossed the open area to the side of the corral before Steve could set himself for an answer. The outlaw had resorted to his revolver; he sent another bullet over the compound but it ripped the wood behind Steve.

"That's one," muttered Steve and retreated to the back line of the corrals. Dann was retreating also, ducking under the loading chutes. Steve paralleled him. Dann stopped and dropped down. Steve did likewise.

"If he's tryin' to draw me into them corrals," grunted Steve, tasting sweat, "he's got another guess comin'. But—"

He crawled on and came to a narrow alley. Dann was waiting there and opened up again. Steve rolled back. "That's numbers two and three—too close."

"Steers—I'll meet yuh out in the open, at yonder end!"

Steers said nothing. He passed his arm into the open, drew the fourth bullet, and heard Dann retreating again on the run.

"Tryin' to get far enough off to load—damn him!" He delayed only a moment longer, or until he sighted Dann through the bars. Rising, he took the alleyway on a gallop. Dann whirled back, fired, and came to a stand. Steers thought, "He's got me hipped again. He's all set and aimed. Well, what of it?" And he fell out of the alley. Dann's last bullet ripped through the fullness of Steve's coat; and then Steve stopped and faced Dann directly.

"Steers," said Dann, throwing open the cylinder of his gun, "I'm out of cartridges. If yuh want to be a man—"

"Yeah?" was Steve's toneless answer. He lifted his weapon, aimed, and fired.

Dann trembled, fell to his knees. He tried to hold himself up by his hands. They gave way under him. He struck on a shoulder point and tipped to his side. Steve walked up, looking at the outlaw without the trace of feeling, with no more compassion or consideration, than he would have given to a fallen leaf.

"Dyin', Dann?"

"Cashin' in—by God!" breathed Dann. All the ruddiness faded before that final gray of death.

"Good. It won't be necessary to waste another shot. Die quick. I despise lookin' at yuh."

"Framed," coughed Dann. "Me. I made a mistake. Listen—I'll square it with Lou Redmain. Listen. He's goin' to burn Sundown."

"When?" said Steve. But Dann was dead, and as his muscles gave way and he settled on his stomach he seemed to shake his head.

Steve turned around. The station agent stood half in and half out of the Mexican shanty. Catching the scene he ran toward the station, calling back, "Dann held me in there—and that condemned key's been tappin' for half an hour!"

Going by the shanty, Steve saw Dann's horse also crowded inside. He led it out and left it beside his own. Automatically he reached up for his tobacco and then remembered he had flung it down beside the corner of the corral. He went back; it had been a full square sack once, but there was nothing left now but a few shreds of fabric and a ball of tobacco bearing his finger marks. He kicked it away and walked into the station. The agent's nerves were jerking him around in a sort of St. Vitus's dance. "I'm quittin'," he told Steve. "Feel bad? Of course I feel bad. You'd feel bad, too, if you lived in a joint where nothin' moved except your pulse—then all of a sudden something like this hit you in the face. I'm through! Here—this just came over the wire. You goin' to Sundown? Well, take it in. Save waitin' three hours for the stage. It's to Ed Storm at the bank. He'll want to know. Pay-day money shipment comin' to him."

Steve looked at the shaky symbols on the open sheet of paper. There were only four of them, reading as follows:

ABACUS SIN EULOGIZE HAROLD

"How do yuh know?" inquired Steve.

"Because I know. Now, what about that fellow—Dann?"

"Here's somethin' I want yuh to send over the wire for me," said Steve. "I wrote it down."

"Listen—I won't stay around here with that body out there! I won't touch him!"

"There's the message," said Steve, laying it on the agent's table. "Here's two dollars. And if a thing like that upsets yuh, friend, Yellow Hill is sure no place for you."

"Ain't you got any nerves?"

"Nerves?" grunted Steve. His voice began to grow thin on him. "Yeah, but I ain't proud of 'em. They don't help atall. A man in this country with nerves ain't got no more chance than a snowball in hell."

"I almost went bughouse," said the agent, squirming in his chair. "Him a pushin' me against the wall of that shanty with his gun! Say, he was a cold cucumber! I heard you, and there I was, not able to do a single thing but listen for you to die!"

"Well," said Steve, "it's pretty simple. You die or he dies. And there ain't no great amount of time decidin' who is who. If yuh live there's nothin' to worry about. Otherwise yuh can't worry. Say, you got a drink around here, a drink of hard liquor? No? All right, I reckon I can stagger home without it. I'm leavin' Dann's pony. If the wild bunch don't come along tonight the sheriff will. Send the message through."

He rolled out to his horse and turned north across the prairie, eyes half closed to the glare of the sun. Unconsciously, he began to sway in the saddle, moving his arm from side to side, screwing up his face, touching the butt of his gun. Not until his dragging spurs set the pony to curvetting did Steve realize what he was doing; he quelled himself sternly.