Nelson Nye - Rafe

But so was most of Rafe's strength. His knees began to wabble. Fists beat against his back and he reeled through a kind of red fog sprung from nausea. Blows seemed to rain on him from every direction. The carbine was torn from his hands. There was the warm slippery taste of salt in his mouth, and he knew this was blood; and in the brightening glare from the roaring brush he saw their hate-twisted faces and their hands closing in again.

He got the six-shooter out of the waistband of his pants and slashed its barrel across the nearest face, laying it open from jaw to ear. The flames threw back the lifting wink of metal in several other fists but, with so many of their fellows in such close proximity, no one it seemed wanted to fire the first shot. Rafe, on his knees, had no such scruples. His pistol barked and somebody yelled; he fired again and a man, twisted half around, went down with both hands clapped to his neck. Another gun went off, another man collapsed. Rafe, lunging up, dived into the welter of kicking, plunging horses, managing to nab one that had stepped on its reins.

Lead sang over his head as he tore off the bridle and hurled himself up. The panicked horse was going full stride before even Rafe's leg settled over the saddle. With an arm round its neck he yelled in its ear like a half-crocked Apache. The ground flew past, the wind whipped off his hat, the shouting gun-pierced racket of Duke's crew was left behind.

XII

When Rafe got back enough wind and nerve to risk straightening up and having a look at his situation he must have been at least two miles north of the rim. The thunder of hoofs which he'd thought was pursuit turned out to be several of the Bender crew's horses which, swept up in the excitement, had come along with him.

He got his mount stopped and, while the horse blew, took a long edgy squint at his backtrail. The star filled night loomed vast and empty; then a voice said, seemingly right at his elbow, "Reckon I've growed enough gray hairs fer both of us!"

Rafe came around. The feller's dark shape wasn't a rope's throw away. He had his hands shoulder high and, though his chuckle was nervous, both of them looked empty. "You won't need that artillery. I'm the jigger that he'ped you bust loose. Hell—" he said when Rafe made no move to put up his pistol, "you sure didn't figger you done that all by yourself?"

Rafe, kneeing the captured horse in closer, growled, "Who're you?"

"Just one of the Bills. You can call me 'Brownwater'—ever'one else does."

Now that he was up near enough to make out things, Rafe could see by the way he spread over his saddle the feller had enough extra fat hanging on him to do a whole tribe of Papagos half the winter. He looked mighty near big as Bunny's pa, Pike, and had a mottled appearance like he'd got in the way of an upended paint bucket—freckles, probably. He had a chaw in one cheek and a wheeze to his voice and seemed altogether as unfit for the part he claimed to have played as a two-legged dog in a three-ring circus. Rafe said, suspicious, "How'd you get into this?"

"It's kind of a long story. I'm Lucy's beau. Was, anyways, till that brother of yours—"

"How'd you know I had any brother!"

Brownwater grinned. You could tell by the shine of his teeth. "I was in that harness room back of the tree when you was tryin' that day to git the prodigal's hug an' Duke kep'—"

"If you was there," Rafe growled, "tell me who got the paper."

"Duke grabbed it out of the Old Man's hand just before Spangler bended that gun over your head. Hell," the fat man said with his look juning jumpily into the black, "we better git whackin'!"

There was a whole heap of things Rafe was aching to know, but so long as he kept his eyes skinned and one fist wrapped about the handle of his shooter he reckoned it wouldn't hurt to ride a spell with this john. "All right," he grumbled, "lead out an' stay careful."

They pushed along at a lope, driving into the east for maybe three or four miles; then they eased up a bit bending south at a jog while the night got colder and a ground wind whined through the catclaw and pear.

When Brownwater pulled up to blow the horses Rafe had belted his pistol, had both hands in his pockets trying to thaw out the cramps. The fat man had his fists in plain sight, piled atop the horn of his saddle like they was hostages for good conduct. There wasn't anything to be heard but the wind, no thud of hoof pound, no whisper of shouts.

"Where are we?" Rafe asked.

"Gourd an' Vine. About four miles due north of headquarters. Figgered you'd be wantin' to auger some with your paw."

Rafe's brows squeezed down. "You hopin' to run me into a jackpot?"

"That bunch won't be along fer a while—"

"Says you!" Rafe jeered, and set the good hand to reaching back for his pistol.

The fat man sighed. "If I'd wanted you flattened would I of he'ped you git clear?"

Rafe scowled. If he could only get hold of an end of this thing, get it straight in his head what all this was about. "If you helped me, how come? You don't know me from Adam."

"Have to be blind not to know you're a Bender. Sticks out all over you an', from what Lucy's said—"

"If you heard anything at all you heard her say Rafe's dead!"

It was Bill's turn to frown. "She had her reasons. Man, you got to trust some one. Nobody can go it alone in this world! People, the most of 'em, ain't as bad as you think. You got to give them a chance. Lucy and me, we was fixin' to git married till Duke put his foot down—"

"Duke!" Rafe snorted. "It wasn't for him to say."

"Looks like he's kinda dim in your memory. Duke aims to git what Duke wants—even if he has t' bury half the golrammed county. He was powerful persuasive.

Some of what Brownwater Bill went on to say was admittedly guesswork, but certain cold facts were pretty readily apparent. Spangler, a holy terror with a gun, and about the hardest formation a man was like to bump into, had been caught red-handed running off Bender horses. He'd been come onto by Rafe's brother and the banker, Alph Chilton, which same had lost no time getting out of that neighborhood. From this day on you couldn't have lured Chilton out of town on a bet.

That Duke was still enjoying good health, and Spangler still bullypussin' round as Bender range boss, was cause for considerable guarded talk and wonder, the more so since on the face of things the ranch was losing more stock than ever; was indeed in rather desperate plight with bills piled on bills and none of the merchants—not even the bank—being able to collect a thin dime on account.

Brownwater had it there'd been a deal, and Rafe guessed there probably had; though one might think, all things considered, it would have left Spangler cracking the whip. Such, by Brownwater's tell, was not the case. Duke was in the driver's seat and steering the ranch hellbent for ruin.

"Ain't a lick of sense to it," the fat man declared. "Scowl an' growl till you're blue in the face, you can't make it stand up. But it does—it surely does! All the old hands is gone, all but me. Crew they got now is saltier'n Lot's wife, and with them kinda fellers it's cash on the barrelhead. I've thought mebbe the stole broncs is bein' sold over Duke's writin', but with all these toughs they got to pay an' feed where does Spangler come off? Now you tell me ."

"I can't," Rafe scowled, and this was purely the truth. "I can't even see how come—if they run all the rest of the old bunch off an' Duke don't want you sweet-talkin' Luce—you're still on the spread an' still above ground."

"Chafes a mort of wear off a feller's mental axle, but I can tell you how one part of it's worked," Brownwater wheezed with a gusty sigh. "Spangler wants Luce, has threatened to ventilate my carcass if I even so much as open my mouth to her. Duke has been more or less keepin' him in line by promising she'll be Spangler's wife the day Duke gits full title to Gourd an' Vine. He's got Luce believin' the first time she crosses him I'll be turned into a colander an' she'll be turned over to Spangler. It's enough t'cramp rats but, believe me, it works."