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  Oaths blistered the air. Varner seized Willis by the back of the neck and sought to yank him to his feet. “Get up, damn you!”

  “My leg—” Willis blurted, but Varner didn’t care that his left knee was useless. All Varner cared about was using him as a shield.

  “Get up!” the killer roared. Livid with fury, he let go of Willis’ neck and grabbed Willis’ belt instead. “I won’t tell you again!”

  That was when a rifle cracked and Tote Nargent staggered but did not go down. Tote and Thatch cut loose, firing as rapidly as they could thumb back the hammers of their pistols. The firing from the timber rose to a crescendo, compelling Varner Wilkes to join in.

  A hailstorm of hot lead sizzled the air above Willis. He flattened, saw his Winchester, and scrambled toward it. A slug kicked up a dirt geyser inches from his cheek. Another missed his right hand by a whisker.

  Tote had reached the horses and Thatch was boosting him onto the saddle. Varner Wilkes had unlimbered a rifle from a scabbard and was covering them, his rifle banging in measured cadence as he aimed and fired.

  Another moment, and Willis had the Winchester in his hands. Rolling onto his back, he saw Varner Wilkes climbing on a roan. He fired but he rushed his shot. Varner jabbed his spurs into the roan and bent low over the saddle horn. Willis fired again but again Varner appeared to be unscathed.

  Tote was reining his mount around. His face pale, he extended his pistol at Willis. “You’re dead, you stinkin’ cow nurse!”

  Willis was a shade faster. His Winchester boomed and Tote Nargent reeled, a hole low in his side. Tote would have fallen had Thatch, now on horseback, not pulled up alongside, snatched the reins to his brother’s mount, and bolted into the vegetation.

  Willis looked for Varner but Varner had disappeared. Heaving on his good knee, he sighted down the barrel but there was no one to shoot. He rose unsteadily as Bar T hands poured from the woods, Charlie Weaver foremost among them.

  “Pard, you all right?”

  “No thanks to you,” Willis said. “What took you so long?”

  “You told us to stay put, remember?” Charlie began reloading his revolver while bawling, “The horses! Bring the horses!”

  “Thank God you didn’t. What about the fourth one—the Southerner, Mason?”

  “We saw a man in gray near your horse but he vanished into thin air before we could get to him.”

  Rafe Carter and Sam Tinsdale came out of the trees supporting Casey McLeash, who hung as limp as a wet rag.

  “McLeash has had it,” Tinsdale said. “Les Stewart is dead, too, shot in the head by Varner Wilkes.”

  “Stewart’s brains splattered all over me,” Rafe Carter said. His shirt and hat were speckled with bits of hair and gore.

  Out of the woods came Bob Ashlon, leading the horses.

  Willis limped toward the zebra dun, calling out, “Leave the dead! We’ll come back for them!” His plan had gone awry but it was not over. The skirmish had gone to the rustlers; the outcome was yet to be decided.

  “Shouldn’t one of us go for more men?” Rafe Carter asked. “There’re only eight of us now.”

  “Eight is enough,” Willis said. “We’ll stick to their trail, and either end it or drive them clear out of the territory for good and for all.”

  Rafe was a seasoned nitpicker. “What about the other one? Mason, isn’t that his handle? He could be anywhere.”

  “He’s the one who shot Jim Palmer,” Sam Tinsdale said. “He shot Timmy Easton, too.”

  Willis did not need reminding. “On your horses!” He did not wait for them. Spurring the zebra dun into the trees, he rode as he had ridden in the old days. Varner Wilkes and the Nargent brothers were out there somewhere, and Willis was going to ride them down and do to them what should have been done a long time ago. He could hardly wait.

  Chapter 19

  The cowboys charged out of the clearing whooping and hollering and bubbling with a volcanic thirst for vengeance. Rafe Carter, in his exuberance, fired a shot into the air. Willis was as eager to slay the rustlers as everyone else. More so, for he had something to prove, and he would die proving it if need be.

  The thought jarred him. It was one thing to be the iron hand of justice, another to want to slay other human beings to show that he was not only worthy to be the new boss of the Bar T but to show the woman who wanted to take him for her husband that he was a worthy husband. But it did not jar him enough to change his mind.

  At the forefront of the avenging pack, Willis plowed through the underbrush, avoiding trees and logs and boulders and ducking under low limbs, and always with his eyes fixed in the distance for sign of their quarry.

  That sign came on them unexpectedly. Two hundred yards from the clearing the zebra dun suddenly whinnied and shied, and Willis immediately drew rein. He had spotted the same thing the zebra dun had spotted; a body sprawled in their path.

  The whooping and hollering had died. Somber and silent, the cowboys ringed the fallen form.

  “Well, we got one,” Sam Tinsdale said. “Which one is it?”

  “Tote Nargent,” Willis said.

  “Why is his tongue stickin’ out like that?” Bob Ashlon wondered.

  “He soiled himself,” Charlie Weaver noticed.

  “I heard they do that,” Frank Donner said. “When they die, I mean. It all lets go.”

  Willis felt nothing. No thrill. No sense of justice or triumph. He felt nothing at all, which was strange. “One down, three to go.” Flicking his reins, he brought the zebra dun to a gallop.

  The sign was clear as clear could be: churned sod, broken branches, crushed bushes. So far the rustlers were making no attempt to shake them off but that was bound to change.

  Willis had gone a mile before he realized that he had not thought about his bad leg once since the Southerner put a gun to his back. All he had thought about was how he did not want to die and what he could do to stay alive. Now here he was, riding hell-for-leather, and he was doing it without thinking about how much better he could ride in the old days. He was not feeling sorry for himself. That in itself was something.

  The tracks came to the base of a steep slope. Willis started up it. Suddenly the trees thinned and he was confronted by a barren mountainside sprinkled with boulders. Boulders ideal for bushwhackers, or rustlers who wanted to whittle the odds.

  Raising an arm, Willis brought the cowboys to a halt. He did not like the looks of that slope, and he said as much when Charlie asked why they had stopped.

  “We’ll climb on foot,” Sam Tinsdale proposed. “It’ll be harder for those polecats to hit us.”

  Willis was unwilling to risk more lives. “Charlie and me will circle around the mountain. If we find their tracks, we’ll fire a couple of shots in the air. If not, Charlie will stay to cover the back door and I’ll come back and we’ll flush the coyotes out.”

  “Maybe there should be two of us watchin’ that back door,” Sam said.

  A good idea, Willis reflected. “You can come with us. Bob, you keep the rest here. We’ve lost too many good men already.”

  Willis had Charlie and Sam go left and he went right. He did not mind going alone. That, too, was strange, since he figured he would be more scared than he was. He rode with his pistol in his hand, his thumb on the hammer. The woods were unnaturally quiet: not one bird or squirrel anywhere. He was going at a walk so he would not make a lot of noise but the dull clomp of the zebra dun’s hooves was still much too loud to suit him.

  His comment about losing good men echoed in Willis’ mind. Timmy Easton. Jim Palmer. Now McLeash and Stewart. They had not deserved to die. They had never bothered anyone, never imposed on others, never done anything to merit their grisly ends. They had been simple cowboys making a living the best they knew how, only to be cut down in their prime by vermin who placed no more value on human life than they placed on flies.

  Willis had never savvied how people could be so coldhearted. Killers were a breed apart from normal folks—a breed
normal folks could do without.

  Suddenly Willis gave an angry toss of his head. Here he was, thinking, when he should be concentrating. It would get him added to the list of the dead if he wasn’t more careful.

  He went a short way more and saw more tracks. But those had not been made by horse hooves. A large elk had passed by earlier. Willis recollected the last time he had been elk hunting, back before the accident, and how he would very much like to go hunting again soon. He had a lot of living to make up for.

  The zebra dun’s ears pricked. Instantly drawing rein, Willis scanned the mountain. He was past the boulder-strewn slope in heavy timber that covered the slope to well near the top. He started to rise in the stirrups but thought better of the notion.

  His nerves jangling, Willis gigged the zebra dun on. There was a lot more to manhunting than he ever reckoned. He knew then, with absolute certainty, that he would never accept the offer to be Cottonwood’s new marshal. It wasn’t in him. It wasn’t suited to his nature. He was happy being a cowboy and had always been happy being a cowboy, and the only thing that would make him happier was marrying Laurella and being the boss of a bunch of cowboys.

  An old-timer once told him that cowboying got into the blood and stayed there, and that old-timer had been right. The cowboy life was glorious. Sure, the hours were long and the work was hard, but it was the kind of work that put muscle on a man and kept him lean and healthy, unlike being a clerk or a banker where a man sat around all day growing fat and soft.

  Willis liked, too, that while a cowboy was always answerable to the foreman and the big sugar, it wasn’t as if they were always looking over his shoulder telling him what to do and how to do it. Cowboys were expected to know how to do things, and do them well.

  He had never put it into words before, but what he liked most about the cowboy life was the independence: the independence to make a living yet be beholden to no one; the independence to be who he was, and the rest of the world be hanged.

  Willis grinned. Here he was, thinking about independence, and if Laurella Hendershot had her way, his independent days were about over. From what he had seen of marriage, a married man wasn’t fancy-free like a bachelor. But giving up a little freedom for the privilege of having someone love and cherish you and always be there for you was more than a fair trade. Independence was fine but a man shouldn’t be a fanatic about it.

  Willis abruptly grit his teeth and gave another toss of his head. He was doing it again! As sure as shooting, he would get himself killed. He emptied his head of stray thoughts and focused on the trees.

  Up ahead something moved. Willis brought up his revolver but he did not shoot. It was Charlie and Sam, waiting.

  “Took you long enough,” Tinsdale said. “I could have grown a beard.”

  “No sign of them?” Willis asked, and when Charlie shook his head, he said, “That must mean they’re back in those boulders. They made a mistake. We have them boxed in.”

  “Don’t put the cart before the horse,” Charlie cautioned. “Varner Wilkes is too crafty to let himself be trapped.”

  “He’s been lucky but his luck has run out. You two find a spot to lay low and watch this side of the mountain. I’m countin’ on you not to let those buzzards slip past.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Charlie said, “but we’re neither of us Daniel Boone. I’m only fair with a rifle and no shakes at all with a revolver.”

  Sam Tinsdale grinned. “I can hit a barn if it’s standin’ still.”

  “Just don’t get hit yourselves,” Willis said, and reined around. “Give me a quarter of an hour and the festivities will commence.”

  “Will?” Charlie said. “You did the right thing decidin’ to come after these varmints. They’d only cause us more trouble later.”

  “Thanks.” Willis trotted back the way he had come and soon rejoined the others, who had taken cover.

  Bob Ashlon unfurled from behind a stump as he rode up. “We were gettin’ set to come look for you.”

  “A common affliction today.” Willis dismounted and shucked his Winchester. The others gathered around. He detailed his plan. He and Frank Donner would go up the middle of the slope, Bob Ashlon and Green would take the left side, Rafe Carter and Maynard the right side.

  “Shouldn’t someone stay with the horses?” Bob Ashlon asked. “I’d hate to be stranded afoot up here.”

  Willis did not see the need but the worried looks he was given prompted him to say, “Frank, you watch the animals. I’ll go it alone.”

  “Is that smart?”

  “Hell, the day I start livin’ smart is the day the world comes to an end.” Willis motioned and the flankers moved into position. When they were set, he pumped his arm and the five of them slowly ascended, moving from boulder to boulder and knob to knob, never showing themselves if they could help it.

  Willis wasn’t fooling himself. Varner Wilkes knew they were coming and would be ready. The question now was, could they kill Varner and Thatch Nargent before Varner and Thatch killed any of them?

  It was slow going. Willis’ left leg began to cramp on him and he had to stop and flex it. He would be damned if he would let his leg stop him now. Or from living his life as he should have been living it all these years. When he thought of the time he had wasted, when he thought of the precious years and months he had squandered in self-pity, he wanted to beat his head against one of the boulders.

  Willis halted and looked down at himself. Would he never learn? As a lawman he wouldn’t last two months. He glanced both ways, saw the others waiting for him, and scrambled past a small boulder to a larger one. Rising on his right knee, he removed his hat and peered over the top.

  The rustlers were well hid.

  “Where are you?” Willis whispered. Placing his hat back on, he crawled around the boulder and across a short space to an erosion-worn depression barely deep enough and wide enough for him to crawl into. He crawled up it until he came to a cluster of boulders. Rolling up and out, he moved to a gap between two of the largest.

  Still nothing up there. Scowling, Willis crept to another cluster. No shots echoed. No angry shouts were directed at him. Yet he had to be close. Another forty or fifty yards and there was no cover left.

  Perplexed, Willis sat with his back to a boulder and gazed down the mountain. It hit him that he had not seen any hoofprints on the way up. Not one track since near where the boulders began. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he called, “Bob! Rafe! Have any of you seen any tracks?”

  After whispered consultations with their partners,

  Bob shook his head and Rafe shouted, “Not a one, Will!”

  Willis had a bad feeling. Cautiously rising, he tensed for the blast of a rifle or a pistol, but there was none. He limped a few yards higher, and swore. Shouldering the Winchester, he began roving in wide loops. The others caught on and did the same, and it did not take them long to discover the galling truth.

  “They’re not here!” Rafe Carter exclaimed.

  “How the hell did they slip away under our very noses?” Maynard wanted to know. “We had them cornered.”

  “We thought we did,” Bob Ashlon amended.

  “We’re like kids at this,” Green said, “bumblin’ around without accomplishin’ a damn thing other than gettin’ ourselves killed.”

  Willis did not like the look Green gave him. “Are you blamin’ me for McLeash and Stewart?”

  Ira Green had been with the Bar T three years. He hailed from New Mexico and little was known about him other than he was a top hand with a rope and hardly ever talked. “If the boots fit,” he said.

  “That’s not fair,” Bob Ashlon came to Willis’ defense. “We had to come after them. Or would you have the rustlers help themselves to all our cows?”

  “They’re not ours,” Green said. “They’re the Bar T’s.”

  Willis could not let that go unchallenged. “When you ride for a brand, the brand comes first. I don’t want any puncher workin’ for me who doesn’t think
the same.”

  “You’re not the big sugar yet,” Green observed.

  Willis let the insult pass. But the day after he married Laurella, there would be an opening for a new hand at the Bar T.

  “Be petty, why don’t you?” Bob Ashlon said to Green. “There’s more than the cows at stake. We’ve lost friends. Our own have been killed, and it’s up to us to make damn sure their killers don’t live to brag about it.”

  “That’s the only reason I came along,” Ira Green said. “My pards mean more to me than cows.”

  Willis decided that maybe he had been a bit hasty in his judgment. “Our pards matter to all of us. An outfit where no one cares is an outfit that doesn’t last long.”

  “So what now?” Maynard asked. “I’m for takin’ McLeash and Stewart back to the ranch for buryin’.”

  “We’ll do that soon enough,” Willis promised. “Fan out. Look for tracks. Find where Wilkes and Nargent went to.”

  It had been slickly done. The two rustlers had only gone twenty feet up the slope and reined due west, riding as close to a row of boulders as they could so their tracks were not obvious.

  Willis was furious with himself. He should have caught on sooner. He had let the rustlers hoodwink him. By now they were miles away. Overtaking them in such rugged country would be next to impossible with the lead they had. “Let’s collect Charlie and Sam.”

  It was a glum bunch of cowboys who spent the next several days winding down from the high country to the north valley. The punchers minding the north herd added the stolen cows, then told them the word from town was that the parson was on the mend and that Fred Baxter had been out to the Bar T a couple of times to talk to Abe Tyler, but no one knew what about. Willis could guess. He wanted to ask about Laurella but refrained.