I had made enough blunders for one day. I stopped and peered past the corner before venturing around it. Cold rage seized me. Brisco and the mare were gone. While Bill had blathered, Howard or the other townsman had snuck around and led my animals off.
This could not be happening. I was being out-thought and outfought by a pack of amateurs. Until that moment I had not taken them seriously. I did now. What would they expect me to do? I asked myself. Either charge after my horses or barge into the house through the back door.
I did neither.
Never taking my eyes off the windows, I ran twenty-five yards to the outhouse. It had been destroyed in the stampede and lay in scattered sections. The door was largely intact, lying flat in the grass. I hopped over it, turned, lifted it with my good arm, and stretched out underneath on my left side. My shoulder throbbed, but I grit my teeth and bore it. The pain reminded me not to make another mistake.
Near the top of the door was a small opening in the shape of a crescent moon. I peeked through. No sign of any of them yet. Grunting, I shifted and pried at my shirt. The slug had drilled me under my collarbone, sparing the bone and going clean through. I had been lucky. But it was bleeding and would weaken me if the bleeding did not stop.
The pain I could take. I had always prided myself on being able to handle pain that would have other men weep and whine.
Suddenly I felt dizzy and sick. I closed my eyes and waited for the spell to pass. I hoped to God I wouldn’t pass out. It would be just my luck for them to find me when I was as helpless as a baby. It would embarrass me to be taken like that. I always imagined that when my time came I would go down in a hail of lead. To be taken unconscious and under an outhouse door—no, that would not do at all.
I opened my eyes and looked through the crescent moon.
Howard and another townsman were slinking along the rear wall. They came to the back door and Howard warily opened it. The other townsman watched the corner and the windows. They thought I had gone inside. Neither had bothered to glance toward the outhouse.
Ordinarily, this would be like snatching a pie from a four-year-old, but my clipped wing was stiffening. In a little while it might be next to useless. Torment washed over me as I pressed my left hand to the door to brace it, and slid partway out from under.
Howard entered the house. I centered the Remington on the other man’s back, between his shoulder blades. At my shot he stumbled, his arms flung out to keep from falling. He started to turn and I shot him again, in the back of the head.
Howard reappeared. He stared at his friend, then gazed wildly about, swinging his revolver from side to side.
I watched him through the crescent moon. He did not stay there long, but spun and ran inside. I slid out from under the door, made it to my feet, and jogged to the far corner. I was hurting bad when I got there. It was all I could do to focus.
Howard must have heard me. He poked his head out the back door. I shot him through the ear. He tottered a step and collapsed, one leg against the door, keeping it from closing.
Now it was Bill and me. I was in no condition to have our battle of wits drag out. But how to end it quickly without getting myself killed?
Another bout of dizziness brought bitter bile to my throat. I swallowed it and started toward the front of the house, only to have the world spin like a child’s top. I sank down with my back to the wall and sat catching my breath. The nausea was awful. I considered crawling away and hiding, but I was too weak. I managed to draw my boot knife and switch it to my left hand, holding it so it was concealed under my wrist. Thinking of the wicked witch, I bowed my head.
The ratchet of a hammer being thumbed back jarred me. I looked up into the muzzle of the Merwin & Bray. A boot pinned my Remington to the ground.
“You should have surrendered to me,” Bill said. Bending, he snatched the Remington. I did not resist. “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” I croaked.
“Can you stand?”
“Not on my own.”
Bill hunkered. He trained the Merwin & Bray on my face while parting my shirt to examine the wound for himself.
I had one chance and one chance only. I thrust my knife into the base of his throat and sheared the blade upward. The last sound I heard was the Merwin & Bray going off.
Chapter 27
I slowly came to. I was cold and stiff, but I was alive. Above me stars sparkled. I went to sit up and felt a weight on my legs. It was Bill, lifeless, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. My blade was still embedded in his throat. I rolled him off and painfully pushed to my knees.
I had lost most of the day. By now Gertrude Tanner was miles away. Disgusted with myself, I slid my knife out of Bill’s throat, wiped the blade on Bill’s shirt, and replaced it in my boot. Reclaiming the Remington, I walked unsteadily to the front of the house. I half feared the townsmen had given Brisco and the mare slaps on their rumps and sent them galloping off, but thankfully, both horses were tied to the hitch rail.
As much as I hankered to go after Gertrude, I had my shoulder to think of. I heated water on the stove, cut a sheet into strips, and did the best I could bandaging myself. The bleeding had stopped, and I could move my left arm a little without causing too much pain.
I needed food and rest. I toyed with the notion of staying the night, but the company of Texas Rangers were due the next day. I put a pot of coffee on and helped myself to eight eggs and six strips of bacon from the pantry.
The meal invigorated me. I had energy to spare as I busied myself filling a sack with food and tying the sack to my saddle, then splashing kerosene in every room of the house and setting the house on fire.
By the grandfather clock in the parlor it was pushing ten o’clock when I strode outside and swung onto the mare. Leading Brisco, I at long last headed east. Once beyond the Dark Sister I threaded through darkling hills and on across a broad windswept plain.
I was bound for Clementsville. Closer by three days was a small settlement called Three Legs, named after an old-timer who had lost a knee to a Comanche arrow and had to use a cane ever after. Three Legs amounted to no more than a gob of spit, but it had a saloon, and Gertrude was bound to stop there if she continued east as I believed she would. There was always the possibility she would turn to the southeast instead. Eventually, that would take her to places like San Antonio or Austin, or maybe even all the way to the Gulf, and Corpus Christi or Galveston. Due south about a hundred and sixty miles was the border with Mexico. But to reach it, she’d have to pass through some of the most inhospitable country anywhere, filled with hostiles and outlaws. Due north lay the border with New Mexico. It was a lot closer, but the mountains there were infested by Apaches, and only a fool baited Apaches in their lair.
Gertrude, for all her faults, was no fool.
So east it had to be, and east I traveled, switching horses every two hours. Now and again I would rise in the stirrups and hope to spot a distant campfire, but morning came and I had not caught up. I was tired, but I pressed on.
Hate will do that. I had never really hated anyone before, not like I hated Gerty. My hate was a red-hot flame burning deep inside of me, and the only thing that could quench the flame was her lifeblood.
At noon I happened on the charred embers of a fire made the night before. I found where five mounts had been picketed, and footprints. I had figured there were more left than that, but maybe some had had enough and lit a shuck.
Evening came, and my eyelids were leaden. I turned in early to get an early start and slept the sleep of the exhausted. A couple of cups of coffee, a few pieces of jerky, and I was ready to resume the hunt.