Valois grinned. “I've got to hand it to you, Grant. I didn't think Battle would do it.”
But Grant was in no mood for congratulations. Fighting weakness with threats was not a pleasant way to do things, but a man could not always choose his own weapons.
They walked from the main part of Kiefer and moved cautiously toward the boxcar depot. “I wonder where Farley is?” Valois said thoughtfully. And Grant was thinking the same thing. That they should move the wagon all the way to the lease, unmolested, was almost too much to hope for.
There were several horses and hacks tied up at a long rack beside the boxcar, and the three men swung wide around them, keeping in the darker shadows as much as possible. The night was crystal clear, as brittle as ice, and their boots crunched noisily on patches of frozen snow as they made their way toward the freighter.
Bud Muller glanced up at the great spread of sky and the frosted moon that was beginning to rise in the east. “I'd be just as happy,” Valois said, “if we had a few clouds. When that moon comes up Farley can spot us halfway to Sabo.”
“We'll worry about that,” Grant said, “when the time comes.”
But the time was sooner than any of them thought. Bud Muller untied the lines, climbed up on the front wheel, and looped the loose ends around the brake lever. Valois climbed up next, taking his place on the driver's seat, and as Grant placed one foot on the wheel spoke, a sense of warning made him let go immediately.
A long shadow fell across the ground and a horseman rode casually from behind the boxcar. From the corner of his eye Grant could see the A & P ticket agent dozing over his telegraph key, but the conscious part of his brain was focused on the rider. Squat and bullish, almost shapeless in the loose folds of a plaid mackinaw, Ben Farley said:
“You aiming to steal those derrick timbers, Muller?”
Three more riders rode immediately behind Farley. One of them Grant recognized as one of the roustabouts that had given him the beating in the Wheel House, another was Kurt Battle, and the third was a lank, scarecrow figure of a man who had about him an aura of danger that was unmistakable, and Grant knew immediately that this was Kirk Lloyd, the gunman.
Farley spoke to Kurt Battle, smiling faintly. “I guess maybe you ought to go after the law, Kurt. We've caught them red-handed trying to steal your wagon and equipment.”
Lloyd was gaunt and humorless, forever watchful. Battle seemed to be skating the thin edge of panic; his eyes blinked rapidly, a nervous little twitch tugged spasmodically at the corner of his soft mouth. The roustabout grinned stupidly as though he alone saw some enormous joke in the situation.
Hardly a second had passed, the four horsemen were still riding toward them, but Grant knew instinctively what happened. They had underrated Farley. They had thought that they could get out of town and do their fighting in the open, if fight they must, but the oilman had played it differently. He was playing to bring the law in on his side!
Farley had got hold of Battle and him, and the rest of it had been easy.
For one brief moment Grant stared at the oilman almost in admiration. He was dangerous and deadly and smart, and being smart was the worst of all, because now he would have the law working for him.
At that moment Grant had almost forgotten Valois and young Muller up on the wagon. He felt sick with defeat, for Jim Dagget would lock them up for theft, and then, sooner or later, he would find the money belt about Grant's waist and remember the bank robbery in Joplin. And that would be the end.
Even as he thought it, he heard Bud Muller snarl like some cornered animal, and the instant of silence was completely shattered by the blast of a revolver.
Now was no time for thinking, or swearing in anger because a hotheaded kid had made a bad situation even worse. Grant leaped to one side, clawing in his windbreaker for his pistol. And he saw Lloyd, Farley's gunman, reacting unhurriedly and coolly, reaching swiftly for his shoulder holster inside his loose-fitting windbreaker.
Farley himself judged the situation instantly and calmly withdrew. Lloyd and the roustabout were paid to do his fighting, and the oilman reined his animal quickly to one side as calmly as if he were getting up to leave a poker game. Battle's face was sheer panic; his startled animal reared suddenly and he fell solidly to the frozen ground and did not get up. The roustabout lost his idiotic grin; he looked bewildered and faintly shocked as he fumbled inexpertly for his revolver.
Only Kirk Lloyd seemed unruffled and cool. He worked smoothly, as only a professional can, and his quick eyes picked out the point of most immediate danger and ignored all the others. The dull steel of a .45 seemed to glow in his right hand, and he fired twice without a change of expression, without a flicker of an eyelash, directly at Bud Muller.
The boy's mouth flew open as if in amazement. He grabbed his side and slipped slowly, gracefully, to the bottom of the driver's seat. Lloyd's horse had shied suddenly at the sound of shooting, and for an instant the gunman seemed to wonder if his shot had been spoiled and whether he should fire again. But when he saw the boy begin to fall he forgot about Bud Muller and turned his mind to the other points of attack.
The roar of Lloyd's second shot was still ballooning in the air when he turned from Bud Muller. He saw Turk Valois was still struggling to open his windbreaker and forgot the runner as one unworthy of his attention. With a practiced movement that seemed almost lazy because of its perfection, the gunman turned his .45 on Grant.
Here he showed his first flicker of emotion. A faint shadow of surprise crossed his eyes when he saw that Grant's pistol was in his hand. Lloyd was not worried, merely surprised that this man had drawn as fast as he had. Probably it had never occurred to the gunman that, by shooting first at the boy, the odds had grown against him. He was cool and completely confident as he turned to flick his trigger finger at Grant.
Not even when Grant's pistol barked first did any expression come over that lean, stone-hard face. Not even when the bullet tore through him did he show dismay. He was a professional; killing was his business, and he could not imagine that this big wild-eyed man standing before him might beat him at his own business. But the impact of the bullet tore him from his saddle, and he fell to the ground with one foot caught in the stirrup, and the nervous animal whirled in a tight little circle until it had thrown off the dead weight.
Immediately on top of Grant's shot came two more shocking muzzle blasts that jarred the night. And Grant glanced up to see Turk Valois standing crouched on the wagon seat with a revolver in his hand. The roustabout dumped forward from his saddle without ever getting his windbreaker open.
A bare second of silence struck the night as sharply as had the crashing of guns. For one scant instant Kiefer seemed to hold its breath. Then suddenly some distant voice was raised in excitement and the figures of men crowded doorways and spilled into the biting night, and the darkness became cluttered with the sound of running men.
Battle was still lying on the ground, paralyzed with fear, and Farley had vanished somewhere into the darker shadows near the makeshift depot. Drained of all feeling, Grant shoved his pistol back into his waistband and looked up at Valois. “How's the boy?”
“Still breathing. That's about all I can tell.”
Grant climbed over the wagon wheel and, with Valois' help, they lifted the boy out of the freighter and put him on the ground. Apparently, one of Lloyd's shots had missed; the other had caught Bud Muller in the right side, about an inch above the thrust of the hipbone. If the boy lived he could thank Lloyd's rearing horse for throwing off the gunman's aim.