Laura stood leaning against the jamb, staring through the open doorway. Brad sat near Clem, looking at her, waiting for what he didn’t know. He thought of the way she’d questioned with her troubled eyes when he and Clem had returned to the house. Warned of the gun’s existence in the barn, she, too, had been ready for a desperate try of her own, a plunge through a window, a break toward the sheltering brush of the creek when the first burst of gunfire should attract the attention of Jeffers and Elena.
But no gunfire had sounded. And that had been worse than wild, crazy action would have been.
She understood, Brad knew. She realized that something had happened at the barn to make a try for the gun impossible. She didn’t blame Brad. But that didn’t help his feelings much, or dispel his sense of failure.
Ed began talking about a pinto horse and a Mexican girl and a jug of mescal.
Brad rose, moved to the bedroom. Ed was sitting up in bed. “Hello, Tolly,” he said, looking at Brad with glazed blue eyes. “The Jimsons are laying for you down by the livery. They’re figuring to jump you when you go after your horse, Tolly. Better borrow a horse and get out of town when you leave the saloon. There’s four of the Jimsons, Tolly...”
Laura entered the bedroom with Brad. “He’s talking about the brother who was killed in the gunfight?”
“Yes,” Brad said, “he thinks I’m Tolly.”
Ed grabbed Brad’s hand in both of his. “Tolly, me and the old man rode, but they was gone. You chased them off, Tolly! Perrywinkle at the store said they’d killed you.”
“You pay Perrywinkle no mind,” Brad said. “Just relax and rest now. It’s been a long, hard ride.”
“Sure has, Tolly. Raining part of the time. Cold rain with sleet mixed in it.”
Brad eased Ed back in bed. Ed’s eyes dropped closed; his breathing slowed, became regular.
There was a pan of water and a cloth on a table beside the bed. Laura dipped the cloth, wiped Ed’s sweating face.
Brad passed the back of his hand over his forehead. He left the room and went into the kitchen.
Jeffers looked up from his game.
“You’ve got to let us get a doctor,” Brad said. And for the first time he heard his voice break, a pleading note creeping into it.
“Sorry,” Jeffers shook his head.
“You brought him here. You wanted him to live that much.”
“I want him to live,” Jeffers said. “I hope he’s man enough to make it.”
“But no doctor?”
“No.”
Brad stood breathing shallowly, breath passing no deeper than his throat. “You can’t hide here indefinitely.”
“Don’t intend to. Just three or four days, until the posses run out of grub and head back home.” Jeffers turned a pasteboard over. “Meantime it’s useless to talk.”
Brad looked at Jeffers’s impassive face a moment longer; then he walked out to the porch and sat down on the railing.
Clem followed him, sat down near him. “Hot out here.”
“Then go in the house.”
“Now, Brad, I can’t do that.”
Insects hummed and the sinking sun made a lake of heat in the distance. Inside the house, Laura cried out Brad’s name. He swung his legs across the sapling rail, and rushed into the parlor in time to see Laura loose her grip on Ed, who was going out the back door.
Mad with fever, Ed jumped from the porch and moved toward the creek. He was telling his brother Tolly to hang on, the Jimsons weren’t big enough to stop the Pickens clan.
Laura leaped after Ed. Jeffers upset the kitchen table, vaulted the back porch rail, and ran down the slope. Like a giant oak shuddering out the last of its strength before falling, Ed plunged on toward the creek.
Clem grabbed Brad’s shirt. Fabric ripped as they stumbled from the back porch together. Beyond Clem, Brad saw Elena standing in the back doorway.
“Hold it!” Clem said. “Jeffers’ll bring him back.”
Jeffers reached Ed, caught his arm, and Ed slugged him. Jeffers fell. Ed picked up a heavy, weather-hardened limb and struck. Jeffers moved from side to side to avoid the blows. The limb struck his shoulder. Jeffers stumbled to his knees. Ed raised the limb high to brain Jeffers. Brad heard Clem draw in his breath. Clem pulled his gun, swinging it toward Ed. Brad grabbed the gun wrist and hit Clem with all his strength. Clem stumbled; his spurs tangled and tripped him, and Brad got the gun. Brad put his knee hard against Clem’s chin, broke away, leaving Clem addled on hands and knees.
Brad whirled just in time to see Jeffers draw and shoot Ed. He saw the bullet bite into Ed’s massive chest, the chest fold as if under a giant blow.
Ed pitched forward, and Brad knew there was only one Pickens left alive. Choked with rage, sweat seeping in and scorching his narrowed eyes, Brad snapped a shot at Jeffers with Clem’s gun.
Jeffers snapped off two quick shots. Brad felt the wind burn of them. Behind him, he heard Elena scream, and he knew she had been in line of fire. Jeffers’s bullet had hit her.
Jeffers dropped behind a stump. Brad was in the open, between Jeffers and Clem. Laura was almost to the barn, running in a crouch, lightly as a doe. Brad dove around the corner of the house, keeping Jeffers down with two more shots. He cut for the barn, using a fourth and fifth shot as he ran.
He dove through the barn door as Jeffers’s bullet put a hot welt across his back. Laura grabbed him, pulled him forward, and he scrambled to his feet. He was trembling in every muscle, heavy drops of sweat rolling down his face. His lips were flat, his eyes hot. “The swine, the dirty, worthless, merciless pigs.”
He felt light-headed, a little off-balance, but he didn’t care. For years he’d carried a knot inside of him; now it had burst, and he could taste the poison of it. He moved to the rear of the barn, snatched the Winchester from its scabbard, levered a cartridge into the chamber.
He thrust Clem’s sixgun into Laura’s hand. “There’s one bullet left. No matter what happens, Jeffers must never leave here. The bullet has got Jeffers’s name on it.”
Her dark hair was sweat-tangled about her face. Her cheeks looked glazed and some of the light in Brad’s eyes was reflected in her own.
She caught his wrist. “Brad...” And then she released him, looking into his face. “I understand,” she said. “Jeffers is all the running, the hatefulness, the meanness, the whole past.”
A shout came from the house. Brad turned in that direction. Clem had got to his feet, drawn his second gun. Jeffers was leaning over Elena, who sat on the back porch propped against the house. Brad could catch her moans, and saw that she was holding her stomach as if trying to tear away pain.
Jeffers turned, dropped from the back porch like a cat.
“Elena needs help,” he shouted. “You’ve only got one bullet left. Come out, Brad, and you and the girl will live.”
“You come and get me and the girl,” Brad shouted back.
“Don’t be a fool,” Clem advised with a wave of his gun. “If you make the cards fall that way, we’ll have to kill you.”
“That would trouble you, wouldn’t it, Clem?”
“Sure would, but what has to be has to be. Look, boy, you only got one bullet. You can’t shoot us both.”
Brad, in the shadows of the barn doorway, stroked the stock of the Winchester. “I wonder which it’ll be?”
Jeffers moved to Clem and they hunkered in the shadows of the porch; the angle made a shot hard.
While they palavered, Brad drew Laura over to him! His gaze took in every detail of her face. “I figured they’d come quick. Now you’ve got a chance. Slide out that back window, make for the corral. You’ll have a long stretch of open field to cross, but I’ll cover you. I’ll see that you make it.”