“Danged nice guns,” he said, straightening. “Engraved and everything. Wonder if they shoot.”
“Give them back,” the sheriff roared. “Give them back or…”
Deliberately Jingo Charley tossed them, one after the other, into the mudhole that lay in the street. They splashed and disappeared.
“Guess that’ll hold the old goat for a little while,” said Jingo Charley.
He shook his head, sadly. “Shame to muddy up them pretty guns. Engraved and everything.”
The tangle of the Greasewood hills lay across the trail, soaring heights that shimmered in the heat of afternoon and short abrupt canyons that were black slashes of shadow upon a sunlit land.
Jingo Charley jogged his horse abreast of Benton. “Want to keep an eye peeled, kid,” he warned.
Benton nodded. “I was thinking that, myself.”
“Just because them Anchor hombres folded up back in that saloon,” said Jingo, “ain’t no sign they won’t get brave as hell with a tree to hide behind.”
“Can’t figure out that backing down,” said Benton. “Went in figuring on a shootout.”
“The Watson bunch will do anything to duck trouble now,” the old man told him. “Getting together a bunch of cattle to drive north. Some of their own cattle, I suppose. But likewise a lot of other stuff.”
“They’ll be starting soon?” asked Benton.
Jingo spat. “Few days. That is, unless something happens.”
“Like what?”
“Like if them cows got spooked and hightailed it back into the brush.”
“Someone’s up there,” said Benton quietly. “Someone riding hard.”
They pulled their horses to a halt, watched the horse and rider plunging down the tangled hill. The rider sat the horse straight as an Indian and the sun caught the flash of calico fluttering in the wind.
“It’s that gal,” yelled Jingo. “Old Madox’s daughter.”
Benton whirled his horse off the trail, touched spurs and tore up the hill. She saw him coming and raised an arm in a swift gesture.
She rode without a saddle, with her dress tucked beneath her, legs flashing in the sun. She had lost her sunbonnet and as she came opposite Benton, he saw the red welts across her cheeks where whipping brush had raked her face.
Benton leaned down and grasped the bridle of the blowing horse, pulled it close, asked sharply: “What’s the matter, Ellen?”
“They’re waiting for you at the Forks,” she gasped.
“Watson?”
She nodded, went on breathlessly. “They passed up on the road and Dad spotted them when we were driving through. But we made out as if we didn’t see them. Then when we got out of sight, we pulled up and unhitched.”
“You took a big chance,” Benton told her, solemnly.
She shook her head. “One of us had to ride back and warn you. And Dad can’t ride worth shucks without a saddle. Getting too fat. Me, I can ride any way at all.”
Benton scowled. “Sure they didn’t see you riding back?”
“No, they couldn’t have. I came a roundabout way. Through the hills.”
Jingo Charley looked at the heaving horse. “You must have done some riding.”
She nodded. “I had to. There wasn’t much time. I didn’t know how soon you’d be leaving town.”
Thinking of it, Benton felt shivers walking on his spine. There at the Forks the trail split three ways, the left hand one going to the Anchor spread, the right hand to Lathrop’s Heart ranch, the center one to the Crazy H and Tumbling A. The trail went steeply up a gorge to the high plateau where the trail divided. He and Jingo would have been walking their horses up the gorge, taking it easy. They would have been picked off like sitting birds by the hidden gunmen.
“They’ve got their horses down in the mouth of Cow Canyon,” Ellen was telling them. “One man guarding them. I saw them when I went past.”
Jingo Charley grinned wickedly. “Plumb shame,” he said, “to set them boys afoot.”
Benton said gravely: “Maybe you’d ought to go back, Ellen. The way you came. That way you’d be in the clear before anything could happen.”
“I thought maybe you would want to go with me,” said Ellen. “There isn’t any reason why you have to tangle with them.”
“Can’t pass up a chance like this,” Jingo Charley declared, with finality.
Benton considered. “We can’t duck out on a thing like this,” he said. “We got to fight them sooner or later and it might as well be now. There’s only two things to do. Fight or run.”
Jingo spat viciously. “I ain’t worth a damn at running,” he declared.
“Neither am I,” said Benton.
The girl slowly gathered up the reins.
“Be careful,” cautioned Benton. “Don’t let them see you. We’ll wait a while so that you can get through.”
She wheeled her horse.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Ellen,” Benton said.
“We have to stick together,” Ellen told him, simply.
Then she was pounding away, back up the tangled hill.
Jingo Charley stared after. “Saved our hair, that’s what she did,” he said. “Lots of spunk for a gal.”
They waited, watching the heights above them. Nothing stirred. The day droned on in sun and sound of insects.
Finally they moved on, skirting the trail, heading for the mouth of Cow Canyon.
Jingo Charley hissed at Benton. “Almost there, kid. Take it easy.”
“What’s that?” Benton suddenly demanded. Something had gleamed on the heights above them, something dancing like a sunbeam all at once gone crazy. And even as he asked it, he knew what it was.
“Look out!” he shouted at Jingo Charley. With tightened rein and raking spur, he plunged his horse around.
A rifle cracked where the sunbeam danced and smoke plumed on the hillside. Another gun belched at them from just below the first.
Benton spurred his horse and the animal, leaping in fright, went tearing through a clump of whipping brush, skidded over a cutbank, went clattering up a rise.
Ahead of him, Benton saw the old cowhand, urging his horse into a dead run; behind him he heard the thunder of galloping horses, the hacking cough of handguns.
Bullets whispered through the brush around him, some of them so close he heard the whining whisper in the air.
Jingo Charley lurched in the saddle, swayed for a moment and then was riding on. Benton saw a bright red stain spring out upon his sleeve, just above the elbow.
Benton snaked a quick look behind him. Riders with smoking guns were spread out in the brush. A branch caught him across the face with stinging force as he clawed one gun out of the holster.
The horse stumbled, caught itself and then went on. A bullet droned like a lazy bumblebee above Benton’s head.
Twisting in his saddle, he pumped his gun, feeling the jerking jumpiness of it in his hand. The leading Anchor man sailed out of his saddle, flying over the horse’s head, a whirling tangle of flying arms and legs. The horse whirled swiftly, frightened by the sight of a man in mid-air in front of him, crashed into the second rider, upsetting the plunging horse to send it rolling down the hill.
A yell of triumph was wrenched out of Benton’s lungs. The other Anchor riders shied off and Benton’s horse reached the ridge top, was plunging down the slope, stiffened forefeet plowing great furrows in the ground.
Jingo Charley was far ahead, almost at the bottom of the slope, swinging his horse to head for a canyon mouth. Benton hauled at the reins, brought the black around to angle down the hill in an effort to catch up with Jingo.
From the ridgetop came a single shot.
Benton looked back. Two or three horses were milling around up there.