"They took the bait, all right Oh, yes, I could see just enough to see them ride out"
"How many stayed behind?"
"Two, three maybe. I don't know for sure."
Galloway went to his horse, and I did the same. You can lay a couple of bets I wasn't anxious to go down there, but we had set this up and this was the chance we'd been playing for.
Cap started to follow along, but I waved him back. "You stay here. No use all of us getting boxed in down there. If you see them coming back, give a shout."
Ladder Walker was along with us - there was no leaving him out of it. So the three of us went down the mountain, following the trail where cattle had crossed a saddle, and we came into the valley within two hundred yards of the ranch, just beyond the corral.
"Stay with the horses, Ladder," I said. "And keep an eye on the opening. I don't like this place, not a bit"
"You figure it for a trap?"
"Could be. Black Fetchen is a wily one, and we've had it too easy so far. We've had almost too much luck."
Galloway and me, spread apart a little, walked toward the house.
We played it in luck this time too. Nobody seemed to be around until we stepped up on the porch. Then we could hear voices coming from the back of the house.
"Don't get any ideas, old man. You just set tight until the boys come back. Then maybe Black will let you go. If'n he can find that gold and them Sacketts all to once, he might come back plumb satisfied."
"He won't find the Sacketts," I said, stepping from the hallway into the room where they sat. It was the kitchen, and on my sudden entrance one of the men stood up so quick he almost turned over the table.
"Get your hat, Mr. Costello," I said. "We've come to take you to Judith."
I hadn't drawn my gun, being of no mind to shoot anybody unless they asked for it. There were two of Fetchen's men in the room and our arriving that way had taken the wind out of them. They just looked at us, even the one who had stood up so quick.
Costello, who was a slim, oldish man with a shock of graying hair, got up and put on his hat.
"Here, now!" The Fetchen man standing up had gotten his senses back, and he was mad. "Costello, you come back and set down! The same goes for you Sacketts, unless you want to get killed. Black Fetchen is ridin' up to this ranch right now."
"We needn't have any trouble," I said calmly.
"I'll get a horse," Galloway said, and ducked out of the door, Costello following him.
"Black will kill you, Sackett. He'll fill your hide with lead."
"I doubt if he's got the guts to try. You tell him I said that."
"I hear tell you're a fast man with a shootin' iron." I could just see the gambler stirring around inside him, and it looked as if it was gettin' the better of his common sense. "I don't think we need to wait for Black. I'd sort of like to try you on myself."
"Your choice."
Meanwhile I walked on into the room, and right up to him. Now, no man likes to start a shooting match at point-blank range, because skill plays mighty little part in it then, and the odds are that both men will get blasted. And anyhow, nobody in his right mind starts shooting at all unless there's no other way, and I wasn't planning on shooting now, if I could help it.
So I just walked in on him and he backed off a step, and when he started to take another step back, I hit him. It was the last thing he was expecting, and the blow knocked him down. It was one quick move for me to slip his gun from its holster and straighten up, but the other man hadn't moved.
"You shuck your guns," I told him. "You just unbuckle and step back, and be careful how you move your hands. I'm a man mighty subject to impressions, and you give me the wrong one and I'm likely to open you up like a gutted sheep."
"I ain't figurin' on it. You just watch it, now." He moved his hands with great care to his belt buckle, unhitched, and let the gun belt fall.
The man on the floor was sitting up. "What's the matter, you yella?" he said to his companion.
"I'm figurin' on livin' a mighty long time, that's all. I ain't seen a gray hair yet, and I got my teeth. Anyway, I didn't see you cuttin' much ice."
"I should've killed him."
"You done the right thing, to my thinkin'. Maybe I ain't so gun-slick as some, and maybe I ain't so smart, but I sure enough know when to back off from a fire so's not to get burned. Don't you get no fancy notions now, Ed. You'd get us both killed."
Well, I gathered up those guns and a rifle I saw in the corner by the door, then I just backed off.
Galloway and Costello were up in their saddles, holding my horse ready.
There wasn't any move from the house until we were cutting around the corral toward the trail down which we had come, and then one man ran from the house toward the barn. Glancing back, I was just in time to see him come out with a rifle, but he took no aim at us; he just lifted the rifle in one hand and fired two quick shots, a space, and then a third shot ... and he was firing into the air.
"Trouble!" I yelled. "That was a signal!"
Ladder Walker, who had hung back, wanting a shot at anyone who had helped to kill Briggs, now came rushing up behind us. The trail to the saddle over which he had come into the valley was steep, and a hard scramble for the horses, but much of it was among the trees and partly concealed from below.
We heard a wild yell from below and, looking back, I saw Black Fetchen, plainly recognizable because of the horse he rode, charging into the valley, followed by half a dozen riders.
Even as I looked, a man ran toward him, pointing up the mountain. Instantly there was firing, but shooting uphill is apt to be a tricky thing even for a skilled marksman, and their bullets struck well behind us. Before they had the range we were too far away for them, and they wasted no more shots.
But they were coming after us. We could hear their horses far below, and saw the men we had caught in the house catching up horses at the corral, ready to follow.
Deliberately, Galloway slowed his pace. "Easiest way to kill a horse," he said, "running it uphill. We'll leave that to them."
Riding close to Costello, I handed him the gun belt and rifle I'd taken from the cabin. When I'd first run out I had slung the belt over the pommel and hung onto the rifle.
Up ahead of us we heard the sudden boom of a heavy rifle ... Cap Rountree and his buffalo gun. A moment later came a second shot. He was firing a .56 Spencer that carried a wicked wallop. Personally, I favored the Winchester .44, but that big Spencer made a boom that was a frightening thing to hear, and it could tear a hole in a man it hit so that it was unlikely a doctor would do him much good.
Cap was in the saddle when we reached him, but he made us pull up. "Flagan," he said, "I don't like the look of it. Where's the rest of them?"
There were six or seven behind us, that we knew, but what of the rest?
"You figure we're trapped?" I asked.
"You just look at it. They must know how we got up here, and they can ride out their gap and block our way down the mountain before we can get there."
I was not one to underrate Black Fetchen. Back at the Costello place that man had said Fetchen was due to come riding in at any moment, and at the time I gave it no credit, figuring he was trying a bluff, but then some of the outfit had showed up.
Ladder Walker turned his mount and galloped to a spot where he could look over part of the trail up which we had come in first arriving at our lookout point. He was back in an instant. "Dust down there. Somebody is movin' on the trail."
"Is there a trail south, toward Bronco Dan?"
Cap Rountree chewed his mustache. "There's a shadow of a trail down Placer Creek to La Veta Pass, but that's where you sent some of this outfit. Likely the Fetchens know that trail. If you try it, and they're waitin,' it's a death trap."