Fear had wiped out the pain from my wounded leg, but I realized it was bleeding again. My pants leg was soaked and I could feel the squishing in my shoe, although a part of it was rain water.
There was a lot of shooting now. Judith must have opened fire from some place above me. Bleeding or not, exhausted or not, I knew it was death to stay where I was, so I scrambled. I could hear them all around me.
As I squirmed between two boulders, one of the Fetchen men reared up right before me and I hit him with my rifle butt. It wasn't much of a blow, because I held the rifle one-handed and I just swung it up from where it was.
He grabbed the rifle with both hands. But instead of trying to pull it away, I held it hard against him and swung my foot and kicked him under the chin. He went over backwards and I jerked the rifle away. He looked up at me for one black, awful instant, but it was kill or be killed, and I gave him the rifle butt in the face with both hands.
Holding up there, gasping for breath, I fed a few cartridges into the magazine of my rifle. My belt was running shy, so I reached down and ripped the belt off the Fetchen man.
Rain was pouring down, and the firing had let up. Nobody seemed to be moving, and I worked my way slowly ahead, nearing the crest of the ridge. Here and there the bottom of the gouge was choked with brush, and there were many rocks, polished by running water and the abrasion of other tumbling stones.
Once, crawling through the brush, I suddenly felt myself growing weaker, and almost blacked out. I fought against the dizziness for a moment, and then somehow I came out of it, and crawled on.
They had come in behind me now, closing off the way back, even if I had been willing or able to take it. I could hear them coming on, taking their time, checking every clump of brush or rocks.
There was no longer any question of running. I could pull myself up, and by using the rocks and brush I could remain erect long enough to move forward a few feet.
Then the ridge was close above me. I could see the bare wet rocks, the stunted cedars, and the occasional bare trunks of pines shattered by lightning.
At that moment I looked around. Four men were standing not much more than fifty feet away, aiming their rifles at me. Desperately, I threw myself to one side and fired my rifle at them. Fired, worked the lever, and fired again.
Bullets smashed into the ground around me. My hat was swept from my head, blood cascaded into my eyes, and my rifle was struck from my hand. I grabbed for it, and through the haze of blood from a scalp wound I saw that the action was shattered and useless.
Throwing the rifle down, I grabbed my six-shooter. Somehow, in throwing myself to one side, I had gotten into the cover of a rock.
A man came running down the gully, but the earth gave way and he slid faster than he expected, stones and rubble crashing down before him. I shot at point-blank range, my bullet striking the V of his open shirt and ranging upward through him.
He fell forward. I grabbed at his rifle, but it slipped away and fell down among the rocks.
Up ahead of me there was a shattering burst of gunfire - it sounded like several guns going. They must have caught up with Judith.
I could hear the ones close by talking as I waited. They were hunting me out, but they could not see me, a fact due more to the rocks where I lay than to any skill on my part. After the sudden death of the man who had slid down among the rocks they were wary, hesitant to take the risk ... and I was just as pleased. Right about then I must have passed out for a minute. When I opened my eyes again I was shaking with cold. The wind had come up, and was blowing rain in on me. I didn't have what you'd call shelter, just the slight overhang of a slab of fallen rock.
My hands felt for my guns. I had both pistols, and I reloaded the one right there. All the time I was listening, fighting to keep my teeth from chattering, and the knowledge growing in me that it would be almighty cold up here at night.
Nothing moved; only the rain whispered along the ground and rattled cold against the rocks. Even if I couldn't get out of this, I had to find a safer place.
On the downhill side there was a scattered stand of pine, stunted and scraggly, along with the boulders and the low-growing brush. On the uphill side there was even less cover, but the gouge up which I'd been crawling ran on for sixty yards or so further, ending just off the ridge.
It stood to reason that if they wanted me they could get me crossing that ridge. All they had to do was hold their fire and let me get out on the bare rock.
But Judith, unless she was dead or captured, was up there somewhere.
So I crawled out of shelter, over a wet boulder and along the downhill side of a great old deadfall, the log all turned gray from the weather. Maybe I made fifteen feet before I stopped to catch my breath and breathe away the pain; then I went on.
I was nearing the end of the gouge. The only thing for me to do now was break out and run for it. And I couldn't run.
Only I had to. I had to make it over that ridge. Lying there shivering in the cold rain, I studied that ridge and the ground between. Thirty steps, if I was lucky.
There was no sense in waiting. I came off the ground with a lunge, stabbing at the ground with my good leg, but hitting easy with the wounded one. I felt a shocking pain, and then I was moving. I went over the ridge and dropped beside a rock, and there they were, the lot of them.
There was Judith too, her hands held behind her, and a man's dirty hand clasped tight over her mouth so she couldn't call out to warn me. There were six of the Fetchen gang, with Black right there among them - Black and Colby Rafin.
At times like that a man doesn't think. There's no room for thought. I was soaked to the hide, bedraggled as a wet cat, bloody and sore and hurt and mad, and when I saw that crowd I did the last thing they expected.
I went for my gun.
Oh, they had guns on me, all right! But they were too busy feeling satisfied with themselves at setting the trap, and there's such a thing as reaction time. A man's got to realize what is happening, what has to be done, and he has to do it, all in the same moment.
My right hand slapped leather and came up blasting fire. And almost at the same instant my left hand snaked the other Colt from my waistband.
There was no time for anything like choosing targets. I shot into the man right in front of me, shifted aim, and blasted again. I saw Judith twisting to get free, and pulling Rafin off balance.
Somebody else was shooting, and I saw Galloway, leaning on a crutch and his gun leaping with every spout of flame. And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. There was a scrambling in the brush, then silence, and I was stretched out on the rocks and the rain was pounding on my back.
It seemed like hours later that I got my eyes open and looked around.
There was a fire in a fireplace, and Judith was sitting in front of it, watching the flames. I never saw anything so pretty as the firelight on her face, and catching the lights of her hair.
I was stretched out in a bunk in some sort of a low-roofed cabin, and the floor was littered with men, all apparently sleeping. Coffee was on the fire, and by the look of the coals we'd been here quite a spell.
I felt around for my gun and found it, but the rustling drew Judith's attention. She came over to me. "Ssh! The others are all asleep."
"Was that Galloway that showed up? Is he all right?"
"He's been hurt. He was shot three times, and has a broken foot. Pa's here, and so are Cap and Moss."
"Walker?"
"He's dead. He was killed, Flagan."
"Black?"
"He got away. He was hurt, I know that. You hit him once at least. He ran, Flagan. He turned and ran."