The force of the blow snapped his head sideways and he collapsed as if he had been pole-axed. Calamity threw a look at the forge, from which the sounds of strife had warned that her suspicions were correct. What she saw caused her to drop the whip, spin around and race toward the horses.
Hearing the sound of Masters approaching from the rear, the Kid prepared to meet the danger. He had not heard any disturbance from Calamity’s direction, but hoped the girl could take care of herself until he could give her some help. In turning to meet his attacker, the Kid thrust his right leg to the rear and bent his left knee. At the same time, he bowed his torso forward and crouched with such speed that he took Masters by surprise.
Despite seeing his proposed victim’s movements, the wrangler could not halt his attack. The pick-handle swung around and whistled above the Kid’s head. Driving himself forward with the abrupt, instantaneous impetus shown by a cougar making an attack, the Texan locked his arms around the top of Masters’ thighs. Straightening up, the Kid raised the unbalanced, amazed man from the ground and heaved him over. The moment he released Masters, the Kid lunged forward and started to swing around.
In falling, Masters rammed his head against the floor of the forge, and the hard-packed earth came off better from the encounter. The wrangler crumpled and landed almost at the feet of the charging blacksmith. Distracted by the sight of Calamity effectively coping with Misery, Tully belatedly tried to leap over his companion. Instead, his forward foot caught against Masters’ body and he stumbled as he landed. Big hands reaching for a hold, the blacksmith blundered toward the Kid. Jumping aside, the Kid caused the hands to miss. As Tully went by, the Kid drove a kick into his rump, which increased his speed.
During his evasion of Tully’s attack, the Kid had approached the anvil. Tully continued across the forge at a fast clip, but managed to hook his left arm around one of the roof’s support-posts. Using it to turn him, he started to charge again. The Kid wanted to end the matter swiftly, in case Calamity needed his assistance. Nearby lay the means by which he could do so. Scooping up the turning hammer from the anvil, he was reminded of
With the hammer thrown and its results observed, the Kid swiftly looked around. Tully no longer posed any threat and Masters lay where he had fallen. About to swing toward the river, a movement caught the corner of the Kid’s eye. Turning his head, he saw a portly, bald man running from the rear door of the main building. Wearing a collarless shirt, fancy vest, town suit and boots, he fit the description Goff had given of Agent Spatz. Which interested the Kid far less than the fact that the newcomer carried a double-barreled shotgun. Finding his presence had been detected, Spatz skidded to a halt and began to raise the weapon.
Right hand turning palm-out and fanging down to close about the Dragoon’s butt, the Kid vaulted over the anvil. It would not be large enough to offer him shelter from the shotgun’s spreading pattern of balls. Ahead was the pile of rubbish from which the pick-handle had come. It was of sufficient size and quality to give him protection—if he could reach it in time. At that range, Spatz would be unlikely to miss with a charge of buckshot. The chance had to be taken. To stay put would mean almost certain death. Bringing the Dragoon from leather, the Kid threw himself across the open space between the anvil and the pile of rubbish.
Calamity had also seen Spatz appear and knew that she could not handle the situation with her whip. Letting it fall, she darted to the horses and snatched her Winchester carbine from its saddle-boot. Swiveling around, she advanced three strides. Then she knew that she must stop moving and start shooting. Dropping her right knee to the ground, she adopted a firing position as fast as she had ever made it. Taking sight, she squeezed the trigger.
With his shotgun starting to line on the Kid, Spatz found the arrival of Calamity’s bullet very disconcerting. Dirt erupted between his feet, causing him to jerk hurriedly backward and press both triggers of his weapon. Bellowing like a cannon, the twin tubes discharged their loads. They had lifted when their user made his involuntary retreat, so the eighteen buckshot balls plowed into the roof of the forge. In his surprise, Spatz had relaxed his grip on the gun. So the recoil hurled the butt against his shoulder with numbing force. Letting out a screech of pain, he released and dropped the weapon.
Landing belly-down behind the heap of rubbish, the Kid heard the whip-like crack of Calamity’s carbine mingle with the boom from the shotgun and the buckshot’s impact on the roof over his head. Raising himself until he could see over the cover, he slanted the Dragoon in Spatz’s direction.
The agent stood with an expression of pain and shock on his face. It changed to raw fear as he turned his head and located Calamity. Already the girl’s right hand had returned the loading lever to its closed position. As his eyes focused on her, she laid her sights at his expansive stomach with cold deliberation.
“Make a move and you’re dead!” Calamity yelled.
“If she don’t get you, I will,” promised the Kid.
Finding himself covered by two weapons in obviously capable hands, and with his full working staff sprawled unconscious on the ground, Spatz knew there could be only one course left open to him. Surrender and hope to talk himself out of the reprisals his would-be victims might be considering taking against him.
Sick anxiety filled the agent as he massaged his numb, aching right shoulder. On learning what he had wanted them to do, his men had stated that they would not go up against that alert, proddy-looking Texan with guns. So Spatz had persuaded them that they could take the visitors with their bare hands. In fact, he had told them, their victims would be less likely to expect trouble from unarmed men.
Studying the cold, Comanche-mean features of the Ysabel Kid as he rose from behind the rubbish heap, Spatz felt his anxiety increase rapidly. The agent began to wish that he had never listened to the suggestions of his previous pair of visitors, or taken their money to prevent the girl and the Texan following them.
Deciding that the Kid could deal with the agent, Calamity came to her feet. She looked at the horses, wanting to make sure that they had not been disturbed by the shooting. Satisfied on that score, she tucked the carbine on the crook of her right arm and walked to where Misery lay. Removing her whip from his ankle, she strolled toward the forge, coiling its lash.
“You all right, Lon?” she asked, returning the handle to its belt loop.
“Well enough,” the Kid replied, joining her. “You?”
“He never come close. What’s it all about, Lon?”
“We’ve got the feller here’s can tell us,” the Kid answered, nodding to Spatz. “The lady asked a polite question,
“This here’s the Ysabel Kid, fatso,” Calamity warned. “He don’t look it, but he’s got him a real mean temper when he’s lied to.”
Spatz might have disputed the statement about how the Kid looked. Instead he stared at the Indian-dark Texan and croaked, “The Ysabel Kid?”
“That’s me,” the Kid admitted. “And, seeing’s how we’re getting so all-fired friendly, this’s Calamity Jane. I bet Oton ’n’ Job never told you who we was.”
“They sure as hell didn’t!” Spatz agreed indignantly.
“Then what’d they tell you to make you try ’n’ jump us?” Calamity demanded.
“My men’re hur——!” Spatz began.
The words ended abruptly as the Kid’s left hand laid hold of their speaker’s shirt-front and hauled him forward. The Dragoon’s muzzle bored hard into Spatz’s belly and a savage face came close to the agent’s perspiring, frightened features.
“They won’t be the only ones that way,” warned the Kid, “happen I don’t real quick get some answers.”
“Hey! Easy there, Kid!” Spatz yelped placatingly as the Texan thrust him away. “Them two fellers come here. Allowed they’d been to Mulrooney and the greaser’d killed a feller who was trying to pull the badger game on him. Reckoned the dead feller’s gal ’n’ brother was gunning for ’em.”
“And you thought we was them?” Calamity finished for him.
“I didn’t know. That’s what I sent the boys out to ask. Only I ought to’ve remembered——”
“About what?” prompted the Kid, holstering his Colt.
“I ought to’ve thought. Tully don’t cotton to Texans. Anyways, when I saw them jump you, I come right out to stop them.”
“I just bet you did,” drawled the Kid. “Who were those two fellers?”
“I’ve never seen ’em afore,” Spatz replied.
“Not even in Hollick City?” asked the Kid.
