time’s come to stop looking and start owning. Which, she’ll likely be coming with help.”
“If she does,” Calamity gritted. “Could be I’ll get her in that corral yet.”
“Just do me one lil-bitsy favor, gal,” drawled the Kid, taking up his rifle. “Let her come and ask you, don’t you go looking for her.”
“What do you reckon I am?” Calamity yelled at the Kid’s departing back.
Waiting until he had reached and opened the door, the young Texan turned and replied, “That I can’t tell you, there’s a lady in the room.”
Letting out a yelp like a scalded cat, Calamity grabbed for the coffee-pot. Then she remembered where she was, and, anyway, the Kid had already gone through the door. So she gave an exasperated groan.
“Ooh! Them floating-Outfit yahoos’re all the same!”
“He gave good advice, young lady,” Goldberg pointed out.
“Sure,” Calamity grinned. “And, for once just to rile him, I’m going to take it. Have some coffee, Doc.”
“Going some place, Kid?” asked a gray-haired member of the quartet seated on the house’s front porch and nursing shotguns.
“Got scared, Swede,” the Kid replied. “I’m running out.”
“Scared of Flo Eastfield’s bunch?” asked the portly owner of the local bank.
“Nope, of Calamity,” grinned the Kid. “Banged fool she-male, she wants to marry me and just now proposed.”
“Marriage’s a wonderful thing, I allus say,” declared the Wells Fargo agent.
“Then why’re you still a bachelor?” Swede demanded.
“’Cause I never believe in doing nothing I ain’t done once afore,” the agent explained. “Where you headed, Kid?”
“To tell Cash Trinian what’s happened,” the Kid answered and walked across to enter the stable.
Leaning his Winchester against the wall of the stall, he saddled his white stallion. Taking up the rifle and leading out the horse, he decided against using the rest of the relay. If Florence Eastfield did have a man, or men, watching the trail to the Rafter C, he could handle the menace better with only one mount. The white stallion was the best choice for the work ahead.
Once in the saddle, he kept his rifle in his hand and made his way out of town along the stage-trail. The stallion had been hard-pushed since leaving the trail herd and he wanted to conserve its strength. So he stuck to the easier going offered by the trail, instead of cutting across country, relying upon his and the horse’s keen senses to detect hostile presences. Nor did he make the white go at faster than a good trot. Unless Florence Eastfield had more men on hand—and the way she had handled things led him to believe she had not—she would have to either send for or fetch reinforcements from the sawmill. That meant there would be no further assault on the town before daylight. So he had time to reach the ranch and return with Trinian without causing the stallion to exhaust itself.
The Kid approached the point where the track turned off the main trail without incident. Suddenly, about seventy yards from the old cottonwood tree, the stallion came to a halt and snorted. Knowing the sound to be that caused by the detection of a hidden human being, the Kid started to raise his rifle. Yet he felt certain that he had heard an animal’s low growl just as the horse gave its warning. There had been a bluetick hound capable of making the sound at the Trinian’s ranch-house.
“Rafter C!” called the Texan. “This’s the Ysabel Kid coming with a message from Millie ’n’ Day Leckenby.”
“Ride up here slow ’n’ easy, young feller,” answered a cracked, ancient voice from behind the tree.
“I’ll do just that,” promised the Kid and, at his signal, the stallion started moving once more.
Cradling his old Spencer carbine ready for use, Leathers of the Rafter C told the bluetick crouched at his side to stay put. Then the old-timer watched the white stallion drawing closer. There was one hell of a fine horse. It moved quietly, despite its size, like a wild mustang rather than a trained saddle-critter. The baby-faced young cowhand had looked to have Indian blood. Horse-Indian most likely. Only a better than fair rider could stay on the stallion’s back——
Only the Texan might not be staying on it.
“Hold it right there, feller!” Leathers ordered. “Them black duds make you sort of hard to see.”
A low whistle came from the range, sounding uncomfortably like it originated from a position that put Leathers in its maker’s view. As the stallion stopped, a quiet, drawling voice rose from the same place.
“Depends on where you’re looking.”
“Stay put, Sam!” Leathers growled and the dog sank back to the crouching position that it had been on the point of leaving on hearing the Texan’s words. “Feller that sneaky’s likely to blow your bead off if you start gnawing on his arm.”
“Only if he goes higher’n the elbow,” the Kid corrected, walking toward the tree. “You out a-courting this late, friend?”
“Courting’s for young sprout’s hasn’t l’arned better sense,” Leathers answered, feeling admiration at the way he had been tricked. Concentrating on the approaching stallion, both he and the bluetick had failed to see or hear its rider quit the saddle and take up his present position. “I’m out coon-hunting.”
“With
“When I shoots ’em,” Leathers replied, lowering the .52-caliber Spencer, “I aims to see’s they stops shot. What’s up in town, young feller?”
“Day Leckenby got shot tonight.”
“The hell he did! Who done it?”
“One of the sawmill bunch. Sheriff asked for us to come and tell Cash Trinian.”
“Figures,” Leathers growled. “Cash was a damned good deputy. Get your hoss ’n’ ride on, I’ll catch up to you along the track. My hoss’s hid in a hollow out there.”
When Leathers joined him, riding a leggy dun gelding, the Kid explained why he had not come at a faster pace. Then they continued to ride in the direction of the ranch-house. On arrival, they left their horses before the building and went across the front porch. Leathers knocked on the door of the darkened building and, after a moment, a light glowed in one of the windows. Raising the window, Trinian looked out. Telling the men to wait, he disappeared. A minute or so ticked by, then the window went dark and the parlor was illuminated. The door opened and Trinian stood at it, barefoot and with his night-shirt tucked hit-and-miss into his pants. Beyond him, wearing a night-cap and with a robe over her nightgown, Corey-Mae looked worriedly across the room.
“Oh. It’s you,” Trinian growled ungraciously, letting the Kid and Leathers enter, directing his words at the Texan. “You was a mite cagey last time you called. Didn’t hit us until after you’d gone, but Endicott’s law-wrangling pard lived in Mulrooney and Calamity Jane ’n’ the Canary gal’s got one name the same.”
“Calam’s Martha Jane Canary all right,” the Kid admitted. “Only we didn’t find them two hosses straying. We’d had to gun down their owners to stop ’em killing us. Thing like that happens, it makes a man careful. And you didn’t act any too sociable when we rode up.”
“We’d got our reasons——!” Trinian began hotly.
“Why have you come, Kid?” Corey-Mae interrupted.
“Day Leckenby got tricked out of town tonight,” the Kid replied. “He was bushwhacked, but got back wounded. It was done so that the Eastfield gal’s guns could sic that Olaf
“Only they didn’t sic him on to you, looks like,” Trinian growled.
“The hell they didn’t!” snapped the Kid, temper starting to rise. “I had to fan two forty-four balls into him to sort of cool him out of the notion. Calamity helped some——”
“What’s happened to Day Leckenby?” Corey-Mae cut in. “That’s the important thing right now.”
“He’s hit bad. Sent me to fetch your husband in,” the Kid supplied.
“To help him,” Trinian demanded, “or you?”
“Cash!” Corey-Mae gasped.
“Him, mister.
