He rasped stubbly cheek, thought of Bunny, and scowled.
The brush of the bosque and the half-stripped trees, conjuring as these did the other times he'd been in them, were harder on his mood than that depressing damn street. The leaves hung as limp as a parson's coat tails. He had no idea where to look for the mare. He whistled again, shoving on through the brush, half-minded to settle for a bed at the hotel. Then he heard a faint whicker and pulled up to let her find him.
After three or four minutes he remembered what he was standing there for and whistled again. When she still didn't come he started testily after her; sometimes she could be about as obstinate as a mule. The spindling trees grew thicker in here. He was beginning to work up a sweat with all this bumbling around. Once more he whistled and heard her answer off to the left. Pushing through a scratchy thicket he broke into a forty-foot clearing and saw her, tied with a cotton rope around her neck.
While he was staring a gun went off. The clearing spun dizzily. Rafe didn't hardly know he was hit till he found himself peering up off the ground into the blurred grinning face of Jess Spangler. He saw the gun tip again and frantically rolled. Spangler fired twice before Rafe got his own pistol out of its holster. Desperately Rafe raised it, feeling the bite of fresh pain along his ribs, hearing screams somewhere back of him and suddenly remembering he'd forgotten to reload. Spangler crazily was running toward him when Rafe squeezed the trigger. Six feet away he saw Spangler crumple; and then Bunny Pike had him tight in her arms and he knew everything was going to be all right.
THE END
