planks in the gloom of the building, before the sound of horses came to him over the sounds of revelry. He watched, motionless, as Beale and Tallant swung down, tied their horses in tie stalls, loosened their
Beale spoke first. “Went off like clockwork.”
“Yeah. All we got to do is make two more killings. Blast the damned horse, then go back an’ get the girl, an’ the whole shootin’ match is ours.”
Tallant nodded. “Yeah. It come off better’n I expected. Two more killin’s an’ the whole country’ll be after the Vermilion Kid with orders from Dugan to shoot on sight. Hell, that dang’ would-be owlhooter’ll never get close enough to anybody to convince ’em he ain’t guilty.”
“Yeah, but what about the horse?”
Tallant rubbed his hands together. “That’s the easiest part. We kill him, drag him off out on the range behind town, an’ the coyotes’ll have him torn to pieces in twenty-four hours. Nobody’ll ever see them two holes again.”
Beale swore gruffly. “Yeah. But if it hadn’t been for that damned Kid, nobody’d ever’ve noticed there was two holes to start with.”
Tallant laughed smoothly. “Don’t make no difference now. Come on, let’s go in the office an’ have a drink afore we finish off the horse.”
Beale nodded heavily. “Sure, we’ll be ridin’ again, back to the D-Back-To-Back for Toma before this night’s work is done, so I reckon we’ll need the lift, eh?”
Tallant didn’t answer and the Kid could barely make out his outline and hear the soft music of his spurs as the two men went into the cubbyhole office, lit a lamp that cast a rich, yellowish light, and drank deeply from a brown bottle Tallant got out of the safe.
The Kid’s fury was murderously cold. That Beale and Tallant intended to shoot down Toma Dodge was almost overpowering him.
Jeff Beale came out of the office first. He hesitated at the door, waiting for Tallant to lock up the whiskey bottle in the safe again. Tallant’s garrulous voice came to him: “If I don’t lock up the whiskey in the safe, that damned booze hound I got for a hostler’ll steal it all.”
Beale didn’t answer. He was studying the mellow moonlight inside the barn. He finally got impatient: “Come on, dammit.”
Tallant slammed the safe door, spun the dial, and hurried out of the office. The two men walked down the long, wide corridor toward the stall of the wounded horse. Tallant walked with the sure steps of a man to whom the darkness posed no deterrent, but Beale swore dourly to himself and made slower time. Tallant stopped at a stall directly across from the Kid’s hide-out and waited for Beale to come up.
“He’s in here.”
“If you shoot him, it’ll make too much noise.”
“Ain’t goin’ to shoot him. Goin’ to knock him over the poll with my gun barrel.”
Tallant swung open the door as Beale came up. “Lead him out here to the alley. He’ll be too hard to snake outen the stall when he’s dead.”
“Right.” Tallant put a shank to the horse’s halter and led the weak, stumbling animal through the doorway. Beale swore savagely at the animal’s slow progress and kicked out viciously, striking the horse in the stomach. The animal flinched and grunted with pain. The Kid’s eyes flamed in the darkness. Tallant turned the big bay so that he faced the rear door of the barn, drew his gun, tossed a quick look at Beale, who nodded indifferently, his evil face twisted into a cruel grin of anticipation, then all hell broke loose.
There was a thunderous, magnified echo from inside the barn and Tallant’s six-gun went flipping out of his hand as though plucked from his startled fingers by an invisible hand. The bay horse jumped frantically and lurched out of the barn’s rear doorway. Beale ripped out an obscene oath and threw himself sideways to the ground. Les Tallant stood for a full ten seconds, incredulous and unbelieving, then he leaned quickly backward into the recently vacated stall and ran his hand, like the striking tongue of a rattler, under his coat and came up with a big-bore little Derringer.
Jeff Beale had seen the mushroom of flame from the Kid’s gun and fired as soon as he hit the ground, then rolled away, waiting for the answering shot that never came. Beale’s breathing sounded as loud as the puffing of a locomotive in his own ears. He strained his eyes into the gloom for a target, saw none, listened acutely, heard nothing, threw two more snap shots toward where the flame had been, and waited. He began to hope that his first shot had found the hidden gunman, and, as the seconds ticked by, he felt certain that the hidden assassin had been knocked off with his first shot.
“Les?”
For a long moment Tallant didn’t answer, then, seeing that no exploratory shots came toward Beale’s voice, he answered: “Yes?”
“Think I got him with the first shot?”
Another pause, then Tallant’s voice cautious and soft, came back: “Who is it?”
Beale’s voice was almost normal now. He was certain the unseen gunman had been killed outright. “Hell, how should I know? I can’t see in the dark like no damned cat.”
Tallant made out the rising form of his partner, coming erect off the floor of the barn. “Be careful, Jeff. He might be playin’ ’possum.”
“I’ll damned soon find out.”
Walking slowly forward, Jeff Beale was crouched almost double, his gun held out in front of him, when the second shot came out of the darkness. Tallant saw the flash out of the corner of his eye and heard the roar even as he fired and saw Beale go down in a cursing heap. He fired again and again, then suddently the little Derringer was empty. The acrid smell of gunsmoke was thick in the air and some of the stalled horses were snorting wildly in fear.
Tallant was panicky. He was unarmed now, and Beale was hit. A thought flashed across his mind and he darted toward the fallen man, jerked the .45 from his fingers, and ran zigzag through the barn toward the tie stalls and his snorting, wild-eyed horse as Jeff Beale called after him. Once, Tallant whirled, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger. Beale abruptly stopped his swearing, jerked spasmodically against the violence of his suddenly short- circuited nervous system, and went limp, twitching dully over the freshly raked, hard-packed earth of the livery barn floor.
Seeing Tallant on the verge of escape, the Vermilion Kid leaped stiffly from his hiding place, ran to the middle of the alleyway, unmindfully of the clear outline of the moonlight behind him that silhouetted him into a perfect target. “Don’t move, Tallant. Get away from the horse’s head.”
Tallant was obsessed with an insane urge to flee. He was beyond reason. He whirled, threw up his gun, and fired. The Kid staggered backward, went down to one knee, and his head drooped. Only one thing made it possible for him to force his mind and muscles to work, the certain knowledge that Tallant was on his way to kill Toma Dodge.
He brought up his right arm. The gun weighed 100 pounds. Its barrel weaved unsteadily, and, as the Kid squeezed the trigger, he saw a vague, shapless figure leap out of the shadows and attach itself to the bridle of the horse that Tallant had just swung upon. He saw, too, the quick, descending arc as Tallant’s gun came down, and the orange tongue of flame when he fired. The ragged figure fell suddenly to earth. The Kid squeezed the trigger and saw Tallant straighten in the saddle. The blasting roar of another gunshot split the night, and the Kid sank down.
When the Vermilion Kid opened his eyes, he was looking into the hard, relentless face of Sheriff Dugan. His eyes wandered from Dugan’s flinty features to the surrounding walls and ceiling. He had never been in the sheriff’s office before, but he knew he was lying on a makeshift cot behind Dugan’s untidy desk. He swung his eyes back to Dugan. “You got the note?”
Dugan nodded dumbly.
“Where’s the bay horse? Seems a shame that a horse as gutsy as he is damned near got killed.”
Dugan’s eyes clouded for just an instant, then the film of hardness settled into place once more. “He’s goin’ to be all right. Some of the D-Back-To-Back riders led him out to the ranch. The old boy’s lookin’ a little better all the time. He’s goin’ to make it, all right.” The sheriff’s voice drifted off and faded out altogether.
