doubt, but in the end they would overrun the cabin and kill Frank and Grimshaw.
As Frank waited beside the window, a six-gun in each hand, ready to sell his life as dearly as possible, he suddenly heard a thump on the roof overhead. So did Grimshaw, who looked up and exclaimed bitterly, “Damn it!”
A couple of seconds later, both of them smelled smoke. That didn’t come as a surprise to either Frank or Grimshaw. Dwyer’s men had decided they didn’t want to lose anybody. One of them had gotten behind the line shack and tossed a torch onto the roof. They were going to smoke out their quarry.
Grimshaw’s lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace as he looked over at Frank. “We go out shootin’?” he asked.
“Only way to go,” Frank said.
“You know…you might have a better chance of gettin’ away if I drew their fire first…”
“We go together, or not at all.”
Grimshaw chuckled, said, “To hell with that,” and before Frank could even move, his companion had bounded out the door and was running toward the trees. The irons in Grimshaw’s hands blazed as they threw out a storm of lead.
“Blast it!” Frank exclaimed as he darted through the door as well. He saw men to either side of the cabin and fired in both directions at once. He saw several of Dwyer’s killers go down, felt the tug of bullets on his shirt.
Up ahead, Jack Grimshaw stumbled, twisted, went down. Crimson flowers bloomed on Grimshaw’s shirt. Frank ran to him, stood over him, and kept firing, expecting to feel lead smashing into him, too, at any second.
Then, the sudden pounding of hoofbeats and a fresh rattle of gunfire changed things. A group of riders led by Maynard Pollinger swept down out of the hills toward the burning line shack, and that tipped the balance. The newcomers’ bullets riddled Dwyer’s men, except for a couple who fled frantically.
Safe again and miraculously unhit, Frank dropped to a knee beside Grimshaw and rolled the man onto his back. “Jack, damn it,” Frank said, “if you’d just waited a minute, help was on the way.”
Grimshaw was conscious. He looked up at Frank, his face gray and drawn, and rasped, “Well, we didn’t…know that…did we?”
“If you hadn’t been trying to give me a better chance—”
“Hell,” Grimshaw cut in. “I always figured to…go out shootin’…anyway.”
Maynard Pollinger rode up and quickly dismounted. “How badly is he hit, Frank?”
“Shot through the body three or four times, looks like,” Frank told the Englishman.
“We’ll take him back to the ranch. I’ll send a man right now to fetch the doctor from town. We’ll do everything we can to save his life. I give you my word on that.”
Frank looked down at Grimshaw’s gaunt, gray face and figured it was too late for that.
He’d been wrong, though. Maynard Pollinger was true to his word. He got the best medical attention possible for Grimshaw, nursed the gunman through the critical first few days, then took him to the doctor’s house in Laramie as soon as Grimshaw was strong enough to stand the trip. Frank heard later that Grimshaw had been laid up for eight months, but eventually he had made a full recovery. Frank had seen the proof of that with his own eyes, here in Eureka.
The range war between the MP and the Diamond D had ended in rather prosaic fashion only a couple of weeks after the fight at the line shack. A horse had kicked Pete Dwyer in the head, and after a couple of days of lingering in unconsciousness, the cattle baron had died. His grieving widow didn’t have the stomach to continue the war. In fact, she had sold the ranch and left Wyoming Territory, and after that, things had become downright peaceful in the region. All the hired gunmen drifted on, including Frank, once he had satisfied himself that Grimshaw was getting the best care possible.
Those memories flashed through Frank’s mind in a second as he stood there in Eureka’s main street. The history between Frank Morgan and Jack Grimshaw went back a lot further than that range war in Wyoming, though. They had known each other as boys growing up near Weatherford, Texas, and had spent a considerable amount of time fishing, as Grimshaw had mentioned. They had ridden hell-for-leather across the wooded hills of the Cross Timbers as wild young cowboys.
Frank had gone on the drift after the war, when he began to get a reputation for being fast on the draw. As far as he knew at the time, Grimshaw had remained behind to continue working as a cowhand.
A few years later, though, he had run into his friend in Santa Fe and discovered that Grimshaw had abandoned ranch life, too, and was now walking the thin line that divided the law-abiding from the outlaws. He wasn’t as slick with a gun as Frank, but he was fast enough to stay alive. As fellow members of the gunfighting fraternity, they had run into each other several times over the years. The West, for all its untamed vastness, was a small place in many ways. The two of them had fought on the same side more than once. Grimshaw had saved Frank’s life in a fight in Wichita, and Frank had returned the favor during a dustup at Yankton.
Now, Frank was pleased to see Grimshaw again, pleased that Grimshaw seemed to be doing all right. He put the thoughts of his old friend out of his mind, though, because now Marshal Gene Price was standing in front of him, an angry look on his face.
“What the hell’s all this?” the lawman demanded as he swept a hand toward the body on the travois.
“I was hoping you could tell me, Marshal. I found this man out in the woods. Looks like the Terror got him.”
An expression like he had just bitten into something extremely unpleasant appeared on Price’s face. “The Terror, eh?”
“His back is clawed up pretty bad. I reckon he died from losing so much blood. Have you ever seen him before?”
Price frowned and studied the dead man’s face. After a moment, the marshal said, “Maybe. I think I’ve seen him around town. I don’t know his name, though.”
