grumbled.
“Yeah.” This was Bobby’s light voice. “How do we know he’s all right, Belle?”
“Because I’ve got a feeling he is!” Belle said curtly.
“That ain’t good enough for me,” Floyd retorted. “I want him to give us names and tell us about places.” Belle said, “Now, Floyd, if you were on the prod, you wouldn’t be going around telling everybody you’re Floyd Sharpless, and there’s reward money posted for you in St. Joe and Springville and wherever else you’ve been tagged with a job.”
“I guess not,” Floyd admitted reluctantly. “But I knew Mckee better than anybody else. We never did hold back a thing from each other, after we commenced traveling together, And I never heard him say a word about having a standing grudge with a man that fits Windy’s looks.”
Steed’s tough voice rumbled, “That don’t signify, Floyd. Mckee might’ve kept quiet about something like that, especially if he tangled with Windy and come off sucking a hind tit.”
“He might have,” Floyd agreed, with doubt in his voice.
“Not likely, though, Steed. Well, I’m going to set myself to find out. And maybe I won’t even wait to find out before I even my score with him.”
“I don’t see you’ve got a score to even with him, Floyd,” Sam Starr said. “It was Mckee’s grudge, not yours.”
“I got a right to make it mine if I feel like it,” Floyd replied.
“Sure, but I’d watch myself if I was you,” Starr said. “Belle and me saw that ruckus, remember. Mckee had his gun half out before Windy drew. And then Windy moved faster than any man I ever saw. He shot straight, too; you saw where the slug went.”
“I can take care of myself,” Floyd retorted. “All of you just remember, stand aside if trouble starts between me and Windy.”
“From the way Windy was holding back, if trouble starts between you and him it will be your idea,” Belle said. “Remember, Floyd, I don’t allow my guests to fight each other—fists, knives, or guns.”
“All right, Belle, I’ll try not to push,” Floyd promised. “But if anything does get going, I’ll damn sure finish it.”
There was a scraping of chair legs on the bare wooden floor of the house. Once again, Longarm stepped back into the blackness under the barn’s overhanging roof. He couldn’t see Floyd, Steed, and Bobby until they’d gotten a few steps from the house, but he could hear them.
Floyd said, “All that digging’s made my back ache. I was sort of figuring we could all set down and figure out how we could handle everything without Mckee, but I don’t feel like it.”
“I just as soon put it off till Taylor gets here,” Steed replied. “All I want to do right now is go drop in my bunk.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Bobby said.
Longarm shook his head at the youth’s echoing of Steed. He’d seen the likes of Bobby before—a youngster taken in by the stories of glamorous outlaw lives. He’d seen such youngsters try to capture some of the glamor by joining forces with older, more experienced men, and come up against hard reality. Out of every ten, five gave up and went straight. Out of the other five, one or two survived.
A few more steps took the trio out of earshot. Longarm went into the barn. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness now, and he could see what he was doing. The horses and mules were standing quietly. Two or three of the horses nickered, but that was all. He spotted the low loft that filled about a third of the end of the barn farthest from the house. Cleat steps, on one of the posts supporting the rooftree, led up to the loft. Longarm climbed up and found that the loft had just about enough hay in it to make the foundation for a bed. He scraped the hay into a rectangle and spread his bedroll on it. After folding his coat for a pillow and arranging his vest as a pad for his Colt, Longarm stretched out and relaxed as well as he could without taking off his boots. Tonight he thought he’d be better off wearing them than shedding them.
It had been a long day and, in spite of his booted feet, sleep came to him quickly.
Longarm wasn’t sure which roused him, the broken rhythm of hooves or the faint call for help. He heard both at the same time and snapped awake, slid his Colt out of its holster, and sat up in bed in the same easy movement.
He listened consciously as soon as he recognized the source of the noises that had awakened him. Neither the irregular hoofbeats nor the cries were close at hand. He stood up and put on his gunbelt, climbed down the cleat steps to the barn floor, and stepped outside. Here the sounds were louder. They seemed to be coming from behind the house.
Longarm walked fast, following the noises to their source. There was no moon, just starglow in a cloudless sky. He strained his vision through the darkness when he’d cleared the corner of the house. Perhaps a hundred yards away he could make out movement. He walked toward the shapeless black form, and slowly it took shape: a horse and rider. There was something wrong with the configuration of the rider, and the horse had gone lame in its off-hind foot.
As the distance between him and the approaching horse diminished, Longarm could understand why he’d been puzzled. There wasn’t one rider on the animal, but two. One of them was curled forward in the saddle, and the second rider was holding the limp figure of the first in place. The horse was moving slowly, much slower than Longarm was walking. Several moments passed before the laden beast came close enough for Longarm to see that the rider who was erect was a woman. She must be old, he thought fleetingly; he could see long white hair streaming across her shoulders, and her cries were in the hoarse, high-pitched voice that often comes with age.
She did not see Longarm until he’d gotten to within a few yards of her. Then she croaked in a thin whisper, “Oh, thank God! Help me, please help me! I’m afraid he’s hurt real bad!”
“How’d he get hurt?” Longarm asked. He grabbed the reins and pulled the limping horse to a stop. “Horse throw him?”
“No. He-he got shot.”
