“Nothing about it,” Creyton said bluntly. “We just came through it, that's all. The carpetbag law was raisin' hell. Stoppin' all travelers, police makin' raids on the local ranchers. All because some white punk took a swing at a cavalryman, they said.”
I hadn't been ready for that. I had figured, like Ray Novak, that if the two of us got out of the country for a while it would all blow over. But here the police were raiding the ranches, because of us. Our own place, maybe. Or the Bannerman place, where Laurin was.
If one of the pigs so much as laid a hand on Laurin...
The thought of it made me weak and a little sick. I wheeled and started for the door.
“Where do you think you're going?” Pappy said.
“Back to John's City.”
“Do you plan to go on foot? I don't care what you do with yourself, but I hate to see you kill a good horse out of damn foolishness. Wait till tomorrow. You'll make better time in the long run by giving your horse a rest.”
Pappy was right. I knew that, but it wasn't easy staying here and wondering what might be happening to Laurin, or Ma and Pa, and doing nothing about it. Grey-ton got slowly to his feet, standing there in front of the fireplace, looking at me.
“You'd better listen to Pappy, kid,” he said. “When you need a horse you need him bad. I ought to know.”
I didn't want Creyton's advice. For all I knew, he just wanted me to stick around a while longer to give him a better chance to steal my horse. But I knew they were both right. Red had been pushed hard for the past few days, and if I tried to push him again tonight he might break down for good.
So I stayed. When the fire burned out, we made blanket pallets on the dirt floor, and before long Pappy's heavy breathing told me that he was asleep. He didn't snore. From time to time the rhythm of his breathing would break, he would rouse himself, look around, and then go back to sleep again. That was the way Pappy was. He never slept sound enough to snore. You had a feeling that he never let his mind be completely blanked out, that he always kept some little corner of it open. Being on the run had done that. He was afraid to allow himself the luxury of real sleep. A man like Pappy never knew when he would have to be wide awake and ready to shoot.
I lay awake for a long while, listening to a night wind moan and fling gravel and dust against the shack. Creyton seemed to be asleep. His breathing was regular, and once in a while he would snort a little and roll over on the hard ground. I lay there, with my eyes wide open, not taking any chances.
The night crawled by slowly. How many hours, I don't know. My eyes burned from keeping them open, and every so often I'd feel myself dropping off and I'd have to start thinking about something. I wanted a cigarette, but I didn't dare light one. I was asleep, as far as Paul Creyton was concerned, and I wanted to keep it that way in case he had ideas about that red horse of mine. I started thinking about Laurin.
I was dreaming of Laurin when something woke me. I didn't remember going to sleep, but I had. I sat up immediately, looking around the room, but it was too dark to see anything. I could hear Pappy's breathing. But not Paul Creyton's.
Sickness hit in my stomach, and then anger. Then, outside the shack, I heard Red whinny, and I knew that was the thing that had wakened me.
I went to the door, and in the pale moonlight I could see Paul Creyton throwing a saddle up on Red's back. So Pappy had been right all along. I found my cartridge belt on the floor, swung it around my middle and buckled it. Pappy didn't move. Didn't make a sound.
I didn't feel angry now, or in any particular hurry. I knew Creyton wasn't going to get away with stealing my horse, the same as that time, years ago, when I had known that Criss Bagley wouldn't hurt me with that club. I didn't know just how I would stop him; but I would stop him, and that was the important thing.
The night was quiet, and the sudden little scamper of Red's hoofs was the only thing to disturb it as I stepped out of the shack. Creyton had the horse all saddled and ready to ride by the time I got out to the shed. He was standing in the shadows, on the other side of Red, and I couldn't see him very well. But he could see me.
I never heard of a man talking his way out of horse stealing, and I guess Creyton never had either. Anyway, he didn't try it this time. He moved fast, jerking Red in front of him. Everything was so cut and dried that there wasn't any use thinking about it, even if there had been time. I dropped to my knees, with one of my new .44's in my hand. For just a moment I wondered how I was going to get Creyton without hitting Red. Then I made out the figure of Creyton kneeling under the horse's belly, and his gun blazed.
It all happened before Red could jump. I felt the .44 kick twice in my hand, the shots crowding right on top of Creyton's, and something told me there was no use wasting any more bullets. Red reared suddenly and, as he came crashing down with those ironshod hoofs, there was a soft, mushy sound, like dumping a big rock into a mud hole.
I thought for a minute that I was going to be sick. But that passed. I ran forward and caught hold of the reins and stroked the big horse's neck until he began to quiet down. There were nervous little ripples running up and down his legs and shoulders, but he got over his wild spell. I petted him some more, then led him away from the place and hitched him to a blackjack tree near the shack.
Paul Creyton was dead. I dragged him out into the moonlight and had a look at him. His face was a mess of meat and gristle and bone where Red's hoof had caught him, but that wasn't the thing that had done it. He had a bullet hole in the hollow of his throat, just below his Adam's apple, and another one about six inches up from his belt buckle. The one in the throat went all the way through, breaking his neck and leaving a hole about the size of a half dollar where the bullet came out. His head flopped around like something that didn't even belong to the rest of the body, when I tried to pick him up.
It had all happened too fast to make much of an impression on me at first. But now I was beginning to get it. I backed up and swallowed to keep my stomach out of my throat. I hadn't known that a man could die like that. Just a flick of the finger, enough to pull a trigger, and he's dead. As easy as that. The night was cool, almost cold, but I felt sweat on my face, and on the back of my neck. Sweat plastered my shirt to my back. I walked away from the place and headed back toward the shack.
It occurred to me to wonder what had happened to Pappy. He must have heard the shooting. The way he slept.
As I stepped through the doorway, a match flared and Pappy's face jumped out at me as he lit a cigarette. He put the match out and I couldn't see his face any more, just the glowing end of that corn-shuck tube, with little
