Owen nodded, then sat beside the stretcher and fanned the flies and insects away from Deland's masklike face. He thought, It's almost over, Arch. Soon we'll have you fixed up with a bed and some food and maybe even some white hill whisky. He deliberately ignored any possibility that Ike Brunner might disrupt his plans.
He watched Dunc Lester walk unsteadily down the long green slope. The cabin, a sturdy boxlike structure of logs and mud, was set in a lush draw between two hills. Behind the cabin there was an outhouse, a stockade shed, and perhaps five acres of broken land. Tender shoots of corn and green tobacco grew out of the reddish earth, but Owen noticed that the young crop had grown up in weeds and that the shed was empty. There was no sign of livestock of any kind, and the only show of life was a ribbon of wood smoke curling up from the mud chimney.
Dunc disappeared around the back of the cabin and several minutes passed. Then two men appeared in the yard and began the climb up the long slope. One man was thick and heavy, his work-rounded shoulders hunched powerfully as he plodded forward. The other was loose-jointed and gangly, and he walked with the spring of youth, on the balls of his feet. Both men carried long-barreled shotguns in the crooks of their arms. They walked directly to the stretcher, and there was caution and distrust in their eyes as they looked first at Owen and then at the unconscious deputy. The younger man rested the stock of his shotgun on the ground and shook his head. “He sure looks like a goner to me.”
The older man had his thoughtful eyes fixed on Owen. “Young Lester claims you're a marshal from Reunion.” It was more an accusation than a statement.
“Just a deputy,” Owen said heavily. “My friend here has been hurt. Could we put him up at your cabin for a while?”
“You got Ike Brunner's bunch after you?”
Owen saw that lying would not help. He nodded. “Yes, I guess we have.”
“Then we can't help you,” the man said shortly. “Nobody can.” He looked tired; there were deep lines of weariness around his eyes and around his mouth. “You can't fight Ike Brunner. I know.”
“I'll fight him,” Owen said flatly, rising to his feet, “When the time comes.”
Surprisingly, the man laughed. “It looks like you haven't had much luck so far.” Suddenly the laughter went out of him and grimness took its place. “My name's Harve Cooper, and this here's my boy, Morris. We haven't got much use for outsiders, Marshal... but then, we're not exactly friends of Ike Brunner's, either. So I guess you can use the cabin if you want to. Me and my boy won't be here much longer, anyway.”
With a physical effort Owen pulled himself out of his exhaustion and studied the faces before him. In their eyes he saw suspicion and anger and fear. “Do you mean,” Owen asked slowly, “that Ike is forcing you out of the hills?”
“Mister,” Morris Cooper said, “when Ike Brunner tells you to do somethin', you do it.”
What surprised Owen was the tone of pride in the young man's voice. Although he hated Ike Brunner, he received satisfaction in the knowledge that the gang leader could not be taken by an outsider.
“That's enough talk,” Harve Cooper said sharply to his son. “Give me a hand with the stretcher.”
The two Coopers placed their shotguns across Arch Deland's chest, took up the stretcher, and began a slow, steady march toward the cabin. Owen did not offer to help; he felt that the last of his strength had slipped away from him, and he followed behind, stumbling like a drunken man.
When they reached the cabin yard, Owen became aware of the rank, sourish odor of a whisky still off in the trees somewhere, and then he saw how the place had been stripped of everything that could be moved. All the rugged, hand-hewn furniture had been moved out of the cabin, along with clothing and bedding, cooking pots, and a conglomeration of plows and tintype pictures and hand-loomed rugs, all the things that a family gathers over a period of years. Everything was stacked outside now and the cabin was bare.
The two Coopers took Deland into the cabin and put him down in front of the fireplace, where Dunc Lester was waiting. “I reckon the rest is up to you, Marshal,” Harve Cooper said, and he and his son walked out to the yard. “He doesn't look much better,” Dunc Lester said, kneeling beside the stretcher.
“At least he can rest,” Owen said heavily. But he knew that would not be enough. At last reality began closing in around him and he felt his own helplessness. “If we only had a horse, maybe I could get Doc Linnwood in Reunion.”
“If we had a horse, and if Ike Brunner would let you through, and if Deland wasn't goin' to die before sundown anyway, maybe we'd have a chance,” Dunc said, facing the cruel wall of facts.
“How can you be so sure he'll die?” Owen demanded angrily.
“I've seen the look before. There's nothin' we can do.” Then Harve Cooper came through the doorway carrying a red chunk of venison haunch and an iron pot half filled with water. “I had this meat ripenin' in the woods,” he said, “but I guess I won't be needin' it now.”
“Thanks,” Owen said. “A strong broth is what Arch needs; that will snap him out of it.”
Cooper hung the pot on a hook in the fireplace. He glanced briefly at Deland, shrugged, and walked out again. “I've been thinkin',” Dunc said quietly. “I had a little talk with Morris Cooper and he told me how things were here. Remember Manley Cooper's place, the one that was burned out? Well, it seems like Ike tried to bring Manley in with the gang, seein' as he lived so close to their hide-out. But Manley wouldn't listen.”
“Did Ike kill him?” Owen asked vacantly.
“I don't think so. The family got out before the place was burned. But it's like I was afraid of; Harve and Morris are afraid Ike Brunner'll turn on them because of Manley.”
Owen had guessed this much. “Yes. They're afraid of Ike, so they run.”
“Sure they run!” Dunc's eyes flashed in quick anger. “My own family ran, because they had enough sense to know you can't fight a gang like Ike's! If I'd had any sense myself I never would have come back here!”
“Where would you have gone?” Owen asked quietly.
“Anywhere. A man doesn't
“And what about Leah Stringer? She knows that Ike killed her father; she could testify to it if Ike ever came
