At times like that a man doesn't think. There's no room for thought. I was soaked to the hide, bedraggled as a wet cat, bloody and sore and hurt and mad, and when I saw that crowd I did the last thing they expected.
I went for my gun.
Oh, they had guns on me, all right! But they were too busy feeling satisfied with themselves at setting the trap, and there's such a thing as reaction time. A man's got to realize what is happening, what has to be done, and he has to do it, all in the same moment.
My right hand slapped leather and came up blasting fire. And almost at the same instant my left hand snaked the other Colt from my waistband.
There was no time for anything like choosing targets. I shot into the man right in front of me, shifted aim, and blasted again. I saw Judith twisting to get free, and pulling Rafin off balance.
Somebody else was shooting, and I saw Galloway, leaning on a crutch and his gun leaping with every spout of flame. And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. There was a scrambling in the brush, then silence, and I was stretched out on the rocks and the rain was pounding on my back.
It seemed like hours later that I got my eyes open and looked around.
There was a fire in a fireplace, and Judith was sitting in front of it, watching the flames. I never saw anything so pretty as the firelight on her face, and catching the lights of her hair.
I was stretched out in a bunk in some sort of a low-roofed cabin, and the floor was littered with men, all apparently sleeping. Coffee was on the fire, and by the look of the coals we'd been here quite a spell.
I felt around for my gun and found it, but the rustling drew Judith's attention. She came over to me. 'Ssh! The others are all asleep.'
'Was that Galloway that showed up? Is he all right?'
'He's been hurt. He was shot three times, and has a broken foot. Pa's here, and so are Cap and Moss.'
'Walker?'
'He's dead. He was killed, Flagan.'
'Black?'
'He got away. He was hurt, I know that. You hit him once at least. He ran, Flagan. He turned and ran.'
'That ain't like him.'
'He was a coward,' she insisted bitterly. 'For all his talk, he was a coward.'
'I don't believe it,' I said. And I didn't believe it either. He was a lot of things, that James Black Fetchen, but he was no coward in a fight. He hated too much for that. He might have turned and run - she said he had, and she would tell me the truth - but I was sure there was more to it than that.
The old prospector's cabin where we had found shelter was on the eastern slope, not more than half a mile from where the fight had taken place.
We stayed right there a day and a half, until Evan Hawkes and Tom Sharp brought a wagon up Medano Pass. They built stretchers, and three of us came off the mountain that way.
Two weeks later I was able to sit on the porch outside the trading post and watch folks go by. Galloway was still laid up, but he was coming along fine. Though Costello was still sick, he was looking better. Cap and Moss, like the tough old-timers they were, looked about the same.
We got the news bit by bit. Three of the Fetchens had pulled out for Tennessee. Tirey was dead ... he'd been killed up on the mountain. And they hadn't found the Reynolds treasure. Like a lot of folks who've looked for it before and since, they just couldn't locate it. They had all the landmarks and they had a map, but they found nothing.
'I've seen four maps of that Reynolds treasure,' Sharp told me, 'and no two of them alike.'
Nobody saw any of the Fetchens around, but after a few days we heard they were camped over at the foot of Marble Mountain, with several of them laid up, and at least one of them in bad shape.
Galloway limped around, still using the crutch he had cut for himself up on the mountain. Costello filled us in on all that happened before we got there.
The Fetchens had just moved in on him and he had welcomed them as guests, although mistrusting their looks. Well, they were hunting the Reynolds treasure, all right, but they wanted his ranch and Judith as well.
Costello had had a lead on that treasure himself, but it didn't pan out, and so he had settled down to hunting wild stock and breeding them to horses brought from the East, the way Tom Sharp was doing.
'Reynolds buried some loot, all right,' Costello said, 'but whoever finds it will find it through pure dumb luck. I don't trust any of those maps.'
'They aren't cured,' Moss Reardon said. 'There's supposed to be treasure in a cave up on Marble Mountain too. I'd lay a bet they're huntin' it now.'
For the first time in my life I was pleased just to sit and contemplate. I'd lost a lot of blood and used myself in a hard way, and so had Galloway. As I looked around that country it made me wish I had a place of my own, and I said as much to Galloway.
'We get up and around,' I said, 'we ought to find us a place, some corner back in the hills with plenty of green grass and water.'
James Black Fetchen seemed to me like somebody from another world. After a week had passed we never mentioned the big fight on the mountain, nor any of that crowd. One thing we did hear about them. The Fetchens had buried another man somewhere up on Grape Creek.
My appetite came back, and I began thinking about work. Galloway and me had used up the mite of cash we'd had left and had nothing but our outfits. I mentioned it to Tom Sharp.
'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'You just eat all you're of a mind to. Those men would have caused plenty of trouble for us if you hadn't taken their measure.'
The next morning we heard about the stage holdup over on the Alamosa trail.
Four men, all masked, had stopped the stage and robbed the passengers. There was no gold riding the boot on that trip, and the passengers were a hard-up lot. The robbery netted the outlaws just sixty-five dollars.
Two days later there was another holdup in the mountains west of Trinidad. That netted the thieves about four hundred dollars. There had been six of them in that lot, and one of the passengers had ridden the other stage and said they were the same outfit. One of them had been riding a big blaze-faced sorrel that sounded like Russ Menard's horse.
Sitting around waiting to get my strength back, I hadn't been idle. I'd never been one to waste time doing nothing, so while I sat there I plaited a rawhide bridle for Sharp, mended a saddle, and fixed some other things.
Costello rode out to his ranch. His place had been burned, even his stacked hay, and all the stock in sight had been driven off.
Galloway had taken to wearing two guns, one of them shoved down behind his waistband.
Then there was a holdup near Castle Rock, to the north; and word came down that Black Fetchen had killed a man at Tin Cup, a booming mining camp.
Meanwhile, Galloway and me were beginning to feel spry again, and we helped Tom Sharp round up a few head of cattle and drive them down to Walsenburg. There we heard talk of the Fetchen outlaws.
Those days Galloway and me were never far apart. We knew it was coming. The trouble was, we didn't exactly know what to expect, or when.
Costello hired two new hands, both on the recommendation of Rodriguez and Sharp. One was a Mexican named Valdez, a very tough man and a good shot who, as a boy, had worked for Kit Carson; and the other was Frank White, a one-time deputy sheriff from Kansas. Both were good hands and reliable men.
Judith was riding with me one day when she said, 'Flagan. you and Galloway be careful now. I'm scared.'
'Don't worry your pretty head. We'll ride loose and careful.'
'Do you think he'll come back?'
Now, I was never one to lie or to make light of trouble with womenfolks. There's men who feel they should, but I've found women stand well in trouble, and there's no use trying to make it seem less than it is. They won't believe you, anyway.
'He'll come,' I said. 'He wasn't scared, Judith. He just wanted to be sure he lived long enough to kill Galloway and me. I've got an idea he's just waiting his chance.'
By now Galloway and me were batching it in a cabin on Pass Creek. We had built up the corral, made some
