Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition. Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ due north, paralleling the ridge and closing upon it. Clint watched him until the man had gone around the curve of the bench land; but there was ample this bright morning to keep his attention occupied. A line of horsemen streamed down from the recesses of Dead Man a few miles south of Clint's position and aimed for the fort. As they arrived there, the party split into fragments and scattered over the prairie, heading toward Box M.

      "Light begins to dawn," said Clint. "They're looking into the arroyos. Who for? Me. Somebody got wind of my whereabouts and squealed. Worse and worse. How is a man to make a move against Shander under such circumstances? Hell."

      Far off a rider popped from the earth and came along; a similar miracle happened at a more northerly point of the horizon. Clint shook his head dubiously. "Scouts. Probably been posted in gopher holes all night. Or all week, for that matter. Who knows? I begin to see the ramifications of this system. An almost unbeatable play."

      The morning passed slowly. Noon came. Curly's men were so many dark points moving restlessly over the chrome-yellow prairie, cutting endless circles and tangents. Later they shifted, converged into a solid group. Apparently a trail had been struck, for the group pounded back, flanked the fort once and stretched out for Dead Man's Range, aiming squarely at Clint. He shifted on the ground, lips tightening. "Got a smell of me. Well, it will do them no good. I can play tag in this stuff all day long."

      Apparently the party arrived at the same conclusion. At the foot of the bench it halted, sent out desultory searchers to right and left and waited. The baked soil gave up nothing; Clint's pony tracks had petered out on hardpan and rock. By and by the party swung back. Clint relaxed. Some sort of communication was being established with Shander's ranch, for a rider came rapidly up from that direction, laying a thin ribbon of dust to his rear. At about the same time another rider hurried from the fort and drove straight for the main pass of Dead Man. Clint calculated all these with puzzled attention; somebody yonder was in a big sweat. Apparently a great many strings had to be pulled together.

      "Don't know much more than I did in the beginning," he soliloquized. "But I've got to figure this thing out straight or make an awful bobble. According to what I heard last night, they mean to make some sort of play around here this evening. Now, it's leaked out that I'm in these parts. They figure I possibly know what they aimed to do. Therefore, they won't do it. They'll do something else. Or will try? That's a question. Clint, my boy, you'd better get the right answer before the shades of night fall thick and fast. If they don't go through with the original business, what might they do, and where would they do it? Sounds like the talk of a crazy man—"

      Activity slackened off yonder as the afternoon went along and the sun slanted into the west. It was siesta time, when the cycle of life reached its second lethargic stage. In spite of himself, Clint drowsed a little, eyes half closed against the glare and his mind worrying away on his problem. The patient pony moved around the depression; Clint swept the rutty area of the ridge behind him and once more took up his post. He thought he saw something away off in Box M direction and pulled down the brim of his hat for a fairer view.

      Thus, by the flash of a second and the rise of an arm, did he miss catching sight of an object that rose from cover and quickly fell back, about three hundred yards to his right rear. A little later Driver Haggerty's sour, stringy face lifted above the rocks again and fastened on the unwarned Charterhouse. In the man's look was a coldness and the unwinking directness of a reptile.

      Over a period of fully five minutes he remained in this motionless posture, only his glance swinging from Charterhouse to the rocks near by. It were as if he thoroughly weighed every possibility and entrapping circumstance that might defeat his objective. Having satisfied himself, he rolled his body around to study the country whence he had come. His horse was a quarter mile off and though there was a rifle in the saddle boot—for men of Casabella never rode without long arms—it was too much of a trip to return and get the gun. It would have to be a matter of revolvers.

      Not that Haggerty regretted the choice; in many ways he was a patient man, extraordinarily so where his private vengeance was concerned. Finding Charterhouse had not been accident; early in the morning he had learned of Charterhouse being around Fort Carson, and while Curly elected to scour the prairie, he had posted along the ridge, entered a convenient draw and gained the top. His own theory was that if Charterhouse still remained anywhere near the fort, it would be in a position of some worth, both high enough to scan the country and near enough to the fort to observe what went on. Being shrewd himself and very tricky, he credited Charterhouse with the same kind of ability.

      Therefore, he had started away north on the ridge and advanced by tentative, guarded stages, always hugging the rim. Nothing could have demonstrated his stolid, Indian-like fixity of purpose more clearly; he had started at sunrise of the day and all through the intervening hours he had stalked onward. It was now four o'clock or better. A small sigh of satisfaction came out of his thin lips. Lifting his body with the sinuousness of a lizard, he half rolled and half pitched into the next pothole.

      Again the whole weary business of inching to the rock rim and peering ahead took place; and again he slid ahead to cut down the distance between. But as Charterhouse seemed wholly absorbed in the prairie scene, Driver Haggerty grew more confident. He swung, got behind a vast granite thumb protruding to the sky, slipped into an arroyo and went slinking along it for a full fifty yards. When he popped up again he was directly behind Charter-house, and the intervening distance had diminished by half. Now Haggerty, utilizing every possible obstruction, wriggled forward, stopping, staring, listening, and proceeding. He threw aside his hat and wiped his stringy jaws, down the furrows of which fresh springing sweat kept coursing. Deeper crimson swelled the habitually dark skin; his eyes burned. A hundred yards removed, he halted and took a fresh chew of tobacco, discovering he had, in the course of all this belly marching, badly bruised and cut his hands. The downsweep of his saturnine mouth grew more pronounced; and he inched forward.

      He was within possible revolver range when the first doubt came over him. Charterhouse had scarcely moved a muscle in the last twenty minutes; the man seemed to be welded to the earth. Sleeping? The possibilities brought Haggerty's features into sudden wolfish angles. His eyes stung with sun-glare, and though he dropped them and looked at the ground to relieve the pressure, there were little flecks of black blurring his vision. He brought up his gun, braced his elbows and took a test sight. Ordinarily he would have felt certain of bringing down any sort of game at this distance. But the tension, the blur constantly before him, and the strain of knowing that there might never be chance for a second shot caused him to lower the gun and roll into the next pothole. When he arrived at the rim of this one, he saw Charterhouse's hidden horse. He settled there, determined to go no farther; bringing up the gun, he saw a jagged hole in Charterhouse's coat below the neck and between shoulder points. Cold as ice inside, Driver Haggerty brought down his sights and lined them on the hole.

      It was a good target, a good distance. It was nothing more than a swift off-hand draw. Yet Haggerty, swearing at his doubt and his puzzlement, swearing even at his unnecessary deliberation, squinted along his sights, lowered his gun, wiped his palms dry, and tried again. Deliberation seemed to throw him off; he had trouble bringing the muzzle into center—he who was able to skip a tomato can along the prairie. Squeezing down the trigger slack, a greater doubt than all before actually chilled him. He tipped the muzzle another time and twisted his neck, looking behind, fearing to see himself trapped. But nothing but barren surface was there, and venomously angry, he turned to his gun to make a quick shot.

      Charterhouse stirred, brought up an elbow and started to roll on his back.

      That ruined Haggerty's long, careful focus; in one wild prompting of rage he discarded all his deliberateness, leaped to his feet and flung a free shot at the now warned Charterhouse; the latter was still turning and the sight of Haggerty standing above, drawn and grim and with the killing lust flaming in those round red eyes, served to accelerate Charterhouse's movements. The bullet missed its mark by the thickness of paper, chipping up rock fragments. СКАЧАТЬ