The Last Straw Part 62

But she looked down at those deadly fireflies playing on the flat, and did not see a hatless man, crouched forward, run down the trail toward them, pistol in his hand....

d.i.c.k Hilton, who had escaped the Hole only to realize that there was no escape, was waiting to vent the last drop of poison in his heart....

Nor did Jane see, nor did Hilton suspect, that waiting there for him was another stalker, who had followed and lost him, who had turned back, who had seen the travelers up the trail and who waited their approach screened by timber....

Bobby Cole's heart leaped as she saw him run crouching to meet Tom Beck, and her gun leaped to position ... and she waited there in the darkness for the next flash of light ... as men waited below ... as Jane Hunter waited, with her heart racing in despair; as d.i.c.k Hilton, gibbering under his breath, waited....

The big brown horse stumbled and Tom Beck cried aloud in fear and pain, cried drunkenly, as his blood drenched the saddle. Twenty yards to the shelter of solid rock ... ten ... five....

And a scarecrow figure leaped from it at them, revealed by a long, green glimmer.

"d.a.m.n you, Beck! d.a.m.n you, you've ruined me; you drove me to this....

Now, take th--"

His gun had whipped up even as the gun of the girl they saw behind him whipped up.

Neither fired.

Down below had come those winking fangs again and Hilton's voice trailed into a rising, rasping gasp as missiles from his compatriots drilled his body.

His pistol dropped to the rock. He put his hands to his stomach.

"d.a.m.n your--"

He choked on the word, and as he choked he took one blind step forward, over the brink. As he fell he threw up his hands and sailed downward into the depths, into the coming darkness....

The brown horse had halted, but as Jane Hunter slipped to the ground, holding Beck's sagging body with all her strength, he stepped forward, in behind the rocks: their haven....

"Oh, they got him!" Bobby sobbed. "They got him...."

She might have meant Hilton, but if so the pity, the regret in her voice was a mourning of her dead love, not the dead lover; or she might have meant Tom Beck and the tone might have been sympathy for the woman she had come to understand, the woman who had respect for her and who she could respect....

They let Tom's body to the trail. The horse moved off. Hastily Bobby ripped open his s.h.i.+rt....

"Through the hips," she whispered. "Through the hips....

"Look!"--starting up. "He's movin' his foot. It didn't get his spine; it didn't get his spine...."

She tore open her s.h.i.+rt and tugged at the undergarment beneath it. She stuffed it into the wound deftly, staying the blood while Jane Hunter, Beck's head in her lap, cried aloud.

"Listen!" Bobby knelt beside the other woman, hands on her shoulders, peering into her face.... "You're safe here. They've got 'em cut off from this trail below....

"My horse is fresh. I'm goin' to your ranch for help. He ain't goin' to die, ma'am.... I promise you that.... He ain't goin' to die!"

She was gone and Jane Hunter, half faint, clinging to that promise as the last, the only thing in life, lowered her lips to her lover's eyes.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LAST STRAW

It was the first day that Tom Beck could lie on his back. For weeks he had lain on his face there in the living room of the ranch house, nursed back to health by Jane Hunter's gentle hands. Now the doctor had turned him over, with the promise that he would not only be sitting up but walking before long, and the Veterans' Society had been in session.

That was what Two-Bits called it: The Veterans' Society. Every afternoon they had gathered there, Two-Bits with his slowly healing back, Jimmy Oliver, after his leg had mended and he could hobble with a cane, Joe Black, whose arm was just out of its sling and, occasionally, Riley, who rode up the creek holding gingerly his one shoulder, to fight the battle over again.

Summer was ripening and the golden sunlight spilled down onto peaceful mountains from a mighty sweep of sky. A gentle breeze bent the tall cottonwoods, making them whisper, making the birds in their branches sing in lazy contentment. Unmolested cattle ranged in prospering hundreds. The work was up, fall and beef ride were coming ... and other years to bring their toll of happiness and well being, for after its one paroxysm of strife the country had settled back to easier ways, to a better, more wholesome manner of living.

There were memories, true, kept fresh by such things as this Veterans'

Society, and the three graves in Devil's Hole where rested the bodies of Sam McKee, Dad Hepburn and d.i.c.k Hilton, for there was none to claim what remained of them. Under the cottonwoods slept Baldy Bowen, his grave surrounded by white pickets and his head marked by a stone.

But even now those memories were less poignant than they had been weeks before. Interest in the range war was waning and though it would be talked about across bar and bunk house stove for many winters the thrill of it was gone ... as the horror of it was largely gone for those who had suffered most.

Two-Bits had lingered after the departure of the rest and sat in a chair beside Tom's cot. Beck's face was pale, but his eyes were alive and as of old, evidence of satisfactory convalescence.

"So you think there _is_ a h.e.l.l, Tommy?" he asked.

Beck grunted a.s.sent.

"Yeah. I know there's a h.e.l.l, Two-Bits."

"My brother always said there was. He said it was an awful place, Tommy. I'll bet two bits th' old Devil was sorry to see Hepburn an'

Hilton an' Sam McKee comin' in that mornin'! I'll bet he says to hisself: 'Here's some right smart compet.i.tion for me!'"

Beck laughed silently.

"Sometimes I get feelin' mighty sorry for 'em," the lanky cow-boy continued. "I use to hate Webb somethin' awful an' I sure did think Hepburn was about th' lowest critter that walked.... G.o.d ought to 've made him crawl! Sam McKee never was no good. He was th' meanest man I ever saw....

"But, shucks, Tommy, I hate to think of 'em bein' blistered all th'

time!"

"That ain't the kind of h.e.l.l I referred to, Two-Bits. I don't know much about that kind, with brimstone and fire and all the rest....

"There's a h.e.l.l, though, Tommy. It's when a man lets the weakness in him run off with what strength he has, when he don't trust those who deserve to be trusted, when he's suspicious of those his heart tells him are above suspicion."

Two-Bits swallowed, setting his Adam's apple leaping. His eyes widened.

"Gosh, you talk just like th' Reverend!" he said, and Beck laughed until his wound hurt him.

"Well, if they ain't in h.e.l.l, they're under an awful lot of rocks," he added. "That's all I care, to have 'em out of her way."

"Yes, it makes it smoother. Real folks, men who deserve the name, won't do anything but trust her and help her."

"Not after the way she made 'em come out of their holes! That trial must've been grand, Tommy! I'd 've give two bits to seen it an' heard it!

"She won't have no trouble no more. Everybody knows she's got more head than most men on this here creek. But she's got somethin' else! She's got a ... a gentle way with her that makes everybody want to do things for her.