'Firebrand' Trevison
momentary cessation he crept back to the entrance of the adobe house,
entered, followed another passage and came out on the ledge farther along
the side of the pueblo. He halted in a dense shadow and looked toward the
spot where the men had been. They had vanished.
There was nothing to do but to wait, and he sank behind a huge block of
stone in an angle of the ledge, noting with satisfaction that he could see
the slope that he had set Levins to guard.
"I'm the boss of this fort if I don't go to sleep," he told himself grimly
as he stretched out. He lay there, watching, while the moonlight faded,
while a gray streak in the east slowly widened, presaging the dawn.
Stretched flat, his aching muscles welcoming the support of the cool stone
of the ledge, he had to fight off the drowsiness that assailed him.
An hour dragged by. He knew the deputies were watching, no doubt having
separated to conceal themselves behind convenient boulders that dotted the
plains at the foot of the slope. Or perhaps while he had been in the
passages of the pueblo, changing his position, some of them might have
stolen to the numerous crags and outcroppings of rock at the base of the
pueblo. They might now be massing for a rush up the slope. But he doubted
they would risk the latter move, for they knew that he must be on the
alert, and they had cause to fear his rifle.
Once he rested his head on his extended right arm, and the contact was so
agreeable that he allowed it to remain there--long. He caught himself in
time; in another second he would have been too late. He saw the figure of
a man on the slope a foot or two below the crest. He was flat on his
stomach, no doubt having crept there during the minutes that Trevison had
been enjoying his rest, and at the instant Trevison saw him he was raising
his rifle, directing it at the recess where Levins had been left, on
guard.
Trevison was wide awake now, and his marksmanship as deadly as ever. He
waited until the man's rifle came to a level. Then his own weapon spat
viciously. The man rose to his knees, reeling. Another rifle cracked--from
the recess where Levins was concealed, this time--and the man sank to the
dust of the slope, rolling over and over until he reached the bottom,
where he stretched out and lay prone. There was a shout of rage from a
section of rock-strewn level near the foot of the slope, and Trevison's
lips curled with satisfaction. The second shot had told him that a fear he
had entertained momentarily was unfounded--Levins was apparently quite
alive.
He raised himself cautiously, backed away from the rock behind which he
had been concealed, and wheeled, intending to join Levins. A faint sound
reached his ears from the plains, and he faced around again, to see a
group of horsemen riding toward the pueblo. They were coming fast, racing
ahead of a dust cloud, and were perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. But
Trevison knew them, and stepped boldly out to the edge of the stone ledge
waving his hat to them, laughing full-throatedly, his voice vibrating a
little as he spoke:
"Good old Barkwell!"
* * * * *
"That's him!"
Barkwell pulled his horse to a sliding halt as he saw the figure on the
pueblo, outlined distinctly in the clear white light of the dawn.
"He's all right!" he declared to the others as they followed his example
and drew their beasts down. "Them's some of the scum that's been after
him," he added as several horsemen swept around the far side of the
pueblo. "It was them we heard shootin'." The outfit sat silent on their
horses and watched the men ride over the plains toward another group of
horsemen that the Diamond K men had observed some time before riding
toward the pueblo,
"Yep!" Barkwell said, now; "that other bunch is deputies, too. It's mighty
plain. This bunch rounded up 'Firebrand' an' sent some one back for
reinforcements." He swept the Diamond K outfit with a snarling smile.
"They're goin' to need 'em, too! I reckon we'd better wait for them to
play their hand. It's about a stand off in numbers. We don't stand no
slack, boys. We're outlawed already, from the ruckus of last night, an' if
they start anything we've got to wipe 'em out! You heard 'em shootin' at
the boss, an' they ain't no pussy-kitten bunch! I'll do the gassin'--if
there's any to be done--an' when I draw, you guys do your damnedest!"
The outfit set itself to wait. Over on the edge of the pueblo they could
see Trevison. He was bending over something, and when they saw him stoop
and lift the object, heaving it to his shoulder and walking away with it,
a sullen murmur ran over the outfit, and lips grew stiff and white with
rage.
"It's Clay Levins, boys!" said Barkwell. "They've plugged him! Do you
reckon we've got to go back to Levins' shack an' tell his wife that we let
them skunks get away after makin' orphants of her kids?"
"I'm jumpin'!" shrieked Jud Weaver, his voice coming chokingly with
passion. "I ain't waitin' one damned minute for any palaver! Either them
deputies is wiped out, or I am!" He dug the spurs into his horse, drawing
his six-shooter as the animal leaped.
Weaver's horse led the outfit by only three or four jumps, and they swept
over the level like a devastating cyclone, the spiral dust cloud that rose
behind them following them lazily, sucked along by the wind of their
passing.
The group of deputies had halted; they were sitting tense and silent in
their saddles when the Diamond K outfit came up, slowing down as they drew
nearer, and halting within ten feet of the others, spreading out in a
crude semi-circle, so that each man had an unobstructed view of the
deputies.
Barkwell had no chance to talk. Before he could get his breath after
pulling his horse down, Weaver, his six-shooter in hand, its muzzle
directed fairly at Gieger, who was slightly in advance of his men, fumed
forth:
"What in hell do you-all mean by tryin' to herd-ride our boss? Talk fast,
you eagle-beaked turkey buzzard, or I salivates you rapid!"
The situation was one of intense delicacy. Gieger might have averted the
threatening clash with a judicious use of soft, placating speech. But it
pleased him to bluster.
"We are deputies, acting under orders from the court. We are after a
murderer, and we mean to get him!" he said, coldly.
"Deputies! Hell!" Barkwell's voice rose, sharply scornful and mocking.
"Deputies! Crooks! Gun-fighters! Pluguglies!" His eyes, bright, alert,
gleaming like a bird's, were roving over the faces in the group of
deputies. "A damn fine bunch of guys to represent the law! There's Dakota
Dick, there! Tinhorn, rustler! There's Red Classen! Stage robber! An'
Pepper Ridgely, a plain, ornery thief! An' Kid Dorgan, a sneakin' killer!
An' Buff Keller, an' Andy Watts, an' Pig Mugley, an'--oh, hell! Deputies!
Law!----Ah--hah!"
One of the men had reached for his holster. Weaver's gun barked twice and
the man pitched limply forward to his horse's neck. Other weapons flashed;
the calm of the early morning was rent by the hoarse, guttural cries of
men in the grip of the blood-lust, the sustained and venomous popping of
pistols, the queer, sodden impact of lead against flesh, the terror-snorts
of horses, and the grunts of men, falling heavily.
* * * * *
A big man in khaki, loping his horse up the slope of an arroyo half a mile
distant, started at the sound of the first shot and raced over the crest.
He pulled the horse to an abrupt halt as his gaze swept the plains in
front of him. He saw riderless horses running frantically away from a
smoking blot, he saw the blot streaked with level, white smoke-spurts that
ballooned upward quickly; he heard the dull, flat reports that followed
the smoke-spurts.
It seemed to be over in an instant. The blot split up, galloping horses
and yelling men burst out of it. The big man had reached the crest of the
arroyo at the critical second in which the balance of victory wavers
uncertainly. With thrusting chin, lips in a hideous pout, and with sullen,
blazing eyes, he watched the battle go against him. Fifteen cowboys--he
counted them, deliberately, coldly, despite the rage-mania that had seized
him--were spurring after eight other men whom he knew for his own. As he
watched he saw two of these tumble from their horses. And at a distance he
saw the loops of ropes swing out to enmesh four more--who were thrown and
dragged; he watched darkly as the remaining two raised their hands above
their heads. Then his lips came out of their pout and were wreathed in a
bitter snarl.
"Licked!" he muttered. "Twelve put out of business. But there's thirty
more--if the damn fools have come in to town! That's two to one!" He
laughed, wheeled his horse toward Manti, rode a few feet down the slope of
the arroyo, halted and sat motionless in the saddle, looking back. He
smiled with cold satisfaction. "Lucky for me that cinch strap broke," he
said.
* * * * *
Trevison was placing Levins' limp form across the saddle on Nigger's back
when the faint morning breeze bore to his ears the report of Weaver's
pistol. A rattling volley followed the first report, and Trevison led
Nigger close to the edge of the ledge in time to observe the battle as
Corrigan had seen it. He hurried Nigger down the slope, but he had to be
careful with his burden. Reaching the level he lifted Levins off, laid him
gently on the top of a huge flat rock, and then leaped into the saddle and
sent Nigger tearing over the plains toward the scene of the battle.
It was over when he arrived. A dozen men were lying in the tall grass.
Some were groaning, writhing; others were quiet and motionless. Four or
five of them were arrayed in chaps. His lips grimmed as his gaze swept
them. He dismounted and went to them, one after another. He stooped long
over one.
"They've got Weaver," he heard a voice say. And he started and looked
around, and seeing no one near, knew it was his own voice that he heard.
It was dry and light--as a man's voice might be who has run far and fast.
He stood for a while, looking down at Weaver. His brain was reeling, as it
had reeled over on the ledge of the pueblo a few minutes before, when he
had discovered a certain thing. It was not a weakness; it was a surge of
reviving rage, an accession of passion that made his head swim with its
potency, made his muscles swell with a strength that he had not known for
many hours. Never in his life had he felt more like crying. His emotions
seared his soul as a white-hot iron sears the flesh; they burned into him,
scorching his pity and his impulses of mercy, withering them, blighting
them. He heard himself whining sibilantly, as he had heard boys whine when
fighting, with eagerness and lust for blows. It was the insensate, raging
fury of the fight-madness that had gripped him, and he suddenly yielded to
it and raised his head, laughing harshly, with panting, labored breath.
Barkwell rode up to him, speaking hoarsely: "We come pretty near wipin'
'em out, 'Firebrand!'"
He looked up at his foreman, and the latter's face blanched. "God!" he
said. He whispered to a cowboy who had joined him: "The boss is pretty
near loco--looks like!"
"They've killed Weaver," muttered Trevison. "He's here. They killed Clay,
too--he's down on a rock near the slope." He laughed, and tightened his
belt. The record book which he had carried in his waistband all along
interfered with this work, and he drew it out, throwing it from him. "Clay
was worth a thousand of them!"
Barkwell got down and seized the book, watching Trevison closely.
"Look here, Boss," he said, as Trevison ran to his horse and threw himself
into the saddle; "you're bushed, mighty near--"