The Law of the Trigger

Chapter Twelve

The night was endless. Minutes were hours and hours centuries as Owen and Dunc Lester struggled blindly down that tortuous grade to the south. It seemed to Owen that his arms were slowly stretching to incredible length from the pull of the stretcher, but they did not dare to stop, except for brief intervals, even though their muscles quivered and their chests were filled with fire.

At every step Owen expected to hear Brunner's horsemen charging down on top of them, but the night remained mysteriously silent, disturbed only by their stumbling and tortured breathing. At seemingly regular intervals, Owen, who carried the forepart of the stretcher, blundered into tall boulders, or stumbled in thickets and over rocks, and once he fell sprawling into a dry wash and Arch Deland rolled limply from the stretcher. At some point in that endless night the deputy had passed into unconsciousness.

At last it seemed that they had become lost in space and time, and had somehow blundered onto a devil's treadmill that had no beginning and no hope of an end. Reason had lost its power and only instinct was left to them; the instinct of the hunted. For a long time Owen worried at the riddle of the silent hills. Where were Brunner and the gang? Certainly someone had heard the firing and known that something was wrong. Owen had prepared himself for the dangerous game of run and hide and run again, trusting to the night for protection. But the gang did not come.

In some perverse way this worried him more than an attack would have done. Ike was not deliberately letting them escape—of that he was certain.

Eventually, as the eastern hills became capped with the first light of dawn, they were forced to stop for several minutes of rest. They sprawled on the cool ground beneath a dark umbrella of pine and dragged huge quantities of air into their lungs. Finally Owen shoved himself to his knees, and only then did he notice that his palms were bloody hooks still shaped to fit the stretcher poles. Deland's old face sagged in uneasy rest. His forehead was hot; his lips were cracked and dry. The deputy did not move when Owen spoke to him. “How is he?” Dunc asked. “Feverish. But his heart seems strong.” Dunc looked at his own bloody hands for a moment, then sat up and studied the grayish hills. “We slipped off the trace,” he said. “We'll have to bear more to the west.” But that wasn't the thing that bothered him. He got to his feet and walked unsteadily to a small rise and again studied those dark-green mounds that seemed to grow slowly out of the darkness. “I wish I knew what Ike was up to,” he said. He waved his arm in a wide arc from east to west. “They're out there somewhere.”

Owen frowned. “You don't see anything, do you?”

“I don't have to.” Then he added, “My ma came from Indian stock,” as if to explain how he knew.

And Owen could not dispute it, for he had had the same feeling for hours.

“You know what I think. Marshal?” Dunc asked, and then went on without waiting for an answer. “I think the gang must have found Wes Longstreet's party and Ike's developed a sudden respect for lowland shootin'. Maybe that's why they're hangin' back, maybe they're playin' for time.”

Owen did not wholly agree, but this did not lessen his respect for Dunc's judgment of hillpeople. He asked, “What else do you think, Dunc?”

“Well, it's just guessin', of course, but I figure maybe Ike's beginnin' to have trouble holdin' the gang together. We counted eighteen men yesterday, and he used to have thirty or more. Now with Longstreet and Fulsom and Clinkscale dead, he's left with fifteen. Ike's no coward, but he's smart, and he won't risk losing any more men if he thinks he can take us without a fight.”

Owen thought about this, thinking the boy might be right. The gang's morale was going to take a drop when they found those three bodies, but he still didn't know how Brunner meant to take them without a fight.

At last they took up the stretcher and resumed their stumbling march to the south. Owen's only thought was for Arch Deland; not until he got the wounded deputy to safety could he turn his mind to Ike Brunner.

If Dunc Lester had thoughts of his own, he did not voice them. For good or bad, he had thrown in with the marshal, and this seemed no time to split their meager forces.

Near noon both men fell in exhaustion. “We'll never make it,” Dunc Lester said hoarsely.

“How far is it?”

“A mile. Maybe two. I don't think I can lift that stretcher again.”

“We'll make it,” Owen rasped.

They lay quiet, soothed by the sound of running water. Finally they staggered to the bank of a narrow stream and drank their fill of cold, iron-tasting water. Owen filled his hat and took it back to the stretcher, where he dribbled a few drops between the deputy's cracked lips and bathed his hot face.

Dunc Lester watched dispassionately. He had liked Arch Deland, but the old man was as good as dead. It seemed a criminal waste of time and effort to use yourself up on a dead man.

But Owen closed his eyes and senses to the things that Dunc Lester saw and knew. The skin of Deland's face had gone yellow, as dry as parchment. The eyes were glazed, the breathing shallow, the heart fluttery.

Owen would not see these things. Arch, he told himself,had escaped death a thousand times, and he would escape it this time. He would not consider the enormous odds against them; he had to believe that Deland would pull through once they got him to a place where he could be cared for. And that was what he believed.

Owen took hold of his end of the stretcher. “You ready, son?”

Dunc shook his head, not in a negative response, but in bewilderment at the marshal's unreasoning singleness of purpose. And yet it was that very thing about the marshal that made Dunc believe that there was a bare chance that they might come out of this alive. He abandoned the hope of bringing in Ike Brunner. All he wanted now was escape, and he knew that he must depend on Owen Toller's strength for that. Slowly he bent down, took the bloody stretcher poles in his raw hands, and lifted.

It was midafternoon when they finally sighted the Cooper cabin. They eased the stretcher to the ground and Dunc said, “Maybe I'd better go on ahead and see how things stand.”

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'thave to live in these hills.”

“And what about Leah Stringer? She knows that Ike killed her father; she could testify to it if Ike ever came to trial. Do you think Ike is going to forget a thing like that?”

“I don't care whether he forgets or not! Leah and I can go where he can't find us.”

Owen looked at him. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I guess maybe you could.”

“All right,” Dunc went on, dropping some of his anger. “This is what I've been thinkin'. Harve had his brother take a load of the stuff and the womenfolks down to the foothills yesterday, and he's supposed to bring the wagon back today and pick up the rest of it. The furniture and stuff they've got piled outside. Now Ike's got nothing special against Harve and Morris, so he'll probably let them get through. What's to keep us from hidin' in the wagon and goin' with them?”

“The ride would kill Arch,” Owen said.

“He's goin' to die anyway, Marshal! I tell you this is our one chance to get out of these hills alive!”

Owen walked to the door and stared out at the green peaks. They did not frighten him now, and he knew that he was not going back without Ike Brunner. He had reached a point—because of exhaustion, perhaps—where he was no longer angered at people who would not fight for their own rights, but this did not lessen the drive within him. The actions of the Coopers and the Lesters could not change him from the kind of man he was. “All right, Dunc,” he said. “You go with the Coopers.”

“What about you?”

“I'll come later.” He was weary of explaining his actions and motives to others who never understood. Elizabeth had understood; that was the only thing that counted. He said, “There'll be no hard feelings, son. You go on with the Coopers.” And he walked outside.

Dunc Lester felt a slow, warm shame crawl over him. He hated what he could not understand, and he could not understand the first thing about this man Owen Toller. And the old deputy who lay dying—why? For what reason?

Slowly his sense of shame overrode and subdued his hatred. He thought of Leah and wondered what he could say to her if he went back. How would it be, living out the rest of his life looking over his shoulder and expecting to see Ike Brunner there?

Several minutes must have passed before he became aware of a certain uneasiness, a kind of unnatural silence in the cabin that made his skin crawl. Some slight, unnoticed sound that had been in the cabin a few seconds before was now absent, and a long moment passed before he realized that the old deputy had stopped breathing.

Dunc stood very still. He had expected this, but you had to meet death face to face before you could actually believe it. Good-by, old man, he thought, and he felt a bit harder and older than he had an instant before.

Dunc stepped to the door. “Marshal,” he said quietly.

Owen turned and from the expression on his face Dunc knew that Owen understood without being told that his friend was dead.

Dunc stood to one side as Owen walked heavily into the cabin. Very gently Owen covered the old deputy's lax, gray face with the piece of tarp that had formed the stretcher, and then he stood quietly for a long while, saying nothing.

Dunc Lester moved uneasily. “Anything you want me to do, Marshal?”

“Yes. See if you can borrow a shovel and a grubbing hoe from the Coopers.”

The Coopers knew that they had no part in this play, and they stood quietly beside the cabin as Dunc and Owen hacked and dug in the root-filled ground beyond the clearing.It was a long job and a hard one, but both men worked steadily, pausing only to wipe the sweat from their eyes. As he labored, Owen did not let himself think beyond the immediate present. The very least that Arch deserved was a good grave, and he meant that he should have it.

When at last the job was over, when the grave was deep enough and the sides reasonably even and smooth, the two men stood swaying, resting on their tools.

At last Owen broke the silence. “I never heard Arch say where he wanted to be buried, but I think he'd like this place as good as any.”

“It's just as well,” Dunc said. “The sooner the buryin's done, the better. In this kind of weather.”

When they got back to the cabin they found that the body had been neatly wrapped in glistening white sheeting and that Arch's boots had been removed. Harve Cooper said, “I could have made a box if there had been more time.”

Owen nodded his thanks for the wrapping, for he knew that white sheeting was rare in the hills. Gently they lifted the body, which was amazingly light, and carried it slowly across the clearing, but the Coopers kept their place and made no move to follow.

While Dunc and Owen were filling the grave they saw a rickety mule-drawn farm wagon rattle noisily up to the Cooper cabin. As Owen rounded the grave mound with the shovel, the Coopers were hurriedly loading their belongings into the wagon.

Dunc Lester gazed thoughtfully at the hills, and then at the wagon. He recognized the driver as Sam Contrain, a distant cousin of the Coopers' from the south. Ike had nothing against the Contrains, and nothing in particular against Harve Cooper, so there was no reason why the gang should try to stop them. It would be the easiest thing in the world to hide in the bottom of that wagon and get out of these hills alive.

But, for Dunc, the prospect of running had lost its glitter. He couldn't explain why, except that somehow he had got himself in debt to Owen Toller, and he knew that the time for paying was at hand.

Now he looked at Toller and saw a thin, tight line of a mouth, a steellike glitter to his eyes. Dunc Lester thought that he had never before seen a face so grim and hard, and yet there was little bitterness in it. Once before, when he had first seen Owen Toller, the dangerous potential of the man had occurred to Dunc, and it occurred to him again now. But he knew that it was no longer a potential, but a reality. As Owen stood there gazing at Arch Deland's grave there was a deadliness in his eyes that made Dunc cringe a bit within his own conscience.

At last Owen turned away from the grave and said quietly, “You'd better get started, son, if you want that ride.”

Dunc wiped his face, more from nervousness than because it needed wiping. “I guess I've changed my mind, Marshal.”

Owen stood almost painfully erect, his head thrown back. “Why?”

“I... I don't know exactly. You and your wife were decent to me and Leah, so I guess I wouldn't feel right about pullin' out on you.”

“That's a poor reason for a man to risk his life,” Owen said flatly. “Is that the only reason you can offer?” What the hell! Dunc thought with the beginnings of anger. It's my life, ain't it? Do I have to have a reason for it?

But the stone-cold features of Toller's face stopped the outburst before he could put his thoughts into words. Instead, he swallowed nervously and said, “Well, Ike Brunner's lookin' to kill me. He'll do it, too, if I don't kill him first.”

And Owen said coldly, “If anything, that's a poorer reason than the first. I think you'd better go back with the Coopers.”

Stiffly Owen turned on his heel and started back toward the cabin, and Dunc stood stunned at this sudden turn of things. He had expected Owen to beg him not to go, but now things were turned around completely and he found himself begging for permission to stay. “Marshal!”

Owen paused and looked back. “Yes?”

“My common sense keeps tellin' me it's a fool thing to do, but I'd like to help out, if I can. Does the reason make any difference?”

“Yes,” Owen said, and the hard lines around his mouth seemed to soften just a little. “Arch Deland died without a reason. Anyhow, the reason he had wasn't good enough. I don't want that to happen again if I can help it.” He smiled the smallest smile that Dunc had ever seen. “You'd better catch the wagon, son.”

Owen started again toward the cabin, and once again Dunc called out. And he walked up to him, staring up into the bleakness of those pale eyes. “Marshal, I'm not very good at sayin' things, but not long ago my folks were run out of these hills, and they hadn't done a thing to be run out for. Now it's the Coopers, and tomorrow maybe it'll be somebody else. It makes me mad when I think about it; it ain't right. And still I can't hate every member of the gang that burned us out. Maybe Gabe Tanis set the fire with his own hand, but Gabe was a good man until a few months ago, and it don't stand to reason that a good man can change overnight.”

Dunc shook his head, as if puzzled by his own thoughts. “I don't know. Most of the gang members were hard-workin' farmers before Ike stirred them up. Ike told us that all outsiders were workin' to ruin us, and I guess most of us believed him. But you and your wife are outsiders and you don't want to ruin us, so Ike might be wrong about a lot of things. I don't know,” he said again. “It looks like one bad apple is ruinin' the barrel. Sooner or later the railroad people or somebody is goin' to bring an army up here and they're not goin' to know good people from bad; they'll clean us out like they did the Indians. Everybody but Ike, that is. Ike'll have plenty of time to get away if they try to take him with a big posse.”

It suddenly occurred to Dunc that probably this was the longest speech he had ever made in his life. It was not the incredible spring of words that amazed him, but the thoughts that had come out with the talk. And still there were other thoughts in his mind, about Leah, and the place of his own that he wanted. But these things he had held close to himself and did not attempt to put into words. He finished rather lamely, “Well, Marshal, I guess that's all I've got to say.”

And Owen looked at him in a strange way, a way in which no man had ever looked at him before, and he said, “All right, Dunc, we'd better get started.”

A few minutes later the two of them watched the wagon pull away from the cabin and rattle over the deep-rutted trail toward the far end of the draw.

Owen went into the silent cabin, where the venison still simmered in the fireplace, and with precise, machine-like movements he checked Arch's carbine and his own revolver. The two men ignored the packs, but filled their pockets with jerked beef and ammunition.

“It's up to you, Marshal,” Dunc said. “Do we head back toward Killer Ridge?”

“I don't think that will be necessary,” Owen said, gazing steadily through the open doorway. “Ike has his men up there.” He nodded toward a stone-capped bill perhaps a mile to the north.

“What?” Dunc went to the door and stared hard for several seconds before he saw the wisp of dust that indicated horses. “How long have you known about them?”

Owen shrugged. “Almost from the minute we reached this cabin. I doubt that Ike even bothered to trail us; he knew we had a wounded man and would make for this place.”

Dunc was vaguely worried but not frightened. “Why didn't they make their move long ago?”

“Waiting for the Coopers to leave, I suppose. Now Ike's got us where he wants us. From his position on the hill he can see every move we make, and I suspect that he has some of his men down watching the lower end of the draw. Are you sorry you didn't go with the Coopers, son?”

“I'm not sorry about anything,” Dunc said stiffly, “but I would like to have a fightin' chance. Do you aim to hole up in this cabin?”

Owen shook his head. “I'd guess that's just what Ike wants us to do; he could take his time and finish usoff as he pleases.” He pointed to the west, where ragged sandstone shelves jutted out from the sides of the hills. “I think we can make it. Ike's horses won't do him much good on those cliffs.”