Death Rides the Night (13 page)

At the same time Sam's chisel was getting blunted on Pat's hard skull. Sam kept right on pounding just as hard as ever, but a worried frown was beginning to show on his face. Pat wanted to tell him to get a sharper chisel. It seemed to him it would be a blessed relief if the chisel would just go right on through the bone into his brain and finish him off. But he had a funny idea that this was going to keep up forever, that it would never stop and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Then Pat came back to consciousness. He opened his eyes wide, and the figures of Sam and Ezra vanished. He was lying on his back and a streak of bright sunlight struck him full in the face. The pounding kept right on, but now it was on the inside of his head. His hair was matted down to the floor in a pool of dried blood, and when he tried to move he found it was stuck fast.

He gritted his teeth together and closed his eyes against the bright sunlight and tried to figure out how he had got there. His thoughts went back to Dutch Springs and the scene in the Gold Eagle Saloon, and then to the Lazy Mare ranch at midnight. All right. That much of it was clear. He remembered gathering up a few head of his cattle and driving them into the VX herd after cutting the wires. Then he rode to Ezra's house to make a pot of coffee and wait till daylight before he rode out to try and cut the VX stuff from Ezra's herd.

It all came back to him now, though his mind refused to accept the memory. Something was wrong. He thought he must be crazy. Hell! The way he remembered it, Ezra had ridden up and come in the door. And when Pat called to him, the one-eyed man up and shot him. And then strode forward and whacked Pat over the head while he lay on the floor.

That couldn't be right. Ezra was in the Dutch Springs jail. And if he wasn't in jail, he wouldn't have shot Pat like that. No matter how mad he was. No matter if he did think Pat had turned against him. Ezra wouldn't shoot his worst enemy down in cold blood that way. He wasn't fast with a gun, but there wasn't a fiber of fear in his huge body and he wasn't the kind to shoot without giving some warning. And then to go away and leave a man knocked out and half dead.

There had to be something wrong with his memory. It seemed to Pat it was all sort of mixed up with the dream he'd been having about Ezra and Sam pounding him on the head with a sledge-hammer and cold chisel. He couldn't tell where the dream left off and the real memory started. That blow on the head must have knocked him sort of crazy.

He tried to move his left hand, and a streak of pain darted through his left shoulder. He lifted his right hand cautiously and tugged at the strands of hair that were stuck to the floor. When he got them loose, he pulled himself up to a sitting position and opened his eyes again.

He was weak and dizzy. The pounding inside his head got worse when he sat up. He waited for it to subside a little, then reached up and warily explored the bullet wound in his shoulder. It was on the outside, through the bunched muscles and flesh, but it didn't feel like the bone was injured.

He twisted sideways and lifted himself to his feet with the support of his right hand. His knees were wobbly, and he traversed an unsteady and wavering path to the front door and out to the water trough.

The sun was overhead, a little in the west. Past noon already, by golly. He had been lying on the floor unconscious more than half a day.

He sank to his knees by the wooden trough and buried his face and head in the sun-warmed water. It revived him and made the pain worse. He rocked back on his heels and stripped the bloody shirt from his wounded shoulder, used the torn sleeve as a sponge to wash away the clotted blood. The bullet had torn a clean hole through the outside part of his arm, and he left the clotted blood at both ends of the hole so it wouldn't start bleeding again.

He got up to his feet and staggered back to the house. His saddled horse was still patiently standing where he had tied him by the side of the house six or seven hours previously.

Pat went inside out of the terribly bright midday sunlight, and circled the place where he had lain and bled on the floor.

He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen and looked the room over carefully. Everything was just as he remembered it last night. That much of his memory was all right anyway. The coffeepot stood on the back of the stove where he had pushed it just after it boiled over.

He recalled that he was just getting ready to pour a cup when he heard the horse coming up and stopping outside. He tested this part of it by crossing to the cold stove and lifting the pot. Yep. It was full of fresh coffee just as it should be if his memory was correct.

All right. What then? He had stepped quietly to the door into the living room and loosened his guns while he waited for the rider to come in. That much was clear.

Then the door opened. He shook his head helplessly. Damn it, right there was where things got mixed up. He remembered seeing Ezra in the doorway. He called out to him and started forward, and Ezra's only reply was a blast of gunfire.

Pat's knees were shaking again. He stubbornly resisted the memory. It couldn't have been Ezra. He was mixed up somehow.

He got a granite iron cup and opened the top of the coffeepot and dipped it into the cool black coffee because he didn't think he had strength enough to lift the pot and pour it out. He drank it in three long gulps. It was strong and thick, and it tasted terrible, but he had no desire to build a fire and heat it up. It did clear his head a trifle. The pounding still went on, but it didn't hurt as much as before. He dipped out another cup and carried it back to the chair where he had sat this morning before dawn while he waited for it to boil.

He set it carefully on the floor and lowered himself to the chair, then got out his makings and laboriously built himself a cigarette with his one good hand. His shoulder was beginning to throb and he knew he ought to put his arm in a sling to relieve the pressure on the muscles. He lifted his forearm up to rest in his lap for the time being, and puffed on his cigarette and drank a second cup of cold coffee.

He stopped trying to think about this morning and Ezra. It was too fantastic and it wouldn't come clear.

He couldn't do anything about hunting up the VX cows in Ezra's pasture in his present condition. It didn't matter so much, he decided. He had sort of spiked Harlow's guns by running some of his own heifers in with the VX herd. That was just as good rustling evidence against Harlow as there was against Ezra. Everybody would know what he had done, of course, but they couldn't prove it any more than he could prove Harlow had framed Ezra by putting some of his stuff through the fence into Ezra's spread.

The most important thing right now, Pat decided, was to assure himself that Ezra had been in jail this morning when he was attacked. As soon as he was sure of that, he thought he might be able to forget that crazy memory of being attacked by Ezra and that the truth of it might come to him. But he had to know first. The memory was too strong to be downed any other way.

He used his torn shirt sleeve to make a rude sling for his wounded arm, and then went out to his horse. He was weak and dizzy from loss of blood and he managed to climb into the saddle with difficulty, but once his feet were firmly planted in the stirrups he was all right again.

He rode the dun around to the trough and let him drink his belly full of water, then turned him in a northwesterly direction toward the Pony Express way station where Sam Sloan and his wife lived.

It was only about fifteen miles to the express station, and Pat felt a desperate need to talk to Sam. He knew Sam must have waited in Dutch Springs to ride the morning mail south, and Sam would know for sure about Ezra still being in jail. Of course, Pat knew Ezra
must
be in jail. He just had to be. Pat knew he'd have a hard time hanging onto his reason if he didn't
know
it couldn't have been Ezra who attacked him that morning.

He didn't know how Sam was going to feel about him after the way he'd knocked him out in the Gold Eagle and used his gun to take Ezra out to the sheriff, but he was too worried about other things to think about that now. Sam had been mad at him before, but the wiry little man always got over it. Pat knew he could bring Sam around as soon as he had a chance to explain to him his reasons for acting as he did.

There was only one fear that nagged at Pat Stevens as he rode toward Sam's shack on the road south from Dutch Springs. He knew it was something he had subconsciously been fearing ever since he came back to consciousness after being knocked out.
He was afraid Sam had taken matters in his own hands last night and managed to get Ezra out of jail.

He tried to avoid thinking about that possibility. He clung desperately to his belief that Ezra was in jail and thus could not have attacked him. If Sam had got hotheaded and helped Ezra break jail …

Pat didn't want to think about that. He kept remembering the way Ezra had looked at him last night when he turned him over to Tripo. Ezra was sort of funny. He was childish sometimes, in his sudden and terrible rages, and was capable of thoughtless violence on such occasions. It was hard for Pat to believe that Ezra's anger could ever actually be directed against him, but all the same he knew he'd be mighty uncomfortable about the whole thing right now if he didn't keep assuring himself that Ezra was safe in jail and
couldn't
have shot him that morning at dawn.

The sun was scorching hot and beat down pitilessly on the wounded rider and the plodding dun horse. Saddled and without food since midnight, the dun was willingly giving his best, but his best wasn't as good as it had been the preceding night. Even in his own weakened state, Pat was aware of his mount's condition and held him down to a jog trot across the interminable miles of rolling side-hill to his destination, little faster than the speed a man can walk.

It was almost three hours after Pat awoke on the floor of Ezra's ranch house when the low cluster of buildings that was the express way station began to take form before Pat's blurred eyes. The dun pricked his ears and lengthened his stride, and Pat gave him his head, knowing there were fresh saddle horses at the station that he could borrow if there was more riding that had to be done immediately.

He was weaving in the saddle and clutching the saddle-horn tightly with his uninjured hand when he rode into the yard in front of the shack that Sam and Kitty Sloan called home.

He grinned weakly when the door slammed open and Sam came striding out. He dropped the reins and slid down to the ground wearily and relaxed against Sam who put his arm about him and cursed in a low monotone as he noted his condition.

Pat let Sam lead him inside the three-room shack and didn't try to do any talking. He sank down on a pile of buffalo robes in one corner, and muttered, “Water,” and then closed his eyes and let his body soak in the coolness of the room.

Sam brought him a cup of cool water and Pat drank it gratefully. Then he said, “Take care of my hawse, Sam. He ain't been unsaddled since midnight.”

“What happened to you?” Sam demanded roughly. “Where in hell have yuh been an' who did yuh tangle with?”

Pat waved his hand and tried to grin. “Never mind me. Take care of the dun an' then we'll talk.”

Sam nodded and hurried out. He knew Pat would never be satisfied until his horse was looked after and that arguing about it would only put off explanations that much longer.

Pat was sitting up smoking a cigarette when Sam came back. He had regained his ruddy color and looked all right except for the bloody shoulder.

He shook his head and winced when Sam offered to examine the wound. “Leave it be like it is. You know a bullet hole heals quicker if you leave it alone.”

“Shore. It's jest through thuh flesh part,” Sam agreed. “Who threw lead at yuh?”

“That's the funny thing,” Pat muttered cautiously. “I don't rightly know. Whoever 'twas banged me on the head an' went off an' left me.” He paused and blew out a spiral of blue smoke. “I hope yo're not sore about last night.”

Sam shook his head and laughed contentedly. “You were right an' I was wrong. Dang it, I reckon I had oughtta thank you for takin' my gun an' keepin' me an' Ezra from bein' a couple of plumb fools. You allus do think three jumps ahead of us. If I'd knowed what you was plannin' to do I woulda he'ped you.”

“You shoulda guessed,” Pat muttered.

“Shore. I know. But I got all riled up an' didn't stop to think. Soon's I found out, I was sorry you had to do it all alone.”

“That's all right,” said Pat awkwardly. There was a short silence. Then he asked, “How did you find out?”

“What?” Sam looked at him in surprise.

“What I was gonna do?”

Sam laughed and slapped his thigh. “'Cause you beat me to it. That's how. Me an' John Boyd an' Winters, an' Pete an' yore other two hands. After I come to an' we talked things over in the back room there didn't none of us have sense enuff to figger you'd already be ahead of us, so we started out tuh do the same thing.”

Pat frowned and shook his head worriedly. Sam's words didn't seem to make much sense. He wondered if the blow on his head had plumb addled his brain. Seemed like he couldn't think straight any more. First, there was his crazy idea that Ezra had shot him and knocked him out; and now Sam's talk didn't make sense. He said, “I didn't see nothing of you-all.”

“Shore you didn't,” Sam agreed cheerfully. “You an' Ezra had done pulled out 'fore we got there.”

“Me … an' Ezra?”

“Shore. Them two depyties of Tripo's was still tied up when we got to thuh jail.”

“Tied up, huh?” Pat said slowly. His mind refused to accept what Sam was telling him.

“Where'd you take Ezra?” Sam demanded. “What in hell's happened since you busted him loose outta jail? Is he awright?”

“I guess …
he's
all right.”