The Desperado (22 page)

instinct, I suppose, made me head for the place that had given me
protection before, Daggert's Road. It was a fool thing to do probably,
because that would be the first place Ray Novak would look for me, but
I couldn't think of anything else. I raked Red's ribs cruelly with the
rowels of my spurs, even though he was already running as fast as he
could.

I looked back once and saw little feathers of dust rising up around
the Bannerman ranch yard, and I knew that would be Ray Novak and some
ranch hands pulling out to see what the shooting was about. Well, they
would find out soon enough, but by that time I would be in the
hills....

Suddenly, all thoughts jarred out of me. The world became a whirling,
crazy thing, and I crashed to the ground and the wind went out of me.
For a moment I lay stunned, gasping for breath. I shook my head, trying
to clear it. After a while I tried moving my arms and legs. They were
all right. I just had the breath knocked out of me. Finally, I pulled
myself to my knees and looked around. And then I saw Red.

He lay quietly behind me, looking at me with big liquid eyes, full of
hurt. “Red, boy! What's the matter?”

I dragged myself to my feet and limped over to him. His right foreleg
was twisted under him. His blood was staining the ground, and I
glimpsed the awful whiteness of bone that had broken through the hide.
Then I saw what had happened. Because of that crazy run I had forced
him to over this rough ground, he hadn't been able to judge the
distance correctly. He had been thrown off balance at a small gully
jump that ordinarily he would have taken in stride. His leg had snapped
as he went down.

For that moment I didn't wonder how I was going to get away from the
posse that was sure to be coming. I knelt beside Red, taking his head
in my arms and rubbing my hands along his satiny neck and shoulders.
“It's all right, boy. Everything's going to be all right.” But those
hurt eyes knew I was lying. I loved that horse more than I loved most
people. Red was all I had left. And now I didn't even have him.

I think I would have cried—sitting there on the ground, holding
Red's head in my lap—like some small child who had broken its
best-loved toy in a moment of anger, not realizing what the loss would
mean until it was too late. But then I looked down on the flatland and
I could see Ray Novak and the others ganged around the buckboard. They
were the ones responsible, I thought bitterly.. Not me.

I stood up slowly, anger making a red haze of everything. I could see
them wheeling now, not much more than specks in the distance, and
heading in my direction. I thought, Let them come! It all started with
Ray Novak— let it end with him. I was ready to meet him where I stood.
I was
eager.

Then a voice said: “You'd better come along, son. There's not much
time.”

I wasn't particularly surprised. I had come to expect the impossible
of Pappy. I turned and looked up the slope, and there he was, sitting
that big black of his, mildly rolling one of those corn-shuck
cigarettes. He nudged his horse gently and rode on down to where I was,
seeming entirely unconcerned with the posse charging across the
flatland toward us. He glanced once at Red, and then looked away.

“I'm sorry, son,” he said gently. “He was a good horse.”

“Pappy, for God's sake, what are you doing here?”

He shrugged slightly. “It's a long trail to travel by yourself.”

It was the closest thing to sentiment, or regret, or fear, that I had
ever heard in Pappy's voice. From the very first, I figured that Pappy
had picked me up because he needed a kind of personal bodyguard, but I
knew now that it wasn't that. It had never occurred to me before that a
man like Pappy could be lonesome. That he needed friends like other
people.

I said, “Pappy, get out of here! Go on to New Mexico, or wherever you
were going. You can't help me now.”

But he only smiled that sad half-smile of his. Then he shook a boot
out of a stirrup and held it out. “Just step up here,” he said. “I
guess this black horse won't mind riding double for a little piece.”

“Pappy, you're crazy. You can't expect to outrun a posse by riding
double.”

He shrugged again. “But we can find a better place than this to fight
from. Come on, son. There isn't much time.”

Pappy's word was law. I knew that he wouldn't budge until I did as he
said. Dumbly, I put my foot in the stirrup and swung up behind him.

I glanced at the posse. They were already in rifle range, but they
were holding their fire until they had us cold. Then I looked at Red,
knowing what I had to do, but not knowing if I had the guts for it.

“Just look away, son,” Pappy said softly.

There was one pistol shot, and Red lay still.

Good-by, Red. Good-by to the last thing I ever gave a damn about,
except Pappy. And I wasn't even sure that I cared a damn about Pappy.
Maybe he was just something to hold to, a device that men like us used
in order to live a little while longer. I felt empty and angry and
there wasn't much sense to anything.

The big black took us as far as the top of the ridge, and that was
the end of the line. We could hear the hoofs pounding now as Ray Novak
pushed his posse of ranch hands on up into the hills after us. The
black was a good horse—as good as Red, maybe—but he couldn't carry
two men and be expected to outrun the sturdy range horses chasing us.
When we hit the crest of the rise Pappy dumped out of the saddle,
clawing that fancy rifle of his out of the saddle boot. I came off
after him and the black went on down to the bottom of the slope.

“Over here, son!” Pappy yelled. And when I stopped rolling I saw that
he already had a private fortress picked out for us. Three big rocks
gave us cover on three sides and we could sweep the hill with fire in
all directions. As I crawled up beside him, Pappy already had that
rifle in action. He fired twice and two of the posse dumped out of
their saddles and lay still. That cut the original five down to three,
and I thought maybe we would get out of this after all, if we could
catch one of the loose horses, and get rid of Ray Novak.

But Novak and the two ranch hands began to scatter before Pappy could
cut any more of them down. They scrambled for rocks near the base of
the hill and for a few moments it was quiet. Those two dead riders gave
them something to think about before trying anything foolish.

Pappy looked at me, grinning slightly. “Well,” he said, “we've been
in worse places. That's always some consolation, they say.”

I said nothing. I searched the land below us, but nobody was moving.
It was quiet—deadly quiet. I wondered what Ray Novak was thinking down
there. The Novaks and their tin badges! After looking at his pa, he
would know that tin badges didn't make a man immune from bullets.

Pappy stacked his rifle against the rock, got out his makings, and
began to roll a cigarette. Like a man knocking off work for a few
minutes to take a breather. There was no way of knowing what he was
thinking. For a moment he stared flatly down the side of the slope;
then he looked at me.

“It didn't work out, did it, son?” he said. “I didn't think it would,
but I was hoping....”

I knew he was talking about Laurin. And I didn't want to talk about
Laurin. I didn't want to think about her.

Nodding his head toward the bottom of the hill, he said, “He got her,
didn't he?” meaning Ray Novak. “I think maybe I knew from the first
that he would. It was just a feeling, I guess, after you told me how
things were.”

“Cut it off, will you, Pappy?” I said angrily.

“Sure, son, I didn't mean to butt in.” He sat back against the rock,
with that cigarette dangling between his lips. “He's a good man,
though,” he said thoughtfully. “He damn near put a bullet in me that
day. Probably he's learned some things since then. I don't think I'd be
in any hurry to stand up to him now.”

“He's a goddamned tin soldier riding behind a tin badge,” I said.
“His pa was the same, but he died just as easy as anybody else.”

Pappy's eyes widened. “You killed his old man?”

“Sure I did. He tried to arrest me.”

Pappy shook his head sadly from side to side. “Maybe we're going to
have trouble,” he said heavily. “Maybe we're going to have more trouble
than we ever saw before.”

It was still quiet down on the slope. I said, “This is no good. We
can't run, and we can't fight if they don't come out from behind those
rocks. But we can't just sit here. By now, somebody from the ranch will
be headed toward John's City for more help. We've got to get away from
here before that comes.”

Pappy nodded and spat out his cigarette. Then a horse nickered back
behind us and I could almost see Pappy's ears prick up. “Just a
minute,” he said. “I'd better look after that black of mine.”

He crawled on his hands and knees to the naked side of the hill and
peered down below. Suddenly, something jabbed me in the back of the
brain. Intuition, they call it. Or hunch. Some men have it and some
don't. Sometimes, when it hits you, it tells you to put your stack on
the red and all you have to do is watch the roulette ball drop in. Or
it may tell you that around the next corner is sudden death. When I
felt it, I whirled and yelled:

“Pappy, look out!”

But the moment had passed. It had come and gone and I hadn't got my
bet down in time. I heard a rifle crack in the afternoon, and I turned
just in time to see Pappy go down.

“Pappy!” I yelled again.

But I knew it was too late. I ran over to where he was, silhouetting
myself against the sky, but not caring now. Then I saw the
rifleman—that sober, stone-cold face that was past anger, or grief, or
any emotion at all. It was Ray Novak.

I didn't stop to wonder how he had slipped around to the naked side
of the hill. He had done it, and that was enough. Dumbly, he was
looking at me now. Probably, he had figured it out cold and clear in
his mind what he was going to do to me when he caught me, but suddenly
finding himself face to face with me startled him. And that was Ray
Novak's mistake. I shot before he could swing the rifle around.

I watched as the bullet slammed into his shoulder, jerking him
around. He went to his knees and began tumbling down the side of the
hill.

Instinct told me that he wasn't dead. There was only a bullet in his
shoulder and that wouldn't stop him for long. But before I could do
anything about it, the two ranch hands were drawn around to the naked
side of the hill by the shooting. I aimed very carefully at one of
them. I could see horror in his eyes as he started backing away, too
scared to use the gun in his hand. I pulled the trigger and he fell
away somewhere out of my line of vision. I forgot about him.

I didn't bother about the other posse member. Like a damned fool, he
forgot that I was in perfect position to kill him and went running
across the open ground to where Ray Novak was stretched out
unconscious. For a moment I watched as he pulled Novak out of the line
of fire and I thought: Let him go, there's no use killing him. I knew
he would get Ray back to the ranch house as soon as he could, and that
would take care of the last of the posse. And, anyway, there had been
so much killing, maybe I had lost the stomach for it. Then I remembered
Pappy.

He was crumpled at my feet as limp and lifeless as a discarded bundle
of dirty clothing. I turned him over gently and straightened his long
legs. “Pappy!”

But he didn't move. And a sick feeling inside told me that Pappy
wasn't going to move. The bullet had gone right through the middle,
about three inches above his belt buckle, but there was only a little
blood staining his dirty blue shirt. All the bleeding, I knew, would be
on the inside. I felt his throat for a pulse and it was so faint that I
imagined that it wasn't there at all. After a moment the glassiness
that was beginning to crowd his eyes receded just a little, and that
was my only way of knowing that he wasn't dead.

I didn't know what to do. There was nothing I
could
do, except
to stay there beside him and not let him die all alone, the way he had
lived. I didn't even have a drink of water to give him. I couldn't
think of anything to say that might make it any easier. Down at the
base of the hill, I could hear a horse scampering and I knew that would
be the ranch hand taking Ray Novak back to the ranch house. Soon it was
quiet again, except for the dirgelike mourning of the wind and the
rattle of dry grass.

I knelt there watching the glassiness returning to Pappy's eyes.
Vaguely, I wondered what his last thoughts were, if there were any
thoughts. I wondered if I was a part of them. Was there any sorrow, or
regret, or dismay at the way he had used his life? Would he use it any
differently if he had the chance to live it all over again?

I got my answer when, for just an instant, his eyes cleared. He
looked at me, smiling that sad half-smile. Then he spoke quietly,
precisely, as if he had thought the matter over for a long time.

“You were right, son. I should have killed him that day... when I had
the chance.”

So that was the way Pappy died—with no dismay and only one
regret—sorry only that he had made the mistake of leaving a man alive.
I stood up slowly, looking up at the endless sky. I think maybe I
wanted to pray for Pappy—but what was there to say? Who was there to
listen?

Good-by, Pappy. That was all I could think of. The wind moaned,
cutting through my thin clothing, and I realized that winter had at
last come to Texas. Winter was the time for dying. I bent down and
closed Pappy's staring eyes. Sleep, Pappy. You can rest now, for there
will be no more running for you. And Pappy's quiet face said that he
was not sorry.

I left Pappy there on the hilltop with the wind and the sound of the
grass. I took his rifle and went down to the bottom of the slope and
found his big black horse trembling like a whipped kid down in the
bottom of a gully. I said, “Easy, boy,” and stroked his sleek neck
until he quieted down, and then I swung up to the saddle.