LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

you on my conscience. You've bothered me enough as it is. Come down."

      "And supposing I don't?" asked Woolfridge in a droning monotone.

      "Then I'll come up," said Chaffee.

      "Come ahead," grunted Woolfridge, and immediately disappeared from sight.

      One of Chaffee's partners left the door. "That means business. He'll get leaded yet before this night's over. Better a couple of us take the back stairs and some more hike up this-away. Mebbe—"

      But Chaffee, still watching the landing, shook his head. "It's my play, Mike. He expects me to try it. He's issued the invite. I'm goin' up there alone. Just stay right here and wait."

      That drew the puncher's immediate protest. And the rest of the old Stirrup S riders closed in, dissenting. "What for—to get ambushed?" demanded one of them. "Don't be a durn fool."

      Chaffee climbed the first step and turned about, face tremendously sober. "Now listen, boys. I've got first call on that gentleman. It was Woolfridge who killed Dad Satterlee, the finest friend I ever had. It was him that bought my ranch out from under me. He was responsible for havin' Mack put out of commission. And it was the same gent who has sent me through all this miserable course of sprouts in the last few weeks. It's my turn. He still thinks he can humble me. He still thinks he's top man of the two of us. What should I do—back down and let him keep on thinkin' it? Not by a jugful. Boys, you let me alone. I am going up there and call his bet. One of us is too proud. Him or me. I aim to find out. Stay here. Keep everybody away from that second floor until you hear one of us sing out."

      There was a grumbling disagreement among them, but Chaffee turned and continued on up, gun drawn. His face rose above the landing and he had one swift survey of the hallway, dark excepting for a patch of light coming out of an open door—the door to Gay Thatcher's room. Then he ducked and lunged to the top; a bullet roared in the cramped space and ripped at a post in the railing. Swinging wide he reached the shelter of the wall leading along the back corridor and the back stairs. For a moment he rested silently, listening. He thought he heard Woolfridge shift and breathe somewhere in a room along the main hall.

      "Woolfridge—you had better give up and go to jail."

      The man's voice, still even but rising to a slightly higher pitch, floated down the corridor. "You will find me in my room. I am waiting for you."

      "You won't have to wait long," muttered Chaffee, and without stepping away from his protected spot, shuffled his boots against the carpet. The answer was quick in coming, gun roar following gun roar. Both shots crashed through the flimsy boards of the far wall. "That," said Chaffee to himself, "is three cartridges gone. Three to go unless he's got a supply in his room. I'd better cut this short."

      He drew his breath and swung around the corner into the main hall. As he moved he fired point-blank at the black end, raking the left wall where Woolfridge's room was. He had to keep the man humble while he ran the distance; he had to keep the man flinching. There was no time for him to duck, and even if there had been time he would have never thought about it. Jim Chaffee's blood was on the race; all the old, berserk anger swelled his veins and overwhelmed his caution. He wanted to crush, to destroy. He wanted, at that moment, to wipe out whatever lay before. And so he raced past the lane of light, battering the blackness with his gun, and hearing an answering roar match his own. One bullet cut a path across the plastered expanse beside him. Another he felt strike the floor at his feet. There was a third—some cool monitor in the recesses of his brain kept counting the shots—that he thought touched him. Then he was at Woolfridge's door, turning on his heels, poising, plunging through. Immediately he collided with the man and was locked in a hand-to-hand struggle.

      The bitterness and the ferocity of Woolfridge's resistance was something he never dreamed the man capable of. That mediocre body with its softness and fashionable grooming was a collection of striking, clawing, twisting muscles. Chaffee wrapped one arm around the man's neck and compressed it with every cruel ounce of strength he owned. He heard the actual snapping of vertebrae, but he could not catch Woolfridge's gun, and his own face and shoulders suffered a constant battering from the weapon's constant slashes. The front sight ripped across his cheek; he felt the blood warming chin and throat. It roused him to incredible fury. He released his grip and freed himself for a terrific sweep at Woolfridge with his own gun. It struck bone. He heard the man whimper. Resistance for the moment ended, and in that moment Chaffee secured another clamping hold on Woolfridge, whirled him around, and smashed him against the edge of the door frame. It revived the last of the man's energy, embarked him on a series of violent, jabbing punches. Chaffee made no attempt to block them. He had Woolfridge out in the hall and was slamming him from side to side like a figure of straw.

      The light coming through Gay Thatcher's door fell upon them. At the same instant Woolfridge, crying with a shrillness almost impossible to the human throat, brought his knee into Chaffee's groin and jabbed the thumb of his free hand in Chaffee's eye. It scarcely missed its mark but the pain of the nail's slicing impact was worse than anything that had so far happened. The man was spent, reeling in Chaffee's arms, resorting to all the last and most vicious tricks. Chaffee drew back, struck a slanting blow across Woolfridge's head. The overlord of Roaring Horse went down, sprawled face on the floor, half across the threshold of the girl's room. He was finished, for the time being dead to the world.

      Chaffee sagged against the wall, struggling for wind, hearing his partners calling from below. He shook his head, beginning to feel the throb of his slashed face. Then the stairway drummed with boots and a handful of Stirrup S men were crowded on the scene.

      "By Jo, yuh give us a scare," said the foremost. "Why didn't yuh sing out?"

      "Don't feel much like singing at this precise moment," muttered Chaffee.

      "Bleedin' like a stuck hawg," commented another, and walked around the prone Woolfridge. "Dead, or ain't yuh lucky thataway?"

      "He'll be all right in a few minutes," said Chaffee. He discovered his gun still in his fist. Holstering it, he wiped his face with a handkerchief. But there was a throb to one arm that he couldn't locate until he skinned back his coat. The last Woolfridge bullet had drilled a neat hole in the fabric and broken skin. One of his partners was sharp eyed enough to discover it and he swore.

      "Pinked yuh and scratched hell out o' yore face. The very same dude you was so all-fired anxious to save from bein' sprung on a limb. Mebbe yuh'll get over these fancy notions sometime. He musta clawed like a woman."

      "Pick him up," said Chaffee. "Down the back stairs and through the alley to jail. Got to get him inside before these homesteaders catch wind of it."

      They hoisted the inert Woolfridge between them and lugged him along the hall. Chaffee followed, scouted the alley, and then went ahead to the rear jail door. A few minutes later Woolfridge lay on a jail bunk, locked behind the bars with six punchers on guard. Chaffee sat a moment in a chair and soothed himself with a smoke. Outside, in the main street and down along the various alleys, he heard parties of the homesteaders beating around for fugitives; a shot broke through the town occasionally, but it appeared as if the mob had spent its fury and that a certain calm was returning to this embattled town.

      "Believe I'll stroll out and see the extent of the damages," said Chaffee, heading for the door. "You fellows stick close, now. I've had enough trouble getting that fellow, and I don't desire to lose any more hide on his account."

      "Bein' such a big-hearted guy," retorted one of his partners, "yuh shouldn't mind a little item like that."

      He cruised along the walk, finding the homesteaders collected in parties and going about with something like a military orderliness. Apparently they had gotten together and adopted a thorough plan of policing the town; both street ends were blocked by sentries; there was a guard at the hotel now, one at the bank, and a few at the stable. But he saw that the danger of mob action had passed by and their anger cooled to a reasonable determination. They had vented their destructive temper. Arriving at the far end of the street he was met by a party and challenged with an abrupt question.

      "Where's Woolfridge?"

      "In jail," replied Chaffee.

      "Well—mebbe

Скачать книгу