The Hair-Trigger Kid - Max Brand (uplifting novels .TXT) 📗

it to two, Kid! That’s no safe gamble!” said Bud.

 

“Not safe. There’s no fun in a safe gamble,” declared the Kid. “Who’d

want to tackle a dead-sure thing, and an odds-on bet? A hundred bucks to

win one, say? No, no, Bud. Here’s a chance to take some of the starch out

of these fellows. They came out seven strong, these hand-picked beauties

of Champ Dixon, these hothouse flowers, these orchids, you might say.

Well, one of them is out of it with a broken-down horse. And there’s

another who won’t be dangerous for a while. And as for the other

five—why, let’s play tag with ‘ern!”

 

As he spoke, he snatched the Winchester from its saddle scabbard, and,

whipping it to his shoulder so fast that the barrel flashed in the

brilliant sunshine like a sword blade, he took a shot at the last remnant

of the northward-riding contingent of the enemy.

 

This man, who had ridden very well on a strong little piebald mustang

which simply could not match strides with the longer legs of the silver

stallion and the mare, was coming in gallantly now, bent far forward.

 

But as the rifle exploded suddenly in the hand of the Kid, this

champion’s hat blew off, as though a gust of wind had snatched it.

 

The Kid, looking after him, laughed loudly for, indeed, it was a funny

sight.

 

For the other, jerking the piebald mustang about as fast as he could, was

spurring to the rear at full speed. He had not dreamed, apparently, that

he had come into such good shooting range.

 

“Kid,” gasped Bud Trainor, “I knew that you was good with a Colt, but I

didn’t know that you could do it with a rifle, too! Why, all you gotta do

is to wish a bullet on its way!”

 

But the Kid merely laughed.

 

“That was luck, Bud,” said he. “I’m no giant with a rifle, take it from

me. I’m a tramp, compared to some of these old hunters. But now and then

good luck comes to the fellow who wants it most. Now watch those fellows

give us leeway!”

 

Plenty of room, in fact, all the five pursuers now appeared willing to

give to the two fugitives.

 

Those who were coming up hand over hand out of the southeast now jerked

their horses about and scattered to either side, frantic to spread out so

that they might not offer one large, united target to such a rifleman as

the Kid appeared to be.

 

Then, from a distance, they resumed a cautious approach once more. They

began to open fire.

 

Every now and then one would halt his horse and fire. Several times the

rider on the piebald actually dismounted, threw himself on the ground,

and fired from a rest.

 

It was plain that he had been angered by the bullet hole in his best

sombrero!

 

But these shots were falling wild. The distance was great. And now the

two who were withdrawing came to the place where Chip Graham sat up,

clutching at a red spot over his left breast.

 

He was dusty. He had received a scratch across the forehead in falling to

the ground, but in spite of his wounds, his fall, he looked up at them

with such an eye that Bud Trainor shuddered profoundly.

 

“You’re Chip Graham, are you?” asked the Kid.

 

Chip, in place of answering, turned a solemn eye upon the silver

stallion, and then he raised his glance to the face of Bud.

 

“You’re Trainor, are you?” said Chip. “And you’re the Kid, of course?”

 

His fine, dark eyes dwelt malevolently upon the pair of them. “How badly

are you cut up?” asked the Kid.

 

“I’m shot just inside of the shoulder,” said Chip, with utmost calm.

“It’s nothing bad. Three weeks. Unless the shoulder’s stiffened up for

good.”

 

“We’ll take you on where you’ll get medical treatment,” said the Kid.

“We’ll take you on to the ranch house, Chip. Bud, get down and give him a

hand up on your old gelding, while I take a look at the rest of these

fellows.”

 

He began to ride in a little circle, while the five who had been

following gradually rode at high speed around a great circumference

Plainly they were planning to thrust themselves between the fugitives and

the ranch house, and hoping to find such good cover that they would be

able to get fairly close to the deadly marksman, the Kid.

 

Bud Trainor saw this, and he called out: “Listen to me, Kid! If we take

Chip along, they’ll fight like devils to get him away from us. He’s one

of their best men, and they won’t give him up without making a scrap of

it. It would disgrace them! Leave Chip lie here, and we’ll go on safely,

I reckon.”

 

“Get him up into the saddle,” returned the Kid shortly. “I know what I’m

about in this game, Bud. Get him up. Chip, stand up!”

 

“I’ll not move!” said Chip sullenly. “If you really want me, you can

carry me!”

 

At this. Bud looked blankly toward his companion, and he was in time to

see a startling change in the face of the Kid. It seemed as though his

brow swelled with black blood, and his eyes glared like the eyes of a

beast. His nostrils were expanded, and his lip, pinched in.

 

“Carry you? Carry you?” cried the Kid. “I’ll carry you!”

 

He swerved the mare back and, leaning a little from the saddle, he cut

young Chip Graham across the body once and again with the lash of his

quirt.

 

“Get up and into that saddle,” commanded the Kid.

 

Chip Graham uttered no sound, but looked up at the Kid with the

incredible malice of a ferret. His lips parted. His teeth showed. He

seemed to be smiling at some exquisitely secret jest. And Bud Trainor, in

spite of himself, rubbed a hand across his eyes to shut out the ugly

vision.

 

The Kid having already delivered the whip strokes, whirled away again on

the mare to resume his survey of the enemy, but Chip did not wait for a

second flogging.

 

He rose, unassisted, and, while his left arm dangled, and the blood

flowed down from within his wristband and trickled across the back of his

hand, he gripped the pommel with the right hand, and swung himself

lightly into place on the gelding.

 

“I’ll tie up your shoulder,” suggested Bud Trainor.

 

“Ask him if he’ll let you,” answered Chip through his teeth.

 

There was an odd dryness in the throat of Bud Trainor. He had felt, in

his day, that he was as rough and as tough as most. He had been proud of

the way in which he had flung himself at the raw-handed mankillers in his

father’s house, the evening when he had saved the Kid. But now, compared

with the nature of the kid himself and Chip Graham, Bud felt like a child

in a savage wilderness on a wild night. He seemed to be pressed upon from

two sides.

 

However, he did not ask permission from the Kid. In his saddlebag he had

bandages and an antiseptic. He cut away the sleeve, and cleaned and tied

up the wound as well as he could. Lightly as Chip Graham had spoken of

it, it was a grisly thing to see. It explained a part of the singular

green pallor which was on the face of that proud young man, now. But the

chief part of that color was, no doubt, owing to the infernal passion

which was consuming him.

 

Somewhere in the future—perhaps before the end of this very day—he

would have his chance at the Kid again, and that second time one of them

would surely die.

 

Like a grim prophet, Bud Trainor was aware of these things. But, the

wound being dressed, he now found the Kid impatiently waiting, as he

called out:

 

“Are you going to put him into a cradle, Bud? Get him along here. And if

he holds back, give him another taste of the same sort of quirting. It’s

all that he understands. Some dogs come to heel when you speak, but some

of them have to be flogged into shape! And as far as I’m concerned this

baby-murdering cur, he is in the second category!”

 

By “baby-murdering,” Bud knew that the Kid was referring to the starving

of the dumb cattle. But this explanation probably was not so clear to

Chip Graham. However, he said nothing at all, and they rode on, side by

side, approaching they knew not what danger might await them.

 

For Champ Dixon’s men had already disappeared behind a rather high rise

of ground in the direction of the ranch house.

 

“By gosh!” broke out Bud Trainor. “Suppose that they’ve gone off to rush

the ranch house, now that the fightin’s begun?”

 

“They’re not likely to,” said the Kid. “They’ve no orders to that, and

Dixon’s a man who keeps people strictly to his orders. Is that right,

Chip?”

 

Chip sneered, and said nothing.

 

“He’s proud, Bud,” said the Kid. “Look at his proud, handsome, enduring

face. He won’t speak. He scorns speaking. And all he wants is a slice of

my heart and another off my liver to toast and feed to the dogs. But I

tell you, Chip, when the time comes that you can pull a gun and manage it

again, free and easy, I’ll come across the continent to get at you, and

I’ll finish the job that I started today, you hell-cat, you sneaking rat

of a baby murderer!”

 

His face was convulsed as before, and Bud Trainor, who had endured enough

already, cried out:

 

“Kid, he’s a guest, you might say. Watcha mean by talkin’ to him like

that?”

 

The Kid whirled in the saddle. He seemed as if he would leap at his

friend. But he mastered himself at once, and loosening the rein, made the

mare bound forward and away from the other two.