Last Stand at Saber River Read online

  The sorrel was lined up with the doorway now, though still well back in the barn. From here Cable could see the corner of the adobe. As he watched he saw a man’s shoulder, then part of his head and the dull glint of a Colt barrel in the sunlight. Almost at the same time he heard the horse somewhere off beyond the adobe—the other man running for the cutbank.

  Cable’s eyes clung to the corner of the house.

  Now move him back, he thought, raising the Walker and putting the front sight on the edge of the house. He fired once. The man—Cable was sure it was Kidston—drew back out of sight. At that moment Cable moved, abruptly spurring the sorrel. He was suddenly in the sunlight and reining hard to the right, the Walker still covering the corner; and as Kidston appeared, coming suddenly into the open, Cable fired. He had to twist his body then, his arm extended straight back over the sorrel’s rump. He fired again, almost at the same time as Kidston did, but both of their shots were hurried. Then he was reining again, swerving the sorrel to the left, passing behind the adobe just as Kidston fired his second shot.

  Even as he entered the horse trail up into the pines, Cable saw the way to throw the fight back at them, to swing on them again while they were off guard in the true hell-raising, hit-and-run style of Forrest; and he left the trail, coming back down through the trees. Then he was in the open again behind the adobe, but now cutting to the right and circling the side of the adobe away from the barn. A moment later he broke past the front of the house.

  Twenty feet away Kidston was mounting, looking directly at Cable over the pommel of his saddle. He saw Vern trying to bring up his Colt. He saw Vern’s face clearly beyond the barrel of his own revolver; he was pulling the trigger when Vern’s horse threw its head into the line of fire. Cable reined the sorrel hard to the right then, seeing Vern’s horse stumble and go down with Vern falling and rolling clear.

  He caught a glimpse of Austin Dodd already mounted and coming up over the cutbank, but that was all. There was one shot left in the Walker and now Cable was spurring, running the sorrel through the light- and dark-streaked aspen stand, then cutting to the left, reaching the willows, brushing through them and feeling the thick, heavy branches behind him, covering him as he splashed across the river and climbed out onto the meadow.

  Get distance on Austin, that was the thing to do now. Get time to reload, and at the same time look like you’re running. Now he would lead Austin, let Austin think he was chasing him, and perhaps he would become careless.

  Austin fired the Sharps as he came out of the willows to the edge of the river, but he hurried the shot and now Cable was almost two hundred yards ahead of him, holding the sorrel to a steady run.

  Cable was calm now. Even though he was sure only in a general way what he would do. Somehow, he would stop Austin Dodd just as he had stopped Vern.

  But was Vern stopped? For how long? He could be coming too. He would find Wynn’s horse, which might or might not take time; but he would come.

  So it wasn’t over, or even halfway over. It was just starting. He would have to be careful and keep his eyes open and stop Austin—Austin first. Now it was a matter of leading him on until he found the place he wanted to fight him. He was applying what he had learned well with Bedford Forrest. How to kill and keep from being killed. Though not killing with an urge to kill, not killing Austin Dodd because he was Austin Dodd. Though you could probably even justify that, Cable thought.

  He would start up the far side of the meadow and be in the trees while Austin was still in the open. Then Austin would slow up and that would give him time to reload. That would be the way to do it, he thought, lifting his gaze to the piñon trees and the open slope that rose above them.

  Yet it was in the same momentary space of time, with the heavy, solid report, with the unmistakable smacking sound of the bullet, that Cable’s plan dissolved. The sorrel went down, shot through a hind leg, and Cable was suddenly on the ground. He rolled over, looking back in time to see Austin Dodd mounting again.

  The man had reloaded on the run, got down for one last-chance long-shot with the Sharps at two hundred stretching to three hundred yards. And you weren’t watching!

  Cable started for the sorrel—on the ground with its hind legs kicking in spasms. The Spencer was still thonged to the saddle. The cartridge tubes and loads for the Walker were in the saddle bags. But he knew at once that it was too late to get them. If he delayed, he’d be pinned down behind the sorrel. In Cable’s mind it was not a matter of choice. Not with a slope of thick piñon less than forty yards away.

  He ran for it, crouched, sprinting, not looking back but hearing the hoofbeats gaining on him; then the high, whining report of a Colt.

  Before Austin could fire again, Cable was through the fringe of yellow-blossomed mesquite and into the piñons. From here he watched Austin rein in at the sorrel and dismount. Cable was moving at once, higher up on the slope, a dozen yards or more, before he looked back at Austin again.

  The gunman was squatting by the sorrel going through the one accessible saddle bag. But now he rose, holding the Spencer downpointed in one hand, stepped back and shot the sorrel through the head. He threw the carbine aside, looking up at the piñon slope.

  “Cable!” Austin shouted the name. He paused while his eyes scanned the dark foliage. “Cable, I’m coming for you!”

  Cable watched him, a small figure forty or fifty yards below him and out in the open, now coming toward the trees.

  He’s sure of himself, Cable thought. Because he’s been counting shots and he knows it as well as you do. Cable pulled the Walker and checked it to be sure.

  One bullet remained in the revolver. Extra loads, powder and percussion caps were all out in the saddle bag.

  Luz kept the dun mare at a steady run, her bare knees pressed tightly to the saddle, holding it and aching with the strain of jabbing her heels into the dun’s flanks.

  She realized she should have taken the horse trail. It was shorter. But Vern Kidston had sent her off abruptly, and in the moment her only thought had been to keep going, to run for help as fast as the dun would move. And now she was following the curving five-mile sweep of the meadow, already beyond the paths that led up to the horse trail from Cable’s land.

  They would find Cable in the barn…She had seen him go in as she approached. And if he showed himself, they would kill him. Even if he didn’t, he was trapped. She pictured Vern and the other man firing in at him, not showing themselves and taking their time. But if they waited, having trapped him, she might have time also—time to bring help.

  If her brother was home. She had thought of no one else, picturing him mounting and rushing back to Cable’s aid. He would have to be home. God, make him be home, she thought, closing her eyes and thinking hard so God would hear her; he said he would come today, so all You have to do is make sure of it. Not a miracle. Just make him be home.

  And if he’s not? Then Mr. Janroe.

  No! She rejected the thought, shaking her head violently. God is just. He couldn’t offer something that’s evil to do something that’s good.

  Yet in the good act, saving Cable, Vern Kidston could be wounded or killed. And there would be nothing good in that.

  She closed her eyes as tightly as she could to see this clearly, but it remained confused, the good and the evil overlapping and not clearly defined or facing one another as it should be. Because the wrong ones are fighting, she thought.

  But why couldn’t they see this? Vern Kidston and Paul Cable should be together, she thought, because they are the same kind of man; though perhaps Paul is more gentle. He has a woman and has learned to be gentle.

  But Vern could have a woman. And he could also learn to be gentle. She knew this, feeling it and knowing it from the first time she saw him; feeling it like a warm robe around her body the time he kissed her, which had been almost a year ago and just before Janroe came. Then feeling it again, standing close to him and seeing it in his eyes as they faced each other in front of Cable’s ho
use.

  She had told him Cable was not at home and he said, then they would wait for him. I will wait with you, Luz said. But Vern shook his head saying, go on home to Janroe. She told him then, without having to stop to think of words, what she thought of Edward Janroe, what kind of a half-man half-animal, what kind of a nagual he was. And she could see that Vern believed her when she said she despised Janroe.

  She had pleaded with him then to put his guns aside and talk to Cable, to end it between them honestly as two men should. She had thought of the war being over, saying: see, they ended after seeing how senseless it was that so many men should die. End your war, too, she had said.

  But he had taken her arm and half dragged her to the dun mare and told her to go. Because now it was this business with Cable and not a time for gentleness. He did not say this, but Luz could feel it. Just as she knew now why he had stopped seeing her after Janroe’s coming.

  Because Vern Kidston was proud and would rather stay away and clench his fists than risk discovering her living with or in love with Edward Janroe. That meant only one thing. Vern Kidston loved her. He did before and he did now.

  But don’t think of it now, she thought. Don’t think of anything. Just do what you have to do. She told herself that this was beyond her understanding. For how could there be room for love and hate in the same moment? How could good be opposed to good? And how can you be happier than you have been and more afraid than you have ever been, both at the same time?

  Within a few minutes she was in sight of the store with the dark sweep of willows bunched close beyond. She kept her eyes on the adobe now and soon she was able to make out a figure on the platform. She prayed that it was Manuel.

  But it was Janroe, standing rigidly and staring at her, waiting for her as she crossed the yard and reined in the dun.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  She saw the anger in his face and in the tense way he held his body. But there was no time to be frightened; she wanted to tell him, she wanted to say all of it at once and make sure he understood.

  “I went to the Cable place,” she began, out of breath and almost gasping the words.

  “I told you I was going there!” Janroe’s voice whipped at her savagely, then lowered to the hoarse tone of talking through clenched teeth. “I told you to stay home, that I was going later—but you went anyway! I told you he wasn’t there last night and I would see him this morning—but you went anyway!”

  “Listen to me!” Luz screamed it, feeling a heat come over her face. “Vern Kidston is there—”

  Janroe stared at her and slowly the tightness eased from his face. “Alone?”

  “One man with him. Perhaps more.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not anything yet. But something has happened to Vern and he wants to kill Cable. I know it!”

  Janroe’s chest rose and fell with his breathing, but he said calmly, “He probably just wants to talk to Cable.”

  “No—he was armed. Vern, and the one called Austin with two guns and a rifle on his saddle…. Listen, is my brother here?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He said he was coming today.”

  “Probably later on.”

  She was looking at him intently now, trying to see something in him that she could trust, that she could believe. But there was no time even for this and she said, “Come with me. Now, before they kill him.”

  “Luz, Vern just wants to talk with him.” Janroe was completely at ease now. “Vern’s a patient man. Why would he change?”

  “Then you won’t come,” Luz said.

  “There’s no need to. Come in the house and stop worrying about it.”

  She shook her head. “Then I’m going back.”

  “Luz, I said come in the house. It’s none of your business what’s going on between them.”

  She saw the anger in his face again and she raised the reins. Janroe came off the platform, reaching for the bridle, but the dun was already side-stepping, wheeling abruptly, and Janroe was knocked flat. Luz broke away and was across the yard before Janroe could push himself to his feet.

  She held herself low in the saddle and kept the dun running with her heels and with her voice, making the horse strain forward and stretch its legs over the grass that seemed to sweep endlessly toward the curve of the valley.

  She would do something, she told herself, because she had to do something. There was no one else. She wouldn’t think of it being over. She would arrive before they found Cable and plead with Vern, not leaving this time even if he tried to force her. He would listen. Then Paul would come out and they would talk, and after a while the thing between them would be gone.

  But only moments later she knew she was too late. Luz slowed the mare, rising in the saddle and pulling the reins with all her strength to bring the dun finally to a halt. She sat listening.

  Now, in the distance, she heard it again: the flat, faraway sound of gunfire, and she knew they had found him and were trying to kill him.

  7

  Soon there would be two of them.

  Cable could see the rider now—it would have to be Vern on Wynn’s horse—already on this side of the river and coming across the meadow.

  Below, closer to him, was Austin Dodd.

  Cable waited until Austin came through the yellow mesquite patches at the edge of the piñon pines. As the man reached the trees, Cable began to fall back. He moved carefully up the slope, glancing behind him, not wanting to stumble and lose time, and not wanting to lose sight of Austin. He caught glimpses of the man moving cautiously up through the trees.

  The slope was not steep here and the piñon seemed almost uniformly spaced, resembling an abandoned, wild-growing orchard. It was not a place to stand with one shot in his revolver and fight a man who had two Colt guns and all the time in the world.

  Cable moved back until he reached the end of the trees. And now he stopped to study the open slope behind him. It was spotted with patches of brittlebush and cliffrose, but nothing to use for cover; not the entire, gravelly, nearly one hundred feet of it that slanted steeply to the sky.

  Perhaps he could make it; but not straight up. It was too steep. He would have to angle across the slope and Austin would have time to shoot at him. But it was worth trying and it would be better than staying here. He would have to forget about Austin—and about Vern, almost across the meadow now—and concentrate on reaching the crest, not letting anything stop him.

  He was in the open then, running diagonally across the rise, his boots digging hard into the crusted, crumbling sand. Almost at once he felt the knotted pain in his thighs, but he kept going, not looking back and trying not to picture Austin Dodd closing in on him; or Vern, at the foot of the slope now and taking out his rifle.

  Cable cut through a patch of brittlebush, getting a better foothold then and running hard, but he came suddenly onto a spine of smooth rock—it humped no more than two feet above the ground—and here he slipped to his hands and knees. He tried to get up and stumbled again, then rolled over the side of the smooth rock surface before lunging to his feet. He was climbing again, less than twenty feet from the top when Austin’s voice reached him.

  “Cable!”

  He stopped, catching his breath and letting it out slowly before coming around. He knew he would never make the crest. He was sure of it then, seeing Austin already well out of the piñon, to his left below him and less than sixty feet away. Austin’s Colts were holstered, but his hands hung close to them. He came on slowly, his face calm and his eyes not straying from Cable.

  “Pull anytime now,” Austin said. He advanced up the slope, not looking at the ground but feeling his way along with each careful step.

  “You want to. But you got only one shot.” He was reaching the brittlebush now. “Count the other man’s shots. That’s something I learned a long time ago. Then when I saw your extra loads still out there with the horse I said to myself, ‘I wouldn’t want to be that boy. He don’t have one chan
ce between hell and breakfast.’ ”

  Cable said nothing. He stood facing Austin Dodd, watching him move into the small field of orange-colored brittlebush. There Austin stopped.

  “So when you pull,” Austin said, “you have to make it good the one time.” He seemed almost to be smiling. “That could tighten a man’s nerves some.”

  Austin was ready, standing on his own ground. And to beat him with one shot, Cable knew, he would have to be more than fast. He would have to be dead-center accurate.

  But he wouldn’t have time to aim, time to be sure.

  Unless Austin hesitated. Or was thrown off guard.

  Cable’s gaze dropped from the brittlebush to the smooth spine of rock where he had slipped. If he could draw Austin to that point. If he could jiggle him, startle him. If he could throw Austin off balance only for a moment, time enough to draw and aim and make one shot count. If he could do all that—

  And Vern was into the piñon now.

  No—one thing at a time.

  Slowly then, Cable began to back away.

  Austin shook his head. “You wouldn’t come near making it.”

  Cable was still edging back, covering six, eight, almost ten feet before Austin started toward him again. Cable stopped. He watched Austin come out of the brittlebush, watched him reach the spine of rock and grope with one foot before stepping onto the smooth, rounded surface.

  As Austin’s foot inched forward again, Cable went to the side, dropping to one knee and bringing up the Walker in one abrupt motion.

  Austin was with him, his right-hand Colt out and swinging on Cable; but the movement shifted his weight. His boots slipped on the smooth rock and even as he fired and fired again he was falling back, his free hand outstretched and clawing for balance.

  Beyond the barrel of the Walker, Austin seemed momentarily suspended, his back arched and his gun hand high in the air. Cable’s front sight held on his chest and in that moment, when he was sure and there was no doubt about it, Cable squeezed the trigger.