New York, Kit. Do you know what the old fur trappers used to say? North of Leavenworth there is no law. Well, there's law now—but it never catches up with us folks running west."
"How many are they, Tom?"
He turned to the door, broad shoulders rising. "Ample, Kit. But they don't know the temper of Texans. They don't know..."
She was in front of him. Her hand fell across his arm. "God keep you, Tom! Oh, it's a brutal land! I hate it! Be careful!"
Again that pressure drawing him down toward her lips and the sweet smell of her hair and the gripping beauty of her face. It was like wine to him, it brought back every old memory, and some of the old desire. He pulled himself free and crossed the threshold, half blind. Quagmire murmured. "All set." He swung up to his saddle and reined around. The cavalcade led off, and the cold air cleared his brain. "Stretch out," he muttered; they galloped southward into the night, and the girl, supporting herself in the doorway, listened until the drum of their ponies' hoofs was absorbed in the vast vault. She turned inside then, oppressed by the stark blackness of the heavens; there was a power pressing, her down, sapping the courage from her veins. Mystery swirled just beyond the threshold. Out beyond lay men waiting to kill other men. The colored cook entered, muscles rippling beneath his torn shirt; Whitey Almo's face appeared vaguely across the doorway, taciturn and watchful.
The Circle G riders swept steadily onward through the swirling shadows, silent save for the chafe and tinkle of their gear and the rhythmic pound of the horses. Arrow straight for an hour; Quagmire rode abreast Tom Gillette, stirrup touching stirrup, and it was the pressure or withdrawal of Quagmire's thigh that gave Gillette the course. He knew the land well; but Quagmire, who loved the night and who seemed to be able to see through the utter blackness of it, knew it even better. And it was Quagmire who gradually turned the cavalcade from south to southwest and then slowly eastward. The moon was a thin arc of silver, the ancient stars grew more and more remote. Onward they galloped, up and down the swells, the night breeze cold against their faces and the sound of the coyotes in their ears, howling out of the distance with the sadness of ages quivering in that lonely song. Ahead, the shadows piled thicker and the dim strip of the horizon was broken. They were falling downward, or the presence of the butte in front made it seem so. Gillette sat back in the saddle.
"Halt."
They stopped. He got to the ground and pressed his ear against the sand. The invisible telegraph carried no messages. Quagmire's voice croaked mournfully, "Not far now. At a walk, uh, Tom."
"At a walk."
They swung along a circle, the massed shadow turning their right flank. Twice they stopped to listen; and presently the shadow was behind and they were in the bed of an arroyo. Cattle moved directly to the front. They dismounted and stood silent.
"My shoulder aches," murmured Quagmire, following a long quiet. "It's a plumb bad sign. Was a man once in Tucson with a trick toothache. Trouble allus follered. He got to depend on it and sorter bragged about it. First time his mother-in-law died. Second time his wife died. Third time it ached nothin' happened and it sho'ly aggervated him. Looked like the dam' tooth wasn't nowise dependable. But they took him up an' hung him fo' murderin' said mother-in-law an' wife. On the scaffol' the gent says: 'I die happy. Didn't I tell yo' somethin' allus happened when it ached?' That's what yo'd call infallible." He moved nearer Gillette. "Reckon I overlooked a bet. Didn't know yo' wanted Wyatt's new location or I'd of asked."
"I'll find her, Quagmire."
"Woman—the star which leads up the hill. And sometimes down the other side. The gent which classed 'em with wine an' song must've been an old burnt fool like me. If a woman looked at me twice she'd faint. If she didn't faint I would."
"Which side of the slope is Baldy Laggett on?"
"He ain't more'n three hundred yards off at this moment, I'm bettin'."
Silence again, the silence of infinity pressing down. And then a whisper and a hint of things moving out beyond the arroyo's rim. Gillette's arm touched Quagmire in signal. Circle G mounted, the soft rubbing of leather running along the line. The moments trailed one upon the other, and a shadow appeared a moment and sank back into the screen of darkness. Presently riders moved along the earth in faint silhouette—a line of them—and passed to the right. One soft phrase exploded like a shell in the stillness. "Easy, boys."
Quagmire's murmur was in Tom Gillette's ear. "We're bunched now. Set?"
"Wait for evidence. Hold it, Quagmire."
And beyond, men spoke more freely. "What's the idea, Gib? How many of 'em? Which way?"
"Never mind all them questions. Save yore breath. Spook an' Ray—you circle and push. Easy—plenty of time."
Quagmire's arm touched Gillette twice, impatient Gillette reached for his gun and pulled himself upright And he spoke in a tone that carried across the night like the clapper stroke of a church bell. "Guns out, boys! Let's go!"
A challenge spat across the interval. "Who said that?"
"Rustlers die!"
"Still hunt, huh? A trap! Damn the Texans, let 'em have it!"
"Let's go! Come on, Circle G!"
The Circle G line tore up the arroyo side; and without parley the shroud of this black summer night was pricked in twenty places by mushrooming purple flame points, and the smash and the beat and roar of that crisscross fusillade twirled around the area like the funnel of a cyclone.
"Let's go!"
"No Texans wanted in Dakota! Come on, boys! Down the skids to hell!"
Gillette shoved himself directly onward and into the flickering muzzle flames; as for the rest of his men, he gave them free rein. They were old hands, they had survived border feuds, they were schooled in range war. Gun smoke rolled against his face, a thick and passionate cry beat against his ears; he was struck broadside by one of the rustlers slanting across the debated ground; the man's horse reared and came down with its front feet hooked over his own pony's neck. The rustler rolled against him, a gun barrel slashed along his flank and as he jerked away a bullet tore into the saddle horn. The rustler's shadow was broad and fair; Gillette raised his piece and fired at that shadow. The man was down, soundless; the man was dead.
Quagmire's yell bore up from a remote quarter. Gillette sent a reply ricochetting back. He had drifted off from the Circle G men, he was barricaded from them by the rustlers, and now, hearing his yell, they closed in, twisting shapes ringing him around. A bullet's backwash fanned his cheek, and on the instant he was in the vortex of a whirpool and men were baying like bloodhounds.
"By God, knock him down there!"
"Watch that cross fire! Crowd 'im—crowd 'im!"
He brought his horse dead about. Then he was thigh to thigh with them. An arm struck and stunned him, another arm hooked about his neck, and somebody's breath belched against his face. He let the reins go and clung to the horn, weaving and bending, fighting clear of that encircling elbow. Quagmire's boom came up as from a distance, but for Gillette there was no breath to waste. They were trying to knock him beneath the trampling hoofs.
"Drop that guy!"
"Oh, hell, pull the trigger!"
"Hold that wild talk, yuh fool!"
He shook himself free. Somewhere else was a sudden spattering of fire; a man screamed. They were crowding closer, trying to pinion him once more. Point-blank he pulled the trigger, and the spewing bullets made room for him; there was a ringing of angry oaths and the guns broke loose in fresh fury, but he was clear, and Quagmire's voice thundered near at hand. Gillette turned back.
"Come on, Circle G! The rustlers die!"
Confusion. The purple points of light flickered and faded. Saddles were empty this night, and men were down, some dead, some crying up out of the dust. And the echo of all this grim, bloody strife straggled into the sky and was lost in the cold immensity of creation. The stars were remote, remote...
"Oh, for a crack o' light!"