Sliphammer (20 page)

A wind rushed through the trees and at midafternoon they were within a mile of the Arkansas when a rifle went off somewhere not too far away, the solitary crack echoing and rebounding through the canyons. It stirred Tree's adrenalin, bringing him more fully awake. All of them had stiffened in their saddles; they were all looking around. The timber was broken up into patches separated by meadows; the hilly horizons were near. Abruptly Tree spotted movement: a bunch, on horseback, wheeling out of the forest half a mile back. The rifle shot had been a rallying signal; horsemen galloped in from several directions. He recognized the white horse.

Wyatt Earp bellowed, “We can't outrun them on these horses.”

“We can try,” Tree said. “On the run, now!” They urged the faltering animals downslope—just one more ridge to cross, then downhill to the river. But when they started up the ridge, a pack of riders materialized at the crest. Tree reined in; Caroline yanked her horse to a stop so abruptly that the other three got tangled up. Tree slapped Caroline's horse across the rump and went wheeling past her, turning aside into a boulder-strewn gully that angled upslope to the right. They clattered up the defile in a row. It took them five hundred yards toward the crest of the ridge, and turned a bend, and ended: it just petered out in a sloping field of buffalo grass. They emerged, fully exposed on the flats. The upper band of riders was ramming forward at a gallop—and Caroline sucked in her breath: “That's Cooley's gang. God
damn
them!” Cooley must have taken a calculated chance, cutting ahead to wait by the Arkansas and trap the fugitives coming down. So now it was Cooley up there and Sparrow's miners galloping up from below—a hopeless pincer.

Wyatt Earp roared, “For the love of God cut us loose—at least let a man die with a gun in his hand!”

Warren said bitterly, “You really fucked it up, Deputy—I hope you roast in Hell.”

Tree got them dismounted. Cooley was three quarters of a mile away, plunging his army forward at a full gallop, riders fanning out in a tense arc—and half a mile below them, Sparrow's miners, ungainly on horseback but armed to the teeth, came swirling upslope, disdaining the gully.

Warren said, “All fucked up,” spitting it out like acid, and Wyatt Earp's eyes, gone hard again, penetrated Tree. Dispassionately Tree took down his rifle, cocked it, and said with unhurried clarity, “We're all going to walk back into that gully and belly down in the rocks. Move.”

He jabbed Wyatt Earp in the gut, hard enough to make the big man stumble. Earp, his hands tied together, turned lobster red and went at an awkward, shambling run. Tree gathered up all the guns, handed some of them to Caroline to carry, and brought up the rear. They tumbled into the rocks and flattened themselves in boulder crevices.

Wyatt Earp said, “Give us to Cooley and I'll safeguard your hide. It's the only chance you've got.”

“My string's not played out,” Tree said, watching the miners come—Sparrow had the lead, two or three hundred yards, but his path was uphill and Cooley's was down. It looked like a dead heat: already both groups were lifting their guns, reining in, trying to feel out the shape of things.

Tree said, “Keep your heads down.”

Josie said, “Horse shit. If I've got to get shot I want to watch.”

Warren Earp banged his shoulder into her and knocked her down. Two or three rifles went off—Sparrow's men—the bullets singing off the rocks. Both posses came within two hundred yards of the gully, on the opposite sides of it—and stopped.

Tree said softly, “We'll just count on Cooley to protect us from Sparrow.”

Caroline said dully, “And who protects us from our protector?”

“Cooley won't ram in here as long as I've got a gun at Wyatt Earp's head.”

“So,” said Warren, “that's it.”

Rifles opened up: Cooley's men shot high overhead in arced trajectories, trying to scatter Sparrow's bunch. The miners returned the fire. It wasn't long before both groups retired beyond rifle range of each other, leaving a few gunshot horses on the field. Wyatt Earp, squatting in the rocks, said, “Fine. Mexican standoff till sundown and then Sparrow's ghouls sneak in here and finish us off.”

Caroline said, “Will you shut up? Will you please just shut up?”

Tree scanned the grass. Cooley's strikebreakers had moved back into a grove of trees, left their horses, and now could be seen fanning out on foot. Sparrow's men were somewhere in the thickets below. Tree thought,
We won't have to wait until dark.
He said, “They'll be coming up the gully. Watch the bend.”

“With what?” Wyatt Earp demanded. “God damn it, a gun, man!”

The grass was waving in various places; there was no wind to stir it. Men crawling on their bellies. Tree said, “Oh, Christ.” He looked at his rifle and closed his eyes down hard, hating it all, hating Wyatt Earp most of all. He opened his eyes and turned a bleak, hollow stare on Earp and said, “Call your friends down here.” He put his gun to Earp's head.

A man came in sight down the gully, a miner with a rifle. The rifle went off, badly aimed, and Tree fired a snap shot which drove the miner behind cover. Tree wheeled flat against a boulder, jacked a cartridge into the magazine and heard Wyatt Earp bellow, “Cooley! Get down here!”

Lower down in the gully bend, several miners flitted from cover to cover. Tree raked the bend with rifle fire, and sprinted across to the far side. A bullet kicked up rock dust at his heels. He slammed behind a boulder and fired. From this angle he had a wider field of fire along the bend; he could keep them back, two hundred yards below. He levered the rifle, fast, slamming bullets into the rocks, hearing the ricochets buzz and crang. The miners went to cover—and Caroline shrieked, “
Jerr!
”

He snapped his head to the side and saw Wyatt Earp spinning around, a revolver in his trussed hands.

Josie had jumped Caroline; they were locked together. Earp must have dodged past Caroline to the guns. Earp's eyes were wide, as if in surprise. His gun swiveled toward Tree. Tree yanked the rifle around, triggered it.

Nothing—the rifle was empty. He dived flat for the ground, hitting on his right shoulder, and Earp's gun roared. Tree, not knowing if he was hit or not, spun the sliphammer gun up in his left hand and flicked the hammer. Earp was dodging; the .45 hit him in the arm, spun him around and knocked him back into the rocks. Earp lost the six-gun when he fell: his hands, tied together for so long, must have lost strength. Tree scrambled back into the rocks. The miners were shooting but some of Cooley's men were down there too, and it wasn't clear who was shooting at whom. Tree slid himself tight into the rocks, ready to shoot Earp again if he had to—Earp was getting his feet under him, doggedly going toward the gun on the ground. Caroline was wrestling with Josie, who had made a grab for the .38. Warren Earp came raging out of cover to make a dash for the guns Tree had left ten yards away, above Wyatt in the rocks.

That was when Floyd Sparrow appeared, on the grass edge above the rocks to Tree's left. Movement drew the corner of Tree's vision and when he turned he saw Sparrow, face twisted cruelly, lifting a rifle toward Warren, who was the only Earp in Sparrow's range of vision. Warren had his back to Sparrow; Wyatt was still scrambling for the dropped gun; Tree turned the sliphammer gun and fired upward.

Sparrow's body snapped to one side under the bullet's impact: he fell with the quick, spineless looseness of instant death.

When Tree turned back, he saw Wyatt Earp's gun dead level on him.

Earp's face was unreadable. His eyes flickered. The gun shifted up, pointed somewhere above Tree, and with immediate knowing, Tree wheeled fully around. He saw Cooley up there.

Cooley had guns in both fists; he was running; he started shooting—at Tree—and as Tree began to dive away, bringing his own gun up too late he knew, he heard Wyatt Earp's gun go off and saw Cooley's face change. The bullet fractured the lens of Cooley's right eye like a plate of shattered glass; the eye filled with blood. Wyatt Earp's second bullet drilled through Cooley's throat and blasted out a splatter of tissue. Cooley tumbled out of sight beyond the rock rim.

Head spinning, Tree got to one knee and coughed, choking on smoke. His eyes watered. He scraped a hand across his eyes and tried to see Wyatt Earp; he held the sliphammer back with his thumb but couldn't see. He braced his body for a bullet's impact. Someone on the grass, outside the gully, was yelling in a murderous roar and he thought he recognized the voice.

His eyes cleared and he saw Wyatt Earp, still as granite, watching him over the muzzle of the cocked gun.

The voice beyond was still roaring—Sheriff McKesson's voice. Tree held the hammer back, his glance locked with Wyatt Earp's. Earp's eyes flashed very wide, once, and slowly he lowered the gun without firing.

In the gully below, there was a ragged aftervolley of gunfire, and then stillness. McKesson's loud voice rode across the flats, calling for calm. The sheriff came in sight on his horse, his hawked, predatory face grim under the white thatch of hair; he had a rifle in one hand and a revolver in the other. Across the gully, Wyatt Earp stood with his gun held muzzledown in both fists; his arm was bleeding slowly. Josie and Caroline had quit wrestling; the .38 lay in the center of the gully. Warren Earp had picked up a gun and was watching his brother for a lead. It was a stilled tableau. McKesson wheeled past on horseback, yelling at everybody, rounding up the miners and Cooley's men and telling them the war was over, the leaders dead.

Uncertain, Tree got upright and sprinted across the gully. No one shot at him. Josie moved toward Wyatt and began to fuss with his arm. Earp looked across the top of her head at Tree. McKesson clattered into the gully on his horse and yanked a document out of his shirt and tossed it down; it fluttered to Tree's feet and Tree said, “What's that?” in a stupid voice.

“Your goddamned warrant from the Lieutenant Governor,” McKesson said. “It's no good. The Governor rescinded it. Cut the Earps loose—you've got no more authority to hold them.”

Tree had the impulse to laugh. Hysteria, he knew; he fought it down. Slowly, involuntarily, he reached down to pick up the mocking warrant. As he straightened he heard the sheriff say, “You might want to wipe your ass with it.”

The river ran along noisily. Up the steel tracks a train hooted on the downgrade and began to slow down a full mile away, responding to McKesson's flag signal. The mountains, trees, men, horses all threw long shadows from the late sun. Wyatt Earp, on horseback with his arm made bulky by bandages, loomed against the cobalt sky, his face in shadow because the sun was behind him. Tree stood by the tracks with Caroline, squinting up at the Earps and McKesson. Young Warren looked badly shaken—his face was pale and his hands, lifting a canteen, were unsteady. McKesson had a disgusted look on his pitted face; the lip corners were turned sternly down. Of them all only Josie seemed unchanged, as if none of it had really touched her. She looked impatient to be getting on.

Tree glanced at the approaching train. Wyatt Earp was lifting his reins, adjusting them in his hand, and Tree said to him, “You had a chance to kill me—I think maybe you wanted to.”

“If you're wondering why I didn't—a life for a life,” Earp growled. “You saved my brother's skin when you took Sparrow out. I pay my debts—always.”

Tree said, choosing his words with care, “Then if you didn't owe me for that, you'd have shot me in the back.”

“You had it coming,” Earp said. His voice was strictly flat; it gave away nothing.

“Honor,” said Sheriff McKesson, “is for fools and story-book heroes.”

Tree said, “You're dead wrong about that.”

McKesson shrugged. Wyatt Earp said, “
Amigo,
you had a lot of luck and you didn't get killed. That kind of luck won't hold out very long unless you learn how to be practical about things. Right and wrong are flexible ideas—you've got to learn how to count up the odds.”

The train was close, sliding on protesting wheels. Tree took Caroline's hand and when the train stopped he handed her up to the coach platform and climbed onto the step behind her. The whistle hooted. Wyatt Earp made a vague, grave sort of hand salute and neck-reined his horse around; the four riders went toward the mountains, not hurrying; Josie and Warren were looking back. The train jerked and began to pick up speed. He stood gripping the handrails and felt Caroline's hand on his arm; she said, “Do you still doubt which one of you was the better man?”

He gave her a quick, blank look. She said, “I think you've learned something about legends.”

He made a puzzled frown and looked up toward the mountains at the four riders. It was young Warren who hipped around in the saddle and, hesitantly, lifted his arm and waved. Tree didn't answer the gesture. The train clattered along the Arkansas bank and Caroline moved close against him, warm and soft; she said, “Maybe they'll write a dime novel about
you.
” When he looked at her he saw she was joking.

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