Again they mounted behind rocks and charged up the trail at him. This time, Polk emptied Walton from the saddle, and sent him sprawling in the dirt. The other two took to cover again.
They gave Polk a rattling fire. A chip of rock struck his left cheek, another sliver cut his arm. Moving to a new position he saw Lortz and Simms leave their horses and attempt the crest on foot, darting from cover to cover as one man fired to protect the advance of the other.
Then Polk heard hoofbeats clattering behind him, and turned his head to see Martin racing toward him, with Beth only a short distance away.
* * * *
“Keep back, Beth!” Polk shouted, gesturing frantically. “You’ll get hurt!”
The whine of a bullet near his ear made him turn swiftly to give six-gun attention to his enemies. Martin, meanwhile, had dismounted, and took up a position behind some rocks a few feet away.
“Got one,” Polk said tensely. “Lortz and Simms are tryin’ to rush me. See if you can pick one of ’em off.”
A moment later, Simms, trying to dart across the narrow trail, was caught by one of Polk’s bullets, and sprawled down among the rocks.
He appeared to be badly wounded, and lay groaning.
Suddenly, a slug from Lortz’ rifle whipped Polk’s hat from his head, and the cowman emptied his rifle in Lortz’ general direction. As he did so he heard the sound of someone firing behind him and turning swiftly he made out the figure of Beth.
“Go back, honey! Get to cover!” Polk called anxiously.
“This is my fight, too,” she said with determination.
“Keep down! I’ve got two of ’em. I’m going after Lortz.”
Cautiously he began moving around the rocks as Martin opened furious fire to cover him. Then he was darting behind a ledge of rock he knew well, and when he reached the other end and came into sight he was within six-gun distance of Lortz and slightly above him.
He saw Lortz gunning at Martin, no doubt believing he was firing at Polk. Martin was returning the fire, and Beth was shooting from another position.
There came a lull in the firing, and Polk shouted, “You’re done, Lortz! Throw down your gun!”
Lortz whirled and fired, the bullet striking into Polk’s left arm high up. It whirled him half way around and he sank down behind the protective ledge.
While the two resumed their fusillade, Polk managed to shake off the dizziness that had swept over him.
Crawling along the ledge to a new position he cautiously peered at the scene below him. He watched Lortz change his position again, and aiming carefully. Polk fired at his enemy. Lortz staggered backward, dropped his weapon and collapsed to the ground.
Holding his rifle ready, Polk reached Lortz’ side. He was alive, but the chest wound he had received was a lethal one. Polk kicked Lortz’ gun to a safe distance, then yelled up the trail:
“Come on down! It’s all over!” Dizziness and nausea swept over Polk
as he braced himself against a rock. There was the sound of hoofbeats and then Beth and Martin were galloping down to him.
“Martin—ride to town. Tell ’em—have somebody come out,” Polk directed weakly.
“Bob, you’re hurt!” Beth cried out, running to him.
“Not bad,” he told her, smiling feebly. “I’ll be all right—in a couple of days.”
She knelt beside him and tried to wipe some of the blood from his face with the edge of her skirt.
“Medicine—and something for you—in saddlebags,” Bob Polk told her.
“You saved our yearlings, Bob—”
“And why not?” he asked, managing the semblance of a grin. “The Rafter P needs ’em and I need the daughter of the Rafter P—to look after me.”
THE TRAIL TRAP, by T. W. Ford
Two shots rattled out on the sharp frosty night so fast it sounded as if a man were fanning the hammer. After a brief pause, there was another, a sing le one, and a man’s pain-torn curse floating after it. The sounds came from down beyond the bridge at the bottom of the hill from Lusker. The boot heels of a staggering man thudded on the bridge itself. Then there were two more gun reports, the second muffled as if by distance. The quiet of the night flowed back over the wounds the explosions had made in it.
The last echo died out, and the wind chased a piece of brown paper down the hill.
The door of the jailhouse slammed behind Little Joe Bodie. He was tucking his nightshirt inside his batwing chaps as he ran, toting a gunbelt with two filled holsters in his free hand. The moon that had been playing hide-and-go-seek with the drifting cloud racks all night poked through and showed his coal-black hair and slim bony body. He called something back to the jailer as he turned into the alkali-coated road. Then, sombrero bouncing on his shoulders as it hung by the chin strap, he legged it down the hill toward the bridge.
Doors were jerked open and voices called along the road. A couple of figures, shadowy as the moon was blanketed again, swung in behind Little Joe. He pulled up short as he got to the near end of the bridge over Burnt Wagon Creek, listening. From down the trail came the faint beat of horsehoofs, blurred by the wind. They were moving southward. Little Joe saw the figure sprawled at the other end of the plank bridge, upper part of the body hidden in the undergrowth on the creek bank.
Little Joe Bodie, deputy marshal of Lusker, called out to the fallen man once, then advanced when he got no answer. He got to the gleaming black boots and saw the bloodstains on the road. They started about ten feet beyond the end of the bridge and ran back toward it after wavering boot tracks. Little Joe read the signs: a badly wounded man stumbling backward. Then he turned and parted the bushes over the rest of the body. The icy-hued moon slid into view again and showed the white ruffled shirt of the body on its back in the bushes.
Even before he bent to see the face over which the black flat-topped sombrero had slid, Little Joe knew then. It was Solitaire Tice, boss of the gambling hell, The Lucky Deuce. Solitaire lay very still, eyes staring straight up blankly. A wisp of smoke still curled up from the .45 gripped in his hand. Even as the deputy looked, the wind poked open his black frock coat and revealed the wet blood on his white shirt. It looked like a slow mushrooming ruby.
Going to a knee, Little Joe bent over the shot man. He was just in time to catch his final gasp. Froth bubbled around his torn-back mouth, and the crimson spread no further on his shirt front; he was dead.
The story was plain. Solitaire had closed up his gambling joint and had been en route home to the little place he had across the creek. Somebody had waylaid and gunned him. Acting on a hunch, Little Joe pulled gently at the body and rolled it onto its side a moment. He was right. There was a bullet hole, red-ringed, in the back of the coat over the left shoulder. Solitaire had been nailed from behind before he died.
The pair who had followed him down the hill from town came up. One was a gray-bearded man pulling his coat over big bare shoulders as he stopped. He was Ab Murdock who ran the General Store.
“Somebody got Solitaire,” Joe Bodie said.
Murdock swore softly and bent over the body. A deeply religious man who always read a passage from the Bible when some poor devil was put to rest on Lusker’s Boot Hill, he pulled off his hat when he stood up. “Solitaire was a good man. Gawd have mercy on his soul.… And the dirty sidewinder who gave it to him pumped in the finishing shot pointblank. They’s powder burns on his shirt front.”
Little Joe nodded; he had seen them. He was already moving