The gambler gave a toss of his gloved hand as if in submission. He swung down from his saddle and stepped away a reins' length from his horse. Four more of the seven riders followed suit. Deputy Stiles stayed in his saddle, staring straight ahead into the settling crystalline veil. As did Horace Dewitt and Martin Heintz, the town druggist.
As the splatter of the four dismounted men's urine set new rises of steam curling up from the cold ground, Dewitt shook his head in disgust and turned away.
Noting Dewitt's gesture, the gambler grinned, shook himself off and said, “I don't suppose any of you gentlemen had the foresight to bring along a bottle of whiskey, perchance.”
“There will be no drinking, and no
talk of drinking
in this posse,” Stiles called out before anyone could respond in any manner.
“There you have it,” Long murmured to himself, buttoning the fly on his frayed and faded pinstripe trousers. He put on his right glove and closed the front of his wool overcoat. “The voice of the law has spoken . . .”
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Leading the thieves, Jackie Warren spotted Summers and his four-horse string sitting a hundred yards off the trail. With no warning to the three other speeding horsemen behind him, the young outlaw jerked his horse to a reckless halt.
“What the hell!” shouted Henry Grayson, almost thrown from his saddle as his horse veered to keep from slamming into Warren's animal and tumbling end over end. The other two also veered and reined down. When all three horses had stumbled and slid to a stop, their riders glared at Jackie Warren.
“What's wrong with you, Little Jackie?” Grayson shouted from behind his bandana mask. He circled in close.
“Not a damn thing, Henry!” the young outlaw shouted in reply. He jerked his bandana down from across the bridge of his nose and nodded toward the lone rider and the four horses sitting staring at them across the snowy flatlands. “Take a look at this.” He gave a grin. “Are those
our
horses?”
The other three masked riders looked out at Summers, who sat with his Winchester propped up on his thighâhis warning for the four of them to ride on.
“Hell no,” Henry Grayson said. He stared for a second, then said to Warren and the others, “All right, let's get going. We still got the law on our rumps.” But before he could slap his reins to his horse and bat his boots to its sides, young Jackie reached out and grabbed his horse by its bridle.
“What's your hurry, Henry?” he said. “That posse has quit us. This is all going our way.”
“Like hell, they've quit us,” said Lewis Fallon, a young Texas outlaw out of Waco. He looked back warily toward the swirl of white still adrift on their back trail.
“You don't hear any shooting, do you?” Jackie said.
“That doesn't mean they've turned back,” said Avrial Rochenbach, known to the others as a former Pinkerton detective turned bandit.
“What about this one?” Jackie said, nodding at the single figure looking back at them from a hundred yards out.
“What about him?” said Grayson.
“He's got horses,” Jackie Warren said, a Spencer rifle in his gloved hand. “We ought to take them just in case ours wear out. Especially mine.” His saddlebags bulged with stolen money.
“We've got horses waiting. We don't need his,” Grayson said. “We don't need nothing he's got.”
“But he might have seen our faces,” Jackie said, searching for any reason to create mayhem.
“Not ours, he hasn't,” said Grayson. “We kept our masks on like we
all
agreed to do.” He jerked his horse away from Jackie's hand and slapped his reins to its withers. “This thing is set up perfect. Stick to our plan. Let's ride!” he shouted.
The other two outlaws booted their horses along behind him. But before turning his horse, Jackie threw his rifle against his shoulder and shouted,
“Yi-hiiii!”
out across the flatlands. He fired wildly.
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Summers saw the bullet strike the ground ten feet in front of him. Instinctively, he raised his rifle, yet he held his fire, hoping the outlaw was only giving him a warning.
“That's itâride on,” Summers murmured. “We've both got better things to do than shoot one another . . .”
He saw the first three horses already pulling away; the fourth rider was ready to bat his horse's sides to catch up with them. But before the last outlaw left, he pulled off one more wild shot.
From the string beside him, Summers heard one of his horses whinny in pain. He caught a sidelong glance as the horse half rose on its hind legs and toppled to the ground in a spray of blood and snow.
As soon as the bullet hit one of his string horses, Summers had leaped out of his saddle and slapped his dapple gray's rump. He hurriedly cut the rope holding the three live string horses to the dead one and sent them racing out behind his gray. He hadn't wanted a fight; he hadn't wanted to lose a horse. But now that he had a horse down, he threw himself behind the body and laid his Winchester out across its side.
Kill my horse . . . !
He jerked a fresh round up into the rifle chamber. Steam curled from the gaping bullet hole in the dead horse's neck. He was in the fight now, whether he wanted it or not.