Bruce of the Circle A Part 36

When I jumped through that door and covered you, I expected he'd be here and that I'd ... Well, that I'd square accounts with him for good....

"I don't know what your fight with him is, but he's abused you; he's got you hogtied now. That you've a fight of some sort with him is enough for me.... Aren't two heads better than one?"--insinuatingly.

The miner forced himself to meet that inquiring gaze steadily, but his expression of delight, of triumph, which came into his face was not forced, was not counterfeit, and he growled quickly:

"I don't need any man's help in my fight ... when I got an even chance.

My troubles are my own an' I'll tend to 'em, but, if you want to do me a favor, you'll cut these d.a.m.n straps ... you'll give me a chance to fight, man to man!"

He did not lie with those words; his inference might have been deception but that chance to fight man to man was the dearest privilege he could have been offered.

No primitive urge to punish with his own hands a man who had crossed him made itself paramount with Lytton; he wanted Bayard to suffer, but the means did not matter. If he could cause him injury and avoid the consequence of personal accountability, so much the better, and it was with a grunt of relief and triumph that he shoved the automatic into the waist band of his pants, drew a knife from his pocket and grasped the tightly knotted straps.

"You bet, I'll help anybody against that dirty--

"Sit still!" he broke off, as Benny, quivering with excitement, strained forward. "I'm likely to cut you if--"

The blade slashed through the leather. Lynch floundered to his feet, free, alone in the room with the man he had deliberately planned to kill, and the overwhelming sense of impending achievement swept all caution from him.

He stumbled a step or two forward after the suddenly parting of the straps set him free and then turned about to face Lytton, who stood beside the chair closing his knife. Behind the Easterner was the cupboard on which Bayard had placed Benny's gun, and the miner's first idea should have been to restrain himself, to keep on playing a strategic game, to move carefully, deliberately until he was armed and could safely show his hand.

But such control was an impossibility. He faced Ned Lytton who stood there with an evil smile on his lips, and all the love for his dead father, all the outraged sense of property rights, all the brooding, the waiting, the acc.u.mulated tension caused something in him to swell until he felt a choking sensation, until the hate came into his face, until he drew his clenched fists upward and shook his head and bellowed and charged, madly, blindly, wanting only to have his hands on his enemy, to take his life as the first men took the lives of those who had done them wrong! The feel of perishing flesh in his palms ... that was what he wanted!

With a shrill cry of fright, Lytton saw what happened. He saw the change come over the face, the body, the manner of this man before him, saw Lynch gather himself for the rush and, whipping his hand down to his stomach as he backed and tried to run, he clutched for the weapon that would defend him from this new foe.

But the hand did not close on the pistol b.u.t.t then. His wrist was caught in the clamp of incredibly powerful fingers that bound about it and wrenched it backward; the other hand was pinned to his side by an encircling arm and the breath was beaten from him as Lynch's impact sent them crashing into the wall.

"You will, will you?" Benny snarled thickly. "Cheat an' steal an' ...

lie."

They strained so for a moment, faces close together, the eyes of the miner glittering hate, those of Lytton reflecting the mounting fear, that possessed him.

"Who are you?" he screamed. "You ... you snake!"

"I'm Lynch ... Lynch! Son of an old man you cheated an' killed!" Benny shouted. "I've waited for years for this.... 'T was Bayard, th' man you hunted, tied me up so I couldn't ... kill you. But you ... walked into your own trap...."

"You sna--"

Lytton's word was cut off by the jerk the miner gave him, dragging him to the center of the floor, bending him backward, struggling to hold him with one hand and secure the pistol with the other. Ned screamed again and drew his knee up with a vigorous snap, jamming it into Benny's stomach, sending the breath moaning from him. For the following moment Lytton held the upper hand but Lynch clung to him instinctively, unthinkingly, wrapping his arms and legs about Ned's body with a determination to save himself until he could beat down the sickness that threatened to overwhelm him. He did hold on, but his grip had lost some of its strength and, when his vision cleared and his mind became agile again, he felt Lytton's hand between their bodies, knew that it had fastened on the weapon it had been seeking. He rallied his every force to overcome that handicap.

Ned's gun hand came free and he flung himself sideways in an effort to turn and yank himself from Lynch, but the miner closed on him, caught the forearm again in a mighty clamp of fingers and swept him smashing against the one window of the room. The gla.s.s went out with a crash and a jingle and the tough, dry wood of the frame snapped with a succession of sharp reports. Blood gushed down Lytton's cheek where a jagged pane had scratched the flesh as it fell and Lynch was conscious that warm moisture spread over his own upper left arm.

The Easterner braced against the window sill and grunted and squirmed until he forced his adversary back a body's breadth.... Then he kicked sharply, viciously and his boot toe crunched on Lynch's shin, sending a paralyzing pain through the limb. They swirled and staggered to the far end of the room in their struggles, the one bent on holding the other's body close to his to controvert its ceaseless efforts to worm away; and above their heads was the gun, gripped by fingers that were in turn clinched in a huge, calloused palm and rendered helpless.

"You snake!" Lytton cried again, and flung his head up sharply, catching Lynch under the chin with a sharp click of bone on bone.

They poised an instant at that, lurched clumsily against the stove and sent it toppling from its legs while the pipe sections rattled hollowly down about them, and a cloud of soot rose to fill their eyes. They lunged into the wall again and hung against it a long, straining moment, breathless in their efforts; then, grunting as Lytton wriggled violently to escape, Benny steadily tightened his hold on him.

Intervals of dogged waiting followed, after which came frantic contortions as they lost and gathered strength again. Lytton's face was covered with blood and some of it smeared on Lynch's cheek. Sweat made their flesh glisten and then became mud as the soot mantled them.

Occasionally one called out in a curse, or in an exclamation of pain, but much of the time their jaws were set, their lips tight, for both knew that this fight was to the end; that their battle could finish in but one of two ways.

Each time they faced the cupboard Benny shot a glance at its top. His gun was there; to reach it was his first hope, but he dared not relinquish for a fractional second his dogged grip on the other man's hand.

Lytton renewed his efforts, kicking and bunting. They waltzed awkwardly across the floor on a diagonal and Benny, backing swiftly on to the overturned chair to which he had been bound, tripped and lost his balance again. They went down with mingled cries, Lytton on top. For an instant he retained the position and threatened to break away, but Benny rolled over, hooking the other's limbs to helplessness with his own. He withdrew his right arm from about Lytton's waist and grappled for the man's throat while Ned writhed and kicked, flung his head from side to side and struck desperately with his own free fist against the throttling fingers. He loosed one leg and threshed it frantically, found a bearing point against the wrecked stove, bowed his body with a wracking effort and for an instant was out from under, restrained only by the hot, hard fingers about his gun hand. He strove to reach up and transfer the pistol to his left, but Benny was the quicker and they rose to their feet, scrambling and snarling as they sought fresh holds.

Lynch had the advantage of weight but Lytton's agility offset the handicap. His muscles might not be able to endure so long a strain, but they responded more quickly to his thoughts, took lightninglike advantage of any opportunity offered. The fact enraged Benny and, giving way to it, he called on his precious reserve of energy for a super effort, lifted Ned from his feet and spun about as though he would dash his body against the wall. But Ned met this new move with the strength of the frenzied, and, when they had made three-quarters of the turn, Lynch was overbalanced; he stumbled, lurched and with a crash and a rip they went against the battered old cupboard.

The jolt steadied the men, but the big fixture, rocking slowly, went over sideways with a smash of breaking dishes and a rattling, banging of pans. And from its top, spinning and sliding across the cluttered floor, went Benny's big blue Colt gun.

Both men saw at once and on sight of that other weapon their battle became reversed. Lynch, gla.s.sy eyed, struggled to extricate himself now, to retain his hold on Lytton's hand that held the automatic, but to free his other, to stoop and recover his own revolver. Ned understood fully on the first move. He wrenched repeatedly to gain use of the automatic, but he clung with arms and legs and teeth to Lynch ... wherever he could find purchase. He succeeded at first in working the fight back into a corner away from the revolver, but his strength was not lasting.

Benny redoubled his efforts and slowly they shifted again toward the center of the room where the reflected sunlight made the blue metal of the Colt glisten as it lay in the wreckage. They both breathed aloud now and Lytton moaned at each acute effort he made to meet and check his enemy's moves. With painful slowness, with ominous steadiness, they made back toward Lynch's objective, inch by inch, zigzagging across the floor, hesitating, swaying backward, but always keeping on. The violence of their earlier struggle had departed; they were more deliberate, more cautious, but the equality of their ability had gone. Lytton was yielding.

Benny got to within four feet of the revolver, gained another hand's breadth by a strain that set the veins of his forehead into purple welts. He bent sideways, forcing Ned's right hand with its pistol slowly down toward the floor. Then, with a slip and a scramble, Lytton left off his restraining hold, flung himself backward, spun his body about and with a cry of desperation put every iota of energy into an attempt to wrest his right hand from Benny's clutch.

Lynch let him go, but with a motive; for as he released his grip, he swung his right fist mightily, following it with the whole weight of his falling body. The blow caught Lytton on the back of the neck, staggered him, sent him pitching sideways toward the doorway and as Lynch, pouncing to the floor on hands and knees, fastened his fingers on his gun, Ned flashed a look over his shoulder, saw, knew that he could never turn and fire in time, and plunged on through the doorway, falling face downward into the dust, rolling over and fronting about ... out of the miner's sight ... pistol covering the door and broken window where Benny must appear ... if he were to appear.

And the miner, within the ruined room, knees bent, torso doubled forward, gun in his hand, c.o.c.ked, uplifted, waited for some sound, some indication from out there. None came and he straightened slowly, backing against the wall, wiping the sweat from his eyes one at a time that his vigilance might not be relaxed, gun ready to belch the instant Lytton should show himself ... if he were to show himself.

So they watched, hidden from one another, each knowing that his enemy waited only for him to make a move, each aware that he could not bring the other into range without exposing himself. After the bang and clatter of their hand to hand struggle, the silence was oppressive, and Benny, head turned to catch the slightest sound, thought that he could hear the quick come and go of Lytton's breath.

The man inside quivered with impatience; the one who waited in that white sunlight cowered and paled as the flush of exertion ebbed from his daubed face. Benny, whose whole purpose in life centered about squaring his account, as he saw it, with the man outside yearned to show himself, but held back, not through fear of harm, but because he knew that the fulfillment of his mission depended wholly upon his own bodily welfare.

Lytton, quailing before the actual presence of great danger, of meeting a foe on equal footing, of fighting without resort to surprise or fouling, wanted to be away, to be quit of the place at any cost. He would have run for it, but he knew that the sounds of his movements would bring Lynch on his heels. He would have attempted to get away by stealth but he feared that he might encounter Bayard in any direction.

He did not stop to think that he had no reason for fearing the cowman; his very guilt, his subconscious disrespect of self, made him regard an open meeting with Bruce as one of danger.

So for many minutes, the tension of the situation becoming greater, more unbearable with each pulse beat.

Then sounds--faint at first. The rattle of a stone rolling over rock, the distant swish of brush. A silent interval, followed by the sound of a gasping cough; then, the faint, clear ring of a spur as the boot to which it was strapped set itself firmly on solid footing.

Within the house Lynch could not hear, but Lytton, alert to every possibility, dreading even the sound of his own breathing, turned his head sharply....

There, below, making up the trail as fast as his exhausted limbs could carry him, came Bruce Bayard, hat in one hand, arms swinging widely as he strained to climb faster. He turned an angle of the trail and for the s.p.a.ce of thirty yards the way led across a ledge of smooth, flat rock, screened by no trees and bearing no vegetation whatever.

Fear again retreated from Lytton's heart before a fresh rush of wrath that blinded him and made him heedless. He whirled, leaving off his watching of the cabin door and window. His gun hand came up, slowly, carefully, while he gritted his teeth to steady his muscles. He sighted with care, bringing all his knowledge of marksmanship to bear that there should be no error, that no possible luck of Bayard's should avail him anything....

And from above and behind the cabin rose a woman's voice:

"Look out, Bruce!"

Just those words, but the bell-like quality of the voice itself, the horror in its shrill tone carrying sharply to them, echoing and re-echoing down the gulch, struck a chill to the hearts of three men.

The words had not left Ann's lips before the automatic in Ned's hand leaped and flashed and the echo of the woman's warning cry was followed by the smashing reverberations of the shot. But her scream had availed; it had sent a tremor through Lytton's body even as he fired, and, as Bayard halted abruptly in the center of the open s.p.a.ce without barrier before him or weapon with which to answer, absolutely at Lytton's mercy, his hat was torn from his left hand.

"You whelp!" Ned cried, and on the word took one more step forward, halted, dropped the weapon on its mark again and paused for the merest fraction of time. His muscles became plastic, as steady as stone under the strain of this crisis. He did not hear the quick step on the kitchen floor, he could not see Benny Lynch half fall through the doorway, but when the miner's gun, held stiffly out from his hip, roared and belched and remained steady, ready to shoot again, Ned lowered the weapon just a trifle.

A queer, strained grin came over his face and, standing erect, he turned his head stiffly, jerkily toward Benny who stood crouched and waiting.

Then, very slowly, almost languidly, his gun hand lowered itself. When it was almost beside his thigh, the fingers opened and the pistol dropped with a light thud to the earth. Ned lifted the other hand to his chest and still grinning, as if a joke had been made at his expense which quite embarra.s.sed him, he let his knees bend as though he would kneel. He did not follow out the movement. He wilted and fell. He tried to sit up, feebly, impotently. Then, he lay back with a quick sigh.

The other two men stood fixed for a moment. Then, with a cry, Bayard started up the slope at a run. He did not look again at Benny, did not know that the miner walked slowly forward to where Lytton had fallen.

All he saw was the figure of a hatless woman, face covered with her hands, leaning against a great boulder twenty yards above the cabin, and he did not take his eyes from her during one step of the floundering run.