Читать книгу The Ridin' Kid from Powder River - Henry Herbert Knibbs - Страница 15

"That's all right," said Annersley. "But there's no use takin' chances. You keep back till we find out what they're goin' to do next."

Standing in the middle of the room, well back from the southern window, the old man gazed out upon the destruction of his buildings and carefully hoarded hay. He breathed hard. The riders knew that he was in the cabin—that they had not bluffed him from the homestead. Probably they would next try to fire the cabin itself. They could crawl up to it in the dark and set fire to the place before he was aware of it. Well, they would pay high before they got him. He had fed and housed these very men—and now they were trying to run him out of the country because he had fenced a water-hole which he had every right to fence. He had toiled to make a home for himself, and the boy, he thought, as he heard Young Pete padding about the cabin. The cattlemen had written a threatening letter hinting of this, yet they had not dared to meet him in the open and have it out face to face. He did not want to kill, yet such men were no better than wolves. And as wolves he thought of them, as he determined to defend his home.

Young Pete, spider-like in his quick movements, scurried about the cabin making his own plan of battle. It did not occur to him that he might get hurt—or that his pop would get hurt. They were safe enough behind the thick logs. All he thought of was the chance of a shot at what he considered legitimate game. While drifting about the country he had heard many tales of gunmen and border raids, and it was quite evident, even to his young mind, that the man who suffered attack by a gun was justified in returning the compliment in kind. And to this end he carefully arranged his cartridges on the floor, knelt and raised the window a few inches and cocked the old carbine. Annersley realized what the boy was up to and stepped forward to pull him away from the window. And in that brief moment Young Pete's career was shaped—shaped beyond all question or argument by the wanton bullet that sung across the open, cut a clean hole in the window, and dropped Annersley in his tracks.

The distant, flat report of the shot broke the silence, fired more in the hope of intimidating Annersley than anything else, yet the man who had fired it must have known that there was but one place in the brush from where the window could be seen—and to that extent the shot was premeditated, with the possibility of its killing some one in the cabin.

Young Pete heard his pop gasp and saw him stagger in the dim light. In a flash Pete was at his side. "You hit, pop?" he quavered. There came no reply. Annersley had died instantly. Pete fumbled at his chest in the dark, called to him, tried to shake him, and then, realizing what had happened threw himself on the floor beside Annersley and sobbed hopelessly. Again a bullet whipped across the clearing. Glass tinkled on the cabin floor. Pete cowered and hid his face in his arms. Suddenly a shrill yell ripped the silence. The men were rushing the cabin! Young Pete's fighting blood swelled his pulse. He and pop had been partners. And partners always "stuck." Pete crept cautiously to the window. Halfway across the clearing the blurred hulk of running horses loomed in the starlight. Young Pete rested his carbine on the window-sill and centered on the bulk. He fired and thought he saw a horse rear. Again he fired. This was much easier than shooting deer. He beard a cry and the drumming of hoofs. Something crashed against the door. Pete whirled and fired point-blank. Before he knew what had happened men were in the cabin. Some one struck a match. Young Pete cowered in a corner, all the fight oozing out of him as the lamp was lighted and he saw several men masked with bandannas. "The old man's done for," said one of them, stooping to look at Annersley. Another picked up the two empty shells from Annersley's rifle. "Where's the kid?" asked another. "Here, in the corner," said a cowboy. "Must 'a' been him that got Wright and Bradley. The old man only cut loose twict—afore the kid come. Look at this!" And dragging Young Pete to his feet, the cowboy took the carbine from him and pointed to the three thirty-thirty shells on the cabin floor.

The men were silent. Presently one of them laughed. Despite Pete's terror, he recognized that laugh. He knew that the man was Gary, he who had once spoken of running Annersley out of the country.

"It's a dam' bad business," said one of the men. "The kid knows too much. He'll talk."

"Will you keep your mouth shut, if we don't kill you?" queried Gary.

"Cut that out!" growled another. "The kid's got sand. He downed two of us—and we take our medicine. I'm for fannin' it."

Pete, stiff with fear, saw them turn and clump from the cabin.

As they left he heard one say something which he never forgot. "Must 'a' been Gary's shot that downed the o1e man. Gary knowed the layout and where he could get a line on the window."

Pete dropped to the floor and crawled over to Annersley. "Pop!" he called again and again. Presently he realized that the kindly old man who had made a home for him, and who had been more like a real father than his earlier experiences had ever allowed him to imagine, would never again answer. In the yellow haze of the lamp, Young Pete rose and dragging a blanket from the bed, covered the still form and the upturned face, half in reverence for the dead and half in fear that those dead lips might open and speak.