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had no breakfast, and he desperately wanted coffee. They had killed their
whisky during the long night and his nerves were jumpy. It was too quiet.
Moreover, he was moved by the beauty of the morning. Something deep within him
seemed urging him to stop, to breathe, to enjoy. This was something one could
not buy in bottles. It was bright, clear, all too beautiful.
Phalinger had killed. He had shot men in the back, and he would not hesitate
to do so again. Yet he loved life and loved it dearly, and in that awful
moment of realization he saw in the clear, sharp beauty of the morning what
wasted years he had left behind. He looked over at Lowe, started to speak.
And he hesitated. Lowe was alert, tense. His rifle was ready. Lowe was a
killer, as are many cowardly things, and he could not accept that there should
live things and persons superior to him. Angie's father had always been a
better man, but wanting the ranch, Ed Lowe had played a game, fooling the
father more successfully than he could ever fool the daughter.
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Their horses walked in the soft earth. They moved forward, step by step.
Before them their view of the arroyo widened, the morning grew brighter. The
sun lay against the far bank and at their backs, for they had circled for this
advantage, so that Hondo would have to fire into the glare of the sun.
Phalinger heard a bird call. He heard the soft fall of his horses hoofs. A
leaf brushed his face, and off across the far hills there were low clouds. The
very canyons, moraines, and hanging valleys showed sharply clear in the bright
air. He liked the feel of the horse moving under him, liked the smell of it.
He liked the smell of sage, and of crushed cedar. ... Why had he waited so
long to realize this?
Lowe caught his eye with a signal. Phalinger's rifle came up. It was live or
die now. They breasted the slope.
They saw the rolled blankets, the open space in the brush, the linebacked
horse ... and nothing else!
In that single, awful moment of awareness, both men were caught, suspended,
in the moment. Both had expected a target, were ready for it ... and there was
nothing.
Then from Phalinger's far right a flash of sunlight on a rifle barrel turned
his head. For one swift, stark moment he saw the Apache, saw the dark, slim
body, saw the rifle muzzle not forty yards away, and knew he looked upon
death.
He lifted his rifle, and heard soft, gasping words torn from him. "Oh, God!"
And then the rifle bullet smashed into his law, tearing through his throat,
and he fell.
His horse sprang from under him. Vaguely he heard other shots, but they were
not for him, nor was he for them. He lay flat on his face with the taste of
blood and earth in his mouth and he was choking and he was seeing again the
bright morning he had left, and with his last muscular effort he rolled over
to look at the sky.
There was a white cloud there, so small, so lonely, so white against the vast
blue dome of the morning. For day had come. It was here, and Phalinger looked
up at the sky and saw the cloud fade and knew he was gone and he tried to
speak past the blood and there were no words, there was nothing any more...
One moment there had been nothing and then the two riders appeared on the
skyline. Their wide separation rang a bell of warning in Hondo's brain, but at
the same time he knew that while it was this that had disturbed Sam, it was
not this that had disturbed the rattler. And the crash of shots told him he
was right.
He saw the nearer man drop, saw him hit the ground, heard a thin, despairing
cry. Then he saw the other man drop also.
The Apaches had been followingHondo Lane . They had not expected two men.
They had no reason to believe there could be three.
To count coup upon the body of a dead enemy is not so great a glory as to do
it upon a living one. All three Apaches sprang suddenly forward ... into
death.
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The nearest Apache was a tall, splendidly built man, and he sprang eagerly,
rifle held high.Hondo Lane 's bullet took him under the breastbone, striking
at an angle, and ripped out of his side below the heart. The splendid leap was
the last movement, for when the Apache touched the ground all that amazing
wiry strength was dead, a blasted, wasted thing, giving blood to the sand.
Hondo fired swiftly, saw the second man go down, the third vanish.
For an instant Hondo lay still. The second white man to be shot by the
Apaches had fallen from his horse into the arroyo. Worming his way through the
brush, Hondo made it to his side. It was Ed Lowe.
Even as he reached his side and laid down his rifle, the remaining warrior
leaped from the brush into the saddle of Phalinger's horse and was gone from
sight.
Hondo checked Lowe, then sat back on his heels. "You're not hurt too bad."
Lowe, badly shaken, sat up. Some color was returning to his face. There was
blood on his shirt. He drew a picture from his shirt pocket. "This tintype
saved me."
The bullet had struck his chest at a flat angle and, hitting the tintype, had
glanced away, tearing the skin beyond it with a burn rather than a wound.
Hondo Lanegot to his feet, picking up his rifle. "I wish that Indian hadn't
got away. All the Apaches between here and the post will be alerted now."
"You mean we're cut off?"
"What else?" Lane turned to study the terrain carefully. It was time to move.
No telling how far away there were other Indians.
As Lane turned away, Ed Lowe realized two things: Here was the man he had
come to kill, and there was only one horse left Lane's horse.
Hondo heard the sudden sharp growl from Sam. He sidestepped quickly as he
turned and saw the flash of Lowe's gun. Hondo fired his rifle from the hip and
the bullet smashed Ed Lowe back to the sand. His muscles convulsed, bringing
him almost erect.Hondo Lane did not fire again.
Lowe came almost up, then fell, and there was no sound in the brightness of
the desert morning. Hondo looked down at what had been Angie's husband, then
picked up the tintype. It was a picture of Johnny.
He dropped to the sand, his face gray and ghastly, holding the tintype and
his rifle and realization. And Sam came close and nudged against him, whining
softly. And this time he was allowed to come close.
Chapter Thirteen
FOR AN HOUR of lonely biding there had been no life upon the desert. The sun
was high, and sweat trickled down Hondo's neck, and the body of the lineback
became dark with stain. And before them stretched the vast and rolling plain
of sand, rock, and cactus that is the desert of the Southwest.
Here there was no moment of security. Somewhere out there the escaped Apache
had joined his friends, and somewhere those hard and tireless desert fighters [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]