“We’re going, Nevada. I know Young Jess. A rattlesnake’s a prince alongside him when he’s mad. Son, you should have left him to me. I can handle him pretty well, no matter how mad he gets. Come along; he’ll not be above potting you from ambush, Injun style.”
He left the porch at the farther end, pulling Rawley after him; and much as Rawley hated the thought of retreat, he was forced to believe that Nevada and Peter, neither of them timid souls, must know what they were talking about.
Nevada disappeared, with no word of farewell to Rawley. Young Jess could be plainly heard bawling at Gladys because his “shells” had been misplaced.
Peter chuckled.
“One of the kids shot himself through the hat, a month or so ago,” he explained his amusement. “Since then the guns are kept unloaded. Jess is hunting cartridges; God bless Gladys for a poor housekeeper!”
He still held a firm grip on Rawley’s arm, leading him down the path to the river. But suddenly, keeping an ear cocked toward the sounds behind him, he swung away from the trail toward the bluffs.
“He’s found them, from the way things have quieted down, back there. He’ll be hot on your trail, now—unless Nevada can stop him, which I doubt. He’s Injun enough to hold women in contempt when it comes to a show-down. Here.”
He pulled Rawley down between two great, upstanding bowlders standing black against the stars. Rawley felt a movement of Peter’s arm, and knew that Peter had pulled a gun from somewhere and was aiming it across a ridge of rock. Rawley himself could hear nothing but the crying of the wakened baby in the shack, the yelp of a kicked dog.
For a long time, it seemed to Rawley, they waited. He could not hear a sound. But Peter still held his gun leveled across the rock before them, and Rawley could feel how Peter’s muscles were tensed for a struggle.
Two greenish lights showed faintly as a star-beam struck the eyeballs of a dog. A shuffling sound approaching through the weedy gravel, a sniffling at Peter’s hand. Rawley felt a crimple down his spine, though he did not think that he was afraid.