Out of the blue

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

He was none too soon. The man above was yelling to those below. They were riding to head him off. Rock could hear the drum of their galloping. He laughed. He was above pursuit, ahead of it. Nothing, he felt confident, could gain on the rangy beast between his legs, bar accident—a badger hole, unseen in the grass, or a chance shot at long range.

The second was a chance. Because he meant to show himself—must show himself, to draw the pursuers hot on his trail right under that low ridge on which his riders lay. He did not mean to skulk in timber. They might lose him altogether, and they might possibly surround him. And he was hot with the memory of the agonized twist of Charlie Shaw’s face, as he slid over the bank.

So now he took a chance and bored into the open. Long, bare slopes slanted upward, contours that tried the wind and limb of stout horses. Behind, spread in open order, like skirmishing cavalry, riders drummed the turf. They were not so far behind that a bullet couldn’t reach him, but they were far enough to make shooting from the back of a plunging horse a futile business.

A yell arose at his appearance. Half a dozen guns barked at him. The bullets whined, as the wind whines in taut cordage. Rock kept his carbine in hand, not to shoot, but to hold safe. If his horse went down by a fluke, he wanted no broken gun stock to stand off these ugly customers.

They would kill him with a good deal of satisfaction and a certain amount of venom. For their own safety, they must. Rock looked over his shoulder. The lookout who had shot Charlie had come clear of the timber and was converging with his fellows. The day herders had quit their cattle to join the chase. The hunt was up strong. They would follow him to hell. He had spied upon their operations in that secluded hollow. Rock could imagine them confident of getting him. They had all that wild country to run him down, as hounds run down a wolf.

And when the bulk of that race was run, with a steep slope still to breast before he could thunder along that open plateau, overlooked by his own riders, Rock was not so sure that he would win. For a mile he had gained ground, had saved his mount a little, and still opened a gap. Now the gap was closing slowly, but inexorably. By the time he reached that bench, they would be close enough to throw lead. If he didn’t reach that level, they would have him on an open side hill, and they would riddle him before the firing drew his own crowd.

Very well, let the firing begin. Rock turned his carbine backward and fired repeatedly. They did not bother to reply. They were gaining, and they would shoot when they were ready. Their horses were fresh at the corrals. His mount had gone fifteen miles that morning. The brute was game. He did not falter. Head up, tail like a pennant, he took the short, steep slope with gallant leaps. But it slowed him.

The pursuit swept to the foot of the hill. It, too, slowed. Rock had reloaded his carbine. He fired at random now and drew reply, a fusillade that whistled close. Surely those Capital K riders would come alive and swoop down when they saw a dozen guns belching lead at one lone rider.

Rock’s horse scrambled panting over the brow, out on the level. Grass lifted yellow to the ridge above. Pines stood black against the sky, but never the shape of a horseman. And behind him, dangerously close, the heads and shoulders and horses of those angry thieves came over the lip of the hill. They were shooting now in a continuous stream.

Rock’s horse went out from under him, leaving him for a moment, it seemed, suspended in the air. He threw up one hand to protect that precious carbine, and fell limber, slack-muscled, by a great effort of will over instinct, ten feet ahead of his horse.