While he hoped vainly to catch sight of some of his own people, and appealed to his judgment to point out to him the direction Hatfield had taken, he suddenly discerned two men trotting down the middle of the road, running close together with rifles at ready position. Buddy fell down flat on the ground and watched through the spokes of the wagon wheels.
The men halted at Eversole's store, and looked up at the windows overhead. Then they whistled softly. Then they went around to the front of the store, and Buddy heard them knock several times on the closed door. Evidently getting no response, they turned about, and the next instant Buddy heard a loud, profane exclamation and saw them pulling something out of the horse-trough. At this distance, in the semi-darkness, Buddy could not distinguish what the object was they labored over, and did not then know it was the dead body of old Eversole.
As the boy was straining his eyes, now for the moment half forgetful of his perilous whereabouts, he was suddenly electrified by voices behind him. He shrank close to the ground, and casting a look in the rear, observed the forms of three men approaching along the South road. Now acutely alive to his danger, Buddy's eyes swept the shadows to the left, the only avenue open for retreat. His searching eyes lit upon a rockaway carriage, with the tongue propped up, standing at the roadside some two hundred feet distant. He crawfished cautiously toward this lone vehicle, dragging his rifle after him through the dust of the road. When the three men had advanced and were on a direct line ahead, bringing the wagon in between, and thereby screening him, the boy darted safely to the shadow of the carriage and peered out at the men, who now quickened their pace toward the two at the horse-trough.
Thinking that the carriage would afford a reasonably safe hiding place for the moment, Buddy decided to climb inside, where he could peep out at the five men in front of Eversole's store, and at the same time watch the highway for Johnse Hatfield. The boy knew that, if he could remain unseen long enough, it was only a question of time ere some of his own faction would come upon the scene, affording him protection and assistance in seeking Hatfield.
Now bent upon secreting himself inside the carriage until the way was clear, and, in the meantime, determine what was the most likely route Orlick had taken to escape Hatfield's vengeance, Buddy opened the carriage door, but fell back, amazed and startled, as the limp body of a dead man tumbled out upon him. Recovering quickly from this surprise, Buddy took a look at the face. The body lolled half out of the vehicle, one arm and the head hanging down between the wheels. Although the face was outward, it was at the same time downward past the step of the vehicle, and in this inverted position the boy could not have recognized his best friend in the wan moonlight.
He shot a swift look around him and across toward Eversole's store—then laying his rifle on the ground, he lifted the dead man's head up and scrutinized it closely. As Buddy had never known Steve Barlow, the face was strange to him, and he was in the act of easing his gruesome burden down, when soft sounds like muffled footsteps startled him. They were close to him, seemingly coming from the opposite side of the carriage.
Without waiting an instant or even looking a second time, Buddy jerked his hands free, grabbed his gun, and made a headlong dive across the plank-walk and sprawled against the picket fence, at bay, but with gun pointed toward the carriage and ready to die fighting and take a toll for his own life.
His little heart beat wildly for the next few seconds. Affrighted, he had dropped his burden so suddenly that its weight had jerked the other arm outside, and now the inverted dead face swung to and fro, and gesticulated between the wheels in the moonlight. Then under and behind this grim pantomime, the boy could discern the vague outlines of legs in the dense shadow cast by the carriage.
Buddy did not court shots from the front, but he had always dreaded a shot in the back, and he knew that the McGills would show no quarter, not even to a boy, much less a Lutts boy. In reality, it was less than fifteen seconds that Buddy lay with finger in the trigger-guard, staring at that veiled, menacing shadow stirring near at hand, but it seemed very much longer to the boy. He could not endure the suspense, and just as he began to crawfish stealthily along the fence, a riderless, unshod horse stepped leisurely from the gloom and walked noiselessly through the thick dust.
Buddy heaved a long breath and leaned back against the fence. The horse was a light dun, with black mane and tail. He wore a saddle and the reins dragged. The animal stopped and pricked up his ears in Buddy's direction, then strolled over in the Courthouse yard, champing his bit noisily, a preface which Buddy thought the horse had previously omitted with mischievous intent.