15 Western Short Stories — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 slid on the pine needles, fell and rolled behind a tree, hearing the crack of Luke’s rifle echoing from the can- yon walls. Spitting needles, he pulled the big forty-five from holster and sighted it along the tree trunk. He couldn’t see the Gliddens, but the rifle cracked again, and dust flew from a hmb far above him. He HAD SHOT a pistol only a few times. He squeezed off at nothing in particular up the slope. The big gun jumped and belched smoke back in his face. He heard the slug strike heavily into a tree. One of the Glid- dens yelled. He looked around cau- tiously, but could see nothing of them. Picking a tree a few yards to his left, he fired around the right side of his tree. Almost in the same motion he rolled and scuttled to his left. Bullets gouged the pine needles above him as he scrabbled to shelter. Either the angle of firing downhill had the Gliddens fooled, or they didn’t really want to hit him, which was more likely. Well, he didn’t want to kill any Gliddens, either. All he wanted was the cattle back. He raised his head and looked around the side of the tree. Almost instantly a bullet struck almost in his face, filling his eyes with bark dust. He clawed at his eyes, helpless, until tears washed out the stinging parti- eles. The Gliddens weren’t fooling. When his eyes cleared he saw that he was in luck. Below him the ground dropped steeply away into a gully filled with buckbrush. He could keep the tree between himself and the Gliddens, back into the gully, and es- © cape under cover of the brush. Then he saw the down tree. It had been blown over so that the roots ex- tended into the air, leaving a gaping socket in the ground. The trunk ex- tended on an angle up the hill for nearly two hundred feet, lying flat to the slope all the way. It would give him cover nearly all the way back to his starting point. Without thinking it over, he rose and dived across into the root cavity. He waited until he thought the Glid- dens hadn’t spotted the move, then crawled out and edged his way uphill WESTERN SHORT STORIES under cover of the trunk. He could hear nothing of Luke and Pete, and it gave him an eerie feeling, they might be standing on the log watch- ing him. The dry forest duff started sticking to his hands and he discov- ered they were as wet with sweat as if they had been dipped in water. After what seemed an afternoon of crawl- ing he reached a point where the tree tapered to a point too small to pro- tect him. He rolled on one elbow, gun ahead of him, and peered over the log. Luke and Pete were both in plain sight, nearly a hundred yards away, looking down into the brush-filled gully. “Must have crawled in there,” said. “Yeah, he won’t bother us again.” “How about McLeod?” | “That's somethin’ else. We were crazy to ever fool with his cattle, any- Pete way.” Lying behind the log, Bob sighted the gun on the crossed suspenders on Luke’s back. He had to make sure his first shot; one of the Gliddens he might handle, but not two of them. He kept the sight steady on the leath- er patch, easing the hammer back to fuil cock. As it started to fall, he desperately jerked the barrel up. Luke’s hat kicked away, and as he fell forward, Bob was afraid he hadn’t pulled his aim in time. But Luke lurched to his feet, and in a dozen zigzagging strides, reached the gully rim. There- after there was the loud crackling of branches. Bob twisted the gun, trying for a glimpse of Pete, afraid that gunsmoke had betrayed his position. He saw a patch of blue extending from a tree trunk. He pulled down on the tree and fired, missing by a dozen feet. As the slug knocked a limb from a tree, Pete broke and ran. All Bob could see was the rapid flicker of blue through the brown trunks of the trees, heading downhill, away from the horses. He fired again to speed him on his way. E RAN TO the Gliddens’ horses, stripped them of their bridles, and slapped them into a run. Then he retrieved his rifle and got his horse. COMICLOO® SS CO