Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

RIDE WITH THE GUNSMOKE JUDAS 17 There was a smash of sound that exploded into darkness. Chet felt himself falling into a bottomless pit and a dark, dizzying cloud kept rolling down and piling up on him, smothering him in the moist blackness. He remembered the night the cattlemen had come to the Kansas community. ~He remem- bered burying his mother and his father and he remembered folowing the loose-jointed avenger, Les Gunther, a man of God who would lead grasshopper and drought starved people, a man who would grind his heel on Jand grabbing, murdering cattlemen. An eye for an eye, he remembered, and he could see his father reading from. ‘the huge, illus- trated Bible. But even now, he couldn’ t for- get that same Bible taught a man to turn the other cheek. Everything séemed terribly real. The dark pit into which he was falling had slimy stone walls. He gripped at the walls until his fin- gernails were torn and the pain was alive in his arms. He lost his grasp and fell into total darkness. And there, in. the rocks above the trail, Breckinridge looked at his. still smoking rifle.’ He knew that he should pump one or two more shots into the body that lay there below him. That was the way Les Gunther would have done it. But Breckinridge couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Damn it, Kid,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t never have tried it.” Shaking his head, he mounted his horse and turned back toward camp... . It was deep night when Chet Wainsworth opened his eyes. The velvet dome of heaven was spangled with brilliant stars and there were silver shafts of light reaching down to- ward the black outline of the rolling hills. It made him remember the pictures he had ‘seen in his father’s Bible. He lay there quiet- ly, feeling a strange contentment as the soft breeze funneled down the rocky canyon and bathed his face. For those seconds, it seemed to him that he should expect the fiery angels to be stand- ~ ing above him, the ones with blazing eyes and flaming swords: the avenging angels. The thought. remained but a second and then, with a great physical shock, he realized that he was alive. Immediately, he tried to move and a searing, wracking pain tore at him, pinning him to the ground. A voice said, “He’s coming around. Do you have any more of that whiskey, Sam?” A huge, dark shape hovered over him. He felt a bottle pressed against his teeth. He fought’ against it momentarily, then swal- lowed, and the hot, stinging liquid trickled down his’ throat and built a fire in his empty stomach. The dark shape spoke with a deep, rumbling voice. “I don’t like ghosts, Miss Jane. I never did like ghosts.” “The man’s alive,” the soft voice said. “Maybe he is,” the man said, “but he’s close enough to being dead that he might still be a ghost. And, if he ain’t a ghost, he’s one of them Gunther raiders that shot up the town. I tell you, Miss Jane—” HET’S eyes focused momentarily and he saw the girl. She was like an angel bend- ing over him. He saw the dim outline of _her face, the soft contour of her hair under a flat brim hat. “He couldn’t be one of the raiders, Sam,” the girl: called Jane said. “He’s five miles from town, isn’t he? He must have been one of the settlers and he was shot by the raiders for some reason.” “What you aim to do with him, Miss’ Jane?” the man asked. “Take him up to the line shack with us,’ the girl said. “Can you lift him?” “Miss Jane,” the man said with convic- tion, “there ain’t nothing Sam can’t lift.” The darkness came again and now there was a soft swaying movement and Chet Wainworth gave in to it. He was not sure if he had dreamed these things or if they were so. He only knew that at the moment, he didn’t care. It didn’t make that much difference. Death, he decided, was sometimes easier than living. A long time later, voices awakened ‘him. He stared up at rough, hand-hewn rafters | and light trickling through the cracks be- tween shakes. He was in a bunk of sorts. His clothes had been removed and he was | wearing a man’s shirt that was big enough to serve as a nightgown. He stirred uneasily and realized that his torso and left shoulder were bound tightly with bandages. He let his right hand stray to his face and found a thick, matted growth ofsbeard, and when he touched his lips, they were dry and cracked. His ehetks felt sunken and _ hol- low. Presently a door opened, the light momen- tarily blinding him, and then the opening - of the ‘door was filled with the tremendous. bulk of a man, with a body like the trunk of a tree, and huge arms and shoulders that — COmiclbooks CO