Ace High Western Magazine, March 1941 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

18 ACE-HIGH WESTERN STORIES Doc rushed through the back “door with his gun gripped in his fist. Bill had not thought the blow that felled Anson was a knockout punch, but the foreman lay crumpled where he had fallen. Doc’s voice shook him. “Scotty! Dammit man, you promised me— I ought to gun you where you stand |” “Tt’s me!” Bill called hastily. “I’m tak- in’ one of your horses. Pay you back sometime, Doc!” He darted into the warm, pungent blackness of the barn, found the gray in its stall. He fought the bit into its mouth and yanked the bridle into place. Doc Breaker’s low, chopped tones followed him as he ran the horse to the rear door. “Bill! You know that dead cottonwood | above Scotty’s bridge? I’ll hang a red horse-blanket in it if she doesn’t pull through. If you see it, leave this hole and don’t ever come back. There'll be noth- ing to hold you.” In Bill’s throat there was a burning, choking pain that he couldn’t fight down. He wanted to thank Doc. To tell him what it meant to have one understanding friend in a friendless world. But right then that world was exploding under him and he could only spur the gray across the cor- ral and wave to Doc as he took it over the fence. In his wake a great roar erupted, a many-voiced bellow torn ragged with the explosions of short guns. Singing lead out- ran him to the mott of creosote for which he was spurring. Now a Winchester was laid across the top rail of the corral and a clear eye aimed and fired without pause. Bill Bronc lay flat along the gray’s neck. Riding slick, he was in danger of being unseated and left on foot to the will of the mob. He heard the recurrent whine of rifle slugs at steady intervals. Then branches crackled under the horse’s hoofs. Bill winced from the thrash- ing of brush against his face. Behind him, tangled branches meshed to form a screen. Behind, gunfire rippled into the night. ... Bie stopped under the rimrock cliff at the head of Devil’s Canyon and stood by the head of his lathered mare. He stopped there because he had to. He couldn’t go on forever, galloping into the night and trying to outrace his fears and misery. Sometime he had to reason this out. A man can be hit in the head by a gun- butt and maybe still think after a fashion. But hit him in the heart where it hurts, and he’s no good. It was that way with Bill Bronce. He hurt so bad he couldn’t cry, but his whole body cried. The one thing he valued in this world was dying. Something inside Bill was slowly dying, too. : He’d been the kind of an idealistic damn’ fool who believed in the funda- mental good of human nature. Take it by and large, men were usually peace-loving and kind. ; Peace-loving! Kind! A pack of blood- lusting wolves would have shown him the same mercy as Kingbolt had tonight. And then the smoke of Bill’s bitter- burning thoughts blew in other directions and turned him dumb and sour with mem- ories and regrets. He thought of the Grange getting out of control and under the influence of rabble-rousing, liquor- peddling Hass Colley. He thought of Barney Sloane parading around in his store-bought clothes and boiled shirt, lick- ing up the cream. ... Two loudmouths, and both saloon-keep- ers. Buying power with popping. corks. Bill wondered how it would be on that day when Colley and Sloane tangled. Bill might have stayed there an hour. Maybe two hours. But after awhile he saw something that made his thoughts blow up. Men were topping the mesa rim and striking for the hills, zig-zagging L_} Gomicboo ‘S (G(0)