Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) (31 page)

He backed up and I went into him. Suddenly he caught my upper arms, and dropping he put a foot in my stomach and threw me over his head!

For a fleeting instant I was flying through the air, and then I lit on a poker table and grabbed the sides with both hands. It went over on top of me, and that was all that saved me as he rushed in to finish me with the boots. I shoved the table at him and came up off the floor, and he hit me again and I went right back down. He dropped a big palm on my head and shoved me at the floor. I sprawled out and he kicked me in the side. It missed my ribs and glanced off my gun belt, and I rolled over and grabbed his boot, twisting hard!

It threw him off balance and he hit the floor, which gave me a chance to get on my feet. I got him just as he was halfway up with a right that knocked him through the door and out onto the porch. I hit the porch in a jump, and he tackled me around the knees. We both were down then, and I slapped him with a cupped hand over his ear and knew from the way he let go that I’d busted an eardrum for him. I dropped him again with a solid right to the chin, and stood back, gasping and pain-wracked, fighting for breath. He got up more slowly, and I nailed him left and right in the mouth and he went down heavily.

S
PRAWLED OUT, HE lay there on the edge of the walk, one hand trailing in the dust, and I stared down at him. He was finished, through! Turning on my heels I walked back inside, and brushing off those who crowded around me I headed for the bar. I took the glass of whiskey that was shoved at me and poured it in my hands and mopped the cuts on the lower part of my face with it. Then I took a quick gulp from another glass they put before me and turned.

Morgan Park was standing three feet away from me, a bloody, battered giant with cold, ugly fury blazing from his eyes. “Give me a drink!” he bellowed.

He picked up the glass and tossed it off. “Another!” he yelled, while I stared at him. He picked that up, lifted it to his lips, and then threw it in my eyes!

I must have blinked, for instead of getting the shot-glass full, I got only part of it, but enough to blind me. And then he stepped close. As I fought for sight I caught a glimpse of his boot toes, wide spread, and I was amazed that such a big man had such small feet. Then he hit me. It felt like a blow from an ax, and it knocked me into the bar. He faced around, taking his time, and smashed one into my body, and I went down, gasping for breath. He kicked at me with the toe of one of those deadly boots that could have put an eye out, but the kick glanced off the side of my head and I went down.

It was my turn to be down and out. Then somebody drenched me with a bucket of water and I looked up. Key Chapin was standing over me, but it was not Key Chapin who had thrown the water. It was Olga.

Right then I was only amazed that she was there at all, and then I got up shakily and somebody said, “There he is!” and I saw Park standing there with his hands on his hips, leering at me, and with the same mutual hatred we went for each other again.

How we did it I don’t know. Both of us had taken beatings that would have killed a horse. All I knew was that time for me had stopped. Only one thing remained. I had to whip that man, whip him or kill him with my bare hands, and I was not stopping until I was sure I had done it.

“Stop it, you crazy fools! Stop it or I’ll throw you both in jail!” Sheriff Will Tharp was standing in the door with a gun on me. His cold blue eyes were blazing.

Behind him were maybe maybe twenty men staring at us. One of them was Key Chapin. Another was Bodie Miller.

“Take him out of here, then,” I said. “If he wants more of this he can have it in the morning.”

Park backed toward the door and then turned away. He looked punch-drunk.

After that I sat up for an hour putting hot water on my face.

Then I went to the livery stable and crawled into the loft, taking a blanket with me. I had worn my guns and had my rifle along.

How long I slept I have no idea, except that when I awakened bright sunlight was streaming through the cracks in the walls of the old stable. The loft was like an oven with the heat. Sitting up, I touched my face. It was sore, all right, but felt better. I worked my fingers to loosen them up and then heard a movement and looked around. Morgan Park was on the ladder staring at me. And I knew then that I was not looking at a sane man.

X

He stood there on the ladder in that hot old barn, staring at me with hatred, with a fury that seemed no whit abated from the previous night.

“You back again?” I spoke quietly, yet lay poised for instant movement. I knew now the tremendous vitality that huge body held. “After the way I licked you last night?”

The veins distended in his brow and throat. “Whipped
me
?” His voice was hoarse with anger. “Why, you—” He started over the end of the ladder, and I let him come. Right then I could have cooled him, knocked him off that ladder, but something within me wouldn’t allow it. With a lesser man, one I could have whipped easily, I might have done it just to end the fighting, but not with Morgan Park. Right then I knew I had to whip him fairly, or I could never be quite comfortable again.

He straightened from the ladder, and I could see that he was a little stiff. Well, so was I. But my boxing with Mulvaney and the riding I had done had been keeping me in trim. My condition was better than his, almost enough to neutralize his greater size and strength. He straightened and turned toward me. He did not rush, just stood there studying me with cool calculation, and I knew that he, too, had come here to make an end to this fight and to me.

Right then he was studying how best to whip me, and suddenly I perceived his advantage. In the loft—one side open to the barn, the rest of it stacked with hay—I was distinctly at a disadvantage. Here his weight and strength could be decisive. He moved toward me, backing me toward the hay. I feinted, but he did not strike. He merely moved on in, his head hunched behind a big shoulder, his fists before him, moving slightly. Then he lunged. My back came up against the slanting wall of hay and my feet slipped. Off balance, lying against the hay, I had no power in my blows. With cold brutality he began to swing. His eyes were exultant and wicked with sadistic delight. Lights exploded in my brain, and then another punch hit me, and another.

My head spinning, my mouth tasting of smoke, I let myself slide to a sitting position and then threw my weight sidewise against his knees. He staggered, and fearing the fall off the edge of the loft, fought for balance. Instantly, I smashed him in the mouth. He went to his haunches, and I sprang past him, grabbed a rope that hung from the rafters, and dropped to the hard-packed earth of the barn’s floor.

He turned and glared at me, and I waited. A man appeared in the door, and I heard him yell, “They’re at it again!” And then Morgan Park clambered down the ladder and turned to me.

N
OW IT HAD to be ended. Moving in quickly, I jabbed a stiff left to his face. The punch landed on his lacerated mouth and started the blood. Circling carefully, I slipped a right and countered with a right to the ribs. Then I hit him, fast and rolling my shoulders, with a left and right to the face. He came in, but I slipped another punch and uppercut hard to the wind. That slowed him down. He hit me with a glancing left and took two punches in return.

He looked sick now, and I moved in, smashing him on the chin with both hands. He backed up, bewildered, and I knocked his left aside and hit him on the chin. He went to his knees and I stepped back and let him get up.

Behind me, there was a crowd and I knew it. Waiting, I let him get up. He wiped off his hands and then lunged at me, head down and swinging! Sidestepping swiftly, I evaded the rush, and when he tried it again I dropped my palm to the top of his head and spun him. At the same instant I uppercut with a wicked right that straightened him up. He turned toward me, and then I pulled the trigger on a high hard one. It struck his chin with the solid thud of the butt end of an ax striking a log.

He fell—not over backwards, but face down. He lay there still and quiet, unmoving. Out cold.

Sodden with weariness and fed up with fighting for once, I turned away from him and picked up my hat and rifle. Nobody said anything, staring at my battered face and torn clothing. Then they walked to him.

At the door I met Sheriff Tharp. He glared at me. “Didn’t I tell you to stop fighting in this town, Sabre?”

“What am I going to do? Let him beat my head off? I came here to sleep without interruption, and he followed me, found me this morning.” Jerking my head toward the barn’s interior, I told him, “You’ll find him in there, Tharp.”

He hesitated. “Better have some rest, Sabre. Then ride out of town for a few days. After all, I have to have peace. I’m arresting Park.”

“Not for fighting?”

“For murder. This morning I received an official communication confirming your message.”

A
CTUALLY, I WAS sorry for Park. No man ever hates a man he has whipped in a hand-to-hand fight. All I wanted now was sleep, food, and gallons of cold spring water. Right then I felt as if it had been weeks since I’d had a decent drink.

Yet all the way to O’Hara’s I kept remembering that bucket of water doused over me the night before. Had it really been Olga Maclaren there? Or had I been out of my head from the punches I’d taken?

When my face was washed off I came into the restaurant, and the first person I saw was Key Chapin. He looked at my face and shook his head. “I’d never believe anything human could fight the way you two did!” he exclaimed. “And again this morning! I hear you whipped him good this time.”

“Yeah.” I was tired of it all. Somberly, I ate breakfast, listening to the drone of voices in my ears.

“Booker’s still in town.” Chapin was speaking. “What’s he after, I wonder?”

Right then I did not care, but as I ate and drank coffee, my mind began to function once more. After all, this was my country. I belonged here. For the first time I really felt that I belonged someplace.

“Am I crazy, or was Olga here last night?”

“She was here, all right. She saw part of your fight.”

“Did she leave?”

“I think not. I believe she’s staying over at Doc and Mrs. West’s place. They’re old friends of hers.” Chapin knocked out his pipe. “As a matter of fact, you’d better go over there and have him look at those cuts. One of them at least needs some stitches.”

“Tharp arrested Park.”

“Yes, I know. Park is Cantwell, all right.”

Out in the air I felt better. With food and some strong black coffee inside of me I felt like a new man, and the mountain air was fresh and good to the taste. Turning, I started up the street, walking slowly. This was Hattan’s. This was my town. Here, in this place, I would remain. I would ranch here, graze my cattle, rear my sons to manhood. Here I would take my place in the world and be something more than the careless, cheerful, trouble-hunting rider. Here, in this place, I belonged.