HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE
On the morning the raiders entered the Falling Wall, Laramie had
started with Henry Sawdy for the Reservation to appraise some allotted
Indian lands. Laramie rode home that night; Sawdy, promising to stop
at the ranch on his way down in the morning, stayed overnight at the
Fort with Colonel Pearson. Laramie got home late. He was asleep next
morning when a door was pushed open and a man walked unceremoniously in
on him. To what instinct some mountain men owe their composure when
disturbed in their sleep by a friend, as contrasted with the instant
defense they offer in like circumstances to an enemy, it would be
difficult to say--certainly there is a difference.
Laramie half opened his eyes to realize that Abe Hawk had come into his
room and seated himself on the one chair. The sleepy man was not
inclined to wake up. "You're early, Abe," was his only greeting. Hawk
made no answer.
After a further effort the drowsy man roused himself to the attention
that seemed demanded in the case: "Going somewhere?" he mumbled
perfunctorily.
"Yes." Hawk's hard tone might have surprised his host for a moment;
but if it did, drowsiness overpowered his senses once more and it was
some time before he realized that his visitor was sitting silent at his
side and that he himself ought to say something. In protest he shifted
his comfortable position in bed: "Get your breakfast ready, Abe," he
suggested, hospitably, but with his heavy eyes closed.
"I've had breakfast."
"Where you bound for today?"
"On a long trip."
"Which way?"
"Home."
"What do you mean, 'home'?"
"I mean hell, Larrie--the home long waiting for me."
Laramie's eyes batted slowly. Not a half a dozen times in all their
long acquaintance had Hawk shortened Laramie's name in speaking to him;
and then only when he spoke as he rarely did from a depth always hidden
from the men among whom his wasted life had been spent. Roused by
something in the utterance of his guest, Laramie looked up.
If the sight was a shock, the mountain man gave no outward sign of it.
The lower right side of Hawk's face had been torn away as if by some
explosion, and blood, darkened by clay and rude styptics, clotted the
long beard that naturally fell in a glossy black. His disordered
garments, blood-smeared and hanging loose--his coat sleeve and his
shirt torn from his forearm for bandages, his soft hat jammed low over
his eyes--for an instant, Laramie hardly recognized him. But the cold
black eyes that looked out of the wreck of a man before him pierced so
clearly the long shadows of the early light that Laramie had no choice
but to realize it was Hawk and even the shock only served to restrain
and steady him. He showed but little of his amazement when he sat up
and spoke quietly: "What's up, Abe?"
"Night before last I was playing cards with Gorman over at Henry's.
After daylight Gorman went out for a bucket of water. We heard a rifle
crack. I looked out the window. Stormy was tumbling.
"You know the draw that runs down past his corral? Barb Doubleday,
Pettigrew, Van Horn, Stone and a bunch of cowboys and Texas men lay in
that draw. It was hell to pay from daylight till dark. The Dutchman
got laid out cold right at the start. They tried to rush me. I
stopped three of 'em and dug myself in. We went at it hammer and
tongs. In the afternoon they put a hole through my whiskers. After
awhile they clipped my shoulder. Then I got a bullet through my arm."
He held up his left forearm swathed in a mass of soiled and
blood-soaked bandages. And he told of Van Horn's go-devil.
"The raid's on," muttered Laramie.
"Soon as it was dark, I began to dig under the sill," Hawk went on.
"They began lighting fires. I knew they couldn't keep those going a
great while. About ten o'clock I crawled out under the front sill and
got to the creek; I never was so gone for water in my life. I set a
candle so it would fire the shack when it burned down and sneaked a
horse from their bunch and got over to my place." He looked at his
arm. "I tried to keep things bound up. Maybe I left a little red
behind me. If I did, they'll be after me."
His story haltingly told; his utterance through his torn cheek thick
and painful but savagely uncompromising; carrying a physical burden of
wounds that would have overwhelmed a lesser man but with a deadly hate
showing in his manner, Hawk, from sheer weakness, paused: "I went to my
cabin to look for more cartridges," he added slowly, "and not a one was
there left on the place." He hesitated again. "I didn't want to come
here----"
Laramie sprang to his feet: "Where the hell else would you go?"
Hawk heard unmoved the rough assurance; perhaps his eyes flashed, for
Laramie's voice rang strong and true. He already had his hand on
Hawk's chair: "Come over here to the light," he said, "till we get some
of this dirt off you. You need a bath, Abe. For a clean man you look
like----"
Hawk put up his right hand: "I'll do for all the job that's left ahead
of me."
"What job's left ahead of you?"
"You've got a rifle like mine, Jim; the Marlin you don't use."
"Well?"
"I come to see if you'd lend it to me again."
"Why not?"
"Got any shells for it?" snapped Hawk.
"I guess so."
"I left the horse at the cabin to stand 'em off awhile. They'll lose a
little time there. They'll come down the creek--can't come any other
way. I'm going to wait for 'em in the timber."
"What for?"
"I'll finish with Doubleday and Van Horn, anyhow. Maybe I can with
Stone."
"And they'll finish with you."
"After I get them three the rest are welcome to what's left of me.
I've got to be moving."
"Hold on a minute, Abe." Laramie sat down on the side of his cot, his
knees spread apart, his elbows resting on them, and his hands clasped
as he leaned forward, head down, to think.
"Them fellows are riding every minute," Hawk reminded him grimly.
"Let's talk this thing over," persisted Laramie.
"I'll pay you for your rifle right now," mumbled Hawk, feeling with his
right hand in his trousers pocket for some gold pieces.
"Don't talk monkey stuff, Abe."
"Then don't make a monkey out of _me_," snapped Hawk. "Give me your
rifle and let me go!"
"After we've talked it over."
Hawk pulled himself up out of the chair. "You blamed fool," he said
brokenly. "Don't you know that bunch will track me to your door and
smash us with lead or burn us up in this shack if they get here first?
Give me the rifle," he thundered, "or I'll go into the timber with this
six-shooter. What do you mean? Are you going to turn yellow on me
because I'm a thief?"
Laramie moved neither hand nor foot: "You're an older man than I am,
Abe," he replied, without even looking up. "I can take words from you,
I'd hate to take from anybody else--you know that; and you know why.
You won't talk; all right. Now I'll tell you where you get off; you're
not going down to the timber--not a blamed step," he added
deliberately. "Finger your six-shooter as much as you like." Laramie
waved his hand with his words. "Use it on me if you like. But, by
----, Abe----" As his voice changed, he jumped to his feet, adding
like lightning, "you're not going to use it on yourself!"
He sprang for Hawk, reaching with his left hand for the gun. In
tigerish ferocity the two men came together. Sleepy Cat worthies had
sometimes speculated on what might happen if the two men most known and
most feared in the Falling Wall country, Hawk and Laramie, should ever
quarrel. They met now; but in a quarrel the wildest gossip had not
fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes
staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the
middle of the cooped-up room--Hawk striving to free and kill himself;
Laramie determined to wrest the gun from his grasp.
It was an unequal contest. Weakened by loss of blood, Hawk was not
long a match for the only man on the range who under other conditions
could have stood up before him. Gradually, with the gun in his right
hand, Hawk was bent backward, with Laramie's left hand slipping along
the barrel closer and closer to the grip. Prolonged by the fear of
further injuring the wounded man, the tempestuous effort for mastery
ended when Hawk was forced to the bed and Laramie's iron fingers,
closing on the gun, wrenched it from him.
Hawk was done out and Laramie without more resistance straightened him
out on the bed.
"You're worse hit than you think," panted the conqueror. "I've got a
scheme better than yours, if there's time to put it through. Wait till
I get a couple of horses."
The clatter of a horse outside cut into his last words. Laramie
instantly slipped Hawk's revolver back into his hand, picked up his own
gun and holster, strapping it to his waist as he ran, crossed the room,
tore up a board in the floor, snatched a pair of rifles from their
cache and hastening back to Hawk, his eyes glued all the while to the
door, pushed one rifle into Hawk's hand and swung the other to his hip.
Not a word had been spoken. But preparations for a reception had been
made complete and eventualities thoroughly considered. Heavy footfalls
outside announced the approach of a man. The next moment the door was
flung open and the intruder heard Laramie's voice in savage emphasis:
"Pitch up!"
The intruder did not, however, pitch up. It was John Lefever. He
stood amazed. "For the love of God," he exclaimed, "what's broke
loose?"
"Come in, John," cried Laramie, seizing his arm. "I want your horse a
minute. Stay here till I get back--come, Abe, lively!"
"Where you going?" demanded Lefever, staring as he tried to collect his
wits.
Laramie hurried Hawk past him: "That'll depend on the shooting, John,"
was all Laramie hastily said. "Doubleday and Van Horn have got a bunch
of Texas men raiding the Falling Wall."
Lefever, gazing stunned at Hawk, talked as if he saw nothing. "I know
all about that," he cried. "Man alive, that's what I'm here for. Hold
on, can't you?"
"Not now. Stick around till I get back."
Lefever caught his breath in time to fire one more question:
"What about Abe?"
"He's not coming back. Scout around down along the creek, John, so you
can see those fellows when they ride in. Hold 'em as long as you can
and for God's sake keep 'em out of this cabin--there's blood on
everything."