The Montanans (v1.0), page 23
Hollister saw one rider dive off his animal into the brush at the side. A second slid off his horse’s rump into the shale. The third went with the horses. Slipping, sliding, flopping over and over, they went on down. They hit the bottom in a screaming tangle. Two of the horses scrambled up, whinneying wildly, but the third lay motionless, pinning the man. For a moment, with the dust settling, there was no sound. Then the man began to stir under the horse.
“Virgil,” he moaned feebly. “I can’t get out. Come and help me, son…”
Without thought Hollister broke from the brush toward him. There was the crash of a shot. He dived back into cover with the bullet kicking up dirt a foot from him.
“Stay away from him, Hollister!” It was Virgil’s screaming voice, from the slope above. “You ain’t killing dad while he’s helpless.”
“Virgil!” Hollister shouted hoarsely. “Don’t be a fool—”
A second shot cut him off, searching him out in the thimbleberry. Through the foliage he could see the rider who had slid off the rump of his horse. He was lying in the shale of the gully, hallway up the slope, and he rolled up to an elbow, shaking his head.
“Leo!” Virgil shouted at him. “Get into them bushes! Hollister’s down there! He’ll kill you sure as hell!”
Leo raised his head, casting a dazed look toward the bottom of the cliff. Then he began scrambling for the brush. Alec began moaning again, where he lay beneath the horse.
Then Raven’s voice came from the cover of brush and darkness beyond the fire. “Virgil, you can’t leave your father out there. He’s in pain.”
“Dad,” shouted Virgil, “can’t you get out? They’ll kill us if we show ourselves.”
Alec made a feeble effort to pull himself from beneath the dead horse, then sagged back to the ground.
Raven called again: “Virgil, we won’t kill you, it’s all over. I was wrong. I see that now. It was Nash running off our stuff all the time. When I first saw that, and knew I’d almost killed Alec for what Nash did, I realized how wrong
I’d been about everything. I realized how twisted my values had become. I admit I planned the Horsetail deal from the first, Virgil. I knew South Fork was drying up. I knew there was a chance Nash couldn’t meet his note. I knew I could keep you from water if I got hold of the Seventy-Seven, and you’d be forced out. But it’s over now. You can use Horsetail Creek whenever you want. We’ll sign Nash’s Seventy-Seven stuff over to you for the cattle you’ve lost—”
“You’re wasting your breath, Raven!” Virgil’s voice sounded wild. “We’ve fallen for too many of your tricks before!”
“Virgil, you can’t leave your dad out there in pain—” Raven’s voice broke. “Oh, how can I show you—”
She stopped suddenly. There was a pause, then a rustle of brush from over there. Hollister’s breath clogged up in him as he realized what it meant.
“Raven!” he shouted. “Don’t!”
She appeared as a shadowy figure at first, beyond the firelight. She passed Nash, not looking down at him, a great strain graven into her face.
“Get back, Raven!” screamed Virgil. “I’ll kill you!”
“It’s over,” she answered. “I’ve got to prove that to you. We can’t leave Alec lying there—”
The shot smashed into her voice.
Dirt spewed up in front of Raven, splattering her jeans. She halted sharply, hung there a moment, white-freed. Then she moved on.
“I’ll kill you!” Virgil shouted. His voice was high-pitched and frenzied. “Stop, Raven! The next one will be through you!”
She kept on walking. Hollister had stopped breathing. Soundless tears ran down his cheeks as he realized he was helpless to stop her or aid her in any way. He had pulled his six-gun, but he knew a single shot from him would set Virgil off again for good. A strange, poignant pain filled him. Raven kept on walking. That was the only sound. Her boots crunching into the rocky soil. One after the other. A shudder ran through Hollister’s body.
Then she reached Alec Fox.
She bent down and put her shoulder against the horse, tugging, pulling, shoving it off the man. Finally, he was free. She sat down beside him and took Alec’s head in her lap.
A moment after that Hollister saw Virgil come to his feet in the brush on the slope. Leo appeared, farther down. Neither of them spoke. Slowly, both of them started down through the bushes toward the bottom. In Raven’s tear-stained face Hollister could see the same compassion he had seen for a moment when he had first told her Alec was shot It was like a revelation to him. The three men silently converged on those two figures on the ground and stopped, then stood looking down at them.
“It looks like his legs were out flat when the horse fell on them,” Raven said softly. “I don’t think they’re broken. You ride for the doctor, Leo. It’ll be on my bill.”
Leo looked at Virgil and Virgil nodded, still staring at Raven. “Go ahead. I think it’s all right now.”
Raven was still looking up at them, a plea in her face. “Can you ever forgive me? Any of you? I thought I was doing right. I thought I was fighting for what was mine. It had been so hard. Ever since I was a little kid, it’s been so hard.” She looked at Hollister. “You were right, Paul. Power had gone to my head. It took this to make me see it.”
“All that matters is you do see it,” he said.
“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to come back,
Paul.”
“I’m already back, if you want me.”
“I want you, Paul.” Her voice was husky. “More than anything else. And this time, I do mean it.”
“This time,” he smiled, “I believe you.”
About the Editors
Bill Pronzini has written numerous Western short stories and such novels of the Old West as Starvation Camp and The Gallows Land. He lives in Sonoma, California.
Martin H. Greenberg has compiled over 200 anthologies, including Westerns, science fiction, and mysteries. He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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Unknown Author, The Montanans (v1.0)
