Bull Hunter - Max Brand
By the time the first man had rushed to the fallen figure, the gun was
back in Bull's holster.
The little man in the shadow heard him saying, "Pardners, he's not
dead. He's shot through the right shoulder, low, beneath the joint.
That bullet won't kill him, but get him bandaged quick!"
A calm, clear voice, it rang through the room. The little man slipped
back into his shadow, and straightened against the wall.
"He's right," said Hal Dunbar, stepping back from the cluster. "Riley
and Jerry, get him up to his room and bandage him, quick! The rest of
you stay here. We got a job. Hood's gun hung in the holster, and this
fellow shot him down. A murdering, cowardly thing to do. You hear? A
murdering, cowardly thing to do!"
Obviously he was wrong, and obviously not one of his henchmen would
tell him so. For some reason the boss intended to take up the lost
battle of Jack Hood. Why, was not theirs to reason, though plainly the
fight had been fair, and Hood had been in the wrong from the first.
They shifted swiftly, a man to each door, the others along the wall
with their hands on their weapons. There was a change in Bull Hunter.
One long leap backward carried him into a corner of the room. He stood
erect, and they could see his eyes gleaming in the shadow.
"I think you got me here to trap me, Dunbar," he called in such a
voice that the little man in the shadow thrilled at the sound of it,
"but you'll find that you're trapped first, my friend. Touch that gun
of yours, and you're a dead man, Dunbar. Curse you, I dare you to
go for it!"
Could this be Bull Hunter speaking? The little man in the shadow
thrilled with joyous amazement.
Hal Dunbar evidently was going to fight the thing through. He stood
swaying a little from side to side. "No guns out, boys, as yet. Wait
till I take my crack at him, and then--"
The little man in the shadow stepped out into the light and walked
calmly toward the center of the room.
"Just a little wee minute, Dunbar," he was saying. "Just a little wee
minute, Mr. Man-trapper Dunbar! I got a word to say."
"Who the devil are you?" cried Hal Dunbar, turning on this puny
stranger.
A joyous shout from Bull Hunter drowned the answer of the other.
"Pete! Pete Reeve!"
The little man waved his hand carelessly to the giant in the corner.
"You give me a hard trail, Bull, old boy. But you didn't think you
could slip me, did you? Not much. And here I am, pretty pronto on the
dot, I figure." He took in with a glance the men along the walls. "You
know me, boys, and I'm here to see fair play. They ain't going to be
fair play in this room with you boys lined up waiting to drop Bull in
case he plugs Dunbar. Dunbar, I know you. And between you and me, I
don't know no good of you. You're young, but you're going to show
later on. If you want to talk business to Bull Hunter some other time,
you're welcome to come finding him, and he won't be hard to find.
Bull, come along with me. Just back up, if you don't mind, Bull.
Because they's murder in our friend Dunbar's face. And here we are!"
Side by side they drew back to the outer door with big Hal Dunbar
watching them from under a scowl, with never a word, and so through
the door and into the night.
Two minutes later Diablo was rocking across the hills with his mighty
stride, and the cow pony of Pete Reeve was pattering beside him.
As they drove through the great spruces the moon rose. Bull Hunter
greeted it with a thundering song and threw up his hands to it.
Pete Reeve swore softly in amazement and drew his horse to a walk.
"By the Lord," cried Bull, "and I haven't thanked you yet for pulling
me out of that mess. I'd be crow's food by this time if it hadn't been
for you, Pete!"
"That only wipes out one score. Let's talk about you, Bull. Since I
last seen you, you've got to be a man. Was it dropping Hood that made
you buck up like this?"
"That old man?"
"That old man," snorted Pete, "is Jack Hood, one of the best of 'em
with a gun. But if it wasn't the fight that made you feel your oats,
was it breaking Diablo?"
"No breaking to it. We just got acquainted."
"But what's happened? What's wakened you, Bull?"
"I dunno," said Bull and became thoughtful.
"Pete," he said, after a long time, "have you ever noticed a sort of
chill that gets inside you when the right sort of a girl smiles and--"
"The devil," murmured Pete Reeve, "it's the girl that's happened to
you, eh? You forget her, Bull. I'm going to take you on the trail with
me and keep you from thinking. It's a new trail for me, Bull. It's a
trail where I'm going straight, I can't take you with me while I'm
playing against the law. So I'm going to stay inside the
law--with you."
"Maybe," and Bull Hunter sighed. "But no matter how far the trail
leads, I'm thinking that some day I'll ride in a circle and come back
to this place where we started out together."
He turned in the saddle.
The outline of the Dunbar house was fading into the night.