Rafe

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Rafe jerked his pistol, firing as soon as it cleared the holster. The middle horse reared and, toppling sideways, crashed into the one on its left, kicking frantically. Something jerked at Rafe's vest. The pfutt pfutt of slugs was around him like hornets. He shot the third horsebacker out of his saddle and ran on, trying in the confusion of kaleidoscoping shapes to sight Spangler. The shots and gunblasts beat at him like hammers. A whickering riderless horse slamming past nearly bowled him over and then, unbelievably, the street was empty, the drumming of hoofbeats rapidly fading in the south.

*****

I

It was hotter than the bottom of Lucifer's skillet. Heat hung like smoke above the Sulfur Springs Valley, turning the Cherrycows gray as slate; and the lesser mountains north and south were almost lost in the shimmering haze that draped them like a tangle of cobwebs.

The hands stood straight up on Rafe's tarnished watch and, squinting into the glare, he cursed. He had run out of grub the other side of the pass and two mornings ago had chewed the last of his jerky; his canvas watersack, snagged by thorns, refused to yield even so much as a gurgle. Pitching it away in disgust he stepped down, for his skewbald mare was about at the end of her rope by the look. Peering into the sky he shook a fist at the buzzards. "Bastards!" he croaked in a cracked off-key whisper.

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