Trail's End

  CHAPTER XXVI

  IN THE SQUARE AT ASCALON

  Morgan had time for a bitter train of reflection as he rode, neverlooking behind him to see who came after. Whether Stilwell would yieldto his wife's appeal and remain at home, whether Fred could be bent fromhis fiery desire to be avenged on the author of their calamity, he tookno trouble to surmise. He only knew that he, Calvin Morgan, was rushingagain to combat at the call of this girl whose only appeal was in theface of dreadful peril, whose only service was that of blood.

  She had come again, this time like a messenger bearing a command, tocall him back to a duty which he believed he had relinquished and putdown forever. And solely because it would be treasonable to that dutywhich still clung to him like a tenacious cobweb, he was riding into thesmoke of the burning town.

  So he told himself as he galloped on, but never believing for a momentin the core of his heart that it was true. Deep within him there was aresponse to a more tender call than the stern trumpeting of duty--theanswer to an appeal of remorseful eyes, of a pleading heart that couldnot bear the shame of the charge that he was hiding and afraid. For her,and his place of honor in her eyes, he was riding to Ascalon that hour.Not for Ascalon, and those in it who had snarled at his heels. For her,not the larger duty of a sworn officer of the law riding to defend andprotect the lives and property under his jurisdiction.

  Morgan pulled up his horse at the edge of town, to consider hissituation. He had left Stilwell's in such haste, and in the midst ofsuch domestic anguish, that he had neglected to bring one of therancher's rifles with him. His only weapon was his revolver, and theammunition at his belt was scant, due to the foolish security of thedays when he believed Seth Craddock never would return. He must pick upa gun somewhere, and ammunition.

  There was some scattered shooting going on in the direction of thesquare, but whether the citizens were gathering to the defense of thetown, or the raiders were firing admonitory shots to keep them indoors,Morgan could not at that distance tell. He rode on, considering his mosturgent necessity of more arms, concluding to ride straight for JudgeThayer's house and borrow his buffalo rifle.

  He swung into the road that led past Judge Thayer's house, whichthoroughfare entered the square at the bank corner, still about aquarter of a mile away. As he came round the turn of the road he saw, afew hundred yards ahead of him, a man hurrying toward the square with agun in his hand. A spurt of speed and Morgan was beside him, leaningover, demanding the gun.

  It was the old man who had jumped out of his reverie on the morning ofMorgan's first return to Ascalon, and menaced him with the crook of hishickory stick. The veteran was going now without the comfort of hisstick, making pretty good time, eager in the rousing of fires longstilled in his cooling heart. He began trotting on when he recognizedMorgan, shouting for him to hurry.

  "Lend me your gun, Uncle John--I left mine in the hotel," Morgan said.

  "Hell, what'll I do then?" said Uncle John, unwilling to give it up.

  Morgan was insistent. He commandeered the weapon in the name of the law.That being the case, Uncle John handed it up to him, with a word ofaffection for it, and a little swearing over his bad luck.

  It was a double-barreled buffalo rifle, a cap-and-ball gun of very oldpattern, belonging back in the days of Parkman and the California Trail,and the two charges which it bore were all that Morgan could hope toexpend, for Uncle John carried neither pouch nor horn. But Morgan wasthankful for even that much, and rode on.

  A little way ahead a man, hatless, wild-haired, came running out fromhis dooryard, having witnessed Morgan's levying on Uncle John's gun andread his reason for it. This citizen rushed into the road and offered alarge revolver, which Morgan leaned and snatched from his hand as hegalloped by. But it hadn't a cartridge in its chambers, and its caliberwas not of Morgan's ammunition. Still, he rode on with it in his hand,hoping that it might serve its turn.

  Morgan galloped on toward the square, where a great volume of smoke hidthe courthouse and all of the town that lay before the wind. He hoped tomeet somebody there with a gun worth while, although he had noimmediate plan for pitching into the fight and using it. That must befixed for him by circumstances when he confronted them.

  Women and children stood in the dooryards watching the fire that wascutting through the thin-walled buildings on that side of thesquare--the hotel side--as if they were strawboard boxes. They weresilent in the great climax of fear; they stood as people stand,straining and waiting, watching the approach of a tornado, no safety inflight, no refuge at hand. There was but one man in sight, and he wasrunning like a jack rabbit across the staked ground behind JudgeThayer's office, heading for the prairie. It was Earl Gray, thedruggist. He was covering sixteen feet at a jump. When he saw Morgangalloping into the town, Gray stopped, darted off at an angle as if hewere going on some brave and legitimate excursion, and disappeared.

  The Elkhorn hotel was well under way of destruction, its roof alreadyfallen, its thin walls bending inward, perforated in a score of placesby flames. The head of the street was unguarded; Morgan rode on andhalted at the edge of the square.

  Smoke blotted out everything in the square, except for a little shiftingby the rising wind which revealed the courthouse, the pigeons in wildflight around the tower. There was not a man in sight, neither raidernor defender. Across on the other side of the square, as if theydefended that part from being set on fire, the citizens were doing someshooting with rifles, even shotguns, as Morgan could define by thesound. The raiders were there, for they were answering with shot andyell.

  Morgan caught the flutter of a dress at the farther corner of thebank--a little squat brick building this was--where some woman stood andwatched. He rode around, and at the sound of his approach a gun-barrelwas trained on him, and a familiar fair head appeared, cheek laidagainst the rifle stock in a most determined and competent way.

  "Dora! don't shoot!" Morgan shouted. In a moment he was on the groundbeside her, and Dora Conboy was handing him his own rifle, pride andrelief in her blue eyes.

  "I knew you'd come, I told them you'd come!" she said.

  "How did you save it--what are you doing here, Dora?" he asked inamazement.

  "I was layin' for Craddock! If he'd 'a' come around that corner--but itwas you!"--with a sigh of relief.

  "Have you got any shells, Dora?"

  "No, I didn't have time to grab anything but your gun--I run to yourroom when they set the hotel afire and drove us out."

  "You're the bravest man in town!" he praised her, patting her shoulderas if she were a very little girl, indeed. "Where are they all?"

  "They've locked Riley, and Judge Thayer, and all the men that's got afight in 'em up in jail with the sheriff. Pa got away--he's over therewhere you hear that shootin'--but he can't hit nothin'!" Dora said, inhopeless disgust.

  Morgan saw with relief that the magazine of his rifle was full, and ashot in the barrel. He took Dora by the hand, turning away from hishaste to mount as if it came to him as an after-thought to thank her forthis great help.

  "There's going to be a fight, Dora," he said. "You'd better get behindthe bank, and keep any of the women and children there that happenalong. You're a brave, good little soul, I'll never forget you for whatyou've done for me today. Please take care of this gun--it belongs toUncle John."

  He was up in the saddle with the last word, and gone, galloping into thepitchy black smoke that swirled like a turgid flood from burning Ascalonacross the square.

  Morgan's thought was to locate the raiders' horses and cut them off, ifit should be that some of the rascals were still on foot setting fires,as it seemed likely from the smell of kerosene, that they were. It wouldincrease his doubtful chances to meet as many of them on foot aspossible. This was his thought.

  He made out one mounted man dimly through the blowing smoke, watching infront of the Santa Fe cafe, but recently set on fire. This fellowdoubtless was stationed there on the watch for him, Morgan believed,from the close attention he was giv
ing the front door of the place, outof which a volume of grease-tainted smoke rolled. He wondered, with alittle gleam of his saving humor, what there was in his record sincecoming to Ascalon that gave them ground for the belief that it wasnecessary to burn a house to bring him out of it to face a fight.

  Morgan rode on a little way across the square, not twenty yards behindthis raider, the sound of his horse silenced in the roar of fire andgrowing wind. The heat of the place was terrific; burning shinglesswirled on the wind, coals and burning brands fell in a rain all overthe square. At the corner of the broad street that came into the squareat Peden's hall, another raider was stationed.

  The citizens who were making a weak defense were being driven back, thesound of firing was behind the stores, and falling off as if the raiderspressed them hard. Morgan quickly concluded that Craddock and the restof the outfit were over there silencing this resistance, probably in thebelief that he was concerned in it.

  This seemed to be his moment for action, yet arresting any of them wasout of the question, and he did not want to be the aggressor in thebloodshed that must finish this fiendish morning's work. Hopeless as hissituation appeared, justified as he would have been in law and reasonfor opening fire without challenge, he waited the further justificationof his own conscience. They had come looking for him; let them find himhere in their midst.

  Fire was rising high among the stripped timbers of Peden's hall, purgingit of its debauchery and blood. On the rising wind the flames werelicking up Gray's drug-store, the barber shop beside it, the newspaperoffice, the Santa Fe cafe and the incidental small shops between themand Peden's like a windrow of burning straw. A little while wouldsuffice to see their obliteration, a little longer to witness thedestruction of the town if the wind should carry the coals and blazingshingles to other roofs, dry as the sered grasses of the plain.

  The sound of this fire set by Seth Craddock in celebration of his returnto Ascalon was in Morgan's ears like the roar of the sea; the heat of itdrew the tough skin of his face as he rode fifty yards from it into thecenter of the square. There he stopped, his rifle across his breast,waiting for the discovery.

  The man in the street near Peden's was the first to see and recognizehim as he waited there on his horse in the pose of challenge, in theexpectant, determined attitude of defense. This fellow yelled the alarmand charged, breakneck through the smoke, shooting as he came.

  Morgan fired one shot, offhand. The charging horse reared, stood so amoment as rigidly as if fixed by bronze in that pose, its rider leaningforward over its neck. Then, in whatever terrible pang that such suddenstroke of death visits, it flung itself backward, the girths snappingfrom its distended belly. The rider was flung aside, where Morgan sawhim lying, head on one extended arm, like a dog asleep in the sun.

  The others came whooping their triumphant challenge and closed in onMorgan then, and the battle of his life began.

  How many were circling him as he stood in the center of the square, oras close to the center as he could draw, near the courthouse steps,Morgan did not know. Some had come from behind the courthouse, othersfrom the tame fight with the citizens back of the stores not yet onfire.

  The dust that rose from their great tumult of charge and gallopingattack, mingling with the smoke that trailed the ground, was Morgan'sprotection and salvation. Nothing else saved him from almost immediatedeath in the fury of their assault.

  Morgan fired at the fleeting figures as they moved in obscurity throughthis stifling cloud, circling him like Indians of the plains, shoutingto each other his location, drawing in upon him a little nearer as theyrode. He turned and shifted, yet he was a target all too plain foranything he could do to lessen his peril.

  A horse came plunging toward him through the blinding swirl, plain for aflash of wild-flying mane and tossing rein, its saddle empty, fleeingfrom the scene of fire-swept conflict as if urged on by the ghost of therider it had lost.

  Bullets clipped Morgan's saddle as the raiders circled him in a wildfete of shots and yells. One struck his rifle, running down the barrelto the grip like a lightning bolt, spattering hot lead on his hand;another clicked on the ornament of the Spanish bit, frightening hishorse, before that moment as steady as if at work on the range. Theshaken creature leaped, bunching its body in a shuddering knot. Bloodran from its mouth in a stream.

  A shot ripped through the high cantle of the saddle; one seared Morgan'sback as it rent his shirt. The horse leaped, to come down stiff-leggedlike an outlaw, bleeding head thrust forward, nose close to the ground.Then it reared and plunged, striking wildly with fore feet upon thedeath-laden air.

  In leaping to save himself from entanglement as the creature fell,Morgan dropped his rifle. Before he could recover himself from thespring out of the saddle, the horse, thrashing in the paroxysm of death,struck the gun with its shod fore foot, snapping the stock from thebarrel.

  Dust was in Morgan's eyes and throat, smoke burned in his scorchedlungs. The smell of blood mingling with dust was in his nostrils. Theheat of the increasing fire was so great that Morgan flung himself tothe ground beside his horse, with more thought of shielding himself fromthat torture than from the inpouring rain of lead.

  How many were down among the raiders he did not know; whether the peoplehad heard the noise of this fight and were coming to his assistance, hecould not tell. Dust and smoke flew so thick around him that thecourthouse not three rods away, was visible only by dim glimpses; thehouses around the square he could not see at all.

  The raiders flashed through the smoke and dust, here seen in a rift forone brief glance, there lost in the swathing pall that swallowed all buttheir high-pitched yells and shots. Morgan was certain of only one thingin that hot, panting, brain-cracking moment--that he was still alive.

  Whether whole or hurt, he did not know, scarcely considered. The marvelof it was that he still lived, like a wolf at the end of the chaseringed round by hounds. Lived, lead hissing by his face, lead liftinghis hair, lead knocking dirt into his eyes as he lay along the carcassof his horse, his body to the ground like a snake.

  Morgan felt that it would be his last fight. In the turmoil of smoke anddust, his poor strivings, his upward gropings out of the dark; his gladinspirations, his thrilling hopes, must come to an obscure end. It was amiserable way to die, nothing to come out of it, no ennobling sacrificedemanding it to lift a man's name beyond his day. In the history of thisviolent place, this death-struggle against overwhelming numbers would beonly an incident. Men would say, in speaking of it, that his luck failedhim at last.

  Morgan discovered with great concern that he had no cartridges left butthose in the chambers of his revolver. He considered making a dash forthe side of the square not yet on fire, where he might find support, atleast make a further stand with the arms and ammunition everystorekeeper had at hand.

  As these thoughts swept him in the few seconds of their passing, Morganlay reserving his precious cartridges. The momentary suspension of hisdefense, the silence of his rifle's defiant roar, which had held themfrom closing in, perhaps led his assailants to believe him either deador disabled. They also stopped shooting, and the capricious wind, nowrising to a gale as it rushed into the fiery vacuum, bent down andwheeled away the dust and smoke like a curtain suddenly drawn aside.

  Craddock and such of his men as were left out of that half-minutebattle were scattered about the square in a more or less definite circlearound the spot where Morgan lay behind his horse, the nearest to himbeing perhaps thirty yards away. The citizens of the town who had beenresisting the raiders, had come rushing to the square at the diversionof the fight to that center. These began firing now on the raiders fromwindows and doors and the corners of buildings. Craddock sent three ofhis men charging against this force, now become more courageous anddangerous, and with two at his side, one of whom was the Dutchman, hecame riding over to investigate Morgan's situation.

  Morgan could see the Dutchman's face as he spurred on ahead of theothers. Pale, with a pallor inborn that su
n and wind could not shade, awide grin splitting his face, the Dutchman came on eagerly, no doubt inthe hope that he would find a spark of conscious life in Morgan that hecould stamp out in some predesigned cruelty.

  The Dutchman was leaning forward as he rode, revolver lifted to throwdown for a quick shot. When he had approached within two lengths of hishorse, Morgan lifted himself from the ground and fired. The Dutchmansagged over the horn of his saddle like a man asleep, his horsegalloping on in panic. As it passed Morgan the Dutchman pitched from thesaddle, drug a little way by one encumbered foot, the frantic horseplunging on. Fred Stilwell, closely followed by his father, came ridinginto the square.

  Morgan leaped to his feet, new hope in him at sight of this friendlyforce. Craddock's companion turned to meet Fred with the fire of tworevolvers. One of the three sent a moment before to dislodge thecitizens, turned back to join this new battle.

  Morgan had marked this man as Drumm from the beginning. He was a florid,heavy man, his long mustache strangely white against the inflamedredness of his face. He carried a large roll covered with black oilclothbehind his saddle.

  Morgan wasted one precious cartridge in a shot at this man as he passed.The raider did not reply. He was riding straight to meet Stilwell andFred, to whom Craddock also turned his attention when he saw Morgan'srifle broken on the ground. It was as if Craddock felt him out of thefight, to be finished at leisure.

  Morgan left his dubious shelter of the fallen horse and ran to meet hisfriends, hoping to reach one of them and replenish his ammunition. FredStilwell was coming up with the wind, his dust blowing ahead of him onthe sweeping gale. At his first shot the man who had left Craddock'sside to attack him pitched from his saddle, hands thrown out before himas if he dived into eternity. The next breath Fred reeled in his saddleand fell.

  The man with the oilcloth roll at his saddle yelled in exultation,lifting his gun high in challenge to Stilwell, who rode to meet him. Amoment Stilwell halted where Fred lay, as if to dismount, then gallopedfuriously forward to avenge his fall. The two raiders who had goneagainst the townsmen, evidently believing that the battle was goingagainst them, spurred for the open country.

  Craddock was bearing down on Morgan, the fight being apportioned nowman to man. Morgan heard Stilwell's big gun roaring when he turned toface Craddock, vindictive, grim, who came riding upon him with no wordof challenge, no shout of triumph in what seemed his moment of victory.

  Morgan was steady and unmoved. The ground was under his feet, his armwas not disturbed by the rock of a galloping horse. He lifted his weaponand fired. Craddock's horse went down to its knees as if it had struck agopher hole, and Craddock, horseman that he was, pitched out of thesaddle and fell not two yards from Morgan's feet.

  In falling, Craddock dropped his gun. He was scrambling for it whenMorgan, no thought in him of mercy, threw his weapon down for thefinishing shot. The hammer clicked on an empty shell. And Craddock, onhands and knees, agile as a bear, was reaching one long hairy arm toclutch his lost gun.

  Morgan threw himself headlong upon the desperado, crushing him flat tothe ground. With a sprawling kick he sent Craddock's gun far out ofreach, and they closed, with the weapons nature had given them, for thelast struggle in the drama of their lives.

  The stage was empty for them of anything that moved, save onlyCraddock's horse, which Morgan's last shot, confident as he was when heaimed it, had no more than maimed with a broken leg. To the right ofthem Fred Stilwell lay, his face in the dust, his arms outspread, hishat close by; on the other hand the Dutchman's body sprawled, his legs,flung out as if he had died running. And near this unsightly wreckage ofa worthless wretch Morgan's horse stretched, in the lazy posture of ananimal asleep in a sunny pasture.

  Behind them the fire that was eating one side of the square away roseand bent, roared and crackled, sighed and hissed, flinging up longflames which broke as they stabbed into the smoke. Morgan felt the firehot on his neck as he bent over Craddock, throwing the strain of everytendon to hold the old villain to the ground.

  Craddock writhed, jointless as a snake, it seemed, under the grip ofMorgan's hand at his spiney throat, squirmed and turned and fought tohis knees. They struggled and battled breast to breast, until they stoodon their feet, locked in a clinch out of which but one of them, Morganwas determined, should come a living man.

  Morgan had dropped his empty revolver when he flung himself on Craddock.There was no inequality between them except such as nature had given inthe strength of arm and back. They swayed in silent, terribledetermination each to have the other's life, and Morgan had a glimpse,as he turned, of women and children watching them from the corner nearthe bank, huddled groups out of which he knew many a hope went out forhis victorious issue.

  Craddock was a man of sinews as hard as bow strings; his muscles werelike dried beef. Strong as Morgan was, he felt that he was losingground. Then, by some trick learned perhaps in savage camps, Craddocklifted him, and flung him with stunning force against the hard ground.

  There they rolled, clawing, striking, grappling at each other'sthroats. As if surf made sport of them on the shelving sands theyrolled, one upper-most now, the other then. And they fought and rolleduntil Morgan felt something hard under his oppressed back, and gropedfor it in the star-shot agony of sinewy fingers choking out his life.His empty gun. It seemed that he grasped it in delirium, and struck withit in the blindness of hovering death.

  When Morgan staggered to his feet there was blood in his mouth; thesound of the fiery turmoil around him was hushed in the roar of blood inhis ears. He stood weakly a moment, looking at the pistol in his hand.The blow he had laid along Craddock's head had broken the cylinder pin.Meditatively Morgan looked at it again, then threw it down as anabandoned and useless thing. It fell close by where Craddock lay, bloodrunning from a wound on his temple.