His other hand went to his thigh.
My gun had been in my hand for an hour. I was close. I had leisure to pick my target. When his hand touched his gun butt, I put a bullet through hand and thigh.
As he fell, I saw Milk River knock the second man down with a clout of gun-barrel on back of his head.
“Seems like we team-up pretty good,” the sunburned boy said as he stooped to take the enemy’s weapons from them.
The bearded man’s bellowing oaths made conversation difficult.
“I’ll put this one you beaned in the cooler,” I said. “Watch ’Nacio, and we’ll patch him up when I come back.”
I dragged the unconscious man halfway to the cellar door before he came to. I goaded him the rest of the way with my gun, shooed him indoors, shooed the other prisoners away from the door, and closed and barred it again.
The bearded man had stopped howling when I returned.
“Anybody riding after you?” I asked, as I knelt beside him and began cutting his pants away with my pocket knife.
For answer to that I got a lot of information about myself, my habits, my ancestors. None of it happened to be the truth, but it was colorful.
“Maybe we’d better put a hobble on his tongue,” Milk River suggested.
“No. Let him cry!” I spoke to the bearded man again. “If I were you, I’d answer that question. If it happens that the Circle H.A.R. riders trail you here and take us unawares, it’s a gut that you’re in for a lynching. Ahorcar , understand?”