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Then we up and rushed what was left of 'em Piotto and his daughter. Bard makes a pass to knock the gun out of the hand of Joan and wallops her on the head instead. Down she goes. I finished Piotto with my bare hands." "Broke his back, eh?" "Me? Whoever heard of breakin' a man's back? Ha, ha, ha! You been hearin' fairy tales, son. Nope, I choked the old rat." "Were you badly hurt?"
They was all hell-benders who had ridden the range alone and had their share of fights and killings, which there wasn't one of 'em that wouldn't have been good enough to go leader in any other crew, but they had to knuckle under to old Piotto. He was a great gunman and he was pretty good in scheming up ways of dodging the law and picking the best booty.
Don't you see I'm givin' up everythin' that amounts to a damn with me? Tenderfoot? He may act Eastern and he may talk Eastern, but he's got Western blood. There ain't no other way of explainin' it. And Drew? He didn't have no gun when he busted the back of old Piotto. I say, there's two men, armed or not, and between 'em they can do more'n all of us could dream of. Boys, are you comin'?"
And as he smiled genially upon the cowpuncher, Bard felt a great relief sweep over him, a mighty gladness that this was not Drew that this looselipped gabbler was not the man who had written the epitaph over the tomb of Joan Piotto. He lied about the book; he had lied about it all.
Finally Piotto got so confident that he started raidin' ranches and carryin' off members of well-off ranchers to hold for ransom. That was the easiest way of makin' money; it was also pretty damned dangerous. "One time they held up a stage and picked off of it two kids who was comin' out from the East to try their hands in the cattle business.
Then they'd give her a choice between the two of 'em and the one that lost would simply back off the boards. "They done what they agreed. For six months they stuck on the trail of old Piotto and never got in hailin' distance of him. Then they come on the gang while they were restin' up in the house of a squatter. "That was a pretty night. Drew and Bard went through that gang.
And in the Eastern states he had met that black-eyed girl, his mother, and loved her because she was so much like the wild daughter of Piotto. The girl Joan in dying had probably extracted from Drew a promise that he would kill Bard, and that promise he had lived to fulfil. "So Joan died?" he queried. "Yep, and was buried under them two trees in front of the house.
Pretty soon we found a tear in one of the cloths, and lookin' through that we seen old Piotto sittin' beside Tom Shaw with his daughter on the other side. "We went back to the north side of the house and figured out different ways of tacklin' the job. There was only the two of us, see, and the fellers inside that house was all cut out for man-killers. How would you have gone after 'em, son?"
And last of all they got Piotto, fightin' like an old wildcat, into a corner with his daughter; and William Drew, he took Piotto into his arms and busted his back. That don't sound possible, but when you see Drew you'll know how it was done. "The girl, she'd been knocked cold before this happened.
Drew slumped into a chair and ground the knuckles of his right hand across his forehead. The white marks remained as he looked up again. "What was that?" "Why, how you happened to marry Joan Piotto and how Bard left the country." "That was all?" "Is there any more, sir?" The other stared into the distance, overlooking the question. "Tell me what you've found out about him."
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