Part 2
The first surmise that jumped into his mind had been correct. Jeff and Lew Minster had broken from jail, been headed off in their flight, and had taken refuge in the post office. There they held the crowd at bay, Jeff taking the front of the building and Lew the rear. Vacant lots surrounded the old frame shack since the general merchandise store burned down three years before, and the rifles of two expert shots commanded this no-man’s-land. It would be night before they could close on the building, but when night came the Minster boys would have an excellent chance of breaking away with darkness to cover them.
“What’ll happen?” asked Tony Jeffreys of the blacksmith as they sat at the corner of the hotel where they could survey the whole scene.
“I dunno,” said Peter Zinn, as he puffed at his pipe. “I guess it’s up to the constable to show them that he’s a hero. There he is now!”
The constable had suddenly dashed out of the door of Sam Donoghue’s house, directly facing the post office, followed by four others, in the hope that he might take the defenders by surprise. But when men defend their lives they are more watchful thar wolves in the hungry winter of the mountains. A Winchester spoke from a window of the post office the moment the forlorn hope appeared. The first bullet knocked the hat from the head of Harry Daniels and stopped him in his tracks. The second shot went wide. The third knocked the feet from under the constable and flattened him in the road. This was more than enough The remnant of the party took to it heels and regained shelter safely before the dust raised by his fall had cease curling above the prostrate body of the constable.
Tony Jeffreys had risen to his feel repeating over and over an oath of his childhood: “Jimminy whiskers! Jimminy whiskers! Jimminy whiskers! They’ve killed poor Tom Frejus!” But Peter Zinn, holding the trembling! eager body of Blondy between his hands, jutted forth his head an grinned in a savage warmth of contentment.
“He’s overdue!” was all he said.
But Tom Frejus was not dead. His leg had been broken between the knee and hip, but he now reared himself upon both hands and looked about him. He had covered the greater part of the road in his charge. It would be easier to escape from fire by crawling close under the shelter of the wall of the post office than by trying to get back to Donoghue’s house. Accordingly, he began to drag himself forward. had not covered a yard when the Winchester cracked again and Tom crumpled on his face, with both arms flung around his head.
* * * * *
Peter Zinn stood up with a gasp. Here was something quite different. The constable was beaten, broken, and he reminded Zinn of one thing only--old Gripper cowering against the fence with Blondy towering above, ready to kill. Blondy had been merciful, but the marked man behind the window was still intent on murder. His next bullet raised a white furrow of dust near Frejus. Then a wild voice, made thin and high by the extremity of fear and pain, came through the air and smote the heart Peter Zinn: “Help! For God’s sake, mercy!”
Tom Frejus was crushed indeed, and begging as Gripper had begged. A hundred voices were shouting with horror but no man dared venture out in the face of that cool-witted marksman. Then Peter Zinn knew the thing which he had been born to do, for which he had been granted strength of hand and courage of heart. He threw his long arms out before him as though he were running to embrace a bodiless thing; great wordless voice swelled in his breast and tore his throat; and he ran out toward the fallen constable.
Some woman’s voice was screaming: “Back! Go back, Peter! Oh, God! Stop him! Stop him!”
Minster had already marked his coming. The rifle cracked, and a blow to the side of his head knocked Peter Zinn into utter blackness. A searing pain and the hot flow of blood down his face brought back his senses. He leaped to his feet again; he heard a yelp of joy as Blondy danced away before him; then he drove past the writhing body of Tom Frejus. The gun spoke again from the window; the red-hot torment stabbed him again, he knew not where. Then he reached the door of the building and gave his shoulder to it.
It was a thing of paper that ripped open before him. He plunged through into the room beyond, where he saw the long, snarling face of the young Minster in the shadow of a corner with the gleam of the leveled rifle barrel. He dodged as the gun spat fire, heard brief and wicked humming beside his ear, then scooped up in one hand heavy chair and flung it at the gunman.
Minster went down with his legs and arms sprawled in an odd position, and Peter Zinn gave him not so much as another glance, for he knew that this part of his work was done.
“Lew! Lew!” cried a voice from the back of the building. “What’s happened? What’s up? D’you want help?”
“Ay!” shouted Peter Zinn. “He wants help. You damn’ murderer, it’s me--Peter Zinn! Peter Zinn!”
He kicked open the door beyond and ran full into the face of a lightning flash. It withered the strength from his body. He slumped down on the floor with his loose shoulders resting against the wall. In a twilight dimness he saw big Jeff Minster standing in a thin swirl of smoke with the rifle muzzle twitching down and steadying for the finishing shot, but a white streak leaped through the doorway, over his shoulder, and flew at Minster.
Before the sick eyes of Peter Zinn, the man and the dog whirled into a blur of darkness streaked with white. There passed two long, long seconds, thick with stampings, the wild curses of Jeff Minster, the deep and humming growl of Blondy. Moreover, out of the distance a great wave of voices was rising, sweeping toward the building.
The eyes of Peter cleared. He saw Blondy fastened to the right leg of Jeff Minster above the knee. The rifle had fallen to the floor and Jeff Minster, yelling with pain and rage, had caught out his hunting knife, had raised it. He stabbed. But still Blondy clung. “No, no!” screamed Peter Zinn.
“Your damned dog first--then you!” gasped Minster.
* * * * *
The weakness struck Peter Zinn again. His great head lolled back on his shoulders. “God,” he moaned, “gimme strength! Don’t let Blondy die!”
And strength poured hot upon his body, a strength so great that he could reach his hand to the rifle on the floor, gather it to him, put his finder on the trigger, and raise the muzzle slowly, slowly as though it weighed a ton.
The knife had fallen again. It was a half crimson dog that still clung to the slayer. Feet beat, voices boomed like a waterfall in the next room. Then, as the knife rose again, Zinn pulled the trigger, blind to his target, and as the thick darkness brushed across his brain, saw something falling before him.
He seemed, after a time, to be walking down an avenue of utter blackness. Then a thin star ray of light glistened before him. It widened. A door of radiance opened through which he stepped and found himself--lying between cool sheets with the binding grip of bandages holding him in many places and wherever the bandages held, the deep, sickening ache of wounds. Dr. Burney leaned above him, squinting as though Peter Zinn were far away. Then Peter’s big hand caught him.
“Doc,” he said. “What’s happened? Gimme the worst of it.”
“If you lie quiet, my friend,” said the doctor, “and husband your strength, and fight for yourself as bravely as you fought for Constable Frejus, you’ll pull through well enough. You have to pull through, Zinn, because this town has a good deal to say that you ought to hear. Besides--”
“Hell, man,” said Peter Zinn, the savage, “I mean the dog. I mean Blondy--how--what I mean to say is--”
But then a great foreknowledge came upon Peter Zinn, His own life having been spared, fate had taken another in exchange, and Blondy would never lie warm upon his feet again. He closed his eyes and whispered huskily: “Say yes or no, Doc. Quick!”
But the doctor was in so little haste that he turned away and walked to the door, where he spoke in a low voice.
“He’s got to have help,” said Peter Zinn to his own dark heart. “He’s got to have help to tell me how a growed-up man killed a poor pup.”
Footsteps entered. “The real work I’ve been doing,” said the doctor, “hasn’t been with you. Look up, Zinn!”
Peter Zinn looked up, and over the edge of the doctor’s arm he saw a long, narrow white head, with a pair of brown-black eyes and a wistfully wrinkled forehead. Blondy, swathed in soft white linen, was laid upon the bed and crept up closer until the cold point of his nose, after his fashion, was hidden in the palm of the master’s hand. Now big Peter beheld the doctor through a mist spangled with magnificent diamonds, and he saw that Burney had found it necessary to turn his head away. He essayed speech which twice failed, but at the third effort he managed to say in a voice strange to himself: “Take it by and large, doc, it’s a damn good old world.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the February 23, 1924 issue of Collier’s magazine.]