Cornered! by James McKimmey Page A

momentary softness of last night was, he realized, totally gone in the cold light of the morning. “Do you want to get the bags into the car? I want to get to Cheyenne and on a plane and out of this country! I’ve had it!”
    “Glory—” But now he was angry again himself.
    She walked to the door, the calves of her shapely legs swelling with each movement. She swung the door open, and fierce cold and powdered snow blew in with the wind still raging from off the prairie beyond.
    “What a beautiful, gorgeous, stinking morning!” she said, striding toward the car. Sam followed, his mouth set grimly.
     
    As Gloria and Sam Dickens stepped through the unrelenting storm toward the new Chrysler, Billy Quirter climbed from the hayloft. In the raw, open cold once again, his arm hurt like the blazes of hell. But nothing in this rotten world was going to stop him…
    And still coming east, pushing his ageing sedan through the snow drifting across the ribbon of Route 7, the good Reverend John Andrews fought fatigue doggedly, while Lottie had, hours ago, given up, and now slept.
    Just before Graintown and the waiting roadblock, Reverend Andrews too had almost given in to his fatigue and swung off to the right, with the idea that he might impose himself and Lottie on the good people of the Harry Harkins farm. The swing took him on a detour around the south edge of Graintown, a road so bad that when Reverend Andrews had finally decided against the intrusion, he kept going and picked up the main road again, missing the roadblock. Now he was just a mile and a half away from Arrow Junction.
    He had almost dislodged that bitterness he’d fought earlier—the bitterness caused by his feelings about Maynard Styles—that prod of the Devil’s pitchfork—and pretty soon he would be home in Arrow Junction. Within another half mile, he was feeling the warmth of the totally unselfish, grateful only for the chance to be alive and in the Good Lord’s calling. He was a mile out of Arrow Junction now. And it was just there that he saw the figure of the small topcoated man stumbling onto the highway.
    Reverend Andrews brought his old sedan to a lurching halts, feeling a quick compassion for this soul caught in the storm.
    He swung open his door, as Lottie, awakening, straightened in her seat.
    “Hello, there, neighbor!” Reverend Andrews called. “Here, get in the car! You’re going to freeze to death out there!”
    The man came toward the car, a frail-looking figure, whipped by the savage wind. All the pity in Reverend Andrews’s heart went to him. He pulled his seat forward to allow the man, gripping his left arm tightly, to get inside to the back seat. Under the dome light, he caught a glimpse of the man’s face. He saw the cold, frosty look of it, and the pity rose even more fully within him.
    “You look frozen,” Reverend Andrews said. He turned, as did Lottie, looking at the unfortunate man now seated in the back seat.
    “Frozen, yeah,” the man said, shaking visibly.
    “Car break down?” Reverend Andrews asked worriedly.
    “Car broke down, yeah,” the man said, twisting his head a little.
    “If there’s anything we can do right now—you look absolutely frozen,” Reverend Andrews said. “Otherwise, we’ll—”
    “Yeah.” The man released his grip on his left arm. His right hand disappeared inside his coat. When it reappeared, it was gripping the handle of his gun. Billy Quirter said, “Here’s exactly what you do. You knock off the chatter and kick the engine over. We’re going to Arrow Junction. Now move!”
     
    It was a morning of early rising for everyone except Ted Burley. At that moment he lay snoring, blindly drunk for the first time in his life. Beside him lay Greta Blummer, snoring in equal tempo. Her large and bare breasts rested against Ted Burley’s muscular arm, her right hand lay absently across the inside of his naked right thigh. How Ted Burley got to be in the unclothed company of Greta Blummer in