Still smiling, he began hauling the gear off the backs of his horses, deciding at the same time that he would not bring out the dresses and bonnet and sweater until the next day—depending, of course, on how well she treated him that night.
A half hour later, having unsaddled all three horses and set them out to graze on the pasture below the barn, Weed was almost back to the cabin when the sound of a horse’s hooves caused him to turn quickly. He did not want to believe his eyes. And then—as the rider got closer and he saw who it was—Weed’s disbelief turned to raw fury.
The mutter of the galloping hooves reached the cabin quickly and Weed heard Mary rushing to the doorway behind him. He swung on her.
“Get back inside there!”
She shrank back into the cabin out of sight. Holding his palms just above the butts of his two six-guns, Weed advanced into the small yard to meet the onrushing rider—Cal Swinnerton, a young, tow-headed lickspittle that Luke and Abe Dawson were making use of around The Miner’s Palace. But this was one errand Cal wasn’t coming back from, Weed promised himself.
Cal grinned quickly at Weed and dismounted hurriedly. He was rubbing the small of his back. “Hell, George! My whole backside is raw from following you through these here mountains! How the hell did you ever find a place so hid away like this?”
“That’s my business, Cal. What I want to know is how you found it.”
“That’s easy,” the young cowpoke said with a grin. “Jim Sayles gave me a map.”
“A map?”
“Yup. But I still had to be lucky to find this valley.”
“You got that map, Cal?”
“Sure. Right here.” He patted one of the pockets in his vest. “But you better hurry on back to Landusky, George. Jim and Tom, they sure seem to need you back there.”
“Why?”
“Here,” Cal said, taking a well-folded piece of paper from the vest pocket. “They sent you this here note.”
Weed took the note from Cal, unfolded it and read:
You better get back here Weed. That one-eyed bastard what got the Kid and scared Tinsdale half to death is here already, no telling what Tinsdale told him. So we reckon you got a stake in this business to, you will shure want to stop this Caulder feller before he stops any of us. We are both counting on you.
The note was unsigned, but Weed recognized Abe’s pinched, careful hand. They wanted him back, did they? They despised him as a killer—but they sure as hell didn’t hesitate to ask him to do their killing for them. But no more. He had what he wanted here and he wasn’t going to take any chances on losing it by going back to Landusky or the Dawsons. He was through with those two for good—and with all the rest of it.
As he crumpled the note, he heard Mary’s voice behind him coming from the cabin doorway: “Step in, Cal, and rest awhile. I got fresh coffee on.”
Cal whipped his Stetson off. “Hi, there, Mary. Say, that sounds good. I could smell that coffee clear out here.”
Weed turned to look at Mary. He had told her to get inside and had wanted her to stay out of sight. She caught his angry glance and shrank noticeably.
Weed forced a smile. “That’s a good idea, Mary. While Cal’s drinking his coffee, I’ll saddle up. Looks like I got to turn right around and ride back to Landusky.”
Mary could not hide her pleasure at the prospect of Weed leaving her for another spell. “That so?”
Weed smiled and nodded. “That’s so, Mary.”
Cal stepped past him then into the cabin and Weed started down the gentle slope toward the pasture to get his horse.
Weed had let Cal ride ahead of him and had noted how skillfully the young rider had been able to find his way back through the pass to the stream. It convinced him that his decision to kill Cal was the correct one.
He waited until they were both high on the ridge trail before he made his move.
Spurring his mount gently, Weed said, “Better let me lead the way.”
Cal pulled back on his reins to wait for Weed to pass him, expecting Weed to move by on the outside. Weed saw the surprise on Cal’s face when Weed moved up on the inside. Grudgingly, Cal edged his horse to the outside lip of the ledge to give Weed the room he needed to ride past.
But once alongside Cal, Weed pulled up and patted the neck of his horse to settle it down. The mare was shaking her head unhappily. Once he had calmed the horse, he looked at Cal.
“You got that map Jim gave you?”
Cal nodded. He was busy holding in his own mount so close to the edge of the trail. “It’s in my pocket,” he answered.
“I want it.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Jesus, George—can’t it wait until we got off this trail?”
“I said now, Cal.”
“Damn you, George,” Cal muttered, reaching into his vest pocket.
As soon as Weed’s fingers closed about the map, he drew his six-gun with his free right hand and swung it up, then down, the barrel crushing through the crown of Cal’s Stetson and thudding heavily against Cal’s skull. Cal screamed in pain and anger and tried to ward off Weed’s second blow with an upraised forearm. But Weed struck harder and broke the man’s arm with the gun barrel. Cal toppled from his horse and for a moment clung to the reins as he slipped on the edge. He almost took his mount over with him, but the horse planted its four feet firmly. Cal lost the reins, scrabbled frantically for a hand hold with his one good arm, then disappeared over the lip of the ridge. His cry carried far before it ended abruptly far below. Weed dismounted carefully and walked to the edge of the trail and looked over.
He could see Cal’s body wedged into a narrow gorge far below. He reckoned it to be a little more than two hundred feet below the trail. Cal was dead, surely, his body resting in an almost inaccessible defile. Weed looked up into sky. There were no buzzards yet, but soon they would notice Cal’s still body and pick him clean.
Weed turned and slapped the rump of Cal’s horse and sent it on down the trail. If the animal found its way back to Landusky, it might tell the Dawsons what they had not yet come to realize: that Weed Leeper meant it when he said he wanted no one else to know of his place—and that he was through with them for good. They’d have to take care of Caulder themselves.
He swung into his saddle and slowly, cautiously turned his horse around, anxious to be back to the cabin before it got too late. He was still hungry—and not just for food.
Wolf was leaving Bim’s restaurant the following day just before sundown when he saw Swinnerton’s riderless horse gallop past him down Main Street toward the livery. It was suppertime, but despite this, there were enough men on the street to cause a stir as the gelding, favoring his right front foot, trotted past them to the livery. Wolf followed behind the six or seven men who went along to watch Gabe’s reaction to the return of his animal.
If they had expected Gabe to put on a spectacle, they were disappointed. The hostler simply let the horse satisfy his thirst at the street trough and then gently led him into the stable without a word to the men crowding behind them, his attention focused on the horse’s pronounced limp.
“Who was riding that animal?” someone called out.
Leading the horse into the stall, Gabe unbuckled the cinch and lifted off the saddle. He waited until he had placed it down on the side of the stall before he answered.
“Cal Swinnerton,” he said.
“How long’s he been out?” someone else asked.
“Five days.”
Sheriff Burt Alvard pushed through the crowd to reach Gabe. “Who did you say was riding this horse?” he asked the hostler.
“Cal Swinnerton,” Gabe replied, reaching down and lifting the gelding’s right foreleg. “Split a hoof back there somewheres after throwing a shoe,” Gabe announced sadly. “Must a sure been over rough country. Lucky he made it back.” Gabe straightened and patted the horse’s neck affectionately.
“Well, it’s Cal I’m thinking of,” said the sheriff. �
��Maybe we ought to send out a search party.” He turned to face the crowd of spectators pushing into the stable. “Any volunteers?” he asked. “We’ll need about ten men to cover all possible trails. And we’ll be out for some time, maybe.”
Not a single hand went up, and at once the crowd began to fall back and thin out. With a grunt of contempt, Alvard turned to face Wolf.
“What about you, stranger?”
“Sure. I’m willing,” said Wolf easily. “But just the two of us won’t do a hell of a lot of good.”
“I know that, damn it!” The sheriff stalked past Wolf, gained the wooden sidewalk and headed for his office.
Wolf turned to watch Gabe as the hostler began to rub down his animal. Gabe glanced over at him.
“Got me a salve that’ll fix that hoof in no time,” he told Wolf. “What this here animal needs now is just plenty of rest and lots of oats.” He slapped the animal on the rump, then turned around to look at the saddle.
It had been Cal Swinnerton’s and a rifle was still in the sling. Gabe walked out of the stall and around to the other side of the saddle, his eyes on the rifle. As he pulled it from the sling, Wolf could see the old man’s fancy for the rifle growing apace. He hefted it carefully, looking it over with expert appreciation.
Wolf moved closer and saw that it was a new Winchester, .44 caliber, round barrel, 24 inch, and that it handled fifteen shots. Wolf knew the rifle well. His own was a .44-40, rim fire, chambered for the same cartridge as his own single-action Colt.
“Like it?” Wolf asked the man.
Gabe looked up at Wolf. “This here weapon cost near fourteen-fifty new!”
The man was right. Wolf had paid nearly sixteen for his own. “Why not take it?” said Wolf. “If Cal shows up, you can let him have it back. Won’t do it any good to let it rust up.”
“It won’t and that’s a fact, mister,” Gabe said eagerly.
“Besides, that gelding’s going to need care and it don’t look to me like Cal’s coming back right soon to pay you for the trouble.”
The fellow nodded in happy agreement and swung the rifle up to his shoulder, sighting on a post in back of the stable. “Feels real comfortable,” he said. “Just sorta snuggles into the shoulder like it belongs there.”
Wolf walked across the aisle to where a wooden box was sitting and sat down on it to watch Gabe. He had some questions to ask the hostler, but he wanted the man to get comfortable with him first. Gabe was looking for a place to put the Winchester, a place where it wouldn’t be conspicuous, Wolf figured. At last Gabe found it on a couple of nails over the rear stall, one that he had piled high with harnesses and other gear.
He returned to the gelding and filled a bucket with fresh oats, then hung the bucket on a nail in the gelding’s stall. As he stepped back out of the stall, Jim Sayles strode quickly into the stable. He was so intent on Gabe that he didn’t see Wolf.
“Gabe, what’s this about Cal?” the man wanted to know.
“Didn’t come back. That’s all I know,” said Gabe, reaching casually for his pitchfork. It was obvious to Wolf that the hostler didn’t care too much for the man.
“You mean your horse throwed him?”
“I don’t mean nothing of the sort. That ain’t what I said. This here gelding’s a real gentle animal. Cal could just as likely fell off.”
“Or got shot off,” said Wolf quietly, getting to his feet.
Sayles spun to face Wolf, a look of pure dismay on his face.
“Hello there, Mr. Sayles,” Wolf said. “If you’re interested in finding Cal, the sheriff just finished asking for volunteers to ride out for a look. He didn’t get any one to take him up on it, but I’d be glad to join up with you, if you’d like to ride out. Just be the two of us, but ...” Wolf shrugged. “We just might find something.”
“Why ... no,” Sayles replied—too quickly. Then, stepping back as he spoke, he went on: “That’s the sheriff’s job. It ain’t no concern of mine.” He glanced at Gabe, then hurried out into the street, heading back to the saloon.
“Feller left here like he’d seen someone he buried,” Gabe said, looking shrewdly at Wolf.
Wolf shrugged and went back and sat down on the box. “Gabe, what do you know about Cal?” he asked, taking out his sack of Bull Durham and proceeding to build himself a smoke.
Gabe leaned his pitchfork back against the stall and took out a plug of tobacco from a front pocket of his faded Levi’s. Cutting a sizable chuck from it with a pearl-handled fish knife, he popped it into his mouth, all the while studying Wolf.
“You a bounty hunter, mister?” he asked finally.
Wolf shook his head.
“But you ain’t asking just out of idle curiosity, neither.”
Wolf said nothing.
“Cal Swinnerton is an out of work cowpoke who’s attached himself to the new owners of the Palace. He runs errands for them, does odd jobs around the saloon and the hotel, helps load the wagons for the gent what runs the general store.”
“Do you have any idea where he was heading when he rode out of here?”
“He was studying a piece of paper. Looked like a map to me. Said something about a long ride past Deer River country.”
“When did he leave—exactly?”
“Don’t know as I can tell you that. It was early in the morning—the night after they found that dead man in the hotel.”
That was all Wolf needed to know. “Thanks, Gabe.”
“You don’t have to tell me what you’re after in this town, mister. But there’s been talk. And those two gents what bought the Palace have sure as hell gotten some jumpy since you rode in here.”
Wolf nodded. “But it hasn’t stopped Jim Sayles from gambling every night since, I noticed.”
“Nerves don’t make a man stop gambling—but it sure as hell could account for the amount he’s been dropping lately. Almost like he wants to lose. His partner’s pulling it in across the bar and he’s busy giving it back over the table.”
“I noticed.”
Wolf got up then, dropped his cigarette and ground it thoroughly into the stable floor. Then he looked at Gabe.
“Tonight,” he said, “late, I’m liable to need my horse in a hurry. I’d appreciate it, Gabe, if you’d saddle up my black if you hear any unusual commotion from the saloon. I’ll bring down my blanket roll and rifle later.”
The man said nothing, but his expression indicated he was not opposed to the idea. Wolf went on.
“If I don’t get to ride the horse, Gabe, the rifle and the animal is yours. Is it a deal?”
Gabe studied Wolf shrewdly for a long moment, then nodded. “It’s a deal,” he said, glancing quickly at Wolf’s handsome black.
The animal had fleshed out solidly during this five day lay-over, and the hostler had been generous with the oats. Wolf’s black was now a sleek, powerful animal and would make a fine addition to Gabe’s stable.
Gabe looked back at Wolf. “You planning on a raise, mister?”
Wolf laughed. “Just thought I might try to change Jim Sayles’ luck tonight. No man should lose that much.”
With a curt nod to Gabe, Wolf left the stable and walked across the street to the hotel and up to his room. Entering the room cautiously—as he had been doing since he first arrived in Landusky—he closed the door and locked it and began packing his small store of necessities in the saddle roll.
When he finished tying the saddle roll, he took out his Colt and dropped it onto the bed. Then he removed a small, oily cloth and a box of recently purchased .44-40 cartridges from one of his saddle bags. He wiped the gun thoroughly with the cloth, after which he inspected the firing pin to make sure it was not fouled. Then he opened the gate, emptied each shell out onto the bed and reloaded the weapon with the fresh cartridges.
Satisfied at last that his Colt was as ready as he was, Wolf stood up, dropped the six-gun into his holster, took up his rifle and saddle roll, flung his saddle bags over his shoulder, and left the room.
/> As Wolf stepped into The Miner’s Palace not long after, he noticed the quick awareness of his presence on the part of everyone in the place. Men talking boisterously at the bar pulled apart suddenly and became unusually intent on the glass that held their drinks. Those at the tables along the wall and in back grew quiet. The saloon girls—resplendent in their red spangled skirts and low décolletage—pulled back from whomever they were cozying up to and looked at Caulder with a frank, challenging curiosity. By the time Wolf reached the corner table in back where Abe Dawson was playing his nightly game, the saloon was so quiet that the clink of Wolf’s spurs punctuated each step he took.
“Mind if I sit in?” he asked Abe Dawson.
“We already got enough players at this table,” Dawson replied, his face ashen. “There’s other tables glad to take your money.”
Wolf was standing behind the player sitting directly across the table from Abe. Wolf tapped the fellow on the shoulder. “I’ve been wanting to play in this here game for some time now, mister. You might say I come a long way to play in it.”
The poker player scooted his chair back hastily. “I was just about wiped out anyway, Jim,” he explained hastily to Abe. He looked up at Wolf. “You’re welcome to sit in my place, mister.”
“Thank you,” Wolf said, thumbing back his Stetson and taking the seat.
As the departing player snatched up his chips, Wolf called to the other Dawson for chips, slapping down a hundred dollars in gold coin onto the table.
Luke Dawson moved out from the bar with his box of chips and counted them out for Wolf. His hands shook only slightly. As he pulled back to return to the bar, Wolf nodded to him and smiled.
“Thanks, Luke.”
The man looked as if he’d been punched. “Name’s Tom,” he managed.
“Sure. That’s right. Sorry, Tom.” Wolf looked across the table at the man’s brother. The fellow was rigid, both hands flat on the table. “And you must be Abe—the older one.”
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