Mad River

by Donald Hamilton

  The sound of merriment from the two buildings drowned the sound of his running. He reached the door without incident, paused briefly to look around—and to listen as much as the noise would permit. Then he turned and grasped the knob. "Nan," he said softly. The door was locked.

  This was warning enough. He was dropping even as a club or gunbutt swung for his head out of the darkness to the left. "Here he is!" It was half a whisper, half a cry. "I told you he wouldn't come from the street.... Ah!"

  The whisper ended in a gasp as Cohoon reached up with the knife; the movement was a savage and instinctive reaction to the blow that had barely missed his skull, and to the deceit and treachery that seemed to fill the night like a poisonous mist. First Van Houck and now this, he thought savagely as he struck; then his knuckles were warm and wet and it too late for mercy and forbearance. It seemed to him that he had been waiting for this moment a long time—ever since he refused a fight with Jack Rudy, not knowing the name then, three days ago.

  A man could stay peaceful only so long; a man could take only so many betrayals. He was thinking of the previous evening, of Nan Montoya kneeling, full of pity and concern, in the dust beside the man who had tried to kill him. There had been no pity for him, Boyd Cohoon, or concern for his wound. He should have known then what to expect.

  There were men stirring at the street end of the narrow space, where the trap had been set. There was no one behind him and he could have fled, but the prison-bred hate was loose in him now, and he called softly: "This way, boys. This way. Come and get it!"

  They came. He never learned how many—too many for their own good. He marked one more, deeply and fatally, as they stumbled past searching for him; they turned at the bubbling cry and rushed in to overwhelm him. It was clear that they had little notion of how to deal with a knifeman in the dark, although by their accents there were some who should have known—south of the border, as well as among the Indians, the knife was an honored and respected weapon. But they came in fast, all together, to crush him to the ground; and he let them take him down and worked silently among them. Sixty seconds of panting murderous confusion followed; then the tight knot of men burst apart in sudden panic. A gun fired aimlessly. Somebody swore.

  "Watch that shooting! Get a lantern! Don't let him get Another man said in a sick voice, "For the love of God, amigos, help... "

  "Here he is!" There was a sharp scuffle ending in blasphemy as the two men who had been fighting discovered each other's identity, one crying shrilly, "Well, what the hell do you expect, sneaking behind a man's back like a damn Indian!"

  Cohoon, working toward the street covered by the deeper darkness along the wall, smiled wickedly to himself; they could well continue fighting each other back there for minutes longer. Then a door slammed noisily, and the flickering yellow light of a lantern showed on the street ahead, as someone came out of Flagler's place to investigate the disturbance—presumably a stranger in town, since the local population was noted for minding its own business.

  Cohoon stopped moving and crouched low, waiting for the moment of inevitable discovery, when he would be silhouetted against the light, a fair target for the guns behind him. The others had become silent, recognizing the approaching opportunity. Cohoon felt the ground about him for a suitable missile but touched nothing but dust and hardback clay. He reached for the revolver at his hip and found an empty holster; the weapon had fallen out during the fight. The inquisitive stranger, swaying slightly, stepped into the mouth of the alley, holding the lantern high. He spoke in a thick and foreign voice.

  "I shay, you chapsh, whatever sheemsh to be the trouble?" Cohoon rose and hurled the knife; he was running as it left his hand, weaving from side to side. The lantern smashed; the light flared brightly and died away. A gun fired twice behind him, and a voice that he had heard before, somewhere, cried; "That's enough! That's enough! Hold your fire!"

  The stranger stepped into Cohoon's path, obeying the natural instinct to intercept whatever is fleeing. Cohoon drove a shoulder into the man, and let the impact throw them both to the ground. Despite the authoritative voice, there was still shooting behind him; splinters flew from the wall of the Double Eagle as he rolled; then he was picking himself up around the corner, momentarily safe. The front door was only a few yards away; he stepped through it.

  Inside, Nan Montoya was singing. Her voice broke at his appearance; the song stopped. He turned and snatched up a rifle from among the half-dozen in the rack by the door. The gun was loaded. Cohoon cocked it and stepped back several paces, covering the door.

  A man at a table cried, "Hey, that's my ..."

  His voice trailed away. Cohoon did not look aside. Running footsteps passed along the street, but no one entered. Presently Cohoon lowered the hammer of the borrowed rifle, and set the weapon back where he had found it.

  "I thank you for the loan," he said courteously to the man who had spoken.

  Then he walked the length of the room to Nan Montoya, still standing on the small stage. She was wearing a quite respectable and becoming evening gown tonight, he noted, instead of the bright and scanty dress of previous nights. She looked tall and quite lovely. He caught her by the arm and pulled her off the stage, marching her toward a door that he knew led to a room behind the stage. Half way there, he stopped, seeing Miss Bessie reach out a hand to take from the bartender a double-barreled shotgun sawed off at a convenient length. Cohoon spoke.

  "I will not harm her," he said.

  Miss Bessie looked at him for a moment, and lowered the stubby weapon to let him pass.

  17

  COHOON SHOVED the girl ahead of him into the small room, which was poorly lighted by one smoking lamp on the wall. The furniture consisted of some chairs, a table, and a couple of decks of cards. He kicked the door closed behind him. Nan turned to face him. Her dress had become somewhat disarranged by his rough handling of her, but she made no move to smooth it into place. She merely looked at him.

  "Well, Cohoon?"

  He spoke in an even voice. "About ten minutes ago, a Mexican kid stopped me as I was riding out of town. He had a message. Nan wants you, he said, come to the side door, muy pronto. I came, The door was locked. There were half a dozen men waiting, maybe more. It was hard to tell in the dark. There are fewer now than there were."

  "I see," she whispered. Her mouth had a look of pain; perhaps anger also. "And you think I—"

  He said, "I made no accusation. That's my story. What's yours, Nan?"

  "I have no story," she said quietly. "I know nothing about it."

  He studied her face, and found himself still liking what he saw—as he had from the first, on the trip north. There were judgments a man had to make on no better evidence than that: He made one now, even as the cynical part of his mind recalled that a similar judgment in the past had led to results that could fairly be called disastrous. On the record, he did not qualify as the world's best judge of character, particularly feminine character.

  Nevertheless, he let the savage tautness flow out of him in a, long breath. "All right," he said wearily. "I believe you."

  "That's very kind of you," Nan said, "It's a pity you didn't believe in me a little earlier, before you squeezed my arm black and blue." She rubbed the bruised place and, the crisis being past, permitted herself to bring her hair and dress into better order. "You look like a herd of buffalo had run over you," she said without emotion. "Are you hurt?"

  "No."

  Her reply held sarcasm and some anger, not necessarily directed at him: "Six or eight men tackle him in a dark alley and he emerges unscathed! Well, I always heard you Westerners were a durable lot."

  Cohoon said, "They were too many for the job. They got in each other's way. Father always said that the best way to deal with a gang like that, particularly in the dark, was to get them all on top of you and start cutting; they'd tire of the sport soon enough. They did."

  Nan looked at him; a shiver seemed to go through her briefly. Then she shook her head an
d said, "Well, it's a pity your shirt isn't as tough as you are."

  He grinned abruptly. "Every time I come around you, Nan, it costs me my shirt, one way or another. Last night—"

  Her expression softened. "I wanted to thank you for that, Cohoon. For sparing his life. You had every right to kill him, the way he tried to murder you, but . . . Well, he did travel a long way to find me, whatever his motives, and I would have hated to see him come to harm." She watched Cohoon divest himself of the remnants of the shirt, most of which hung in rags about his waist. Her eyes noted the empty sheath and holster. "A shirt isn't the only thing you lost, apparently." He grimaced. "I must have dropped the gun in the scuffle. Like Father used to say, the man who leans too heavily on firearms is apt to take an awful tumble some day. The damn things are never around when you need them. Then some fool came out of the place next door with a lantern. I had nothing to shoot and nothing to throw but the knife. I'll look for it on my way out—"

  She said sharply, "You'll look for nothing more in that alley tonight, my friend. . . What's that bandage? Did Lawrence actually hit you yesterday?" She read the answer in his face, and said angrily, "And I suppose you strode away, dripping blood, just to show how tough you are! Why didn't you say something?"

  He said dryly, "You seem concerned with the fellow on the ground, ma'am."

  "He was hurt. You didn't seem to be; why shouldn't I ... Ah, what's the use? Anyway, you seem to've started it bleeding again. Sit down while I fetch some water and bandages, and a shirt if I can find one." She turned away from him, bent over, and her skirts made a whispering sound; then she turning back; smoothing down her dress again. "Here. In case you have visitors."

  He looked at the little nickel-plated five-shot revolver that had been put into his hand. The girl was already at the door when he spoke.

  "Nan."

  She stopped. "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "No need to be," she said coolly. After a moment she went On, "Assuming I had no hand in it, Cohoon, who used my name?"

  "I don't know," he said. "I heard a voice—a man's voice— that seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. I don't even rightly know what they were after."

  "Why, to kill you, of course!"

  "One man with a rifle could have accomplished that as I was leaving Van Houck's a lot more efficiently than a gang with fists and clubs."

  She moved her shoulders briefly. "It sounds to me as if you were just looking for complications. Lock the door after me."

  Then he was alone, listening to the steady beat of the piano and the muffed sounds of gaiety filtering back from the front of the building. A considerable interval passed before he heard her footsteps returning. He crossed the room to let her in. She went past him, and deposited her burden on the table; turning, she tossed him his hat, somewhat battered and dusty, and held out his gun. "That's all I could find out there; that, and a broken lantern, and some bloodstains. Quite a few bloodstains. I don't think I'll ever trap you in a dark alleyway, Cohoon."

  He grinned. "From you, it would be a pleasure, ma'am. Well, somebody got themselves a good knife; Father made it himself out of an old file. Took him a couple of weeks to get it balanced right, I remember him telling me."

  She was tearing strips from an old bedsheet. "Your dad was quite a man, wasn't he, Cohoon?"

  "More man than I'll ever be," Cohoon said. "I always was the runt of the family—the white sheep of the family, Jonathan and Stuart used to call me. I reckon none of them would think much of the way I was handling things."

  She said, "I suppose they'd have torn Mr. Westerman into little pieces by this time, wouldn't they? And the Paradine what would your father and brothers have done to the Paradines, Cohoon?"

  He glanced at her quickly. "What do you mean?"

  She laughed. "Sit down over here by the light and let me fix you up.... Why it occurred to me last night to wonder where Lawrence could have got a gun. I know he never owned one back home—or even fired one, to the best of my knowledge—and while he could have bought one for the trip, it seemed unlike him. So I asked some of the girls, and learned that just after Lawrence marched out of the place telling everybody what he was going to do to you, young Paradine slipped outside. He was carrying two guns when he left, and only one when he returned."

  Cohoon said, "So that's it!"

  "Have I told you something you didn't know? You were quick enough to pick up the gun before anyone could see it; that was one of the things that started me thinking. It was obvious that you'd recognized the weapon."

  "You're a clever girl, Nan."

  "Am I?" She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him to a convenient angle. "Sit still now. Your friends seem to have an odd way of expressing gratitude."

  Cohoon said, "I don't suppose Francis Paradine feels much gratitude toward me."

  "You saved him from prison, didn't you?"

  "Not for his sake. As far as Francis himself was concerned, he could have hanged for all of me. I suspect he knows that; probably he resents it."

  "l can see why your family might have thought you a little peculiar, Cohoon," Nan said dryly. "Every time somebody tries to kill you, you always manage to figure out a good excuse for them... There's something else I've heard, just keeping my ears open, that I don't know if I should tell you. This trader, Van Houck, the one with the long beard, how much of a friend of yours is he?"

  "What have you heard?"

  She said, "It was rumored around town that he was almost broke about the time your dad and brother were shot. Afterwards, his store seemed to take a new lease on life. He handled the estate, didn't he?"

  "I wouldn't spread rumors like that," Cohoon said.

  "I'm not spreading them," Nan said, working deftly with the scissors. "I'm just telling you what I've heard, since the matter concerns you."

  "It isn't wise to hear too much, Nan," he said gently.

  She raised her head and laughed in a spontaneous way. "Why, the man's threatening me! And I was merely trying to be helpful."

  "Not threatening," Cohoon said. "Just warning. There were Mexicans in the bunch that tackled me outside; and I even thought I heard some words that sounded like Apache."

  "What are you driving at, Cohoon?"

  "Why," he said, "Paul Westerman seems to hire only American riders. And there's only one other man I can think of who could conveniently muster enough men for a trap like the one I ran into tonight, and expect them to keep their mouths shut afterwards."

  "Who do you mean?"

  "This outlaw called the General," Cohoon said. "The one who raided Westerman's mine office a couple of days ago."

  "The General! But why should—"

  "I wish I knew," Cohoon said wryly. "But who else could have set up the deadfall, and cleaned up so tidily afterwards? Willie Black said he had agents in town; in fact, the whole town's mighty upset about whoever's feeding the General his information. Willie seemed to think I might have had a hand in lining up that last job for him." He grimaced. "So I have the law on my neck with that notion, and the General himself for some unknown reason, if it was his outfit. I've never even met the man—"

  "How do you know?"

  He looked at her quickly. It was his turn to ask, "What do you mean?"

  "The story is he's a Mexican revolutionary who crossed the border to save his skin. But it's just a story," Nan said quietly. "I've heard a lot about him since I came here—everybody talks about him, particularly since the robbery here in town—but I've still not heard of anybody who knew him down in Mexico. Nor have I met anybody who admits to having seen his face."

  After a moment, Cohoon grinned. "I say it again: you're a clever girl, Nan."

  "It's easy enough to put on a mask and a fancy uniform," she said. "So, how do you know you haven't met him? And all this business about the man here in town who gets information for him—for all we know, the General himself lives here in town, gets his own information, and sends a message to his men out in the malpais w
hen he needs them. He slips on his conspicuous uniform, joins his gang for the job, leaves them when it's done—maybe he even joins the posse afterwards and helps chase them." She moved her shoulders. "For all you know, Cohoon, the General may have a perfectly good reason to want you dead. Why, he may be practically a friend of the family."

  Cohoon said quickly, "Van Houck's too old to ride—"

  Nan said, "Van Houck's too old, young Paradine's too drunk, his dad's too respectable, and Westerman hires nothing but American riders. And then there's the marshal, with his air of righteousness, the son of a man who's supposed to've got rich through robbery and murder, maybe it runs in the family." She shrugged. "Somebody robbed the Lucky Seven office. And I don't think it was a Mexican bandit."

  "Would Westerman rob himself?"

  "Why not? It wouldn't cost him anything; he'd just be shifting the money from one hand to the other." She laughed. "Cohoon, don't push me into a corner. I'm just telling you what I've been thinking. Maybe it's all wrong; I'm just a poor girl from the east without much experience with violence and lawlessness...."

  He said, "I hope you haven't told anybody else about your thoughts."

  She shook her head quickly. "I've a well-developed instinct for self-preservation, my friend. I keep my mouth shut, except with people I trust ... even if they don't trust me," she added teasingly.

  "I said I was sorry."

  Her smile faded. "There's no reason for you to trust me, none at all. In fact, any man who trusts a girl in a place like this is a fool." Her voice was bitter. She went on without looking up, "Lift your arms now, so I can get this off. . . A woman bandaged you, didn't she? That's right, I did hear you went straight to the Paradine house afterwards. To return the gun before it led to embarrassing questions, no doubt. I will say this for you, Cohoon, you're a persistent sort of a man. Once you stick your neck out for somebody, you just keep it stuck way out, don't you?" Cohoon did not speak, and Nan went on as she worked: "I'll have to give her credit; she patched you up very neatly. I'd have said she was the type to faint at the sight of blood."