by L. P. Holmes
He walked closer to the fire. Mrs. Vail had moved a little way apart from the fire and this gave Lee a chance to speak to Kip and say exactly what he felt. He kept his voice low.
“There is such loveliness in you, Kip. I realize it more each time I see you.”
An honest, warm color ran up her cheeks and a soft smile touched her lips. Her answer was a murmur he could barely hear.
“If you do, I’m glad, Lee.”
She turned back to the fire and her cooking.
Lee moved back to his horse which he unsaddled and picketed in a handy little meadow along with Buck’s and Jack Dhu’s mounts. When he returned, Buck had finished his whittling and joined John Vail and Jack Dhu. Lee went over to them.
“No further sign of those two hard cases,” reported John Vail. “If they show up now, they’ll run into a wild surprise. Sure white of you fellows to stand ready to give me a hand.”
“In a way it’s a common cause, Mister Vail,” Lee told him.
* * * * *
A little later Mrs. Vail announced supper, and Lee and Buck and Jack Dhu managed a few words alone before going over to the fire.
Buck looked at Lee keenly. “Been guessing to myself where you been all afternoon, boy. Think I hit the answer. A fire is out, or it ain’t. Well?”
“Completely out, Buck,” Lee told him quietly. “The ashes are stone cold. I wonder now that there was ever any fire. But I felt I had to tell her that I was going to smash her husband. I wanted her to know it was him I was fighting, not her.”
Buck pinched his pursed lips with thumb and forefinger. “Not too sure that was wise, boy. She’s sure to tell her husband, and that means he’ll be forewarned and set out to do things of his own.”
Lee shrugged. “He would have in any event. The attempt by Boland to arrest me proves it. Tasker Scott’s hand was plain to see. It doesn’t matter. I want him to know it. I want him to sweat.”
They ate supper with the Vails, while the sun went down and the soft, blue dusk came stealing in. In the background the river waters splashed restfully over the shallows, sparrows twittered sleepily in the willows, and from an alder top a lone oriole sang the day into darkness.
Buck and Jack Dhu had spread their blankets downstream from the Vail camp and Buck had brought an extra bedroll for Lee. So they lounged on these, smoking, silent for the most part with their own thoughts.
Once, Jack Dhu stirred and mumbled in his sleep quietly.
* * * * *
It was a quiet night and Lee Cone slept the good sleep of a man with no regrets over the past and only high hopes and purpose for the future. He was up at daylight and went softly over to the river shallows to wash up. He could see a slim figure there ahead of him.
Kip’s face was rosy from the chill bite of the water and from the vigorous toweling that followed. Now she was seated on a rock, brushing her hair. She showed just a touch of confusion at sight of Lee.
“You’re a light sleeper, Kip,” he said teasingly.
“No,” she said, in that rich, husky voice. “It isn’t that. It’s just that I love the time when day first breaks. Everything is so vital and cool and clean. The birds are awake and celebrating. It makes me want to celebrate, too. Isn’t that silly?”
“Not a bit,” declared Lee. “I know just how you feel. Early morning and twilight … the best times of the day as far as I’m concerned.”
Lee splashed and sputtered as he doused his face and head with water, making Kip laugh softly as she tossed him her towel.
“You remind me of my little brother. All the huffing and puffing over a little face washing.”
Lee used the towel gratefully, grinning at her as he scrubbed the towel all over his head, imagining he could smell her on it. Then, as he handed back the towel, he captured her hand, held it.
Kip came to her feet, went very still, her eyes clear and wide and searching. She saw what was in Lee’s eyes, and she whispered: “Not unless you mean it, Lee.”
“I never meant anything more in my life,” Lee told her soberly. “I’m as sure of that as I am that we are both alive.”
He drew her to him and kissed her, and her lips were sweet.
After a few moments she drew back from him, stood looking at him. And the smile that she gave him held the gentlest glory he’d ever seen. Then she turned and hurried back to camp.
Lee followed along presently and got the fire going. The crackle of it brought the rest of the camp alive.
Mrs. Vail, making coffee, shook the can. “Not enough for another day,” she declared. “And we could use another side of bacon and a sack of flour, too. I told you, John Vail, that we should have stocked up with more supplies when we were in Antelope. But you were in such a howling hurry to get out to our piece of land …”
“I know, Mary,” said Vail. “I got to get a new tent, too. So we’ll hitch up the wagon and drive into town today and get everything we need.”
Vail announced his intention to Lee and Buck and Jack Dhu as they gathered around the breakfast fire.
“The land will be here when we get back,” he ended. “I’ve filed according to law, and nobody can say different.”
“Couldn’t somebody jump your claim while we’re away, Dad?” asked Kip.
Jack Dhu showed her a grave, small, smile. “They do, miss, and they’ll jump right off again. You can be sure of that.”
Kip Vail hadn’t been entirely sure just how to take this saddle man at first. But now, suddenly, she liked and trusted him. She smiled.
“Now that I think of it, I’m quite sure they would,” she agreed.
While John Vail was hooking his team to his wagon, Buck Theodore drew Lee aside. “Where do we go from here, boy?”
“Town,” Lee answered. “To sort of keep an eye on the Vails, just in case those two hard case riders of Tasker Scott’s should run into them and get any ideas. Then, I want to see Scott himself and lay the chips on the table. Did some thinking about it last night. He may have rustled you blind, Buck … but he got title to the ranch according to law, and that’s the main thing I want to get back. When we get that, we have a foundation to build on again. Without the ranch and the range, we got nothing.”
“You mean you aim to try and make some sort of deal with him?” demanded Buck.
Lee nodded slowly. “Guess you’d call it that. He transfers title of the ranch back to us and pays us a fair price for the cattle he rustled, and then I don’t press the rustling charge. Otherwise, I see him behind bars … or dead.”
Buck frowned worriedly. “You think he’ll deal?”
“He’ll have his choice.” Lee shrugged. “It’s up to him.”
* * * * *
Lucy Scott faced a new day with an apathy that left her wan and subdued. She had spent the night alone in the big ranch house, her husband not having come home at any point during the night. It had been the longest night in her memory and she had done a lot of thinking, and had known one period of sudden, unaccountable tears. And that had been highly unsettling, too, for she wasn’t easily given to tears.
Over and over, during the night, Lee Cone’s words had come back to her.
No matter what you think you have, you really haven’t a thing in the world …
She had gotten up and paced back and forth, angrily denying the truth of this, telling herself that she was rich, that she had everything. But deep inside her there persisted a stubborn realization that Lee Cone had spoken the truth. It was when she finally admitted the fact to herself that she had broken down and wept.
She knew neither love or respect for Tasker Scott, and he had none for her. Their marriage had been a mockery from the first. It had amassed the worldly goods she had thought she wanted, much of them gained through trickery, slick dealing, and deceit—even outright robbery, such as the rustling of the Flat T cattle. But now such goods
had no appeal for her, and she hated them as she hated herself and the man she had married.
She thought of the old days when she and Lee Cone had ridden together, danced together, built big dreams together. There had been true happiness right in the hollow of her hand, and she had reached for the glitter of gold instead.
“But there’s good in me,” she whimpered to herself. “I know there’s some good in me. There must be.”
It was a cruel awakening Lucy Scott came to during those distraught hours. But it did come, and out of it truth emerged. There was only one thing she could do that would ever bring her real peace of mind again.
She could see to it that all the real possessions that had been taken away from Lee Cone and Buck Theodore were returned to them. Their ranch, the value of their cattle. All these must go back to them. A great peace came to her as she reached this decision.
She went to the door of the house, called across to a ranch hand, ordered her buggy and team made ready. Then she washed and dressed, and once she was in the buggy, she drove swiftly off along the town road. She knew a bitter scene lay ahead when she faced her husband with the demand she was about to make. But her head was high.
* * * * *
The John Vail wagon rolled to a stop in front of Asa Bingham’s store. At the far end of the hitch rail, Lee Cone, Jack Dhu, and Buck Theodore dismounted and secured their horses. Buck watched the Vails get down off the wagon and go into the store, the two youngsters round-eyed and excited at this visit to town. The old cattleman grinned.
“I’m going in and buy those two kids some hard candy,” he announced.
Jack Dhu dropped on his heels against the front of the store and built a smoke. “As good a place as any to keep an eye on things,” he said laconically. “Just in case that four-flusher of a marshal, Braz Boland, should show again. Unless you want me along with you, Lee?”
Lee shook his head. “I can handle Tasker Scott all right.”
Traffic along the street was a little less hectic than usual and Lee cut across toward Tasker Scott’s office. He felt good this morning. For one thing, several matters he hadn’t been sure of in the past were now entirely settled in his mind. He knew that he was completely free of the old lure Lucy Scott had once held for him. He had ferreted out evidence with which to force Tasker Scott’s hand. And he had found a sure answer to the loneliness he had known in the touch of Kip Vail’s lips and the soft glory in her eyes. Yeah, the world and its future were looking up.
* * * * *
In an eating house along the street, Tasker Scott’s men, Stump and Pecos, had just finished a late breakfast. Stump, chewing on a tooth pick, moved to the door of the place while Pecos settled up with the waitress. Stump’s glance at the street, casual at first, abruptly became a fixed, hot stare, and his voice was a quick, hard rasp across his shoulder.
“Pecos, get out here. Quick!”
Pecos hurried to Stump’s side. “There goes our money,” he said, pointing in Cone’s direction. “We’ll never have a better chance.”
As they broke out onto the plank walkway, Pecos reminded Stump: “We’re in town, remember. We can’t make it too raw.”
“I’ll give him the yell,” said Stump. “When he turns around, we’ll move in on him. He’ll be looking at us when he gets it. Scott can do the arguing, after.”
* * * * *
In his office, Tasker Scott showed the effects of a hard night. Instead of going out to the Lazy Dollar headquarters for the night, he’d taken a room in the hotel, where he kept company with a whiskey bottle till 3:00 a.m. As a rule, he wasn’t a heavy drinker, but that was before Lee Cone had returned to Maacama Basin. And since he knew what Lee Cone had found out about the shipments of the rustled Flat T cattle, he was beset by nervousness and, at times, a feeling of doom.
Knowledge that he had slipped badly had set him to wondering if he hadn’t left some loopholes in other shady deals. The more he thought of these things, the more his imagination got out of control. He began seeing threats everywhere. And he had taken that whiskey bottle to his room with him in an attempt to quiet his nagging fears.
True, he had set Stump and Pecos after Cone. But in a thing of that sort, you could never be sure. He had set up Braz Boland as marshal to get Cone out of circulation, and that hadn’t worked at all. Maybe this other try would fall flat, too. No, a man could never be sure of hirelings. If he wanted a job done right, he often had to do it himself.
Tasker Scott slid a hand under his coat to his left armpit, felt the butt of the gun in the shoulder holster there. If he had to, would he be able to reach for that gun and face it out with Lee Cone?
He licked his lips, got his desk bottle out of a drawer, took another pull at it. The whiskey was raw and harsh against his already queasy stomach, and his lips pulled thin in a grimace. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot, and his nerves were beginning to jerk at him again.
* * * * *
Lee Cone hit the board sidewalk some twenty yards from the door of Tasker Scott’s office. Here the false front of a saloon lifted, and from the door of the saloon, Braz Boland stepped. He was wearing his marshal’s badge again, and now he stopped, dead still, face to face with Lee Cone.
Lee stopped, alert for anything, and his words hit out at Boland.
“I’m looking at you this time, Boland, so don’t try anything! That badge you’re wearing doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
Braz Boland was startled and discomfited. He’d taken a savage tongue-lashing from Tasker Scott over the mess he’d made on his first attempt to arrest Cone, and he’d been telling himself ever since that he wouldn’t fumble the next chance.
But now he knew that it had been a false courage that had been talking. Face to face with the man he had grown to hate so blackly, Boland realized he didn’t have what it took. For there was something about Lee Cone just now …
Boland turned and went back into the saloon.
Lee Cone went on, and was within ten strides of the door of Tasker Scott’s office when a harsh yell hit at him from behind.
“Cone! This way, Cone!”
Lee whirled. Fifty yards away, and closing in on him, were Stump and Pecos. Where they’d come from, Lee had no idea, but there was no mistaking their intent. It stood out all over them, ugly and uncompromising. These two were on the kill!
Stump’s harsh yell had reached other ears than those of Lee Cone. In front of Asa Bingham’s store, Jack Dhu’s head jerked up. It took only a glance to tell Jack what was in the air, for he was an old hand at this sort of business. With one lithe lunge he was on his feet and running.
The wall of Tasker Scott’s big warehouse was at Lee Cone’s back. To his left, a few short strides away, was the door of Scott’s office. For a moment Lee thought of making a dash for that door, but immediately he knew this would do him no good. There was nothing he could do about it but see it through, take his chance of one against two. This was showdown time.
He spread his feet, crouched slightly, and fixed his glance on Stump and Pecos with bitter intensity. He thought to himself: Let them make the first move, and then …
Down at the far end of the street a shining buggy, drawn by a fast-stepping team of matched bay horses, rolled into view. Lucy Scott had arrived in town.
Lee Cone didn’t see the buggy or its occupant. He saw nothing but the two gunfighters advancing so remorselessly on him. Every ounce of concentration in him was centered on those two. He scrubbed the open palm of his right hand up and down on the leg of his jeans.
Jack Dhu was swearing softly to himself as he ran. If he could just have been at Lee’s side at this moment. But he wasn’t. He was long, long yards away. Yet, there was one break he could win for Lee. He drew his gun and, when he saw Stump and Pecos come to a stop, spread a little apart, and go into a slight forward lean, Jack Dhu shoved his gun forward and sent the first hard snarl of report
boiling along the street.
Jack hadn’t expected to hit at this range, especially while on the run. He hadn’t hoped to. All he wanted to do was startle the two gunfighters, to throw them off balance. But he shot closer than he realized.
The slug had crashed into the holstered gun at Stump’s right hip, and the shock of it staggered Stump and spun him half around.
It broke Pecos into bewildered action, too. He dragged his gun, then hung in a moment of indecision as to whether to cut down on Lee Cone or turn to face this unexpected danger from behind. In the middle of that fatal second, Lee Cone’s gun pounded heavily.
Lee had seized on the break Jack Dhu’s shot had given him. He saw Stump spin under the impact of Jack’s bullet, and threw his own lead squarely into the center of Pecos’ lank middle.
Pecos gasped at the impact, jackknifed, and fell forward.
Stump, cat-fast in spite of his unwieldy bulk, recovered his balance, grabbed for his gun, felt the torn holster leather, the split and battered butt of the weapon, then dropped to one knee and caught up the gun Pecos had dropped.
Stump ducked completely under Lee’s second shot, made his try at Lee a little too hurriedly, and missed by a hair.
That was when Braz Boland stepped from the saloon door and cut down deliberately on Lee from the side.
It was as though someone had swung a massive blow against Lee’s right shoulder. He spun into the wall behind him and went down, and both Boland and Stump, firing again as he went down, missed that falling target.
Out in the middle of the street, close enough now to be sure, Jack Dhu came to a halt and threw two lightning fast shots—one at Stump, the other at Braz Boland. This was one business Jack Dhu understood thoroughly. He struck like a wolf might strike, with the same awful, deadly speed.
Stump, seeing Lee go down, was whirling to meet the threat from behind. Halfway through the move a savage force seemed to pick him up and shake him. Then he fell, landing on his face.
On his part, Braz Boland went loose all over. He took two backward steps, then fell through the saloon doors, leaving them winnowing wildly back and forth, with only Boland’s boots showing beneath the door.