“I hate to leave Asa here alone. That Nacho—”
She trailed off. Cameron nodded. “I feel the same way. If Tarrant did this there’s no telling how much farther he’ll go.”
“We could stay in town,” Estelle said. “Take rooms at the hotel.”
It would be more a gesture than anything else, but Brian sympathized with her need to watch over Asa. “I’ll leave you here then,” he said. “I want to see Wolffe.”
It was a long, hot ride to the Double Bit and Brian had to push his horse to make it before evening. He thought the first sight of the ranch would hurt—the myriad windows flashing in the coppery glow of the sun, the barns and corrals backed up into the mist-purple foothills. But somehow he was filled with no hurt, no sense of loss. As he dismounted in front of the house he saw a man coming from the barns. It was Latigo, and the man reached the porch before Brian. He tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his Levis, eyes measuring Sheridan insolently.
“Is Wolffe here?” Sheridan asked.
“No.”
“Jigger told me he was.”
“He ain’t!”
“Who is?”
“Me.”
Brian started onto the porch. “I’ll see for myself.”
Latigo made a sharp shift to block his way. “No, you won’t. If Wolffe was in, he wouldn’t want to see you.”
Brian stared at him, seeing the thinly veiled contempt in the man’s eyes. “I’m going in, Latigo.”
Latigo’s lips peeled back in a wolfish smile. “Like you took the Steeldust away from me in Apache Wells?”
Brian hung a moment longer, meeting the man’s stare. Then he lunged in at an angle, as if trying to get around one side of Latigo. The foreman shifted hard that way to block him.
Brian stopped at the last instant. It left Latigo plunging forward without anything to block. He tried to catch himself, but it was too late. His impetus had carried him by Brian at an angle.
Brian hit him across the side of the neck, jackknifing him and knocking him off his feet. The man rolled over into the compound and came to his hands and knees. Brian moved at him. Latigo came up off his hands and knees, throwing himself at Brian’s midsection.
Brian went into him, slamming an uppercut into his face. The blow and the smashing force of Brian’s body pitched Latigo over backward. He flopped over in the dirt a second time, staring up at Brian with a mixture of pain and surprise in his face.
With a guttural sound, Latigo switched around and scrambled to his feet. Brian rushed him. Latigo ducked his first blow, feinting at Brian’s face. Brian threw up an arm to block it. The real blow hit Brian in the solar plexus.
He couldn’t help doubling over in pain. He felt Latigo cup those hands behind his neck. Felt the man’s weight shift to slam a knee into his face.
He jerked aside in the last instant and caught the knee and heaved.
It pitched Latigo over on his back again. The blow dazed him and he shook his head before he rose again. Brian lunged in as soon as Latigo gained his feet. Latigo blocked his first blow and counterpunched for his solar plexus again. This time it struck Brian in the ridged muscle of his belly. Six weeks ago it would have doubled him over anyway. Now he only grunted and struck back. The blow rocked Latigo’s hand. He feinted at Latigo’s belly. The man hugged his arms in and left his face open. Brian hit him in the face. Latigo went down so hard it knocked the air from him with a sick grunt.
He lay on his belly a long time before rolling over. He finally raised his head, trying to see Brian through the blood streaming into his eyes. His breathing had a broken sound.
“You’d better not get up again,” Brian said. “You’re whipped and you know it.”
Latigo hung his head, spitting blood into the dirt. “Damn you,” he said. “Damn you.”
Brian waited till he was sure the man would not get up. Then he turned to go inside. As he did so the front door was opened and Wolffe stepped out, followed by Ford Tarrant. Anger settled its pale grooves about Wolffe’s thin-lipped mouth with the sight of Latigo on the ground, and his boots beat a swift tattoo as he crossed the porch.
“We thought somebody was busting a bronc,” he said. His intense black eyes fixed accusingly on Brian. “What’s going on?”
“Latigo thought you didn’t want to see me,” Brian said. “I changed his mind.”
“See me about what?”
Brian glanced at Tarrant before answering. There was something vaguely subservient in the way Tarrant stood at Wolffe’s elbow, partially behind the man. His face was unusually florid and Brian knew he had been drinking. Brian thought he would meet a strong hostility from the man, now that they had clashed in open warfare. But there was a cloudy indecision in Tarrant’s eyes, as though he still didn’t know quite what role to assume with Brian.
“What are you doing here?” Brian asked.
Tarrant tried to bluster. “I don’t see that it’s any of your—”
“He came to tell me about Cline,” Wolffe said, breaking in impatiently.
“That’s why I came too,” Brian said. “I’m asking you to defend Asa.”
Tarrant could not hide his surprise, and Wolffe scowled deeply at Brian. “With all the evidence against him?”
Brian looked directly at Tarrant. “What if we could prove he didn’t do it?”
Tarrant’s face went wooden. He couldn’t avoid the brittle tone of his voice. “You have evidence?”
“Maybe.”
“If you’ve got it, come out and say so,” Wolffe said irritably. “Otherwise you’re talking supposition—”
“I’m talking friendship, George.”
“Asa was never my friend.”
“I was.” Brian moved closer to Wolffe, standing a foot from him. “You can’t sit on the fence forever, George. You know what Ford tried to do with Sandoval’s cattle—”
“Self-protection,” Tarrant said thickly.
“The hell with that,” Brian said. His anger was rising. “A man’s got a right to live. You can’t have it all, Ford.” He turned to Wolffe. “A man’s life is at stake. An innocent man. You’ve got to come down off the fence, George.”
“Brian, I can’t—”
“Then you’re with Tarrant. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Brian, how can you—?”
“It’s one way or the other!” In his anger at the man, in his furious need to sway him and convince him, Brian caught him by the lapels. “Can’t you see that? Either you’re with us or you’re against us, George. It can’t be any other way.”
Wolffe caught Brian’s arm, struggling to twist free. “Let go, you young fool—”
“Are you saying you won’t do it?”
“I already told you—”
Brian gave vent to his boiling anger with a curse, shoving Wolffe violently backward. The man tripped on the edge of the porch and fell heavily. Latigo was on his feet, and he made an involuntary move behind Brian.
Brian pivoted toward him. The man stopped his motion, face still bloody and mottled with dirt. He was unarmed and he glanced at the gun holstered against Brian’s hip. Brian half turned again toward Wolffe. The man was getting to his feet, his face a white mask of fury and humiliation.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” His voice trembling and a smoldering, vindictive rage glowed in his black eyes. “I’ll smash you for good this time.”
Brian stared blankly at him. “This time?”
Wolffe sent a contemptuous glance at Tarrant. “You don’t think it was that weasel, do you?”
“George!” Tarrant’s protest was panicky.
“I want him to know,” Wolffe said hotly. “He’s kicked his dog for the last time.”
“So you drag the rest of us down with you,” Tarrant said.
“Nobody’s dragging yo
u down!” Wolffe said disgustedly.
Brian stared at them blankly, his mind turned momentarily blank by the shock of what he’d heard, trying helplessly to piece together the implications. Like a detached observer, he watched the quarrel reach a crest between the two men, sensing that it was a culmination of earlier clashes.
“Then why not go on?” Tarrant swayed faintly and his slack lips were twisted in a drunken sneer. “Why not tell him how Hadley helped you siphen off a big chunk of every Double Bit check that went through his bank—?”
“Ford—shut your mouth!”
“Why should I?” Tarrant asked. Wolffe had touched off a drunken panic in him and he couldn’t stop. He seemed to be striking out at the man for past indignities, his voice wavering with a vindictive hysteria. “You’ve already spilled the beans. Overcharging Brian for everything he bought. Tell him about that. Pocketing the difference. The phony deposit slips and the false accounts and—”
With a curse Wolffe wheeled toward the man, swinging a vicious backhand blow at him. It caught Tarrant across the mouth and flung him heavily backward. He would have fallen if a post supporting the porch overhang hadn’t been directly behind him; he sagged against it, grabbing the post to hold himself up. A rank hatred burned the drunken blaze from his eyes as he stared at Wolffe. He held a hand to his slack, bloody mouth and cursed foully.
Brian’s mind was no longer blank. The surprise and shock were gone and the comprehension of Wolffe’s full betrayal was beginning to move through him in a thin channel of sickness, growing rapidly to a tide, bitter and black.
Wolffe saw the expression on his face. Wolffe’s anger at Tarrant faded from his black eyes; his broad shoulders sagged and there was a spent, drawn look about his mouth.
“Well,” he said thinly, “you were bound to find out sooner or later.”
Brian shook his head helplessly, still trying to grasp the reality of it. “What’d you want, George? You could have been rich off the retainer I paid you.”
“Rich? Chicken-feed like that? What kind of man did you think I was? I licked boots long enough. I bowed and scraped and went without till I had my bellyfull. You didn’t think I was going to stand by and see a fool throw away the biggest ranch in Arizona. What do you know about riches? You and Tarrant were the biggest men in the country, but you were pikers. You’re going to see a different Double Bit come out of this.” Wolffe’s voice rose higher, a flush filled his face. “It’ll be bigger than you could ever dream of!”
There was a feverish excitement in his face. It was like a revelation to Brian. The burning eyes, the covetous regard for money, the obsessive need to possess and maneuver and control.
Why hadn’t he seen him like this before? He had merely indulged Wolffe, looking on him as a prudish older brother, knowing a certain fondness for him despite his faults.
“I guess I should have seen it a long time ago,” he said.
Wolffe had subsided. He was breathing heavily, regaining his composure. “You wouldn’t listen,” he said.
“Tell me one thing, George. Did Arleen know what you were doing?”
“I never told her. Maybe she sensed it. I don’t know.” Wolffe stepped back onto the porch. “What’s the difference?”
Brian looked at him. “Yeah,” he said emptily. “What’s the difference?”
CHAPTER 17
Brian got back to Sandoval’s near midnight. But the Yaqui was still waiting up for him. When Brian told him what had happened Sandoval began to pace around his little mud jacal.
“George Wolffe,” he said. “George Wolffe.”
“In a way you can’t blame him,” Brian said. “The kind of boyhood he had would twist anybody.”
“Some men they want women. Some they want power. Is no explaining—” Sandoval stopped, turning to Brian, the question hanging between them.
Brian shook his head. “I’m convinced Asa didn’t kill Cline.”
“And the trial she’s set for Saturday.”
It maddened Brian to think he possessed the knowledge that might point the finger of guilt at Wolffe, yet had no proof that would stand up in court. That was Wolffe’s strength; it was why he could admit to Brian what he had done and still know he was safe. And yet he had a weakness too. Knowing now that it had been Wolffe manipulating the strings from the beginning, Brian could see how he had played one man off against the other till none of them trusted him. The seeds of distrust and hatred were already planted deep in Ford Tarrant. If they could be cultivated quickly enough—
“What you think?” Sandoval asked.
“I’m thinking we still might have a chance to save Asa. What I heard this afternoon came out because Wolffe and Tarrant were at each other’s throats. What if a man like Judge Parrish had heard it?”
“They wouldn’t be fool enough to say anything in front of him.”
“What if they didn’t know he was there?”
“Brian, what you make?”
Brian rose restlessly, trying to piece together the fragments of a plan in his mind. It was only a vague idea yet. He poured himself a cup of coffee, bitter and black, frowning to himself.
“It may be a wild gamble, Chino, but it’s all we have left to work with. Add it up this way. Do you remember how I was bushwacked in Skeleton Canyon that time I went out to tell the Gillettes they could stay on their land?”
Chino nodded. “You told us.”
“Wolffe must have set that up. He thought the Salt Rivers would fold if Gillette pulled out. And he thought Pa would quit if I foreclosed.”
“So he make it look like the Gillettes they try to kill you. Then he sure you foreclose.”
“Right. And now Cline is killed under similar circumstances.”
“Wolffe again?”
“I’m convinced of it. And it makes sort of a pattern, doesn’t it?” Brian sipped at the coffee, frowning. Somehow he had to get Wolffe and Tarrant together again. The Double Bit was out of the question. There would be too many hands around. And Apache Wells would be no good. He remembered that more than once, when going into town, he and Tarrant had met at the old Archuleta place. It was the halfway point between the two ranches. He said, “Suppose Tarrant got a note from Wolffe, asking him to meet Wolffe at the Archuleta ruins. Tarrant would have to come through Skeleton Canyon. And suppose he was bushwacked there.”
A bright glow came to Chino’s eyes, as he recognized the implications. Then he shook his head. “How you know Wolffe write that letter?”
“I’ll do it for him, Chino. While I practice my handwriting, you get Wirt Peters.”
For twenty years Brian had known George Wolffe’s strong, deeply slanted handwriting; yet he still practiced an hour after Chino left before he was satisfied. The first letter was to Ford Tarrant:
Ford:—
I must see you immediately. Brian’s told Judge Parrish what he heard yesterday, though he has no proof to back it up. We’ve got to establish an airtight alibi for our whereabouts during the time of Cline’s murder, and we’ve got to be sure not to get our lines crossed. The Double Bit is no place to meet now. The Archuleta ruins would be better. I’ll be waiting there at moonrise.
George
The second note Brian addressed to himself:
Brian:—
I can understand your anger at finding out I was the one who engineered everything. But you’ll recall we always wanted to let you sit in. And what you said in Apache Wells convinces me that you realize how hopeless the fight has become, and that you’re ready to come back to your own people. Ford is our weak link. I’ve tried to ease him out, but he still has the power to checkmate me. With a Sheridan back at the Double Bit, Ford would be nothing on the Rim. So I’m willing to make a bargain. Agree to come back and I’ll give you proof that will save Asa. If you’ll meet me at the Archuleta place about moonrise tonight, I’ll have it with me.
He wondered how Tarrant would look when he showed it to him.
Near dawn, Sandoval returned with Wirt Peters. Brian was certain of Peters’s loyalty now. But the man had once worked for Tarrant and they had put pressure on him from the beginning to rejoin the Tarrant faction. For Peters to make the move now would seem logical, with the Salt Rivers facing certain and final defeat over Cline’s murder. Peters agreed to take the letter, supposedly from Wolffe, to Tarrant. He would tell Tarrant that Wolffe had persuaded him to come over to their side.
It would take Peters most of the morning to reach Tarrant, and that gave Brian time for his next step. Rousing Pancho, he ate a hurried breakfast and went to saddle up. Both Sandoval and Brian were groggy from the sleepless night. Slinging a Mexican-tree saddle aboard the extra horse they were taking for Judge Parrish, Sandoval emitted a prodigious yawn.
“This ain’t going to be so easy. That Wolffe he’s a smarter one than Ford Tarrant.”
“Not so smart when he’s mad,” Brian said. “We’ve got to get him to the old Archuleta place on time, and we’ve got to have him so hopping mad he’s ready to jump down Ford’s throat.”
Sandoval didn’t press it. Brian had given him a hint last night of what he had in mind.
All the way into Apache Wells Brian was thinking about it. About Arleen. That was the part he hated. If he could have gotten to Wolffe any other way, he would have done so. But time was short and he had to use the only weapon left.
It involved his relationship with Arleen. The question he still couldn’t answer. But what he’d learned at the Double Bit yesterday threw new light on it. Wolffe hadn’t told Arleen what he was doing to Brian. But maybe she had sensed it. That was how Wolffe put it.
And if she sensed it, why hadn’t she told Brian? Loyalty to her brother? Then how strong did that leave her love for Brian?
It was noon when they reached town. The crowd was gone from in front of the jail and through the open door a deputy was visible dozing at the desk. Wolffe’s buckboard was not parked in the alley below his office. That meant he was still at the Double Bit, as Brian had figured. They rode into the alley and Brian dismounted, looking up at the windows. He thought of all the times he had come here, of the laughter and the comradeship and the passion.
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