by Bill Crider
Chapter Twelve
It was just breaking day. Ryan hadn't slept much. He was too cold and too wet for sleep, though he was tired clear through and his back felt as if he had a hot poker for a backbone.
Billy, on the other hand, had slept ever since they had arrived at the cave and gotten in out of the storm. He was sprawled out in the dirt, snoring.
Ryan looked out at the sunrise. It was going to be another clear, hot day, and after a few hours of the blazing sun most of the ground would be as hard as before the rainfall. Most of the water had run off into the few creeks before the ground could soak it up, and Ryan wouldn't have been surprised to hear about flash floods in the country round about.
He wanted to get out of the cave as soon as he could. He didn't know whether there was anyone else who was familiar with it or not, but he had been gone too long to count on no one's having found it. It was on Kane's land now, but for all Ryan knew, Kane might be conducting guided tours of the place. It wasn't likely, but it was possible. It was more than possible that Kane himself had looked over The Mountain and found the cave there. Ryan knew that he couldn't stay.
He didn't know where he could go, however. Certainly the shack would not be safe. Both Kane and the law would be looking for him there.
He gave Sheriff Bass a minute's thought. It had been dark, very dark, at the jail. Ryan was sure no one had seen his face, so Bass would first suspect Kane. Unfortunately, all Kane had to do in this case was to tell the truth—that Ryan had Billy. Bass might even believe him, and if he did, Ryan would be caught in the middle.
There wasn't any question that Ryan was going to have to turn Billy back over to Bass sooner or later. Now that he had him, though, it seemed like a good idea to find out what, if anything, Billy really knew about Sally's murder. It might just be possible for Ryan to locate the real killer before he took Billy in.
Or it might turn out that the jury had been right and that Ryan's own feelings were wrong. Ryan didn't think so. There seemed to be too many others who felt the way he did.
He walked over and nudged Billy with the toe of his boot. Billy stirred but didn't wake up. Ryan nudged harder.
Billy turned over. His clothes were caked and wet. He blinked his eyes, then sat up suddenly. "'Wh…wha . . . ?"
He saw Ryan, and his head began to turn from side to side. His body jerked as if he wanted to get up and run but wasn't sure about how to do it.
"Don't worry about it," Ryan said. "You're out of jail, remember?"
Billy looked at him. He wasn't jerking now, but his eyes were wide. "What happened?"
"Your brother broke you out," Ryan said. "I stole you, which turned out to be pretty good for you. A couple of Kane's men were trying to kill you."
Billy looked guilty. Ryan hadn't mentioned that Billy had hit him and tried to get away, but Billy remembered.
"We left them back in Shatter's Grove," Ryan said. "I don't think they were hurt too much. Might catch pneumonia, but then so might we."
Billy seemed to notice the condition of his clothes for the first time. He tried to brush some of the mud off, but it was too wet. It stuck to his fingers.
"It was quite a storm," Ryan said.
Billy stopped brushing. He didn't know what to do or say now. He was afraid that Ryan was going to do something to him, but he wasn't sure what. The events of the previous night were coming back to him more clearly. He could remember Barson throwing him into the mud and pressing his face into it. If Ryan had saved him, maybe he wouldn't kill him. But why had he saved him? Billy wanted to ask, but he didn't have the nerve.
Ryan saw the younger man's confusion. "I didn't bring you here to do anything to you, Billy. To tell the truth, I don't think you killed my sister. What I want to know is, who did?"
"I . . . don't know," Billy said. "I've been telling ever'body that all along. I just don't know. I went to see her, and she was dead. That's the truth of it, and that's all the truth."
The sun was fully up now, a dark red ball that in minutes would be yellow and hot as it came from behind the few hazy clouds.
"Why'd you go to see her, Billy?" Ryan said.
Billy looked down. "I liked her."
"I bet a lot of folks liked her, but they didn't go to see her."
"She liked me, too," Billy said. He looked back up and caught Ryan's eyes. It was the first show of spirit Ryan had seen in him. "I know you don't believe that. Nobody else did. But that's the truth, too."
"Your brother know you liked her?" Ryan said.
Something in Billy's face changed. "No. No, he didn't know about it. I never told him."
"Why not?"
Billy gave a bitter laugh. "You know why not."
Ryan nodded. "I guess I do." He paused. "You ever tell her about that night at Shatter's Grove?"
"I . . . I couldn't."
It was too bad, Ryan thought. At least Billy could have told Sally that Ryan was dead. Or as good as dead. That might have made things easier for her.
"I wanted to," Billy said. "I really wanted to. But you can see how I couldn't. I know she liked me, but she wouldn't have liked me if I'd told her that."
"She was supposed to marry Pat Congrady," Ryan said. "How much did she like you?"
"It was all over between her and Congrady. She told me."
Ryan didn't believe it. "She ever tell him?"
"I don't know. When my brother got the land, she didn't have much to do with anybody. I know Congrady talked it all over town that he was goin' to marry her, and lately he'd been sayin' it might not be long, but I never believed it."
"You didn't ask her?"
Billy shook his head. "I didn't want to," he said. What he meant was that he didn't have the nerve, but he couldn't say that.
"And he's the one who found you at the shack."
"He's the one, all right. Don't think I haven't thought about that part of it. Maybe he's the one that killed her, and just waited for me to show up so he could put the blame on a Kane."
Ryan stepped outside the cave. The bay was still tied to a scruffy stand of milkweed. He turned back to Billy.
"Why would he kill her?" He was thinking about the day before, about Crabtree stopping to talk to Congrady right after insulting Ryan.
"She used to talk to me about you," Billy said, avoiding the answer to Ryan's question. "She used to say how you'd come back someday. Lots of people in town, most of 'em probably thought you were dead. She never did, though. She said she had dreams about you."
Ryan thought suddenly of his own dreams of the caged eagle. "What kind of dreams?"
"She never said. I thought you were dead myself. I never saw how you could survive after . . . what we did."
Ryan thought about his arm and his back, about the scar so close to his eye. "I barely did," he said. Then he got back on track. "I was asking you about Pat Congrady. Why would he kill my sister?"
"Maybe he was jealous."
Ryan could tell by the sound of Billy's voice that even he didn't believe what he was saying. No one else in Tularosa would have believed him, either. Sally Ryan turn down Pat Congrady, a man with a solid job and a store of his own? Maybe a little tightfisted, but still a man who could be counted on to provide a home and be a good father to the children, they might have said, but not a bad man.
Not nearly as bad as Kane, no matter what his faults might be.
"Tell me something, Billy," Ryan said. "Just exactly how did my sister treat you?"
Billy looked off to the side, down at the cave floor, anywhere but at Ryan.
"Tell me, Billy."
"All right," he said. "All right. She treated me like a damn kid. Is that what you wanted me to say? Well, that's the way it was. Like I was some kind of stray that had wandered up and she had to take care of it. I guess she felt sorry for me." His shoulders slumped. "I guess that was it, sure enough. She felt sorry for me."
He looked up suddenly at Ryan. "Why would my brother break me out and then kill me?"
"
I don't know the answer to that one," Ryan said. "Anyway, it wasn't him that was trying. It was Barson and Long."
"They knew," Billy said.
Ryan felt the sun warming his back through his shirt. The mud would be drying fast on their clothes now. "What did they know?" he said.
"They knew about me and Sally," Billy told him. "How?"
"They followed me once. I don't know how they got onto me, but I saw them. I don't even think they knew I saw them, though." He clenched his fists at his side. "They treated me like she did, like a kid. They weren't even tryin' to hide, like they didn't care if I caught them at it or not."
"Why would they be following you?"
"I guess they just wondered where I was goin'. I had got to where I would visit Sally a lot. I wasn't around the place as much as I had been, and they didn't see me in town. They mentioned it once, but I didn't tell 'em anything."
"Would they have told Kane about it? About where you were going?"
Billy thought about it. "I don't know," he said finally. "They might have, or they might not. If he asked, they would. But if he didn't ask, they might keep it back. Keep it to themselves, so they could use it against me. They didn't like me very much."
To Ryan, Billy seemed to think that everyone treated him badly, and he began to wonder just how deep Billy's own jealousy might have been.
"They might have killed her," Billy said.
"Barson and Long?" Ryan and Virginia had already thought of the same possibility, so he wasn't too surprised to hear Billy mention it.
"Yeah. They might have." Billy smashed his fists into his legs. "They would have done it if my brother told 'em to. If they did, I'll find out. And then I'll kill the both of 'em. You wait and see if I don't."
Listening to Billy's false bravado, it was easy for Ryan to see why so many others treated him like a kid. It was the way he talked and acted, which made it hard to treat him like anything else.
Billy broke in on Ryan's thoughts. "You ain't gonna take me back to the jail, are you? I didn't kill Sally. I swear I didn't. You can't take me back to the jail!"
"I won't," Ryan said. "Not for a while yet, anyway."
When Long got out of the grove, his mind was filled with thoughts of blue murder.
He had managed to get most of the blood and mud off his face, but he still couldn't breathe through his nose.
There was no telling what kind of damage that goddamned Ryan had done to it. While Long enjoyed inflicting pain on others, he was not fond of his own hurt, and now his whole face was aching. There was an occasional sharp stabbing in the area of the nose, as well. He had put his hand to his nose, and it felt all soft and mushy, not to mention being about the size of his hat.
He had come to first. Barson was still lying there, snoring in the rain, just like he was at home asleep in his own bed with a nice fire going and good meal in his belly.
Long dragged himself over to Barson and slapped him in the face a time or two. Barson hardly moved.
Long got weakly to his feet and started kicking Barson in the ribs, not too hard at first, but harder and harder as he started getting a little of his strength back. It wasn't that he really thought the kicking would wake Barson up. It was just that he had to take his hate out on somebody, and Barson was the only one who was handy. Long was not a man to bear frustration easily, as almost any whore in Tularosa could have testified.
Barson came out of it and began to make snuffling sounds. Long stopped kicking him and kneeled down to slap him again.
"Wake up, damn you," Long said. He stopped slapping and got his hands under Barson's shoulders, hauling him upright.
Barson was shaking his head and trying to figure out what had happened, not an easy job when your skull is still ringing from being clobbered with a pistol butt.
"We got to get ourselves out of here," Long said. "Understand? We got to get back to Kane's place."
"Huh? What? Huh?" Even at the best of times Barson was not a brilliant talker. In his present addled state he was hardly coherent.
"Come on," Long said, pulling Barson to his feet.
Barson tried to stand, but it was as if his legs were made of feathers instead of bone. He sagged back down, and it was all Long could do to hold him up. Long wasn't feeling too well himself.
"If we don't get out of here quick, the sheriff will have us for sure," Long said. "Can't you get that in your head?"
"Huh? Head? Huh?"
Long gave up on trying to explain. He hauled Barson back up and got the big man's arm around his shoulder. He started walking forward, with Barson's feet dragging through the mud.
Long managed a few steps before Barson's weight began to drag him down. He stopped to rest. He could see that it would take hours to get back to the horses at this rate. The cold rain washed over them, but it didn't seem to be doing much to revive Barson.
After taking a few more steps forward, Long stopped again. "You got to help, or I'm just going to leave you here. To hell with you!"
"Huh? To hell? Huh?"
Barson's mind didn't seem to be noticeably clearing. Long struggled forward for several yards.
It was about then that the thought of killing Ryan began to crowd out the thought of Barson's weight and everything else.
This was all Ryan's fault. His nose, the damned load of Barson that he was having to carry, the fact that the law might be on them any minute—all of it was Ryan's fault. Every bit of it.
Another ten yards and Long was even beginning to blame Ryan for the storm. If Ryan hadn't been at the jail, things would have gone fine. Long would be at home now, clean and dry. In fact, if they'd just killed Ryan the first time, none of this would have ever happened.
Well, Ryan was a dead man now. He and Barson had fouled up this time, but it wouldn't happen again. Not after Ryan had gotten them into a mess this bad. He was going to pay, and pay hard.
He began to think of the ways he would like to kill Ryan. Shooting him in the face or the heart would be too easy. He wanted Ryan to die a little bit at a time, so it had to be something slow.
A stomach shot was good. Long had seen a man shot in the stomach once. It had taken him nearly a whole day to die, and he had been in considerable pain, to judge from the way he took on about it.
Or maybe something with a knife. Long liked to use knives. A cut here, a cut there. Nothing too deep. Just enough to hurt and cause lots of blood. He'd heard the Indians could cut you a thousand times before you died. It would be fun to do that to Ryan.
Or broken bones. The thought warmed Long's savage heart. He could get him an axe handle and work Ryan over with it. Break his arms, his legs, his ribs. And then break open his head.
Thoughts like that got Long out of the trees and back to the horses. Barson was beginning to come around at last, and the rain had slowed to a mere drizzle. The stump of the lightning-struck tree still smoldered off to one side.
With a little pushing and shoving, Long got Barson into his saddle. The big man slumped forward, but he appeared able to hold the reins and stay on the horse.
"Think you can make it?" Long said.
"Huh? What? . . . Uh, yeah. Yeah."
It wasn't much of a response, but it was better than Long had been able to get before. What the hell, if he couldn't stay in the saddle, let him fall. Long had done all he was going to do. It was up to Barson now. If he made it back to Kane's, fine. If he fell off and got picked up by the law, well, that was fine, too.
Thinking of the law, Long looked all around. There was a little light in the sky now, but not much. The clouds were breaking up, and there were a few pinpoints of light above, though not enough to see by. There was no sight or sound of anyone nearby, or even in the distance. Long was sure they could make it all right. The posse must have decided the weather was too bad for pursuit.
"Let's go," he said.
"Go? Uh . . . where?" Barson still hadn't come all the way out of it, but he was sitting up a little straighter.
"Just st
ay close and follow me. Can you do that?" Long rode right over by Barson.
"Uh . . . yeah. I think . . . so." Barson shook his head as if to clear it, but from the expression on his face it was immediately obvious that he wished he hadn't shaken it at all. "Ooohhhhhhh," he moaned.
Long was getting angry with Barson now. Hell, here he was with a nose that was mashed all over his face and at the same time swelling up like a poisoned dog, and Barson was the one doing the complaining. It was almost enough to make Long want to reach out his leg and kick Barson off his horse and leave him right there. To hell with him.
Barson put his hand to the side of his head. There was a knot the size of a turkey egg on it, and it was very tender to the touch. The skin had been broken only slightly, but the pain was radiating out from the knot in waves.
"Ooohhhhhhh," Barson moaned again.
Long moved off. "You comin' or not?" he said.
Barson kneed his horse in the flanks and somehow managed to follow. Every step the horse took sent a new wave jolting through Barson's head.
If Barson had been able to think clearly—if he had been able to think at all—there was no doubt that his mind would have been running along the same lines as Long's, with both of them contemplating all the pleasant ways to bring about an end to Ryan.
The pain, however, drove any attempt at thought from Barson's head. It was all he could do to stay on the horse and keep up with Long, who cursed him all the way back to Kane's.
Chapter Thirteen
Kane had gotten Johnny McGee back to the house and into bed. His wound was not serious, and the bullet had passed clean through. Kane poured some whiskey on it, listened to Johnny scream, and let it go at that. He figured McGee would be all right, and if he wasn't, too bad.
After that, Kane had gone into his office and had a drink from the same bottle of whiskey he had used on the wound. He hadn't used the whole bottle. That would have been wasteful.
He regretted taking the drink almost as soon as he did it. It was raw and burned the back of his throat. He should have put that bottle away and gotten out the good stuff, the stuff that was far too good to waste on the wound of a three-fingered gunman. He corked the bottle and put it away in a drawer.