"Why, I still think this fellow's playing a game with us, sir," Leech said. "First he delays us and wears us down by sending us way up north, and then he sends a man to stall us some more right here, and now he wants us to let him ride in and join up with his friends the Hanneseys and the Maragon girl. How do we know the girl's been kidnapped at all? Hell, Buck's been courting her for months, and he's got a way with a certain kind of wrench-"
McKay shifted position in the saddle, and the Major said "Easy, Steve. You're not thinking about what you're saying if you were you'd have no doubt that the poor child had been taken into Blanco against her will."
The two men's eyes met, and Leech. said quickly. "Sure of course, Major. I reckon you're right, and it's up to us to look after her interests, but that doesn't mean we've got to let him-"
McKay said. gently, "I don't recall asking for your permission to ride anywhere, Mr. Leech." He looked at the Major. "And I withdraw my request for yours, sir."
The two men on the ground looked up, and there was a sudden stillness among the men grouped about the fire behind them Leech took a step forward, his hand becoming poised and ready above the butt of his pistol-a little more dramatically, McKay thought, than was quite necessary.
"Don't get cocky, McKay," Leech said. "I reckon you don't ride anywhere until we-"
He was interrupted by a tiny clicking sound from the right, where Ramon sat with a carbine negligently balanced across the pommel of his saddle, the muzzle aimed directly at Leech as if by accident.
There was a moment of extreme tension, then a man standing a little apart from the other Ladder hands stirred and said in a low, warning voice, "Major! Major Terrill, rider coming hellbent from town!" After a moment he said, "I can't tell for sure, but it looks like Miss Pat! What do you figure she's doing here?"
Chapter 24
STEVE LEECH helped the girl form he lathered horse, which stood head down and spread-legged in the last stages of exhaustion. Patricia was in little better condition, barely able to stand with the foreman’s help. Her black riding habit was powdered with dust, but her look of distress went far beyond the state of her costume.
“Thank God I reached you in time!” she gasped. “Oh, Steve, I was so afraid-It’s a trap! They’ve got dozens of riflemen waiting up in the rocks. They’ll let you in and cut you all to pieces when you start back out again.”
Her father came forward, and she turned and buried her face in his shoulder, trembling. “How did you learn this, my dear?” the Major asked at last.
Patricia did not answer at once. She straightened up, and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, and raised her hands to her hair. “It was awful,” she said. “I declare I don't know what’s happening to this country, when a girl can't ride safely-I was halfway home,” She explained Aunt Maud Canning said I should wait until morning, but every thing’s been so upsetting I just knew I couldn't sleep, anyway. I was just coming through the hills when suddenly there were men all, around me, dirty, bearded men I’d never seen before. I demanded to know what they were doing on Ladder range, and they laughed and said something about hanging around Rainier’s. I insisted that they let me through, and one big drunken bully grabbed at my bridle, so I hit him in the face with my riding crop and-and he pulled me from the saddle.”
The Major swore. “By God, I’ll find the man and shoot him!”
Patricia said breathlessly, “I don’t know what he’d have done if the others hadn’t made him let me go! Ugh, I can still feel his whiskers-Anyway, as I was riding away, he kept shouting after me that I-that I wouldn’t be so high and mighty long, that Rufus Hannesey had a little surprise waiting for you, you’d find it easy enough to get into Blanco but you’d never get out again alive, Old Rufus had enough guns staked out under the cliffs to wipe out an army. By morning, he yelled, Ladder would be finished and I-I wouldn’t be so free with my whip after the Hanneseys took over the country.” She had flushed a little as she spoke. “The minute I was out of their sight, of course, I turned south and raced to warn you. Thank God I got here in time!” She looked up quickly. “Where’s Jim going?”
McKay heard, her question behind him, he had already swung his horse away. As he jogged out across the level plain at an easy trot, he was aware that Ramon, Tiny Johnson, and Sam Purley were following him closely. He reined in slightly so that he could address them without turning in the saddle.
“I’m just going in to have a little talk with Rufus Hannesey, like I said,” he told them. “There are good reasons why hell hesitate to harm me. Frankly, I think it would look more peaceful if I rode in alone." The men made no response to this they continued to ride along with him as if he had not Spoken. McKay smiled briefly, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, suit yourselves. I won’t say the company isn't appreciated.”
They were in the entrance now, and the slopes of broken rock ran up steeply to the base of the perpendicular white cliffs on either hand. Now they heard a peculiar, soft whistle from the right, high above, and answered from the left. McKay stopped speaking, and glanced at Ramon, who grinned, his teeth white in his brown face.
“They are ready for visitors, si? What are you thinking, Señior?”
“I’m thinking,” McKay, said dryly, “that this is a hell of a place for a sailor.”
The narrow entrance opened up into a wide amphitheater that should have formed a setting for a magnificent establishment instead of the small-and-grubby village of shacks that nestled, in the shadow of the cliffs. A big man with a grizzled red beard was awaiting them on the veranda of the largest building. Buck Hannesey stood near by, close to Julie Maragon. At the sight of her, alive, McKay felt a quick emotion that went beyond relief or joy and which he did not care to analyze, since he suspected that it was not an emotion appropriate to a man with a recently broken heart. Julie was wearing her familiar brown riding skirt and a boy’s wool shirt. A black-clad man Was lounging in the doorway behind her. Two horses were hitched to the veranda railing, saddled and ready to go the whole group looked, in Some way, like an interrupted scene of departure.
There was no time to puzzle over this, however, and McKay reined in a dozen feet short of the porch. He had never seen the red-bearded man before, but there was no doubt of the identity of this impressive figure.
“Light, stranger,” said Rufus Hannesey. “By your clothes, you’d be this fellow from the east Come out here to marry Major Terrill’s girl. McKay, is it? Well, I’m Rufus Hannesey. I think you’ve met Miss Maragon and my boy, young Rufus, and that’s Reverend Beemis in the doorway. Yes, sir, we have a man of God With us today. As the fellow says, I figure I’m gaining a daughter rather than losing a son-”
McKay permitted himself the luxury of clearing his throat before he spoke, without glancing again toward Julie Maragon. “I see,” he said evenly. “I’ve intruded on a wedding, My apologies.”
“What else?” Hannesey laughed. “These young people, they dawdle for months making up their minds, but once the notion hits them, it’s got to be done right away. They came rushing in here in the middle of the night insisting I rouse up the Reverend from a sound sleep and have him perform the ceremony, but I persuaded them to wait till morning and let us old folks catch our breaths.”
McKay said carefully, “It’s a pity they were in such a hurry they couldn’t stop to explain the situation to Mr. Brockhurst instead of shooting him down in the street.”
“Ah, that was a sad thing!” Rufus Hannesey said quickly. “My boy regrets it deeply. The old fellow came roaring up drunk as a lord, shouting murder and kidnapping and what not. They tried to pay him no heed, but he got hold of a gun somewhere and let off a shot that didn’t miss our girl Julie, here, by more than a foot. Young Rufus got mad, and I can’t say I blame him. He pulled his pistol to scare the old drunk off, but the horses were plunging badly and one shot got away from him. Too bad to cast a shadow over this happy occasion, but I can’t really feel that the boy was at fault.”
McK
ay said, “Perhaps not. Well, I guess I’m not the rescuing hero I thought I was, then. I don’t mind saying I feel a little foolish, Mr. Hannesey.”
The older man chuckled. “Come riding in here without a weapon in your hands and only three men at your back to save her, did you? Well, I hear you tackled Ben Rainier with nothing but a little stick, I’d sooner have gone up against a grizzly bear, myself. Now you’re here, light, down and join the fun, Mr. McKay. . . . Oh, if there’s any doubt in your mind that I’m telling the truth, you’re free to ask, her. There she is. Put the question to her, whether she came willingly or not." His deep chuckle came again. “Leave it to a Pair of lovers to turn the whole damn country upside-down. I suppose the Major’s out there fixing rapes, far all our necks, he’s been awaiting the chance for a good many years."
McKay said, “Well, he has some such idea, I believe.” He swung out of the saddle at last, and passed the reins to Ramon. Standing there in the dusty yard, still, shaded by the cliff to the east, he looked at the four people on the porch, letting his glance travel from. Rufus Hannesey to the shabby, somber figure of the preacher whose shaking hand and veined skin proclaimed his failing-to the gaunt, weaponed shape of Buck Hannesey, sullen and silent, and finally to the girl. The heavy, masculine shirt seemed, perversely, to emphasize the grace of the small body beneath. She returned his look steadily. Her left eye was bruised and discolored, he could not recall that Ben Rainier’s fist had left such a mark. With the boyish shirt and the freckles, it gave her a tomboy look, but there was no corresponding gaiety in her glance. After a moment, she looked away, He mounted the steps to the porch and walked over to her.
She glanced up at him when he stepped before her. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. McKay,” she said calmly, “but as you can see, I’m really quite all right. I’m sorry we’ve caused everybody a lot of trouble. . . . Oh, this eye?”
She touched it lightly, and laughed. “Why, you ought to remember Ben Rainier knocking me cold! It’s really an awful thing for a bride to have to display, isn’t it?”
McKay jerked his head toward the tethered horses. “It looks as if you were planning to take off or your honeymoon without delay after the ceremony.”
She shook her head and laughed again. “Why, no, Buck and I were just about to ride out to explain things when you were seen coming in. After all, we don’t want a lot of, shooting on my-my wedding day. But now that you understand how it is, you can explain to the Major and save us a ride.”
“I doubt if the Major will believe me,” McKay said. “As Ramon once said, he believes what he wants to believe.”
“And he wants to believe me a prisoner here, to give him an excuse to attack?”
McKay shrugged. “He was on the way here to attack without an excuse. Now I think he realizes that the excuse will make his position much stronger afterward, but the lack of it won’t hold him back forever. What’s delaying him right now is the suspicion that there may be a trap awaiting him in here.”
Julie hesitated, and glanced first toward the rocks of the entrance, and then toward Rufus Hannesey. McKay was aware that the bearded man answered her look with a slight nod.
She said, “There is a trap, Mr. McKay. If you like, Mr. Hannesey will show you where his-Where our men are posted, so that you can describe the situation to Major Terrill. If he has any military knowledge at all to go with his title, he’ll realize that fifteen or twenty men-however many he has-can’t possibly accomplish anything here except get themselves killed, and for nothing, at all. I certainly don’t want them galloping in here disturbing my wedding! Tell the Major that if he insists on fighting, he’s fighting only for himself. I haven’t asked for his help and I don’t want his.
McKay looked down at her for a moment. The situation was perfectly clear now, and he knew a sense of warm, admiration for this girl-there was also the stronger feeling that he still did not want to recognize, since it made him vaguely ashamed of his own fickleness. He said gently, “That 'was a fine speech, Julie. I ought to know, I made it myself a few days ago when the Major wanted to rush out and kill a few Hannesey’s on my behalf.” Then he said, still softly, “You never learn, do you?”
She looked up quickly. “What do you mean?”
“You’re never happy unless your neck’s way out for somebody.”
A faint smile touched her eyes. “You’re a fine one to talk, my dear man. Where do you think your neck is right now?” The smile faded. “Please go, Jim. I know what I’m doing.”
“So do I,” he said and turned. “Mr. Hannesey,” he said in louder tones, “I don’t quite understand the situation, but it might be changed somewhat by your knowing that this young lady is no longer the owner of the Lazy M ranch. I am So if young Mr. Hannesey is hoping to acquire the property by marriage, I’m afraid he’s doomed to disappointment.”
There was a deep silence during which, McKay thought, you could almost hear the attitudes of the people on the porch adjusting themselves to this information. McKay was aware of Julie’s hand, on his arm-she had tried impulsively to stop him from speaking. Buck Hannesey’s eyes narrowed in an ugly way, and she took the hand away. Rufus Hannesey took a step toward them.
“Is this true, girl?”
She hesitated. McKay said, “Of course it’s true. Would I be fool enough to ride in here without something to trade, Mr. Hannesey? Do you think I was planning to get her out of here by force with three men? Not only is the ranch mine, but I’d like to point out that I came to this country expecting to be married and arranged my affairs accordingly before leaving the east. Naturally I made a will, and naturally I named as beneficiary the young lady I hoped to make my bride. So if anything should happen to me until that will is changed, the Lazy M ranch will go to Miss Patricia Terrill. I think that makes my continued existence a matter to be desired by both of us.”
Rufus Hannesey stared at McKay a moment longer, suddenly he laughed. “Cute,” he said. “‘Very cute, Mr. McKay.”
“He’s lying!” Buck Hannesey said harshly. “If she’s sold the ranch, she’d have told us, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t have kept her mouth shut and left us thinking-”
“I’m not so sure," his father said. He studied Julie’s face thoughtfully. “When did the sale take place, girl?”
“The day before yesterday,” she said, “I . . . ”
McKay broke in, “I came here to make a deal, if necessary, Mr. Hannesey. You can guess What it is.”
Rufus Hannesey started to speak but stopped, looking toward his son. Buck laughed, a Short, mean burst of sound.
“Well what are you waiting for? You’ve got lots of kids, but there’s only one Big Muddy. Speak up and tell the man if you'll trade, why don’t you?”
The older, man’s eyes were veiled, He said, “Sorry, Mr. McKay, I can’t deal with you.”
“Why not?” McKay demanded. “You've wanted the Lazy M for a long time. I suspect you can do without this particular daughter-in-law. What I’m proposing is a Simple-"
“Shut up!” Rufus Hannesey snapped. He took a step forward and faced McKay closely, and now McKay could see the bleak misery in the older man’s eyes. “You’re a fool, Mr. McKay! Have you thought what happens to my boy if she goes free to spread some wild story of being kidnapped and, no doubt, abused-” He glanced at Buck, and looked away. “Maybe I can hold the Major off today, but it won’t end there. Not unless we scotch this tale right here by a marriage. Otherwise, they’ll hunt him and hound him to death, and not him alone, bit the rest of us, too!”
McKay said deliberately, “So you’re going to sacrifice her, and bring shame and trouble on the rest of your family, just to protect this killer you’ve fathered, Mr. Hannesey, who’s bound to be hanged anyway, or shot like a sheep-killing dog! Well, I’m going to show you just what it is you’re protecting. I’ve watched two of these Texas gunmen in action now, and I wouldn’t give f you a sea-biscuit full of weevils for the pair. I ask you to note, Mr. Hannesey, that I am not armed.” As he turne
d, his mind was cold and clear, weighing the chances of this course of action carefully, they were not large, but they did exist. He looked into the gaunt face of Buck Hannesey, “I’ve owed you something for several days,” he said and without haste he reached out and struck the taller man across the face with the flat of his hand.
Chapter 25
THE BLOW WAS NOT HARD, but the sound of it seemed to carry through the canyon like a gunshot. Buck Hannesey made an inarticulate to sound, an instant later his revolver was in his hand. McKay waited without moving his empty hands idle at his sides.
Give him a gun, somebody!" Buck cried in a strangled voice. "Pop give the bastard a gun!"
Rufus Hannesey stepped forward gingerly, as one would approach a half-wild beast. "Easy, boy, easy!"
McKay turned his back on the threatening weapon. He forced himself to to speak distinctly. "Ramon."
"Señior?"
Ramon, inform the gentleman that if he wants satisfaction I'll be glad to oblige him in the usual manner. The distance of twenty paces should be satisfactory, There's a suitable pair of pistols in my saddlebag, if they have none here."
Behind him, Rufus Hannesey's voice commanded, "put up that gun, Young Rufus, damn it!" Then the older man's big hand swung McKay around. "What the hell are you trying to do, challenge, my boy to a duel? We don't in that fancy-Dan way out here!"
McKay said coolly, "No, I've 'seen how you fight out here, Mr. Hannesey. You take one man who can't find his pistol in broad-daylight without a lantern and pit him against another man who's spent his life practicing how to conjure it out of the holster, and call it a fair fight. I saw Steve Leech kill your man Brownie in lust such a sportsmanlike Texas gunfight. I suppose you have no criticism of the way Brownie was killed, Mr. Hannesey. Well, if that's your feeling, just lend me your revolver and you Can have the pleasure of watching your son shoot me down while I'm tugging it out of my belt."
Hannesey frowned. "You saw Brownie killed?"
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