How long ago was that? He turned his head and found himself in a square stone room. One side of the room was native rock, and so was part of another side. The rest had been built up from loose stones gathered and shaped to fit. Besides the wide bed on which he lay there was a table and a chair. He turned slightly and the bed creaked. The door opened, and he looked up into the eyes of Connie Duane.
“Connie?” He was surprised. “Where am I? What’s happened?”
“You’ve been unconscious for days,” she told him, coming to the bedside. “You have had a bad concussion and you lost a lot of blood before Laredo and Bob McLennon found you.”
“What about the others?”
“Both of them were dead. By all rights, you should have been.”
“But where are we?”
“It’s a cliff dwelling, a lonely one, and very ancient. It is high up in the side of the mountain called Thieving Rock. McLennon knew where it was, and he knew that if word got out that you were alive they would be out to complete the job at once. So McLennon and Shad brought you here.”
“Are they still here?”
“Shad is. He hunts and goes to Yellow Butte for supplies, but he has to be very careful because it begins to look like they are beginning to get suspicious.”
“McLennon?”
“He’s dead, Tom. Dornie Shaw killed him. He went to Mustang to find a doctor for you. He encountered Dornie on the street. Bob was very fast, you know, but Dornie is incredible. He killed Bob before he could get a shot off.”
“How did you get here?”
“Bob McLennon and Shad had talked about it, and they knew I was against the company, and also that Uncle John had been killed—so they came to me. I came out here right away. I knew a little about nursing, but not much. Laredo has been wonderful, Tom. He’s a true friend.”
Kedrick nodded. “Who did the shooting? I thought I saw Poinsett.”
“He was one of them. I heard them talking about it but was not sure until later. Poinsett was there, Goff, Fessenden, Clauson and Shaw.”
“Anything else happen?”
“Too much. They burned Yellow Butte’s saloon and livery stable, and they have driven almost half the people off. Their surveyors are on the land now, checking the survey they made previously. A handful of the squatters have drawn back into the mountains somewhere under Pit Laine and that friend of yours, Dai Reid. They are trying to make a stand there.”
“What about Sue?”
She looked at him quickly. “You liked her, didn’t you? Well, Sue has taken up with Keith. They are together all the time. He’s a big man, now. They’ve brought in some more gunmen, and the Mixus boys are still here. Right now Alton Burwick and Loren Keith have this country right under their thumbs. In fact, they even called an election.”
“An election?”
“Yes, and they counted the ballots themselves. Keith was elected mayor, and Fessenden is sheriff. Burwick stayed out of it, of course, and Dornie Shaw wouldn’t take the sheriff’s job.”
“Looks like they’ve got everything their own way, doesn’t it?” he mused. “So they don’t know I’m alive?”
“No. Shad went back there and dug three graves. He buried the other two, and then filled in the third grave and put a marker over it with your name on it.”
“Good!” Kedrick was satisfied. He looked up at the girl. “And how do you get out here and back without them becoming curious?”
She flushed slightly. “I haven’t been back, Tom. I stayed here with you. There was no chance of going back and forth. I just left everything and came away.”
“How long before I can be up?”
“Not long, if you rest. And you’ve talked enough now.”
Kedrick turned over the whole situation in his mind. There could be no more than a few days before the sale of the land would come off, and if there was one thing that mattered it was that the company not be permitted to profit from their crookedness. As he lay there resting, a plan began to form in his mind, and the details supplied themselves one by one.
His guns hung on a nail driven into the wall close to his hand. His duffle, which he had brought away from the St. James, lay in the corner. It was almost dark before he completed his planning, and when Laredo came in he was ready for him.
“Cimarron?” Shad nodded a little later. “Bloomfield would be nearer. How’s that?”
“Good.” Kedrick agreed. “Make it fast.”
“That ain’t worryin’ me,” Laredo said, rolling his tobacco in his jaws. “They’ve been mighty suspicious lately. Suppose they trail this place down while I’m gone?”
“We’ll have to chance that. Here’s the message. Hurry it up!”
The sun was bright in the room when Connie came through the door with his breakfast. She turned and her face went white. “Oh, you’re up!”
He grinned shakily. “That’s right. I’ve laid abed long enough. How long has it been?”
“Almost two weeks,” she told him. “But you mustn’t stand up. Sit down and rest.”
There was a place by a window where he had a good view of the trail below. At his request Connie brought the Winchester and her own rifle to him. He cleaned them both, oiled them carefully, and placed them beside his window. Then he checked his guns and returned them to their holsters, digging the two Walch Navy pistols from his duffle and checking them also.
He realized that it was too late to do anything now, but it was a wonder he had not thought of Ransome before. No more able legislator existed in Washington than Frederic Ransome, and the two had been brother officers in the War Between the States, as well as friends in France during the Franco-Prussian War when Ransome had been there as an observer. If anybody could block the sale to the company, he could, even on such short notice.
His telegram would be followed by a letter supplying all the details, and with that to go on, Ransome might get something done. He was a popular and able young senator with good connections and an affable manner. Moreover, he was an excellent strategist. It would make all the difference in this situation.
The cliff dwelling was built well back from the face of the cliff, and built evidently with an eye toward concealment as well as defense. They had called this, Connie told him, Thieving Rock, long before the white man appeared, and the Indians who lived here had been notorious thieves. There was a spring, so water was not a worry, and there were supplies enough for immediate purposes.
Two days dragged slowly by, and on the morning of the third Kedrick was resuming his station by the window when he saw a rider coming into the narrow canyon below.
The man was moving slowly and studying the ground as he came. From time to time he paused and searched the area with careful eyes. Kedrick pushed himself up from his chair. Taking the Winchester, he worked his way along the wall to the next room.
“Connie?” he called softly. There was no reply. After a minute, he called a second time. Still there came no answer.
Worried now, he remembered she had said something about going down below to gather some squaw cabbage to add greens to their diet.
Back at the window, he studied the terrain carefully, and then his heart gave a leap. Connie Duane was gathering squaw cabbage from a niche in the canyon wall, not fifty yards from the unknown rider.
Lifting his rifle, Kedrick checked the range. It was all of four hundred yards and a downhill shot. Carefully, he sighted on the rider, then lowered the gun. The stranger was nearer the girl now, and a miss might ricochet and hit her. The canyon wall would throw any bullet he fired back into the canyon itself and it might even ricochet several times in the close confines.
Yet somehow, she had to be warned. If the rider saw her tracks he would find both Connie and the hideout. Suddenly, the ears of the horse came up sharply, and the rider stiffened warily and looked all around. Carefully, Kedrick drew a bead on the man again. He hated to kill an unwarned man, but if necessary he would not hesitate.
Connie was standing straight now
and appeared to be listening. Tense in every fiber, Tom Kedrick watched and waited. The two were now within fifty feet of each other, although each was concealed by a corner of rock and some desert growth including a tall cottonwood and some cedars.
Still listening, they both stood rigid. Kedrick touched his lips with the tip of his tongue. His eyes blurred from strain, and he brushed his hand across them.
The rider was swinging to the ground now, and he had drawn a gun. Warily, he stepped away from his ground-hitched horse. Shifting his eyes to Connie, Tom saw the girl wave. Lifting his hand, he waved back. Then he lifted the rifle. She shook a vigorous negation with her arm, and he relaxed, waiting.
Now the man was studying tracks in the sandy bottom of the wash, and as he knelt, his eyes riveted upon the ground, a new element entered the picture. A flicker of movement caught the tail of Kedrick’s eye. Turning his head, he saw Laredo Shad riding into the scene. Glancing swiftly at the window, Laredo waved his hand. Then he moved forward and swung to the ground.
From his vantage point Kedrick could hear nothing, but he saw Laredo approach, making heavy going of it in the thick sand. Not a dozen yards from the man, he stopped.
He must have spoken, for the strange rider stiffened as if shot. Slowly he stood erect. As he turned, Tom saw his face full in the sunlight. It was Clauson!
What happened then was too fast for the eye to follow. Somebody must have spoken—who, did not matter. Laredo Shad in a gunman’s crouch, flashed his right hand gun. It sprang clear, froze for a long instant, and then just as Clauson pulled the trigger, Shad fired—but a split second sooner.
Clauson staggered a step back, and Shad fired again. The outlaw went down slowly, and Laredo walked forward and stripped his gun belts from him. Then from his horse he took his saddlebags, rifle and ammunition. Gathering up the dead man and working with Connie’s help, together they tied him to the saddle, and then turned the horse loose with a slap on the hip.
Connie Duane’s face was white when she came into the room. “You saw that?”
He nodded. “We didn’t dare’ to let him go. If we had we would all have been dead before noon tomorrow. Now,” he said with grim satisfaction, “they’ll have something to think about.”
Shad grinned at him when he came in. “I didn’t see that gun he had drawed,” he said ruefully. “Had it lay-ing along his leg as he was crouched there. Might’ve got me.”
He dropped the saddlebags. “Mite of grub,” he said, “an’ some shells. I reckon we can use ’em even though I brought some. The message got off, an’ so did the letter. Feller over to the telegraph office was askin’ a powerful lot of questions. Seems like they’ve been hearin’ about this scrap.”
“Good. The more the better. We can stand it, but the company can’t. Hear anything?”
“Uh huh. Somebody from outside the state is startin’ a row about Gunter’s death. I hear they have you marked for that. That is, the company is sayin’ you did it.”
Kedrick nodded. “They would try that. Well, in a couple of days I’ll be out of here and then we’ll see what can be done.”
“You take some time,” Shad said dubiously. “That passel o’ thieves ain’t goin’ to find us. Although,” he said suddenly, “I saw the tracks of that grulla day afore yestiddy, an’ not far off.”
The grulla again!
Two more days drifted by. With Laredo, Tom Kedrick ventured down the trail and the ladders to the canyon below. They visited their horses concealed in a tiny glade not far away. The palouse nickered and trotted toward him, and Kedrick grinned and scratched his chest. “How’s it, boy? Ready to go places?”
“He’s achin’ for it,” Shad said. He lighted a smoke and squinted his eyes at Kedrick. “What you aim to do when you do move?”
“Ride around a little. I aim to see Pit Laine, an’ then I’m goin’ to start huntin’ up every mother’s son that was in that dry-gulching. Especially,” he added, “Dornie Shaw.”
“He’s bad,” Laredo said quietly. “I nevah seen it, but you ask Connie. Shaw’s chain lightnin’. She seen him kill Bob.”
“So one of us dies,” Kedrick said quietly. “I’d go willing enough to take him with me, an’ a few others.”
“That’s it. He’s a killer, but the old bull o’ that woods is Alton Burwick, believe me, he is. Keith is just right-hand man for him, an’ the fall guy if they need one. Burwick’s the pizen mean one.”
With Connie they made their start three days later, and rode back trails beyond the Rim to the hideout Laine had established. It was Dai Reid himself who stopped them, and his eyes lighted up when he saw Kedrick.
“Ah, Tom!” His broad face beamed. “Like my own son, you are. We’d heard you were kilt dead.”
Pit Laine was standing by the fire, and around him on the ground were a dozen men, most of whom Kedrick recognized. They sat up slowly as the three walked into the open space, and Pit turned. It was the first time Kedrick had seen him, and he was surprised.
He was scarcely taller than his sister, but wide in the shoulders and slim in the hips. When he turned, he faced them squarely, and his eyes were sharp and bitter. This was a killing man, Kedrick decided, as dangerous in his own way as that pocket-sized devil, Dornie Shaw.
“I’m Kedrick,” he said, “and this is Connie Duane. I believe you know Shad.”
“We know all of you,” Laine said, watching them, his eyes alert and curious.
QUIETLY AND CONCISELY, Kedrick explained his plan. He ended by saying, “So there it is. I’ve asked this friend of mine to start an investigation into the whole mess and to block the sale until the truth is clear. Once the sale is halted and that investigation started, they won’t be with us long. They could get away with this only if they could keep it covered up, and they had a fair chance of doing that.”
“So we wait and let them run off?” Laine demanded.
“No,” Tom Kedrick shook his head decidedly. “We ride into Mustang—all of us.
“They have the mayor and the sheriff, but public opinion is largely on our side. Furthermore,” he said quietly, “we ride in the minute they get the news the sale is blocked. Once that news is around town they will have no friends. The band-wagon riders will get off, and fast.”
“There’ll be shootin’,” one old-timer opined.
“Some,” Kedrick admitted, “but if I have my way there’ll be more of hanging. There’s killers in that town, the bunch that dry-gulched Steelman and Slagle. The man who killed Bob McLennon is the man I want.”
Pit Laine turned. “I want him.”
“Sorry, Laine. He killed Bob, an’ Bob was only in town to get a doc for me. You may,” he added, “get your chance, anyway.”
“I’d like a shot at him my own self,” Laredo said quietly, “but somethin’ else bothers me. Who’s this grulla rider? Is he one of you?”
Laine shook his head. “No, he’s got us wonderin’, too.”
“Gets aroun’ plenty,” the old-timer said, “but nobody ever sees him. I reckon he knows this here country better’n any of us. He must’ve been aroun’ here for a long time.”
“What’s he want?” Shad wondered. “That don’t figure.”
Kedrick shrugged. “I’d like to know.” He turned to Dai. “It’s good to see you. I was afraid you’d had trouble.”
“Trouble?” Dai smiled his wide smile. “It’s trouble, you say? All my life there’s been trouble, and where man is there will be trouble to the end of time, if not of one kind, then another. But I take my trouble as it comes, bye.”
He drew deeply on his short-stemmed pipe and glanced at the scar against Kedrick’s skull. “Looks like you’d a bit of it yourself. If you’d a less hard skull you’d now be dead.”
“I’d not have given a plugged peso for him when I saw him,” Laredo said dryly. “The three of them lyin’ there, bloody an’ shot up. We thought for sure they was all dead. This one, he’d a hole through him, low down an’ mean, an’ that head of his looked like i
t had been smashed until we moved him. He was lucky as well as thick skulled.”
MORNING FOUND LAREDO and Kedrick once more in the saddle. Connie Duane had stayed behind with some of the squatters’ women. Pushing on toward Mustang, Laredo and Kedrick took their time. They had no desire to be seen or approached by any of the company riders.
“There’s nothing much we can do,” Kedrick agreed, “but I want to know the lay of the land in town. It’s mighty important to be able to figure just what will happen when the news hits the place. Right now, everything is right for them. Alton Burwick and Loren Keith are better off than they ever were.
“Just size it up. They came in here with the land partly held by squatters with a good claim on the land. They managed to get that land surveyed and put in their claim to the best of it, posted the notices and waited them out. If somebody hadn’t seen one of those notices and read it, the whole sale might have gone through and nobody the wiser. Somebody did see it, and trouble started. They had two mighty able men to contend with, Slagle and McLennon.
“Well, both of them are dead now. And Steelman, another possible leader is dead, too. So far as they are aware, nobody knows much about the deaths of those men or who caused them. I was the one man they had learned they couldn’t depend on, and they think I’m dead. John Gunter brought money into the deal, and he’s dead and out of the picture completely.
“A few days more and the sale goes through, the land becomes theirs and there isn’t any organized opposition now. Pit Laine and his group will be named as outlaws, and hunted as such, and believe me, once the land sale goes through, Keith will be hunting them with a posse of killers.”
“Yeah,” Laredo drawled, “they sure got it sewed up, looks like. But you’re forgettin’ one thing. You’re forgettin’ the girl. Connie Duane.”
“What about her?”
“Look,” Shad said, speaking around his cigarette, “she sloped out of town right after McLennon was killed. They thought she had been talking to you before, and she told ’em off in the office, said she was gettin’ her money out of it. All right, so suppose she asks for it, and they can’t pay? Suppose,” he added, “she begins to talk and tells what she knows, and they must figure it’s plenty. She was Gunter’s niece, and for all they know he told her more than he did tell her.”
Novel 1953 - Showdown At Yellow Butte Page 9