Matagorda

by Louis L'Amour

  “Where’s Jackson Huddy?” he asked.

  One of the men grinned. “Don’t try to find him. He’ll find you.”

  “I hear he’s something of a man hunter,” Tap responded, “but as near as I can find out he never met anybody in a fair, stand-up shooting match. Anybody can run up a score hiding out in the brush.”

  It was a deliberate taunt. He wanted Jackson Huddy to hear it. He wanted to anger him, to jar him out of his usual pattern. He wanted that slow, meticulous, careful man to be jolted into acting quickly.

  “Man, you’re askin’ for trouble!”

  “I shouldn’t really ask, I expect,” Duvarney said carelessly. “From all I hear, he’s so used to crawling on his belly in the grass that he wouldn’t know how to stand up and fight.”

  “Jackson Huddy never went after a man yet that he didn’t get,” one of the men said. “You’ll be the next, mister.”

  “Well, you just tell him I was around. And don’t forget the name. I wouldn’t want him to miss seeing me.…And you tell him that if he doesn’t want to meet me face to face I’ll do a little stalking myself.”

  He backed off into the darkness, still holding the rifle easy in his hands.

  Returning to his own fire, he told Spicer briefly what he had done, and doused water over the coals.

  “I want to get him out of the brush if I can, but I’m not going to wait. I’m going after him…now. He’ll be over there somewhere near our camp, but let’s scatter those other boys, anyway.”

  They rounded up the small bunch of cattle they had. He let out a whoop and fired his pistol. It needed only that to start them running, and he headed them toward his other camp, right across the slope where the Munson fire was.

  They heard the cattle coming, and in the dim light Duvarney saw them scattering, horses and men. Only one shot was fired, and then the cattle went storming through the camp, churning the fire into the ground, and men and horses fled.

  One man had caught up his rifle, and now he tried to swing it around to bear on Duvarney, but Spicer rode down on him. Too late, the man tried to wheel to fire at Spicer, and then the charging horse hit him and knocked him rolling in the mud.

  They went up the slope on the run, and Duvarney’s riders came rushing out, ready for a fight.

  “Mount up,” he said, “and keep moving.” Crouching low in his saddle, he skirted the dark brush, hunting in the gray light for tracks where a man might have gone in.

  If the seventh man was Huddy, as Tap suspected, he had to be hidden somewhere in the brush where he could wait for a shot at Duvarney. It would be natural for Duvarney to return to his campfire and his men, and a man might by searching find a good spot from which to shoot at his target.

  A moving target would be something of a problem, for any hiding place that Huddy might crawl into that would allow him to get in sight of the camp would be in dense brush where swinging a rifle would be difficult, and finding a clear field of fire in more than one direction would be impossible.

  Twice Tap stopped on the windward side of the brush and, digging beneath the surface of the leaves, sought for some dry enough to burn. He did not hope for a real fire, wet as it was, but for a good smoke, a smoke that might drive him out.

  “He’s afoot, anyway,” Lawton Bean commented. “The way you scattered their horses, that whole outfit is afoot.”

  The fire smoked and, blazing a little, ate away at the edges of the leaves, fighting against the dampness. The smoke drifted through the brush, as he had hoped it would.

  Duvarney considered the situation, and liked none of it. The rain would undoubtedly put out the feeble fires he had started, probably before they had developed sufficient smoke to drive Huddy, if it was Huddy, from concealment. The smoke might cause him some discomfort, but nothing more. In the meanwhile, it might be a long wait, and Huddy might find a place where he could get a good shot at them. And all this time Tom Kittery was in trouble to the south, and that was where the cattle would be.

  From the very beginning, he was thinking, nothing had gone well. He had hoped to land in Texas, find a gathered herd ready to move, and start at once for Kansas. Instead, he had found his partner involved in a killing feud to the point where all business had been neglected; and to be on the safe side Tap had had to recruit his own men. They had gathered cattle, only to be interrupted by the storm, yet he had sold cattle and had the check in his pocket.

  Now, like it or not, he was involved in the feud. One of his men had been killed; he himself had been attacked, and he had killed in return. Yet he wanted nothing more than to be on the trail to Kansas.

  The cattle would be, he surmised, on high ground. Bunched by the storm, they would be ready for a drive. He was torn between the need to find Kittery, to round up a herd, and to locate Huddy and force him into a showdown.

  He made up his mind. He would have to chance Huddy. First things must come first; and he must find Tom Kittery, and get a herd on the trail to Kansas.

  But even as he turned away, he was haunted by fear. Jackson Huddy was no man to be trifled with, and Jackson Huddy would be hunting him like a wolf trailing for a kill.

  From now on, no moment, waking or sleeping, would be without fear.

  Chapter 13

  *

  BUNCHING THE CATTLE, they started them Westward. Driving them down off the ridge, they waded them and swam them until they had put a good mile behind them. Then they found the ground above water, but soggy and miserable.

  The cattle moved sullenly. The rain had ceased, but the sky remained dark and heavily overcast, and they could hear thunder in the distance. The wind was rising.

  During the incessant blowing of the past two days the wind had become almost a part of their lives, and the time before that was wiped out, almost as if it had never been. To Tap Duvarney it seemed as if he could not remember a time when he had not been wet and cold, and harried by wind.

  Leaving Belden in charge, he took Spicer and Lawton Bean and they headed south.

  “In this weather,” Bean said, “we ain’t got a chance of findin’ them. They’ll be holed up somewhere, if they’re alive.” Every word had to be shouted to be heard above the rising wind.

  “We’ve got to try,” Tap yelled, and they kept on.

  The earth was black beneath, the sheets of water like steel under the heavy sky, and the dark slim trunks of the few trees were like prison bars.

  At noon they came to a cabin where there was a corral, and a lean-to stable half hidden in the brush. A thin line of smoke was rising from the cabin, and with rifles ready, they hailed the door.

  It opened a slit, and a thin, mustached face peered out, saw the rifles, and started to close the door, but Duvarney rode forward. “Hold it, there! We’re ridin’ the grub line—how about some coffee?”

  The door opened wider. “All right, put your horses up and come on in, but come peaceful. I’m holdin’ a Colt revolvin’ shotgun.”

  The cabin was snug, overly warm, and dry. The squatter had not lied…he had the shotgun right at hand, and he was wearing a six-shooter.

  “Never turned away a hungry man yet,” he said, “but you boys rode up holdin’ a lot of shootin’ power.”

  “We’re hunting some friends,” Duvarney told him. “Hear anything of a fight down this way?”

  “I heard it…seen some of it. That was eight, maybe nine mile southeast of here. I’d been down to Refugio after grub…had a couple of pack mules. I was nigh to Horseshoe Lake when somebody busted loose with a war right close by. I pulled off into the brush and kept quiet. It was quite a scrap, by the sound of it.”

  He was a talkative man, as men who live alone are inclined to be when company shows up. He moved about, dishing up beans from a big crock, getting out some homemade bread, and putting on the frying pan. “You boys just set still an’ don’t go to pullin’ leather. I’ll roust you up some grub.”

  He squinted at them with inquisitive blue eyes. “You boys don’t have the Munson look. Mu
st be kin of the Kitt’ry’s.”

  “I am Tappan Duvarney, Tom Kittery’s partner.”

  “Figured you was kin or somethin’. Well, you won’t find much left…cattle scattered hell to breakfast…Roy Kitt’ry’s dead…Joe Breck is dead.”

  “How about Tom? How about Lubec and the Cajun?”

  “Hid out, more’n likely. Looks like them sorry Munsons got the upper hand. Ain’t been a Munson killed in quite a spell.”

  As they ate the old man told them of several small herds of Rafter K cattle and where they could be found.

  “How are you fixed for horses?” Duvarney asked. “We could use some.”

  “Fix you up, all right.” He gestured toward the corral. “Go have a look.”

  Duvarney got up slowly, surreptitiously watching his host, who was busy over the fire…too busy. Tap stretched, yawned, and glanced out the window at the corral. It was close to the brush on one side, where some post oak provided shade for the stock. He could see several horses in the corral, and he glanced around at Spicer.

  Welt was smiling, and he had a Colt in his hand. “You go have that look, Major, and if I hear a shot, I’ll kill the cook.”

  The old man stiffened up, turning, half ready to reach for his shotgun, but Lawton Bean had it, and he was smiling, too. “How about it, old man? You still want the Major to look at your horses? It’s all right with us—on’y at the first shot we’re goin’ to cut you in two.”

  “What else could I do?” the old man said. “If I warned you, they’d shoot me. An’ that there Huddy, he’d come after me. And like I said, you boys are losin’ the fight.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Bean drawled. “The Major here, he taken two Munsons just yesterday. He killed Eggen an’ Wheeler Munson. Welt Spicer here, he nailed another one of that outfit. And last night one of ’em tried to dry-gulch us an’ he cashed in his chips mighty fast.”

  The old man looked from one to the other. “I ain’t no coward, and I don’t like Munsons, but what can I I do? I’m alone out here, an’ with that Huddy around…”

  “He won’t be around long,” Spicer said.

  “What’s out there?” Duvarney asked quietly.

  “Three of ’em. They stopped by to get out of the storm but when they saw you comin’ they headed for the brush, figurin’ to lay out an’ pick you off, easy like.”

  Duvarney stood well back inside, but he was looking out the window, studying the environment with care.

  “One of them is Pinto Hart,” the old man offered, “an’ he ain’t no schoolboy.”

  “They call him Pinto because of a scar on his face,” Spicer said. “He’s a brother to Jim Hart, and they’re two of the top men in the Munson crowd.”

  Tap went from window to window, looking at the surroundings. When he had found what he was looking for, he turned back to the room. He gestured toward the moccasins the old man wore. “Have you got another pair of those?”

  “I might have.”

  “I’m buying them,” Tap said; “get them out.”

  The old man opened a chest and removed several pairs of trousers, some shirts, and then the moccasins. “I traded ’em off a squaw. They’re new…never worn.”

  Duvarney dropped a silver dollar on the table. “You probably didn’t give her half that,” he said. Then he sat down and slipped off his boots and put on the moccasins. They were a surprisingly good fit.

  “You boys sit tight,” he said to the others. “Keep an eye on that bunch out there, and if Dad here gives you any trouble, tie him up.”

  “Now what kinda talk is that?” the old man complained. “I’m no Munson, and I’m not huntin’ trouble.” He paused, watching Duvarney hitch his bowie knife around, ready to hand. “Did you hear me right? There’s three of them out there…an’ Pinto’s worth two or three all by himself.”

  Tap ignored him; then, like a ghost, he slipped from the door. Outside, the wind was blowing and a light rain was falling. He went around the cabin to get it between himself and the hidden men, and dropping to a crouch, moved behind a bush, hesitated a moment, and slipped beyond to a tree.

  He had fought too many Indians and stalked too much wild game not to know how it was done. The moccasins could feel of the earth beneath, avoiding any stick that might break…He moved deeper into the brush. He carried no rifle, preferring to depend on his two pistols and the knife.

  He scouted wide, moving with the wind to cover any sound, his eyes watchful. The trees bent under the wind, and a spattering of huge drops fell on the leaves, and on his head and shoulders.

  It was a game of death he was playing, but a game he had played before. These men, so far as he knew, were cowhands, men who rode horseback. They were not woodsmen in the sense he had been. Now, if the Cajun were out there…He had a feeling about the Cajun…there was a dangerous man.

  There was a weird, yellowish light in the trees. This was a fairly large patch of ground, covering fifteen to twenty acres, part of it running down to a stream bed. He took his time, knowing that death awaited a careless hunter, but he moved in closer.

  Suddenly he stopped. Not far ahead he could see the light beyond the trees, and knew that he must be somewhere within a hundred yards of the men he hunted—very likely much less than that.

  He had paused behind a bush, with two trees in line behind him, and another one only inches to the left. No one looking in his direction would guess that a man stood there. He studied the leaves and the brush about him with care.

  His eyes scanned the woods ahead of him, looking across a leaf-filled hollow where the slow drops fell from arching branches above, when he saw them. They were bunched as he had hoped they would be, and were seated where they could watch the cabin and anyone who approached the corral.

  They were closer than he had thought—only about twenty-five yards away. The gun he carried in his holster was a Smith & Wesson Russian .44, the straightest-shooting gun in the West at the time. At that distance he had often scored high at target shooting. This was not so easy, for the background made it difficult, the men and their clothing merging well with the trees and brush.

  He moved a step forward, putting his foot down with the utmost care, and letting it sink into the wet leaves. Then he took another step. As he moved, his mind was telling him that at that distance he would probably do better than they could, for though they were used to guns, they were not likely to have had as thorough a training as he had had, nor the experience in the cavalry.

  He took a third step—each step was a short one. They would turn soon, and that was the way he wanted it. He did not want to surprise them into shooting. If possible, he would take them without any shooting, and without killing.

  He stood now beneath a huge pecan tree and looked at the three men across the small hollow. They were talking quietly, and smoking. He smiled at that. An Apache would have smelled that smoke—as he had—long before he saw them.

  One of the men knocked out his pipe against his heel, a sound that would carry too far…these men were not the sort he was used to dealing with. The man started to put his pipe in his pocket, and he turned just a little as his hand reached back for his coat pocket. With that motion his head turned slightly to the right, as it often will with such a movement, and he saw Duvarney.

  He froze with the movement half completed, staring hard, obviously unwilling to believe what he saw, or unsure of it. The position in which Duvarney was standing would be even worse for them to see clearly than was their position for Tap.

  “Pinto,” he said. “Pinto…look.”

  When Pinto turned his head Tap saw the scar…a bad powder burn, he would guess, although it was impossible to tell at that distance.

  “You boys waiting for me?” Duvarney asked in a conversational tone. “There doesn’t have to be a shooting, you know. You can just shuck your guns and back off. I’m down here on business—I’m not trying to run up a score.”

  They looked at him, unwilling to believe that he was actually there,
that he had moved up behind them without their knowing it. It offended their pride…after all, they were fighting men.

  He held the Smith & Wesson in his hand, the muzzle down slightly, but ready.

  “You’d better do that,” he added. “Just loosen your gun belts and let them fall.”

  Pinto Hart was getting slowly to his feet—slowly and carefully. Tap watched them all without any partiality, and he could catch any move. When Pinto was on his feet, he said, “I’ll be damned if I will.”

  “You boys better talk to him. I shoot pretty straight, but at this distance I might nail any one of you. I’ll surely get him, but one of you might get hurt.”

  One of the two men sitting there had a rifle across his knees, but he would have to swing ninety degrees to bring it to bear…it would take too long, and the man knew it. The other man was the one who put the pipe in his pocket, and his hand was still there, clutching the pipe. Nobody wants to die, and this man knew he had a good chance of not living out the next two minutes, and he was sweating.

  “Talk to him, boys,” Tap said again, “or pull him down. He’ll only get you killed.”

  “Pinto?” The man with the rifle was speaking. “I think—”

  Pinto took a step back and went for his gun. Tap hesitated a fraction of a second to see what the others would do, and then shot Pinto Hart through the lower right corner of his breast pocket. He fired only once, then held his fire.

  “How about it, boys? What’s in it for you that will weigh as heavy as a bullet in the head?”

  Very carefully the man with the rifle pitched it from him, and unbuckled his belt. The other man moved gingerly to do the same.

  “Why don’t you boys just head for Refugio and take the stage on west? Arizona’s a good country. So’s New Mexico.”

  They turned with great care and, stiff-backed, walked away as Duvarney followed them. He glanced once at the body of Pinto Hart. A tough, reckless man, and a game one. It was a pity, but he had thought of himself as a good man with a gun, and that kind of belief can get a man killed. A reputation for being tough can give a man some standing with his fellows, but there always comes a time when he has to back it up…and the same men who praised your skill will sneer at it by comparison with the man who shoots you.