the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Wade looked at him. "Thanks, man," he said. "It's more'n I deserve."

  "You," Kilkenny said to the others, "ride! If you ever come into this country again we'll hang you."

  They scrambled for the door. The Hatfields were already gone with Wright and Nebel. Kilkenny turned away and looked at Leathers, who had recovered from his faint. "You got twenty-four hours," he said quietly. "Take what you can an' get out of here. Don't come back."

  He walked out of the store into the dusty street. A man was coming down the street on a rangy sorrel horse. He looked and then looked again. It was Dan Cooper. A short distance behind him, another man rounded the corner. It was Cain Brockman. They rode straight on until they came up to Kilkenny.

  Cooper reined in and began to roll a smoke. "Looks like I backed the wrong horse," he said slowly. "What's the deal? Got a rope for me? Or do I draw a ticket out of here?"

  "What do you want?" Kilkenny demanded sharply. He had his thumbs in his belt, watching the two men.

  "Well," Dan said, looking up at Kilkenny, "we talked it over. We both won money on your fight, an' we sort've had an idea we'd like to join you all an' take up some claims ourselves."

  "Right pretty places up in them meadows," Cain suggested. He sat his horse, looking at Kilkenny.

  For a long minute Kilkenny looked from one to the other. "Sure," he said finally. "You might find a good place up near mine, Cain. And the Moffitt place is empty now."

  He turned and walked back to the Palace. He had forgotten Brigo. Yet when he entered the place, his worry left him. Price Dixon had come, and Nita had returned with him. She met Kilkenny at the door.

  "He's asleep," she whispered. "Dixon got the bullet out, and he's going to be all right."

  "Good." Kilkenny looked at the girl, and then he took her in his arms. He drew her close and her lips melted into his, and for a long time they stood there holding each other.

  "Oh, Lance," she whispered, "don't let me go. Keep me now. It's been so long, and I've been so lonely."

  "Sure," he said quietly, "I'll keep you now. I don't want to let you go-ever!"

  Slowly, in the days that followed, the town came back to itself. Widows of two of the nesters moved into the Leathers' house and took over the store. Kilkenny and Bartram helped them get things arranged and get started. The ruins of the Mecca were cleared away. Van Hawkins, a former actor from San Francisco, came in and bought the Crystal Palace from Nita. Kilkenny started to build a bigger, more comfortable house on the site of the old one that the Hales had burned for him.

  Yet, over it all, there was restlessness and uneasiness. Kilkenny talked much with Nita in the evenings and saw the dark circles under her eyes. She was sleeping little, he knew.

  The Hatfields carried their guns all the time, and Steve Runyon came and went with a pistol strapped on. It was because of Cub Hale. No one ever mentioned his name, yet his shadow lay over them all. He had vanished mysteriously, leaving no trace, nothing to tell them of where he had gone, what he planned to do, or when he would return.

  Then one day Saul Hatfield rode up to Kilkenny's claim. He leaned on the saddle horn and looked down at Lance.

  "How's things?" he asked. "Seems you're doin' right well with the house."

  "Yeah," Kilkenny admitted. "It's goin' up." He looked up at Saul. "How's your dad?"

  "Right pert."

  "Jesse goin' to dig those potatoes of Smithers'?"

  "I reckon."

  "He'd like it. He was a savin' man." Kilkenny straightened and their eyes met. "What's on your mind, Saul?"

  "I was ridin' this mornin', down on the branch," Saul said thoughtfully. "Seen some tracks where a horse crossed the stream. I was right curious. I followed him a ways. Found some white hairs on the brush."

  Cub Hale always rode a white horse. An albino, it was.

  "I see." Kilkenny rubbed his jaw. "Which way was he headin'?"

  "Sort of circlin'. Sizin' up the town, like."

  Kilkenny nodded. "I reckon I better go down to Cedar," he said thoughtfully. "I want to stick around town a while."

  "Sure." Saul looked at him. "A body could follow them tracks," he suggested. "It was a plain trail."

  "Dangerous. He's a bad one. Maybe later. We'll see."

  Kilkenny mounted the long-legged yellow horse and headed for town. Cub Hale was mean. He wasn't going to leave. It wasn't in him to leave. He was a man who had to kill, even if he died in the process. Kilkenny had known that. He knew that some of the men believed Cub had lit out and left the country. He had never believed that. Cub was prowling, licking his wounds, waiting. And the hate in him was building up.

  Kilkenny rode the yellow buckskin to the little cottage where Nita Riordan and Sally Crane were living together while Sally prepared for her wedding with Bartram. Nita came to the door, her sewing in her hand.

  "Lance," she said quickly, "is it-?"

  "He's close by." He swung down from the horse. "I reckon you've got a guest for dinner."

  Sitting by the window with a book, he glanced occasionally down the street. He saw two Hatfields ride in-Quince and Saul. They dismounted at the store, and then Steve Runyon rode in and, after him, Cain Brockman.

  Brockman rode right on to the Palace, dismounted, and went in for a drink. Then he came out and loafed on a bench by the door. He was wearing two guns.

  The room was bright and cheery, with curtains at the windows and china plates. Nita came in, drying her hands on an apron, and called him to lunch. He took a last look down the street and then got up and walked in to the table. Sally's face was flushed and she looked very pretty, yet he had eyes only for Nita.

  He had never seen her so lovely as now. Her face looked softer and prettier than he had ever seen it. She was happy, too, radiantly happy. Even the news of the nearness of Cub Hale had not been able to wipe it from her face.

  Bartram came in and joined them. He grinned at Kilkenny. "Not often a man gets a chance to try his wife's cooking as much as I have before he marries her!" he chuckled. "I'll say this for her, she can sure make biscuits!"

  "I didn't make them!" Sally protested. "Nita did!"

  "Nita?" Kilkenny looked up, smiling. "I didn't know you could cook!"

  There was a low call from the door. "Kilkenny?" It was Cain Brockman. "He's comin'. Shall I take him?"

  "No." Kilkenny touched his mouth with a napkin and drew back from the table. "That's my job."

  His eyes met Nita's across the table. "Don't pour my coffee," he said quietly. "I like it hot."

  He turned and walked to the door. Far down the street he could see Cub Hale. He was on foot, and his hat was gone, his yellow hair blowing in the wind. He was walking straight up the center of the street, looking straight ahead.

  Kilkenny stepped down off the porch. The roses were blooming, and their scent was strong in his nostrils. He could smell the rich odor of fresh earth in the sunlight, and somewhere a magpie shrieked. He opened the gate and stepping out, closed it carefully behind him. Then he began to walk.

  He took his time. There was no hurry. There was never any hurry at a time like this. Everything always seemed to move by slow motion, until suddenly it was over and you wondered how it all could have happened. Saul Hatfield was standing on the steps, his rifle in the hollow of his arm. He and Quince were just there in case he failed.

  Failed? Kilkenny smiled. He had never failed. Yet, they all failed soon or late. There was always a time when they were too slow, when their guns hung or missed fire. The dust smelled hot, and in the distance thunder rumbled. Then a few scattered drops fell. Odd, he hadn't even been aware it was clouding up.

  Little puffs of dust lifted from his boots when he walked. He could see Cub more clearly now. He was unshaven, and his face was scratched by brush. His fancy buckskin jacket was gone. Only the guns were the same, and the white eyes, eyes that seemed to burn.

  Suddenly, Hale stopped, and when he stopped, Kilkenny stopped too. He stood there perfectly relaxed, waiting. Cub's face wa
s white, dead. Only his eyes seemed alive, and that burning white light was in them.

  "I'm goin' to kill you!" he said, his voice sharp and strained.

  It was all wrong. Kilkenny felt no tension, no alertness. He was just standing there, and in him suddenly there welled up a tremendous feeling of pity. Why couldn't they ever learn? There was nothing in a gun but death.

  Something flickered in those white, blazing eyes, and Kilkenny, standing perfectly erect, slapped the butt of his gun with his palm. The gun leaped up, settled into a rocklike grip, and then bucked in his hand, once, twice.

  The gun before him flowered with flame, and something stabbed, white hot, low down on his right side. The gun flowered again, but the stabbing flame wasted itself in the dust and Cub's knees buckled and there was a spot of blood on his chest, right over the heart.

  He fell face down and then straightened his legs, and there was silence in the long dusty street of Cedar Bluff.

  Kilkenny thumbed shells into his gun, hol- stered it, and then turned. Steadily, quietly, looking straight ahead, he walked back up the hill toward the cottage. It was just a little hill, but suddenly seemed steep. He walked on, and then he could see Nita opening the gate and running toward him.

  He stopped then and waited. There was a burning in his side, and he felt something wet against his leg. He looked down, puzzled, and when he looked, he fell, flat on his face in the dust.

  Then Nita was turning him over, and her face was white. He tried to sit up, but they pushed him down. Cain Brockman came over, and with Saul Hatfield they carried him up the hill. It was only a few steps, and it had seemed so far.

  He was still conscious when Price Dixon came in.

  Dixon made a brief examination and then shrugged.

  "He's all right. The bullet went into his side, slid off a rib, and narrowly missed his spine. But it's nothing that we can't fix up. Shock, mostly-and bleeding."

  Later, Nita came in. She looked at him and smiled. "Shall I put the coffee on now?" she asked lightly. Her eyes were large and dark.

  "Let Sally put it on," he said gently. "You stay here."

  *

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  THE TRAIL TO PEACH MEADOW CANYON

  Peach trees have been found growing in several of the canyons branching off from the Grand Canyon; they were probably planted by somebody at some time in the past. I ventured into a box canyon in Arizona at one time, a place enclosed by high cliffs with some sixty acres of fairly level ground in the bottom, a good stand of grass, and about three dozen peach and apricot trees, all old and in bad need of pruning. There was also a half dugout built of logs against the side of a low mound, and a stream about two feet wide running diagonally across the bottom of the canyon.

  Somebody had enjoyed a small corner of paradise here, probably for many years. There was an old corral, and my suspicion was that he had kept burros rather than horses.

  Not far from Mooney Falls in the Grand Canyon, there are iron ladders spiked to the walls to enable one to climb further down.

  *

  THE TRAIL TO PEACH MEADOW CANYON

  Chapter I

  Winter snows were melting in the forests of the Kaibab,and the red-and-orange hue of the thousand-foot Vermilion Cliffs was streaked with the dampness of melting frost. Deer were feeding in the forest glades among the stands of ponderosa and fir, and the trout were leaping in the streams. Where sunlight trailed through the webbed overhang of the leaves, the water danced and sparkled.

  Five deer were feeding on the grass along a mountain stream back of Finger Butte, their coats mottled by the light and shadow of the sun shining through the trees.

  A vague something moved in the woods behind them, and the five-pronged buck lifted his regal head and stared curiously about. He turned his nose into the wind, reading it cautiously. But his trust was betrayal, for the movement was downwind of him.

  The movement came again, and a young man stepped from concealment behind a huge fir not twenty feet from the nearest deer. He was straight and tall in gray, fringed buckskins, and he wore no hat. His hair was thick, black, and wavy, growing full over the temples, and his face was lean and brown. Smiling, he walked toward the deer with quick, lithe strides, and had taken three full steps before some tiny sound betrayed him.

  The buck's head came up and swung around, and then with a startled snort it sprang away, the others following.

  Mike Bastian stood grinning, his hands on his hips.

  "Well, what do you think now, Roundy?" he called. "Could your Apache beat that? I could have touched him if I had jumped after him!"

  Ranee Roundy came out of the trees-a lean, wiry old man with a gray mustache and blue eyes that were still bright with an alert awareness.

  "No, I'll be darned if any Apache ever lived as could beat that!" he chortled. "Not a mite of it! An' I never seen the day I could beat it, either. You're a caution, Mike, you sure are. I'm glad you're not sneakin' up after my hair!" He drew his pipe from his pocket and started stoking it with tobacco. "We're goin' back to Toadstool Canyon, Mike. Your dad sent for us."

  Bastian looked up quickly. "Is there trouble, is that it?"

  "No, only he wants to talk with you. Maybe"-Roundy was cautious-"he figures it's time you went out on a job. On one of those rides."

  "I think that's it," Mike nodded. "He said in the spring, and it's about time for the first ride. I wonder where they'll go this time."

  "No tellin'. The deal will be well planned, though. That dad of yours would have made a fine general, Mike. He's got the head for it, he sure has. Never forgets a thing, that one."

  "You've been with him a long time, haven't you?"

  "Sure-since before he found you. I knowed him in Mexico in the war, and that was longer ago than I like to think. I was a boy then, my own self.

  "Son," Roundy said suddenly, "look!"

  He tossed a huge pinecone into the air, a big one at least nine inches long.

  With a flash of movement, Mike Bastian palmed his gun, and almost as soon as it hit his hand it belched flame-and again. The second shot spattered the cone into a bunch of flying brown chips.

  "Not bad!" Roundy nodded. "You still shoot too quick, though. You got to get over that, Mike. Sometimes, one shot is all you'll ever get.

  Side by side the two walked through the trees, the earth spongy with a thick blanket of pine needles. Roundy was not as tall as Mike, but he walked with the long, springy stride of the woodsman. He smoked in silence for some distance, and then he spoke up.

  "Mike, if Ben's ready for you to go out, what will you do?"

  For two steps, Bastian said nothing. Then he spoke slowly. "Why, go, I guess. What else?"

  "You're sure? You're sure you want to be an outlaw?"

  "That's what I was raised for, isn't it?" There was some bitterness in Mike's voice. "Somebody to take over what Ben Curry started?"

  "Yeah, that's what you were raised for, all right. But this you want to remember, Mike, it's your life. Ben Curry, for all his power, can't live it for you. Moreover, times have changed since Ben and me rode into this country. It ain't free and wild like it was, because folks are comin' in, settlin' it up, makin' homes. Gettin' away won't be so easy, and your pards will change, too. In fact, they have already changed.

  "When Ben and me come into this country," Roundy continued, "it was every man for himself. More than one harum-scarum fella, who was otherwise all right, got himself the name of an outlaw. Nobody figured much about it, then. We rustled cows, but so did half the big ranchers of the West. And if a cowpoke got hard up and stopped a stage, nobody made much fuss unless he killed somebody. They figured it was just high spirits. But the last few years, it ain't like that no more. And it ain't only that the country is growin' up-it's partly Ben Curry himself."

  "You mean he's grown too big?" Mike put in.

  "What else? Why, your dad controls more land than there is in New York State! Got it right under his thumb! And he's feared over half the West by t
hose who knows about him, although not many do.

  "Outside of this country around us, nobody ain't seen Ben Curry in years, not leastwise to know him. But they've heard his name, and they know that somewhere an outlaw lives who rules a gang of almost a thousand men. That he robs and rustles where he will, and nobody has nerve enough to chase him.

  "He's been smart, just plenty smart," old Roundy went on. "Men ride out and they meet at a given point. The whole job is planned in every detail; it's rehearsed, and then they pull it and scatter and meet again here. For a long time folks laid it to driftin' cowpunchers or to gangs passin' through. The way he's set up, one of the gangs he sends out might pull somethin' anywhere from San Antone to Los Angeles, or from Canada to Mexico, although usually he handles it close around.

  "He's been the brains, all right, but don't ever forget it was those guns of his that kept things in line. Lately, he hasn't used his guns. Kerb Perrin and Rigger Molina or some of their boys handle the discipline. He's become too big, Ben Curry has. He's like a king, and the king isn't getting any younger. How do you suppose Perrin will take it when he hears about you takin' over? You think he'll like it?"

  "I don't imagine he will," Mike replied thoughtfully. "He's probably done some figuring of his own."

  "You bet he has! So has Molina, and neither of them will stop short of murder to get what they want. Your dad still has them buffaloed, I think, but that isn't going to matter when the showdown comes. And I think it's here!"

  "You do?" Mike said, surprise in his voice.

  "Yeah, I sure do!" Roundy hesitated. "You know, Mike, I never told you this, but Ben Curry has a family."

  "A family?" Despite himself, Mike Bastian was startled.

  "Yes, he has a wife and two daughters, and they don't have any idea he's an outlaw. They live down near Tucson somewhere. Occasionally, they come to a ranch he owns in Red Wall Canyon, a ranch supposedly owned by Voyle Ragan. He visits them there."

  "Does anybody else know this?"

  "Not a soul. And don't you be tellin' anybody. You see, Ben always wanted a son, and he never had one. When your real dad was killed down in Mesilla, he took you along with him, and later he told me he was going to raise you to take over whatever he left. That was a long time ago, and since then he's spent a sight of time and money on you.