the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Behind them rode Doc Sawyer, his lean, sat--

  urnine face quiet, his eyes faintly curious and interested as he scanned the massive walls of the canyon. Tubby Colley was short and thick chested, and very confident-a hard-jawed man who had been a first-rate ranch foreman before he shot two men and hit the outlaw trail.

  Tex Garlin was tall, rangy, and quiet. He was a Texan, and little else was known of his background, although it was said he could carve a dozen notches on his guns if he had wished.

  Suddenly, Roundy turned the gray horse and rode abruptly at the face of the cliff, but when he came close up, the sand and boulders broke and a path showed along the underscoured rock. Following this for several hundred yards, they found a canyon that cut back into the cliff itself and then turned to head toward the river.

  The roar of the Colorado, high with spring freshets, was loud in their ears before they reached it. Finally they came out on a sandy bank littered with driftwood.

  Nearby was a small cabin and a plot of garden. The door of the house opened, and a tall old man came out.

  "Howdy!" he said. "I been expectin' somebody." His shrewd old eyes glanced from face to face and then hesitated at sight of Mike. "Ain't seen you before," he said pointedly.

  "It's all right, Bill," Roundy said. "This is Mike Bastian."

  "Ben Curry's boy?" Bill stared. "I heard a sight of you, son. I sure have! Can you shoot like they say?"

  Mike flushed. "I don't know what they say," he said, grinning. "But I'll bet a lot of money I can hit the side of that mountain if it holds still."

  Garlin stared at him thoughtfully, and Colley smiled a little.

  "Don't take no funnin' from him," Roundy said. "That boy can shoot!"

  "Let's see some shootin', son," Bill suggested. "I always did like to see a man who could shoot."

  Bastian shook his head. "There's no reason for shootin'," he protested. "A man's a fool to shoot unless he's got cause. Ben Curry always told me never to draw a gun unless I meant to use it."

  "Go ahead," Colley said. "Show him."

  Old Bill pointed. "See that black stick end juttin' up over there? It's about fifty, maybe sixty, paces. Can you hit it?"

  "You mean that one?" Mike palmed his gun and fired, and the black stick pulverized.

  It was a movement so smooth and practiced that no one of the men even guessed he had intended to shoot. Garlin's jaws stopped their calm chewing, and he stared with his mouth open for as long as it took to draw a breath. Then he glanced at Colley.

  "Wonder what Kerb would say to that?" he said, astonished. "This kid can shoot!"

  "Yeah," Colley agreed, "but the stick didn't have a gun!"

  Old Bill worked the ferry out of a cave under the cliff and freighted them across the swollen river in one hair-raising trip. With the river behind, they wound up through the rocks and started south.

  Chapter III

  The mining and cow town of Weaver was backed up near a large hill on the banks of a small creek. Colley and Garlin rode into the place at sundown, and an hour later Doc Sawyer and Roundy rode in.

  Garlin and Colley were leaning on the bar having a drink, and they ignored the newcomers. Mike Bastian followed not long afterward and walked to the bar alone.

  All the others in the saloon were Mexicans, except for three tough-looking white men lounging against the bar nearby. They glanced at Mike and his buckskins, and one of them whispered something to the others, at which they all laughed.

  Doc Sawyer was sitting in a poker game, and his eyes lifted. Mike leaned nonchalantly against the bar, avoiding the stares of the three toughs who stood near him. One of them moved over closer.

  "Hi, stranger!" he said. "That's a right purty suit you got. Where could I get one like it?"

  Garlin looked up and his face stiffened. He nudged Colley. "Look!" Garlin said quickly. "Corbus and Fletcher! An' trouble huntin'! We'd better get into this!"

  Colley shook his head. "No. Let's see what the kid does."

  Mike looked around, his expression mild. "You want a suit like this?" he inquired of the stranger. His eyes were innocent, but he could see the sort of man he had to deal with. These three were toughs, and dangerous. "Most any Navajo could make one for you."

  "Just like that?" Corbus sneered.

  He was drinking and in a nagging, quarrelsome mood. Mike looked altogether too neat for his taste.

  "Sure! Just like this," Mike agreed. "But I don't know what you'd want with it, though. This suit would be pretty big for you to fill."

  "Huh?" Corbus's face flamed. Then his mouth tightened. "You gettin' smart with me, kid?"

  "No." Mike Bastian turned, and his voice cracked like a whip in the suddenly silent room. "Neither am I being hurrahed by any lamebrained, liquor-guzzling saddle tramp! You made a remark about my suit, and I answered it. Now, you can have a drink on me, all three of you, and I'm suggesting you drink up." His voice suddenly became soft. "I want you to drink up because I want to be very, very sure we're friends, see?"

  Corbus stared at Bastian, a cold hint of danger filtering through the normal stubbornness of his brain. Something told him this was perilous going, yet he was stubborn, too stubborn. He smiled slowly. "Kid," he drawled, "supposin' I don't want to drink with no tenderfoot brat?"

  Corbus never saw what happened. His brain warned him as Mike's left hand moved, but he never saw the right. The left stabbed his lips and the right cracked on the angle of his jaw, and he lifted from his feet and hit the floor on his shoulder blades, out cold.

  Fletcher and the third tough stared from Corbus to Mike. Bastian was not smiling. "You boys want to drink?" he asked. "Or do we go on from here?"

  Fletcher stared at him. "What if a man drawed a gun instead of usin' his fists?" he demanded.

  "I'd kill him," Bastian replied quietly.

  Fletcher blinked. "I reckon you would," he agreed. He turned and said, "Let's have a drink. That Boot Hill out there's already got twenty graves in it."

  Garlin glanced at Colley, his eyebrows lifted. Colley shrugged.

  "I wonder what Corbus will do when he gets up?" he said.

  Garlin chuckled. "Nothin' today. He won't be feelin' like it!"

  Colley nodded. "Reckon you're right, an' I reckon the old man raised him a wildcat! I can hardly wait to see Kerb Perrin's face when we tell him."

  "You reckon," Garlin asked, "that what we heard is true? That Ben Curry figures to put this youngster into his place when he steps out?"

  "Yep, that's the talk," Colley answered.

  "Well, maybe he's got it. We'll sure know before this trip is over."

  Noise of the stagecoach rolling down the street drifted into the saloon, and Mike Bastian strolled outside and started toward the stage station. The passengers were getting down to stretch their legs and to eat. Three of them were women.

  One of them noticed Mike standing there and walked toward him. She was a pale, pretty girl with large gray eyes.

  "How much farther to Red Wall Canyon?" she inquired.

  Mike Bastian stiffened. "Why, not far. That is, you'll make it by morning if you stick with the stage. There is a cross-country way if you had you a buckboard, though."

  "Could you tell us where we could hire one? My mother is not feeling well."

  He stepped down off the boardwalk and headed toward the livery stable with her. As they drew alongside the stage, Mike looked up. An older woman and a girl were standing near the stage, but he was scarcely aware of anything but the girl. Her hair was blondish, but darker than that of the girl who walked beside him, and her eyes, too, were gray. There the resemblance ended, for where this girl beside him was quiet and sweet, the other was vivid.

  She looked at him, and their eyes met. He swept off his hat. The girl beside him spoke.

  "This is my mother, Mrs. Ragan, and my sister, Drusilla." She looked up at him quickly. "My name is Juliana."

  Mike bowed. He had eyes only for Drusilla, who was staring at him.

  "I
am Mike Bastian," he said.

  "He said he could hire us a rig to drive across country to Red Wall Canyon," Juliana explained. "It will be quicker that way."

  "Yes," Mike agreed, "much quicker. I'll see what I can do. Just where in Red Wall did you wish to go?"

  "To Voyle Ragan's ranch," Drusilla said. "The V Bar."

  He had turned away, but he stopped in midstride.

  "Did you say . . . Voyle Ragan's?"

  "Yes. Is there anything wrong?" Drusilla stared at him. "What's the matter?"

  He regained his composure swiftly. "Nothing. Only, I'd heard the name, and"-he smiled-"I sort of wanted to know for sure, so if I came calling."

  Juliana laughed. "Why, of course! We'd be glad to see you."

  He walked swiftly away. These, then, were Ben Curry's daughters! That older woman would be his wife! He was their foster brother, yet obviously his name had meant nothing to them. Neither, he reflected, would their names have meant anything to him, nor the destination, had it not been for what Roundy had told him only the previous day.

  Drusilla, her name was. His heart pounded at the memory of her, and he glanced back through the gathering dusk at the three women standing there by the stage station.

  Hiring the rig was a matter of minutes. He liked the look of the driver, a lean man, tall and white-haired. "No danger on that road this time of year," the driver said. "I can have them there in no time by takin' the canyon road."

  Drusilla was waiting for him when Mike walked back.

  "Did you find one?" she asked, and then listened to his explanation and thanked him.

  "Would it be all right with you," Mike said, "if I call at the V Bar?"

  She looked at him, her face grave, but a dancing light in her eyes. "Why, my sister invited you, did she not?"

  "Yes, but I'd like you to invite me, too."

  "I?" She studied him for a minute. "Of course, we'd be glad to see you. My mother likes visitors as well as Julie and I, so won't you ask her, too?"

  "I'll take the invitation from you and your sister as being enough." He grinned. "If I ask your mother, I might have to ask your father!"

  "Father isn't with us!" she laughed. "We'll see him at Ragan's. He's a rancher somewhere way up north in the wilds. His name is Ben Ragan. Have you heard of him?"

  "Seems to me I have," he admitted, "but I wouldn't say for sure."

  After they had gone Mike wandered around and stopped in the saloon, after another short talk with a man at the livery stable. Listening and asking an occasional question, he gathered the information he wanted on the gold shipment. Even as he asked the questions, it seemed somehow fantastic that he, of all people, should be planning such a thing.

  Never before had he thought of it seriously, but now he did. And it was not only because the thought went against his own grain, but because he was thinking of Drusilla Ragan.

  What a girl she was! He sobered suddenly. Yet, for all of that, she was the daughter of an outlaw. Did she know it? From her question, he doubted it very much.

  Doc Sawyer cashed in his chips and left the poker game to join Mike at the bar.

  "The twentieth, all right," he said softly. "And five of them are going to carry shotguns. There will be twelve guards in all, which looks mighty tough. The big fellow at the poker table is one of the guards, and all of them are picked men."

  Staring at his drink, Mike puzzled over his problem. What Roundy had said was of course true. This was a turning point for him. He was still an honest man, yet when he stepped over the boundary it would make a difference. It might make a lot of difference to a girl like Dru Ragan, for instance.

  The fact that her father also was an outlaw would make little difference. Listening to Sawyer made him wonder. Why had such a man, brilliant, intelligent, and well educated, ever become a criminal?

  Sawyer was a gambler and a very skillful one, yet he was a doctor, too, and a fine surgeon. His education was as good as study and money could make it, and it had been under his guidance that Mike Bastian had studied.

  "Doc," he said suddenly, "whatever made you ride a crooked trail?"

  Sawyer glanced at him suddenly, a new expression in his eyes. "What do you mean, Mike? Do you have doubts?"

  "Doubts? That seems to be all I do have these last few days."

  "I wondered about that," Doc said. "You have been so quiet that I never doubted but what you were perfectly willing to go on with Ben Curry's plans for you. It means power and money, Mike-all a man could want. If it is doubt about the future for outlaws that disturbs you, don't let it. From now on it will be political connections and bribes, but with the money you'll have to work with, that should be easy."

  "It should be," Mike said slowly. "Only maybe-just maybe-I don't want to."

  "Conscience rears its ugly head!" Sawyer smiled ironically. "Can it be that Ben Curry's instructions have fallen on fallow ground? What started this sudden feeling? The approach of a problem? Fear?" Doc had turned toward Mike and was staring at him with aroused interest. "Or," he added, "is there a woman? A girl?"

  "Would that be so strange?"

  "Strange? But no! I've wondered it hasn't happened before, but then you've lived like a recluse these past years. Who is she?"

  "It doesn't matter," Mike answered. "I was thinking of this before I saw her. Wondering what I should do."

  "Don't ask me," Sawyer said. "I made a mess of my own life. Partly a woman and partly the desire for what I thought was easy money. Well, there's no such thing as easy money, but I found that out too late. You make your own decision. What was it Matthew Arnold said? I think you learned the quotation."

  "'No man can save his brother's soul, or pay his brother's debt.'"

  "Right! So you save your own and pay your own. There's one thing to remember, Mike. No matter which way you go, there will be killing. If you take over Ben Curry's job, you'll have to kill Perrin and Molina, if you can. And you may have to kill them, and even Ben Curry, if you step out."

  "Not Dad," Mike said.

  "Don't be sure. It isn't only what he thinks that matters, Mike. No man is a complete ruler or dictator. His name is only the symbol. He is the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers, and as long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them. When he fails, he falls. Ben Curry is the boss not only because he has power in him, but also because he has organization, because he has made them money, because he has offered them safety. If you left, there would be a chink in the armor. No outlaw ever trusts another outlaw who turns honest, for he always fears betrayal."

  Bastian tossed off his drink. "Let's check with Roundy. he's been on the prowl."

  Roundy came to them hastily. "We've got to get out of town, quick!" he said. "Ducrow and Fernandez just blew in, and they are drunk and raisin' the devil. Both of them are talkin', too, and if they see us they will spill everything!"

  "All right." Mike straightened. "Get our horses. Get theirs, too. We'll take them with us."

  Garlin and Colley had come to the bar. Garlin shook his head. "Ducrow's poison mean when he's drunk, and Fernandez sides him in everything," Garlin informed. "When Ducrow gets drunk he always pops off too much! The boss forbade him weeks ago to come down here."

  "He's a pal of Perrin's," Colley said, "so he thinks he can get away with it."

  "Here they come now!" Roundy exclaimed.

  "All right-drift!" Bastian ordered. "Make it quick with the horses."

  Chapter IV

  Saloon doors slammed open, and the two men came in. One look, and Mike could see there was cause for worry. Tom Ducrow was drunk and ugly, and behind him was Snake Fernandez. They were an unpleasant pair, and they had made their share of trouble in Ben Curry's organization, though always protected by Ferrin.

  Bastian started forward, but he had scarcely taken a step when Ducrow saw him.

  "There he is!" he bellowed loudly. "The pet! The boss's pet!" He stared around at the people in the barroom. "You know who this man is? He's-"

  "Ducrow!"
Mike snapped. "Shut up and go home. Now!"

  "Look who's givin' orders!" Ducrow sneered. "Gettin' big for your britches, ain't you?"

  "Your horses will be outside in a minute," Mike said. "Get on them and start back, fast!"

  "Suppose," Ducrow sneered, "you make me!"

  Mike had been moving toward him, and now with a pantherlike leap he was beside the outlaw and with a quick slash from his pistol barrel, floored him.

  With an oath, Snake Fernandez reached for a gun, and Mike had no choice. He shot him in the shoulder. Fernandez staggered, the gun dropping from his fingers. Mouthing curses, he reached for his left-hand gun.

  But even as he reached, Garlin-who had stayed behind when the others went for the horses-stepped up behind him. Jerking the gun from the man's holster, he spun him about and shoved him through the door.

  Mike pulled the groggy Ducrow to his feet and pushed him outside after Fernandez.

  A big man got up hastily from the back of the room. Mike took one quick glimpse at the star on his chest.

  "What goes on here?" the sheriff demanded.

  "Nothing at all," Mike said affably. "Just a couple of the boys from our ranch feeling their oats a little. We'll take them out and off your hands."

  The sheriff stared from Mike to Doc Sawyer and Colley, who had just come through the door.

  "Who are you?" he demanded. "I don't believe I know you hombres."

  "That's right, sir, you don't," Mike said. "We're from the Mogollons, riding back after driving some cattle through to California. It was a rough trip, and this liquor here got to a couple of the boys."

  The sheriff hesitated, looking sharply from one to the other.

  "You may be a cowhand," he said, "but that hombre"-he pointed to Sawyer-"looks like a gambler!"

  Mike chuckled. "That's a joke on you, boy!" he said to Doc. Then he turned back to the sheriff. "He's a doctor, sir, and quite a good one. A friend of my boss's."

  A gray-haired man got up and strolled alongside the sheriff. His eyes were alive with suspicion.

  "From the Mogollons?" he queried. "That's where I'm from. Who did you say your boss was?"