He was headed now for Blue Hill, intending to arrive there just after dark. With this idea in mind, he cut an old trail south and rode on until he was in the tall shadow of Chimney Rock. He drew up and got stiffly from the saddle.
This place was lonely and secure. He would wait here until almost dark, then he was going to sneak in and get Lona’s horse … once he’d done that, he could take her out, kill her with a blow to the neck, and fake the fall. Seating himself on the ground in the shadow of the Chimney, he filled his pipe and began to smoke.
It bothered him to contemplate the idea of murdering the girl that had lived as his daughter for so many years. She’d always been a tool, but he would admit that he was fond of her. For a few minutes he considered taking the money he’d hidden away and starting over somewhere else, but there wasn’t quite as much as he’d have liked, and after all, he’d never been a quitter.
Nearby, a huge old cottonwood rustled its leaves and he leaned back, knocking out his pipe. There would be a couple of hours to kill, and he was in no hurry. He would sleep a little while. His lids became heavy, then closed, his big hands grew lax in his lap, and he leaned comfortably back among the rocks. It was a joke on Mailer that he had taken the big bay, Frank’s favorite horse. The cottonwood had a huge limb that stretched toward him, and it rustled its leaves, gently lulling him to sleep.
He did not hear the slowly walking horses, even when a hoof clicked on stone. He was tired, and not as young as he once had been, but no thought of murdered men behind him, or of the girl, bound and helpless in a remote cabin, disturbed him. He slept on. He did not awaken even when the silent group of men faced him in a crescent of somber doom. Silent, hard-faced men who knew that blood bay, and carried with them the burden of their dead. It was the creak of saddle leather when Terry Mulhaven dismounted that awakened him.
Five men faced him on horseback, another on foot. Still another had thrown a rope over that big cottonwood limb, and Poke Dunning, who had lived most of his adult years with the knowledge that such a scene might be prepared for him at any moment, came awake suddenly and sharply, and his hand flashed for a gun.
He was lying on his side, his left gun beneath him, and somehow, in stirring around, his right gun had slipped from the holster. Not all the way, but so far back that when he grabbed it, he grabbed it around the cylinder, and not the butt.
The difference might seem infinitesimal. At this moment it was not. At this moment it was the difference between a fighting end and a hanging. Pat Mulhaven’s rifle spoke, and the hand that held the gun was shattered and bloody.
Gripping his bloody hand, Poke Dunning stared up at them. “What do you want me for?” he protested. “You’ve got the wrong man!”
“Yeah?” Pat Mulhaven sneered. “We heard that one before! We know that horse! We know you!”
“But listen!” he protested frantically. “Wait, now!” He got clumsily to his feet, his left hand gripping the bloody right. Great crimson drops welled from it and dripped slowly from his finger ends to the parched grass and sand beneath him.
He started to speak again, and then something came over him, something he had never experienced before. It was a sense of utter futility, and with it resignation. Roughly, they seized him.
“Give me a gun,” he said harshly, “with my left hand! I’ll kill the lot of you! Just my left hand!” he said, his fierce old eyes flaring at them.
“Set him on his hoss,” Bill Worth said calmly, “behind the saddle.”
Sometime later they rode on, turning their horses again toward home, and walking slowly, their task accomplished, with the feeling that their dead might ride on toward that dim cow-country Valhalla, attended by the men who had handled the guns.
Behind them, the shadow of Chimney Rock grew wider and longer, and the leaves of the cottonwood rustled gently, whispering one to the other as only cottonwood leaves will do, in just that way. And among them, his sightless eyes lifted skyward as if to see the last of the sunlit sky, and the last of the white clouds, looking through the cottonwood leaves, was Poke Dunning.
The point shadows of night had infiltrated the streets of Salt Creek when Lance Kilkenny came again to the town. The long-legged buckskin entered the dusty street with a swinging trot and did not stop until he reached the hitching rail of the Fandango. Yet already Kilkenny knew much. He knew that nothing had happened here tonight.
Before the Express, Lisa, the Portuguese, was sweeping the boardwalk, and he glanced up to see Kilkenny ride in; then, unaware of his identity, he returned to his sweeping. Before Starr’s Saloon, Al Starr smoked his pipe, unaware that his brother was at this moment lying dead and chock-full of Aztec Crossing lead on the bunkhouse floor at Blue Hill. At the Fandango, Cain Brockman was arranging his stock for a big night.
All was sleepy, quiet, and peaceful. Although it was early, a lamp glowed here and there from a cabin window, and there was a light in the Express. The advancing skirmishers of darkness had halted here and there in the cover of buildings, gathering force for an invasion of the street. Lance swung down, spoke softly to the buckskin, and stepped up onto the boardwalk. There he turned again, and swept the street with a quick, sharp, all-encompassing glance. Then he pushed through the swinging doors into the almost empty saloon.
Brockman looked up quickly and jerked his head toward the door where Brigo sat, but Kilkenny walked directly to the bar, waving aside the bottle that Cain immediately lifted. “Has Mailer been in?”
Cain’s eyes sparked. “No, ain’t seen him. What’s up?”
“Hell to pay!” Swiftly, Kilkenny sketched out what had happened. “He was headed for here,” he added.
“Let him come!” Cain said harshly. “I’ve got an express gun loaded with buckshot.”
Brigo was on his feet and coming over. Leaving Cain to tell him what had happened, Kilkenny went swiftly to Nita’s door and rapped. At her reply, he opened the door and entered.
She stood across the room, tall, lovely, exciting. He went to her at once and took her hands, then stood and held them as he looked at her, his heart swelling within him, feeling now as no other woman had ever made him feel, as none ever could, none but this Spanish and Irish girl from the far borderlands. “Nita, I’ve got to find Lona and Frank Mailer … then I’m going to come back, and when I do, we’re going to make this a deal. If you’ll have me, we’ll be married. We’ll go on farther west, we’ll go somewhere where nobody’s ever heard of Kilkenny, and where we can have some peace, and be happy.”
“You’ve got to go now?”
“Yes.”
It was like her that she understood. She touched him lightly with her lips. “Then go … but hurry back.”
He left it like that and walked back into the saloon. Brigo and Cain turned to look at him. With them was a tall, sandy-haired cowhand.
“This fellow says he saw Dunning and Lona riding east. He was some distance off, but he said it looked like she was tied. He lost them in the canyons of Salt Creek.”
“All right. We’ll have a look.” Kilkenny took in the sandy-haired hand with a sharp, penetrating glance. This was a good man, a steady man. “You want to ride to Blue Hill and tell Rusty? Then if you want, have a look. That girl’s in danger.”
“I’ll look,” Sandy said. “I’ve heard about the fightin’ this mornin’.”
“You be careful,” Kilkenny warned. “Poke Dunning is handy with a gun.”
“I know him,” Sandy said shortly. “We had trouble over some strays, once. He’s right handy with a runnin’ iron, too.”
Where to look for Lona was the next thing. While he was looking for her he had to be cautious not to run afoul of Mailer. The man was dangerous, and he would be doubly so now.
“Night and day,” Kilkenny told Cain and Brigo, “one of you be around. Never let up.”
In the morning Kilkenny mounted the buckskin. He returned to the house at Blue Hill and scouted around, but the profusion of tracks told him nothing. Working the trail a bit fa
rther out proved helpful in that he found the tracks of several riders. They seemed to be scouting around some and he figured they were out looking for the lost girl, same as he was. Their tracks had obliterated the original trail and so he followed them quickly, covering ground as fast as possible.
He had stopped at a well due west of Chimney Rock when he saw a rider approaching. It was Sandy. His face was drawn and gray. “Been ridin’,” he said. “Rusty is out, too. An’ that Flynn.”
“How is he?”
“In no shape, but he won’t quit. Head poundin’ like a drum, I can tell. Pale around the gills. We tracked Poke as far as Monument Rock, then lost him. Other tracks wiped his out.”
“The posse, maybe?”
“I reckon.” Sandy wiped his chin after a long drink. “Maybe they got him.”
“If they found him, somebody is dead.” Kilkenny knew the men. “They didn’t like it even when I stopped them hanging the wrong men. They wanted an eye for an eye.”
“Dunning won’t be taken easy,” Sandy said. “Where you headin’?”
“Northeast. Look,” he added, “why don’t you swing back and follow the posse tracks? If they turn off the route back to Aztec, you’ve got a lead.”
Sandy turned his bronc. “See you,” he said, and cantered off.
Kilkenny wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes were dark with worry. Someplace in these bleak hills that girl was with Dunning. Someplace Mailer lurked. Neither was pleasant to think of. He swung into the saddle and glanced northeast. The tower of Chimney Rock loomed against the sky, beyond it the mountains, and there was a trail into them by that route. He turned the buckskin.
He rode with a Winchester across his saddle, his eyes searching every bit of cover, his ears and eyes alert. He saw nothing, heard nothing.
On a point of rocks near Eagle Nest Arroyo, Frank Mailer, his face covered with a stubble of coarse black beard, watched Kilkenny riding north through his glasses, and he swore softly. Twice, the gunfighter had been close to him, and each time Mailer had held off rather than dare a confrontation. Being on the dodge had him worried, for too long he’d lived the easy life at Blue Hill, taking off to do jobs outside the territory but always with the safety of Dunning’s ranch to return to if things got bad. He had learned of what had happened, knew of the end of Sam Starr and Socorro. He had found the body of Poke Dunning, lynched for the crimes that he, Mailer, had committed, but strangely he felt depressed. There was the man that he had wanted dead, and he was dead. He had the nine thousand dollars from the Aztec bank, a good horse, and a beltful of ammunition. But the good old days were gone. The hanging of Poke Dunning affected him as nothing else had; there was an inevitableness about it that frightened him.
Frank Mailer, six feet five in his socks and weighing over two hundred and fifty pounds, walked back to his gray horse. He stood with a hand on the pommel, and something was gone out of him. For the first time since he was a youngster, he was really on the dodge. He was running.
Poke had run, too, and it hadn’t done him any good. Dunning had beat the game for years, and now look at him. Somehow it always caught up with you. Frank Mailer heaved himself into the saddle and turned his horse across country.
The sight of Dunning’s body had even driven the lush beauty of Nita Riordan from his mind. He rode on, sullen and dazed; for the first time he had a feeling of being hemmed in, trapped.
Kilkenny was hunting something; was it him? Now there was something he could do. He could seek out a showdown with Kilkenny and beat him. There was a deep, burning resentment against the man. If he had stayed out of it, all would have been well.
A mere half dozen miles north, Kilkenny rounded a sandstone promontory and saw just beyond a horseman picking his way over the rounded gray stones and gravel of a wash. The man looked up and waved. It was Sandy again. “Found her,” he said when they were closer. “Flynn found her. She was tied in a shack back in the hills. Dunning left her there with water and a little grub. Never saw nothin’ like it. She was tied in the middle of the ’dobe with ropes running around her body an’ off in all four directions. She couldn’t move an inch one way or the other, an’ couldn’t get free, but she had her hands loose. Those ropes were made fast in the walls an’ windows, knots so far away she couldn’t reach ’em. She picked at one of the ropes until her fingers were all raw, tryin’ to pull it apart.”
“She’s all right?”
“I reckon so. They took her to Blue Hill.” Sandy eyed him thoughtfully. “Dunning left her the day before yesterday. You ain’t seen him?”
“No. Nor Mailer.”
“I’m headin’ home.” Sandy was regretful. “The boss will be raisin’ hell. See you.” He turned his horse, then glanced back. “Luck,” he said.
Kilkenny sat his horse for a moment, then turned and started south again. Now he was hunting Mailer, not to kill him, unless he had to, but to make sure he was gone, out of the country, before he relaxed his guard.
“He will want to see,” Kilkenny told Buck. “If he’s on the dodge but hasn’t left the country, he’ll have headed for the ridgelines.”
Shadows grew long and crawled up the opposite wall of the mountains, and Kilkenny turned aside, and in a hollow in the rocks, he bedded down. He built no fire, but ate a little jerked beef and some hardtack before crawling into his blankets.
He was out at dawn, and had gone only a few miles when he saw the tracks of a big horse cutting across his trail. A big horse … to carry a big man. Kilkenny turned the buckskin abruptly. He had no doubt that this was Frank Mailer’s horse. It was rough terrain into which the trail was leading, country that offered shelter for an ambush. Yet he followed on, taking his time, following the sign that grew more and more difficult. A bruised branch of sage, a scratch on a rock, a small stone rolled from its place, leaving the earth slightly damp where it had rested but a short time before. Once he saw a scar atop a log lying across the trail where a trailing hoof had struck, knocking the loose bark free and leaving a scar upon the bark and the tiny webs in the cracks beneath the bark.
It was a walking trail. Whether Mailer knew he was tracked or not, once in the mountains he had been exceedingly careful, and it could not be followed at a faster pace than a walk. Sometimes Kilkenny had to halt, searching for the line of travel, but always there was something, and his keen eyes read sign where another might have seen nothing, and they pushed on.
Kilkenny drew up, and sitting his horse close against a clump of piñon, he rolled a smoke. His mouth tasted bad and his hair was uncombed. He squinted his eyes against the morning glare of the sun and studied the hills before him. He put the cigarette in his lips and touched a match to it, feeling the hard stubble of beard on his chin as he did so. His shirt felt hot and had the sour smell of stale sweat from much riding without time to change. He felt drawn and hard himself, and he worked his fingers to get the last of the morning damp out of them.
Then he rode out and he met the hard, flat sound of a rifle shot and felt the whip of it, barely ahead of his hat brim. He left the saddle, Winchester in hand, but there was no further shot. Staring up at the rocks, his eyes hard and narrow, he waited. There was no sound.
The warm morning sun lay lazily upon the sandstone and sage; a lizard came out from under a rock, and darted over another rock that was green with copper stain and paused there. Lying where he was, Kilkenny could see the beat of its tiny heart against its side. Then something flickered and he saw a vanishing leg and fired quickly, the .44 thundering in the depths of the canyon.
Chips flew from the rock where the leg had vanished and from the opposite side of the rock where his second shot had struck. Then he heard the sound of a running horse, and he came out and climbed into the saddle.
In a few minutes he had found the trail. A big horse carrying a heavy man and running swiftly. He moved after it, riding more warily now, knowing that Mailer knew he was on the trail, and that from now on it would be doubly hard.
He fo
rded Coal Mine Creek, carrying little water now, and headed for the five-hundred-foot wall of the Hogback, a high, serrated ridge biting with its red saw teeth at the brassy sky. Then, suddenly, as though in a painting, horse and man were outlined sharp against the sky. An instant only, but Kilkenny’s rifle leaped to his shoulder and the shot cracked out, echoing and reechoing from the wall of the Hogback. Kilkenny saw the horse stumble, then go down, and the man spring clear. He fired again, but knew he had missed.
Coming up through the brush, he dismounted near the fallen horse and returned his rifle to its boot. The Hogback reared above him in a brown and broken-toothed height that offered a thousand places of concealment. Kilkenny dug into his saddlebags and got out his moccasins. Leaving his boots slung on the pommel, he moved out after Mailer on foot.
There was no way of telling how he had gone, or where. Yet Kilkenny moved on, working his way in among the boulders. Then, at a momentary pause, he saw some birds fly up and directed his course that way, but working to get a little higher on the cliff. He was on a narrow ledge, some seventy feet above the jagged rocks below, when he heard a low call. Startled, he looked up, to see Mailer on a ledge some fifty yards higher ahead of him.
The man was smiling, and as he smiled he lifted his pistol. Kilkenny drew left-handed and snapped a shot. It was a fast draw and the shot was more to move Mailer than with the expectation of a hit. Mailer lunged sidewise and his own shot clipped the rocks above Kilkenny and spat dirt and gravel into his face.
A small landslide had scoured out a hollow in the mountain, and Kilkenny started up it. The climb was steep and a misstep might send him shooting all the way to the bottom, but the soft moccasins gave him a good toehold. When he reached the higher ledge he was panting and winded.
The sun was blazing hot here, and even the rocks were hot under his hands. The burned red sandstone was dotted with juniper and it broke off in a steep slope. Steep, but not a cliff. He moved up behind a juniper and studied the mountain carefully. All was hot and still. Sweat smarted his eyes and he rubbed them out, then mopped the sweat from his brow and cheeks.
The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 60