Without a single glance back, he rode on across the yard and out through the gate. Joshua looked at his father. “Who is that man, Pa?”
“A gunslinger. A hired gun. Pike Hanson hired him, I suspect.”
“But where would Pike get the money?”
“How the hell should I know?” His father turned to Lassiter. “Damn it, man! Get on your horse. I want the kid back here before sundown.”
Lassiter whirled and headed for the livery.
Joshua’s father turned and bent a withering glance on him. “You too, Josh! Do you some good to get calluses on your backside. Ride in with Lassiter.”
Joshua nodded quickly and started after the foreman.
Joshua rode wearily beside Lassiter through the hot, baking sun. The thin rutted road ahead of them wavered and shimmered in the heat.
“Lassiter, you ever seen that man before?”
“Nope.”
“He seemed to know me—and Pa, too.”
“Yes, he did.”
“And he seemed to hate Pa—to really hate him, like he’d known him from somewhere.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Then who is he?”
“I told you. I don’t know, Josh.” Lassiter gentled his horse with a pat on the neck and guided him around a particularly treacherous series of wagon wheel ruts. “Could be anyone. Your father’s made many enemies over the years. You don’t build a spread this size without stepping on a few toes, smashing a few noggins.”
“It’s more than that with this man, Lassiter.”
Lassiter’s heavy shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Maybe, Josh. Maybe it is. But you go see your father about it. I can’t help you. Besides, it don’t matter who this fellow Caulder is. We got just the medicine for guys like him.”
“Of course,” said Josh wearily. “You’ll send the kid after Caulder. And that will solve it. Six-guns can solve anything.”
Lassiter looked quickly at Joshua. “That’s right, Josh. We’ll fight fire with fire—six-guns against six-guns. This guy Caulder’s a hired gun, so what’s wrong with using the same medicine against him?”
Joshua felt helpless. What could he say against that? What had he ever been able to say against his father’s eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth philosophy over the years? Though he wanted more than he wanted anything else in the world to be his father’s son and to be worthy of his father’s pride and respect—if not his love—he found it impossible to accept without question all that had been done to consolidate the Snake Bar empire. For this reluctance—this squeamishness, as his father called it—he was continuously under the lash of his father’s contempt, the fire of his invective.
And yet his mother too had questioned ...
The sudden thought of his mother caused an ache that seemingly would never leave him to stir agonizingly to life again. But Joshua steeled himself to the ache and continued doggedly to track his thoughts.
More than anything else Josh wanted someday to be the master of the Snake Bar. That meant he had to gain his father’s respect. But that meant also that he had to respect his father as well.
Joshua shook his head as he mulled over the problem he faced and had been facing now for years. He wanted to respect his father. And his father was a God-fearing man. But he seemed more often than not to use the Bible as a club with which to beat his opponents into the dust. How often had the man read to Joshua the terrible examples of treachery and retribution he had found in his well-worn Bible. And how often had Joshua watched in pity and revulsion as his father turned triumphantly to the Bible to sanctify an action that Joshua could only see as brutal and selfish.
The Great God Jehovah that his father worshipped—and that Joshua was supposed to worship as well—was not a God of love and kindness. He was, it seemed, a vengeful, terrifying God of Wrath and Retribution that brooked no opposition, that never turned the other cheek. He was a God Joshua’s mother had detested as well ...
This time the ache within Joshua persisted. Why had his mother run off with that cowboy? How could she have allowed herself to do that ... to leave him without a word of explanation ... without even a touch of her hand ...?
By now the ache within him had become a nagging torment—one that subsided only gradually when he and Lassiter clattered finally into the dusty town of Willow Bend two hours later.
Slick Dundee’s raw face showed sudden relief as Joshua and Lassiter strode into the sheriff’s office. It was obvious to Joshua that the man had not particularly relished keeping the kid incarcerated less than twenty feet from his desk. It surprised Joshua, in fact, that Dundee had shown that much backbone.
Dundee scrambled out from behind his desk, reaching for his key ring. “Hey, you got back right fast, Lassiter. You come for the kid?”
Lassiter nodded. “That’s right. Blackmann don’t want the kid to think Snake Bar don’t take care of its own. And he says to tell Sal he’ll pay the damages—but; she better keep the bill within reason.”
“Oh, sure. She will. I’m sure she will, Lassiter.”
Joshua looked at the corpulent sheriff with an unpleasant sense that he was part of the man’s damnation. And he was in the sense that it was his father’s money that had bought this lawman lock, stock and barrel and that now helped procure the man’s supply of rotgut. The result was a lawman in a constant alcoholic haze, his bulbous nose turning a more flamboyant scarlet with each passing day.
Joshua and Lassiter followed Dundee to the door which led into the back room where the prisoners’ cells were. As he opened the door, Dundee turned to Lassiter.
“I had to take the kid in, Lassiter,” he explained unhappily. “I just poorly had to, that’s all. He was terrorizing them poor girls something awful—chasing them, he was, with a knife. And before that, why he made them ...”
But the lawman couldn’t go on. The kid’s exploits in Fat Sal’s cat house boggled his whiskey-fouled mind. He pulled the door open and led them into a dim hallway. It smelled of sour vomit and of stale, unwashed men.
It was mid-week and the only prisoner was the kid. They found him lying on his back on his cot in the last cell down, his battered black bowler hat covering his face, his long dusty buffalo coat flung over him for a blanket. The sun was low now and the narrow cells were not as hot as they must have been earlier in the day—but it was still uncomfortably warm. Joshua found it impossible to understand how the kid could sleep with such apparent comfort under that heavy overcoat.
As Dundee shook out his key ring and inserted a key into the cell’s lock, the kid stirred quickly, reached up for his hat and swung his feet off the cot. As soon as he saw Lassiter and Joshua, he smiled.
“Well, well,” he said, pleased. “The old man sent his best—his very best to get the kid out. His son and his foreman. Hope you two realize what an honor this is for me.”
“We realize it, Kid,” Lassiter said, standing aside to let the kid out of his cell.
But the kid was in no hurry. He gathered up his overcoat carefully and then donned his bowler. It was too large for his head and he looked silly in it. But there was not a man on the Snake Bar spread or in Willow Bend that would even suggest such a thing to the kid’s face. He glanced at Dundee; then his eyes flicked coldly over Joshua’s face. Despite the fine, almost delicate lines of his boyish face—he could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen—his glance sent a chill up Joshua’s spine.
A moment later as the kid prepared to leave the sheriff’s office, he turned and caught Dundee’s eye. Joshua saw the sheriff wilt visibly.
“You brought me in last night, Dundee,” the kid said, “because I was plumb tuckered out and needed a place to spend the night. Any other time I would have kicked your ass up between your shoulder blades.” He smiled then. “You know that, don’t you, Sheriff?”
The man nodded unhappily.
“Fine. So you stay the hell away from me, you son of a bitch or I’ll stop your clock for good.”
The kid turned then to
Lassiter. “Let’s go, Foreman.”
“Oh ... Lassiter,” the sheriff said nervously, “I got some news maybe the old man would like to hear.”
“Spit it out, Dundee,” Lassiter said impatiently. The kid was standing in the open door, waiting.
“Them Hansons. They got a visitor coming in on the noon stage tomorrow. A woman. Seems she’s the old man’s widowed daughter, and she’s come to keep house for him and the boy. Looks to me like the Hansons are planning on sticking around.” He licked dry lips and flicked a nervous glance at the kid still standing in the doorway. “Just thought Blackmann should know, that’s all.”
Lassiter frowned. “Damn it,” he said softly. “That woman’s going to make things a mite sticky.”
“You mean you’ll have to hold yourself in check,” said Joshua. “Is that it?” He could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Damnit, man!” said Lassiter. “This is your fight too! Your Pa needs that valley and that water. He’s already bought the beef. With all them beef, he’ll be able to convince the Union Pacific to run a spur to Willow Bend. Ain’t he let you in on what he’s planning?”
Joshua nodded wearily. “Of course Pa has. That’s about all he’s been talking about since spring.”
“Well, damnit, man! That’s why we got to pick these Hansons out of our fur!”
The kid closed the door and stepped back into the sheriff’s office. His dead eyes fastened on Joshua’s. “You ain’t got the stomach for it, have you, Josh? Your Pa wants you to measure up. He wants you to start pulling your weight. But you can’t do it.” He smiled, then. “Well, I can do it. And your Pa knows it. Maybe he don’t have a real son in you—but he sure might have one in me—and I think he knows that too.”
Joshua looked into the kid’s cold eyes and knew he spoke—if not the truth—damn close to it. He brushed angrily past the kid and out onto the board sidewalk, heading for his mount. He was filled with a kind of numb fury. He’d show the kid. He’d show Lassiter. And most of all he’d show his Pa.
And the first one he’d take would be that hired gun Pike Hanson had brought in, the tall stranger with the crooked face—Wolf Caulder.
His hands were shaking as he reached for his reins and swung into his saddle. Without looking back, he clapped spurs to his mount and galloped out of town. He would let Lassiter and the kid ride back to the Snake Bar without him.
He had business at the Double B.
Three
Ben saw the lone rider first and came running into the barn to warn Wolf. Wolf had been rubbing down his black. He finished up quickly, laid the currycomb atop the stall’s crossbeam, and led the black out of the barn to the rear pasture. Then he took up his Winchester and joined Ben at the door of the barn to wait.
As the horse’s hooves grew louder, Pike opened the cabin door and peered out quizzically.
“We got a visitor, looks like,” called Wolf to him. “We can handle it.”
“Maybe you can, maybe you can’t,” the old man said, disappearing quickly back inside to get his own rifle.
The sun was low in a clear blue sky. The sunlight seemed to have gold in it as everything it touched took on a kind of golden cast. Even the lush grass. And the light through the cottonwoods. As Wolf watched the rider galloping across the narrow brook and then pounding on toward the ranch without let-up, he found himself wondering idly how anyone could rush so headlong through all that quiet beauty without heeding it.
“It’s Josh,” said Ben.
Wolf nodded. He had recognized Blackmann’s son also. The young man was in an all-fired hurry. Someone had put a bee in his bonnet, that was for sure. He looked down at Ben. “I want to handle this myself, Ben. You run into the cabin and stay there with Pike.”
When the boy started to protest, Wolf’s face went cold, his eyes hard.
“No argument, Ben. Do as I say. This is my hand and I’m the only one who’s going to play it. Now get in there with Pike!”
The boy turned and bolted across the yard to the cabin as Wolf stepped out into the yard and moved into the path of the oncoming rider, his Winchester carried across his chest. As the young rider bore down upon him, he gave no sign of yielding. And then Wolf saw the six-gun in Josh’s hand—the look of wild determination on his face.
Wolf held up his hand calmly as a sign for Josh to stop. For a moment Wolf thought Josh would run him down. And then Josh sawed on his mount’s reins, swerved violently and came to a sliding halt beside Wolf.
“I’m going to kill you, Caulder!” the young man cried, leveling his six-gun at Wolf’s face.
“No you’re not,” Wolf replied calmly.
“Damn you! I will!”
Wolf dropped his Winchester to the ground and placed both hands on his hips. “All right then. Enjoy yourself. Shoot down an unarmed man. Go ahead.”
“You threatened my father! You’re throwing in with the Hansons!”
“That’s right, Josh.”
“Then why shouldn’t I kill you?”
Wolf smiled suddenly, feeling the scar above his cheekbone deepen. “If you were going to shoot me, Josh, you would have done it by now, I reckon.”
Slowly, bewilderment on his young, hawk-like face, Josh holstered his six-gun. Then he took off his white Stetson and dragged his forearm across his forehead. His face was flushed, his thick black hair glistening with sweat. He was a fine handsome young man, Wolf reflected—just as his mother had described him.
In a voice laced with weariness, Josh asked, “How the hell did you know I wouldn’t blow your fool head off, Caulder? Damn it! I was mad enough to do it.”
“Let’s just say I know you—perhaps better than you know yourself, Josh.”
This genuinely puzzled the young man. “Now how could that be, Caulder? I’ve never laid eyes on you before today. And you’ve never seen me anywhere—or have you?”
“That’s right. I haven’t.”
“Well, damn it, mister! Stop talking in such fool riddles! Level with me!”
“I’d like to, Josh. But ... I don’t reckon it’s time yet.” The man pulled himself up angrily, his fingers tightening on his reins. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir, and yet you refuse to give me the satisfaction of knowing who you are—and why you are here!”
“My name is Wolf Caulder,” Wolf said quietly. “I’m here because of a promise I made someone.”
“A promise? To Pike Hanson? Is that it?”
Wolf shrugged, reached over, took the horse by the bridle and gently wheeled the horse so that Josh was facing back the way he came. He looked up at Josh then.
“I don’t want to mystify you, Josh. But there’s things a man can’t say until he’s ready to say them. And that’s the way it’s going to have to be.”
“If you stand between Snake Bar and its enemies, Caulder, I may have to kill you.”
“I suppose so. But I hope not, Josh.” Wolf smiled coldly up at the young man. “I’ll have a thing to say about that too, you know.”
“Damn it, Caulder! Who are you?”
For answer Wolf slapped smartly the flank of Josh’s horse. From a standstill it leaped forward at a gallop.
Josh was a fine horseman and the sudden acceleration gave him no difficulty. He looked back once, still at the gallop, then bent forward over his mount’s neck and dug spurs to its flank.
Wolf watched him ride off. The sun was almost touching the tops of the cottonwoods by this time and he was hungry. But it wasn’t hunger he felt as he stood there watching Josh disappear in the direction of Snake Bar.
It was an infinite sadness he felt.
Pike and Ben were hurrying across the yard toward him, Pike grinning and Ben’s face alight with astonishment at what he had seen from the cabin. Wolf picked up his Winchester and started back to meet them.
“You bluffed him!” Ben cried as he pulled up before Wolf. “You stood there and bluffed him! Then you just turned his horse around and sent him on his way!” It was plain to Wolf that Ben
was no longer his enemy.
Pike had reached Wolf by this time. He shook his head in admiration. “I wouldn’t try that sort of thing too often around here, Caulder.”
“Josh doesn’t seem to be a bad sort.”
“He ain’t,” agreed Pike. “But he’s the only one of that bunch with a human streak in him—and he’ll be just like his father soon enough.”
“Maybe not,” said Wolf laconically.
Pike looked at him quizzically, but Wolf said nothing more.
“What’s for supper, Pike?” Ben piped up eagerly. “I got a hole in me as big as a rain barrel.”
Pike’s face went suddenly white. “Son of a bitch!” he exploded in dismay and without further word tore ahead of Wolf and Ben into the cabin.
Wolf smiled. From where he was at the moment he could already smell the burning beans.
Ben was asleep in the cabin loft and Wolf was sitting atop the corral fence, having a solitary smoke. The sight of Josh for the second time that day had sent his thoughts reeling backward in time.
He had told Josh he was in this high country because of a promise he had made to someone. Yes, but not a promise he had made to Pike Hanson as Josh thought—but to Kathy Blackmann, to Josh’s mother.
With a quick sweep of her pale hand, Kathy caught the luxuriant fullness of her auburn hair and sent it cascading back down over her bare shoulders. “I want to see him, Wolf! He’s my boy! I want to go back just once and see him on a horse. I want to watch him ride—see him smile. Wolf, he’s got the finest, most honest smile. Honest to God, he has!”
“I believe you,” he said, laughing and pulling her to him, cradling her naked shoulders and breasts in his own naked arms. He kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose—a strong handsome nose, nothing perky or cute about it.
He pulled back and looked at her. Her dark powerful eyes burned like coals in her flushed cheeks. With a sudden ache Wolf realized how sick she was—what a terrible lie those hectic cheeks were. Kathy Blackmann was dying. She knew it, Josie knew it, they all knew it, but said nothing. He kissed her suddenly on the lips and drank deep, her warmth filling him, renewing him.
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