Blackmann turned then and went to his safe. In a moment he had swung open the door and was reaching in for a bag of gold coins. At this, Lassiter wanted to protest. He would not be bought off this easily. Blackmann couldn’t do this—couldn’t just boot him off the Snake Bar after all these years. It was the only home he had ever had. And he was top hand here. He could never get a position to equal this any place else. He was too old. He’d end up like all the other broke cowpokes, a bow-legged saddle tramp making the rounds.
“Now, hold it, John,” Lassiter said, stepping forward. “I don’t want any of that money. I’m not asking for that. I just wanted to see if I couldn’t talk some sense into you—that’s all.”
Blackmann slapped the small bag onto the corner of the desk and looked coldly at Lassiter. “You did, Lassiter. You made me realize how dangerous it would be for me to keep you on. Now take this money and get off Snake Bar.”
Lassiter felt his self control going. “Just like that, John?” he croaked, incredulous. “After all these years?”
Blackmann’s lean, seamed face became implacable. “I’ve carried you long enough, Lassiter. Take this money and ride out. You can have the pick of the remuda and take a pack horse if you need one. But don’t sleep another night at Snake Bar.”
The man’s tone left absolutely no doubt in Lassiter’s mind that there would be no way for Lassiter to make Blackmann alter his decision. It was irrevocable—almost as if the man had been waiting for Lassiter to come forward, had been goading him into making this open break. Lassiter felt suddenly empty. Everything of substance about him had faded in a twinkling. He was nothing—and a moment before he had been so much! With the casualness of a horse’s tail flicking away a fly, Blackmann was disposing of him.
“Take the money, Clint!” Blackmann barked. “Take it and go!”
Lassiter stepped forward and picked the bag of coins off the end of Blackmann’s desk. He hefted it. The amount seemed substantial enough—at least a couple of hundred dollars.
He turned then and started toward the door. When he reached it, he had become cold with rage. One hand on the doorknob, he turned to look at Blackmann.
“There’s just one more thing, John. I know who Kathy’s real lover was. And it wasn’t that poor silly cowpoke you murdered.”
Blackmann moved out from behind his desk and took a step toward Lassiter.
“It was me, you poor dumb son of a bitch,” Lassiter went on, his face lit by a bleakly triumphant smile. “I was the man she came to when she needed love, real love, human love—not that twisted, psalm-singing love you offered.”
Blackmann stood by his desk, frozen into a kind of immobile fury.
“And I read that letter she sent you,” Lassiter concluded. “I hope she returns to haunt you—if not alive, then sure as hell in your nightmares.”
Lassiter pulled the door open and left the study. As he closed the door and started down the stairs, he saw Joshua below him storming into the house. Lassiter craned his head to see Joshua. He was about to call down to him when he heard the door to Blackmann’s study pulled open behind him, turned on the stairs and was just in time to see the revolver in Blackmann’s hands explode.
Lassiter felt the flash of powder even as the slug slammed into his chest with the force of a pile driver. He felt himself flung backward down the stairwell. As he came to rest at the bottom of the stairs, he saw the startled face of Josh bent over him. Lassiter smiled. This was fine. Now he wouldn’t have to be that bow-legged saddle tramp after all.
He reached up to pull Joshua closer. He had something to tell the boy—something he should have told him long before ...
Josh felt Lassiter’s hand on his shoulder pulling him closer. Quickly he leaned his head down so the man could speak, ignoring his father clambering down the stairs toward him. Lassiter’s words came clearly into his left ear:
“Your Ma didn’t run off, boy. Your Pa ... beat her, left her to die. Letter in the silver box ... father’s desk ...”
Lassiter started to cough then. The pain caused his eyes to open wide. Convulsively he rolled over, his face gaunt with pain. As Josh pulled him back, he found the man’s eyes still open—unblinking—the face slack in death.
Josh let Lassiter go and looked up at his father. “Why did you shoot, Pa? What happened?”
Before Blackmann could answer, the kid entered the house with two other punchers on his heels. The gunfire had obviously drawn them; both the kid’s Smith & Wessons were out. When the kid saw Lassiter, he smiled thinly and put his guns back into his overcoat pockets. Then he—along with Josh and the others—looked to Blackmann for an explanation.
“The son of a bitch tried to rob me,” Blackmann said coldly. “He told me he was quitting Snake Bar, and when I wouldn’t give him what he thought he had coming, he forced me to open the safe.” Blackmann looked at Josh. “I’m sorry I had to do it, Josh. He’s been a good man. He just lost his head, I guess—pulling a gun on me like that.”
Josh looked down at Lassiter and at the gold coins now spilled in gleaming profusion at his feet. It didn’t make sense. Any of it. And what had the man been trying to tell him about his mother?
Josh looked back at his father. “Pa, who’s the ramrod now?”
Blackmann paused for only a moment. “Why, the kid here—until you’re ready, Josh. And that won’t be long—not with the kid to show you the way.”
Show him the way? Josh was stunned. He couldn’t believe his father meant what he was saying. The kid had never roped a steer in his life and knew absolutely nothing about ranching or cattle. He was a gunman, pure and simple, less than a year out of the East.
Josh shook his head firmly, surprised himself at the strength of his sudden resolve. “No, Pa. I won’t have it. Not the kid.”
Blackmann’s face purpled. Never before had his son dared to cross him this openly. But he held his temper in check and turned to the kid. “Hold everything up until we get this business here taken care of, Kid. We’ll have to divide the men differently now. I’ll be leading one force. But I still want you to hit Steele. Now get someone in here to bury Lassiter.”
“Ain’t we going to have a funeral?” one of the men asked.
“Sure, we will. Right here on Snake Bar where it belongs. I’ll read over the man myself. The poor miserable sinner ain’t going to be too damn anxious to get where he’s going to anyway.”
Blackmann turned then to Josh. “Now you wait upstairs for me, boy. I’ll be up to tend to you when I finish with this business.”
Without a word Joshua brushed past his father and moved up the stairs to his father’s study. Closing the door behind him, he went straight to his father’s desk. He knew of the silver box Lassiter had referred to and found it with no difficulty. He took it out of the drawer, placed it on the desk and opened it.
He found the letter and began to read.
There was a knot in his chest when he finished and his throat scalded. But he forced back the tears that wanted to come and read that one terrible passage over again:
And now I must ask you to allow me to return to Willow Bend. I want so to see Josh again! He must be grown now! I never got a chance to say goodbye to him! Oh John, what an ache there is in my heart to see Josh once more! ...
Josh put the letter aside and closed his eyes. And she forgave him! He beat her nearly to death and abandoned her by the road to die! And she forgave him!
The door to the study swung open and the kid entered. He was carrying the small bag of gold coins that Lassiter had tried to steal from his father.
“Your father told me to bring these up.”
Joshua nodded, not trusting his voice, and indicated the still open safe beside him with a glance. As the kid knelt by the safe and placed the gold alongside the other sacks, Joshua caught the greed shining in the kid’s face. The kid got up, looking almost guiltily at Josh, and left the room.
Joshua looked back down at the letter in front of him on the desk:
So you see, I may not have long on this earth, John. That is why you must grant me this request.
Slowly, carefully, he picked up the letter, refolded it and placed it in his shirt pocket. Then he got up and left his father’s study and walked down the stairs to the main floor. Lassiter’s body was gone already and Juanita was scrubbing away at the blood that had stained the carpet and the woodwork at the base of the stairwell.
As he stepped out of the house, he saw his father standing by the corral fence talking to the kid and two of his cohorts. Josh walked across the yard into the stable, saddled his roan gelding and rode out of the stable.
“Josh!”
Joshua reined in his horse and looked over at his father. The man had left the kid and was advancing upon him with angry strides. “Just where the hell do you think you’re going?” his father demanded.
Joshua paid no attention to his father’s question. Instead, he leaned forward in his saddle and said, “You never did let mother come back, did you, Pa. She told you she was dying, but that didn’t make any difference to you.”
The man’s face went suddenly pale.
Joshua pulled his horse around and rode out through the gate. He heard his father call to him, but he just kept riding. It was only then, out of the Snake Bar compound and alone on his horse that he allowed the tears to come.
Twelve
Wolf was out back of the bunkhouse ducking his head under the pump when Josh rode in. At the sound of his horse, Wolf stepped out from behind the building into view. When Josh saw him he rode toward Wolf and pulled up within a few feet of him.
It was close to sunset and Josh’s youthful face was caught squarely in the bright slanting light. It was a drawn, old man’s face Wolf saw—as if there had been a revolution behind it, one that had torn down all that had previously given it solidity and assurance.
“I’d like to talk to you, Caulder,” Josh said.
“Light and sit awhile,” Wolf offered. “There’s coffee inside the bunkhouse. Fresh and hot.”
Wolf looked past Josh at Pike, Ben and Betsy standing in the cabin doorway. He waved them back inside. When Josh saw them go back into the cabin, he swung down off the gelding and led it to the tie rail in front of the bunkhouse. Wolf went into the building ahead of Josh, reached a barrel chair over and set it up to the one table by the window. He reached down another cup from a nail over the table, then filled both cups with the fresh coffee Betsy had brought over a few minutes earlier.
Josh strode into the place, looked quickly around at its dim, mean interior then closed the door and sat down in the chair Wolf had provided for him. Wolf was facing the door, Josh was sitting with his back to it, facing Wolf. Josh took his hat off and placed it down beside him on the table.
“I think it’s time, Caulder.”
“Time?”
“Time to level with me—about that promise you made someone.”
“I don’t think so, Josh.”
“I’ve broken with my father. Completely. I’m riding with your men against him.”
“No, Josh. I wouldn’t want that. You wouldn’t want that—not if you could think about it calmly for a few days.”
“I don’t need time to think about it, Caulder. I want to destroy him, completely.”
Wolf shook his head. “You’ll feel differently about this if you’ll just give yourself time.”
“I won’t. He’s riding against you soon. I heard the men talking as I rode up. They’re going to hit Bob Steele’s ranch first and that nester, Jenks.”
Wolf leaned forward. “When?”
“Tonight. I’m pretty sure—even with the death of Lassiter.”
“Lassiter’s dead?”
“My father killed him. Said he was stealing from Snake Bar. I don’t believe him. My father will lead one section of riders against Jenks. The kid’s going against Steele.”
Wolf frowned. Blackmann was not wasting any time. “This is good of you to tell us, Josh.”
“All right then. Now level with me. Someone sent you. That promise you made. Was it to a woman?”
When Wolf frowned and refused to reply, Josh reached over and grabbed Wolf’s wrist. “I have a letter my mother wrote my father. Tell me, Wolf. Was it my mother?”
Wolf pulled his hand free of Josh’s grasp and got up from the table and went over to the shelf over his bunk. He lifted down a half-empty bottle of whiskey Pike had brought over one evening, brought it back to the table and poured a slug into Josh’s coffee. Then he sat back down.
“Drink that down, Josh. I guess, like you say, it’s time I leveled with you.”
The bunkhouse was in shadows when Wolf left it a little while later and walked alone over to the main cabin. The moment he entered, all four occupants of the cabin turned to face him. Betsy put down the coffee pot she was holding and rushed across the floor to him.
“What is it?” she wanted to know. “What’s wrong? Why is Josh here?”
“He’ll be staying with us, Betsy, if you can find the room. He’s broken with his father.”
“You mean he’ll be riding with us?” Pike asked, incredulous.
“I don’t think so. Not openly. That would be too ugly. But he wants to help, and I don’t see how we can stop him—or why we should want to.” Wolf looked at Pike. “I’ve suggested he might stay here when the trouble begins; help you, Pike.”
“Help me?”
Wolf smiled at the old man’s almost comic outrage. “He can fire a rifle, Pike. That’s something you can’t do—not unless you want to open up that shoulder again.”
Betsy whirled on her father. “Wolf’s right. Let Josh do it. Let him help!” Her eyes were sparking angrily. She turned back to Wolf. “Where is he? Where’s Josh now?”
“He’s outside in the bunkhouse.”
“What’s he doing out there?”
Wolf took an involuntary step back at Betsy’s barrage of questions. He smiled. “He was just waiting to see how you people would take to the idea of him staying here with us.”
“Well, there’s no reason in the world why he can’t!”
“Why don’t you tell him that, Betsy?”
She colored violently, looked quickly around at the smiling faces, then—with a rush that indicated she didn’t care what any of them thought—left the cabin to do as Wolf suggested.
As soon as she was gone, Wolf looked at Helen. “I think you and Ben and Betsy better get ready to ride into town. It’s liable to be a lot safer in there tonight.”
“What’s up, Wolf?” Pike asked.
“Blackmann’s on the move already. I’m going to have to ride to Steele’s and warn him. Jenks, too.”
“Will you have enough time?”
“If I leave now. This might be it, Pike. We could turn this thing around tonight.”
“Well, then. Get riding, man! Josh and I can hold this place.”
With a quick nod to Helen, Wolf left the cabin.
Bob Steele’s D Cross lay at the wide mouth of a timbered canyon. A shallow creek, perhaps eight feet wide, divided the three-room log house from the small log bunkhouse, the wagon shed and the corral opening onto the horse pasture. The ranch supported eight riders at an absolute maximum. It was a modest spread with little pretension. But all it awakened in the kid as he rode in through the mouth of the canyon at the head of his riders was derision at its meanness. It was no better than the nester’s shack Blackmann was undoubtedly burning to the ground at that very moment.
He reined up suddenly as he found himself topping a small rise that gave a complete view of the valley all the way to the foothills of the White Horn range—as well as D Cross just below them. The Snake Bar riders swirled to a halt around him, their bits jingling, their hard-ridden horses snorting. The kid leaned over and patted the neck of his animal, then looked over at Petey Bennett, his lieutenant this night.
“We all here?”
“Every rider, Kid.”
The kid grinned. “Looks like they don’t suspe
ct a thing.”
“Yeah.”
Lights were on in one end of the bunkhouse and in the main cabin. As they watched, a dim figure left the bunkhouse and walked with long, unhurried strides toward the cabin. The cabin door opened a moment later, sending a splash of yellow light over the green front yard. Then it closed. Somewhere off beyond the outbuildings, deeper into the valley, beef cattle were bawling faintly.
As they watched, the moon vanished behind a cloud, plunging the valley and ranch buildings into inky blackness. The kid waited. Presently the clouds scudded away from the face of the moon. The creek was a ribbon of silver dividing the ranch site.
“We’ll have to skirt that creek,” the kid told Bennett. “I’ll take my boys in from the south, you go in north of the creek. Keep it between us. Shoot out the cabin’s windows first. See if you can catch a lantern and get a blaze going.”
Petey nodded, clapped spurs to his mount and peeled off to the north. The kid watched him and his riders depart, then led his own men in the other direction toward a thick stand of cottonwoods that crowded the creek.
Wolf found Clem Jenks where he had left him, crouching behind a bush in the cottonwoods below the creek. The man was busy loading his enormous Walker Colt and as Wolf tapped him on the shoulder, he looked up, startled.
“Are they here?”
Wolf put a finger to his lips. “They’re on their way. They split up just inside the pass. Looks like maybe ten riders coming through here. Remember. Wait until they are all well into the cottonwoods before you open up with that cannon.”
Jenks patted the Colt’s nine inch barrel and nodded.
Keeping low, Wolf moved swiftly on through the trees, checking to make sure the other men he had positioned earlier were ready. With Wolf’s contingent were eight of Phil Olsen’s men along with four of McCracken’s. It had been decided that they did not have time to gather forces to save both Jenks’ place and the D Cross. Accordingly, Wolf sent Jenks’ wife and four children into town under escort and left the nester’s cabin and barn to Blackmann with the understanding that when it was all over, every able-bodied rancher and cowpoke in the county would turn up to rebuild Jenks’ place.
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