by Ray Hogan
He glanced over to Gage’s cabin. He would have liked to see the old foreman before he rode on, to express his thanks, but he’d be with the crew now, having his breakfast. Just as well he wasn’t handy. Tom’s eyes had told him he wasn’t swallowing the story Holly Underwood brought back from Las Vegas—not entirely, anyway. He’d ask questions, sharp and probing—and Shawn knew he couldn’t lie to the old man.
And Holly. ... He didn’t want to see her again, either. Her estimation of him after what her father had told her would be at its lowest point. He regretted leaving her with that belief, but that was the way it had to be. Someday she’d know the truth and perhaps think better of him. At the present, however, he doubted if she would even speak to him, much less tell him farewell and wish him luck.
He reached the chestnut, jerked the reins loose, prepared to swing up. He froze as his eyes reached to the corner of the bunkhouse beyond the gelding.
Underwood, on a borrowed horse, flanked by two men—one of whom wore a deputy sheriff’s star—was coming around the end of the building and entering the yard.
Twenty-Two
Momentarily startled, the rancher pulled up short, the horses of the men with him shouldering against his own at the sudden stop. Shawn recognized the pair; they were the two he’d encountered back at the Exchange Hotel. Pivoting fast, he drew his pistol, stepped in behind the chestnut so that his back was to the corral fence.
Underwood, recovered, wagged his head. “Put it away, Starbuck. You’re on my land now.”
Shawn cast a fleeting glance to the yard behind him. Everyone was inside the house at breakfast. Resting his arms on the gelding’s saddle, holding the gun steady on the three men, he said, “Makes no difference to me.”
“Should. You’ll never leave here alive unless I say the word. Now, all you have to do is drop that letter on the ground—then you can mount up, ride out.”
“Letter stays with me. Taking it to the marshal in Santa Fe.”
“Like hell you are!” Underwood shouted suddenly. “I sing out—my whole crew’ll be crawling over you. Give it up. You ain’t got a chance.”
“Long as my first bullet’s aimed at your heart, I have.”
Over in the direction of the main house a door slammed. Holly’s voice cried, “Papa—you’re here!”
Starbuck remained rigid, not daring to turn and look around. He could hear the girl running. The door slapped again, this time with less abandon. Mrs. Underwood, probably, coming to welcome the hero.
Abruptly Holly was moving by him, her steps slowing as an expression of bewilderment crossed her face. She halted just beyond Shawn, stared first at her father, then at Starbuck, back to Underwood once more.
“What—what’s the matter?”
“Just a little trouble between me and Starbuck, honey,” the rancher replied. “You and your mother best get back in the house. Take the Camerons with you.”
The girl whirled to Shawn, eyes blazing. “What’s the meaning of this? How dare you point that gun at my father—right here in his own yard!”
Starbuck’s face was wooden, “Ask him. Maybe he’ll tell you why.”
“Tell me what?’
Shawn shrugged. The girl looked to her father. “What is it? This over what happened in Vegas?”
“Part of it,” Underwood said. “Go on—do what I tell you, Holly. No place for you here.”
“I won’t!” the girl cried stubbornly. “Not until he puts that gun away and I know what this is about. Was he in with those other outlaws—the ones you had to shoot?”
“In a way—”
“I thought so!” Holly said triumphantly, moving toward Shawn. “My father had to shoot them, stop them from robbing his bank—and you’re here to get even. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Starbuck’s eyes never strayed from Underwood. “That what you want her to believe—a lie?”
The rancher, slumped on his saddle, merely stared. The two men beside him remained silent, watchful. Some of the assurance had faded from Holly’s manner, however. She studied her father, a frown pulling at her brow.
“I don’t understand. . . , What does he mean? What lie? You said he wasn’t there, that he’d gone to the saloon for a—” Abruptly she whirled to Starbuck. “Wasn’t that the truth? Didn’t you go to the saloon?”
Shawn nodded.
“Then it happened just like Papa told me, didn’t it?”
Starbuck remained quiet. There was movement back and around him now, hushed, careful. The crew, attracted by the sound of voices, had come out, were circling, boxing him in.
“Well, didn’t it?” Holly demanded.
“You’ll have to ask your pa,” Starbuck said wearily.
“I’m asking you!”
“And you’ll get no answer.”
Holly smiled, bobbed her head in satisfaction. “Just as I thought. You’re after vengeance. I knew my father wouldn’t lie.”
“Mr. Underwood,” a voice cut in from the far left side of the yard, “I got him covered from here. Akins’ drawing a bead on him from the feed shed. What you want us to do?”
A hard grin parted the rancher’s lips. “Don’t let him move. I say the word—shoot.”
“You’re a dead man if you do,” Shawn warned softly. “I don’t want gunplay, but it’ll come if you force my hand. Best you call them off.”
Underwood considered Starbuck’s set features for a long minute while the tense hush in the yard deepened. He shook his head. “Hold off, boys. Jump him and he’s liable to do something crazy—and there’s womenfolk around.” The rancher shifted heavily on the saddle and glared at Shawn. “What’s it to be? We just going to stand here all day?”
“Maybe was we to find out what this is all about we could straighten things up,” Tom Gage’s voice broke in from somewhere behind Starbuck.
A trickle of relief began to run through Shawn. Gage was one man in the yard he felt he could trust. Sam Underwood shifted again.
“Keep out of it, Tom.”
“No, reckon not. We got a standoff here that’ll probably end up with somebody dead,” the old foreman said, moving up until he was directly opposite Shawn. “Sure don’t want that. Now, since ain’t either one of you willing to talk, maybe somebody else is. How about you, Charley? Say—is that there a deputy star you’re wearing? Didn’t know Abrams was that hard up for help.”
Charley displayed a self-conscious grin. “Aw, I ain’t no real deputy, Tom. Mr. Underwood told me to get this here badge—”
“Shut up, you damned fool!” the rancher snapped.
Gage considered Sam Underwood narrowly. “Keep talking, Charley.”
“About what? I don’t know nothing much,” the rider said. “He hired Tuck and me to sneak into that there fellow’s room at the hotel. Was supposed to get a envelope with some papers in it. Something he was blackmailing Mr. Underwood with ... Fellow got away before we could grab the papers, so we followed him here.”
The foreman shifted his attention to Shawn, “You got some papers, like Charley says?”
“Got a letter. No blackmail on my part. It was written by Rutter. He meant for it to be turned over to the U.S. Marshal if he got killed.”
“And you’re aiming to deliver it but Sam’s against your doing it—that what this is all about?”
Starbuck said, “Covers it. Matter for the law.”
Gage glanced to the rancher. “Sam, you going to say anything?”
“He was wanting us to shoot the big jasper,” Tuck volunteered. “Said we wasn’t to let him take that there letter he’s carrying to the sheriff. Just had to have it.”
A faint gasp came from Holly. She turned, started walking toward her mother. The foreman frowned. “What’s that letter all about, Sam?”
Underwood’s features were set, grim. His eyes hardened and filled suddenly with a wild, desperate light as he looked around the yard.
“The hell with all of you!” he shouted and drew his pistol fast. He fired point-blank at
Starbuck and in the same instant jammed spurs into the horse sending the animal plunging straight at Shawn.
Starbuck leaped away and fired his weapon as the rancher got off a second shot. Underwood’s first bullet was wide but the second ripped through the sleeve of Shawn’s brush jacket, thudded into a corral pole behind him. Starbuck crouched, prepared to fire again. There was no need. The rancher was sagging forward on his saddle, one hand clutching his shoulder. Back near the house Holly was screaming and men were closing in from all sides.
“Everybody just hold up a minute now!”
Tom Gage’s words sounded above the confusion. The thudding of boots died. Shawn relaxed gently. The foreman stepped forward, grasped the reins of Underwood’s nervous horse.
“Couple of you men—help Sam down ... He ain’t hurt bad.” Gage swung about to face Starbuck, extended his hand. “I’ll be taking that letter—see if it’s worth all this ruckus. It is, I’ll see the marshal gets—”
“No!” Underwood groaned, his head coming up with a jerk. His eyes came to a level, saw Holly and his wife running toward him, met also the wondering glances of the crew. Abruptly his head lowered again.
“Let him see it,” he muttered in absolute defeat. “Let them all see it. Tell them everything—the whole damned mess. . . .”
Starbuck holstered his gun. “Nobody sees it,” he said quietly. “Nobody but the U.S. Marshal. If he wants to do anything about it, it’s up to him.”
Holly and her mother rushed by. Together they pushed away the two punchers supporting Underwood, assumed the task themselves. The rancher, a puzzled look on his face, stared at Shawn, and then once more he dropped his eyes.
“Don’t matter ... I’m done with thinking and worrying and sweating over things ... Going to the marshal myself, put it all in his hands. Won’t have it setting on my mind then.”
“Best thing you can do—” Starbuck began.
“You get out of here!” Holly screamed at him, whirling. “You’ve shot him—hurt him—isn’t that enough?”
Shawn lowered his head. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Sorry! What good’s that? You might have killed him! If you don’t leave right now, I’ll get a gun myself and—”
“I’m going,” Starbuck said quietly and stepped back to the chestnut.
Swinging onto the saddle, he wheeled about, rode slowly from the yard, not allowing his glance to touch any of those in the yard. There was no point in making any gesture of farewell—he knew he would get none in return.
Gaining the land swell to the south of the ranch, he paused, looked back. Sam Underwood, with his women assisting, was just entering the house. Gage and the punchers were moving off, preparing to take up the day’s work. Two riders were turning into the trees west of the buildings ... Tuck and Charley returning to Las Vegas.
Shawn heaved a long sigh, reached into his shirt and procured Guy Rutter’s letter. He read again the writing on its crumpled surface: U.S. Marshal or sheriff ... He’d been both judge and jury where Sam Underwood was concerned, and it had been an uncomfortable and far from pleasant experience. But it was finished. The rancher had finally faced up to himself—and would now have to meet his obligations to others.
Taking the letter between his fingers, he began to tear it into small bits, allowing the light, pinon-scented breeze to scatter the scraps across the slope. Underwood had made peace with himself, would now with the law—there was no need for Rutter’s denunciation.
Nor was there any necessity for him to think any more about it, or the friends he’d made and lost and would again someday, perhaps, regain when the truth was out. He needed now to put his mind on the ride ahead—a ride that would take him into the Mogollon country of Arizona where he would look up a man called Jim Ivory. He just might be Ben ...
THE OUTLAWED
One
As the lean, coppery figure of the Apache rose suddenly from the tall brush fringing the trail—dark face contorted, black eyes glittering with hate—Shawn Starbuck reacted instinctively. Lunging to one side, he avoided the slash of the brave’s knife, and reaching for the pistol on his hip, threw himself backwards off the saddle.
He struck the sandy earth hard, thorny brush raking him savagely, carving red runnels across his arms, his face. Smothering a curse, he rolled away, barely escaping the blade again as the Apache sprang upon him, bore him down. Heaving with all his strength, he partly dislodged the sweaty body, lashed out with the forty-five clamped in his hand.
The barrel connected with the brave’s skull, made a dull thudding sound. The knife fell to the sand, and for a moment the muscular, crouching figure above him seemed to waver; and then Starbuck felt strong fingers close about his throat. Frantically he grabbed the Apache’s wrist, pulled, seeking to break the tightening grip, while through the swirling dust he could see the brave’s free arm upraised, a stone hatchet poised to strike.
Desperate, Starbuck jerked his head to one side, kneed the straddling Indian hard in the back. As the tomahawk swished by his ear, buried itself in the soil, he humped his body quickly, rocked the brave off balance, and holding tight to the pistol jammed the barrel deep into the Indian’s groin, all the while sucking deep for breath.
The buck groaned in a wild sort of way, fell back. Starbuck, no longer encumbered by the fingers at his throat, struck again with the heavy weapon. The blow caught the Apache across the bridge of his plowshare nose, cracked ominously.
The brave gasped, sagged weakly. Instantly Starbuck swung again, now holding the pistol by its barrel, using the butt as a deadly club ... it would be simple to pull the trigger, blast all life from the Apache in a single fragment of time and thus end it, but such might be a mistake. Likely the brave was not alone, and a gunshot echoing across the hills and arroyos could serve to bring other copper warriors down upon him.
The blow went true, caving in the Apache’s skull. He wilted soundlessly, the muscles of his lithe body relaxing, his eyes glazing as he slid quietly onto the hot sand.
Shawn lay completely motionless, muffling the sound of his labored breathing, listening into the searing heat of the August afternoon. Sweat and dust caked his body, blurred his vision. He had an overpowering urge to rise, scrub at his eyes, clear his mouth, spit, but he turned away the impulse, waited. If there were other braves nearby who had heard the struggle, they would be coming, working their way in silently, cautiously.
The minutes dragged by under the scorching sun. A quarter hour ... a half ... his ears had caught no sound. Slowly, carefully, he raised his head a couple of inches off the hot sand, looking first for his horse—his sole hope of getting out of the area fast if compelled to make a run for it. He breathed a little easier.
The sorrel, a horse he had recently traded his ailing chestnut gelding for, badly frightened and shying off when the Apache had risen like some fearful specter from the brush, had raced off ten yards or so and then halted in a slight depression on the plateau, was now picking disinterestedly at the scanty growth along its edges. He would not be hard to reach.
And Shawn reckoned he’d damn well better do just that—assuming the opportunity presented itself. A couple of more tussles with renegade Apaches, such as this, and there’d be a good chance he’d never make it to Lynchburg, where he planned to look up a man named Jim Ivory who, hopefully, was his long-missing brother.
He’d gotten wind of this Jim Ivory up New Mexico way from a cowhand who thought Ivory fit the description of Ben Starbuck, such as it was, that Shawn had given him. It was slim, of course: it had been a full ten years since Shawn last saw his older brother, and there wasn’t much he could go on.
Actually, he had ridden all the way from Kansas to see the cowhand he’d spoken with—a man who’s name was Henry Smith—in the belief that he was Ben. But as had been the case in a dozen or more previous instances when he had gone chasing across the frontier on the strength of a tip, the lead had proved a false one. Henry Smith, while resembling the mind’s-eye picture Shawn had o
f his brother, had not been him.
In the ensuing conversation, however, Smith had mentioned a man he’d worked with on a ranch in Arizona’s Mogollon country—a fellow called Jim Ivory. He fit the description, Henry Smith had declared, and it might be worth Shawn’s time to ride down, look the man over, and have a talk with him—if he didn’t mind the hard trip.
Starbuck didn’t. He never passed up the smallest lead, for until he found Ben, who had run away from home at sixteen to escape their iron-fisted father, Hiram, the Starbuck estate was in suspense and the thirty thousand dollars lying in the vault of an Ohio bank could be touched by no one. Half the money was Shawn’s, but the will directed he must find his brother before claiming his share.
In the beginning it had been a sort of lark to the young farm boy, a wandering about that started first at a point on the Mexico-Texas border where he had recalled Ben once professed a wish to go. Arriving there and finding his brother had long since moved on, he then began an arduous but resolute quest directed only by rumors, the vague and unreliable memories of men he chanced to encounter—and pure hunches.
Eventually the novelty wore off and to the farm boy, still young but developed now into a tall, gray-eyed range rider of serious mien, the search became a way of life, one that oft-times appeared to be leading nowhere and accomplishing nothing other than to store within him a wealth of experience and knowledge of the vast land he crisscrossed and the people he encountered.
And it brought to him many times, as he sat on a hilltop and gazed down upon a quiet ranch house where lamplight laid soft, yellow squares against the darkness, or watched smoke curling upward from some homesteader’s simple cabin, that his was a rootless sort of existence; that he also had accumulated nothing—not even friends, since those persons, met once, were only acquaintances not likely ever to cross his path again.