by Ray Hogan
“Forget it,” Mason said flatly. “He’d not believe you, and about the first thing he’d do would be to lock you up for tricking him. One answer, far as I can see, and that’s for me to get the hell out of this goddam country. Been nothing but a jinx to me!”
“Be a mistake to quit now, Mason—and I can’t let you do it.”
“You’ve got nothing to say about it,” Lynch snapped, coming to his feet abruptly, pistol in his hand. Pain filled his eyes and there was almost apology in his voice. “Hell of a note when a man has to throw down on the best friend he’s got—but it’s the only thing I can do.”
Starbuck stared, wagged his head slowly. “Never figured you’d turn on me—”
“For your own good. You hang around with me and my kind of luck’ll rub off on you. That sorrel of yours, reckon I’ll have to borrow him. Bay’ll never make it—but don’t worry, I’ll treat him right and you’ll get him back. I’ll leave him in the stable at San Miguel—town just across the border. You’ll be fine on the bay. Just ride straight on. The Box C’s just over that ridge ahead.”
Taut, angry, Shawn faced Mason Lynch. “Happens this is all your trouble, not mine,” he said, rising slowly. “I’m trying to help you—not myself. Can’t you get that in your head?”
“Wasting your time. You ought to’ve realized that by now. Thing for me to do is cross the border, lose myself in Mexico.”
“You won’t ever lose the bounty hunters that’ll be dogging your tracks. Canfield’ll put up a big reward and it’ll say dead or alive. You won’t stand a chance.”
“Sure as hell don’t stand one around here!”
“How do you know? You keep blowing up every time things don’t suit you—”
“It’s more’n that,” Lynch said hopelessly. “It’s the way things always work out for me. Nothing ever pans out right, no matter what. Just seems I can’t win.”
“The hell you can’t!” Shawn yelled, suddenly out of patience with the man. “The sooner you quit feeling sorry for yourself, the quicker we can get things straightened up! You’ve got a good chance of clearing your name, starting a new life, if you’ll show some guts!”
“Sounds easy enough, coming from you, but I’m the one looking at a noose. Fact is, I’m the only one—”
“No, not the only one, maybe,” Starbuck broke in. “I can name another one.”
Mason stared. “Who?”
“Virg Huckaby.”
Lynch’s jaw sagged, then closed firmly. A frown narrowed his eyes. “You handing me a line of bull? You saying that just to—”
“Stop and think. Huckaby hated Kit Canfield plenty, maybe more than anybody around—even you. Big reason is that he stands to lose his job as marshal, and that means a lot to him—everything, I’d say. He could quit worrying about it if Canfield was dead. Now, what was it you said about the shirt the killer was wearing?”
“It was checked . . .”
“Now think back to Huckaby—when you last saw him. What kind of a shirt was he wearing?”
“By God!” Lynch exclaimed, jamming his pistol back into its place. “Virg was wearing a checked shirt!” Opening a hand, he smashed his fist into the palm. “Dammit—I wish’t I could remember for sure what that killer had on. Ain’t sure if it was a vest or a shirt. But checked, I know that. Maybe black and white—or it could’ve been red and white.”
“It’s something we’ve got to go on—and maybe even gives us a good suspect,” Starbuck said. “Whole thing it proves is that you’d be a fool to run.”
“Maybe,” Lynch murmured, again wavering.
“No maybe to it. You do what you are thinking and it’ll be worse than the ten years you spent in the pen. Man doesn’t need high walls to be in prison; he can build one for himself simply by trying to hide—dodge the lawmen, the bounty hunters—the friends that hear about the reward—”
Shawn broke off suddenly, lifted his hand as the hard pound of a fast-running horse cut through the hush lying over the heated land. Rising, he crossed to where Mason stood, and together they looked down into the shallow basin where the trail continued on westward.
A lone rider—apparently heading for the Box C. The man rounded a bend, for a brief time was faced toward them. Mason swore softly as surprise rocked Shawn Starbuck. It was Barney Canfield.
Seventeen
Starbuck considered the rancher in puzzled silence. Why had he pulled out, forsaken the posse at a time when it undoubtedly appeared to all they were closing in on their objective? Thinking back, he recalled that it had been Canfield himself who had forcefully made it clear to the men that no one was to quit until Mason Lynch had been brought down.
“Thought you said he was with Huckaby and that posse,” Lynch murmured.
“He was—and I’m wondering why he pulled out. Him being here doesn’t make sense.”
“Heading for the ranch, that’s for sure.”
“Could be the posse’s following,” Shawn said, and glanced off toward the valley. “Nobody in sight, however.”
“If they were coming, wouldn’t he have waited, rode with them?”
“Seems—unless he had some special reason for wanting to be alone. Any way we can get to the Box C without taking the road he’s on?”
Mason pointed to the ridge he had earlier indicated. “That’s a bluff. You can look down on the place from there.”
Immediately Starbuck turned to the sorrel, swung up, and moved off at a good clip. Lynch, on the bay, now showing a pronounced limp, fell in behind. By the time he reached the ridge, Shawn was already off his horse, and squatted on his heels, looked down from the crest of the steep butte at the Box C. Barney Canfield, sticking to the longer, more circuitous road that curved around the north end of the formation, was just coming into view.
“Not changed much,” Lynch commented, hunkering next to Starbuck and scanning the scatter of buildings.
“They’ve built a few more sheds—a bigger barn—and added on to the bunkhouse. More corrals.”
Starbuck’s eyes noted the changes as Mason pointed them out, noticed, also, the thread of regret in the man’s voice and wondered if the place meant as little to him as he professed. But it could be no more than memory; a man looking back on the old days, his early life, always recalls the good and the pleasant and experiences a twinge of longing.
“Biggest house, there in front—that’s where we lived. Kitchen was at the end. Looks like the Canfields have put up a new one. My room was at the south end. I remember I’d get up early when I was a kid—earlier than I had to for chores—and stand by the window and watch the quail come down from the foothills going to water in our stock pond.
“Coveys would come regular as night follows day. Sometimes it would be a big bunch—maybe a hundred birds. Other times there’d be only twenty or thirty. Always tickled me when it was the time of year for chicks. I’d see the mother hen come along, running fast, looking like a fat old lady hurrying to church. The chicks would be strung out behind her in a line, their legs pumping like hell to keep up. Used to think of that a lot when I was laying out the nights in the pen. Sort of kept me from going out of my mind.
“That—that ironwood tree there by the corner of the house—planted it myself when I was hardly big enough to dig the hole. Brought it back one day from the desert. I’d gone there with Pa. Saw the big trees all covered with purple flowers, so I dug up a little one, brought it back as a present for Ma. Took a few years before it had any blossoms, but she liked it.”
Shawn, listening to Mason Lynch, once again felt a prickle of doubt. That his folks’ place did mean a great deal to the man was apparent now, despite his declarations to the contrary; it was evident in his voice, his manner, in the way his eyes were glowing. And the Canfields—the fact that he still refused to accept proof that a legitimate deal had been consummated between his parents and the three brothers—unquestionably were still the object of a fierce and burning hate on his part.
Starbuck stirred, deeply dis
turbed by his thoughts. He had been sure Mason was innocent, basing those convictions on his knowledge of the man and his own intuition. But he had been wrong before, he realized, and he could be again. Still . . .
He shifted his attention to the flat north of the ranch. Barney Canfield was just entering the high, square gate frame, his horse approaching the yard at a steady lope. The sound of thudding hooves brought the cook from the kitchen. An old man, he stood on the landing outside his work quarters, wiping his hands on what had once been a white apron but now was a darkly streaked gray, and awaited the rancher’s arrival.
Another of the help, a Mexican, moved lazily out of the barn, and leaning on the hayfork with which he had evidently been working, also watched and waited.
Canfield pounded onto the hardpack, angled toward the cook. “George, got about a dozen men riding in for a bite to eat. It’s that posse that’s hunting Kit’s killer. Ought to be here in maybe a half-hour, could be less. Get something ready for them.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Canfield.”
The rancher pulled away, rode on a short distance, and stopped again, this time at one of the corrals. The Mexican propped his fork against the side of the barn, ambled forward to look after the patron’s horse. Dismounting, Barney asked a question of some sort of the man, who replied by pointing at the bunkhouse.
Something was happening—something that was important. Shawn could feel it. Canfield, it would seem, had ridden in ahead of Huckaby and the posse, which, unaccountably, was taking time out for lunch despite the rancher’s previous insistence that there be no let-up in the search for Mason.
But, assuming hunger did get the best of the men and the break became necessary—why did Barney Canfield feel it necessary to leave the party himself on such a trivial errand as notifying the cook of their coming when he could have dispatched one of the hired hands accompanying him? And the need for such forewarning to the cook was hardly necessary, anyway; with a large crew such as the Box C would run, men would be coming and going at all hours. There would be plenty of food and hot coffee available at most any time.
A deep dissatisfaction possessed Shawn Starbuck. Too many things didn’t add up. He turned to Lynch.
“There a way to get down there from here?”
“Trail over there to the left,” Mason replied. “You can make it on foot—not with horses.” He paused, stared at Shawn. “You aiming to go down?”
Shawn nodded.
“Don’t see as how that can help any,” Mason said, doubt riding his voice. “With Huckaby and that posse about due, could be kind of a fool thing to try.”
“Maybe, but we’re looking for answers and it could be we’ll find them there.”
“And maybe I’ll just be helping them put that rope around my neck—”
“No need for you to come. Wait here—just show me where that trail is.”
Starbuck pulled back from the lip of the butte, came to his feet. More slowly, Mason took a place beside him, features drawn into a dark frown. Abruptly he shrugged.
“Hell—if you can keep from getting caught, reckon I can, too.”
Starbuck nodded. “Hoped you’d come along. Likely be some things I’ll need explained to me.”
Lynch gave Shawn a quizzical look, cut off to his left, and kneeing his way into a stand of stiffly resisting snakeweed, bulled a path to where the rim of the bluff had broken off and slid into a steep draw.
Unhesitating, Mason dropped into it, began to descend, steadying and bracing himself on the slant by grasping the clumps of tough groundsel and rabbit brush that grew out of the near-vertical sides. Shortly they were at the foot of the formation. The south end of the main house was no more than two dozen strides distant.
It was the blind side of the structure; a blanket had been hung over the window in the end—the same from which Mason had often watched the quail—and Shawn, hunched low, sprinted across the open ground to the forward corner of the building. Halting there, brushing at the sweat again covering his face, he waited until Lynch joined him.
He started to ask Mason about the arrangement of the remaining structures in relation to the yard, realized he would probably know very little about it; a number of new buildings and pens had been erected since he had last seen the place. Best find out for himself.
Quickly, he crossed to the opposite corner of the house, stopped, peered cautiously around the weather-smoothed stones toward the yard. He found little advantage as the new kitchen had been built only a few feet from the main structure, leaving only a narrow, separating breezeway which severely restricted any view of the hardpack and other buildings.
Taking a hurried survey of the cooking quarters, he saw the window in the wall facing him was high, served only for purposes of ventilation, and again bent low, ran forward until he had gained the opposite side of that more recently acquired structure.
A grunt of satisfaction came from him. An old corral, no longer in use, lay adjacent. To its right was the yard with all other buildings clearly visible. Still cautious, Shawn moved to the corral, crawled through a gap in the sagging cross poles, and took up a position inside and to the front. He now had a complete view of the yard, could watch all activity with ease as well as hear any normal conversation that took place in the open without fear of being seen.
Lynch, lying beside him, brushed at his eyes nervously. “Somebody spots us—we’ll be like trapped coyotes—”
“Stay low—nobody’ll see us.”
“You hope. Way my luck runs, we could get caught first thing. What’re you looking for?”
Starbuck shrugged. “Anything—everything. I don’t know. Just that I’ve got a feeling. May be a waste of time, but we’ve got to work from somewhere. One thing, when Virg Huckaby shows up, take a good look at that shirt he’s wearing.”
Shawn checked his whispered words, attention drawn to the Mexican hired hand coming from the interior of the barn again. Canfield had disappeared, going into the house, Starbuck supposed, and wondered if it would have been smarter to have found a place nearer that structure. He decided he was likely in as good a position as possible.
The hired hand circled the barn at an indifferent shuffle, returned shortly leading a chunky black gelding. Tethering him with a neck rope to the hitchrack fronting the bulky building, he went inside, reappeared dragging a saddle and other gear. With no effort at haste, he began to throw the equipment onto the black, all the while softly crooning some low-pitched south-of-the-border lament on love.
A door slammed loudly. The screen of the bunkhouse. A man appeared, saddlebags slung across one shoulder, a blanket roll trapped under an arm. Shawn felt Mason claw at his hand, turned. Lynch was staring at the rider.
“That’s him—that’s him! He’s the one I seen shoot Kit!”
Starbuck came up instantly, swiveled his eyes to the man. He was stockily built, dark, walked with an easy swing. He was dressed much the same as any cowhand except that he sported a black-and-white-checked vest of the type designed for men with the less robust occupation of gambler; it was now much the worse for the hard, everyday use it was being subjected to.
“You sure?”
“Sure’s I can be,” Mason responded tensely. “It was dark but I ain’t forgetting that fancy vest.”
Shawn watched the man halt beside the black, hang his saddlebags over the skirt of the hull, anchor them, then affix the blanket roll atop the pouches. The Mexican lazed against the crossbar of the hitchrack.
“You ride, eh, senor?”
The squat man nodded. “Tired of this place, amigo.”
“You here for a long time. Where you go?”
“Mexico—maybe. You want to come along?”
“Por Dios—no! The Federales, they have look often for me. I do not wish for them to find me.”
The rider laughed. “What’d you do—stick a cuchillo in one of those senoritas you’re always singing about?”
“Maybe. It is a thing one does not speak of.”
If this was the man who had slain Kit Canfield, what was he doing on the Canfield ranch? It appeared he was a regular hand and no stranger.
“Heading for Mexico—that proves it,” Mason said in a low voice. “He’s running.”
“Looks like it. Any chance you’re mistaken? Doesn’t make much sense he’d be here—one of the hired help.”
“Maybe it don’t—but he’s the one. Couldn’t be wrong about that vest.”
“Other men around wearing about the same thing. Huckaby’s got a checked shirt on right now—”
“Shirt maybe—but this is a vest. And there’s something about the way he stands.”
Shawn scrubbed at the sweat clouding his eyes, shifted to ease the muscles of his doubled under legs. “What reason would he have for killing Canfield? Got to have a reason.”
Mason shook himself impatiently. “How the hell would I know? Just know he was the one who done it. Maybe he was paid to do it.”
“Who’d hate Canfield enough to hire him killed?”
“You called the turn on one—Huckaby.”
“He’s got reasons, all right—but so have you.”
There was a stiffness in Lynch’s voice when he replied. “Well, it wasn’t me—and that leaves Huckaby. Can’t see as it’s anything for us to be sweating over anyway. We nab him, turn him over to—”
Lynch’s words ended as again a door slammed, this time at the main house. Boot heels rapped sharply on the hard-pack. Barney Canfield appeared, coming across the yard, pointing for the man standing beside the black and the hitchrack.
Starbuck crouched lower, pressed forward against the poles of the corral. “Maybe here’s where we get some answers,” he murmured.
Eighteen
Canfield, a fresh cigar clamped between his teeth, passed in front of the unused corral in which Shawn and Mason Lynch huddled, so near he was almost within reach. There was a slackness to the rancher’s face, a look of relief, as that of a man coming to the end of a long and tedious journey.
“Ready, eh?” he said, halting beside the man with the black. Turning his head, he threw a glance to the Mexican yard-hand, made a gesture toward the barn. “Vamoose, hombre. Go find yourself a job somewheres.”