by Jack Martin
‘Shit,’ Arkansas cursed and ran out of the house and quickly mounted the sorrel. He didn’t bother checking on Clay – the man was dead. Arkansas figured his first priority was in catching up with the other man.
He spurred the horse into action and set off in pursuit of the myopic man called Jim.
FIFTEEN
The chase was hopeless.
Jim had too much of a head start and his horse seemed to move like the wind and had no problem keeping up its pace over the rocky terrain, but all was not lost. The great many years Arkansas had spent with the Rangers had turned him into an expert tracker, he could read the trail as other men would read a book. Not that he needed to since the tracks were fresh and Jim was pushing his horse to the limit and was making no attempt to cover up his tracks.
Arkansas hung back and allowed the other man to vanish from sight, figuring he’d stay at a distance until he was good and ready to attack. And, besides, he had a good idea where the man called Jim was heading. He didn’t have to check the map in his pocket to figure the man was riding towards Lance’s place.
Maybe the best option would be to allow the man to get there and then ride in and confront him. It would be dangerous with all the firepower Lance would have around him, but Arkansas didn’t figure any of them had the stomach for a real fight. The way he saw it John Lance was a small-town businessman with tendencies to bully those around him. He relied on his men and the ever-present threat of violence to get his way but would fall apart against an opposition prepared to fight back. An opponent like Arkansas Smith, a man who had lived his entire life dodging one bullet or another, would be too much for Lance and his crew of cowboys.
Intelligence certainly wasn’t Lance’s men’s strongpoint. Killing the doc had served no purpose and the attack on Will had been clumsily executed. If the men had known what they were doing and killed Will, then there would be no way to disprove Lance’s claim of ownership of Will’s spread.
Arkansas had it all pretty much worked out, but there was one thing that still puzzled him. What was so important about Will’s place? What was it that made Lance want it so badly that he was prepared to send his men out to kill? And forging documents of sale would take some doing.
Although Arkansas hadn’t seen the papers as of yet, he assumed they would look legal enough with Will’s signature forged professionally. ’Course if Lance had had his way and Will had died in the attack then the rancher could have taken over the spread all sweet and dandy.
‘Things often don’t work out as planned,’ Arkansas answered his thoughts aloud and took the sorrel over a bluff.
In the distance he could see the dust trail thrown up by Jim’s horse. He figured the man was maybe a mile or so ahead of him, but in this wide-open country he would have to be a lot further away to have vanished from sight. On a clear day a man could look out over the open plains and see for many miles in all directions.
Yep, no doubt about it – the cowboy was heading for John Lance’s place.
‘Your pard’s been some time,’ Rycot pointed out, and handed the whiskey bottle to Will.
Will took a slug and then smiled. ‘He’ll be back.’
‘You so sure?’
‘I am,’ Will said. ‘I’ve known that boy a long time and I don’t think the varmint’s been born who can take him on and come out on top.’
‘How long you known him then?’ Rycot asked, genuinely interested. He leaned forward on the upturned bucket he was using for a seat and stared at the other man. He smiled meekly as he leaned forward to break wind.
Will moved and winced at the pain in his side. Still, he was already better than he had any right to be and he managed to cross the room and sit himself down in the soft chair. There was an unpleasant smell coming from Rycot and no amount of pain would stop Will moving to the other side of the room.
‘We were Rangers together,’ Will said. ‘We saw a lot of action, fought a lot of fights.’ For a moment his eyes seemed to cloud over as he peered through the mist of the years to locate the memories. ‘Indians – we must have fought every type of Indian there is at one time or another. We chased outlaws and Mexican bandits right across Texas and into territories that weren’t even named then. They were good days. Back then I never thought I’d get old but it soon caught up with me.’
‘The Texas Rangers?’ Rycot leaned for the whiskey bottle. He farted again and cursed the beans and jerky they’d shared for lunch.
Will nodded and carefully made himself a quirly before speaking.
‘Arkansas was nothing more than a kid when I first met him and I, being the veteran man, took him under my wing. The first time I saw him shoot you could have pushed me over with a twig. Never did see anyone who could shoot the way that boy shoots. Don’t think he really had much of a childhood since he was orphaned in an Indian attack and the folks who raised him died when he was still young. I think he must have been fending for himself when he was still a kid. He grew up kinda tough.’
‘There are lots of stories about him,’ Rycot said. ‘That’s he’s an outlaw, a bounty hunter, a mudsill. Some even say he’s some kind of special lawman with powers that take him all over the West.’
Will nodded. He knew the stories, the legends. A couple of years ago some shoddy hack writer had spent some time with Arkansas and then produced a dime novel – The King of the Colt by G.M. Dobbs. The writer, a green-horn Easterner with far too much imagination and little real facts, had filled the book with sensationalist scuttlebutt. Will doubted any of it was true. ’Course the fact that the book had been a massive success meant that the name Arkansas Smith had the same recognition as any of the legendary lawmen and outlaws who populate the West.
‘I know what they all say,’ Will remarked. ‘Don’t believe much of it myself.’
‘You don’t think he’s an outlaw?’
‘Hell, no.’
‘A lawman, then?’
Will looked at Rycot and then smiled. ‘I don’t rightly know. I ain’t seen him for a good few years. At one point I’d heard he’d been hanged for killing three men down in Reno.’
‘That sure enough ain’t so.’
Will laughed. ‘The only thing I know for certain,’ Will said, ‘is that he was once a damn good Texas Ranger, anything else is all fancy frills.’
‘I heard he once fought off three Mexican bandits with only two bullets in his gun. The second bullet went straight through one man and into the other,’ Rycot said, quoting a story that filled an entire chapter of the dime novel that purported to tell the true story of Arkansas’s life.
Will smiled. ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said. ‘That damn book tells of how Ark wrestled a grizzly with his bare hands. That ain’t true for one thing because Ark’s terrified of grizzlies. I once seem him run clean across the Pecos screaming like a two-bit whore with a bear snarling after him. He was too scared to take aim at the beast, let along engage it in hand-to-hand combat.’
Rycot stood up and worked a kink out of his back. He walked over to the window and looked at the crimson coloured sky.
‘Be dark soon,’ he said – and farted again.
SIXTEEN
Arkansas brought the horse to a halt as he reached the boundaries of the Lance property. In the distance he could see the large ranch house and the outbuildings. It certainly looked an impressive spread. The outbuildings alone, all built in a mixture of the Spanish and American styles, looked more comfortable than most houses he had ever seen.
Damn, he’d never even stayed in a house as fancy as those outbuildings.
Jim must have already ridden into the property since Arkansas had not seen hide nor hair of him for the last couple of miles, but his tracks were clear enough. Arkansas patted the side of the sorrel’s head and whispered comforts to it while he decided what to do next.
Night was still being held away by the remnants of the evening, but the sky was cobalt and the temperature had dropped a few degrees. And Arkansas was desperate to get back to Wil
l’s place before nightfall.
For a moment he thought of Clay, laying there dead back at the old Bowen place, killed by a stray bullet and the doc supposedly shot by accident. Each of those deaths were the responsibility of John Lance. And what of the man called Pug who had provoked and lost a gunfight with Arkansas? And, of course, there was old man Bowen who had mysteriously disappeared. Was he another victim of Lance’s empire building? Not to mention Will who, too, would have been dead were it not for a stroke of luck when the bullet failed to destroy any vital organs and got snagged up in thick fatty tissue.
‘Come on,’ Arkansas said to the horse and started it slowly towards the ranch. He wasn’t sure what he exactly intended to do, but he knew he had to confront Lance. He realized how foolish it was to ride in by himself – effectively into a hornets’ nest. He was one gun, a crack-shot maybe, but still only one against many. He’d faced greater odds in the past, though.
Arkansas was counting on the fact that John Lance wouldn’t go up against him on the spur of the moment, that the rancher was too devious for that and would prefer to attack later, preferably when he (Lance) was far away and could not be implicated in events. The man was a coward and, if anything, that made him all the more dangerous. You knew where you were with a fighting man, but a coward would come at you from behind or when you were asleep. A coward would strike at those close to you, cowards had all the moral boundaries of a gutter rat.
Arkansas didn’t much like cowards.
As he neared the ranch Arkansas saw a group of men standing immediately outside the grand ranch house, John Lance was at the head of the group. He quickly scanned the faces but there was no sign of the man called Jim.
Arkansas pulled his horse to a halt outside the ranch gates and waited, saying nothing.
John Lance, flanked by several armed men, walked towards him.
‘What can I do for you?’ Lance asked.
Arkansas smiled. ‘Tell your men that anyone so much as moves I’ll kill them stone dead.’
‘Brave talk for a lone man,’ Lance said.
‘Try me.’ The words had a dread about them that hung heavy in the air and caused more than one of Lance’s men to twitch involuntarily.
‘Why would we want to hurt you?’ Lance asked. ‘I’m am a peaceable rancher.’
‘You’re a low-down, lying varmint is what you are,’ Arkansas told him and shifted casually in his saddle.
Briefly Lance was angered but he managed to pull himself under control.
‘State your business,’ he said, firmly. He didn’t want to lose face in front of his men and he was damned if he’d show any physical signs that the man called Arkansas Smith worried him.
‘My business,’ Arkansas said, ‘is to see you hang.’
Lance was taken aback and he produced a large cigar from his pocket and struck a match to it. He looked ill at ease as he smoked and it was obvious from his manner that he was struggling to remain calm. He drew heavily on the cigar and allowed the smoke to twist between his teeth.
‘One of your men, goes by the name of Jim, rode in here not too long ago,’ Arkansas said.
‘Did he?’ Lance spoke through a thick plume of smoke.
‘He did,’ Arkansas said. ‘Him and his pard, a man known as Clay, killed the doc. Clay’s dead himself. Shot by his short-sighted pard. He’s lying back at the old Bowen place.’
‘The doc?’ Lance was genuinely surprised. Maybe he had nothing to do with that, but either way he obviously had not yet had a chance to talk to Jim.
‘They were both among the gang that shot William McCord – men acting on your orders. Killing the doc they did on their own initiative, or so it seems. And the man called Pug that I gunned down in Red Rock. You forced that fight on me. You couldn’t be any more responsible if you’d pulled the trigger yourself.’
‘Well,’ Lance said. ‘That’s a mighty dandy tall tale, but I’ve got no time for this. But for the record I don’t know any men called Jim and Clay, but if there is a dead man back at the Bowen place then that concerns me. That’s my property now and as for the doc—’
Arkansas cut Lance off mid speech when he pointed a finger directly at the man.
‘Cut the hogwash,’ he said. ‘I know what you are and I know the bill of sale you have for Will’s place is a forgery.’
‘I don’t much like your tone, mister,’ Lance said, obviously having given up any attempt to hold his back his anger. ‘I bought McCord’s property fair and square. Now I’m a law-abiding man, but as from dawn tomorrow your friend will be a squatter and it’s within my rights to have the law remove him from my land. And believe me, Arkansas Smith, we do things the correct way around here. When I come to McCord’s place I will have the law right beside me. And that law will enforce my legal and proper entitlement to McCord’s place.’
‘A law you control.’
‘On the contray, Lance said. ‘A law that does what’s right. We don’t want the likes of you and your friend around here. This place is intended for good people to live, not drifters like you. Nor, for that matter, small-time sod busters like McCord.’
Arkansas allowed his eyes to scan each and every man present before settling back on John Lance. To a man they fidgeted when his eyes fell on them and the tension in the air seemed to thicken somewhat.
He shifted in his saddle and shook his head.
‘I plan to get Sheriff Hackman to arrest you for conspiracy to murder,’ Arkansas said. ‘And then I’m going to bring charges of forgery, land grabbing and attempted murder.’ Arkansas leaned forward on his horse and again pointed a finger directly at John Lance. ‘I’m going to ensure you hang, John Lance. You’ll swing from the hemp like the common thief you are.’
The men laughed at that, but the look of sheer malevolence they received from their boss stilled their hilarity. Lance’s complexion had turned redder than the approaching sunset and his eyes blazed like the fires of hell itself. He had to bite down hard on his lip to keep himself under control.
‘You’re on my land now,’ Lance said. ‘And I don’t take to saddle bums coming around with all sort of fancy accusations. Go now and take your gibberish with you or—’
Arkansas stopped him once again in mid speech. ‘Or what?’ he snarled.
Things may have progressed further at that point; it seemed that gunplay was inevitable, but then Arkansas saw a woman come out of the ranch house and stand on the boardwalk, looking puzzled at the mêlée before her.
Arkansas recognized her immediately as Rebecca.
‘Daddy?’ she said, in that drawl of hers and stepped down onto the dirt. She came closer to John Lance and then stopped dead when she saw Arkansas, their eyes locked and a look of sheer incomprehension crossed her face. For a moment it seemed as if she was about to say something, but no words came forth and the look of confusion on her face intensified.
Daddy! She was Lance’s daughter!
Arkansas felt his stomach churn. A sharp stabbing pain in his chest that he didn’t fully understand followed this. He shook his head to clear his befuddled mind but it did no good. He was stunned and felt as if a ten-pound hammer had struck him. The feelings disturbed him and the sight of Rebecca standing there stirred up conflicting emotions.
Without saying another word he turned his horse and galloped back the way he had come.
SEVENTEEN
John Lance crossed the room and placed the oil lamp on the mantel. He rubbed his hands down his trousers and looked at Jake, his foreman.
‘Get Jim in here,’ he said. Since the man had returned earlier he had not had a chance to speak to him, what with Arkansas Smith and then having to explain the situation to his daughter.
‘Sure thing,’ Jake said, and crossed the room in three massive strides.
Lance was left alone for a moment and he leaned on the mantel and stared into the flames of the fire, reflecting on the day just gone. After Arkansas had left earlier, tearing off across the grasslands like the devil was on his ta
il, Rebecca had come to her father, wanting to know what was happening. Apparently she knew Arkansas and had been visiting McCord’s place, helping the old man who, she said, had been shot by rustlers.
That revelation had resulted in a fierce row between father and daughter.
Lance had forbidden his daughter to have anything further to do with Arkansas Smith and William McCord. She had stormed off, not understanding her father’s reasoning, and it had taken some time for him to talk her round. He’d convinced her that McCord was gulching on a deal: that he’d sold his spread fair and square and had now had second thoughts and was claiming the sale never occurred; that the bill of sale was a forgery.
The entrance of the two men broke his reverie. Jim came in first with Jake following behind. The big man closed the door and stood in front of it, huge arms crossed before his impressive chest.
‘You wanted to see me?’ Jim asked. He wore his nervousness like a loud shirt and he gulped audibly as John Lance’s eyes burned into him. If it weren’t for the fact that Lance’s daughter was asleep upstairs Jim would have feared for his life.
Lance nodded and took a cigar from the box. He bit off the end and spat it into the fire before taking a match to it and swallowing a mouthful of the sweet tasting tobacco.
‘Tell me about Doc Cooter,’ Lance said, and reclined in the soft chair beside the fire. He drew on the cigar and crossed one leg over the other, waiting.
Jim gulped once more. He didn’t sit down and almost leapt out of his skin when he heard footsteps behind him, but he relaxed when he turned and saw Jake. They were old friends and he knew the big man wouldn’t do him any harm.
‘We just wanted to find out if McCord was alive or dead, boss,’ Jim said, trying to keep his voice firm and even but mostly failing. ‘For you – because you’d asked us and we didn’t know. It was an accident. We tried to scare him and the gun misfired.’