The Sixth Western Novel

by Jackson Gregory

  No longer a member of the mustang faction, Redding wanted no part of this feud. But if it involved the Rickaree Kid, there was no shunning the obligation to reciprocate for what the Kid had done for him in killing McArdle and leading him to Matt’s bones.

  There was no bucking the flow of men still draining through the batwings. Climbing over the porch rail, Redding saw the cook from Blackwine’s camp spill through the jammed entry and stagger to one side, quitting the saloon before he got sucked into any riot. Old Boney was too wise a rooster to give the bluecoats any competition where women were concerned—the crux of the feud—and by the same token saw no sense in mixing in the Kid’s trouble.

  Old Boney spotted Redding moving toward the smashed-out window, and relief went through him as he saw Redding wheel to face him.

  “What happened in there, Boney?”

  The old man grabbed Redding’s arm. “Rickaree caught the keno roller palmin’ phony cubes out of the goose, Doug, and called him on it. Houseman drawed a pepperbox and cut down on the Kid, but missed. Rickaree drew in self-defense, but you can’t tell them damn troopers that. They got him cornered.”

  Redding broke the cook’s grip with a jerk of his arm. “Is the houseman dead?”

  Old Boney’s reply was hard to catch above the rumble of boots on the plank sidewalk as the town grapevine, keyed to this trouble in the Crossed Sabers, sucked men from the other deadfalls up and down the street.

  “Kid’s slug smashed the roller’s kneecap. That ain’t it, Doug. Couple of them stripe-laig’ soldiers in the game, they got the Kid cornered. Know the marshal’ll be on their side even if he shows up. Kid’s number is up, Doug.”

  Redding knew he was a fool, mixing in here. But he found himself straddling the jagged glass of the broken window to step into the barroom.

  He spotted the Rickaree Kid at once, a bayed figure with his back to a nickelodeon which boxed off a corner behind the roulette layout. The Kid had a smoking six-gun in his fist; the muzzle was weaving like a reptile’s head between a pair of Army privates who wore military police brassards. The two soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder behind an overturned poker table, their Springfield carbines trained on the Kid.

  It was a stalemate, the Rickaree Kid’s short gun holding the two troopers’ rifles at a stand-off, neither of them daring to squeeze trigger for fear of being cut down.

  In the background, Redding saw the keno roller clutching his bullet-shattered knee and vomiting with the pain of it. The broken glass globe of the keno goose had showered its numbered buttons over the area of open floor where the Rickaree Kid faced the two uniformed troopers assigned to police duty in town.

  The Kid could not move from where he stood without provoking a shot. Ostensibly, these soldiers from the Fort were holding the Kid here pending the arrival of Marshal Chessman. But Redding had listened to enough mustangers’ gossip out in the hills this summer to know that Paloverde’s marshal would like nothing better than to find a Blackwiner dead or wounded.

  A change flashed over the Kid’s pasty face as he sighted Redding’s big shape moving in behind the troopers. This was help none of the other Blackwiners in the house had dared bring him.

  Their target’s shift of glance warned the troopers of possible trouble behind them. One of the privates half turned, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Redding, and in that instant Redding got both guns from leather and came in fast to ram their muzzles against the Sam Browne belts of the two MPs.

  “Hold your fire, Kid!” Redding shouted his warning and in a lower tone addressed the two privates. “Drop the carbeens and turn around slow.”

  The flesh on Redding’s neck nape crawled as he heard the shocked silence of the barroom crowd at his back give way to a stirring of booted feet on the sawdusted planks. He was a stranger in this town, but if any member of the barroom audience spotted him for a Blackwiner he would draw a bullet from behind.

  The two soldiers chopped their Springfields and eased themselves around to face Redding, their mouths working. One of them chewed out, “You drunk or loco, stranger? You’re buckin’ the law here—” Redding knew he was living on borrowed time, his back to the crowd this way. A glance past the two soldiers showed the Kid inching away from the nickelodeon, covering that crowd with his gun; but the odds were too heavy for him to hold it in check long.

  “The Kid ain’t holden to Army jurisdiction,” Redding retorted. “I can spot a jobbed deck when I see one—” As he spoke, pulling the troopers off guard, Redding whipped up his left-hand gun in a swift arc, the front sight smashing one trooper in the nose. That man went down like an axed tree, giving Redding his chance to circle the other trooper and back swiftly to the wall.

  Halting alongside the Rickaree Kid, Redding said without visible lip movement, “Take the lamp on your right, then head for the window behind the chuck-a-luck cage,” and as he spoke he lifted his own guns toward the big ceiling lamp which hung directly over the paralyzed tableau of the barroom crowd.

  In the pinched-off instant before he and the Kid triggered their guns in unison, Redding got a mental photograph of that crowd, naked gun metal beginning to show here and there along its front rank. As their bullets snuffed out the overhead lamps, Redding glimpsed the corpulent shape of Marshal Dorf Chessman squeezing through the press and realized that darkness had come too late to avoid being spotted by the town’s lawman.

  The darkness which followed the shattering of the two main barroom lamps was not complete. Other lamps above the back bar put the crowd into silhouette, but there was a momentary illusion of total darkness, and on this Redding was pinning their hopes of a successful getaway.

  The Rickaree Kid was already breaking for the chuck-a-luck table, crouched low. Redding saw the wrangler make his headlong dive through the open window facing an alley. The marshal, or somebody else in his general vicinity, started shooting in a rapid burst which indicated a gun hammer fanned by the heel of a palm. Lead chewed into both sides of the window frame as Redding slogged after the Kid.

  He flung himself floorward, waiting for the gun fanner to empty his chambers. Then he bolstered his Colts, reached up for the low sill of the window, and vaulted it like a frog, gambling against being hit by a random slug as the crowd broke its paralysis and stormed across the gambling-hall.

  It was pitch-dark in this alley, and a rising moil of dust bit Redding’s nose as he landed heavily on the Rickaree Kid’s back. They helped each other up, hearing the marshal’s wheezy yell, “Cover the alley! We’ll box ’em in the alley—”

  The Kid gasped, “They can do it, too. We got to shoot it out.”

  Redding grabbed the wrangler’s arm and headed toward the rear of the alley. Reaching the saloon corner, he cut sharp left in the direction of the Foothill House.

  A back door of the saloon pounded open, and its out-flung light caught both of them as they crossed it. A man yelled, “That’s them!” and a spray of wild shots ripped the ground ahead and behind them.

  Redding pulled the Kid to a halt and thrust a key into his hand. “Room B in the main building, Foothill House,” he panted. “My room. Hole up there while I fade back toward the river and draw the wolf pack off your tail, Kid.”

  “Doug,” the Kid protested, “you can’t—I won’t—” There was no time for argument here. Redding turned, laid a shot in the general direction of the men spilling from the rear of the Crossed Sabers, and sprinted toward the river, shooting twice as he ran to let his gun flashes attract the eye of the man hunters.

  The ruse worked, and the marshal’s men raced that direction, the cacophony of their yells breaking harsh in the night.

  Unseen, the Rickaree Kid made it to the outside fire escape of the Foothill House and scuttled up the steps, hearing the hue and cry of the chase leading toward the west.

  Out there, Redding heard the sound of pursuit dropping off, as men lost their nerve, bucking armed
fugitives in this dark. He kept going until a rank odor of rotting mud and willow wood told him he was nearing the bank of the Coyotero. Mosquitoes formed a cloud about his cheeks as he squatted in the darkness, listening to the men arguing with each other.

  Hunkering down on the bank where he could see the frosty glitter of the stars on the glassy surface of the river, Redding let the tension relax from his body. The Kid would be safe in his room at the hotel by now. He himself was a marked man in Paloverde, he realized; it would be difficult to keep his rendezvous with Joyce Melrose after daylight tomorrow. He would have to see Alf Keaton tonight and arrange another meeting-place.

  It helped to know that he had squared accounts with the Rickaree Kid. The debt was paid. A life for a life. Later tonight, after the marshal’s hunt had had time to cool off, the Kid could shag his tail out of town and wait for the mustangers out in the hills.

  Whether the Kid was in the right or in the wrong had no bearing on the case. Redding had moved into the limelight he would otherwise have shunned, because a man couldn’t duck his just debts. And he owed his life to the Kid.

  Chessman’s men were fanning out, searching the night. It would be a simple thing to join his own hunters now.

  A vast weariness was in Doug Redding as he left his riverbank sanctuary and circled wide of the town to approach Foothill House from the south. The night hid the furtive sounds of scared men beating the brush of these back lots, pretending to search for the fugitives. A prowling cavalry officer challenged Redding and drew a grunted, “I ain’t cut any sign yet, have you?” for reply.

  Redding entered the hotel through the same door he had used after leaving Keaton’s. As before, the lobby was deserted, the night clerk’s desk empty. He went upstairs and tested the knob of Room B, vaguely surprised to find the Kid had not locked it.

  Stepping inside, Redding knew an instant’s alarm, wondering if the Kid had gone into the wrong room; the cheap mortise locks of this hostelry could be opened with almost any key.

  But a sour odor of whisky and a sound of stertorous breathing from the bed told him different. When he touched match to lampwick and turned it low, he saw that the Rickaree Kid had flung himself on’ the blankets, face down. An empty pint bottle was on the pillow. One arm dangled over the edge of the bed, clutching a six-shooter.

  The Kid, arriving here, had drained his pocket bottle. He was dead drunk. Redding thought, Might as well give him a couple hours’ sleep against the ride he’s got before daylight.

  He took the precaution of locking the hall door and pocketed the key. The smell of whisky nauseated him, and he walked through the open doorway onto the balcony, feeling the cool breeze on his hot cheeks, spiced with the sage scent off the desert.

  The balcony overlooked a patio formed by the main building and its ell, with a two-storied annex completing the square.

  Studying the dark face of the annex wing, Redding found himself wondering which of those windows across the patio might be Joyce Melrose’s room, and whether he should risk visiting her tonight.

  Thought of the girl who now owned the Crowfoot Ranch at once swung Redding’s reflections to what Keaton had told him of the murder of her father, over in Lavarim Basin. Blaze Tondro was being accused of that bushwhacking. Redding was reminded of how much Joyce Melrose and himself had in common, before they had even met.

  According to the letter from SPA headquarters, Joyce Melrose would have more details to impart. Standing here in the darkness of the courtyard balcony, Redding found himself wondering about the unknown girl who tonight might be wetting Matt’s golden lizard ring with her tears. The thought sent Redding’s hand reaching to unbutton his shirt, to finger the duplicate ring which hung from its thong around his neck. He was like that when his revelry was interrupted by the faint sound of a key grating in the door of Room B.

  Redding whirled, at once alert, hand dropping to gun-stock. From his position between the balcony door and window, he saw the outer corridor door was being shoved open; and its draft caused the low-burning lamp to leap for an instant’s brightness and then snuff out.

  Surprise was Redding’s first reaction, remembering that he had been careful to lock that door and pocket the key. Yet from his shielded position on the outer balcony he had full view of a man’s shadow blotting the threadbare carpet of Room B, a man standing at a crouch on the threshold with a corridor wall lamp at his back.

  The fanwise spread of light from the hallway fell partially on the shabby bed where the Rickaree Kid lay snoring.

  No more than a second had ticked off since the door had opened; Redding had not yet lifted his Colt from holster to challenge the intruder when he heard an abrasive voice call from the doorway.

  “Redding?”

  The Rickaree Kid stirred from his drunken sleep, heaving up on the blankets and twisting his head to stare at the silhouetted shape in the doorway. The voice of the Kid was a sleep-husky monosyllable. “Whut?”

  Redding was moving toward the balcony door when the Kid spoke. Before he could reach that opening, a gun’s ear-numbing blast filled the room, and instantly the man’s shadow on the floor was replaced by dim gray clouds of smoke.

  The gun’s report still seemed to fill the room when Doug Redding charged in off the balcony. His raking glance showed him the settling form of the Rickaree Kid, only his legs in the light from the hallway.

  Boots were slogging away down the corridor as Redding crossed the hotel room in two strides and raced out in pursuit of the ambusher. He had the briefest of glimpses of a heavy-built man rounding the far corner of the hall.

  That glimpse was enough to note the broad splash of white which made a skunk streak down the middle of the man’s heavy pelt of Indian-black hair. That and the distinctive pintospotted vest which covered the fugitive’s massive chest were all the details Redding was able to pick out of his memory later.

  Wall lamps fluttered to the wind of Redding’s swift passage down the corridor in pursuit. When he turned the corner where the man had vanished, gun ready, it was to find the hallway empty, ending not ten feet away in a wall broken by an open window, the night wind stirring the cheap gauze curtains there.

  That open window was made to order for the escape of a man finding himself in a dead-end hallway. Redding approached the opening cautiously, to see that it was but a short drop to the shingled slope of the roof which overhung the porch below.

  The Rickaree Kid’s attacker had had more than enough time to slide over the eaves, gain the street below, and lose himself in the anonymity of the foot traffic there.

  Redding turned, vaguely aware of excited voices in the rooms opening on this short pocket of corridor. He retraced his way to Room B, knowing that the sound of the gunshot would shortly bring tenants out of their rooms to investigate.

  As he stepped into the room and closed the door he noticed a skeleton key protruding from the lock, indicating how the gunman had gained entry here. A metal tag hanging from the lock was marked with the letter C. Anyone could have picked it off the rack in the deserted lobby downstairs. Using this key, he locked the door.

  In the gruesome darkness of this room, Redding could hear no sound of breath or movement on the bed. He struck a match. The Rickaree Kid was dead, half of his skull ripped off by the killer’s close-range bullet. Somebody, somehow, had traced the Kid here from the Crossed Sabers Saloon. Some friend, perhaps, of the keno roller the Kid had crippled for life; or maybe a cavalry rider, bent on spilling a mustanger’s blood.

  Then out of memory came the realization that the outlaw had called his own name, not the Kid’s, an instant before the shot. The truth was a shocking, inescapable thing to Redding now.

  He said aloud, “That skunk-striped hombre came to bushwhack me, not the Rickaree Kid!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Gun-Trapped

  Common sense told him he was a fool to remain another minute in this
room with a dead man. If Marshal Chessman caught him here, his gun bore freshly fouled by the shots he had fired tonight after leaving the Crossed Sabers, he could be railroaded to the hang rope.

  The fact that he was a stock detective would count for nothing in this Army-dominated town. By clubbing down a military policeman he had put himself open to arrest and confinement in the post guardhouse, where he might rot for months on end. And by helping the Rickaree Kid elude the town marshal, Redding knew he had incurred Chessman’s unbending wrath.

  But these risks held no part of Redding’s thoughts now. Who had singled him out for murder, locating his room number, no doubt, by checking the hotel register down in the lobby? This error of targets had no connection with the affair at the Crossed Sabers tonight. It might very well be linked to his forthcoming conference with Joyce Melrose concerning her father’s murder over in Lavarim Basin.

  The pressure of events gave Redding no time to wrestle with his personal riddles now. Feet were slogging up and down the hall outside, making the thin walls tremble. In the adjoining room a woman was screaming, peal on peal, her cries seeming to vibrate the peeled wallpaper on the flimsy partition.

  A film broke from his pores as he held the match closer to look at the Rickaree Kid. The young wrangler whom Redding had long since ticketed as a man on the dodge had died instantly. The gun still clutched in his hand might appear to investigators as proof that he had had a chance to defend himself.

  The match burned out between his fingers. In the following exaggerated darkness he groped with a hand and found the cardboard box beside the chipped china pitcher on the washstand. He retrieved the two envelopes it contained and stuffed them into his shirt pocket. Then his fingers sought out the cold metal of his Stockmen’s Protective Association badge.

  There was a babble of voices directly outside his door. The hysterical woman next door was shrilling, “The shot come from inside this next room here, Marshal, for a fact. Room B. I know there’s been murder committed—right acrost this wall where I was tryin’ to sleep!”