The Sixth Western Novel

by Jackson Gregory

  Darkin’s eyes flashed. “Joyce consented to our engagement to please her father, not because she loved me. I never had any serious belief that she would ever go through with the wedding.”

  Darkin moved away from the table, as if he had sensed the tension in Redding. Stooping, the Crowfoot foreman pulled a woolen Navaho rug off the floor, to reveal a brownish blot dyeing the wooden puncheons.

  “Melrose stopped overnight at Wagonwheel on his way to the Indian Reservation last spring,” Darkin explained. “He learned that night that the never-seen Duke Harrington was his own foreman. You see, Redding, I am really an Englishman. I am really Duke Harrington, although the title is a mere nickname.”

  Redding continued to stare at the stain on the floor.

  He knew without Darkin telling him that it was dried blood.

  “I was too ambitious a man to exist on the meager remittances my family sent me from abroad,” Darkin went on. “It was a good many years ago that I got tired of managing this ranch for my family’s syndicate. So I went over to the Basin and took over the active management of Major Melrose’s ranch, at a time when the old soldier was on his way to bankruptcy. Joyce was a pigtailed tomboy then.”

  Darkin paused.

  “As I was saying, Major Melrose visited Wagonwheel on his way to talk to Curtwright about the Indian beef-issue business. Up until that night, when I chose to reveal myself, the only other persons who knew that Teague Darkin and Duke Harrington were one and the same man were my roustabout, old Jinglebob yonder, and Blaze Tondro.”

  Darkin gestured toward the stained floor boards.

  “I told the Major who I was. The news stunned him. I shot him before he could recover himself. These stains are his blood.”

  “I guess I get the picture, Darkin.”

  “When Joyce called for a search, I brought the Major’s body in, telling her I’d found him over in the Navajadas, a victim of Blaze Tondro. The Trailfork coroner’s inquest accepted my story without question, just as Joyce reported to Colonel Regis. Unluckily for Joyce, she kept your chief’s messages in the Major’s safe. She did not know that I was in possession of the combination.”

  Redding curbed the mounting panic that flowed through every fiber of his being. Jinglebob had him covered from behind. These men were baiting him into a rash move.

  Since the moment of entering this room, Redding knew he had been living on borrowed time. He saw the bright desire to kill kindling by degrees in Darkin’s eyes now, knew Darkin planned to spill his blood at the same spot where Melrose had died.

  “You haven’t asked me yet,” Redding said, patiently stalling for time now on the impossible chance that Jinglebob might relax his vigilance, “why I paid this visit to Wagonwheel.”

  Darkin blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. “I’m not particularly interested. The fact remains, Redding, that you have less than a minute to live.”

  Darkin yawned and lifted his gun from holster.

  Redding braced himself for the point-blank shock of lead he knew was coming. Covered from two angles, there was no hope of grappling with Darkin. But he aimed to try it.

  Darkin’s thumb eared back his gun hammer. “Redding,” he said, as he lifted the gun for a point-blank aim, “it is strange that fate should decree that you would die under exactly the same circumstances as Major Mel—” The Crowfoot segundo broke off as the door at Jinglebob’s back suddenly slammed open, knocking the old roustabout headlong to the floor.

  “Drop your gun, Teague!” A woman’s voice laid its whiplash across this scene. “Don’t make me kill you.”

  Redding thought, I’m already dead. I’m hearing things!

  The voice belonged to Joyce Melrose.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jinglebob’s Confession

  Teague Darkin lifted his eyes from the button on Redding’s shirt he had mentally picked for his target.

  Joyce stood crouched in the doorway above Jinglebob’s sprawled form, a .25-3000 squirrel rifle held at hip level, its bore trained on Darkin’s midriff with a rock-steady aim.

  Redding, holding his frozen posture lest a movement from him might cause Darkin to squeeze trigger involuntarily, had to admire the steely insouciance of the outlaw before him.

  Not so much as a muscle twitched on the foreman’s handsome face. This sudden reversal of fortune meant Darkin’s destruction, the evaporation of his dream of an outlaw empire. But his expression was that of a man glancing up at an annoying interruption.

  Through the tail of his eye Darkin saw his roustabout’s preposterously bulging eyes take on a crafty glitter. The old man, in falling, had held onto Redding’s guns. It was in Jinglebob’s power to drive a slug into the cattle dick’s back.

  “No,” Darkin said. “She means it.”

  Darkin lowered his gun. The Wagonwheel roustabout eased gun prongs to safety position and laid them gingerly on the floor. Then he reared back to a kneeling position, his back to the girl in the doorway, and raised his arms.

  Doug Redding turned then, meeting Joyce’s gaze. A grin touched his mouth corners briefly, signifying the break of the intolerable tension in him.

  Then, wheeling, he crossed the room in two quick strides and without warning drove a clubbed fist into Darkin’s jaw with all the savagery at his command.

  The blow snapped the Crowfoot segundo’s head back with a spongy, popping sound so that for a moment his glazing eyes stared at the ceiling. Then his hip toppled against the hardwood table rim and his knees started to buckle.

  Redding whipped across a left uppercut to Darkin’s cheek which filled the room with the brutal, meaty sound of it, driving the big man to the floor.

  His knuckles stinging, Redding stooped to jerk Darkin’s gun from limp fingers. He prodded the fallen man briefly to uncover a hideout gun under his right armpit. He tossed both weapons to the table and then turned to see Joyce Melrose lower her Winchester and take a faltering step toward him.

  Redding suddenly remembered that Jinglebob still carried the Remington in the waistband of his pants. He strode in that direction, only to see the bald-headed oldster shake his head.

  “You’re calling the dance from here on out,” Jinglebob said softly. “I’m settin’ this one out.”

  Redding picked up his own guns and reached for the old-timer’s Remington, jacked out the cylinder, and tossed the useless piece into a far corner of the room.

  “Step over beside Darkin,” Redding ordered, “and let’s see you do a hog-tying job with that rope yonder.”

  Redding ignored Joyce, putting his full attention on the old man during the few moments it took Jinglebob to take down a rawhide mecate from a wall peg and truss the unconscious Darkin’s legs at knee and ankle, finishing the job by knotting the man’s wrists together behind his back.

  “Now, belly up to the wall yonder,” Redding ordered, “and stand hitched. I’ll fix you directly.”

  When Jinglebob had complied, Redding turned to the girl. She had leaned the .25-3000 against the wall; her face had gone chalk-white now that the strain of the scene was behind her, and she was trembling violently as Redding stepped forward and drew her into his arms.

  He rubbed his stubbled chin across the glossy brown hair which tumbled from her cuffed-back Stetson, and his whisper was husky in her ear. “Miracles like this don’t happen to a man often, Joyce. What brought you a hundred miles from Crowfoot to pull me out of a tight?”

  She withdrew from his arms and sat down limply on the horsehide sofa. “It was no accident, my being here,” she said. “I—I trailed Teague across the Basin. I thought maybe he was getting ready to skip the country—”

  “Too bad for him he didn’t.”

  “The other night when you left the ranch—I saw Teague and that Mexican come back, long after midnight. Teague left the ranch before daylight. I saddled up and trailed him. He made a beelin
e for the North Gate and Wagonwheel.”

  Redding said incredulously, “But that was four-five days ago.”

  She tucked a wisp of hair under her Stetson. “I’ve been camped in a draw overlooking this ranch. I was afraid to show myself, but I had to know what business my foreman would have at Wagonwheel. Then I saw you ride in—and I was too faraway to warn you that Teague was here.”

  A shudder wracked the girl as memories of this last grim hour overtook her in a sick green wave.

  “I got here in time to—to see Teague showing you the spot where he shot Dad. The angle from the window was wrong for me to put a gun on that old man who had you covered. There was nothing left to do but kick the door in.”

  An overwhelming desire to seize this girl in his arms again, pour out his love to her, came to Redding. He thrust the impulse aside and turned to stalk over to where Jinglebob stood bellying a wall. The old man cranked his face around toward Redding, toothless gums working a cud of tobacco.

  “I just work here, son. Take it easy on an old man.”

  Redding said gently, “I want to see Darkin’s hole card. He claims he’s Duke Harrington. He doesn’t strike me as being an Englishman.”

  Jinglebob shook his head. “He ain’t. You’ll find the real Duke Harrington’s bones rotting in the desert a good day’s ride from here. Darkin knifed him in a brawl when he was a Wagonwheel cavvy wrangler, twenty-odd years back.”

  From across the room, Joyce Melrose said softly, “That must have been around the time Teague went to work for Dad.”

  “Yeah,” Jinglebob said. “It wasn’t hard, Darkin takin’ over as the Duke. The Duke spent most of his time over in Californy, boozin’ and gamblin’ away his remittance checks. I was the only man on the spread then who even knew the real Harrington. I played along with Darkin for a split of his remittance dinero.”

  Redding said, “So Darkin got the idea of running Wagonwheel on the side?”

  Jinglebob spat a brown gobbet of tobacco juice along the wallpaper. “He’s got away with it all these years. An ambitious critter, that Darkin. Tied in with Blaze Tondro, shovin’ stock acrost the border. And every year him and Curtwright got together on this deal to buy Wagonwheel beef for the Injuns. Strippin’ said beef offen Major Melrose’s west lease.”

  Redding said finally, “I think I can get you off with a light prison stretch, Jinglebob, if you tell the court what you’ve told me. You stand hitched for the time being.”

  Redding turned toward Darkin. The foreman had not moved. A rivulet of blood seeped from his battered jaw-bone. Redding checked the old man’s roping job, not trusting Jinglebob, and then walked over to sit down beside Joyce.

  “You want the whole story now,” he asked, “or have you taken enough shocks for one day?”

  She managed a vague smile. “When I opened that door I was mentally prepared to kill the man Dad wanted me to marry,” she said. “You’re working on this case because I called for you, Doug. I guess I’m entitled to an interim report.”

  Redding ran splayed fingers through his hair, marshaling the host of tangled facts in his head.

  “You know the general situation already,” he said. “Darkin had this undercover partnership with Blaze Tondro. It was Blaze who killed my brother Matt, or had I told you that?”

  “No. Doug, I’m so terribly sorry—”

  “It wasn’t because Tondro got wise to Matt being a range detective. It was because Matt had fallen in love with Zedra Stiles—and Tondro has his eye on Zedra for himself.”

  He gave Joyce time to think that over; then he went on. “By getting your father out of the picture, Darkin was ready to run Crowfoot as his own, giving Tondro control of a handy strip of border for his contraband running. As Duke Harrington, he could continue his deals with Curtwright, robbing Crowfoot to lap up the graft from the Indian Reservation contracts.”

  “I heard you tell Teague that you had arrested that Indian Agent. Was that a bluff?”

  “I was bluffing when I claimed Curtwright told me Darkin had murdered your father, Joyce. Curtwright committed suicide in Val Lennon’s jail the next day.”

  She expelled a long breath. “Then you’ve just about finished your work in the Basin, haven’t you?”

  He grinned, hardly realizing he was nearing the end of what he intended to be his last deal behind an Association badge. “A couple of items left on the agenda, Joyce. The courts will deal with Darkin for your father’s murder. The sheriff is getting a posse together to storm Tondro’s hideout in the Navajadas. Other than that—I’m free to tell you I love you.”

  Redding got to his feet and stepped to the door for a glance at the sun.

  “We can reach Trailfork with our prisoners by tomorrow noon if you feel like traveling all night,” he said.

  Joyce stood up. “My horse is on picket in a draw half a mile from here. I walked down.” She glanced at the bloodstain on the puncheons, and a deep shudder of anguish ran through her. “I can’t get away from this place soon enough, Doug.”

  Redding glanced across the room at Jinglebob. “Ride herd on the old-timer,” Redding ordered, “while I bring horses around. The quicker we turn Darkin over to Lennon the better.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Death in the Ravine

  Out at the Wagonwheel barn Redding found two saddle horses. One, a line-back dun mare, he saddled for Jinglebob. The other was a Crowfoot pony, its saddle blanket still damp; probably Darkin had ridden to the south range to check on Tondro’s herd. Looking back, Redding realized how close he must have come to beating Darkin to Wagonwheel this morning.

  He led both horses back to the front gate, hitching them alongside his own gelding. When he re-entered the house he found that Teague Darkin had regained his senses. The man sat propped against the table, his dazed stare fixed on Joyce. She sat on the divan with her Winchester covering old Jinglebob.

  Although he believed the Wagonwheel roustabout would cause no trouble, Redding took the precaution of tying the oldster’s wrists together with a length of pigging string.

  “While I’m putting these huskies on their horses for the trip back to Trailfork,” Redding said, “you might rustle up a sack of grub and some cooking-utensils from the kitchen, Joyce. We’ll have to eat on the way.”

  Joyce joined Redding at the front gate, her arms laden with a grub sack, as Redding was tying his prisoners’ legs together under their horses’ barrels. In the distance she saw a smudge of dust lifting off the open range, marking the approach of three riders toward Wagon wheel.

  From Redding’s nod she knew the range detective had been watching that dust spiral as well.

  “Probably some Wagonwheel men coming back from roundup,” Joyce ventured, shielding her eyes from the sun. “It’s just as well we’re getting out, Doug. Those riders might have objections to us kidnapping their boss.”

  Jinglebob laughed skeptically. “Darkin ain’t known on this spread. Not that Wagonwheel is run by a band o’ angels, not by a damn sight. Long riders with a price on their heads, some of ’em. Have to be, to shut their eyes to Wagonwheel’s beef deals with Joe Curtwright.”

  Redding put the old man’s remarks away in his head for future reference. He doubted if the British owners of this ranch had any knowledge of the rustling being engaged in by their American representatives. That angle could be cleared up in due time, after Blaze Tondro’s rustler rule had been broken in Lavarim Basin.

  The incoming riders were still several miles distant when Redding, with Joyce riding behind his cantle, vanished over the first ridge east of the ranch house. Beyond the brow of that rise they paused long enough for Joyce to visit her camp and return with her Crowfoot mount, a leggy palomino which she had raised from a foal.

  Two miles farther on they picked up the Basin wagon road and followed it toward the cleft in the Axblade range known as the North Gate. Darkness
overtook them as they were passing the summit, a vista of Lavarim Basin’s northern expanse visible to eastward.

  It was ninety miles to Trailfork. Joyce was nearly spent, although she was making no complaint. The mere ordeal of riding at the stirrup of her former fiancé, knowing the part she had contributed toward his eventual retribution on the gallows, was a severe strain on the girl.

  “We’ll give the horses an hour’s rest,” Redding suddenly announced, “while I rustle up some grub to tide us over.” The proximity of a creek nearby, its wet murmurings making a welcome sound above the whispers of the night breeze in the piñon pines roundabout, prompted Redding to pull off the Basin road and lead his cavalcade down into the ravine where the stream burbled over its shallow rocky bed.

  With Joyce helping with the unsaddling, Redding tied his two prisoners back to back against the trunk of a handy piñon and then went about the chore of watering their horses at the creek. There was an open park across the creek, fetlock-deep in lush bluestem grass, and there Redding tethered the four mounts.

  When he waded back to the campground he found that Joyce had already rustled up enough deadfall wood for a fire and, drawing on her gunny sack of cooking-utensils and grub which she had picked up at the Wagonwheel kitchen, already had coffee on the coals.

  Hunkering on his heels just outside the fire’s glow, Redding harked back in memory to the campfire he had shared with Jace Blackwine’s mustangers, a night when the smell of death had been blended with the aromatic wood smoke.

  How different his situation tonight! Watching the girl’s swift skill as she set about preparing a warm meal for him and their prisoners, he thought, There’s a woman to ride the river with, and he had a moment of wonderment as to whether the loss of this girl was not the uppermost penalty Teague Darkin had to ponder tonight as he stood roped to the piñon bole a dozen yards away, at the edge of the shuttering firelight.

  Darkin had not opened his mouth during their ride up the North Gate grade. The man appeared to have accepted the inevitability of his situation, knowing he was lucky to be alive.