“You got a bullet in you too,” Reilly said. “Let me have it, Elmer. What are you getting that should be worth all this?”
From the other side, the Spencer boomed again. Reilly stood up quickly. A six-gun answered in a quick snapping voice and Reilly cursed. He left Loving where he had fallen and skirted the perimeter of the holding corral. At the corner he saw Milo Bucks behind the shelter of a hide shed, firing at Indian Jim who had taken cover behind baled hay.
Reilly whistled sharply and Milo’s head came around. Bucks mounted and, keeping himself screened by the hide shed, rode over to join Reilly. Reilly mounted on the run and they bent low in the saddles as Indian Jim shot at them. The heavy bullet plowed dirt a few yards to Milo’s left, and then they extended the range beyond the limits of Indian Jim’s gun and were in the clear.
Reilly broke the horse’s run when the trees began to screen them. Milo kept looking back, but Reilly said, “They won’t follow us. Loving’s hit bad.”
“For a while there,” Milo admitted, “I was a little worried.” He pulled his gun, rocked open the loading gate and jacked the empties onto the ground. “Loving dead?”
“No,” Reilly said. “He’ll live.” He stirred restlessly. “Let’s get back to Buckeye, kid. I saw somethin’ Peters ought to know about.”
“I could use a meal and some sleep,” Milo said.
“Tonight,” Reilly told him. “Let’s make miles now.”
Four days from the time they had left, Reilly and Milo paused at the end of Buckeye’s main street. The swelling had diminished in Reilly’s face and he could see out of both eyes, although one still puffed slightly and remained a yellow black. Whiskered now, and dirty, he looked like an out-of-the-pants saddlebum.
Milo Bucks matched his appearance easily, for he had eaten Reilly’s dust all the way back. Both men dismounted by Ben Cannoyer’s stable, swinging off stiffly, testing muscles long unused. They watered their horses at the trough and led them to the open maw, and then Sheriff Henderson, Max Horgan and Winehaven came out of what once had been Cannoyer’s home.
Reilly said, “Winehaven, you’d better get back. I just shot Elmer Loving at your place.”
Winehaven cleared his throat. “He dead?”
“He’s still alive,” Reilly said, and speared Max Horgan with a blank stare. “You wasted your money the other night, Max. I just paid Elmer off in coin he understands.”
“You’re going to step in a big hole one of these days,” Horgan said softly. He still wore a tan suit with a heavy vest. His bone handled gun sat high on his left hip in a cross-draw holster.
“You had no right to run Ben Cannoyer out,” Henderson said heavily.
“He knew better than to stay,” Reilly said. “I made it clear when I came back, I wanted to be left alone. I told you on the road, Max. Now you just keep gettin’ in my way and I’ll whittle you down to a nub.”
Henderson shifted his feet and looked at Milo Bucks. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, kid. A big bone.”
“Pick it then,” Milo invited.
Henderson’s eyes widened. Then he rubbed his hand against his leg and laughed without humor. “You two’re a pair all right. There ain’t a damn bit of difference between you. You’re as bad as Reilly ever was, Bucks.”
“To me that’s good,” Milo said, and waited. Horgan nudged Winehaven and the two men walked away. Henderson hesitated for an instant, then followed them down the street.
When they entered Burkhauser’s saloon, Reilly led the horses into the stable and off-saddled. He guided them into a stall, rubbed them down with an old blanket and rationed out half a bucket of oats.
Reilly saw Harry Peters’ buggy parked by the rear door, the shafts empty and lying on the ground. He went out and walked to the New Congress Hotel.
Milo waited in the lobby while Reilly went up the squeaking stairs and rapped on Harry Peters’ door. Peters opened it, grunting in surprise. “Come in,” he said, and took his cigar out of his mouth to smile.
He closed the door and waved Reilly into a chair. “You look like you’ve covered miles.”
“I have,” Reilly admitted, and related the events leading up to the shooting of Elmer Loving.
Peters listened carefully, then sat back, his hands laced together. “Reilly,” he said, “I’m an officer of the law and I deal only in facts. Jane Alford told you it was Loving. On her word you ran an old man out of town and shot Elmer. Now you want me to arrest Max Horgan and Winehaven.” He shook his head. “I can’t do it. Seever or another lawyer would have them out in twenty-four hours. Even if it came to trial, there would be no conviction. I’m sorry, Reilly, but I have to have facts.”
“I’ll give you some facts,” Reilly said. “You got a pencil and paper?”
Peters rummaged through his coat pocket and produced an old envelope. He handed this to Reilly, along with a pencil, and Reilly drew the five major brands:
Childress’ Broken Bit:
Bob Ackroyd’s Hat:
Swan Lovelock’s Lazy U:
Reilly’s Hangnoose:
Max Horgan’s Chain:
Then Reilly drew them in a row:
and after that he added the lines that made them into the Chain, Max Horgan’s Brand:
“There,” Reilly said. “That’s how they’re altered, with a running iron. When I moved through the herd at Winehaven’s, I saw Chain cattle with brands, runnin’ every which way. Some brands were a little bigger than others, with the chain links different size.” He waggled the pencil at Harry Peters. “There’s your proof. Now go make the arrest.”
Peters stood up and went to the window. He lit a fresh cigar and puffed it for several minutes, looking outside. He turned at last and said, “Will you come with me?”
“What for?” Reilly asked. “You get paid for upholdin’ the law. Go ahead and uphold it.”
“It’s not as easy as all that,” Peters said slowly. “Reilly, I’ve looked over Horgan’s herd several times and I’ve never found anything like this. Winehaven’s been clean when I went there.” He paused to flick ashes off his cigar. “I’d like to work on what information you’ve given me, but I’d feel pretty foolish if I swore out a warrant and then had to come away empty handed, wouldn’t I?”
“What the hell do you want for proof?” Reilly flared. He was tired and saddle sore and he didn’t give a damn.
Peters stroked his mustache. “Reilly, you could get me proof.”
“How?”
“It seems to me you ought to act like an asset to the wild bunch. It could be they’d rather have you on their side than fighting you. I’d like to see you make a deal with Horgan. Get on the inside and get me real information.”
“No thanks,” Reilly said, and stood up. “I’ve got enough troubles of my own without buying yours. I told you what I found out. Now you can do as you please about it.”
He went out without glancing back. He picked up Milo Bucks in the lobby and they walked toward the barbershop.
The public bath was in the back room. They stayed an hour, then settled in the chair for their shave. With the dust off his clothes and his face shiny in the sun, Reilly felt better although the riding had set up a stiffness in his shoulders.
Next, Reilly went into the hotel on a hunch and palmed the bell to call the clerk. Milo sat down on the porch and elevated his feet on the railing.
The clerk came out of the back room. Reilly said, “Did Tess Isham take a room here?”
“Number seven at the end of the hall, street side.”
Reilly nodded his thanks. He climbed the stairs and jingled his spurs along the hall to the last door. He rapped lightly.
“Who is it?”
“Me, Reilly.” From the quickness that the bolt slid back, he knew that she had heard the steps and waited at the door. He stepped inside and smiled at her.
“Better than what I left,” she said, and went over to the window. She pulled her chair around and faced away from him. The sunlight streamed into the room, staining the faded green rug.
“I’m going back to my place,” Reilly said. “I wanted to see you before I did.”
“Why?”
“To set things straight between us.”
“There’s nothing to set straight,” she said. “Sally wants you and she’ll end up having you.”
“Takes two to make a pair,” Reilly said. “You’re forgetting that.”
“I’m not forgetting anything,” Tess said. “I know her, Reilly. Somehow she’ll have you, just like she’s always had you.”
He sighed and shook out his Durham, sifting it into a paper. After he had licked it and struck a match, he asked, “Childress been through yet?”
“Two days ago,” she said. “He and Murdock came through early this morning with the crew.” She got up abruptly and came to stand before him. “What are you getting into, Reilly? Did you have to run Cannoyer out?”
“I thought I did,” Reilly said. “I want to be left alone, Tess. The bunch don’t seem to understand that.”
“They’re after you. They’ve been after you since you came back.” She raised her hand and massaged her cheek. “And I don’t know why. What have you done, Reilly?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
He turned to crush out his cigarette in a dish by her bedside.
“Emily left a message for you,” Tess said. “She’s marrying Al next month.”
“They’ll be happy,” he said and lifted his hat. “I wish we could be happy, Tess.”
“We?”
“You and me.” He tossed the hat on her bed and became intense. “I mean it. Why couldn’t we? We need each other and isn’t that what it takes, a need?”
“Not our kind of need,” she said. “Reilly, if you married me, then you’d have one more defense to use against Sally. I don’t want to be used. When a man thinks he needs someone like that, he’s telling me he hasn’t made up his mind yet.”
“Tess,” he said softly, “you know how it’s always been with us. We’d get along.”
“I need more than that, Reilly. If there had never been Sally I might have settled for that, but she is there and I can’t forget what she’s been to you.”
“I see.”
“I wonder if you do,” Tess said, and handed him his hat. “You’d better go, Reilly.”
He could do no more now, so he obeyed her. The door closed behind him and he paused in the hall, listening to the bolt click shut again. Somehow this seemed to close something out in his mind and he felt a fleeting regret.
He walked down into the lobby. Through the front window he saw Harry Peters on the porch with Milo Bucks. The marshal was talking and waving his cigar.
Peters straightened when Reilly stepped out the door. “Ah,” he said, “I’ve been talking about you.”
“You’re wearing the handle of that pump out,” Reilly said.
“Perhaps I am,” Peters admitted. “However, I got damned little information.” He stood up and poked through his pockets for a match. “I was just going down to the doctor’s office to see Burk Seever. He’s mending nicely.”
“Too bad,” Reilly said.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Peters pushed his finger against the dead end of his cigar, then lit it. “I keep after him though. He may tell me something voluntarily.”
“Voluntarily?” Reilly laughed. “I’d sit on that broken arm until he talked.”
“We can’t all be Apaches, now can we?” Peters smiled pleasantly and stepped off the porch.
“Just a second,” Reilly said, remembering something. “Max Horgan’s horse has my curiosity stirred. You know the one, the blaze-face sorrel? I’ve seen that horse somewhere, but I can’t connect Max with it.”
Peters’ face was bland behind a gray film of cigar smoke. He took the cigar from his mouth and said, “You’re worrying about nothing. Forget the damned horse.”
He walked down the street.
Milo Bucks unkinked his legs and came off the porch. “He’s a funny little man, ain’t he?”
“I guess he knows his business,” Reilly murmured, and led the way to the stable.
CHAPTER 10
Reilly and Milo rode into the yard near sundown. Milo took the jaded horses to the barn while Reilly walked stiffly to the house. Childress’ cattle milled in a loose bunch half a mile away and he paused on the porch to look at them.
A new building had been added to the right of the bunkhouse, the planed boards tawny in the last remaining sunlight. Inside the house, Reilly heard quick footsteps in the kitchen. He frowned when a woman’s faint humming came to him.
Opening the door, he went down the hall, stopping in the archway to the kitchen. Jane Alford turned from the stove and perspiration lent a shine to her face. She wore a cotton dress with the sleeves rolled above the elbow.
“What are you doing here?” Reilly asked.
“I live here,” Jane said, “with Ernie Slaughter. Is that wrong?”
“I’d be the last man in the world to tell you anything was wrong, Jane.”
“I’ve shocked you,” Jane said, “but it isn’t like that. Ernie built me a small place out by the bunkhouse.”
“I saw it,” Reilly said. He came up to the stove, lifting the lids on the pots. “Where are they now?”
“Wait went out to relieve Ernie,” Jane said. “They’ve been riding herd since Childress drove them over. It’s new ground and they’re pretty restless.” She smiled. “Ernie’ll be back soon.”
He turned his back to the range and felt the heat drill through him. With the sun going down, the day’s heat faded rapidly and a coming winter chill blew across the land. Reilly said, “You’re happy now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m very happy.”
“Why wait so long, Jane? It don’t make sense.”
“It did to me,” she said. “Reilly, I made a mistake once, a bad mistake. I’m still paying for it.”
“Ernie know about it?”
“No. No one knows about it. No one’s going to know.” She grabbed a pot holder and pulled a boiling kettle to the back of the stove. “Now get out of here and wash up. You’re ruining my cooking.”
Reilly met Milo and Ernie at the pump. After slicking their hair back they came into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Jane heaped the platters full and took her place at the far end. Silverware clattered briskly. They ate until they were full, and then they began to talk.
“That beef will winter out fine here,” Ernie said. “I’m thinkin’ the snow will stay off the flats for another month. They’ll have found a place to bed down by then.”
The sun died completely. Jane got up to light the lamps. Somehow the talk drifted around to the affair at Winehaven’s and Reilly covered it briefly. They were on the second cup of coffee when Milo put his hand on Reilly’s arm, closing off his voice with that one movement.
A buckboard wheeled into the yard and stopped by the front porch. Reilly slid back his chair to go out and then a man’s boots thumped across the porch. The front door opened. The front of the house was dark and the lamps in the kitchen threw light only part way down the hall.
The man came ahead. He stopped in the doorway. Reilly pulled his breath in sharply and said, “Burk, do you want to get killed?”
“Not tonight I won’t,” Seever said. His right arm hung in a sling and he put his left hand up as if to adjust it. The fingers went inside the cloth and came out with a nickel-plated .32. “I brought a friend along tonight,” he said.
&n
bsp; Light fell fully on Seever and Reilly winced with shock. One side of Seever’s face seemed to sag as though tired muscles no longer chose to-support the flesh. A ragged scar traced itself around his eyebrow, the stitches showing plainly. He had a dozen scabs.
“You fixed me up good,” Seever said. “This one side is dead.” He touched his cheek with the barrel of his gun.
Ernie and Milo sat motionless, their hands on the table edge. Seever looked at Jane Alford and said, “If you’re through passing it around to the boys, then come on back with me. I need somebody to warm the sheets.”
Ernie tried to rise, but Reilly jerked him back down.
“You’re not so dumb,” Seever said. “The next time he pops up I’ll put a bullet in his head.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jane Alford said.
“Yes you are,” Seever said. “You’re going with me and you know why.”
“Don’t push it too far with me,” Jane said. “There’ll come a time, Burk—”
“You’ll never see that time,” he interrupted. “Tell me why you’ll come with me.”
“I won’t!” Jane said. “I’ve lied enough!”
“Think,” Seever said, almost whispering. “Think, Jane. Who’s going to get it in the neck if you don’t behave?”
“All right,” she said numbly. “All right, Burk.” She got up slowly from the table.
“Jane!” Ernie said, and there was pain in his voice.
She tried to meet his eyes and couldn’t. Burk Seever laughed. Reilly put both hands on Ernie Slaughter’s shoulders to keep him in his chair.
“She’s in love with me,” Seever said. “Aren’t you, Jane?” When she failed to answer, he repeated it. “Tell this punk, Jane!”
“I’m in love with him,” Jane Alford said dully with her back turned. “I’m sorry, Ernie.”
“Sorry?” He sounded as if he had lost the power to understand even a simple word.
“Then take her and get out of here!” Reilly snapped.
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