Walt raised the Sharps suddenly, then let it sag. Reilly dismounted and hobbled the gelding, then came near the fire, spreading his hands to warm them. He had knotted his neckerchief over his hat, folding it down around his ears like a bonnet. Now he took the neckerchief off and cupped his hands to his ears, inducing warmth.
“The storm’s breaking,” he said. “Everything all right here?”
“It’s all right,” Walt said.
“We’ll stay here tomorrow,” Reilly said. “Move out the day after.” He blew out his breath and watched it plume white. “Better turn in, Walt. I’ll stay up.”
Walt spread his slicker to lie on. He rolled up in his blankets and did not stir. Reilly sat there, staring at the fire until it died out to faint coals. A chilly dawn came on, and with it, the crimson edge of the winter sun.
The sight of it made him feel a lot better.
Reilly did not hurry on the way back and ten days passed before he halted on the flats on Buckeye’s outskirts. He left Walt Slaughter to hold the herd there, and rode into town. He had done a lot of thinking during those ten days, for a good deal had happened to change a man. With Ernie dead, things would not be the same again. He had been a part of Reilly’s life, abiding in that warm spot which a man reserves for only the closest of friends.
He had the wild bunch on the run now but the fact gave him no satisfaction. He lacked the instincts of a man-hunter. He was tired enough now to look at himself with some objectivity, and he realized that the wild bunch never had been his problem. Even if he wiped them out, the problem would still exist, for he carried it with him.
Nor could he convince himself that Sally had created his discontent. He had become too honest for that. Because he wanted flame and tumult in a woman, he had sold his own integrity and it still left him dissatisfied. She was not complete. A part of her was selfish and mean, too selfish ever to know the pleasure of giving.
Reilly stopped and dismounted and stood thinking. That was the trouble. Because Sally never gave, but only took, he had formed himself the same way, trying to match her, trying to establish some semblance of compatibility where none could exist.
Reilly tied his horse and stepped to the boardwalk. He had wanted her and had pushed and twisted things to conform to his desires. He blamed her for letting him, but then, she was the kind who took pleasure in watching a man destroy himself for her. This fed some starved sinkhole in her soul.
Reilly entered the hotel and went up the stairs. He walked down the long hall and paused by Tess Isham’s door, hearing the ring of arguing voices from within.
He opened the door without knocking and the voices chopped off suddenly. Tess and Sally turned and looked at him, and then Sally hurried across the room and threw her arms around him.
She kissed him longingly, holding him tight, but he stood there stiffly, a man disinterested. His eyes went past Sally’s face and locked with Tess Isham’s.
Realizing that she was embracing stone, Sally released him and stepped back. Reilly said, “Somehow, it didn’t work, did it?”
“Oh, Reilly,” she said, and put her hands against him. “I’ve been frantic with worry.”
“About me?” He smiled. “Sally, you don’t lie worth a damn.”
“I’m not lying,” she said. “Reilly, I love you more than anything in the world.”
“More than yourself? Where’s your husband?”
“At home,” she said. “He brought a woman with him. Jane Alford.” She moved close again and pleaded, “Reilly, can you ever forget how we once were?”
“I’ve already forgotten it,” he said, and looked past her to Tess. She stood with her hands at her sides, not taking her eyes from his face. There was a hope there, an expectancy that had always been missing before. She looked as though she had stopped breathing, so still did she stand.
“Reilly!” Sally said. “You can’t mean that!”
“I do mean it,” he said. “You’d be no good for any man, not for long anyway. There’s more to being married than sleepin’ with a woman. There should be room for other things in a man’s mind besides worryin’ whether his wife will behave herself when he leaves the house. I’d have to keep you lacked up, Sally, and frankly, you ain’t worth it.”
“How—how dare you speak to me like that?”
“It’s easy,” Reilly said without malice. “I’ve suddenly found out that I wouldn’t want you, not at any price.”
She tried to slap him then but he caught her arm and pushed her aside. “Go on, Sally. Go on now.”
She stared at him and saw nothing to give her hope. Then she hardened. She went to the door, and she paused to speak over her shoulder. “Reilly, this is going to cost you more than you can afford to pay.”
“It isn’t going to cost me anything,” Reilly said, and watched her close the door. Her footsteps receded rapidly down the hall and he let out a long breath.
Tess Isham still remained motionless and he faced her, a great gentleness in his eyes. “Sometimes a man don’t know what love is, girl. He thinks a lot of foolish things and makes believe that he’s in love, but it isn’t the feeling I have for you.” He laughed softly. “The strange part is that I’ve always had that feelin’ for you, Tess. It was always a restin’ feelin’ when I was with you. I guess that’s why I always come to you when I’m troubled in the mind.”
He made a fan-like motion with his hands.
“A man’s mistakes can be pretty big. I’ve made ’em. You know what they are without me tellin’ you. The times I’ve hurt you have been plenty and I guess the hurt’s too deep to wipe out, but if I had it to do over again, we’d sure been married years ago.”
When he turned to the door, she found her voice and spoke his name. He turned back to her and found that she was crying, the tears moving down her cheeks in tiny rivulets. “I’m not a fancy woman,” she said. “Maybe I’m not enough woman, like she says, but I’d be good to you, Reilly, because I’ve loved you for such a very long time.”
He did not touch her; there was no need now. They looked at each other and the bond was there. No power could ever break it. “I’ve got some work cut out for me,”’ he said. “I’ll be back.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” she said, and he went out, closing the door quietly behind him. There was no hurry now and he stopped at the head of the stairs to thumb cartridges out of his gun and reload it.
He went down into the lobby. At the desk he said, “Have you seen Harry Peters?”
“At the New Congress,” the clerk said, and Reilly went out. He reached the edge of the porch and saw Jane Alford running toward him. She stumbled in her haste to mount the steps.
Her hair hung loosely and her breath came in short gusts. “Reilly, I’m glad I found you!”
“Are you?” He was remembering Ernie Slaughter by the corral the night she went away with Burk Seever and he could not keep it out of his voice.
“I don’t blame you for hating me,” Jane said, “but you’ve got to listen to me.”
“I don’t hate you. I just don’t understand you, Jane.”
She pressed her hands against her cheeks and tears welled up in her eyes. “You think I’m not thinking of him? I loved him so much that it killed me inside when he died.”
“Then why did you leave him, Jane?”
“I had no choice,” Jane said. “I wish to God I’d told Ernie, but Winehaven and that squaw he lives with over by the slaughter house have my baby.” She looked quickly up and down the street. “Burk’s always held that over my head, threatening to take him away if I didn’t do what he said.”
“What baby?” Reilly asked. “I never heard about it.”
“I made a mistake. Before we moved here. My mother—we left after he was born and came here. She met Winehaven and married him, but it didn’t work out. Reilly, I thought I could get a new start with Ernie,
but then ma died. Winehaven said I couldn’t have the boy back.” She smiled feebly. “He’s seven now, Reilly, and I want him back. He’s all I got left.”
“We’ll get him for you,” Reilly said. “I’ll tell Peters and he’ll get him.”
“No!” Jane snapped. “No, don’t tell him.” Her voice became thin and defeated. “I’ll never see him again, I know that. What I’m telling you now will fix everything, but that’s all right. Maybe it’ll pay some back for the way I’ve hurt Ernie.”
“You’re not making sense,” he said. A man came out of the hotel then and they stood awkwardly until he moved out of earshot.
“Winehaven used me, Reilly. I didn’t want anything to happen to the baby, so I went to the Agency like he wanted me to. After—after I had something on the Indian agent, Winehaven told me to get out and got me a job in Burkhauser’s. Burk and Henderson were in this for the money, Reilly. So was Winehaven and—” She took his arms and tried to shake him. “Reilly, do you remember what you saw at Winehaven’s that day of the shooting? Remember it, Reilly, because I don’t want to tell you.”
For a reason he couldn’t explain, he saw a sorrel horse with a blaze. Suddenly he said, “I saw Harry Peters’ sorrel there.” He wondered where the statement came from, but be knew it was true. “Harry Peters!” he said.
“He killed Henderson. You didn’t know that, did you?” Jane was frantic. “I got away from Burk. He’s after you, Reilly, and he has a gun now. Max Horgan’s with him and they mean to kill you.”
Reilly acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “Harry Peters,” he repeated, and remembered a lot of small things: The way Peters acted, the way he talked, the things he didn’t do and the pat excuses he had for doing the things he did. Somehow it all fell into place and he recalled clearly the thing that had teetered on the edge of his mind the last time he talked to Peters. Indian Jim had said he was half smart, figuring out how the brands had been changed—and he had mentioned that only to Harry Peters.
He said, “Is Horgan in town now?”
“He must be,” Jane said. “Burk locked me in the upstairs room, but I climbed out the window and jumped down on the trellis.”
“Go up to Tess Isham’s hotel room,” Reilly said gently, giving her a small push. “Everything’s going to turn out all right, Jane.”
“Nothing will ever be right with Ernie Slaughter dead,” she said, and went inside.
Reilly remained on the porch a moment longer, listening to the whine of the wind as it husked down the street. He took off his heavy coat to give his arms more freedom and stepped to the boardwalk.
He walked carefully. He had no idea where Horgan or Seever would be waiting; he only knew they would wait. There was no traffic at all on the street and the town reminded him of deserted places he had seen in the lode country. Just buildings with the wind echoing against them.
Clinging to the buildings, Reilly searched every doorway, every gap that could hold a man with a gun. A door banged somewhere in the alley and he jumped, ready to draw his gun and start shooting.
He stopped and got a grip on himself.
Down the street and across from him, Ben Cannoyer’s old stable reared up in the middle of a large lot, one door banging listlessly in the wind. From the far edge of town, the brown-and white Hereford herd grazed while Walt Slaughter walked his horse around them.
All this seemed very far away to Reilly.
He halted when a man started to come out of a small store next to the stable. The man paused in the doorway, then went back inside. This rang a warning bell in Reilly’s mind. There was no reason for the man’s hasty retreat.
He had been walking slowly, casually, with nothing in his manner to tip off impending trouble, yet the man knew it was coming. Reilly focused his attention on the doorway of the store, and then Max Horgan came out and stood on the boardwalk.
“Well, Reilly,” he said. “One by one you’ve got all of us.”
“But not you, Max,” Reilly said, just loud enough to carry across the street. Twenty yards separated them and dust rose in swirls, pelting the raw board buildings.
“Man to man,” Horgan said, his voice wind-whipped. “That’s how it’ll be between us, Reilly.”
The man’s talking too much, Reilly thought, and from the corner of his eye he picked up a slight movement in the door of the vacant stable. In that second he saw clearly what a sucker he had been, for the stable was seventy yards away and Burk Seever had a rifle.
He drew on Horgan then, and although he slapped leather first, Max Horgan matched him. Reilly cocked on the upswing and let the hammer slide from under his thumb as the gun came level. The sudden pop vanished in the wind and then Horgan’s bullet chipped wood by Reilly’s shoulder. Horgan’s knees bent slowly, like melting wax. His gun went off again as he sprawled in the gutter.
A gun went off from a distance, but Reilly was moving and the rifle bullet tore through a window, bringing it down in a tinny sounding shower. On one knee, Reilly raised his gun and braced his arm against the tie rail. He fired as Burk Seever frantically worked the lever for another shot.
The shot took the big man high somewhere. He spun half around, but braced himself on his legs and tried to raise his rifle. Reilly cocked the Remington and waited, held by a force he couldn’t resist. He saw Seever’s gun come to the shoulder and still he held off.
Burk fired again, but he was falling. The bullet spanged in the dust and Burk Seever lay across the rifle, his legs working, trying to get back on his feet. He made it to his hands and knees once, but fell flat again.
Reilly stood up slowly and put his gun away. Seever had quit moving.
The wind must have carried the sound of shooting to Walt Slaughter, for he left the herd and rode toward town at a fast clip. Reilly stood at the boardwalk’s edge, waiting for him. When Walt came off his horse, Reilly said, “There’s one more. Harry Peters.”
“Peters?” Walt couldn’t believe it.
From the other end of town a party of horsemen came on at a trot. When they breached the far end of the street, Reilly recognized Jim Buttelow and Al Murdock in the lead. Paul Childress brought up the rear, a small boy riding the saddle with him. Winehaven rode a horse between them and Al Murdock held the lead rope which was looped around Winehaven’s neck.
They saw Reilly and Walt and came on, pulling in at the hitch-rail to dismount. They made a tough looking bunch, all with a week’s growth of whiskers and gaunt from much riding. Reilly stared at the boy, who regarded him with round eyes.
Buttelow saw the two men lying in the dust. “This is the last of ’em,” he said, and the wind stirred their clothes and a gust whisked Horgan’s fallen hat down the street, bouncing it along the boardwalk.
“What happened?” Reilly asked.
“Winehaven’s up in smoke,” Buttelow said. “Swan Lovelock and his crew are rounding up what beef’s left. Everything’s cleaned out.”
“Not quite,” Reilly said, and he moved through them, going toward the New Congress hotel on the side street.
The men frowned at each other, puzzled, but they turned as one man, still leading Winehaven, and followed him. Walt reached out and took the boy away from Childress. “I’ll take care of him,” Walt said.
The boy put his arms around Walt’s neck, and over the tall man’s face there passed an expression that was almost relief.
CHAPTER 12
The shooting had brought a crowd to the street. Reilly walked past them, paying no attention at all. At the corner he stopped to watch a man who was standing on the narrow hotel porch.
Puffing his cigar with seeming contentment, the man turned his head slowly. He looked at Reilly Meyers, and at the hard-faced group behind him, and went on puffing.
Reilly came on, halting on the boardwalk three steps below Harry Peters. The little man took the cigar from his mouth and glanced at
the ash. “I heard shooting,” he said.
“Max and Burk had to have a last try,” Reilly said. “They didn’t make it, Harry.”
“I didn’t think they would,” Peters said, and put the cigar back in his mouth. He hunched his shoulders and swayed slightly as the wind hit him. “Winter’s here. Likely to bring snow to the flats in another week.”
Buttelow didn’t understand this. Neither did Childress. He said, “We’ve got a man here for you,” and shoved Winehaven forward a pace.
Harry Peters glanced at Winehaven and his face was inscrutable.
Reilly said, “He don’t want him, Paul.”
“What?” Childress said. “Hell, he’s the—”
“Later,” Reilly said, not taking his gaze off Peters.
The dapper little man took a couple of long pulls on his cigar, then spun it into the street. The wind caught it and rolled it along, sparks flying in a brief shower. He looked at Reilly. “You think you have something?”
“I’ve got enough,” Reilly said. “She’s all over, Harry. Let’s not have any trouble now.”
“What the hell—” Childress began, but Buttelow silenced him with a brief pressure of his hands.
“Your friends don’t seem to agree with you,” Peters said, and a smile appeared beneath his mustache.
“They don’t know about it yet,” Reilly said. “I remember what I saw that day at Winehaven’s, Harry. You sold your sorrel to Horgan afterward, hoping that I would connect the fact that he was there with the horse being there. Were you inside hiding, Harry?”
“That’s pretty thin,” Peters said. “You’ll have to do better, Reilly. Remember, it’s evidence that convicts a man, not loose guessing.”
“That’s your song and I guess you can’t sing any other,” Reilly said. “All right, Harry. I’ve got the evidence.” He grabbed Winehaven and pulled him forward. “He’s going to talk, Harry.”
“I see,” Peters said. He pursed his lips. “What do you want me to do, Reilly?”
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