Damson got in one more swing, a hard chop to the side of Clay’s head that sent him spinning off balance. And then Clay knew it was over. His crashing fall and Clay’s coldly calculated fists had broken Damson. His movements were slow; his eyes had begun to glaze.
Clay drove him across the hollow until he had Damson against the side of the freight wagon. Damson made a feeble effort to bring up his guard but Clay brushed it aside and chopped as methodically as a surgeon at Damson’s unprotected face.
Damson swung wildly, blinded by blood streaming from cuts above his eyes. Clay split his lips open and blood dribbled down over his chin and onto the hair matting his chest. Relentlessly, Clay continued swinging. He felt bone and cartilage give as his fists found Damson’s nose. He swung a final harsh blow against the side of Damson’s head and then stepped back, waiting for Damson to fall.
Damson pawed at the air but stayed upright, his back pressed to the side of the freight wagon. Clay stepped in and hit him in the Adam’s apple. Damson retched. Clay drove a fist under Damson’s breastbone.
Damson went down to his knees. He stayed that way, his head hanging, blood dripping from his battered face. After a long moment he lifted his head and wiped a little of the blood away from his eyes so he could see Clay.
“I’ll kill you for this. So help me.”
“Your privilege,” Clay said. “If you’re still young enough when you get out of jail.”
Damson cried out wildly and pushed himself forward in a diving charge that struck Clay around the legs. Clay went over backward with Damson clinging to him. He twisted free and rolled to where his gun had fallen. Damson scrambled to his feet and staggered to Clay’s dun. He flung himself on its back and kicked it savagely. The horse bolted along the rutted road.
Clay got the gun and surged to his feet. He fired once, aiming high. The dun skittered sideways. Damson, barely in the saddle, lost his grip and went down in the brush along the road. He picked himself up and ran over the rise and out of sight.
Clay reached the top of the rise in time to see Damson out of gun range now, stagger across the hill road and down toward his house. Clay heard the tired dun hammering its way toward town. Swearing, he started wearily after it.
XIII
DAMSON staggered into his house and found a rifle. He went out on the veranda and searched the moonlit yard for signs of Clay. He saw nothing and he stumbled across the yard and plunged his face into the horse trough.
He came up blowing, cursing at the sting of the water on his cuts. He pumped fresh water and let it stream over his head. His eyes cleared and he went back into the house. He put on a shirt and buckled on a gun and belt. Then he hurried to the barn and saddled his palomino. He kicked it savagely down to the valley road and toward town.
He swung to the west so that he would come up to the Cattlemen’s Bar by way of Ted Petrie’s livery stable and not have to pass the jail. He reached the saloon by the back alley and put the horse in the small stable there. He ran into the building through the rear door and climbed the stairs to the hallway.
He went down the hall to Vanner’s room and tried the door. It was locked. He rapped on it and heard only a hollow echo. Swearing, he retreated to Molly’s door. He flung it open. She was at her desk as she had been the last time he came in here. She looked up questioningly.
Surprise widened her eyes. “What happened to you!”
“Never mind. Get Vanner up here and be quick about it. And don’t give me none of your lip this time!” he shouted.
Molly made no move to get up and he cried, “I said, be quick!” He turned and hurried to his own room where he could get a drink.
He was a little calmer when Vanner came into the room. Vanner shut the door. “What is it this time? I told you — “He stopped and stared at Damson’s battered face. “What kicked you?”
“Belden!” Damson said. “Marnie tells me Belden’s dead. So I go on doing just what you said for me to do — shoveling ore, making myself handy for anyone who wants to find out where I am.”
He broke off and took another drink. “And who comes riding up our trail but Belden!” He glared at Vanner. “He found out about the mine. He knows what we been up to. He tried to take me to jail, by God!”
Vanner pursed his lips thoughtfully. “And you had a fight,” he murmured. Then he looked at Damson sharply. “What did you do with his body, leave it lying where the sheriff can find it?”
Damson cursed him viciously. “There ain’t no body,” he shouted. “He beat me, whipped me into the dirt. I was lucky to get away.”
Vanner paled. “You let Belden loose — to come into town and tell the law what he found out?”
“I stole his horse and then lost it,” Damson said. “I figure I got here first. Leastways I didn’t see a whisker of Belden on my way into town.” He took a deep breath. “What are you going to do now?”
Vanner clenched his fists and then slowly relaxed them. His lips moved but no sound came out. Finally he said, “I’ll have to hurry our plans.” His voice was bitter. “That fool Marnie told me Belden was dead, too.”
“Wait’ll I get my hands on him!” Damson began.
“He’s gone,” Vanner said shortly. “I fixed it with Molly so she’ll swear he and Pike have been locked in a room here ever since late afternoon. The story is they came in and got drunk and she put them away to sleep it off. That was to protect them if there was any question about Belden’s death. And to keep them from being accused of shooting Bert Coniff. That’s where Marnie’s gone now. He’s waiting to shoot Coniff.”
“Once Belden sees the sheriff, Ponders will know who did it, all right!” Damson cried.
“It’s too late now,” Vanner said. He looked at his pocket watch. “In just three minutes, two drifters are going to start a fight down by Petrie’s livery stable. That will draw the sheriff out of the jail. Then Marnie’ll shoot Coniff and come back here.” He shrugged and smiled thinly. “And what can the sheriff prove? Molly’ll stick to the story I gave her to tell.”
“To hell with Marnie!” Damson shouted. “Let him hang. It’s Belden I want taken care of.”
Vanner turned toward the door. “I’ll handle that right now,” he said. “I have a dozen men downstairs mixing with the town men, buying them drinks, letting them win poker hands. The locals are all pretty drunk now. It won’t take much to fire them up when they hear Coniff’s been shot.”
He nodded. “We’ll have to do more than we planned,” he murmured. “Just throwing suspicion on Judge Lyles and threatening to lynch Roddy won’t be enough — not with Belden still alive.”
“Stop talking and do something!” Damson yelled.
“I am doing something,” Vanner said. “I’m thinking.” He nodded again. “My plan was to take over the town gradually as people gained confidence in us and lost confidence in Judge Lyles. But we haven’t time for that.” He struck his fist into his palm. “We’ll take over tonight!”
Damson stared at him. “Take over what?”
“The town,” Vanner said contemptuously. “I’ll make a real lynch mob out of those fools downstairs. Drunk as they are, and with my men pushing them, they’ll do our work for us.”
He smiled his cold, thin smile at Damson. “By morning,” he said softly, “this town will need a new judge and a new sheriff.”
“What about Belden?” Damson demanded.
“Stop harping on Belden,” Vanner said. “What can he do to us? By tomorrow, there won’t be any sheriff for him to complain to. And if you don’t want to wait for tomorrow, go kill him yourself when he comes into town. Go do it now!”
“By God,” Damson said, “I will!”
He took another drink and strode to the door. He paused, frowning. Then he jerked the door open suddenly and looked into the hall.
“I thought I heard someone out there.”
“You’ve had too much whiskey as usual,” Vanner said. “The bartender has orders to let no one up here without permission.”
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“What about that woman of yours?” Damson demanded.
“Molly? What would she be listening at doors for?” Vanner asked.
“I don’t trust her,” Damson grunted.
“Because she doesn’t like you?” Vanner’s voice was thinly contemptuous. “Can you blame her, after the way you mauled her around? I understand Belden beat you worse when he caught you at it than he did tonight.”
Damson took an angry stride forward, his arm raised. He let it drop and walked back to the sideboard for another drink.
Vanner glanced at his watch again. “Don’t get impatient,” he said. He went to a window and pulled the curtain aside carefully. From the window he had an angle view to the street running in front of the jailhouse. He glanced from his watch to the building and back.
“Just about now,” he said softly.
Damson joined him as the sound of gunshots rose over the babble of voices and music coming from the saloon below. “What’s that?”
“That’s the fight the sheriff is going to attend to in a minute,” Vanner said with satisfaction. “Look there!”
A man appeared from the direction of the lower part of town. He ran across the street and into the jailhouse. He reappeared with Roy Ponders. They moved quickly across the street and out of sight.
“By god,” Damson said. “I — ”
“Be quiet and listen!” Vanner commanded.
A gun barked sharply from somewhere behind the jail. A horse neighed shrilly and its hoofbeats hammered the night air as it ran south at full gallop.
“There!” Vanner said with satisfaction. “Give Marnie a few minutes to get back here. Then you can go hunt for Belden.”
“Back here?” Damson echoed. “It sounded to me like he was heading the other way.”
Vanner chuckled. “That was Tom Roddy’s old white horse you heard. One of my men stole it earlier. Marnie turned it loose after he took care of Bert Coniff. If there are any doubts, we’ll be able to find plenty of witnesses who can say they saw Roddy’s horse running down the back alley for its home stall. Roddy can claim he wasn’t in the saddle, but by the time he thinks of a way to prove that, it will be too late.” He nodded at Damson. “Far too late for him.”
A short, sharp sound as of someone sliding up a window made Damson turn. “Marnie,” Vanner said. “Now I have work to do.” He started for the door.
“By God, you better do it good for a change,” Damson said warningly. “Or it’s the last chance we get.”
“You take care of Belden and let me worry about the rest of it,” Vanner said as he walked out.
XIV
CLAY found the dun grazing by the side of the road a good two-thirds of the way to town. He climbed wearily into the saddle and urged the horse forward. He had lost too much time. Damson would have got to town and warned Vanner some time ago.
Weary as Clay was, he rode alertly, his rifle across his knees, peering ahead at every shadow along this last mile to town. He more than half-expected an ambush from Damson or his men, and he was surprised when he reached the turn-off to the judge’s house without having seen anyone.
He rode downslope into the judge’s rear yard. His first impulse had been to go on to the jail and report to Roy Ponders, but when he saw light spilling from the big house, he decided to stop there first. This time he wanted no misunderstandings. He would tell the judge first what happened before taking his story to the sheriff.
He reined the dun in near the back veranda and climbed the steps to the kitchen door. His knock brought quick footsteps. Tonia flung open the door.
She stared at him, her eyes widening with concern. “Clay, what happened? You look …” She broke off and tugged him inside. “But thank heaven you’re here. There’s something strange going on in town.”
Clay followed her into the parlor. The judge was sitting in a wheel chair by the fireplace. His face was white and drawn from his illness, but, when he looked up, Clay saw that his eyes had the same vital force as always.
“You look like you’ve been fighting wildcats,” he observed dryly.
“Bick Damson,” Clay said briefly.
He found a chair and sat down. Dropping his hat to the floor, he began to shape a cigarette. “I found out tonight why Damson and Vanner drove people off my land,” he said.
“You’re convinced that Damson and Vanner were behind Bert Coniff?” the judge asked in a strange voice.
Clay lifted his eyes from the cigarette paper and met the judge’s gaze squarely. “If you mean, did I believe those stories going around that you wanted me out of the way — the answer is no.”
He looked toward Tonia. “I thought before it was Damson, And now I’m sure of it.”
Tonia flushed as she realized the words were meant for her. She said in a low voice, “How did you find out — beat the truth out of Damson?”
“Tonia!” her father said sharply. He shook his head at Clay. “One minute she’s mad at you for challenging Damson; the next she talks about how you can whip him.” He waved a hand, brushing the matter aside, and studied Clay with troubled eyes.
“Just what did you find out?”
Clay told them briefly about the stampede and how he had found the trail from Damson’s mine to his own land. He said, “I tried to bring Damson in to jail, but he got away on my horse and had a good start before he lost it. He must have been a good half-hour ahead of me getting to town. Vanner’s been warned.”
The judge glanced up at Tonia. “I wonder if those shots we heard awhile ago have any connection with this?”
“What shots?” Clay demanded.
“A while ago — maybe twenty minutes or so — we heard some shots,” the judge explained. I sent Tom to investigate. What worries me is he hasn’t come back, but his old white horse came running into the yard still saddled and bridled. Tonia and I were just wondering what we’d better do about it when you came.”
“Horse might have thrown him,” Clay said. He got to his feet.
Tonia said, “But Tom didn’t take his horse. He walked. He rubbed the horse down this afternoon and put it in the stable. That’s what we can’t understand — how it got out with his saddle on it.”
The judge worried the edge of the robe covering his legs. “If Doc Fraley didn’t have me rooted in this contraption, I’d go see for myself. I — ” He stopped abruptly as the rear door was flung open and someone ran toward the parlor.
It was Tom Roddy. He came in, red-faced and panting. He held his ancient long-barreled rifle in his hand. He ran to a desk and rummaged through a drawer.
“Tom, where have you been? What’s happened?” Tonia demanded.
He got a box of cartridges from the drawer and pushed them into his pocket. “All hell’s busted loose in town,” he gasped. “Someone shot Bert Coniff right in his cell and they’re saying it was me did it.”
He seemed to see Clay for the first time. “Me and you,” he corrected. “Ted Petrie and a bunch of those other fools that hang around the Cattlemen’s is drunk and ornery. And all those strangers that drifted in here the last few days is egging ‘em on to get the sheriff to arrest us.”
“Where is the sheriff?” Clay demanded. “Where was he when Coniff was shot?”
“Some drifters started a fight down by Petrie’s livery stable,” Roddy answered. “Roy went down to stop it, and while he was gone someone rode up to the cell window and shot Bert dead. I seen it,” he added.
“Who was it?” the judge demanded.
Roddy shook his head. “I was at the end of the alley, too far away to recognize anybody. But he came riding up on a horse that looked just like my old white. He takes one shot through the window and then jumps to the ground. He slapped the horse off in one direction and started running away in the other.”
“It was your horse, Tom,” Tonia said worriedly. “It came home a little while ago, saddled and bridled.”
“Vanner!” Clay exclaimed. “That’s just the kind of scheme he’d think up. He had
Tom’s horse stolen so people would see it right after the shooting and think Tom was the one who killed Bert.”
Roddy hoisted his old rifle. “It don’t much matter who thought up the idea,” he said. “It’s got out of hand now. I tried to follow the killer. I ain’t so spry any more and he outran me. But he was heading for the Cattlemen’s and I snuck up to the back door. What I heard sounded more like a meeting than respectable drinking. That’s when I found out those strangers are stirring up the town to get you and me arrested.”
“Where do you think you’re going with that rifle?” the judge asked.
“I figure to give Roy Ponders a hand,” Roddy said. “I saw him after I left the Cattlemen’s. He’s pretty wound up and he ain’t about to let no mob tell him who to arrest.”
Clay said flatly, “You stay here, Tom.” He jerked his head in the direction of the judge sitting helplessly in his wheel chair. He started for the back door.
“Where are you going?” Tonia cried.
“I’m going to get the man who shot Bert Coniff and take him to the sheriff,” Clay said. “I’ve seen drunken mobs in action before. There’s a chance of stopping them if we can show them the real killer.”
He strode on out and jumped into the saddle. He rode to the alley that paralleled the main street, running behind the judge’s property and the jail. He pushed the dun along until he was within a block of the center of town. Then he rode in a wide loop that brought him to the back of the Cattlemen’s along much the same route Bick Damson had taken earlier.
Clay left the dun in the alley and went in through the back door. He moved quietly down the small hallway, past the stairs and the storeroom, to the door that opened into the saloon.
He could hear no sounds at all — no voices, no music, no stomping of dancers. Frowning, he pulled the door open a crack and peered into the big room. It was deserted. No bartender stood behind the empty bar. No dealers shuffled cards at the tables. The four girls who were hired to dance with the men on Saturday nights weren’t waiting in chairs against the wall. The room was empty.
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