He reached for the latch with his left hand, and as the door opened, Flagg said, “I put my mark on you, anyway!”
McQueen laughed. “And you're wearing some of mine. Regardless of how things work out, Flagg, it was a good fight and you're a tough man to whip!”
He opened the door and Kim Sartain stepped out and quickly away. He followed.
Yet they had taken no more than three steps when the door burst open and the fat-faced man lunged out, holding a shotgun in both hands. He threw the shotgun to his shoulder. As one man, Ward and Kim drew and fired. The fat-faced man's shotgun sagged in his hands and he backed up slowly and sat down.
Men rushed from the bunkhouse and Kim shot a man with a buffalo gun. Ward shot through the open door at the hanging lantern. It fell, spewing oil and flame. In an instant the room was afire.
Men and women rushed from the other buildings and the two backed to their horses, where Bud awaited them on the rim of the firelight.
Several men grabbed a heavy wagon by the tongue and wheeled it away from the fire. Others got behind to shove. Of Flagg, McQueen saw nothing.
As the three rode away, they glanced back at the mounting flames. The saloon was on fire, as well as the bunkhouse.
“Think this will move them out?” Kim asked.
“I've no idea. I'm no hand for ths sort of thing. Not burning folks out. They'd no right there, and that's deeded land, as I told him. They may have believed it to be government land. If they'd acted half decent I'd have paid them no mind.”
“There's no good in that crowd,” Kim said.
“Maybe not, but Flagg fought a good fight. He had me worried there, for a spell.”
“He didn't get into this fight.”
“No, and I think he'd have acted all right. I think he has judgment, which I can't say for that fat-faced gent. He just went hog-wild.”
Baldy Jackson was pacing the yard and muttering when they rode in. “Durn it all! You fellers ride away with your shootin' irons on. Then we hear nothin' of you! Where've you been?”
“What do you mean ‘we'?” Kim said. “Since when have you become more than one?”
“He was including me, I think.” Sharon Clarity got up from the chair where she had been sitting, but I've only been here a few minutes. I came to warn you.”
“To warn us?”
“To warn you, Mr. McQueen. Sheriff Foster is coming for you. He will arrest you for killing Neal Webb.”
“For what?” Ward swung down from his horse and trailed the reins. “What happened to Webb?”
“He was found dead on the trail not fifteen minutes after you left town. He had been shot in the back.”
Neal Webb killed! Ward McQueen sat down in one of the porch chairs. By whom, and for what?
Ward McQueen knew what western men thought of a back shooter. That was a hanging offense before any jury one could get, but more often a lynch mob would handle such cases before the law got around to it.
Kim Sartain had been with him, but he would be considered a prejudiced witness.
“Pour me some coffee, Baldy,” he suggested. He glanced over at Sharon Clarity. “And thanks.” He hesitated. “I hope your riding to warn me won't make enemies for you.”
“Nobody knew,” she replied cheerfully. “Anyway, I think you and the Tumbling K are good for this country. Things were getting kind of one-sided around here.”
“Neal Webb killed?” Ward mused. “I wonder what that means? I'd sort of thought he was behind all the trouble, but this makes me wonder.”
“It does, doesn't it?” Sharon said. “Almost as if he was killed purely to implicate you.”
He glanced at her. “That's a shrewd observation. Any idea who would want to do a thing like that? After all, my trouble was with Webb.”
She did not reply. She got to her feet. “My father used to box,” she said. “Back in the old country he was considered quite good. They had a rule in boxing. I've heard him quote it. It was ‘protect yourself at all times.'
“I am going back to town, but I think you should be very, very careful. And you'd better go. Foster will have about thirty riders in that posse. You'd better start moving.”
“I've done nothing. I shall wait for them to come.”
She went to her horse. “When you get thirty men together,” Sharon said, “you get all kinds. You have to consider their motives, Mr. McQueen.”
“Kim, ride along with Miss Clarity, will you? See that she gets safely home.”
“Yes, sir!” Kim had been tired. Suddenly he was no longer so. “But what about that posse?”
“There'll be no trouble. Take good care of Miss Clarity. She is a very bright young woman.”
In Pelona, Oliver went to the Bat Cave and seated himself at the card table. The saloon was empty save for himself and the bartender, a man with whom he was not particularly friendly, but the cards were there and he gathered them up and began to shuffle. He always thought better with cards in his hands. He carefully laid out a game of solitaire, but his mind was not on the cards.
He was both puzzled and worried. For some years now he had considered himself both an astute and a wise young man. He made his living with his adept fingers and his skill at outguessing men with cards. He knew all the methods of cheating and was a skilled card mechanic, but he rarely used such methods. He had a great memory for cards and the odds against filling any hand. He won consistently without resorting to questionable methods. He rarely won big. The show-off sort of thing that attracted attention he did not want. He played every day, and when he lost it was only small amounts. The sums he won were slightly larger. Sometimes he merely broke even, but over the months he was a clear and distinct winner. At a time when a cowhand was pulling down thirty to forty dollars a month, and a clerk in a store might work for as little as half that, Ren Oliver could pull down two hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars without attracting undue attention. When a professional gambler starts winning big pots he becomes suspect.
Even Hutch did not realize how well he was doing, and Hutch was providing him with a small income for rendering various services not to be discussed. Over the past year Ren Oliver had built up a nice road stake, something to take with him when he left, for he was well aware that few things last, and many difficulties could be avoided by forming no lasting attachments and keeping a fast horse.
Now Ren Oliver was disturbed. Neal Webb had been killed. By whom was a question, but an even larger question was why.
It disturbed him that he did not know. The obvious answer was that he had been killed by Ward McQueen, but Oliver did not buy that, not for a minute. McQueen might kill Webb in a gun battle but he would not shoot him in the back.
Moreover, there had been no confrontation between them. The other answer was that Neal had outlived his usefulness and was killed to implicate McQueen.
But who had actually killed him?
It disturbed Oliver that he did not know. Obviously, Hutch was behind it, but who had done the killing? One by one he considered the various men available and could place none of them in the right position. This worried him for another reason. He had considered himself close to Hutch, yet he now realized that, like Webb when he ceased to be useful, he might be killed. He was merely a pawn in another man's game.
For a man of Oliver's disposition and inclinations it was not a pleasant thought. He did not mind others believing he was a pawn, but he wished to be in control so he could use those who believed they were using him. Now he had the uncomfortable sensation that too much was happening of which he was not aware and that any moment he might be sacrificed.
He had no illusions about himself. He was without scruples. It was his attitude that human life was cheap, and like most men engaged in crime he regarded people as sheep to be sheared. He was cold and callous and had always been so.
Outwardly he was friendly and ingratiating. He went out of his way to do favors for people even while holding them in contempt. You never knew when such people mig
ht appear on a jury. For the same reason he had allied himself with Hutch.
It was unsettling to realize there was someone more cunning than he himself. He knew Hutch was hunching over his community like a huge spider of insatiable appetite. Within that community he was considered to be something of a skinflint but nothing more. Men came and went from his store because, after all, it was the town's leading emporium, as its name implied. That all those people might not be buying was not considered. Oliver believed Hutch hired his killing done, but whom did he hire?
Bine, of course, but who else? When Oliver looked over his shoulder he wanted to know who he was looking for. The fact that there was an unsuspected actor in the play worried him.
He had the uncomfortable feeling that Neal Webb had been killed not only to implicate McQueen but to serve as a warning to him and perhaps to others. A warning that nobody was indispensable.
Oliver shuffled the cards again, ran up a couple of hands with swiftness and skill, then dealt them, taking several off the bottom with smoothness and ease, yet his mind was roving and alert.
Would Hutch manage it? He had never yet, so far as Oliver knew, encountered such a man as McQueen. Not that Oliver had any great opinion of McQueen. He was typically a cowman, honest, tough, and hardworking. That he was good with a gun was obvious, and that segundo or his, Kim Sartain, was probably almost as good.
Did McQueen have brains? How would he fare against Hutch, particularly when, as Oliver believed, McQueen did not know who his enemy was.
Hutch had planted the Webb killing squarely on McQueen. The timing had been good and there would be witnesses, Oliver was sure. Trust the old man for that.
He watched Sheriff Foster leave town with his posse and knew that several of the men in that posse were owned by Hutch. If the slightest excuse was offered they were to shoot to kill. He knew their instructions as if he had heard them himself.
The door opened and a squat, powerful man entered, his hair shaggy and untrimmed. His square, granitelike face was clean shaved. He had gimlet eyes that flickered with a steely glint. He wore two guns, one in a holster the other thrust into his waistband. This was Overlin, the Montana gunman.
“Where's Foster goin'?”
“After McQueen, for the Webb killing.”
“Webb? Is he dead?”
Oliver nodded. “Out on the trail.” Overlin could have done it. So could Hansen Bine, but so far as anyone knew Bine was with the wounded men at Dry Leggett. “There's a witness to swear he did it.”
“He might have,” Overlin commented, “only I don't believe it. I've heard of McQueen. Made quite a reputation along the cattle trails and in the mining camps. He's no bargain.”
“He's only one man. Maybe he'll be your dish one day.”
“Or yours,” Overlin agreed. “Only I'd like him, myself.”
Ren Oliver remembered McQueen and said, “You can have him.” He could not understand such men as Overlin. The man was good with a gun, but why would he go out of his way to match skills with a man he believed might be just as good? Overlin had to be the best. He had to know he was best.
Oliver believed he was faster with a gun than either Bine or Overlin but he was a sure-thing man. He had pride in his skill but preferred to take no chances. He would enjoy killing Ward McQueen if he could do so at no risk to himself.
A horse loped into the street, the rider waving at someone out of sight. It was Sharon Clarity. Now where had she been? at this hour of the night?
“See you around,” he said to Overlin, and went into the night.
He dug a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. Sharon Clarity's horse had been hard ridden.
Ward McQueen was working beside Baldy Jackson, building a pole corral when the sheriff and the posse rode into the ranch yard. McQueen continued to place a pole in position and lash it there with rawhide. Then he glanced around at the posse.
“Howdy, Foster. Looks like you're here on business.”
“I've come for you, McQueen. There's witnesses says you shot Neal Webb, shot him in the back.”
McQueen kept his hands in sight, moving carefully not to give any false impressions. His eyes caught the slight lift to the muzzle of a Winchester and he eyed the man behind it, staring at him until the man's eyes shifted and he swallowed.
“All you had to do was send for me, Sheriff. I'd have come right in. No need for all this crowd.” He paused. “And you know, Sheriff, I'd never shoot any man in the back. What would be the point? Webb was never supposed to be good with a gun, and if I wanted him killed that bad all I'd have to do would be to pick a fight with him in town. Webb's temper had a short fuse, and killin' him would have been no trick.”
“That may be so, but you've got to come in with me and answer charges. There will have to be a trial.”
“We'll see. Maybe I can prove I was elsewhere.”
“By one of your own men?” The man who spoke had a sallow face and buck teeth. “We'd not be likely to believe them!”
“By others, then? Kim Sartain was with me, however, and if you believe he's a liar why don't you tell him so?”
“We want no trouble, McQueen. Saddle a horse and come along.” Foster's eyes went to the cabin. Was there somebody inside the window?
“I'll come on one condition. That I keep my guns. If I can't keep 'em you'll have to take me and you'll have some empty saddles on your way back to town.”
Foster was angry. “Don't give me any trouble, McQueen! I said, saddle your horse!”
“Sheriff, I've no quarrel with you. You're just doing your duty and I want to cooperate, but you've some men riding with you who would like to make a target of my back. Let me keep my guns and I'll go quiet. In case you'd like to know there are two men behind you with Winchesters. They will be riding along behind us.”
Sheriff Foster studied McQueen. Inwardly, he was pleased. This McQueen was a hard case but a good man Shoot a man in the back? It was preposterous! Especially Neal Webb.
“All right,” he said, “saddle up.”
“My horse is ready, Foster. A little bird told me you were coming, and my horse has been ready.”
It was a black he was riding this day, a good mountain horse with bottom and speed. As he mounted and settled into the saddle he glanced at the man who had lifted his rifle.
“Just so everybody will understand. Two of my boys are going to follow us into town. Either one of them could empty a Winchester into the palm of your hand at three hundred yards.”
He sat solidly and well in the saddle, his black Frisco jeans tight over his thighs, his broad chest and shoulders filling the dark gray shirt. His gun belts were studded with silver, the walnut grips worn from use. “All right, Sheriff, let's go to town!”
He rode alongside of Foster, but his thoughts were riding ahead, trying to foresee what would happen in town, and asking himself the question again: why kill Neal Webb? Who wanted him dead?
He had believed Webb the ringleader, the cause of his troubles. Most ranchers wanted more range, most of them wanted water, so the attempt to seize the Firebox came as no surprise. In fact, he would have been surprised had it not been claimed. Good grass was precious, and whenever anybody moved or died there was always someone ready to move in. The difference here was that McCracken had been a shrewd man and he had purchased the land around the various water holes, as well as the trails into and out of the range he used. The claim on Firebox range by McCracken was well established.
Webb, he was beginning to suspect, had been a mere pawn in the game, and had been disposed of when his usefulness ceased to be. But Webb's dying had implicated Ward McQueen and apparently somebody had decided to have him killed, either in capturing him or in the ride to town. A posse member could shoot him, claiming McQueen had made a move to escape.
Behind this there had to be a shrewd and careful brain. If there were witnesses to something that had not happened, his supposed murder of Neal Webb, then somebody had provided them.
Who? Why?
The Firebox was valuable range. The only other large ranch was Webb's Running W, and who was Webb's heir? Or did he himself own that ranch?
The Bear Canyon crowd? It wasn't their sort of thing. They might dry-gulch him, steal his horses or cattle, or even burn him out, but the Webb killing was more involved. Anyway, Webb had left the Bear Canyon crowd alone.
Would Sharon Clarity know? She was a handsome, self-reliant girl, yet something about her disturbed him. Why had she ridden out to warn him the sheriff was coming? Had she believed he would run?
Liking for him? Dislike of somebody else? Women's thinking was not part of his expertise. He had trouble reading their brands. Did she know who plotted against him? Did she herself hope to seize the Firebox when the shooting was over?
Who now owned the Running W? This he must discover. If that unknown owner also owned the Firebox he would control all the range around Pelona and the town as well. It made a neat, compact package and a base from which one might move in any direction.
Ruth Kermitt owned the Firebox now, and Ruth had no heirs. Ward McQueen was suddenly glad his boss was not among those present.
Pelona's main street was crowded with rigs and saddle horses when they rode in. Word had spread swiftly, and the people of the range country—the few scattered small ranchers, farmers, and gardeners—had come in, eager for any kind of a show. All had known Neal Webb, at least by sight. Many had not liked him, but he was one of their own. This Ward McQueen was a stranger and, some said, a killer. The general attitude was that he was a bad man.
A few, as always, had misgivings. Their doubts increased when they saw him ride into town sitting his horse beside the sheriff. He was not in irons. He still wore his guns. Evidently Foster trusted him. Western people, accustomed to sizing up a man by his looks, decided he didn't look like somebody who needed to dry-gulch anybody. It was more likely Webb would try to dry-gulch him!
Collection 1986 - Dutchman's Flat (v5.0) Page 16