by Janet Dailey
“Throw down the rifle, Kreuger!” Webb had the gun leveled on him, his finger resting against the trigger.
Not even a split second passed between the sound of his voice and the whirling move of the drylander. He didn’t take time to bring the rifle to his shoulder, snapping off the shot as he came around. The bullet tugged at the sleeve of Webb’s shirt. In pure reflex, he squeezed the trigger and felt the revolver buck in his hand.
The impact of the shot hit Kreuger full in the chest. He staggered a step, but came on. This time he raised the rifle and took aim. Webb fired again, stepping to his left as the rifle barrel jumped with a stab of flame. He heard the whoosh of the bullet go by him. Kreuger’s left arm was hanging limp at his side, a crimson stain spreading down his sleeve. Still he tried to balance and aim the rifle with his good arm. Webb gritted his teeth and fired again, realizing the man wasn’t going to stop until he was dead.
The rifle was torn from his hand as Kreuger was spun around and knocked to the ground. Webb started forward, keeping the gun on the man as he would on an animal of prey that was downed but not dead. With almost superhuman effort, Kreuger was trying to drag himself to the rifle. Webb reached it first and picked it up. Kreuger twisted his head to look up at him. The hatred in his eyes hadn’t dimmed.
“Dammit, Kreuger. Why?” Webb growled, hearing the gurgle of blood in the man’s lungs.
“You burned my place.” Blood was coming from his mouth, running red over his lip. “You sent your men to burn my place. Pettit warned me you might try, so . . .” His voice grew fainter, becoming unintelligible as the light in his eyes dimmed.
“Pettit?” A dark frown rimmed his hard features. Crouching on his heels, Webb grabbed the shoulder of Kreuger’s shirt. “What the hell do you mean—Pettit warned you?” But he was looking into sightless eyes.
Kreuger was dead and the cracked and thirsty ground was already drinking in the wetness of his blood. Webb let go of the shirt, the lifeless body slumping. His stomach felt queasy till he thought of Lilli. Then he was hurrying down the hill, spurred by his fear for her.
She was lying on the seat as he had left her, no sign of having stirred. Her pulse was weaker, her breath barely stirring against his hand. He had to clench his teeth together to hold back the sobs.
“Lilli. For God’s sake, don’t die. I need you.” His voice was a hoarse plea that vibrated above a whisper.
Reluctantly he moved away from her to inspect the damage to the auto. The right front fender was wedged against the embankment, making it impossible to change the flat tire. He tried to start the motor to reverse it onto open ground, but it wouldn’t turn over. As Webb started to raise the hood to locate the problem, hooves drummed the ground, signaling the approach of riders. He walked quickly to open the car door and gathered Lilli into the cradle of his arms.
When Ike Willis and Nate Moore rode into view, he was standing in the middle of the road, waiting for them. They reined their horses into a plunging halt.
“We heard shooting. What happened?” Nate asked, swinging out of the saddle, a worried eye darting to the limp woman in Webb’s arms.
“Kreuger. His body’s up there.” Webb jerked his head in the direction of the hill. “I’m going to take your horse, Nate. Ike, you ride for the doctor. It’s her head. She hit it—” He choked up, unable to finish the sentence. Nate held the reins to his horse while Webb climbed into the saddle with Lilli in his arms.
Nate was left standing in the road as the two riders took off in opposite directions. He was good at reading signs, so it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened.
Simon had been standing helplessly beside the bed, watching life slip from Lilli’s body with each passing minute. There was nothing he could do except to monitor her vital signs of pulse and respiration. Webb was huddled on a chair pulled close to the bed, his big hands gripping her hand in a silent effort to will his strength into her body. There was a haunting bleakness in his dark eyes and a ghastly pallor about his sun-browned features.
Leaning over her, Simon searched again for a pulse with his stethoscope and found none. She had left them so quickly he couldn’t even say when the exact moment had come. There were tears in his eyes when he looked at Webb.
“I’ve lost her,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Simon braced himself for the disbelief, the denial, he expected from Webb, but it didn’t come. The dark head was bent. The pair of hands were wrapped so tightly around hers that the knuckles showed white. The silence was harder for Simon to endure than an outpouring of grief and protest.
When Webb spoke, his voice was unnaturally low and gruff. “Let me be alone with her.”
As Simon left the room, his chin was quivering and his eyes were so blurred with tears he could barely see the door. He closed it and leaned against it, breathing in shakily. From inside the room, there came the scrape of a chair leg moving.
Webb sat on the edge of the bed, tears streaming down his face. He gathered Lilli into his arms and buried his face in her dark copper hair. Great, racking sobs tore through his body. He held her like that until there was no more warmth in her body.
29
No expression showed on his face, all the grief locked behind his stony features, as Webb stood beside the open grave, his feet slightly apart and his nearly one-year-old son in his arms. The minister droned out his prayer for the living to the mourners. With the exception of Simon Bardolph, they were all Triple C riders and their families.
A swirling wind kicked up dirt from the freshly dug earth mounded beside the grave and swept it over the mourners. Little Chase rubbed a fist at his nose, making a face of dislike at the stinging dust that pelted him, but Webb was mindless of it.
With the close of the prayer, Webb stepped forward and shifted his son to the crook of one arm. A shovel was planted upright in the earth mound. He gripped its handle and scooped up the loose dirt with a push of his foot, tossing it into the grave. The larger chunks made a hollow noise as they landed on the wooden coffin below. Webb dipped the shovel into the dirt a second time and shifted his hold on the handle to raise it, offering it to his son. The small hand eagerly closed on the dirt to grab up a fistful. Then Chase gave his father a bright-eyed look, thinking they were playing some game.
“Throw it down, son.” It was a flat request, accompanied by a nod of his head toward the grave.
With a wild fling of his arm, Chase released the dirt in the general direction of the grave and clapped his hands together. He reached for more dirt, wanting to do it again, but Webb emptied it into the grave. He then turned and passed the shovel to Nate Moore, standing with his parents. He stepped back, a lonely figure in his black broadcloth suit, too impassive and too silent. And the youngster in his arms only made the picture more poignant.
A darkness was filling the sky to the west when the last mourner added his shovelful of dirt to the grave. Anxious glances were cast in its direction. No one mistook the looming cloud for a billowing thunder-head. They had seen similar formations too many times not to know it was a wind-driven wall of dust, commonly referred to as a black-roller.
Before the group of mourners splintered to go to their individual homes, Webb approached Ruth Haskell and her husband. Chase immediately reached out his arms to the woman who was his second mother, and Webb handed him to her.
“Take care of him for me, Ruth,” he said and walked away.
Like the others, Nate had observed Webb’s action and was vaguely puzzled by it. His interest sharpened when he realized Webb was heading for the barns instead of The Homestead. He followed him out of concern and curiosity. Nate finally caught up with him inside the barn, where he found Webb saddling a dingy-colored buckskin.
“Where’re you goin’?” Nate wandered over and combed the horse’s mane with his fingers, eyeing Webb in a side look.
“Town.” He snugged up the cinch and wrapped it around and through the ring.
“What for?”
“I g
ot some questions to ask Pettit.”
“Can’t it wait?” It was already growing dark outside. ‘There’s a dust storm fixin’ to blow in.”
“Nope, it can’t wait.” Webb took up the reins and stepped a booted toe into the stirrup.
“Then I’ll come along with you,” Nate volunteered. wanting to find out why it was so all-fired important for Webb to talk to Doyle Pettit.
“Thanks, but I don’t need company.” He walked the horse past Nate and out the opened barn door into the ranchyard.
The black and billowing dustcloud was casting a long, dark shadow across the land, shutting out the sun’s rays and turning the day into a false dusk. He rode most of the way to Blue Moon ahead of the storm, but it caught up with him five miles from town. The storm enclosed the horse and rider in a blowing shroud of dust. Its accompanying wind whipped the horse’s scrubby tail between its legs as the buckskin lowered its head, pinching its nostrils together to shut out the clogging dirt particles, and plodded blindly down the road. Webb turned his collar up and tied a kerchief around his nose and mouth, hunching his shoulders against the sandblasting wind.
The buildings were all shuttered and boarded when Webb rode into town. Some of them were permanently closed and some were just battened down against the storm. The street was littered with blowing papers, rolling cans and bottles, and tumbleweeds. Shingles were torn off roofs to become flying missiles.
There was a Closed sign on the bank. Webb turned his horse down the alley that ran alongside it, the near building breaking the fury of the wind. A light showed in a rear window of the bank. Webb dismounted by the back door and took a gun and holster out of his saddlebag, strapping it around his hip. The buckskin sidled closer to the building, taking advantage of its shelter from the storm.
When Webb tried the back door to the bank, the knob turned freely under his hand. He pushed it open and stepped inside, pulling down his kerchief and breathing in dusty-smelling air.
The source of light in the darkened building came from Doyle Perth’s private office. The door was ajar and Webb walked to it, nudging it open. The howling wind thrashing around outside had covered any sound Webb had made. Yet when Doyle Pettit looked up from his chair behind the desk, he didn’t look surprised to see him.
A whiskey bottle was sitting in front of him, more than half empty, and a glass was in his hand. The stubble of a beard growth was on his cheeks, and his shirt looked as if it had been slept in. He stared at Webb through liquor-reddened eyes. His mouth flashed briefly with a smile that belonged to the Doyle Pettit Webb had known all his life, and intensified the contrast between that man and the broken, desperate person now sitting behind the desk.
“Hello, Webb.” Even his voice was peculiarly flat, as if Doyle had stopped caring about living. “I knew you’d show up sooner or later. I’m glad I don’t have to wait anymore.”
“You know my wife is dead,” He stepped into the room, but didn’t take a chair, even though there was one empty in front of the desk.
“Yes, I know.” Doyle couldn’t hold his level stare and looked down, reaching for the whiskey bottle to refill his glass. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I am truly sorry about that.”
“Before Kreuger died, he said you had warned him that I might burn his place,” Within the statement, there was a demand for an explanation.
“It wasn’t exactly that way.” Doyle lifted the bottle in Webb’s direction, silently offering him a drink, but Webb shook his head in mute refusal. Doyle’s hand was trembling as he raised the glass to his mouth and took a quick drink. “He believed you would do something like that, and I encouraged him to keep thinking it.”
“So you burned it, knowing he would blame me,” Webb guessed.
“I paid a couple of drifters to do it, but I ordered them to stay until the fire was out to make sure it didn’t start a range fire,” Doyle said, as if that precaution in some way made up for the other.
“You knew Kreuger would come after me. You knew he’d try to kill me. That’s what you wanted him to do. Why, Doyle? Why?” Webb demanded coldly.
The chair creaked noisily under his weight as Pettit leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “I’m finished. I’ve lost everything.” He dragged his gaze down to look dully at Webb. “The bank, the lumberyard, all my land—even Dad’s ranch. I’ve lost it all. I could see it coming and I was desperate to stop it. I always wanted to be big, Webb.” His eyes came alive with the zeal of ambition. “I wanted to have it all—money, land, power, and everything that goes with it. I was almost there, Webb, but I needed to lay my hands on a lot of cash or some assets I could borrow against.”
“You were after the Triple C.” The wind was rattling the glass panes in the window, its incessant howl always in the background, but Webb’s attention never strayed from the man behind the desk.
“You’ve got to believe me, Webb, if there’d been any other choice I would have made it. I wouldn’t have taken the ranch.” He tried to explain. “With you out of the way”—Doyle avoided the word “dead”—“it would have been a simple matter to have myself appointed as administrator of your son’s estate. I would have kept it for your son. If I could have just gotten a loan on the Triple C, it would have carried me through this. I’d have paid it back.”
“So you sicced Kreuger on me to get me out of the picture.” The line of his jaw was inflexible. He had no sympathy for Doyle, not when Lilli was lying in her grave because of him.
“You don’t know the hell I went through that day after the trial.” His head sagged and bobbed to the side as Doyle lifted the whiskey glass again. “I kept wondering whether you were alive—and wondering whether I could live with myself if you were dead. It’s almost a relief to see you standing there. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”
Rage spilled through Webb as he knocked the glass from Doyle’s hand with an angry sweep of his arm. “I could kill you for what you’ve done.” The bitter words sifted through his teeth in a low growl.
Doyle absently wiped at the whiskey splattered on his shirt. A sad smile was on his face when he looked up at Webb, towering over the desk. “It would be an act of mercy if you did. I’m ruined. These last couple of days, I’ve thought a lot about suicide, but I haven’t got the guts. I guess that’s why I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to come.”
When he’d strapped on the gun, it had been with killing in mind. Now Webb stepped back from the desk and smoothly pulled the gun from its holster. Doyle was sitting back in the chair, his wrinkled white shirt making an easy target. Webb flipped the gun, gripping it by the barrel, and laid it on the desk blotter.
“You’ve always persuaded someone else to do your dirty work. If it wasn’t Kreuger, it was those drifters you hired to burn his place.” His low voice was riddled with contempt. “If you want to die, you’re going to have to pull the trigger. I’m not going to make that easy for you, too.”
He swung away from the desk, his shoulders and back rigid as he walked to the door. “Webb, no!” He heard the sob in Doyle’s voice, and kept going. “Don’t leave me! Come back!”
He was in the hallway, reaching for the knob to the back doorway. He hesitated only a second, then yanked the door open and plunged into the false darkness of the duststorm. It swirled about him, obscuring the buckskin pressed against the building, its head hanging low. Webb picked up its trailing reins and began leading it out of the alley. The howling wind was punctuated by a popping sound. It could have been anything—the snap of a shingle tearing loose from a roof, or the crack of a bottle breaking against a foundation.
Crossing the street, Webb led the horse down the alley and ended up behind Sonny’s place by the house where Simon had his practice. He put the buckskin in the shed in back of the cabin and let himself into the cabin. Simon hadn’t returned, probably holing up somewhere until the storm blew over. Webb poured himself a drink and stretched out in a chair, letting grief take over his expression and empty his features
. At some point he fell asleep.
It was the silence that wakened him. The blasting storm had rolled on. As he stood up, he arched stiff and cramped muscles. His first thought was to get back to the ranch so Lilli wouldn’t worry about him; then he remembered she wouldn’t be at The Homestead. A heaviness dragged at him as he went out to the shed and saddled the buckskin.
When he led it outside, he saw the sheriff coming and paused. “Pettit’s dead,” the sheriff announced, his glance running over Webb’s face to judge his reaction. Nothing showed. A gun was tucked in the waistband of his pants. The sheriff took it out and showed it to Webb. “Is this yours?”
“Yes.” Webb took it and slipped it into his empty holster. Turning, he stepped into the saddle and adjusted the reins.
“Pettit left a note. Don’t you want to know what was in it?” the sheriff asked. “There was a message for you. He wanted you to forgive him.”
Webb made no comment as he nudged his horse forward. Maybe Lilli could forgive him, but Webb couldn’t. There were tears at the back of his eyes for the woman he’d lost. It was a grief he’d have in him for a long, lonely time. He pointed the buckskin toward the ranch and gave the horse its head.
EPILOGUE
From the front porch of The Homestead, Webb watched the early-morning sunlight glisten on the river’s surface as it curled through the sprawling valley and around the ranch buildings. The cotton-woods were budding green and the vast grassland beyond was showing its spring colors. Overhead, the sky was a sharp blue, finally washed free of dust a few years ago when the rains came to signal the end of the killing drought.
He pulled his gaze from the upthrust of range to glance at Nate Moore. His stance was loosely hiplocked while he rolled a miserly cigarette, taking care not to lose a scrap of tobacco. There was something comforting about watching this cowboy building a smoke: a carrying-on of the old ways to keep a tradition going.
Three saddled horses were tied near the bottom of the porch steps, patiently waiting for their riders. The roundup crew and its accompanying remuda and chuck-wagon had left an hour earlier when the sun broke over the eastern horizon.