Range Of Golden Hoofs

by John Trace

  Ramon took some of Delaney’s alarm to himself. His eyes were bright and questioning as he looked at Delaney.

  “¡ Es verdad?” he queried.

  Delaney nodded. He was fluent in Spanish, more accustomed to that language than Ramon was to English. Still, adept as he was, Delaney could not easily find words for what he wanted to say.

  “Is he in town?” Ramon asked.

  Delaney shook his head. “He went out to El Puerto del Sol last night. Fitzpatrick took him.”

  Ramon, now that he thought about it, could not

  see anything very dangerous in Dan Shea’s return. He saw that Delaney was alarmed, and that fact naturally made him nervous; but not being informed of all the facts that Delaney had, Ramon was not so concerned as his friend. “Shea went out to the funeral?” Ramon asked.

  Delaney grunted. “There’s a man in town who came back with Shea,” he announced. “I’d like to find out what Shea’s going to do.”

  That was reasonable enough, from Ramon’s viewpoint. He looked at Arturo. Delaney had the same idea. He also looked at Arturo. “Maybe you could find out,” Delaney said.

  Arturo, already filled with his own importance, took on a greater stature in his own mind. He nodded importantly.

  “This man’s around town someplace,” Delaney said. “You hunt him up, Arturo. Find out what he knows, and then come back here.”

  Arturo picked up his hat. “I’ll do that,” he agreed.

  “And don’t get into trouble,” Delaney warned. “Just find out about Shea if you can.”

  Arturo swaggered out, closing the door importantly, and Delaney straightened in his chair and drummed on the desk top.

  “Why are you worried about Shea?” Ramon demanded suddenly. “Can he do anything?”

  “I don’t know what he can do,” Delaney returned. “He wasn’t supposed to get back here at all. I thought I had him stopped.”

  Ramon lounged back in his chair and began fashioning a cigarette. Dan Shea did not seem particularly important to Ramon. “Have you heard when the suit is to be tried?” he asked, moistening the flap.

  “This spring,” Delaney answered absently. “I wonder how Shea got back. I wonder if he found out anything.”

  Ramon lit the cigarette. At the moment Ramon was sure of himself and of everything else. Now that Martin O’Connor was dead Ramon felt certain that soon he would be a wealthy man in possession of most of El Puerto del Sol and of a great deal of money. He basked in his anticipated wealth. Delaney had assured Ramon that there was no chance of losing the suit, that all things would go just as he, George Delaney, prophesied. Ramon let smoke trickle from his nostrils and looked at Delaney with mild amusement.

  “Shea can do nothing,” he announced. “I have a just suit against El Puerto del Sol. I will win it. Then you will not need to worry about Shea, amigo mió.”

  George Delaney made his second mistake then. Harassed and worried, sudden anger welled up in him, anger with Ramon, so self-confident, smoking so nonchalantly. “A just suit!” Delaney snapped. “I made that suit for you. If Dan Shea found out…”

  Ramon dropped the cigarette and straightened in surprise. “Found out what?” he demanded. “What could he find out? About O’Connor, you mean?”

  Delaney nodded. “You don’t know Dan Shea,” he said morosely. “If he knew how O’Connor was killed he’d kill us both.”

  Ramon ground out the cigarette beneath his boot sole. He stared at Delaney. “Kill us?” he questioned.

  Delaney nodded. “Quick,” he agreed.

  A little glow of fright came into Ramon’s eyes. “Then…” he began.

  “That’s what I think,” Delaney interrupted. “I think we’d better do something about Dan Shea. I thought I had him taken care of, but something slipped.”

  “How?” Ramon was leaning forward in his chair.

  “I sent Tom Warms and Buster Flint up north to see that Shea didn’t get back,” Delaney rasped. “He got by them someplace.”

  For a long moment Ramon said nothing, and Delaney, rising from his chair, took a short turn across the room. “I’m not going to have Shea butt into this again,” he announced suddenly, facing Ramon. “Not when I’ve got this far with it. Not when I planned the whole thing.”

  Ramon shook his head obstinately. “He can do nothing,” Ramon announced positively. “My suit will be settled and I will win. I am not afraid.”

  Pent-up wrath possessed George Delaney. Ramon was so sure, so certain of his position, so impregnable. Delaney had a sudden impulse to shake that sublime self-certainty. “You’re not afraid!” he rasped. “You sit there talking about winning your suit and what you’re going to do! Let me tell you, you haven’t any suit. I fixed it up. It was I who saw the chance and took it!”

  “What do you mean?” Ramon half arose from his chair and sank back once more.

  Delaney had said too much, or not enough. He had to go on. Crossing to his desk again, he sat down. “I mean that there was already an adjudication on that land,” he snapped. “I mean that if it weren’t for me you’d be out with a little bunch of sheep, herding them. I saw the chance and took it; that’s what I mean!”

  Ramon shrank in his chair, seeming to grow smaller. Delaney, having begun, could not stop. Words poured from him as water from a fountain.

  “I was in Santa Fe going through some records and I found the file on El Puerto del Sol. I saw where there’d been a suit against the grant by some of your folks and how it had been settled by the Spanish. It looked like a chance. I got Maples to take that file from the records and I talked you into starting suit. Maples got wise and tried to blackmail me and I hired Tom Warms to kill him. Warms didn’t get the file. That damned Shea was there and took a hand, and Tom and the others just barely got away. Shea killed one of them. I don’t know what’s become of the papers. They’re around someplace. Suppose that file turned up? Then what would become of your suit?”

  Ramon de la Luz sat huddled in his chair, his eyes fixed on Delaney’s flushed, excited face.

  “Shea took a bunch of sheep north and sold them so that there’d be money to fight the case,” Delaney continued. “And now he’s back. He got by Warms and Buster. If he found out about what I’d done he’d kill me. You too!” Delaney glared at Ramon de la Luz. Again Delaney sprang out of his chair and paced across the office. Close by the door he whirled and confronted Ramon.

  “Don’t you breathe a word of this!” he snarled. “You’re in it too. If they get me they get you, you understand that? Everything I’ve done, you’ve done too. They wouldn’t believe you if you tried to tell them different!”

  Dumbly Ramon nodded. Delaney strode back to the desk and stopped. “By God,” he snarled, “I’ll get rid of Dan Shea! I’ll do it myself. I won’t trust any more bunglers!”

  The good wine warmed and strengthened Vicente Lebya, helping him to forget his weariness. Friends were about him and would remain so long as he had money and was willing to spend it. This was a far different Vicente from the lad who had been a colero with the shearing outfit. Vicente was broader and taller, and on his cheeks and chin curled the fine growth of new-grown beard. His clothing might be worn and ragged, but inside the rags stood a man. A fine fellow!

  As the morning grew older more friends joined the gathering. In winter, with no work to do, the Mexican population of Bendición was avid for entertainment. Vicente afforded it. He bought wine and he talked of his adventures, enlarging upon them. The tale of the fight with the White Mountain Apaches was repeated and repeated, improving with each telling. In his friend’s house Vicente leaned back against the wall, tipping his stool, and held up his right hand. The Señor Shea and Vicente were just so. Vicente held two fingers close together. They were one. About him those who listened and drank sighed their admiration.

  There was another tale to tell, Vicente hinted. Not one that he could speak of at the moment, but later, perhaps…. Vicente nodded significantly, his very silence forecasting great th
ings. A new group pushed through the door and joined the party. Vicente, flushed with wine and with his triumph, looked into the scarred, saturnine face of Arturo de la Luz.

  Not six months before Vicente had been afraid of Arturo. But many things had happened in six months. For many days Vicente had eaten all that he could hold. He had grown. His beard had sprouted. He had been Dan Shea’s shadow and, more than all these, Vicente had been matched against men and he had won. Arturo held no terror for him now. He grinned and waved his hand in invitation toward the wine on the table.

  Arturo and the two men with him helped themselves to the wine and sat down. Vicente, called upon again to tell the tale of the Apaches, launched into the story. By now it was a trifle old to most of his hearers. Vicente, sensing their indifference, sketched his story lightly. Having finished it and failing to see the desired impression, Vicente spoke further.

  “That was not all,” he continued. “El Señor Shea and I were attacked as we returned.”

  “Attacked?”

  Vicente nodded solemnly. He had promised Dan Shea, promised faithfully, that he would not speak of the attempt made upon them below Bernalillo. Dan wanted no complications with the sheriff’s office in Albuquerque, no delay on his journey to Bendición and, accordingly, had warned Vicente to silence. But Vicente was Indian, Apache all the way through. His tale of the Indian fight, through repetition, had fallen flat. There was a letdown in his heroism. It was more than the boy could do to refrain from braggadocio.

  “Two men,” he boasted. “El Señor Shea carried gold in his belt. These two men attacked us at night when we were coming from Bernalillo. Señor Shea was ahead and I followed. They called to us, and Señor Shea stopped. He was taken by surprise, but not I. I had my gun. I raised it so.” Vicente demonstrated. “Then…bang!…bang!” (Vicente failed to mention that the old Springfield was a single shot.) “…and one man went down. The other ran, but I had my knife. I caught him!” Vicente looked carefully about the circle to see that the desired impression was created. Satisfied, he made his final statement.

  “He did not run far,” Vicente concluded significantly.

  “With the knife, hah?” The owner of the house peered at his guest. “You caught him and used the knife?”

  Vicente shrugged. “What would you have done?” he answered. “It was his life or mine.”

  Arturo leaned forward. “This man, this ladrón, he talked to you before he died?” Arturo asked.

  It made a good tale. Vicente shrugged once more. “Like a dying sinner to a priest,” he agreed. “He begged for his life. He told me many things.”

  Arturo leaned back and sipped the wine. Vicente did not speak further concerning the confession of the man he had killed. There had been no confession, and Vicente was not inventor enough to build one from his imagination.

  “What does Señor Shea intend?” Arturo asked, mindful of his errand.

  Vicente waved his hand. In that gesture, more plainly than any words he could have spoken, he conveyed the impression that Dan Shea had consulted with him as a familiar, seeking advice. “What would you?” Vicente answered. “He will marry la Señorita O’Connor. Naturally he will take up Don Martin’s quarrel.”

  “He knows the men who killed Don Martin?” Arturo was leaning forward.

  Vicente stared at Arturo, shrugged and lifted his eyebrows. Wordlessly Vicente conveyed the impression that Dan Shea had the answer to that question and that he, Vicente, also had the answer. Arturo stirred nervously.

  “So…” The man who owned the house let the word go in one long breath. “More wine, amigo?”

  “Con mucho gusto,” Vicente agreed.

  There was a disturbance outside the house. A small boy, appearing at the door, made shrill announcement. “¡Los pastores! ¡Mira, papa! A quiestán los pastore’s del Señor Shea.”

  The men about Vicente flocked to the doorway, Vicente with them. It was true. Outside the house were Hilario Bargas and Nopomencenco and Cercencio and the rest. Vicente advanced to greet them.

  Both the men and their animals showed the wear and tear of their journey. The men were bearded, their clothing tattered and their bodies shrunken into the rawhide toughness that hard and protracted travel brings. The mules they rode were also gaunt and worn but, like the riders, toughened by the trail. Behind Nopomencenco’s saddle there was a pair of gunny sacks tied together and slung across the mule’s quarters. From one sack a dog’s head protruded. Bravo, the puppy that Vicente had found in the ruined placita, was returning to El Puerto del Sol, coming back with his rescuers. Weaned, but as yet too young to make all the journey on foot as had the other dogs, Bravo was riding. As Vicente advanced Bravo bared his sharp little milk teeth and snarled a warning.

  “Bravo!” Vicente exclaimed, and then he was beside the mule, reaching up and grinning.

  Hilario, Nopomencenco, Cercencio, all were dismounting, climbing down from their mounts. There was a babble of voices, and in that confusion, while men were greeting men and friend was shrilly calling to friend, Arturo de la Luz slipped away.

  Arturo went directly to Delaney’s office and pushed in. Delaney and Ramon had come to an end in the talking. Delaney had thought himself into a state of fright and desperation. Ramon was even more frightened and equally desperate. It had been borne home to Ramon de la Luz that he was an unwitting tool for Delaney but that, unwitting though he might have been, he was equally involved. And Delaney had not forgotten to impress on Ramon that it was Ramon who first shot Martin O’Connor. Somehow Delaney made that appear to be the major crime, and not the two deliberate shots that had followed and put an end to O’Connor’s life.

  “What did you learn?” Delaney demanded as Arturo slammed into the room.

  Arturo had closed the door and stood leaning against it. He was sweating, although the day was cold. “I listened to Vicente,” Arturo answered, the words tumbling out. “Shea knows who killed Don Martin.”

  Blank silence followed that statement. Then Delaney snapped: “Are you sure?”

  “Sure.” Arturo nodded with conviction. “I listened to everything Vicente had to say. By Bernalillo two men attacked Señor Shea. He killed them both. Vicente killed one with a knife. He said that the man he killed begged for his life.”

  Delaney sank back into his chair and stared blankly at Ramon. “Tom Warms and Buster Flint,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I told them…” Delaney stopped. Ramon still sat huddled in his chair.

  “What will we do, Ramon?” Delaney said. “We’ve got to do something!”

  Ramon made no answer. Delaney’s voice was shrill. “You’re in this too. Don’t forget that! Say something. We’ve got to do something!”

  In the big living room of El Puerto del Sol Father John finished his reading. The small echo of his voice hung in the silence for an instant and then was gone. Gotleib, stirring in his chair, reached out, and the priest placed the parchments in the little lawyer’s hand.

  “That settles it!” The lawyer’s voice held his triumph. “They haven’t a leg to stand on. If the case comes to trial I can present these and…” He broke off and looked at the others. They were not, Gotleib realized, interested in the legal victory that was in his hands. Dan Shea was grimly quiet; Louder contemplated his clenched hands; Perrier studied the toe of his boot, and Fitzpatrick was staring out the window again. It was borne to Bruno Gotleib that legalities were not in their minds. These men were considering other, grimmer things.

  “I wonder how Maples come to have ’em,” Fitzpatrick drawled, not turning from the window. “He was killed on account of them, you know.”

  “Yes,” Dan agreed quietly. “That’s the reason Delaney had him killed.”

  “Maples?” Gotleib inquired. “I knew…”

  “Maples ran a little abstract office in the capital,” Fitzpatrick informed. “Dan an’ I were there when he was murdered at San Felice.”

  Gotleib looked from the lanky saloon man to Dan and then back again. He rubbed his hand ag
ainst his bearded cheek. “Maples,” he murmured once more. “I heard something about that. I don’t remember…”

  Dan did not enlighten the lawyer. He was watching Fitzpatrick, and his voice came slowly as he spoke his thoughts. “Maples would have had access to the files in the land office because of his abstract business, and no one would have been suspicious of him. Likely Delaney hired him to steal this”—Dan’s hand indicated the parchments that Gotleib held—“out of there. Then Maples wouldn’t turn them over to Delaney. That must have been the way of it.”

  “That’s likely it,” Fitzpatrick agreed. “So Delaney hired him killed.” Fitzpatrick had turned from the window to watch Dan Shea as Dan talked.

  “So then,” Dan’s voice went on without inflection, “this Lucero who was hostler at San Felice stole Maples’ grip. Lucero went back to the reservation. Why he saved these papers no one will ever know, but he did save them. He got in with a bunch of young bucks at the reservation, started out on a raid with them and met up with us. Lucero got killed, and Vicente got his pack, and now we’ve got the stuff that Maples stole.”

  Fitzpatrick and Louder nodded slowly. Dan’s explanation was logical, reasonable, perfectly plausible and possible. “Go on, Shea,” Louder ordered. “Tell the rest of it.”

  Dan’s eyes sought Louder’s. “Why, yes,” he agreed. “I can tell the rest. It was Delaney. He figured this out from the start. He hired Maples to get the only proof that El Puerto del Sol really belonged to O’Connor. He wanted it in his hands. Maples double-crossed him so Maples was killed, and still Delaney didn’t get what he wanted. He went ahead anyhow. He had the suit started. He knew I’d seen him with one of the men that killed Maples, so he sent that man to kill me. You chased him off, Louder. Remember?”

  Louder nodded. “Git on with it,” he commanded gruffly.

  Dan tipped his chair back and then let the legs strike the floor again with a little thump. “Delaney tied up Don Martin’s money. When I took a herd north and sold it he hired Buster Flint and this same man who had killed Maples to lay for Vicente and me. And…” Dan’s voice trailed off into silence.