Connie Duane’s face was white when she came into the room. “You saw that?”
He nodded. “We didn’t dare to let him go. If we had, we would all have been dead before noon tomorrow. Now,” he said with grim satisfaction, “they’ll have something to think about!”
_______
SHAD GRINNED AT him when he came in. “I didn’t see that gun he had drawed,” he said ruefully. “Had it layin’ along his leg as he was crouched there. Might’ve got me.”
He dropped the saddlebags. “Mite of grub,” he said, “an’ some shells. I reckon we can use ’em even though I brought some. The message got off, an’ so did the letter. Fellow over to the telegraph office was askin’ a powerful lot of questions. Seems like they’ve been hearin’ about this scrap.”
“Good! The more the better. We can stand it, but the company can’t. Hear anything?”
“Uh-huh. Somebody from outside the state is startin’ a row about Gunter’s death. I hear they have you marked for that. That is, the company is sayin’ you did it.”
Kedrick nodded. “They would try that. Well, in a couple of days I’ll be out of this, and then we’ll see what can be done.”
“You take some time,” Shad said dubiously. “That passel of thieves ain’t goin’ to find us. Although,” he said suddenly, “I saw the tracks of that grulla day afore yesterday, an’ not far off.”
The grulla again!
Two more days drifted by, and Tom Kedrick ventured down the trail and the ladders to the canyon below with Laredo and visited their horses, concealed in a tiny glade not far away. The palouse nickered and trotted toward him, and Kedrick grinned and scratched his chest. “How is it, boy? Ready to go places?”
“He’s achin’ for it,” Shad said. He lighted a smoke and squinted his eyes at Kedrick. “What you aim to do when you do move?”
“Ride around a little. I aim to see Pit Laine, an’ then I’m goin’ to start huntin’ up every mother’s son that was in that drygulching. Especially,” he added, “Dornie Shaw.”
“He’s bad,” Laredo said quietly. “I never seen it, but you ask Connie. Shaw’s chain lightnin’. She seen him kill Bob.”
“So one of us dies,” Kedrick said quietly. “I’d go willing enough to take him with me, an’ a few others.”
“That’s it. He’s a killer, but the old bull of that woods is Alton Burwick. Believe me, he is. Keith is just right-hand man for him, an’ the fall guy if they need one. Burwick’s the poison mean one.”
With Connie they made their start three days later and rode back trails beyond the rim to the hideout Laine had established. It was Dai Reid himself who stopped them, and his eyes lighted up when he saw Kedrick.
“Ah, Tom!” His broad face beamed. “Like my own son, you are. We’d heard you were killed dead.”
Pit Laine was standing by the fire, and around him on the ground were a dozen men, most of whom Kedrick recognized. They sat up slowly as the three walked into the open space, and Pit turned. It was the first time Kedrick had seen him, and he was surprised.
He was scarcely taller than his sister, but wide in the shoulders and slim in the hips. When he turned, he faced them squarely, and his eyes were sharp and bitter. This was a killing man, Kedrick decided, as dangerous in his own way as that pocket-sized devil Dornie Shaw.
“I’m Kedrick,” he said, “and this is Connie Duane. I believe you know Shad.”
“We know all of you.” Laine watched them, his eyes alert and curious.
_______
QUIETLY AND CONCISELY, he explained, and ended by saying, “So there it is. I’ve asked this friend of mine to start an investigation into the whole mess and to block the sale until the truth is clear. Once the sale is blocked and that investigation started, they won’t be with us long. They could get away with this only if they could keep it covered up, and they had a fair chance of doing that.”
“So we wait and let them run off?” Laine demanded.
“No,” Tom Kedrick shook his head decidedly. “We ride into Mustang—all of us.
“They have the mayor and the sheriff, but public opinion is largely on our side. Furthermore,” he said quietly, “we ride in the minute they get the news the sale is blocked. Once that news is around town, they will have no friends. The bandwagon riders will get off, and fast.”
“There’ll be shootin’,” one old-timer opined.
“Some,” Kedrick admitted, “but if I have my way, there’ll be more of hanging. There’s killers in that town, the bunch that drygulched Steelman and Slagle. The man who killed Bob McLennon is the man I want.”
Pit Laine turned. “I want him.”
“Sorry, Laine. He killed Bob, an’ Bob was only in town to get a doc for me. You may,” he added, “get your chance, anyway.”
“I’d like a shot at him my own self,” Laredo said quietly, “but somethin’ else bothers me. Who’s this grulla rider? Is he one of you?”
Laine shook his head. “No, he’s got us wonderin’, too.”
“Gets around plenty,” the old-timer said, “but nobody ever sees him. I reckon he knows this here country better than any of us. He must’ve been around here for a long time.”
“What’s he want?” Shad wondered. “That don’t figure.”
Kedrick shrugged. “I’d like to know.” He turned to Dai. “It’s good to see you. I was afraid you’d had trouble.”
“Trouble?” Dai smiled his wide smile. “It’s trouble, you say? All my life there’s been trouble. Where man is, there will be trouble to the end of time, if not of one kind, then another. But I take my trouble as it comes, boy.”
He drew deeply on his short-stemmed pipe and glanced at the scar around Kedrick’s skull. “Looks like you’d a bit of it yourself. If you’d a less hard skull you’d now be dead.”
“I’d not have given a plugged peso for him when I saw him,” Laredo said dryly. “The three of them were just lyin’ there, bloody an’ shot up. We thought for sure they was all dead. This one, he’d a hole through him, low down an’ mean, an’ that head of his looked like it had been smashed, until we moved him. He was lucky as well as thick skulled.”
Morning found Laredo and Kedrick once more in the saddle. Connie Duane had stayed behind with some of the squatters’ women. Together, they were pushing on toward Mustang, but taking their time, for they had no desire to be seen or approached by any of the company riders.
“There’s nothing much we can do,” Kedrick agreed, “but I want to know the lay of the land in town. It’s mighty important to be able to figure just what will happen when the news hits the place. Right now, everything is right for them. Alton Burwick and Loren Keith are better off than they ever were.
“Just size it up. They came in here with the land partly held by squatters with a good claim on the land. That land they managed to get surveyed, and they put in their claim to the best of it, posted the notices, and waited them out. If somebody hadn’t seen one of those notices and read it, the whole sale might have gone through and nobody the wiser. Somebody did see it, and trouble started. They had two mighty able men to contend with, Slagle and McLennon.
“Well, both of them are dead now. And Steelman, another possible leader, is dead too. So far as they are aware, nobody knows anything about the deaths of those men or who caused them. I was the one man they had learned they couldn’t depend on, and they think I’m dead. John Gunter brought money into the deal, and he’s dead and out of the picture completely.
“A few days more and the sale goes through and the land becomes theirs, and there isn’t any organized opposition now. Pit Laine and his group will be named as outlaws and hunted as such, and believe me, once the land sale goes through, Keith will be hunting them with a posse of killers.”
“Yeah,” Laredo drawled, “they sure got it sewed up, looks like. But you’re forgettin’ one thing. You’re forgettin’ the girl. Connie Duane.”
“What about her?”
“Look,” Shad said, speaking around
his cigarette, “she sloped out of town right after McLennon was killed. They thought she had been talking to you before, and she told ’em off in the office, said she was gettin’ her money out of it. All right, so suppose she asks for it and they can’t pay?
“Suppose,” he added, “she begins to talk and tells what she knows, and they must figure it’s plenty. She was Gunter’s niece, and for all they know he told her more than he did tell her.”
“You mean they’ll try to get hold of her?”
“What do you think? They’ll try to get hold of her, or kill her.”
Tom Kedrick’s eyes narrowed. “She’ll be safe with Laine,” he said, but an element of doubt was in his voice. “That’s a good crowd.”
Shad shrugged. “Maybe. Don’t forget that Singer was one of them, but he didn’t hesitate to try to kill Sloan or to point him out for Abe Mixus. He was bought off by the company, so maybe there are others.”
_______
AT THAT VERY moment, in the office of the gray stone building, such a man sat opposite Alton Burwick, while Keith sat in a chair against the wall. The man’s name was Hirst. His face was sallow, but determined. “I ain’t lyin’!” he said flatly. “I rode all night to get here, slippin’ out of camp on the quiet. She rode in with that gunman, Laredo Shad, and this Kedrick hombre.”
“Kedrick! Alive?” Keith sat forward, his face tense.
“Alive as you or me! Had him most of the hair clipped on one side of his head, an’ a bad scar there. He sort of favored his side, too. Oh, he’d been shot all right, but he’s ridin’ now, believe me!”
The renegade had saved the worst until last. He smiled grimly at Burwick. “I can use some money, Mr. Burwick,” he said, “an’ there’s more I could tell you.”
Burwick stared at him, his eyes glassy hard. Then he reached into a drawer and threw two gold eagles on the desk. “All right! What can you tell me?”
“Kedrick sent a message to some hombre in Washington name of Ransome. He’s to block the sale of the land until there’s a complete investigation.”
“What?”
Keith came to his feet, his face ashen. This was beyond his calculations. When the idea had first been brought to his attention, it had seemed a very simple, easy way to turn a fast profit. He had excellent connections in Washington through his military career, and with Burwick managing things on the other end and Gunter with the money, it seemed impossible to beat it. He was sure to net a handsome sum, clear his business with Gunter and Burwick, and then return east and live quietly on the profits. That it was a crooked deal did not disturb him, but that his friends in the East might learn of it did!
“Ransome!” His voice was shocked. “Of all people!”
Frederic Ransome had served with him in the war, and their mutual relationship had been something less than friendly. There had been that episode by the bridge. He flushed at the thought of it, but Ransome knew, and Ransome would use it as a basis for judgment. Kedrick had no way of knowing just how fortunate his choice of Ransome had been.
“That does it!” He got to his feet. “Ransome will bust this wide open, and love it!”
He was frightened, and Burwick could see it. He sat there, his gross body filling the chair, wearing the same soiled shirt. His eyes followed Keith with irritation and contempt. Was Keith going bad on him now?
“Get back there,” Burwick said to Hirst, “and keep me informed of the movements. Watch everything closely now, and don’t miss a trick. You will be paid.”
When Hirst had gone, Burwick turned to Keith and smiled with his fat lips. “So does it matter if they slow it up a little? Let them have their investigation. It will come too late.”
“Too late?” Keith was incredulous. “With such witnesses against us as Kedrick, Shad, Connie, and the rest of them?”
“When the time comes,” Burwick said quietly, “there will be no witnesses! Believe me, there won’t be!”
XI
Keith turned on Burwick, puzzled by the sound of his voice. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Burwick chuckled and rolled his fat lips on his cigar. There was malice and some contempt in the look he gave Keith. How much better, he thought, had Kedrick not been so namby-pamby. He was twice the man Keith was, for all the latter’s commanding presence.
“Why,” he said, “if there’s no witnesses, there’ll be no case. What can these people in town tell them? What they suspect? Suspicions won’t stand in a court of law, or with that committee. By the time they get here, this country will be peaceful and quiet, believe me.”
“What do you mean to do?” Keith demanded.
“Do? What is there to do? Get rid of Kedrick, Laredo Shad, and that girl. Then you’ll take a posse and clean out that rat’s nest back of the rim. Then who will they talk to? Gunter might have weakened, but he’s dead. With the rest of them out of it—”
“Not Connie!” Keith protested. “Not her! For heaven’s sake, man!”
Burwick snorted, and his lips twisted in an angry sneer as he heaved his bulk from the chair. “Yes, Connie!” he said. “Are you a complete fool, Keith? Or have you gone soft? That girl knows more than all of them! Suppose Gunter talked to her, and he most likely did? She’ll know everything, everything, I tell you!”
He paced back across the room, measuring Keith. The fool! He was irritated and angry. He couldn’t understand the sort of men they made these days, a weak and snivelling crowd. Keith had played out his time. If he finished this job alive—Dornie didn’t like Keith. Burwick chuckled suddenly. Dornie! Now there was a man! The way he had killed that Bob McLennon!
“Now get this. Get the boys together. Get Fessenden, Goff, Clauson, Poinsett, and the Mixus boys and send them out with Dornie. I want those three killed, you hear me? I want them dead before the week is out. And no bodies, understand?”
Keith touched his dry lips, his eyes haunted. He had bargained for nothing like this. It had all seemed such an easy profit, with only a few poverty-stricken squatters to prevent them from acquiring wealth in a matter of a few months. And everything had started off just as Burwick had suggested; everything had gone so well. Gunter had provided the money, and he had fronted for them in Washington.
Uneasily now, Keith realized that if trouble was made over this, it would be he, himself, upon whom the blame would rest. Burwick somehow had been in the background in the East as much as he, Keith, had been kept in the background here. Yet it would be his guilt if anything went wrong. And with Ransome investigating, everything had gone wrong.
Of course, he sighed deeply, Burwick was right. There was only one thing to do now. At least Dornie and the others would not hesitate. Suddenly, he remembered something.
“You mentioned Clauson. He’s out of it, Burwick. Clauson came in last night, tied to his horse. He had been dead for hours.”
“What?” Burwick stopped his pacing and walked up to Keith. “You just remembered?” He held his face inches away from Keith’s and glared. “Is anybody backtracking that horse? You blithering idiot! Clauson was dynamite with a gun, so if he’s dead, shot, it had to be by one of three men, and you know it!”
Burwick’s face was dark with passion, and he wheeled and walked the length of the room, swearing in a low, violent voice that shocked Keith with its deep, underlying passion. When he turned again, Burwick’s eyes were ugly with fury. “Can’t you realize,” he demanded hoarsely, “those men are dangerous?
“Don’t you see that every second they are alive we are in danger? You have seen Dornie in action. Well, believe me, I’d sooner have him after me than Kedrick. I know Kedrick! He’s a former Army officer—that’s what you’re thinking all the time—an officer and a gentleman!
“But he’s something more, do you hear? He’s more. He’s a gentleman—that’s true enough—but the man’s a fighter. He loves to fight! Under all that calmness and restraint, there’s a drive and power that Dornie Shaw could never equal. Dornie may be faster, and I think he is, but don’t you forge
t for one instant that Kedrick won’t be through until he’s down, down and dead!”
_______
LOREN KEITH WAS shocked. In his year’s association with Burwick he had never seen the man in a passion and had never heard him speak with such obvious respect and even—yes—even fear, of any man. What had Alton Burwick seen that he himself had not seen?
He stared at Burwick, puzzled and annoyed, but some of the man’s feeling began to transmit itself to him, and he became distinctly uneasy. He bit his lips and watched Burwick pacing angrily.
“It’s not only him, but it’s Shad, that cool, thin-faced Texan. As for Laine”—Burwick’s eyes darkened—“he may be the worst of the lot. He thinks he has a personal stake in this.”
“Personal?” Keith looked inquiringly at the older man. “What do you mean?”
Burwick dismissed the question with a gesture. “No matter. They must go, all of them, and right now.” He turned and his eyes were cold. “Keith, you fronted for us in Washington. If this thing goes wrong, you’re the one who will pay. Now go out there and get busy. You’ve a little time, and you’ve the men. Get busy!”
When he had gone, Burwick dropped into his chair and stared blindly before him. It had gone too far to draw back now even if he was so inclined, and he was not. The pity of it was that there had been no better men to be had than Keith and Gunter.
Yet, everything could still go all right, for he would know how to meet any investigating committee, how to soft-pedal the trouble and turn it off into a mere cow-country quarrel of no moment and much exaggerated. The absence of any complaining witness would leave them helpless to proceed, and he could make it seem a mere teapot tempest. Keith was obviously afraid of Ransome. Well he was not.
Burwick was still sitting there when the little cavalcade of horsemen streamed by, riding out of town on their blood trail. The number had been augmented, he noticed, by four new arrivals, all hard, desperate men. Even without Keith they might do the job. He heaved himself to his feet and paced across the room, staring out the window. It went badly with him to see Connie Duane die, for he had plans for Connie—maybe. His eyes narrowed.
Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) Page 36