The fact of his death meant nothing to her. She must continue to thwart him beyond the grave. I think she wanted his fortune less than she wanted that, to render his wishes empty and useless, to leave his life a waste.
From what well of evil that hatred stemmed I could not guess. Perhaps it was something buried deep in her very being, perhaps it was that coming with her mother into the house of Nathan Albro made her own father seem small by comparison with this stern old man who had become her new father. Whatever the source, it was there and it was dangerous.
Molly came from the kitchen door and stood beside me, her hand on my arm. “Milo? Be careful, Milo! Oh, do be careful!”
“You, too,” I advised. “She has a hatred for you, also.”
For a moment then we stood together, looking out upon the street. Men were moving out there, men in chaps and bandanas, men standing about, men riding in pairs along the street. Suddenly the door opened and the rancher came in. He stopped to let his eyes adjust to the change of light, then he crossed the room to us.
“Is it all right now? Is it over?”
“I think it is. I am sorry, sir, if you were disturbed.”
“You handle yourself well, young man. Very well, indeed.” He gestured toward the street. “My boys will be around, day and night, for the rest of the week. If you need help, call on them.”
“You needn’t,” I said. “After all, this is our trouble.”
“It is mine, too.” His eyes were grave. “You see, I have known her longer than you, and her people have known mine. Her mother took care of me once when I was ill. A gentler, more considerate woman never lived.”
“You?”
“My name is Shelby,” he said, “I run some stock on the range. Pablo rides for me.”
“I had no idea. Did they ride out?”
“They did. But be careful, as long as she lives neither of you will be safe.” He paused. “And Molly still has a room at the hotel.”
Taking off my hat, I wiped the sweatband. Suddenly I felt empty, let-down. It was over, whatever it had been. She was gone, or would soon be gone. That was just as well.
Anne had been a dream that had hung in the back of my mind from the time of her visit to our ranch. It just showed what a damn fool a man can be over a pretty face.
Molly, now. She was something special, something different. Maybe, if I’d met her a little farther along. Maybe—
She came in with the coffee and sat down, and it was nice, just sitting there in the cool stillness of the restaurant with the sounds of people passing and a rattle of dishes from the kitchen where German Schafer was at work.
“Are you leaving soon?”
“Right soon. Maybe tomorrow. Too late to get any kind of a start now. Anyway—”
“Anyway?”
“I sort of feel like something’s been left hanging. Something I should have done hasn’t been done.”
She looked at me, smiling a little. “I wonder what it could be?”
Her smiling like that made me nervous. I twisted in my chair. Felt like my collar was too tight until I realized how silly that was. I didn’t have a collar on, even.
Taking a quick gulp of coffee, I burned my mouth. Although I felt like swearing I couldn’t with her sitting there. “Meant to ask you,” I said. “Did you know the Magoffins?”
“They worked for Newton Henry in California. Suddenly they left and went to St. Louis. I never understood what was going on and only knew what I heard afterward. I believe Newton had some idea of using Anne, or Nancy as they had been calling her, to hurt Nathan once she was old enough. He wanted to get her away from her mother as Stacy had become suspicious of him. He did not need Stacy any more. Only Anne.”
“What happened?”
“From what I overheard later, the Magoffins sold him out to Pride Hovey, or planned to. Newton, or somebody, took action.”
“And the Magoffins died.”
Glancing at the street, I saw the usual activity, but cowboys were still loitering about or sitting in the shade.
“You knew Anne?”
“We were children together. She was living in Nathan’s house then. Mother and I were invited for supper occasionally. Nathan liked company. He was very stern and austere but underneath it he was a kindly man.
“Anne made fun of him behind his back, which I did not think was at all nice.”
The lights were appearing in the windows when I went out on the street. Two cowboys sat on the bench opposite and another loitered under the hotel awning. Starting up the street, I stopped suddenly. The private car was gone!
Gone? Had Jefferson Henry given up? If he had half the intelligence I credited him with he would have done just that.
Inside the hotel the clerk glanced my way but offered no comment. I said, “I see Henry’s private car is gone.”
“He’s gone, but Topp ain’t. John Topp stayed behind. I figure he’s been paid off.”
Topp still here?
My room was dark and still when I entered. Striking a match, I lit the coal-oil lamp and replaced the globe. For a moment I stood there, looking around. It wasn’t much of a place to call home.
Stripping to the waist, I poured cold water in the basin and bathed my chest and shoulders, then got out a clean shirt. “Wasteful,” I muttered, “you’d be better off hitting the hay and catching up on some sleep. What are you going to do down there tonight but lallygag around that gal?”
When I’d combed my hair I put on my coat. That made me notice Molly’s envelope and I decided to open it up. It was just what I thought it would be, only more.
Nathan Albro’s Last Will and Testament was there, leaving all to Molly Fletcher. There was also a list of stocks, bonds, and land-holdings with some suggestions on maintaining or terminating investments. Along with these were a few other legal or semi-legal papers. I returned them to my pocket. She must have them at once. After all, without these, what would Molly have? Nothing but a one-third share of a two-bit restaurant.
Right there in my pocket, all Nathan Albro had worked for and all Molly Fletcher had.
There was a faint creak from the hall, a slow, tentative step, then silence.
My hand went to my gun.
CHAPTER 27
FOR A MOMENT all was very still. The boards in the hall creaked as someone shifted his weight, someone very heavy. Then slowly the footsteps receded down the hall, and there was silence again.
My number was up. That much I knew, and I might not come out of it. Any man can be slow at the wrong moment, any man can miss. The papers in my pocket should be in the hands of Molly.
Stepping outside, I holstered my gun when the hall proved empty and went quickly down the hall and down the stairs. A couple of drummers were sitting in the lobby but, busy with talk, they did not even look around. The man behind the desk was a stranger.
Outside in the street it was dark and cool. The train had been late and it was there now, a long row of lighted windows and the locomotive huffing and puffing. Light fell across the boardwalk from several windows, and somewhere back of the street a donkey brayed.
Four blocks long and three street lights, a few windows. It wasn’t that much of a town, when it came to that. Tomorrow I’d see the last of it. Those mountains out yonder where a man could bed down on grass or evergreen boughs, where he could lie looking up at the stars and dream long dreams. Of course, that wasn’t what Ma wanted for me. She wanted me to have a place of my own and some youngsters coming along. Grandchildren, that’s what she wanted.
She could wait.
Of course, Em was getting no younger. We’d always called her Em more than Ma because everybody else did. She’d grown up back yonder in those Tennessee mountains and her one regret was that she was a half-inch shy of six feet.
Of course, there was Packet. Least that was what we called her. Most of the Sackett women were tall, only Packet wasn’t. She was little but feisty. She could outshoot both her brothers by the time she was pushing eleven.
Half the meat they had for the table was her get. The boys were doing the plowing and the haying and what not, and if Packet hadn’t been good with a rifle there’d have been many a night when they’d have had nothing but journey-cake and collard greens.
Em was getting so she wanted grandchildren. Barnabas was older than me, but so far he’d been shining up to no girls that I knew, although no telling how he carried on when going to school in foreign parts, like he was.
Somebody moved across the street and I stopped. He was standing in the shadows and he was big, gosh-awful big. There was an awning post there and I was looking past it.
“Talon?” It was John Topp.
“Wasn’t expecting you, John. Your boss pulled out.”
“Had to wait until the time was right, Talon. You got too many friends, like that old buffalo hunter, Baggot, and his Big Fifty.”
“Helpful, wasn’t he? And I don’t even know why.”
“You got a friend with money, Talon, but so have I, now.”
He was there, a vague outline in the shadow. There was no way I could see him draw, if he did. He might even have a gun in his hand. No … I’d see that. I would see the shine of it.
“Henry had money.”
“Not so much as my new boss. Only somehow money’s not important. All I have to do is take care of you. That’s all.”
“Doesn’t seem like very much, does it?”
“Well, I don’t know. You shoot pretty good for a country boy. Never really cared much about how good I was, although one time I used to think I’d like to stand off with one of them Sacketts. Ever’body says they’re so good.”
Something came to mind, something that had been there all along. It was just a chance, but I recalled John Topp had a belt with silver on it, quite a lot of it. Indian silver.
Just maybe …
“You’ve got one now, John. My mother is a Sackett.”
A thought flickered. Portis! Portis had paid Baggott! I was beholden to him.
A faint glint of reflected light and my right hand went back, I felt a sharp stab of pain, and then my gun was coming up, a fraction slow. That bad bruise from the fall into the rocks … why hadn’t it bothered earlier? A bullet hit the awning post, scattering slivers into my face, and then I was shooting.
John Topp took a step closer, his gun hanging, then coming up. “You wasn’t so fast,” he said. “You just wasn’t.”
His gun came up and he had stepped into the light and people up and down the street were opening doors and peering out of windows. He was the width of the street away from me, and I followed the two shots I’d fired with three more.
He took another step forward. “Not so fast,” he said, “I fig—” He took a staggering step forward, half-turned, and fell on his side.
And the long street was silent, and the people came walking to see.
They had told me to go, to leave town, and it was time I went. First I thumbed shells into the gun to replace those I pushed out.
German was there. “Milo? Are you all right?”
“He was waiting for me, German. Had me staked out.”
There was a knot of people standing there together and one of them said, “Talon? There’s been too much shooting and killing. Do it somewhere else. If you’re in town at sunup there’ll be a necktie party within the hour.”
“No need for that. I didn’t want this shooting, and when it comes to neckwear, I’ll settle for what I’ve got.”
Hesitating, I said, “I’ve got to get my gear and my horse, all right?”
“All right,” the man said. “But no more shooting.”
“It was that woman,” somebody was saying, “she put Topp up to it. I heard them talking, her telling him what she’d do for him.”
“No matter. We want no more killing in this town.”
Took me a minute to roll my gear. I left the Magoffin suitcase there by the bed for whoever wished to claim it and I collected my horse and rode by Maggie’s.
The restaurant lights were on although it was very late, and down the street an Irish tenor was singing “Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp-Ground” in the Golden Spur.
Stepping down from my horse, I went to the door and Molly was there. I handed her the envelope. “I only read these just before. I think you’ll have to deal with what Nathan left to you.”
“I know. I think I’m ready now.”
“I’m riding out, Molly, taking the trail home. There’s a little ol’ town over yonder called Pueblo, a kind of a ’dobe town with a lot of nice folks. If you were to ride up that way, I’d be there, sitting on the street, waiting.”
“I do not ride around the country with strange men.”
“Not even with your husband?” It was a hard thing, getting that word out, but I done it. “There’s priests, preachers, and all kind of sky-pilots yonder. You can take your pick.”
“I thought you’d never get around to saying it, Milo.”
“Nor did I. Fact is, the idea makes me right skittish. I keep thinking of all those trails, those moonlit pools and creeks cascading down the—”
“Don’t think about them. I’ll meet you in Pueblo.”
And with that I crawled into my saddle and turned my horse out of town. In leaving I realized that somewhere up ahead I might run into Pride Hovey and that would be trouble but if that time came I would be ready. As I rode away I saw maybe a dozen men with shotguns and rifles standing on the boardwalk. It wasn’t exactly a shotgun wedding, but it was surely a shotgun departure.
THE FOUR RIDERS topped out on a low ridge and looked back, half-expecting pursuit. There was none, and of course, there would be none. They had been ordered out of town, rousted out of their rooms and told to leave, and now.
The people of the town wanted no more shooting, no more trouble, and those who had been causing it were outsiders. “Get on your horses and ride. I don’t care where you go, but don’t come back here.”
“Can’t we wait for the train?” the dude pleaded.
“No. You’ve got horses. Use ’em.”
Atop the ridge they looked around then started down the far slope. “Canon City,” Anne suggested. “I must go there, anyway. I’ve money in the bank there.”
The big man with the broken jaw gave her a disgusted look and his sister said, “You been promisin’ us money. I’d like to see the color of it.” She jerked her head toward the man with the broken jaw. “Ray’s got to have treatment. He’s got to rest. We’ll need money.”
“Of course. Canon City it is.”
They rode in silence. “Ain’t this the long way around?” the big woman asked.
“It is, but would you rather ride across Rolon Taylor’s range? We’ve had trouble enough from them. They might take our horses and saddles.”
“They do belong to Taylor,” the dude commented.
They rode on in silence, and day broke brightening the dull gray sunrise. They camped on the edge of the pines, and the dude was unhappy. He could not find comfort on the ground and the day dawned with irritation and disgust.
Even the coffee failed to brighten their outlook. “Never expected to be ridin’ off like this. You said there’d be gold, lots of it.”
“We’ve had a setback, that’s all. We’ll have it, and don’t you worry. I’ve a plan.”
After a few minutes she said, “Have you stopped to think of something? They rode out before we did, he riding ahead and she not much behind him. Neither is carrying more than saddlebags. One of them must be carrying the Will.”
The dude was thoughtful. Two of them against four, and with luck a surprise. “Maybe,” he muttered, “just maybe.”
He was irritated. He had invested a lot of time and some of his own money in this venture. He had worked for Nathan Albro at one time and secretly admired the man. That Albro had money, he knew. Anne Henry was, everybody said, his daughter and his heir. She had needed help and he was glad to give it. Now, months later, he was no longer glad. He wanted his money but he also wa
nted to get out and get away.
“There’s a ranch up ahead,” Anne said suddenly. “We can get some food.”
“I don’t like it.” The dude was irritable. “I don’t like it at all. This looks like the place Taylor saw. Said it spooked him.”
“Nonsense! It’s broad daylight. If you’re all afraid, you just ride on along the trail. Take your time and when I get food packed for us I’ll catch up.” She pointed toward the hills. “There’s a trail cuts right through there for Canon City. I’ll catch up.”
She turned her horse down the slope, glancing at the sun. This would not take long, and people in this western country were always willing to furnish a traveler with food.
The sky was overcast and gray when she rode into the yard and a woman came to the door and shaded her eyes at her. As Anne rode up the woman smiled: it was a lovely smile. “I d’clare, miss, it does beat all! I was just wishful of having a visitor! It’s been getting downright lonely the last few days! Come in! Come in!”
Anne stepped into a spotless kitchen, curtains at the windows … it was really very pretty. “Oh! It’s nice!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting anything so lovely!”
“It takes a mite of doing,” Bess said, “and help is hard to come by. I am always on the lookout for a strong, active young girl.”
“You should be able to find one. Some of the ranchers have daughters whom I am sure would enjoy working for you.”
“Here,” Bess said, “you just sit down right here. I’ll give you a nice cup of coffee.”
“Could I get some food to take along? I’ve some friends who have gone on ahead.”
“Of course! Gone on ahead, you say? And it does look like rain. They should have stopped here until the weather was better.
“As far as that goes—what did you say your name was?”
“Anne.”
“Of course, Anne. As far as that goes, you could stop. No use to get rained on. When the shower has passed you could just ride on and catch up.”
A few spatters of rain were falling. Well, why not, she told herself, there’s no use getting wet just for them. When the storm is over I can catch them easily.
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