L'Amour, Louis - SSC 30

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 1

  He had no intimates, yet he talked sometimes with Collins or Finerty, and more often with young Dean Armstrong, the editor of The Branding Iron. Armstrong had read Poe, and he had read Lowell, and had read Goethe and Heine in the original German. He quickly sensed much of the story behind Otis. He occasionally bought him drinks, often food.

  Otis, lonely and tired, also found friendship in the person of Lettie Mason, whose gambling hall was opposite the Town Hall, and Finn Mahone, the strange rider from the Highbinder Hills.

  “How are you, Otis?” Finn said, smiling. “Nice morning, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Otis responded. He passed a trembling hand over his unshaven chin. “Finn, be careful. They are going to make trouble for you.”

  “Who?” Finn’s eyes were intent.

  “I was down at Lettie’s. Alcorn was there. He’s one of those ranchers from out beyond Rawhide. One of the bunch that runs with Sonntag. He said you were a rustler.”

  “Thanks, Otis.” Finn frowned thoughtfully. “I reckoned something like that was comin’. Who was with him?”

  “Big man named Leibman. Used to be a sort of a bruiser on the docks in New York. Lettie doesn’t take, to him.”

  “She’s a good judge of men.” Finn hitched up his gun belts. “Reckon I’ll trail out of town, Otis. Thanks again.”.”

  At Lettie’s he might have a run-in with some of the bunch from Rawhide, and he was not a trouble hunter. He knew what he was when aroused, and knew what could happen in this country. Scouting the hills as he always did, he had a very good idea of just what was going on. There was time for one drink, then he was heading out. He turned and walked into the Longhorn.

  Red Eason was behind the bar himself this morning. He looked up as Mahone entered, and Finn noticed the change in his eyes.

  “Rye,” Finn said. He waited, his hands on the bar while the drink was poured. He was conscious of low voices in the back of the saloon and glanced up. Two men were sitting there at one of the card tables. One was a slender man of middle age with a lean, high-boned face. He was unshaven, and his eyes were watchful. The other was a big man, even bigger than Mahone was himself. The man’s face was wide and flat, and his nose had been broken.

  The big man got up from the table and walked toward him. At that moment the outer door opened and Dean Armstrong came in with Doc Finerty and Judge Collins. They halted as they saw the big man walking toward Mahone.

  Armstrong’s quick eyes shifted to Banty Hull. The small man was seated in a chair half behind the corner of the bar. If Mahone turned to face the big man who Armstrong knew to be named Leibman, his back would be toward Hull. Dean Armstrong rarely carried a gun, but he was glad he was packing one this morning.

  Leibman stopped a few feet away from Mahone. “You Finn Mahone?” he demanded. “From back in the Highbinders?”

  Mahone looked up. “That’s my name. That’s where I live.” He saw that the other man had shifted until he was against the wall and Leibman was no long er between them.

  “Hear you got a lot of cattle back in them hills,” Leibman said. “Hear you been selling stock over to Rico.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Funny thing, you havin’ so many cows an’ nobody knowin’ about it.”

  “Not very funny. I don’t recall that anybody from Laird has ever been back to see me. It’s a pretty rough trail. You haven’t been back there, either.”

  “No, but I been to Rico. I seen some of them cows you sold.”

  “Nice stock,” Mahone said calmly. He knew what was coming, but Leibman wasn’t wearing a gun.

  “Some funny brands,” Leibman said. “Looked like some of them had been altered.”

  “Leibman,” Finn said quietly, “you came over here hunting’ trouble. You’d know if you saw any of those cattle that none of them had but one brand. You know nobody else has seen them, so you think you can get away with an accusation and cover it up by trouble with me.

  “You want trouble? All right, you’ve got it. If you say there was an altered brand on any of those cattle, you’re a liar!”

  Leibman sneered. “I ain’t wearin’ a gun!” he said. “Talk’s cheap.”

  “Not with me, it isn’t,” Mahone said. “With me talk is right expensive. But I don’t aim to mess up Brother Ea-son’s bar, here. Nor do I aim to let your pal Alcorn slug me from behind or take a shot at me.

  “So what we’re going to do, you and me, is go outside in the street. You don’t have a gun, so you can use your hands.”

  Without further hesitation he turned and walked into the street. “Judge,” he said to Collins, “I’d admire if you’d sort of keep an eye on my back. Here’s my guns.” He unbuckled his belts and passed them to the judge. ,

  Alcorn and Banty Hull, watched by Doc Finerty and Armstrong, looked uneasily at each other as they moved into the street. Mahone noticed the glance. This wasn’t going the way they had planned.

  Leibman backed off and pulled off his shirt, displaying a hairy and powerfully muscled chest and shoulders.

  Remy Kastelle came out of the Emporium and, noticing the crowd, was starting across the street when Pierce Logan walked up to her.

  He was a tall man, perfectly dressed, suave and intelligent. “How do you do, Miss Kastelle!” he said, smiling.

  She nodded up the street. “What’s going on up there?”

  Logan turned quickly, and his face tightened. “Looks like a fight starting,” he said. “That’s Leibman, but who can be fighting him?”

  Then he saw Mahone. “It’s that fellow from the Highbinders, Mahone.”

  “The one they’re calling a rustler?” Remy turned quickly. She failed to note the momentary, pleased response to her reference to Mahone as a rustler. Her eyes quickened with interest. “He tricked me. I hope he takes a good beating!”

  “He will!” Logan said dryly. “Leibman is a powerful brute. A rough-and-tumble fighter from the East.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Texas Dowd had walked up behind them. He was looking past them gravely. “I think your man Leibman is in for a whipping.”

  Logan laughed, but glanced sharply at Dowd. He had never liked the Lazy K foreman. He had always had an unpleasant feeling that the tall, cold cattleman saw too much, and saw it too clearly. There was also a sound to Dowd’s voice, something in his way of talking that caught in Logan’s mind. Stirred memories of … someone.

  “Wouldn’t want to bet, would you?” Logan asked.

  “Yes, I’ll bet.”

  Remy glanced around, surprised and puzzled. “Why, Mr. Dowd! I would never have imagined you to be a gambling man.”

  “I’m not,” Dowd said.

  “You think it’s a sure thing, then?” Logan asked, incredulously.

  “Yes,” Dowd replied.

  “Well, I think you’re wrong for a hundred dollars,”

  Logan said.

  “All right.” Dowd looked at Remy. “I’ll be inside, buying what we need, Miss Remy.”

  “Aren’t you even going to watch it?” Logan demanded.

  “No,” Dowd said. “I’ve seen it before.” He turned and walked into the store.

  “Well!” Logan looked at Remy, astonished. “That foreman of yours is a peculiar man.”

  “Yes.” She looked after Dowd, disturbed. “He sounded like he had known something of Mahone before. Now let’s go!”

  “You aren’t going to watch it?” Pierce Logan was shocked in spite of himself.

  “Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

  Finn Mahone knew fighters of Leibman’s type. The man had won many fights. He had expected Mahone to avoid the issue, but Mahone’s calm acceptance and his complete lack of excitement were disturbing the bigger man. Mahone pulled off his shirt.

  Leibman’s face hardened suddenly. If ever he had looked at a trained athlete’s body, he was looking at it now. With a faint stir of doubt he realized he was facing no common puncher, no backwoods brawler. Then his confidence came back. He ha
d never been whipped, never …

  He went in with a rush, half expecting Mahone to be the boxer type who might try to evade him. Finn Mahone had no intention of evading anything. As Leibman rushed, he took one step in and smashed Leibman’s lips into pulp with a straight left. Then he ducked and threw a right to the body.

  Stopped in his tracks, Leibman’s eyes narrowed. He feinted and clubbed Mahone with a ponderous right. Mahone took it and never even wavered, then he leaped in, punching with both hands!

  Slugging madly, neither man giving ground, they stood spraddle-legged in the dust punching with all their power. Leibman gave ground first, but it was to draw Finn on, and when Mahone rushed, Leibman caught him with a flying mare and threw him over his back!

  Finn hit the ground in a cloud of dust, and as a roar went up from the crowd, he leaped to his feet and smashed Leibman back on his heels with a wicked right to the jaw. Leibman ducked under another punch and tried to throw Mahone with a rolling hip-lock. It failed when Mahone grabbed him and they both rumbled into the dust. Finn was up first, and stepped back, wiping the dust from his lips. Leibman charged, and Finn sidestepped, hooking a left to the bigger man’s ear.

  Leibman pulled his head down behind his shoulder. Then he rushed, feinted, and hit Mahone with a wicked left that knocked him into the dust. He went in, trying to kick, but Finn caught his foot and twisted, throwing Leibman off balance.

  Finn was on his feet then, and the two men came together and began to slug. The big German was tough; he had served his apprenticeship in a hard school. He took a punch to the gut, gasped a long breath, and lunged. Then Finn stepped back and brought up a right uppercut that broke Leibman’s nose.

  Finn walked in, his left a flashing streak now. It stabbed and cut, ripping Leibman’s face to ribbons. Suddenly, Judge Collins realized something that few in the crowd understood. Until now, Mahone had been playing with the big man. What happened after that moment was sheer murder.

  The left was a lancet in the shape of a fist. The wicked right smashed again and again into Leibman’s body, or clubbed his head. Once Finn caught Leibman by the arm and twisted him sharply, at the same time bringing up a smashing right uppercut. Punch-drunk and swaying, Leibman was a gory, beaten mass of flesh and blood.

  Finn looked at him coolly, then measured him with a left and drove a right to the chin that sounded when it hit like an ax hitting a log. Leibman fell, all in one piece.

  Without a word or a glance around, Finn walked to his saddle and picked up his shirt. Then he dug into his saddlebags and took out a worn towel. Judge Collins came over to him. “Better put these on first,” he said.

  Finn glanced at him sharply, then smiled. “I reckon I had,” he said. He mopped himself with the towel, then slid into his shirt. With the guns strapped on his lean hips, he felt better.

  His knuckles were skinned despite the hardness of his hands. He looked up at Collins. “Looks like they were figurin’ on trouble.”

  “That’s right. There’s rumors around, son. You better watch yourself.”

  “Thanks.” Mahone swung into the saddle. As he turned the horse he glanced to the boardwalk and saw the girl watching him. Beside her was a tall, handsome man with powerful shoulders. He smiled grimly, and turned the horse away down the street, walking him slowly.

  Texas Dowd appeared at Logan’s elbow. Pierce turned and handed him a hundred dollars. “You’d seen him fight before?” he asked.

  Dowd shrugged. “Could be. He’s fought before.”

  “Yes,” Logan said thoughtfully, “he has.” He glanced at Dowd again. “What do you know about him?”

  Texas Dowd’s face was inscrutable. “That he’s a good man to leave alone,” he said flatly.

  Dowd turned stiffly and strode away. Nettled, Logan stared after him. “Where did you find him?” he asked.

  Remy smiled faintly. “He came up over the border when I was away at school. Dad liked the way he played poker. He started working for us, and Dad made him foreman. There was a gunman around who was making trouble. I never really got it straight, but the gunman died. I heard Dad telling one of the hands about it.”

  Behind them Texas Dowd headed down the street. He made one brief stop at Lettie Mason’s gambling hall and emerged tucking a single playing card into his breast pocket. Then he mounted his horse and rode hard down the trail toward the Highbinders …

  Finn Mahone walked the black only to the edge of town, then broke the stallion into a canter and rapidly put some miles behind him. Yet no matter how far or fast he rode, he could not leave the girl behind him. He had seen Remy Kastelle, and something about her gave him a lift, sent fire into his veins. Several times he was on the verge of wheeling the horse and heading back.

  She was his nearest neighbor, her range running right up to the Rimrock. But beyond the Rimrock nobody ever tried to come. Finn slowed the black to a walk again, scowling as he rode. His holdings were eighty miles from Rawhide where Alcorn and Leibman lived. There was no reason for them jumping him, unless they needed a scapegoat. The talk about rustling was building up, and if they coul d pin it on him, there were plenty of people who would accept it as gospel.

  People were always suspicious of anyone who kept to himself. Nobody knew the Highbinder country like he did. If they had guessed he had nearly five thousand acres of top grassland, there might have been others trying to horn in.

  Crystal Valley, watered by Crystal Creek, which flowed into the Laird, was not just one valley, it was three. In the first, where his home was, there were scarcely three hundred acres. In the second there were more than a thousand acres, and in the third, over three thousand. There was always water here, even in the driest weather, and the grass always grew tall. Three times the number of cattle he now had could never have kept it down.

  High, rocky walls with very few passes made it impossible for cattle to stray. The passes were okay for a man on foot, or in one or two cases, a man on a mountain horse, but nothing more.

  After a while he reined in and looked off across the rolling country toward the Kastelle spread. It was a good ranch, and Remy was making it a better one’ She knew cattle, or she had someone with her who did. He smiled bitterly because he knew just who that someone was.

  Finn Mahone got down from his horse and rolled an’d lighted a cigarette. As he faced north, he looked toward the Kastelle ranch with its Lazy K brand. Southwest of him was Mclnnis and his Spur outfit. The Mclnnis ranch was small, but well handled, and until lately, prosperous.

  East of him was the town of Laird, and south and just a short distance west of Laird, the P Slash L ranch of Pierce Logan.

  Northeast of town was Van Brewster’s Lazy S, and north of that, the hamlet of Rawhide. Rawhide was a settlement of ranchers, small ranchers such as Banty Hull, Alcorn, Leibman, Ringer Cobb, Ike Hibby, Frank Salter, and Montana Kerr. It was also the hangout of Byrn Sonntag.

  He had not been joking when he suggested the best way to look for rustlers was with a pen and ink. There are few brands that cannot be altered, and it was a curious thing that the brands of the small group of cattlemen who centered in Rawhide could be changed very easily into Brewster’s Lazy S or Mclnnis’s Spur.

  Finn Mahone was a restless man. There was little to do on his range much of the time, so when not reading or working around the place, he rode. And his riding had taken him far eastward along the ridge of the Highbinders, eastward almost as far as Rawhide.

  Mounting, Finn turned the stallion toward the dim trail that led toward the Notch. It was a trail not traveled but by himself. A trail no one showed any desire to follow.

  Ahead of him a Joshua tree thrust itself up from the plain. It was a lone sentinel, the only one of its kind in many miles. He glanced at it and was about to ride by when something caught his eye. He reined the horse around and rode closer. Thrust into the fiber of the tree was a playing card. A hole had been shot through each corner.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said. “Texas Dowd. He finally
figured out I was here “ His comment to the stallion stopped abruptly, and he replaced the card, looking at it thoughtfully. Then, on a sudden inspiration, he wheeled the stallion and rode off fifty feet or so, then turned the horse again. His hand flashed and a gun was in it. He fired four times as rapidly as he could trigger the gun. Then he turned the horse and rode away.

  There were four more holes in the card, just inside the others. A message had been sent, and now the reply given.

  The great wall of the Rimrock loomed up on his left. It was a sheer, impossible precipice from two to six hundred feet high and running for all of twelve miles. For twenty miles further there was no way over except on foot. It was wild country across the Rim, and not even Finn Mahone had ever explored it thoroughly.

  Straight ahead was the great rift in the wall. Sheer rock on one side, a steep slope on the other. Down the bottom ran the roaring, brawling Laird River, a tumbling rapids with many falls. The trail to Crystal Valley skirted the stream and the sheer cliff. Eight feet wide, it narrowed to four, and ran on for three miles, never wider than that.

  After that it crossed the Laird three times, then disappeared at a long shale bank that offered no sign of a trail. The shale had a tendency to shift and slide at the slightest wrong move. It was that shale bank that defeated ingress to the valley. There was a way across. An outlaw had shown it to Finn, and he’d heard it from an Indian.

  By sighting on the white blaze of a tree, and a certain thumb like projection of rock, one could make it across. Beneath the shale at this point there was a shelf of solid rock. A misstep and one was off into loose shale that would start to slide. It slid, steeper and steeper, for three hundred yards, then plunged off, a hundred feet below, into a snarl of lava pits.

  Once across the slides, the trail was good for several miles, then wound through a confusion of canyons and washes. At the end one rode through a narrow stone bottleneck into the paradise that was Crystal Valley.

  Finn Mahone dismounted at the Rimrock, and led his horse to the edge of the river. While the black was drinking, he let his eyes roam through the trees toward the Notch, then back over the broad miles of the Lazy K. Remy Kastelle. The name made music in his mind. He-remembered the flash of her eyes, her quick, capable walk.