For the first time in months he felt content. He was up in the saddle again, and he was riding away from trouble. Of course, there would be trouble aplenty at Tappan Junction, but it was the kind of trouble for which he was well prepared and which he clearly understood. Also, within a few minutes, unless his calculations had gone astray, part of his work would be done for him somewhere back in the hills … or perhaps out on the bunch-grass levels where the tracks were laid.
Somewhere along the line Ray Hollister would come upon Mike Shevlin, and in the gun battle that must surely follow, men would die on both sides, and every man who died made his own problem that much simpler.
He had a good horse under him, and no slow-moving pack mules to worry about. At Wood’s Ranch he would swap horses, exchanging the sorrel he now rode for a tough buckskin he had kept at the ranch, and he would make fast time down to the Junction. He would be waiting there with the contents of that bundle behind his saddle, and after that the gold would be his and his alone.
An hour after he rode past the dying campfire, unaware that it was there, two other riders came along. By that time the fire was entirely out—only the blackened coals remained.
Laine Tennison was more angry than frightened, but Red was triumphant. His triumph, however, was beginning to wear thin, for he was no longer so sure that he had judged right in kidnaping this girl.
It had been simple enough, back there at the Nevada House. He knew that Laine Tennison represented trouble, and he had guessed she was one of the owners of the mines, or was associated with them. He had acted promptly, and upon impulse, as he did most things.
Mike Shevlin was gone, and it could only be the girl in the room. He had detected a faint perfume near the door that told him his guess was right. After discovering that the door was barred from within, he decided that by morning she would be hungry. He had simply knocked on the door shortly after daylight and said, “Mr. Shevlin, your breakfast is here.”
Nobody he knew had ever had breakfast served in his room, but she was a city girl and might not know it wasn’t done at the Nevada House. With a slight clatter he put down some dishes he had brought up for the purpose, then walked away and tiptoed back.
Laine was hungry. After a moment or two she opened the door, and he forced his way in before she could close it.
And now he had her here, on the road to Tappan Junction.
He had been sure that Ben Stowe would be pleased, but now he was beginning to worry. Ben was a man who liked to order things his own way. It was too late, however, to think about that—there was nothing to do but ride on.
CHAPTER 19
WHEN MIKE SHEVLIN rode out of the dark pines he faced a vast green slope, perhaps a thousand acres of untouched grass, slanting away from the rounded crest of the mountain toward the dark canyon off to his left.
To his right and well ahead of him, three dark jagged crags tore at the sky, trailing drifts of windblown cloud like streamers of smoke. The rain was a gray veil, the grass a brilliant green, while the sky was masked with lowering thunderheads.
There was no wind on this slope shielded by the mountain, but he was chilly under the slicker; and his wet hands worried him, for if he needed a gun he would need it fast—and with accurate aim.
It took a long time to cross the wide green slope. At the end it fell sharply away into the last canyon before Lost Cabin, and he drew rein here and sat his horse, looking across at the squat gray shape, tantalized as always by the wonder of it. Who had found this wild and lonely place so long ago?
At this point he was over a mile higher than Rafter Crossing, and a good thousand feet above the trail followed by the pack mules. There might be accidents due to the weather, but there was no danger of them going astray.
Nobody he knew at Rafter had ever seen Lost Cabin, and he himself had not talked of it, wishing jealously to keep this place for himself. Many knew about the Cabin, some scarcely believing in it; but there it was, on the slope across the canyon, under the shadow of ancient trees. A dwarfish army of cedars was massed not far below it, as if waiting to leap upon it in some moment of stillness.
At last Shevlin was angling steeply down, searching out the old trail, glad that he had a good mountain horse, when he saw them. At first he could not believe his eyes.
He drew up sharply, peering down at the five riders coming out of the draw, about a mile away. He saw them begin to fan out among the rocks and trees.
They were not more than a hundred yards from the trail, which at that point came out into the open for a good half-mile, just beyond the low glacial ridge where the five were taking shelter.
Their backs were to him—but for how long? If they happened to turn he could be plainly seen up here. He had to get off this slope and into the trees.
Jess Winkler … Of course. He should have thought of the old wolfer who had been riding these hills for years. Winkler must be down there. Nobody else could have known of the trail the mules were using; and the trail these five had taken to get here from below must be one even Shevlin knew nothing of.
He walked his horse along the slope and got into the trees without being seen. Then, screened by the dripping trees, he rode at a dead run, racing against time. If the pack train had had no trouble they would soon be along, riding like sitting pigeons into the range of Hollister’s guns.
Against the five men down there, he had the nine with the pack train. But they would be scattered out along the line of mules, and the first volley would surely eliminate some of them unless they could be warned.
Hollister was a fair hand with a rifle, good with a six-gun. And Winkler—well, Winkler would never miss. When he aimed from a rest, he killed. Babcock was good too, and the others were probably at least average.
He raced his horse for about a quarter of a mile, slowed to a walk over more difficult ground, and then raced on. He came out of the trees behind Hollister and his men, and a good two hundred yards away. He could see them settled down and waiting, and just as he had spotted the fifth man, the first of the pack mules came into sight.
The first man in the pack train was a tall, lean, stoop-shouldered Texan; there were six mules before the second man appeared. In a matter of minutes they would all be strung out along the trail, and helpless. And he knew that Hollister would hold his fire until all were within easy range.
Mike Shevlin felt a curious emptiness inside him. He knew what was coming. You could die down there, he told himself. He tugged on his hat brim and started down the slope behind the waiting men.
His horse walked quickly, daintily. Shevlin touched a flank lightly with a spur, and the horse began to canter. The five men below were fixing all their attention on the approaching mule train.
Suddenly one of the men with the mule train saw Shevlin, and drew up sharply. At the same instant, Shevlin shucked a six-shooter and slapped the spurs to his horse.
The startled animal almost leaped from under him, then went pounding down the slope, running like the wind. There came a startled exclamation, and one of Hollister’s men whirled toward him, and Mike let go his first shot.
He was not over fifty yards off, but the shot was a clear miss, serving only to make the man jerk back, off balance, out of position for a shot.
Guns started to bark, and Shevlin saw the lean Texan in the van spur his horse up the slope. He caught on fast, that one. Mike saw one of the men lift a rifle, and then he was among them. He chopped down and shot full into the man’s face, seeing it flame with blood as the bullet struck a glancing blow that knocked the man sprawling under his horse’s hoofs.
Shevlin reined around quickly, glad he was riding a good cutting horse used to making quick turns. The Texan was among them too, his horse down and screaming, the man himself firing—falling and firing. Two more men came up the slope and one of them launched himself in a long dive at Winkler, and the two went rolling.
As his horse came around, Shevlin saw two more men from the pack train spurring up the slope, and then h
is horse, tired from the long ride, put a foot down wrong and they both fell. He rolled over, but came up still gripping a gun as Hollister ran up to face him.
“Damn you!” Hollister screamed. “I should have killed—”
Mike Shevlin felt the gun bucking in his hard grip, and he saw Hollister jerk as if lashed by a whip, jerk again, and fall forward on the wet slope of grass.
Hollister rolled over and started to get up, but Mike put a bullet into his chest at a range of six feet. Then he turned swiftly to face whoever was left.
The sound of the gunfire was rolling against the hills, then rolling back in echoing, muted thunder. It fell away and was lost, and there was no other sound but the rain falling, and somewhere a man groaning.
Mike picked up Hollister’s unused gun, thrust it behind his belt, and walked across the grass.
John Sande was lying face down on the grass, dead. A man sitting against a rock just beyond Sande turned and looked at Shevlin. “You played hell, Mike,” he said, almost without expression.
It was Babcock. His right arm was a bloody mess. Numb with shock, he was gripping his arm tightly against the flow of blood, and gazing hollow-eyed at Shevlin.
Halloran was lying dead, too, shot clean through. The Texan was dead, and two others from the mule train. There was no sign of Jess Winkler.
Down on the flat the mules were bunched, and four men, rifles ready, clustered about them. They had played it the smart way, bunching the animals and holding them tight, ready for anything.
Mike Shevlin looked carefully around. One of his men was missing … probably the man who had tangled with the old wolf-hunter.
He shouted at the men with the mules, and two of them came up the slope, riding warily. “You,” he said to the nearest one, “take care of that man’s wounds. He’s too good to die this way. You”—he indicated the other man—“catch up the horses.”
He walked over to his own horse. It had gotten up, and came toward him as he approached. He mounted and rode slowly in the direction where he had seen Winkler and the other man fighting.
He saw Jess Winkler first. The old man was on his face on top of the other man, and something was gleaming from his back. Mike drew up and looked down. What he saw was the needle-sharp point of a knife, an Arkansas toothpick.
“Hey!” came a voice that was muffled. “Pull him off me! He smells worse’n a hide-skinner.”
Mike swung down and, catching the wolfer by the buckskin jacket, lifted him up. The other man crawled up from where he had been sprawled between two fallen trees, wedged in by the dead wolfer’s body. He was scarcely more than a boy.
“He come at me when I got up after jumpin’ him, an’ I wasn’t set for it. I went over backwards, just a-holdin’ that knife.”
“You held it in the right place,” Mike said. He looked with no regret at the fierce old man, cold and dangerous as any of the wolves he had hunted so long. “Are you hurt?”
“Scratched.”
“Better go through their pockets and see if there’s any addresses. They’ll maybe have kinfolk who’d wish to know.”
“They’d of had us,” the boy said, “hadn’t been for you coming a hellin’ down that slope.” He thrust out his hand. “They call me Billy the Kid.”
Shevlin grinned at him. “That makes four of them I’ve met—and you aren’t Bonney.”
“I ain’t Claiborne, either. My name is Daniels.”
Mike Shevlin walked his horse back to where Ray Hollister lay, and he sat looking down at him. “I’ll tell them where you are, Ray,” he said, “and if there are any who see fit to bury you, they can ride up and do it. We haven’t the time.”
As he looked at him, he was remembering him all down the years. When he had first known Ray Hollister he had a good working ranch, but he was never satisfied … he had gotten a good woman killed, and a few men, and now he lay there, come to it at last.
“String ’em out!” he yelled at the men with the mules. “We’ve got ten miles to go!”
Babcock had been disarmed, and his arm was bound up and in a sling. “You goin’ to bury them?” he said to Mike.
“Who’s got a shovel?” Mike asked. Then he added, “Bab, if you want to stay here and bury them, you can.”
Babcock stared at him. “I never figured you for a unfeeling man,” he said.
“I lost a lot of feeling the night Eve Bancroft died. I didn’t like her, but that girl would have ridden a-blazin’ into hell for Ray Hollister, and he let her go alone.”
The mules were strung out and Billy Daniels was up ahead, riding point.
“What are you goin’ to do with me? Babcock asked.
“Hell, I’ve got no place for you, and nothing against you except damn’ poor judgment in bosses. Ride along with us, and when we hit the flat you cut out for Rafter.”
“Rafter?” Babcock was incredulous. “With this arm? I’d go through hell a-gettin’ there!”
“What do you think’s waiting for us down there at Tappan Junction, Bab?” Shevlin said quietly. “I figure you’ve had yours.”
They rode on a few steps, and then Mike Shevlin said, “Ben Stowe’s waiting down there. He’s waiting for us.”
CHAPTER 20
TWO MILES SHORT of Tappan Junction the narrow trail played out, and they could see ahead of them the two buildings of the settlement in the bottom of a great basin. The twin lines of steel came out of the west and vanished into the east.
At Tappan there was a corral with a chute for loading pens, a water tank for the trains, a combination saloon, post office, and general store, and across the tracks, the telegraph office. Adjoining the office was a waiting room with two windows, furnished with a single bench and a pot-bellied stove.
No horses were in sight, but there wouldn’t be—they would be in the pens. Several cattle cars and one box-car were standing on a siding.
Mike Shevlin, weary from his long ride, stared across the flat through the drizzling rain. It lacked an hour of sundown, and darkness would come early, with that cloud-covered sky.
Beside him, drawn and pale, rode Babcock. He had lost blood, he sagged with weariness; he was not going to make it through to Rafter Crossing. He knew it now, and so did Mike Shevlin. Only an iron will and a rawhide body had brought him this far. He needed rest and care, and they were down there waiting for him, just beyond a full-scale gun battle.
“This makes it my fight, Mike,” he said. “I’ll ride in with you.”
“Bab, what do you suppose Ben Stowe would do if you rode in there now … alone?”
Babcock tried to think it through. His brain was fuzzy, and it required an effort to assemble his thoughts. “Damned if I know. He’d probably ask me what happened, then he’d either shoot me or leave me be.”
“You ride in there, Bab. Tell him anything he wants to know. I’m betting he’ll want to know everything you can tell him, and I don’t believe he’ll shoot you. Ben Stowe only kills when he thinks there’s a good reason—you’re out of this now, and he’ll see it plain enough. Tag Murray is down there, and he’s pretty good with a wound, better than some doctors I know. You ride on in.”
Babcock hesitated, and glanced back at the mule train. “What about them, Mike? They’re Ben’s hired gunmen.”
Shevlin looked at him wryly, then dug into his pocket for a cigar. It was a fresh one, and he enjoyed lighting it. “Bab,” he said, “unless I miss my guess, one or more of those boys are supposed to salt me down while we’re crossing the flat out there. Unless Ben is saving me for himself.
“I said Ben Stowe only killed when there was good reason, but I’ll make two exceptions to that—Ray Hollister and me. He’d take pleasure in killing either of us.”
“You and him were mighty thick, one time.”
“Stowe and Gentry were thick; and Gentry and me, we rode saddle partners a while. But Stowe never liked me, and I never liked him.”
“Mike … look there!” It was Billy Daniels who had come up to them. “That t
here rider on this side, that’s a woman!”
Al, one of the men who had carried a pick-handle that day in the mine, had also come up. “That’s Red on the paint—where would he get a woman?”
“Hell!” Billy spat. “That’s that Tennison girl. No-body else rides sidesaddle with the style she’s got!”
Babcock glanced at Shevlin. “So there you are,” he said. “Now are you goin’ to ride in there, hell a-whoopin’?”
“Go on in, Bab,” Mike said again. “Tell him anything he wants to know, and don’t you worry none about me.”
Babcock still hesitated. “Mike, I ain’t up to much, but damn it, man, you’re cattle! I’ll ride in there with you, or I’ll cover your back, whatever you’re of a mind to.”
Shevlin put a hand on Babcock’s shoulders. “Go on in, Bab,” he repeated.
Babcock touched a heel to his horse and went off across the grass.
“What’s the matter with him?” Billy Daniels asked. “What was he figurin’ to do?”
Mike Shevlin stepped his horse around, and they were all there, facing him, with the gold train just beyond. His eyes went from one to another, curiously, somewhat mockingly. “Why, he just figured one of you boys was about to shoot me in the back. He figured Ben Stowe had put you up to it. How about it, boys? Any of you want me? If you do, you don’t need to wait.”
His Winchester was in the boot, his slicker was hanging open and loose, and both his hands were in sight.
There were five of them, and they were spread out before him like a hand of cards, all jacks or aces, not a deuce in the lot.
These were hard men, who rode a hard trail in a hard country, and he faced them, waiting. One show-down at a time, he told himself. When I ride up to Tappan Junction, I want to keep my eyes up front.
Billy Daniels moved his hands out in front of him and folded them on his saddlehorn. “The way I see it, you fought beside us back there. You came down off that slope when you didn’t need to, and you saved our bacon—some of us, anyway.”
Novel 1965 - The High Graders (v5.0) Page 16