“He’ll try for the train,” Lang said. “He’s got a better chance of making it by train.”
“And we’ll be there first,” Niland said. “We’ll ride right down the trail to Durango. He will stay off the trail for fear of ambush, and so he will travel slower.”
“Where’s Durango?” Lyman asked. “I’m new in this country.”
“East of here. Animas City was the town, but when the railroad came in they built their own town right at the tracks. That’s Durango. It’s only been there a few months.”
“I gotta friend down the line,” Lang offered. “We can ride like hell and swap horses at his place.”
Peg Cullane made no comment, but she was doing some thinking of her own. The fools! Do they think a man like Ruble Noon will chance appearing on the station platform at Durango? In a town so small that nobody could hide?
Judge Niland brought her a cup of coffee and she thanked him. She brushed a wisp of hair back from her face. “I’m afraid I’m not cut out for this,” she said. “I prefer towns and cities.”
He smiled. “Why don’t you just ride on to Durango with us? It will be all over there, and if there is any more that remains to be done you can just wait there. I will protect your interests.”
I’ll bet, she thought, but she smiled. “Thank you, Judge. I believe I will do just that.”
They finished their coffee, put out the fire, mounted their horses, and started down the trail to Durango.
The man standing in the aspens thirty feet off the trail relaxed the grip on his horse’s nostrils and kicked the kinks from his own legs, cramped from being in the same position too long.
J. B. Rimes had come upon them unexpectedly, and although he was friendly with John Lang and was known to Judge Niland, he did not feel it wise to let his presence be known.
They had been absent from the ranch for many hours and knew nothing of the raid that had swept up the last of the outlaws, a few nondescripts who counted for nothing. Arch Billing, Henneker, and a few new hands were now in control, and he himself had been working out the trail of Janish and the others.
He had found the body of Dave Cherry from directions given him by Kissling, before Kissling rode away. That was his first lead.
An hour before, he had heard shots, but by the time he got down the mountain he had found only the body of Ben Janish.
“Two gone,” he said aloud.
Rimes had not been living on the ranch for several days, but had taken to the hills to avoid being roped in on the fight against Ruble Noon. He had his own job to do, and it had nothing in common with the work of Ben Janish.
Now he mounted his horse and started east, holding to the path beside the trail. As he rode he was thinking out what he had just overheard.
They were going after Ruble Noon, and they were expecting to head him off at Durango, but Peg Cullane was leaving them, supposedly to go into town and clean up. He had a very good hunch that Peg would be on the train before they were, and that she would be heading east, not for Durango.…For Alamosa? La Veta?
He had scouted the country well, and now he struck an old Indian trail that would take him across country toward Ignacio, on the railroad below Durango.
He picked up the first tracks on the slope of Bridge Timber Mountain. Five horses? The tracks were confused, and there might have been one more or one less. After that, he glimpsed tracks occasionally, and near the mouth of Sawmill Canyon he picked them up clearly.
He had guessed right. There were three riders and two pack horses. When they stopped for water and dismounted, he could see the three riders’ tracks clearly, and one set was made by a small foot. That would be Fan’s. Noon’s moccasins he had learned to know, but the third rider was a puzzle—high-heeled boots and large-roweled California-style spurs. Wherever this man squatted he left spur marks in the sand.
J. B. Rimes was satisfied. He was going to overtake them before they reached the railroad.
Chapter 19
*
SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE Rimes found their tracks on Bridge Timber Mountain, they had broken camp there and moved on. In his haste to pursue their trail, Rimes never did locate that camp.
In the last moments of light, Ruble Noon had turned off the trail into the pines, found a small clearing where melting snow offered water, and made a hasty camp. They were about eight thousand feet up, and the air was cold.
Noon’s work was swift and practiced. While Lebo put together a small fire, he cut two forked sticks, set them in the ground, and laid a pole across the forks. With other cut branches he built a lean-to against this frame and thatched it with evergreens, starting from the bottom and hooking each branch over a crosspiece as he worked up. It was not long before he had a good shelter from either wind or rain.
“How far is it now to the railroad?” Fan asked.
“Not far now. We’ll catch the train at Ignacio.”
“You mean the reservation trading post?”
“Nearby. The Denver & Rio Grande stops near there. The way I figure, they’ll ride to Durango and look for us there, and they’ll lose time. They might take the train, but they’d be afraid if we weren’t on it that we might take the next one or some other route. They’ve got to cover everything.”
His shoulder was painful. He had treated it as best he could, but it worried him. It needed medical attention, but there was no chance for that this side of Denver, unless there was somebody on the train who could give it.
They went down the mountain early in the morning and reached the Animas River shortly after daybreak. They forded the river where it was stirrup-deep, and a little over an hour later they crossed the Florida near the mouth of Cottonwood Gulch.
The Ute Indian Trail lay across the flat before them, the low wall of the Mesa Mountains to the south. Ruble Noon headed east, holding to a good pace and keeping Piedra Peak ahead of his right shoulder.
“How far?” Fan asked again.
“Ten miles…maybe less. With luck, we won’t have to wait long.”
“I’m frightened. We’re so close to the end.”
“Forget it—the worry, I mean. We’re going to make it.”
Lebo spoke. “Dust, back yonder.”
“Utes, probably.”
“Only one rider,” Lebo said, “and coming up fast.”
They dipped into a hollow, topped the rise beyond, and looked back. Dust was in the air, but it was far back.
They could see the green line of trees along the Los Pinos River. The railroad was just this side, following the river south.
Ruble Noon drew his Winchester from the scabbard, and looked back again. The rider was gaining on them.
“What is there at the station?” Fan asked.
“Very little. The Ute Agency is just a couple of miles north. I think there’s a water tank and a box car for a station.”
“I hope there’s some shade.”
“There is.”
She was silent for a while, and then said, “I am sure I have come through here on the train several times, but I remember nothing of it.”
“No reason to. It’s a forgettable place. The beauty is in the country around.”
His mouth was dry and his stomach felt empty. He glanced back toward the strange rider, still too far away to see. Ahead of them he could now make out the outline of the water tank, and of a low building—it was more than a box car. The trees along the river were green. He could use a drink.
He deliberately slowed their pace, not wanting to attract too much attention, and hoping that before they reached the station he could see whoever might be there. There would be a train along soon.
The platform was empty. The small, two-roomed building that was the station was empty also. They rode up, then went past it and pulled up under the rustling green of the cottonwoods. For a moment he sat in his saddle, listening. Then he got down.
“Jonas?”
He turned sharply, surprised at the name. It was Fan who spoke. “I told you I was goi
ng to call you that. It is your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
At that moment he knew for sure that it was. For the first time the name felt right to him—not a name he had simply chosen, but one that belonged to him, a name that was his.
“Jonas, isn’t there some way we can get away without trouble?”
“That’s the plan. If the train arrives before they do, and if they are not on the train, then we can make it. But remember, Fan, they’re going to try to get the gold from you.”
“Let them have it.”
“I can’t. Not in good conscience, I can’t. I took money from your father to kill four men, but if I can save what is yours without that, then I will have done what it was given me to do.
“And this would not be an end, Fan. You cannot submit to evil without allowing evil to grow. Each time the good are defeated, or each time they yield, they only cause the forces of evil to grow stronger. Greed feeds greed, and crime grows with success. Our giving up what is ours merely to escape trouble would only create greater trouble for someone else.
“If we can get on the train and get away before they come we will have won; but if they arrive with the train or before, we must fight.”
He stopped, and she was silent.
The day was hot and still. Over the mountains great black thunderheads loomed up, vast swellings shot through with jagged streaks of lightning. The air was close, unlike mountain air. On the Pacific coast in the old days they would have said it was earthquake weather. He put a hand down and touched the butt of his gun. It felt curiously cool and comforting, and he knew he would need it soon.
He would need it, because there was no yielding to any of them. The weak and the doubtful were dead or gone; Kissling was gone, and others were gone, too. Tough Dave Cherry was gone. And Ben Janish—the top man with a gun, the one most feared—he was gone.
There were enough who remained, but any one of them might die, and that went for him as well. He was good—he knew that deep inside himself. He was resolute, he was fast, he was sure. Above all, at the moment of truth, that moment when it came time to draw and live, or draw and die, he was cool…or he always had been.
Would he be so now? That was the thing. A man never knew. He had seen strong, dangerous men suddenly lose faith in themselves, either in front of a gun or during a fight, like Billy Brooks against Kirk Jordan in Dodge. Brooks had proved his nerve time and again, and when the Jordan thing was long past he was to prove it again and again—but against Jordan and his big .50 buffalo gun he lost his nerve.
Lebo spoke. “There’s a rider comin’,” he said. “Down the old Ute Trail.”
They could see him. He was coming hard, riding all out…and in a moment they knew why. The train whistled. It was far up the track, but it was coming.
Ruble Noon touched his tongue to his lips. “Strip the gear off the horses,” he said. “They’ll go back where they came from.”
The Mexican looked at him. “You going out there, amigo? Out in the open?”
“Yes.”
Lebo’s shrug was eloquent.
They could hear the pound of hoofs now, and the train whistled again. Ruble Noon eased his gun in its holster to be sure it was free to move fast.
Thunder rumbled…the storm was closer now.
They started for the station, leading the two pack horses. Fan walked beside them, still holding her rifle. Little puffs of dust lifted from the road as they crossed it. On the platform their footsteps sounded loud…a brilliant streak of lightning bulged a cloud with livid flame, and thunder cracked. A few scattered drops fell.
Ruble Noon removed the sacks from the pack saddles and put them down on the platform.
Then suddenly they were there, at the end of the platform, and he had no idea where they had come from.
Lang was there, and Manly, and there was another man—a Mexican, tall and thin, wearing a wide sombrero, twin cartridge belts, and a thin black mustache.
Cristobal!
Ruble Noon’s agreement had been for four men and a woman. A woman? He would never have agreed to that.
Suddenly it was crystal-clear in his mind. He had not agreed to kill any of them. He had agreed to free the ranch of outlaws by his own means, and he had been warned to be careful of four men and a woman. Careful, and only that. And the woman would be Peg Cullane.
So Tom Davidge had known something about her, too. Now they might never know what it was, but Tom Davidge had known very well who his enemies were, and who they might be.
Cristobal now…As dangerous a gunman as ever came down the pike. And there he was, with Manly and Lang.…Was nothing ever going to be easy?
“You can leave it right there, or you can die,” Manly said. “You’re lucky—you’ve got a choice.”
“The gold’s gone,” Ruble Noon lied. “All we have here is some lead shot. We got the gold away, and used this to keep you off the regular shipment, which is halfway to Denver by now.”
“You can’t give us that,” Manly said, “so don’t try.”
Fan Davidge had a piece of the black-painted gold in her pocket and she held it up. “See?”
They did not want to believe it, they could not, but it worried them.
The train whistled again, and the sullen thunder rumbled. Big drops of rain spattered on the platform.
Lebo released the pack horses, and they walked away to join the other horses grazing under the trees.
Ruble Noon knew when a time had come. He could feel it deep within himself, and he took a step to the side so as to pull the shooting away from Fan’s position.
“The train’s coming,” he said quietly, “and when that train comes in, we’re loading the sacks on it. Maybe we’re lying about what’s in them, maybe we’re not; but if you want to die to find out, you can have a try…any time.”
“The great Ruble Noon,” Cristobal said. His black eyes showed contempt. “I do not believe he is that great. Always he shoots from nowhere…can he shoot from somewhere at men with guns?”
The moment was here, and there was no time to waste in talk. When a fight is inevitable, it is foolish to waste time in words.
“Now?” he said gently, and then he drew.
All three of them moved as one man, but Ruble Noon shot at Lang first. Lang, the cool, the quiet, the man who did not talk…Lang he wanted out of there, and Lang knew it and was smiling. He saw Lang’s gun coming up, rising too high…he was being too careful.
The report of his own gun was lost in a crash of thunder. He was moving ahead, a careful step at a time, firing with precision, but with speed.
Lang, then Lang again, then Cristobal. Manly was down, too…Lebo must have got him.
From behind him somebody was shooting with a rifle, and that worried him, but he did not turn.
Two for Lang…another for Cristobal, and a third one for Lang as the man started to rise, his face and shirt bloody.
Lang was down, though for a moment he was trying to get back up. Cristobal was still up, his fine white teeth flashing in a smile…easy, taunting—and dead. He was falling forward, the gun going from his hand.
The rifle behind them thundered again, and then the train came rushing along the track. The shooting was over, and the rain had turned into a downpour.
The bodies lay on the platform like old sacks. Lebo was down, and Ruble Noon was thumbing shells from his gun, and feeding cartridges into it. He had stopped shooting when Lang went down, and he stood there in the rain, watching Lang for signs of life.
People were staring from the train windows. Fan was bending over Miguel Lebo, and beside her was another man with a rifle in his hand. He was pointing with it to a window of the station.
A rifle lay on the platform underneath the window, and hanging over the broken glass was Judge Niland, as dead as a man could be.
The man who was pointing his rifle toward the Judge was J. B. Rimes.
“Mr. Mandrin,” he was saying, “I’m a Pinkerton man.”
&n
bsp; “Not an outlaw at all?” Ruble Noon asked mildly.
“I was…once. They recruited me to run down some train robbers. We had looked for you until the reward was called off, but I had a guess at who you were when you said your name was Jonas.”
The rain continued to fall.
Fan tugged at Noon’s sleeve. “Jonas…the train!”
He picked up a couple of the sacks. Rimes did likewise, and the express messenger took the others.
When they had reached the express car and loaded the gold inside, he looked back at Lebo. The Mexican was on his feet and was coming toward them, limping. His shirt was bloody.
“Is it bad?” Noon asked.
Lebo shook his head. “No…I think no.”
“Get on. You’re better off on the train than here. Let’s go.”
It was a three-car train—just the express car and two coaches. There were four passengers in the first coach—two men together, obviously easterners, and a slender, aristocratic-looking woman accompanied by a squarely built man. The woman wore a gray traveling suit; her hair was gray, her eyes a startling blue.
One of the easterners smiled tolerantly as they entered the coach. “That was quite a performance,” he said. “Does the railroad pay you to stage these little shows?”
“I thought it was a bit overdone,” the other man commented. “Too much, don’t you know?”
Ruble Noon and J. B. Rimes helped Lebo to a seat. All of them were soaking wet.
“Too bad you had to get caught in the rain,” the first easterner said. “It kind of broke up the show.”
“What do you do for an encore?” the other asked.
Fan was helping Lebo off with his buckskin jacket. His shirt was soaked with blood.
The gray-haired woman got up from her seat and put down the fancy work in which she had been engaged. “Perhaps I can help?” she suggested. “I’ve had some experience in this line of work.”
“Would you, please?” Fan asked. “I…I’ve lived in the East until recently, and I’m afraid I…”
“Get me some water, young man,” the woman said, turning to Ruble Noon. “There’s a pan on the stove at the end of the car. My husband was heating it to shave.”
Novel 1970 - The Man Called Noon (v5.0) Page 16