Paint the Hills Red

by Ron Schwab

  She was silent for a moment before she answered. “Doesn’t look like I have much choice.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way,” Dan said, and then he turned away to see if he could round up something that would whet her appetite.

  Sol helped Megan ease back down on the mattress. Strangely, Dan found himself sorrier for Solomon Pyle than for Megan Grant.

  9

  DAN MCCLURE NUDGED his claybank gelding down the muddy main street of Medicine Hill, Nebraska. He glanced back at the stiff mud-smeared and blood-caked body that was slung across the saddle and tied to the black mare that trailed behind. As they plodded down the street, he tipped his low-brimmed hat from time to time at the curious passers-by who stopped to stare. As he approached the sheriff’s office, he reined in his horse and dismounted. His hand came to rest on the butt of the long barreled Army model Colt holstered on his hip, and he wondered absently how it could feel so comfortable there after so long an absence.

  He led the horses over to the hitching rail in front of the sheriff’s office and hitched them there, before stepping up onto the boardwalk just as the thick, oak door of the jailhouse office swung open and an eel-thin man with a sallow face and black pencil-thin mustache swaggered out. The glittering silver star on the man’s leather vest told Dan this was the man he had come to see.

  The sheriff stopped and, ignoring Dan for a moment, eyed the dead gunman with what seemed to be only casual interest. He lifted off his Stetson and primped at his neatly trimmed, coal-black hair before repositioning it deliberately on his head. He pulled a small cigar from his shirt pocket, bit off the end, and finally stepped toward Dan. His dark reptilian eyes searched Dan. “Who are you?” the sheriff asked.

  “My name’s Dan McClure. I live about 15 miles northwest of here.”

  The sheriff lit his cigar and sucked at it deeply, his eyes meeting Dan’s challengingly. He was an imposing and formidable figure, Dan thought, one of the few he had encountered who was taller than himself. His crooked nose, which likely had been broken on some occasion, gave his face a sinister look, and his body appeared loose and quick, like a walking bullwhip. Instinctively, he disliked the man.

  “Ike Hanson’s place,” the sheriff said matter-of-factly. “You’re the nester who moved in there.”

  The sheriff kept in pretty good touch with his territory considering there must have been over three thousand square miles in the county. Too good of touch, maybe.

  “I’m not a nester. I bought the place from Hanson. My deed’s recorded. I assume you’re Keaton.”

  The sheriff blew out a thick plume of smoke that caught Dan full in the face. The smoke seared his eyes, but Dan did not give the sheriff the satisfaction of flinching.

  “Sheriff Keaton. Sheriff Stiles Keaton.” He nodded toward the dead man. “Now, suppose you tell me what this is all about.”

  “This man tried to kill a young woman, Sheriff. He would have if I hadn’t gotten there first.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yes, I did. I had to or he would have killed Megan Grant.”

  “Grant? Of the Bar G Grants?”

  “Yes. He stalked her and beat her senseless. He was going to shoot her when I came along. The way it is, he left her blind. I’ve got a hunch he’s the bushwhacker who put a bullet in me a few weeks back.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Nobody saw who shot me. But Miss Grant recognized this man, and she can testify that he was trying to kill her.”

  “Appears to me there’s no need to testify. The man’s dead. The law can't do much more to him. And I’ll take you at your word you didn’t kill him in cold blood . . . for now.”

  “I left home late yesterday afternoon and spent the night in the timber so I could report this, Sheriff. I wanted to keep my own name clear, but more importantly, I wanted to be sure that somebody looked into this.”

  “Looked into what?”

  “From what the folks at the Grant ranch tell me, you’ve got a small-scale range war going on in this county, but from what I hear and from what I’ve seen so far, you’re getting damn close to a real blood-letting.”

  “If folks want to fight, I can’t stop them,” the sheriff said.

  “I don’t see why not. At least you can hear out their grievances and try to do something about it.”

  “What grievances? Hell, mister, you haven’t made a lick of sense since you rode up here.”

  “I’m talking about the small ranchers and their family members who’ve been killed over the past few years,” Dan said. “I’m told you never even rode out to take a look after the killings were reported.”

  “Nobody could ever come up with witnesses. Hell, you can’t do anything without witnesses. Anyway, mister, I don’t like the way you’re putting things. Are you trying to say I’m not doing my job?”

  “I’m just making it clear that I expect you to find out what this is all about or make a damn good try at it.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “I’ve already posted a letter to the Nebraska Attorney General, who happens to be a good friend of mine,” Dan lied. “I told him what I know and asked him to make some inquiries here.”

  “I don’t take kindly to people going over my head,” Stiles Keaton said.

  “I don’t take kindly to people shooting at me.”

  “Well, I’ll look into it,” Keaton said, “but don’t push me. I don’t like to be pushed.”

  “What about this man?” Dan asked.

  “What about him? He’s dead, isn’t he? Like I said, what more can I do?”

  “You miss my point. I want to know who hired him. Do you know this man?”

  “Can’t say that I do. Hell, folks are so strung out in this county he could have lived here for years without me seeing him.”

  “You don’t look like the kind of man who would miss anything he wanted to know about, but I won’t argue the point. His name’s Mendosa. I have reason to think he works for Woodson Dunkirk. The Diamond D. You’ve heard of the spread?” Dan asked sarcastically. Dan thought he saw a fleeting moment of surprise, or something akin to it, cross the man’s eyes.

  “I’d be careful about tossing Dunkirk’s name around free and loose like that, mister.”

  “Why, because he might have me killed?”

  Keaton’s jaw tensed. “Mr. Dunkirk’s a fine man. That’s not his way. But he carries a lot of weight in these parts, and he’s a good man to get along with.”

  “And you get along with him, is that right, Sheriff?”

  “Look, mister, I said I don’t like to be pushed, and in about two shakes, I’m going to rub your nose in that shit that’s running out of your mouth.”

  He decided he had pressed the sheriff beyond prudence, but he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He had confirmed what Sol and Megan had told him: that Sheriff Keaton was uncooperative and hostile, if not on Dunkirk’s payroll. And the latter was a distinct possibility. But he had put the sheriff on guard, and if Keaton thought the Attorney General might be breathing down his neck, perhaps he would be a little more careful. Maybe he’d press Dunkirk to pull in his horns for a spell. And perhaps it would be wise to actually write a letter to the Attorney General. The Pine Ridge was a powder keg with a short fuse, and it appeared that the small ranchers had nobody to turn to for help.

  “What about this man . . . Mendosa?” Dan asked. “What shall I do with him?”

  “I don’t have any use for him,” the sheriff said. “I’d say it’s your shit: cover it up.”

  “You won’t see to having him buried?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you want to know more about what happened out at my place?”

  “Not especially. I told you, mister, I’ll look into it on my own. If I need something more from you, I’ll be in touch. Now, why don’t you get this corpse off the street?” He cast his eyes skyward. “That sun’s going to be warming things up, and your friend here’s getting ripe enough already. He
’ll be drawin’ out the early flies before the afternoon’s out. If I was you, I’d head out of town and bury him up the road a ways. Then I’d skedaddle back to that place you’re nesting on, pack my duds, and look for a better fishing hole someplace else.”

  Dan tipped his hat with exaggerated politeness, turned away, and ambled over to the horses. He untied the reins and moved to the claybank’s side, feeling the sheriff’s eyes boring into his back all the while. He grasped the saddle horn, stepped into the stirrup, and swung into the saddle. He looked down at the sheriff. “Sheriff,” he said, “you say you don’t like to be pushed. I’m going to tell you something. It seems like we’ve got something in common. I don’t like to be pushed either. But if somebody pushes me, I don’t push back. I hit back. And I hit hard.”

  “I’ll tell you something, Mr. . . . McClure, isn’t it? This job was starting to bore me until you came along. I was even thinking I might move on west a little further, maybe Wyoming, Montana, where things are a little livelier. But I think I’ll stick around a spell now. I’ve got a feeling you’ll make things a little more interesting. A challenge. That’s what I think you might be: a challenge. You and me, we just might have to see who’s going to be bull of the herd.”

  “I’ll watch my back closer from now on,” Dan said, as he reined his horse away from the hitching rail. “And by the way, since nobody will claim this stray dog, I think I’ll just run him out to the Diamond D and see if he’s got an owner out there. Everybody tells me how important this Mr. Dunkirk is. The most powerful man in the county, they say. Maybe in this half of the state. He sounds like the kind of man I should get to know.” Dan shot a final glance at Keaton.

  The sheriff was standing there in the shadows of the portico. His right arm was hanging limply, within easy grasp of the pearl-handled revolver that hung low on his hip. Dan guessed it was taking all the willpower Stiles Keaton could muster to keep that hand from groping for the gun right now. He had made an enemy this day, and looking back, he had done it with an arrogance and bravado that had not been necessary. He could have learned everything he wanted without baiting the sheriff to such anger, but there was something in the man that stirred emotions he had thought long since dead. He had put hate and killing aside for love and the gentle pursuit of art. But there was no doubt in his mind now that he could still kill. The thought saddened him.

  10

  DAN HAD NO trouble finding the Diamond D. The road was wide and smooth, not wagon-rutted or half over-grown by brush like most of the county roads. Somebody, either Dunkirk or the county officials, kept the road from Medicine Hill to the Diamond D in top shape.

  The Diamond D ranch headquarters was some five miles up the valley and then angled north and west from Medicine Hill, but the well-built road bed connected the ranch to the town like an umbilical cord anchored a baby to its mother, Dan thought. However, he could not say for sure whether the town was the mother of the ranch or the ranch the mother of the town. He was beginning to see why the small ranchers did not look to Medicine Hill to take up any grievances against Woodson Dunkirk.

  As he cantered the horses westward, Dan observed that the trees were becoming sparser and that the valley widened and flattened into a plain carpeted with tough, fine-stemmed buffalo grass that, in spite of the soaking rain, had only begun to shuck the crisp, brown residue of winter. But Dan knew that by August, the silvery green grass, after a month of drought and heavy pasturage, would glisten with life after other less hardy grasses had shriveled away and been stomped into the Pine Ridge dust.

  Dan slowed the gelding and surveyed the seemingly endless sea of grass spread out before him. At the far end of the open meadows, just before they gave way to the rolling foothills that climbed into the Pine Ridge, he could make out the gray outline of ranch buildings. He nudged his horse ahead, and as he drew closer to the main gate of the Diamond D, he caught sight of the gleaming strands of newly strung barbed wire that stretched out from both sides of the swinging pinewood gate that blocked the road. The approach to the ranch headquarters reminded Dan of a military post, and there was even a sentry, a range cowboy with a rifle cradled in his arms, leaning lazily against the thick cedar post that anchored the heavy gate in a casual manner, belying the intense scrutiny his eyes were giving the approaching rider and the cargo that trailed behind.

  Beyond the gate, perhaps a half mile down the road, Dan could identify the barns and sheds and bunk houses of the sprawling Diamond D ranch complex. And dominating it all, rising like a towering monument from the prairie, stood a white, pillared Georgian mansion. It didn’t fit. A house like that didn’t belong in the West. Somehow—he could not explain why—the house seemed ugly and offensive in this setting, an affront to the hardworking, self-sacrificing people who were settling and building the West. Dan did not begrudge a man his material rewards. In his own way, he supposed, although not obsessed by it, he too desired a measure of wealth and fame. But the mansion flaunted it. Here it struck Dan like an obscene gesture.

  “Hold up there, mister,” came the cowboy’s voice as Dan rode up to the gate. The man straightened up and pushed up the brim of his hat, all the while looking up at Dan with challenging eyes. He nodded toward the body that was slung over the mare. “Where’d you find Mendosa?”

  So the cowboy knew the gunslinger, although he did not appear shocked or saddened by the man’s death. “I take it you know the man,” Dan said.

  The cowboy’s Winchester shifted in his hands, and he turned back to Dan, his look guarded. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  This man was no gunman, Dan decided; he was a cowhand who would much rather be punching cows right now than confronting a stranger bearing a corpse. The heavy stubble in his cheeks, at first glance, had made him seem older, but now Dan realized that the guard was a young man not far into his twenties. He persisted. “Did this man work for the Diamond D?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” the cowhand said sullenly. “This is a big ranch.”

  “You knew his name.”

  “I seen him around.”

  “Where?”

  The cowboy’s face flushed. “Now see here, mister, I ain’t standin’ out here to answer your damn fool questions. You’ll answer mine if you’re fixin’ to go through that gate. Now, like I said before, where’d you find this fella?”

  “I didn’t. He found me, and I killed him. I was told he worked for Dunkirk, so I thought the least the Diamond D could do would be to see to his burial. I came to leave him with Mr. Dunkirk.”

  The cowboy edged back toward the gate, his grip tightening on the rifle. “No, mister, I don’t think so. I don’t think Mr. Dunkirk would take kindly to your stopping by.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I came a long way. I expect to see him anyway.” Dan’s revolver slid into his hand and was pointed at the cowhand’s chest before the latter could lift his rifle. “Put your gun down, friend,” Dan said. “I don’t pull my gun unless I’m ready to use it. There’s no sense in a young man like you ending up like Mendosa.” Dan saw the man’s hand inching its way up the rifle stock toward the trigger. The hammer on Dan’s pistol clicked ominously as he pulled it back. “Don’t do it, kid. Don’t be a jackass.” The young man’s fingers relaxed their grip, and the rifle dropped at his feet. “Now your six-gun. Just take hold of it, and let it out of your holster, slow and easy.” The cowboy obeyed and dropped it on the ground beside the rifle. Dan waved his pistol toward the buckskin mare that was tied to a fence post a short distance away. “Now, why don’t you get your horse, and take me up to that big white house? You can give me a proper introduction.”

  The man kicked at the dirt and moved for the horse. “You just bought yourself a heap o’ trouble, mister. Mr. Dunkirk don’t like uninvited guests. He’ll have the hide stripped right off your ass for this. You just wait and see.”

  “I’ll wait,” Dan said, “and I’ll see. Now saddle up.”

  11

  AS THEY DISMOUNTED in front of the Dunkirk mansion, a lanky m
an with a full blond beard stepped out from under a mammoth cottonwood where he had been hidden in the shadows. He wore his six-gun low on the hip, Dan noted, and he walked with a self-assured stride that said he was no ordinary cowhand, and the spotless buckskin jacket and tailored trousers and shiny boots confirmed that the man had not spent this day, nor many others, roping steers and branding calves.

  “Trouble, Levi?” the man asked as he walked up to the horses, his steel gray eyes locked on the blanket-wrapped bundle.

  “This jasper got the drop on me, Clay. Says he wants to see Mr. Dunkirk.”

  The blond man gazed at the body, ignoring Dan’s presence. “I’ll go talk to Mr. Dunkirk,” he said. “I’ll see what he says.”

  He wheeled without so much as a glance at Dan and headed toward the massive double doors of the Dunkirk home. Dan tied his horses at two of the hitching posts that formed a boundary between the dusty ranch yard and the well-manicured front lawn of the mansion.

  “Tell me, Levi,” Dan said, his tone friendly as he saw the door close behind the blond man. “Is he Mr. Dunkirk’s foreman?”

  Levi eyed Dan suspiciously and scratched the stubble on his chin, apparently deciding he wasn’t all that mad. “Hell, no,” he said, “Mr. Dunkirk’s got working foremen on his ranches. Clay Sutherly’s above that kind of work.”

  Dan did not miss the tinge of sarcasm in the cowboy’s voice. “Clay Sutherly’s what Mr. Dunkirk calls his manager,” Levi continued. “Kind of a right-hand man. He looks after everything, including the old man’s daughter.”

  “I see.”

  “Mister, you don’t seem like such a bad sort. Let me put it plain, then I’m going to shut up. Clay Sutherly is as cold as a banker’s heart, and he looks to own the Diamond D someday. His bed roll’s laid out in the big house already, and when he and Miss Dunkirk marry up in the fall, he’s got his future made. He sees Mr. Dunkirk’s business as his business, and if anybody gets in the way, he’ll stomp ‘em like a dung beetle, with just as much worry about it. Know what I’m sayin’? He’s a man to watch out for. Stay clear out of his way.”