“I’ll be there,” Kilkenny said dryly. “If any shootin’s done, I’ll do it.”
Steve shook his head doubtfully. “I’ll talk to him, but it won’t do any good. He’s too hard-headed.”
“So’s Webb Steele,” Rusty agreed, “but we’ll bring him around.”
“No need for anybody to fight,” Kilkenny said. “I came in this to help Mort. You and your dad stand to lose plenty if this war breaks wide open. Why fight when it’s to somebody else’s interest?”
Steve’s head jerked around. “What you mean by that?” he demanded.
Kilkenny looked up mildly, then drew deeply on his cigarette, and flicked off the ash before he replied. “Because there’s somebody else in this,” he said then. “Somebody who wants Lord and Steele out of the way, somebody who stands to win a heap. Find out who that is, and we’ll know the reason for range war.”
Steve’s face sharpened. He wheeled his horse. “You won’t find anybody at Apple Cañon!” he shouted. “I saw the Brockmans there!” Then he was gone.
“Scared,” Rusty Gates suggested. “Scared silly.”
“No,” Kilkenny said, “he ain’t scared. It’s somethin’ else.”
Yet, as he rode on, he was not thinking of that, or of anything that had to do with this trouble except in the most remote way. He was thinking of himself, something he rarely allowed himself to do beyond caring for the few essential comforts of living, the obtaining of food and shelter. He was thinking of what lay ahead, for in his own mind he could see it all with bitter clarity.
This was an old story, and a familiar one. The West knew it, and would know it again and again in the bitter years to come. Struggle was the law of growth, and the West was growing up the hard way. It was growing up through a fog of gunsmoke, and through the acrid odor of gunpowder, and the sickly sweet smell of blood. Men would die, good men and bad, but strong men all, and a country needed its strong men. Such a country as this needed them doubly bad. Whether it would be today he did not know, but he knew there must be a six-gun showdown, and he had seen too many of them. He was tired. Young in years, he had ridden long on the out trail, and knew only too well what this meant. If he should be the best man, he would live to run again and to drift to a new land where he was not known as a killer, as a gunman. For a few days, a few months, all would go well. Then there would come a time, as it was coming now, when it was freedom and right, or a fight to the death. Sometimes he wondered if it was worth it.
There was something familiar about this ride. He remembered it all so well. Ahead of him lay trouble, and going to Apple Cañon was typical of him, just what he would do. It was always his method to go right to the heart of trouble, and Apple Cañon seemed to be the key point here.
There was so much ahead. He did not underrate Bert Polti. The snake-eyed gunman was dangerous, quick as a cat, and vicious as a weasel. The man would kill and kill until he was finally put down full of lead. He would not quit, for there wasn’t a yellow thing about the man. He would kill from ambush, yes. He would take every advantage, for he did not kill from bravado or for a reputation. He killed to gain his own ends, and for that reason there would be no limit to his killing. Yet at best Polti was a tool. A keen-edged tool, but a tool nevertheless. He was a gunman, ready to be used by a keener brain, and such a brain was using him now. Who it was, Kilkenny could not guess. Somehow he could not convince himself that behind the bluff boldness of Webb Steele lived the ice-cold mind of a killer. Nor from what he could discover was Chet Lord different.
No, the unknown man was someone else, someone beyond the pale of the known, someone relentless and ruthless, someone with intelligence, skill, and command of men. And afterward there would be only the scant food, the harsh living of the fugitive, then again a new attempt to find peace in new surroundings. Someday he might succeed, but in his heart he doubted it.
He was in danger. The thought impressed him little, for he had always been in danger. The man he sought this time would be aware by now that he knew the danger lay not in Steele or Lord, but outside of them. Yet his very action in telling them what he thought might force the unknown into the open. And that was what he must do. He must force the play until at every move it brought the unknown more and more into the open until he was compelled to reveal himself.
The direct attack. It was always best with the adroit man. Such a man could plan for almost anything but continuous frontal attack. And he, Kilkenny, had broken such plots before. But could he break this one? Looking over the field, he realized suddenly that he was not sure. This man was cool, deadly, and dangerous. He would anticipate Kilkenny’s moves, and from the shelter of his ghost-like existence he could hunt him, pin him down, and kill him—if he was lucky.
Kilkenny looked curiously at the mountains ahead. Somewhere up there Forgotten Pass went over the mountains and then down to the Río Grande. It wasn’t much of a pass, as passes go, and the section was barren, remote. But it would undoubtedly be an easy route over which to take cattle to Mexico, and many of the big ranches down there were buying, often planning to sell the rustled cattle they bought back across the border.
It was almost mid-afternoon before the two riders rounded the shoulder of rock and reined in, looking down the main street of the rickety little town of Apple Cañon. Kilkenny halted his horse and studied the situation. There were four clapboard buildings on one side of the street, three on the other.
“The nearest one is the sawbones,” Rusty explained. “He’s a renegade from somewheres, but a good doc. Next is the livery stable and blacksmith shop all in one. The long building next door is the bunkhouse. Forty men can sleep there, and usually do. The place after that is Bert Polti’s. He lives there with Joe Deagan and Tom Murrow. On the right side the nearest building is Bill Sadler’s place. Bill is a gambler. Did a couple of stretches for forgery, too, they say. He cooks up any kind of documents you want. After his place is the big joint of Apple Cañon, the Border Bar. That’s Nita’s place. She runs it herself. The last house, the one with the flowers around, is Nita’s. They say no man ever entered the place. You see”—Rusty glanced at Lance—“Nita’s straight, though there’s been some has doubted it from time to time. But Nita, she puts ’em right.”
“And the place up on the cliffs beyond the town?” Kilkenny wondered. “Who lives there?”
“Huh?” Rusty scowled his puzzlement. “Where you mean?”
Kilkenny pointed. High on a rocky cliff, in a place that seemed to be secure from all but the circling eagles, he could dimly perceive the outline of some sort of a structure. Even in the bright light, with the sun falling fully on the cliff, it was but a vague suggestion. Yet, even as he looked, he caught a flash of light reflecting from something.
“Whoever lives there is a careful man,” Kilkenny said dryly. “He’s lookin’ us over with a glass!”
Rusty was disgusted. “Well, I’ll be hanged! I been here three times before, and once stayed five days, and never knowed that place was there.”
Kilkenny nodded understandingly. “I’ll bet a pretty you can’t see it from the town. I just wonder who it is who’s so careful? Who wants to know who comes to Apple Cañon? Who can hide up there and remain unknown?”
“You think…?”
“I don’t think anything…yet. But I mean to find out, some way. I’m a curious hombre, Gates.”
Chapter VII
Kilkenny was in the lead by a dozen paces as the two rode slowly down the street. A man sitting before the Border Bar turned his head and said something through the window, but aside from that there was no movement.
Yet Kilkenny saw a man with a rifle in some rocks at the end of the street, and there was a man with a rifle in the blacksmith shop. The town, he thought grimly, was well guarded.
They walked their horses to the hitching rail and dismounted. The man sitting on the porch looked at them curiously and spat off the end of the porch. His eyes dropped to Kilkenny’s tied-down guns, then strayed to his face. His atte
ntion seemed to sharpen, and for an instant his eyes wavered to Rusty.
They stepped up on the porch and Kilkenny pushed through the batwing doors. Rusty loitered on the porch, brushing dust from his clothes.
“Travelin’s dry business,” he muttered.
“Risky, too,” the watcher replied softly. “You’re askin’ for trouble comin’ here with him. The word’s out.”
“For me, too, then,” Rusty said. “We’re ridin’ together.”
“Like that, huh? Can’t help you none, cowboy.”
“Ain’t askin’. Just keep out of the way.”
Rusty stepped inside. Kilkenny was standing at the bar. The bartender was leaning or the bar farther down, doing nothing. He was pointedly ignoring them.
As Rusty stepped through the doors, he heard Kilkenny say in a deceptively mild voice:
“I’d like a drink.”
The bartender did not move a muscle, and gave no evidence that he heard.
“I’d like a drink,” Kilkenny said, and his voice was louder.
The three men sitting in the room were covertly watching. Two of them sat against the west and south walls. The third man was across the room, almost behind Kilkenny, and against the east wall. The bar itself covered most of the north wall except where a door opened at one end. It apparently led to a back room.
“I’m askin’ once more,” Kilkenny said. “I’d like a drink.”
The burly bartender turned toward him then, and his stare was hard, ugly.
“I don’t hear you, stranger,” he said insultingly. “I don’t hear you, and I don’t know you.”
What happened then was to make legend in the border country. Kilkenny turned and his hand shot out. It grasped the bartender’s shirt collar, and jerked—so hard that the bartender slid over the bar and crashed on the floor outside of it.
He hit the floor all sprawled out, then came up with a choking cry of anger. But Kilkenny was ready for him. A sharp left lanced at the bartender’s eye, and a wicked right hook in the ribs made his mouth drop open. Then Kilkenny stepped in with a series of smashing, bone-crushing punches that pulped the big man’s face and made him stagger back, desperately trying to protect his face with crossed arms. But Kilkenny was remorseless. He whipped a right to the midsection to bring the bigger man’s arms down, then hooked a left to the chin that dropped the bartender to all fours.
Stopping quickly, Kilkenny picked the man up and smashed a looping right to the chin. The bartender staggered back across the room and hit the floor in a heap against the far wall.
It was over so suddenly, and Big Ed Gardner, the barkeep, was whipped so quickly and thoroughly that it left the astonished gunmen present staring. Before they could get set for it, Kilkenny sprang back.
“All right!” Kilkenny’s voice cracked like a whip in the dead silence of the room. “If you want Kilkenny, turn loose your dogs!”
The name rang like a challenge in the room, and the three men started. The gunman against the west wall touched his lips with a nervous tongue. In his own mind he was sure of one thing. If they went through with their plan he himself was going to die. No one had told them the man they were facing was Kilkenny.
It caught them flat-footed. They sat deathly still, their faces stiff. Then, slowly, the man against the south wall began letting his hand creep away from his guns.
“All right, then,” Kilkenny said evenly. “What was you to do here? Gun me down?”
Nobody spoke, and suddenly Kilkenny’s gun was in his hand. How it got there no man could say. There was no flicker in his eyes, no dropping of his shoulder, but suddenly his hand was full, and they were looking down the barrel of the .45.
“Talk,” Kilkenny said. “You, against the west wall. Tell me who sent you here, and what you was to do. Tell me, or I start shootin’ your ears!”
The man swallowed, then wet his lips. “We wasn’t to kill you,” he said hoarsely. “We was to make you a prisoner.”
Kilkenny smiled then. “All right. Mexico’s south of here. Travel!”
The three men hit the door in a lump, struggled madly, then all three got out, swung onto their horses, and hit the road on a run.
A rifle cracked outside. Kilkenny stiffened, and stared at Rusty. It rang out twice more. Two neat, evenly spaced shots!
Kilkenny stepped quickly to a place beside the window. One of the fleeing gunmen had been shot down near the end of the street. The others, at almost equal distances, lay beyond.
“Who done that?” Rusty questioned.
“Evidently the boss don’t like failure,” Kilkenny suggested, thin-lipped. He shrugged. “Well, I still want a drink. Guess I’ll have to pour it myself.”
“It won’t be necessary,” said a smooth feminine voice.
Both men turned, startled.
A girl stood at the end of the bar, facing them. She stood erect, her chin lifted a little, one hand resting on the bar. Her skin was the color of old ivory, her hair jet black and gathered in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. But it was her eyes that were most noticeable—and her mouth. Her eyes were hazel, with tiny flecks of a darker color, and they were large, and her lashes were long. Her lips were full, but beautiful, and there was a certain wistfulness in her face, a strange elusive charm that prevented the lips from being sensual. Her figure would have wrung a gasp from a marble statue, for it was seductively curved, and, when she moved, it was with a sinuous grace that had no trace of affectation.
She came forward, and Kilkenny found himself looking into the most amazingly beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
“I am Nita Riordan,” she said. “Could I pour you a drink?”
Kilkenny’s expression did not change. “Nita Riordan,” he said quietly, “you could.”
She poured two drinks and handed one to each of them. She did not glance at Big Ed who was beginning to stir on the floor.
“It seems you have had trouble,” she said.
“A little…hardly worth mentionin’,” Kilkenny said with a shrug. “Not so much trouble as any man would cheerfully go through to meet a girl like you.”
“You are gallant, señor,” Nita said, looking directly into his eyes. “Gallantry is always pleasant, and especially so here, where one finds it so seldom.”
“Yes,” Kilkenny said quietly, “and I am only gallant when I am sincere.”
She looked at him quickly, as though anxious to find something in his face. Then she looked away quickly. “Sincerity is difficult to find in the Live Oak, señor,” she said. “It has little value here.”
“It still has value to some,” he said, letting his eyes meet hers. “It has to me.” He looked down at Big Ed. “I don’t like to fight,” he said slowly, “but sometimes it is necessary.”
Her eyes flashed. “That is not sincere, señor!” she retorted severely. “No man who did not like to fight could have done that!” With a gesture she indicated Big Ed’s face. “Perhaps it is that you like to fight, but do not like having to fight. There is a difference.”
“Yes.” He hitched his guns a little, swallowed his whiskey at a gulp, and looked back at her. “Nita Riordan,” he asked quietly, “who is the man in the cliff house above Apple Cañon?”
Her eyes widened a little, then her face set in hard lines. He saw her lips part a little, and saw her quick breath.
“I cannot answer that, señor,” she said. “If there is a man there, he would resent it. You saw what happened to three who failed? I would not like to die, señor. There is much joy in living, even here where there are only outlaws and thieves. Even here the world can be bright, señor. For a cause, I can die. For nothing, no. To tell you now would be for nothing.”
“They told me you were the boss at Apple Cañon,” Kilkenny suggested.
“Perhaps. Things are not always what they seem, señor.”
“Then I’ll go talk to the man on the cliff,” Kilkenny said. “I’ll ask him what he wants with Kilkenny, and why he prefers me alive rather than dead.”
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br /> “Kilkenny?” Nita’s eyes widened, and she stepped closer, her eyes searching his face. “You?”
“Yes. Are you surprised?”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and searching. “I heard long ago, Kilkenny, that you were a good man. I heard that your guns spoke only when the need was great.”
“I’ve tried to keep it that way.”
“And you ride alone, Kilkenny?”
“I do.
“And are you never lonely, señor? For me, I have found it sometimes lonely.”
He looked at her, and suddenly something in his eyes seemed to touch her with fire. He saw her eyes widen a little, and her lips part as though in wonderment. Kilkenny took a half step forward, and she seemed to lean to meet him. Then he stopped abruptly, and turned quickly, almost roughly away.
“Yes,” he said somberly, “it has been lonely. It will be more so, now.”
He turned abruptly toward the door and had taken three strides when her voice caught him.
“No! Not now to the cliff, señor. The time is not now. There will be many guns. Trust me, señor, for there will be another time.” She stepped closer to him. “That one will be enough for you, señor, without others. He is a tiger, a fiend. Perdition knows no viciousness such as his, and he hates you. Why, I do not know, but he hates you with a vindictive hatred, and he will not rest until he kills you. Go now, and quickly. He will not shoot you if you ride away. He wants to face you, señor. Why, I do not know.”
Kilkenny stopped and turned toward her, his green eyes soft, and strangely warm.
“Nita,” he said softly, “I will ride away. He may be the man you love. Mebbe you’re protectin’ him, yet I don’t believe either of them things. I’ll trust you, Nita. It might be said that a man who trusts a woman is one who writes his name upon water, but I’ll take the chance.”
He stepped quickly from the door and walked to the buckskin. Gates, only a step behind, also swung into saddle. They rode out of town at a rapid trot.
“Whew!” Rusty Gates stared at Kilkenny. “Mister, when you try, you shore get results. I never saw Nita Riordan like she was today. Every man along the border’s had ideas about her. She’s hosswhipped a couple, knifed one, and Brigo killed a couple. But today I’d ’a’ swore she was goin’ t’walk right into your arms.”
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