The Vengeance Seeker 4

by Will C. Knott

  “What you’re saying,” Reno reminded them, “makes as good sense for me as it does for you. You already got half the price for this spread. I gave it to you. I have your receipt. And you shook on it. You gave your word.”

  “We didn’t sign no contract!”

  “You took my money.”

  “We have it for you,” Tolliver’s wife cried, speaking up suddenly. “It’s in there on the table—waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for me? Who the hell told you I was coming?”

  “That ain’t important,” Tolliver said.

  But it was. The sense of betrayal entered his veins like a poison. Who the hell? ... That son of a bitch, Harrington!

  It was all turning bad. His hope of living up here in Canada as a respectable cattleman named Thomas Conway had been a crazy long shot at best. But his awareness of this filled him suddenly with a bitter, reckless resolve. He had come this far with his gun, and he would just have to see how much farther he could go with it.

  Almost with a sense of relief, Reno caught the foreman’s sudden movement as he swung up his rifle. Clapping spurs to his horse, Reno tugged on the reins. The horse reared obediently, causing the foreman to duck back. Reno drew his Colt and fired point-blank at the man. His slug caught the foreman low in the gut and without a sound, the man dropped his rifle and sagged forward into the dust.

  Tolliver and his wife dropped to their foreman’s side while Reno kept his Colt trained on the other two hands. Reno could hear the foreman’s raw gasping for breath as he sat his horse; and suddenly Tolliver and his woman stood up.

  “You’ve killed him!” the woman cried, furious. “He’s dying!”

  Reno ignored her. “All right,” he said quietly. “The three of you. Drop your guns. We don’t need any more heroes.”

  The two punchers quickly let their rifles fall. Tolliver unbuckled his gunbelt and let it slip to the ground. Reno dismounted, swept up the artillery with one hand and motioned them all into the ranch house ahead of him.

  As soon as they were inside the modest cabin, Tolliver turned to Reno, his eyes blazing indignantly, his arm wrapped protectively around his wife’s shoulders. She was crying softly.

  “Now what, Mr. Reno?” Tolliver said bitterly. “You planning on killing us all? That’s a hell of a way to buy a ranch. I’ve got neighbors in this community. They won’t stand still for this.”

  “Tomorrow,” Reno said, “we’ll ride into the land office in Red Deer. After you sign all the papers, you’ll get on that train you talked about and leave this territory. Like you wanted last year—after all that snow.”

  “You must be insane. There’s no way you can force me to do that.”

  “Yes, there is, Mr. Tolliver.” Reno looked significantly at the man’s wife.

  “Now just see here!”

  “You see here—and listen. You’re trying to welch on a deal.” Reno sat down at the kitchen table. He rested his Colt on the table in front of him with the barrel pointing at Tolliver. “Only I’m not going to let you weasel out of it.”

  “It’s not just me. My neighbors don’t want a killer for a fellow rancher. I’ve known your true identity since this spring, Mr. Reno, when a stroke of luck brought us into contact with John Harrington.”

  Reno nodded. He had already figured Harrington as the one who fingered him. One of Harrington’s punchers must have recognized him when he first approached the cattleman. “I’ll handle your neighbors, Tolliver. Don’t you worry none about that—and I’ll handle Harrington too, when the time comes.”

  Reno leaned back in his chair and studied Tolliver. He was not much older than thirty—but already he was soft around the middle. His face was pasty and his eyes shifted constantly. He was a bluff, Reno concluded—a man who had been easily discouraged a year ago and now was just as easily encouraged because of a sudden rise in beef prices.

  Reno leaned suddenly forward. “Listen, Tolliver,” he said quietly, carefully, “because I ain’t going to repeat it—and it is very important you understand what I’m going to tell you. All of you.” Reno paused to get their complete attention. “Like I said, you’re going to go into Red Deer tomorrow, Tolliver, and sign the deed and accept the bill of sale for this spread because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.” He paused to let that sink in. “It’s really just as simple as that.” He smiled. “Now you might think that’s a crazy threat. That I can be throwed into jail and that will be the end of it. But it won’t, Tolliver. If I go to jail, I’ll get out some day. And when I do, I’ll come looking for you. I’ll come looking for all of you. And that’s something you’ll be thinking about—all those years.” He looked around at each of them. “All right,” he said. “I’m finished.”

  “I’m surprised, Mr. Reno,” Tolliver’s wife snapped sarcastically. “Why don’t you go on with your threats? I’m sure it gives you great pleasure to bully others.”

  Her spunk impressed Reno. He looked at her and saw she was no longer crying. “I like to get my way, ma’am. Like most people. And right now I got my heart set on this here ranch.”

  Reno leaned back then in his chair and waited. A heavy silence hung in the room. Tolliver looked at his wife and the two punchers exchanged unhappy glances. It was clear to Reno that he had won. They knew he wasn’t bluffing, that he meant every word.

  After all, what the hell did he have to lose? “Now,” said Reno, “how about something to eat? It’s been a long ride for me. Don’t forget, I’ll be your guest until we ride into Red Deer tomorrow.”

  “But Reno,” one of the ranch hands said, “there’s a dying man out there.”

  “Go outside and see to him,” said Reno. “If he’s dead by now, you might as well bury him.” The two almost fell over each other getting out through the door. Reno laughed softly as he watched them go. Then he looked at Tolliver.

  “Go out and make sure they don’t bury the poor sonofabitch alive. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. And tell those two that if they try to make a break for it, I’m all alone here with your wife.” He paused. “And like most men, I got my appetites.”

  Reno heard the woman gasp. Tolliver looked anxiously at his wife, then ducked hastily out the door after the two men.

  When the three men returned more than an hour later, their boots were muddy, their hands dirty. Reno looked up from his game of solitaire and took a sip from a cup of coffee Mrs. Tolliver had made for him at his request. Tolliver glanced at his wife, who was sitting in a wooden chair by the fireplace. She looked back at him, a question in her eyes.

  “You were right, Mary,” Tolliver told him. “Reno killed him. He was dead when we got out there. We buried him on the hill behind the barn.” The two punchers looked at Reno, their expressions bitterly hostile—but there was fear in their eyes as well.

  Reno went back to his game of solitaire. “Goddamnit!” he said. “I’m hungry!”

  Tolliver frowned quickly over at his wife. She got up from her chair and started across the floor to the stove.

  Reno glanced up from his cards. “Afterwards, Tolliver, you can start packing.”

  Twelve

  Wolf rode warily across the valley toward the low cluster of log buildings, conscious of the unusual silence for this time of the day—and of the ominous lack of activity about the place. This was the middle of the week. There should have been at least a plume of wood rising from the ranch house chimney.

  He was seven days out of Cut Bank, where he had pinned his badge back on and asked around until he had finally found John Harrington. He found the cattleman anxious to tell Wolf about Reno’s visit and to give Wolf directions to Tolliver’s ranch. Wolf had ridden hard to overtake Reno before he reached the Broken Bow, since from what Harrington had told him, there was likely to be trouble when Reno reached Tolliver’s place and found them unwilling to complete the deal for their ranch. Reno would most likely do what he could to make them. And that was not liable to be a pleasant experience for the rancher and his wife.

 
; As Wolf rode into the modest compound, he shouted out a hello and pulled up. But there was no response to his shout. Dismounting, he led his black into the horse barn. He saw the tracks of a buckboard’s wheels in the loose hay at the entrance. Investigating further, he saw that all the stalls were empty. The only stock left was a colt and a mare grazing in the pasture back of the stable.

  They had all left for town, it appeared—and not too long before. That could mean a great deal—or it could mean nothing at all.

  He went back to his black and loosened the cinch to make the animal easier, found some oats and then brought in a bucket of water from the yard pump. Then he left the horse in the coolness of the barn and walked across the yard to the ranch house.

  At once Wolf knew he had arrived too late. Reno had been there, all right. A greasy deck of playing cards was sitting on the edge of the kitchen table—and everything else told of a hasty, almost frantic departure. Wolf could almost see the woman packing. The huge ox hide-covered trunk was pulled away from the wall, its cover thrown back. Too large to carry, its contents had been taken. The trunk was empty. A brass-works clock was sitting beside the door, having been taken from the table by one of the windows where it most likely sat. This, too, they must have decided was too much to carry with them in the buckboard. The sense of haste—of panic even—in the departure became stronger the more Wolf looked around at the empty shelves and barren cupboards.

  He left the cabin and hurried back across the yard to the stable. He was almost certain now that these people had left under Reno’s gun. Just before he reached the stable, he glanced up and caught sight of a makeshift cross on the crest of a small hill overlooking the barn. He changed direction and climbed the hill. The grave was a recent one.

  Wolf turned and hurried back down the slope. Red Deer was less than ten miles; there might be a few Mounties in the town to give him a hand.

  Reno rode into Red Deer a little after one that same day just behind the buckboard. Tolliver was driving, his wife alongside him on the seat, what valuables they could fit onto the small wagon piled high behind them. The two punchers rode even with the buckboard, one on each side.

  Red Deer’s streets were broad, and as they turned onto Main Street, Reno noted the many new buildings, their fresh unpainted wood bright in the sunlight. Especially imposing was the new railroad depot under construction at the other end of the street. The land office was part of the post office building, a large, two-story frame building that sat next to the Alberta Hotel. Tolliver steered the team toward the tie rail in front of it. Reno cut ahead of the buckboard, dismounted and dropped his reins over the hitch rail. He turned to help Mary Tolliver from the buckboard.

  She snatched her hand away as he reached for it, and stepped down without his help. Tolliver tied the reins quickly and hurried around his wife.

  “Let’s get this over with,” said Reno.

  As the three of them started toward the land office, Tolliver looked back at his two punchers, still astride their mounts.

  “You want us to wait out here?” one of them asked Tolliver.

  Tolliver looked at Reno.

  Reno smiled at the two riders. His fury of the day before was almost gone by now. It was obvious that he was not going to have any trouble with Tolliver. And that meant he’d won. The place was his, so maybe he might need these two hands. “Why don’t you fellers go across the street and wet your whistle,” he suggested. “I got nothing against you. If you want a job, you’ve still got one as far as I’m concerned.”

  They both pulled their horses around without replying and rode across the street to the saloon. Reno shrugged, turned and walked into the land office behind the Tollivers.

  The land agent was a large, hulking fellow with a shock of white hair and steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. He looked up when he saw Reno walking in with the Tollivers.

  “This is ... Mr. Conway,” Tolliver said to the man. “We’re selling the Broken Bow to him. I believe you remember me talking to you about that earlier, Sam.”

  “Yes, I do, Martin. But I thought you’d changed your mind. You’d be a fool to sell out now.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s what ... I intend to do.”

  The land agent turned to Mary Tolliver. “Can’t you talk sense into this husband of yours, Mary?”

  She smiled nervously. “I’ve tried,” she said. “But ... it’s his decision to make.”

  “Let’s get on with this,” said Reno.

  The land agent frowned at Reno, then looked back at Tolliver. It seemed as if he were about to ask another question. Reno stepped forward so that he was between the Tollivers and the agent.

  “I told you ... Get on with this! Where’s the papers I got to sign—and the deed? I want the deed to the land.”

  “Why...why, you’ve got to have a search ...”

  “A search?” Reno looked suspiciously around at the three of them. “What the hell is this search business?”

  “And a lawyer,” the land agent continued. “You should both be represented by counsel.”

  Reno took a thick sheaf of bank notes tied with rough twine and slapped it down onto the counter. “There’s the rest of the sale price for your spread, Tolliver,” he said to the man. “Twenty-two thousand. I already gave you eight.” Reno looked back at the agent. “We don’t need no lawyers and we don’t need no search. I’m paying the full asking price, and I’m paying cash. You got anything against United States greenbacks?” There was a cutting edge to his voice that warned the land agent.

  He picked up the bundle and looked at it hastily. Then he looked back at Reno. “No. Of course not.”

  “Then, like I said before. Get on with it.”

  “Do what he says, Sam,” said Tolliver.

  The man shrugged and turned his back on them, looking up at the shelves on the wall behind him. At last he pulled down what looked like a shoe box with a large TU marked in crayon on the end of it. Slapping the box down on the counter, the land agent pulled out some official-looking documents of thick yellow paper, one of which contained a bright red ribbon attached to it.

  Abruptly Reno became aware of Mary Tolliver staring out the large plate glass window at the street. Following her gaze, Reno saw their two punchers walking back across the street in the company of two scarlet-coated men wearing brown high-crowned hats.

  At once Reno realized his danger. These men with the punchers were members of a new border patrol outfit he’d been hearing about, set up to stop Montana traders from trading whiskey to the local redskins for buffalo hides. They were called Mounties by the locals, but their official name was the North West Mounted Rifles.

  And they were the law in this part of Canada. Reno drew his Colt and pulled Mary Tolliver close to him. “Go on out there, Tolliver,” Reno told him, “and tell those Mounties everything’s just fine in here—and not to mess around in my business. Go on!”

  But Tolliver was unwilling to leave his wife with Reno. He hesitated.

  “Please, Martin,” his wife told him. “Just do as he says, I’ll be all right.”

  Tolliver hurried out the door and met the four men before they reached the wooden sidewalk. He spoke to his punchers first and then turned to the Mounties. They listened intently to Tolliver, nodded and turned to walk back across the street.

  Tolliver hurried back inside. “I told them everything was fine,” he told Reno, “and told them to leave us alone—that we wanted to sell.” Tolliver looked at the land agent. “Can we please get on with this business, Sam?”

  “Of course,” the man said grimly, as he began unbinding the thick documents he had taken from the shoe box.

  But Reno wasn’t watching him. He was watching the street instead. It was now practically empty. During all that time Tolliver had been out there talking to the Mounties, not a single horse or wagon had passed the office.

  Then Reno caught sight of someone darting from a feed store with a rifle in his hand. As Reno watched, he saw the fellow d
uck behind a barrel on the porch. Glancing in the other direction, Reno caught the glint of a rifle barrel poking from around the corner of a building. And when he looked up at the roof of the building across the street, he saw two hats clearly outlined against the bright sky.

  They were all out there waiting to cut him down as soon as he let the Tollivers go. Only until then was he safe. This time Reno accepted the fact that his plan for starting a new life in Canada was dead.

  Snatching up the bills from the counter, Reno shoved the muzzle of his six-gun into Tolliver’s back. “Slowly,” he told the man. “Slowly, you and your woman walk out ahead of me to my horse. Tell them if they try to shoot me, I’ll shoot both you and your wife. You tell them that now, and make sure they understand I mean it!”

  Nodding miserably, Tolliver led the way out of the land office and came to a stop on the sidewalk. At once the two Mounties stepped out from the saloon across the street.

  As soon as he saw them, Tolliver cried, “Don’t shoot, boys! He’ll kill Mary if you do!”

  “Drop your gun, Reno!” one of the Mounties called. “You’ve already killed Judd Hudson. Don’t make it any worse for you than it already is—all we want is to hold you for a grand jury—to investigate the shooting!”

  “It was self-defense!” Reno called back to the man. “Tolliver and his wife can vouch for that!” Both of them nodded hurriedly.

  “Let a grand jury decide, Reno!”

  Reno laughed. “Like hell I will!”

  Suddenly Reno heard a noise behind him. He whirled to see the land agent standing in the doorway with a huge Navy Colt in his hand. He was just bringing it up to fire. Reno shot him from his hip, pumping two quick shots into the man. The impact of the slugs almost lifted the fellow from the boardwalk as they slammed him back through the open doorway of his office.