Dead Man's Range

by Paul Durst

  ‘Feelin’ any better?’ Anson asked belligerently.

  ‘A little,’ Carmody replied feebly.’

  Anson shrugged. ‘Well, it don’t make a damn to me. If you ain’t well enough to ride tomorrow night we’ll tie you across a saddle and haul you there. You ain’t gonna live long anyhow, so what’s the use pamperin’ you?’

  ‘I’ll live to see you in hell,’ Carmody said quietly.

  The Anson owner grinned slyly. ‘Y’know something, Carmody? I don’t think you’re as feeble as you let on. You might’ve fooled that nigger cook of mine, but you ain’t foolin’ me. I seen the plate of vittles he carried over here, and that plate was plumb clean as a licked cat when he took it past me now. Any man can eat that good ain’t feelin’ too bad. Maybe you did lose a lot of blood, but you got enough spit and vinegar left in you to make up for a barrel of blood. It might give you ideas about leavin’ before I’m ready for you to.’

  Carmody’s smile faded when Anson had gone and he frowned. He might have figured Anson was too slick to be easily fooled. Now he guessed he’d have a guard put on him. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

  CHAPTER 11

  Carmody heard a door slam and the thud of Anson’s boots leaving the verandah. He sat up in bed and looked out the window to see Anson crossing the wagon yard toward the bunkhouse. A few minutes later a rider came out with Anson and they stood talking for a while, then the rider nodded and started for the house. Carmody lay back and presently he heard the man coming up the stairs.

  When the newcomer stood in the doorway and glanced at the captive, Carmody felt a ray of hope. He had expected Anson to send an older hand, possibly Vicker or Troxel. But this fellow was a kid who had not yet seen his twentieth year. If it came to a test of strength, even in his weakened condition Carmody felt he had more than an even chance. Then he glanced at the kid’s face and his confidence waned.

  It was the eyes that made the difference. Pale, colourless eyes. The eyes – and the long, tapering fingers caressing the smooth cedar grips of the holstered .45. Right then Carmody knew he would welcome Vicker or Troxel in exchange for this youngster. An older man would have a natural caution that came with experience. This kid had not lived long enough to have learned that a little fear is sometimes a good thing. And that made him doubly dangerous.

  The pale eyes passed over Carmody without a flicker of personal interest in the man they saw, they only weighed him up as a possible target if it came to trouble. Then the kid hooked the chair toward him with his toe and tilted back against the wall to roll a cigarette.

  Carmody moved his hand to scratch his head. He made the movement deliberately sudden so that it might be interpreted as an aggressive one.

  There was no sudden start, no scuffling of feet or frantic tugging at the holstered gun. There was only a vague impression of movement. One minute the kid had been staring out the window; the next instant Carmody found himself pinned by three things; a pair of cold eyes and the colder eye of the .45.

  The kid’s voice when he spoke was surprisingly deep and unhurried. ‘Don’t make no fast move like that again or I’ll kill you,’ he drawled. There was no anger in the words, they hardly sounded more than a simple statement. But they made a brief chill course down Carmody’s spine despite the gathering heat of the mid-morning sun. The gun slid away and the kid returned his gaze to the window as though nothing had happened.

  Carmody tried a question. ‘You ever use that gun on a man, son?’ he said quietly.

  The eyes moved to him. ‘Don’t “son” me,’ the voice said flatly. And this time the eyes had changed slightly, showing just a flicker of anger. Carmody lay back, staring at the ceiling. But inwardly he was smiling. He had found a crack in the armour. The kid was touchy about his lack of years.

  Carmody guessed the reason. Here was a youngster who had practised with a gun until he had mastered it. Every move he made with it would be as flawless as that lightning-like, fluidly effortless draw Carmody had just witnessed. He was good, and he knew it. No man could beat him – with a gun. And he had probably put his meagre intelligence to work and figured that if he hired out that gun he could make himself a reputation and a pile of money. Only he had found that in the world of men he was tolerated only because of his gun, but tolerated smilingly because of his lack of stature in years. And that, Carmody saw plainly, rankled him.

  It was high noon when Wash wakened him, standing there beside the bed with a plate in his hand. The kid was still there, eating mechanically from a plate on the washstand beside him. He did not bother to look at Carmody, but Carmody knew he was watching.

  Wash made a show of helping Carmody to sit up and said pointedly, ‘I cut hit up fo’ you, suh, so’s you could manage hit.’

  Wash left this time before waiting for them to finish eating. The kid left his plate on the washstand and returned his chair to its tilted position against the wall, ignoring Carmody’s empty plate on the bed. He belched contentedly and rolled a smoke and lit it.

  ‘I could sure use a smoke,’ Carmody said pointedly.

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘My tobacco’s in my shirt – and Vicker’s got that.’

  The kid merely shrugged and went on calmly smoking and gazing out of the window again. Hell, Carmody thought, he’s cold clean through. Even Vicker let me borrow his makin’s. His nostrils quivered at the sweet smell of tobacco and he watched hungrily as the kid dragged smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled. He was on the point of asking outright when he thought to hell with it. Asking Vicker for a smoke had been one thing. But he was damned if he was going to give this gunsmart yearling a chance to turn him down. He ground his teeth and lay back and closed his eyes, thinking, ‘All right, buster. Wait till tonight. I’ll put some expression into that poker face of yours.’

  He gradually let his irritation simmer, and then he dozed. It must have been about fifteen minutes later by his reckoning when he heard a door slam down below and the sound of running boots on the gravel. A voice called, ‘Booth! Booth, here comes Mose Dalmas.’

  He opened his eyes and saw the kid standing beside the window looking out, deadpan as ever. Carmody sat up, slowly, and spoke to let the kid know he was moving. ‘The sheriff?’ he said quietly. The pale eyes turned. ‘Try it,’ the kid said ominously. ‘Just try it, that’s all.’

  ‘Try what – son?’ Carmody said deliberately.

  The kid whirled, his gun coming out in a blur of movement and Carmody held his breath. But the kid had no intention of shooting with the sheriff within earshot; instead he flipped the gun expertly, caught it by the barrel. Advancing to the side of the bed, his face livid with uncontrollable rage, he drew back the gun as if to strike. ‘God damn you!’ he breathed between clenched teeth. ‘You call me that once more and I’ll bust your head wide open with the butt of this pistol!’

  Carmody stared at him, stared deep into those angry pale eyes, and smiled a little smile; just enough to tease the kid, to let him know he wasn’t afraid. Just piling a little more brush on until it was time to fan the spark into a flame. ‘Sonny,’ he thought behind the smile, ‘you’re real handy with that peacemaker. I’ll bet you practised hours to get that flip down just right, and it looks real fancy. But – you got a lesson comin’, and I’ll teach it to you tonight. Don’t never swing a gun by the barrel. If you do, somebody’s liable to grab the butt end and blow your brains out.’

  ‘Keep back from that window!’ the kid hissed.

  Carmody glanced at him. ‘I won’t show myself, s.…’ He stopped on the sibilant as the kid whirled again, glowering. Carmody smiled and turned to peer over the sill as the slow clop of the sheriff’s horse sounded on the hardpan below.

  Looking at an angle he could see the front gate and the men beside it. Anson and his foreman, Troxel, and Vicker. The three of them lounged against the fence conversing in low tones. The sheriff came into Carmody’s line of vision and Anson called out, ‘Howdy, Mose. Light and rest a spell. Hell o
f a hot day for you to be joy-ridin’.’

  Dalmas pulled in but did not dismount. Carmody could see the man was plainly nervous. Then he noticed a square of white paper sticking from his shirt pocket and wondered if that had anything to do with it.

  ‘This ain’t no joy-ride, Booth,’ Dalmas said uneasily. ‘It’s a business call.’ Then he hurried on apologetically. ‘Now I want you to understand there ain’t nothin’ personal in this, far’s I’m concerned. I just got a duty to perform, unpleasant as it is.…’

  ‘I’ll bet it’s unpleasant,’ Anson cut in sharply. ‘For you. You’re shakin’ like jelly. All right – let’s hear it.’

  Dalmas moved his gaze uncomfortably from Anson to Vicker. He touched the paper in his pocket hesitantly and said, ‘It’s for you, Vicker. I got a warrant for your arrest.’

  Vicker and Anson glanced quickly at each other; Vicker’s facing showing uncertainty, Anson’s openly puzzled. Looking up at Dalmas, Anson said querulously, ‘You got what?’

  ‘A warrant for Vicker’s arrest. It ain’t my doin’, Booth. I’m just here to serve it. Anne Merriweather made it out and.…’

  ‘Oh, so that’s it!’ Anson snarled. ‘You’re lettin’ her run your office now!’

  Dalmas eyed him uncomfortably. ‘You know that ain’t so, Booth. But I got a job to do and I’m doin’ it. But I don’t think.…’

  ‘Now hold on a minute – what’s she got against Vicker?’

  ‘She says he shot down five of her beef last night.’

  Vicker blurted, ‘Aw, hell, she’s crazy! Why I.…’

  Anson glared him into silence then turned to the lawman. ‘Now ain’t that just like a woman? I went out of my way yesterday to try and be friendly with her and show I was willin’ to bury the hatchet. And this is what I get for it!’

  ‘Well – I know you’re doin’ your best to be friendly with her, Booth. She told me herself how friendly you’d acted. Only that’s just the point, accordin’ to her. She’s suspicious of you actin’ friendly. She claims it’s just to cover up for what you’re tryin’ to do and.…’

  ‘Hell, she can’t send you out here to arrest one of my men just because she’s suspicious! If she’s tryin’ to pin a serious charge on Anvil she’ll need proof, not suspicion.’ Anson leaned over the fence, wagging a finger at Dalmas. ‘By damn I know who done it – and I told her yesterday he was out to cause trouble. Carmody. That’s who. Now you just look at what happened after he.…’

  ‘She says it wasn’t Carmody. She claims you’ve got Carmody locked up here – either that or you’ve killed him and.…’

  Anson slammed his hand on a fencepost with a resounding thwack. ‘By God that’s an outrage! She ought’n be allowed to go around accusin’ people of anythin’ that comes into her head. And I don’t give a damn if she is a woman, she.…’ Anson broke off, calming his fury a little. He jerked open the gate. ‘Here. Tell you what you do, Mose. You have a look. Look in the house, the barns, ride all the hell over Anvil range lookin’ for a fresh grave if you want. If you think I’ve got Carmody here, then by damn have a look.’

  Upstairs, Carmody’s heart skipped a beat. If Dalmas took him up on it the lid would sure blow off. He stole a glance at the kid and saw the kid had his gun out. ‘Take it easy, mister!’ the kid said tight-lipped. ‘If that old fool comes pokin’ his nose in here.…’

  But Dalmas had no stomach for making a search of Anvil. He shook his head quickly. ‘Hell, Booth – I know you ain’t got him here.’

  Anson let the gate close and leaned on it. ‘Of course I ain’t. Of all the damn silly things I ever heard. What the devil would I want to keep him here for anyway?’

  Carmody thought, ‘If I tackle the kid now and let out a yell.…’ then he dismissed the thought. It would be signing Mose Dalmas’s death warrant. Anson would never let him live to leave Anvil with that knowledge.

  Down below Dalmas was saying, ‘Well, that’s what I thought. But anyway, here’s this warrant and I’m servin’ it. I told her she didn’t have enough proof to hold up in court, so I don’t reckon it’ll come to much.’

  ‘Proof! What kind of proof has she got?’

  ‘Well – she found Carmody’s hat.…’

  ‘Hell! Then go find Carmody.’

  ‘… and inside the hat she found a piece of paper – a mail order blank – with Vicker’s name on it. Claims Vicker took the hat for a disguise to make her think it was Carmody.’

  Anson guffawed. ‘Then she can go fiddle. I never heard anythin’ so crazy.’ But he turned to look at Vicker and even from where he watched Carmody could see the venom in the glance for the man’s stupidity.

  ‘I got to serve this warrant, Booth. Crazy or not. It’s the law. I tried to argue her out of it, but Will Henstridge was there and he said.…’

  ‘Henstridge! What the hell’s he got to do with it?’

  ‘Well—’ Dalmas began, his uneasiness growing, ‘he claimed I was bowin’ too much to Anvil and that the cattlemen in the county are gettin’ fed up with it and they’re formin’ some kind of an association to make you pull in your horns. He said if I didn’t serve this warrant they’d put in a man at election time of their own choosin’.’

  Anson stared, flabbergasted. Then he straightened and shoved back his hat. ‘So that’s the way it is, is it?’

  Dalmas nodded. ‘’Fraid so, Booth. But you know me, I never play favourites.’

  ‘So you’re turnin’ on me because of this damn association!’ Anson roared. ‘Afraid to stand up for what’s right because they might vote you out from behind that nickleplated star!’

  ‘You know that ain’t so, Booth,’ Dalmas said, fidgeting in the saddle. He glanced at Vicker. ‘You comin’?’

  Vicker stepped a little aside from the others. He looked disdainfully up at the man on horseback, his hand brushing his gun. ‘You takin’ me?’ he taunted.

  Anson shifted his eyes from one to the other quickly, then said, ‘Take off your gun, Vicker, you’re goin’ with Mose.’

  Vicker whirled on Anson, demanding angrily, ‘What the hell, Booth? I ain’t done nothin’.’

  ‘I know you ain’t. But the sheriff’s got a warrant for you and he’s got to serve it. All right, look at it this way. You’re in jail for shootin’ Merriweather steers. But Carmody ain’t gonna know that. Sooner or later he’ll come back and try it again. With you in jail there aint’ gonna be no doubt about who’s really doin’ the shootin’, is there? See what I mean?’ Anson dropped his offside eyelid in a slow wink that was hidden from the sheriff.

  Vicker straightened, his hand leaving his gun. ‘Why – yeah, I begin to see now. Yeah, that makes sense all right.’ He unbuckled his belt and handed it to his boss. ‘See you in church,’ he grinned. ‘All right, Sheriff, I’m comin’. Just let me fetch my horse.’

  Dalmas relaxed visibly, shoving his hat back and wiping the sweat from his brow. Then he began an innocuous conversation with Anson about the weather and state of the graze.

  Upstairs Carmody was watching the kid’s reaction to what had happened. It was beyond the gunsharp’s mental ability to grasp the meaning of Anson’s move. The whole scene had presented itself to his mind in clear black and white; the sheriff had tried to take away an Anvil man, therefore the sheriff deserved killing.

  ‘What the hell’s Booth doin’?’ he said in cold fury. ‘Why didn’t he gun the old fool down? I got a good mind to try it from here myself. By damn I think I will.’ He lifted his gun, taking aim through the open window.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I was you,’ Carmody said quietly, lying back on the bed.

  The eyes shifted to his face, half belligerent, half questioning. ‘Why the hell not? You think I’m afraid to gun a lawman?’

  ‘No. But Booth’ll be madder’n hell if you do. He wants Vicker in jail – didn’t you hear what he said?’

  The kid’s face frowned with the exertion of thought. He glanced out of the window in time to see Vicker and the sheriff ride off. He shook h
is head. ‘Well, it’s too late now. I reckon Booth knows what he’s doin’. But if it’d been me I’d of gunned him down.’

  Carmody sighed and closed his eyes. He didn’t particularly like Mose Dalmas, but he would hate to see him killed and not try to stop it. At least he had found out something that changed his opinion of Dalmas. The man wasn’t a hired tool of Booth Anson, he was just plain afraid of him. And Carmody could understand that. Fear was a human thing. It didn’t make him like Dalmas any more than before, but at least now he felt he understood him better.

  His mind did not dwell long on Mose Dalmas. It was Anson’s move that worried him now. The man’s intentions were all too plain from what he had told Vicker. With Vicker in jail it would be an ideal time to make the big raid on the Merriweather place. Anne had sworn out the warrant over the sheriff’s objections, confident in her belief in Vicker’s guilt. But after the raid, with Anne and Caleb and Penelope dead, and with Carmody’s body dumped along the creek as evidence of what had happened, Mose Dalmas would be only too quick to vindicate himself by pointing out that he had been right in suspecting Carmody all along. And Dalmas could blame Will Henstridge and his unformed cattleman’s association for the pressure which had made him arrest Vicker against his better judgment. It would leave Anson in the clear – hadn’t he told the sheriff he was making a mistake in arresting Vicker, that Carmody had threatened to do this?

  What worried him most was that Vicker’s arrest would make Anson itch to get on with the job. He had counted on four days, maybe five, in which to recoup his strength. But time was running out, and running fast. Unless he missed his guess, Anson would want to strike immediately.

  A few minutes later he heard Anson’s heavy tread on the stairs and he knew with a sinking heart that he had guessed right. He opened his eyes and saw the Anvil owner standing in the doorway grinning at him.

  ‘You heard what happened out there, I guess?’ Anson said.

  Carmody nodded. ‘Yeah, I heard.’

  ‘Then I guess you know what’s goin’ to happen to you tonight.’