Dead Man's Range

by Paul Durst

  He went quickly through the door, dropping on all fours as a shot slammed into the kitchen, jangling a row of empty tin cans on a shelf.

  Carmody said nothing. He slid in beside the window Anne had been guarding and peered over the sill. There was no sign of activity and he expected none. At least not yet. Anson would not try the coal oil stunt again; and it was not in his nature to rush the house. More than likely he would try to sit them out, hoping that lack of water or food would tell on them before many hours passed. He probably did not know about the well in the house.

  But water alone would not be sufficient to enable them to hold out forever. Food and ammunition were both essential and the supply of each inside the house was limited. Most of the preserved foodstuffs were stored away in the cellar out beside the henhouse; even the barrels of salted beef had been rolled down there to keep them out of the heat until they had ‘set’. Anson, on the other hand, could depend on the creek for water, and a running supply line between here and Anvil could keep the besiegers well supplied with both food and ammunition. There would come a time when the boot would begin to pinch. Maybe in a day; maybe in two or three. But it would come.

  Carmody dismissed the worry for the time being. The night was not yet over. The moon would soon rise and that would lessen the danger of a sneak attack. And tomorrow night the moon would rise still later and it might give him a chance to slip away and ride for help.

  The thing that concerned him most right now was the knowledge that the old man who crouched beside the opposite window with the Sharp’s resting on the sill was the man who had killed Clint Merriweather. The man who had kept his silence and let Carmody spend eight years under shotgun guard behind prison walls.

  He shifted his position against the wall and reached for his tobacco, only to find he had none. The movement caused him to feel the pressure of the spur in his hip pocket. Absently his hand moved to his shirt pocket to feel for the rowel he had carried so long – then he remembered that it, too, was in the shirt Vicker had taken from him. But it didn’t matter. He had seen it often enough in the past eight years to be familiar with every detail of it; to know it matched the one Penelope still had and that it would fit the rowelless spur in his pocket.

  He found it strange that now, when he had found the man at last, there was none of the bitterness, none of the hatred he had nursed so long. That had been swept away by the events of the past few days and the realization that life held something more for him that the satisfaction of settling a grudge. Instead the discovery had left him with a feeling of numbed shock, almost of disbelief. He wanted to believe that Dalmas had been right in the first place when he had said that the presence of the lost rowel beside Clint’s body had meant nothing. But he knew that was a false hope. The very fact that Caleb had buried the spurs to hide them was an admission of guilt.

  ‘Moon’s comin’ up,’ Caleb said quietly.

  Caleb withdrew the Sharp’s from the window sill. ‘Well, if they come now at least we’ll have light to shoot by.’ He grinned at Carmody. The grin faded when he saw the way Carmody was staring at him. ‘What’s the matter, son?’ he said anxiously. ‘You ain’t been hit, have you? You look pretty much all in.’

  Carmody nodded slowly. ‘I been hit, Caleb. Hit hard.’ He pulled the broken spur from his pocket and laid it on the floor between them in the glow of the moonlight.

  The old man paused in the act of striking a match, staring at the spur. Slowly he raised his eyes to meet Carmody’s. For a long time neither of them spoke. Then Caleb let out a long sigh and his shoulders seemed to droop and he seemed suddenly to age while Carmody watched. ‘So – you know,’ he said with resignation, his eyes dropping from Carmody’s gaze.

  ‘What made you do it, Caleb?’ Carmody said with a tinge of bitterness. ‘That’s what I can’t understand – why did you kill him? You told me you’d practically raised him.’

  The old eyes met his own and Caleb shook his head. ‘Why, Jeff? I guess there ain’t no tellin’ why, exactly. Some things that happen in a lifetime can’t just be explained away with questions and answers.’ His voice grew hoarse and he cleared his throat and glanced anxiously toward the bedroom, nodding his head. ‘Does Anne know?’ Carmody shook his head.

  Caleb sighed. ‘Thank God for that. I don’t ever want her to know. Not just on account of me, but account of Clint.’

  Carmody frowned, puzzled. ‘Why on account of Clint?’

  The old man glanced out of the window. ‘Yeah, I raised Clint,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Raised him like he was my own son. But – I guess it was with him like it is with a lot of things that are close to us in this life; you sometimes overlook the bad spots and think only about the good. It was my fault I guess, in a way. I always knew he was a heller, but with a kid you sort of expect that. Knowin’ how I was when I was young I felt I couldn’t very well bear down on him too hard. I know, now, that I was wrong. You never cure anythin’ bad by lookin’ the other way and hopin’ it’ll go away.’

  ‘Clint was a heller?’ Carmody said in some surprise. ‘I always heard that folks thought quite a lot of him.’

  Caleb smiled briefly. ‘Sure they did. Most of ’em felt the same way about him I did. They knew he had a wild streak in him, but they all thought he’d grow out of it.’

  In the moonlight Carmody could see the hard bitter lines come into his face as he went on. ‘But there come a time I realized I’d let things go a little too far. I said he was a heller – but a likeable one. He was the kind women go like flies to molasses. Seems like the wild streak in a man like Clint just naturally draws a woman even though she knows it might get her into trouble. Well sir – there was a little gal down on the Canadian, a rancher’s daughter. Pretty little thing. Brought up real nice, folks were good honest people. I think they was always a little leery of Clint, but they liked him too well to come right out and ask what his intentions was concernin’ their Annabelle – until it was too late. One day Clint just stopped visitin’ their place and I met the gal’s dad in town some time later and he mentioned Clint had stopped comin’ and wondered why. A few weeks later they knew why. They found her body on a sandbar in the river.’

  Caleb sighed and tried to light his pipe and failed. ‘Her folks wasn’t the kind to go after Clint for revenge. Some ways it might have been better if they had. Maybe if the old man had come gunnin’ for Clint it might’ve put the fear of God into him. Instead of that these folks just up and left the country. I thought sure that’d straighten Clint out, at least where women was concerned. It did – for a while. But every time a woman smiled at Clint he was off. If he drew them like flies he sure didn’t bother to try brushin’ them off. Not until he was through with ’em. Next thing he did was take up with a married woman down in Canadian. Her husband got wind of it and told Clint what’d happen if he caught him around there again. Clint shied off her for awhile, but there was always plenty of women within a day or two’s ride to keep him busy. I packed him off up to Wyomin’ on a horse-buyin’ trip to get him away from her for a while. It was up there he met Anne. Swept her off her feet, married her – ’cause that’s the only way he could get her – and brought her back. Well, I think the whole of Hemphill County breathed a sigh of relief when Clint got married. I know I did. Everybody thought he’d settle down now for good.’

  ‘But he didn’t,’ Carmody said, beginning to see the pattern now.

  Caleb nodded. ‘That’s right – he didn’t. Oh, for a while. Till the newness kind of wore off bein’ married to Anne. Then I found out he’d taken up with this married woman down in Canadian again. That was about the time Anne was ready to have her baby. I made her go back East to my sister to have it.’

  Caleb turned his head and looked into Clint’s eyes. ‘You see, Jeff – if I loved Clint like a son, I reckon I growed to love her like a daughter. Only maybe more so because she was at his mercy – like every woman who’d ever met him. This time I felt it was my responsibility to look after her because it was par
tly my fault Clint was the way he was.’ He drew a deep breath and went on. ‘Well, anyway – I had some long talks with Clint after she’d gone. Tried to put some sense into his head. But it was too late. He told me to mind my own damn business and stay out of his life.’

  Carmody saw the pained look in the old eyes as Caleb ducked his head and brushed his eye angrily with a gnarled forefinger. ‘That really hurt, Jeff – comin’ from somebody I’d raised from a yearlin’.’

  ‘Well, that night – you know the one I mean – Clint rode out without sayin’ anythin’ to me. It was early afternoon when he left, and I figured he was off to Canadian to see this woman. Well, I saddled and lit out, takin’ a short cut to get there ahead of him. I went to her and told her what was happenin’ and told her plain to stay away from him from now on. She just laughed at me. I come ridin’ back as fast as I could and caught up with him on the old stage road. I reckon you know where – you come along not long after.’

  Caleb paused again, as though digging back in his memory, trying to shape up just how it had happened. ‘I don’t know exactly what come over me that night. It’s hard to explain to a stranger how you feel when you see somebody turn against you who’s almost a part of yourself. I told him what I’d done and I begged and pleaded with him to leave the woman alone and settle down before he ruined his own life and mine and – and Anne’s and the baby’s. Well – he called me a lot of names I’ve never took from any man. Said I was an interferin’ old goat and he was tired of grubstakin’ me and if I didn’t stop meddlin’ in his affairs he’d shoot me. He had his gun out when he said it and he was plenty mad. Well – I could’ve stood all that, I reckon; if it hadn’t been for what he said about Anne. He said she was just another woman as far as he was concerned, and if she didn’t like livin’ with him the way he was, then there was plenty of women who would and she could go plain to hell.

  ‘Right then I knew – I knew there’d never be an end to it. I knew a lot of things about Clint I’d never known before. I knew he’d make Anne’s life a misery and enjoy doing it. I-I guess I just kind of went out of my head. Like I say, he had his gun out. But I don’t think he expected me to draw mine. I think he was too stunned to know what was happenin’. I know I didn’t believe it myself till it was all over and he was lyin’ there in the road. I got scared then and was so weak and trembly at the thought I’d killed him that I could barely drag myself out of the saddle. My right spur caught in a saddle string when I swung my leg over. The rowel pin was about wore through – I’d noticed it before and meant to fix it – and I guess when I tugged loose it broke and the rowel fell off where you found it.

  ‘I took one look at Clint and knew he was dead. Then I heard your horse comin’ and I lit out.’

  Carmody sat very quiet. Caleb raised his face to look at him. The old man’s voice almost broke as he went on. ‘I knew they’d pinned it on you, Jeff. And the Good Lord knows the hell I went through the day of your trial. I kept thinkin’ I ought to give myself up – then I knew that if I did the whole thing would come out in the open and Anne would know what kind of a man Clint really was. When the judge gave you only ten years – well, I figured you was young and that ten years out of your life wasn’t nothin’ compared to what it would do to Anne’s if the truth came out.’

  Carmody sat for a long time when Caleb had finished. He picked up the spur and turned it over in his hand without even seeing it.

  ‘Well!’ Caleb said suddenly. ‘You came here lookin’ for a man. You’ve found him. You got a gun – use it!’

  Carmody laid the spur aside and slowly shook his head. ‘You ain’t the man I was lookin’ for, Caleb. The man I was lookin’ for don’t even exist any more. And – as for me havin’ spent eight years in prison on account of what happened’ – he glanced toward the bedroom – ‘I’d do it all over again if it meant her happiness.’

  Will Henstridge’s voice broke suddenly through the stillness in a cry of alarm. ‘Look at the barn! It’s on fire – they’re burning the barn!’

  CHAPTER 15

  Carmody jumped to the window. The fire had been started on the far side, away from the house, but already the yellow tongues of racing flames could be seen clearly between the planks. Sparks rushed skyward in the windless air, smoke billowed in a great white loud that blanked out the moon. In a matter of minutes the whole barn was aflame, crackling and roaring as the fire raced over the dry timber. The heat of it was fierce inside the kitchen and Carmody’s first agonizing thought was of the coal oil soaked roof over the bedroom. If that caught.…

  A series of whinnying screams shivered through the firelit night and there was the sound of breaking wood as the trapped animals in the barn fought in vain to free themselves from their stalls.

  From the doorway behind him Carmody heard Anne scream. ‘The horses! Will – your team’s in there too! Oh, the beasts – why didn’t they turn the horses loose first!’ She ran to the kitchen door and flung it open and stood in full view of the firelight and shouted, ‘Turn those horses loose! What kind of men are you to burn helpless.…’

  Carmody flung himself across the kitchen and caught her around the waist, jerking her inside just as a bullet slammed into the doorjamb. He flung her roughly against the wall and shook her. ‘Don’t do anything like that again!’ he said angrily. ‘Do you hear me, Anne?’

  She nodded resignedly, sobbing. ‘The horses,’ she said again, feebly.

  ‘You can get more horses, dammit! It’s you I’m worried about. They almost killed you – do you realize that?’

  Anne straightened, brushing back a stray lock of hair. ‘Sorry, Jeff – I lost my head for a minute I guess.’

  A rifle cracked twice in the other room and Will yelled, ‘Somebody runnin’ around the other side of the house! Emma! Can you see.…’

  Carmody heard Penelope’s scream and was running for the bedroom, jerking out his Colt. In the reflected firelight he saw a man throw one leg over the windowsill, then bring up his gun when he saw Carmody. Both guns exploded together and Penelope screamed again. The man in the window was jerked backward and Carmody heard him hit the ground outside. He ran to the window and looked down. The flickering light showed the face of the kid, Peabody, twisted in an awful grimace, blood oozing slowly from a finger-sized blue hole in his forehead.

  ‘You just couldn’t wait, could you kid?’ Carmody murmured as he withdrew his head from the window.

  Penelope looked at him in a mixture of fright and awe. ‘You – you got him, didn’t you, Jeff?’ she said with pathetic bravery. He put his arm around her and patted her head. ‘It was him or us, little lady,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Carmody!’

  Carmody stood up at the sound of Anson’s voice shouting from somewhere in the brush.

  ‘Carmody!’ the voice called again, rising on a note of anger.

  ‘Yeah, Anson? I’m here.’

  ‘Come walkin’ out with your hands up and we’ll let everybody else alone!’

  Carmody glanced at the others in the room. Anne’s face was strained as she met his glance. She shook her head in pantomime. Caleb’s eyes wrinkled in distaste at the thoughts he read in Carmody’s own. ‘Don’t you believe him, son. He came here to wipe us out. You think he’d let us live to tell what he’s done here tonight?’

  ‘He’s right, Carmody!’ Will shouted from the other room. ‘Don’t be a damn fool. He’ll only kill you.’

  ‘Maybe there’s some way I could trip him up if I went out there,’ Carmody said, thinking aloud. ‘Maybe I could get the drop on him somehow and.…’

  ‘The only trippin’ and droppin’ you’d do would be to trip over a bullet and drop down dead,’ Caleb cut in. ‘Rest easy, son. The moon’s up now and it’ll last till dawn. He ain’t likely to rush us while we can see to shoot. And come daylight we’ll be able to pick ’em off one at a time.’

  They heard Anson yell again. ‘Carmody! You comin’ out? Or do you want them womenfolk to burn?’

  Carmod
y was peering around the edge of the window, trying to locate the direction of the voice. ‘Where would you say he is, Caleb?’

  ‘Sounds like he’s in the bunkhouse. I think I can see somethin’ in the window just by the door, but I ain’t sure.’

  Carmody looked. The bunkhouse window was in deep shadow. He thought he could see something, but he wasn’t sure, either. He said quietly, ‘Anne, got your Winchester handy?’

  Anne put it in his hands and he took it without taking his eyes from the bunkhouse. Moving back a step from the window he knelt down, resting the muzzle on the sill. Firelight played tricks on the sights. The distant window was indistinct, a moving blur. He thought he saw something move and pulled the trigger.

  There was a bellow of rage from Anson and he knew he had missed. ‘All right, Carmody! If that’s the way you want it! Let ’em have it, boys – he’s in the kitchen.’

  Carmody levered another shot at the bunkhouse and yelled, ‘Get down, Anne!’ and dropped his head below the window as the outbuildings erupted in a burst of gunfire, pinpoints of light flicking in a dozen places.

  Just then the barn collapsed. The sagging timbers of the loft gave way under the weight of the blazing coal that had been five tons of hay, the roof supports buckled, hung for an instant, then plunged with a roar into the holocaust below. For a moment everything was hidden in an immense cloud of smoke as the packed hay broke open, smouldering. Then the smoke exploded in a column of flame, showering sparks high into the moonlit air. The shooting stopped as even the Anvil gunmen paused to gaze.

  Pinto struggled in Penelope’s arms, barking wildly, then tore himself loose and bounded for the window sill where he hung for a second half-in and half-out, toenails clawing for a foothold. Then he tumbled out into the yard and ran, zigzagging, barking crazily at the blazing pile of wreckage.