Rider on the Buckskin

by Peter Dawson

  Jim Echols’s eyes went narrow-lidded in righteous anger. “Has it struck you that none of this would’ve happened if it hadn’t been for your damned fence?”

  “We’ll leave the fence out of this.”

  Giving the man a parting look bridling with scorn, Jim Echols turned away and stalked back across the street fully realizing what a ridiculous position Pleasants’s change of mind had placed him in. As he felt the feathery touch of swirling snowflakes against his face, he was starkly confronted with having to make the choice Kate had so clearly pointed out to him some minutes ago.

  With little or no evidence against Rivers—in fact, with evidence in the man’s favor—he could nevertheless probably see the man jailed and tried for this murder by simply relating the details of the Peak City killing. His instinct was to want to do just this so as to square things for Bill Echols. But as he approached the courthouse entrance, he was for the first time listening to the voice of a small doubt. It was just possible, remotely so, that Kate and Fred had been right in suggesting that Rivers could be innocent of any involvement in the Peak City affair. If this latter turned out to be the case, then Echols knew there would be no living with his conscience.

  The hell with the whole mess! was his angry thought as he pulled open the courthouse door.

  The stale warmth of the hallway was welcome after the biting cold outside. And Echols was thinking back to his reason for having gone across to the hotel just now—the prospect of seeing Lola Ames and perhaps of eating the noon meal with her—as he reached to his pocket for the keys, sorted out the office door key, and thrust it into the lock.

  The key wouldn’t turn. The door was unlocked. He twisted the knob and opened the door, thinking that he had been very careless in leaving the office open.

  He stepped on into the room, then suddenly jerked to a halt. For now he remembered clearly having locked this door less than five minutes ago.

  A strong alarm was running through him even as he glanced across the room. The heavy jail door stood wide open.

  Chapter Six

  There was little need for Jim Echols to cross the office and peer into his jail to know that Frank Rivers was gone. Yet he did just that, seeing the grating to the outside cell in which he had locked Rivers swung far back on its hinges. The man had somehow managed to unlock all three doors, the one to the cell, the one to the jail, the one leading to the hallway.

  By now, Echols supposed, Rivers had probably left the livery, where he might have guessed he would find his buckskin once he saw that his animals were no longer tied in front of the courthouse. It all at once struck the lawman that there was now a very strong likelihood of Rivers having killed Sam Cauble. As he wheeled and hurried across his office, his long shelving jaw was set tightly in grim satisfaction. He had been right about Rivers after all.

  He supposed Rivers could have no more than a ten-minute lead on him, if that much. In ten more minutes he could have twenty men, thirty, in the saddle and riding out to cover the roads and trails. Rivers, a stranger to the country, had not the slightest chance of outriding men who knew the range around Ute Springs as well as they knew their own back yards.

  “Sheriff!”

  The word was spoken sharply from behind Echols. He halted in mid-stride, hand outstretched to open the hallway door. He swung quickly around.

  The jail door had swung partway shut. Rivers was stepping from behind it. He swung it back against the wall once more, his flat-planed face wearing a serious look that didn’t change in the slightest as the lawman quickly brushed his coat aside and lifted his gun from its holster.

  Only when the Colt muzzle was lined squarely at him did Rivers glance down at his empty waist and then across at the desk.

  “Why that?” he asked. “There mine are. Right where you left them.”

  The sheriff had drawn instinctively, without thought. His glance shuttled briefly to the desk now to see Rivers’s .44 and Winchester, and the shells from both weapons, lying as they had been for the past hour. He had forgotten all about Rivers’s guns, hadn’t noticed them.

  Slowly then, still surprised but also very suspicious, Jim Echols let his .45 fall to his side, then holstered it. “What the devil you trying to pull here, Rivers?”

  “I wanted to see if I could pound something into your hard head, Sheriff.”

  “Like what?” The lawman’s face took on color.

  “Like letting you know I could have given you the slip. Instead, here I am. Because,” Rivers added brittlely, “I damned well didn’t put that bullet through Cauble.”

  Confused as he was, Echols did manage to grasp the fact that there was a certain amount of unarguable logic behind the words. He halfway understood that the man could scarcely have produced stronger evidence than this of his good intentions. Rivers had broken out of jail, had had the chance to make a getaway. Yet here he was, as he had pointed out.

  All the sheriff could think of to say just now was: “How did you do it?”

  “Open the locks?” With an unamused smile, Frank Rivers ran a thumb inside his belt and brought out a six-inch blade of spring steel with a series of unequal-length slots cut in one end. Holding it in the palm of his right hand, he said tonelessly: “That four years of free board and lodging you mentioned taught me a thing or two. Part of the time they had me locked up with a man who could pick the best lock ever made.”

  Thrusting the blade inside his belt again, he nodded toward the desk. “So I could’ve waited there by the door and caught you, couldn’t I? Knocked you cold, stuffed your mouth, and locked you into your own jail. By the time you’d have been missed at the inquest, I could have been long gone, Sheriff. In this storm you wouldn’t have had a prayer of catching up with me. Now just ask yourself why I didn’t do all this.”

  Jim Echols suddenly knew without any doubt whatsoever that an innocent man stood before him, a man innocent of having put the bullet into Sam Cauble. As to the Peak City affair, he still had his rock-solid conviction, for his mind had been too long cemented with the certainty that Rivers’s pardon had been a miscarriage of justice.

  It was typical of him that, once proven wrong, he took the most direct means of making amends. Without so much as a word now, he stepped across to his desk, picked up Rivers’s .44, opened its loading gate, and dropped the five shells into its cylinder, afterward thrusting it in its holster and offering the heavy shell belt to Rivers. And as Rivers came across and took the weapon, Echols filled the Winchester’s magazine.

  Handing the rifle across, he said matter-of-factly: “Fred took your jugheads down to the livery. You’re to be at Doc Lightfoot’s house for the inquest at one o’clock. Anyone can tell you where Doc lives.”

  Rivers belted on the handgun, tied the holster thong about his thigh. For a long moment he stood waiting, as though expecting the sheriff to say something further. Finally he asked: “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “What’ll Pleasants say to this? Suppose I run into him?”

  “Just had a talk with him. He’s been thinking it over and said to tear up the warrant.”

  Frank Rivers’s thick brows lifted in surprise. “So?” he drawled. Then, getting no response from Echols, the rifle in hand, he crossed to the hallway door.

  He had opened it and was about to step from the room when he thought of something that made him pause and turn to say: “One day I’ll know the truth about what happened up there below Peak City that night, Sheriff. When I do, I’ll let you know.”

  “Do that.”

  The lawman’s words were dry as alkali dust, unfriendly. And with a faint wondering shrug Frank Rivers turned out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him.

  Chapter Seven

  Kate Bond, coming out onto the porch of Doc Lightfoot’s house as the medico’s parlor emptied, was feeling a trifle bewildered but very happy. The inquest was over, having lasted a scant half hour. Sam Cauble had, according to the jury’s verdict, “met his death at the h
ands of a person or persons unknown.”

  It was still hard for Kate to believe that Lute Pleasants hadn’t questioned so much as one point of Frank Rivers’s story to the coroner. Nor had Jim Echols even hinted that he doubted what the man had had to say. The sheriff had simply stated the facts as he knew them, had given the opinion that Rivers’s guns couldn’t have been fired recently. Best of all, there had been no mention of Rivers’s past or pardon.

  For the past two hours Kate had been deeply concerned over the outcome of the inquest. And now, seeing Jim Echols come onto the porch following two other men, she stepped over to take him by the arm and lead him aside from the group standing near the door.

  “Jim, I could hug you for giving Frank his chance.” The warmth in her eyes was eloquent of her relief as she added uncertainly: “I thought you were going to.… But that doesn’t matter now. Thanks for what you did.”

  Echols didn’t respond as she had expected he might. His expression was stern, almost unfriendly as he told her: “At least we’ll be rid of him.”

  She was jolted hard by his acid manner and responded in a hushed voice: “This isn’t like you, Jim. Give the man a.…”

  “Look, Kate. I won’t be sold a bill of goods. By you or anyone else. So let’s forget this joker and hope we’ve seen the last of him.”

  He turned abruptly away from her then as Doc Lightfoot called to him from the doorway, and went back into the house. And Kate, sobered by what he had said and by his bull-headedness, looked out onto the street that was lightly hazed by the lazily falling snow, trying to understand why he could be so unforgiving and intolerant toward Rivers when he was ordinarily a man who went out of his way to be fair and just in all things.

  She had little time to reflect upon the enigma, for right then a voice said behind her: “Kate, help me persuade this stubborn cuss.”

  She turned and found Fred and Rivers standing close behind her, Rivers with rifle cradled across his arm.

  “I’ve offered him a job with us and he won’t take it,” Fred went on. Good-naturedly he added: “Guess he has us pegged as a bad luck outfit.”

  “You’re wrong there,” Rivers was quick to say.

  Meeting his glance, Kate felt a stir of strangely pleasurable excitement over the possibility Fred had raised. “We could keep you busy, Frank. Has Fred told you …?”

  “I’ve told him everything, Sis. About the fence, about having to.…”

  Fred checked his words, a frown settling across his face as he watched Lute Pleasants cross the porch and go down the steps and out the walk. He gave Kate a questioning look. “Wonder what came over friend Lute?”

  When she only shook her head, he glanced at Rivers. “I’d have laid money he was ready to rip you wide open.”

  “So would I.” Rivers shrugged, adding: “Anyway, he’s my main reason for not taking you up upon your offer.”

  “Pleasants? Why?”

  “My being around might give him just one more excuse to make trouble for you.” Over a moment’s awkward hesitation in which he soberly eyed Kate, Rivers went on: “Let’s put it this way. If you’re really up against it, I’ll stay, and gladly. But if you can hire another man in place of me, I ought to be drifting. There’s a lot of settlements over in the Haystacks I can give a look-see before winter shuts in.”

  “Looking for your lame carpenter?” Kate asked.

  At Rivers’s answering nod, she felt a stab of keen disappointment, nonetheless telling Fred: “He’s right. We can find another man.”

  Fred was reluctantly tilting his head in agreement as Rivers wanted to know: “Why can’t you make a deal with this man Crowe you mention? Bring your beef out across his range? You say you’re bound to take losses driving over the pass to Bend. So why not try and figure what they’d be and offer Crowe say a quarter of that figure? Either in money or animals.”

  “That’s a sound thought,” Fred conceded. “But Crowe’s the kind that’d say no out of plain spite. Years ago our father had him arrested for rustling. They let him off, but he’s never wasted much love on Anchor since.”

  “You should ride across to Summit and see him, Fred.”

  “Guess I will, Sis. Tomorrow maybe.” Nodding toward the street, Fred asked: “Ready to go?”

  They left the porch and walked toward where they had left their animals, Rivers feeling ill at ease and a little ashamed of his decision. And as they went through the gate and toward the tie rail, he said sheepishly: “This is a poor way of paying you back for all you’ve done for me.”

  “Of paying us back? It’s only because of Anchor that you got into this mess,” was Fred’s rejoinder.

  “Forget that part of it,” Rivers said.

  He went on out to the buckskin then, thrust the Winchester in its scabbard, and wiped the fluffy snow from his saddle. He had his back to the house, had lifted boot to stirrup, and was swinging up into leather when a rough-edged voice spoke from behind him: “Rivers!”

  Settling into the saddle, he looked across to see Jim Echols standing on the walk. The sheriff’s clipped word had taken Kate’s and Fred’s attention. And now as the lawman spoke once again, they were eyeing him closely, listening.

  “What I said yesterday still goes,” the lawman intoned flatly. “When you hit the county line, keep goin’.”

  Rivers only nodded sparely. But Fred Bond stiffened in the saddle, saying hotly: “Jim, get that burr out the seat of your pants. How much does a man have to take from you?”

  Echols paid Fred not the slightest notice as he said: “You’ll do well to take the long way around today. That pass’ll be drifted tight shut.”

  “So I’d intended.”

  “Then haul your freight. And don’t come back!”

  Rivers glanced around at Fred and Kate, lifting a hand to touch his hat, saying—“So long.”—as he reined the buckskin out onto the street, winding the pack mare’s lead rope about the horn of his saddle.

  Chapter Eight

  About to leave Doc Lightfoot’s house after the inquest, Lute Pleasants had come to the door to find Fred Bond and Rivers talking to Kate directly beyond on the porch. In his furtive way, he had paused just short of the open doorway and had plainly overheard Fred tell his sister of having offered Rivers a job at Anchor.

  For perhaps half a minute a hard apprehension had held Pleasants motionless. By the time he finally came onto the porch, he had gathered enough from their conversation to make him fairly certain that Rivers wasn’t taking the job. But then as he walked on up the street toward the center of town, common sense told him that Rivers might change his mind.

  He decided he must know what choice Rivers had made. If the man stayed in this country, he represented a real and constant danger. If he left, he could be forgotten.

  Harry and Ben were waiting for him in the Bon Ton. He motioned them away from the bar and led the way back onto the street.

  “You two better make tracks for camp,” he told them. “Ben, you’re in charge from now on. Tomorrow mend the cuts in the wire and then get on with putting in the posts at the far end.”

  Ben Galt nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. On your way up, swing across to the layout. Put a wagon box on that set of runners behind the barn, then load that big scoop and haul it as far as where the creek cuts through the fence. Run the sled into the willows down below the fence so it’s out of sight.” As an afterthought, Pleasants added: “Oh, another thing. You’ll find a couple pair of gum boots in the wagon shed. Bring them along.”

  Harry, who had a lively curiosity, asked: “We diggin’ ditches this time of year?”

  “Tell you later,” was Pleasants’s evasive answer. “By the way, forget the night hawking unless we run into more trouble. Now get along so you’ll be back in camp in time for supper.”

  “Another of Red’s meals is sure goin’ to be a treat,” Galt sourly observed as they walked away.

  So it was, some ten minutes later, that Pleasants saw Frank Rivers rid
e up the street leading the pack mare. He went immediately to the livery, got his horse, and left town in the opposite direction, to all appearances on his way back to Beavertail. Yet, once beyond sight of the last house along the street, he climbed the creek bluff and made a long, fast circle to the east and then into the south that in half an hour brought him within sight of the pass road some four miles above town.

  Standing his horse in a clump of balsam above the road, he presently saw Rivers ride past. As the man disappeared into the fog of snow settling steadily out of the sooty sky, Pleasants felt a lessening of the worry that had been plaguing him. It looked as though Rivers was on his way out of the country.

  Twice more, by circling, the Beavertail owner glimpsed his quarry steadily climbing the pass road. And with the early evening sky clearing before a stiff, bitter-cold wind whistling down off the peaks, he was looking down on dusk-shadowed Summit from the shelter of the spruce forest above the shabby settlement to see Rivers ride through it as far as the log barn and corral of Bannister’s stage station.

  He watched Rivers disappear into the barn, and once when the whine of the wind died away, he faintly heard a voice calling from the cabin on the knoll above the big corral. Directly afterward he watched Rivers climb the path to the cabin carrying bedroll and rifle.

  Pleasants was disappointed. He had expected to see Rivers over the pass before dark, riding out of sight and out of mind. Yet he could still be fairly certain that the man would do exactly that in the morning. And with this satisfying thought he had turned back and started down the cañon, coat collar shielding his face from the wind-driven snow, when suddenly something occurred to him that made him draw rein.

  He had had it in mind for several days now to see Phil Crowe about stringing fence beyond the line of the Beavertail so as to deny Anchor access to the low country from this south side of its range, that touchy subject having been one of the reasons for his quarrel with Sam Cauble yesterday afternoon. Crowe’s saloon, the Pat Hand, lay right below here on Summit’s crooked street. Now, Pleasants decided, would be as good a time as any to see Crowe. And in the thickening dusk he turned down toward the town.