by Peter Dawson
So he went on at that same slow walk. And presently, as he rounded the house’s front corner and could no longer see the side yard, a long sigh of relief escaped him.
He was shortly climbing the porch steps, letting the heels of his boots strike the wood so as to make each stride plainly audible if anyone was listening inside the house. He was acutely aware of the house’s two front windows, of the possibility of someone inside watching him, and, as he crossed the porch, he whistled softly in hopes that he might appear to be doing nothing but killing time.
But then, as he reached out for the door’s knob, his manner underwent a quick change. His tall frame tensed, his right hand came up to lift the .44 free of holster. In one lithe motion he pushed the door open, leveled the Colt, and eased quickly in through the doorway.
He was closing the door behind him with a sweep of the arm when he caught a blur of motion at the limit of his vision to his right side. He had barely begun to wheel in that direction when the vicious downswinging blow of some hard object struck him between neck and right shoulder.
The .44 flew from his grasp and spun to the floor as he was driven to his knees. He cried out hoarsely at the fierce knifing of pain in the shoulder as he instinctively reached down with right hand to break his fall, as the arm buckled and he fell against the wall of the hallway. Then he was lying there, looking up at Lute Pleasants, at the barrel of the big Winchester the man had used in clubbing him.
Pleasants’s square face was set stonily as he lined the rifle at Frank, saying tersely: “On your feet, Rivers.”
Over the pain that left him weak and breathless, Frank weighed his chances on swinging his legs and trying to use his spurs against the man’s shins before the other could use his weapon. But then Pleasants backed away as though reading his thoughts, saying: “Move, damn you!”
Frank rolled onto his left side and pushed up to his knees, then came unsteadily erect, his aching left arm hanging uselessly at his side.
“All the way back,” Pleasants told him, jamming the rifle’s muzzle against his spine and pushing him so hard that he nearly lost his balance.
At the end of the hallway, Pleasants said—“Turn left.”—and Frank led the way into the man’s bedroom and office. “Sit down. Over there in the corner.”
On his way across the room the toe of Frank’s right boot caught in a hole in the worn rug, tripping him so that he halfway fell onto the horsehair-upholstered sofa in the back corner. That ungainly movement jarred his aching shoulder savagely, yet even over the pain he felt the arm move freely and with a vast relief knew that his collar bone wasn’t broken.
Pleasants was watching him closely, his face expressionless, his dark eyes bright with malice. “Hope I crippled you for good,” he said tonelessly.
Frank leaned forward on the sofa, letting his aching arm hang straight as he rested his head against his other hand, trying to put down the nausea brought on by the pain. And in another moment Pleasants was gruffly asking: “So friend Echols is looking for me? Why?”
Frank tried to ignore his aching shoulder, tried to think of some innocuous answer he could give that would throw Pleasants off his guard. But then he understood that the man had probably overheard part, if not all, of his and Jim Echols’s conversation here in the house and out in the yard.
Here was the man who had killed George Rivers and Sam Cauble, who had shot both of them down in cold blood. Here was a man who probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill still a third time if he thought he was being deceived or tricked in any way.
In spite of that realization, all of Frank’s long-nurtured contempt and loathing for his father’s killer rose up in him now so that he answered bluntly: “He’s going to lock you up, have you tried, and see you hang.”
Strangely Pleasants’s only visible reaction was a near-polite arching of his brows. “So you both know?” he asked.
Frank lifted his head and stared dully across at the Beavertail man. “What you did to my father and Cauble? Yes, we know.”
A faint glint of amusement touched Pleasants’s glance. “It means I’ve got to plant you under the sod somewhere up in the hills, then get clear of the country.”
Frank still didn’t say anything, whereupon Pleasants coolly remarked: “Why I didn’t use another bullet on you that night when you were with Cauble is something I’ll never understand. Or,” he added, “why I didn’t use another on you the other night off there by Sawmill Ridge.”
“Neither will I,” Frank told him. “Because now you don’t have a prayer of getting clear.”
“No?” Pleasants laughed softly in real amusement. “Think again. By the time Echols gets back here the place’ll be empty. You and me’ll be long gone. There’s a hundred ways a man can get out of these hills without being seen. I’ve made it a point to learn a few.”
Frank was momentarily struck by the thought that Lute Pleasants was a different man today than the one he had been that early morning up the pass trail, and later in the sheriff’s office in the courthouse. That day Pleasants had been unsure of himself, his truculent manner had seemed to be the cloak for some indefinable uncertainty and insecurity in his make-up. Yet this morning his every word and gesture were strongly positive, as though he had thrown aside all pretense and didn’t in the slightest care that he was letting someone see his cold and brutal nature.
Just now the man moved over alongside his desk, leaned his rifle against the wall, and drew the .45 Colt from his holster. Letting the weapon hang at his side, he peered across at Frank, who was sitting with head hanging, gingerly rubbing his aching shoulder.
“What did Anchor do to the creek?” he asked.
Frank looked up at him. “We caved in the rim up by the forks. A train load of Giant powder couldn’t blow that slide loose.”
For the first time Pleasants seemed to lose grip of his cool and sure manner. His face flushed and, very softly, he drawled: “You’ve cost me a lot, Rivers. Too much. I’ve heard it said that a man with a bullet through the guts takes a long time dying. Tonight I aim to find out for sure.”
Frank was feeling steadier with each passing second as the throbbing in his shoulder began easing away. Yet he saw it as being very important that Pleasants shouldn’t know this. And now, as the other’s belittling glance remained fixed on him, he lay back against the sofa, closing his eyes, and letting his big frame go loose, saying nothing.
Pleasants regarded him closely and in strong irritation a long moment, finally remarking: “At least Sam and I had a good ride while it lasted. Thanks to you. How’d you like the way we left you holding the sack up there at Peak City?”
Frank opened his eyes to meet the other’s gloating stare. About to answer, he thought better of it, closed his eyes again, and, groaning softly, reached up once more to clench his bad shoulder.
With a shrug of disgust, Pleasants turned across the room and knelt in front of the big walnut wardrobe. He laid his gun on the floor nearby and, moving the rug aside, pulled the heavy wardrobe out from the wall.
Frank opened his eyes at the scraping of the heavy piece of furniture across the boards. Pleasants’s back was halfway turned to him, and he was noticing the turned-back rug when all at once the man looked around and, with a spare smile, asked: “Know what I got hid back here?”
At Frank’s feeble shake of the head, he said: “All I’ve saved these four years. And all Sam cached away. The poor souse never knew I was onto where he’d hid his share. Together they’ll come close to eight thousand.”
He bent forward and reached in behind the wardrobe, his back turned to Frank. Very slowly, very quietly, Frank nudged the rug’s edge directly below him with the toe of his left boot. He felt the rug curl back. And suddenly in one swift, sure movement he reached down and caught a hold on the rug with both hands.
Pleasants heard the sofa’s springs squeak. He looked around the instant Frank lunged erect, pulling the rug with him.
The Beavertail man made a frantic stab trying to reach
for his Colt. His hand never completed its snatching motion. For all at once the rug was pulled from under his knees and he sprawled sideward, his shoulder smashing hard into the corner of the wardrobe.
Frank dived headlong at the man, grunting against the pain in his shoulder. Quick as he moved, Pleasants was quicker, rolling out of his way, lunging erect.
Pleasants saw Frank reaching for the Colt and frantically thrust out a boot, kicking the weapon under the wardrobe. Before he could draw his foot back, Frank snatched a hold on his boot, twisted it. Pleasants cried out in agony, fell to his knees. The next instant Frank’s driving weight smashed into him from the side and his head was tilted hard around from a glancing blow alongside the jaw.
He rolled away, and then came erect the same instant, Pleasants swinging a vicious blow that caught Frank in the chest and drove him off balance, throwing him back hard against the wardrobe. Frank gasped for breath as Pleasants came at him. He lifted a boot, struck the other on the thigh, and turned him partway around so that he staggered into the doorway, jolting hard against the far side of the door frame.
Before Pleasants could push himself upright, Frank hit him a full blow in the face that turned him out through the door with such force that his heavy frame crashed against the far wall of the hallway. Blood streaked the man’s face as he wheeled in through the kitchen door, then faced around as Frank came at him again.
Frank lifted both arms as Pleasants swung savagely at his face. He caught the blow on his right upper arm, wincing at the pain that lanced all the way up into his throbbing shoulder. He struck out with his left, hit Pleasants in the neck, and an instant later reeled back from a wicked smash at his left temple.
There was a split second when, his sense numbed, he knew that Pleasants could have decided this. But instead of coming at him, the man wheeled back around the kitchen table toward the outside door. And suddenly, exultantly Frank realized that this killer was afraid of him.
He lunged awkwardly toward the table, caught a hold on its edge, and upended it. One of the table’s arcing legs tripped Pleasants and sent him jarring heavily to the floor in an ungainly fall that made him skid hard against the wall. And as Frank stepped around the capsized table and came at him, he threw his legs around, managed to stagger halfway erect, and frantically pulled himself out through the doorway and onto the rear porch.
Pleasants seemed to sense then that be would have no chance to make a run for it. For out there he turned, spread his boots wide, and brought up his guard, his eyes wide with shock and fright. And before Frank had quite stepped out of the door, the man swung both fists at him, trying desperately to hit him in the face.
Frank instinctively hunched over. Pleasants missed with his left, but hit him on the top of his head with such a vicious, full right that he was momentarily stunned.
But Frank’s weight was driving forward and the next instant he was close enough to reach out and throw both arms about Pleasants’s waist. The man tried to knee him in the groin but lost his balance. Then they were falling outward and off the stoop.
Pleasants managed somehow to throw his weight around at the last instant so that Frank took the full impact of the fall on his bad shoulder. A wave of weakness came with the pain, and Frank lost his hold.
The Beavertail man pushed up, rolled almost out of reach, and was coming to his knees when, from somewhere out of the dim past, the memory of such a situation as this flashed across Frank’s befuddled senses. It took every ounce of strength in him then to lift his legs, wriggle part way around, and straighten them. His boots caught Pleasants fully in the chest, threw him over backward.
As the other went sprawling, Frank came unsteadily to his feet. He stepped over and, as Pleasants tried to lunge erect, threw all the waning strength of his tall frame behind a hard left uppercut that caught the other on the ear and staggered him. Then, as Pleasants was groggily lifting his arms, Frank stepped in and swung a full, arcing blow that caught him on the hinge of the jaw.
Pleasants’s heavy body stiffened. He was rigid, straight as a plank, as he fell face down into the dirt. He lay there without moving, groaning softly at each gasping breath. And Frank stood looking down at him, feeling so absolutely spent that he had to spread his boots wide to keep standing.
From somewhere out of the near distance Frank all at once caught the steady hoof drum of running horses. A surge of alarm coursed through him, making him step on out until he could see around the corner of the house and out the track leading up across the meadow.
Two riders were on their way in, their horses at a hard run. Frank thought of the rifle in Pleasants’s bedroom, and of his own .44 lying somewhere near the head of the hallway.
He had swung around, ready to run for the kitchen door, when something faintly familiar about the look of one of the riders made him step out and peer toward the meadow again.
He recognized the rider on the left as being Jim Echols. And, in several more seconds, he knew that the other was Kate.
With a sigh of thankfulness he strode on back and past Pleasants to the well house. He had drawn a partly full bucket of water and was dumping it over his head when Kate and Jim Echols rode into the yard.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The last light was going out of the day as Frank walked up from Anchor’s bunkhouse toward the lights in the two windows of the house’s kitchen wing.
His six solid hours of sleep had left him feeling groggy but no longer so bone-weary as he had been as he fell onto his bunk at midday. He was stiff and sore, his right shoulder was tender to the touch. But as he breathed deeply of the pine-scented chill air he wondered when he had ever felt so buoyed up, so at peace with himself. This had been a day to remember.
He was coming in on the two tall spruce trees at the yard’s edge when a shape moved out of the shadows toward him. His pulse quickened at recognizing Kate. Then the next moment she was asking: “Get a good rest?”
“Never better. How about you?”
“I slept like a rock.” She stopped within arm’s reach of him and he could make out the beauty of her smile then as she asked: “Does any of this seem quite real to you, Frank? Can you realize it’s over?”
“It is a little hard to believe,” he told her in all honesty.
“Frank, there’s something I.…” Kate was looking up at him intently as she spoke, as her words broke off. And over the moment she hesitated, he knew instinctively that what she was to say was to be important to them both. Then she was telling him: “This morning, while you and Jim and the doctor were at the jail with Lute, Fred and I had a talk. We … we both want you to stay on. We don’t want you to leave.”
A feeling of awkwardness instantly laid its hold on Frank, so that he said the first thing that came to mind. “That’s good of you. But this outfit doesn’t need more than two men to work it over the winter. So.…”
“So if you’d waited to ride up here with me at noon, I could have told you that Fred and I decided we’d try and buy the Beavertail. Which means that we’ll need help, Frank.”
He couldn’t quite analyze the feeling that rose in him then, the delight and sheer happiness that made his voice unsteady as he quietly drawled: “That changes things, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” Impulsively she reached out and took his arm, pulling him gently toward the house. And there was a richness, a hint of strong emotion in her voice as she said: “Let’s talk it over. Supper’s waiting.”
As they walked toward the house, Kate close beside him and the touch of her hand on his arm, Frank Rivers knew that he was leaving all the bitterness and heartache of the past behind him. The days to come would be full of a bright promise.
THE END
About the Author
Peter Dawson is the nom de plume used by Jonathan Hurff Glidden. He was born in Kewanee, Illinois, and graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in English literature. In his career as a Western writer he published sixteen Western novels and wrote over 120 West
ern short novels and short stories for the magazine market. From the beginning he was a dedicated craftsman who revised and polished his fiction until it shone as a fine gem. His Peter Dawson novels are noted for their adept plotting, interesting and well-developed characters, their authentically researched historical backgrounds, and his stylistic flair. During the Second World War, Glidden served with the U.S. Strategic and Tactical Air Force in the United Kingdom. Later in 1950 he served for a time as Assistant to Chief of Station in Germany. After the war, his novels were frequently serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. Peter Dawson titles such as Royal Gorge and Ruler of the Range are generally conceded to be among his best titles, although he was an extremely consistent writer, and virtually all his fiction has retained its classic stature among readers of all generations. One of Jon Glidden’s finest techniques was his ability, after the fashion of Dickens and Tolstoy, to tell his stories via a series of dramatic vignettes which focus on a wide assortment of different characters, all tending to develop their own lives, situations, and predicaments, while at the same time propelling the general plot of the story toward a suspenseful conclusion. He was no less gifted as a master of the short novel and short story. Dark Riders of Doom (Five Star Westerns, 1996) was the first collection of his Western short novels and stories to be published.