Dutchmans Flat (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Gun in hand he walked around the corner of the corral. Beyond a pile of poles he saw Blue Riddle pulling himself off the ground. “What happened?” Dusty demanded.

  “Bender an’ McQuill. They gave me my walkin’ papers. Said I’d been in town too long, which didn’t bother Lowe none till I took up with you. They gave me till daybreak to pull my freight.”

  He staggered erect, holding a hand to his head. “Then Bender bent a gun over my noggin.”

  Barron’s eyes narrowed. “Play rough, don’t they?” He looked at Riddle. “What are you goin’ to do?”

  “You don’t see me out there runnin’ down the road, do you?” Riddle said. “I’m sittin’ tight!”

  “Wash your face off, then,” Dusty suggested, “an’ we’ll eat!” “You go ahead,” Riddle replied. “I’ll be along.”

  Dusty glanced back over his shoulder as he left and saw Blue Riddle hiking toward the Indian huts that clustered outside of Pie Town.

  When he rode out of town an hour later Dusty Barron was not feeling overly optimistic.

  Riddle had stayed behind only at Dusty’s insistence, but now that Dusty was headed toward Lowe’s ranch he no longer felt so confident. Dick Lowe was not a man to give up easily, nor to yield his ranch or any part of it without a fight. The pistol-whipping of Riddle had been ample evidence of the lengths to which he was prepared to go.

  The range through which Dusty rode was good. This was what he had wanted to see.

  How they might have bargained in town he was not sure. He doubted if anyone there would interfere if a deal was made by him. It was his own problem to see that Ruth and Billy Grant got a fair deal, and that could not be done unless he knew something, at least, of the ranch and the stock.

  Dusty was quite sure now that Lowe had never expected the consumptive Roger Grant to come west and claim his piece of the ranch. Nor had he planned to give it to him if he had. He knew very well that he himself was riding into the lion’s mouth, but felt he could depend on his own abilities and that Lowe would not go too far after his talk before the bystanders who had been in the saloon. By now Lowe would know that the story would be known to all his enemies in Pie Town.

  Cat McQuill was loafing on the steps when Dusty rode up, and the gunman’s eyes gleamed with triumph at seeing him. “Howdy!” he said affably. “Come on in! The boss is waitin’ for you!”

  Bugle Nose Bender was leaning against the fireplace and Lowe was seated at his desk. “Here he is, Boss!” McQuill said as they entered.

  Lowe glanced up sharply. “Where’s the agreement?” he asked, holding out his hand.

  Barron handed it to him, and the rancher opened it, took a quick look, and then glanced up. “This is it, Cat!”

  Too late Dusty heard the slide of gun on leather and whirled to face McQuill, but the pistol barrel crashed down over the side of his head and he hit the floor. Even as he fell he realized what a fool he had been, yet he had been so sure they would talk a little, at least, try to run a blazer or to buy him off cheap.

  Bender lunged toward him and kicked him in the ribs. Then Lowe reached over and, jerking him to his knees, struck him three times in the face. The pistol barrel descended again and drove him down into a sea of blackness.

  How long they had pounded him he had no idea. When he opened his eyes, he struggled, fighting his way to a realization of where he was. It took him several minutes to understand that he was almost standing on his head in the road, one foot caught in the stallion’s stirrup!

  The steel-dust, true to his training, was standing rigid in the road, his head turned to look at his master. “Easy, boy!” Dusty groaned. “Easy does it!” Twisting his foot in the stirrup, he tried to free it, but to no avail.

  He realized what they had planned. After beating him they had brought him out here, wedged his foot in the stirrup, struck the horse, and when he started to move, ridden hastily away before they could be seen. Most horses, frightened by the unfamiliar burden in the stirrup, would have raced away over the desert and dragged him to death.

  It had happened to more than one unwary cowhand.

  They had reckoned without the steel-dust. The stallion had been reared by Dusty Barron from a tiny colt, and the two had never been long apart. The big horse had known instantly that something was radically wrong and had gone only a little way and then stopped. His long training told him to stand, and he stood stock still.

  Dusty twisted his foot again but couldn’t get loose. Nor could he pull himself up and get hold of the stirrup and so into the saddle. He was still trying this when hoofbeats sounded on the road.

  He looked around wildly, fearful of Lowe’s return. Then a wave of relief went over him. It was Blue Riddle!

  “Hey!” Blue exclaimed. “What the heck happened?” He swung down from his horse and hastily extricated Dusty from his predicament.

  Barron explained. “They wanted me killed so it would look like I was dragged to death!

  Lucky they got away from here in a hurry, afraid they might be seen!”

  “But they got the agreement!” Riddle protested.

  “Uh-uh.” Barron grinned and then gasped as his bruised face twinged with pain. “That was a copy. I put the agreement down an’ traced over it. He took a quick look and thought it was the real thing. Now we got to get to town before he realizes what happened.”

  Despite his battered and bruised body and the throbbing of his face, Dusty crawled into the saddle and they raced up the road to Pie Town.

  Two men were standing on the hotel porch as they rode up. One of them glanced at Dusty Barron . “Howdy. Young woman inside wants to see you.”

  Dusty rushed into the lobby and stopped in surprise. Facing him was Ruth Grant, holding Billy by the hand, but her smile fled when she saw his face. “Oh!” she cried. “What’s happened to you?”

  Briefly, he explained. Then he demanded, “How’d you get here?”

  “After you left,” Ruth told him, “I was worried. After Father’s death and the trouble we had before you came, there was no time to think of anything, and I had to always be thinking of where we would go and what we would do. Then I remembered a comment Father made once.

  “You see, Mr. Lowe left a trunk with us to bring west or send to him later. It wasn’t quite full, so Father opened it to pack some other things in it . He found something there that worried him a great deal, and he told me several times that he was afraid he might have trouble when we got out here.

  “From all he said I had an idea what he found, so after you were gone we searched through the trunk and found some letters and a handbill offering a five-thousand-dollar reward for Lowe. Why he kept them I can’t imagine, but the sheriff says some criminals are very vain and often keep such things about themselves.”

  “And then you rode on here?”

  She nodded. “We met two men who were trailing you, and as they had extra horses with them so they could travel fast, we joined them.”

  Dusty’s face tightened. “Men looking for me?”

  Riddle interrupted. “Dick Lowe’s ridin’ into town now!” Dusty Barron turned, loosening his guns. He started for the door.

  “I’m in on this, too!” Riddle said, trailing him.

  They walked out on the porch and stepped down into the street, spreading apart. Dick Lowe and his two henchmen had dismounted and were starting into the saloon when something made them glance up the street.

  “Lowe!” Dusty yelled. “You tried to kill me, an’ I’m comin’ for you!”

  Dick Lowe’s hard face twisted with fury as he wheeled, stepping down into the dust.

  He stopped in the street, and Cat McQuill and Bender moved out to either side.

  Dusty Barron walked steadily down the street, his eyes on Dick Lowe. All three men were dangerous, but Lowe was the man he wanted, and Lowe was the man he intended to get first.

  “This man’s an outlaw!” he said, speaking to Bender and McQuill. “He’s wanted for murder in St. Louis! If you want out, g
et out now!”

  “You’re lying!” Bender snarled.

  Dusty Barron walked on. The sun was bright in the street, and little puffs of dust arose at every step. There were five horses tied to the hitch rail behind the three men. He found himself hoping none of them would be hit by a stray shot. To his right was Blue Riddle, walking even with him, his big hands hovering over his guns.

  His eyes clung to Dick Lowe, riveted there as though he alone lived in the world.

  He could see the man drop into a half crouch, noticed the bulge of the tobacco sack in his breast pocket, the buttons down the two sides of his shirt. Under the brim of the hat he could see the straight bar of the man’s eyebrows and the hard gleam of the eyes beneath, and then suddenly the whole tableau dissolved into flaming, shattering action.

  Lowe’s hand flashed for his gun and Dusty’s beat him by a hairbreadth, but Dusty held his fire, lifting the gun slowly. Lowe’s quick shot flamed by his ear, and he winced inwardly at the proximity of death. Then the gunman fired again and the bullet tugged impatiently at his vest. He drew a long breath and squeezed off a shot, then another.

  Lowe rose on tiptoes, opened his mouth wide as if to gasp for breath, seemed to hold himself there for a long moment, and then pitched over into the street.

  Dusty’s gun swung with his eyes and he saw Bender was down on his knees, and so he opened up on McQuill. The Cat man jerked convulsively and then began to back away, his mouth working and his gun hammering. The man’s gun stopped firing, and he stared at it, pulled the trigger again, and then reached for a cartridge from his belt.

  Barron stood spraddle-legged in the street and saw Cat’s hand fumble at his belt.

  The fingers came out with a cartridge and moved toward the gun, and then his eyes glazed and he dropped his iron. Turning, as though the whole affair had slipped his mind, he started for the saloon. He made three steps and then lifted his foot, seemed to feel for the saloon step, and fell like a log across the rough board porch.

  Blue Riddle was on his knees, blood staining a trouser leg. Bender was sprawled out in the dust, a darkening pool forming beneath him.

  Suddenly the street was filled with people. Ruth ran up to Dusty and he slid his arm around her. With a shock, he remembered. “You said two men were looking for me.

  Who?” “Only us.”

  He turned, staring. Two big men were facing him, grinning. “Buck and Ben! How in tarnation did you two find me?”

  Buck Barron grinned. “We was wonderin’ what happened to you. We come to town and had a mite of a ruckus with the Hickmans. What was left of them headed for El Paso in a mighty hurry-both of ‘em.

  “Then an Injun kid come ridin’ up on a beat-up hors and said you all was in a sight of trouble, so we figgered we’d come along and see how you made out.”

  “An Injun?” Dusty was puzzled.

  “Yeah,” Riddle told him, “that was my doin’. I figgered you was headed for trouble, so I sent an Injun kid off after your brothers. Heck, if I’d knowed what you was like with a six-gun, I’d never have sent for ‘em!”

  Ben Barron grinned and rubbed at his stubble of whiskers. “An’ if we’d knowed there was on’y three, we’d never have come!” He looked from Dusty to Ruth. “Don’t look like you’d be comin’ home right soon with that place at Gallo Gap an’ what you’ve got your arm around. But what’ll we tell Allie?”

  “Allie?” Ruth drew away from him, eyes wide. “Who’s Allie? You didn’t tell me you had a girl!”

  Dusty winked at his brothers. “Allie? She’s war chief of the Barron tribe! Allie’s my ma!”

  He turned to Riddle. “Blue, how’s about you sort of keepin’ an eye on that gap place for me for a week or so? I reckon I’d better take Ruth home for a spell. Allie, she sure sets a sight of store by weddin’s!”

  Ruth’s answering pressure on his arm was all the answer he needed.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE Mistakes Can Kill You The guns of the West were many, most of them manufactured in this country, some imported from abroad. To many Westerners any rifle was a Winchester, any pistol a Colt. Both brands were so common that they were accepted names for the type of weapon in question, just as today to many people any camera is a Kodak. Guns were in great demand, so many manufacturers opened their shops. Some lasted for years, some only for months.

  Pistols were made with multiple barrels, with two cylinders, with knives attached, with knuckle dusters (so called brass knuckles), with about every kind of contrivance one can imagine.

  The Walch twelve-shot pistol mentioned in this story was also made in a ten-shot version. Their manufacture began in the winter of 1859-60.

  Their size and weight were approximately that of other pistols of the time, and a casual glance would discern no differences.

  Among the most-used pistols on the frontier were various versions of the Remington, but there were also Sharps, Marlin, and Stevens pistols, as well as J. B. Driscoll, Forehand & Wadsworth, Lindsay, Marston, Starr, Merwin Hulbert, and dozens of others, including the Charles Sneider two-cylinder revolver, carrying fourteen shots.

  On the frontier, mistakes could kill you, and it did not pay to take anything for granted.

  *

  MISTAKES CAN KILL YOU.

  Ma Redlin looked up from the stove. “Where’s Sam? He still out yonder?”

  Johnny rubbed his palms on his chaps. “He ain’t comin’ to supper, Ma. He done rode off.”

  Pa and Else were watching him, and Johnny saw the hard lines of temper around Pa’s mouth and eyes. Ma glanced at him apprehensively, but when Pa did not speak, she looked to her cooking. Johnny walked around the table and sat down across from Else.

  When Pa reached for the coffeepot he looked over at Johnny. “Was he alone, boy? Or did he ride off with that no-account Albie Bower?”

  It was in Johnny neither to lie nor to carry tales. Reluctantly, he replied. “He was with somebody. I reckon I couldn’t be sure who it was.”

  Redlin snorted and put down his cup. It was a sore point with Joe Redlin that his son and only child should take up with the likes of Albie Bower. Back in Pennsylvania and Ohio the Redlins had been good God-fearing folk, while Bower was no good, and came from a no-good outfit. Lately, he had been flashing money around, but he claimed to have won it gambling at Degner’s Four Star Saloon.

  “Once more I’ll tell him,” Redlin said harshly. “I’ll have no son of mine traipsin’ with that Four Star outfit. Pack of thieves, that’s what they are.”

  Ma looked up worriedly. She was a buxom woman with a round, apple-cheeked face. Good humor was her normal manner. “Don’t you be sayin’ that away from home, Joe Redlin. That Loss Degner is a gunslinger, and he’d like nothin’ so much as to shoot you after you takin’ Else from him.”

  “I ain’t afeerd of him.” Redlin’s voice was flat. Johnny knew that what he said was true. Joe Redlin was not afraid of Degner, but he avoided him, for Redlin was a small rancher, a onetime farmer, and not a fighting man. Loss Degner was bad all through and made no secret of it. His Four Star was the hangout for all the tough element, and Degner had killed two men since Johnny had been in the country, as well as pistol whipping a half dozen more.

  It was not Johnny’s place to comment, but secretly he knew the older Redlin was right.

  Once he had even gone so far as to warn Sam, but it only made the older boy angry.

  Sam was almost twenty-one and Johnny but seventeen, but Sam’s family had protected him, and he had lived always close to the competence of Pa Redlin. Johnny had been doing a man’s work since he was thirteen, fighting a man’s battles, and making his own way in a hard world.

  Johnny also knew what only Else seemed to guess, that it was Hazel, Degner’s red-haired singer, who drew Sam Redlin to the Four Star. It was rumored that she was Degner’s woman, and Johnny had said as much to Sam. The younger Redlin had flown into a rage and, whirling on Johnny, had drawn back his fist. Something in Johnny’s eyes stopped him, and although Sam would neve
r have admitted it, he was suddenly afraid.

  Like Else, Johnny had been adrift when he came to the R Bar. Half-dead with pneumonia, he had come up to the door on his black gelding, and the Redlins’ hospitality had given him a bed and the best care the frontier could provide, and when Johnny was well, he went to work to repay them. Then he stayed on for the spring roundup as a forty-a-month hand.

  He volunteered no information, and they asked him no questions. He was slightly built and below medium height, but broad-shouldered and wiry. His shock of chestnut hair always needed cutting, and his green eyes held a lurking humor. He moved with deceptive slowness, for he was quick at work, and skillful with his hands. Nor did he wait to be told about things, for even before he began riding he had mended the buckboard, cleaned out and shored up the spring, repaired the door hinges, and cleaned all the guns.

  “We collect from Walters tomorrow,” Redlin said suddenly. “Then I’m goin’ to make a payment on that Sprague place and put Sam on it. With his own place he’ll straighten up and go to work. “

  Johnny stared at his plate, his appetite gone. He knew what that meant, for it had been in Joe Redlin’s mind that Sam should marry Else and settle on that place. Johnny looked up suddenly, and his throat tightened as he looked at her. The gray eyes caught his, searched them for an instant, and then moved away, and Johnny watched the lamplight in her ash blonde hair, turning it to old gold.

  He pushed back from the table and excused himself, going out into the moonlit yard.

  He lived in a room he had built into a corner of the barn. They had objected at first, wanting him to stay at the house, but he could not bear being close to Else, and then he had the lonely man’s feeling for seclusion. Actually, it had other advantages, for it kept him near his horse, and he never knew when he might want to ride on.

  That black gelding and his new .44 Winchester had been the only incongruous notes in his getup when he arrived at the R Bar, for he had hidden his guns and his best clothes in a cave up the mountain, riding down to the ranch in shabby range clothes with only the .44 Winchester for safety.