Sabre swayed drunkenly. He recalled what Sikes had said about the desk. He caught the edge and jerked it aside, swinging the desk away from the wall. Behind it was a small panel with a knob. It was locked, but a bullet smashed the lock. He jerked it open. A thick wad of bills, a small sack of gold coins, a sheaf of papers.
A glance sufficed. These were the papers Simpson had mentioned. The thick parchment of the original grant, the information on the conflicting Sonoma grant, and then … He glanced swiftly through them, then at a pound of horses’ hoofs, he stuffed them inside his shirt. He stopped, stared. His shirt was soaked with blood.
Fumbling, he got the papers into his pocket, then stared down at himself. Sikes had hit him. Funny, he had never felt it. Only a shock, a numbness. Now Reed was coming back.
Catching up a sawed-off express shotgun, he started for the door, weaving like a drunken man. He never even got to the door.
The sound of galloping horses was all he could hear—galloping horses, and then a faint smell of something that reminded him of a time he had been wounded in North Africa. His eyes flickered open and the first thing he saw was a room’s wall with the picture of a man with mutton chop whiskers and spectacles.
He turned his head and saw Jenny Curtin watching him. “So? You’ve decided to wake up. You’re getting lazy, Matt. Mr. Sabre. On the ranch you always were the first one up.”
He stared at her. She had never looked half so charming, and that was bad. It was bad because it was time to be out of here and on a horse.
“How long have I been here?”
“Only about a day and a half. You lost a lot of blood.”
“What happened at the ranch? Did Keys get there in time?”
“Yes, and I stayed. The others left right away.”
“You stayed?”
“The others,” she said quietly, “went down the road about two miles. There was Camp Gordon, Tom Judson, Pepito, and Keys. And Rado, of course. They went down the road while I stood out in the ranchyard and let them see me. The boys ambushed them.”
“Was it much of a fight?”
“None at all. The surprise was so great that they broke and ran. Only three weren’t able, and four were badly wounded.”
“You found the papers? Including the one about McCarran sending the five thousand in marked bills to El Paso?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “We found that. He planned on having Billy arrested and charged with theft. He planned that, and then if he got killed, so much the better. It was only you he didn’t count on.”
“No,” Matt Sabre stared at his hands, strangely white now. “He didn’t count on me.”
So it was all over now. She had her ranch, she was a free woman, and people would leave her alone. There was only one thing left. He had to tell her. To tell her that he was the one who had killed her husband.
He turned his head on the pillow. “One thing more,” he began. “I—”
“Not now. You need rest.”
“Wait. I have to tell you this. It’s about—about Billy.”
“You mean that you—you were the one who—?”
“Yes, I—” he hesitated, reluctant at last to say it.
“I know. I know you did, Matt. I’ve known from the beginning, even without all the things you said.”
“I talked when I was delirious?”
“A little. But I knew, Matt. Call it intuition, anything you like, but I knew. You see, you told me how his eyes were when he was drawing his gun. Who could have known that but the man who shot him?”
“I see.” His face was white. “Then I’d better rest. I’ve got some travelling to do.”
She was standing beside him. “Travelling? Do you have to go on, Matt? From all you said last night, I thought—I thought—” her face flushed—“maybe you—didn’t want to travel any more. Stay with us, Matt, if you want to. We would like to have you, and Billy’s been asking for you. He wants to know where his spurs are.”
After awhile, he admitted carefully, “Well, I guess I should stay and see that he gets them. A fellow should always make good on his promises to kids, I reckon.”
“You’ll stay then? You won’t leave?”
Matt stared up at her. “I reckon,” he said quietly, “I’ll never leave unless you send me away.”
She smiled and touched his hair. “Then you’ll be here a long time, Mathurin Sabre, a very long time.”
TRAIL TO PIE TOWN
Dusty Barron turned the steeldust stallion down the slope toward the wash. He was going to have to find water soon or the horse and himself would be done for. If Emmett Fisk and Gus Mattis had shown up in the street at any other time it would have been all right.
As it was, they appeared just as he was making a break from the saloon, and they had blocked the road to the hill country and safety. Both men had reached for their guns when they saw him, and he had wheeled his horse and hit the desert road at a dead run. With Dan Hickman dead in the saloon it was no time to argue or engage in gun pleasantries while the clan gathered.
It had been a good idea to ride to Jarilla and make peace talk, only the idea hadn’t worked. Dan Hickman had called him yellow and then gone for a gun. Dan was a mite slow, a fact that had left him dead on the saloon floor.
There were nine Hickmans in Jarilla, and there were Mattis and three Fisk boys. Dusty’s own tall brothers were back in the hills southwest of Jarilla, but with his road blocked he had headed the steeldust down the trail into the basin.
The stallion had saved his bacon. No doubt about that. It was only the speed of the big desert-bred horse, and its endurance, that had got him away from town before the Hickmans could catch him. The big horse had given him lead enough until night had closed in, and after that it was easier.
Dusty had turned at right angles from his original route. They would never expect that, for the turn took him down the long slope into the vast, empty expanse of the alkali basin where no man of good sense would consider going.
For him it was the only route. At Jarilla they would be watching for him, expecting him to circle back to the hill country and his own people. He should have listened to Allie when she had told him it was useless to try to settle the old blood feud.
He had been riding now, with only a few breaks, for hours. Several times he had stopped to rest the stallion, wanting to conserve its splendid strength against what must lie ahead. And occasionally he had dismounted and walked ahead of the big horse.
Dusty Barron had only the vaguest idea of what he was heading into. It was thirty-eight miles across the basin, and he was heading down the basin. According to popular rumor there was no water for over eighty miles in that direction. And he had started with his canteen only half full.
For the first hour he had taken his course from a star. Then he had sighted a peak ahead and to his left, and used that for a marker. Gradually, he had worked his way toward the western side of the basin.
Somewhere over the western side was Gallo Gap, a green meadow high in the peaks off a rocky and rarely used pass. There would be water there if he could make it, yet he knew of the Gap only from a story told him by a prospector he had met one day in the hills near his home.
Daybreak found him a solitary black speck in a vast wilderness of white. The sun stabbed at him with lances of fire, and then rising higher bathed the great alkali basin in white radiance and blasting furnace heat. Dusty narrowed his eyes against the glare. It was at least twelve miles to the mountains.
He still had four miles to go through the puffing alkali dust when he saw the tracks. At first he couldn’t believe the evidence of his eyes. A wagon—here!
While he allowed the steeldust to take a blow, he dismounted and examined the tracks. It had been a heavy wagon pulled by four mules or horses. In the fine dust he could not find an outlined track to tell one from the other.
The tracks had come out of the white distance to the east and had turned north exactly on the route he was following. Gallo Gap, from th
e prospector’s story, lay considerably north of him, and a bit to the west.
Had the driver of the wagon known of the Gap? Or had he merely turned on impulse to seek a route through the mountains. Glancing in first one and then the other direction, Dusty could see no reason why the driver should choose either direction. Jarilla lay southwest, but from here there was no indication of it, and no trail.
Mounting again, he rode on, and when he came to the edge of the low hills fronting the mountains, he detected the wagon trail running along through the scattered rocks, parched bunch grass, and greasewood. It was still heading north. Yet when he studied the terrain before him he could see nothing but dancing heat waves and an occasional dust devil.
The problem of the wagon occupied his mind to forgetfulness of his own troubles. It had come across the alkali basin from the east. That argued it must have come from the direction of Manzano unless the wagon had turned into the trail somewhere further north on the road to Conejos.
Nothing about it made sense. This was Apache country and no place for wagon travel. A man on a fast horse, yes, but even then it was foolhardy to travel alone. Yet the driver of the wagon had the courage of recklessness to come across the dead white expanse of the basin, a trip that to say the least was miserable.
Darkness was coming again, but he rode on. The wagon interested him, and with no other goal in mind now that he had escaped the Hickmans, he was curious to see who the driver was and to learn what he had in mind. Obviously the man was a stranger to this country.
It was then, in the fading light, that he saw the mule. The steeldust snorted and shied sharply, but Dusty kneed it closer for a better look. It had been a big mule and a fine animal, but it was dead now. It bore evidence of that brutal crossing of the basin, and here, on the far side, the animal had finally dropped dead of heat and exhaustion.
Only then did he see the trunk. It was sitting between two rocks, partly concealed. He walked over to it and looked it over. Cumbersome and heavy, it had evidently been dumped from the wagon to lighten the load. He tried to open it, but could not. It was locked tight. Beside it were a couple of chairs and a bed.
“Sheddin’ his load,” Dusty muttered thoughtfully. “He’d better find some water for those other mules or they’ll die, too.”
Then he noticed the name on the trunk, D. C. LOWE, ST. LOUIS, MO.
“You’re a long way from home,” Dusty remarked. He swung a leg over the saddle and rode on. He had gone almost five miles before he saw the fire.
At first, it might have been a star, but as he drew nearer he could see it was too low down, although higher than he was. The trail had been turning gradually deeper into the hills and had begun to climb a little. He rode on, using the light for a beacon.
When he was still some distance off he dismounted and tied the stallion to a clump of greasewood and walked forward on foot.
The three mules were hitched to the back of the wagon, all tied loosely, and lying down. A girl was bending over a fire, and a small boy, probably no more than nine years old, was gathering sticks of dried mesquite for fuel. There was no one else in sight.
Marveling, he returned to his horse and started back. When he was still a little distance away he began to sing. His throat was dry and it was a poor job, but he didn’t want to frighten them. When he walked his horse into the firelight the boy was staring up at him, wide eyed, and the girl had an old Frontier Model Colt.
“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said, swinging down, “I’m just a passin’ stranger an’ don’t mean any harm.”
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Name of Dusty Barron, ma’am. I’ve been followin’ your trail.”
“Why?” Her voice was sharp and a little frightened. She could have been no more than seventeen or eighteen.
“Mostly because I was headed thisaway an’ was wonderin’ what anybody was doin’ down here with a wagon, or where you might be headed.”
“Doesn’t this lead us anywhere?” she asked.
“Ma’am,” Dusty replied, “if you’re lookin’ for a settlement there ain’t none thisaway in less’n a hundred miles. There’s a sort of town then, place they call Pie Town.”
“But where did you come from?” Her eyes were wide and dark. If she was fixed up, he reflected, she would be right pretty.
“Place they call Jarilla,” he said, “but I reckon this was a better way if you’re travellin’ alone. Jarilla’s a Hickman town, an’ they sure are a no-account lot.”
“My father died,” she told him, putting the gun in a holster hung to the wagon bed, “back there. Billy an’ I buried him.”
“You come across the basin alone?” He was incredulous.
“Yes. Father died in the mountains on the other side. That was three days ago.”
Dusty removed his hat and began to strip the saddle and bridle from the stallion while the girl bent over her cooking. He found a hunk of bacon in his saddle pockets. “Got plenty of bacon?” he asked. “I most generally pack a mite along.”
She looked up, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. She was flushed from the fire. “We haven’t had any bacon for a week.” She looked away quickly, and her chin quivered a little, then became stubborn. “Nor much of anything else, but you’re welcome to join us.”
He seated himself on the ground and leaned back on his saddle while she dished up the food. It wasn’t much. A few dry beans and some corn bread. “You got some relatives out here somewheres?”
“No,” she handed him a plate, but he was too thirsty to eat more than a few mouthfuls. “Father had a place out here. His lungs were bad and they told him the dry air would be good for him. My mother died when Billy was born, so there was nothing to keep us back in Missouri. We just headed west.”
“You say your father had a place? Where is it?”
“I’m not sure. Father loaned some man some money, or rather, he provided him with money with which to buy stock. The man was to come west and settle on a place, stock it, and then send for dad.”
Dusty ate slowly, thinking that over. “Got anything to show for it?”
“Yes, father had an agreement that was drawn up and notarized. It’s in a leather wallet. He gave the man five thousand dollars. It was all we had.”
When they had eaten, the girl and boy went to sleep in the wagon box while Dusty stretched out on the ground nearby. “What a mess!” he told himself. “Those kids comin’ away out here, all by themselves now, an’ the chances are that money was blowed in over a faro layout long ago!”
In the morning Dusty hitched up the mules for them. “You foller me,” he advised, and turned the stallion up the trail to the north.
It was almost noon before he saw the thumblike butte that marked the entrance to Gallo Gap. He turned toward it, riding ahead to scout the best trail, and at times dismounting to roll rocks aside so the wagon could get through.
Surmounting the crest of a low hill, he looked suddenly into Gallo Gap. His red-rimmed eyes stared greedily at the green grass and trees. The stallion smelled water and wanted to keep going, so waving the wagon on, he rode down into the Gap.
Probably there were no more than two hundred acres here, but it was waist deep in rich green grass, and the towering yellow pines were tall and very old. It was like riding from desolation into a beautiful park. He found the spring by the sound of running water, crystal clear and beautiful, the water rippling over the rocks to fall into a clear pond at least an acre in extent. Nearby space had been cleared for a cabin, then abandoned.
Dusty turned in the saddle as his horse stood knee deep in the water. The wagon pulled up. “This is a little bit of heaven!” he said, grinning at the girl. “Say, what’s your name, anyway?”
“Ruth Grant,” she said, shyly.
All the weariness seemed to have fled from her face at the sight of the water and trees. She smiled gaily, and a few minutes later as he walked toward the trees with a rifle in the crook of his elbow he heard laughter,
and then her voice, singing. He stopped suddenly, watching some deer, feeding a short distance off, and listening to her voice. It made a lump of loneliness rise in his throat.
That night after they had eaten steaks from a fat buck he’d killed, their first good meal in days, he looked across the fire at her. “Ruth,” he said, “I think I’ll locate me a home right here. I’ve been lookin’ for a place of my own.
“I reckon what we better do is for you all to stay here with me until you get rested up. I’ll build a cabin, and those mules of yours can get some meat on their bones again. Then I’ll ride on down to Pie Town and locate this hombre your father had dealin’s with, an’ see how things look.”
That was the way they left it, but in the days that followed Dusty Barron had never been happier. He felled trees on the mountain side and built a cabin, and in working around he found ways of doing things he had never tried before. Ruth was full of suggestions about the house, sensible, knowing things that helped a lot. He worked the mules a little, using only one at a time and taking them turn about.
He hunted a good deal for food. Nearby he found a salt lick and shot an occasional antelope, and several times, using a shotgun from the wagon, he killed blue grouse. In a grove of trees he found some ripe black cherries similar to those growing wild in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas, There was also some Mexican plum.
When the cabin was up and there was plenty of meat on hand he got his gear in shape. Then he carefully oiled and cleaned his guns.
Ruth noticed them, and her face paled a little. “You believe there will be trouble?” she asked quickly. “I don’t want you to—”
“Forget it,” he interrupted. “I’ve got troubles of my own.” He explained about the killing of Dan Hickman and the long standing feud between the families.
He left at daybreak. In his pocket he carried the leather wallet containing the agreement Roger Grant had made with Dick Lowe. It was a good day’s ride from Gallo Gap to Aimless Creek where Dusty camped the first night. The following day he rode on into Pie Town. From his talks with Ruth he knew something of Lowe, and enough of the probable location of the ranch, if there was one.
Mistakes Can Kill You Page 21