Wild West

by Elmer Kelton

  A numbness spread over Kyle Rayford, and he didn’t argue any more. It had started now. He had drawn first blood, and it was like being pulled out into the center of a roiling, flooded stream. It had started, and he couldn’t stop it now until it was done.

  “Come on, Enrique,” he said. “We’ve got one friend left in this country. Let’s go see him.”

  Sam Whittenburg’s ranch had grown some. It wasn’t so big as Sam used to dream it would be in three or four years. Kyle had used to like to sit and listen to Sam make glowing plans. Dreams, they had really been. He guessed the easy-going Sam had gotten over the dreams and become realistic.

  Like I did, Kyle thought.

  Sam no longer lived in the leaky dugout where he had sheltered Kyle and Enrique until Kyle’s back had healed enough for travel. In its place was a picket house of cedar, chinked to keep out the howling winter of the high plains.

  “Sam’s come up in the world,” Kyle observed. “There must be two rooms in it, it’s so big.”

  The corrals covered more ground now, and there was a new picket shed. Sam had done a heap of work these four years. An old man stepped out into the doorway, flour sack around his waist.

  “Looking for Sam,” Kyle said. The old man was a stranger. Many people had come into this country since Kyle had left it.

  “Gone out to where they’re drilling the water well.”

  “Water well?”

  “Fixing to set him up a windmill on the south end, back away from the creek. Good grass over there, only Sam’s never been able to use it much because there ain’t been no water.”

  Growing, growing. Big enough to hire help and to drill wells. Good for old Sam, Kyle thought.

  Following directions, they headed south. It took about three hours. The drilling camp was scattered over a lot of ground, the big wooden drilling rig in the center. The long mast-pole stood twenty feet up into the air directly over the hole. Off to one side, two horses trudged around and around in a circle, furnishing the power that lifted the drill bit at the end of the long well pipe and dropped it again to gouge the hole ever deeper into the ground.

  Kyle and Enrique halted a bit to watch. In a few minutes the drilling crew hauled up the heavy steel bit from deep down in the hole. They carried it to a makeshift blacksmith set-up they had, with furnace and anvil. While one of the men prepared to forge a new point on the blunted bit, the others dropped a bullet-shaped slush bucket down into the well to clean out the mud and rock that the bit had broken loose since the last slushing.

  Kyle recognized Sam Whittenburg’s back. Sam eagerly watched the hoisting of the bucket. Sam caught hold of the bucket and swung it away from the hole, his fingers quickly sampling the mud.

  He turned grinning, then spotted Kyle and Enrique coming down the slope. He stared a moment, unbelieving. The grin broadened across his friendly, sun-reddened face. He strode forward, rubbing the mud off his hands onto his pants.

  “Kyle Rayford! Enrique Salinas!” Kyle swung down, a warmth inside him. They shook hands, Sam’s grip as tight as a vise. Kyle felt a swelling in his throat. Not in years had he been so glad to see anyone.

  He noted with pleasure that there hadn’t been much change in Sam Whittenburg. Sam was crowding forty now, and a touch of gray glinted in his tousled mop of sandy hair. But his laughing eyes still showed the sparkle of a youthful spirit. He shook hands with Enrique, rattling at him in Spanish. Like Kyle, Sam had come from South Texas, and Spanish was second nature with him.

  “By George, I’m glad to see you two.” He pushed Kyle off to arm’s length and looked at him. “You’ve sure changed. A man now, by jingoes. What is it, twenty-two? You look thirty.”

  There had been a lot to age a man in four years, Kyle thought without saying it.

  Sam was jubilant. “Enrique doesn’t look a particle different. He’ll look just like this the day he’s a hundred and six. Come to think of it, he may be, already.”

  Sam went serious then. “I think folks’ll be glad to see you back, Kyle.”

  “Will they?” Kyle’s voice held a raspy edge.

  “They were wrong four years ago. Most of them know it. You’ve been riding on their conscience a long time now.”

  The irony of it brought a bitter twist to Kyle’s mouth. “So now they’re sorry. That makes everything just fine.”

  The sparkle had left Sam’s eyes, crowded out by a sudden worry. “Kyle, it was mighty tough, what you went through. But after four years I thought—”

  “You thought I’d forget? No, Sam, I didn’t let myself forget.”

  Sam was fishing for words and having trouble finding them. “The country has changed. It’s settled, and so have most of the people. They’re not like they were when you left.”

  “Neither am I, Sam. Neither am I.”

  Sam’s brow furrowed. He was silent a moment, thinking while he dug the mud out from under his fingernails. Unflinchingly, he looked up into Kyle’s hard eyes. “What made you come back?”

  “I told them I’d be back, and I told them what I’d do. Well, I’m here. And I’ll do what I said I would.”

  Sam rolled a cigarette, frowning deeply and spilling some of the tobacco. “What do you figure on doing?”

  “I’m going to put them off their land, the way they put me off mine.”

  “We still don’t have any organized county here, but the Rangers come around now and again. They’ll be on you, soon as you step out of line.”

  “No they won’t, Sam. What I’m going to do will be legal. I’m working for a man who has bought deeds to just about every mile of creek and river country here, except for yours. These people are squatters. I’m going to move them off.”

  Sam’s mouth dropped open. Kyle went on:

  “The day of the open range is about over. Don’t you know that, Sam? There’s state, school and railroad land going on the market every day, and people are buying it. You, and everybody else up here are using free state land, just like Pa and me were. The land’s been too cheap to bother with, and the state hasn’t laid any claim to it, up to now.

  “But it’s beginning to get valuable. John Gorman’s the man I’m working for. You ought to remember the name. He used to be spread out big, down in South Texas, using free grass. But then the twenty-cow nesters started coming in with a breaking plow and a land deed, and they finally squeezed him out.

  “Now he’s fixing to do up here what they did to him down there. He got hold of some land promoters in Austin and bought up a bunch of land certificates.

  “I helped him pick the sections, Sam. I got him those that are on the water. And I did it on purpose. Without water, these people will have to quit. The rest of their land won’t be worth a dime to them. It’ll be there for John Gorman to take, the way they took the Slash R land.”

  Kyle clenched his fists. “You see, Sam, I can square it for Pa. And the law is on my side.”

  Sam Whittenburg turned his back and stared a while over the rolling plains, the knee-high grass that waved like wheat in the wind.

  “What are you getting out of it, Kyle?”

  “Title to the land Pa and I had. But mainly I’m getting even. It’s been a long time coming.”

  Sam turned back to him. “Do you really think you’ll enjoy it, Kyle? You won’t. Revenge is a mighty narrow thing to live for. Once you’ve had it, do you think you’ll be satisfied? You won’t. You’ll hate yourself for it, the way these people hate what happened four years ago.”

  Warmth surged into Kyle’s face. He hadn’t expected this from Sam. “Let’s go, Enrique.” He turned back abruptly toward his horse.

  “Kyle,” Sam spoke quickly, “How about Brook Emmett? Are you taking his land, too?”

  Kyle spoke firmly. “He was there the night they brought Pa home.”

  “Go see him first, Kyle. Maybe you’ll change your mind. He’s aged a lot. It’s been conscience that’s done it to him. Before you start this, go see what conscience can do.”

  “It’
s too late, even if I wanted to. Gorman has got the deeds.”

  “What about Jane, Kyle? Do you think about her anymore?”

  Jane. He had thought about her every day for four years.

  “No, I don’t.” It was a lie, and he sensed that Sam knew it. “I don’t think about her,” Kyle said again. “That was all finished four years ago. Done with.”

  Sam’s eyes pleaded with him. “Before you do anything, go see her.”

  Kyle swung into the saddle and headed toward town. Gorman was bound to be there by now, waiting for them.

  Enrique held back a moment, looking regretfully at Sam. Then he shrugged and followed after Kyle.

  Before they had ridden a mile, Kyle began to bear to the north. Enrique rode with a puzzled look. Then after a while they topped over a rise and slanted down toward Brook Emmett’s ranch headquarters, and the puzzled look left him. Enrique came about as near to smiling as he ever did.

  From the moment he had left Sam, Kyle had known he was coming by here first, even though he had told himself he didn’t want to. The first glance showed him that Brook Emmett’s place hadn’t changed much. It hadn’t grown. Where Sam Whittenburg had improved his ranch and added to it, Brook Emmett evidently had stood still.

  Kyle wondered at that. Old Emmett had been a man of drive and ambition. Kyle wouldn’t have told Sam for a million dollars, but he had always thought Emmett to be the better ranchman, to have the better prospects. Down there was the rock house Emmett had built, having found a good rock out-cropping nearby as a source of building material. It used to be that Jane could see Kyle from half a mile away as he rode in across the open, rolling land. She would stand by the picket fence there and wait for him. He didn’t see her now. But he could see that the fence needed fixing.

  It was not that the place had gone to pieces, but it lacked the well-kept look it always had in the old days. It was as if Brook somehow had just kind of let go. A dog barked at the two horsemen. Kyle heard Jane before he saw her.

  “Kyle!”

  She stood at the gate of a small chicken yard, which had been net-fenced against the visitations of the coyotes which still roamed the prairie. Setting down the basket of eggs she carried, she walked hurriedly to meet him. He stepped out of the saddle and dropped the reins.

  Two paces from him she stopped, her oval face pale from the sudden surprise of seeing him. The wind was picking up the curled ends of her long black hair, and it brushed softly against her slender neck. Her lips parted, and Kyle knew that to him she was still the prettiest girl he’d ever known.

  “Kyle,” she said again, almost in a whisper.

  He wanted to step forward and sweep her into his arms, and he knew she wanted him to. But four years had taught him restraint.

  Weaken now and he might jeopardize the whole purpose of his return.

  But he knew he already had weakened it when he had ridden by here instead of going straight to town.

  “I’ve always hoped you’d come back, Kyle,” she said after a long moment of silence, while they stared at each other.

  For a minute or two there, watching her, he had lost his bitterness. Now it began to come back to him.

  “You gave me no sign of that.”

  “I didn’t know where you had gone. I didn’t know where to write, or where to look.”

  “You could have tried. Most anybody in South Texas could have told you about me, the last couple of years.”

  That wasn’t a brag. It was a statement of fact.

  She stared silently at him, and something in her eyes seemed to die. He realized that she had carried a hope with her for four years, and now it was gone.

  He felt his heart tighten. Yes, he’d lied to Sam Whittenburg. He never had forgotten Jane Emmett. He wouldn’t, if he lived to be a hundred. We could start it all over again, and try to forget, he thought hopefully.

  But he knew it was too late for that. The die was cast. He still remembered his father, lying in a lifeless heap in the mud, and Brook Emmett had been there. Emmett would have to pay, like the rest of them.

  “Is your dad here, Jane?” he asked.

  Her voice was hollow. “He’s in the house. I’ll go with you.”

  She picked up her basket of eggs and walked ahead. Kyle followed, still fighting within himself, still wanting her.

  A sense of shock stopped him in his tracks at his first glimpse of Brook Emmett. Emmett had aged fifteen years in the last four. His hair was almost totally gray. The big frame was still there, but he was no longer a heavy man. At sight of Kyle he leaned forward in his chair, starting to rise. Then he sank back again.

  A hopelessness seemed to hang over him.

  “I knew you’d come back someday. You were bound to.”

  He extended his hand. “Will you shake hands with me, Kyle?”

  Kyle started to, then checked himself.

  Brook sighed. “I shouldn’t have expected it. I can guess why you’ve come back again. You want to even the score.”

  Kyle nodded gravely. “That’s right.”

  “And what do you want of me? Do you want to shoot me, and get it over with?”

  “I’m not going to shoot you. But I’m going to put you off this land.”

  Jane Emmett cried, “No!” and stepped up beside her father. Emmett patted her hand. “It’s all right, Jane. It’s less than I would have expected.”

  He smiled wanly. “It’ll almost be a relief. For more than three years, I’ve lived with a shadow hanging over me, ever since I decided for sure that we’d been wrong about Earl Rayford.”

  Kyle demanded, “If you knew, why didn’t you send for me? You could have found me.”

  Brook Emmett sadly shook his head. “A coward, I guess. Scared of you, scared of myself. I tried a long time to convince myself it wasn’t so, that I hadn’t been wrong. But I knew better, and it gave me no rest.

  “Something else, too,” he said. “I guess I was like the others. I didn’t want you around, reminding me every day of the mistake I’d made, staying here close to me like a living conscience.”

  Emmett said wearily, “We’ll let him have the land, Jane. It’s little enough to pay for a clean conscience. I’ve had no heart in it anyway, the last few years.”

  Kyle stood openmouthed, taken aback by the old man’s resignation. He had expected a fight out of Emmett. He had hoped for it. Emmett, who once had been their friend but had become an enemy. Emmett, who once had stood by the picket gate at the front of the house and told him he would kill him if he ever came back. Emmett, who had turned his back on him, refusing to hear the truth, and had left him to be whipped with the double of a rope.

  Kyle’s held breath eased out of him, and he felt a vague disappointment. There was no revenge in it if you didn’t squeeze a man. Emmett didn’t seem to feel any loss. If anything, he looked relieved.

  Kyle said, “The man I’m working for has bought the sections along the creek. You’ll have to move your cattle off of them.”

  Jane stared at him, anger and disbelief in her eyes. “Then we’d just as well move off all of it. The rest of the land is no good to us without water.”

  “I know,” he said without sympathy.

  Tears welled into her wide eyes. He couldn’t be sure whether they were from hurt or anger—or both.

  “This isn’t you, Kyle. I knew you’d change some, you were bound to. But this—.” She bit her lip. “You’re not the Kyle Rayford I used to know. Get out, Kyle. Get out before I fetch a gun.”

  He backed up. “You don’t need the gun. I’m leaving.” To Brook Emmett he said “Five days, that’s all I can give you. Get off the creek, this home and all.”

  From somewhere Jane Emmett brought a rifle. She swung it up and poked it at Kyle. “Get out!” she said. She followed him to the door and stood there watching while Kyle remounted and turned away.

  Kyle found John Gorman waiting in town, just as he had expected. Gorman had been restlessly pacing up and down the hard-packed earth in fr
ont of the squatty adobe hotel for two days. His unlighted cigar was chewed down to about half its original length. He was a big-boned, restless ranchman with a drive and a ruthlessness about him that had made men in South Texas call him “the bull”—but never to his face.

  Gorman saw Kyle and Enrique coming. It had been three weeks since they had parted in San Antonio. But there was no greeting, no handshake.

  “Well, now, are you through fiddling around?” Gorman asked curtly. “Are you ready to go to work?”

  Kyle Rayford eyed him levelly. He didn’t like Gorman—he never had. To him, Gorman was only a means of getting done what he wanted to do. And he had no delusions. He knew that in Gorman’s sight, he was nothing more than that, either.

  Kyle said, “We’ve already started.”

  Gorman frowned as Kyle told him about Thatcher. The big man finally nodded. “Probably a good thing. It might have been better, though, if you’d killed him. It would’ve thrown a scare into the rest of them, and we wouldn’t be so apt to have much trouble.”

  “I’m not afraid of trouble,” Kyle said.

  Gorman grunted. “So I’ve noticed.” He motioned with his chin and turned back toward the hotel. Kyle handed the reins to Enrique and nodded toward the wagon yard. Enrique was looking daggers at Gorman’s retreating back. Gorman had always treated him like a servant, and Enrique didn’t like it. Enrique Salinas, the old soldier, the old insurrecto extraordinary.

  Kyle followed Gorman to his gyprock-plastered room. Gorman waved his hand toward three men who lounged there. “You know the boys. Jack Dangerfield, Irv Hallmark, Monte Lykes.”

  Kyle nodded, resentment smoldering in him. They were strong men, gunslingers. He didn’t need that kind for what he was fixing to do. He didn’t want them. Then he asked himself harshly what he is turning up his nose for. That’s all I am, too. Just one of Gorman’s gunslingers.

  Gorman said, “They’re here to help you.”

  Stubbornly, Kyle said, “I won’t need that kind of help.” He caught the look of hatred from sallow-faced Jack Dangerfield. He had once shot a gun out of Dangerfield’s hand when Dangerfield came into camp roaring drunk, looking for a fight.