Wild West

by Elmer Kelton

  “I don’t know if we can do it, Kyle,” McGivern was saying. “Not many of us left. McLeod’s laid up. Thomas Avery and Ferman Olds have pulled out. They threw up their hands and quit. Smith’s going, and I think the Callenders have left.”

  Sam jabbed the stick into the ground. “Together we could whip that bunch. They aren’t that many of them. But we can’t hold together. They’ve been afraid of Ebeling too long.”

  Kyle gestured with the knife. “There are still you, Sam, and Milt, and me. And you, Brook Emmett, if you’ll go along.”

  Emmett squared his shoulders, and hope had come alive in his eyes again. Once more he seemed to be the proud Brook Emmet Kyle remembered from long ago.

  “Three days ago I wouldn’t have walked across the yard to save the whole ranch. Now I’ll go where you go, Kyle—all the way.”

  Kyle nodded. “Glad to hear you say that, Brook. That’s four of us. We can scrape up four or five cowhands.”

  Sam shook his head. “That’s not enough.”

  Kyle said, “It might be, if we went at it right. If we aren’t going to try, we’d just as well pull out like Olds and Avery.”

  Interest grew in McGivern’s eyes. “What have you got in mind?”

  “The same thing that worked for Gorman the other day, over at McLeod’s. We’re going to stampede that herd right over Edeling’s camp!”

  At dusk they let Benny Ahrens out of the old dugout where they had been holding him. Kyle led him to where they had his horse saddled and ready. “Get up there, Benny. You’re going to be our guide.”

  He shook down his rope and slipped the loop over Benny’s neck. “If you let your foot slip anywhere down the line,” he said bitterly, “I’m liable to jerk this thing.”

  They started out then, a string of nine horsemen working quietly down the creek in an easy trot, grim-faced, silent. It would be a long ride to Ebeling’s. There was no way of knowing for sure where the cattle would be. This would all depend on Benny Ahrens. There was always a chance Benny might try a trick. But riding alongside him in the moonlight, Kyle could see the fear which clutched Benny’s throat. No, he felt sure, Benny wouldn’t try a thing.

  It took more than three hours. Ahead, Kyle could see a flickering pinpoint of a burned-down campfire. He held up his hand. The other riders pulled in close beside him. Kyle dismounted, handing the reins and the rope to Sam. He walked ahead fifty or seventy-five feet to listen, where there would be no squeaking of saddle feather.

  This late at night, the cattle had bedded down. There was no bawling. But listening a while, he made out a shuffling of hooves as some animals moved restlessly.

  Returning to the others, he said, “Camp’s on this side. We’d best circle way around.”

  He wondered worriedly where Ebeling’s remuda of horses was being held. Let them smell these mounts and start nickering, and the lid might blow off in a hurry.

  Quietly they made a wide circle around the camp, coming in at the far side of the herd on the edge of a huge natural basin which in wet weather made a fine lake of water. The water had shrunk back far from the outer edges of the basin now.

  Kyle studied the herd a long while in the pale moonlight.

  “There are three men on guard around the herd, near as I can make out,” he said.

  The nighthawks were slowly riding back and forth along the edge of the huge herd. Several thousand head were bedded down here. They belonged to Emmett, McLeod, McGivern, Sam Whittenburg, and many others.

  “It’s your deal, Kyle,” Sam said quietly.

  Kyle said, “Scatter out, and ease up toward the cattle. You know what to do. When you hear me start, then all of you open up.”

  He rode straight ahead, leading the quaking Benny Ahrens, while the other riders fanned out. Kyle stopped a hundred yards from the herd, giving the other men time. He reached up and took the loop off Benny’s neck.

  “You’re on your own now, Benny. If I were you, I’d get clear of this country. If Ebeling gets away, he’s liable to go looking for you.”

  Benny’s voice was tight. “Don’t you worry. I’ve always kind of wanted to see Arizona. I think I’ll go take a look.” Benny faded back into the pale moonlight. Kyle waited, giving the others a little more time. Excitement played up and down in him. What if it didn’t work out? These men would lose everything they had.

  But something had to be tried, or they would lose everything.

  He drew his gun and touched spurs to his horse. Squeezing the trigger, he let go a rebel yell like his father had taught him a long time ago. Then noise rushed down upon the herd of cattle like an avalanche. Guns crashed, men yelled, and a herd of cattle jumped to its feet. In an instant the cattle were running, fear whipping the sleep-drugged beasts into a frantic dash for escape from the sudden thunder of men and guns and horses. The ground trembled beneath the gouging, grinding hooves of thousands of longhorn cattle.

  In the near darkness and over the deafening drum of hooves, he couldn’t see or hear the Ebeling-Gorman camp, but he knew what must be happening. The men would be scattering in panic, trying desperately to escape this sudden avalanche of horns and hooves and choking dust.

  Kyle was at the edge of the herd now. Ahead of him he saw a man cutting across, fast as he could spur, trying to reach safety outside the path of the run. Another man went by. He saw Kyle. They were close, and Kyle recognized this one. Jack Dangerfield.

  Dangerfield fired a quick shot at him. Kyle fired back. Dangerfield’s horse fell, then the man was lost in the darkness.

  Kyle knew then that it was going as he had hoped it would. Ebeling’s and Gorman’s men were scattering in every direction. They couldn’t organize again tonight in any effective kind of force. Tomorrow it would be too late.

  Ahead of him, Kyle saw another rider, spurring. It was a losing fight, for the man’s horse was limping badly and dropping back. In a moment he would be swallowed up among the panic-stricken cattle.

  The horse fell, and the rider went rolling. Kyle swung toward him. The man saw him coming and screamed for help. He was on one knee, and Kyle knew that his leg had been broken.

  He swung in beside him, only then realizing that this was John Gorman. Gorman, in sock feet and without pants, just as he had rolled out of his bed, was more afraid of the cattle now than of Kyle Rayford. “Help me, Rayford,” he cried. “Get me out of here.”

  Kyle pulled up beside him and reached down. Gorman gripped his leg, and Kyle took a fresh hold under the man’s arm. With momentum from the nervous horse, he managed to swing Gorman up behind him. Then he spurred up again as the cattle surged around them.

  Before long the cattle began to run down. They had covered two miles or more in the first surge of panic. Now some were beginning to drop out. A few would run another mile or two, but without the speed or terror of the first few minutes. By morning they would be scattered out over much of Ebeling’s land.

  “It’s going to be a real mess for somebody to straighten out.” Kyle said.

  Gorman groaned. “I’ve got to have help, Rayford. My leg is broke.”

  Kyle said, “I’ll take you to camp, if there’s any camp left. But it’s a question whether they’ll set your leg or stretch your neck.”

  At the demolished camp, the riders began drifting in. Three of the Ebeling-Gorman men were there, huddled for safety behind the ruins of an overturned chuckwagon. Most of the food had been trampled into the ground. The campfire was scattered all over the place. Bedrolls and clothing were beaten into the dust.

  As the riders came, they brought several of the Ebeling-Gorman men they had picked up. These were herded into a bunch. Gorman’s face fell at the sight of them.

  He had lost. He could tell that now. More than half of his and Ebeling’s force had been neutralized. And he, too, was a prisoner.

  Gone was the driving bull force which Kyle had always seen in him. Gorman’s shoulders slumped with defeat, and the pain of the broken leg was rapidly breaking him down.

&nb
sp; “Somebody do something,” he groaned.

  Kyle scowled at him. “I should have left you. I ought to shoot you now. We made an agreement, and then you fell in with the very man I came up here to get.”

  Gorman didn’t try to rise too much of a defense. “You didn’t go through with it. I had to get somebody I thought would do it.”

  “I went through with what I said I would do. But we both got outsmarted.”

  He felt along Gorman’s leg until the big ranchman cried out in pain.

  “That’s it, I reckon,” Kyle said. “Somebody come give me a hand.”

  By the time they had Gorman’s leg set and bound in splints, the man was limp, clammy with cold sweat. “What’re you going to do with me now?” he pleaded.

  “Keep you till the Rangers come. Men have died here because of you. I reckon they could hang you for complicity in it.”

  Whatever courage the big man had had, it was gone now. In the shadow of a hang rope he was no longer the blustering, driving man who had controlled some of the biggest acreages in South Texas.

  “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t tell Ebeling to kill anybody. He did it on his own. Listen, Rayford, let me go and I’ll give you anything you want.”

  A sudden feeling of triumph swept Kyle. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll sell you your freedom for those land certificates.”

  Gorman nodded quickly. “Sure, I always intended to give you that ranch of yours, Kyle. You know I always intended to.”

  Kyle shook his head. “Not just the deed to my ranch. The deeds to all the land you bought up.”

  Some of the fire leaped back into Gorman’s face. “Lord, Kyle, I paid thousands of dollars for that land.”

  “And you’ve burned out a lot of people. You’ve destroyed homes and barns and caused the loss of cattle. Men have died here because of you. A few thousand dollars isn’t much to pay for all that.”

  Gorman swallowed hard, looking away, “I won’t do it.”

  “Then we’ll wait for the Rangers.”

  For a little while Gorman sat there, nervously chewing his heavy lip in lieu of one of his cigars. At last he went slack.

  “I have the certificates in town. Take me in, and I’ll sign them over.”

  With daylight Kyle and Sam and McGivern and most of the others fanned out over the country, looking for the rest of Ebeling’s men. They picked up two or three. Only one put up a fight. A bullet in his leg took it out of him in a hurry.

  They found what was left of Jack Dangerfield where the cattle had overtaken him after his horse had fallen.

  But they never found Clint Ebeling.

  “He’s finished,” Kyle said. “He must know that the Rangers will be here, and that when they come, they’ll be out to get him.”

  “Let’s let him go,” said Sam Whittenburg. “I think we’ve all had a bellyful of this anyway. The Rangers will find him.”

  Kyle shook his head. “They won’t get him. He’ll clear out. Besides, the Rangers can’t square the debt I owe him.”

  Kyle caught up a fresh horse, checked his guns and rode off alone. Sam wanted to go with him, but Kyle had shaken his head. “This is my fight now, Sam.”

  He headed straight for Ebeling’s ranch headquarters. After losing last night, Ebeling must be getting ready to leave the country, Kyle figured. He would be the rankest kind of fool not to.

  But he would need food and a fresh horse or two, and chances were he had some money hidden away somewhere around the ranch. He was bound to go back for that.

  Kyle made no effort at concealment. He wanted Ebeling to see that he had come alone. He knew the fear and the desperation and the loss and the hatred that must be chewing at Ebeling now, the same that Kyle had felt four years ago.

  He felt sure Ebeling would come out to meet him, to try to kill the man who had precipitated this final disaster.

  Boldly Kyle rode through the open corral gate and up toward the sod house. Hand on his gun, he halted fifty feet from the door and yelled, “I’ve come for you, Ebeling.”

  For a minute he sat there watching and listening. He heard nothing, saw nothing. He began to wonder if he had been wrong. Or if not wrong, if he had come too late.

  Then the wooden door swung outward, and Clint Ebeling stepped out in front of the sod house. He left the door open.

  “I’m here, Rayford,” he said.

  He kept his hand away from the .45 at his hip. For the space of a minute or more, he and Kyle stood watching each other. The range was a shade long for accurate pistol fire. Somehow Kyle was wary of closing it.

  Ebeling said, “There was a job I should have finished four years ago, Rayford. If I had, there wouldn’t have been all this trouble. Now you’ve ruined me. I hope you’re satisfied.”

  “I am,” Kyle said. “For four years I’ve worked and planned for it.”

  “Did you figure on dying for it too, Rayford?”

  Kyle’s mouth went dry. Why didn’t Ebeling go ahead and reach for that gun instead of standing there talking? Ebeling was grinning at him, grinning with that supreme confidence of his.

  Kyle caught the tiny flicker of movement inside the sod house. He threw himself from the saddle just as a rifle exploded and a streak of flame lanced at him from the darkness beyond the open door. He triggered a fast shot through the door and another at Ebeling, who was bringing his gun into line. Then Kyle sprinted like a jackrabbit, running desperately for the side of the house. Ebeling’s .45 barked after him. Fire touched Kyle’s leg, almost making him fall.

  He gained the safety of the sod house. Above him was a small glass window. It shattered under a blow from inside, and the rifle barrel poked out. They were trying to get him in a hurry.

  Kyle raised up, quickly shoved his gun through the window and fired. He heard a gasp, then a groan and the thud of a man falling to the floor.

  Only one left now. Ebeling.

  Kyle looked about him, his heart racing. He was exposed to fire from almost anywhere here on the open side of the house. He eased the window up and propped it with a stick. Then, the broken glass cutting into his hands, he lifted himself oyer the sill and into the house.

  He paused to check the fallen man. Dead, all right. Kyle had gotten him through the throat.

  There was no back window, and Kyle couldn’t see out. But he knew Ebeling must be stalking him. Ebeling wouldn’t know Kyle was in the house. He would be coming around, taking one side at a time.

  Kyle waited just inside the door. The sun was behind the house now. He watched the shadow for some kind of movement. Then it came.

  Ebeling was creeping up the side of the house where Kyle had been. Kyle shrank back against the wall, gun leveled on the window in case Ebeling looked through. But he didn’t. The shadow moved stealthily forward. Then Ebeling jumped around the corner, gun ready, expecting to see Kyle there.

  Through the crack between the door and the jamb, Kyle watched the surprise in Ebeling’s face turn to something else. The realization had struck Ebeling that he was no longer the stalker.

  Fear crawled into the man’s wide eyes. He whirled, looking behind him. He seemed not a bit relieved to see that no one was there.

  He visibly began to tremble. His eyes darted to the door, and Kyle could read the desperate thought behind them.

  Ebeling saw safety inside the sod house. A temporary safety, at least. Better to be hemmed into four protective walls than to be trapped in the open.

  He made a dash for the door. He grabbed the door as he came through and pulled it shut behind him. Then he turned, breathing heavily.

  He saw Kyle there waiting for him, and he seemed to sag. For a long moment that was almost eternity, he stared at death, his face blanched white. Then he raised his gun. Kyle pulled the trigger, and it was eternity …

  * * *

  Kyle finished the carving and carried the wooden cross up to the high point where he had buried Enrique. With the back of a rusty old axe he had found, he drove the point of the upright solidl
y into the soft earth.

  The sound of a horse’s hooves brought him slowly around. Such a thing a few days ago would have made him whirl about, gun in hand. Now there was no worry, no fear. The time for that was past, and need not return.

  Jane Emmett pulled her horse to a stop. Kyle helped her down from the sidesaddle. He kept holding her hand even after it was no longer necessary, but he didn’t want to let it go. She made no effort to pull her hand away.

  She turned and looked back down the green blanket of grass toward the creek and at the trees which cast their deep shape along the banks there.

  “It’s really beautiful from up here, Kyle.” she said.

  He nodded.

  She turned back to him, worry in her eyes. “You’re not going to go away and leave it again, are you, Kyle? This is your home. This is where you belong.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not going to leave. There’s too much here now to keep me—Pa, Enrique, all the work and the sweat and the fighting we went through. I can’t ride off and leave that again. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

  He picked up her bridle reins, and they started down the hill together, leading Jane’s horse.

  “Jane,” Kyle said, “we used to talk about building a house, you and me. Where’s that spot you found the other day?”

  The grip of her hand suddenly tightened and the sunshine broke out in her eyes. Her pace quickened, and then she was almost running.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

  FORGE BOOKS BY ELMER KELTON

  After the Bugles

  Badger Boy

  Barbed Wire

  Bitter Trail

  Bowie’s Mine

  The Buckskin Line

  Buffalo Wagons

  Captain’s Rangers

  Cloudy in the West

  Dark Thicket

  The Day the Cowboys Quit

  Donovan

  Eyes of the Hawk

  The Good Old Boys

  Hanging Judge

  Hard Trail to Follow

  Hot Iron

  Jericho’s Road