Still, he looked at the men around him while Tad Sands whispered ideas to him. “We’re doin’ things my way now,” he told his vigilantes. “Obermire’s gone. You take your orders from me.”
Drifters and hard cases, most of them wanted somewhere, the night riders shrugged and accepted. One leader was no worse than another.
A few, though, were gone from the gang. Two yellow-ragshad gone down in the aborted attack on the settlers’ digs, when sharpshooters opened up on them. Some others had returned to Paradise. And there were some who decided that they had seen enough of this part of the country. Discarded yellow cloths marked where they had gone.
Billy Challis and Tuck Kelly didn’t go directly to town. They started that way when Asa sent for them, but Billy veered off toward the east when they saw the smoke of cookfires. From a caprock bluff above Rabbit Creek they watched as distant bands of horsemenconverged in the hazy reaches beyond a settlementof squatter camps.
They couldn’t see much. Whatever was happening was miles away. But Tuck had an itchy feeling, like spiders crawling up his neck. There was somebody a whole lot closer, he felt ... somebody who was looking at them.
He scanned the terrain all around and saw nothing.“You think maybe there’s somebody followin’ us, Billy?”
Billy ignored him. He didn’t even glance around. He held a tight rein and studied the lower lands ahead with slow feral eyes. There were three, distinct,little valleys out there, between low crests of prairie and gentle rolling hills. The valleys all funneleddown toward Rabbit Creek. And all along the valleys, spaced out at intervals of a few hundred yards to half a mile, were new claims—little squalid camps where land settlers were digging in.
“Look at that,” Billy rasped.
“Like fleas on a hound dog,” Tuck said. “Where in hell do they all come from?”
Tuck started to ride away, but Billy cursed and sat there, just watching.
“Let’s go,” Tuck grumbled. “Nothin’ here worth seein’.” He started to flip his reins again, then hesitated.Billy had a look on his face that he had seen before—like that of a cat hunkered on a rock, twitching its tail and watching ground squirrels play.
Tuck didn’t like to rile Billy when he got that look. There was something really wrong with Billy, and it made Tuck nervous. Billy was crazy as a jimsoned cow at the best of times, but when he started grinningthat way and licking his lips, it meant killing. Tuck had seen it before.
“Look at ‘em,” Billy muttered. “Just look at ’em. What do you ’spose they got in all those little camps?”
“Nothing.” Tuck shrugged. “Those people ain’t got spit. They’re just squatters. Let’s go see Asa.”
“I bet they got women.” Billy giggled. “Squatters always got women.”
Tuck shook his head. Whatever was wrong with Billy had something to do with women. Billy never could seem to enjoy females the way normal men did. Tuck wondered sometimes if Billy used his knife because it was all he had that really worked, come to that.
Folly Downs had been cruel with women, too, and liked to cut them sometimes, and some of the things he had seen Folly do made Tuck sick with disgust. But Billy was something else. Billy just plain wasn’t normal. “Come on, now, Billy,” he urged. “Asa said come to town. We better git. You want to buck Asa?”
Billy stiffened and turned to glare at his partner, and for a moment Tuck could almost feel his fingers going for his gun. But then the crazy bastard looked past him and giggled and pointed. “Looky yonder,” he crowed. “Just looky over there. That ain’t any dirt farm squaw.”
Tuck turned. Below the crest where they sat, RabbitCreek ran along through its little canyon, borderedby budding cottonwoods and willows. And just where the breaks leveled out, three riders had come into view, going northward. Though they were nearly a quarter mile away, there was no mistaking the one in the lead. Flowing copper-penny hair framed her smooth dark-eyed face, enhancing and emphasizing the fine contours that shaped the linen blouse she wore. Her wide calico skirt was hitched up over small sturdy boots planted in worn stirrups at each flank of her blaze-face sorrel.
Despite the skirt she rode as steadily as any man, and the rifle across her saddle was carried expertly.
“Would you just look at what the fates done sent us,” Billy Challis said, his eyes glinting.
The other two riders were young farm types—a pair of rawboned bearded beanpoles. They sat their mounts awkwardly, though the old rifles they carried seemed as comfortable to them as plow-hasps.
“My, oh my.” Billy giggled, licking his lips. “We gonna have us some fun. First come, first served, but that female is mine. Whatever I leave, you can have.”
Tuck sighed. “Billy, you’re crazy,” he said.
Billy Challis whirled, bringing his horse around with its eyes wide and teeth fighting the torturing bit against its tongue. “What did you say?” he demanded.
“Now don’t go gettin’ like that, Billy.” Tuck shook his head. “You got Asa’s message, same as me. We’re s’posed to come right back into town, on the double. Asa needs us.”
Billy glared at his partner as though the words meant nothing. He had a grin on his face that held no humor, and his eyes were wide and staring—little orbs of dark fire that seemed to burn like coals.
“Come on, Billy!” Tuck shivered. “That’s enough! Hell, I know you’re riled up from layin’ around that shack waitin’ for your butt to heal, but that’s no call to go off an’ do somethin’ stupid. Let’s find out what Asa wants. Likely you’ll get all the possum you want soon as we get back to work.”
Billy stared at him. “I asked you what you said, Tuck.”
“What?”
“Just now. What did you call me? Did you call me crazy?”
“Come on, Billy. Back off! It’s just a way of talkin’. Damned if you ain’t the contrariest critter I ever seen! ”
Billy edged his mount a step closer, crowding in. That odd frightening look was still in his eyes. “Do you know who used to call me crazy, Tuck? My mother did. My own mother! Can you beat that? The old bitch said I was crazy as a loon, just like you’ve said a time or two.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Billy, but I—”
“Do you know what I did when I’d heard that too much, Tuck? She said that one too many times, an’ I taken a strop knife to her. I knocked her down, then I busted open her jaw an’ cut out her damned tongue.”
“You killed her?” Tuck stared at Billy, aghast. “You ... you killed your own mother?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t! I let her do that herself. I staked her out to a tree, with one hand just free enough to move a little. Then I laced my knife in her hand an’ left her there. When I went back she’d slit her own throat, tryin’ to reach her mouth ‘cause she hurt so bad.” Billy giggled. “That sure enough was a sight, Tuck. It’s just amazin’ how hard a body will try to keep from stranglin’ on their own tongue blood.”
The disgust that swept over Tuck was like sick dread. He wanted to wretch, and felt bile rise in his throat.
“Best you just mind what you say, Tuck,” Billy said casually. The intense burning stare had receded from his eyes, but the look there now was cold as mountain thaw. And there was plenty of message in the way his hand hovered over his gun butt.
“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk any more, Tuck,” he said. “Now let’s just follow along a ways. And limber up that peep-sight rifle. You’re gonna pop us some squatters, an’ I’ll have me some fun with that little gal yonder.”
Tuck’s skin crawled. He remembered the way Billy had gone about having fun with a few females before,like those little girls up in Colorado. Tuck had claimed the grown woman himself, and raped her until he was satisfied, but it wasn’t like what Billy did to the girls. What Billy left when he was done wasn’t anything a man would want.
Tuck turned away, then felt Billy’s eyes on him—like gun barrels pointing at his back. With a sigh he lifted his reins and followed along. Tuck Kelly was as tough a
normal outlaw as ever lived, but he was afraid of his partner and he knew it. He’d never run across anybody quite like Billy. It just didn’t pay to rile Billy Challis.
He still felt that somebody was nearby, watching, but he ignored it. Whoever it was couldn’t be the problem Billy was.
TWENTY
Rufe and Elijah didn’t much cotton to the notion of riding up to Haymeadows Ranch, but Becky had her mind made up so they went. From the time they were shavers back at Rocky Top, where it was generallyknown that Barlow women backed down to no man, the boys had understood that their baby sister was a case in point.
They’d both been there in the dooryard the day Moss Woodard came around drunk and set to cussingoutside Aunt Sadie’s door, and they had witnessedthe gospel truth of it when little Becky, just nine years old, took a hayfork to the Swamp Creek man and drove him away.
It was the way she was—as sweet a little girl as a body might ever see, but just don’t cross the line. And stubborn ... nobody argued much with Becky Barlow. Even now, Rufe and Elijah weren’t about to start. So when Becky came out dressed in skirts and linen, and mounted up and declared that she was going up to Haymeadows to get a better look at Jubal Mason, the boys just naturally strapped saddles on a pair of Leotus’s horses and tagged along to keep her company.
There had been more trouble today, over in the Whiterocks. Homer Burleson had been by, looking for Cassius. He told them how gangs of vigilantes had made a run at two claims up there—the Iverson digs and Pete Muller’s place. Mounted patrols of settlershad driven the yellow-rags away, but that was only hours ago, and the boys were nervous.
From Leotus’s, Burleson headed north. GranddaddyCassius had gone up to Haymeadows just the day before, to visit those boys up there and dicker for some horses. He might have already started back, unless he’d stayed over another night.
And it was thinking about Haymeadows—or maybe about Jubal Mason up there—that set Becky off.
It wasn’t much more than ten miles up to Haymeadows,and most of the ride would be through lands now claimed by Barlow kin and people from Black Mesa. They could make the ten miles by dark.
As they came up through the breaks, riding at each side of Becky’s sturdy sorrel, Rufe glanced over at his brother and grinned. “I wonder if it’s really that feller Jubal Mason that Becky got dandied up for. Maybe she’s set her cap for Falcon MacCallister, an’ hopin’ to find him there.”
“Well, that would be a match, all right,” Elijah allowed. “Even for Becky. Did you see the shoulders on him? Lordy, I wouldn’t want to—”
Just ahead of them, Becky Barlow straightened her back in irritation. “Mr. MacCallister might be a devil or a saint, for all that means to me,” she snapped. “You two are talkin’ crazy.”
Rufe shrugged. He knew they had missed the mark. “Then it’s really Jubal Mason you’re fixin’ to visit?”
“None other, and don’t go makin’ anythin’ out of it, either!”
Rufe rode in silence for a moment, then grinned at Elijah again. “That Jubal, he must be some kind of dandy for Little Sis to go sweet on him like this,” he drawled.
Becky turned in her saddle and shot him a witheringglare. “I’m not sweet on nobody!” she said. “I just reckon a hospitality ought to be returned. He did prob’ly save my life, you know.”
“Oh, sure.” Rufe shrugged. “Like it’s every day that you step out scrubbed and combed and wearin’ a dress, and head out to meet some feller.”
“Think nothin’ of it, Sis,” Elijah assured her, working at a deadpan expression. “It’s only natural, you bein’ of the gentle persuasion an’ all. I mean, there was bound to come a time when some fine gentleman jumps on you an’ takes your rifle away from you an’—”
“He didn’t take my rifle!” Becky snapped. “I just dropped it when he lit on me. I mean, gettin’ in between me and that outlaw. I swear, Jubal Mason didn’t get nothin’ from me but my name.”
Rufe chuckled. “Well, you play your cards right, Sis, and maybe he’ll give you his to replace it.”
“Will you all just shut up?” she demanded. “I swear, you two come up with the dangedest notions!”
Where the breaks leveled out to rolling plains they slowed, peering northward. It was a sight to behold, all those little spatterings of new settlement spread out across three converging valleys. It seemed as though there were claims everywhere they looked—here a limestone foundation being laid by people living out of a wagon, there a pair of tents and a stack of cottonwood timbers, yonder a clearing yieldingsquares for a sod cabin. And there were other new claims beyond, out of view.
“That MacCallister was right,” Becky said. “Give folks a little land and fair neighbors, an’ they’ll spring up like weeds.”
Some of the claims out that way were Barlow kin, most were not. There were people out there who had been trying to dig gold out of Black Mesa just months ago. There were some who had just drifted in from Lord knew where, and decided to stay. There were even a couple of claims—rumor had it—that were taken by men who had worn the yellow scarves of Paradise vigilantes until very recently.
The land was greening now and full spring was here, and it was a sight to behold.
They flicked their reins and headed out across the prairie, but after a minute or two Rufe turned and looked back, frowning. “You get the feelin’ somebodywas back there, watchin’ us?” he asked.
Elijah scanned the backtrail and the rises behind. “Nobody there now,” he said.
For a while they followed the scant little waterways,where the claims were, but as the sun lowered in the west Becky became impatient and cut northward,away from the settlements, up through the rolling dry hills. Within a mile they were in country as pure and pristine as though no human eyes had ever seen it—sagebrush hills, low caprock bluffs above stands of cedar, and grass so thick and rich that the pronghorns flourished on it.
“Man could raise cows on this land,” Rufe allowed.“Some good shorthorn heifers and a seed bull, might come up with a right strong breed.”
“They’d just scatter,” Elijah scoffed. “Critters won’t stand to breed without water. What you gonna do, drive ‘em up from that creek every day? That’s the nearest water, four, five miles away, an’ that’s where they’d go.”
“Fences,” Rufe elaborated. “Fences and wells.” He pointed at a stand of salt cedar below the crest of a sage-strewn hill. “There’s water aplenty. Just have to dig to get at it.”
“Hard to dig a well while folks are shootin’ at you.” Elijah said. “What’s to keep land-grabbers like them vigilantes from just movin’ in when you settle?”
It was a good question. Rufe hesitated, looking at the lonely rolling miles around them. Becky was ridingout ahead, making good time as she set a course for the Haymeadows a few miles north. Up there, away from the little valleys and their brand-new settlements,the lands of No Man’s Land seemed wild and remote—and lonely. Still, the valleys above RabbitCreek had been the same, earlier in the spring, when the kin began arriving to settle around Leotus’sclaim.
All it took was decent people, willing to work, to make a wasteland home.
“Times will change,” Rufe grinned. “Have a little faith, Brother. We’re gonna see some good times out here after the bad gets swept away. It’s like Falcon MacCallister told Cassius—the grabbers won’t stand long against settlers that have neighborswillin’ to—”
Rufe’s words were cut off by the flat echoes of gunfire. His horse shied, spun, and danced and he fought to stay aboard. Then he saw Elijah’s mount hightailing away, its saddle empty and its skirts flapping.
For a moment he couldn’t see Elijah. Then he did. His brother lay in a heap, half-hidden among the broken stubs of a clump of scrub cedar. Even before he saw the blood Rufe knew that Elijah was dead—heart-shot with a high-powered rifle.
At a distance, he saw Becky’s sorrel, just coming around. The girl stared back at him and raised her reins.
�
��Run, Becky!” he shouted. “Get help!” He hauled his reins, controlling his horse, and turned desperately, trying to see where the shot had come from. Up on the lip of the east mesa, something glinted in the slanting sunlight. There was a little puff of smoke.
As the shot sounded, Rufe’s horse staggered, whinnied and went down, blood pulsing from its neck. Rufe fell, dived and rolled, and another shot kicked sand in his face. Through the dust he saw Becky wheeling her sorrel, holding her rifle high in one hand. “Run, Becky!” he shouted again. “Run for—”
The bullet that hit him was like a huge invisible fist punching him in the upper chest. He tried to stand, tried to shout, but there was no sound beyond a keening moan. He almost got his feet under him. Then the world spun, and he pitched sideways. He sprawled on hard ground and bristles, and darkness fell. Run, Little Sister! his mind screamed. In truth he made no sound, and the silence of it shrilled in his mind, filling the void that closed around him. It was the last thing Rufe Barlow ever knew.
Becky heard the sharp reports of rifle fire and pivoted the sorrel in time to see Elijah go down. For a moment she couldn’t see where the shooting came from, and in that moment Rufe was thrown from the saddle of his collapsing horse. He hit the ground hard, and sand kicked up beside him, and Becky saw the shooter—a crouching silhouette at the rim of the bluff.
He fired again and Becky returned the shot, wishing it home with deadly accuracy. At the rim, the sniper lurched backward, dropped his rifle, and doubledover. The sorrel danced around, shying at the noise, and Becky levered another round into her Henry. She tried to aim, and the sorrel shied again. With a muttered oath, Becky swung to the ground, slapped the horse away, and knelt.
Atop the rim, the shooter was bent over, swaying dizzily on widespread legs, staring down at her in shock. Even a hundred yards away, she could see his amazement. He swayed, coughing up gore to stain the limp yellow bandana attached to his shirt. Becky braced the rifle, sighted along it, and eased the trigger.At its bark, the man up there on the rim seemed to hang suspended for an instant. Then he fell backward,disappearing.
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