Yet he was no fool. He knew something of the gun skills of the men he would face. Even if he was killed himself, he must eliminate them. The townspeople could take care of such as Hollier and Packer. If he succeeded, Kim Sartain could handle the rest of it, and would. That was Kim’s way.
Mounting the buckskin, he started down the trail toward Mannerhouse, only a few miles away. When he had ridden but a few hundred yards, he saw from his vantage point above the ranch that three riders were also headed for town. Jim Yount, Ruth, and, a few yards behind, Red Lund.
Pete Dodson, riding a sorrel horse, was also headed for town but by another route. Jim Yount was taking no chances.
* * * * *
The dusty main street of Mannerhouse lay warm under the morning sun. On the steps of the express office Rip was sunning himself. Abel, behind his bar, watched nervously both his window and his door. He was on edge and aware, aware as a wild animal is when a strange creature nears its lair. Trouble was in the wind.
Gelvin’s store was closed, unusual for this time of day. Abel glanced at Rip, and his brow furrowed. Rip was wearing two tied-down guns this morning, unusual for him.
Abel finished polishing the glass and put it down, glancing nervously at Packer. Suddenly Packer downed the drink and got to his feet. Walking to the door, he glanced up and down the street. All was quiet, yet the big man was worried. A man left the post office and walked along the boardwalk to the barbershop, and entered. The sound of the closing door was the only sound. A hen pecked at something in the mouth of the alley near Gelvin’s store. As he watched, he saw Pete Dodson stop his horse behind Gelvin’s. Pete was carrying a rifle. Packer glanced over at Rip, noting the guns.
Packer turned suddenly, glaring at Abel. “Give me that scatter-gun you got under the bar!”
“Huh?” Abel was frightened. “I ain’t got....”
“Don’t give me that! I want that gun!”
There was an instant when Abel considered covering Packer or even shooting him, but the big man frightened him and he put the shotgun on the bar. Packer picked it up and tiptoed to the window and put the gun down beside it. Careful to make no sound, he eased the window up a few inches. His position now covered Rip’s side and back.
Abel cringed at what he had done. He liked Rip. The lean, easygoing, friendly young man might now be killed because of him. He’d been a coward. He should have refused, covered Packer, and called Rip inside. And he could have done that. If he wasn’t such a coward. Now, because of him, a good man might be murdered, shot in the back. What was going on, anyway? This had been such a quiet little town.
Jim Yount rode up the street with Ruth beside him. Her face was pale and strained, and her eyes seemed unnaturally large.
Red Lund trailed a few yards behind. He drew up, and tied his horse across the street.
From the saloon Abel could see it all. Jim Yount and Ruth Kermitt were approaching Rip from the west. North and west was Red Lund. Due north and in the shadow of Gelvin’s was Pete Dodson. In the saloon was Packer. Rip was very neatly boxed, signed, and sealed. All but delivered.
Jim Keane, Logan’s much older brother, was the express agent. He saw Jim Yount come, saw Red Lund across the street.
Rip got up lazily, smiling at Ruth.
“Come for your package, Miss Kermitt?” he asked politely. “While you’re here, would you mind answering some questions.”
“By whose authority?” Yount demanded sharply.
Ward McQueen, crouched behind the saloon, heard the reply clearly. “The state of Texas, Yount,” Rip replied. “I’m a Texas Ranger.”
Jim Yount’s short laugh held no humor. “This ain’t Texas, and she answers no questions.”
Ward McQueen opened the back door of the saloon and stepped inside.
Packer, intent on the scene before him, heard the door open. Startled and angry, he whirled around. Ward McQueen, who he had buried, was standing just inside the door. The shotgun was resting on the windowsill behind Rip. Packer went for his six-gun, but even as he reached, he knew it was hopeless. He saw the stab of flame, felt the solid blow of the bullet, and felt his knees turn to butter under him. He pitched forward on his face.
Outside all hell broke loose. Ruth Kermitt, seeing Rip’s situation, spurred her horse to bump Yount’s, throwing him out of position. Instantly she slid from the saddle and threw herself to the ground near the edge of the walk.
All seemed to have begun firing at once. Yount, cursing bitterly, fired at Rip. He in turn was firing at Red Lund. Ward stepped suddenly from the saloon and saw himself facing Yount, who had brought his mount under control. He fired at Yount, and a bullet from Dodson’s rifle knocked splinters from the post in front of his face.
Yount’s gun was coming into line and McQueen fired an instant sooner. Yount fired and they both missed. Ward’s second shot hit Yount, who grabbed for the pommel. Ward walked a step forward, but something hit him and he went to his knee. Red Lund loomed from somewhere, and Ward got off another shot. Lund’s face was covered with blood.
There was firing from the stage station and from Gelvin’s store. There was a thunder of hoofs, and a blood-red horse came charging down the street, its rider hung low like an Indian, shooting under the horse’s neck.
Yount was down, crawling on his belly in the dust. He had lost hold of his six-shooter, but his right hand held a knife and he was crawling toward Ruth. McQueen’s six-shooter clicked on an empty chamber. How many shots were left in his other gun? He lifted it with his left hand. Something was suddenly wrong with his right. He rarely shot with his left hand, but now....
Yount was closer. Ruth was staring across the street, unaware. McQueen shot past Ruth, squeezing off the shot with his left hand. He saw Yount contract sharply as the bullet struck. McQueen fired again, and the gambler rolled over on his side and the knife slipped from his fingers.
Abel ran from the saloon with a shotgun, and Gelvin from his store with a rifle. Then Ruth was running toward him, and he saw Kim Sartain coming back up the street, walking the red horse. Ward tried to rise to meet Ruth, but his knees gave way and he went over on his face, thinking how weak she must think him. He started to rise again, and blacked out.
* * * * *
When he could see again Ruth was beside him. Kim was squatting on his heels. “Come on, Ward!” he said. “You’ve only been hit twice and neither of ’em bad. Can’t you handle lead any more?”
“What happened?”
“Clean sweep, looks like. Charlie Quayle got to us and we hightailed it to the ranch. Hollier wanted to give us trouble, but we smoked him out. I believe there were others around, but if there were, they skipped the country. Whilst they were cleanin’ up, I took it on the run for town. Halfway here, I thought I heard a shot, and, when I hit the street, everybody in town was shootin’, or that’s what it looked like. Reg’lar Fourth of July celebration! Pete Dodson is dead, and Red Lund’s dying with four bullets in him. Yount’s alive, but he won’t make it, either. Packer’s dead.”
Ward’s head was aching and he felt weak and sick, but he did not want to move, even to get out of the street. He just wanted to sit, to forget all that had taken place. With fumbling fingers, from long habit, he started to reload his pistols. Oddly he found one of them contained three live shells. Somehow he must have reloaded, but he had no memory of it.
Rip came over. “My name’s Coker, Ward. I couldn’t figure any way to bust up Yount’s operation without getting Ruth Kermitt away from him first, so I faked that package to get them into town, hoping I could get her away from them. I didn’t figure they’d gang up on me like they did.”
They helped Ward up and into the saloon. Gelvin brought the doctor in. “Yount just died,” Gelvin said, “cussing you and everybody concerned.”
He sat back in a chair while the doctor patched him up. Again he had lost blood. “I’ve got to find a bed
,” he said to Kim. “There must be a hotel in town.”
“You’re coming back to the ranch,” Ruth said. “We need you there. They told me you left me, Ward. Jim Yount said you pulled out and Kim with you. I hadn’t seen him, and Yount said he’d manage the ranch until I found someone. Then he brought his own men in and fired Kim, who I hadn’t seen, and I was surrounded and scared. If you had been there, or if I’d even known you were around, I....”
“Don’t worry about it.” Ward leaned his head back. All he wanted was rest.
Baldy Jackson helped him into a buckboard, Bud Fox driving. “You know that old brindle longhorn who turned up missin’? Well, I found him. He’s got about thirty head with him, holed up in the prettiest little valley you ever did see. Looks like he’s there to stay.”
“He’s like me,” Ward commented, “so used to his range he wouldn’t he happy anywhere else.”
“Then why think of anywhere else?” Ruth said. “I want you to stay.”
Dutchman’s Flat
The dust of Dutchman’s Flat had settled in a gray film upon their faces, and Neill could see the streaks made by the sweat on their cheeks and brows and knew his own must be the same. No man of them was smiling and they rode with their rifles in their hands, six grim and purposeful men upon the trail of a single rider.
They were men shaped and tempered to the harsh ways of a harsh land, strong in their sense of justice, ruthless in their demand for punishment, relentless in pursuit. From the desert they had carved their homes, and from the desert they drew their courage and their code, and the desert knows no mercy.
“Where’s he headin’, you reckon?”
“Home, mostly likely. He’ll need grub an’ a rifle. He’s been livin’ on the old Sorenson place.”
Kimmel spat. “He’s welcome to it. That place starved out four men I know of.” He stared at the hoof tracks ahead. “He’s got a good horse.”
“Big buckskin. Reckon we’ll catch him, Hardin?”
“Sure. Not this side of his place, though. There ain’t no short cuts we can take to head him off, and he’s pointin’ for home straight as a horse can travel.”
“Ain’t tryin’ to cover his trail none.”
“No use tryin’.” Hardin squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun. “He knows we figure he’ll head for his ranch.”
“He’s no tenderfoot.” Kesney expressed the thought that had been dawning upon them all in the last two hours. “He knows how to save a horse, an’ he knows a trail.”
They rode on in near silence. Hardin scratched his unshaven jaw. The dust lifted from the hoofs of the horses as they weaved their way through the catclaw and mesquite. It was a parched and sun-baked land, with only dancing heat waves and the blue distance of the mountains to draw them on. The trail they followed led straight as a man could ride across the country. Only at draws or nests of rocks did it swerve, where they noticed the rider always gave his horse the best of it.
No rider of the desert must see a man to know him, for it is enough to follow his trail. In these things are the ways of a man made plain, his kindness or cruelty, his ignorance or cunning, his strength and his weakness. There are indications that cannot escape a man who has followed trails, and in the two hours since they had ridden out of Freedom the six had already learned much of the man they followed. And they would learn more.
“What started it?”
The words sounded empty and alone in the vast stillness of the basin.
Hardin turned his head slightly so the words could drift back. It was the manner of a man who rides much in the wind or rain. He shifted the rifle to his left hand and wiped his sweaty right palm on his coarse pants leg.
“Some loose talk. He was in the Bon Ton buyin’ grub an’ such. Johnny said somethin’ at which he took offense, an’ they had some words. Johnny was wearin’ a gun, but this Lock wasn’t, so he gets him a gun an’ goes over to the Longhorn. He pushes open the door an’ shoots Johnny twice through the body. In the back.” Hardin spat. “He fired a third shot, but that missed Johnny and busted a bottle of whiskey.”
There was a moment’s silence while they digested this, and then Neill looked up.
“We lynchin’ him for the killin’ or bustin’ the whiskey?”
It was a good question, but drew no reply. The dignity of the five other riders was not to be touched by humor. They were riders on a mission. Neill let his eyes drift over the dusty copper of the desert. He had no liking for the idea of lynching any man, and he did not know the squatter from the Sorenson place. Living there should be punishment enough for any man. Besides.... “Who saw the shooting?” he asked.
“Nobody seen it, actually. Only he never gave Johnny a fair shake. Sam was behind the bar, but he was down to the other end and it happened too fast.”
“What’s his name? Somebody call him Lock?” Neill asked. There was something incongruous in lynching a man whose name you did not know. He shifted in the saddle, squinting his eyes toward the distant lakes dancing in the mirage of heat waves.
“What’s it matter? Lock, his name is. Chat Lock.”
“Funny name.”
The comment drew no response. The dust was thicker now and Neill pulled his bandanna over his nose and mouth. His eyes were drawn back to the distant blue of the lakes. They were enticingly cool and beautiful, lying across the way ahead and in the basin off to the right. This was the mirage that lured many a man from his trail to pursue the always retreating shoreline of the lake. It looked like water, it really did.
Maybe there was water in the heat waves. Maybe if a man knew how, he could extract it and drink. The thought drew his hand to his canteen, but he took it away without drinking. The sloshing water in the canteen was no longer enticing, for it was warm, brackish, and unsatisfying.
“You know him, Kimmel?” Kesney asked. He was a wiry little man, hard as a whipstock with bits of sharp steel for eyes and brown muscle-corded hands. “I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”
“Sure, I know him. Big feller, strong made, rusty-like hair an’ maybe forty year old. Looks plumb salty, too, an’ from what I hear he’s no friendly sort of man. Squattin’ on that Sorenson place looks plumb suspicious, for no man can make him a livin’ on that dry-as-a-bone place. No fit place for man nor beast. Ever’body figures no honest man would squat on such a place.”
It seemed a strange thing, to be searching out a man who none of them really knew. Of course, they had all known Johnny Webb. He was a handsome, popular young man, a daredevil and a hellion, but a very attractive one, and a top hand to boot. They had all known him and had all liked him. Then, one of the things that made them so sure that this had been a wrong killing, even aside from the shots in the back, was the fact that Johnny Webb had been the fastest man in the Spring Valley country. Fast, and a dead shot.
Johnny had worked with all these men, and they were good men—hard men, but good. Kimmel, Hardin, and Kesney had all made something of their ranches, as had the others, only somewhat less so. They had come West when the going was rough, fought Indians and rustlers, and then battled drought, dust, and hot, hard winds. It took a strong man to survive in this country, and they had survived. He, Neill, was the youngest of them all and the newest in the country. He was still looked upon with some reserve. He had been here only five years.
Neill could see the tracks of the buckskin, and it gave him a strange feeling to realize that the man who rode that horse would soon be dead, hanging from a noose in one of those ropes attached to a saddle horn of Hardin or Kimmel. Neill had never killed a man or seen one killed by another man, and the thought made him uncomfortable.
Yet Johnny was gone, and his laughter and his jokes were things past. They had brightened more than one roundup, more than one bitter day of heartbreaking labor on the range. Not that he had been an angel. He had been a proper hand with a gun and could throw one. And in hi
s time he had had his troubles.
“He’s walkin’ his horse,” Kesney said, “leadin’ him.”
“He’s a heavy man,” Hardin agreed, “an’ he figures to give us a long chase.”
“Gone lame on him, maybe,” Kimmel suggested. “No, that horse isn’t limpin’. This Lock is a smart one.”
They had walked out of the ankle-deep dust now and were crossing a parched, dry plain of crusted earth. Hardin reined in suddenly and pointed.
“Look there. He indicated a couple of flecks on the face of the earth crust where something had spilled. “Water splashed.”
“Careless,” Neill said. “He’ll need that water.”
“No,” Kesney said. “He was pourin’ water in a cloth to wipe out his horse’s nostrils. Bet you a dollar.”
“Sure,” Hardin agreed, “that’s it. Horse breathes a lot better. A man runnin’ could kill a good horse on this flat. He knows that.”
They rode on, and for almost a half hour no one spoke. Neill frowned at the sun. It had been on his left a few minutes ago, and now they rode straight into it.
“What’s he doin’?” Kesney said wonderingly. “This ain’t the way to his place!” The trail had turned again, and now the sun was on their right. Then it turned again and was at their backs. Hardin was in the lead, and he drew up and swore wickedly.
They ranged alongside him, and rode down into a draw that cracked the face of the desert alongside the trail they had followed. Below them was a place where a horse had stood, and across the bank something white fluttered from the parched clump of greasewood.
Kesney slid from the saddle and crossed the wash. When he had the slip of white, he stared at it, and then they heard him swear. He walked back and handed it to Hardin. They crowded near.
Neill took the slip from Hardin’s fingers after he had read it. It was torn from some sort of book and the words were plain enough, scrawled with a flat rock for a rest.
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