Her eyes narrowed, and she slapped his hand away from her clothing. She glanced down at herself, winced, found the few fastenings of her dress that remained intact, and released them, freeing herself from the wreckage and letting it fall about her feet. She stepped clear of it, and turned to confront Lou Grace. "What's your complaint?" she asked. "He got away from you, didn't he?"
"We'd have caught him, if you hadn't interfered."
"To be sure." Her voice was scornful. "And then you'd have had to shoot him, and how were you planning to make that go down with Floyd Greer? The marshal's particular about who kills whom in this town. For the boy to con•re looking for Burdick and get himself shot was one thing; for you to hunt him down with an army of men and kill him would have been something else again: You lost your head, Lou. It's lucky one of us did some quick thinking—or do you want to stay an outlaw after Flying V's wiped out? I thought we were going to settle down and be respectable people afterward. We won't do that if you've got blood on your hands and a price on your head."
He said, "You make it sound real fine, Laurie. Like something you thought up on the spur of the moment." He looked at her standing before him in her white undergarments, looking, with her long hair loose about her shoulders, innocent and virginal. Her eyes wavered, and he laughed. "Quick thinking, hell!" he said. "You've had it in mind to frame the kid ever since you started being nice to him. Smiling at him on the street, keeping Burdick from kicking his brains out. Just fattening him for the kills weren't you, Laurie?"
She drew a long breath. "That's right," she said evenly. "Just fattening him for the kill. However, I didn't start it, he did. I think he had some childish notion of using me to get even with Carol for turning him down. But, yes, I've had it in mind to show him up publicly for the vicious young fool he is! I only wish it had been' the sister; but since I can't strike at her directly, this will have to do!"
"It should be adequate," Grace said. "We're doing all right, aren't we, Laurie? The boy's in jail, the old man will be riding hellbent to his doom as soon as he gets the news, and the younger girl . . . We've almost got a clean sweep, honey. We ought to be pretty ourselves."
She watched him but did not speak. He said heavily, "We were pretty nice kids, you and I, when we started this. Re member the day Mrs. Betterson had me in to tea to cheer you up, after your dad left town? And we sat there and hated the Justice family ,together, and made that childish pact of vengeance and sealed it with blood? I've still got the scar on my thumb; you were kind of reckless with that knife. Remember?"
"I remember," she said.
"We were going to beat Dan Justice and his whole out fit, just the two of us, and get married and live happily ever after. Remember?"
"I remember," she said. "Well?"
"We had some melodramatic notions," he said, "but we weren't bad kids; Now what are we? You and the justice boy, me and the younger girl , Not to mention the way we turned loose Martinez, and now this killer Bascom—"
"What's the matter, Lou?" Her voice was hard. "Are you getting scared, now that we've almost won? Are you forgetting the way they shot down your dad?"
He looked at her for a moment longer; then he turned abruptly to look out the open window. "Dad had it coming," he said.
He heard the quick intake of her breath. "What are you saying?"
"Dad had it coming," he repeated quietly. "Dad and Hank Betterson both. They were stealing Dan Justice blind. Oh, they were clever. Everybody's ready to hate a big outfit, they knew that. And a big outfit always suspects all smaller ones of rustling; they knew that, too. And they were very careful to fan the flames of hostility, both ways. They didn't just rustle Flying V cattle, they rustled them in such a way that Dan Justice couldn't help but believe all his neighbors were in a plot to rob him. They left tracks, hides; clues, so that Dan Justice would accuse Price or Stuart or Primrose ... Being innocent, falsely accused, these men naturally believed Dad" and Betterson when they claimed to be in the same fix. Oh, it was a clever scheme, and it worked fine, until the day they got careless and let themselves be caught at a branding fire with a calf on a rope and a running iron handy."
"You said they were shot for trespassing! You said they were dressing out a deer—"
He turned back to face her, and laughed shortly. "I was pretty clever, too, for a kid. Sure, I said that, when I got to town with the bodies. Was I going to admit that my dad had got killed branding another man's cattle? Did I even care why he'd got killed? I was thirteen years old, Laurie. All I knew was that he was dead and Dan Justice was responsible. I said whatever came into my head. I expected lightning to strike me. I expected all those grownups to laugh, or warm my britches with a strap. Instead, Laurie, they believed me! Dad had been right. Everybody hates a big man and wants to think the worst of him. Dad and Hank Betterson had gone for their guns, naturally, when they saw they'd been caught dead to rights; Dad even managed to wing a Flying V rider before they cut him down. But I'd cleaned his gun; and said they'd both been shot down in cold blood. Everybody believed me! Every thing said, they believed! wag just a kid, but I had all those grownups in the palm of my hand, and I aimed them like a pistol at Dan Justice..."
Laura asked, "What about Mrs. Betterson? Does she know?"
He shrugged. "If she did know the truth, she's made herself forget it by now. Much easier to live with the memory of a husband who died a martyr than one who died a rustler." He laughed again. "For me, it turned into a kind of game. I was a kid all alone; and there was the peat man with his ranch and his riders, a law to himself; and he'd killed my dad, never mind for what, and I was going to bring him down. With the odds that heavy against me, I felt no shame about using any means that came to hand—I guess you could even say I used you. Not that you weren't willing to be used."
She said, "You might have told me."
He shrugged. "It was part of the game. I was fighting Dan Justice. You were a potential recruit; you wanted to fight him, too. I showed you how. You wanted reasons for bating him; I gave them to you. I worked on your hate tike I worked on Howard Wellesley's greed and Jack Price's indignation and Martinez's ambition and Adolfo Romero's family loyalty... The funny thing is, I'm learning I don't really hate Dan Justice any longer, I did once, but I've thought him long, four years longer than you."
She said, "Four years from now, I'll still bate them, all of them, living or dead!"
"Perhaps," he said. "Women don't appreciate a good fight for its own sake. But Dan Justice knows how it is, I think; else why did be not get rid oi long ago, when be could have done it as easily as slapping a mosquito? I'll tell you why: because he's a fair man in his way. He had the advantage in money and men,' but he gave himself a handicap: he was going to get me legally. He was going to show me up for a thief and a liar, in a court of law. Maybe he hoped that in a courtroom he could get me to admit publicly, once and for all, just how and why Dad and Betterson died. And I'll say this, if he'd ever caught me according to law, I probably would "have told the whole truth; it would have been part of the game." He was silent for a moment; then he said, "But somehow it's stopped being a game lately, and turned into a grim and dirty business ... or maybe it always was. Maybe I'm just seeing it clearly at last. It's a little late."
"It never was a game for me, Lou," Laura said.
"I know," he said. "Women don't play games like that, do they? Maybe that was my mistake, bringing you into it. You hate too well, Laurie. You take all the fun out of He did not finish the sentence, but looked down at his hat for a moment, then set it on his head and started for the door.
"Lou."
He looked back. "Yes?"
She did not speak. He looked at her standing there, walked back to her, and kissed her lightly on the mouth.
She said, "Lou, you're not quitting, are you?"
He shook his head. "I'll play the hand out. But I wish Again he left the sentence incomplete. They regarded each other briefly, in a questioning way, almost like strangers. He turned abruptly
and walked out of the room.
25
Janet Justice stripped off her robe and nightdress and began to pull on her riding clothes, thinking, Oh, Tom, you fool, what have you got yourself into now? What have you got us into?
The windows of her room were open. Through them came a cold night breeze from the Coronado peaks to the north, and the sound of a large group of horsemen leaving the ranch in a hurry: that was her father and the crew heading back to Santa Clara. The news of Tom's arrest in town had come as a complete surprise to all of them. When he left them, halfway home, her brother had announced that he was going to swing east through the hills to look for a bunch of strays that had not been recovered with the herd the day Lou Grace and Martinez had first tried to drive it off.
Janet ran out of the room, pulling on a light doeskin jacket and fastening it about her to conceal the fact that her shirtwaist was not properly closed—she could struggle with the tiny buttons later. Outside the door, she almost collided with her mother and sister.
"Where are you going?" Mrs; Justice was demanding of the younger girl. "Where is everybody going? Who was that rider and what did he say? If your father has to ride off on these terrible, armed expeditions, he might at least have the consideration to let me know when to expect him home!
Janet saw the angry impatience on her sister's face.
"'Maybe," Sally said, "he's under the impression you don't much care when he gets home, Mother... If you're coming, Janet, come on!"
Five minutes later they were riding away. Janet glanced back as they reached the gate. Her mother was standing on the veranda in her night clothes, a pale and ghostly figure, looking after them. There was a hint of pleading in her attitude: perhaps she was praying. Janet reflected grimly that a little divine assistance might not be out of place, at that, considering Tom's predicament.
Sally set a wicked pace across country, swearing in an unladylike manner at her long skirts and awkward side saddle whenever the brush or the terrain brought these impediments to her attention. She should, Janet thought, have been a boy, as she had often wished aloud—although of late the wish had not been expressed so frequently. If so, Janet reflected, she was finding the process painful: it was a pity that her impulsive and rebellious nature, so much like her father's, would not permit her to ask for ad vice or help, since there was clearly something on her mind these days. Keep your eye on her, Jack Mort had said. If she wants to talk, you listen ... real careful But Mort was dead, and Sally kept her own confidence, and Tom was in jail, and Dan Justice was riding to his son's res cue in his usual headlong fashion....
"That bitch!" Sally said, her voice barely reaching across the space between the laboring horses.
"What bitch?" Janet asked.
"That Nelson bitch. Tom wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole."
Janet said irritably, "Ah, don't idealize our brother. I'm just as fond of him as you are, but that doesn't mean I don't know he'd touch anything with skirts and an inviting smile. But not against her will."
"She hates us. She'd do anything to hurt us!"
"Yes. That's my fault," Janet said, and heard her sister laugh.
"Don't be too sure of that," Sally said cryptically, and was silent.
It was almost dawn when they saw the lights of the town ahead. There were not many of them at this hour, and the place seemed quiet. As they came in among the houses, they found no signs of the seething crowd of armed and angry citizens the messenger had led them to expect; either the mob had done its grim work and dispersed, or the man had been lying... Janet saw her sister glance at her, as if for reassurance. Both girls urged their tired horses onward.
There was a light at the rear of the long and narrow building of Burdick's Gallery, Janet saw. She found herself wondering idly what the photographer was doing up so early; and then she wondered why she should think of him at this time, except that he was a big and confidence inspiring figure for all of his eastern origins, and it would have been very comforting to have him riding alongside now—always assuming that the man could ride, she thought wryly; she had never seen him on a horse. And he had no reason whatever to feel friendly toward Flying ....
They turned onto the plaza. Here there were people, clustered about the ugly building with barred windows that housed the marshal's once and jail. The Flying V crew had formed a solid rank opposite the doorway, in which, facing them, stood Marshal Greer with a rifle in his hands, a heavy shape in the growing light.
They heard the tail end of his speech.... "you may be your own law out in the valley, Dan, but I'm the law in Santa Clara. The boy stays in jail."
Dan Justice's voice cried angrily, "'We'll see about that!"
The marshal said, "Don't you try it, Dan. There's strong feeling in town. Don't give it any more to feed on, or I won't be answerable for what happens. I sent a bunch of hotheads home just before you showed up. Don't give them cause to gather again." He paused, and went on: "I'll say this to you. I won't give the boy up to you, but neither will I give him up to anyone else without a proper legal right, as long as I'm alive. Is that fair enough?"
There was a long silence, and Janet held her breath, waiting for her father's answer. Then Dan Justice said heavily, "I'll take your word, Floyd. But you won't mind if we kind of hang around in case you should need help to keep him safe."
The marshal chuckled. "Reckon it wouldn't do me much good to mind, would it?"
"Not much," Dan Justice said. He walked back to his horse and mounted. "Come on, boys. We can keep an eye on the place from the Palace."
The two girls rode forward to intercept their father as he started for the saloon. There was a shadowy motion in one of the narrow alleys. A pistol fired very rapidly three times. Dan Justice swayed in the saddle and clutched at the horn. The pistol in the alley discharged once more, with a kind of remorseless deliberation. Dan Justice straightened up with a terrible effort. His own weapon was in his hand. He fired once. Then his whole body went slack and he tumbled to the ground almost under the hoofs of his horse, which stepped daintily aside to avoid him.
26
Burdick had found it a poor night for sleeping. A single gunshot somewhere in town had aroused him a few minutes after he had retired. He had got up again and gone to the front door, shotgun in hand. People had been drifting toward the plaza in an expectant way, and there had been an unpleasant feeling of tension in the air: it had been one of those nights when, if you gave your imagination free rein, you could see ugly things lurking in every shadow, and hear stealthy footsteps with each vagrant breeze.
Burdick closed the door, bolted it, and went back to bed. Whatever was taking place in the plaza, he wanted nothing to do with it. There seemed to be enough people there already without his adding to the number. But his sleep was disturbed throughout the night by the movement of people in the street; and toward morning a large group Of horsemen charging by brought him wide awake again. His watch read a little past four-thirty. There was a hint of dawn at the window. He yawned, rose, dressed, and went into the kitchen. More riders went by in the street, seeming in a hurry.
As he was starting the stove for breakfast, the sound of a quick burst of gunfire caused him to straighten up, listening. He counted three shots close together, and two others more widely spaced. He heard shouts, and somebody rode by at a hard gallop, yelling instructions to another rider following close behind. Burdick adjusted the damper, and set the coffeepot on the stove, which was roaring nicely by this time. Someone knocked on the front door.
Burdick picked up the shotgun, checked the loads, took the lamp in his left hand, and made his way to the front of the building. The knock was repeated urgently. He set the lamp on the anteroom table, to leave both hands free for the gun. "Who is it?" he called.
A girl's voice responded, "It's Janet Justice, Mr. Burdick."
He hesitated, and stepped forward, and opened the door cautiously. The girl stood before him in her riding costume, looking very pale in the yellow lamplight th
at could now barely compete with the growing daylight outside. Behind her were four men carrying a fifth between them.
"It's my father," Janet said. "He's been shot. May we bring him in?"
Burdick nodded and stepped aside. "Put him om the sofa," he said when the men paused irresolutely inside the room.
The girl stopped beside him. "Thank you," she said. "I saw your light just now, riding by. There wasn't any other place open at this hour, except the saloon—any place where we'd be welcome, that is. I thought . . . I thought you wouldn't mind ..." After a moment, she said, "I've sent for Dr. Pardee, but I'm afraid ..." Her voice trailed off.
They were both looking toward the figure on the dilapidated sofa, and listening to the terrible, slow breathing. Burdick said, "I'll put some water on the stove. There'll be coffee ready when you have time for it."
She was already moving forward, forgetting his presence completely, as he turned to leave the room. Fifteen minutes later, she came into the kitchen. Her face had a stiff, waxlike appearance, and her eyes looked straight ahead without apparent focus. Burdick went to the stove, filled a clean mug with coffee, and put it into her hands.
"He's dead," she said without looking at him. "He thought I was my mother. He said, 'I'm sorry for everything, Louise.' That's her name. Then he died."
Burdick said, "Careful of that coffee, it's hot. Sit down over here and drink it slowly."
She said, "I don't know what we're going to do."
"You can make up your mind as well sitting as standing," he said.
She glanced at him quickly, as if seeing him for the first time that morning; then-she moved to the chair and sat down. A man came into the kitchen. He was small and bald, with steel-rimmed spectacles.
The Two-Shoot Gun Page 14