“Drifting,” Val said. “Will’s dead. He was killed up in Colorado a few years ago.”
“Heard about it. The way I heard it he was shot from the dark. Never had a chance.”
“That’s right. It was Henry Sonnenberg, Hardesty, and Thurston Pike.”
“I heard that, too. Sonnenberg was in Fort Sumner a couple of years ago. Hardesty’s dead.”
“I know.”
Billy looked at him quickly. “Say! You were the one who got him! Over at some ranch in Texas.”
“In town. He wasn’t much.”
They rode for several miles, both watching the country, and suddenly Val said, “You mentioned that nobody ever called you Billy Antrim any more. Knight’s Ranch is up ahead, and maybe I should know what to call you.”
Billy looked at him. “My name’s Bonney,” he said. “They call me the Kid.”
It was a name on everybody’s lips. Even the eastern newspapers knew about Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War.
“Are you all right at Knight’s? If you aren’t, I’ll ride in and buy whatever you need.”
“They’re good people. They know I am wanted, but I never trouble them and they don’t trouble me. Anyway,” Billy added, “so far as I know, only Pat Garrett is hunting me. The rest of them either don’t care, or they don’t want to borrow trouble.”
Shadows were growing long, reaching out from the Burro Mountains ahead. The ranch lay in the mouth of the canyon of the same name, and had become a regular stop on the stage line. Richard S. Knight had built the fortlike adobe in 1874, and sold out a few years later to John Parks, who now operated the ranch.
Val led the way into the ranch yard and Parks came out to meet them with two of his seven children. He glanced at Val.
“Valentine Darrant, sir. I think you know Mr. Bonney.”
“Yes, I do. How are you, Billy?”
“Middlin’, Mr. Parks, just middlin’. But I’m shaping up to feel better when I’ve eaten some of your good grub.”
“Too much of your own cooking, Billy?”
The Kid laughed. “I’m not much of a hand at cookin’, Mr. Parks, not even when I have it to cook. I ain’t been close to food in three days.”
“Go on inside. Ma will put something on for you.”
Val swung down. “I’ll look after your horse, Billy. Go ahead.”
He led the two horses to the water trough and let them drink, then to the corral, where he stripped the gear from them. Parks was pitching hay to his own stock.
“You know Billy pretty well?” he asked.
“We met a long time back. When his mother was boarding people over at Silver City. We played some together as boys.”
“A lot has happened since then.”
“I’ve heard some of it.” Val rested his hands on his buckskin’s back. “I like him. So far as I’ve heard, he’s done nothing his enemies weren’t doing, only he ended up by being outlawed and they didn’t.”
“He’s stopped by here several times, and he’s always been a gentleman. Shall we go in?”
After supper Val went outside and sat down on the steps. He felt a growing irritation with himself. He had a right to practice law, but he had done little of it, and then merely as an employee. He owned a part of a ranch which he would soon visit, but he had no taste for ranching. He had a good deal of experience with railroads and investments, but not enough to qualify him for the kind of a job he wanted, nor was he very interested in business.
Here he felt at home. He liked the West, and he liked the drifting, but it was no use. Beyond every trail there were only more trails, and no man could ride them all. He had known a few girls in passing, but had never been in love. Within himself he felt a vast longing, a yearning for something more…he did not know what.
He did not believe that anything was to be solved by killing, yet the memory that Thurston Pike and Henry Sonnenberg were still at large, and undoubtedly still involved in killing, nagged at his mind.
Was he hoping that something would intervene? That somebody would do his job for him? When he remembered Sonnenberg he felt a kind of chill. He was a great brute of a man…he seemed invulnerable. Was he, Val Darrant, afraid of Sonnenberg?
Yet Sonnenberg’s hand had only held the gun and squeezed the trigger. Equally to blame were Avery Simpson, who had traveled the West offering a price for a man’s life, and Prince Pavel, who had hired the killing done.
Will Reilly would have known what to do, and Will Reilly would have done it.
Was that why he could settle down to nothing else? Was that what subconsciously worried him? Was it the feeling that he had left the murderers of his best friend, Will Reilly, unpunished?
And what about his mother? What about the woman who now called herself Myra Fossett? Should he go to her and identify himself? To what purpose? He wanted nothing from her, and she had never shown any interest in him except to be rid of him.
Billy came out and sat on the stoop beside him. “Nothing like a desert night,” he said. “I always liked riding at night.”
“Where’s Sonnenberg now?”
Billy turned his head and looked at him. “Don’t mess with him, Val. Not even if you’re good with a gun. He’s poison mean, and he’s fast—real fast. I wouldn’t want to tackle him myself.”
“He was one of them.”
“Forget it. Look where followin’ up an idea like that got me. After Tunstall was shot, well, I figured to get everyone of that crowd that done it. Well, we got several of them, and now the war’s over an’ everybody else is out of it but me.”
“You didn’t tell me where Sonnenberg was.”
“Reason is, I don’t know. Somebody said he was up Montana way.” Billy paused. “I know where Pike is, though.”
“Where?”
“If you’re goin’ back to that ranch of yours you’ll be pointing right at him. Last I heard he was in Tascosa. He’s got him a woman there.”
“You going that way?”
“No,” Billy said after a minute, “I think I’ll set for a spell. This here’s good grub, they’re nice folks, and I just think I’ll rest up a few days. It ain’t often I get a chance to rest these days.”
“I’m pulling out, come daylight.” Val stood up. “So long, Billy, and good luck.”
He went inside, and to bed. Before he got into bed, however, he checked his gun. It was the Smith & Wesson .44 Russian that Hickok had given him. He liked the balance of it, liked the feel. Val Darrant rode away from Knight’s Ranch before daylight, curving around the mountains, over a spur, and down across the rolling country beyond. This was still Apache country, and he had had his fill of them as a boy in the bitter fight when they had attacked the stage on which he’d ridden with Will, so he kept off the skyline and was wary of the route he chose. He avoided possible ambushes, studied the ground for tracks, watched the flight of birds. All of these could be indications of the presence of people.
At night he chose a hidden spot, built a small fire, and prepared his coffee and whatever he chose to eat. Then he put out his fire and rode on for several miles, masking his trail as much as possible.
The country he was passing through after the first day or so was the area touched by the Lincoln County War, and many of the hard characters connected with that fight were still in the area. He stopped in Lincoln itself and tied up at the hitching rail in front of a small eating place.
Inside there was a short bar and half a dozen tables. He sat down and a plate of beef stew was placed before him. In many such places there was no question of giving your order. You simply ate what was prepared and were glad to get it. The coffee was good.
There were half a dozen people in the place, and two of them he recognized at once as toughs—or would-be toughs. One of them glanced several times at Val, whispered to the other, and then they both looked at him a
nd laughed.
Val ignored them. He had been in so many towns as a stranger, and he knew the pattern. Most people were friendly enough, but there were always a few who were trouble-hunters, choosing any stranger as fair game.
“I figure he pulled his stakes,” one of the men was saying. “All the Mexicans liked him, so I figure he just pulled out for Mexico.”
“Naw, he’s got him a girl up at Fort Sumner. He’ll go thataway. He’ll never leave the country ’less she goes with him.”
A hard-looking young man with reddish hair turned to him, leaning his elbows on the bar. Val knew they were about to start something and he was prepared.
“You, over there! Where d’ you think Billy the Kid will go?”
Whatever he said they were prepared to make an issue of it. So he merely shrugged. “You can tell by looking at his horse’s nose.”
“His horse’s nose? What’s that got to do with it?”
“You just look at his horse’s nose. Whichever way it’s pointing, that’s the way he’s going.”
The waitress giggled, and some of the men chuckled. Val merely looked innocent. The red-haired man’s face flushed. “You think you’re almighty clever, stranger. Well, maybe we’ll see how clever you are. What d’you do for a livin’?”
“I’m an actor,” Val said.
The man stared at him. The others in the room seemed to be paying no attention, but Val knew all of them were listening. He wanted to finish his meal in peace.
“You don’t look like no actor to me,” the redhead declared. “Let’s see you act. Get up an’ show us.”
Here it was…well, he intended to finish his meal. Val put down his fork. “Actually,” he said, “I’m a magician. I can make things disappear, but you boys will have to help me.”
He turned to the waitress. “Have you two buckets? I’d like them full of water, please.”
“You goin’ to make them disappear?”
“If you boys will help me.” A Mexican boy was coming from the back door with two buckets of water. “And two brooms,” he added, “or a broom and a mop handle.”
He took a broom and handed it to the redhead. “You take this broom and stand right here. And you,” he said to the other tough, “stand over here with this broom.”
He got up on a chair with a bucket of water and held it against the ceiling, then guided the redhead’s broomstick to the exact middle of the bottom of the bucket. “Now hold it tight against the ceiling, tight as you can or it will fall.
“You,” he said to the second man, “you hold this one.” He placed the second bucket against the ceiling, and the man’s broomstick was held against it.
“Now as long as you boys hold those sticks tight, the buckets won’t fall. If they fall you’ll get mighty wet.”
“Hurry up with this disappearin’ act,” the redhead said, “this is a tirin’ position.”
Then coolly Val reached over and flipped their guns from their holsters and stepped back to his table.
“What the—”
“No,” Val said quietly, gesturing at them with a pistol, “you boys just hold those broomsticks tight unless you want to get wet…or shot.”
Placing the pistols on the table beside his plate Val calmly returned to eating. He finished the stew, then asked for his coffee cup to be refilled.
“Hey, what is this!” the red-headed man demanded. “Take this bucket off here!”
“Be still,” Val said; “these gentlemen want to eat quietly…without any trouble from you.”
He sat back, sipping his coffee and contemplating them with no expression on his face. The story had already got out, probably from the Mexican boy who had brought the water, and quite a crowd gathered outside. Some even came into the restaurant.
The two would-be toughs stood in the middle of the room, the buckets of water above their heads. If they let go of the broom-handles the heavy buckets would fall, dowsing them with water and probably hitting them a rap on the skull.
“Don’t be nervous, boys,” Val said. “You wanted to see something disappear. I’ve made my stew disappear, and three cups of coffee. And now”—he got up and placed a silver dollar on the table—“I am going to disappear.”
He turned to the others in the room. “They’ll get pretty tired after a while, so when you boys get around to it, just take down the buckets for them, will you?…but only if you’re in the mood.”
He stepped to the door. “Good-bye, gentlemen,” he said. “I regret leaving such good company, but you understand how it is.”
He paused just long enough to shuck the cartridges from their guns, then he dropped the guns on the walk outside. Mounting up, he cantered out of town.
The land lay wide before him, and overhead was the vast arch of the sky. This was what he had missed, the unbelievable distance wherever he looked, the marvelous sweep of rolling hills, the sudden depths of unexpected canyons, the cloud shadows on the desert or the grassland.
Now, topping out on a rise, he could see for sixty or seventy miles across land that shimmered in the sun. He was alone with himself, and he heard only the hoof-falls of his horse, the occasional creak of the saddle, or jingle of a spur.
As he rode, he thought how impossible it was to live in such a land without being aware of it at all times. Even within the narrowed scope of barroom, hotel lobby, bunkhouse, or campfire, much of the talk was of water holes, grass conditions, and Indians.
The Indian was part of the terrain, and travel could not be planned without considering the Indian. Few of them had anything like a permanent home, and they might be expected anywhere. Water holes were the essentials of all travel, important to wild game, and as important to the Indian as to the white man. Any approach to a water hole must be undertaken with caution.
In regard to water holes Val had adopted the practice he had heard Tensleep mention…Tensleep, that curious gunman, half an outlaw, half a good citizen, an ignorant man in the way of books, but with a mind crowded with knowledge of which he was scarcely aware, it was so much a part of him and his way of living. Tensleep would never camp at a water hole, even in country safe from Indians.
“Ain’t rightly fair,” he had told Val. “Other folks have to get water, too. And if you crowd up a water hole, what about the animals and the birds that have to drink? They’re goin’ to set out there dry-throated whilst you crowd the water. Get what you need, then make room.”
He had learned, too, that it was never safe to drain a canteen until one had actually seen the water hole with water in it, for often there was only cracked mud where water had once been. And he knew that the ancient Indian trails were the safest, for they followed the easy contours of the land, and always led from one water hole to another.
Twice Val stopped at lonely ranches, exchanging news for meals, and listening to the gossip of the country. At the second ranch the rancher offered to sell him a handsome bay mare.
The man leaned on the corral bars, extolling the animal, and Val asked, “What about a bill of sale?”
“Why not?” The rancher grinned at him. “Write it up and I’ll sign it.”
“But will it be good?”
The rancher chewed his mustache, and then said, “Now, mister, I won’t lie to you. If you’re riding east I’d say that bill of sale was good; riding west I’d say it wasn’t.”
“I think one horse is enough,” Val said, “but she’s a good mare.”
He swam the Rio Grande, and pointed across country toward the Pecos, riding easy in the saddle.
CHAPTER 17
TASCOSA WAS BORN of a river crossing. It thrived on trail herds; and died, strangled with barbed wire. Its life was brief and bloody, and when it died there were left behind only a few crumbling adobes, the ghosts of dead gunmen slain in its streets, and Frenchy McCormick, the once beautiful girl who had promised neve
r to leave her gambler husband, and who never did, even in death.
But in the 1870’s and ’80’s Tascosa was wild and rough and hard to curry below the knees. The cattle outfits and the rustlers were drifting in, and the ranchers who drove in the big herds wanted the toughest fighting hands they could find.
Billy the Kid was a frequent visitor. The town had its tough ones, and its shady ladies, and some of these were as tough as the men to whom they catered.
Valentine Darrant was headed for Tascosa. He told himself he was not hunting Thurston Pike—he was riding to his ranch, and Tascosa was the only town within a hundred miles or more in any direction. He had stopped one night in Fort Sumner, spending it in a bedroom turned over to him by Pete Maxwell. Pete and his father had been friends to Will Reilly, and Pete remembered Val.
“Quiet around here now,” Pete told him. “Pat Garrett comes in hunting Billy the Kid, but the Kid won’t come back this way again. If my guess is right, he’s headed for Old Mexico. The Mexicans swear by that boy—he’s one American who has always treated them right.”
“I know Billy,” Val said, “I knew him in Silver City when we were boys.”
“He’s all right,” Pete said, “just so’s you don’t push him. He don’t back up worth a damn.”
“I saw him a while back,” Val commented. “He’s riding some rough trails.”
Pete Maxwell knew better than to ask where he had seen the Kid, and he knew that Val would not have told him. They parted with a handshake after breakfast the next morning.
Now Val was riding into Tascosa toward sunset. He was older, tougher, and stronger than when he had last seen Thurston Pike. He had been a boy then—he was a man now.
Cottonwoods grew along the streets and back of the town. The Canadian River ran close by, and a creek ran right down Water Street. Val rode part way around the town to scout the approaches before actually riding in on the Dodge Trail, which took him in on Main Street. He turned left and rode to Mickey McCormick’s livery stable.
After putting up his horse he walked to the corner and went into a saloon. It was near four o’clock and the saloon was nearly empty.
Reilly's Luck (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 16
