Ryan Rides Back

by Bill Crider

  Ryan didn't know about McGee, but he was certain that Long or Barson either one would be capable of murder, even the murder of a woman, without thinking twice.

  "I'll see what I can do about all this," he said.

  "I thought. . . I was sure you would. I'm glad you let me tell you. You were always easy to talk to."

  Ryan didn't want the conversation to take a personal turn. He had been guiding it in a different direction all along because he didn't know where personal things might lead. He was feeling much more like his old self, but he was still uncertain about a lot of things, particularly his feelings about Virginia.

  "I'll talk to the sheriff," he said. "I'm not sure what good it will do. Billy's been tried and convicted. The rope's waiting. There's not much Bass can do."

  "At least you can try," she said. "I'd tell him myself, but I don't think he would put much stock in the word of a woman."

  Ryan got up again. He didn't tell her that Bass had plenty of doubts of his own. He put on his hat. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

  She watched him cross the room. "Come back again," she said as he went through the door.

  He gave no sign that he had heard.

  The full force of the heat and sun hit him as he stepped outside. The streets were less crowded now, but there was a small knot of men standing on the plank walk a few yards away.

  When the men saw Ryan, they moved toward him. The news that he was back had spread around the town, and while many people considered that whatever he had been doing for the last few years was his own business, there are always a few who figure they know what a man's business is better than he does.

  Ryan recognized several of the men. In the front of the group was George Maze, who ran the livery stable. Right behind him were Walt Albert and Jack Crabtree, followed by three others whose names Ryan couldn't recall. Albert, he remembered, taught in the one-room school outside of town and gave music lessons on the side. Crabtree worked for Maze and did most of the hard work—and the dirty work—at the stable.

  Maze was the spokesman. "I'm George Maze," he said. "You remember me, Ryan?"

  "I remember you. And Albert and Crabtree."

  "Thought you might." Maze was wearing an old hat that sagged down around his face and head. His head bobbed as he talked. "I don't want to waste your time, but me and some of the boys wanted to have a little talk with you."

  Ryan looked up at the perfectly blue sky and felt the sun burning through his shirt. "Go ahead and talk," he said.

  "Well, it looks to some of us like you left town at a mighty funny time and came back the same way." Maze looked out from under his hat brim as defiantly as it was possible for him to look.

  Ryan stared back at him, unable to see his eyes in the shadow of the hat brim. "What does that mean?" he said.

  Albert spoke up hesitantly. He was basically a shy person who didn't know exactly what he was doing there. He had just gotten roped into the group because he had been standing in the mercantile store when they started talking about Ryan's unexpected return. "We're simply wondering why you chose this particular time to return," he said.

  Ryan knew that people were naturally curious, and despite his reservations about Virginia Burley, he had admired her restraint in their conversation in the cafe. Never once had she asked him where he had been or why he had come back.

  "Maybe I just wanted to," Ryan said.

  Crabtree shoved forward belligerently. "That's kind of a smart answer, if you ask me."

  Ryan looked at him mildly. "I don't remember asking you."

  "Now, now," Albert said. "All we want to do is assure ourselves that you haven't come back for some purpose that would be harmful to the town."

  Ryan couldn't figure out what they were talking about. "Try making sense," he said.

  "You know what we mean," Crabtree said. He was getting more and more upset, clenching and unclenching his fists. Ryan remembered that he had more than once been fired by Maze for rough treatment of the animals they stabled. But he had always been rehired, since there was hardly anyone else who would do the work for the wages Maze paid.

  "No," Ryan said. "I don't know what you mean."

  "We mean we intend to see Billy Kane swinging at the end of a rope tomorrow," Maze said. "And you better not do anything about it. It was your sister he killed. Remember that."

  Ryan didn't say anything. Did they really think he could forget who was dead?

  "Yeah," Crabtree said. "Your sister. He probably raped her, too."

  No one had as yet made that suggestion, and even Maze appeared a bit shocked at the blunt statement. He tried to cover it up. "We don't know that, but we do know he killed her. And we want to see him die for it. If that's what you came back here to see, fine."

  Now Ryan knew what the problem was. They all remembered the old Ryan, the one who wouldn't have put up with the twisting of justice for any reason, and they had all heard the rumors about Billy Kane's innocence. What's more, they probably believed them. Otherwise they wouldn't be making such a point of warning Ryan off. They wanted Billy Kane to die, guilty or not.

  "That's what I came to see," Ryan said. It was the truth. He had changed his mind since coming, however, but only a few minutes before.

  "Good," Maze said. "I guess that's it, then."

  "You believe him?" Crabtree said. "Can't you see he's lyin'?"

  The other five men had begun to move off. Crabtree stood his ground. "I say you're lyin'," he said.

  It was the kind of insult that some men would have considered deadly. Ryan had been like that once, or nearly like that. He certainly would at least have flattened Crabtree with a hard right to the face.

  Now he did nothing, except to stand his ground as Crabtree crowded up to him, bumping him with his chest. Crabtree smelled of the stables, of oats and corn and horse manure.

  "You hear me, Ryan? I say you're a liar."

  "I hear you." Ryan still didn't move.

  Crabtree turned abruptly away. "I guess we don't have to worry about him, fellers," he said to the others. "I don't know where he's been, but it's flat turned him yeller.''

  The other men had been silent before, but now the silence was almost something you could feel in the air. They expected Ryan to draw or to call Crabtree down.

  He did neither; simply stood there, watching them.

  Crabtree walked past the small group of men and on down the boardwalk.

  After a minute, the others turned and followed.

  Chapter Nine

  Ryan watched them go. Crabtree separated from the others, and Ryan saw him stop at the door of Pat Congrady's hardware store. Congrady came out and the two men talked for a minute, then Crabtree went inside. Ryan would have liked to know what they had to say to one another.

  From the opposite side of the street, someone was watching Ryan. Three-finger Johnny McGee was sitting on another part of the walk today, still throwing his knife into the planks and watching the handle quiver as the blade sank solidly in. He hadn't been able to hear what was said, but he could tell that Crabtree and Ryan were not on the best of terms. He thought it was something the others should know about. He got to his feet and sidled off down the alley between two buildings to go and report to Kane.

  Ryan meanwhile got his horse and rode to the jail. Meadows was more alert today, and Ryan took his holster and gun off without being asked. When he went inside, Bass was sitting with his boots up on his desk, smoking.

  "I hear that Kane has something planned for tonight," Ryan said without preamble. "I thought you ought to know about it."

  "I've been hearing that for a week," Bass said. "I'm not too worried about it. Like I said, there're three of us here, and we've all got guns." He put his boots on the floor and stood up, stretching.

  "I imagine you're all getting pretty tired by now," Ryan said, watching him. "That might be what Kane is counting on."

  "We can handle one more night."

  "I also hear that a lot of folks around town
think Billy probably didn't kill my sister."

  "Yeah. That's too bad. But the jury thought otherwise, and the jury's decision is what I have to go by." Bass sat back down. "You think I can do anything about it?"

  "No," Ryan said. "I just wanted to tell you."

  "Well, you told me. Now your conscience is clear, if that's what was botherin' you."

  "I guess you're right," Ryan said. He went back outside and picked up his gun.

  It had taken him quite a while to learn to draw and shoot again. A stiff back, held rigid in a brace, and a virtually immobile left arm do funny things to a man's balance. Too, his recuperation had played tricks with his coordination, and he had trouble getting the Colt out of the holster with any kind of speed.

  Once again he learned the value of patience. The long, slow days and nights, as well as his association with the Indian, who could sit for hours without stirring, taught him without words.

  Because of his injuries, he would never be fast with a gun again. Before, he could draw and fire while most men would still be thinking about it, but that was impossible now. His only ally would be accuracy, and each day he practiced shooting until he had used up all the cartridges the old man had brought.

  He would draw the pistol deliberately and begin firing. At first he thought that even his eyesight had been affected. He couldn't seem to hit even the largest targets. But he found that his eyes were fine, though the cut on his face was dangerously near the right one.

  No, the problem was not his eyes. His hand was simply unsteady, and there was no way he could grip it with his left hand to make things any better. The pistol's kick jarred him, too, in a way he had never felt in the past.

  It took considerable work and effort, but he got better. His hand steadied, and soon every cactus around the lean-to was riddled with holes, most of them placed exactly where he intended for them to be.

  The old man went away again, and came back with more cartridges, along with dried beef jerky and some flour. They had biscuits. Ryan even began to crave coffee.

  There came a day when every shot went exactly where Ryan wanted it to go, or at least within an inch. His draw was still slow, but his aim was deadly. He wouldn't have to worry about protecting himself.

  He could walk now, as well, walk without worrying about falling over, without having the old man beside him at every step. He was getting all of his strength back, though he knew he was gaunt and drawn.

  He wondered how long he had been out there with the Indian. He knew that they had been through the seasons at least once. The winter had been bad, but the old man had brought blankets from somewhere, plenty of them, and they had survived the cold and even the one snow. The heat had been worse than the cold, but there was water somewhere nearby. Ryan didn't yet know where, but there was never a shortage of it when it was needed.

  As his health improved, he thought vaguely about Tularosa, his sister, Kane, Virginia. Whatever he might have done was now irrelevant. Too much time had passed for him to make a difference there. Kane probably thought he was dead, and in this case Kane wasn't too far wrong. The difference in being dead and in being completely out of circulation was so small as not to be a difference at all.

  In most ways, when he thought about it, Ryan never wanted to go back to Tularosa at all. It was as if everything had been burned out of him there in the desert. No love, no hate—nothing was left. It was only in talking with Virginia Burley and finding out how Kane had used her that Ryan discovered within himself the remnants of his ability to care.

  McGee, along with Barson and Long, had special privileges at Kane's. They were the three men that Kane seemed to trust, and though he had a number of others working around the place, only those three had the run of the house. They even had sleeping quarters there, in an otherwise unused portion of the house, a long way from the rooms used by Kane and Billy.

  They slept together in one large room containing three bunks and not much else. Barson and Long were there when McGee found them.

  He told them about what he had seen in town.

  Long's eyes glittered. "Maybe that Crabtree will do our job for us."

  "What job's that?" McGee wanted to know.

  "We talked to Kane this morning," Barson said. "He told us to get rid of Ryan tonight. "

  "We got something else on tonight," McGee said.

  "Ryan comes first," Barson said. He smiled, showing the yellowed stubs of his teeth. "This time we won't let him get away."

  McGee didn't much like Barson. He had slept in the same room with him for too long. The smell was bothering him, not that he would ever say anything about it. "Why didn't Mr. Kane say anything about this to me?"

  "Maybe because you ain't seen him today," Long said. "What's the matter? Don't you believe us?"

  "I believe you. I just thought ..."

  "Kane does the thinking. We just do what he says." Long ran his tongue over his dry lips.

  "Sure. I know that." It seemed to McGee that Barson and Long were both taking too much of an interest in Ryan. For his part, he thought they might be making a mistake. Ryan had already proved a lot harder to get rid of than they had thought. "When do we go after him?"

  "About midnight. At the shack. Then we'll go to get Billy out."

  "Sure. Sounds fine," McGee said. He didn't mean it, though.

  "Why don't you take a little siesta?" Barson said. "That's what me and Long are gonna do." He was sitting on his bunk, and now he put his feet up on it and leaned back.

  "Good idea," McGee said, but he couldn't sleep.

  One reason that Kane had let Billy stay in jail until the end of the week was the time of month. He was waiting for the dark of the moon. He wanted the darkest night he could get.

  Kane himself was going to the shack for Ryan, but he could no longer ride. He was going in a wagon. He was too fat and awkward to get on a horse, and too much of a load. He would wait and reach the shack after the others, not wanting the squeaking of the wagon to give them away.

  It was only with great difficulty that he was able to climb into the wagon. Long watched him with a secret contempt, and Barson had to hide a smile. Though he was a huge man, Barson could climb like a cat.

  McGee didn't think anything. His missing finger was throbbing to beat the band. He was just hoping that he didn't get anything else shot off before the night was over.

  When Kane finally got himself settled, he said, "This time we don't toy with him. We simply kill him. I do, of course, want you to hold him until I get there. I don't want to miss anything."

  They couldn't see Kane's face in the darkness. The night had turned out even better than he had hoped for. Not only was there no moon, but from somewhere a breeze had sprung up, bringing with it the smell of rain and a heavy covering of clouds. There was not even any starlight.

  Kane clucked to the horses, and they moved off slowly, with a creaking of harnesses. The others rode on ahead. "Don't forget," he said. "Save him until I get there."

  If anyone had asked, Kane might not have been able to explain why now he wanted to make sure that Ryan was really dead. In their last encounter, he had meant to hurt him, injure him severely even, but not necessarily to kill him. He had wanted Ryan to give in to him.

  But things had changed. Part of it was that Kane felt almost certain that Ryan had come back at this particular time for a reason, and Kane did not like the fact that he had no idea what the reason was.

  Could it be only a coincidence that the hanging and Ryan's return had coincided? Kane didn't think so, and as he rode along in the wagon, savoring the rare smell of moisture in the air, he thought about how Ryan might interfere with his plans.

  About the ranch, there was nothing Ryan could do. That had all been settled long ago, legally and officially. Ryan's sister had been left the shack and an acre or so, but that was all. And that was all that Ryan would be able to get if he stayed.

  He wouldn't be staying, however, and Kane would have to make sure of it. He could be a big
problem later on. Not during the jailbreak. Kane hardly gave that any thought at all. It was afterward that bothered him.

  One of the wheels of the wagon squealed on its axle, and Kane listened to it absentmindedly. Afterward, he thought. It was the one thing that really bothered him.

  The problem was that everyone in Tularosa was going to know for a certainty exactly who had broken Billy Kane out of jail. There could be no real question about it.

  Who was Billy Kane's friend?

  No one.

  Who would break him out?

  Only his brother.

  Everyone would be able to reason that much out, including the sheriff. Kane was counting on being able to hide Billy away, from the sheriff and from everyone else.

  He was afraid he might not be able to hide him from Ryan, however. Ryan knew the country around Tularosa better than anyone, and he would especially know about The Mountain.

  The Mountain had no real name, but everyone knew of it. Kane, who had once been to Colorado, laughed every time he heard anyone call it more than a hill; but in the flatlands around Tularosa it was the closest thing to a mountain they had.

  Although everyone had seen it and heard of it, very few had actually climbed on it or even gotten very close to it. It was a long way out of town, for one thing. For another, it was on Ryan's land—or what had once been Ryan's land. It was on Kane's land now.

  Ryan had never been one to encourage visitors, and Kane was downright inhospitable, so there was hardly anyone who knew about the cave. Kane knew, having found it more or less by accident when touring his new acreage one day. He had never heard about it before. Not one of his men knew about it when he asked them, and he told them to keep it a secret.

  There was no doubt, though, that Ryan knew, and since the cave was the place where Kane intended to stash Billy, Ryan had to be put out of the way.

  At least that's what Kane kept telling himself.

  The first faint rumblings of the distant thunder woke Virginia Burley a little before midnight. Like Pat Congrady, she lived in a room right over her business. She had rented a room from another widow when she had first moved to Tularosa, but when her brother died, she took over his quarters above the cafe. It was convenient, and she didn't need anything better. There had been a time, a time with Ryan, when she had begun to think in terms of a house again, a house away from town and a life away from the daily cooking and cleaning and waitressing that she had to do, but she didn't think in those terms any longer.