One of the cowhands cackled. “You’re losin’ your grip, Jesse!”
“Hurricane is still too much for you!” declared another.
Bodine rose slowly and slapped dirt and dust from his shirt and chaps. The piebald pranced to the rails and tried to bite him, but he was just out of reach. Grinning, Bodine said, “You never give up, do you, feller?”
The bullish Texan turned, spied Lee, and the grin became a wary look. Walking to the skinny cowboy who had been with him at the Applejack when Morco was killed, and who now held his gunbelt and revolvers, Bodine took his irons and strapped them on. Spurs jangling, he came over, nodding at the Tennessean. “We meet again, Scurlock.”
“You seemed to enjoy that,” Lee commented.
“I did,” Bodine said proudly, casting an admiring look at the mustang. “Six times I’ve forked that cayuse, and each time I’ve eaten dirt. No horse has ever done that to me before.”
Allister Kemp dipped a hand at the corral. “Perhaps you would care to try, Mr. Scurlock?”
“Much obliged, but I’ll pass,” Lee said, patting his roan. “Mine is already broke, and I didn’t come here to have my bones busted.”
Jesse Bodine chuckled. “Busted bones would be the least of your worries, mister. Hurricane has already killed two bronc peelers.”
Lee straightened, eyeing the mustang. “The hell you say!” he exclaimed. Few outfits would allow such an animal to live, let alone permit anyone to ride it. Once a horse killed someone, it was useless. No wrangler would want it in a cavvy.
“True enough, sir,” Allister Kemp said. “Hurricane is a bona fide man-killer, the worst I’ve ever come across. He’s as devious as he is vicious.”
The mustang stood glaring at the men outside the corral with what could only be described as bestial bloodlust. Lee had never seen the like.
“He’ll let us get a rig on him with no problem,” the Englishman continued. “But once someone forks leather, he turns into a raging whirlwind. I know. I try to ride him at least once a month.”
Lee was perplexed and did not try to hide it. “You can take your pick of the finest horseflesh anywhere, and you risk your hide on a man-killer? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Kemp gazed fondly at the piebald, much as a parent might at a naughty child. “I do it for the challenge, Mr. Scurlock. Hurricane refuses to break, refuses to knuckle under to any man. His spirit is indomitable. We can’t intimidate him as we do most horses, because he confronts life on his own terms. Either we respect him for what he is or we shoot him dead, and I, for one, would consider that a tragic waste.”
The lord of Diablo Valley clasped his manicured hands behind his back. “Some men are the same way, Mr. Scurlock. They take life on their terms. They have certain rules that they live by, which may or may not be the same rules set by society. If someone violates those rules, they die.”
Lee had a hunch that his host was now talking about the powder keg in Diablo, and Kemp’s next statements confirmed it.
“Of course, once a man refuses to be broken, once he draws a line over which others dare not tread and enforces his will by killing whoever crosses that line, then society brands him a man-killer. Whether it’s a horse or a man or even a cougar or a bear, it makes no difference. Once that line is crossed, there is no turning back.”
A dread suspicion crept over Lee that maybe he was wrong, that maybe Kemp was making a sly reference to his own difficulty in New Mexico. Was it possible Kemp knew?
“I keep Hurricane because he is a magnificent living allegory,” the Englishman went on. “In him lies the secret to all success.” He glanced up. “If you want to succeed in life, Mr. Scurlock, if you want to be your own man, you must set the terms. You must wrest whatever you want from those who have it, and you must crush anyone who opposes your will. Only a bloody fool allows himself to be stepped on, and I’m not a bloody fool.”
It was not a boast or an angry outburst. It was stated matter-of-factly, which made it all the more chilling. Lee eased to the ground, saying amiably, “I still say you’re loco to keep a man-killer around.”
Kemp’s brow furrowed. “Can it be that you’ve missed my point? Man-killers, Mr. Scurlock, have their purpose, as do we all.”
“I suppose,” Lee said.
Kemp would not let the issue drop. “Take, for instance, your mate—sorry, your friend—Vint Evers.”
“What about him?”
“Evers has a reputation as a man-killer. True, so far all his killings have been on the side of the law, but he is a man-killer nonetheless.”
“Some might see it that way,” Lee said. In his eyes there was a crucial difference between men like, say, John Wesley Hardin, whose violent natures compelled them to kill again and again over trifles, and men like Vint Evers, who killed only when necessary to stop those like Hardin.
More was on the tip of the Englishman’s tongue, but for some reason he fell silent a few moments, then shrugged and indicated his stately residence. “Shall we adjourn to my drawing room, sir, for a brandy before our meal?”
“Suits me.”
“Excellent,” Kemp said politely. To his foreman, he said, “Take care of our guest’s horse, Mr. Bodine. See that it is groomed and fed and watered.”
“Yes, sir,” Bodine replied dutifully, taking the reins when offered them by Lee.
As the tall Briton led the southerner across a trimmed yard, he commented, “An acquaintance of yours wanted to be on hand today to greet you, but I discouraged him.”
“Who might that be?” Lee idly asked, walking on his host’s right so that his gun hand was on Kemp’s off side.
“Nate Collins.” The Englishman negligently waved at a long, low building near the stable, evidently the bunkhouse. “He wanted to apologize for his atrocious behavior at Wynn’s relay station, but he’s still not up to being on his feet, so I forbade him.”
The blond gunman did not strike Lee as the sort to say he was sorry for anything, and he mentioned as much.
“Quite. But the blighter has confessed to me that he and his friends were drunk when they insulted Jim Hays and drew on you. The physician has instructed him to stay in bed for a minimum of two weeks, and then Nate will have another two weeks of convalescence. So I’m apologizing for him.”
Lee said nothing. But he noted that Kemp avoided saying whether the apology was Kemp’s idea or Nate’s.
“And I also want you to know that I hold no hard feelings about what happened to Ed Gristy and Morco. If Gristy was going to shoot innocent people, he deserved his fate. As for the Mexican, I’ve heard that he tried to justify their actions at the stage station by spreading lies about you. Anyone who has lived in this country any length of time knows that small lies lead to big bullets.”
First a veiled warning, then a pardon for past offenses. Lee did not know what to make of it, but he had the impression that he was being treated like some kind of menial serf from back in the Old Country.
“I try to hire dependable men,” Kemp rattled on, “but you can’t really judge character by outward appearances, now can you?”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Lee said to hold up his end of the conversation. His gaze swept the sprawling Bar K. “But it doesn’t appear that you made one in coming to the United States.”
Allister Kemp inhaled deeply, smiling as he surveyed his vast domain. Pride and passion shone on his face. “Venturing to your country was the best idea I ever had. Who would have thought that this would be my destiny?” They were almost to a wide portico bordered by massive marble columns that must have cost a fortune in themselves. “Forty-five years ago I was a bloody brat in a London slum, eking a living by pinching bread and grog for my old man. Today, I own the biggest ranch in all of Arizona.”
“You’ve come a long way,” Lee agreed, hoping to prompt the Englishman into revealing more of his past. It worked.
“You don’t know the half of it, Mr. Scurlock. I stole aboard a freighter when I was fourteen a
nd wound up in New York City. The first mate put me up with his brother’s family, where I lived until I was eighteen. Then I came west to make my fortune.” Kemp chortled. “I was no different from the thousands of common people who fed their dreams on the fantasies of pulp fiction and saw the frontier as Utopia. I need not tell you the rude awakening I received.”
A servant, an elderly Navajo, had appeared at a wide door, opening it and standing back so they could enter.
Kemp paused. “I took a job as a cowpuncher and worked on several spreads until I was twenty-five. That’s when the lure of this new territory brought me to Diablo Valley. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“Now you’re a cattle baron,” Lee said.
“Yes. Now I’m a cattle baron,” the Englishman said. “The position weighs heavily on my shoulders at times. So many important decisions must be made, matters of life and death to some.”
Was that for his benefit? Lee wondered. He stared at the enormous mansion and felt a twinge of homesickness. “Your place reminds me of the estates in the South.”
“I shall take that as a compliment,” Kemp said loftily. “I took the idea from a plantation I visited shortly before the Civil War broke out. Next to the West, I’ve always been most fond of the South. You hail from Tennessee, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever miss your home and your people?”
“Home is where I hang my hat.”
“Quite,” Kemp said, using his pet expression. “Myself, I miss England occasionally, but I always come to my senses when I recall those terrible years spent in the slum. I’ll never go back again.”
“A man can never return to his roots. He’s likely to have outgrown them.”
The cattle baron smiled. “An astute observation. I never cease to be amazed by the practical wisdom westerners exhibit. Living life in the raw matures people before their time.”
“Experience is the best teacher,” Lee allowed.
“I know I’ve learned from mine,” Kemp said, and gave his head a shake. “But enough! I’m talking you to death, and you must be famished after your long ride. Come.”
Lee figured that his host would introduce the Navajo, but Kemp treated the servant as if he were not there. A spacious hall adorned with paintings and a suit of armor on a pedestal led to the drawing room, which was more plushly furnished than the finest hotel Lee had ever been in.
“I promised you a brandy,” Kemp said, striding to an oak cabinet on the west wall. Inside were dozens of bottles, many imported brands. “You’re undoubtedly curious about why I invited you here,” he said as he set out two sparkling glasses and opened the brandy. “It has to do with the situation in Diablo Valley.”
“I know that you’re not too fond of the homesteaders and the miners,” Lee remarked, which he knew was putting it mildly.
“Fond! I detest the buggers!” For a fleeting few seconds stark, feral hatred animated Allister Kemp’s patrician profile, hatred so deep, so intense, that it rolled off him in elemental waves.
Lee was shocked, and just had to ask the question uppermost on his mind. “With all the land you have, Mr. Kemp, why get so upset over a few nesters and silver-hunters? They’re not doing you any harm, are they?”
The Englishman composed himself, but his skin was chalky white with suppressed fury as he strolled to a window on the south wall and contemplated the rolling sea of grass and cattle. “You’ve missed my whole point, then. This valley is mine, Mr. Scurlock. Twenty years of hard work, of sweat and sacrifice, have culminated in the Bar K. I clawed my way up out of the London slums to rule a ranch the size of London itself. I have carved a virtual empire from the open range, and I will not stand still while my land is threatened by outsiders.” His voice dropped to a savage snarl. “I’ll see them dead first. Every last one!”
Chapter Eleven
A brilliant full moon bathed Diablo Valley in a ghostly glow. The high grass swayed in a brisk northwesterly breeze, casting shadows that rippled and seethed as if they were alive. Occasional trees loomed like immense creatures from a bygone age, their leaves rustling in secretive whispers.
Lee Scurlock stuck to the rutted track that served as the road between the ranch house proper and the town. He was deep in thought, reviewing the evening and the many ominous comments the Englishman had made.
All during the meal Kemp had gone on and on about the threat to his ranch. An aged Navajo woman, possibly the wife of the servant who had opened the front door, waited on them hand and foot, always in stony silence, never allowing her eyes to meet Lee’s. As with the other Navajo, Kemp did not deign to introduce her. The few remarks Lee made in praise of her cooking failed to elicit a reply.
Shortly after they sat down, Lee had mentioned that there must be a way for Kemp and the homesteaders to live in peace.
“Peace?” The cattle baron sneered. “How naive do you think I am? The same thing will happen here that has already taken place in parts of Wyoming, Montana, and elsewhere. I’m hemmed in by the settlers to the south, the prospectors and miners to the north, and the town to the east. Little by little they’ll chip away at the Bar K. They’ll trespass. They’ll hunt game on my property. My water rights will be challenged. And I won’t be able to graze my stock where I please.”
“Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill?” Lee could not resist saying.
“If you were in my boots, you wouldn’t be so nonchalant,” Kemp said. “I will not stand by and let those bloody vultures ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to build up. Did you know that some of the nesters are letting their stock cross onto my property and mingle with my herds? Did you know that my punchers have found pigs running loose on the Bar K? Pigs, for God’s sake!”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s not the worst!” Kemp said irritably. “My hands have found six head slaughtered on the north range. Three guesses who is to blame. The bloody miners are helping themselves to my beef to feed themselves.”
“So you aim to drive them off?”
Kemp did not appear to hear. “My big mistake,” he said more to himself than to the Tennessean, “was in looking the other way when the homesteaders first moved in. Even before that, I shouldn’t have laughed at the fool prospectors grubbing in the mountains for ore. I should have driven both out the minute they appeared. But I was too soft, too complacent.”
Somehow, Lee found it hard to believe that Allister Kemp had ever been soft. Suddenly, those blazing green eyes fixed on him.
“Enough beating around the bush. I need to know whose side you are on, Mr. Scurlock.”
“I’m not on one side or the other.”
“Come, now. You can tell me the truth. I happen to know that Jim Hays and you are mates, and Hays has sided with Abe Howard and Will Dyer. Have you joined forces with them also?”
Lee was puzzled that Kemp knew. “No,” he answered.
The rancher drummed his fingers on the table. “You seem to be an honest man, sir, so I’ll be honest with you. When I first heard about the incident at Wynn’s, I reasoned that the miners or the nesters had brought in a gunman of their own. After you disposed of Morco, I learned your identity. Your name, or rather, your brother’s, is well-known in these parts. Although many of my men wanted to go after you, I restrained them. The last thing I need is to have your brother and a bunch of his friends show up to avenge you.”
Only then had Lee understood the real reason for the invitation. The likelihood of Doc and some of Doc’s pards riding to his aid had the Englishman spooked. “I’m not taking sides in this mess,” Lee had stated. “I don’t intend to be here that much longer. As for Doc, he has his hands full in New Mexico.”
“I’ve been informed that Vint Evers would like you to be his deputy if he’s selected as marshal. Is this true?”
Lee had hesitated. Was there anything the man did not know? “He asked, but I turned him down.”
“And you have no other interests to keep you in Diab
lo?”
“None.”
Allister Kemp had not spoken for more than a minute, his features a blank slate. At length he had smiled and slapped his thigh. “I’m glad we’ve cleared the air, sir. It’s good you’re leaving Diablo soon. I’ve taken all I am going to take off the scum who infest my valley. Very shortly they shall learn to their regret who rules this roost.”
“You?”
“Is there any doubt? By the time I’m through, no one will dare trespass on the Bar K ever again.”
All in all, it had been an educational evening. Lee knew beyond a doubt that blood would flow thick and heavy before too long, and that whoever accepted the tin star might live to regret it.
Faintly, to the west, a dull thud sounded. Lee twisted in the saddle, peering out over the sea of shadow and gloom. Twice now he had heard that sound, but it was impossible to say whether a horse or one of the countless head of cattle was to blame. Probably the latter, he reflected. He was just edgy because of his host’s parting words.
“I’ve studied you all evening, Mr. Scurlock, and I like what I see,” Kemp had said as they strolled to the corral to claim the roan. “Why don’t you come work for me?”
“No, thanks. I make my living at cards nowadays, not eating the dust raised by cows.”
“You wouldn’t have to be a puncher,” Kemp said. “I’ve other positions for a man of your particular talents.”
“I didn’t know I had any,” Lee joked.
“Please. You’re too modest. No ordinary gunman could beat Nate Collins to the draw. I’m thinking of creating a group of range enforcers. You would be perfect for the post.”
Range enforcers. That was a fancy way of saying “vigilantes.”
“I’m not interested,” Lee declined.
Kemp sighed as Lee mounted. “Most unfortunate,” he had said. “Oh, well. I tried.” Offering his hand, Kemp’s parting words were “Farewell, sir. We won’t be seeing each other again.”
Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 12
