“Throw your gun away, use the left hand,” I told him. “You want to fight, then fight.”
Westfall tossed the gun away, grinning as he did it. Which only proved how dumb he was. The tight grin faded when he saw I meant to hold on to my iron. “You still got your gun,” he complained, as though I needed a reminder.
“Real sneaky, that’s me,” I said, and belted him along the side of the neck. There was a whacking sound like an ax handle hitting a side of beef. He was too tall to go for his head with the first one. He roared and raised his hand to guard his face. I pulled his hand away with a quick feint before I laid open his cheekbone so he’d have something to remember me by every time he shaved.
Beating him to death wasn’t the idea, but when he started an open handed rush, there was nothing I could do but move back and plant a solid kick between his legs. Nothing stops a man like a kick in the knackers; it stopped Westfall. Using the gun barrel to soften him up was my version of the things they stick in the bull before the swordsman moves in for the kill. I still don’t think they give the bull a fair shake, but I couldn’t fret about the unfair shake I was giving Westfall. He lowered his bullet head for a charge, and that gave me the inches I needed to beat on the top of his skull. I hit him three times, then fearing damage to my gun I put it away and used my fists like hammers. It was a beating, not a fight, and that’s what I meant it to be. It was funny, how he kept coming after me, how I moved out of his way, rolling his thick head with solid punches. Hitting him so hard and often was starting to wear me out. I wasn’t about to go into a range war with pulpy fists, so I lay back and hit him with the meanest punch I could throw. It got him in the throat under the chin and there was bloody froth at the corners of his mouth when he crashed backward like a felled tree.
He lay twitching like a wounded bull and I said I’d kick his brains out if he tried to get up. His little piggy eyes glared through the mess of blood and torn flesh, so I guess his brain was still working. I hoped it was. I wanted him to hear me good.
“You wanted trouble, you got it. Now you hate my guts, that means you’ll be looking for a chance to catch me without a gun. Don’t have time for fist fights, Dink. Jump me—make a wrong move—and I’ll shoot you through the head. You got that, have you? Later—supposing we come through this business with Saxbee—maybe I’ll let you try again. No guns, just you and me.”
Westfall touched his face and looked kind of surprised at the glob of blood that came away on the back of his hand. A smaller man might have died from such a beating; all Westfall did was spit out broken teeth. What he said was a bloody mumble, but I understood plain enough.
“I’m going to beat you to death,” Dink Westfall said.
I had no doubt that he meant to do just that. “We’ll see,” I said.
Nobody was grinning when I got back to work. The sun climbed to the noon position, then past it, and I pushed them hard through the hottest part of the day. Too many men were posted along the boundary wire, so I moved them back to a second line of defense. That way if Saxbee broke through the wire in a sneak attack, the boys at the second line would hold them long enough to make a difference.
All morning and through the day I had cookie rounding up every empty can he could find. He didn’t like it when I set him to digging in the trash pit behind the cook shack. Bowing and smiling, he talked in Chinese and I knew he was damning me for a crazy white son of a bitch.
“Same to you, cookie,” I grinned. “Fill the wagon, then take it out to the wire.”
It was well into the afternoon when the boys finished stringing empty cans along the wire. “Not too loose,” I told them. “Don’t want the wind setting up a clatter.”
Stringing noise-makers was an old trick the Mexicans used at night when there was too much wire to cover and not enough men to do it. The sun was starting to drop behind a line of distant mountains when we strung the last can. Some of the boys went outside the wire to make a test; it worked pretty well. After dark one or two men might crawl through; a whole bunch would have to set up a clatter.
I figured Dink Westfall would be home cooling his head with wet towels. Instead, he was the one who fetched out the wagon loaded with barrels of coal oil. Just a line of bandage showed under his hat, and when he saw the boys looking, he yanked down the brim. There was no way he could hide what had happened to his face.
The boys unloaded the barrels and spaced them out inside the wire. “Not so close to the wire, move back a bit,” I ordered. “Bury them so nothing but the top shows. If they come after dark, set the oil on fire, move back fifty yards.”
One of the fence riders was so enthused, he had to spit and slap his leg. “Catch them at the wire all lit up. Ducks in a barrel!”
“Don’t count on it,” I said.
Nobody I asked had seen McCarty; they were sure he hadn’t gone outside the wire. Knowing the kid, I wasn’t sure of anything. One of the fence riders said there had been some shooting over on Saxbee’s range. Sounded like two shots, the man said. Hard to be certain at that distance. Could be just some feller killing a snake.
I asked how long.
“About three hours back. Nothing after that.”
It was close to dark, about suppertime, when I got back to the ranch and found Sam snoring drunk in the rocker on the porch. McCarty’s borrowed pony was in the corral, a fair coat of sweat glistening on its hide.
Inside the house the kid was by himself at the dining room table. One of the Mexicans set a plate for me, and I poured a drink and waited till she went back to the kitchen. The kid had one of his dime novels propped against the gravy boat. He looked up quickly when I came in, then went back to his reading. He moved his mouth as he read and wrinkles stood out on his forehead every time he came to a hard word. On the outside clam-cold as an ace gambler, the kid was jumping with nerves. That was the feeling I got.
“Pass the gravy, Tex. After that tell me where you been today.” My tone let him know I wasn’t just making conversation.
He didn’t pass the gravy; he pushed it hard enough to make a mess. Gravy got on his book and made him curse. “You want to know where? No place, for Jesus sake. Rode around, got down, sat on a rock. Got sick of that, rode some more, then came back. If it’s any of your business, got back about an hour ago.”
“Then you didn’t go outside the wire. Didn’t tie your horse and sneak through?”
“Why in hell would I do that, Carmody?”
I said I didn’t know. Maybe I would later. “Why would you lie about the time you got back? A sweated pony out there says you got back just before I did. And I just got here.”
To buy time he rubbed the stained book with a napkin. “Never get it clean,” he fussed like a baby with a broken toy. He knew I was waiting for an answer. “Maybe I was wrong about the time. What difference does it make?”
I started on a wedge of fried ham. “No more picnics in the country, Tex,” I said between bites. “You don’t go anyplace I don’t know about. Right now you go to bed. Your face is spoiling my supper.”
His hand dropped below the table and I cocked the Colt resting on my knee. No need to tell him what the click meant; he knew the sound.
With that fool book in his hand he started to leave. At the door that went to the stairs he turned and grinned, the muscles in his face jumping out of control. “Take care now,” he said.
“God bless you and keep you, Tex,” I said and, having blessed the son of a bitch, I should have raised my gun and put a bullet through his head. Had I not been in Sam’s house, on Sam’s payroll, I would have done just that.
Life was getting too complicated for me. I like it flat and hard, without frills. First Sam and Saxbee! Now Sam and the kid! I wondered what the fat man was about to do next. Adopt the runt and put him in his will?
Good food and good whisky topped off by Tex McCarty had put me in a sour humor. I didn’t want to kill the kid because I didn’t like him, though I’ve known men who killed for less. Sure he turne
d my meat sour on the plate, and if Mrs. McCarty had the sense of a donkey she would have smothered Baby Tex at birth. Truth is, I wanted to kill McCarty because I knew he needed killing. It seemed like the right thing to do. Like killing a mad dog before he had a chance to run wild.
I knew I’d have to think about Tex.
The Mexican women came in to clear the dishes, and after they got through rattling around in the kitchen I heard them dragging fat Sam in from the rocker on the porch. Strong though they were it took some hard breathing before they got him to the foot of the stairs. There they waited till their strength came back, then they put their backs into it again. Going up the stairs, pushed and pulled, Sam woke up long enough to sing part of “A Camp Meeting in Georgia.” He was still singing when they tumbled him into bed.
I fell asleep in the chair.
Chapter Six
A burst of shooting and yelling put the Colt in my hand before my eyes were open all the way. On the far wall the wooden clock said it was eleven twenty. From the sound of it, only one rider was coming toward the house. Whoever he was, he was doing his best to sound like a troop of cavalry.
I went out fast and the rider, a young feller named Lawton, was still yelling while he thumbed fresh shells into his gun. Sore skulled or not, Dink Westfall was the first man out of the bunkhouse. Lawton, the fool, raised his gun and Westfall’s roar came close to knocking him out of the saddle.
Inside the house something heavy crashed on the upstairs floor. Sam’s bellowing followed right after, so the fall hadn’t killed him. I reached up and yanked Lawton out of the saddle. “Saxbee’s at the wire,” he said. “Saxbee’s at the wire.”
I grabbed him by the neck. “Just say it once, cowboy.”
He nodded. “A whole force of men. Looks like all the men he’s got. No attack, came in making plenty of noise. Saxbee sounded like he was drunk. Kept yelling about two of his men getting bushwhacked on the north range. Says Mr. Blatchford got to face him this time or … ”
Sam came out buttoning his pants. “I got to face what?”
I shoved Lawton away and told him to stop running off at the mouth. McCarty came out fully dressed as if he hadn’t been to bed. “Some trouble at the wire, I’ll handle it,” I told Sam.
McCarty stood close to Sam but said nothing. Sam hitched up his matched Colts and said, “Not this time. Something was said about me murdering two cowboys?”
Well, it was still his ranch. We moved out in minutes, and if there was killing going on at the wire we would have heard it, even with the wind going the other way. But there was nothing but the thin dusty night wind stinging our eyes.
Hours in the rocker, the time in bed, hadn’t altogether cooled the whisky in Sam’s head. He was somewhere between drunk and sober, a bad place for a man as wild headed as Sam. I rode in close to Sam, the kid on the other side, Westfall and the rest of the boys behind. Even at night the five miles to the wire wasn’t much for the rest of us; for Sam it was like rolling a boulder uphill. Good living had taken the snap from his legs; he jolted in the saddle like a sack of wet sand. One thing he didn’t look like was a warrior going out to do battle against his enemies.
Then we were riding into the long glare thrown by the barrels of burning oil. Back from the wire my men were flat on their bellies, rifles ready to start blasting. Across the wire it was the same with Saxbee’s men; all but Noah himself. The old Yankee sat his horse in a blaze of light. The horse didn’t move and neither did he. It would have been no trouble to kill him with a single bullet.
Sam had to prove that he was as nervy as his old partner. I wanted him to stay back and got told off. He walked his big horse until he was the same distance from the wire as Saxbee was on the other side. Trying to sound real casual, he said, “You got me out of bed, Noah. Something special you want?”
Thin and high, Saxbee’s voice didn’t roll in echoes, and that made it easier to understand. Most any man there could start the killing, but my friend Tex was most likely. I watched him while Saxbee dragged out the words in his Yankee twang.
“Just two boys working the north range and you had them murdered. No fight, not like the other day—just two young boys blasted with a shotgun. No chance, their guns still holstered.”
I looked over at the sawed-off riding in a boot beside McCarty’s leg. He wasn’t the only man on the ranch who owned a shotgun, but he was the only one who carried a shotgun as a regular thing.
Sam lurched around in the saddle and growled a question at me. Saxbee was branding him a bushwhacker, and though Sam was many things he was never that.
“None of our men,” I told him, not sure. The kid was closer to Sam than the rest of us, and slightly in front. Yeah, it looked like he had adopted fat roaring Sam Blatchford in place of his long gone daddy. I think he wanted a chance to prove what a loyal son he could be.
Sam roared back, “You know better than that, Noah.”
The answer was, “Not this time, Sam. Not anymore.” I knew this was no rigged dodge; old Saxbee was no trickster. “You want proof, Sam?”
Saxbee spoke over his shoulder and back where the light didn’t reach two horses started walking. Hoofs scraped on broken rock and then I saw one man leading both animals. When they got far enough into the light there was no mistaking the two bodies roped tight to keep them from sliding. One head was missing; what was left of the other was a mess.
Saxbee’s high voice had a shake in it. “Take a closer look. Two dead boys can’t hurt you.”
I told Sam to stay put. “Get them out of here,” I yelled at Saxbee.
The twangy voice came back at me. “Let Sam do his own talking, his own fighting if he’s got guts enough. No need for any more men to die. Just Sam—or me.”
McCarty spoke quickly to Sam. “Say the word, Mr. Blatchford.”
Swaying in the saddle, Sam told him to hold his God damned tongue. To work himself up to where he’d have to make it stick, he damned Saxbee for a lying money-grubbing Yankee scutter. “You want to face me by my lonesome, that’s just fine with me.”
Saxbee hadn’t much more to say. “I mean now, Sam.”
“Suits me, Noah.” Sam wasn’t such a slow money-grubber himself. “You got no kin, me neither. Winner takes all?”
Saxbee said that was all right with him. He was saying one last thing when the first burning barrel began to die out. It went out and the red hot metal sides made a clanging sound. The second barrel burned down, thickening the light, throwing long shadows. The men on both sides were getting edgy. We were just about even—men and guns—but a fair fight wasn’t ever my intention. I always say the worst way to get killed is in a fair fight. I knew we could stop Saxbee at the wire, but a lot of men would die before the night was out. Then, like as not, Saxbee and his men would fall back and the damn thing would drag on till Gabriel’s horn.
Another barrel was dropping fast; already men I could see seconds before were now hidden by shadow. “Not now,” I yelled over at Saxbee. “If it starts now it won’t be just you and Sam.”
Over on our side, Sam damned me for taking too much on myself, but made no big effort to change it. At less than the count of twenty the light would be gone. I ignored Sam’s swearing and said, “Say you’ll face him in daylight. That’ll maybe give us time; for what I don’t know.” What I didn’t say was, maybe he’d change his mind come morning.
“All right,” Saxbee yelled back. “A neutral place, off your land, off mine. Tomorrow in Mariposa. Any time you want to come I’ll be waiting.”
“Get that sheriff out of there and I’ll come,” Sam countered. “No sheriff, no tricks.”
Saxbee’s riders went away whooping and hollering, pushing their horses faster than was smart at night. As we rode the other way, my boys hollered too. They kept at it till I told them to choke it off. The distance between us stretched out; the noise from the other side of the wire faded, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
At the second line of defense I split the men and told t
hem to watch for a surprise attack. Dink Westfall was put in charge. I said they might come in five minutes, or any time before first light.
With all this night guarding, Westfall had taken to chawing tobacco instead of smoking it, for there is no better target after dark than a man with a lit cigarette in front of his face. He still hadn’t got the hang of it, and I’d hate to be around him in shiny boots.
Hunkered down behind a split rock with a thorn bush screening the front of it, Westfall cursed and spat and looked up at me. The others had gone on ahead. “You got to stop this, Carmody. You got to stop that old man.”
I said I’d do my best; anything short of breaking Sam’s legs.
“If that works, do it.”
The way Sam sat a horse, plus the weight, made it easy to catch up. The moon tore loose through the rolling clouds, and the country was a washed-out yellow, black where cactus threw a shadow. It was well past midnight and the chill was settling in.
Some of the boys twisted in their saddles when they heard me coming. But not the kid. He was telling Sam how easy it would have been to kill Noah Saxbee. “One shot, Mr. Blatchford. Like that, right between the eyes. You ain’t going to shoot it out with him, are you, Mr. Blatchford ...”
I rode up close. “Please, Mr. Blatchford, sir, you got a drink for a thirsty man?”
Moonlight flashed on the empty bottle Sam held up. “Son of a bitch,” he said, and threw the bottle. It sailed off into the shadows, clinked on rocky ground, but didn’t break. A man who throws a bottle in a rage gets madder when it doesn’t burst like a bomb. Sam did.
“Nobody talk to me. You know why? Because I don’t feel like talking. Back at the wire me and Noah would have ended this thing. Right now I’d be dead or own the biggest spread ever was. Now I got to think about it all over again. You sure you don’t have a drink, Carmody?”
Yeah, I had something to drink in my war bag. Tequila.
“Mule piss,” Sam said. “Hand it over, boy.”
The kind of tequila you can drink and not feel them taking off your leg is what I favor. Can be used in place of horse liniment, for taking paint off signs, and you can even drink it without going blind.
Carmody 6 Page 5
