Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  He got coffee on, and while he waited for it he took his guns out and dried them painstakingly, wiping off each shell, and then replacing them in his belt with other shells from a box on a shelf.

  He reloaded the guns, and then slipping into his slicker he went outside for his rifle. Between sips of coffee, he worked over his rifle until he was satisfied. Then he threw a small pack together and stuffed his slicker pockets with shotgun shells.

  The shotgun was an express gun and short barreled. He slung it from a loop under the slicker. Then he took a lantern and went to the stable and saddled the claybank. Leading the horse outside into the driving rain, he swung into the saddle and turned along the road toward Basin.

  There was no letup in the rain. It fell steadily and heavily, yet the claybank slogged along, alternating between a shambling trot and a fast walk. Allen Ring, his chin sunk in the upturned collar of his slicker, watched the drops fall from the brim of his Stetson and felt the bump of the shotgun under his coat.

  He had seen little of the tally book, but sufficient to know that it would blow the lid off the very range war they were fearing. Knowing the Hazlitts, he knew they would bring fire and gunplay to every home even remotely connected with the death of their brother.

  The horse slid down a steep bank and shambled across the wide wash. Suddenly, the distant roar that had been in his ears for some time sprang into consciousness and he jerked his head up. His horse snorted in alarm, and Ring stared, openmouthed, at the wall of water, towering all of ten feet high, that was rolling down the wash toward him.

  With a shrill rebel yell he slapped the spurs to the claybank, and the startled horse turned loose with an astounded leap and hit the ground in a dead run. There was no time to slow for the bank of the wash, and the horse went up, slipped at the very brink, and started to fall back.

  Ring hit the ground with both boots and scrambled over the brink, and even as the flood roared down upon them, he heaved on the bridle and the horse cleared the edge and stood trembling.

  Swearing softly, Ring kicked the mud from his boots and mounted again. Leaving the raging torrent behind him, he rode on.

  Thick blackness of night and heavy clouds lay upon the town when he sloped down the main street and headed the horse toward the barn. He swung down and handed the bridle to the handyman.

  “Rub him down”… He said. “I’ll be back.”

  He started for the doors and then stopped, staring at the three horses in neighboring stalls.

  The liveryman noticed his glance and looked at him.

  “The Hazlitts. They come in about an hour ago, ugly as sin.”

  Allen Ring stood wide legged, staring grimly out the door. There was a coolness inside him now that he recognized. He dried his hands carefully.

  “Bilton in town?” He asked.

  “Sure is. Playin’ cards over to the Mazatzal Saloon.”

  “He wear Mex spurs? Big rowels?”

  The man rubbed his jaw. “I don’t remember. I don’t know at all. You watch out”… He warned.

  “Folks are on the prod.”

  Ring stepped out into the street and slogged through the mud to the edge of the boardwalk before the darkened general store. He kicked the mud from his boots and dried his hands again, after carefully unbuttoning his slicker.

  Nobody would have a second chance after this. He knew well enough that his walking into the Mazatzal would precipitate an explosion.

  Only, he wanted to light the fuse himself, in his own way.

  He stood there in the darkness alone, thinking it over. They would all be there. It would be like tossing a match into a lot of fused dynamite.

  He wished then that he was a better man with a gun than he was or that he had someone to side him in this, but he had always acted alone and would scarcely know how to act with anyone else.

  He walked along the boardwalk with long strides, his boots making hard sounds under the (steady roar of the rain. He couldn’t place that spur, that boot. Yet he had to. He had to get his hands on that book.

  Four horses stood, heads down in the rain, saddles covered with slickers. He looked at them and saw they were of three different brands. The window of the Mazatzal was rain wet, yet standing at one side he glanced within.

  The long room was crowded and smoky. Men lined the bar, feet on the brass rail. A dozen tables were crowded with cardplayers. Everyone seemed to have taken refuge here from the rain.

  Picking out the Hazlitt boys, Allen saw them gathered together at the back end of the room.

  Then he got Ross Bilton pegged. He was at a table playing cards, facing the door. Stan Brule was at this end of the bar, and Hagen was at a table against the wall, the three of them making three points of a flat triangle whose base was the door.

  It was no accident. Bilton, then, expected trouble, and he was not looking toward the Hazlitts. Yet, on reflection, Ring could see the triangle could center fire from three directions on the Hazlitts as well. There was a man with his back to the door who sat in the game with Bilton.

  And not far from Hagen, Roily Truman was at the bar.

  Truman was toying with his drink, just killing time. Everybody seemed to be waiting for something.

  Could it be he they waited upon? No, that was scarcely to be considered. They could not know he had found the book, although it was certain at least one man in the room knew, and possibly others. Maybe it was just the tension, the building up of feeling over his taking over of the place at Red Rock. Allen Ring carefully turned down the collar of his slicker and wiped his hands dry again.

  He felt jumpy and could feel that dryness in his mouth that always came on him at times like this. He touched his gun butts and then stepped over and opened the door.

  Everyone looked up or around at once. Ross Bilton held a card aloft, and his hand froze at the act of dealing, holding still for a full ten seconds while Ring closed the door. He surveyed the room again and saw Ross play the card and say something in an undertone to the man opposite him. The man turned his head slightly and it was Ben Taylor!

  The gambler looked around, his face coldly curious, and for an instant their eyes met across the room, and then Allen Ring started toward him.

  There was no other sound in the room, although they could all hear the unceasing roar of the rain of the roof. Ring saw something leap up in Taylor’s eyes, and his own took on a sardonic glint.

  “That was a good hand you dealt me down Texas way”… Ring said. “A good hand!” “You’d better draw more cards”… Taylor said.

  “You’re holdin’ a small pair!”

  Ring’s eyes shifted as the man turned slightly.

  It was the jingle of his spurs that drew his eyes, and there they were, the large rowelled California style spurs, not common here. He stopped beside Taylor so the man had to tilt his head back to look up. Ring was acutely conscious that he was now centered between the fire of Brule and Hagen. The Hazlitts looked on curiously, uncertain as to what was happening.

  “Give it to me, Taylor”… Ring said quietly.

  “Give it to me now.”

  There was ice in his voice, and Taylor, aware of the awkwardness of his position, got to his feet, inches away from Ring.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about”… He flared.

  “No?”

  Ring was standing with his feet apart a little, and his hands were breast high, one of them clutching the edge of his raincoat. He hooked with his left from that position, and the blow was too short, too sudden, and too fast for Ben Taylor. The crack of it on the angle of his jaw was audible, and then Ring’s right came up in the gambler’s solar plexus and the man’s knees sagged.

  Spinning him around, Ring ripped open his coat with a jerk that scattered buttons across the room. Then from an inside pocket he jerked the tally book.

  He saw the Hazlitts start at the same instant! that Bilton sprang back from the chair, upsetting it.

  “Get him”… Bilton roared. “Get him!”<
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  Ring shoved Taylor hard into the table, upsetting it and causing Bilton to spring back to keep his balance, and at the same instant, Ring dropped to a half crouch and turning left he drew with a flash of speed and saw Brule’s gun come up at almost the same instant, and then he fired!

  Stan Brule was caught with his gun just level, and the bullet smashed him on the jaw. The tall man staggered, his face a mask of hatred and astonishment mingled, and then Ring fired again, doing a quick spring around with his knees bent, turning completely around in one leap, and firing as his feet hit the floor. He felt Hagen’s bullet smash into him, and he tottered. Then he fired coolly, and swinging as he fired, he caught Bilton right over the belt buckle.

  It was fast action, snapping, quick, yet deliberate.

  The four fired shots had taken less than three seconds.

  Stepping back, he scooped the tally book from the floor where it had dropped and then pocketed it. Bilton was on the floor, coughing blood.

  Hagen had a broken right arm and was swearing in a thick, stunned voice.

  Stan Brule had drawn his last gun.

  He had been dead before he hit the floor. The Hazlitts started forward with a lunge, and Allen Ring took another step backward, dropping his pistol and swinging the shotgun, still hanging from his shoulder, into firing position.

  “Get back”… He said thickly. “Get back or I’ll kill the three of you! Back, back to where you stood!”

  Their faces wolfish, the three stood lean and dangerous, yet the shotgun brooked no refusal, and slowly, bitterly and reluctantly, the three moved back, step by step.

  Ring motioned with the shotgun. “All of you along the wall!”

  The men rose and moved back, their eyes on him, uncertain, wary, some of them frightened.

  Allen Ring watched them go, feeling curiously light-headed and uncertain. He tried to frown away the pain from his throbbing skull, yet there was a pervading weakness from somewhere else.

  “My gosh”… Roily Truman said. “The man’s been shot! He’s bleeding!”

  “Get back”… Ring said thickly.

  His eyes shifted to the glowing potbellied stove, and he moved forward, the shotgun waist high, his eyes on the men who stared at him, awed.

  The sling held the gun level, his hand partly supporting it, a finger on the trigger. With his left hand he opened the stove and then fumbled in his pocket.

  Buck Hazlitt’s eyes bulged. “No”… He roared.

  “No, you don’t!”

  He lunged forward, and Ring tipped the shotgun and fired a blast into the floor, inches ahead of Hazlitt’s feet. The rancher stopped so suddenly he almost fell, and the shotgun tipped to cover him.

  “Back”… Ring said. He swayed on his feet.

  “Back”… He fished out the tally book and threw it into the flames.

  Something like a sigh went through the crowd.

  They stared, awed as the flames seized hungrily at the opened book, curling around the leaves with hot fingers, turning them brown and then black and to ashes.

  Half hypnotized the crowd watched. Then Ring’s eyes swung to Hazlitt. “It was Ben Taylor killed him”… He muttered. “Taylor, an Bilton was with him. He seen it.”

  “We take your word for it?” Buck Hazlitt demanded furiously.

  Allen Ring’s eyes widened and he seemed to gather himself. “You want to question it? You want to call me a liar?”

  Hazlitt looked at him, touching his tongue to his lips. “No”… He said. “I figured it was them.”

  “I told you true”… Ring said, and then his legs seemed to fold up under him and he went to the floor.

  The crowd surged forward and Roily Truman stared at Buck as Hazlitt neared the stove. The big man stared into the flames for a minute.

  Then he closed the door.

  “Good”… He said. “Good thing! It’s been a torment, that book, like a cloud hangin’ over us all!”

  The sun was shining through the window when Gail Truman came to see him. He was sitting up in bed and feeling better. It would be good to be back on the place again, for there was much to do. She came in, slapping her boots with her quirt and smiling.

  “Feel better?” She asked brightly. “You certainly look better. You’ve shaved.”

  He grinned and rubbed his jaw. “I needed it.

  Almost two weeks in this bed. I must have been hit bad.”

  “You lost a lot of blood. It’s lucky you’ve a strong heart.”

  “It ain’t, isn’t so strong any more”… He said, “I think it’s grown mighty shaky here lately.”

  Gail blushed. “Oh? It has? Your nurse, I suppose?”

  “She is pretty, isn’t she?”

  Gail looked up, alarmed. “You mean, you his “No, honey”… He said, “you!”

  “Oh.”… She looked at him and then looked down. “Well, I guess his “All right?”

  She smiled then, suddenly and warmly. “All right.”

  “I had to ask you”… He said. “We had to marry.”

  “Had to? Why?”

  “People would talk, a young, lovely girl like you over at my place all the time would they think you were looking at the view?”

  “If they did”… She replied quickly, “they’d be wrong!”

  “You’re telling me?” He asked.

  *

  Author’s Note:

  HIS BROTHER’S DEBT

  Gun fighters were many, most of them not known out of their own particular area. The few who did win attention were those who followed the trail towns as gamblers or peace officers.

  The so-called “bounty hunters”… Were almost unknown, and the few who did attempt to pursue that somewhat precarious trade worked at it only occasionally. Rewards were actually rare, difficult to collect, and usually the people of any particular area were only too glad to have a bad man leave the country. They did not want him brought back and they certainly did not want to pay for a killing when, if the situation demanded, they could do it themselves. In the few cases I know of the “bounty hunter” was despised, and no more popular than a rattle snake.

  A gun fighter was no more than a man who was good with a gun and had the misfortune to get into a gun battle and the good fortune to win it.

  After a few such difficulties he became known.

  There were many such men whose names never got into the movies.

  One such man was Johnny Owen, a slender, handsome man usually well-dressed. A man who gambled but neither smoked nor drank (there were many such men, but he was reputed to have killed twenty men, chiefly in self-defense as an officer of the law).

  *

  His Brother’s Debt.

  “You’re yellow, Casady”… Ben Kerr shouted.

  “Yellow as saffron! You ain’t got the guts of a coyote! Draw, curse you. Fill your hand so I can kill you! You ain’t to live”… Kerr stepped forward, his big hands spread over his gun butts. “Go ahead, reach!”

  Rock Casady, numb with fear, stepped slowly back, his face gray. To right and left were the amazed and incredulous faces of his friends, the men he had ridden with on the O Bar, staring unbelieving.

  Sweat broke out on his face. He felt his stomach retch and twist within him. Turning suddenly, he plunged blindly through the door and fled.

  Behind him, one by one, his shamefaced, unbelieving friends from the O Bar slowly sifted from the crowd. Heads hanging, they headed homeward. Rock Casady was yellow. The man they had worked with, sweated with, laughed with. The last man they would have suspected.

  Yellow.

  Westward, with the wind in his face and tears burning his eyes, his horse’s hoofs beating out a mad tattoo upon the hard trail, fled Rock Casady, alone in the darkness.

  Nor did he stop. Avoiding towns and holding to the hills, he rode steadily westward. There were days when he starved and days when he found game, a quail or two, killed with unerring shots from a six-gun that never seemed to miss.

  Once he shot a deer. H
e rode wide of towns and deliberately erased his trail, although he knew no one was following him or cared where he went.

  Four months later, leaner, unshaven, and saddle weary, he rode into the yard of the Three Spoke Wheel. Foreman tom Bell saw him corning and glanced around at his boss, big Frank Stockman.

  “Look what’s comin’. Looks like he’s lived in the hills. On the dodge, maybe.”

  “Huntin’ grub, most likely. He’s a strappin’ big man, though, an’ looks like a hand. Better ask him if he wants a job. With Pete Vorys around, we’ll have to be huntin’ strangers or we’ll be out of help!”

  The mirror on the wall of the bunkhouse was neither cracked nor marred, but Rock Casady could almost wish that it was. Bathed and shaved, he looked into the tortured eyes of a dark, attractive young man with wavy hair and a strong jaw.

  People had told him many times that he was a handsome man, but when he looked into his eyes j he knew he looked into the eyes of a coward.

  He had a yellow streak.

  The first time well, the first time but one that he had faced a man with a gun he had backed down cold. He had run like a baby. He had shown the white feather.

  Tall, strongly built, skillful with rope or horse, knowing with stock, he was a top hand in any outfit. An outright genius with guns, men had often said they would hate to face him in a shootout. He had worked hard and played rough, getting the most out of life until that day in the saloon in El Paso when Ben Kerr, gunman and cattle rustler, gambler and bully, had called him, and he had backed down. tom Bell was a knowing and kindly man.

  Aware that something was riding Casady, he told him his job and left him alone. Stockman watched him top off a bad bronc on the first morning and glanced at Bell.

  “If he does everything like he rides, we’ve got us a hand!”

  And Casady did everything as well. A week after he had hired out he was doing as much work as any two men. And the jobs they avoided, the lonely jobs, he accepted eagerly.

  “Notice something else?” Stockman asked the ranch owner one morning. “That new hand sure likes the jobs that keep him away from the ranch.”