L'Amour, Louis - Novel 06

by To Tame a Land

  It was sundown before we made a turn, and by then the cliffs had turned red and gold with the setting sun.

  Tall spires like church steeples loomed ahead. The cliffs, in those last minutes before darkness filled the canyon, closed in and grew higher, until we were like ants walking between those gigantic walls.

  In the bottom of the canyon it got dark mighty quick.

  “Many in there?” I asked.

  Red struck a match and lit a smoke. “Couple dozen a t headquarters.”

  “Know a gent named Ruskin?”

  Bronc looked around at me. This was a feeler I was putting out, wanting to get a line on Ash Milo without bringing up his name. Ruskin was safe, because if rumors were right he was the man Milo had trouble with. Also , according to the handbills, Ruskin was from the Nation.

  “Friend o’ yours?”

  “Not him… . Well, we had trouble. Come near a shoot-out. I was just figurin’ I’d best watch myself if he was around.”

  “He was,” Red said. “But he ain’t.”

  Leslie spoke up, real satisfied-like. “He’s dead. He made a play for the girl Ash Milo likes, an’ Milo up and killed him.”

  “Ruskin was s’posed to be bad.”

  “Hell!” Leslie spat. “None of them are bad compared to the boss. I never seen a man in the world could sling a gun with him!”

  From another gunman, this was high praise, and me, I figured I’d best start looking at my hole card. Only it might already be too late. If this Milo was as good as they said, I might not stand a chance. But I didn’t believe that. Not many gun fighters will believe they don’t stand a chance.

  For the next hour of riding I heard a lot about Ash Milo. Bronc Leslie, who had few enthusiasms, had one.

  It was Milo.

  “He’s too touchy for my taste,” Red said. “A man has to walk on his toes around him. I never seen a man grab iron so quick, over nothin’.”

  This Leslie did not deny. “He’s touchy, all right,” he admitted. “And maybe he shoots too quick. Someday he’ll kill the wrong man.”

  I’d heard that before. That was what Logan Pollard advised me against. He used to talk to me of that, even while telling me I was good. “You’re fast, kid,” he’d say, “one of the fastest I ever saw, but watch it. You’ll shoot too quick and get the wrong man someday.

  “Gunmen,” he said, “get worse as they get older. They get to figuring everybody is after them. A man has to quit before he gets to that point. That’s why I quit. That’s why I’m lucky to have Mary.”

  Neither of them said anything more about Ash Milo’s girl, and I didn’t want to ask questions. Only, if I was to find out, now was the time. Turning into the narrow canyon back of a plateau, I took a chance and commented , “Hell of a place for a woman! How’d he ever get one to come back here?”

  “Him?” Red chuckled. “He’s a mighty handsome man, and he’s got a slick tongue with the ladies. She come willin’, I guess, only he watches her mighty close, so I reckon she’d leave if she had her chance.”

  Leslie spat. “Too slim for my taste,” he said. “I never could figure that in Ash. Nothin’ between ‘em either. He’s tryin’ to win her honest. Don’t know why he fools around like that.”

  Red was just a black figure in darkness. “She’s all right,” he said quietly. “A mighty fine girl. She sure fixed me up that time after I got shot. Mighty gentle an’ mighty sweet.”

  The high black wall of the canyon was split by a towering cleft, a narrow opening down which the wind gushed like a strong flow of water. When I looked ahead, all was darkness, with only the narrow strip of gray sky above us. This crack was mighty narrow, and, as I was to discover, mighty long.

  When we had been riding maybe a hundred steps, Leslie drew up.

  “Three safe men,” he said aloud.

  “Who?” The voice sounded as if from a cavern.

  “This here’s Leslie, Jim. Red’s with me, an’ a new man, name of Choc Ryan.”

  “Ride ahead, then.” After a minute the voice added , “If that new man ain’t all right, he’ll never ride back out of here.”

  Me, I had a kind of queasy feeling in my stomach about that time. Riding down that narrow crack to get out of here was going to be rugged, mighty rugged.

  “Right back there,” Leslie said, “one o’ the boys got hisself killed. A man don’t speak at the right time, the guard start shootin’. This feller was drunk. It was a bad time to be drinkin’.”

  For maybe a quarter of a mile it was like that, an d then we dipped down into a canyon and ahead of us on a sort of flat we could see lights in some cabins.

  “There’s the Roost, Choc, ” Red said. “She ain’t much, but she’s home, and she’s safe. No marshal or sheriff ever seen it.”

  Chapter 17

  RIGHT THEN I was tired, and I’d no right to be because I was going to have to be on my toes. Just when I would see Ash Milo I had no idea, but I was hoping it would not be tonight.

  Worst of all, I kept racking my brain over what Mustang Roberts had told me: that I was known toAsh Milo. I couldn’t remember him or anybody he might be.

  But if he knew me, I wouldn’t be Choc Ryan much longer. I’d be Rye Tyler, and dead.

  With the weariness of the long ride behind me, all my spirits drained into my boots. How was I to see Liza?

  Suppose she wasn’t even here? If I did see her, what could I accomplish? What fool’s errand was this, anyway?

  I was crazy.…

  Only I was here.

  We got down at the stables and put our horses in stalls. There were some of the finest horses in that barn that I ever did see, and I know horses. They were horses built for speed and bottom. Nobody was going to run these boys down on ordinary horses. Yet I wasn’t worried about the gray. He was one of the runningest horses I ever did see. And he could walk the legs off a coon hound.

  Leslie took off and we followed him. There was a long building with lighted windows, and we went to that. A boardinghouse, sort of.

  Inside, two, three men sat around drinking coffee. One was just eating. He looked tired and some beat, and he had a bloody bandage on his arm. He looked up as we came in. They all looked at me, but nobody spoke.

  Leslie, he done the honors. “Choc Ryan,” he said, “from the Nation.”

  None of them said anything, and then a big Negro came out of the kitchen with a platter of meat and potatoes and put it down beside the tin plate and eating tools.

  That big black boy’s picture was on a poster in my office in Alta. He was wanted for murder. He’d strangled a guard and broke jail.

  There was a pot of coffee on the table and I filled cups for Leslie, Red, and myself.

  The man with the wounded arm glanced at me. “What d’you know? A gent!”

  I grinned at him. “Ain’t that,” I said, “on’y these fellers are tougher than me. I figure I better butter ‘em up a little.”

  He chuckled and we all settled down to eat. But my comment seemed to set right, and they sort of settled down.

  There was a big man across the table with his shirt open almost to his navel. He had a hairy chest and hair climbed up his neck.

  “I’m from the Nation,” he said.

  Here it comes, I thought. Now they ask me questions.

  Only he just said, “Where’d you live?”

  “On the Cimarron,” I said. The trail drive had come through that country and I knew that Leet Bowers had him a hangout on the Cimarron. This fellow might know of that.

  He made a few comments on that Oklahoma country, and I added a few of my own, enough for him to know I’d been there, all right.

  We turned in, bunking on the grass under the trees near the long bunkhouse. None of us wanted to sleep inside, and especially me. By this time I was feeling trapped enough, and I was worried a great deal. This was a tighter fix than I’d reckoned on, and I could see they didn’t trust me none at all.

  Not that anything about me failed to ring true. I
knew I measured up. But men on the dodge can’t afford to be anything but cautious, and I was a stranger.

  The next day we puttered around. I curried my horse and found some corn for him. They had plenty of corn, growing their own, and the men took turns hoeing it.

  Corn-fed horses will outrun any hay-fed horse, and lazy as some of these men might be, they knew they had to have fast horses with plenty of strength.

  Second day I picked up a hoe and walked out there.

  Nobody said nothing, but when I returned after a couple of hours, I saw it set well with them.

  Besides it gave me a chance to look around without being too obvious about it. Any man who uses a hoe leans on it some, and while leaning, I looked the place over.

  There were maybe ten buildings. Three or four were houses. Behind one of them I could see a woman’s clothes on a line. Unless there was more than one woman, that was where Liza would be. It gave me a lift just to be that close.

  But right next door there was another house and two men sat on the stoop. I noticed that at least one of them was there all the time. Nobody was going to get close t o her without trouble, that was sure.

  There wasn’t much talk around, and none about her.

  I did hear a man say the boss was mighty touchy, and he didn’t sound very happy about it.

  One thing I could see, plain enough: Whatever else Ash Milo might be, he had this tough bunch buffaloed to a fare-thee-well. Nobody wanted any part of him, and that included Leslie and Sandoval.

  There was one man there who was a little on the pushy side. It was Chance Vader.

  Second day there, I saw him. He was slick. Smoothshaved and wearing sideburns, he had pressed pants all the time, and he kept his boots shined up. He wore two guns and he wore them low. Me, I am a looking-around man. I saw he had another gun inside his shirt. That was something to remember.

  Chance Vader duded up a good bit and he played cards a lot, and watching him, I saw his eyes straying toward that little gray stone house where Liza was. He looked toward it a lot, and sometimes he strayed toward it, but not often.

  Once one of the men in front of the house next door got up and walked over to him. This was a big, burly man called Smoky Hill.

  I heard raised voices and finally Chance turned and walked back. Red was sitting with me, and he said, lowvoiced. “Trouble there. Chance is too proud of hisself.”

  Talk around was that Chance had killed six men, four of them sure-enough bad men.

  He was salty, that was for true. Anybody tangling with him would have to go all the way.

  There was a saloon, but I stayed away from it. I hung around the stables, took care of my horse, cleaned my guns, and listened to talk. Sometimes we pitched horseshoes.

  All this time I saw nothing of Ash Milo. But I learned that he didn’t come around very much. He stayed up on the hill in a house he had. “Reads a lot,” Red said. “Always after papers and magazines. But he knows what’s going on, for all of that.”

  It was Red told me that Milo scattered crumpled newspapers all over the floor before he got into bed. He wasn’t taking any chances on somebody sneaking up on him in the dark.

  No way I could see for me to get close to Liza. No t even to let her know I was there. And that had to be done.

  Oddly enough, it was Chance Vader who brought it about. Right off, he didn’t like me much. He would be looking at me with a cynical smile, and even Leslie noticed it. Leslie didn’t like me, either. He didn’t trust me. Maybe he didn’t trust anybody. But he liked me better than Chance.

  One day he said to me, “You watch that slick-ear. He’ll start on the prod. He’s mean. He likes to kill, and he’s building a reputation.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  One day I was hoeing corn and had just put down the hoe when I heard a call. “Hey, Choc!”

  It was Smoky Hill, and he was standing in front of what I called the guardhouse.

  Brushing off my hands, I walked up there. My mouth was dry and my stomach felt funny, and here I was, right close to Liza. If it was sure enough her.

  “Look,” Smoky Hill said, “I got to leave here for a little while an’ that damn Vader’s around. You take my place, will you?”

  “If Vader comes up here, what do I do?”

  He looked at me real cold. “Nobody talks to that girl but Milo. You hear that? That means you. But I know you’re all right. You don’t drink, an’ you’re steady. You mind your own affairs. I been watchin’ you.” He hitched his gun belt. “If that Vader comes up here, you stop him. If he gives you an argument, I’ll be hearing about it, and I’ll be along.”

  So he walked off down the hill and I sat down on the step, my heart pounding.

  Liza was in that house next door, and we were in full sight of the camp, and I had to get word to her I was here. But how?

  And then all of a sudden it was easy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her standing at the window, just behind the curtain. So I took off my hat and put it down on the stoop. I hoped she’d know me.

  Stooping forward to pick up a stone, I glanced at the window. She was standing there with the curtain drawn back, slim and straight and lovely, not fifteen feet away , and she knew me. I could see it by the white set of her face. Then she gestured. She meant for me to go.

  Picking up the stone and a few others, I started casually tossing them at a can, like a man killing time. When I stooped for more stones I shook my head and showed her two fingers, meaning that the two of us would go.

  She gestured at me again.

  And then I heard feet walking.

  Chance Vader was standing there sneering at me. “So? You got your eye on the girl, too? She seems ready enough to play.”

  This was real trouble, and I got up. Worse, there was an odd, puzzled look in Vader’s eye.

  “Mighty funny,” he said, staring at me. “She never looks at me, but you she signals to. Now I wonder… .”

  “You do your wondering down the hill,” I said. “My orders are to keep men away.”

  He looked at me and I could see in his eyes that he wanted to kill me, but that wasn’t as much on his mind right now as something else.

  “You got me puzzled,” he said. “I seen you before.”

  He turned his head a mite, the way some folks do, studying me. “And it wasn’t in the Nation. I never been in the Nation.”

  “You go back down the hill,” I said.

  Surprisingly enough, he turned and started to walk off.

  Then he turned around. “Got it!” he said. His voice was hoarse with surprise. “Denver! You’re Ryan Tyler!”

  Smoky Hill was coming. He was almost loping. He was still some distance off.

  “Rye Tyler,” Vader said, “from Alta!”

  There was no choice now. Not if we were to get out of here alive. I had wanted never to kill another man, even one several times a killer, such as this one. Yet if the man told his story, I was a dead man, and worse, Liza would never have her chance. I knew now she was not here willingly.

  Chance Vader’s eyes were shining. There was a cruel triumph in the man. I saw his eyes suddenly sharpen, and his hand moved. Whether he intended to shoot, I’ll never know. My hand dropped to my gun and he was a split second slower.

  My gun cleared leather and exploded. The bullet hit him right over the belt buckle just as his gun muzzle started to tip upward. Stepping one step to the side to cause him to shift aim, I fired again, spotting this one carefully over his shirt pocket. It should have killed him, but it didn’t.

  His lips were parted in a wide grin and he had even white teeth, might nice teeth. A bullet whipped past my skull and then my left-hand gun bucked. It was the first time I’d ever used two guns, and I was surprised when the bullet broke his elbow. But Smoky Hill was running up the slope, and there was no time to be lost. I stepped in closer, both guns hammering.

  For the first time I desperately wanted to kill a man.

  I had to kill him. Liza’s future was at sta
ke, and my life.

  When I stopped shooting I was standing over him.

  Smoky Hill caught my arm as I was reloading. “Tak e it easy, Choc! He’s finished!”

  “Rye!” Vader got it out, his eyes glittering in triumph at me, straining with effort. How he managed it I’ll never know. How a man shot up like that could even draw a breath I don’t know. But he said it again. “Rye!”

  “Hell!” Somebody spoke wonderingly. “Dyin’, an’ he wants a drink!”

  Standing back, thumbing shells into my guns, I knew it wasn’t a drink he wanted, and I was hoping he couldn’t say the other name. If he said it I would die here, only with my guns loaded I wouldn’t go out by myself. I’d take a few along for company.

  Chance Vader had been fast, all right. He had been fast and dangerous and he had sand. Lying there on his back with his lifeblood staining the gravel under him, he still wanted me dead.

  But then it was too late. His eyes glazed over and I stepped back, slipping one gun into my waistband.

  They stood around, a dozen of them, staring at me. I had no idea what to expect, but I had my gun in my hand. It might make the difference.

  “You saved me a job,” Smoky Hill said. “You sure did.”

  Somebody said, looking at the nine bullets I’d put into Vader, “Figured Vader was fast, but-”

  “He was fast,” Smoky Hill said grimly. “I know he was fast. Only Choc here was faster.” He pointed at the body. “And shot straighter. Look. One over the belt buckle, one through the face, and not one of the others missed the heart by over three inches!”

  They all looked at me again, sizing me up, getting it straight in their minds. I had outshot Chance Vader.

  “He was fast, all right. I had to kill him.”

  Red Irons shrugged. “Don’t let it bother you, Choc. There’s a dozen men in this camp wanted to kill him .. . and not over two or three who stood a chance with him.”

  So we walked away down the hill. Suddenly, from being just a drifting outlaw, I had become known as a dangerous gunman, a man to reckon with.

  Inside, the reaction was hitting me. I was sick, wanted to get off alone, but I had to stand the drinks. There had been no way out for me. I’d had to kill him, but this was the first time I ever needed to kill a man. The first time I ever wanted to kill a man. It scared me.