by Abe Dancer
Feeling as if cold, bony fingers were clutching at his vitals, Jack was beginning to better understand the malice of Dawson Cayne.
‘You killed Raul Chama because he was my friend?’ he rasped.
‘Sure I did, and I’ve an eye for that pretty Whitewater nurse. But that’s for after I’ve settled you. Somehow I’m makin’ up for what your pa and the others did.’
‘You’re talking gibberish, Cayne. What the hell’s my pa got to do with this?’
‘Don’t you remember the day my brother died?’
‘Yeah, I remember. He was thrown from a horse.’
‘Did you know, your pa and them other two were wagering on my brother? Lew didn’t want to ride. He thought he’d be considered yellow if he backed down. So he climbed on that claybank beast and got himself killed, and others made money from it.’
Sweat covered Jack’s face, ran between his shoulder blades.
‘So, and after all this time you decided to shoot a few people . . . innocent people.’
‘I never set out to shoot anyone. My pa made me promise when he left us. It was him tried to shoot your pa an’ the others when he learned how Lew died. They arrested him for attemptin’ it, but he was already goin’ mad. He got worse after that an’ they shifted him to a nuthouse in the middle of a goddamn forest. Every other month, me an’ Ma went to visit him.’
Jack listened quietly. He realized the man was close to an overwhelming, emotional crisis, that if he, Jack, made a wrong move, Cayne would probably shoot him. ‘What about her . . . your ma? What did she want?’ he asked flatly.
‘I don’t know. She never said. I got home one day and she was sitting in her chair staring out the widow with a half-smile on her face. She died that way . . . just given up.’
The ensuing silence was bad. It was a few more moments before Cayne continued.
‘I had a dead ma and a crazy pa. That ain’t much for a youngster. Pa didn’t last long after that. He made me promise to do the killings. “Vengeance is mine”, he said. But I think he meant me.’ Cayne went quiet for a while. ‘There was no money to give either of ’em a decent-lookin’ plot,’ he said.
‘That’s too bad, Cayne. And you were both wrong. You and your pa. So what now . . . now the talking’s done? Maybe you won’t hang on grounds of derangement, indisputable motive or something. If not, you’ll have to kill again. If I live, somehow I’ll kill you. That’s called self-defence, and it’s legal.’
Cayne backed off.
‘I promised Pa,’ he said after a long pause. ‘That’s more or less what I came to tell you. Meantime, you’re goin’ to breathe shallow, wonderin’ when.’
Jack was already considering his escape, crouching to be nearer the hard-packed dirt floor. He sprang up, leapt forward bending low, took six fast and desperate steps out through the double doors into the night.
He hadn’t got to the safety cover of anywhere before a bright flame ignited ahead of him. He threw himself down as the rifle blasted off in front and to the side. He knew it was difficult for Cayne to make a shot from behind him. He wouldn’t have time to aim, and it was dark. But he’d overlooked Fishback, who was ready and waiting for the opportunity. He cursed as the foreman’s bullet snatched at the ground beside him. He stared up ahead, in the flash of light saw the man’s face, the glistening, gimlet eyes, the gun barrel levelling for a more measured shot.
The rifle shot crashed out madly, the orange flame lighting the yawning darkness of the livery entrance. Ahead of him John Fishback dropped his rifle, took a step back and collapsed, falling face down and dead into the yard.
Ralph Kettle ran from the house. He was joined by Walter Bishop even before he reached Fishback’s body.
‘What the hell happened?’ he shouted.
Jack, blinking himself into alertness, staggered to his feet.
‘I don’t know,’ he told them. ‘But it’s Cayne, like I said. He was in the barn. I ran out and Fishback fired. It must have been Cayne who shot him.’
Kettle and Bishop peered around them into the darkness, back towards the livery.
‘Is he still in there?’ Kettle asked.
‘I guess so,’ Jack said. ‘He’s not got many options left.’
Hector Bream called out from the cookhouse. ‘That’s where the shot came from, an’ no one’s come out. Is Fishback hurt bad?’
‘He’s dead,’ Bishop yelled back.
‘You want me out there with you?’
‘No, Hec. Get yourself around the barn – behind it,’ Kettle replied. ‘Shout out when you’re there. We’ve got the front covered.’
Kettle handed Jack the big Army Colt. ‘You’re sure working your way through my gun rack, son,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope you soon get to use one.’
‘John’s dead,’ Bishop said bleakly. ‘What is happenin’ here?’
‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ the rancher said, turning to Jack. ‘If John was shooting at you, why should he care? You reckon he’s still in the barn?’
‘Yeah, quietly waiting to make his escape, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Jack said.
‘You didn’t answer me,’ Kettle pursued. ‘Why should he care who shoots you?’
‘Because he wants to do it . . . in time. It’s his killing game. And this isn’t the time or place to explain.’
‘Me an’ John should have gone with the Mexicans. All of us should,’ Bishop muttered.
‘I can’t see anythin’,’ Hector Bream suddenly called out. ‘It’s as black as pitch.’
‘So let’s go,’ Kettle said, and with all guns actioned, the three men advanced warily on the barn.
‘I’ve got a lamp. I’ll light it when we get up close,’ Bishop breathed. ‘I’ll toss it inside. If he’s in there we’ll know soon enough.’
‘The man I’ve just met probably likes flames around him,’ Jack replied caustically.
At the entrance Walter Bishop struck a match and lit the lantern. The moment the light grew he looked at Kettle, who nodded. He hurled the lamp inside, it flew in a big arc that took it a long way into the barn.
The flames grew instantly and Jack saw that Cayne was at the rear of the building, where a crude ladder led to the hay loft.
‘No way out up there, Señor Diablo,’ he mumbled. ‘That’s your first mistake.’
Bishop ran into the barn, in one movement scooped up the lamp and overarmed it up to the hayloft. The atmosphere, thick with dust and dry duff practically exploded. Instantly a burst of flame billowed and filled the vaulted roof space.
Clambering on to the platform of beams, Cayne became lost in the roiling blaze.
‘The whole barn’s going to burn,’ Kettle yelled. ‘There’s nothing we can do now. Back off.’
‘There’s a couple o’ horses in there,’ Bishop gasped.
A section of clapboard wall was now running with flames rising from the floor.
Kettle took a long, tortured look and shook his head.
‘I know. I know. But it’s too late.’
Jack looked up, thought he saw Cayne trying to beat away the engulfing flames. Some of the roof shingles fell away. They landed as sparkling embers on the loft’s puncheon beams, and rafters lit up one by one as the fire took hold.
CHAPTER 16
Hector Bream’s eyes were large in the firelight. He held up a hand to shield his face against the heat from the disintegrating building.
‘Nothing can stop it,’ Ralph Kettle muttered, staring in shock and disbelief. ‘We’re lucky there’s no wind tonight.’
Jack looked around for Bishop, saw him kneeling beside Fishback’s body.
‘He’s dead. What are you looking for?’ he asked.
Bishop rose to his feet. ‘He owed me twenty dollars. I got ten of ’em. I can’t afford not to.’
‘Fair enough,’ Jack replied.
Kettle pointed for Bream to let the panicky horses out of the corral.
‘Don’t worry,’ he called. ‘They’ll run ’emselves out and come home, eventually.
’
‘How many did we lose?’ the cook asked.
‘I don’t think we lost any in the end. The shavetails kicked their way out and ran off towards the lower pasture. They’ll come back too, when they realize there’s only grass and water down there.’
‘You think he’s still in here?’ Bishop asked.
‘He didn’t look like he was going far the last time I saw him,’ Jack said. ‘But nothing’s certain.’
The barn was a mass of low flames, cinders and pungent smoke. The whole building had been gutted in a matter of minutes, there had never been any chance of putting the fire out. Watching the falling embers, Kettle told Bishop and Bream to fill water buckets and carry them to the main house.
‘In case the wind gets up,’ he explained. He turned to Jack. ‘I asked you why Cayne should stop John from shooting you. You didn’t say.’
‘I did. I told you. He wants to be the one to do it.’
‘So why didn’t he?’
‘If he’d known he was going to die there and then, he would have,’ Jack replied. Kettle looked back at the fire.
‘Then you figure he’s dead?’
‘If he’s in here, yes. He came down with the loft beams and the rafters on top of him. Who could live through that?’
‘Tomorrow we’ll check the place out. There’s plenty more whiskey in the house if you want, Jack.’
‘No thanks. I’ll stay here till the fire burns itself out.’
‘Can’t think what the hell for. I’m going back. Join me if you change your mind.’
Jack didn’t reply as Kettle walked off towards the house. He felt the lucky acorn given him by Connie and gave a thin smile. She was due to arrive early the following week, but now the two men who were a risk to her safety were dead. He’d reckoned on staying about ten days, so he wasn’t too far out. Besides, he wanted to know about his bayo mare, and he ought to tell her the bona fortuna acorn was still working.
Rubbing circulation and feeling back into his arms and legs, Jack looked at the body of John Fishback. Maybe he should have got help to carry him inside, but he didn’t.
‘I’m not that big a fraud,’ he muttered, guessing that Kettle had felt the same.
The lamp was out when Bream and Bishop entered the bunkhouse and laid Fishback’s body out on a bunk.
‘At least he ain’t a mean son of a bitch any longer,’ Bishop said. He darted a glance towards Jack. ‘You awake there?’
Jack didn’t move or say anything. He wasn’t faking sleep, just lying tired and silent.
‘I guess we can all rest a little easier now that backshootin’ snake’s got burned,’ Bream said.
‘Hey, Jack,’ Bishop continued, ‘Tomorrow we’ll go look for that devil man o’ yours. Perhaps we can make medicine bones from him, like the Apaches do with us white folk.’
‘Shut it, Walt,’ Bream snapped. ‘You’re just jealous ’cause he’s sleepin’. It’s sure what I’d like to be.’
Bream and Bishop were snoring long before Jack found his own sleep. In his mind he’d shot Dawson Cayne dead a dozen times and in as many ways. But in the real, he’d never got the chance to fire a single shot at his wife’s killer. What troubled him was whether he would have been able to face Cayne in a cold shoot-out. He was no gunsman, so would his hand and heart remain steady? Would he ever know for sure?
His eyes were open when daylight coloured the bunkhouse windows. He was eager, uncaring and reluctant all at the same time, to see how real the night’s events had been. Not having bothered to undress in the early hours, he was soon up and stepping out into the cold morning.
Jack pulled the door to behind him and stared at the fire-rased building across the yard. Only the main structure remained, blackened posts that fingered the pale sky. He used a hay fork to poke and turn the charred debris. Ten minutes later Walter Bishop was standing beside him.
‘You ain’t found anythin’, have you?’ the man almost whispered.
‘No, but he’s here someplace. I saw him on fire. Help me look.’
‘Where? We’d have to dig to Hades to find him, an’ you know it.’
Jack felt a splash of rain on the back of his hand and lifted his eyes to the early light. He swore and speared the fork into the ashes.
‘He’s still alive,’ Bishop said. ‘You best pack an’ run, Jack, ’cause it ain’t us he’s after.’
Jack knuckled his eyes. ‘He’s flesh and blood like you and me. So wherever he is, whatever the hell he’s doing, he’s burnt bad.’ He brushed past the burly man and looked around the yard, out towards the hills.
‘Figurin’ on riding after him?’
‘Something like that,’ Jack grunted. ‘Is there a spare saddle?’
‘There’s stuff in the tack house. Want me to go find a horse?’
‘No, I think I’ll do this on my own. Thanks.’
‘Do what on your own?’ a voice said.
Jack turned to face Ralph Kettle.
‘Nothing here but the barn, eh Jack?’ the rancher said gravely. ‘Hell, I can see it in your face. Walt, wake up Hec. Get some rope and fetch us some horses. I’ve got to go see a man about something.’
‘Hold on a minute. This is my trouble,’ Jack protested.
‘That’s more or less what you said yesterday, son,’ Kettle said and nodded at Bishop. ‘Get the horses.’ Then he turned back to Jack. ‘Don’t you understand?’ Kettle appealed. ‘This is my chance to face up to something.’
‘I understand that, but this isn’t to do with you,’ Jack said firmly. ‘It wasn’t your wife.’
‘But this is my ranch, and they’re my men he’s killed. That’s worth a ride with you, surely?’
‘Look, Mr Kettle, do you think I’m looking forward to pitting myself against a malicious psychopath? You think I’ll hold out if and when I find him?’
‘I don’t rightly know. You’re not running away like I did.’
Jack nodded. ‘That’s because for me, running to and running from’ve become the same thing. My guts were in real trouble last night when Cayne held a gun to my head. That’s not happening again.’
‘Let me help. I really do understand.’
‘OK. Maybe you’re owed that. As long as you also understand that if Cayne’s still alive not all of us will be coming back.’
CHAPTER 17
An hour before noon the four men began their climb. It was at the place from where Rico had been shot. Stopping, they peered upward.
‘From here on in you could be in his sights,’ Jack said. ‘One thing’s for sure, he was hurt by fire and in pain. But don’t rely upon it slowing him down.’
Amid the trees he picked up a cartridge case and showed it to the others.
‘This is about where he fired on Rico,’ he said, turning over the brass case. ‘Probably a .50-calibre buffalo rifle.’
‘I used to own a fine Henry repeater,’ Kettle said, without nuance or even a glance towards Jack. ‘But I’ve brought a Sharps big fifty along. Didn’t think I’d ever use either of ’em.’
Jack eyed the big rifle protruding from the rancher’s saddle scabbard.
‘Let’s continue hoping you don’t,’ he said. ‘From here on we go slow and separate. Keep looking ahead, try not to give him target. But if he opens up, try to go to ground, fast.’
The riders were fatigued with nervous tension when they cleared the trees and confronted the foothills.
‘Let’s haul in for a moment,’ Bishop gasped. ‘I haven’t breathed for ten minutes.’
Kettle eased himself from the saddle, sat quietly on a low rocky mound.
Jack took a searching look around him, his eyes following a course that wound up towards a towering, craggy outcrop. He looked for a shape, a movement, anything that might give Cayne’s position away.
‘You’re up there somewhere, you son of a bitch,’ he muttered as he dismounted. Hector Bream sat beside him.
‘What happens after we get this Cayne feller?’ he asked. ‘You sure wo
n’t be settlin’ down here.’
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead. How about you, Hec? Are you staying on at the RK?’
The man gave a wily grin. ‘I would like to go home, but I ain’t got one. I’ve been workin’ between here an’ the Colorado since I was knee high. So, when all this is done, what say you an’ me go partners? We can ride to one o’ them land states an’ get a passel? A hundred an’ twenty acres, I hear.’
‘It’s a thought. Why not?’ Jack said. It was why not because Jack hadn’t considered doing anything beyond Dawson Cayne. Of a sudden, the ranch’s biscuit roller was talking about life the day after.
‘Come on,’ Kettle said. ‘The day’s not getting any longer.’ The rancher grabbed his horse, checking that his rifle was secure.
Bishop frowned at the mountains above and beyond.
‘Given a chance, I’m goin’ to do somethin’ real bad when we meet that polecat,’ he asserted. ‘John Fishback was one of us.’
They climbed higher until the air thinned and they were once again exhausted. The snow line was getting closer, and they could feel its chill, blowing across their faces. Jack looked at his stemwinder and shook his head.
‘We’ll have to head back now if we want to beat the dark. Else we camp here for the night.’
‘We make camp. I’m not turning back,’ Kettle said stubbornly. ‘A fire might draw him in.’
‘Goddamnit again,’ Bream complained, sitting down and starting to remove a boot. ‘I didn’t reckon on bein’ your mantrap.’
‘You’re not,’ Kettle replied. ‘Unless you’re close up to the fire he won’t know where the hell you are. That goes for all of us. The man’s going to be colder’n a witch’s tit tonight. He’ll either want his own fire or ours. Either way, he loses. You understand me?’
Bishop’s eyes creased up with thinking.
‘Sounds like you been at the jimson, boss,’ he said. ‘Now you got sand for us all.’
The words hit Kettle like a punch in the belly. He shook his head, stared thoughtfully into the middle distance.
Bishop pulled a bottle from is hip pocket, bit out the cork and held it out to Kettle.
