the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  Clymer shrugged. "We're here to ascertain the facts. However, the prisoner should be examined in connection with the killing of Kerb Dahl. What have you to say to that, Haney?"

  "That it is impossible to divide the killing of Dahl from the other sides of the case. Nor is it going to be of any use to talk of it until the events leading up to that point are made plain."

  "Well, that's reasonable enough," Clymer said. "Go ahead."

  Levitt's lips tightened and his nostrils flared. Voyle had walked into the back of the room with Syd Berdue, and they stood there, surveying the crowd. With them was the silent man who had been Dahl's partner.

  "I want to ask Levitt how many hands he had when he came into this country," Ross said evenly.

  Star was puzzled and wary. "Why, not many. What difference does it make?"

  "How many? You used the VV spread, how many hands did you have?"

  "Why, one that actually came with me." The question puzzled Levitt and disturbed him. He couldn't see where it pointed.

  "The one man was that short, dark man at the back of the room, wasn't it? The man called Turner?"

  "That's right."

  Haney turned suddenly in his chair and fired a question at Dahl's partner. "Turner, what's a piggin string?"

  "What?" The man looked puzzled and frightened. The question had startled him, and he was irritated at being suddenly noticed.

  "I asked what a piggin string was. I'd also like to know what a grulla is."

  Turner turned his head from side to side, eager for a way out, but there was none. He wet his lips with his tongue and swallowed.

  "I don't know," he said.

  "These questions make no sense at all!" Levitt said irritably. "Let's get on with the murder hearing!"

  "They make sense to me," Ross replied. Then, turning to Clymer, he added, "You, sir, were raised on a cow ranch, so you know that a piggin string is a short piece of rope used to tie a critter when it's throwed-thrown. You also know that a grulla is a mouse color, a sort of gray, an' usually applied to horses.

  "The point I'm gettin' at is that Levitt came into this country with one man, who wasn't a cowhand. Turner doesn't know the first thing about a ranch or about cattle."

  "What's that got to do with it?" Levitt demanded.

  Clymer was looking at Ross Haney thoughtfully. He began to smile as he anticipated the reply.

  "Why, just this, Levitt. How many cattle did you bring into this country?" Haney demanded sharply. He leaned forward. "An' how many have you got now?"

  Somebody out in the room grunted, and Scott was grinning from ear to ear. The question had caught Levitt flatfooted. Clymer turned on him, his eyes bright with interest. "A good question, Mr. Levitt. On the way here you told me you ran a thousand head. Where did you get them?"

  "That's got nothing to do with it!" Levitt shouted angrily. For the first time he was out in the open, and Ross Haney had led him there, led him by the nose into a trap. As Haney knew, Levitt grew angry when pushed, and it was that he was playing for.

  "Mr. Clymer," Ross interrupted, "I think it has a lot to do with it! This man, claimin' to be a representative rancher, admits comin' into this country with one man who wasn't a cowhand, even if he may be fairly good with a gun. No two men like that are bringin' a thousand head of cattle into this country an' brandin' 'em.

  "But I'll show you that Levitt does have a thousand head, or near to it, an' every one with a worked-over brand!"

  "That's a lie!" Levitt shouted, leaping to his feet.

  Ross settled back in his chair, smiling. "Now ask me about the killin' of Kerb Dahl," he said gently.

  Star Levitt sagged back in his chair, flushed and angry. He had let go of his temper. Despite his burning rage, he knew he was in an ugly position, where Haney, by his fool questions, had led him. The killing led away from the cattle, so he jumped at the chance.

  Before he could speak, Clymer asked Haney, "If he has the branded cattle now, who branded them?"

  "Kerb Dahl, the man I killed on the VV, Voyle of the Box N, Tolman, who hired on after Levitt got here, an' Emmett Chubb, among others."

  "That's absurd!" Levitt said contemptuously.

  "Sherry, name the men you heard talking at Thousand Springs!" Ross asked quickly.

  The sudden question startled her, and before Levitt could catch her eye, she glanced up and replied, "Why, Dahl was there, and Voyle, Tolman and Sydney Berdue."

  "What did they talk about?"

  Levitt was leaning forward in his chair, his eyes upon her. Sherry glanced at him, and her eyes wavered. "Why, I-" Her voice trailed off.

  "Before you answer," Ross told her, "let me tell you that you've been the victims, you and your brother, of the foulest trick ever played."

  Haney turned to Clymer: "Sir, Miss Vernon was concealed near the springs, and overheard some of the plotting between the men mentioned. These were the same men who altered the brands for Levitt. Through them, Levitt engineered and planned the whole fight, forcing an issue between Reynolds and Pogue deliberately, and in the battle, killing the two men who opposed him in the Ruby Hills country. It will no doubt strike you that among the survivors of that battle were all the men seen by Miss Vernon at the springs.

  "Also," he added, "Levitt was blackmailing the Vernons, using their ranch as a storage depot and transfer point for his deals in the opium trade!"

  Chapter XVII

  Desperate Chance

  Knocked off balance by these public revelations, Star Levitt struggled to his feet, his face ashen. The carefully planned coup was tumbling about his ears, and he who had come into the valley as a leader in a dope ring and planned to become the legitimate owner of a great ranch, suddenly saw the whole thing reduced to chaos.

  "Furthermore," Ross got to his feet, and the ringing sound of his voice reduced to silence the stir in the room, "I think this is the proper time to make a few points clear." Opening his shirt, he drew a leather wallet from inside it and from the wallet drew a handful of papers, which he passed to Clymer. "Will you tell Mr. Levitt," he said, "what you have there?"

  Clymer glanced at them and then looked up in amazement. "Why, these are deeds!" he exclaimed, glancing from Haney to Levitt. "These indicate that you are the owner of both Hitson Springs and the Bullhorn ranch headquarters, including the water right. Also, here are papers that show Haney has filed on the Thousand Springs area!"

  "What?" Star Levitt's fingers gripped the arms of his chair, and his brow creased. Before his eyes came the whole plan he had made, all his planning, his actions-all were rendered perfectly futile. Who controlled the water in those three sources controlled the Ruby Hills, and there was no way of circumventing it. From the beginning he had been beaten and now he had been made ridiculous.

  "I told you," Haney said quietly, looking at Levitt, "that you had overlooked the obvious. Somehow, a crook always does."

  "Now, sir," Ross said to Clymer, "with the cattle brands I can show you, the evidence we can produce, I'd say that you have a strong case for robbery and murder against Star Levitt!"

  There was a slight stir in the back of the room, and Haney's eyes shifted. Emmett Chubb was slipping from the room to the street.

  As the accusation rang in the silent room, Star Levitt held himself taut. The crashing of his plans meant less to him now than the fact that he had been shown up for a fool by the cowhand he despised and hated. Suddenly, the rage that was building within him burst into a fury that was almost madness. His face went white, his eyes glassy and staring, and letting out a choking cry, he sprang for Haney.

  Warned by Sherry's scream, Ross jerked his eyes back from the vanishing Chubb and lunged from his chair swinging two brain-jarring blows to the head. They rocked Levitt, but nothing could stop his insane rush, and Haney gave ground before the onslaught. Levitt swung wildly with both hands, beside himself with hate and fury.

  But Ross lunged at him, burying a right in the bigger man's stomach and then hooking a powerful, jarring left
to the chin. Levitt staggered, and Ross, eager for battle, bulled into him, bringing his head down on Levitt's shoulder and smashing away with both hands in a wicked body attack. He threw the punches with all the power built into his shoulders by years of bulldogging steers and hard range work.

  He caught Levitt with a wicked overhand right and battered him back into the chairs. The crowd scattered. From somewhere outside Ross heard the sharp rap of a shot and then another. Then quiet. His right smashed Levitt over a chair, and the big man came up with a lunge, grabbing for the chair itself.

  Ross rushed him and Star tried to straighten, but Haney clubbed him with a fist on the kidney and the big man went to his knees. Ross stepped back, panting. "Get up!" Ross said. "Get up an' take it!"

  Levitt lunged to his feet, and Ross smashed his lips with a sweeping left. He ripped a gash in Levitt's cheek with a right. Star tottered back, his eyes glazed. He straightened then and shook his head, some measure of cunning returning to him. Suddenly he turned and hurled himself through the glass of the window!

  Ross sprang to the window after him and caught a fleeting glimpse of Emmett Chubb as a bullet whirred within a hair of his cheek and buried itself in the window frame.

  There was a clatter of horses' hoofs and then silence.

  Haney's hands fell helplessly. Scott moved up beside him, handing him his guns. "Sorry I couldn't get 'em to you sooner," he said, "but you did plenty without 'em!"

  Clymer caught his arm. "You've loyal friends, Haney. Burt and Mabry stopped the stage outside of town. Levitt had ridden on ahead, and they took time to tell me a lot of things and asked that I get you and the Vernons together with Levitt and withhold judgment until you had talked and I had listened.

  "As it happens," he added, "Neal and I had both been reared on ranches where Mabry worked. We knew him for a good man and an honest one. From the first we had doubts that all Levitt had told us was the truth. Mabry also had a cowhide with him, and any western man could see the brand had been altered from a VV to Three Diamonds."

  Ross shoved his guns into his holsters and pushed his way to Sherry who was standing white and still near the door, waiting for him. He said gently: "Sherry, we can talk about it some other time, but I think I can make a rough guess at most of it. Why don't you go in and get some coffee? I'll join you in a minute."

  Mabry and Burt were waiting outside, and they had the palouse. "We can chase 'em, boss," Roily said, "but they've got quite a start."

  "Later. I heard some shooting. What was it?"

  "That was Voyle," Mabry said grimly. "He made a rush for his horse an' met Roily halfway. He made a grab for his gun an' I guess he wasn't as gunslick as he figured."

  "Tolman?"

  "Roped an' hogtied. He'll go south with the rangers, an' unless I miss my guess, he'll talk all the way. We've got Turner, too."

  "Incidentally," Mabry added, "don't you jump to no conclusions about Kinney an' Scott. I ain't had much time to talk to Scott, but we moved down to May's like you said, an' all three of us seen you follered to Scott's by some of Levitt's crowd.

  "They had us way outnumbered, an' Kinney came up and said if he butted in he might keep you from gettin' killed."

  "That was my idea," Scott put in. "I thought I seen somethin' in the shadows when I let you in, an' then I heard a step outside, an' I knowed I either had to get you as my prisoner or we'd both be in a trap. Chubb would kill you sure as shootin' if he got a chance, but with you as my prisoner I'd have the right to interfere."

  "So then Levitt, Chubb, an' Berdue are the only ones who got away?" Ross mused.

  "Uh-huh," Mabry agreed, and then running his fingers through his coarse red hair, he commented: "That ain't good! I know that sort, an' you can take my word for it, they'll be back!"

  Yet as the days found their way down the year and the summer faded toward autumn, there was no further sign of the three missing men. The mornings became chill, but the sun still lay bright and golden upon the long valley and the view from the growing house upon the mesa top changed from green to green and gold shot through with streaks of russet and deep red. The aspen leaves began to change, and sometimes in the early morning the countryside was white with the touch of frost.

  Rumors came occasionally to their ears. There had been a bank held up at Weaver, a stage had been looted and two men killed at Canyon Pass, and one of the three bandits had been recognized by a passenger as Emmett Chubb. Then the town marshal in Pie Town was shot down when he attempted to question a big, handsome man with a beard.

  When Sherry rode the valley or over into the Ruby Hills, Ross Haney was constantly at her side. The Appaloosa and Flame became constant companions. Despite the fact that no reports came of any of the three men being seen nearby, Haney was worried.

  "Ross," Sherry said suddenly, "you've promised to take me to the crater in the lava beds. Why not today?"

  He hesitated uneasily. "That place has me buffaloed!" he said after a while. "I never go into it myself without wishing I was safely out. The way those big rocks hang over the trail scares a man. If they ever fell while we were in there, we'd never get out, never in this world!"

  She smiled. "At least we'd be together!"

  He grinned and shoved his hat back with a quick, familiar gesture. His eyes twinkled. "That sure would be something, but I'd not like to have you confined in that place all your life. You might get tired of me. This way you can see a few folks once in a while an' maybe I'll wear better."

  "But you've been there so many times, Ross, and Roily tells me it's perfectly beautiful. I want to see the ice caves, too!"

  Below them, there was a faint rumbling and stirring within the mountain, and they exchanged a glance. "I'm getting used to it now," he admitted, "but when I first heard it that rumbling gave me the chills. When we move into the house we'll have those holes fenced off. They are really dangerous."

  "I know. Ever since you took me down there and showed me that awful hole, I've been frightened of it. Suppose someone was trapped down there, with a foot caught or something? It would be frightful!"

  "It would be the end!" Ross replied grimly. "When that geyser shoots up there it brings rocks with it that weigh fifty or sixty pounds, and they rattle around in that cave like seeds in a gourd. You wouldn't have to have a foot caught, either. All you would have to do would be to get far enough away from the mouth of that cave so you couldn't make it in a few steps. A man wouldn't have a chance!"

  They were riding down the mesa through the slender aspens, the graceful white trunks like slender alabaster columns. The trail was carpeted with the scarlet and gold of autumn leaves.

  "Somehow it all seems like some dreadful dream!" she said suddenly. "We'd been so happy, Bob and I. It was fun on the ranch, working with the men, building our own place, learning all the new things about the West. Bob loved handling the horses and working with cattle, and then when we were happiest, Star Levitt came out to the ranch.

  "You can't imagine what a shock it was to us, for we thought all that had been left behind and forgotten. Our brother, the oldest one in the family, had gone down to Mexico and got mixed up with a girl down there and started using dope. He's always been Father's favorite and we all loved him, but Ralph was weak and easily led. Levitt got hold of him and used his name for a front to peddle dope in the States.

  "Father has been ill for a long time with a heart condition that has become steadily worse. He has just two great prides, two things to live for. One is his family reputation and the other his children. Principally, that meant Ralph.

  "We knew about it, but we kept it from Dad, and later when Ralph was killed down there, we managed to keep the whole truth of the story from him. We knew the shock and the disgrace would kill him, and if by some chance he lived, he would feel the shame and the disgrace so much that his last years would be nothing but sorrow.

  "Star told us that he needed our ranch. It was the proper working base for him, not too far from Mexico, yet in easy reach of a number o
f cities. He said he wanted to use the ranch for a headquarters for two months, and then he would leave. If we did not consent, he threatened to expose the whole disgraceful affair and see that my father heard it all.

  "We were foolish, of course, but it is so hard to know what to do. And Levitt didn't give us time; he just started moving in. And next thing we knew he had his own men on the ranch, and we were almost helpless. Reynolds and Pogue were outlaws or as bad, and we could not turn to them. There was nobody, until you came."

  Ross nodded grimly. "Don't I know it? When I started digging into the background of this country I found fewer good people here than anywhere I ever knew. And the best folks were all little people."

  "It was after he had been here a few weeks," Sherry continued, "that he decided to stay. He was shrewd enough to know he couldn't keep on like that forever, and here was a good chance to have power, wealth, and an honest income. He saw that the fighting between the Box N and RR was his chance."

  The two rode on in silence, their horses' hoofs making little sound on the leaf-covered trail. Suddenly, before Ross realized how they were riding, they were at the entrance to the lava bed trail.

  Sherry laughed mischievously. "All right, now! As long as we're here, why don't we go in? We can be back before dark, you told me so yourself!"

  He shrugged. "All right, have it your way."

  Chapter XVIII

  Thirst for Vengeance

  Very reluctantly the Appaloosa turned in to the trail between the great black rolls of lava, leading the way. Once started, there was no turning back, for until a rider was well within the great cleft itself there was insufficient room for any turning of the horses.

  When they reached the deepest part of the crevasse, where in some bygone age an earthquake or volcanic eruption had split the rim of the crater deep into the bedrock, Ross pointed out the great crags suspended over the trail.

  "This place will be inaccessible someday," he told her. "There will be an earthquake or some kind of a jar, and those rocks will fill the cleft so there will be no trail or place for one.