There were only two people in the cafe. A slender, attractive girl in a gray suit, and a man.
The man sat alone at a table facing the door. He wore a gray flannel shirt with a black silk neckerchief, black jeans, and he wore two guns tied low down on his thighs. His black, flat-crowned hat was on a hook nearby. As Ben entered, the man looked up, measuring him with careful eyes. Ben Tetlow never forgot that glance. It had in it something wary and unfathomable. It was the expression of a man who knew what it meant to command.
His eyes went again to the tall girl. She was more than attractive, she was really lovely. Suddenly, more than anything else in the world, he wanted to know her.
The man in black got to his feet and picked up his hat. He laid some coins on the table and glanced again at Ben. His glance now was friendly. “Good grub,” he said, “you’ll never find anything like that in a cow camp!”
Ben’s smile was quick. “That’s what I hear.”
The tall man stopped by the girl’s table. “Are you enjoying your stay Miss Webster? I’m afraid there isn’t much to do unless you like to ride.”
“Oh, but I do! I love to ride!” Then she said quickly, “You have forgiven me, haven’t you?”
He nodded, smiling. Then he excused himself and started for the door.
Ben Tetlow looked after the tall rider. “Forgive her for what?” he wondered.
He swallowed, then cleared his throat. “Seems like a nice fellow,” he ventured.
She looked at him gravely with the expression of a little girl who has been taught not to talk to strangers. “Yes, he is nice, and I’m so ashamed! I said some simply awful things to him! But you see, I had just come out west, and I saw him shoot a man.”
“I know what you mean. It is never nice to see a man shot. Not even when he deserves it.”
“This one did,” Laurie said seriously. “I’m sure of it.”
Chapter 3
LANCE KILKENNY HAD seen Ben Tetlow and surmised who he was and, walking outside to the boardwalk that ran along before the buildings, he frowned as he considered the situation.
There would be no avoiding the Tetlows or their riders. In the first place there were too many of them, and in the second the town was too small. What he wanted now was to find out what had been done, if anything. He was standing on the street when he saw Sheriff Macy come from his office in company with a tall, rather stooped young man. That this was Phin Tetlow he did not know, but he did see the 4T brand.
Why were the Tetlows calling on the sheriff? And Macy’s face was stern. Kilkenny watched them pass, then turned and crossed the street to the sheriff’s office and jail. An oldster with a handlebar mustache sat with his feet on the desk. He nodded at Kilkenny. “Howdy! What can I do fer yuh?”
Kilkenny shrugged and smiled deprecatingly. “Nothing, really. Sort of loafin’.” He jerked his head to the east. “Macy looked some upset.”
The old jailer spat at the spittoon and scored dead center. “Ain’t missed in ten year,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “He should be upset. Carson had him an argyment an’ tried to drag iron on Dee Havalik. The man must have been crazy!”
“Carson?” Kilkenny shook his head. “Don’t know him.”
“He’s been batchin’ out east o’ here, got him a little two by four spread, few cows, good water. That young Tetlow said they went there to try to buy the place off him an’ he ordered ’em off. When they tried to argy with him, he dragged iron an’ Havalik shot him.”
So it had started already! Kilkenny sat down and pushed his hat back on his head, stretching out his long legs. Wryly, he shook his head. “That Havalik,” he said quietly, “I hear he’s pretty slick with a gun.”
“One o’ the best,” the jailer shook his head. “Carson must’ve been crazy.”
“Anybody else see it?” Kilkenny asked innocently. “I mean anybody but the Tetlow outfit?”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t reckon there was, but it sure don’t make much diff’rence. Hombre like Tetlow wouldn’t be startin’ trouble with small fry like Carson. What would he want from him? Other way around, I wouldn’t be s’prised.”
Kilkenny shrugged, then he said ironically, “Yes, Carson might have tried to take Tetlows herd away from him. He might have figured that fifty to one was about the right odds. Tetlow,” Kilkenny added, “wouldn’t think o’ tryin’ to steal Carson’s land, or force him off it.”
He got to his feet, noticing out of the corners of his eyes that the jailer was scowling thoughtfully. “Reckon I’ll look around a mite. See you.”
The sun lay lazily upon the town. A red hen pecked at some refuse lying in the dust, and a black and white shepherd dog flicked a casual tail at flies. Kilkenny strolled up to the Pinenut Saloon and rolled a smoke, leaning against the awning stanchion.
It was coming now and there would be no getting away from it. What would Leal Macy do? How much support would he get from this town? The jailer had seemed disposed to accept Tetlow’s story without question, although Kilkenny’s remarks might have planted doubt in his mind. Yet so many were willing to accept without question the word of any man who seemed to have money and power. Macy was not such a man, but could he get the local support necessary? Jared Tetlow had overnight altered the entire economic situation at Horsehead, becoming the largest single buyer to be found, and buying more than any three outfits in the area. Some of the local tradesmen would be afraid of running him out.
He heard the rattle of a buckboard and glanced up to see Doc Blaine come rolling down the street. He recognized the man from the black medical bag he carried and his manner. It could have been nobody but the town doctor. He pulled up in front of the Pinenut and got down, tying his team. “This isn’t really necessary,” he commented, faintly humorous, “these horses will stand in front of any saloon in the country. They know their master.”
Kilkenny grinned, shifting his feet. “Have you been out to Carson’s place?”
Blaine shook his head and looked curious. “What’s the matter with him? That hard-bitten old coot isn’t sick, is he?”
“He’s dead. Dee Havalik shot him.” Casually, Kilkenny repeated the story, watching Blaine’s reaction. The doctor’s eyes sharpened with attention and he nodded as though it followed some secret thought of his own.
“It begins to look,” he said, “as if I may get a lot of unwelcome business.”
“Could be.” Kilkenny waited a minute, then asked, “Who lives near Carson’s place?”
“Chap named Carpenter is his closest neighbor. Has a nice little place and a wife. They are good people—and they wouldn’t take any nonsense.”
“Any others?”
“Old Dan Marable. He sold out to this KR outfit, but kept a few acres for his own use, and then there’s a family named Root. Man and wife and two young boys. They have about three or four hundred head down there, and the KR, of course.”
“There may be more trouble.”
Doc Blaine studied Kilkenny with alert, interested eyes. “You’re looking ahead, my friend. What’s your part in all this?”
“That,” Kilkenny replied, “will be left to time. But I’m curious about Carson. You think he would draw a gun on a party of armed men?”
Blaine considered that. “No,” he said finally, “he’s no fool. He wouldn’t put a hand near a gun with Dee Havalik around. And so far as I know, he never carried a six shooter. Only a rifle when out for game.”
Blaine went into the saloon and Kilkenny walked out to his horse and swung into the saddle. He would be better off at home minding his own business, but if trouble was coming to the KR and to Nita, he wanted to know it.
He took the east road out of town and lifted the buckskin into a space-eating canter. When he found a trail leading off south, he took it, and finally found a crude sign painted with the one word Carpenter’s and an arrow. He followed along into the late dusk, and came up to the house, riding carefully.
A man’s voice
called out. “Hold it, stranger! Don’t come no further!”
Kilkenny drew up and replied, “I’m friendly, Carpenter. Friendly, and curious.”
“Don’t get you.”
“Had any visitors lately?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Like I said, I’m curious. I’d sort of like to talk a little.”
“I’ve got nothin’ to say. Nothin’ at all. And,” he added dryly, “I never seen you before.”
“I’m Trent. Just a loose-footed hombre who has a curious mind. I’m sort of wonderin’ where a man would put ten or fifteen thousand head of cattle in this country without crowdin’ a lot of other folks.”
There was a silence and then low conversation within the house. Finally, Carpenter spoke again. “Get down and come in, but don’t try nothin’ fancy. We folks got faith in shotguns.”
Kilkenny swung down and trailing the reins, walked up to the house, keeping his hands wide. A bar was removed from the door and he entered.
Carpenter was a solid looking citizen, and his wife had the firm, quiet face of a woman who knew how to build a home and had courage enough to build it anywhere. Carpenter on his side measured the tall man in the black jeans and gray shirt with a thoughtful eye. “What on your mind?” he said at last.
“Why, nothin’ much.” Kilkenny dropped astride a chair. “Heard Carson got killed an’ I was wonderin’ whether you’d had visitors.”
“I had ’em, all right.” Carpenter told his story briefly and without decoration. “I reckon,” he finished, “it was only my woman saved me, an’ her only because they didn’t like the looks o’ the shotgun. Maybe,” he added, “because they’d already had trouble with Carson.”
Kilkenny told them what he knew of Tetlow and the thousands of cattle they were bringing over the trail, and he hinted that he had an interest, purely personal, in the KR. Carpenter chuckled and his wife smiled. “I reckon,” he said, “it don’t take no wizard to figure out why. That Nita Riordan is a wonderful girl.”
“Don’t mention me to them,” Kilkenny requested, “that will come in good time. But I know Brigo an’ you can count on him to stick. You should have a talk with her.”
“Good advice,” Carpenter agreed. “Talkin’ with old Dan an’ some others wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”
Kilkenny returned to his horse and drew it back into the trees. For several minutes he watched and listened with care natural to him after the years of his life. Then he mounted and took another route homeward. It was customary for him to do that, also. It could have been merest chance that the trail he took skirted the holdings of the KR and neared the house at one place.
He drew up when he saw the lights and he sat there a long time, looking at them. There, where those lights glowed softly in the evening, was the only girl he had ever loved. There, no more than two hundred yards away, with all her warmth, her beauty, her tenderness and her humor. A girl to walk beside a man, and walk with him, not behind him. He rolled a smoke and lighted up, and spoke softly to Buck. “She’s there, Buck, old boy, there in that house. Remember her, Buck? Remember how she looked the first time we saw her? Remember the light in her eyes and the way her lips parted a little? Remember her, Buck?”
The horse stirred under him, and he spoke to it softly, then rode on, and riding on, he did not look back. Had he looked back he would have seen a big man, broad and powerful, step from the darker shadows and stare after him. A man who carried a rifle, and who after a moment of waiting, lighted his own cigarette revealing a strongly handsome, yet savage face. And when he walked away with the cigarette cupped in his palm, his feet made no sound, but moved silently through the brush and grass, silently even over the gravel.
He walked up toward the house, and nearing it, saw another man seated in the black opening of the bunk-house door. “It’s me, Cain.” The man’s voice was low, a soft, fluid tone. “He was out there tonight, Cain.”
Cain Brockman came to his feet, a huge man, bulking an easy two forty in jeans and a hickory shirt. Twin guns were belted to his hips. “You mean…Kilkenny?”
“Si, amigo.” Jaime Brigo drew deep on his cupped cigarette. “And I am glad.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
Brigo shrugged. “Who knows? I have not thought. Maybe he does not wish it.”
“Yeah, although he’s crazy not to. What man in his right mind would run away from such a woman as that?”
Brigo did not answer, taking another deep drag on the cigarette and then crushing it out in the earth at his feet. “Perhaps, amigo, he does well. Who knows when such a man may die? He thinks of that.”
“Anybody who kills him,” Cain said gruffly, “will have to shoot him in the back! Nobody ever lived could drag a gun like him.”
“They shot Wild Bill so. Have you forgotten? Be sure that he has not. But I am glad he is here, for there will be trouble with the Forty.”
Brockman agreed to that. “When wasn’t there trouble with the Tetlows? Don’t I know? I was in Uvalde when they started that fight with the McCann outfit.”
He sat down again, then he wondered aloud, “Where’s he livin’? Suppose he’s got him a place?”
Brigo did not reply, and Brockman turned to repeat the question and saw the big Yaqui was gone. He had slipped away with no more sound than a ghost.
Jamie Brigo tapped softly on the door of the ranch house and he heard the reply. Opening the door, he stepped in, a huge man, big-chested and yet moving like a cat.
Nita Riordan smiled quickly, a tall girl with long green eyes and very black lashes. “Come in, Jaime! It’s good to see you. What has been happening?”
Briefly, the big Yaqui explained to her about the shooting of Carson and the threatening of Carpenter, of which he had heard almost at once. They had talked of this before, and he had been working for the family long before her father’s death and knew how this girl felt about such things. He told her what he had been able to find out about the Tetlows and how they had come into the country with their immense herds, many wagons, and Tetlows four sons—of whom but three were left.
“The other?”
“He was killed at Clifton’s.” Brigo hesitated and Nita looked up quickly, her face suddenly white.
“Jaime! Was it…was it Lance?”
The Yaqui shrugged. “I do not know, señorita. It was a tall man in black. He was riding through. It was young Tetlow who began it. He forced the fight on the other man, who was already wounded.”
“Do you think we’ll ever see him again, Jamie?”
Brigo hesitated, tempted to tell her of what he had seen this night, yet he was torn between two loyalties, that to his employer and friend, and that to the man she loved—who was also his friend. And whom he understood as few men could. “I think—yes, I think so,” he said at last. “He will come back one day, when you need him he will come.”
“You sound so sure.”
“And you?” Jaime asked shrewdly. “Are you not sure?”
“Yes, I guess I am.” She got up quickly. “Jaime, is Cain out there on watch? If he is, why don’t you have him come in? I’ll make some coffee for both of you. Marie has gone to bed.”
Brigo nodded and turned to the door. He was gone almost without a sound. Nita walked through the short hallway to the kitchen. Had she been imagining it, or had Jaime seemed too sure? Had he seen Kilkenny? She shook her head, dismissing the thought. No, he would not be here, of all places. Yet deep within her she knew it was not only possible but probable, for Kilkenny moved in the loneliest places, and the newest countries, and this one was new.
Then her mind turned to the threat implied by the coming of Tetlow. Accustomed to border warring, she understood what that threat meant as well as any cowhand or rancher in the country. She knew much of men such as he, and knew that he must have not a little land, not a little range, but lots of it. All there was here would not be too much. Realistic as she was, she also foresaw the influence the buying power would have o
n the businessmen of Horsehead. They would be reluctant to make any move that would in any way displease so big a potential customer, never foreseeing what he could mean to them with his grasping and autocratic way.
What should she do? That alone she did know. Within a few days she would be faced with the problem and it was not one that pleased her. Better able to resist than the others, because she not only had made friends in town but she had several very able men who were not only excellent hands but who were gun handlers as well. As far as Cain Brockman and Brigo were concerned, she knew that with the possible exception of Havalik the Forty outfit had nobody who could equal them, let alone top them. The Forty had many more, but remembering the lessons learned from her own experiences and those learned from Kilkenny, she had built here with the realization that a time might come when the place would have to be defended, and it could be. Moreover, behind her was the towering wall of Comb Ridge, practically shutting off all advance from that direction.
The four hands that she now employed other than Brigo, who acted as foreman, were all good men and personally known to her. Cain Brockman was not only a good fighting man and cunning, but he was loyal to the death. It was strange the influence that Kilkenny had had upon the former outlaw. That Brockman had been a killer she knew. How many men lay behind him she did not know, but it was generally estimated that he had killed over a dozen before meeting Kilkenny.
Pacing the floor nervously, she waited for them to come in, and when the door opened, she looked up smiling. Cain came in first, a burly, clumsy-looking man with huge fists, a thick, muscular neck and a hairy chest visible through his opened shirt. His nose had been flattened and he had heavy cheekbones and a heavy jaw, one of the toughest-looking men she had ever seen.
“Evenin’, ma’am,” he said, “sure is nice o’ you to have us in for coffee. You make the best coffee I ever did drink.”
“Thanks, Cain. Are the rest of the boys asleep?”
The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 4
