“Well, we got us a little cave back yonder. We lived there for a spell before we built the house, and we’re used to makin’ do. I mean, we never had much, so we’re used to doin’ without. If we can keep this land we can be well fixed in a year or two, with me and the boy workin’ it ourselves.”
“You’ll keep it,” Lance said quietly, “or else I made a long ride for nothing.”
Mort Davis had done much to make the West a fit place in which to live, and he was getting old now and deserved the rewards of his years. Neither the big outfits nor any gang of outlaws were going to drive him out if Lance could prevent it.
“Who knew that Sam Carter was to meet me?” Lance asked.
“Nobody I know of. He’s a puncher who started a little herd over west of here. He was just settin’ down to supper with us when the shootin’ started and I asked him to find you.”
Lance described the nature of his trouble in Botalla, and added an account of his run-in with Tana Steele.
“I’d given a purty to’ve seen that,” Mort said, chuckling. “She’s had her head for a long time. Drives that buckboard like a crazy woman! But she’s quite a girl. She can ride anything that wears hair, and she will! Best lookin’ woman around here, unless its Nita Riordan.”
“She’s the woman who runs Apple Canyon?”
“She is. She runs that shebang all by herself. Well, almost. She has that big Yaqui around, and nobody wants any part of him.”
They talked a little longer while Lance helped Mort and his son carry what was left of their goods to the cave. It was a good position, hard to approach and easily defended.
“You hole up and stay out of trouble, Mort. I’ve got some riding to do.”
It was very late and Lance was dead tired, but he had managed to catch a little sleep before the trouble started, and he needed more information before he could begin to understand what was happening here. He must talk to Lord and Steele, and try to stop trouble before they could begin a shooting war.
Four men had died, but not one of them was in any sense a key character in the drama. They were simply men who carried guns and used them for hire. And dozens more could be found to take their places.
Yet Sam Carter was now dead, and no country could afford to lose such men: A cowpuncher who had gumption enough to set up for himself and to fight for what he believed in. No man such as Mort Davis would turn aside from an honest way.
On the inspiration of the moment, Lance turned the buckskin and headed for Webb Steele’s outfit. He could lose nothing by talking to Steele, although the role of peacemaker was not one to which he was accustomed. Yet if peace were not made, the two cattlemen were going to blunder into a war from which neither could gain.
That idea turned him thoughtful. If not them, then who? The two old fire-eaters were ready for war, and yet neither seemed to have actually done much but blow fire and brimstone. What had been done was done by other parties. Who was paying them, and who stood to gain if the two big outfits slaughtered each other?
Mort?
Lance hesitated over that … How well did he know Mort, after all? The man had saved his life. He seemed to be an honest rancher. But suppose he was not? Or suppose he had been, and had recently taken a dishonest step to grow rich quick? Or quicker?
Lance was well into the Steele ranch yard before a man with a Winchester stepped from the shadows.
“All right, stranger! Keep your hands steady. Now step down easy-like and walk over here.”
Lance obeyed without hesitation, carefully keeping his hands in sight in the light from the ranch house window. As he approached, the other man stepped farther from the shadows—a slender, wiry man whom Lance instinctively liked. Obviously a cattleman, he had the mark of the range upon him, a face seamed and brown, yet kindly beneath the sternness.
“Who are you?” the man demanded.
“Name of Lance. Riding by and figured I should drop in and talk to Steele.”
“Lance?” Something sparkled in the man’s eyes. “You the gent had the run-in with Miss Tana?”
“I’m afraid I am that man. Is she still sore?”
“Lance,” the older man chuckled, “as sure as I’m Jim Weston, you’ve let yourself in for a packet of trouble. When that gal rode in here, she was fit to be tied! You got a nerve to come here after that! I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t shoot you on sight.” Then his manner changed. “What do you want to see Steele about?”
“Stopping this war. It doesn’t make much sense.”
“What’s your dicker in this? A man doesn’t do nothin’ lest he’s got a stake in it somewhere.”
“What’s your job here, Weston?”
“Foreman. Why?”
“What’s the ranch figure to make out of this war? And what will you make from it?”
“Grief, an’ trouble an’ headaches, an’ not a cussed thing else. We got all our punchers guardin’ fence when they should be handlin’ cows. We’re losin’ cattle, losin’ time, and losin’ wire. I never knew anybody to gain anything from a range war, anyhow, but the old man’s not about to be backed down by anything or anybody.”
“My feeling exactly. I don’t like it either. My own angle is Mort Davis. Mort’s a friend of mine. And, Weston, I mean to see that Mort keeps his place on Lost Creek. He’ll keep it if we have to plant a few bodies around every tree on the place.”
“Think you’re pretty salty, do you?” Weston suggested, but there was a glint of understanding in his eyes. After all, he and Mort Davis might have been cut from the same mold. “Well, maybe you are.”
“I’ve been around, Weston, but that cuts no ice. You and me can talk. You’re an old trail hand and you’re a cattleman, and you’re too smart to let pride blow this country wide open. Just what have you got against Mort Davis?”
“Nothin’. He’s a sight better hand and a whole lot better man than lots of them ridin’ for this here ranch right now. I know what you mean, but I don’t make the rules for this ranch right now. Webb does … or Tana.”
“There’s been killing enough,” Lance replied, “I don’t want any more.”
“You mean Joe Wilkins?”
“I mean Wilkins and Sam Carter—”
“Carter’s dead?”
“Killed on the trail tonight … dry-gulched. Four others died, too. There was a fight at Lost Creek.”
Weston had been walking toward the house with him, now he stopped. “Whose hands? Not ours?”
Lance shook his head. “It’s a puzzle, Weston. There’s more going on here than either Steele or Lord knows. Those men belonged to neither ranch, but young Davis said he’d seen one of them with Bert Polti.”
“Polti? I don’t figure that.”
They had entered the ranch house and stopped at an inner door. Weston rapped. At a summons, he opened it.
Big Webb Steele was sitting tipped back in his chair on the other side of a big table. His shirt was open two top buttons, showing a massive, hairy chest. And his hard, level eyes seemed to pierce Lance through and through. On his right, in a big easy chair, was Tana. As she saw Lance she came to her feet, her face taut with anger.
A tall, handsome man in a plain black suit was there also, a man with blue-gray eyes and a neatly trimmed blond mustache.
“You!” Tana burst out. “You have the nerve to come here?”
Lance smiled, and he had a pleasant, friendly smile. “I didn’t reckon you carried your whip in the house, ma’am. Or do you carry it everywhere?”
“From what I hear, young man, you’ve taken a high hand with my daughter.” Steele glanced from Tana to Lance and back. “What happened between you two?”
“She seemed to be trying to use the main street for a racetrack, and when I got in the way she was going to horsewhip me. I sort of explained to her it wasn’t exactly lady-like.”
Steele chuckled. “Young man, you’re in trouble. I will say you’ve got nerve. But I let Tana fight her own battles, so let heaven have mercy on your soul
!”
Lance shook his head gravely. “You mentioned me taking a high hand with your daughter, but if my hand had been applied where it should have been, it might have done a lot more good.”
Webb Steele’s eyes twinkled. “Young man, I’d give a hundred head of cattle just to look at the man who could do that!”
“Father!” Tana protested. “This man insulted me!”
“If you don’t mind, ma’am,” Lance suggested, “we can continue this discussion another time. I’ve come to see your father on business.”
Tana’s face flushed and she started to speak but Lance had turned his shoulder to her. He took a seat.
“Mr. Steele,” he said, “I’ve come in the role of peacemaker. You people here are edging yourselves into a three-cornered war that’s going to cost plenty in cattle, time, and men, to say nothing of cut wire and gunpowder. I’d like to set up a meeting between you, Chet Lord and Mort Davis.”
“Davis?” Steele let the legs of his chair down hard. “That no-account nester will make no talk with me! He’ll get off that claim or we’ll run him off! You tell that damn highbinder to take his stock an’ get!”
“He’s caused trouble here.” The stranger with the blond mustache interposed. “Cutting fences and that sort of thing. He’s a menace to the range.” Then he added, “I’m Victor Bonham, from New York City.”
Lance merely glanced at him, then turned his attention back to Steele. “You have the reputation of being a square shooter, Steele. You came west with some damn good men, and you’ve made a place for yourself. Well, so did Mort Davis, only he went farther west than you. He went on to Santa Fe and Salt Lake City, and he helped open this country up. Now he finds a nice piece of land and settles on it … What’s so wrong about that? And isn’t that what you did?”
Lance shifted his chair a little, then went on. “He fought Comanches and Apaches. He built a place. He cleaned out the water holes and did things in Lost Creek you’d never have done. And there’d have been no trouble between you if this fencing hadn’t started.
“It seems to me that Mort is just as entitled to stay on his land as you are on yours.”
Lance leaned forward. “Steele, I haven’t been in this neck of the woods but a few days, but it takes no longer than that to see there’s a lot going on here that I doubt either you or Chet Lord knows anything about.
“Mort Davis was burned out tonight, and by orders from somebody. And I don’t believe those orders came from either you or Lord.
“I want Mort Davis let alone, and if you and Lord are so damn hot for a fight, then have at it, but leave Mort out. Or,” Lance’s tone softened a little, “I will have to take a hand in the fight myself.”
“You talk very loud for a loose-footed cowhand,” Bonham put in. “We just might decide not to let you leave here at all!”
Lance saw Tana glance over at him, startled. Even Webb Steele seemed surprised.
Lance merely glanced at Bonham. “I don’t know where you fit into the picture, Bonham, but when I get ready to leave a place I usually do.”
“Better leave him alone,” a new voice interrupted, “I think he means what he says.”
It was Rusty Gates, standing in the doorway, rather pleased at the effect he had created, surprising them all.
“I was ridin’ by, thought I’d stop in and rustle a cup of coffee. But just take a friendly tip.”
Bonham started to speak, but Gates interrupted. “Better shut up, New York man,” Gates said. “There’s been enough killing tonight. If you keep talking you’re likely to say the wrong thing.”
Rusty smiled suddenly, and threw an amused glance toward Lance. “You see,” he was lighting a cigarette, “I’ve heard Lance Kilkenny could be might touchy about what folks said of him!”
CHAPTER 6
THE NAME DROPPED like a bomb. Tana’s hands went to her throat, and her eyes were wide and startled. Webb Steele’s chair legs hit the floor again and his big hands slapped the table. Jim Weston backed up a little but, of them all, he seemed the least surprised.
Oddly, it was Victor Bonham, the man from New York, whom Lance Kilkenny happened to see at that moment. And he saw an expression of startled fury that vanished so suddenly as to make him believe that it might have been an hallucination.
“Did you say Kilkenny?” Webb Steele demanded. “The gunfighter?”
“My name is Kilkenny. I’ve never sought a reputation—with a gun or without one. Mort Davis happens to be a friend of mine, and I do not forget my friends when they are in trouble.” Lance glanced over at Steele. “I didn’t come in here hunting trouble, but Mort was attacked and his place was burned.”
“What happened?” Bonham asked.
“Four men were killed. None of them were men anybody could recall working for either Lord or Steele. But Mort is still alive and in good shape, and I intend to see he stays that way.”
“If so many people are involved,” Bonham commented, “it doesn’t seem likely that one man can make much difference.”
“Sometimes, Bonham,” Kilkenny commented, “one man can make all the difference.”
“Mort Davis burned out?” Steele shrugged. “Well, he’d no business there in the first place. I’d not have done it, but he got what he asked for.”
“The question you might ask yourself, Steele,” Kilkenny said, “is who burned him out, and why? You and Lord are pulling and pushing at each other to see who’s the biggest man, but while you’re doing it I’d suggest you think about who else has a finger in the pie.
“You and Lord think you’re ruling the roost. I think somebody is setting you up as a scapegoat. You and Lord will bluster around and make a fine show of things, and if you aren’t very careful you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, wondering what hit you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it is not. I never make threats, nor have I any place in this fight except to help my friend.”
“Wasn’t there a story about Davis nursing you when you were sick? Or helping you through some kind of a bad time?” Bonham asked.
“There was.”
Kilkenny turned back to Steele. “You and Lord should get together with Davis, as I suggested. If you do, you’ll have peace around here.”
“You handle your affairs, Kilkenny, I’ll handle mine. When I need advice from you, I’ll go to you for it.”
Lance Kilkenny shrugged. “Your problem, Steele. I have nothing to lose. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Good night.”
Lance rose, went out the door and down the steps. Tana Steele was standing beside his horse. He had seen her when she left the room, but had not expected to see her here … or ever again.
“So?” Her voice was scornful. “I might have known it! A common gunman! A man who shoots down others less capable than he!”
“At least,” he smiled at her, “I give them a chance. I don’t run over them in the street.”
He paused. “You know, ma’am, you’re right pretty in the moonlight, where nobody can see the meanness in you. You’ve either got a streak of real devil in you to come out here just to say something unpleasant, or else you’re falling in love with me, and I don’t know which worries me the most!”
She stepped back angrily. “In love with you? Why, you conceited, contemptible—”
Lance had stepped into the saddle and turned the horse as she spoke. He bent quickly and scooped Tana up with one arm and kissed her soundly on the lips. Her lips responded almost in spite of themselves. But then he dropped her and rode off, singing:
Old Joe Clark has got a cow
She was muley born
It takes a jay-bird forty-eight hours
To fly from horn to horn.
It was an old song, a good song, and he felt like singing.
Tana Steele, quivering with anger or some emotion less easily understood, stood staring after him. She was still staring as his voice died away in the distance.
In less than forty-eight hours she
had had a whip taken from her, had been threatened with a spanking, had been ignored, treated carelessly, told she had a streak of meanness in her, and that she looked pretty in the moonlight. She had also been swept off her feet and kissed soundly, kissed more thoroughly than at any time she could remember … and for such things her memory was very good.
She told herself she hated him, but her reasons were vague and unsound, and even in her own mind the statement had a hollow ring.
He was a gunfighter, a killer. A man known wherever western men gathered. How many stories had she heard of this man? The mysterious man who came from nowhere, and whom no man really knew—and who, after his killings, disappeared into the limbo from which he came.
Disappeared? Would he do that again? Where had he come from? Who was he? What was he? Where was he going?
She remembered the picture she had picked up of the elderly woman. Certainly, no average woman, no common woman. There had been both beauty and distinction in that face, the face of a cultured woman of the world, a woman of breeding.
Why would Lance Kilkenny carry such a picture? His mother? His aunt?
She remembered the dress, too. It was a dress from an earlier period, but fashionable for its time.
Who was Lance Kilkenny? There was a movement behind her and she saw Rusty Gates swing into his saddle to follow Kilkenny.
“Rusty?”
He drew up. “Ma’am?”
“Who is he?”
“Kilkenny, ma’am? Everybody knows who Kilkenny is, even those who’ve never seen him. He’s a gunfighter, ma’am, perhaps the fastest, deadliest man alive when it comes to a good gun battle.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean where does he come from? What was he?”
Rusty considered for a moment. He was restless and eager to be off. But the question was one he had often wondered about himself. “I don’t know, Tana,” he said frankly, “and I don’t believe anybody else does either.”
He lifted a hand and rode out of the yard, turning down the trail Kilkenny had taken.
Tana Steele stood alone then, looking into the night. She was puzzled and angry. It irritated her that there had been no immediate final answers. She was also disturbed by her own feelings, telling herself the man was a nobody. Probably an outlaw; no doubt vicious and dishonest. She told herself this, but she didn’t for one moment believe it. There was a certain quiet distinction about Kilkenny that spoke of breeding … The man had come from somewhere; he had been somebody.
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