Jim Weston came up to her. “Anything wrong, ma’am?”
“No, Jim, nothing.” Then she added, “That man worries me.”
“Kilkenny? Well, if Webb goes after Mort Davis, you’ve got cause for worry. If Webb leaves him alone, you haven’t. It’s that simple. I never heard of Kilkenny killin’ anybody that wasn’t askin’ for it. Usually, nobody even knows who Kilkenny is until the moment before he dies. Often enough he’ll just ride into a place under some other name, and he’ll punch cows or something of the kind and bother nobody. He’s a top hand … rides like a man born true to the saddle, and he’s an expert with a rope. Plus he’s not quarrelsome … never stirred up any trouble I know of.”
“Well! I’m surprised, Jim. You talk as if you were on his side.”
“Didn’t know there was any sides yet, ma’am. You asked and I answered. And I gave you an honest opinion.”
“I’m sorry, Jim. I know you did. I’m just not myself tonight.”
He turned and looked at her. “No? Somehow I thought you were.”
He walked away, and she stared after him, half-angry. Now what had he meant by that? She wondered.
IT WAS SEVERAL minutes before Rusty Gates caught up with Kilkenny. He found him waiting in the shadows, a Winchester in his hands.
“What do you want, Gates?”
Rusty leaned forward and patted his horse on the neck.
“Why, I reckon I want to ride along with you, Kilkenny. I’ve heard you were a straight-shooter, and I guess you’re the only one I know who can get into more trouble than me without tryin’.
“If you can use a good man by your side, I’d admire to ride along. I’ve a feeling that in the days to come you could use some help.”
“All right, Rusty. Let’s ride.”
WHEN LANCE KILKENNY rolled out of his blankets in the earliest dawn, he glanced over at Gates. The redhead was still snoring. Kilkenny took up his boots and shook them thoroughly to be free of any scorpions and tarantulas that might have taken refuge there during the night. Grimly, he contemplated a hole in his sock.
No time for that now. He pulled on his boots and stood up.
Carefully, he checked his guns.
Then he moved out from camp, keeping under cover, and for fifteen minutes he made a painstaking search of the area. Not until he was sure nobody was within the immediate vicinity did he lead his buckskin into camp and saddle up.
Lance and Rusty were encamped on a cedar-covered hillside with a wide view of Lost Creek Valley. Lance mounted the buckskin and rode quietly away, but he was back and had bacon frying before Rusty Gates awakened.
Coffee was bubbling in the pot when Rusty came over.
“Hey!” Rusty exclaimed. “You’ve got bacon!”
“Picked it up last night from the Mexican who gave us the frijoles. He’s got half a dozen hogs.”
“Hell, man, if he can get a half dozen more he’s got the key to the mint. Bacon is scarcer than minted gold in this country!”
Rusty rustled some wood for the fire, then saddled his horse. When he returned to the fire he squatted on his haunches, feeding sticks into the flames.
“How about this Bonham?” he asked suddenly. “Have you ever seen him before?”
“No.” Kilkenny paused a moment, then said, “How about you?”
“No. He ain’t from around here.”
“I wonder.”
“You wonder? Why? They said he was from New York City and he surely dresses like a pilgrim.”
“I agree to that, but you were curious yourself, Rusty. And he knew about Mort caring for me when I’d been shot.”
“Hell, that story’s been told time and again. Everybody knows about that. Just like they do about that supposed meeting between John Wesley Hardin and Bill Hickok. Stories like that are told around every campfire. And every time you hear them, they’re different. You’re just too suspicious.”
“I’m still alive,” Kilkenny commented, dryly.
“You’ve got something there.” Gates walked to the edge of the nearest cedar and picked some dead stuff off the ground to bring back to the fire. “Who do you think he is?”
Lance shrugged. “No idea.” He turned the bacon over. “Except that my name got a rise from him. I thought I caught a look in his eyes.… Well, no matter. Maybe I was seeing things.”
They were silent for awhile, listening to the bacon frying and enjoying the tantalizing fragrance as well as the smell of the burning cedar.
There were a few clouds in the sky that looked like rain, and occasionally the wind stirred the fire, blowing the flame.
“You came up with something last night when you implied this fight wasn’t simply Lord and Steele.”
“Do you think it is?”
Rusty shrugged. “Well, you started me thinking. We had all sorta taken it for granted that it was Lord and Steele, with one or both of them planning to rub out Mort Davis in the process. But if it isn’t just them, who is it? Who else is there?”
“You’ve been in this country longer than I have, Rusty. Who stands to gain, aside from them? Suppose they both get killed or their outfits get so crippled they can’t stay on top. Who wins then?”
“Nobody. Those two have got it all sewed up. There’s nobody close around who stands to gain anything … except maybe Mort Davis. If they got out of his hair, he might spread out himself.”
“Ever look at a map of this country, Rusty?”
“Map? Hell no. I didn’t know there was one. Who wants a map?”
“Maps are handy things, my friend. Sometimes you never know what a country looks like until you’ve seen it on a map. A bird’s-eye view can change a lot of things for you. A big country like this has a way of looking different on a map, and you can’t get a good idea of the relationship of one place to another without one. Look here.”
Squatting on his heels, Lance Kilkenny drew with his finger in the sand.
“That V,” he suggested, “represents the combined holdings of Lord and Steele.” Off to one side he drew in Lost Creek Valley. He indicated the valley with his finger. “Right where Lord and Steele’s holdings come together is Lost Creek Valley.”
“That’s what the fuss is about,” said Rusty. “They both want the valley and they both want the water.”
“I know. But look here … All this country that Lord and Steele control runs from the point of the V right into the widest cattle ranges in Texas.
“Up there are other cow outfits, many of them with far greater holdings than Lord and Steele combined. I rode through that country on the way down here, and saw some of the finest stock I’ve seen, with a lot of white-faced bulls that have been brought in to improve the grade of beef.
“In a few years this is going to be some of the finest stock-raising country in the world. The fences won’t make much difference, except to limit the size of the roundups. The stock will be better, more beef to the hoof than before, and there’ll be a bigger demand for the better beef.
“The small ranchers won’t be able to afford better bulls, and here and there they’ll cut fences as much to let the bulls get at their own stock as anything. But that’s only one small part of it.”
Rusty was paying close attention.
“Look at those vast miles of good range that lay north of Lord and Steele. That range will be covered with fat stock, thousands of head that will feed the range off little by little. They won’t be allowed to overgraze if the cattlemen are smart, and can be shifted from one area to another as the grass is eaten down to give the rest of the grass a chance to grow.
“Now most cowhands have rustled a few head—or at least been a little careless how they use a running-iron. A man works for the outfit, and if he finds stock on his boss’s land he brands it … It’s not supposed to be that way, but many a small outfit grew big just like that.
“Look here.” Kilkenny drew a line with his finger in the sand, a line that went from those vast ranges to the north down through the Lord and St
eele range and into the country below.
“See?” he asked.
Rusty swore softly. “Sure enough, I do.”
Rusty put a finger on the crude map. “You mean whoever wound up holding Lord and Steele range could rustle cattle and take them right through to Mexico? What you’re tellin’ me is that whoever held Lord and Steele range could do as he damn well pleased, could appear to be honest ranchers with never a head of rustled stock on their range, yet profit from all the rustled stock?”
“It’s a possibility,” said Lance. “And right now it’s the only answer I can see to what’s happening.”
“And Bert Polti’s involved?”
“Seems so.”
They ate the bacon from the frying pan, strip by strip. For several minutes both were busy with their thoughts, but Lance Kilkenny got up then and walked away from the fire to listen.
It looked like rain, and they had some distance to go, yet he was in no hurry. He would be expected to be early on the trail, and if there were any hidden marksmen along the route they would begin to sense that he had taken another route.
He and Rusty had a long ride before them, but one they could manage well enough. He had learned long since that it was better to vary his time and pattern of travel as well as his route. Vigilance was the price of life, and not only of liberty.
He walked back to the fire. “There’s a lot of border down there on the Rio Grande, but look what’s at the point of the V that I drew?”
“Apple Canyon?”
“Right … And it’s a hangout for outlaws. It’s one of Bert Polti’s favorite places. The Lord and Steele ranches, with Apple Canyon, would provide a safe route for rustlers over the last forty or fifty miles of their drive. That route could be a huge funnel pouring stolen cattle into Mexico.”
“What do we do now?” Gates asked, as he began cleaning the frying pan.
Kilkenny spread the remains of their fire and kicked dirt over it, then threw the last of the water and the coffee over the coals that remained.
“Why, we mount up and ride down to Apple Canyon. We just go down and have a talk with this woman.… What did you say her name was?”
“Nita Riordan,” Rusty said. “And wait until you see her!”
CHAPTER 7
THEIR ROUTE LAY south and west, along trails rarely ridden except by outlaws or smugglers. It was a country covered with clusters of oaks surrounded by grassy plains, the brush and trees like islands in a sea of coarse grass, prickly pear and other low-growing stuff.
It was a dangerous country through which to ride, with the clumps of oaks, brush and occasional arroyos. For any one of these could be an ambush. There was a trickle of water here and there in some intermittent stream that emptied into the Rio Grande, but water was scarce and much of it brackish.
The buckskin took easily to such country, ambling along naturally, accustomed to having his head and going at his own pace when on a long trail.
Rusty Gates, his face burned almost as red as his hair, rode behind Kilkenny at times, and then in front. It was easy to admire a fighting man, and Kilkenny had a position in the hard land of their living that few men could equal. The army knew him as one of their best scouts. The Indians had fought against him or beside him, depending on the circumstances. Always one to admire a good fighting man, Rusty Gates had done his own share of it, fighting when necessary because it was natural to him. It came more easily to him than to most.
He had been about everywhere in four or five states and territories where a man could go on a horse. Like Kilkenny, he rode much alone, taking jobs where he found them, occasionally riding shotgun, driving stage, herding cattle or freighting, but he preferred the cattle business. Twice he had started small spreads himself, and once he had sold out and gambled away the money. Another time, he had been dry-gulched and then driven out, so he understood the plight of Mort Davis.
It was a hard land, but he wished for no other. Nothing in his years had been easy. Rusty Gates had grown up on a small farm, milking cows, making hay, cutting wood, caring for stock and trying to make a crop from land that was far from the best. He had worked with his father and then when his father had been killed in the Kansas troubles, he had gone on, supporting his mother and his four younger brothers and sisters.
His mother had died when he was sixteen, working to make ends meet. A year later, Rusty had lost a sister to the cholera, and one brother was killed by a bad horse. Another brother, at fourteen, went to work on a riverboat, and his sister, at sixteen, married a doctor in Joplin. At nineteen, Rusty rode away west to find what fortune might offer. He wanted land of his own, a few head of horses and cattle. Along the way west, then up and down the cattle and stagecoach trails, he began hearing stories of Wild Bill Hickok and John Wesley Hardin, of Billy Brooks and Jack Bridges, of Mysterious Dave Mather, Bill Longley and Cullen Baker.
There were other stories, too, of Cochise and Crazy Horse, of Satanta and Mangas Colorado, of the death of Jedediah Smith and of Lieutenant Harrison, killed by Indians with whom he was trying to be friendly.
There were stories about Ben Thompson and King Fisher, who hailed from this country where he now rode. But there were few stories about Lance Kilkenny.
There might be trouble, a gun battle, a man—or men—dead … and Kilkenny gone. Some thugs tried to rob him in a gambling den in Abilene. Two of them died very quickly. The others had backed off, wanting no further trouble.
He had been cornered by Kiowas in a buffalo wallow—and left three dead, one wounded, and took the gun from the last man and set him afoot to tell the story to his people. Two weeks later he had stopped three tough white men from abusing a Kiowa boy, bought him a horse and sent him to his people carrying the rifle he had taken from the fight at the wallow.
But the true stories were few, the man himself elusive. Many talked of him, but descriptions varied. None seemed to be altogether accurate. Before the shooting started, he attracted little attention. And after it was over, when men would have been able to take a good look at him, he was gone.
Some said he had killed eighteen men. The cattle buyer in Dodge claimed the actual figure was twenty-nine. But all of it was talk and nobody knew for sure. Not being a tinhorn, Kilkenny filed no notches on his guns.
“You know,” Rusty said suddenly, “the Brockmans hang out at Apple Canyon.”
“I know,” Kilkenny agreed. “And we may run into them.”
Rusty Gates bit off a chew of tobacco. “There’s better places to tangle with them than in Apple Canyon. There’ll be fifty men there, maybe a hundred, and all of them friends of the Brockmans.”
Kilkenny grinned at him, whimsically. “What are you worried about? You’ve got fifty rounds, haven’t you?”
“Fifty rounds?” Rusty rolled the tobacco in his jaws and spat. “Shucks, man, I miss once in awhile.” He threw a speculative glance at Kilkenny. “You seen the Brockmans? You’re a big man … must weigh one-ninety or better, and either of the Brockmans will outweigh you by forty pounds! And I seen Cain Brockman shoot a crow on the wing!”
“Did the crow have a gun?” Kilkenny asked, slyly.
That, Rusty decided, was a good question, a mighty good question. It was one thing to shoot at a flying target, another when the moving target was shooting back.
They circled a stand of brush and drew up in the shade. “Let’s let him catch up,” Kilkenny said.
“Catch up? Who?”
“Steve Lord. I picked him up a few miles back.”
“You mean to say you can see that well?” Rusty stared back over the way they had come. “I can barely make out it’s a man!”
“Look again. Lord has a hatband made of polished silver disks that catch the sun, and he rides straight up—like a military man …”
Rusty rolled his quid and spat again. Easy enough, he reflected, when you know how. Now that it was mentioned he remembered that hatband. He had seen it so many times it no longer left an impression.
“By the
way,” Kilkenny said, “I want the Brockmans myself.”
“Both of them? Listen, I—”
“Both of them,” Kilkenny replied. “You can keep the sidewinders off my back.”
The distant horseman was closing the gap. Kilkenny took off his hat and ran his fingers through his damp hair. He glanced again at the clouds. Broken here and there, but a promise of rain.
“About that Mendoza deal. I was in Sonora right after you took him. They said he was the fastest man in the world with a gun, yet you beat him. Did you get the jump or were you just faster?”
“Didn’t amount to much, but he did beat me to the draw.”
“I didn’t think anybody ever beat you,” Rusty said.
“Several men have, and he did. It may be he saw me a split second sooner. Fact is, I think he did.”
“How come he didn’t kill you?”
“He made a mistake. He drew faster, but he missed his first shot. He didn’t get another.”
A faint breeze stirred among the oak leaves. Kilkenny looked again at the approaching rider. It was Steve Lord, all right, but why here? At this time?
They rode on, taking their time, watching the approaching rider as well as the trail ahead.
Steve Lord came up at a gallop, reining in when he recognized Lance. He glanced sharply from one to the other.
“I didn’t know you had interests down this way,” he said.
“We’re takin’ a look at Apple Canyon,” Rusty said. “An’ I want to introduce Kilkenny to Nita.”
Steve glanced at the gunfighter. “I heard somebody say that you were Kilkenny, but I didn’t believe it. You don’t fit any of the descriptions.”
“Just as well,” Kilkenny commented. “I’m not anxious to be known.”
The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 21
