“The worst of it is,” Gates grumbled. “We’ve no idea what they’ll do or try next.”
For a long time they did not talk, each busy with his own thoughts and the need to be alert. Yet they saw no movements, heard no sounds. Several times they saw antelope, and once a deer. They startled a coyote gnawing on an old bone, a coyote that fled into the brush at their approach, but slunk about to await their passing.
They found a place to camp, backed against a low red cliff. There was a good field of vision on all sides except the cliff, which prevented all approach on that side of the camp.
While gathering wood, they placed a few slabs of rock in place to better their position if attacked. Then they built a small fire and made coffee.
“You goin’ back there?” Rusty asked, after awhile. “To see Nita Riordan?”
“Could be.” Kilkenny added a stick to the fire. “She’s quite a woman.” He paused again. “Whoever’s atop that bluff seems to have everybody scared.”
“You look at the three men he shot? Everyone of them shot through the skull, and he was shootin’ from a good four, five hundred yards!”
“He might have found a closer position,” Kilkenny suggested, “but let’s figure he can shoot. He’s somebody with enough reputation to scare some pretty tough men. I don’t think Nita Riordan is scared, but she’s wary. This man threatens her whole existence.”
“Odd she’d stay there anyway. That’s a handsome woman, and she seems well off. I mean, she owns that place, her house, some mighty fine horse-flesh and they say she has cattle on the range in Texas.”
“No accounting for folks,” Kilkenny said. “Some like it here, some there. I’ve seen some happy people in some of the worst dumps of creation. It seems to me she’s a woman who makes her own world and isn’t much influenced by what others think or do.”
They watched the coals turn to a deeper red, then finished the last of the coffee. “You think we should keep watch? They’ll be huntin’ us.”
“Leave it to Buck. He’s pure mustang and we’ve traveled together a few years now. He’ll warn us in time.”
At daybreak Kilkenny rolled from his bed, shook a scorpion from his boot and tugged it on, then the other. Meanwhile, his eyes were busy.
The buckskin was cropping grass, unalarmed, which would not be the case if anyone were in the vicinity.
They were in the saddle, riding toward Botalla at a good gait when they saw a rider winging it toward them. Rusty waved him down.
“Hey, what’s the rush?”
“All hell’s busted loose!” the rider shouted. “Lord’s hay was set afire, and a Steele fence was cut in three, four places. Some Lord an’ Steele men had a runnin’ fight, and there’s been two gun battles in Botalla!”
“Anybody killed?” Kilkenny asked.
“Not yet, far’s I know. Two men wounded on Steele’s side. If you boys ain’t itchin’ to fight, you’d better ride clear of Botalla. The lid’s goin’ to blow off!”
“Take it easy,” Kilkenny suggested. “A little shooting needn’t mean a war.”
But the cowboy had slapped spurs to his horse and was gone, leaving a cloud of dust trailing behind.
“Looks like we’re too late,” Rusty said. “What’ll we do now?”
“Stop it, if we can,” Kilkenny said, “and if we can’t, keep after the man who started it.”
It was dark before they reached Botalla, riding by devious routes. There were lights in the Spur, and more lights in the larger Trail House. Kilkenny swung down, took the thongs from his guns and went into the Trail House.
Men turned quickly at the sound of his boot heels on the walk, and the jingle of his spurs. Their voices died down when they saw him, and they waited, watching him.
“Any Steele men here?”
Two men stepped forward, wary, expectant and ready for anything. Neither was a gunfighter. Both were simply tough, hardworking cowhands, but loyal to the brand.
“We ride for Steele,” one said. “What about it?”
“My advice is, go home. There’ll be no war. You stay away from Lord men, do you hear?”
A puncher with a scarred face said, “You mean if I get shot at, I don’t shoot back? You must be funnin’.”
“They cut our fences,” the other man protested.
“Did they? Or did somebody else? Did you boys set Lord’s hay afire?”
“No! I’ll be damned if we did! I think he set it afire himself, just for a reason to have at us.”
“Stop and think and you’ll know that’s not true. Lord wouldn’t burn a whisp of his hay for any one of you boys. You’re being pushed into a fight by somebody else.”
“Yeah?” The scarred puncher was skeptical. “Who?”
“When I know that,” Kilkenny said quietly, “I’ll talk to him. In the meanwhile, let’s not get excited and push this into a shooting war nobody wants, where nobody can win.”
The scarred puncher shrugged. “I punch cows,” he said, “I’m no gunfighter. If you can stop the fightin’, more power to you.”
Kilkenny turned and crossed to the Spur. Shoving through the door he told the Lord men what he had told the Steele men. Several of the men appeared relieved, but one man got up from a table and walked slowly across the room toward Kilkenny.
Lance Kilkenny knew what was coming. He had seen it many times before, in many places. He had seen it happen to him and to a dozen others, known for their ability with guns.
He knew the type. This man was undoubtedly fairly good with a gun. He was a man with a local reputation on his ranch or in the town he came from, and he wanted a reputation like Kilkenny’s. Yet even as Lance watched the man coming toward him, he could sense his uncertainty. He was doing this because he believed it was expected of him, by himself or others.
He was coming now, but he was unsure. Kilkenny had the confidence of tested skill, and of many victories.
“You, Kilkenny! You swing a wide loop, tellin’ people when to shoot an’ when not to! It’s time somebody called your hand.”
His hand was poised over his gun butt but he froze into immobility. Kilkenny’s gun was already in his hand.
In the few gun battles the man had been in, it had never happened like that. There had been a moment of tenseness and then both men reached for their guns. This had not been that way at all. The man had spoken. And then he was looking into a gun muzzle and that tall green-eyed man was behind it.
It came to him with a shock that all he had to do to die was drop his right hand, and all at once he very much wanted to live.
He had seen men gut-shot before, and suddenly he knew he did not want to die. He did not even want to be a gunfighter. He was a cowpuncher and a good one.
He took a slow, careful step back. “Mister, I reckon I just took in too much territory. I don’t think you’ll have trouble with the Steele boys tonight.”
“Thanks,” Kilkenny replied. “There’s too much trouble on this range as it is.”
Lance turned on his heel and walked from the barroom.
The man turned to the others. “Did you see him drag that iron? I thought I was fast, but—”
“Fellers,” the scarred puncher said, “I think we better look closer. Kilkenny could have shot Jimmy, and he didn’t. He may not be on our side, but he surely ain’t on theirs. Let’s just back off an’ take another look.”
OUTSIDE, RUSTY GATES stopped Kilkenny. “There’s a man rode in today, stranger around here, and he asked for you. Says he has something you need to know. He’s from El Paso.”
“El Paso? Who’d want to see me from there?”
Gates shrugged. “The man was pretty well liquored up, they say. But he’s not talkin’ fight, just that he has some news for you. Mighty important news.”
“El Paso …” Kilkenny frowned thoughtfully. He had not been in El Paso since the Weber fight. Who could wish to see him from there?
“Where is he now?”
“Over at the Trail House. He came in
right after you left. Tall, rangy galoot, looks like a cowhand. I mean, he doesn’t size up like no gunman.”
They stepped down off the walk and started across the street and had taken no more than three steps when they heard the hard report of a gun in the Trail House.
One shot, and then another.
Gates broke into a run but hesitated at the door. Kilkenny came up to him, pushed the door open with his left hand and stepped in quickly. Gates followed and moved to the right of the door.
A man lay sprawled on the floor, lying on his face, a red stain growing on the back of his shirt. A drawn gun lay near his hand. He was obviously dead.
Bert Polti stood just beyond the man, a gun still in his hand. As their eyes met, Kilkenny could see the instant calculation in Polti’s eyes.
Was this the time? Kilkenny knew what Polti was thinking, how he was estimating the situation. He had a gun in his hand and Kilkenny had not. But there was Gates, off to one side and out of line. Kilkenny saw the impulse born, saw it die.
Polti was no fool, so he was doubly dangerous.
“Personal fight, Kilkenny,” Polti said. “Nothing to do with the cattle war. He knocked a drink from my hand. I suggested he apologize. He told me to go to thunder and I beat him to the draw.”
Kilkenny’s eyes went past Polti to a puncher from the Lord ranch.
“That right?”
“Yeah,” the puncher said, his face expressionless. “That’s about what happened.”
Polti hesitated just a moment, then holstered his weapon and walked outside.
CHAPTER 11
SEVERAL MEN MOVED toward the body, and Kilkenny looked down at the man. As they turned him over, he shook his head. The man was nobody he had ever seen before.
Then Rusty told him what he had already guessed. “That’s the man who was looking for you,” he whispered. “Seems mighty odd that he’d get himself killed right now.”
Kilkenny’s eyes caught those of the puncher who had corroborated Polti’s story, and with an almost imperceptible move of his head, Lance brought him to the bar.
“If you will, you might tell me just what happened.”
The puncher looked around, obviously uncomfortable. “Ain’t healthy to shoot off your face around here,” he muttered. “You see what happened to that gent?”
“You don’t look like a man who’d scare easy,” Kilkenny said. “All I want is the truth. Are you afraid of Polti?”
“No. I ain’t afraid of him or you either. It just ain’t healthy to talk. An’ that Polti an’ his outfit, they have spies ever’where. Howsoever, what Polti said was true. Though it did look to me like Polti deliberately bumped that cowboy’s elbow, then pushed him into a fight the puncher didn’t want.”
“That puncher now,” Rusty said. “What had he been sayin’?”
“Nothing to rile Polti, that I could see. He was sayin’ he had a story to tell you that would bust this country wide open. He was drinkin’ pretty good and he was talkin’ more than was good for him no matter what he was saying, and just a lot of folks were listening.”
“Anything more?”
“Just more of the same. You know how it is with drunks, they get to harpin’ on one subject and they repeat themselves.”
“Did he say who he was? Or if anyone sent him?”
“No, not that I heard.”
Bert Polti then, had deliberately picked a quarrel with this man who had a message for Kilkenny, and had shot him down before the message could be delivered.
What was it the man had said or known that might be dangerous to Polti and his group? And why from El Paso?
Suddenly a thought occurred to Lance.
Finishing his drink, he said out of the corner of his mouth, “Stick around and keep your eyes open, Rusty. If you can, keep an eye on Polti.”
Leaving the Trail House, Kilkenny walked slowly down the street, keeping to the shadows. Crossing the alley to the hardware store, he walked along beside it, then past the corral until he reached the hotel.
No one stood or sat on the porch, so he stepped up on the porch and went through the door like a ghost. All was quiet and still. The small lobby was empty but for the glassy eyes of the elk and the buffalo who stared down at him with threatening gaze.
The old man who acted as desk clerk was lying on the leather settee, snoring softly. Sam Duval, the owner, sat in a big leather chair, a newspaper opened across his lap and partly on the floor. He, too, was asleep.
Kilkenny turned the register around. It was a gamble, and only a gamble.
It was the fifth name from the top: Jack B. Tyson, El Paso, Texas.
Room 22.
Kilkenny went up the stairs, swiftly and silently. There was no sound in the hall above, for those who wished to sleep were already snoring, and those who wanted bright lights and red liquor were still in the Trail House, the Spur and other such establishments along the street.
Somewhere in his own past, Kilkenny felt sure, lay the secret of the man on the cliff above Apple Canyon, and this strange rider from El Paso might have been bringing him that very information, or perhaps some clue to what was happening here.
There are few secrets, and they remain secrets but a very short time. What someone knows, someone will repeat, always warning the other party to say nothing. But that party also has a wish to impart information, and it is invariably passed on again.
Also, for any criminal venture such as this one seemed to be, it was necessary to recruit men, and not all the men approached would agree to the terms. So somebody always knew something, and such word passes from saloon to saloon, from hideout to hideout.
Perhaps … and it was only a chance … something in Jack B. Tyson’s war-bag might be a clue, some clue to the why of his killing. It was unlikely that the authorities, such as they were, would have searched his room yet.
There was every chance that Polti might have, however.
Of one thing Kilkenny was certain. The killing of Tyson—if that was indeed his name—had been deliberate.
The hallway was dark, and Lance felt his way with feet and hands. When safely away from the stairhead he struck a match. The room nearest him was number 14.
A few steps farther, his fingers touched the door and traced the numbers: 22.
Gently, he turned the knob. Like a ghost he slid into the room, but even as he stepped in he saw a dark figure rise from bending over something at the foot of the bed.
There was a stab of flame in the darkness, and something sent a hot iron along his ribs, then the figure leaped through the open window, rolled down the shed roof and jumped off that roof to the ground.
Kilkenny stepped to the window and snapped off a quick shot at the man as he disappeared. Even as he fired, he knew that he had missed.
For an instant he considered giving chase, but then he dismissed the idea. The man would be mingling with those in the Spur or Trail House, or down the street at one of the cantinas.
There was the pounding of running feet on the steps and in the hall. Removing the lamp globe, Lance struck a match and lit the lamp.
The door slammed open and the clerk stood there. Behind him, clutching a shotgun, was Sam Duval.
“Here! What the consarn are you doin’ in here? Who fired those shots?”
“Take it easy, Dad,” Kilkenny said, smiling. “I came up here to have a look at Tyson’s gear and caught some thief going through it. He shot at me.”
“What rights have you yourself, comin’ up here?”
“Jack B. Tyson was killed a short time ago in the Trail House. He had been looking for me, said he had something for me. So I came to get it. Also, I’ll have to take charge of his gear and arrange for his burial.”
“Well,” Duval grumbled, “I guess he ain’t in no condition to object, and I did hear him say he had word for Kilkenny. All right! Go ahead an’ put his stuff together. He done paid when he come in, so’s he don’t owe nothing. But no more shootin’, you hear? Folks have a hard enough time s
leepin’ as it is.”
He turned and stumped down the narrow stairs, following the clerk.
Alone in the room, Kilkenny began a painstaking examination of the dead man’s gear. Jack Tyson had brought little with him, and what he had brought was typical of a wondering cowhand, offering no clue to anything.
Nor was it much to leave behind. A couple of blankets and a groundsheet, a yellow slicker, a broadcloth coat with four extra cartridges in one pocket, some matches and a letter, months old, from a girl.
He had found no clue, and whatever Tyson had planned to tell him was lost forever now, buried in the dead man’s skull, as Polti had intended.
Lance had hoped for a quick solution to the problems, but there was no solution here. Nor had there been any settlement of the range difficulties. If he could just get Davis, Steele and Lord together! The three were cut from the same cloth and would be friends, given a chance. Davis’s only trouble was that he had come into this part of the country too late.
The introduction of wire had sparked this fire, and would do so at other places as well, yet the crux of the problem was not barbed wire.
El Paso … What was there in El Paso that tied in with this?
What had he forgotten?
Lance’s warnings and arguments might have averted a major clash tonight, but the range war was still coming and he was little closer to heading it off.
Whatever was intended was being neatly arranged by someone with an eye for detail, and someone who knew the area. Had Mort Davis not sent for him, the chances were that things would have gone forward without a hitch.
The fact that the mysterious figure behind the scenes seemed to hate Lance Kilkenny was beside the point, yet it had now become a major factor in the plans.
What of the Brockmans? They were in the area, supposedly somehow involved. But there was nothing Kilkenny could be sure of.
For a long time he had been sure that one day he would kill the Brockmans, for it was certain their paths would cross, and the Brockmans were aggressive, fearless troublemakers. Kilkenny did not like troublemakers. And especially he did not like those who used their strength to tyrannize others, as the Brockmans did.…
The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 24
