There was no reason to delay. He would go over to it.
He stepped out, rifle ready, and walked swiftly and silently across the grass to the cabin.
The blackness gave off no sound. Despite himself, he was suddenly uneasy. It was too still, and there was something almost unearthly about the squat cabin and the lost, lonely canyon.
He shifted his rifle to his left hand and drew a six-gun, which was better for close quarters.
Then he looked in.
The inside was black, yet between himself and the hole that passed for a window he could see the vague outline of the head of a sleeping man … at least a man seated, with his head bowed forward on his chest.
“All right,” he spoke clearly, if not loudly. “You can get up and come out!”
There was neither sound nor movement. Kilkenny stepped inside, gun ready. And still there was no movement.
Taking a chance, he struck a match.
The man was dead.
He glimpsed a stump of candle on the table, and lit it.
The man was a stranger, a middle-aged man and, by his looks, a cowhand. He had been shot in the right temple by someone who had fired from the window. The room had been thoroughly ransacked.
Kilkenny went out quickly. There was nothing to do now but return. The dead man’s horse was only ground-hitched and there was plenty of grass and water.
Buck returned to the trail with quickened step, as if aware that the end was near. Kilkenny lounged in the saddle. Steve Lord would be riding hard now, heading for Apple Canyon. He would know nothing of their projected attack.
Weary from the long ride and the fight with Cain Brockman, Kilkenny sagged in the saddle, and the yellow horse ambled along the trail, taking its own gait, drifting through the shadows like a ghost horse on a ghost trail.
THERE WAS A faint light in the sky, the barest hint of daybreak in the sky when Kilkenny at last rode up to join the posse.
They were gathered in a shallow valley about two miles from the canyon. Dismounted, aside from a few guards, they stood around a couple of small fires. Kilkenny could smell coffee, and frying bacon.
He swung down and walked to the fire, his boots sinking in the soft sand of the wash. Firelight brought out highlights and shadows on the hard, unshaven faces of the men.
Webb Steele, squatted by the fire, his big body looming as huge as a grizzly’s, looked up. “Find Steve?”
“No … But he killed another man … a stranger.” Briefly, he explained what he had found at the cabin. “Steve rode on. He’s probably down there at the town.”
“You think he worked with this gang? Against his own pa?”
“Could be. I think he knows Barnes, although that’s only a guess. I think they cooked up some kind of a deal, and I think Steve has a leaning toward Nita Riordan. That may be why he came here.”
Rusty made no comment. The tough redhead looked pale. He had been in no shape for the hard ride, but would not be left behind. Wounded or not, he was worth two ordinary men.
Not two like Webb Steele, however. Or Old Joe Frame. Either would do to ride the river with. They might be bullheaded, and they might argue and talk a lot, but they were men who believed in doing the right thing, and men who would fight in order to do it.
Glancing around at the others, Kilkenny saw what he expected. Most of them were tough, rough and ready cowhands who rode for the brand. All of them had been through such fights before, and many another season of trouble. Like a stampede, a river-swimming or a hailstorm, they took it in stride.
Kilkenny accepted gratefully the cup of hot, black coffee that was put in his hand. Sipping it was pure delight after the long, hard ride.
“We’d better mount up,” he said. “The light’s coming on.”
Webb Steele looked around at his men. “You all know what this is about. They ain’t about to back up and quit and we aren’t planning on any prisoners. If a man cuts and runs, let him go if he drops his shootin’ iron. If he doesn’t, he may be going to a better position, so drop him.
“Those who do throw down their guns, take ’em prisoner. We’ll try ’em all an’ hang the guilty ones, but there’ll be mighty few who are innocent in Apple Canyon.”
“One thing,” Kilkenny interrupted. “Leave Nita Riordan, her Border Bar and her house alone.”
He was not at all sure how the men would accept that, but he didn’t care. He saw tacit approval in Rusty’s eyes. Steele and Frame nodded agreement. Then his eyes encountered the eyes in a tall, lean, cadaverous face. The man chewed silently a moment, staring at Kilkenny.
“I reckon,” he said harshly, “that if we clear the bad ’uns out of Apple, we better clear ’em all out. Me, I ain’t stoppin’ for no woman. Nor that halfbreed man of her’n, either!”
Steele’s fingers closed in a fist and there was a sudden tension in the crowd. Was there to be a split now? At such a time?
Kilkenny smiled. “No reason for any trouble, but she gave me a tip once that helped. I believe she’s friendly to us and I believe she’s innocent of any wrongdoing.”
The man with the cold eyes looked right back at him. “I aim to clear her out of here, as well as the others. I aim to burn that place down over her head.”
There was cruelty in the man’s face and a harshness that seemed to spring from some inner source of malice and hatred. He wore a gun tied down and had a carbine in the hollow of his arm. Several others moved closer to him, an odd similarity in their faces.
“There’ll be time to settle that,” Kilkenny said quietly, “when we get there. But you’d better change your mind, my friend. If you don’t, you’re going to have to kill me right along with her.”
“She’s a scarlet woman,” the man said viciously, “and dyin’s too good for her kind! I’m a-gettin’ her, an’ you stay clear!”
“Time’s a-wastin’,” Steele interrupted. “Let’s ride!”
In the saddle, Kilkenny rode beside Steele. “Who is that hombre?” he demanded.
“Name of Calkins, Lem Calkins. Hails from West Virginia, and he’s a feuder. I’ve met some good folks from there, but Calkins is a mean, hard man.
“Did you see those who grouped around him? He’s got three brothers and five sons. You touch one of them and you’ve got to fight them all!”
They rode over the rise and into Apple Canyon, and Kilkenny wheeled his horse and raced toward the cliff. Instantly a shot rang out, and he turned the buckskin on a dime and charged into the street of the town.
More shots sounded, and a man drawing water at a well dropped the bucket and grabbed for his gun. Kilkenny snapped a shot and the man staggered, grabbing at his arm. His gun lay in the dust. A shot whipped past Kilkenny, another ricocheted off his pommel but missed him and he raced his horse between Nita’s house and the Border Bar and dropped from the saddle.
He went up the back steps in two jumps and sprang through the door. Firing had broken out in front, but Kilkenny’s sudden attack from the rear was a complete surprise. He snapped a shot at a lean redhead, and the man went down, grabbing at his chest with both hands.
The bartender reached for the sawed-off shotgun, and Kilkenny took him out with a shot from his left-hand gun.
Jaime Brigo sat tilted back in a chair at the end of the room. He had neither moved nor reached for a gun.
Kilkenny reloaded his pistols. “Brigo, there are some men who would harm the señorita. Lem Calkins and his brothers. They would burn this place and kill her. You savvy?”
“Sí, señor.”
“I must go up the cliff. You must watch over the señorita. I will be back when I can.”
Jaime Brigo got up. He towered above Kilkenny, and he smiled.
“Of course, señor. I know Señor Calkins well. He is a man who thinks himself good, but he is cruel. He is also a dangerous man.”
“If necessary,” said Kilkenny, “take the señorita away, Brigo. I shall be back when I have seen the man on the cliff.”
The firing was in
creasing in intensity.
“Have you seen Steve Lord?” Kilkenny asked.
“Sí. He went before you to the cliff. The señorita would not see him and he was very angry. He said he would return soon, and she would see him then.”
Kilkenny stood alone in the middle of the room for a moment. He thought about the place on the hill, and the odds. He was a man who never blinded himself to the realities, yet he had faith.
Now he must go.… The time had come.
CHAPTER 19
KILKENNY STUDIED THE street outside. The bulk of the outlaws seemed to have holed up in the livery stable and they were putting up a hot fire. Others had taken positions behind a pile of stones beyond the street and still others in the bunkhouse. There was no way to estimate their numbers.
Some of the attacking party had closed in, getting into positions from which they could fire into the face of the building, covering its windows and door. For the time being, it appeared to be a stalemate.
Walking to the back door of the saloon, Kilkenny slipped out into the yard and walked over to Buck. Concealed by the saloon building, he was out of the line of fire.
Suddenly Lance heard a low call. Glancing over, he saw Nita standing under the roses. Hesitating only for a quick look around, he crossed to her, leading the horse. For a moment he was exposed, but he got by unseen.
He told her of Lem Calkins. She nodded. “I expected that. He hates me.”
“Why?”
“Oh, because I’m a woman, I guess. He came here once and had to be sent away. He seemed to believe I was a somewhat different person than I am.”
“I see.”
“You’re going to the cliff?” Her eyes were wide and dark.
“Yes.”
“Be very careful. There are traps up there. Spring guns, and other things.”
“I shall be careful.”
He swung to the saddle and loped the buckskin away, keeping the buildings between him and the firing.
When he had cleared Nita’s house, a bullet winged past him from the stone pile, but he brought the horse in behind a hummock of sand and let him run. From now on, he must work with speed and care.
Skirting the rocks, he rode Buck upstream through the foot-deep water for half a mile, then went up the bank and rode a weaving trail through the willows. He scrambled up a steep draw to a plateau. Using a towering thumb-like butte for a marker he worked his way higher until he was sure he was behind the cliff house and well above it. At a secluded place among the rocks, where there was considerable grass, he slipped the reins over Buck’s head and trailed them. “Take care of yourself, Buck. I’ve got things to do.”
Leaving his rifle in its scabbard, Kilkenny left the horse and worked his way down through a maze of rocks toward the cliff edge.
The view was splendid. Far below he could see the scattered houses of Apple Canyon, and from here he could see occasional puffs of smoke. The sounds of gunshots seemed farther away than they were.
His own attacking party had fanned out in a long skirmish line across the pass and down toward the town. They were moving according to plan, shrewdly and carefully, never exposing themselves.
Kilkenny had planned it himself. He was sure from what he had learned that the well across from Nita’s house was the only source of water. The one bucket was empty. He knew because it lay in plain sight near the well—alongside it the gun the man had dropped when Kilkenny had shot him.
There were a lot of men defending Apple Canyon, and it was going to be a long, hot day. If they could be pinned down, kept from getting water, and if he could eliminate Royal Barnes, there was a chance of complete surrender on the part of the outlaws.
He believed he could persuade Steele and Frame to let them go if they surrendered as a body and agreed to leave the country. His wish was to prevent any losses among their own men while breaking up the Barnes gang.
Suddenly, even as he watched, a man dashed from the rear of the bunkhouse toward the well and the fallen bucket. He was halfway to the well before a gun spoke, and Kilkenny would have sworn it was Mort Davis’s old buffalo gun that did the job. Just from the sound.
The runner pitched forward on his head and fell facedown on the hard-packed earth near the well. That would hold them for awhile. Nobody wanted to die that way. By now they were doing a lot of thinking, for every man jack of them had a sense of the time and the sun.
There appeared to be at least six hundred feet to the floor of the valley from where Kilkenny stood. Recalling his calculations, he believed it would be about fifty feet down to the cliff house and the window he had selected.
Undoubtedly there was an exit somewhere among the boulders and crags not far from his horse, but there was no time to look for it now.
He had taken his rope from his saddle and now he made it fast around the trunk of a gnarled old cedar, then he stepped off the cliff, easing himself down. His hands seemed to be working well.
He was halfway down when the first shot came, and it came from the livery stable. The bullet spat rock fragments into his face that stung like blown needles, but instantly his own crowd opened up a strong covering fire. He glanced down, trying to locate the window. It was a bit to his right.
Careful to make no sound, he lowered himself still more.
He was almost at the window.
Another shot clipped the rock near him. Whoever was shooting was taking hasty shots without proper aim, or he wouldn’t have missed. Kilkenny was thanking his stars that the men behind the stone pile had not seen him when a shot cut through his sleeve and stung his arm.
Involuntarily, he jerked and almost lost his hold. Just as bullets began to spatter around him, his feet found a toehold on the windowsill. The window was open and he dropped inside.
Instantly, he slipped out of the line with the window and froze. Standing very still, he listened.
The room was a small bedroom, with Indian blankets spread on the bed, and a crude table and chair.
He rested a hand on the latch of a door and lifted it slowly.
“Come in, Kilkenny! Come right on in!”
Kilkenny pushed the door open with his left hand and stepped into the room, every sense alert and poised for a fast draw, if need be.
It was a neat and sun-filled room. At a table alone sat a man in a white, open-necked shirt, a broad leather belt and gray trousers tucked into cowhide boots. He also wore two guns.
He was clean-shaven except for a neatly trimmed mustache, and he wore a black silk scarf around his neck.
It was Victor Bonham.
“So?” Kilkenny said, smiling. “I might have suspected.”
“Of course. Bonham or Barnes, whichever you prefer. Most people call me Royal Barnes.”
“I’ve heard of you.”
“And I, of you.”
Barnes’s lips smiled, but there was no smile in his eyes. “You’ve been making trouble for me, again.”
“Again?” Kilkenny lifted an eyebrow.
“Yes … You killed the Webers. A bungling lot, the Webers, but they are kinfolk, and some of my relatives think because you killed them that I must kill you. It’s probably as good a reason as any.”
“It could be a reason.… Do you need one?”
“No.”
Barnes glanced at his nails. “You were asking to die, coming in that way.”
“Safer than the other way,” Kilkenny said, gently.
“So? Somebody talked, did they? Well, it is time I got new men, anyway. But you’re a fool, Kilkenny. This little affair is not going to stop me, or even slow me down. I’ll have to recruit a new bunch of men, but you will lose men, too. Today some of the best men in the Live Oak country will die—and there will be just that many I will no longer have to plan for.
“Next time it will be much easier, and I intend to reorganize, recruit the men I need and come back. I’d have succeeded this time but for you.
“Steele will fight but, if he isn’t killed today, I will see him dead bef
ore the week is out. That goes for your friend Rusty Gates and for Joe Frame, as well. Gates isn’t dangerous alone, but he might find another man like you with whom to work.
“Usually there are only a few men in any community who are dangerous to efforts like mine. Eliminate them, and the rest are afraid to step out of the crowd.”
The tempo of the firing had increased. Without looking, Kilkenny knew his men were in and out among the buildings now. Yet Barnes did not allow his eyes to shift for one instant. He was wary as a crouched tiger. In the quiet, well-ordered room, he seemed aloof from all down below. He seemed like someone from another world, another lifetime. Only his eyes showed what was in him.
“Have you seen Steve Lord?”
“Lord?” Barnes’s eyes seemed to change a little. “He never comes here.”
“He worked with you.”
Barnes shrugged. “Of course. One has to use the tools at hand, so I held out Nita as bait. Nita and power. I promised him the Steele ranch. He is a fool.”
“Do you know how many men he’s killed?”
“Steve?” Barnes was incredulous. “He’s yellow. He wouldn’t kill anybody.”
Kilkenny smiled, shaking his head. “Barnes,” he said, “that just shows how wrong you can be. Steve is crazy. There’s something inside him that’s driving him to kill, and he’ll never stop now until somebody kills him. He killed Des King. He killed Sam Carter and he’s killed a half-dozen others. Now he’s gunning for you!”
Royal Barnes was annoyed. “Don’t be foolish! He isn’t dry behind the ears yet! He’d never kill anyone!”
Nonetheless, Kilkenny could see that the idea that he could make such a mistake had annoyed and irritated him.
Royal Barnes got up suddenly. “Somebody is on the trail now!”
“That could be Steve,” Kilkenny replied, suddenly aware that Barnes was awaiting some sound, some signal. If there was a spring gun on the main trail, it would stop Steve in his tracks.
Somewhere he could hear water dripping—slowly, methodically, as if counting off the seconds. Royal Barnes put his hand to a deck of cards on the table and idly riffled them. The spattering sound of the cards was loud in the room.
The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 30
