Blood on the Moon

by Luke Short

  Shotten felt a swift lift of excitement. Lufton and Riling in the same room would spell shooting anywhere—except in a sheriff’s office. It occurred to him that a sheriff’s office might not make any difference.

  He had a swift moment of judgment as he saw Lufton dismount stiffly and tie his reins to the rack. The others dismounted but didn’t go in. Shotten decided to chance it, so he cut across tre street, coming in behind one of the riders’ horses. He saw the brand Star 88 and identified it as a Bench outfit. The fact that these weren’t Blockhouse horses encouraged him to go on.

  His entrance into Les Manker’s office was only ten seconds behind Lufton’s. When he stepped quietly inside the door he found all three men standing. The lamp on Manker’s desk against the back wall was lighted. Riling had just come off a chair backtilted against the side wall under the gunrack. Shotten wasn’t prepared for Riling’s altered appearance. Riling’s nose looked oversize and somehow different, and his right eye was a mixture of green-and-purple-tinted swelling that left only a slit to peer through. There was a barely healed scar running from the corner of his mouth almost to his ear, which was bandaged.

  Riling saw Shotten and nodded and returned his gaze to Lufton. Manker looked uncomfortable and apprehensive. He gestured toward his desk chair and said, “Here, John, take a seat.”

  Riling tried to smile. “I’ll see you later, Sheriff.”

  “You might as well stay,” Lufton said dryly. “This includes you, Riling. I won’t sit down, Les. This won’t take long.”

  Lufton didn’t even look at Shotten, although Shotten was sure he was aware of his presence.

  Lufton said matter-of-factly, “I’m moving my herds off the reservation into the Basin this coming week, Les. I’m claiming all the range between the rim and the river and south of the agency road down to the Long Reach hills. Whatever stock is left there after this week will be pushed across the line and kept there.”

  “Your ambition’s shrunk,” Riling remarked.

  Lufton shook his head. “No, that’s all I ever wanted. But I want it.”

  “Gettin’ it is something different,” Riling murmured.

  “I’ve got one herd across and scattered,” Lufton said easily. “This week I’ll get the other two.”

  “There’s a little matter of a deadline you must have heard about,” Riling observed.

  Lufton’s answer was placid. “I did hear something about it. Better let me worry, hadn’t you, Riling?”

  Manker cleared his throat. “John, there’s folks already south of the road. Riling here, for one. Avery too.”

  “They’ll move.”

  “They won’t,” Riling said flatly.

  Lufton regarded him with indifference and spoke to Manker. “I’m just telling you what I aim to do, Les. If you want to stop me bring plenty men and plenty guns.”

  Manker said bluntly; “You try and move any of them out that don’t want to go and you’re in real trouble, John.”

  Lufton snorted softly. He stood there with his hands on his hips, a kind of lean-faced arrogance about him that angered both Riling and Manker.

  Lufton said, “When I get my range stocked I’m goin’ to put out line riders with orders to shoot the first man they see across the line. Better tell them that, Manker. You’re sheriff.”

  Lufton nodded to them and turned to go. He had a hand out to brush Joe Shotten aside when Riling said, “Just a minute, Lufton.”

  John Lufton paused and looked sharply at Riling.

  Riling said with easy good humor, “Why don’t you admit you’re licked, Lufton? You really think you can round up two big herds like that and push ’em across the Massacre with us ridin’ your tail, all in the time you got left?”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “The army seizes your beef if you can’t, don’t they?”

  “So they say.”

  “And what’ll you get out of it—outside a fight with the army if you try to stop ’em?”

  “I’m surprised you should care,” Lufton said slowly.

  Riling essayed a grin, which was hard enough to do. “Hell, I’m not all Injun, Lufton. You’ll lose your herds and you can’t move us even if you claim you can. Then why not use your head and not cut your own throat from ear to ear?”

  “Cut my throat?” Lufton drawled.

  “Sell your herd,” Riling pointed out. “Get money for the beef instead of lettin’ the army grab it for nothing. You’ll wait ten years for your claim for the beef to be honored by Washington. On the other hand, if you sell the stuff we’ll let you alone and not bother you, so you can clean ’em off the reservation. Just so they don’t end up in Massacre Basin is all we ask. We don’t aim to strap you.”

  Lufton’s forehead wrinkled. “You know,” he said, “that’s interesting. You’re suggesting I sell my herd to you nesters, are you?”

  Riling laughed. “And we’d pay you with what for money? No, all we want is for your cattle to stay out of Massacre. But a Bench outfit might buy the stuff if your price was right.”

  “You handling the sale?” Lufton asked insultingly.

  Riling flushed. “To hell with you, mister. I was just showing you a way to settle this and still come out of it with money. It’s nothing to me, though, what you do. Anyway you figure it you lose.”

  “Do I?” Lufton said, and he was smiling so that his dark mustache lifted a little at the corners.

  He shouldered past Shotten and went out. The three men left in the sheriff’s office looked at each other in puzzlement.

  “What did he mean by that?” Manker asked.

  “Bluff,” Riling said in sharp anger. “He can’t beat the deadline and he knows it.”

  “Seems like he don’t care either,” Manker said in a puzzled voice.

  Riling moved impatiently. “There’s no use fighting over a dead horse. Lufton’s done. About that other at Commissary, Manker. I admit I jumped the county before the inquest. If they come asking for me stall them off. I’ve got to be here in Massacre now, not at an inquest in Commissary.”

  “Whose inquest?” Shotten said.

  Riling looked at him and said curtly, “Riordan’s.”

  Shotten had an uncomfortable moment of not knowing what this was about. Riling was marked up as though he’d been in a tough fight; Riordan was dead. And Riordan, like Shotten, was one of Riling’s hired gunmen.

  Riling nodded curtly to the sheriff and went out, Shotten following him. Shotten couldn’t shake the conviction that Riling had killed Riordan. He made up his mind to ask, but when he came up to Riling, who was facing the tie rail, and saw his face his question died unasked.

  Riling’s face was ugly with anger. In his one good eye Shotten saw a murdering rage as he watched Lufton riding out with his crew. Something had gone wrong, plenty wrong, Shotten thought.

  He held his silence for long minutes until Riling turned to him. The anger was gone now as Riling asked curtly, “Where are the others?”

  “Avery’s.”

  “Let’s ride,” Riling said.

  Shotten shook his head uneasily, for he didn’t know what Riling would do at the news he was going to tell him. “Not me, Riling. I been run out by that bunch. For plumb good and all.”

  “For what?” Riling said after a pause.

  Shotten grinned sheepishly and recklessly told the truth. “I took a long look at Avery’s girl. They didn’t like it.”

  “And they ran you out?”

  Shotten nodded, watching Riling. Trouble was, with Riling’s face marked up the way it was, you couldn’t tell soon enough if he was mad or not. Shotten was glad, for once, that he was standing in front of the sheriff’s office with the street filled with people.

  But he soon saw that Riling wasn’t angry. He accepted it as something done, something that was inevitable.

  Riling said finally, “But I need you, Joe.”

  Shotten said nothing, and Riling stood there, looking out at the dark street, musing.

  P
resently he turned on his heel and said to Shotten, “Come along, Joe,” and went back in the sheriff’s office.

  Manker had seated himself at his desk, but now he reared back and looked over his shoulder.

  Riling said in an even voice, without excitement in it, but with a tone of authority, “Manker, I want you to deputize Joe.”

  Chapter Ten

  Jim didn’t like the looks of things the night he and Pindalest camped in the snow beneath the pass. The snow was a couple of inches deeper down here than it had been yesterday, which meant it would be more than that in the pass, but he said nothing to the agent.

  He made the camp as comfortable as he could, even cutting brush for Pindalest’s bed. The agent was deadbeat from the day’s ride. He groaned softly as he sat on his blankets by the fire, watching Jim make camp, and Jim knew the man probably hadn’t been on a horse since his last trip to Sun Dust. Pindalest had a flask of brandy in his war bag, and several drinks from it, which he did not share with Jim, seemed to revive his spirits.

  They were both hungry for the supper Jim fixed up, and afterward Pindalest seemed content. There was even a sparkle in his dull eye and a flush that wasn’t a whisky one in his cheeks from the cold night air. Jim built the fire up and then settled down to conversation with Pindalest, but all the time he was wondering about the pass. The agent wanted to know the full details of Riling’s success, and Jim lied blandly. There was little he had to invent; according to his story, the stampeding of the two herds on the reservation had turned the trick. Lufton had chosen to salvage a little money from his herds instead of letting the army seize them.

  When they turned in Pindalest was in high humor. He was asleep almost as soon as he hit the blankets, but Jim lay awake. He turned his head so he could see Pindalest and the small mountain of flesh under the blankets. What did he have to fear from the man during these next days? Certainly not physical violence or bravery. But the man had a certain cunning that he would be a fool to ignore. Jim felt plain contempt as he regarded Pindalest, whose face was even softer in sleep than in life. A cheap politician, one of The Looters, making a fortune on graft.

  Next morning it was snowing in earnest. Jim broke camp in haste, but he did not let Pindalest glimpse his near panic.

  When they reached the road Jim anxiously noted the depth of snow as it measured on his horse. It came between fetlock and knee, and Jim felt a sudden gloom. What would it be near the peaks, where it had probably snowed all night? It was close to eight miles of this travel and worse before they were safely on the other side.

  Jim hunched down in the saddle and ordered Pindalest behind him. The agent’s horse was carrying an added weight, and Jim hoped the pony had the bottom he was sure to need.

  The snow held on, steady and implacable, all through the morning, and as they climbed the snow got deeper. Caution told Jim to turn back, but he was stubborn now, and nothing in his life had seemed so important as getting through the pass.

  At the end of four hours they were in the pass, and here it was bad. The snow was almost bellydeep to their horses. The only luck they had lay in the fact that the wind was at their backs.

  Jim reined up and turned in the saddle, waiting for Pindalest to catch up with him. They had been taking turns breaking trail, but Jim saw that even that wouldn’t save their horses.

  Pindalest’s lips were almost blue when he came up to Jim, and there was fright in his eyes.

  “We’ll have to take turns breakin’ trail on foot,” Jim said. “It’s too much for the horses.”

  “I think we ought to turn back,” Pindalest said, shaking his head. “I really do, Garry. We can’t hope to make it.”

  Jim smothered a sharp reply and drawled easily, “Whatever you say. It’s your money we’re losin’.”

  Pindalest was tormented by the choice, and he asked piteously, “But can we make it, Jim?”

  “We’ll bull it through, but it’ll be work.” He paused and then added, “Every minute we sit here chewin’ leather the snow gets deeper.”

  Pindalest was silent for several agonizing seconds while he chose.

  “Then let’s get on,” he said finally.

  Jim dismounted and led his horse, glad of the exercise to warm his numbed legs. An hour of it creeping at snail’s pace, however, exhausted him, but he stuck to it until he could scarcely lift his legs.

  Then he leaned against his horse and motioned Pindalest around him. The snow was coming on a long slant now, plastering white the rumps of the horses and blowing their tails between their legs. It held a sustained, steady howl now that rode Jim’s nerves like a file.

  Pindalest pulled up on the other side of him, wanting to talk, but Jim waved him on. The agent was wholly in his hands now, and Jim pitied him.

  He mounted and followed in the trail made by Pindalest and left by his horse. Jim knew it was agony for the agent with his short legs, his slack paunch and his indoor living. Pindalest wallowed ahead a few hundred yards and then stopped, dragging great guttering breaths of wind into his lungs, and then plunged on again. Jim was merciless. Pindalest’s pace was slow, but it was eating up ground. When he turned around to Jim, pleading wordlessly to be allowed to ride awhile, Jim waved him on. When Pindalest fell Jim put his horse around him and went on, leaving him to pick himself up. It went on for hours like this, hours in which Jim wondered dismally if they would ever get through. Pindalest’s help soon dwindled to nothing; a quarter of a mile and he lay face down in the snow, sobbing to get his breath. Jim kept doggedly at it, not even stopping to eat, because he knew he couldn’t start the agent again.

  And then in late afternoon the snow slacked off and Jim saw that it was less deep. His legs were wooden now, and each time he lifted them clear of the snow and put them down he was certain it was the last time he could.

  It was then that he called on the strength of his horse, which he had been husbanding for a half day. He mounted, shaky with exhaustion, and let the horse break his own trail. And slowly the snow slackened and the depth of it lessened, until dark, when his horse could go no farther, the snow was knee-deep. The slope of land was to the east now, and Jim knew that they were on the other side of the pass.

  He headed into a stand of pine among which was a lone lightning-shattered tree. He chose this stand because it meant wood for fire and because he had seen something else too. There was a windfall among the stand, a big pine whose needles were brown but still clung to the branches, even though it lay on the ground.

  In the half-light Jim dismounted behind the windfall, putting it between himself and the wind. He offsaddled and rubbed his horse dry and then unrolled his bedroll and from it separated a blanket. He put this on his big bay and grained him and then went back to the edge of the timber.

  Pindalest was sitting on the ground, his back against a tree, his head hung in exhaustion.

  Jim said wearily, “There’ll be stuff for a fire under the snow by that dead pine, Pindalest.”

  He didn’t answer, and Jim took his horse and led it back to his own. He tended to the agent’s horse, even to using part of Pindalest’s bedroll for a horse blanket. When he was sure that their horses were taken care of and out of the wind he tramped back to Pindalest. The agent had a small fire lighted, but Jim could see he was so beaten he could scarcely move.

  Both of them were too tired to eat. Pindalest tried, but he gave up and wordlessly tumbled into his blankets. His face was gray with weariness as he mumbled good night to Jim, and Jim almost smiled. Tomorrow would be time enough to break the news.

  Jim was up first next morning, a day that dawned cloudy but without snow. He silently pulled on his boots and his coat and then rose and went over to look at Pindalest. The agent was still dead asleep. Jim went over to the tree against which Pindalest’s war bag was leaning. He dumped the contents out on the ground, and there, where he had expected to find it, was Pindalest’s gun. It was a small one, a belly gun. Jim threw it far out into the snow and then replaced the contents of the
war bag.

  He built a fire afterward and went over to look at the horses and grain them. They seemed little the worse for yesterday, and Jim was thankful. When he came back to the fire Pindalest was sitting up in his blankets, staring stupidly at the fire and the morning.

  “Morning,” Jim said.

  Pindalest growled good morning and pulled on his boots. Jim heard his labored breath as he bent over and knew every muscle and bone in the agent’s body was sore. Hearing it gave him a kind of shamefaced pleasure.

  Jim served up breakfast, and the hot coffee seemed to thaw Pindalest out. Finished, there was that small lull after breakfast that a man likes to take before starting the day’s work. Jim rolled his first cigarette of the day, and Pindalest lighted a cigar.

  Some of the grouchiness was gone from the agent’s wind-ruddied face.

  Jim said idly, “Feel kind of stiff, don’t you?”

  Pindalest groaned. “When we get to Sun Dust tonight I’m going to sleep for a week.”

  Jim eyed him speculatively, and in his gray eyes was a sly humor. “That so?” he asked gently and then decided he might as well get it over with. “What if we don’t reach Sun Dust though?”

  “Nonsense. We’ll travel till we do.”

  “A whole week, maybe?” Jim drawled.

  Pindalest, finding a sly irony in the tone of Jim’s voice, looked sharply at him. “What are you talking about, Garry?”

  “I’m talkin’ about you and Sun Dust,” Jim murmured. “You won’t see each other for a week at the outside.”

  Pindalest just stared at him. “Why not?”

  “Because you and me have got a lot of country to travel—a lot of country. Some of it will likely be ahead of a posse too.”

  Pindalest continued to stare but with suspicion mounting in his eyes. “Posse?”

  Jim told him then. “You’ve been suckered, Pindalest. Riling never sent me over here. He never made a deal with Lufton either. I come to take you and hide you—also, to get a note from you to the army calling off the deadline.”