by Paul Lederer
Fine’s arms flailed like a man on a high wire trying to retain his balance. Then he simply flopped backward, his Colt flying free. He lay in the driving rain, his eyes staring blankly up at the tumultuous skies.
Dancer circled the house and re-entered the cottonwood grove as the skies continued to rumble and roar. There was no telling how many other guns might be waiting. From behind the screen of steadily falling silver rain, masked by the shadowy trees, he studied the house and yard intently. The man he had trampled over had dragged himself back into the bunkhouse, leaving the shotgun behind. He was fairly certain that it had been Foley. He regretted injuring the white-haired man who had probably emerged only to fight for the brand, knowing nothing of the circumstances.
Fine had not moved, could not move as he lay face up in the red mud. About Jared Fine’s death Dancer could raise no guilt or sympathy. The man was a scheming killer, no less.
Still no one stirred in the house. Fine was gone, Charley Spikes as well. Perhaps there were no more men there to be aroused by the shots. The loss of the herd might have sent those who had survived the canyon raid traveling on.
After that, Cassie would have been left with no money to pay the hands; what was there to keep the cowboys here?
But where was Cassie? He had assumed that she was here because her pony and carriage were stored in the barn. That, he realized, meant nothing. She also could have long since departed, leaving her coveted ranch to Jared Fine. She might have traveled East once more. Or … the thought was like a cold stone in Dancer’s heart, she might have fallen to a worse fate. There was no way to be sure. He had to reach the house, to find what truth he could. Risking all, he started forward and came face to face with the armed man.
TEN
‘I could have told them to leave you alone,’ said Jason Burr. The young wrangler was smiling as always. He was hatless; the rain had plastered his dark hair to his scalp. His pretty little palomino shifted its feet as he drew it to a halt beside Dancer. ‘Looks like you finished the job.’
‘I’m surprised to find you still here,’ Dancer said, studying the easy-going cowboy. Burr just shrugged.
‘I’m not surprised to see you back,’ Jason said. ‘I told them you’d find a way. No one believed me.’
‘Is everyone else gone?’ Dancer asked. Jason Burr, his hands resting lightly on his pommel nodded. ‘But you stayed.’
‘Me? Sure, I stayed, John. I had no place else to go. Cassie wanted to play out the string. She wanted to eliminate Jared and Charley Spikes right away. I told her to just wait a bit and you’d be back to do the job for us. Hell, what’s a couple of more murders on your record? It would leave us without any cloud over our heads if we let you take care of matters.’
Dancer felt that stone in his chest return. Now it was slowly sinking into his gut. He watched the mirth in the smiling cowboy’s eyes and simultaneously a small wedge of light crept through the heavy gathering of storm clouds, bringing with it a glimmer of knowledge, distasteful and heart-wrenching.
‘You didn’t just show up here by chance that day, did you, Jason?’
The younger man laughed and shook his head. ‘No, John! There was some trouble out here, I knew. Cassie wrote, asking me to come. You happened to show up in the meantime so she decided to use you until I could arrive.’
‘Use me?’ Dancer asked numbly.
‘I didn’t think a man of your experience could get taken in so easily, John. But I guess a woman like Cassie can cause a lot of confusion in a man’s mind.’ He nodded toward the inert form of Jared Fine. ‘Look at poor old Jared there! She had him on the line, convinced that once he got rid of her husband they could share the ranch.’
‘So Jared did kill Aaron Blythe.’
‘Sure, him and Charley Spikes. Trouble was, Jared had to go as well. Before he could talk. And, he was totally unequipped to take on Pinetree – I guess he proved that in the end,’ Jason Burr said with a chuckle.
‘You’re lying!’ Dancer said with manufactured anger. He was angry with himself, mostly, not wanting to believe he had been taken in, used as a pawn. ‘I saw Cassie when her husband had just been hung. I heard her sobs, saw her tears.…’
Burr laughed again, this time with a sort of raw humor. ‘John, don’t you remember what Cassie was before she came West with Aaron Blythe? An actress! She can cry whenever it suits her. And lie with the best riverboat gambler you ever will run across. I learned that way back when we were together in Kansas City.’
‘You were…?’
‘We shared a bed. Is that your question? Off and on. One night she came to me and told me she had a real sucker on the line. A dumb hick who had never seen the big city or a pair of woman’s legs before. He wanted to marry her and take her West. She was excited, said he had thousands of acres out here.
‘It wasn’t ‘til she got here that she found out the real situation. The land was dry, there was little graze, little water. And the thick-skulled Aaron Blythe hadn’t ever filed properly on any of it. Seems Victor LaFrance and Garner had an older, better claim to everything Blythe thought he owned.
‘Cassie said she had been making up to the ranch foreman, trying to plant ideas in his head, but though Jared Fine was a thug, he wasn’t much smarter than Aaron had been. She asked me to ride this way and see if I couldn’t set things straight. There was good money in her offer and I thought I wouldn’t mind living with Cassie again, so I agreed.
‘You just happened to show up first and Cassie decided to use you. First thing she did was take you to town and send you over to a saloon only Pinetree men frequent by common consent. She knew that, and knew that LaFrance and Luke Garner had hired on a second-rate gunhand named Wes Charles … something like that.’
‘Carroll,’ Dancer provided. ‘Wes Carroll.’
‘Yeah, well, you took care of him, I hear, so Cassie decided you would have your uses if she kept smiling and lying, getting teary-eyed when required. The thing was – Jared Fine did not like it at all. He felt he might be losing some leverage. She told me that one day Fine decided to send you and another hand.…’
‘Billy Dent.’
‘… Out to look the range over. Jared and another man – Terrell? – rode out first, knowing where you would be riding and they ambushed you. But Terrell was stupid, took out Dent first. Then you got Terrell.
‘Then you started to get too nosy for Jared and Cassie both. You rode out to Tortuga Flats. They couldn’t have you looking at the brands on those cattle. Spikes decided to take matters into his own hands – he being Jared’s right-hand man and always informed as to what was going on.’
‘Jared stopped the shooting that morning.’
‘Sure, John! How was he supposed to explain to the marshal that they had gunned down one of their own men? And keep Bingham from coming out to Tortuga where he could see the Pinetree brands on the cattle himself after a murder was reported?’
‘And Marshal Bingham’s death?’
‘Jared got him too. It wasn’t enough to have you locked up. There was a chance you might get out on bail or talk too much at your trial. Too, Bingham might have decided to look the herd over for whatever reason and spot those Pinetree brands. There was no risk involved for Jared in killing the marshal. You were in Bingham’s custody when he was shot. Who else could have done it? That should have been enough to finally send you riding out of the country to save your neck. The last nudge you needed if you hadn’t already gotten the message.
‘I could have told them it wouldn’t work, that you would not run. They kept underestimating their man. I never did, John.’
Dancer’s head was swimming. Everything Jason Burr was saying had the ring of truth. It fit all of the confusing facts together too well. The question was, why had Jason come forward now to relate all of this, to in effect, confess? There could be only one answer.
The smiling cowboy meant to kill him.
Jason must have seen the knowledge flicker in Dancer’s eyes, for – still smil
ing – his hand dropped toward his Colt revolver. Burr said:
‘I always wondered if I was better than John Dancer, the famous Alamogordo gunman!’
The balky little palomino side-stepped at the sudden movement and shout. Still Burr’s shot was quick and accurate. Instead of tagging flesh, however, it sang off the receiver of Dancer’s Winchester, sending the bullet whining off into the trees as the rifle went spinning from his hand.
A scream came from the porch of the house as the shot rang out.
Dancer yanked on Washoe’s reins and the big gray horse reared up as John pawed past the skirt of his black rain slicker and found the walnut grips of his own .44 Colt. Jason triggered off a second shot. His target blocked by the towering bulk of Washoe, Burr’s second shot was nevertheless again too close.
His bullet caught stirrup leather beneath Dancer’s crippled foot with a nasty slapping sound.
Dancer’s Colt was in his hand and he fired deliberately as Washoe came down to all fours and braced. John Dancer’s shot caught Burr directly in the heart. Burr’s eyes reflected amazement. His mouth formed a puzzled grin. The palomino swung away in panic and raced toward the yard of the ranch house, Burr clinging to his running horse, swaying like a rag doll in the saddle.
The rain still drove down in torrents. On the porch of the house Cassandra Blythe stood with her hands to her mouth. Her evil eyes caught sight of Dancer and she let loose a stream of shrill, savage curses as Jason Burr slumped from the saddle and fell to the rain-pooled earth not far from where Jared Fine still lay face up in the ooze.
Thunder rumbled, but the berserk curses of Cassandra Blythe sounded clearly above it. She rushed off the porch, slipped and fell to hands and knees. She rose again, stumbling and sliding, rushing to the unmoving body of Jason Burr. She lifted his head as if to cradle it, but then began to slap at it violently, furiously, as if he too had let her down. Dancer watched without speaking from Washoe’s back.
Crazed eyes rose up to meet his through the rain. Cassandra Blythe’s fine blonde hair was rain-washed, her pretty little white dress soaked through. Mud covered her hands, knees and elbows.
She screamed out again in uncontrollable wrath. Then she saw Burr’s pistol, flung free as he fell, and she dove toward it through the fury of the rainstorm. From her knees she shot wildly at Dancer four times, before the cylinder was emptied.
Then she threw the gun away, buried her face in her muddy hands and began to cry. As Dancer continued to watch, she slowly spread her arms and looked up to him, her expression changing, softening, becoming some sort of entreaty to forgive, to understand, to help her.…
Dancer turned Washoe away from the bad-luck range and rode out through the cold and blustery day, the woman’s banshee cries eventually smothered by the thunder and cleansing rush of the bitter wind and constant falling rain.
The morning was clear and bright. There was not a puddle of water anywhere when Dancer again reached Brownsville. It might never have rained, never have stormed. With Washoe stabled up and under Toby Waller’s care, John Dancer hobbled his way across the street to the hotel, where his entrance silenced the lobby.
Guy Travers, in shirtsleeves and red suspenders looked up from his paperwork, eyes startled. John made his way to the hotel desk heavily and rested both hands on it.
‘Will you be staying with us again, Mr Dancer?’ Travers asked uneasily.
‘No, it’s just that I forgot something here,’ John answered.
From the back room Tess Travers had appeared, her round face decorated with a genuine smile. ‘Hello, John,’ she said. ‘Is there something we can do for you?’
‘Man says he left something behind,’ Guy Travers said. ‘Did you check…?’
Tess’s smile deepened. She understood if her husband did not. ‘Sadie’s in her room, John. Go on up.’
The staircase was a challenge. John figured he would have to get himself a cane and learn how to use it. He managed the fifty feet down the corridor to Sadie Fairchild’s door easily but then found himself unable to complete what he had come to do just as he started to knock. He hesitated, thought about turning away and just leaving.
The small voice from within the room said: ‘I’m here, John. Do come in.’
As he entered, he saw the chestnut-haired girl with those sad green eyes standing at the window. A light breeze fluttered the white curtains. She turned slowly toward him, her small hands clasped together. ‘I recognized Washoe half a mile away. I’ve been watching, hoping you’d come by to see me. Are you back to stay, John?’
‘No,’ he said, taking two steps nearer. Her eyes grew a little sadder. ‘I’m leaving again. As soon as Washoe’s back in top shape.’
‘Oh?’ Sadie’s eyes were on the tips of her shoes. ‘Where will you go, John?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Nor do I know what I will do once I get there. I only know the sort of place I want to find.’
‘Do you, John?’ Sadie’s eyes lifted to his now. ‘Where might that be?’
He told her.
‘Where a man can live a full life, a rewarding life, without his gun. Without carving his own path to Hell.’
She smiled faintly, surprised and pleased that he had remembered her own words. Dancer shifted uncomfortably and braced himself, placing one hand on the post of her brass bed.
‘Sadie…?’
She waited as he hesitated. His eyes shifted down and away like a shy schoolboy’s.
‘When I leave … I know all about the things, the bad things that happened to you when you were young and your parents brought you across the prairie. I know that’s why you stayed in Brownsville. …’ He took a deep breath and tried it again.
‘Now … do you think that now you would be brave enough to ride out onto the wide land, to leave this place?’
The sadness in her green eyes had vanished. They sparkled now with a sort of bright temerity. Sadie stepped forward and tilted her head back to gaze up at him, her arms around his waist.
‘With you, John Dancer,’ she said, ‘I would go anywhere.’
About the Author
Paul Lederer spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Texas. He worked for years in Asia and the Middle East for a military intelligence arm. Under his own name, he is best known for Tecumseh and the Indian Heritage Series, which focuses on American Indian life. He believes that the finest Westerns reflect ordinary people caught in unusual and dangerous circumstances, trying their best to act with honor.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Logan Winters
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-4804-8845-8
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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