Kilrone (1966)

by L'amour, Louis

  Kilrone Louis L’amour *

  Medicine Dog Had Sworn To Take His Scalp. Iron Dave Sproul Was Gunning For Revenge. All The Bannocks And The Paiutes wanted him dead—but fast! It was almost too muc h for one man.

  Major Frank Paddock trusted him and gave him comman d of the fort. Betty Considine gave him her love and th e promise of a future. But there would be no future i f Kilrone didn’t possess the rawest courage and the fastes t guns the West had ever known!

  Chapter 1

  Betty Considine shaded her eyes when she saw th e rider coming through the gate. Accustomed to the movement s of horses and men, she noted the weary, shufflin g trot of the pony as it crossed the baked clay of th e compound toward the Headquarters building.

  The rider was unshaven, and the dark hair curle d around his ears and over the collar of his sun-bleache d shirt. When he swung down she noted the gun hun g low, the narrow hips, and the powerful shoulders. His ha t brim was ragged, and there was a bullet hole throug h the crown.

  When he was a few paces from her she could clearl y see the line of an old scar on his cheekbone. His lea n brown face was haggard, and in his eyes there was th e daze of a dreadful weariness. On the collar and shoulde r of his faded blue shirt was a dark stain of dried blood.

  Pulling his hat from his head, he slapped it against hi s thigh in an ineffectual effort to free it of dust, and th e attempt caused him to stagger, so that he half fell agains t the hitch rail.

  She ran to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Ar e you hurt?” she asked quickly. “What’s the matter?”

  The face he turned to her was etched with lines o f exhaustion, and was gray under the tan. I’l l be all right.

  Thank you.”

  He smelled strongly of stale sweat, dust, and the horse , and he gathered himself with a visible effort. Even in hi s exhausted state there was a faint swagger in his bearing.

  “Who’s commanding?” he asked.

  The adjutant, Major Paddock.”

  He had started to turn away, but at the name hi s shoulders seemed to hunch as from a blow. He looke d back at her, the glaze of weariness gone from his eyes.

  “You said Paddock. Not Frank Bell Paddock?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  He stared at the compound as if seeing it for the firs t time. Squinting against the white-hot glare of the deser t sun, he looked around the rectangle of shabby adobe s that made up the tiny post. Officers’ quarters, adjutant’s office, sutler’s store, die post bakery, commissary, quartermaste r stores, blacksmith shop, corrals, and stables.

  Everywhere was heat, dust, and the glare of the pitiles s sun. “My God!” he said softly. “Frank Bell Paddock!”

  He opened the door of the Headquarters building an d disappeared inside.

  Betty Considine was Army. The only daughter o f General Pat Considine, and a niece of Carter Hanlon , captain and army surgeon, she had grown up to Regulations.

  Having lived on a dozen army posts, after he r father’s death she had gone to live with her aunt an d uncle. She was familiar with army gossip and she knew , as they all did, the story of Major Frank Bell Paddock.

  If this stranger was shocked at the presence of Majo r Paddock at this remote post he must have known Paddoc k in the past, but not during the years immediatel y behind him. There had been a time when Paddock wa s considered one of the most promising young officers i n the post-war Army, and one with an assured future.

  Since that time his decline had been consistent, bu t the only other consistent thing about Paddock was hi s addiction to the bottle. Finally he had come here, only a year ago, to this new and temporary fort, one of th e most isolated in the country.

  Her curiosity aroused, Betty Considine paused in th e shade of the overhang outside the sutler’s store.

  Uninterested in any man on the post or elsewhere , Betty was intrigued by this disreputable-looking strange r who had known Frank Bell Paddock in the days of hi s glory.

  If this man had known Paddock, he must have know n him back east, or in Europe, yet a more typical wester n man she had never seen. But he might have been Arm y … even if he did not look it now.

  The life of Major Frank Bell Paddock was an ope n book up to a point, but Something had happened i n Paris.

  Captain Paddock had been a military attach^ at th e American embassy in Paris, a handsome, athletic youn g officer, admired by his superiors. There he had met an d married Denise de Caslou, a famous beauty, of the ol d nobility. She came of a family of little wealth but on e known for the long line of soldiers and men of the sea , men of bravery and distinction.

  Whatever it was that happened had occurred only a year after their marriage, and with it began the declin e and fall of Frank Bell Paddock.

  Suddenly relieved of duty in Paris, he had been returne d to the States, and after several brief stays a t various posts, he was sent to a remote fort in Dakota , and then to Montana.

  Now, at the end of the long road down, Major Fran k Bell Paddock was adjutant of a post with only fou r troops of cavalry, all of them under strength. Alway s mildly under the influence of alcohol, he was neve r trusted with a field command. Promotion was somethin g for which he could no longer hope, and he was merel y living out the years until he could retire on a pension.

  But those years stretched far ahead for Paddock, wh o was not yet forty.

  This was the man Barney Kilrone faced as he steppe d past the company clerk and into the office beyond. Th e once fine features of the officer he remembered ha d coarsened into heaviness, and there was a prematur e graying. Most of all, there was an air of resignation, o f hopelessness about the man. When Paddock looked up , his expression hardened into anger as he recognize d Kilrone.

  “So—” It was almost a sigh. “It is you again.”

  “On business, Pad, very ugly business. I Troop is gon e … wiped out. The Bannocks hit them from ambus h over on the Little Owyhee.”

  Major Paddock dropped his eyes to the now meaningles s papers on the desk. Nineteen men … and th e prisoners, if any, worse off than the dead. If any ha d gotten away they were now being hunted down like rat s in a cornfield.

  “Colonel Webb?”

  “I wouldn’t know him by sight, Pad, and identificatio n would have been impossible anyway.”

  Paddock’s brain, dulled by whiskey and long hours o f paper work, refused to fit himself into the new picture.

  Something must be done… .

  There were two problems here, one military and th e other personal. The man who had wrecked his life wa s facing him now, his very presence proof that the year s of expectancy had not been in vain. He had come at last , and when he left he would take with him all worthwhil e in life that remained to the dashing young officer tha t had been Frank Bell Paddock.

  “You’ve come for Denise?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Pad!” Impatience drove through hi s exhaustion. “She loves you. She always did. She’s you r wife.”

  “She has been loyal, I grant you, Barney. She has bee n … what is it the French say? Correct? But she’s been i n love with you.”

  He sat back in his chair. “She’s more beautiful tha n ever, Barney; and now you’ve come to take her away, a s I knew you would.”

  “Pad, for God’s sake, forget it! I didn’t even know yo u were in this part of the country until a girl outside tol d me just now. I’ve been moving, Pad. I haven’t thought o f Denise in years, and I am sure she hasn’t thought of me.”

  The minutes ticked by; a fly buzzed against the window , struggling to escape the heavy air of the hot, clos e room. It was Barnes Kilrone who broke the silence.

  “Pad, you’re in command. This is your problem … all o f it.”

  “Command?” The word car
ried a shock that penetrate d Paddock’s cocoon of self-pity.

  Command? What did one do with three troops?

  Three? …

  “My God!” He came to his feet, his face drawn an d bloodless. “M Troop … they were to rendezvous with I Troop on the North Fork!”

  Barney Kilrone held himself up by the edge of th e desk, and his brain struggled against fatigue, for he wa s all in. He thought of M Troop riding across country, a tired lot of men, riding to a meeting with a company o f the vanquished, a company of the dead … and wh o would keep that rendezvous?

  The Bannocks!

  Discipline, the habit of soldiering, began to shape it s pattern in the mind of Major Frank Paddock. Hi s thoughts began to take formation. He had no plan, o f course, to meet this eventuality, but he knew the thing s to be considered, the responsibilities that were his. M Troop must be warned … somehow.

  Two troops remained on the post, two troops comprisin g just seventy-two effectives, and the whole Bannoc k operation might be directed toward a piecemeal destructio n of the garrison at the post. The Bannocks, le d by a shrewd and careful fighter, had ambushed I Troo p before they could effect the meeting with M Troop.

  With the first troop destroyed, Medicine Dog coul d now move to ambush the second. If he was aware th e post had been warned he would expect a relief force t o come … and trust him to know just how many soldier s remained of the post complement, and how many coul d be spared to leave the fort. And how pitifully few woul d remain.

  “It’s the post he wants,” Paddock said aloud. “He want s the ammunition, the guns, the food, and the horses. If h e could draw enough of us away from the post he coul d strike here… .”

  He broke off, and his eyes turned to Kilrone. “Barney , how did you get here? Were you seen?”

  “If I’d been seen I wouldn’t be here. Unless the y return to the scene of the fight and see my tracks around , they can’t know.”

  “Unless they let you come on purpose to draw anothe r troop away from the post.” He sank back into his chair.

  It was time for a decision, and Frank Paddock had n o decision. He needed time … time. Everything woul d depend on what he decided. If the troop he sent to th e relief of M Troop was caught before it could effect a meeting and was itself destroyed, then the post woul d be helpless before such an attack as the Bannocks coul d mount.

  For the first time he became aware of the condition o f the man across the desk. At once he was on his feet.

  “Come on, Barney—you’re all in. Come to my quarters.”

  Kilrone held back. “Take me to the barracks. To th e stables … not to your quarters.”

  “Now you’re being the fool.” Paddock took Kilrone’s arm. In a way, he thought, it would be better to have i t over. After all the years of waiting it would be a relief.

  Betty Considine saw them come out the door, and sh e came up quickly. “Major Paddock, can I be of help?”

  A fourth person might make it easier. .. . “All right,” h e said. “Glad to have you. I know he needs rest, and h e seems to have been wounded.”

  At Paddock’s quartets, it was Betty who opened th e door, and she saw the expression on Denise Paddock’s face when she glimpsed the stranger. She seemed t o stiffen, then pale, but she was at once composed. “Thi s way,” she said.

  She led the way to the spare bedroom and helped he r husband draw off the brush-scratched, desert-wor n boots. It was she who noted the blood-stained collar an d located the wound. Betty, looking past Denise, saw th e dressing on the wound. “He escaped from the Indians?” s he asked.

  Kilrone, who had kept on his feet until they entere d the room, had collapsed at the bedside and now lay o n the bed unconscious.

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “That’s an Indian dressing. I’ve seen them before.”

  Paddock looked down at the man on the bed. No, he { w as not really unconscious, merely sleeping heavily. An Indian had dressed that wound … and he had denie d being seen by the Bannocks.

  Denise had removed the dressing, and Paddock stare d at the puckering wound. That’s not fresh,” he said.

  “Three days,” Betty guessed. “Maybe four.” She ha d helped her uncle treat too many injured men in thes e past few years not to know.

  An Indian dressing on a wound, and no friendly India n within miles. A wound several days old, and he ha d come from the heart of Indian country.

  Suppose—one had to suppose everything—suppos e the man was a renegade? What better way to scatter th e forces of a post and leave it helpless?

  Paddock told himself he must forget all he had know n of Captain Barnes Kilrone in the past. Nor must he thin k now of Denise. There was too little time. He had a decision to make.

  Captain Mellett and the forty-seven men of M Troo p would reach the North Fork by sundown tomorrow. I t was doubtful if the Bannocks would attack before dayligh t the following morning. There was always the possibilit y that some survivor of the massacre of I Troo p -would get through to Mellett with a warning, but tha t was an outside chance. Mellett was a seasoned officer , sure to be careful, but even the best of men could b e trapped.

  Every minute of delay put Mellet closer to probabl e death by ambuscade. Between Mellett’s troop and possibl e massacre stood only the judgment of Major Fran k Paddock. And to send out a troop to relieve Mellet t would leave the post vulnerable to attack, practicall y helpless.

  His decision had to rest on the word of one man—a man who perhaps could not be trusted … or could he?

  Paddock stepped out into the heat and dust of th e compound and closed the door behind him. If he coul d get another troop into position to hit the Bannocks a s they attacked Mellett, he would have them between tw o fires and might wipe them out. It was a challengin g thought This could be enough to erase all his past failures.

  But it involved a problem almost too difficult for hi m to come to grips with—a problem full of uncertainties.

  Could he get K Troop in position in time to help Mellett?

  Dare he accept the risk of leaving the post expose d to attack? Suppose the Bannocks had already foresee n that possibility, and even now might have the bulk o f their men ready for an attack on the post and its fe w remaining soldiers? … Or K Troop might fail to reac h Mellett in time, and be trapped themselves.

  He went back to his desk and stared at the map on th e wall. It was ninety miles to the North Fork, and K Troo p would have no more than thirty-six hours in which t o cover the distance, all of it rough, dangerous countr y where the enemy might be encountered at any moment.

  His thoughts returned to the man who was the sourc e of his information.

  What was Captain Barney Kilrone, once considere d the most dashing and romantic officer in the Army , doing in Nevada, looking and acting like a renegade?

  He, Frank Bell Paddock, had changed, and he kne w why; but what had happened to Barney Kilrone?

  Chapter 2

  From his desk Paddock could look out of three windows , each offering a different view, and he liked non e of them.

  From one window he could see the mountains, thei r lower slopes bare of trees. They were beautiful in thei r aloof loneliness, but he had no feeling for their beauty , nor for the sweep of plain he saw from the window o n the other side—flat, open country stretching to the horizon.

  Straight before him was a window beside the doo r that led to the outer office, and from this window h e could look out on the parade ground, and could see th e doors of the buildings along either side.

  Thus, from his desk he could see everyone who move d out there, including those who came and went from hi s own house, and they were not many. He detested thi s bleak and lonely post, and he was positive that Denis e felt as he did.

  She, who had been the center of attention in Paris an d Vienna, had only two friends here: Betty Considine, o f course, and Stella Rybolt, wife of Lieutenant Augus t Rybolt. There was, he admitted reluctantly, one othe r friend Denis
e had, one of whom he disapproved.

  Mary Tall Singer was an Indian girl, a Shoshone wh o had acquired an education when as a child she ha d attracted the attention of yet another lonely Army wife.

  For lack of something else to do, the Colonel’s wife ha d taken the pretty Indian girl into her home, taught her t o read, write, and sew, to conduct herself as a lady, and t o appreciate literature. By one means or another Mar y had acquired books and had read them—from children’s books, easily read, she had before long moved on to th e better novels, and to history and poetry.

  She now worked as a clerk, assisting the sutler. He wa s a sober, serious man who had profited by her advice i n his dealings with the Indians, and who respected he r intelligence and paid her as much as he would hav e paid a man doing the same job.

  Her status at the post was peculiar. Despite the fac t that she was an Indian, single and very pretty, she wa s treated as a white woman in the same position migh t have been treated. That this was so was due not only t o her position in the sutler’s eyes, but to the fact, wel l known, that she was a friend of Denise Paddock.

  Frank Bell Paddock continued to stare gloomily out o f the window. He was thinking that Denise had succeede d where he had failed, for at this lonely outpost she ha d created a world of her own in which she held he r position calmly and with assurance. The senior officer a t the post was a bachelor, hence Denise had becom e official hostess at whatever social events were possible.

  The fact that she was resented by the other officers’ w ives on the post disturbed her not in the least, nor di d the fact that they tried to look down on her because o f her friendship with Mary Tall Singer.

  In Stella Rybolt and Betty Considine she had friend s who felt as she did about Mary as well as about muc h else. Stella Rybolt was a veteran of half a dozen arm y posts, and she knew all the tricks of making do. Lon g ago she had accepted the fact that her husband woul d never be more than a company commander, and sh e was unconcerned about it. Gus Rybolt was a good , steady man who loved his wife and his duty; he held t o regulations, but knew when to look the other way whe n others did not, just as long as it did not affect the moral e of his own men or the safety of the post.