“I knew that’s what you’d want,” Kite said casually as he began to reload the expended chambers in the revolver he held.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Sandeen went on. “You’ll ride with us tonight against the Lazy F.”
Kite’s head jerked up in surprise. “You’re going through with the attack on the ranch? You can’t, Ed! You still don’t know the whole story. Horn’s gathered up a posse to take out there from San Remo.”
“You think I give a damn about that? I’m not worried about eight or ten of those piddling townies. They won’t be enough to make a difference. I’ll be surprised if Laura Flynn has more than a dozen able-bodied men left to defend the place. Throw in that so-called posse, and it’s still not enough to keep me from taking what I want.”
“But . . . but you don’t have to!” Kite sputtered. “Riley’s dead. He was the only direct link between you and that ambush. Without him, the law can’t prove anything. You can just deny everything and sit back and wait. The Lazy F’s not going anywhere. You can always get control of it later, after things have quieted down some.”
Sandeen chuckled coldly. “You don’t understand, Mitch. I’ve never been a man who likes to wait. When I see something I want, I take it. Then and there. I let Howard Flynn and that niece of his get away with too much for too long. The Lazy F is the best range around here, so it’s mine by right. And so will the rest of the Mogollon Rim country be mine before I’m through.”
Kite stared at him. Blinded by ambition and arrogance, Sandeen had lost his mind, and Kite suddenly found himself wondering if the man had been insane all along, just holding it in check.
“You’re making a mistake, Ed,” he said. He started to turn his horse. “I’m going back to San Remo—”
The harsh click of a gun being cocked stopped him. “Are you turning on me, too, Mitch?” Sandeen asked in a quiet but deadly menacing tone.
Kite stiffened in the saddle. He hadn’t even seen Sandeen draw, but the gun in his hand was rock-steady. Kite didn’t doubt for a second that Sandeen would use it, either.
He had no choice. He said, “No, Ed. I’m not turning on you. I’m with you, you know that. I’ll back your play all the way.”
“I thought so.” Sandeen lowered the hammer and leathered the iron. “We’ll be ready to ride in a few minutes.” He laughed happily. “Just think, Mitch. By morning the Lazy F will be mine, and it’s just the beginning. I’m going to rule this whole part of the territory like it was my own private kingdom . . . and who knows? Maybe someday you’ll be working for Governor Sandeen, or even Senator Sandeen. Nobody can stop me now!”
Kite wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Crazy or not, he hoped Sandeen was right.
But with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Kite told himself that Sandeen had forgotten all about the man called The Drifter.
Chapter Thirty
Tom Horn gritted his teeth to hold back impatient, frustrated curses. The citizens of San Remo meant well and he supposed they were better than no posse at all, but they were damned sure as slow as molasses in January!
It had taken them what seemed like forever to fetch their guns, saddle their horses, mount up, and move out. Now that they were finally riding toward the Lazy F, they still weren’t hustling along fast enough to suit Horn. The sun was already down, and night was falling rapidly. At this rate, they wouldn’t reach the Flynn ranch until an hour or more after dark. Depending on how impatient Sandeen was, that might be too late to do any good.
But no matter what happened tonight, Horn told himself, the jig was up for Mr. Ed Sandeen. Before leaving San Remo, Horn had written out a note for Sheriff Buckey O’Neill and sent the Mexican saddle maker’s oldest boy galloping off to Prescott with it. The youngster would get there sometime the next morning, and by the end of the next day, O’Neill would probably reach San Remo with a real posse. Even if Sandeen succeeded in grabbing the Lazy F tonight, he wouldn’t have it for long.
Jasper Culverhouse and Mayor Donohue flanked Horn. The big wolflike cur loped alongside Culverhouse’s horse. As Horn had suspected, the dog belonged to Frank Morgan, and Culverhouse figured he would want to come along for the fun.
Trailing along behind the three men were eight more—Wilson and Desmond, the two storekeepers; Hightower, McCain, and Williams, who owned the three saloons in San Remo that Sandeen didn’t own; Vincente Delgado, the saddle maker; and Pearsoll and Higgins, who worked as bartenders for Hightower and McCain, respectively. They all seemed like good men, brave enough, and like all frontiersmen they knew at least a little about handling guns, but none of them had ever been part of a fight like this. None of them would be a match for even the least skilled of Sandeen’s hard cases and gun-throwers.
But the country had a history of common men banding together and going out to oppose evil, Horn reminded himself. It was a tradition that went back over a hundred years, back to the days of the revolution that had freed the colonies from England’s despotic grip. And hadn’t the Texans ultimately defeated the much larger army fielded by that Mexican dictator, Santa Anna? Time and again, Americans had taken up arms against seemingly impossible odds and somehow emerged triumphant. Maybe all it meant, Horn thought, was that sometimes El Señor Dios smiled on courageous fools.
That might be enough.
“How much longer will it take us to get there?” Donohue asked.
“Half an hour, maybe,” Horn said. “That’s just a guess, though. I ain’t as familiar with this part of the country as I am with some others.”
“Sounds right to me,” Culverhouse put in. “What do we do when we get there?”
“Well, if everything’s peaceful, we ride in and add our numbers to those defendin’ the place. If it ain’t . . . if the ruckus is already goin’ on . . . I reckon we’ll figure that out when the time comes.”
“I’d give a lot for a shot at Ed Sandeen,” Donohue growled. “He’s sure caused plenty of trouble in these parts.”
“Better be careful what you wish for, Mayor,” Horn drawled. “Before the night’s over, you might just get it.”
* * *
Frank found the bald knob without any trouble. The moon was rising, and it made the rocky knoll shine a little in the night, like the hairless skull of an old man.
He had been the last to leave the Lazy F, waiting until the cowboys had slipped away one by one, almost as quietly as Apaches. Standing in the open door of the darkened house, in the shadows of the porch, he had listened intently but hadn’t heard any hoofbeats. That had brought a satisfied nod from him. The men had done as he’d told them and waited until they were out of earshot of the house to mount up and ride toward the rendezvous point. All he could do was hope that if Sandeen had any watchers posted nearby, they were unaware of the men leaving the ranch headquarters.
Before taking his own leave of the house, he had asked Laura, “You’re sure you want to stay here?”
“I’m certain,” she had replied without hesitation. “I have a feeling that Mr. Buckston is going to wake up soon, and I want to be here when he does.”
“All right,” Frank had told her. “Maybe next time we see each other, this will all be over.”
She had smiled at him and taken his hand, and then impulsively hugged him. “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Mr. Morgan. And I’m awfully glad that you’re really on my side.”
Now as he approached the bald knob, Frank recalled the warmth and strength he had felt in Laura Flynn’s slender body as he briefly returned that hug, and he thought that Jeff Buckston was a lucky man. At least he would be, if he ever woke up from that bullet crease on his head.
Frank reined in as he heard the whistle of a night bird. That was the signal he’d been listening for. He whistled in return, and a moment later more than a dozen riders emerged from the shadows under the trees at the base of the knoll and came toward him.
“Everybody accounted for?” Frank asked as the men rode up and stopped.
“Yeah, we’r
e all here,” one of them replied. “What do we do now, Morgan?”
“We’ll swing around to the east, over close to the rim,” Frank said, “and then circle back toward the trail between Saber and the Lazy F. If one of you boys who knows this range better than I do wants to lead the way, that would be just fine with me.”
“I can do it,” one of the men said. “I grew up around here. Reckon I know just about every foot of the range.”
Frank nodded. “Good. We’ll follow you. Now let’s get moving.”
They rode out, the young puncher taking the lead as Frank had suggested.
Frank had never been the sort of man to be bothered by uncertainty. He was in the habit of sizing up a situation the best he could, deciding on a course of action, and then following that course without looking back or brooding about what else he might have done.
But he had to admit that he was a mite nervous tonight. There were too many things going on that he couldn’t control, too many groups moving around in the night, too many hands that could play out differently than he expected. It was almost like sitting down at a poker table blindfolded and trying to figure out what cards you had by feeling them. That was fine if the cards were marked, but if they weren’t, and if you were gambling with people’s lives . . .
Even the iciest nerves would twinge a little under those circumstances.
The young cowboy did indeed seem to know where he was going. He led the group almost into the dark shadow of the Mogollon Rim, then turned back to the west and rode hard. The others kept up with him, and about half an hour later he drew his mount to a stop on top of a thickly wooded ridge.
“Down yonder is the trail,” he said in a low voice as he pointed.
“That’s how Sandeen will get to the Lazy F?”
“Well, I reckon he could always go some other way,” the puncher said with a shrug, “but that’s the quickest and easiest trail to follow.”
Frank nodded. He leaned forward in the saddle, some instinct warning him that not everything was as it should be. Something was wrong, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. Then he sniffed the air and knew.
The young waddy beside him caught on at the same time. “Dust!” he said. “There’s dust hangin’ in the air. A bunch o’ horses went by here not long ago.”
“Sandeen and his men have already ridden past,” Frank said. “We have to head for the Lazy F.”
“Wait a minute,” one of the other men said. “What if you’re wrong, Morgan? What if somebody else kicked up that dust? You wanted us to surprise Sandeen, and now you’re maybe throwin’ that edge away.”
Frank knew the man was right. He was gambling again, staking lives on the turn of an unseen card. But he knew from experience to trust his hunches, in both poker and life, and he knew that Sandeen’s raiders had already ridden past on their deadly mission.
“I’m heading for the Lazy F,” he said as he heeled Stormy into motion down the slope. He didn’t ask who was with him, and he didn’t look back to see if any of the cowboys were following. He would take on Sandeen by himself if he had to.
Then he heard the hoofbeats behind him and knew they were coming with him. He reached the trail, turned north, and urged Stormy into a ground-eating lope. They might not have any time to waste.
Less than five minutes later, gunfire began to pop and rattle in the distance, and Frank knew that time was up.
* * *
After Frank Morgan and all the other men were gone, Acey-Deucy padded into the parlor and asked, “You want me to light the lamps now, Missy Laura?”
From the rocking chair beside the divan, Laura nodded and said, “Yes, please. Mr. Morgan said to make the house look as normal as possible.”
The cook lit the lamp in the parlor and then hurried off to do Laura’s bidding. Over the next few minutes, a warm glow began to fill the sprawling ranch house as Acey-Deucy lit several lamps.
In the parlor, Laura studied Buckston’s haggard face. His skin was so pale that his dark mustache and the beard stubble that had grown over the past couple of days stood out starkly. He was not really what one would call a handsome man, even under the best of circumstances, Laura reflected. His features were too roughhewn for that.
And yet when he smiled, she always thought he was very handsome, probably because that was when his gentle nature was the easiest to see in his eyes. The poets said that the eyes were the windows of the soul, and Jeff Buckston had a good soul, Laura thought. She looked at his eyes . . . his eyes that were . . .
Open.
Her breath froze in her throat as realization jerked her body forward in the chair. She leaned toward him and peered down into his eyes. She hadn’t even noticed him opening them, but she wasn’t imagining it. “Jeff,” she whispered, then louder, “Jeff!”
He blinked vacantly, and for a horrible second she thought that he wasn’t right in the head, that he didn’t know her and would never be the same again. But then his unsteady gaze fastened on her and she saw awareness blossoming there, awareness and memory and all the things that made him who he was.
“L-Laura . . . ?” he rasped through dry lips.
She slid from the rocking chair and fell to her knees beside the divan, clutching his shoulders but being careful not to jostle him too much as she leaned over him and said, “Jeff, you know who I am? You’re all right?”
“Sure, I know . . . who you are . . . and I reckon I’m . . . all right . . . ’cept my head hurts . . . like I got kicked by . . . a Missouri mule.”
Tears of relief and love fell from her eyes to land on his lean, grizzled cheeks. She bent over him and brushed her lips gently against his. “Oh, my darling,” she said. “I thought I had lost you.”
“Nope, I’m still here . . . but where—” He stopped short as more memories obviously came back to him. “Sandeen!”
“Don’t even think about that,” Laura told him. “You’ve been hurt, and you need to rest.”
“Feel like I been . . . restin’ . . . for a long time.” He lifted a hand and shakily reached toward his head. “What’s this?”
“There’s a bandage around your head. A bullet grazed you and knocked you out.”
“For . . . how long? Those masked . . . bastards . . .”
“They’re gone,” Laura told him, without mentioning that the same gunmen, along with just as many others, were probably on their way here right now. “That was last night. You’ve been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.”
“That’s a . . . long nap.” Buckston raised his arm again, but this time he slipped it around her and brought her down so that her head rested on his chest as she leaned over the divan. “Pardon me for . . . bein’ forward,” he whispered. “Just feel like . . . I want to hold you for a spell. . . .”
“That’s all right,” she said as more tears spilled from her eyes and dampened his shirt. “You can hold me for as long as you want. Forever if you want.”
But even as she wept for joy at the fact that she hadn’t lost him after all, she remembered the deadly threat that loomed over the Lazy F tonight. Surely she hadn’t had the man she loved returned to her only to have everything snatched away again by Ed Sandeen.
Without lifting her head from Buckston’s chest, her eyes went to the gun lying on the table next to the divan. If Sandeen were to step into the room right now, she would kill him. She had no doubts about her ability to pick up that gun and empty every bullet in its cylinder into Sandeen’s brutal, arrogant face. Just let him try to take away what she had been given!
As that thought went through her head, she caught her breath. Gunfire sounded in the night, heart-stoppingly close by, and as it continued, Laura knew what it meant.
The showdown, the final battle in this short-lived range war, had begun.
* * *
Sandeen had sent one of his hired gunmen, a former cavalry captain named Lawton who had been drummed out of the service for drunkenness and graft, to keep an eye on the Lazy F. He wanted to know wha
t sort of odds he would be facing when he got there—not that it would really matter. Sandeen knew he was destined to emerge victorious. He could feel it in his bones.
Kite wasn’t so certain of that, but he felt a little better when Lawton gave a whippoorwill’s call and then rode in to report that the dozen or so ranch hands left on the Lazy F were still forted up in the remaining outbuildings.
“I’ve been watching all afternoon and evening, just like you told me to, Mr. Sandeen,” Lawton said. “Nobody’s moving around down there. They’re probably holed up thinking about how they’re going to die.”
“What about the main house?”
“I spotted the girl and that chink cook through my field glasses. Wasn’t sure what was going on at first because they didn’t light the lamps right away when it got dark, but they did a little while later. Saving coal oil, maybe.” Lawton gave an ugly laugh. “Like it’s going to matter.”
Uneasiness crawled along Kite’s spine. It seemed to him that something wasn’t quite right here, but he had to admit that from the sound of it, the Lazy F was ripe for the plucking. Sandeen and his army of more than forty gunslingers could ride in there, kill the few defenders, and take over the ranch house. Then, with Laura Flynn in his power, Sandeen could insist that he was just protecting her and her ranch from rustlers and outsiders. Nobody would really believe that, but who could prove otherwise in a court of law, especially if the girl went along with the story? Which she would have to if she wanted to live.
Through sheer boldness, Sandeen might just win. And if he did, like he said, there would be no stopping him.
“There may be a posse on its way from San Remo,” Sandeen said to Lawton. “Any sign of it?”
The former cavalryman turned hired gun shook his head. “Nope. You don’t have a thing to worry about, Boss. Just ride in and take over.”
Sandeen lifted his reins. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a triumphant grin. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
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