Reluctant Enemies

by Vivian Vaughan

  His foot had barely touched the bottom step when he heard a shotgun cock. He peered into the impenetrable blackness.

  “So you’ve come at last,” Charlie said from the shadows.

  “I’ve come, Charlie, but not for you.”

  “Well, you haven’t come for her. She’s gone.”

  “I know. The Haskels are coming.”

  For a moment silence pervaded the coolness of night.

  “Haskels?” Charlie asked tentatively.

  “Newt, Oscar, and ‘the boys,’ whoever they are. I don’t even know how many.”

  “Half a dozen or more,” Charlie commented. “So what’s your hand in this game? You bring their ultimatum? Sign over Spanish Creek or—”

  “I’m here to help you defend your property, sir.”

  “In the name of Heaven,” Charlie whispered. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “In the name of the law. My grandfather taught me well, Charlie. He taught me that for society to advance, no man can put himself above the law.”

  “Old Mr. William,” Charlie mused. “Yes, that was his line. You couldn’t have had a better teacher, son.”

  “Unless it had been my father.”

  Six

  The Haskels waited until sunup to attack Spanish Creek Ranch, and by that time the tenuous truce Will and Charlie had hastily put together had begun to crumble.

  “Well, if you’ve come to help me defend this ranch, we’d better get to work,” Charlie had barked after Will reassured him he intended to put off their own showdown until he’d cleared Joaquín.

  “Humph! With the Haskels running the show, you’ll never get that boy freed. I’ll have to do it myself.” Charlie had eyed Will resolutely. “I promised Priscilla I’d have things settled by the time she returns from Fort Stanton, and I aim to do it.”

  Will stared hard at the obstinate old man. He knew what he was thinking. Well, he thought the same thing. The sooner he cleared Joaquín and resolved his differences with Charlie, the sooner he could get out of this territory. The sooner he could get away from Priscilla. “The sooner the better,” he swore.

  After setting Red Avery to watch from the center cupola atop the barn and Kate to cooking in the kitchen, Charlie and Will took up vigil from opposite ends of the veranda. Before them in the distance loomed the everpresent wall of blue mountains. Overhead the deep blue sky twinkled with stars; some looked close enough for a man to reach up and grab a handful.

  “For a man on the run, you certainly aren’t set up to defend yourself,” Will commented.

  “I’m not on the run, damnit.”

  A gentle evening breeze mingled with the scents of Spanish Creek—piñon, Kate McCain’s roses, and Priscilla, always, Priscilla.

  “Miss Laredo says you’re one of the few ranchers along the Pecos who owns his own place fair and square,” Will commented, changing the subject. If he intended to help Charlie defend his property, he’d have to keep his mind off the past. He wasn’t fighting for Charlie, his brain rejected. He was fighting for law and order.

  “I do.”

  “How do you account for that?”

  “I don’t have to account for it.”

  “I’m not nosy, just curious. Spanish land grants would have been issued on this place, too.”

  “I agree, but no record exists, not that I’ve been able to locate.”

  “What about the deed? Who was the original owner?”

  “There’s no record of a deed ever being issued on this place, not in Santa Fé. When the Haskels decided to take it over, I’m sure they checked down in Old Mexico. If they’d found anything, I’d’ve been the first to hear it.”

  “Who did you buy the land from?”

  “The government. Their surveyors came out, set the metes and bounds.”

  “That’s curious, since property on all sides is known to have been granted.”

  “It’s gaps like this that always intrigue lawyers like us,” Charlie agreed. “I figure it has something to do with the canyon.”

  “The canyon?”

  “There’s a canyon on the place, at the headwaters of the creek…” Charlie’s words drifted off. He eyed Will sharply. “It’s not common knowledge,” he growled.

  “Who would I tell?”

  Finally Charlie resumed his discourse, encouraged, Will decided, by the darkness that isolated them—and by the fact that he had come to Charlie’s aid against the Haskels. Will recalled Priscilla’s claim that everyone was after Spanish Creek Ranch. Well, Charlie knew beyond a doubt that wasn’t the reason Will was here.

  Resuming the story, Charlie motioned with his head toward the house behind them. “That suit of armor. Found it in the canyon, along with other artifacts that belonged to a party of armed Spaniards.”

  “You mean a fort?”

  “More like a camp. Ambushed, died of hunger, pestilence, what have you. Way I figure it, if those were the fellers who held the land grant, they died right there.”

  “What about heirs?”

  “Don’t reckon there are any.”

  Kate brought coffee. The eastern sky began to lighten and still no sign of the Haskels.

  “They know I’ve come to help you, Charlie. That’s why they’re so late. If they come now, they’ll be ready for war.”

  “You claim to be that hot a shot?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Priscilla says you’re fair.”

  Will smiled to himself, recalling how his marksmanship had piqued her pride. “More than fair. I’ve won my share of trophies.”

  “Trophies, huh?”

  “More than you, those of yours I know about, anyway.”

  “You set out to outshoot me for a purpose, I assume.”

  “A lawyer doesn’t assume, Charlie. But you’re right. I had…uh, have a purpose.”

  Charlie sat silently for a long time. Then he surprised Will with, “What’d Ann have to say about that?”

  “Mother? She didn’t like it. But when she saw I was dead set, she gave up trying to dissuade me.”

  Charlie’s voice lost its petulance. “She learned that early, son. You always did attack a chore with everything you could muster. Your persistence bordered on mania, even when you were a tyke. Everybody always complimented your folks on their tenacious little son. I can hear Ann now. ‘Easy for you to say. You don’t have to live with him. William and I call it stubbornness.’”

  Will laughed. “I’ll admit I was a regular pain in the ass most of the time.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You provided us all with more than enough entertainment. Why, I remember one evening over at your house, just a casual affair for twenty or so, not the usual two hundred for seated dinners your mother could throw at the drop of a hat.”

  Will groaned. “Those boring affairs.”

  “The night I’m thinking of was far from boring, thanks to you. You’d been working on growing tadpoles in quart jars, not for school or anything, just a hankering that came from that overworked little brain of yours. But you wouldn’t keep ’em out in the carriage house, no, sir. Your tadpoles were going to be raised in the kitchen by the hearth.”

  “Lordy! Mother must have had a fit!”

  Charlie laughed softly. “Not a big enough fit, as things turned out. No sooner’d we set down to dinner—humm…oxtail soup, yes, I think that was the first course that particular evening—no sooner had we dipped spoons into Ann’s fragrant, steamin’ soup, than you rushed into the room and whispered frantically in your father’s ear. I can see it yet. Ann reprimanding you from the far end of that ten-foot mahogany table, admonishing you not to interrupt her guests, not to whisper in public, to run upstairs where you belonged, and all the while, your father’s eyes started to bug from his head. He scanned the table. His attention lingered on each soup bowl in turn, beginning and ending with his own, then he turned and whispered something to you, and you very reluctantly left the table.”

  “I don’t remember that. How old w
as I?”

  “Six, five maybe, no more’n six, though.”

  “Who ate my tadpoles?”

  Charlie laughed. “Not I, nor your father. Neither of us ever had the nerve to quiz anyone else, not even your mother.”

  “Especially not my mother,” Will said.

  The wind died down toward morning, stilling the leaves on the piñon and cottonwoods. Behind them in the east, the white glow of approaching morning backlighted a Western sky that took on the dark, glossy sheen of black velvet.

  “Your mother still alive?” Charlie questioned from the shadows.

  “She died a year back.” Before I could make good my promise. Picking up his box of shells, Will moved off down the veranda toward the steps. Enough of this! Enough reminiscing. He wasn’t here to listen to Charlie talk about old times. Old times with his father, Charlie’s best friend. His father, whom Charlie had murdered in cold blood.

  Will shivered and headed for the barn.

  “See anything?” Charlie called.

  “No. Sit tight. I’ll check on Avery.”

  By the time he found Red Avery asleep in the cupola and wakened him with a kick to the rear, a faint glow had begun to nudge up over the mountains. Daybreak.

  He returned to the house, his eyes searching the horizon. How would they come? Galloping over the crest, full speed ahead? Probably not. They were, after all, Western men. Indian fighters. They would know a quiet way to sneak in and attack the place when their prey least expected them.

  While their prey dredged up old memories and became weak with remorse over what had gone before, and with dread over what would follow after.

  The fight itself, Will did not dread, even though he had shot at men instead of targets only once before, and that recently, protecting one of the two people Charlie professed to love most, his daughter. The irony of the situation puzzled Will—that he would defend first Charlie’s daughter, now Charlie himself, when in fact he had come to New Mexico Territory to destroy this man who murdered his father.

  Law and order. “No man can be allowed to put himself above the law, Will,” his old grandfather had instructed time and again. “As an officer of the court, it’ll be your duty to stop anarchy in its tracks.”

  Funny, Will thought now. As many times as he’d heard his grandfather make that statement, he’d never envisioned stopping anarchy as shooting lawmen while defending his enemy. But it was beginning to look like that’s what he would be called upon to do.

  By the time he returned to the veranda, Will had forced himself to shake off the lethargy brought on by Charlie’s reminiscing. “If they’re coming, they’ll come soon,” he predicted.

  “That’s the way I figure it, too.” Charlie turned a cold eye on him. “You’re not lyin’ about putting aside our own trouble for the time being?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t mind tellin’ you, son, it’s a creepy feeling, thinkin’ I’ll have to watch my back while I’m fightin’ off Haskels.”

  “You won’t have to watch your back.”

  Charlie turned his eyes to the road.

  “It’s an eye for an eye, Charlie. I’m not here to destroy your whole family, which is close to what will happen if the Haskels take this ranch.”

  “Humph! Priscilla’s father for yours, is that it? I don’t mean to boast, son, but killin’ me’ll pretty much destroy Priscilla’s life, and Kate’s, too.” He eyed Will sharply. “Not that I have to tell you that.”

  No, Will thought, you don’t have to tell me that. After twenty-three years, the pain he’d felt standing over his father’s body was still acute, the memory still fresh. But Charlie’s words echoed a concern that Will hadn’t been able to set aside for days now. Like ripples in a pond, his actions would reach out and devour everyone around Charlie McCain. The way Charlie’s actions had destroyed those around Will’s father. Will steeled his mind against such thoughts, calling on the anger that had been his constant companion for as long as he could recall. “Don’t lay the blame on me.”

  Kate came to the veranda bearing more coffee and a tray of sweet breads. She hadn’t spoken a word to Will since he arrived, but now she said, “Joaquín didn’t steal those horses, Mr. Radnor.”

  Will sipped the coffee, thanked her. “That’s my understanding, too.”

  “When will he be released?”

  “They’re still charging him, Mrs. McCain. They’re not about to let him out of jail, until—”

  “Until they take Spanish Creek,” Charlie interrupted. “And that’s not going to happen in their lifetime.”

  “I admire your confidence,” Will returned, “but it may be misplaced.”

  “I promised Priscilla I’d have Joaquín out of jail by the time she returns,” Charlie vowed for the second time. Will took the point.

  “It’ll be over before she returns,” he promised. “All of it. And I’ll be gone.”

  Racket from the barn interrupted whatever response Charlie had started to make. A crowbar banging on a milk pail. Avery’s signal.

  Here they come, Will thought. He took a sip of cold coffee to wet his dry throat, then dried the palm of his right hand on his pants leg.

  “Get back in the house, sweetheart.” Charlie’s voice was calm, tender even, yet commanding, nonetheless. It took Will by surprise. His own would be two octaves higher than usual, he was sure, if he were able to utter any sound above a croak.

  Silently, he and Charlie watched dark forms top the mountain and proceed down the hillside into the valley, like spilled ink spreading over the grass that glistened in the first glow of the rising sun. A beautiful, breathtaking sight, awesome.

  The men had ridden to within fifty yards of the veranda before they became distinct figures, six men on horseback riding steadily toward the ranchhouse. Will gripped his rifle and watched from the shadows. Oscar Haskel held up his left hand to halt his companions. As one they drew rein.

  “MCCAIN!” Oscar bellowed. “Get your hide out here.”

  When Charlie reached for his walking stick, Will moved it aside. Charlie’s shoulders bowed.

  “Damn you—”

  “Sit tight.” Will was already on his feet. He stepped out of the shadows onto the steps.

  “You damned traitor,” Oscar Haskel accused. “Step aside or get yourself shot.”

  Will shifted his leveled rifle into view. “Ride away now and there’ll be no trouble.”

  “You’re the trouble we’re fixin’ to put a stop to,” Newt threatened from beside his brother. He reached for his holster.

  Will sidestepped into the shadows and fired. Once, twice, three times, four. Levering shells into the chamber between shots, he didn’t stop until he’d fired six rounds, perfectly placed. When he finished, six Stetsons lay in the dust, and six bareheaded men sat stunned.

  “You damned Stuntman,” Oscar stuttered.

  “Hell, it’s that feller from the stage,” a strained voice croaked.

  “You should’ve shot him when you had the chance, Slim.” Oscar Haskel fixed Will with a murderous glare, designed, Will supposed, to intimidate. “This isn’t your fight, Radnor. Move aside.”

  “As an officer of the court, it’s my fight anytime a man takes the law into his own hands. Charlie says he owns this land fair and square. If you doubt it take him to court and show your proof.”

  “That ain’t the way it works out here,” Newt responded.

  “It’s the way it works everywhere,” Will countered. “Among civilized men.”

  “You cain’t speak for Charlie—”

  “Then I’ll speak for myself, Newt.” Charlie had hobbled into the light. “Get off my land, Oscar Haskel, and take your bloodsuckin’ scum with you.”

  “You aren’t gettin’ rid of us that easy, McCain. We’re the law.”

  “The law! You dang-blasted, lily-livered—”

  The man called Slim went for his gun. Will fired into the ground in front of his horse. The horse nickered, reared, and pitched Slim, who liv
ed up to his name in build, back over his rump.

  Oscar held up his hand again. “That’s it for now, boys. Pick up your bonnets, an’ let’s head back to town.” The tone of Oscar Haskel’s voice left no doubt that the fight was far from over, making his parting threat unnecessary. “We’ll be back, McCain. Put that in your cud an’ chew it while we’re gone.”

  Will and Charlie stood side by side, watching them go.

  “That was mighty fancy shootin’, son. What you got in them veins, ribbons o’ steel?”

  Will’s insides still shook from the encounter. He started to tell Charlie that this was the first time he’d ever faced men with guns at such close range, so close he could see the color of their eyes, so close he would have no chance against their guns. The thought of it left him weak and quaking. He felt the need to talk about it, and a man like Charlie, who had survived in this wild country for over twenty years, would understand. But he couldn’t talk to Charlie. Charlie had killed his father in cold blood. He certainly couldn’t talk to Charlie.

  Suddenly anguish returned, the old anguish, along with the determination that had driven Will for twenty-three years. Charlie had memories? Well he had memories, too, and they rushed back now, flooding him with agony—memories of finding his father, dead and clutching Charlie’s pistol, memories of the blood and the tears and the promise he’d made his mother. He turned on Charlie.

  “I’m not your son, Charles Kane. You’d do well not to forget that.” Storming to the barn, Will relieved Red Avery, whose bloodless face testified to the archaeologist’s own anxieties.

  “That was some shooting,” Red said with enthusiasm. “Glad you’re on our side.”

  “I’m not on your side,” Will hissed. Saddling his horse with angry pulls and shoves, he led the animal from the barn. At the door he turned back to the stunned Red. “Tell Charlie I’ve gone back to Santa Fé.”

  He had just stepped into the saddle, however, when two riders topped the far hill and galloped into the valley. Will took one look, dismounted, and turned his horse toward the barn. “Stable him, Avery.” He slapped the horse on its rump. “Then get to your post. They’re coming back.”