As the brakeman entered they turned, glancing from the brakeman to Noon. One of the cowhands said something in a low tone to the man beside him, who gave a sharper look.
Ruble Noon sat down, helped himself to a piece of overdone steak and some mashed potatoes, and started to eat. He was, he discovered, very hungry.
The brakeman spoke out of the side of his mouth. "I don't know you, mister, but it looks like you've got trouble."
Noon was listening, but he did not look up. "All right," he said, and then added, "Keep out of it. Let me handle it."
"There's two of 'em," the brakeman protested, "and I ain't had a good fight in months."
"Well," Noon said, "if they use their fists. But if it's guns, leave it to me."
He could hear the low talk at the bar. One man was protesting to the other, but the first was having none of it. Suddenly, he spoke aloud. "You over there! You with the blue coat! Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"You might." Ruble Noon spoke easily. "I've been there."
The man was just drunk enough not to understand. "You been where?" he demanded.
"There," Ruble Noon said gently.
For a moment there was silence, and in the silence somebody chuckled. The man at the bar grew irritated. "I know you from somewhere," he insisted.
"I don't think you know me," Ruble Noon said. He finished his coffee and got to his feet. "If you did you'd keep your mouth shut."
He stepped outside and the brakeman followed, glancing over his shoulder. "I think they're comin out," he said. "They ain't goin' to leave it lay."
"Let's get aboard."
"You scared?"
Ruble Noon turned his head sharply to look at the brakeman. "No, I'm not scared, but I have too much sense to get into a shooting match with a couple of half-drunken cowhands over nothing."
At that moment the train whistled.
Ruble Noon walked along, caught the handrail, and swung up to the step. The two cowhands had emerged from the restaurant and were staring after him. The brakeman hesitated, then swung aboard, completing a hasty signal with his lantern.
One of the cowhands started after them. "Hey, you! You can't get away with that! You-"
Ruble Noon went inside, followed by the brakeman, who gave him a surly look. "What did you mean back there? I mean when you said if he knew who you were he'd keep his mouth shut?"
"I was just talking."
"I thought so," the brakeman said. But he seemed unsure, and kept staring at Noon. "I don't get this," he said at last. "There's somethin' here I just don't get"
"Forget it," Ruble Noon stretched out on the settee. "Call me before we get to El Paso."
"It'll be daylight." The brakeman hesitated. "You gettin' off at the same place? This side of town?"
"Naturally," Noon said, and closed his eyes. He heard the brakeman leave to go about bis business, and after a while he fell asleep.
The siding where they let him off was in a thick growth of brush and trees near a deserted ranch on the outskirts of town.
When he had unloaded his horse at the chute, he watched the train pull away. The brakeman was staring after him, obviously puzzled.
Ruble Noon himself was puzzled. Apparently he had made this trip before and was known to the trainmen, but they did not know his business nor why he should be accorded such privilege. Undoubtedly there was some official connection. Perhaps some of his "work" had been for the railroad. It would take somebody with considerable authority to arrange such a situation.
There was nobody around the small adobe. He saw a well, lowered a bucket, and got water for himself and his horse.
The door of the adobe was closed, but it opened under his hand. The place was dusty, but otherwise it was clean and in good shape. There was a bed, and a cupboard devoid of supplies. It was cool and quiet, and was hidden by mesquite thickets and a few cotton-woods.
He went outside again, and noticed a couple of stacks of hay near the corral. He put some down for the roan, and squatted on his heels in the shade, considering the situation. It would be better, he decided, to wait until dark before entering the town.
As he sat there he found himself thinking back to the two cowhands at the restaurant near the station where they had stopped. For the first time he thought about the one who had tried to avoid trouble. That one, he decided, had not been drinking. Moreover, there had been something peculiar in his attitude, some particular caution. Was he imagining it, or had that cowhand been overeager to avoid trouble?
Was it mere chance that they were there? Suppose one of them was there for a purpose, and the other had just joined him by accident? Suppose one was a spy, an outpost, as it were, to notify somebody of Noon's approach to El Paso?
He was imagining things. Knowing nothing for sure, he was finding suspicious items everywhere.
But the one man's attitude, the way he had looked at Ruble Noon, would not leave him. That man had known who he was looking at, but he had not wanted to attract attention.
All right ... take it from there. Suppose that somebody in El Paso had discovered that Ruble Noon used that approach. Suppose that somebody had a man posted to watch for him at the logical place - the restaurant and bar where all train crews stopped.
The one who wanted such information might be one of two types. He might be somebody who wanted to hire him for a job, or somebody who wanted him killed ... who, for one reason or another, feared him.
If they knew about this route into the town, they might also know about this place. He might, even now, be right in the middle of a trap.
He sat very still, his hatbrim pulled low. Under it his eyes were busy, searching out places of possible concealment.
The pile of wood yonder ... possible, but unlikely - too hard to get at or get away from. Under the mesquite? His eyes searched that part, and suddenly all his senses were alert. Was some sixth sense, or perhaps all his other senses together, trying to warn him of something? Or was it only his imagination that made him suspect he might be under observation?
Were they waiting for him to move? If so, why? If they wanted to kill him, why hadn't they tried it already?
He went over his every move. He had approached under cover of the brush and trees; he had been only momentarily in the open when he fed the horse and when he went into the house.
If somebody was waiting here, that somebody was waiting for him to do some expected thing he had not yet done. He evidently had not put himself in the line of fire yet; but why didn't the man move into a different position? If he had not done so, it must be because he could not without attracting attention. Which indicated that the unseen man, if there was one, was in a position where he would draw attention to himself if he moved. It would, no doubt, be a position with an easy escape route, in case his shot was a miss.
Suppose he himself had arrived at this place with a memory that was not confused? What would he have done? As there were no supplies in the adobe, and no sign of occupancy, it was likely he would have ridden away. No doubt that was exactly what he had done in the past. If the marksman believed that to be the case, where would he be? Obviously, somewhere along the road that led away from the ranch, hi some place that did not allow him to cover the ranch yard itself.
Was he imagining all this? Or was there actually someone hidden nearby, someone primed and ready to kill?
If there was a man waiting, he must be growing nervous and restless by now. It might be that he could be provoked into a move. But on the other hand, he might have the patience of an Indian and lie quiet, knowing that Noon must sooner or later leave the place.
He got up and went into the adobe, and crossed to the back room. He did not want to kill anyone, but neither did he want to be killed. He looked out the back window.
A dozen yards away there was a ditch masked by undergrowth. He studied it for a long moment. It looked inviting, too inviting. Glancing around, he saw a large olla such as the Mexicans use to cool water. On the bed lay an old blanket. He took it u
p, wrapped it around the olla, put his hat over the top, and thrust it up to the window. It looked like a man about to climb through. A rifleman, tense with waiting, might -
The olla had not been in position an instant when there was the crash of a volley ... more than two rifles ... three, at least. The olla shattered under his hand.
He raced for the front of the adobe and was in time to see a man running from behind the stable toward Noon's horse. If they got his horse he was trapped ... to be killed at leisure.
He never knew when he drew. The sight of the running man, the realization of what this meant, and his own draw must have been simultaneous. He heard the bellow of his gun in the close confines of the room as he shot through the open door.
The runner took two steps, then stumbled and hit the ground. And then silence....
The bare, hard-packed earth of the yard was empty, except for the dead man and the horse. Nervously, the roan had moved nearer.
Keeping his voice low, Ruble Noon called to the horse, which looked toward him uncertainly.
A boot grated on gravel behind the adobe. They were coming for him. The roan was nearer now, no more than fifteen or twenty feet off. The long stable was a wall between the yard and the thickets beyond. There were at least three men out behind, and they were hunting him now. He could try for the horse....
Suddenly he knew he was not going to run. Not yet. They had planned for that, were ready for it. He backed into a corner where he could watch the door and the windows at the same time.
He thumbed back the loading gate of his Colt and thrust out the empty shell, then added a fresh cartridge. Moving the cylinder, he added another. The six-shooter was now fully loaded.
He could see a shadow at the window. Somebody was looking into the room, but the corner where Noon stood could not be seen.
Someone else was at the door. Would they be so foolish as to try a rush?
"Now!"
The word came sharply, and three men leaped into the room, two through windows, one from the door. It was their first mistake.
They came out of the bright sunlight into the dim light of the room, and one man stumbled as he landed from the window. All held guns, but only one got off a shot. He fired as he was falling, the gun blasting its bullet into the floor.
Ruble Noon shot as they came, and held the gun in his hand and waited a slow minute while he watched the windows and the door. One of the men on the floor stirred and moaned. Noon squatted on his heels and stayed quiet.
Outside nothing stirred, and then he heard a magpie. Following that he heard the pound of hoofs racing away... one rider.
They had thought to surprise him, not thinking of the dimness inside, and he was in the darkest corner, the last place on which their eyes could focus.
Now the wounded man was staring at him through wide, pain-filled eyes. "You goin' to shoot me?" he asked.
"No."
"They said you was a killer."
"Who said so? Who hired you?"
"I ain't goin' to tell you that. They said you was a back-shootin' killer."
"I don't need to shoot men in the back."
"No," the wounded man admitted, "I guess you don't.... But there's one still out there."
"No. He rode away - I heard him." Ruble Noon was thinking hard. He said, "What will he do? Will he bring others?"
"Him?" The wounded man spoke bitterly. "That there louse? He'll run his hoss's legs off gittin' away. Never was no fight in him!"
Ruble Noon bolstered his gun and moved over to the wounded man. He had hit twice, once through the shoulder, the second time through the leg. Working as swiftly as he could, Noon plugged the wounds and wrapped them with bandages torn from a dead man's shirt
"Where'd you leave your horse?" he asked.
The man stared at him. "You goin' to run me out of here?"
"I'm going to get you out of here. Or do you want to explain those?" He gestured to the dead men. "You came here to murder me... remember?"
"We sure didn't cut the mustard," the man said. "You outfoxed us."
Noon collected the guns from the dead men, and packed them outside. He collected their horses and tied the dead men on them. He pinned on each one a paper which read:
He tried to dry-gulch Ruble Noon.
Then he turned the horses loose.
The wounded man raised up on an elbow. "What was them papers you pinned on them?"
"It makes no difference," Noon answered, and sat down. "Now you and I are going to have a little talk."
The gunman looked at him warily. He was a grizzled, hard-faced man with a broken nose. "About what?"
"About who hired you."
"And supposin' I ain't of a mind to?"
Ruble Noon shrugged. 'I'll just pull out those plugs I put in you and I won't tell anybody where you are. You might manage to walk a mile, but I doubt it. You'd start bleeding again and before dark you'd be buzzard meat."
The gunman lay back and closed his eyes. "Mister, I don't know who it was. These boys an' me was in a joint ... the Acme Saloon, it was. There was a gent come in we knew as Peterson. It wasn't his real name, but that's of no matter. Anyway, he said we could pick up fifty dollars apiece and he wanted five of us, for a little shooting.
"He said this was a known man, and there'd be no worry about the law if we done it. This here Peterson had been in the Rangers at one time, and he knowed a lot of folks around about town. We taken his word for it. We'd seen him talkin' with some high-powered men around El Paso, like A. J. Fountain, the Mannings, Magoffin, and the like of that.
"He laid it out for us, but all the time we knowed he was talkin' for somebody else and not for himself. You see, this Peterson knowed a lot of folks on both sides of the fence, and he'd been a sort of go-between before this. If a man wanted to sell stolen cattle, Peterson could always put him in the way of it.
"Fifty dollars now, that's near two months' wages for a cowhand, so we taken him up on it. Who paid the money to him, I don't know."
Ruble Noon considered. The man seemed to be telling the truth, and the story sounded right.
"All right," he said. "I've got your horse outside. I'm going to load you up and take you out a-ways. When I get you within easy distance of El Paso I'll turn you loose."
He stood for a moment thinking about Peterson. It was unlikely that he could make Peterson talk, for the man sounded like a tough one. He had served in the Rangers, and had probably gone bad after leaving them ... or been kicked out, as was often the case if they found they had a bad egg in the basket.
When those dead men came into town tied on their horses, Peterson would be among the first to hear of it, and he would surely carry the news to the man who had hired him. By watching Peterson, Ruble Noon might locate his man.
Now he loaded the wounded man on his horse and led the animal away from the deserted ranch. When they were well on the road to El Paso, he let the horse and rider go.
He swung off the trail into the mesquite and circled for low ground, riding toward El Paso by the best hidden route he could find.
Had he been here before? It seemed likely that he had. Should he let himself go, hoping that hidden memory would take him to the right places?
But those places might now be the worst ones for him, and any man he saw might be an enemy. Or he might be wanted by the law.
He rode on cautiously, but with foreboding. His head was aching again, and he was very tired. The sun was hot, and he wanted to lie down in the shade to rest, but there was no time.
He was riding toward something, he did not know what. The only thing he was sure of now was that he was Ruble Noon, a man feared, a man who hired his gun to kill, a man he did not want to be.
Whatever had made him what he was he did not know; he knew only that he wanted to be that no longer. The trouble was, he had to be. To cease to be what he was now would be to die ... and to leave that girl back there alone, and without defenses.
He rode on in the hot afternoon, and th
e streets of the town opened before him.
Chapter Eight
As he entered the town a street on his right branched away from the main street, and he turned into it. When he had ridden only a few hundred yards he saw a large wooden stable with doors opened wide. An old Mexican sat in front of it There were a water trough and a pump close by.
He drew up. "You got room for another horse?" he asked.
The Mexican looked at him. "This is not a livery stable, senor," he said, "but if you wish - "
Ruble Noon swung to the ground. "It's the first one I saw," he said, "and I'm dead beat. How much for the horse and a place to clean up?"
"Fifty cents?"
"That'll do." He followed the Mexican into the stable and was shown a stall. He led the roan in, then went up to the loft and forked hay down the chute into the manger.
When he came down he gave the Mexican fifty cents, and followed him to the water trough. The Mexican handed him a tin basin, and he pumped water into it and washed his face and hands, and then combed his hair. Using his hat, he whipped the dust from his pants and his boots. When he turned to go the old man said, "You wish to sleep here, senor? There is a cot in there." He gestured toward a room in the corner of the barn. "And no bugs."
"How much?"
The Mexican smiled. "Fifty cents."
"All right."
He turned to walk away and the man spoke again. "Be careful, senor."
He stopped, his eyes searching the old man's face. "Why do you say that?"
The man shrugged. "It is a wild town. The railroads have brought many strangers. There have been shootings."
"Thanks," Noon said.
The sun had slipped from sight, and with its passing a desert coolness came. He walked to the next street, and saw the sign of the Coliseum, a saloon and variety theater. He avoided it ... from somewhere he seemed to hare the impression that the Coliseum and Jack Doyle's were the most popular places in town.
In a small restaurant further along the street he ordered frijoles, tortillas, and roast beef, and drank a glass of beer. Over his coffee he sat watching the lights come on. Men came and went as he waited there. Having eaten, he felt better, and the ache dulled, but he was strangely on edge, not at all as he wanted to feel.
The Man Called Noon Page 6
